Bronze Summer (19 page)

Somewhere in all that was his father, his son.

‘I’ll say this once,’ Nago shouted back. ‘Because one of us has got to.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’re safer out here. We could row back out, beyond the falling rock and the smoke and the rest of it. Sleep it off, out on the open sea, where it’s safe. And then come back in when the mountain’s finished its tantrum.’

Deri nodded. ‘You’re right. One of us did have to say it. Not a family type, are you?’

‘My mother died giving birth to me. My father, your uncle, cleared off quick. I don’t have a family. I don’t have a wife. But there are women I look after.’

Nago had told Deri more about himself in a few breaths than in all the years they’d worked together. ‘How many women?’

‘Two. The third died.’

‘And kids?’

‘Some. Of course they support themselves. But they like the fish I bring, and other stuff.’

‘You don’t want to stay out here any more than I do, do you?’

‘No.’ Nago hawked, spat out dusty phlegm, rubbed his hands and grabbed his oars. ‘Let’s get on with it. One thing. If I don’t make it through this —’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘If not now, when? I want you to find them. Just ask around, it won’t be hard. Tell them about me. The kids, you know?’

‘Yes. Of course. And you—’

‘I’ll do the same. Goes without saying.’ He leaned over his oar. ‘On my stroke. One, two—’

And on the word ‘two’ there was another fantastic bang.
Another
one. The sound was a physical thing, like a pulse of wind that hammered at Deri’s chest as well as his ears.

Nago was shouting something. Deri could hear nothing but a kind of whining tone in his ears, and a dull roar from the island. He twisted again to look back.

The fire rising from the mountain ridge was a solid wall now, burning white. And a band of light, glowing red-white, had formed all along the mountain’s face, below the summit ridge. It was descending, sweeping down the mountain’s flank as Deri watched, much faster than before. As it progressed there were brilliant splashes of light, more forests flashing to flame. It was a wall of fire, sweeping down towards the lowlands.

Now Nago was pointing again, shouting something Deri couldn’t hear. Deri turned. A wave was coming at them from the land, a big one, a muscular rise that lifted up the floating islands of rock scum.

Frantically they worked their oars, trying to turn the boat so its prow faced the wave.

With Vala and Caxa and the rest, he was still huddled under the ox-hide. They were on a broad track now, crowded with people who forced their way through the rock drifts. This was a confluence of survivors from settlements all over the mountain’s slopes, now funnelling down this main route to the harbour, miserable people shuffling along, laden with children and possessions, invalids being carried, old people leaning on sticks. Everybody was walking; it was impossible to get a cart through the knee-deep rock.

He turned to look back, ducking his head under the hide. The latest convulsion seemed to have cleared the air of smoke and rock, and he could see the mountain rising above the plain. And he saw a band of fire, glowing red-white and billowing, rolling down the slope. It looked almost beautiful, almost graceful. Then he remembered how far he had come that day, how far away the peak must be – and he realised how fast that wall of fire must be descending.

‘Run!’ he shouted.

Nobody moved.

He looked around at them, Vala’s pinched, anxious face, Liff’s wide eyes rimmed with dust. He realised that none of them could hear a word he said. He grabbed Vala’s arms, shook her, pointed at the mountain. ‘Fire. That cloud. We have to get to the beach, the sea. It’s our only chance. We have to run!’

‘Run.’ He could see her mouth the word. She looked at the mountain dully. Suddenly she understood. ‘Run!’

Tibo pulled the ox-hide away and dumped it on the rock drifts. They would have to live with the rock fall; the hide would slow them too much. He grabbed Caxa’s hand and dragged her. Vala pushed Liff ahead, and wrapped an arm around Caxa and Mi, and pulled them forward.

They were among the first in the crowd to understand, to start running. At first they had to push past people still shuffling slowly towards the sea. But a few looked back at the descending cloud, and saw it as Tibo did. They started to run too, dumping bags and scooping up children, running along the track.

And then it was like a stampede, a great flow towards the water, people no longer helping each other but jostling and pushing and pressing. As he fought to keep his feet, his head aching, every muscle drained, his lungs dragging at the dense, smoky, sulphurous air, Tibo dared not look back.

As it swept down the slope the band of light was resolving into a wall of grey smoke and ash. It was like a tremendous tide, Medoc thought. He saw it roll over a scrap of forest – it loomed high over the trees, you could see how tall it was – and the trees flashed and were gone, just like that.

Okea sensed it too. Or maybe she just felt like giving up. They held each other’s arms, propping each other up, breathing hard, their faces grimed with ash and blood. Okea shouted, ‘We can’t outrun that.’

‘No, Okea, my dear. Not even if we were sixteen years old.’

‘The mountain has shouted many times before. In my lifetime, and yours. And my mother and grandmothers told me of other incidents. There are records too. A priest showed me once. But I never heard of anything like
that
.’

‘Tibo and Mi and the others can warn their grandchildren, if they survive.’

‘Oh, they will,’ Okea said. ‘They are strong and brave. Vala is resourceful. You made a good choice there.’

He looked at her. The ash had worked deep into the crevices of her face, making her look even older. ‘That’s the first thing you ever said about Vala that wasn’t an insult.’

‘Bel was my sister.’

‘Her dying wasn’t Vala’s fault. Or mine, come to that.’

A roaring noise swelled, like a gathering storm. A young deer ran out of nowhere at them, skidded to avoid them, and ran on downhill, eyes wide with fear.

‘He might be lucky,’ Okea said.

He felt her tremble. Tenderly, he wrapped his arms around her. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

She snorted. ‘You’re pissing your pants yourself.’

He laughed. ‘I always liked you, Okea, you old stick, underneath it all.’

‘Well, I never liked you.’

