The harsh noon sun shines down on their bobbing craft by the time Keli`anu has begun to noticeably recede in the distance. Waves hiss against the prow of the canoe and the sail flaps in the shifting winds.
“We were fools to have left without water and food,” Motua says, resting with the paddle in his lap. “We have no supplies, no plan. Maybe we should return to Keli`anu and try to hide.”
Kina looks back at the island. Its high peaks are wreathed in clouds and she can see a powerful rainstorm blurring out the near slopes. Motua’s idea has merit. They are ill-equipped for a voyage. “How far is Ku`ano`ano from here?”
Motua points toward the island. “It’s on the other side, and a couple days’ travel beyond. But do you think we should even attempt that passage, with no supplies?”
“We do need water, at the very least.”
Without a word, Motua rotates the sail to bring the canoe about. Kina cringes at the thought of returning to Keli`anu, especially after what they had done to escape.
They allow the prevailing current to carry them eastward along the shore, turning inland at last when they come to a windswept peninsula. Over the rocky seafloor, Kina guides the canoe until Motua can leap out and wrestle it into shallows.
“I wish we had something to tie this off. There’s no way to get it up over these rocks, and high tide will take the canoe away for sure.”
Kina helps him wedge it between three large boulders. “Then one of us should stay with it and make sure it doesn’t float off.”
“Me?”
“No,” Kina replies. “I was thinking me. You’re the wilderness guide, after all.”
“There’s more to being an alaka`i nahele than being a guide, you know.”
“Clearly. You’re an excellent fighter.”
Motua looks sideways at her. “I’ve been taught how to use some weapons. But you weren’t bad, either.”
Kina stands in ankle-deep water and scans the horizon. “I’ve been forced to learn over the years. Are you going to go, or stand here jabbering?”
Motua nods. “I’ll see what I can find nearby.” He begins to climb the tumble of sea-battered lava rocks. “If you see anything…”
“I’ll shout, of course.” Kina says.
Motua turns and disappears over the rocks.
The day wears on, and Kina occupies herself with some fishing. Though she has no spear, and has never fished with a leiomano, she is able to bash some reef fish which explore the tide pools, killing them with a quick stroke of the shark-tooth club. She drops their twitching bodies into the canoe, then pauses and looks at the tapa cloth wrapped around the pahi. Motua had left it behind, at she can understand why. There’s something about the black blade that unsettles her.
Reaching for the tapa, she folds back one corner until just the end of the blade is visible. It is still just as black as when she first saw it, even out here in full daylight. It gleams with reflected light on the scalloped edges where the stone from which it was forged had been chipped. It is hard to imagine the skill it must have taken to create such a thing; the blade feels just as hard as the lava rocks around her.
Feeling a little more brave in the daylight, she pulls away the tapa and lifts the pahi, holding it the way she might hold a leiomano. It is much longer, somewhere between a club and one of the shortspears warriors sometimes use. Though it is heavy, she realizes now it is balanced well and isn’t any harder to hoist than a taiaha. She gives it a couple of test swings and finds she likes how it feels slicing through the air.
Scrambling up onto a boulder, she sweeps it back and forth as though fighting phantom warriors. Kina pantomimes a feint, then a slashing swing, then ends with a thrust that would drive the blade home through the gut of the strongest warrior.
As she holds the pahi, point outward toward the ocean, her gaze travels to the horizon. There, like a school of massive fish, a fleet comprised of dozens of canoes is rounding a far point of land. Smaller and lighter canoes race out as the vanguard for a massive war canoe from which flap the red pennants of the high priestess herself. Though upwind, Kina can already hear the far-off beating of war drums.
She gasps and lowers the pahi.
They have launched their armada, she realizes, terror returning.
Kina turns toward the line of trees and yells as loudly as she can to Motua. Glancing back at the fleet, she races over the stones to the pebbly beach and cries out for him again. After several minutes, she remembers the canoe, and goes back to where they had hid it between the stones. It is still there, though it has drifted into deeper water. Kina sets the pahi on a rock and wades out to the canoe, dragging it back into the shallows.
For several long minutes she pauses, listening for Motua. She hears nothing. He is gone.
She can’t wait any longer. Kina tosses the pahi back into the canoe and shoves it back into the depths, climbing aboard. She tugs open the sail and steers for open water.
“Hey!” comes a shout behind her. It is Motua. In his hands are several coconuts and a dead shorebird.
Kina points toward the horizon. Motua gazes that direction, then ducks down behind the rocks.
She swings the canoe back around and returns for Motua, who quickly tosses the supplies into the canoe and leaps aboard.
“How long do you think it will be until they get here?” Kina asks.
“Not long enough. You steer, I’ll paddle.”
“Right.”
Taking up the single oar, Motua begins to guide the canoe back out of the little rocky inlet. For a moment, they wonder if they will be too hard to see at this distance and against the camouflage of the rocks, but a few minutes later the fleet turns their direction and the drumming grows more frantic.
“What do we do?” Motua asks. “Should we beach this thing and head into the jungle?”
“They’ll spot it, and give chase. We can’t stay here. If we’re quick, they might not see us slip out to sea. And if they do, maybe they won’t chase us across open ocean.”
