Tundra

The night was black all around, so that the dwarfed vessel could have been skating in a void. The air wore the salty perfume of the ocean. Eiron had been rowing for nearly thirty hours, with only dried fish and a few small lumps of bread made from spinifex seeds to keep his strength up. He had burned through his stores of fuel and fat half a day ago, and now he was going only on the last reserve of energy he had left– that well kept in the chests of all Seafarers and tapped only in emergencies.

Night made for easier rowing. The cool breeze that lapped off the water stripped away body heat, soothing Eiron’s tired muscles and his hot heart. With each new stroke, his rhythm became slow and melancholy. Would he ever see the shore again? He found himself longing for the feeling of dry sand between his toes, a feeling that warranted immediate punishment. He rowed harder, pushing out the last leagues he had stored up in coiled muscles. Finally, he was exhausted. Aching pain flowed through his arms. He released the oars, letting them hang limp from their iron sockets.

Something flickered on the broad back of the water.

It was inky, black– a passing cloud, perhaps, a mirage or a shadow. The night rustled in a way that it hadn’t done before. Then, the ship loomed into view.

It was different from the fast longboats Eiron’s own tribe of Seafarers used. Those ships were nimble and perfect for raiding along the coast. This was a prison ship, a ship gone rogue, with sails as large as longboat hulls flapping in the wind. It was a ship manned by pirates who cruised the ocean searching for things to kill and steal; men with shell tattoos and ropey dreadlocks that swung as they leaped overboard into dinghies that were tethered on long lines like domesticated wolves. Each of the ship’s crew took to a boat to row, and then, slashing and splashing, the rowers attempted to board Eiron’s long canoe.

Tired though he was, Eiron fought back. He grabbed the first invader, hauling him overboard into the freezing deep, which swallowed him whole, leathers and all. Likewise, he easily overpowered the second, driving a knife he had kept between his teeth through a pair of ribs with a squelching that was followed by a shout and the spurting sound of blood. The third man was more difficult, but Eiron had a six inch height advantage on top of his significant weight. The man crumpled from a punch, and was kicked over the longboat’s side. Eiron pushed and bit, hit and kicked, sending six assailants overboard in all directions, but in the end he was outnumbered and arrested.

A rival tribesman seized him by his shoulder. Lifting up his captured arm, the Seafarer saw the unique, black, banded pattern of tentacles and knotted kelp there.

‘It’s him!’ he declared.

‘Who?’ came the demands. ‘Who is it? Who is he?’

‘It’s Eiron of the Cleaved Tide!’

‘Could it be?’ a third man piped up.

‘It is!’ cried a fourth, bitterly. ‘I remember that scar!’

Hushed voices whispered as Eiron struggled. He saw that it was the faces they belonged to that were branded with tattooed marks, rather than the whisperers’ upper arms, where a wholesome rower’s motifs should have been. Sharp Shellers, then, these men were. He was glad to have dispatched half a dozen.

‘We’ll get five hundred clams for this one,’ said an authoritative voice, deep and gravelly, but no knife came up to Eiron’s throat. No doubt there was a bounty on him, he concluded, from the last time his tribe had clashed with this one. The Sharp Shellers wanted him alive. He twisted harder, knocking another man into the water, but he did not succeed in freeing himself. There was nothing but the open ocean for leagues around. There was nobody to help.

Or, was there?

Eiron considered the bargain he had made, and looked to the sea with fresh interest. Wavelets were sucking gently at the edges of his boat, as well as around the small dinghies, some of which were now capsized, having become flotsam for overboard men to cling to. Around them, the water lapped hungrily. Who knew what lay beneath that silken surface?

He certainly didn’t, Eiron thought, but he had his suspicions. The Sharp Shellers weren’t guarding him against the sea itself. They were only restraining him to prevent further attacks.

Throwing all his weight forward, so that nobody had a chance to catch him, Eiron dived.