Sea by Sarah Driver

Author:Sarah Driver [Driver, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Egmont

Grandma – I’ve got to reach her, cos she’s in danger right now. The crew face away from me, towards the starboard side. A few Fangtooths hunch over the rail, violently spewing their guts upwind of the oar-slaves’ benches – the land-lurkers ent used to dwelling at sea so long. Half-starved polar dogs shelter from the rain under hammocks and rails. They snipe at each other, a tangle of jutting ribs and filth-streaked fur.

Quietly I slip out and crouch behind a cluster of barrels.

The plank juts out over the waves with a bundle of rags and ropes hunched at the far end. My stomach flips – as I stare, I see that the bundle is a thinner, grubbier Grandma than the one I know. She’s got one hand clenched tightly across her heart, one empty eye socket and a fighting look on her face. Stag walks towards her, pointing a blunt, long stick of metal.

Something sways in the corner of my vision. I turn my face up to the rain and my scalp prickles in horror – Grandma’s sea-hawk, Battle-Shrieker, hangs from a length of rigging, plucked bald and limp as seaweed, her beast-chatter long since flown. Oh, gods, please let my fledgling be safe. What if that loon’s done the same to all the sea-hawks? A growl throbs in my throat.

Suddenly a shape darts through the rain and Thaw-Wielder pings straight into the folds of my cloak. She nestles on my lap, shivering, feathers soaked. Thaw! I chatter softly. I’m proper heart-glad to see you!

All-seeing strong-arm leader! she chatters. Grey-Hair trouble-times?

Aye. Trouble is the word, Thaw.

All-seeing . . . The words make me think of the merwraith who saved me. Her eyes were blank stones, but the way she looked right into me spoke of a deeper kind of seeing. She saw all my frights, wishes, nightmares, struggles. Thaw-Wielder peers into my face and in a blaze of memory the merwraith’s fingers clamp my wrist. Find the Storm-Opal of the sea, before he does!

Stag rummages in his pocket, lifts the metal stick and puts something in the end of it. Then he raises it to his shoulder and points it at Grandma. ‘Jump, witch. Before I shoot.’

Grandma fixes him with her splinter-eye. ‘What of Hare’s memory?’ Her sudden mention of Ma startles me. ‘Think before you take her daughter’s future. Is it not enough that you have taken her mother’s home?’

Home . . . Finally, the rest of the merwraith’s words flood my memory. It is closer to your home than you think. The old song burns bright in my head like sunlight striking ice. On the sea one travels wide. That’s why the runes in Da’s message showed an orb roving all over the place. Because it was on a ship – our ship.

My heart thuds in my chest as suddenly I know what Grandma was trying to tell me in my dream-dance – her eye is one of the Storm-Opals! Maybe the Opal was what let her see my spirit.

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