Dolph hadn’t had so much as a sip of water for two days. None of them had. And that was a serious problem.
When the food ran out five days ago, Squid had crossed her arms and said, “We’re all used to going hungry. An empty belly won’t hurt us, not for a while.”
But water was a different matter. Even in the leanest winters down south, when shipfolk had died by the dozens, there’d been plenty of water.
To make it worse, for the last few days there’d been a constant rattling in the ship’s pipes—not proper messages, just nonsense to stop them communicating with the rest of the crew. Dolph thought that a few of the Cooks were still holding out, and maybe one other lot of Officers, but she couldn’t be sure.
And now Skua had taken to mocking them from the other side of the barricade. “Water, sweet water,” he shouted, every few hours. “All you can drink! What, you don’t want any? Then I’ll have to drink it all myself.” He made loud glugging sounds. “Ooooh, that is so good.”
Dolph and Squid stood firm. But for Minke and her friends, Skua’s mockery was the last straw. Hard-faced and dry-tongued, they advanced on the two young women.
“Move aside,” said Minke over the rattling of the pipes. “We’re taking the barricade down.”
“No,” said Dolph, though it hurt her throat to speak.
“Krill’s not coming back,” said Minke. “He’s dead.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Squid.
“The barricade stays,” said Dolph with as much authority as she could muster.
“You can’t keep us here,” said Minke.
Dolph shrugged. “If you want to go, then go. But Squid and I ain’t joining Albie, not for anything.”
At that, Minke and her friends backed off, whispering among themselves. But then they came forward again, their faces harder than ever.
“You two can stay here and die,” said Minke, “but we’re going. Let us through.”
Dolph and Squid looked at each other—and nodded.
They had to take part of the barricade down to let the others out. They worked quickly and silently, hoping that Albie and Skua were off somewhere else, bullying folk, and wouldn’t take this moment to launch an attack.
They had just removed one of the largest bits of driftwood, which had been braced hard against the base of the bulkhead, when Dolph thought she heard a scraping sound, like something being dragged.
She held up her hand. “Wait.” And despite everything, there was still enough of Orca in her to make Minke hesitate.
Next to Dolph’s foot, right where the driftwood had been jammed in place, a screw turned. A patch of bulkhead was lifted out of the way by small paws. Dolph thought she saw the flash of a tiny screwdriver. Then that disappeared, and Missus Slink came into sight, with a sealskin harness around her chest and a large water flask dragging behind her.
If Albie had attacked at that moment, no one would have been capable of stopping him. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t speak. They just stood there, open-mouthed and staring.
“And about time, too,” said Missus Slink, stepping crossly out of the harness. “I’ve been banging out messages to you for hours but couldn’t make myself heard over that stupid rattling.” She peered up at their stunned faces, then pointed to the water flask. “Well? I thought you were thirsty.”
* * *
Sharkey almost didn’t recognize the sunkers. They stumbled into the quarry like sleepwalkers, a hundred or so of them, their faces as gray as the rags they wore. The babies were crying. The middies and the old salts looked as if they didn’t have a hope in the world.
“What’s the matter with ’em?” whispered Sharkey.
“Don’t reckon they’re getting enough to eat, poor things,” replied Petrel. “They look worse than shipfolk after a long, hard winter.”
“Nay.” Sharkey shook his head. “Sunkers don’t despair just ’cos they’re hungry. Sunkers are as tough as sharkskin, as strong as iron. They never give up—”
Fin interrupted him. “They will have been told about the attack on the Claw. The guards like to gloat over such things. They probably believe that you and Cuttle and Gilly are dead.”
Sharkey must have made a noise of some sort, because Rain touched his shoulder. “Do not worry. We will get them out.”
But that wasn’t enough for Sharkey. He stared down into the quarry with a sick feeling in his belly. It was a mixture of anger and helplessness, and when he spotted Poddy, looking as gray and beaten as the rest of the Sunkers, it grew even worse.
He hated feeling helpless. He wanted to do something, like—like stand up, right there and then, and shout, “I’m here, Pod! I’m alive, and so’re Gilly and Cuttle! And the Claw’s just a couple of hours away, a bit battered but still watertight. Don’t despair! Don’t despair!”
