The Sacred Band

CHAPTER FORTY

As they came down from the mountainous wave peaks of the Range, when they caught their first glimpse of the barrier islands of the Other Lands, and when shore birds darted out to greet them, Melio decided that he might not die on this voyage after all. It would not make sense to die now, not after getting this far, not after seeing so much, and especially not after what happened that night on the Slipfin . One doesn’t have such moments without reason.

The night that Kartholome called them out of the cabin into the glowing, slithering motion was the strangest Melio had ever experienced. All around them-where there had been calm water for days-shapes rose and fell and rolled, like enormous chunks of luminous, writhing, and somehow living ice. The ocean was these creatures. They pressed so thick around them that the boat shimmied and rocked with the pressure of their bodies brushing against the ship’s hull. They were silent save the wet sounds of their motions and an occasional expulsion of salt-rich vapor from slits along their bodies.

For all the terrified beating of his heart, Melio could not move. None of them could.

“We shouldn’t have spoken of them,” Clytus whispered. “These are sea wolves. Be calm, lads. Calm for the moment.”

“They’re nothing like wolves,” Melio said. They did not look as they were depicted on the mural inside, but, then again, in all the slurping, seething of their bodies, Melio could make no sense of their forms. Whitish hulks, yes. Tentacles and rippling ridges and flat, circular eyes, yes. But he had no feeling for the whole of any one of them. It just felt that the sea had been revealed for what it really was-a mass tangle of slippery, sentient life.

Geena brushed his shoulder. “I don’t think you’re the first to notice that.”

“Stop joking,” Kartholome said. “They’ll swarm us in a moment.” He moved over to a pile of spears. He began untying the ropes that held them in place. Clytus, seeing what he was about, joined him. They moved on tiptoe, with stealth that Melio thought absurd considering the massive, round eyes that watched every move as they rose and fell and slid along above the railing.

Melio still did not move. It was not fear that held him immobile, though fear did pump through him with every pulse of his heart. Something else froze him and kept him staring. He could not help but notice that the creatures seemed to be caressing the Slipfin, searching it, learning its contours. He could not shake the feeling that the eyes paid even more attention to him than they did the men lifting weapons to hurl into them. A tentacle slipped over the railing, slid across the deck, and then withdrew. He knew what he should think. That was a probe, searching for victims. There would be another, and then another. And then they would tear the ship apart and consume them in a savage swarm. Of course they would.

Kartholome said something and jerked at his arm. Melio looked down to find a harpoon in his hands. It was old, worn, a discard bought cheaply in Bleem. Kartholome had spent days sharpening the blade. The iron barb of its point was deadly enough.

When Melio raised his head, he was eye to eye with one of the creatures. Its orb rose above the railing as the leviathan slipped along the ship’s side, plastered by the pressure of the wolves behind it. The lid closed, a strange circular motion to it, nothing like the workings of a human eyelid.

Melio lifted the harpoon into throwing position. There was a target, if ever he saw one. He watched the vague outline of himself and his companions reflected in the eye, warped by its shape and the moisture dripping down it. Instead of sinking the harpoon into it-as he knew the others were preparing to do-he wondered just what the creature saw looking at him. He had never questioned such things when looking into the eyes of the foulthings. He had felt only their abhorrence, the awful war with life that raged within them. This eye contained none of that. This eye saw him. It knew him, and it…

He found his tongue just when Kartholome pulled back his arm, harpoon high in it. “No!” he whispered. He wanted to scream it, but feared raising his voice. “No!”

Kartholome heard him. Weapon still raised, he snapped his head toward him. His face savage with questions, impatient.

“Don’t,” was all Melio could say in answer. How could he begin to explain what he himself could not believe? That the creatures meant them no harm, and that they would do harm only if they were attacked? “Don’t.”

If he had not shared the experience that followed with the others, he would have thought it a dream, a vision conjured up from the eerie stillness. He bent over and set his harpoon on the deck. Stepping forward, he raised a hand and held it near the creature’s slick skin. Its eye watched him, completely still now. He touched just beside it. The eyelid opened and shut with its bizarre circular motion, but that was all.

A moment later Melio turned as Geena let out a gasp. A tentacle had stretched across the deck and touched her leg. It drew back and rose, mobile and lithe and completely inhuman. It touched Geena’s hand. She responded by raising it, and the tentacle moved with her.

“By the Giver,” Clytus said, “what is this?”

Melio did not know, but he knew not to fight it. He knew he had discovered something, and that it was huge, that it was important. In this was something that nobody living knew. If he did not make a misstep, he might someday find out what.

And then it ended. The creatures pulled back their tentacles and slipped away from the ship. They became seething motion again. The Slipfin rocked as they released their grip on it. The bell high on the mainmast tinkled, first with the swaying, and then to announce the wind that filled the sails a moment later. Melio glanced up, just for a moment. When he turned his eyes to the sea, it was water once more, not a creature to be seen. What’s more, it was water in waving, rippling motion, waves building right before his eyes.

“Come on, then,” Clytus said, his captain’s eyes already scanning the swells the wind pushed them toward. “There’s a range of waves between us and Spratling. Let’s ride it.”

They were blown right into them and spent the next two days rising and falling over peaks incredible to behold. Clytus and Kartholome took turns at the wheel. Together they steered them through. Coming out on the other side was a relief only shortly. For there on the horizon were new peaks, of stone this time. Also, they caught glimpses of ship’s sails. No time to rest or be pleased with themselves. They were in as much danger now as ever.

Kartholome’s systematic rummaging through the captain’s library paid off, at least in bits and pieces of knowledge that they put to use. Their vessel had clearly not been assigned to the Other Lands, but there was still information about the place to be found. They studied a chart detailing the barrier islands, at length, determining the best route to the mainland, which the map called Ushen Brae. Melio had never heard the name before, but he liked the feel of it on his tongue. Of course, he thought, the lands would have their own name. They weren’t “the other” to themselves, were they?

