The Awakening (25 page)

For the rest of the day he rode in silence, lost in his thoughts as the group continued north through the gloomy forest.

After dinner that night he sat cross-legged by the fire, reading the scroll.
Matrin and sheep
, he mused.
Matrin is said to have mystical origins.
Despite himself, he laughed out loud.
Perhaps it was delivered to us by an enormous fanged sheep!

‘First Son?’ asked Leone.

Ever since their encounter by the stream, Shanek felt slightly embarrassed around the Coerl. He had revealed too much to her, and she had paid too much attention for him to be comfortable. She kept looking at him in a different way. Before they had talked, she had been aloof and loyal. Now she acted as if she liked him. Whilst it was nice, on one level it was also annoying. He wanted things to be as they were.

It was odd but this apparent fondness she had inexplicably developed for him seemed to reduce her slightly in his eyes. Before, she was self-contained and strong, she needed no one’s approval. Now it was different. He knew what it was about, but he didn’t have the time to ponder it; he was busy with this document.

‘It’s this,’ he said to Leone, holding it up for her. ‘It’s written in Matrin and I know there’s more to it. But I can’t work it out.’

Leone looked up. Seeing the Diplomat talking with Muttiah, out of earshot, she frowned. ‘First Son, why do you think there is more to it?’

‘Leone, use your intelligence! I am First Son. Cherise is the most distinguished Diplomat in the Empire, and Muttiah is a Caldorman. Do you honestly believe for a moment we three would be sent to the most stable province on the continent to negotiate a sheep-trading agreement?’

‘No,’ said Leone.

‘Good. So what’s it all about?’

Leone shook her head.

‘Can you read Matrin?’ Shanek asked.

She shook her head again.

‘Didn’t think so,’ he muttered. ‘Think! Why Matrin?’ He lay back on the leaf-covered ground, staring up at the canopy. An idea came to him slowly. ‘Burn me,’ he whispered. ‘Sheep. Burned, stinking sheep.’ He lifted the scroll up and unrolled it. How could he have missed it?

Matrin was not only the language of poets and scholars, it was also the language of mystics. ‘Leone,’ he said without taking his eyes off the words, ‘get a quill and parchment. I want you to write down some words for me.’

While she was gone, Shanek re-read the instructions, only this time, instead of being irritated by the occasionally clumsy wording, he took note of the words and phrases that made it clumsy.

‘Write these down. Each one on a separate line,’ he said when Leone sat beside him. ‘Sheep. Make all haste. Freely negotiate with all care. Sheep movement. Missing no small thing. Peaceableness. Your Thane gives all his noble caring. Sheep caring. Fiery chase of fleeing sheep.’ The list went on, each oddity in the command adding to the message that Shanek was sure his father was sending him. ‘Show me that,’ he said when Leone reached the end. Leone gave him her parchment. Shanek took it and read it. ‘Father, you are a sly old fox. But I am your equal,’ he muttered. ‘Now I can translate these into arcane Matrin and read the real mission.’

Leone watched as he concentrated. She saw his expression change from smug self-satisfaction to perplexity to wide-eyed shock. ‘This can’t be right,’ he whispered.

He scrambled to his feet. Leone leaped up, her sword appearing as if by magic in her hand. ‘What is it, First Son?’ she asked.

Shanek did not speak. He looked about, his eyes wild, his breathing fast and shallow. Leone watched him closely, alert for any hint of the bursts of anger that he was prone to, but after only a moment or two he calmed himself.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘This could be interesting.’

‘Sail to starboard!’

Wyn heard the cry and inwardly tensed again. Even though they had been hunting the Children for weeks, they had had no luck. Every time they changed course to intercept yet another ship, he wondered. Would this be the time he had to betray someone?

When he signed on with Marek again he did not think beyond finding the Children, joining them, then finding Hwenfayre. Always that, the need to find her, the aching, gnawing need. It was a nagging feeling that had become a part of how he faced every day, like an old wound that never healed. She was his waking thought, his constant companion, her face the last thing he saw before falling asleep. Always, though, he shied away from the truth: that he loved her. He loved her with a passion, with a depth that frightened him with its intensity. It also frightened him that his love was all he had to offer her. He was a coarse, rude man with no subtlety, no grace and little intelligence.

Hwenfayre,
he thought for the thousandth time
, where are you? I will find you,
he promised himself again
.

But will you want me? Will you want to be with me, now that you have found your home? How can I love you, a Princess?
Even as he thought it again, the prosaic cliché of his situation did not fail to make him smile at his foolishness. Here he was, a scarred veteran of too many battles, hopelessly in love with a beautiful young princess. He had laughed out loud at more than one badly written tale about his own situation. He was firmly trapped in his own tragic story and he knew he would continue to search for her, wherever that took him.

