Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (40 page)

‘Sea-wolves!’ Roiks shouted over the growing buzz of voices, causing several of the mages to stand closer to the railing.

Farden watched as another four whales darted underneath the ship. They were huge still, but not quite as large as he had expected. ‘I thought whales were supposed to be harmless,’ he said.

Eyrum was striding up the steps to the aftcastle. ‘Until you try to harm them. These are the blackfish.
Orca
, the dragons call them. Forbidden to hunt. Farfallen used to say that these whales had dragon souls in them.’

‘Njord’s creatures,’ said Lerel.

Nuka was counting the whales as they circled the ship. ‘Dragon teeth too, if you’re ever unlucky enough to find out. Vicious creatures. They even eat their own kind,’ he said gruffly, sounding very suddenly like the whaler he had once been.

Eyrum snorted at that. ‘Bah. Myth,’ he scoffed.

Nuka shook his head. ‘I’ve seen it, Siren. They eat their own kind.’

‘They’re intelligent creatures. Not mindless thugs.’

‘And you’re telling me no dragon, no wild wyrm, has ever eaten another dragon?’ asked the captain.

Eyrum didn’t reply to that.

‘Ready the bows!’ ordered Nuka. ‘Be ready to send them packing!’ Farden flinched at that order. He could see a little grimace flash across Lerel’s face too.

‘Surely they can’t hurt the
‘Blade
?’ asked the mage.

‘I won’t take any chances. There’s a dozen of them by my count, and there’s a reason they call them sea-wolves. They hunt like a pack and make waves that can roll a boat over.’

‘But this isn’t a boat.’

‘True, but I’m still not taking any chances.’

Farden ventured a sudden idea. ‘Maybe they can help us,’ he suggested.

‘Help with what?’

Farden scratched his chin. He watched the black shapes circling the ship. Their fins were breaking the water now, like those of sharks. While the others ducked and dove and slapped the ship with their tails, a few others, their white bellies stippled with long scars, stayed a safe distance away. They gently bobbed up and down, pointing their strange sharp noses to the sky. Farden realised exactly what it looked like. Elders, watching the young playing a game. ‘You said yourself that we need to find thinner ice for the
‘Blade
to go ashore. Who could know better than these whales?’

‘I was going to use the gryphon. Or a dragon,’ replied Nuka, looking horrified by the idea of asking a whale for help. ‘They, at least, can talk.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Farden shrugged, tucking the spyglass into the inside of his cloak. ‘I’m going to go ask for directions.’

‘Mage,’ warned Nuka, as Farden practically jumped down the stairs. He wove through the crowds of people at the bulwarks, jostling his way to the front. Once there, he took one swift look at the freezing sea below him, grit his teeth, and hoisted himself up onto the railing, much to the gasping of those around him.

‘Man over the railing!’ yelled a nearby sailor, rushing to grab Farden and haul him back onto deck. The mage just batted him away and kept moving. He was now clinging to one of the stout metal shields that had been riveted to the side of the ship. This particular one was wobbling quite disconcertingly. Farden shimmied down a little further until his feet found the notches of a rough ladder.

‘Stop there, Farden!’ came Nuka’s order.

‘No,’ Farden replied, a little louder than perhaps he had intended. He stopped in his tracks as the crowd and crew about him bit their lips a little.

Nuka’s head popped over the railing. Eyrum’s followed. As did half the crew’s. ‘Nobody disobeys me on my own ship, mage. Get back aboard.’

‘Too late now,’ replied Farden, cursing himself for being absolutely right.

‘You stubborn b…’ began Nuka, but he was interrupted by a familiar voice from behind him. It sounded like Tyrfing. Farden could barely hear over the splashing of the waves and the whales. ‘There’s no use arguing…’ he was saying. He was right.

The orca had become curious now. A handful made one last pass beneath the ship, rocking her and making Farden’s hands shake, and then slowly, one by one, they began to gather beneath him. Their fins rose from the sea like sharp, black blades. Farden dared to look between his feet and saw one whale hugging the iron keel, staring up at him with a beady black eye marooned in a sea of white skin. It smiled with teeth not unlike those of the shark they had stewed not long ago. Farden’s heart was thumping, though he didn’t dare admit it. Not even to himself.

‘I’ll warn you not to get too close, Farden. They’re not called killer whales for no reason!’ ordered Nuka.

‘Be careful!’ came another cry, from somewhere in the crew.

