‘Tell me again,’ Anga said.

  Runa craned her neck to face her father.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Again.’

  Runa sighed. ‘Fins are faster than men. They fight using short spears with flint tips and wear no armour. They can fight in water as well as on land, as they can swim like fish and hold their breath for long periods. It is better to fight them on land than in water.’

  ‘Which is why, if they attack us before we reach their island, we have to make getting onto the island our priority, not fighting back,’ said Anga. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The best way of beating a fin is to break its spear. After the spear is broken they are more vulnerable, but they still have their teeth, and are still quicker than men.’

  ‘And their tails,’ said Derran.

  ‘And their tails,’ repeated Runa. ‘You have to keep moving, keep your defence up, and wait until you see a clear opening before striking. If your strike fails, move back immediately; never stay in close range.’

  Talorc looked over his shoulder again. More mist. The wind had died down. Should he be listening? He had heard it all several times over, as Anga and Derran drilled Runa and the guardians on the grass outside Gurn. Anga had ordered him to join in, since he would be fighting alongside them. Well, fighting might not be the right word. The guardians were going to fight. He was going to die.

  Even then, as he had stood with a spear in hand, frantically trying to deflect the blows Runa aimed at him with her wooden practice sword, the war hadn’t seemed real. It felt like he had fallen into one of Grunna’s stories, one of the long Skollish ones about a clash between two mighty kings, that had taken night after winter night to tell. Now, out here on the cold sea amid a forest of curraghs, it was finally real. The Orkadi were at war with the fins, for the first time since the black sky war. It was from the stories of that war, handed down from king to king, that Anga was instructing Runa. Not since then had an Orkadi stood and faced a finman in combat.

  Anga didn’t believe that the Azawan would attack. It had attacked Groda the previous night, so the folk from there said. In a strange way, that was good news. Anga believed that the Azawan needed more than a few men in its belly to fill it, so it should now be far out at sea, hunting whales or whatever other meat-laden giants haunted the deep. Of course, the fins might see them coming and Mordak might summon it back. But the mist would hide them, and according to Anga, Fin Island wasn’t far away. They should reach it before the sun stole the morning dew.

  Wherever the Azawan was, it wasn’t close. No steam rose from the seawater. Yet even if they made it to Fin Island, death surely awaited most of their army. The fins must have known that sooner or later an invasion fleet would come. They would be ready.

  ‘What was that?’ said Anga.

  Talorc looked over his shoulder.

  The water was still. He looked back at the king. Derran had ceased rowing; he and Anga were staring past Talorc.

  ‘There’s something in the water,’ said Anga.

  Talorc twisted round again. He scanned the surface of the water.

  ‘I can’t –’

  The water exploded.

  A gigantic grey shape burst from the sea, flipped over in the air and came crashing down on top of the curragh to their left.

  Talorc recognised the creature. But this didn’t make sense. They didn’t hunt.

  Sunsharks didn’t hunt.

  They were men once. A boat-full of men who got stranded on an island on the way back from a guga hunt. They ran out of food, and so ate each other, killing those too weak to resist. When the survivors returned home, a spey learnt what they’d done and cursed them to drift through the sea as giant fish, their mouths open, always hungry yet never eating.

  Another explosion. More screams, men and women crushed or thrown in the water as the breaching shark threw itself down upon them. The shockwaves rocked the curraghs; screams rent the air.

  Another shark breached. Another.

  This was Mordak’s work.

  Talorc realised Anga was shouting at him.

  ‘Row! Keep going!’ he was shouting. Talorc hurried to obey, though his arms seemed to have turned into sea-grass. Even when he managed a stroke, the boat hardly moved. Derran wasn’t rowing. He was shouting at Anga.

  ‘We can’t fight off sharks! We’ll all be killed!’ shouted the guardian over the chaos of screams.

  ‘Some of us will make it! This is our only chance! Row!’

