The Shattered Islands: Part One: The Rakam (2 page)

The man stiffens in my arms, fear and panic warring with indignant anger over his face. But he is more coward than fighter and he slumps against me, sniveling. "I just be looking is all. No harm meant."

I glance over his shoulder and see my trunk open, my few belongings smeared with his sweaty palm prints. "What were you looking for?" I ask, twisting him around and pinning him against the shell wall, my forearm crossing over his windpipe to keep him in place.

"Yer so much to yerself, me mates and I had a wager on what treasures ye keep hidden."

I nearly gag at the liquor on his breath. The sea swill they drink in these parts has a particularly fishy odor. "You're the one they call Clam, yes?"

He nods.

"And did you find hidden treasure?" I ask, knowing the answer.

He shakes his head, shells and bits of bone clanking together in his long, weedy beard and locks of hair.

"And will you be intruding on my space again, Clam?"

He shakes his head again and I bore into him with my eyes, with my purpose, until I smell the piss running down his legs. I let him go and push him toward the door of my cabin. "Tell your
mates
I like my privacy, and if any of you are found in here again, you'll soon find yourself rakam bait."

His eyes widen and he taps three fingers on his chest three times, a superstitious sign to ward off evil, and then trips over himself to escape my room. I hope my warning keeps him and his friends away. I hope it doesn't push them to more violent action.

I close the door behind him after he leaves, latching a small shell to a strip of kelp to keep it locked from inside, then I move with one long stride back to my trunk. I shove aside the clothing and feel for the small lever that pops open the floorboard compartment. I move aside a long bundle wrapped in kelp and cloth to reveal a black obsidian box. I breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the heat emanating from it, sending sparks through my fingers even while still closed.

Securing it and the kelp bundle back in place, I seal the compartment and fold my clothes neatly, returning them to their rightful place, before spreading myself over the hanging stretch of stitched kelp covered in swatches of bamboo cloth. Kelp is deceptively strong and holds my tall body and heavy muscle, suspending me in comfort as I attempt to sleep.

My eyes flutter closed, but sleep eludes me, as it always does. Instead I see her face. Hear her voice. Smell the sun and sand on her skin as her turquoise eyes crinkle with laughter.

Her hand reaches for me and my eyes flash open, my breathing coming too fast. I slip out of the sleeping net and leave my cabin in search of distraction.

I find it within the great shell, in the large mainroom where the crew eats and drinks together. Most are away, either on shift or resting between shifts, but a few men and one woman occupy a shelled table in the corner, their drinks clinking together as they toast the sea goddess and drink one—or more—for their fickle deity.

I find the bar and pour myself the sea swill I normally can't stand, clutching the shelled cup as I find a seat alone and away from the others. It's a bitter brew, with a fishy aftertaste that's acquired more than enjoyed, but it's strong and it bites my insides and burns me to the core, filling my blood with the song of the sea, a sweet far away floating that none other can match. This is why people drink the brew. Not for the taste—for the forgetting.

Garen, a large man two heads taller than I, finger bones clanking in his black beard, raises his voice to tell a story to those around him. He fills their ears with tales of legends, of those who rode rakam and lived to tell of it. But when he moves on to the legend of Dak'Ra, I look up, curious.

It is a version of the tale I have heard many times—of the legendary warrior of the famed Ra family from Ra'Kia'Ruu Island, who fell in love with the beautiful daughter of the Kia clan. They defied custom to be together, to make a new family separate from their first, and so they were banished to the sea. And there, under the three moons, they were taken by the depths, into the warm embrace of the Deep Mother.

His big voice fills the room. "They say Dak'Ra and Sa'Kia still haunt the sees, searching for one another, two halves of one soul," Garen finishes.

I down the last of the swill until I can no longer feel my lips and my head is numb. "Her name was La'Kia," I say softly.

Garen looks over at me. "Ye deaf? It was Sa'Kia."

I meet his eyes. He's in a haze over his drink and looking for a fight. I'm not. Not with him, at any rate. "You're right," I say, raising my cup. "I might be misremembering. Maybe it was Sa'Kia."

He narrows his eyes. There's a stillness in the room, as if everyone is holding their breath, then the big man raises his cup and laughs heartily. "Aye, maybe it was."

I smile at the man, whose face shifted with his smile, from menace to jovial. "Thank you for the tale," I say, grinning.

I'm walking back to the bar for a refill when an awful sound fills all the empty space around us. It's a loud whine followed by a shriek of awful pain. I have only a fraction of a moment to react before the entire great shell is tipped to its side like a cup being knocked over, its contents spilled across the floor, the sound of teeth scraping against shell creating a discordant and frightening harmony with the cries of the great whale.

The bar crashes into my legs, swill staining my beige bamboo pants, turning them red as blood.

The crew members who were drinking are now shouting orders, scurrying up and out of the shell to find out what happened.

But I know what happened. I knew at the first loud whine.

The rakam have come.