He didn’t do it, of course. There was a score of Ghosts below, most of them with cudgels. Not Ghosts. Devouts, he reminded himself. Humans.
There were beasts down there too, as big as turtles—nay, bigger. More like small dolphins, only with four legs and wicked teeth.
“Dogs,” whispered Rain, beside him. “Vicious dogs.”
Sharkey lay on the rim of the quarry, watching the dogs and the Devouts, seeing where they walked and what they did and whom they took notice of. After a few minutes, he whispered, “Mister Smoke, you see Poddy down there? Could you sneak close to her and tell her we’re all alive still, and no serious damage to the Claw?”
“I’m not sure that’s wise, lad,” said Krill.
Sharkey suspected that the big man was right. But he still had that desperate need to do something, so he ignored his misgivings and said to the rat, “Tell Poddy we’re here to get ’em out.”
“Aye, shipmate,” said Mister Smoke, and he dashed away.
In the sky above the Citadel, an enormous flock of pigeons wheeled and turned in silence. But down in the quarry, the noise was rising. The stronger prisoners used saws and chisels to cut blocks out of the quarry wall. The middies and the weaker adults gathered smaller bits of stone and hammered them to chips. Before long, everyone was so covered in rock dust that Sharkey struggled to recognize them.
Still, he managed to pick out Poddy’s parents, and Cuttle’s and Gilly’s, and all his aunts and uncles and cousins. With a flood of relief, he realized that almost everyone had survived. The feeling of helplessness lessened.
Can’t wait to see Gilly’s face, he told himself, and Cuttle’s too, when they find out their ma and fa are alive.
He heard a gasp from Rain. “There is Bran! Over there!”
Rain’s brother stood beside one of the Gho— beside one of the Devouts, wearing brown robes that were too big for him. His shoulders were hunched, and his feet scuffed the dirt. As Sharkey watched, the Devout leaned over and said something, and Bran immediately stood up straight and stiff, as if he were trying to be something he wasn’t.
“Where’s Mister Smoke?” whispered Petrel. “Cap’n, can you see him?”
“He is approaching a girl,” said the silver child. He indicated a spot not far from Bran. “Is that Poddy?”
“Aye,” said Sharkey grimly.
His cousin was pounding stones to chips, her head bowed, her spine a curve of grief. Her arm rose and fell as if it weighed a ton.
Sharkey saw the exact moment when she spotted the rat. For a split second, her hammer hesitated in midair—then it fell, exactly as it had done so many times before. Her head was still bowed. The curve of her spine looked as heartbroken as ever.
But now, beneath that heartbreak there was something else.
Hope.
She shuffled to one side and bent her head, as if she were trying to come at the stones from a different angle. Or as if she were listening to a small, rough voice and hearing the truth about what had happened to the Claw.
And then the hammer was lying idle in her hands, and she was talking, very quickly and quietly. Sharkey could see her lips moving, and the urgency of it, and the way her eyes flickered from side to side, watching the guards, checking to see that they weren’t watching her.
Sharkey held his breath. There was something happening over at the other side of the quarry. One of the Sunkers had blood running down his arm. A Devout was standing over him, ordering him back to work.
“That is not right,” said the silver child, half rising to his feet. “He is injured. He needs medical treatment—”
“Shh, Cap’n!” said Krill, pulling him down again.
The other guards were scanning the prisoners, in case they took this as an excuse to stop work. No one seemed to have spotted Poddy—no one except Bran, who ducked his head and stared at the ground. Beside Sharkey, Rain was singing under her breath, her eyes fixed on her little brother.
At last Poddy raised her hammer and went back to bashing at the stone. At the same time, she whispered something to the person next to her, who passed it on to the next person and the next and the next.
It was like the turning of a tide, subtle but strong. Folk still stumbled from one rock to the other. Their shoulders still sagged. Their faces still seemed hopeless and defeated.
But Sharkey knew better. The Sunkers had woken up.
Poddy, at the center of it, was pounding away with her hammer as if the crumbling rock was Brother Thrawn’s head. She must have thought she’d got away with that brief stoppage. No one had shouted at her. No one had dragged her to the whipping posts.
