Eighth Circle

He stood in the doorway and looked towards the harbour. His mother was right, the dolphins were agitated. They were dashing backwards and forwards beside one of his boats, splashing the water with their tails. That meant they wanted him to go to sea with them.

Dolphins were like dogs. They couldn't speak but that didn't stop them telling you what to do. Sometimes they just wanted to play. On other occasions they were trying to tell you something important. There might be a big shoal of fish out there for you to catch. Or, there might have been an accident at sea. A ship might have gone down and there were people to be rescued.

Bryn ran down to the harbour and tried to work out what was going on. His dolphins were creating all the fuss and the green-nosed dolphins were hanging back. He watched them carefully. They were royal dolphins and specially trained to work with people. One came forward when he reached the pontoon.

She was a young female and had something in her mouth. At first he mistook it for a piece of dolphin skin. The animals sometimes suffered hideous wounds in encounters with the orcas and it was understandable that they should be upset when that happened.

Then he realised it wasn't dolphin skin. It was a torn fragment of a dolphin suit and it wasn't just any dolphin suit. It was tinged with green. Bryn's heart missed a beat. There was only one person who wore a suit like that ... something awful had happened to Princess Liala.

He ran to the boatshed and grabbed his gun. It fired old-fashioned bullets and was primitive compared with a ray gun. That didn't matter. He wasn't aiming to vaporise orcas that got in his way. A bullet in the brain was enough to kill them and that was all that mattered.

Killing an orca was a capital offence. They were protected by the guardians. You could he hanged for merely injuring one. Bryn didn't care. He would shoot any orca that got in his way ... and any troll ... nothing would stop him from rescuing the princess.

He strapped a magazine pouch around his waist and went outside. His jet ski was moored at the end of the pontoon. The sleek craft was big enough to carry two people. Bryn figured he could cradle Liala in his arms and take her to safety. The ski could go fast. The orcas couldn't outrun it.

The dolphins didn't like his choice. When he jumped onto the ski they swam to a bigger boat and banged against it. It was fast but not as fast as the jet ski. Bryn hesitated and the dolphins rose up on their tails and complained loudly. Experience had taught him to follow their lead when they behaved like that. He got into the boat, hit the ignition and followed them out to sea.