The first ship they sighted was an islander cutter. It saw them and tried to run, but the
Gretchen
was a fast fighting ship. They chased the cutter down and prepared to sink her. Just as they readied their weaponry, a new crewmember tried to prevent Marek from giving the order to fire. He desperately pleaded with the Captain, crying out that the ship belonged to his family. Marek coldly ran the man through with his cutlass then opened fire.

They left the cutter burned to the waterline with all hands dead.

As a soldier, Wyn had been witness and at times party to many acts of violence, even brutality, but nothing had ever shocked him the way that senseless destruction had. They were seeking the Children, and this cutter had no plunder and no connection to their prey. Marek ordered its destruction, first for pleasure, then as vengeance on a dead Raider who had dared challenge his orders. All the sailor had wanted was for his family to be spared.

Wyn wanted Marek to put aside his whole mission.

But such thoughts were a distraction, and by the look of the sails, the vessel approaching them would need his full attention. It was a warship.

‘What do you think?’ asked Sacchin.

Wyn shrugged. ‘Mainland,’ he suggested. ‘One of the Southern states, maybe Oscran.’

Sacchin grunted in agreement. ‘Is it after us?’

‘Hope not,’ said Wyn.

As if in answer, Marek called for full sail and a change of course. They were going to run. Normally no Southern Raider vessel would turn and run from a warship from any of the kingdoms, but Marek’s decision only served to emphasise his focus on his mission.

The warship was fast but the
Gretchen
was faster and they left it in their wake with ease. They continued to head generally north into the more populated regions. Within a few days they would find themselves in the normal shipping lanes where the ships of Tanissan would be patrolling their southern coastline for protection from just such a Raider vessel as the
Gretchen
. As they were travelling alone, it could be a nervous or even dangerous time. Wyn could remember times when, as a young man, he sailed these seas on ships from various of the southern kingdoms. He had seen action battling vessels just like the
Gretchen
. Usually they hunted in packs in this part of the Sea, so as a single Raider ship they would need to be careful.

He was still unsure as to what exactly Marek had in mind. There was no way he could possibly hope to do any damage to a Raft, even if he could locate one. Wyn’s recollection of the
Two Family Raft
, even
allowing for his youthful memory, was one of a vast floating city surrounded by up to fifteen fast attack ships. The whole Raider fleet that he had seen would be hard put to cause a Raft any serious problems. Even so, the Rafts rarely ventured out of the deep western ocean. To find any of the Rafts could take years if they did not want to be found, and if Hwenfayre were helping them they would not only be protected by distance and fast attack ships, the Sea herself would hide them.

He stared out at the featureless horizon that bordered a calm sea. It worried him when she was this calm. He often felt she was waiting, or resting to gather her strength. The long, powerful swell eased past the keel as it made its way to the wild open waters of the south. Somewhere down there a storm would be brewing. There, the forces of tide and wind would whip up these seemingly gentle rolls into the brutal steep waves that could crush a ship or flood a Raft. In his mind he could conjure up the images: the smell of the ice, the feel of the wind-driven slivers as they cut through leather and flesh. With ease, he could transform this placid, kindly blue water into the howling beast that still haunted his dreams.

It had been many years since the storm had almost destroyed the
Two Family Raft
and killed so many, but the pain and terror remained with him. He knew it always would. In his quiet moments he liked to tell himself that he had left his home because of the High Priestess and her schemes, but in truth he had left because of fear.

After his father died, he and Declan existed in a kind of lost haze for a while, unsure of their place
and confused about their lives. Declan had been his friend forever. He was an orphan and Wyn’s family had taken him in, given him a name and a home. Wyn’s father was a good man who loved both boys well, teaching them the skills and ways they would need. But when he died and Wyn’s mother collapsed in on herself, they both felt they had been cast aside to drift aimlessly.

They would talk endlessly, comparing dreams and goals, hopes and plans. Wyn found himself looking away, further from the home he felt he’d lost. His eye drifted to the land, the enticement of adventure and discovery. Declan’s eye stayed closer, but he was looking up, thinking of leaving behind his humble beginnings.

At first it was a simple dream of leaving the
Two Family Raft
and joining another Raft where he could start again. Declan as the
de facto
son of a respected Carver had status, but Declan the friend of the dissolute Wyn was once again an orphan, of no note and of little value. Declan started to plot, to plan and to scheme. They were little things to begin with: ingratiating himself with the Raft’s Navigator, greeting the Priestess whenever she passed; nothing to cause concern. But one lazy afternoon late in the Migrating Season, he told Wyn the news that turned their lives upside down.

