Pa, myself, Shilos dad Fetu, and a man named Ezekial heft our wooden oars into our hands and begin rowing.
Foreigners amidst a sea of fish our wave travelers begin to slowly drift away from the only home we have ever known. Fausina's traveler floats several meters ahead, leading the flotilla of flat crafts like a mother duck and her ducklings. Obediently we follow. The motion of the sea rolls us up and down over and over as each wave grows and builds underneath us. All the while the sound of water crashing behind us echoes in an almost soothing pattern.
“How she aholding down thur,” Arthus shouts down from the falcons nest atop the sails as he scouts for the land ahead. He's a middle aged man with an eye sharper than any other in the tribe. When he was a youth and sent out on his Trial he had tracked and followed a bear for almost half the island in 2 days. When at last he put the bear between himself and the Ledge, leaving the bear with two options;fight or flight, stand it's ground and push through the man that blocks the path to freedom or turn and take the plunge downwards to an impending doom on the jagged rocks below. But, being a bear, he only had one option, kill, as suicide could never be an option to an animal with primal instincts.
The bear turned on Arthus and charged head on. Pa says his spear was split in two while blocking a downward thrust from the bear, forcing him to abandon his shield and fight using the two much shorter broken spear ends, forcing him within a proximity that was unnatural for a spearman, putting him right within the bears reach. It was bloody and the bear put up one hell of a fight. Arthusd walked away with a ravaged right arm and 3 long cuts from forehead to chin diagonally across his face with his left eye plucked right from its socket by the beast's claws. Ever since, his right eye has grown stronger and adapted to seeing clearer on it's own. He claims it's gotten to a point that he can essentially see the currents that secretly flow beneath the surface of water, and the secret currents that flow in men.
“To be the truth of it,” Fetu, calls up, “ not a wave larger than twice the height of these waves ,” opening his arms, gesturing to the waves around us, “can fall upon us or we will be dining with our ancestors for an eternity at the bottom of the sea where their corpses lay.” When a tribes member dies they are lain on a raft and cast asea, until flipped by the waves where theyre gently cradled to the bottom of Irroccieo.
Our water-travelers being flat and all made large waves a very difficult feat to overcome. The smaller waves that we are already riding rock and tip us up and down splashing on us pushing the raft underwater for ha’second before the wood pushes up out of the water. The only thing really keeping us afloat is the sheer size of our rafts. Multiple layers of branch thick, three and a half meters long and two and a half meters wide it glides on the water between waves before crashing into the next wave and dipping below surface tension.
On the last waves Fetu, Pa, Ezekial, and myself give two good hard rows and break right through the wave without being tipped and turned around. We take a note. It looks we will make it out of the bay and through the waves that ambush us into deeper waters after all.
Our vaunting leader stands atop her falcon's nest with arms outstretched in power. Chorus of cheers erupts from the tribe, save me, sbilo, and a handful of others, as we are unaffected by this fanfornade. we have made it further then Elruke, whose raft got flipped and shredded just to wash ashore. A triumph it may be, but we have quite the journey ahead of us still and we are not as naive as the others. Who, may have forgotten momentarily what had happened to the Great Belhum. Whose raft came back with chunks the size of men bitten off, made by no fish or creature we have ever seen before. The Plutark of their time wrote that red had tainted the waters that day of the blood of 30 men who thought they could overcome the Farraige, that mutilated bodies and limbs didn't stop coming ashore for days, weeks even. Things changed that day, no one dares to leave knowing what awaits us. At least they did, before we were left with no choice. Most cannot grasp the esoterica of the past as I do, as they have forgotten with this measly achievement.
“The fools,” shilo murmurs with a Sour look upon his face.
We coast further and further into uncharted waters, our shore just barely in sight to our aft. Our island left behind like an outgrown toy that's no longer needed. We're still only able to see the peaks of the mountains, with no hint of a shore being visible on the horizon anytime soon, making these peaks much larger and much further away from our own island than we had originally anticipated. By arthus guess we won't reach shore again until at least nightfall, assuming we see shore soon.
While we've used water-travelers before for fishing, we have never taken them past the wall of turning tides, as our fishing rafts were but a small square of thinner branches tied with skinned bark. But now we sail beyond them, where the water is clear and calmed. All 40 water-travelers sit relatively close, floating just meters apart. Underneath us a school of fish swims by, moving around in circles dancing around one another as if a rainbow had been dipped in water and all it's colors were mixing.
“What you say it'll be like when we arrive,” Ezekial asks. A gruff man in his mid years with more hair on his jaw and chin than on his head. His wife and two sons ride along with Shilo and I’s families, and Arthus, Pas best companion.
“If we make it” shilo and I chime at the same time. Being born on the same day we have been like brothers since. Twins in everything but looks and parents.
“Again with this aginner shit,” Fetu grumbles slowly, smacking Shilos head, again. It's easy to see where Shilo gets his anger from. Fetu is like a myth, uncle may be the leader of the Dreadnoks, but Fetu is their backbone, their human spear. He will charge right at a mother bear's cub to incite a reaction from the mom, than turn on her as she approaches and orphans the Cubs with a single thrust of his spear.
“could you pfeffers not be so skeptical for once and let loose your fears of the sea,” Ezekial urges.
“We have no fear of the sea,” I state.