“You’re crazy. We have their pahi. They won’t let us just escape,” Motua replies, but after a moment of thought, he changes course and points the little canoe toward the empty horizon. “If we’re going to do this, we’ll need to do it smart. We have the tapa cloth—we’ll use it for shade during the day, then catch dew with it overnight for water. Can you fish?”
Kina nods. “I can manage. Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. We’re headed the opposite direction from my home, but I don’t see we have any choice. Somewhere this direction lies the Shallow Sea and Lohoke`a. It might take many days to reach it, maybe even weeks.”
“We won’t survive that long.”
Motua looks at her with a grave expression.
No more is said, though it is clear the two of them have agreed to risk the voyage to Lohoke`a, as Motua maintains his course. Before long, they once more have to face the reef and its dangerous walls of waves. “Hold on to something,” Motua says, and clutches the paddle tightly as the prow of the canoe digs into the first waves. Kina watches behind them, gripping a sennit rope for stability. The fleet is faster than the little canoe, a fact that she doesn’t yet want to share with Motua. Perhaps once they hit the open waters things will change.
As soon as they are away from the shore, they hear long and loud blasts from a conch echo across the water. “They’ve spotted us,” Motua says.
Passage through the reef is difficult, and more than once the waves threaten to swamp them. By the time they break through to the other side, both Motua and Kina are drenched and shivering in a stiff wind that whips up the chop.
The fleet pauses on the inside of the reef, then begins to tack along it, looking for a safe place to risk the passage. Some of the lighter, more fleet vanguard canoes push through and continue after Kina and Motua.
“How far back are they?” Motua asks. “Can you guess?”
“I’d say half an hour or so. They’re faster than us.”
Motua grunts. “Then we’ll have to make a stand here, I guess.”
Kina looks up at the sky. Though it is a bright day, islands of white clouds scud across the blue sky. Toward the northeast, they bunch up into a thicker mass that casts a shadow over the far-off water.
“Steer us that way,” Kina says. Motua looks at her, perplexed, but at her insistence he turns the canoe toward the northeast. There is little else to do.
Kina drops to her knees and takes up one of the coconuts and the dead bird. They will need these things for their voyage, but there won’t be a voyage at all unless she can do something to change their odds. Perhaps Father Sky can be persuaded to help.
Sliding the pahi free of the tapa cloth, she brings it down on one of the coconuts, shocked at how easily it slices through the tough green outer shell and even the fibrous brown interior. With one clean slice, the coconut is split open and exposed. The clear liquid inside seeps out.
Kina raises the coconut. “O, Father Sky,” she begins, raising her gaze to the sky, “Master of the light and the wind, Creator of life, Giver of heat, from whose loins sprung all life, your daughter entreats you for aid at this hour. To thee I offer up this bounty of food and meat. Please guide us from our enemies and fill our sail with wind. I sing they name.”
When she is finished with the prayer, Kina tips the coconut so that the coconut water dribbles out. It is caught by the wind. She pitches the drained coconut into the sea and then holds the bird’s carcass aloft with her eyes closed. Moments later, the bird follows the coconut.
“You’ve sacrificed half our food,” Motua says with a grumble. “I hope you are a priest.”
“I wasn’t raised as a kupuna,” Kina replies, “though I know their ways.”
Motua looks at her sideways. “Do you have any more surprises?”
But there is no response. The wind stays even, though it shifts direction and Kina is forced to rotate the sail to maintain speed.
“It looks like your standing with Father Sky is not as solid as you thought.”
“Perhaps not, but look there,” Kina says, pointing in the direction of their travel. Under the denser clouds it has begun to rain.
“Get the cloth ready,” Motua says, but Kina is already on it. She ties all four ends of the tapa to pegs on either side of the canoe. Before long, they have reached the edge of the rain, and the fat drops begin to fill the tapa.
Motua is still paddling, though he is visibly tiring. “I thank Father Sky for the water, but something to drink is the least of our problems right now.”
Kina agrees, though after a few minutes she notices the rain increasing in strength. “It’s becoming a squall,” she says to Motua. He continues paddling into the thick rain. “Perhaps Father Sky means to conceal us in the rain.”
“It’s a mixed blessing, then,” Motua replies, leaning into the canoe as heavy chop begins to toss the canoe. “The winds are picking up, and so, too, are the waves. Take down the sail.”
Kina does so, and soon after the wind becomes so strong that it would have torn the fragile sail. The gale rips the tops off the waves and sprays them sideways against Kina and Motua. It becomes too strong even for Motua, who pulls in the paddle and drops down beside Kina behind the gunwales of the canoe for protection.
The rain is joined by a dense mist, and before long the little canoe is bobbing in a full storm and they can see nothing other than the waves rising and falling around them. The canoe is hoisted high over the crest of one wave, races down into a trough, then is lifted up the next wave. Though Kina is no stranger to sea travel, this extreme motion makes her ill. She curls up and focuses on her heartbeat.
The storm continues for hours. When at last the winds and rain begin to die down, Kina and Motua sit up to assess their situation. All they can see around them is the ocean, though Kina fears what they might see when the sky clears. Will they still be near the island? Where is the fleet?
She shivers and waits, and eventually the clouds break and the warm sun washes over them. Keli`anu is no more than a barely-visible smudge against the far horizon, and there is no sign of the enemy canoes.
“Thank you, Father Sky,” Kina says.
With Motua at the helm, the canoe presses on toward the distant horizon.