Devils on Starfall Isle

10

She'd been walking for some time, lost in her own thoughts, when she noticed that it was past midnight and the rocks were still falling from the sky. She wasn't very good at telling the time from the stars, but she was sure of it; she was some way towards the harbour, so it must be early in the morning rather than late at night.

And yet the sky was still bright with burning rocks, tumbling down to earth.

She shook her head, afraid and confused. She'd lived here for a little over a year, her and the other human settlers; in that time, the starfall had always ended at midnight on the night of the full moon. Why was it different now?

One thing was for sure; there was no guarantee of the ship coming any more. The captain only made the trip on the day after starfall, because that was the safest day. He didn't want his ship to be sunk by a blazing chunk of ore. If they were still plummeting from the sky, what would he do?

She was still worrying about this when she arrived at the harbour.

The south coast of the island was fronted with huge cliffs, grey bluffs of rock over which seabirds squabbled. There were a few bays carved between the stones; the largest had been used by the human settlers as their landing point, and it was a good but small harbour, a shelter from the angry sea beyond. A big ship could fairly easily sail in and anchor, although it would not hold much more.

The forest gave away suddenly to a pebbled slope down to the sea, the cliffs rearing up on either side, dark in the moonlight, occasionally lit up starkly under the falling stars. The water was black and textured like tar, rippling in the darkness, and the stones crunched under her boots.

There was no town here, no fishermen or port. Most of the stars fell in the sea around the island, so no boats would dare set out; and there was no exports except for the riches from the heavens, no imports except for the goods the villagers could buy. So, it was cold and dark, piles of ship things that she had no comprehension of scattered above the shore line, ropes and crates and posts driven into the ground.

She hadn't spent much time here; she hadn't come to the island for the riches, she'd come because the person she loved from afar had. So, she'd never sold anything to the ship's captain, never queued here on the morning after starfall, the recovered ore still hot to the touch. The northern wind was blunted by the mass of the island as she walked down towards the sea, lapping softly over the pebbles, and she was grateful for that.

There was a single building, a rough shed used to hold tools, amazingly still intact, built just above the beach. It had no lock, the door gave no resistance as she opened it. It was not waterproofed, just a simple wooden roof, and the moon shone through the cracks between the wooden beams; but, hopefully, it would do.

It took less time to walk round it twice than round her hut; she hung the charms from the lintel, pulling hairs from her head for each one, winding the hair around whatever splinters she could find. The moon was near the horizon, which meant she didn't have much time, but as always she tried not to hurry. Tira had been very clear on that: they do not rush. You should not, either.

Putting one foot in front of another seemed to be the only thing that she could do.

When she had finished, the charms visible through the light that leaked through the door, she sat down on the cold ground. She was both exhausted and afraid. This hut felt so tiny and insubstantial, and the wind whistled through the cracks; it would take nothing for the things from the night to tear it apart.

The part of her mind that understood said, your hut is no safer; you heard how Holly had shouted, and what her house had looked like afterwards. It's not the walls that protect you. It's the magic. You're as safe here as you were at home

But the rest of her just felt cold, mortal fear.

To keep herself sane, she started singing the song Tira had taught her; the one that told her the meaning and the sound of the runes. As she sang, she stared up at the roof; and as she stared, she saw shadows that made her frown.

She stood, and gently ran the tips of her fingers over the unfinished wood above her. Yes, there were grooves, cut into the beams. She had no mechanism for making light, so instead she ran her fingers over the lines. It was as she thought; there were runes here.

It took her a few minutes to read the message. It was something she'd never done before, a skill denied her by the men who ran the world she lived in. It was not a complicated message, yet it made the hairs on her arms stand up when she did.

'K be lucky. T.'

It was from Tira, to her. The fact that she had an ally in this bleak, dangerous world was a tiny splinter of light in the darkness. I will survive this, she thought. And if I don't, whatever it is that takes me, I will hurt you. You will bleed. I don't care if all the devils are out of hell; I'm getting out of here.

She took the knife from her bag. The iron blade gleamed dully in the moonlight, flashed in the starfall. She'd kept it sharp, honed on rocks. It could cut.

Fine, she thought. Come on, then.