Gods and Warriors (15 page)

P
irra kicked and scratched, but the boy was horribly strong and he wouldn’t let go. With her free hand she tore at his hair. He wrenched her arm behind her, forcing her down onto the stones. She clawed his face. His fist caught her an agonizing blow on her bad cheek. She screamed, startling him into slackening his grip. She wriggled loose and shot off across the pebbles.

Quick as a snake he was after her.

She spun around. “Stay back!” she hissed in Akean. “Or I’ll put a spell on you!”

That stopped him.

“I mean it!” she gasped, pointing a shaky finger. “I’ll make you cough up your guts and—spit blood and
die
!”

“You couldn’t do that,” he panted.

“Yes, I could,” she lied. “D’you want to find out?”

He glared at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. But he didn’t come any nearer.

Close up, he didn’t look any older than she was, although frighteningly tough and capable of anything. Through his tangled yellow hair he watched her narrowly. It was like facing a wild animal.

She told herself that as long as she showed no fear, he’d
have
to obey. He didn’t know she couldn’t do spells.

Bracing her legs to stop them trembling, she said, “Don’t you know where you are, goatboy? This is the Island of the Goddess—and I’m the daughter of the High Priestess. That means you do what I say.”

He glanced at the little gold axes on her tunic. “My name isn’t goatboy. It’s Hylas. And I’m a warrior.”

She snorted. “You’re a liar, like all Akeans.”

Ducking into his shelter, he brought out his knife and brandished it in her face. “See this? It’s a warrior’s knife.”

It was bronze, very finely made. She pretended she wasn’t alarmed. “You stole it,” she said scornfully.

“No I didn’t, it’s mine.”

She hesitated. He took a step forward. She took a step back.

“Where are the rest of them?” he demanded.

“Who?”

“Your people! The Crows!”

“I’m on my own—and the Crows are
not
my people.”

“Well, you can’t deny that you were camped with them. Where’s their ship?”

“I told you, I’m on my own! I paid a fisherman to help me escape. He betrayed me and left me here.”

“Why would I believe that? You’re mad. And you gave me away to the Crows.”

“I’m not mad!”

He tossed his head. “Their ships are on the other side of that headland right now, aren’t they?”

“If they were, d’you think they’d send me to steal a
fish
?”

He had no answer to that.

“I told you,” she said, “this is the Island of the Goddess. There’s nobody here!”

For a moment he studied her. Then he turned and went back to his fire.

Pirra was outraged. On Keftiu, no one turned their back on her. It was the height of disrespect.

When he continued to ignore her, she said, “That fisherman will tell my people where I am and they’ll come after me. They’ll bring the Crows. You need to get off this island just as much as I do.”

He went on scraping ash off the baked fish. It smelled incredibly delicious.

“I found a shipwreck,” she added. “If I show you where it is, you can make a boat from what’s left, and we’ll get away.”

He ate swiftly, cramming the flaky white flesh into his mouth and crunching up the skin.

“Give me some,” ordered Pirra.

“Catch your own,” he snarled with his mouth full.

“How dare you! Give me some!”

“Catch your own or go hungry, I don’t care.”

She tore one of the gold spangles off her tunic. “Here.”

He scowled. “What’s that?”

“It’s gold. It’s precious. You use it to buy things.”

“Then it’s no good here, is it?”

“Don’t you know what this is worth? You could buy whatever you want.”

He looked around him. “From who?”

Pirra set her teeth. “If you don’t give me some of that fish, I won’t show you where the wreck is.”

He gave a nasty laugh. “I can find it without you.” Wiping his fingers disgustingly on his tunic, he pushed past her and sauntered down to the Sea.

Pirra stalked after him. She was so angry she was blinking back tears, and her cheek was on fire after that blow.

It flashed through her mind that if she stole his knife she could
force
him to obey; but that had occurred to him too, and he’d stuck it in his belt. There was also the fact that she’d found water and he hadn’t; could she use that? But if she told him about the cave, he’d hurt her till she said where it was.

Out in the bay, something glinted. Then a great shining creature leaped from the Sea and splashed down in a shower of spray.

The boy broke into a grin and ran into the shallows. He gave a piercing whistle.

In the bay, the creature turned and swam toward him.

Pirra’s jaw dropped.

The dolphin was much bigger than she’d imagined, and far more beautiful than any painting in the House of the Goddess. In awe she watched it arch out of the water, then roll under the waves: in and out, in and out, in a graceful, undulating rhythm. As it came closer she heard its soft, snorting breath. She saw its sacred smile. She put her fist to her forehead and bowed.

The boy waded waist-deep, and waited. The dolphin swam closer.
It brushed against him.

Pirra was astounded. In disbelief she watched the dolphin circle the boy, who was splashing it gently with water, which it seemed to like. He waded deeper and began to swim. The dolphin slowed as it approached him again. The boy took hold of its fin with both hands, and it pulled him along. It swam faster and he lay at full stretch, skimming the waves as if he were flying.

Pirra stood speechless as boy and dolphin headed out into the bay. Who
was
this boy, that a creature of the Goddess should come to him?

After making a wide circle, they turned back for the shore. The boy let go of the dolphin and waded into the shallows, where he stood watching it swim away. He was smiling, his bony face briefly transformed.

He saw Pirra and his smile faded. “So,” he said brusquely, “this is how it will be. You will do what
I
say. Now show me that wreck.”