To avoid the Angerwall-which Kartholome was not sure how to navigate-they decided to sail north around the islands, then come down along the coast. The islands up that way appeared to be less developed than the ones to the south. They would put ashore north of Avina and travel toward the city on foot. The plan was simple, if incomplete. While avoiding the league and Ishtat patrols, they would search for the quota slaves. With their help they would learn what they could about Dariel’s fate.

Before they had seen any trace of the quota slaves, however, they came upon a bounty of league vessels. The galleys appeared behind them as they cut between a large island that the map named Eigg and the small skerries that trickled away to the north. First three ships, and then two more in the distance. They stretched many stories tall but had a sleek appearance different from the bulky brigs, with more sails than Melio could count. From their viewpoint on the Slipfin, the league ships looked carnivorous sawing through the waves behind them.

“What are they up to?” Kartholome said. There was a tenor of dread in his voice similar to when he called them out to see the sea wolves. “I know those ships. Never set eyes on them, but I’d heard talk they were building them. Five war galleys. That’s them, all right. They can each carry eight hundred soldiers, not counting the ship’s crew. There’s tons of storage capacity in them, but they’re fast, with keels that barracudas would envy. Steel reinforced, with turrets, baskets for crossbowmen.” He looked at Melio. “If the league sent these here, it’s because they mean to take over the place.”

Clytus kept the Slipfin moving north at a steady clip, and the others did their best to stay visible on deck and up in the rigging. If anyone on the galleys studied them through a spyglass, it would be obvious the boat was under-crewed. Kartholome ran up a flag that he said was a greeting to the other boats, acknowledging them but also indicating that they were on a mission they could not interrupt.

The ruse may not even have been necessary. Once the first galleys rounded a long isthmus at the tip of Eigg, they looped around and lowered some sails. They were, apparently, going to anchor there. “Yeah, they’re all pulling in,” Kartholome confirmed some time later, one eye stuck to a spyglass as the Slipfin sailed away from them. “Should we-I don’t know-spy on them? Circle back after dark and get a better look?”

“No,” Clytus said. “We didn’t come to get caught by the league. Let’s get out of here.”

They caught sight of Avina at dusk. The city’s stone walls pressed right up against the sea, the sky behind them scalloped with crimson-highlighted clouds. They sailed northwest along the coast, not daring to get too close to the city in the Slipfin. The land changed to stretches of agricultural fields. By dark they were past those, skimming cautiously along a maze of wooded coves and inlets. Pulling in to one of these, they spent the night at anchor. The next morning they left the Slipfin in as secluded a cove as they could, disembarked, and set out toward Avina on foot.

I t was Kartholome who first realized what the plants were. They had walked through them from late in the afternoon through the better part of the night. Rows and rows of low shrubs, with long green leaves that silvered in the moonlight. They stretched on for miles. Though the fields were deserted as far as they could tell, it had not been long since they had been tended. They were uniform in height, recently pruned, and the ground between them weeded. The plants bore no fruit, but they did have fuzzy clusters of flowers that gathered around a long, somewhat phallic protuberance. Melio acknowledged that it might have been his imagination, but they seemed to grow longer after nightfall, as if they were growing aroused at the sight of the moon’s round glow.

Kartholome, walking at the front of their line, paused when Geena called for a break to relieve herself. As she went off, he stood, fingering one of the plant’s erections. Melio felt inclined to make a joke, but he could not think of one fast enough.

“These are thread fields,” Kartholome said. He pulled his hand away, stared at it a moment, and then wiped his palm on his trouser legs. He looked at the others. “Mist. This is where they grow the mist. Can’t you smell it?”

The moment he said it, Melio knew he was right. He could smell it. A pungent scent, musky and almost animal. It had been there when they entered the fields, but it grew thicker in the air as he breathed. The realization somehow made the ranks upon ranks of shrubs look suddenly ominous. He could almost see the scent, the flowers’ pollen released to their lover the night, wafting on the air, searching for victims.

Clytus called, “Geena! Let’s get out of these fields before we all see visions.”

She did not answer. They all cast around. She was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing around them but miles of the plants.

“Geena? You squatting in the bushes? Mind you don’t touch them too much.”

The silence was solid around them.

“Geena, what are you up to, girl?”

When the first figure rose, there was no possibility that it was Geena. He appeared a few feet past Kartholome. A tall, tusked being lit by the moon, wide shouldered and, for a horrible second, not even human. He looked gray skinned, but that may have been a trick of the light. Before the shout of alarm was all the way out of Melio’s mouth, the thing dashed toward Kartholome. It struck him hard on the head with some sort of club, shoved his limp body into the bushes, and came on toward Melio.

Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw other figures emerging from the plants, converging on them in a sudden, savage attack. Clytus cried out in pain. Melio did not get to turn around to see. The tusked thing was before him, his bent arm raised to strike again. Melio dodged under it. He brushed past the man, under his arm, slamming a fist into a rock-hard abdomen as he did. He spun fast, drawing his dagger. He hoped to kick his attacker’s knee from the back and send him sprawling, but the man was already facing him. Melio went for him, knife flashing as he struck. The man slipped beneath his attack, kicked one of his legs from under him, and swept back around on him. He accomplished exactly the move Melio had intended. Melio had just enough time to acknowledge that the horned man was fast for someone so bulky and to appreciate that he had misjudged him. Then the man’s weight fell on him. Hard. The impact blew all the air out of him. Melio dropped his knife as his face smashed into the dirt. He might even have lost consciousness for a second. The next thing he knew, a fist yanked his head back by the hair and his own blade pricked his throat.