“Just the fear of the beast that lives within,” shilo says. Ezekials oldest son, at just 10 birth years old, stirs at the mention of the beast scooting towards the center of the floater.
“Nonsense, that's nothing more than a campfire story to scare the young. A tall tale meant to cage a boy's curiosity of the sea so they don't get swept away by currents before they can learn to swim,” he says reassuringly clapping fragile Deruk, his youngest, on the shoulder, “and you my son can swim just fine.”
I'm not sure if he truly believes what he says or he's just putting on a brave face for his family. It looks to be a bit of both, but I know what the Plutarks say about the matter, and the Plutarks only record history and facts, not tall tales. I've only met the fourth Plutark, a straight descendent of the first Plutark himself, a handful of times and that man takes his job more seriously than Milo does with the Dreadnoks. Either way, I do pray he is wrong.
“I like to imagine our new home with fields of fertile soil, birthing enough crop that hunting becomes a pastime for the tribe rather than relying on Milo and the Dreadnoks like we have been,” Shilo says, getting back to ezekiel's question. Then quickly adds in, “no offense to your uncle, of course.”
“Sandy beaches all around the island where you can sit to watch the ever rolling of the waves, “ Pa exclaims drifting off at the end.
We all know it's not the beaches Pa desires, it's the lack of Edges he truly hungers for, but he will never come right out and say it. A melting pot of pride and regret, he is. All of us stay quite, unsure of where to take the conversation now.
“you Exhulms need not worry, for if there are no beaches, land we will not make,” Fetu erupts, breaking the silence.
I know he had the best of intentions trying to calm us, but arriving at our new home just to find out it's entirety is surrounded by cliffs and edges is far more intimidating than the past.
Arthus, who overheard the conversation from the falcon's nest, hops over the side wraps his arms and legs around the trunk of the nest and slides down plopping himself right behind us and next to Ridur, ezekials oldest. He brushes his hands off then claps Pa and I on each of our shoulders, “ if there are cliffs we will climb them, if there are beaches we will dock on them, if there are beaches and cliffs we will gracefully avoid the cliffs and traverse the abundant lands that awaits us,” arthus says in a most calming matter. After a moment of some afterthought he adds in, “listen, what happened to Lenai and Erucka (air-roo-ka) was a tragedy yes, but it was an accident, a horrifying life changing accident for the entire tribe, you mustn't blame yourself.”
Pa nods his head in agreement leaving the subject at that. An almost tangible silence fills the air, only to be abruptly cut off by a shrill shriek coming from the furthest edge of our flotilla. A few others from other water-travelers and I stand to get a better view but by now all of the water-travelers have drifted far apart, leaving dozens of meters between each one. Another banshee wails in the distance, but distinctly closer than the last. Now there's more then one voice screaming, a high pitched scream from a girl no older than 10, a crackling uneasy scream from an elderly man, twin brother and sister let out a joint hollar, as if their life were at threat. Closer now the screams keeps getting by the second until all of the inhabitants of the traveler to my immediate right scream for dear life standing up and pointing at the water.
I look down and see what the commotion is all about as ten tentacles pull back and rekoil in a snake like motion, shooting it forward. I twist to see it coming out the other end of our boat, and I don't believe what I see. A man's body is wriggling and wreathing in the clutches of the creature. “It's got someone!” I say in a blurred panic and grab my spear without a second thought, thrusting it down on the tentacled creature as it's body finishes swimming underneath us. For only a moment do I think I've struck whatever it is because the swimming has ceased. I hoist my spear back up with ease leaving no signs of puncturing skin and muscle. It looks as if the man is being swallowed by the sea creature, half his body extends out of the tentacled body, feet nowhere to be seen, and oddly enough, the head of the creature's body is nowhere to be seen, nor is there blood to come to think of it. I lift my spear again for a second strike when the body lunges out of the water and catches my spear mid air with it's/his hands.
The body I had thought to be eaten by the tentacled creature is somehow intertwined with tentacled body, like a mermaid with tentacles. The tentacles flourishing this way and that way keeping him afloat, with his human form above the water. He looks,odd, he has the body and face of a human, but his body is chalked with scales, and where his eyes should be are just hollow indents in his skull covered with skin. How did he see me? He smiles a wide, sharp toothed grin, having twice over as many teeth as any man or woman I've ever seen, while cackling out a slow cynical ha...ha...ha, “you dare strike at me, in my own waters at that,” it says, elongating the me, “You're just like the last one.” Last one? Last one of what?
He uses my moment of confusion to descend on me and is about to bring both arms down on me when Pa stands up interlocking his arms with the creatures, both held in a stalemate. All of this happened within a mere couple of seconds.
Both men hold their ground pushing back and forth only gaining momentum on one another for moments the length of a blink at a time.
“What do you mean 'like the last one,’” pa ask what I've been thinking.
“Of the three who have crossed my lands only you and that other fool have dared strike at me,” it replies back to PA. “The last to come througb, what was his name?” The creature says to itself. “Kept bellowing about how “great” he was, how he was chosen to usher in a new era of exploration by the “God's", if you believe in those fairy tales.”
“Belhum the Great?” pa asks slowly, coming to an unsure realization.
“'belhum?” the thing says with a disgusted look on his face, “ what sort of name is belhum anyway, alas yes, belhum was the fool, though his name wasn't far off as belhum did taste great,” he says, licking his upper lip satisfyingly.