All the same, the sick feeling in Sharkey’s gut suddenly grew worse. It was a mistake, he thought, sending Mister Smoke down into the quarry. I should’ve listened to Krill.
He was right. The guard next to Bran grabbed the boy’s shoulder and said something.
Bran shook his head. No. No!
But the guard was nodding. Yes! And pointing at Poddy. He had seen her stop work; he must’ve been watching out of the corner of his eye, waiting for Bran to report her.
Except Bran hadn’t reported her. Now both he and Poddy were in trouble, and it was Sharkey’s fault.
“No,” he whispered.
“No,” breathed Rain, her eyes fixed on her little brother.
“Steady,” growled Krill. “Remember the plan.”
The guard hustled Bran over to where Poddy was smashing rocks. When she saw them, her hammer faltered and her shoulders hunched, as if she were trying to hide. The guard shouted at her. His voice was drowned out by the wind and the hammering, but his meaning was clear. He hauled Poddy to her feet and began to drag the two children towards the whipping posts.
Behind him, every single prisoner laid down his or her hammer and chisel.
The sudden silence was like a blow. Sharkey’s ears rang with it. And they rang again when the guards began yelling and lashing out with their cudgels.
Still, no one picked up a tool. The prisoners stood, ragged and stubborn, their faces as hard as the rock behind them, their eyes fixed on Poddy and the guard who held her.
Sharkey felt a moment of intense pride. But then the guard shouted again. And this time his voice carried right up to the lip of the quarry.
“She is to be punished for stopping work. Fifteen lashes of the whip. The boy will be punished for not reporting her. He has been warned before. Five lashes of the whip.”
“No,” said Rain, and a sob caught in her throat. “That is too cruel!”
The guard continued. “And if you lot do not get back to work, the punishment will be doubled. For both of them.”
For a long moment, no one moved. Then, down in the quarry, Admiral Deeps stepped forward, her voice strong. “She’s too young for fifteen lashes. I’ll take her punishment. I’ll take it for both of ’em.”
It just about tore the breath out of Sharkey’s lungs to hear those words. Shook him from head to toe. Made him realize for the first time ever what being an admiral was about. It wasn’t just the respect and the admiration. It wasn’t just the power either. Admiral Deeps was looking after her people. She was stepping in to save them.
Except it wasn’t going to work. The guard sneered at her. “You can be whipped as well, if that is your fancy,” he cried, and his fellow guards laughed. “Or you can have this for free.”
And he raised his cudgel and knocked her down.
Sharkey was on his feet in an instant. He wasn’t the only one. Rain scrambled up too, saying, “We must stop them!”
Petrel and Fin pulled them down. “We can’t, not till tonight! That’s the plan, remember?” Petrel said.
“We cannot wait till tonight,” cried Rain. “We must do something now, before they are hurt!”
“She is right,” said the silver captain. “They should not be whipped.”
“Shhh!” said Krill. “Keep your voices down!”
It was then that Mister Smoke returned, trotting towards them with his ragged coat covered in rock dust. “Poddy says there’s a secret tunnel, shipmates—”
“She’s going to be whipped,” said Sharkey. “They saw her stop work. I shouldn’t have sent you.”
“—up the road at the camp where they sleep. The prisoners’ve dug it as far as the shoreline—”
“Didn’t you hear me?” said Sharkey.
“—but they can’t use it, ’cos the guards are out there all night and every night with their dogs. They need a diversion, something that’ll give ’em time to—”
“A diversion,” cried Rain. “That is what we want now!”
Sharkey wanted to save Rain’s little brother almost as much as he wanted to save Poddy. But for all his anger and guilt, his clever mind would not stop working. “No, we’d be caught in an instant. And that wouldn’t do anyone any good.”
“But we have to do something!”
“Shhh!” warned Krill.
Too late. One of the guards raised his head and stared up at the cliff top. Then he began to shout.
There was no time for discussion. Mister Smoke dived into the undergrowth, and Petrel threw the bag of masks after him. Krill leaped to his feet with amazing agility for such a big man. Sharkey grabbed Rain’s hand, and they ran for their lives.
It wasn’t until they were a hundred yards away that he realized the others weren’t with them.