Tales of Noreela 04: The Island (23 page)

Beyond the farm were gently rolling hills, more airthorn-topped stone walls, a few small copses of trees, a lake surrounded by tall, lush undergrowth. Past the lake rose Steep Hill, green and tall and shielding the wilds of Noreela from view.

Namior had climbed the gentle slopes to its summit several times before, and each time the large expanse of countryside beyond had both thrilled and terrified her. Steep Hill had always been the notional border of Pavmouth Breaks, a natural divide that generations of fisherfolk and farmers had treated as the extreme southeastern limit of their village. As
such, beyond Steep Hill there were the wilds; no buildings, no differentiated fields, no planted crops or maintained woodland, and no signs of civilization. One rough trail led along the far base of Steep Hill toward the River Pav valley to the north, but even that was often overgrown, or shielded from view by the wild undergrowth that grew rampant across the lower slopes of the hill.

There’s the rest of the world
, Namior had thought the first time she stood atop the hill.
And one day I’ll get to see it
. The concept had been exciting and intimidating. Now, looking at the hill as she and Kel walked toward it, she was suddenly more afraid than ever.

What would the Komadians be doing so out of sight?

And how did they even get there?

“We should go south first,” Kel said. “Skirt around the Throats, climb the shoulder of the hill from that side.”

“Trying to stay hidden?” she asked.

“If
they’re
hiding something, it’s the route they’ll least expect anyone from the village to take.”

They followed the line of the sea cliff for a while, never walking too close to the edge. There was a rough path there, worn by villagers who liked to come and collect gull eggs, or the more rare cliff-snake skins. The skins were tough, transparent and flexible, and were often used to coat and waterproof the large hats worn by fishermen. But the path only went as far as the second farm’s extremes, and past that point Kel and Namior had to forge their own way through thickets of gorse, wind saps and hardy stone heathers.

As they approached the place where they would turn to head east, Namior saw a fluttering movement from the corner of her eye. She paused and looked out to sea, and hovering a hundred steps from them was one of the several cliff hawks that nested along that part of the coast. Its wings barely flapped, feathers rippling in the updraft, and it seemed to be looking directly at her. She gasped, held her breath and went slowly to her knees. She was aware of Kel paused to her left,
but she did not want to turn her head in case it changed the moment.
I don’t want to move on
, she thought.
Here and now is fine, I can live like this for a while. Whatever is to come… that can wait
.

The graceful bird dipped slightly, then rose again with one gentle flap of its wings. It hovered in the same place, staring at her, and Namior wondered whether it was thinking the same thing. Perhaps even in a cliff hawk’s life there were some moments that seemed to matter more than others.

“Namior,” Kel whispered, but she did not move, could not respond.

A breath of wind ruffled her hair, she blinked, and the bird was flying directly at her, wings folded back and cruel beaked head thrust forward.

She barely had time to draw breath before the hawk struck the cliff face six steps to her right and a dozen down. It was out of view for a beat, and then it dipped away from the cliff again, something small and squealing grasped in its big claws.
It’s almost as if it didn’t see me
, Namior thought. But she knew that was not the case at all.

“Come on,” Kel said. “We need to climb Steep Hill now.”

“Did you see that?”

Kel smiled and nodded. “I didn’t get the head quite right, I know that for sure.”

“You did well, wood-carver.” She took his outstretched hand and followed him inland.

THEY CLIMBED THE
shoulder of Steep Hill, and all the way up Kel’s hand rested close to the handle of his short sword.
He’s not the man I fell in love with
, Namior thought over and over, and everything she saw of him now was strange. The weapons he wore, the way he stalked up the hillside, hand on his sword… she recognized none of that. Yet in truth, she was seeing the real Kel for the first time. And
behind the tough new veneer that he had revealed, she perceived his desperate hope that she would love him still.

She might well be a witch, but she was too confused right then to know what she really thought. All she could be certain about was that she had to stay with him.