The crew know. You can see the truth on their normally dark, fierce faces, now drained of color, their eyes, blends of browns with some light blues, all wide and hyper-focused. They scramble over the great shell, pulling on chords of kelp, tying things down, as others grab long spears made of the very creatures they now fight. Long poles of bamboo with the deadly chiseled swords that make the rakam so dangerous. They are fierce creatures of medium to large build, made for fast swimming and lethal hunting with long protruding faces that come out like a sword with teeth. They are nearly unbreakable, those mouths, and make excellent weapons, if you're lucky enough to kill one before it kills you.

Taking on one rakam is doable, if you have a team working together. But they rarely hunt alone. And when they come in a swarm, feeding on the full belly of the kiasheen, that's when you know you're in trouble.

If our kiasheen dies, we all fall in the water. And in the depths, where the rakam are faster and stronger, they do not worry about killing. They eat their prey alive.

I have seen a fallen ship once, heard the bone chill screams and swam in the blood red water. It was enough death for three lifetimes.

I take in the scene around me: Calla thrusts a spear into the depths, hitting a rakam in the belly as it snaps at the kiasheen's wing. Kanen shouts for someone to fetch the nets. Clam fires precious arrows into the waves. Garen, the storyteller from the mainroom, who is by far the biggest of the crew, howls and jumps onto a rakam, drives a spear into it's head, and jumps back onto the shell, laughing. The man is insane.

Something doesn't make sense. I grab the arm of someone scurrying by, stopping him. "Why didn't we fly over this section?" I ask. The kiasheen can fly. Not high and not for long stretches, but that is the beauty of their breed. They can fly over dangerous waters—rakam infested waters—and land its crew in safety.

The man looks at me wild-eyed. "There ain't been no rakam in these parts in over two hundred years. We ain't ne'er had to fly over these waters. It don't make sense. The goddess is angry. She has cursed us." He taps three fingers on his chest and pulls out of my grip, running off with spear in hand.

In the distance, amongst the dark clouds, I see a shadow drift over us. It could mean the death of the rakam, but no. Not now. I can't reveal myself just yet.

Instead, I find my own spear and aid in the best way I know how.

By killing.

The kiasheen is crying into the night, it's dark blood seeping into the water, attracting more and more deadly rakam.

Their fins break the surface of the choppy water as they surround us, dozens of them hungry, their sword mouths tearing at the flesh of the gentle whale who cannot defend itself against the onslaught. Who is trapped by shell and humans and the very girth of its body.

We are its only defense.

The spears, too precious a resource to be squandered, have a strand of tightly wound kelp at the end of them. I tie it around my wrist as the sky opens up, drowning us in the freshwater of rain even as the ocean swells up to swallow us.

I squint through the night, the crone moon now full in the sky. I take a breath, my vision focusing, my heart rate slowing, and I aim. A rakam sinks into the ocean, and I use the kelp to yank the spear out of the body and bring it back to my side. Again and again I aim, throw, kill.

I never miss. If anyone were to notice, I would be questioned—suspected of being more than I claim. But no one is paying attention to the mysterious stranger on their boat. They are all fighting to survive. As long as I don't hinder their survival, I am free to be myself—at least for now.

And so I continue my slaughter, killing one after another after another.

I hear a scream that is too human to ignore and see one of the crew members fly overboard, his spear not pulling free of the rakam in time. Before anyone can react, he is devoured by the great beasts, their long sharp mouths crunching into bone and flesh, making a quick meal out of the big man until his screams are only echoes in the sea, lost forever to his goddess.

I don't let that break my concentration. If the tide doesn't turn in our favor soon, I will have to reveal myself, and all my efforts, all my planning, will be for naught.

But none of that will matter if I am dead.

I am close to revealing myself, but I do not. I throw my spear, again and again. Then a young boy of no more than sixteen years stumbles into the water, and the rakam impale him in the gut, spilling his intestines into the murky water even as he still lives.

His suffering does not end until they tear the limbs from his body. He then falls silent, sinking into the Deep Mother's embrace at last as the rakam feed on his remains.

I break. I need to rush back to my room, back to the box within my chest. As more of the crew fall to their death, as the kiasheen is torn apart, piece by piece, floating into the dark waters, as the storm hits us harder, as if the heavens themselves are in collusion with the rakam… I cannot let more die.

But before I can move, before I can act on my new plan, another ship enters my line of sight. Their kiasheen is enormous, at least three times bigger than ours. The night sky lights up with brightly lit torches as spears shoot out from their whale-ship, impaling the remaining rakam and leaving the sea suddenly silent save for the low moaning of the still-injured kiasheen we ride atop.

Calla is already mustering a crew to administer healing to the kiasheen as the other whale-ship approaches closer. They show the flags of the Great House of Ruu—a red volcano framed by a white, cloudless sky—marking them as one of the three Great Families of the Shattered Islands. My heart trips over itself when I see those flags, and I peer into their great shell, trying to identify their leader, to see if I recognize him. Or more importantly, to see if he will recognize me.