Warding Song

The island was small, with a mountain at the northern end. Seabirds nested on the crags. Beneath the mountain, tall and twisted plants sheltered a flock of little fire-spitters. Along one shore, on the side Trill could watch the sunset from – if she had even wanted to do that – there were lots of jagged fangs of rock just under the surface.

Trill was curled up inside a cave in the mountain, wings and tail sprawled inelegantly on the rocky floor. She had not moved to eat or drink for ages, and made no sound. Her eyes were hooded. She gazed listlessly at the distant horizon. The swish of waves barely caught her attention. The seabirds had fled when she landed, and even now they were avoiding her.

She smelled seaweed, bird droppings, rock beneath her; all of it was meaningless. Her stomach was empty, but she didn’t hunt. Her skull ached, but she couldn’t rest. The cave could collapse, and she wouldn’t move.

For the first time on her journey – the first time in her life – Trill was alone. Truly alone; and it was all her fault. She knew this, and she knew there was no excuse for the terrible, selfish thing she’d done. Shame was a predator tearing at her underbelly. Miserable, Trill thought perhaps it would consume her and she would die here. She could not return home now, in disgrace.

Trill was more homesick than ever. She wouldn’t see her parents’ new egg hatching. She’d never get to meet her sibling. Chirr-See would never meet his own sibling, and that thought drew claws of guilt through her belly.

She listened to waves surging against the shore, the seabirds’ mindless cawing, and her own breathing. When the urge to relieve herself became too great to ignore, Trill climbed to her paws. Her tail dragged on the ground as she crept out of the cave. The sun was shining brightly, and it hurt her eyes.

She returned to the cave, folding her body to the stone with a heavy sigh. It was no good lying down when she’d have to stand again, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She closed her eyes. There was nothing to look at.

Hunger gnawed at her stomach, until at last she had to rise once more. Trill emerged from the cave, hissed at the sunlight, and picked her way down to the shore. When she came across a stream, her throat felt dry as stone, so Trill lowered her head to drink. A frog leapt away from her. She ignored it.

Creeping low, belly brushing the dirt, Trill peered out at the sea. There was no sign of any floating wood-nests. She could make out one very distantly, on the horizon, but it did not come any closer. Trill was starving. She wished her stomach were not so greedy, because she hardly felt much like eating.

Once she was sure that no danger was present, Trill crept out into the water. There were a lot of rocks beneath the waves, with fish swimming amongst them. The big juicy ones had shoals further out to sea, but these would do for now. They fled when she waded in, but if she stayed still long enough, the fish came back. Trill lunged at a few, but her snout hit a rock instead.

Her prey escaped, and all Trill caught was a sore nose. She snorted and spat out the seawater. Rings of salt were around her nostrils; Trill hadn’t bothered to groom them away. Her stomach growled. She snarled back, then whined. Chirr-See had been a good hunter. If he were here, they’d both be gorging themselves on a heaping pile of fish, and splashing about in play.

After she’d caught enough prey, Trill went to the other side of the island, to keep watch for wingless ones. The fire-spitters were digging in the sand. They chattered and shrieked in excitement to each other, but Trill ignored them. If they came close to her, she snarled. They darted from the sand to the trees, and eventually Trill realised they were grasping small things.

Her curiosity got the better of her. Trill moved towards a pile of dug up sand; the fire-spitters around it screeched and fled. There was something half buried in the sand. Trill scooped out small, round, pure white eggs.

Puzzled, she sniffed at them. Perhaps these were the fire-spitters’ eggs, buried to keep them safe from predators, and now they were ready to hatch. Trill swung her head around eagerly to call for Chirr-See, in case he would be interested in the eggs too. Then she remembered his absence.

Trill lost interest in the fire-spitters’ eggs. She nudged the eggs into their sandy pit and slunk away, never seeing the miniature dragons fly down as soon as her back was turned and squabble over their contents. Then she noticed something peculiar. A flat rock was crawling out of the water!

Or so she thought, until she realised it was a shelled creature. It dragged itself out of the water with long scaly paws, and belly-flopped up the beach. Trill watched its slow progress, bemused. The creature stopped and began to dig, laboriously scraping away sand. The fire-spitters darted away from it.

The creature looked like it was digging up the fire-spitters’ eggs. Yet the little dragons weren’t trying to drive it away, so neither did she. Once it had dug a deep enough hole, the creature crouched over it for a long time. Trill was almost hungry enough to ignore it and go fishing, but she kept watching.

It brushed the sand back into the pit, and headed back towards the ocean. Trill sneaked over to see what it had buried; more white eggs. She should’ve known; no dragon would bury their eggs in cold wet sand. So it was prey. She caught up to the creature and pounced, smashing her paws down.