Steep Hill was aptly named. In parts they climbed quite easily, breathing coming harder and shins burning with the exertion. At other times they went on hands and feet, almost holding on to the hillside as if it were doing its best to cast them off. It was not a particularly high hill, though, and soon Namior could see its summit cutting a hard line across the sky just above them. Kel had paused, lying flat to the hillside and holding his left hand behind him, palm up, signaling her to stop. He crawled forward slowly, and when he was high enough to see beyond the hill he paused and remained in that position for some time.

She wanted to call out and ask what he saw. She considered crawling up beside him. But he was so utterly motionless that she did not want to be the one to move.

At last he turned his head, very slowly, and looked back down at her. For a beat his face was blank, his eyes distant and dark. Then he focused on her, blinked and motioned her to join him.

“What is it?” she whispered as she crawled. But Kel turned away without speaking, lying flat on the hilltop once more.

The urge to rush was overwhelming, but she kept her movements slow and considered. To her what they were doing was exciting and terrifying in equal measure.
Is this how he always lived his life before Pavmouth Breaks? Before me?

When she could see down the other side of the hill she settled into the grass and moss, all the strength going from her. “What in the Black is that?”

“They should be guarding it better,” Kel whispered. “If they don’t want it seen, we’d have never got as far as we have. So why here?”

“But what
is
it?”

Kel’s only response was to hum softly.

The black structure Mell had told them about was being built at the foot of Steep Hill’s eastern face. Its base was as Mell had described, square and about thirty paces to a side. But it was much taller than when their friend had seen it the previous night. The structure rose from the square base, its far edge curving inward almost imperceptibly, near face leaning outward, and Namior thought it would not be long until it cleared the highest part of Steep Hill. At its summit, where the machine worked, it was a perfect rectangle, thirty paces wide and maybe twenty across.

And the machine Mell had described was still there, huge, holding itself to the black structure with eight spindly metal legs, crawling back and forth like a giant slayer spider and exuding a black fluid from vents in its stomach. The material slumped onto the rectangular surface and found its own level. By the time one of the machine’s legs stepped that way, it was solid.

On the ground around the structure’s base was a group of Komadians, perhaps fifteen in total. One of them stood forward from the others, looking up at the machine and controlling it with a small box in his hands. They were too far away to make out details, but Namior saw the pale blur of his hands moving, fingers lifting and shifting.

A burst of steam issued from the machine’s back, startling Namior. Kel’s hand was already on her back, holding her down.

“What do you think it is?” she asked. The structure ate the sun. Nothing reflected back, it did not shine, but neither did it have depth. It was like a block of nothing being built up out of the ground and reaching for the blue sky.

“I don’t know,” Kel said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Namior looked at the Komadians clustered around the base of the hill, trying to make out faces, see if there was anyone there she recognized, but her gaze was dragged back to the black column growing out of the ground.
That’s just what
it looks like
, she thought.
As though the ground has sprouted that thing
. Its base appeared set deep, the ground around it apparently undisturbed.

“Are you going to try to send your message?” she whispered. She feared that Kel would say yes, but it was her own fear that drove her to ask.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not yet.” He shook his head, frowning deeply as he stared down the hillside. “But just what in the Black
is
that?”

“We could go down and ask,” Namior said. And as she spoke those words, they seemed to make sense. The Komadians had only helped them so far, apparently shocked at the damage the waves had caused, using their machines to dig for survivors, repair the bridge, build the ramp against Drakeman’s Hill … “They promised technology,” she said. “Perhaps this is it?”

Kel glanced at Namior in surprise, then back down at the industrious visitors. He shook his head. “We can’t just go and ask, not yet. Whatever that thing is, they can’t be too concerned about people from the village seeing it; otherwise, it would be better guarded. But still, I don’t trust them.”

“The island, then,” she said. “Let’s do what we said we’d do.”

“The island,” Kel said.

Taking one last look at the black structure, they slid backward down the hill.