  Derran obeyed. Talorc adjusted his rhythm to keep time with Derran and the boat surged forward. Looking around, Talorc saw a few others were moving forward. Only a few, though. The sharks were breaching all through the invading force. Some boats they landed upon and crushed; others capsized as the huge creatures hit the water. Islanders tried to turn and flee, only to crash their boats into others. The water was thick with thrashing and shouting Orkadi.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ called Runa. Talorc turned and scanned the water through the fog. The sharks were returning; but they were not going to launch themselves into the air.

  This time they came like arrows, their fins skimming the surface, aiming themselves at the islanders in the water.

  One passed by their boat, close enough for Talorc to look into its eye. For a moment its gaze met his as it sped past.

  A group of guardians whom Talorc had bedded beside saw it coming too; only they were in the water.

  It came straight at them.They turned and tried to swim away but it was hopeless. The sunshark opened its massive jaws, seized one of the men and tore him in two.

  The man’s scream turned Talorc’s blood to ice as the seawater bloomed red. The shark turned its attention to the other guardians who desperately tried to swim away; with a few thrusts of its massive tail it caught up to them and carried on its slaughter.

  ‘ROW!’ Anga was shouting. ‘ROW!’

  Runa was staring into the water, her mouth agape with horror.

  Derran was shouting at the king, hanging on to the rocking curragh with one hand while pointing with the other, back towards Otter Bay.

  Talorc couldn’t hear Derran. Anga’s voice faded to a murmur.

  The whole world became a fading dream, about to disappear like water through cupped hands.

  There was something else. Something beyond what Talorc could see, hear, touch, taste, smell. A new knowing.

  Death was coming for them.

  The sunshark burst through the hull of their curragh. Talorc was sent flying through the air by the force of the impact. He saw sky, sea, sky, sea...

  He was beneath the water.

  As he sank the new knowing exploded out of him. Quick as a diving gannet it surged in every direction, stretching out like the tentacles of a giant squid. He knew without needing to open his eyes what was around him. Broken curraghs, drops of blood; tiny fish, iron swords sinking to the seabed. The sea was alive and every drop of it was singing to him.

  Sharks, wreathed in blood. Women, men, their fear battering at him like stone hammers in the hands of giants.

  And Runa.

  All those other things were present in Talorc’s mind, in his skin and bones and teeth and nails; yet only Runa mattered. For as soon as Talorc hit the water, as soon as this new sense awoke in him like the first fiery dawn in the morning of the world, he knew that the shark was coming for her.

  Talorc surfaced, gulped air and submerged again. There she was, treading bloody water. Her thoughts swam about her, cascading through the sea to reveal themselves to Talorc. Runa was terrified, like everyone else around her. Yet while the other Orkadi thought only of survival, Runa was hopelessly trying to figure out a way to save her people and resume the invasion. In her mind she saw herself driving her dagger into the eye of a shark. She saw herself clambering onto a curragh, calling out the news of a strategy that could save them. She saw the Orkadi come to their senses, forget their fear and turn the tide of battle on their assailants.

  Then her hopes died as she saw death coming for her.

  Runa turned to face the sunshark as it sped through the water, its giant mouth agape. Her dagger was in her hand, ready. She dived below the surface, swimming towards the monster to meet it head on.

  Closer it swam. Talorc reached towards it with his new sense as he frantically swam towards Runa.

  The shark wasn’t hungry; not for Runa’s flesh, anyway. It ate something else; tiny sea creatures invisible to the eye. Yet it didn’t know that. A black cloud fogged its mind, making it forget itself. The cloud was in every shark, confusing them and convincing them that it was human flesh they hungered for.

  The shark shot through the water.

  Runa drew back her dagger-arm. The water would slow her, she was thinking; she would have to compensate –

  But she didn’t believe herself. Though she roared defiance at her fate, she knew this was death.

  Talorc shared her mind; shared her belief; but then another knowing pushed its way to his mind’s surface. It was the kind of knowing that pulled your hand away from the fire; the kind that knows you better than you know yourself.