It croaked. Trill stamped on it again, cracking the shell. Then she clawed at it until it turned over; its underbelly was uncovered and vulnerable. Trill bit its throat so it would stop moving, and tore at its flesh. The creature tasted odd. If only Chirr-See was here; he’d like tasting this new thing. Suddenly, she wasn’t hungry anymore. She retreated, leaving the turtle’s corpse behind.

Trill didn’t know how long she’d been here. Sometimes the sun was out, sometimes it was dark … the time between drifted by. She had to force herself to drink from streams, or wade into the shallows to fish.

A dragon that can’t fly will die. She was told as a hatchling, dragons who couldn’t fly lost the will to live. She began to think it was true the other way; dragons who lost the will to live could no longer fly. Trill couldn’t care less about flying. It wasn’t as if she had anywhere to go.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want to die. Chirr-See wouldn’t want her to. She made herself eat and drink for his sake. Trill used her fire to hunt, boiling the water to stun fish. She felt guilty every time. After all, if it weren’t for Chirr-See, and his generosity, she’d have no fire to spare.

Trill would stare at the horizon, missing everyone so hard it hurt. Her grief and loneliness were like a stone in her chest, making it feel tighter and tighter, until she had to roar. Then the stupid birds that were not good to eat fluttered all around her, a cacophony of squawking, until she lashed her wings and tail out to drive them away.

One evening, she retreated to her cave, sensing a change in the air. It smelled like rain, and the clouds overhead were thick and heavy.

She was woken by the storm. Her hunger returned, but she wouldn’t be able to hunt in this weather. Wind howled and rain crashed down. A bolt of lightning flashed in the sky, startling her, and the rumble of thunder followed soon after. Huge waves surged across the ocean.

There was something on the water, getting tossed about. Even her keen sight couldn’t see through the driving rain, but a flash illuminated everything, and Trill glimpsed a floating wood-nest. It was small, but she growled nonetheless. How had the wingless ones found her?

The wood-nest came closer and closer to shore; there were a lot of rocks there, under the water. The big leaf, or wing, or whatever it was, waved about in the wind. It was pushed by the waves towards the island, but suddenly lurched and stopped dead. She heard a screech.

A wingless one climbed over the side, slipped into the water and vanished. Before she could feel relieved, it reappeared, struggling towards dry land. Trill’s head got soaked as she watched it swim.

The wingless one dragged itself onto the bank. It stood up and screamed nonsense sounds at the floating-nest, then moved out of sight. Trill retreated into her cave, reassured a little by knowing that even if the wingless one was alive, there was only one of the horrid creatures here, and it was out in the rain, whilst she could stay dry.

Living aboard the Tenebra was easy, all things considered. It hadn’t taken long for Eleyna to get her sea legs, and she’d only had to help sail the ship very occasionally. It wasn’t as simple to steer this boat on her own.

The Acorazaria was large enough for two people; one to steer, and one to trim the sail. Eleyna had to do both; when she trimmed the sail, she had to let go of the tiller and the waves pushed it the wrong way. So she had to let go of the rope to move it back again, and the wind swung the boat the other way. Eventually, she found the right cleats to fasten the ropes into place with.

Judging by the crates of nets and tackle, it was a fishing boat. Except that even if she caught any fish, she had no way of cooking them. Before taking this dinghy and heading out to sea, Eleyna had stolen some boucan, hard-tack and four bottles of water. They wouldn’t last long, but her plan was to head for the nearby island of Limuanes, and buy more supplies when she got there.

To this end she’d also taken a money pouch off a drunk who didn’t notice her swiping his purse. If he couldn’t get booze then he’d not drink himself to death, so really she’d been doing him a favour. Eleyna almost felt jealous of the guy. She had to wait until her thirst was unbearable before taking a swig.

The hot sun beat down; it made the ocean glisten prettily, but Eleyna had too much of a headache to notice. She stripped off her shirt and clumsily hacked away the bottom half, leaving her midriff bare. Then she tied the piece of cloth over her head as a bandana. It protected her scalp, at least.

Eleyna nibbled at her meagre rations, full of frustration. “It’s not fair. Is this a punishment, Judge?” she demanded. “Are you having a laugh? Everyone abandons – ” She stopped herself with a resigned sigh.

Every heave of her boat sent water sloshing over the side. It wasn’t long before she was splashing through a shallow pool; fortunately her boots were waterproof. Eleyna found a bucket and started bailing. It was slow work and it hurt her back, and she kept having to stop in order to trim the sail.

As if her luck couldn’t get any worse, the sail went limp, and stayed that way. Her boat was becalmed. “Oh, great,” she moaned. All she could do now was wait for the wind to pick up again, and hopefully not change direction. At least she had plenty of time to bail out the rest of the seawater in the boat.

