Storm Holt (The Prophecies of Zanufey Book 3) (17 page)

‘I had to get the rigging off my legs. I was so weak it took me maybe an hour to work a hand free so I could reach my knife. It took another hour to cut loose that darn thick rope. I’d cut most of it off when the cursed knife slipped out of my hands and sank. Luckily I managed to wriggle out of the rest and dragged myself onto the wreckage. My legs were so numb I couldn’t feel them, but it felt so good to finally be out of the water.
 

‘By that time the sun was setting, and I saw the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. The whole sky turned from gold to red to pink. A sunset in the middle of the ocean is far more spectacular than on land. Then I realised that when it was gone it would be dark and I would be alone. Alone out on that vast ocean, on a tiny bit of wreckage waiting for my death. I think I was more scared then than when the Dread Dragons came. As it got dark, I prayed like I never had before. I think I prayed more that night than a priest does in his whole lifetime.’

Rasia laughed. It made him smile, glad to bring a little joy into her life.

‘It’s funny, how terrified I was then of the dark and the sea. Me, an Atalanphian, afraid of the ocean and darkness. I’ve never felt so small and alone in my entire life. I couldn’t sleep for the terror of what might be moving beneath me. It was only when those horrible long hours of darkness passed and the dawn came did I fall asleep.
 

‘When I next awoke I faced my fifth death. I was dying. Ironically I would not die of drowning, but of dehydration. There was not a cloud in that beautiful dawn sky, nothing to even suggest the rain I so desperately needed. I remember feeling my body slowly shutting down. I wondered if I should take my own life and beat death to it. My situation was utterly hopeless, but at least I would be in charge of my final demise.’
 

He couldn’t help it but his voice broke then at the memory of it. He put his head in his palm as the overwhelming emotions flowed through him. Rasia squeezed his shoulder. The emotions subsided, and he continued when his voice was calm.

‘I gave up. Every time I tried to drink sea water I choked it back up. I had no knife or weapon to cut myself. I had only two choices, jump off the wreckage and drown, or stay on the wreckage and die slowly. I decided to leave the wreckage, after all the efforts I’d gone through to stay on it.

‘The sun was setting again by the time I decided to leave my home. Honestly, I was so delirious from dehydration I could barely string two thoughts together. It was the delirium that blessedly numbed the fear. It would be a race to the death between the time it took to drown, and the time it took for dehydration to kill me. I slipped into the water, it was so cold. I clung to wreckage for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. I hated Doon then, hated him for making me suffer all the deaths under the sun and moons.

‘I actually don’t remember letting go. I think I must have drifted off to sleep briefly when it happened. I don’t know how long I was floating for. I remembered fading in and out of consciousness. I only really woke up when I slipped beneath the surface.’

Rasia was white-faced, clearly lost in the horror of his story.

‘I remember seeing the brightest stars above the surface, so beautiful. I was too weak to swim, and I just sank into the dark without a struggle, but always I looked up at the stars as they dimmed. Then the stars grew brighter again, and they’d changed from silver white to purple and blue. They were moving too. They grew brighter and bigger, and then they were all around me. I closed my eyes then. I thought the stars had come to take me home, to the One Source - and by Doon was I ready.

‘Everything was so strange. I remembered suddenly being able to breath and yet I moved deep in the ocean. I just couldn’t work anything out. The purple and blue lights were no longer stars but these beautiful fish dolphin-like beings. They had an intelligent human feel to them.’

‘The Wykiry,’ Rasia gasped.

Bokaard nodded and blinked back tears of wonder. ‘Yes. But I did not realise that at the time, I was so delirious. I thought I had died, and these star-beings had come to take me home. Looking back I realise it was the Wykiry. They had come to me. In Atalanph we say the Wykiry are angels, they come to help souls lost at sea. Now I believe those sayings. Whatever it is they do, magic or otherwise, I could breathe underwater in their presence. They carried me through the ocean, a long way it seemed. I wish I could have stayed conscious for it but, I was spent.
 

‘They left me on the shore where a river empties into the sea, and I think they knew to find me water. I did awake again, alone, and when I gulped that water down I felt life returning to me once more. The water gave me enough strength to find food. I ate seaweed and mussels. Raw of course, yum.’

Rasia grimaced, Bokaard laughed.
 

‘They aren’t too bad, just very salty. I knew I was on Frayon but I had no idea where. All I could do was hazard a guess. It was overcast and there was no sun, but what shadows there were told me I was on the west coast. I reasoned I must be far north because of where we’d entered the Lost Sea on our ships. I started walking due south as soon as I had the energy. I came across a hermit madder than I’d become. He pointed me towards the closest town some thirty miles or so away, and told me it was called Wenderon. I remembered Marakon saying that is where you and the boys were. It took me two days to get here without boots, and the rest is… well, you know,’ he smiled.

Rasia shook her head in wonder. ‘Last night you looked so exhausted I barely recognised you. The neighbours came knocking, said there was an Atalanphian man looking for me. I had no idea who it was.’

‘It’s been several years since we last saw each other, and I feel I’ve lost half my body weight since the Dread Dragons destroyed my ship,’ Bokaard said.

‘We’ll have a roast tonight, as big as I can cook,’ Rasia said.

