The Wyrd of Willowmere

Chapter 12

"You're drawing nearer to the end of the islands and a large expanse of open sea," Matilda told them. She sent a mental picture from the hawk's eyes: green islands criss-crossed by riverlike channels, slowly giving way to a wide blue bay.

"The Bay of Bengal," said Myra. "Are we going there? I wonder. Into the open sea? It would explain why the daimon suggested dolphin hosts, I suppose."

But before they had passed the end of the outermost islands the crocodile slowed and curved its long armoured body around, preparing to return the way it had come. "She is coming," the Legion daimon told them. "The First One. If you wait here, she will come to this spot."

Again Claire wondered if they should trust him, and it was clear her sole human companion felt the same. "I don't suppose you've any idea how long she'll take?" asked Myra, sounding uneasy. "We humans will have to return to our own bodies before many hours have passed."

"She is not far," the daimon replied. "She is moving, always moving, and never remains in one place for very long." And with that the crocodile left them and went winding away towards the nearest island.

Leo's mother dolphin surfaced, and all the others followed her. For a while they rested, alternately peering above the water and diving beneath it, scanning the air and the depths for a sign of any creature approaching their position. They saw nothing, save for a few fish and some seabirds coasting on the breeze.

Then came another burst of sonar from the dolphins, together with some squeaks. Claire listened but could make nothing of the delphinic chatter, though once again it seemed to her that they were excited or afraid. Then Leo said, "This must be she— the First."

Claire stared through her dolphin's eyes, but its weak vision could make out nothing at all in the colourless void. She saw only rays of sunlight descending and vanishing into darkness. Then she realized that all the dolphins were turning to face in one direction and clumping together as if for safety. And finally, she saw it—just a hint of movement at first, a patch of grey moving in the greyness that slowly resolved itself into a vast shape swimming towards them. Only when it was within a few metres of them did she realize how very large this creature was: eight metres at least from its blunt, spade-shaped snout to the tall, bladelike fin jutting up from its tail. Along its pale flanks were vertical bars of a deeper hue, so like those of its land-dwelling counterpart that it was easy to see how it had earned its name. This was the tiger of the sea, the apex predator of its domain. In the same instant that Claire recognized the creature she sensed her dolphin-host do the same, reacting in instinctive fear and hatred at the sight of its natural enemy.

For its part, the huge tiger shark showed no interest in them; its blank obsidian eye must surely have seen them as it glided past, but its jaws remained shut and its pace did not falter. Remoras clung to its flanks and belly and pilot fish accompanied it. Leo said, "Follow me, you two," and Claire saw one of the dolphins pull away from the rest of the pod and swim after the shark. The matriarch, it must be, and there was another dolphin gliding after it. The others swam about in circles, still alarmed, reluctant even to follow the lead of their trusted parent. Claire had to struggle to persuade her own host, and by the time she'd convinced it that there was no danger the other two dolphins and the shark had vanished out of visual range.

At last it set forth, spraying the deeps ahead with sonar bursts. Presently the faint shapes of Leo and Myra's hosts appeared again, flanking the great striped form of the tiger shark. As she drew closer, Claire saw that its lower jaw was now hanging open to show its rows of jagged-edged teeth.

The other dolphins were following, but at a cautious distance they made no effort to close.

Claire guided her own dolphin into position just behind the beating tail-flukes of the mother dolphin and about the length of its own body away from the shark. For a long moment they swam together in this tight group. The shark still seemed to take little notice of them, apart from its open jaws. Its flat black eye conveyed neither anger nor fear. Dolphins could kill a shark, Claire remembered, by ganging up on it and ramming its soft underside with their hard, beaklike jaws until its vital organs were ruptured.