At last she got most of the water out, but the wind had still not picked up. She tried to remember what Fabian said the wind lespri was called. “Um, Vanan?” she called. “If you could blow me towards Limuanes, I’d really appreciate it … please?” Nothing happened. The sail didn’t so much as stir.

Eleyna sighed. If only she’d asked how to pray to the wind lespri, or summon him. There might have been a prayer, or ritual, maybe a shanty like the one sung to Lanméa. There had been plenty of chances for her to ask Fernando or Fabian more about the lespri, but Eleyna hadn’t bothered.

Stuck for things to do, Eleyna decided to double-check her maps, and figure out her position as best she could. To her dismay, it appeared that the dinghy had drifted whilst becalmed. She was off course, more than ever.

In fact, it seemed she was closer to Hove Island than to Limuanes. Eleyna made a decision, spurred in no small part by her overbearing thirst. It made more sense to head for Hove Island and resupply with plenty of fresh water, than to try and struggle her way to Limuanes on three paltry bottles alone.

Make that two bottles. “Hove Island it is,” she declared, having drained the last of one.

The breeze wafted her hair into her eyes; she brushed it away impatiently. Then she realised … there was a breeze, the wind had picked up! Eleyna leapt to her feet as the sail filled. Luckily it was blowing in the right direction, more or less. After trimming the sail, she hurried over to move the tiller.

Eleyna had some choice words for sea lespri and wind lespri and their bickering that woke storm lespri. The sky had darkened, and now the wind blew harder than ever, tossing the waves and anything on them. At least she’d had the wit to lash herself tight to the mast with a spare coil of rope.

Her boat pitched and rolled, often crashing right through the waves, soaking her to the skin. All her efforts in bailing out had gone to waste. She was going the right way, having lashed the tiller into place, but if the wind changed there was no way she’d be able to tack against it in this weather.

The sail was half furled; folds of it snapped back and forth. Eleyna had begun to secure it, only to worry the boat would be swept further from her destination. Splashing through water up to her shins, and coming in over her head, Eleyna risked letting it out more. She tried to slowly ease it out, but wind filled the sail and made it billow, dragging the rope through her palms.

Wincing at the sting, Eleyna fell to her knees. The bucket floated past her; she grabbed it and tossed the water overboard. The boat lurched again as the wind dragged it over the crest of a wave. Eleyna poured another bucketful overboard and vomited what little was in her stomach.

The Tenebra had sailed through many storms, and Eleyna never enjoyed them. Yet at this moment, she would give anything to be safe inside a dry and solid cabin, with nothing to do but hang on tight, and leave the business of sailing to the pirates. She bailed desperately, but the rain replaced the water faster than she could get rid of it.

Lightning flashed somewhere above her, and she glimpsed a large mass looming on the horizon. Close enough to reach, she realised. Hove Island rose ahead like a huge, lumpy, rocky beacon of safety.

She was off course, the wind set to blow her past the island. Eleyna waded to the tiller and heaved with all her might, but it was stuck fast. She’d tied it into place; the ropes were now sodden and drawn tight, the knots impossible to pick apart. Eleyna pulled out her new dagger and sawed at one rope, until it snapped and the tiller swung loose.

The boat pivoted as a wave surged beneath it, and the mast fell precariously sideways. “No, no, no, no!” Eleyna cried out, scrambling to grab a rope, and leaned backwards as far as she could. To her relief, waves rocked the boat the other way, and it didn’t tip over.

She fell back against the bulkhead. Ignoring her bruises, she hurried back to the tiller. The island grew closer, but a flash of lightning illuminated a treacherous reef just offshore. She was on the wrong side, and pushed the tiller the other way. It was too late. The wind and tide dragged her boat towards Hove Island, and it wouldn’t turn.

No matter how she struggled, she couldn’t stop the boat from approaching the rocks. By some inexplicable stroke of luck, the dinghy floated past rocks sticking out of the water. It was low, weighed down by the ocean that had flooded it. Eleyna screamed, thrown off her feet as – with a sickening crunch – it struck a submerged rock.

There was nothing else for it; she had to abandon ship. Hefting her rucksack, she climbed onto the bulkhead, peering nervously into the water. She took a deep breath and lowered herself over the side. The water was deep and cold. Eleyna slipped down all at once, gasping.

She gulped in a breath and swam to shore, waves swamping her every other moment. At last her feet struck pebbles and gritty sand. She dragged herself onto the bank where the tide hadn’t reached.