They were sitting in the shade of a damaged sail they should have been repairing. Wyn had stolen a cask of ale and they were over halfway through it, leaning on a storage crate, watching the day drift by.

‘I’m leaving here,’ Declan said.

‘What?’ asked Wyn. ‘Where?’

‘I’ve been accepted into the Learning.’

‘What?’ asked Wyn again. ‘The Learning? Why?’

‘I’m going to train to become a Navigator,’ said Declan. ‘I’m leaving for the
Learning Raft
tomorrow.’

‘But that’s not possible!’ exclaimed Wyn. ‘No one gets into Navigator training without a sponsor. Who’d sponsor you?’

‘Our Navigator.’

‘Our Navigator? But he doesn’t even know your name.’

‘He does now.’

‘So this is what all that grovelling and sliming up was all about. This is what you wanted all along!’

‘No, it isn’t, but I’ll take it.’

‘But how can you? You know what my father thought about the Learning.’

‘Yes I do, but I don’t agree. He was wrong.’

‘He was not wrong!’ barked Wyn. ‘He knew what was happening. And you know how they treated him!’

‘Nobody did anything to him!’ shouted Declan. ‘He was eaten by a blaewhal.’

Wyn stood abruptly and went to leave. Declan scrambled to his feet to follow him.

‘Wyn, wait!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, my friend.’ Wyn paused without turning. ‘Look,’ Declan went on, ‘I know how you feel about the Learning. How they’re leaving behind the old ways and how you don’t like where they are leading us, but what if you’re wrong? What if they are right and it’s time for the Children to move into a new way of life?’

‘What if I’m right?’

‘How better to keep an eye on what they’re doing? From the inside!’

Wyn did not respond.

‘I know you don’t like this but can’t you at least be pleased for me?’

‘No.’ Wyn started to walk away but Declan grabbed his shoulder to hold him back. Instinctively Wyn shrugged his grip off.

‘Wait, Wyn.’ Declan grasped his arm more forcibly.

Perhaps it was the ale, perhaps it was pent-up resentment over his father’s death, perhaps it was the heat of the day, but, whatever it was, it made Wyn suddenly see red. He spun around and grabbed Declan by the shirt. His powerful muscles bunched as he heaved his friend off his feet. With a snarl of rage he tossed him away.

Declan landed awkwardly, falling as his ankle gave way beneath him. His head hit the deck with a shockingly loud sound and he lay still. Wyn took a step towards him, but stopped in horror as he saw the blood start to pool behind his friend’s motionless head. He sank to his knees and cried out, ‘Somebody help me!’

Declan did not leave to join the Learning the next day, nor the next. He lay still, drifting in and out of consciousness for three weeks as the
Two Family Raft
made its way north. It was nearly the Season of Storms and they followed the schools of fish away from the fierce southern weather. They had to wait a few days for the Healers to arrive from the nearest Raft. With them came Morag, the daughter of the High Priestess.

She had spent time on their Raft before and Wyn had noticed her. He had always felt she thought well of him. How wrong he had been was made clear as soon as she saw him.

Her glare was colder than the southern wind. She walked up to him and stood silently staring.

‘I wonder why you are still here,’ she hissed. ‘You should know by now that you are not welcome. Not even among your own people. Think about that.’ She turned and swept away.

Morag stayed for three weeks, visiting Declan every day, sitting by his bed, wiping his brow and talking to him. It seemed she never stopped talking, except when Wyn entered the room. She would fall silent and stare at him until he left feeling hurt, angry and impotent.

When Declan was well enough to leave the Raft, he went with Morag back to the
Kelpie
. Wyn had not seen him since then.

The delay while they waited for a Healer to arrive had proved deadly, as the
Two Family Raft
was caught too far south when the Season of Storms started. Wyn could remember very little of the actual storm that howled out of the southern polar regions to smash into the
Two Family Raft
. Unusually, the storm gave plenty of warning of what was going to happen. One thing he could remember was the immense black thunderhead that towered over the horizon. The old Sailers sniffed the wind and frowned. There were shaking heads and furrowed brows as they watched the storm bear down on them.

It struck just before dawn.

By the time the sun broke through, the largest, most populated Raft the Children had ever built was badly damaged and listing. Hundreds floated dead on the heaving waters. Not even the fast attack ships had been able to outrun the ravening wind. Only five of the fleet had survived. These few now scoured the waters, seeking the living.

Wyn was dragged from the sea’s grasp a scant hour before sunset after hours of the most acute terror he had imagined possible. Every moment in the water he spent looking over his shoulder expecting another monster wave to come and drive him into the black depths below him. For the first time in his life, Wyn experienced the deep fear that leaves scars on a man’s soul. Even as he lay shivering and gasping on the deck of the ship, he knew that he would never be the same again.