  GO!

  His words were a command that shot like lightning through the water. Runa stabbed with her dagger and hit nothing, for the shark had turned away, lancing past her, awash with confusion and anger.

  GO FROM HERE! LEAVE US! Talorc commanded all the sharks.

  His command shattered the spell that held the sunsharks. As one they halted their attack and swam away as the spell-fog cleared in their minds.

  Black spots danced before Talorc’s eyes. His lungs were burning. Time to surface again. He kicked out, suddenly deathly tired. Would he make it to the surface?

  He made it. Yet just as he emerged from the blood-ridden sea, everything went dark.

  He was alone in a vast, dark space.

  No; not alone. The darkness was watching him. The darkness was angry with him, and curious to know who he was; how he commanded such power as to break the spell the darkness had cast.

  Yet the darkness could not help but reveal a little of itself as it probed Talorc.

  It was familiar.

  It was the finman.

  The boy from the beach. The one who saw the sacrifice.

  Yes, said Talorc, fighting to hide his fear. Mordak had him. Be brave like Runa, he told himself. Don’t show him you’re afraid. I saw you, Mordak.

  Laughter echoed through the darkness. Lucky for you I am tired by this spell, said Mordak. Lucky for your people I set no armour about it. I did not know the boy from the beach was a diver. Neither did you, but you have been broken open now.

  Go and rest, Talorc. Swim home through the blood of your kin. You have a little time yet before I come for you. The next time you visit my island it will be as my guest.

  You will never leave.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  At last, Talorc’s feet touched sand.

  It hadn’t been easy to keep pace with the other survivors. He had kicked off his boots on the journey back to Otter Bay, lashing them to his belt, allowing his fin-feet the freedom to propel him through the water. It felt good, though it was small comfort when he looked around him.

  The invasion fleet had been an awesome sight. Now it was a pitiful one. They returned to Otter Bay clinging onto the wreckage of their curraghs. Only a small number of boats had survived, and these were filled with the wounded and dying, the strongest survivors manning the oars.

  Talorc looked left and right. He was the first to reach the shallow water at the edge of the bay. Quickly he walked out of the water, shook off seawater and slipped on his boots before anyone could see his feet.

  Runa was close behind him. She too was uninjured. Wading out of the sea, she shook the water from her hair and clothes. Gone was the cloak with the copper brooch. Talorc could see from her movements how the long swim had tired her.

  Talorc and Runa stood side by side, watching as the rest of the survivors appeared out of the fog. Talorc guessed that less than half of those who set out had returned.

  ‘We need to make fires,’ said Runa. ‘And we need herb-wives to tend to the wounded.’

  ‘I’ll go and find a herb-wife. There might be one in the village. You should stay here. Show the people you are alive and unhurt.’

  Runa nodded distractedly. Talorc knew she was thinking of her father. In the aftermath of the attack they had found him aboard one of the surviving curraghs with several other injured Orkadi. He wasn’t bleeding but his leg was hurt and he didn’t have the strength to swim back. Talorc had noticed how it distressed the wounded Orkadi to see their king injured, even if it wasn’t badly. There were stories of how the kings of Anga’s house could turn into giant boars in battle. If the wounded men and women in the boat had believed such stories before, they didn’t believe them now.

  Talorc returned alone from the village to see the beach transformed. All of the survivors were now back on the beach, he guessed. They were gathered in clusters around wounded men and women or sat talking in circles around driftwood fires. Talorc spotted Anga limping through the throng with the aid of a staff, shouting orders as Runa trailed behind him. He crossed the beach and caught up with them.

  ‘We should attack again,’ Runa was saying to her father’s back as he limped through the throng. ‘Salvage what boats we can, gather up everyone still able to fight. They won’t be expecting it –’

  Anga turned and took hold of Runa’s shoulder, bringing his face close to hers. ‘Do you want to know what I expect, Runa?’ he hissed.

