Watcher's Web

Watcher's Web Chapter 13

The trip took a few hours according to Jessica's best guess. She wished she still had her watch, but it had disappeared with her clothes. She stared at the passing water, reeds and floating weeds in uneasy silence.

How long was the day on the world, she asked, and Iztho produced a little gadget that told her twenty-eight hours. That explained how her watch had seemed to lose huge chunks of time each day.

At long last, the boat glided into the long shadow cast by the island. On both sides of their watery thoroughfare, small figures waded through fields of grey grass or floating lettuce, cutting or picking crops and loading them onto barges.

The clattering sound that had been so incessant since she had stumbled down from the escarpment died down. Other noises took its place. People talking in the Pengali language, voices of children, footsteps on timber, thuds, hammering.

A sea of flat-roofed buildings rose from the waterline to form an anthill of civilisation, dotted with pinpricks of light.

Hundreds of boats lay tied up along the timber platforms of a jetty. An overwhelming smell of fish drifted from the shore, occasionally mixed with whiffs of rotten eggs.

The Pengali youth in the bow stopped splashing his stick in the water. In a purposeful glide, the boat drifted sideways and clunked into wood.

"Here we are," Iztho said. Jessica stretched her stiff legs. With an inelegant step, waving her arms, she half-fell onto the jetty.

The sound of heavy booted footsteps and a deep voice made her look up, straight at a fearsome metal arrow perched on a crossbow held in the crook of a man’s arm.

He inclined his head, blond curls tumbling over his forehead, framing an angel-like, heart-shaped face with eyes of the clearest cobalt blue. Human and yet strange.

He was dressed in a long-sleeved grey tunic and leggings with a white sleeveless tunic over the top. It reached halfway down his upper legs and was held by a belt around his waist. A red and silver emblem adorned the centre of his chest. If it hadn’t been for his strange face, he could have been an actor in a medieval play. A horse, a helmet and chain mail would make the picture complete.

Jessica climbed to her feet, while the man spoke in a language with rolling r-sounds to Iztho, who climbed out of the boat. He replied, in a confident tone, friendly almost.

Jessica held out the zapper. "Do you want me to walk ahead with this?"

"No, we’ll be right." He glanced at the soldier. "He’s here to keep an eye on us."

"A guard?"

Jessica’s gaze returned to the arrow on the crossbow. Nothing like any arrow she had ever seen, this was a shaft-less construction of two very long double-edged blades crossed length-wise. From the needle-sharp tip, serrated edges ran down each of the four flanges. Take a hit from that and you would be cut into ribbons. The arrow sat at the end of a metal slide. Two thick metal springs, stretched taut, strained to hold it in place.

"What good is a crossbow against some sort of laser gun?"

He gave her a sharp look. "Take it from me: never underestimate the power of a Mirani crossbow."

OK, wrong remark, Jess. Geez, the guy had toes from here to Timbuktu.

The planks of the jetty creaked under their feet as they walked towards the shore, the soldier first, Iztho and Jessica directly behind him. Their approach put an end to many water-side conversations. Fishermen dragged their nets aside and put down their baskets. They were all Pengali, but their hair was cut short and their skin patterns covered with shabby clothing. Jessica looked at their backsides, but could see only one, a young male, whose trousers clearly hid a tail.