AM I A
coward?
Kel thought.
Should I take out the communicators and try one now? Breathe on it, stick it in the ground? The consequences don’t matter. It’s Noreela that matters, it always has been, and I can never run away from that
.

But behind everything else was the certainty that the Core would kill him if they came there, even if the Komadians were Strangers. And if he did manage to make a communicator
work where magic had become uncertain, it would likely end in conflict and bloodshed.
Use one of these fuckers, and Noreela’s at war
, O’Peeria had said. He felt the weight in his jacket pocket—so much potential in such small things.

He had been responsible for enough innocent deaths to last many lifetimes.

He led the way again, reversing their route back toward the cliffs. Namior moved quickly and quietly behind him, and he was glad that she was with him. She might claim to trust the visitors, but there she was, spying on them and agreeing to go out to the island with him. Surely she had her doubts.

At the foot of the hill they turned toward the cliffs, passing through a small wooded area, and Kel concentrated on the grasses they had crushed on the way there, the small bush branches their legs had snapped, the splashed droplets where morning dew still clung to plants as yet hidden from the rising sun. And looking at the ground was why he almost walked into the man standing before him.

“Calm morning,” the Komadian said. He was smiling, hands free of weapons, a dark-skinned man with long hair tied with metal braids, a small scar across the bridge of his nose, and a light leather jacket slung over his shoulders. “Lovely day for—”

Kel moved before he could really consider his actions. Perhaps it was instinct—the training drummed into him by the Core—or maybe it was an eruption of pent-up stresses and suspicions. Later, he thought that anger at his own clumsiness had a lot to do with what happened next.

He pivoted on his left leg and drove his right foot up toward the man’s chin.

The visitor was quick, but not quite quick enough. He twisted to one side, but Kel’s heel caught him on the jaw. He grunted and turned, facing the other way.

“Kel!” Namior said, and he silently cursed the volume of her voice.

He stepped in close and threw one arm across the man’s
throat, pulling tight to prevent him from shouting. The man gurgled something and went stiff in Kel’s embrace, both arms coming up and trying to shift Kel’s arm from around his neck.

“Move away!” Kel whispered to Namior. He plucked a short knife from his belt and pressed its tip into the Komadian’s back.
Now we’ll see
, he thought.
Now we’ll know for sure
. “Get back, Namior, you’ve no idea what—”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Namior said. She was trying to stay quiet, at least, but the amazement on her face gave Kel pause.

What am I doing?
The man struggled, but did not fight, not really. He was groaning and gasping, trying to talk.

Kel pushed the knife a little harder, feeling it pierce the jacket and part the man’s skin. The Komadian grew stiff and motionless, hands clawed in the air before him.

And if I kill him, and no wraith rages out of the wound…
?

He could feel the man’s heartbeat, rapid and terrified.

I’m already a murderer
.

Kel dropped the knife and tugged hard at the man’s throat, and when the visitor went limp he eased him to the ground.

“Kel, I don’t know, I don’t think I can—”

“Quiet!” Kel moved across to Namior and pressed his hand over her mouth. “Please, just keep quiet.” He nodded at his woman, his love, and when her wide eyes narrowed slightly and she nodded back, he took his hand away.

With everything he did next, he felt Namior’s eyes boring into him. But she said nothing. He was glad for that, but he also knew that things had changed. She would stay, or she would go, and he could no longer have any influence over whatever decision she might make.

He went back to the man and began searching through his jacket pockets.
Weapons first, then evidence, but leave no sign
. The Komadian was carrying a short knife in a sheath on his belt. Kel glanced at it briefly before throwing it aside; well cared for, rarely used. He found no other weapons. Pulling the collar wide, he saw the smooth neck, and when he turned
the man on his side and thrust his hand down the back of his shirt, he felt damp, hairy skin and nothing more.

The man groaned and stirred, and Kel prepared to run.
I could hit him and force him under again
. But he glanced at Namior, and knew he had committed too much violence already.