Farden couldn’t help but stare back at the whale, almost mesmerised. He vaguely remembered a similar look passing between him and a wolf a long time ago, in the forest north of the Össfen Mountains, surrounded by snow and lazy sunlight. ‘They look harmless to me!’ he called up, trying to convince himself.

Above him, Nuka clicked his fingers. ‘Roiks!’

Somewhere behind him a foot stamped and a voice yelled, ‘Yessir!’

‘On the subject of whales, their habits and their behaviours, who would you pay more attention to? Your captain of nineteen years, former whaler, and all-round nautical authority, or a mage whose legs are as used to the sway of a deck as a pig is to perfume?’

Roiks answered very quickly indeed. ‘It’d have to be the first one, sir. You.’

‘Right you are,’ said Nuka, giving Farden a lingering, sour look. ‘Did you hear that, mage? Do as you’re told.’

Farden muttered something dark and not altogether compliant. He felt his old curiosity drawing him closer to the water and its sleek, piebald inhabitants. Much to the anger of the captain above him, he climbed further down’s the ship’s sheer flanks.

The water slid by at a speed that got more and more frightening with every step. One of the whales slid close and blew a fountain of air and steam from a strange hole in his back. It soaked Farden to the skin. He didn’t dare spare a hand to wipe his face. He simply held tight, and wondered why he could taste fish.

He vaguely heard the echoes of orders to bring in the sail. A few minutes of clinging later, he felt the
Waveblade
slow slightly. The orca could feel it too. Each of them swam a little closer to the ship, so tightly bunched and so numerous that Farden fancied he could step out and walk to the nearest chunk of ice without getting his feet wet. They swam on their sides so they could stare at the strange pale thing clinging to the side of the wooden, iron beast. Ponderously, they blew great plumes of water and breath. A few of the larger whales, elders as Farden had suspected, swam in circles around the main group.

It was only when the ship came to a near halt that one of them came close to examine the mage. There was a deep rumble from under the water, then a high-pitched whine. The other whales quickly parted like grass in a storm, leaving room for the largest whale to rise up out of the water; a glistening mass of slippery black and white, sporting a fin that was easily as tall as Farden. Its beady eyes were a sharp blue, and there was a pink scar that ran across its blunt nose like a moustache. Deep in its throat it uttered a low and long drone that made Farden’s skin shiver. He turned around as far as he could and then, for some reason, as if it were some sort of king that had risen from the deep, he bowed his head. The whale did not move, save for the gentle sway of its fins. It didn’t even blink. Farden opened his mouth to speak.

The whale beat him to it.

‘A brave one…’ it started, its words elongated and dragged out like dough over a hook. It had the guttural hiss of a throat not used to speaking, and yet had the booming resonance of an avalanche. Undoubtedly a male. ‘…are you.’

Farden was frozen in shock. He could hear the feverish muttering from the deck above. Disbelief hissed back and forth. He managed to form some words. ‘Thank you?’ he replied.

‘Man comes little to us now. Used to sing songs with us. Now avoid us. Hunt us,’ replied the whale. He looked to where Nuka stood at the railing. ‘We smell the blood on you.’

Farden involuntarily climbed one step higher. With a flick of its tail, the whale moved closer. Farden tried to avoid counting the rows of white teeth lining the creature’s pink mouth, but he couldn’t help it. Its tongue flicked back and forth. ‘What want you? Why you come?’

Perhaps it was the fierce look in the whale’s beady eyes. Perhaps it was how ancient and dusty his words sounded. Perhaps it was the shock that he could speak. Whatever it was, Farden felt he owed this creature the absolute truth. And so he told it. Farden nodded towards the ice cliffs in the far distance. ‘We’re going north to stop a girl from bringing the daemons down from the sky. She means to start a war.’

The whale rolled onto his side to look at the pale blue sky hanging above them. ‘Ah, the Othersea,’ he said. ‘We remember the day its stars were born. We remember the world before.’

Farden felt a sudden wave of dread as he abruptly realised he had no idea which side these whales were on. For all he knew, they were in league with the daemons. Advocates of their return. There was a tense moment, but then the whale turned back to the mage, and shook its head with a splash. ‘Fire and sea mix not.’

Farden almost wiped his brow ‘Does that mean you can help us?’ he asked. ‘We need to find where the ice thins out.’

