Tales of Noreela 04: The Island (33 page)

Namior leapt a fallen tree and found herself ahead of Kel, pumping her arms as she ran. She jumped over anything that looked as though it could trip her, snaked around tree trunks, ducked beneath branches and clasped the knife in her hand like a lucky charm. No charm could work if it had not been properly made, she knew, but the blade glinted, its keenness comforting.

“They’re coming,” Kel said. Namior glanced uphill and saw the glimmer of metal, way up between the trees.
They
, Kel had said. He’d almost died fighting just one of them.

And then she saw the boat. She resisted the temptation to throw down the knife and start pushing, instead doing exactly what Kel had said. She climbed in, dropped the knife and grabbed the oars, holding them along the gunwales in readiness to dip into the water the instant it was close.

We’ll have to get over the breakers. Past the waves, across the white-crests, then back to Noreela, and they’ll be chasing us all the way
.

Kel hit the boat hard. The wrapped crystal fell from his hands and thumped down inside, and the craft was already sliding across tree roots and oily seaweeds, slicking down toward the beach with Kel grunting and straining behind it.
He’d jammed his sword into the boat’s hull, just inside and still within reach.

Namior looked over his head and through the trees. She could see plenty of movement, but she wasn’t sure how much of it was simply leaves flickering in the breeze. She saw a flash as something shiny moved from left to right, then all was still once again.

When she glanced back down at Kel, he was grimacing.

“They won’t stop,” he said. “I’ve never met a Stranger that knows fear.”

“Lucky bastards.”

Water splashed across Namior’s back. She gasped at the coldness, then when she dipped the oars they were wet as well. She started pulling, watching Kel splashing through the breaking waves, looking behind him at the rough beach, his footprints, the twisted trees, pulling, pulling. The boat jarred up and splashed down, again and again.

Kel heaved himself in, landing with his face close to the wrapped crystal. He paused, just for a beat, then looked up at Namior.

“We might just—” he said, but the rest of his words were drowned by a flurry of explosions. Flashes burst from within the forest, Kel winced, something struck Namior in the chest, and she fell back. She tried to close her hands on the oars but they were gone. She felt around, waving her hands, confused at why she was not still rowing, why she saw sky and clouds instead of beach and water. Confused, too, at why the water in the bottom of the boat felt so warm.

Lying on her back, the late-afternoon sky suddenly seemed very blue and peaceful.

KEL BOON FELT
something whip by his right ear and thought,
They’re shooting at us
. Beyond Namior, past the bow
of the boat, the top of a wave parted and spat spray at the sky. Another shot hit the boat’s stern a hand’s width from his head. Wood splintered, and he felt shards peppering his cheek and exposed neck. He grimaced in pain, looked at Namior, and something hit her in the chest.

Her eyes and mouth went wide. Blood sprayed the air before her, splashing into the water sloshing inside the boat. And she fell back, striking the wood and gasping, hands clawing at the air as though to catch a cloud. Looking at her chest Kel could see the meat of her, and the white flash of bone.

“No!” he yelled, and another volley of shots smashed into the boat and sea.

Every instinct was pulling him toward Namior, pressing his hand to her wound and his mouth to hers, looking into her eyes to make sure they still saw him. But if he did that, he would be dead.

If he turned around and tried to fight—crossbow bolts against projectile weapons—he would be just as dead.

So he reached into the boat and picked up the heavy crystal, shaking his jacket away so that the sun kissed colors from its angular surfaces, and held it up high.

The shooting ceased. There were four Strangers standing along the edge of the forest, two of them down on the beach and up to their knees in water. They all held golden tubes, steam venting from them, and their dull metal armor reflected the color of the waves.

The crystal was heavy.

Namior moaned behind him, hissing something wet at the air.
Not her, not here, not now
, Kel thought.

