Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(76)

We don’t go far beyond the cave before Kol points to the shore with his paddle—the Tama are camped in the open on a low bluff. It isn’t long before they see us too, and Thern and Pada sprint for their own boats. They paddle hard, leaving the shore and gliding like birds on the water, coming right for me.

I remind myself that they can be trusted—that they are coming to fight for us, not against. Still, my fear that we’ve been tricked ebbs only when they reach me and turn, lining up against the Tama by my side.

“The one in the middle is the High Elder,” Pada calls over the wind, as we all bob on the surface, waiting like prey. The Tama aren’t far behind the Bosha. Once they realize they’ve been betrayed and we’ve been warned, they scramble down to their boats. A flash of white catches my eye and I see her—Dora—boarding a kayak right beside Noni’s father. Perhaps spurred by rage at having been fooled by Thern and Pada, they move astonishingly fast and paddle much more skillfully than I’d hoped. They head right for us. It won’t be long before they have reached the place where we wait.

While he is still far enough off that a dart should not reach me, but close enough to hear, I call out to Noni’s father. “High Elder of the Tama,” I shout, suddenly aware that I don’t even know the man’s name. So be it. I’d rather not know the name of such a man. “We’re here to tell you that Noni will not be returning to your clan. You may not proceed to our land. Turn back now and we won’t pursue you. But be warned—we are prepared to defend her and ourselves.”

“I will not take orders from a woman who believes she can steal my property from me,” calls Noni’s father. I recognize him as the man who chased Lees and me out to sea. “I will retrieve my daughter, even if we have to kill every member of your clan to do it.”

With that he digs hard with his paddle, heading fast toward Kol.





THIRTY


My eyes linger on Noni’s father while fear surges inside me like a gust of wind. I see him like I see things in a dream: inexact, smeared by memory. His face shining red, his sharp stare piercing like a knife, I see him pursuing me and Lees out to sea.

With a jolt the dream fades, the past yields to the present, and I move forward with all the strength in me. My arms work the paddle in my hands, pushing the surface as if burying that remembered threat. That memory cannot hurt me now. The real threat is the man with a loaded atlatl right in front of me, the man who will take Kol from me if I do not act.

My eyes on him, my arms digging hard at the sea, I know that now is the time to ready my shot. I slow my strokes, pull up my paddle, and reach for a dart. My fingers are just wrapping around it when a searing pain smashes through my temple. A thud reverberates inside my head, like something heavy dropped to the ground, and everything goes dark.

Although I sit in a boat atop the waves, I feel as if my feet have gone out from under me. I reach out a hand to hold on to the sky as the kayak flips and the surface comes up to meet me.

Upside down, I hold in my breath as I hold in my cry, reminding myself that water has tried, and failed, to beat me. The pack with my darts and atlatl slides from my arm, but I sweep out a hand just in time to catch it before it sinks.

Above me the hull of a boat floats like a cloud in a storm-darkened sky—a flatter, wider hull than those of the Olen or Manu. The pain in my head fades and the darkness rolls away from my sight, and I know it’s a Tama boat. I reach up, the water blurs as silt and sand churn around my flailing arms, but finally my hands find the skin at the front of the Tama boat.

How long have I been submerged? When my clutching hands grab at the sealskin, my fingers digging in like they’re digging into air itself, I know it’s been too long. I pull the skin toward me, lifting my body and righting my kayak. My face breaks into the day, the boat in my grip tips toward me and over, and I see a Tama woman’s face wide with fear as she flips into the sea.

I catch my breath. I am upright. My paddle is too far to reach, so I grab the paddle of the Tama boat and row as hard as I can toward the place I last saw Kol.

But he’s not there. In that place I see Morsk, a dart protruding from a spot under his arm. He’s chasing something—a kayak receding toward the shore. Noni’s father. Behind them both, in a kayak with a slash across the deck, I spot Kol.

Kol sees me. He gestures, telling me to get down. I do as he says, folding my chest over my legs. As I watch, Kol loads a dart into his atlatl and throws it at a target beyond my right shoulder.

A cry mixes with the slap of the waves against paddles and boats. I turn to see a face I’ve seen so many times before, a face that draws bile up my throat.

Dora’s eyes bore into me as she tugs Kol’s dart from her side, just below her rib cage. Blood spurts from the wound, spattering the deck of her kayak before being rinsed away by the spray. Her mouth twists into a grimace of pain. One gnarled hand curls into a knot around Kol’s dart, while the other reaches for her atlatl. As I watch, she loads the bloody dart and aims at me.

I know I don’t have time to row far enough to escape her reach. Even with blood pouring from her side, she could make the shot. It won’t take much strength or skilled aim. I am too close to avoid her.

She reels back. I have only one choice. At the moment her arm begins to come forward, I roll my kayak and again plunge into the sea.

The sea was cold before. This time the water bites into my skin like teeth. My hands, my throat, my face ache like they are being shredded by the jaws of a cat.