Stone spring

24

The cry had come from a boy standing on the crest of the dunes that stood over the Seven Houses. He waved and pointed east, towards the mouth of the bay.

The Etxelur folk forgot about their visitors and ran that way, scrambling over the dunes.

The Root glanced at Shade and his hunters, and began to stride that way too. The priest walked with them, at times half-trotting to keep up with their long paces, and Zesi and Ana followed.

They soon crossed the dunes and clambered down to the beach, and walked towards the mouth of the bay, opposite Flint Island. The Pretani looked extraordinary as they marched along the strand, Ana thought, their hoof-like feet kicking up brown-yellow sand that clung to their furs and their bare, sweating legs. They were out of place, like aurochs driven along a beach.

And at the neck of the bay she saw the whale, huge and glistening, stranded on the stretch of tidal marsh land opposite the island. It must have lost its way in the open ocean and swum into the bay – or it might have been driven that way by Etxelur fisherfolk.

The whale still lived; its big tail fluke quivered, and its skin glistened wet. But its life was effectively over. Its own weight would crush it, if it wasn’t finished off by spears and knives.

The people ran towards it, shouting their pleasure and excitement. Etxelur folk went whaling, but it was a dangerous venture to chase down such huge, powerful animals in skin boats with bone harpoons. To have such a beast delivered to their own shore without risking any lives was a gift of the little mother of the sea. Soon the process of turning the whale into a mountain of meat, oil, and bones would begin.

But even before she got there Ana heard shouting voices, and saw raised fists and shaken spears.

‘Snailheads,’ Zesi murmured. ‘That’s all we need.’

A group of the strangers were confronting the gathering Etxelur folk. The snailheads, here for the Giving, were led by Knuckle, the man Ana had met at the summer camp, who faced Jaku, uncle of Ana and Zesi. These two were screaming in each other’s faces. Etxelur folk and snailheads, gathered round, were joining in, backing their champions and yelling insults. All this was played out beneath the huge, sad eye of the dying whale.

The priest tried to get between the arguing men. ‘What’s this about?’

The snailhead, Knuckle, roared in his broken traders’ tongue, ‘Our find! Ours! Our fish!’

Jaku laughed. ‘It’s a whale, you fool. A whale, not a fish. Don’t you have whales where you come from? Maybe you don’t. Why don’t you snailheads just go home?’

The Root boomed laughter. ‘Like day-old calves butting heads.’

Knuckle stared at him, and switched to the traders’ tongue. ‘Pretani?’ And he saw Shade behind his father. ‘You.’ He marched towards Shade. The man’s extraordinary elongated skull, painted today with green spirals, had veins that throbbed at each temple. ‘You! Brother of the man who killed my brother. I told you at the camp – stay out of my sight.’

The Root growled, ‘You don’t tell a Pretani what to do.’

‘I see your ugly face. Father of killer?’

Root glared at the priest. ‘What did he say? Tell me, priest.’

Jurgi, exasperated and alarmed, twisted his hands together. ‘He said – it doesn’t matter what he said-’

But then the arguments began again, everybody shouting, Jaku, Knuckle, the Root, Zesi, their followers waving fists and spears and knives, and the priest crying out for order, a three-way fight conducted in four languages, if you counted the traders’ tongue.

Ana pulled out of the angry mass, dismayed. She looked up at the whale’s huge eye. She was so close to it she could smell the sea on it, see the barnacles that peppered its flesh. The eye rolled, and she thought it looked down on her.

And somebody was clapping, above the fighting. Clap, clap, clap, steady as a heartbeat.

‘The priest’s right,’ came a voice in the traders’ tongue. ‘Who said what, it doesn’t matter. You’re all so busy squabbling you forget what’s important – the whale, whose life is being given up for you.’

The clapping was having a quieting effect; the squabbling groups shut up and turned to see. The voice was coming from above her – on top of the whale.

‘And besides,’ came the voice, ‘if a whale is driven ashore, as this one was, the ownership goes to the one who did the driving. Isn’t that the custom, priest? Sorry we’ve been away so long. But you have to admit we brought home a decent present for the Giving.’

Ana stepped back until she could see two men standing on top of the whale, one taller, the other heavier, the latter apparently winded by the effort of climbing up there. They were silhouetted against the sky, but she knew who they were immediately.

She couldn’t move. She could barely think.

Zesi’s shriek broke the silence. ‘Father!’ She ran forward and pressed her hands against the whale’s damp flank.

Kirike knelt and reached down to Zesi; the whale was so big that, reaching up on her tiptoes, she could only just touch his fingers. He looked around until he saw Ana, and smiled at her.

Somebody started applauding, one of the Etxelur folk. One by one others joined in. The rest, the snailheads and the Pretani, just stared, bemused.

The priest was shaking his head. ‘Trust Kirike and Heni to make such a show of coming home. But it’s the will of the little mothers that they should show up on the very day the Root and his boys arrive…’

Ana still couldn’t move. None of this seemed real.

A woman approached her, walking around the head of the whale. She was tall, with rich dark hair tied back in a knot. She wore skins that were stained by salt water, and she carried a baby, a lump no more than weeks old. She looked tired, but oddly resilient. ‘You must be Zesi, or-’

‘Ana.’

‘Your father told me all about you.’ Her language was the Etxelur tongue, spoken slowly but clearly enough. The woman staggered, and tucked the baby closer to her chest, and smiled. ‘Forgive me. We have been at sea for moons.’

‘Months.’

‘Months. Yes… I have forgotten the land, how to stand. I am Ice Dreamer. I hope we will be friends.’

A dog yapped. It was Lightning, racing across the sand, come to greet his long-lost master.