The whale sighed through his strange blow-hole. Farden felt the cold spray on his cheek. ‘Felt dark things in water, have we. Old things. Old as us. Old as those on your ship.’ There was an uncomfortable silence aboard the
Waveblade
as the crew swapped frowns and confused glances. Tyrfing and Nuka pretended to do the same. The whale flashed a line of teeth. ‘We like them not. Fight them, if we need.’

‘Yes, but will you guide us to thinner ice? We can fight them with you, but we need to find land.’

The whale ducked his head under the water and Farden heard him singing his question to the others. It was an odd song, made of clicks and squeaks and notes so low that they would have given a dragon a run for its coin.

Soon enough, the verdict was in. The elder raised his head out of the water and clapped his fins on the surface. ‘We take you to where sea meets rock. But for us, you must sing.’

Farden grinned. ‘Sing?’ he asked.

‘Sing with us. When Othersea fades black. Like the old years. I smell sea in your blood. Sea and magick. You will sing like ancestors did.’

‘You name the song, whale, and we’ll sing it,’ Farden said, and then he did a bold thing. He reached out a hand toward the whale, drawing further mutterings and sharp words from the deck above. For a moment the whale refused to move. His blue eyes moved from the shiny red-gold of Farden’s gauntlet to its owner, and then back again. Then he slipped slowly forward, and lifted the tip of his nose to meet Farden’s hand. Even through the metal, he could feel how rough the whale’s nose was.

‘Felt that metal before, have we,’ he sighed, before he slipped back into the icy water. With a slap of his tail that soaked Farden and half those standing at the railing, the whale disappeared under the ship.

‘Well, that was certainly unexpected,’ Farden smirked as a few of the sailors hauled him over the railing. ‘Who’d have thought that whales could talk?’

‘If you were one of my men I’d have you flogged,’ Nuka glowered.

‘Luckily…’ Farden started, but the captain cut him off.

‘But you aren’t, so I’ll have to ask the Arkmage to make an exception,’ he said, turning to Tyrfing.

The Arkmage crossed his arms and shook his head. ‘He has enough scars,’ he answered.

‘Lucky indeed,’ Nuka threw up his hands and went back to his wheel, rattling off orders as he walked. ‘Man the masts, men. Apparently we have some whales to follow!’

Farden watched him go with a concerned face, hoping the man was simply over-tired. He was not the sort of man he wanted to lose as a friend.

‘Stupidity, bravery, and luck,’ his uncle was muttering hoarsely.

‘What’s that?’

Tyrfing tutted, and sauntered off. ‘Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between them.’

“Clap ye ears, lads, when the whales sing. Sing for ye soul they do, suck right of of ye body they will! Guard ye ears, boys, and keep that soul deep in ye chest, where it belongs.”

Words spoken by Fishmaster Boon, recorded in the year 412

I
t was a fine night for singing, according to the whales.

It was a cold night, that was for sure.

The north had swallowed them whole. They were embedded in it like an iron arrow in pale flesh. To say it snowed would be a drastic understatement. This snow fell like the world had never seen winter. It fell lazily, in great blankets and sheets, so thick and fluffy that when it finally alighted on the water, it refused to melt, freezing into slush instead. It was hard to see where the sea ended and the edge of the ice began. Nuka was having trouble seeing the bow, never mind the ice.

Fortunately, the
Waveblade
had its whales. Their black fins and noses cut little paths through the slush as they clicked and whined and warmed up their voices. The big elder, whom Farden had imaginatively dubbed Scarnose after finding that his real name was something utterly unpronounceable, something with far too many clicks and squeals for the human tongue to cope with, called out for the ship to stop, and stop she did. Lines and hooks were dropped and the whales took them in their teeth. One by one they dragged them ashore and tethered the ship in place, nuzzling the ice with her sharp bow.

‘We’ll need some wind to break into the ice,’ Nuka said, eyeing the fluffy sky.

‘Or a push,’ suggested Farden as he absently watched the cavorting whales.

Nuka made an uneasy face. Farden chuckled at his grumbling silence. The captain was still firmly clinging to that old whaler deep inside him, that old whaler that scowled and muttered every time one of the sleek beasts came near. He didn’t trust the whales one bit.

Farden, on the other hand, had spent the day mesmerised by them. As the whales had led them a merry path through the fields of towering icebergs, he had ensconced himself in a lower porthole and watched them sputter and sail and surge around the ship, his pipe and a certain rat his only company.