In Great Waters (43 page)

Anne’s voice had echoed across the water, calling:
Whistle
. Henry did not take the time to be surprised at the long-lost name. He was home; he was ready. There were voices mingling with hers, and all of them were different. After the unfamiliarity of the water, he understood
them, the pitch and timbre, all different, all speaking together. He did not recognise any of them; their dialect was unfamiliar. He did not know this tribe.

It didn’t matter. He was going to make it his own.

Anne danced, and waited. Hands were reaching towards her, ghostly pale in the darkness. As she slipped out of their reach, a cloud passed away from the sun, and a streak of light struck down through the water, silver pale, salt glittering in its beam. It was beautiful. The brightness of it struck her hard: this glinting moment, ready to pass, easy to snatch away. She was alive.

Hands reached out again, a large palm folding around her narrow wrist. A peremptory rattle of sounds:
Come on
. This was the deepsman she had humoured before. Her fingertips tingled as his hand squeezed around her forearm, a memory of rough, slick flesh. Anne tugged back, but there was no way out of his grasp. She had to do something, now, at once. He could drag her down. His lungs were massive, his body immense, and there was no way she could outlast him. She needed air, needed to move before she drowned.

Whistle
, she cried again. She was not drowning, she wasn’t: she had air enough. She was just breathless at the sudden grab. She could last.
Whistle, hurry
. Where was he? Silence yawned around her, stretching in every direction, and for a long, choking moment, there was only an arm pulling her forward and the rustle of the sea.

Then a voice out of the void:
I am coming. This is mine. I am coming
.

And Anne kicked back, striking out with her sharp-clawed feet, and fought her way free. It wasn’t much of a blow, not by the standards of the deep, but it was fast and sudden and she gouged her nails against the coarse skin of her captor, her suitor, her subject—she ground in her nails and the man holding her arm let her go.

And the voice sounded again:
I am here. This is mine. Do not trifle with me
.

It was coming from the other direction, Anne realised. Instinctively
she turned her head, but the deepsmen, used to the blindness of the water, made no such movement. Instead they gathered together, swimming back to back in a coiling spiral, a great long column that sank a whirling shaft into the depths like the pillar of a cathedral, a sleek, turning regiment of bodies shining white against the black in a single ray of light. It was a fighting stance, one that she recognised with a foolish stab of loneliness: backs to each other, united in trust, in motion and watching for whatever threat might come, ready to face it together. Her bastard was coming, and they had banded. She was making them unite. This was how much she needed this.

The sound continued, around and around. He was doing something Anne had never seen: circling, out of sight, calling as he swam. It couldn’t possibly work as a flanking movement, not when they outnumbered him: all they had to do was split up and follow the sound, and they could lay hands on him easily. But his voice echoed out of obscurity, and the deepsmen gathered together, waiting.

Henry swam in a spiral, yelling out his claim. This was a hunt, a chase. He had seen his family do it a hundred times: surround the fish, circle them, drive them into a ball. When the threat could be coming from any direction, you massed ranks and kept on the move and hoped for the best. The deepsmen did it to fish, but they did not do it to each other. That was why it was the right thing to do now. The deepsmen were a frightened people. If something was new, they would not take the risk of attack. Hide and circle, watch and wait: he knew how to do this. Now it was time to come out of the dark.

Anne swam backwards, keeping in sight of the deepsmen.
Whistle
, she called.

A voice answered her:
I am here
. And a body swam out of the depths.

It was Henry, Whistle, gleaming in the grey light. Anne had seen women naked, deepsmen, but the sight of him darting past her
unclothed gave her a moment of alarm before she pulled herself together. He was circling, following the path of the waiting deepsmen, and he called to her:
Which? Who is in charge?

Anne pointed her arm and bounced her voice forward, driving the sound towards the great-armed titan who had grasped her wrist.
That one
, she said.
I do not want him
. Her arm tingled in the cold, and she cried out again, loud enough to echo off the shore:
I do not want him!

The deepsman changed his path, rising up the centre of the spiral like the eye of a whirlpool, his tribe swimming round him.
Who are you?
he said.
Do not trifle with me
.

Henry swam out beside Anne, pausing in the water. He hung very still, and his arm came around her. Rough skin brushed her waist as he pushed her behind him.
Mine
, he said, taking up as bold a pose as he could strike.
I will fight you for her
.

The deepsman raised his arms, thrashed his great tail. The force of it swept a current forward that rocked Anne where she floated, and she thrust her arms out, paddling frantically to stay upright.
Do not trifle with me
, the great voice groaned out.
I am strong
.

Henry did not look away.
Challenge
, he called back.
I will fight you for her. Mine
.

The man was immense, Henry saw, half as long again as him. This was something he would never survive, not if it came to a clash of tails, the wave-shattering smack of bone against bone. He couldn’t kill him. If he was going to bid for the throne, he had to subdue this tribe, not destroy it. The deepsman towered before Henry, and fury twisted in Henry’s throat: he was a stranger, small, fighting alone. He tasted crab meat in his mouth.
Just let this girl look away
, he said in his mind,
and I will eat your tongue
.

He couldn’t outswim this tribesman. If he had stayed in the sea, he would have been his subject, always, inescapably, until he died. But he was not going to be the subject of any man, ever again.

He dived down, and the great arms reached to grab him.

Anne’s throat closed as she saw Henry swim forwards. The deepsman reached out and took hold of him, and the water heaved around them as the great tail swept out again. Whistle was small against him, a boy against a man, but the tail did not connect: Henry had parted his legs, let the wave sweep between them. He did not call, did not look. He lunged back, and the arms gripping his shoulders pulled at him.

The cold of the water bit into her skin, and Anne watched, her heart pounding in her throat. Henry could not get himself out of the deepsman’s grip. The tail struck out, and the water rocked; Anne tumbled over, somersaulting to steady herself. Everything around them was tossed as if by a storm, and Henry was struggling, pulling himself back, the massive hands digging into his shoulders. His legs were snaking to and fro, twisting like banners in a high wind, but he couldn’t avoid it for ever: the deepsman had him, and he was going to break his legs.

Teeth shut, Anne looked, and in the gloom, saw something she hadn’t seen before, so fast had Henry flown by. There was a dark band around his waist.

He hadn’t told her about it, hadn’t warned her. He didn’t trust her. But he had thought ahead, and he was hers, and she was going to help him.

Anne drove herself straight up, broke the surface and snatched a mouthful of air. For a brief second, the thin sounds of the land cut through the air, and then she was underwater again, swimming down to join the fight.

As the girl flickered at the corner of his vision, Henry’s first thought was,
No, stay out
. Deepsmen had little time for chivalry, but a dominance match was a one-on-one issue; if she joined in, then the tribe would too, and they would both die. The two of them couldn’t fight them all.