  Talorc glanced around. Every conversation nearby had ceased. Some pretended not to be listening; others stared openly.

  ‘I expect my daughter, the future queen, not to question my decisions before my people.’

  Father and daughter glowered silently at one another. Talorc scanned the faces of the watching Orkadi. A few were watching Anga with anger in their eyes.

  Talorc understood then what decision Anga had made.

  He had sent for the seven sacrifices.

  Somewhere within Talorc a fire went out, making all the world colder and darker.

  Anga turned and limped away. Runa stood and watched him go.

  ‘Runa,’ Talorc said.

  She turned to face him. ‘Did you find a herb-wife?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Apparently there’s one in a village nearby. They’ve sent a boy to get her.’

  Runa nodded.

  Talorc jerked his head in the direction of the water. They left the throng of Orkadi and walked to the shore, where Runa turned to face him.

  ‘He did it?’ asked Talorc.

  Runa slowly nodded. ‘He sent guardians out to find them and bring them back to Gurn. Some should return today, others tomorrow. Tomorrow night they’ll be sacrificed.’

  ‘Do you really think he’s wrong?’ asked Talorc.

  ‘He always told me that being a ruler is the worst fate in the world, though everyone thinks it’s the best. Sooner or later you will have to look at your people and decide who lives and who dies. It’s an impossible choice, but you have to make it. It’s what his father taught him, and his father taught him. Now he has to decide; to sacrifice seven Orkadi, or a whole island. When you think of it like that, there is only one decision to make. But I hate it.’

  ‘I think some would rather he refused Mordak,’ said Talorc.

  ‘And some would rather he didn’t,’ said Runa.

  ‘What would you have done?’

  Runa shivered, hugging herself as she looked out to sea. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have let it come to this,’ she said. ‘Maybe I would have killed them all, long ago.’

  The party from Gurn left the beach that afternoon. Derran stayed on at Otter Bay to supervise the camp and the return of the islanders to their homes. Local survivors had already begun ferrying Orkadi to other islands, returning to pick up more passengers. Those who could not travel were put up in nearby villages, as well as those too afraid to go back out on the water.

  The king limped ahead of the group, unable to help carry a curragh but seemingly determined not to slow them down. They returned to Ork Island the way they had come, reaching the beach at Gurn in the last light of day. In silence they had crossed the water; in silence they walked up the path to the keep.

  Haldan the smith was at the gate. It had been decided one man would be needed to stand guard there, despite Haldan’s protests. He called to Kretta, who emerged from the house she now shared with Sariad. Both were clearly shocked to see Anga injured but relieved to see them back and safe.

  ‘Are any of them here yet?’ asked Anga.

  Kretta’s smile faded. ‘Two. The guardians are with them in the house there,’ she said, pointing to one of the dwellings kept for visiting headmen. Talorc realised after a moment whom they were talking about. The sacrifices.

  Anga looked towards the house. Talorc knew what he was thinking. Should he go and speak to them now or later? What would they say to him? What would he say to them?

  ‘See that they’re looked after,’ he said eventually. Without another word he limped away towards the broch. The guardians dispersed to their rest-houses while Runa stared after her father.

  ‘Runa,’ said Talorc. ‘We need to go and see Sariad.’

  It was warm within Kretta and Haldan’s house, the peat fire crackling in the centre of the room, its sweet smoke filling the air. After so much chaos and bloodshed, the quiet, cosy little house felt like another world.

  ‘Sariad?’ said Runa as she skirted the fire, Talorc behind her. ‘It’s us. Runa and Talorc.’

  Sariad was sat on the straw in the far left corner of the room, surrounded by a menagerie of skulls.

  ‘Can we sit down?’ asked Runa. Sariad nodded and they sat, careful not to touch any of her skulls. Talorc noticed that though she no longer flinched when they came near, her body still tensed as if anticipating an attack.

  ‘You’re alive,’ said Sariad. ‘I’m glad you’re alive.’

 

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