Eleyna’s stomach clenched as she threw up seawater, before collapsing on her back. Thunder rumbled in the sky, and a headache was thumping with equal enthusiasm inside her skull. After she gathered the strength to get up, Eleyna looked back towards the dinghy. A boat that had been named after a prayer to a deity for protection. So much for that. “Are you happy now?!” she yelled at the storm. “Having fun ruining my life?! It wasn’t even my boat!”

Her only answer was another flash of lightning. Eleyna glimpsed the dinghy’s sail flapping in the wind; she’d forgotten to reef it. She wasn’t about to go back, so headed inland, in search of the island’s stream. She’d never walked to it from this shore, much less during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night.

Thirst spurred Eleyna on, until eventually she stumbled into the stream. She filled her bottles and gulped the liquid down; it was the sweetest thing she’d tasted for hours. Thirst slaked, her thoughts turned to being dry and warm, and she searched until she found a boulder that sheltered her from the wind, close to a palm with broad fronds that gave a little shelter from the rain.

Eleyna gathered stones and palm fronds to build a fire, rummaging for a piece of flint. For a moment, Eleyna knelt there and stared at it. She’d packed this flint when she left her home on Atanes. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Picking up another stone, Eleyna scraped the flint against it, until a spark caught on the dry foliage. By the time a decent fire was built up, she could barely keep her eyes open and lay down, using her backpack as a pillow.

Eleyna woke, clothes dried by the sun and the fire long-since doused. Cockatrices flitted between the tree trunks above her head, screeching. She decided to ignore them, and ate a piece of boucan. It was salty and hard to chew, but lousy food was better than no food at all. Now what do I do?

Getting stranded hadn’t been part of her plan. Eleyna decided to go back to the boat and see if there was a way to salvage it. For all she knew, the hull wasn’t breached, but only stuck on the rocks. Before leaving, she peeled away a bit of bark from the trunk, and tied her bandana to it as a marker.

Satisfied, Eleyna shouldered her backpack and set off towards the western shore. The high tide had receded; beyond the beach were rocks covered in barnacles and algae, still half-submerged. She stared in dismay at the dinghy, her worst fear unfolding before her eyes. The rock had pierced it; the hull was splintered and cracked. Undoubtedly the bilge had flooded as well.

The boat was in no way seaworthy. Her hands curled into fists. Aunt Cat once told her, “The Rogue helps those who fend for themselves.”She had to get the dinghy off that rock and onto the beach, patch the damage somehow, and leave Hove Island. She had lost too much to give up now.

When Trill woke, the air smelled fresh after last night’s storm. It was pleasant enough that for a moment she felt content; until the emptiness at her side made guilt creep back like a stalking predator. She emerged from the cave, keeping low, and looked at the shore. The wood-nest was stuck on a rock, but there was no sign of the wingless one that had swum to shore.

If it was on the island, she’d have to search further afield for prey, which meant flying. Trill hadn’t flown since she first fled the wingless ones who killed Chirr-See. For the first time she worried; what if her wings had grown even weaker, and she could no longer fly? Trill had exiled herself to this island, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be trapped here without choice.

First she had a drink, then stretched her wings and scented the air. There was a strong wind blowing that would carry her, or so Trill hoped. With a deep breath, she leapt into the air, beating her wings hard to stay aloft. For a terrible moment she faltered, and felt like she would drop out of the sky.

Thankfully, the wind caught her and Trill made a clumsy ascent. She glided over the ocean. The seabirds nesting on the island were good for one thing; leading hungry dragons to prey, since they were not good to eat themselves. Sure enough, a flock of them were circling and diving below the water’s surface further out. When Trill’s shadow fell over them, the birds scattered.

Below she made out the silvery glint of a shoal, pushed together by a pod of dolphins. They darted aside when her paws grasped at the shoal, piercing fish with her claws. She ate her meagre catch and dove again until her hunger was sated. Already her wings were tiring, so Trill returned to her cave. Much to her relief, there was no sign the wingless one had discovered it.

She wished her fear of wingless ones had been this strong before. Knowing one was here made her nervous … but it was only one. Other islands were home to many wingless ones, and she was too ashamed to go home. Trill decided to stay for now, and keep an eye out for the wingless one’s tricks.

With nothing better to do but watch for a threat, she breathed fire to warm the ground beneath her. Or at least she tried to, but her first breath yielded no flame, nor did her second. Trill snarled and breathed out the longest breath she could. Fire burst all around her. When the same thing happened to Chirr-See, she’d laughed at him. How she wished she could apologise.

Her fire was running out. I shouldn’t have wasted it, she realised, wings slumped. If I can’t breathe fire, how will I defend myself? She should have made do; after all, she needed the gas in her belly to fly. Now she needed to breathe fire as well. She needed a firestone, but the only place she knew of where any might be found was the island where Chirr-See had died.