Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver

Author:Michelle Paver [Paver, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 0803738773
Google: U5FXr3MN88MC
Amazon: B007FEFB7Q
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
Published: 2012-09-04T07:00:00+00:00

After they’d finished the shelters, Hylas took the crab shell down to the shallows for Spirit.

He was angry with himself. He’d let Pirra distract him with all that talk of the House of the Goddess. She’d never once mentioned the Crows.

In fact, he’d been so taken up with rescuing Spirit that he’d almost forgotten why he was here. Well, not anymore. He was sick of running away; sick of merely surviving. The Crows were after Outsiders for a reason. He intended to find out why.

Spirit didn’t want the crab shell; he tossed it up and down once or twice, then ignored it. He’d recovered from his ordeal, but he seemed listless and subdued. When Hylas waded in, the dolphin put his head on one side and gazed at him sadly.

For the first time, Hylas wondered how Spirit had come to be stranded. “Why’d you do it?” he asked softly. “Why’d you try to get on the land?”

The dolphin sank beneath the surface, leaving starlight rocking on the water.

Why is he on his own? wondered Hylas. Where’s his family? Is he trying to find them? Is that why he got stranded?

Was it possible that Spirit was seeking his little sister, just as he was seeking Issi?

“He must be lonely,” said Pirra behind him. She stood in the shallows, a slight figure in the gloom. “Doesn’t he have a pod? A family?”

“They’ve gone off. I don’t know where.”

“That’s why he’s unhappy. Dolphins aren’t meant to be alone.”

“What do you know about dolphins?” he said curtly.

She smiled. “Every Keftian knows about dolphins; they’re the guardians of the Sea. That’s why it’s death to harm one.”

“I knew that,” he lied.

Wading deeper, she put out her hand, and Spirit swam past and let her stroke him. “They say that a dolphin never stops moving,” she said. “They can hear everything in the Sea. And see in the dark. They can see through things too. A dolphin can see a flounder hiding under the sand, and a baby dolphin in its mother’s belly. It can see the heart beating in the chest of a man.” She paused. “But I never met anyone who could talk to them.”

“I can’t, not really,” Hylas admitted. “Not the way they talk to each other. But sometimes I can guess what he’s feeling. And when he looks at me, it’s—it’s like he can see into my spirit…” He broke off, embarrassed.

Spirit swam in a circle and flicked water in Pirra’s face with his flipper. She laughed.

Hylas found himself telling her about being adrift, and the shark, and the dolphins saving him. It was a relief to tell her; but when he mentioned the blue fire, she gasped.

“You saw the blue fire?”

“Why? What’s it mean?”

She hesitated. “Sometimes the Goddess summons dolphins to do Her bidding. They swim so close that they’re splashed with Her burning blue shadow. Her shadow, Hylas. That’s the blue fire. That’s what you saw.”

He waded ashore, and the night breeze chilled his skin. He thought of the first time he’d seen Spirit, rising out of the Sea in a fountain of luminous blue.

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