“I’ll do it!” he yelled, though as yet he was not quite certain what “it” was. He heaved himself up into the boat, holding on tight because the waves were striking the bow, lifting and dropping it again and again. He dropped the crystal, rolled, and snatched it up, and when he looked back at the beach the Strangers had all advanced several steps.

“Stop!” Sitting on the cross seat, he placed the crystal in
his lap; it was warmer than he’d expected, as though the thing writhing inside exuded heat. Then he drew a weighted throwing knife and held it up, heavy handle pointing down. He had no idea how much damage he could do with that, but the Strangers exchanged glances and lowered their weapons.

“I’ll smash it!” And he almost did. Namior was bleeding and dying behind him, and he came so close to indulging the only small, petty revenge he could muster. He wanted to feel the Strangers beneath his sword, part their necks as he had the one on the beach, watch their enraged wraiths spit and sputter as their existence faded away to nothing, not even the Black. But the greater revenge of denying them what they had come for… that was more noble.

And for that, he had to survive.

He put the knife down on top of the crystal in his lap, picked up the flailing oars and started rowing.

The Strangers watched. One of them walked into the sea, waves breaking around its stomach, then its chest. Kel dropped one oar and picked up the knife, and the metal-clad soldier halted.

He heard that rising and falling whistling from somewhere else on the island. An alarm? A scream of pain?

“Namior?” he said, not wanting to look back. He was still too close. If he turned away, they might try to get him with a lucky shot. So he rowed hard, feeling the muscles of his back and shoulders pulling but relishing the sensation. “Namior?” he said again, listening for any sign of acknowledgment.

She only hissed, and it sounded far too much like air venting from her ruined chest.

Up one wave, down another, topping the white-crests as they roared in to expend their energy on Komadian soil, and the Strangers watched them go. Kel glanced down at the crystal, at the shifting thing inside that could have been as big as his hand close-up, or the size of a mountain thirty miles away.
What do I have in here?

He drew farther from shore, and when he was far enough
away he let the waves take him for a while. They drove the small boat along the southern shore of Komadia, and he could see the first buildings of the settlement they had visited. Behind it, up the hillside and closer to the forest, the curving black monolith pointed at the sky, obvious now that he knew it was there. Viewed from that distance and angle, it could have been a ravine split down into the ground, as well as a structure built up.

He turned and looked at Namior, and he feared that she was already dead. But he could not stop. The wound in her chest was wide, deep and pulsing blood, and there was nothing he could do for her without help. If he stopped, to hug and whisper as her life ebbed away, he would be losing whatever small chance she had to survive.

“Keep breathing, keep fighting,” he said. He repeated those words over and over, and they became the beat by which he rowed.

The pains in his shoulders and back became so great that he thought he was on fire. He rowed harder.

The sun was setting behind the Komadian hills. It threw the shadow of that alien land across the sea after him, and he knew that in that shadow, they would come.

HE ROWED THROUGH
the dusk, through his tears, and despite the certainty that his arms were no longer a part of his body. Once away from the island, he paused several times to go to Namior, but all he could do was to make sure she was still breathing. He tried pressing his jacket to her bleeding wound, but her breathing became harsh, and she thrashed in unconsciousness. She was withdrawn, fighting for survival inside her own mind. He hoped that would last.

Watching Komadia, expecting to see sails coming after him at every moment, the jagged silhouette of that strange place took on sinister proportions.

As the second love of his life lay dying behind him—a slower death than his first, yet weighing even heavier on his shoulders—he did his best to plan. The rhythm of the waves and the tempo of his rowing made it easier to concentrate, the physical side of things taking care of themselves.

The absolute priority was to contact the Core. The time they had always feared was upon them, and though it might not be exactly the invasion they had anticipated, still the Strangers had declared war on Noreela. Perhaps they would stay until every person in Pavmouth Breaks had been taken away and made a home for one of those things trapped in the crystals. And maybe there were many more such crystal fields all across the island, thousands of them, and their intention was to launch forays deeper and deeper into Noreela. Their weapons were deceit and stealth, and Kel knew that Noreela’s realization about what was happening would be far slower than the Komadians’ progress. They could sweep across the land, taking people, changing them and advancing again, and by the time any survivors realized what had happened, the wave would have moved on.