‘That would be amazing,’ Bokaard said, already looking forward to it. ‘All I can say is that I gave up hope so many times, and still I survived, against all odds. I’m not a wizard or a visionary, and I cannot tell if Marakon lives or not. But I know he is one lucky bastard, and if it were me I would not give up hope.’

Rasia smiled, blinked back the tears again. ‘You know it’s funny. He’s a soldier, as was I before our boys came. I always knew he would likely die in battle, and had prepared myself for it over the years. But a ship wreck… not knowing whether he lives or not, that is harder. I cannot mourn him or let him go. I can only live in hope, like you say.’ She stood up and tied her thick copper curls back into a ponytail. Her face was pale and drawn, but she was still handsome and held herself proudly. Her strong broad shoulders spoke of her soldier’s training.

‘Stay with us, as long as you want,’ she said. ‘As you can see we have plenty of room. It will do the boys good to have a man around the house’

‘Marakon’s done well for himself,’ Bokaard agreed, taking in their big kitchen and large garden. He’d had his own room last night, and a big comfy bed to sleep in. The best rest he’d had in five years. They even had a complicated system of running water. From what he could tell it was certainly one of the bigger houses in town.

‘I’d rather we lived together in a hovel than in this big house and me alone,’ Rasia said.

‘Of course,’ Bokaard said. ‘I’ll stay until I’m fit, if that’s good with you. After then I must return to the Feylint Halanoi in Port Nordanstin and report what happened.’

‘If it weren’t for the boys, I’d come with you. I miss being on the field. I miss being an archer,’ Rasia mused watching her boys still chasing each other in the garden.

‘After everything that’s happened I think I’d rather be here,’ Bokaard said.
 

Rasia laughed. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

Bokaard lay awake in his big bed. His belly was still full after two heaped plates of the delicious roast dinner Rasia had cooked earlier. He was tired, but couldn’t sleep at this time - most Atalanphians would be up and about right now. They lived and slept twice in a day. Sleeping from noon until dusk and then again for a couple of hours in the night. But he was still exhausted after his ordeal.
 

The muffled sound of Rasia crying in the next room kept him worrying. She would be all right, in time. He couldn’t comfort her anymore than he had. For all the odds against him, he could still imagine Marakon walking through that front door. With a defeated sigh he swung his stiff and sore legs out of bed, and pulled on his clothes, Marakon’s clothes that Rasia had given him. They would have been tight had he not lost so much weight but they fit fine now.
Slender elves.
Bokaard grinned as he did up the shirt buttons. He pulled on his boots and coat in the kitchen, and tiptoed outside into the night.

He immediately shivered.
This damn country is so cold this far north.
He pulled up his collar and breathed in the fresh salty air. The big house behind him was on a hill overlooking the town of Wenderon and Wenderon Bay. The town hugged the near perfect semi-circle of the bay, and most of the lights were off apart from some taverns. The house was dark save for the candle alight in Rasia’s window. He sighed, feeling sorry for her all alone here. He was glad he’d left no one at home. When you spent so long at sea it was hard to find a partner anyway.

He turned away from the house and walked up the path that led to a low point on the cliff. He sat down on a cold slab of stone and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the surf. It pleased him, that sound, it meant he was on land again. After all that had happened he didn’t ever want to get in another ship. But it was unlikely the Halanoi would let him be anything else other than a captain. The night was overcast, but Doon appeared from behind a cloud.

Bokaard blinked up at the bright moon. ‘You’re late tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you for hearing my prayers.’ He felt silly talking to the moon, but if the prayers he’d spoken so fervently when he was dying alone on the ocean had been heard, then he was eternally grateful. He felt peace come over him then. A content kind of knowing he had not really felt before.
 

‘If you’re listening, then maybe you can help my friend Marakon if he is still out there. No matter how I think of it, I cannot imagine him dead.’ He looked across the ocean. ‘I survived against all odds, so too can he.’

IT was the smell that drove Edarna on. Not a nice smell, a dead rotting putrid smell that wafted through the trees like a dense fog. It got her all excited.

‘Urgh, what is this,’ Naksu gagged, holding the hem of her blue robe over her mouth.

‘Well, this is what you can expect whenever you
walk
anywhere - dead things,’ Edarna scoffed.

‘Whatever has died must have been huge. This stench has been around here for most of the day, and I think it’s getting stronger,’ Naksu said.

Over the next hour, as they followed the thin trail through the forest, the smell did indeed reach retching proportions. Even Edarna had to cover her face with her shawl. As the smell ripened exponentially they began to pass broken and mangled trees. Huge pines and thick oaks were snapped in two like a giant had stomped on them.

‘Look, this happened recently. The leaves on the broken bits are still green and the exposed bark is fresh,’ Edarna pointed out.
 

They carried on through patches of destruction. Here and there black scorch marks seared the earth and trunks. The charred smell of wood smoke was a welcome dampener on the horrible rotting dead smell. Whatever it was, it was going to be useful to any witch, Edarna thought and grinned.

‘There’s a clearing up ahead.’ Naksu pointed to where the sunlight was bright beyond the trees. Edarna hastened towards it.

‘Wait,’ Naksu said. ‘We should be cautious. Whatever did this may still be here.’

‘Whatever did this is dead or gone,’ Edarna corrected. ‘I’ve seen Dread Dragon destruction on Celene, and it was just like this. The scorch marks, the broken trees - all the same. Dragons did this, and if they were still here you would have seen them hours ago.’