Seamark by Cari Z

Author:Cari Z [Z, Cari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter fourteen

“How,” Morgan gasped at his best friend in a rare moment of stillness, “is this even worse than training with Brevaer?”

“I don’t know,” Garen said, not quite as out of breath but bent over with his hands on his knees. “I wouldn’t have thought it was possible before now.”

“He’s a ruthless taskmaster.”

“Cruel.”

“Downright mean.”

“Vicious, even.”

“All right, that’s enough of that,” Auban said from where he was smoothing out the side of the boat with the stone Morgan had brought him … what, was it two weeks ago already? Two weeks had gone by since Auban had promised to train them to fight against an opponent armed with a sword, and he had certainly kept his word. Every day they could, they came to him. What Morgan had been anticipating would be nothing more than some simple exercises and lots of time to talk and admire his human friend’s improving health, however, had turned into the kind of training that made him wish he hadn’t woken up that morning.

“There is nothing vicious about wanting the two of you to be the safest you possibly can be,” Auban said, scraping another thin shaving of wood from the boat. He was spending all his spare time evening its weight out and making it seaworthy, and the results were quite promising. Between their bouts, he either forced himself to work on his own muscles, paddling doggedly back and forth until he was slumped over from exhaustion, or worked even harder on the boat.

He had good reason to hurry up. The enormous shoals of migrating fish were gone as of last week, which meant the clan’s hunters were spending more of their time in the village now. With the threat of another ship mostly forgotten by the clan, this meant more time spent working on their homes, preparing them for the winter storm season that was heading their way, or bringing in the end-of-season harvests that were occurring more and more frequently with their various crops. There were just a few things left to gather before the fields would be abandoned for the rest of the year, and then Brevaer would be around all the time.

Auban had to be gone by then.

Morgan was still able to excuse his absences for the most part, convincing his brother that he was training or collecting seaweed to dry and save for winter. He did, in fact, collect a lot of seaweed, but that was secondary to coming and training with Auban. Just spending the extra time with him now felt precious, even more so because Auban was, for the first period since Morgan had met him, able to interact without being in the role of patient. He could stand up straight, he could walk on his own—he was even hunting his own food with the slender spear Garen had loaned him! It was impressive, and it painted Auban in a whole different light than before.

He had gone from a thing to be admired and cared for to a

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