‘Fair enough.’ The roaring was so loud he doubted if she could hear him. ‘I think—’

It was here, looming high over him, a mass of whirling dust and smoke and whole chunks of red-hot rock, a wall taller than the one that kept out the sea from Northland, a wall rushing down on him at impossible speed, faster than any horse or deer had ever run. When it hit, Okea was dragged from his arms. He was swept up. He was flying, in the light.

An instant of searing pain.

But no boats were leaving. The strand was littered with vessels crushed by rock falls, or buried by the ash, or overturned and smashed, as if driven ashore by great waves. Nothing seaworthy.

Tibo left the group and headed for the water, shoving his way through the throng on the beach, young and old, healthy and injured, all of them coated with ash and sweat and blood, white eyes glimpsed in chaotic semi-darkness. Their shouts were like the cries of gulls, against the background roar of the mountain, all jumbled up and muffled in his damaged hearing. At his feet the rock was piled up in drifts. You couldn’t even see where the waterline was, so densely was the ground carpeted by the rock fall.

At last he found his ankles bathed in water, the rock scraping his shins. He took one stride, two, out into the water. Its cool was a huge relief for his scorched flesh.

There were boats on the water, he saw now, and people from the shore trying to get to the boats. But whoever sat in those boats wasn’t necessarily welcoming, and Tibo saw oars and even knives wielded to keep people off. Any one of those boats could be his father’s – or Deri could be far out to sea. He called, his hands cupped. ‘Father! Deri! It’s me! Father!’ He could barely hear his own voice. He kept shouting.

Strong hands took his shoulders and he was whirled around. It was Deri, coated in ash, his tunic wrapped around his head. Tibo threw himself into his father’s arms. Then they broke. They shouted into each other’s faces, barely able to make out the words.

Deri pointed out to sea. ‘The boat’s out there. Nago. We must wade . . .’

‘I have them. Vala and the kids. The Jaguar girl.’

They both hurried back to the family from The Black, who had come struggling down the beach after Tibo.

‘Come, quickly,’ Deri said. He took Puli from Vala, the little boy was an ash-coated bundle, and grabbed Vala’s hand and pulled her down the beach. Tibo took Liff’s hand and followed. Mi and Caxa came after, helping each other, holding onto each other’s arms. After all this, Mi still had her precious bow over her shoulder.

Deri shouted at Vala, ‘Okea? My father?’

Vala just shook her head, her lips tight. Deri turned away, and kept driving to the sea, through the crowd.

Soon they were in the water. It deepened quickly, and Tibo had to help Liff half-wade, half-swim. When they reached the boat it was surrounded by a loose crowd of people, a dozen or more, struggling to stand in the turbulent water. Nago, kneeling up in the boat, was wielding his oar, keeping them at bay. When he saw Deri and the others he leaned over and started hauling them out and into the boat, one by one. Vala flopped into the bilge like a landed cod, and she took her soaked child from Deri’s arms.

Deri grabbed Tibo’s shoulder, and hauled him in so he landed face down. ‘Oars,’ Deri said, taking his own place. ‘Go, Nago! You, Tibo – Caxa, Mi – you too, Liff, if you can handle an oar – take one, they’re in the bottom of the boat.’

Tibo quickly found a place between Vala and Mi. Nago, paddling furiously, had already got the boat turned so it faced away from the land. Tibo got his oar into the rowlock, and started pulling, with muscles already spent by the day’s exertions. At first their rowing was uncoordinated and they splashed more than they pulled, but to frantic commands from Deri and Nago they soon worked into a rhythm, and the boat pushed through a surface skim of rock, out towards the open sea.

Tibo, rowing hard, looked back at the land. That glowing cloud, now a wall of churning red-hot dust and rubble that spanned the world, was scouring down the hillside to the beach. People ran, making for the sea in a final panic, but the cloud swallowed them. Erased them. And soon it was rolling over the water.

He rowed and rowed and rowed.

24

It did not grow dark that midsummer night in Northland, though the light sank to a deep grey-blue. A phenomenon of this strange northern place, Qirum supposed. Yet to the west there was a deeper darkness, a smear of black as if a pot of pitch had been spilled. Qirum fancied he could see a spark of fire at the heart of it, right on the horizon, or beyond it.

He saw all this from the Wall, its roof, a walkway studded with huge stone slabs and the tremendous carved heads of dead Annids. Tonight beacons burned bright, all along the Wall’s length to left and right as far as he could see. Senior members of all Northland’s great Houses were up here, from the Annids to the lowly Beetles, still in their Giving finery. All of them anxiously looked west, watching the sea. And on the breast of that ocean were more lights, sparks on blue-black infinity. Boats with lanterns and beacons of their own.

‘You could not sleep.’

He turned. Kilushepa stood by him, dressed in a long, warm cloak, her hand on her belly. ‘Nor you, it seems,’ he said.

‘Too much commotion. Shouting, running, all along the Wall.’

‘It is the great event in the ocean.’ He pointed to the spreading black cloud. ‘The Annids think it is a mountain of fire, far off to the west. On an island called Kirike’s Land.’

‘If it is so far away, why are the Northlanders so alarmed?’

‘Because great events on land can cause similarly great calamities at sea,’ Qirum said. ‘This is as Milaqa explained it to me. There will be a ripple, if you will. But a ripple that might challenge all these people have built.
Great Seas
, they call them; there have been two, as far as I know. These events are embedded deep in their memories, their culture, their sense of who they are. And so they have their beacons, and the lightships out to sea. If the wave comes the distant ships will flash a warning back to the land.’

She frowned. ‘Will their Wall not keep out the wave?’

‘One would hope so. But even if not they have fallback plans. They open watercourses, abandon the lower ground – make ready to soak up the flood.’