How to contact the Core? That was something else entirely. Land. Get Namior to a healer. Escape Pavmouth Breaks, plant the communicator, let it do its work …

Except there was something wrong with that scenario: the part about finding a healer for Namior. His Core training was urging him to leave her on the beach and escape. The fate of Pavmouth Breaks, and perhaps Noreela, was far more important than the life of one woman.

“I have to land and leave her,” he said to the air. A wave hit the stern and splashed across him in response.

Kel stopped rowing for a beat and let the waves take him, urging the craft closer to shore. He bailed water for a while, looking back at the island. But there were no signs of pursuit on the dusky water. He turned and looked at the shore, surprised at how far he had come. He should be planning where to land, not just aiming haphazardly and hoping it would be
somewhere safe. South of where they had left, farther along the beach, that would be best… except that would mean dragging Namior back up through the Throats, and he would never have the strength to take her all the way. She’d die in there, adding her wraith to the darkness. And he would be left mourning another dead love.

The Komadians and the Strangers must surely have communication devices, similar to the one Namior had foisted upon him. Those on Noreela could already know of their covert visit to the island, the theft of the crystal, and they would be ready for him.

There was nowhere safe to land. It was impossible. This was all too much for one man, especially a man who had shunned such responsibility long ago.

Namior moaned in pain, the sea urged him closer to home, and the sunset painted Komadia blood red.

KEL FELT THE
crystal watching him. He covered it with his jacket. His arms were almost useless by then, and the tide and waves seemed to be carrying him toward the harbor. There was little he could do to correct their course. And in truth, he thought it as good a place as any to land. If he could drift past the larger Komadian ships in the darkness, beach the boat on the ruined northern shores of the village… It felt foolish and crazy, yet at the same time it just might work. They would be watching for him along the coast, not in the harbor. They would never believe that he would be mad enough to return there.

And Namior needed help as soon as possible. She had stopped moaning, and he took that to be a bad sign. He
wished he could throw down the oars and go to her, listen to her breathing, check her wound, but he could not. Though he rowed little, he used the oars more to try to steer them, attempting to find the best route through to the harbor.

There were three large ships anchored in the waters outside Pavmouth Breaks. One of them was dark, but the other two were speckled with lights that did not look like candles or lamps. Some of the lights moved.

“Kel…” Namior moaned.
Too loud!
Kel turned and leaned over her, whispering.

“Namior, be quiet, we’re almost there. Almost home.”

“Kel!” she said again, almost shouting. “They’re coming.
They’re coming!”

Kel hated doing it, but he reached out and clasped his hand over her mouth. She moaned and twisted her head, and he dreaded whatever dreams he was giving her. Then she went slack, head dropping to one side, and he could hardly feel her breath on his hand.

He sat up again and rowed, aiming between the darkened ship and the two with lights. That should take him through to the river channel, and from there he could aim for the northern shore.

Is the tide coming in, or going out?
he thought, still not close enough to tell. He paid little attention to the rhythms of the sea, the ebb and flow of Pavmouth Breaks’ life, and he regretted that. He regretted a lot of things.

Don’t you die!
he thought, wishing his desires could carry weight and import. Some witches, so it was said, were so in tune with magic that they could affect events by thought alone. But they were few and far between, and in Pavmouth Breaks their talents would be as useless as his.

It was not dark enough. They would be seen. The Komadians would be waiting at the harbor, at the end of the mole and around the river mouth. There would be Strangers, clad in their metal suits and wielding deadly projectile weapons or other as-yet-unseen methods of killing. He and
Namior would be killed quickly, their bodies weighed down and thrown into the harbor, surrendered to the sea as succulent food for the many creatures enjoying such fare since the waves.