H
ylas was almost certain that the girl was lying about the spells—but was she also lying about there being no Crows on the island? He made her go in front of him with the knife at her back, in case she was leading him into a trap.

“Ow, ow,” she kept saying as she picked her way over the pebbles. Hadn’t she ever gone barefoot before?

He didn’t believe her story about running away. Why would she run away? Even bedraggled and dirty, she was clearly the daughter of a leader. All that gold at her wrists and neck, and on that purple tunic. Unless she really was mad, and they’d left her here to get rid of her. The angry sickle-shaped burn on her cheek seemed to bear that out.

Whatever the reason, she was in his way. She clearly couldn’t fend for herself, and he had enough to do keeping himself alive without having to feed her too. He decided to put up with her for long enough to build the raft, then leave her behind.

With painful slowness, she led him to the far end of the bay, then over a rocky point. He breathed out. No Crow
warriors on the other side, and no ships drawn up on the beach. There was no beach. Only the wreck, just like she’d said.

It had been a sturdy ship with a full-bellied hull, but the Sea had smashed it as easily as if it had been made of bark. Hylas stared at the angry waves surging in and out of the gap that separated the wreck from the point. It was too wide to jump, and if he tried swimming, he’d be cut to bits or drowned; probably both.

And even if he reached it, what then? He’d have to manhandle every scrap of timber and rope across that gap, then build a raft, then find his way back to Lykonia over the shark-infested Sea…

“We could use the plank from your shelter,” said the girl, “to make a bridge.”

“Mm,” he said doubtfully, although he’d just had the same idea.

“Once you’re over there, you could throw things to me.”

He snorted. “Too scared to risk it yourself?”

“I’m not scared. I can’t swim.”

“I thought Keftians worshipped the Sea.”

“We do. But I’ve never been allowed out.”

He blew out his cheeks. She was even more useless than he’d thought.

They fetched the plank, but she kept dropping her end, so he shouldered it by himself. He managed to ease it over the gap and wedge it in the wreck, steadying the other end with stones; then, filled with misgiving, he crawled onto
the makeshift bridge. The wood was slippery and sagged under his weight. The Sea churned beneath him, drenching him in spray. But the plank held firm, and he made it across.

Warily, he picked his way over a dismal ruin of half-submerged timbers that lurched treacherously underfoot. He found mounds of sodden sailcloth and tangled rawhide rigging, but to his relief, no bodies, just a moldy cap and a sandal with a broken thong. He thought of the men who now lay at the bottom of the Sea, staring sightlessly at the fishes swimming through their hair.

Who had they been? Not Keftians. With irritating confidence, the girl had declared that the ship’s nose was the wrong shape; she said it was Makedonian, whatever that was. He wasn’t sure whether to believe her. He wished the ship had been full of Crows. He wished they were the ones who now lay at the bottom of the Sea, being eaten by sharks.

Kneeling by the sunken hold, he saw tiny fish darting in and out of huge, shattered jars. Something long and thin shot into a crevice. He drew back sharply.

“What is it?” the girl shouted from the point.

He peered in.

From the crevice, something peered back. It wasn’t a snake. Hylas didn’t know
what
it was. “Some kind of—monster,” he called, trying not to sound alarmed.

“What’s it look like?”

The thing emerged, spotted him, and withdrew. “Body like
a sack. Big eyes. Lots of legs, like snakes but—not.”

“Oh, you mean an octopus. They’re sacred—but very good to eat. See if you can spear it. Don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not scared!” he yelled. But he wasn’t stupid enough to do what she said. It had to be a trick.

Poking around in the wreckage, he found a scrap of goatskin that would do to make a slingshot, and a scabbard of woven leather, only slightly rotted, and a perfect fit for his knife; then a small hide pouch tied at the neck with complicated knots like a nest of vipers. It felt empty, but when he described it to the girl, she said—with that irritating assurance—that it was a wind pouch: Sailors bought them from seers and untied the different knots depending on what kind of wind they needed; hadn’t he heard of them?

Setting his teeth, he went on exploring. He found a small earthenware jar that had survived intact, right down to its wax seal. “Here!” he shouted at the girl. “Catch!”

She missed. The pot shattered on the rocks, and olives bounced into the Sea. “Can’t you do
anything
?” he cried.

“You didn’t give me any warning!”

“Oh, shut up and go and fetch some water! I suppose you can
find
my waterhole? It’s near the cliffs, behind my camp. Wait—you’ll need something to carry it in, won’t you? Take the biggest bit of that pot you just broke. And be quick, I’m burning up!”

She stalked off with her shoulders around her ears. When she came back, he was astonished to see her fling down a full waterskin. “There!” she snarled.

“Where’d you get that?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Why didn’t you say you had water? I’m
thirsty
!”

“Oh, what a shame.”

In stony silence, Hylas crawled over the plank and drank his fill, then crawled back again. After that, they didn’t speak.

Salvaging was hard work. He was still tired from his ordeal at Sea, and his muscles screamed for rest. He had a long, sweaty struggle just to untangle one oar.

Spirit came and swam up and down, trying to attract attention. Hylas splashed him for a bit, which he knew the dolphin liked, then went back to work. That seemed to annoy Spirit, who kept nodding and clacking his jaws. It was as if he wanted something. Hylas didn’t know how to explain that he was busy, and eventually Spirit gave up and swam away.