They muttered but moved aside. A hand pinched his elbow, dragging him up, while the ropes binding him twisted and pinched his skin as they were untied, then fell loose. The others remained silent as he was led roughly away. Each step jarred up his spine to rattle his head. Pain cut so hard up behind his eyes, beside his swollen ear, that he stumbled and tripped, hitting his knees against shards of sharp rock. Agony swallowed him. All the noises faded in a blur of sound like waves crashing over rocks.
Water surges through a narrow channel cut into the rock, then hisses along the hidden strand, a crescent shoreline composed of little more than rock and pebbles that will soon be covered by the rising storm. Here, among the isles that make up the Cackling Skerries, he and his retinue wait in a place between sea and land where neither he nor his allies hold the advantage. A pale back cuts the foaming waters, followed by a second. Rain spatters over the beach and drums against the rock columns that make up the chief portion of this islet, bones that cannot be worn down even by the endless tidal wash of the sea. Now and again through the misting rain he sees Cracknose Rock, the fist from which he launched his invasion of Alba.
Clouds and rain hide the coast, but he does not need to see what now belongs to him.
“There! Do you see that?”
“What is it, Lord Erling?”
“There!” cries young Erling, who takes a step back and at once realizes that he has thereby betrayed fear in front of the others, each one of whom is ready to notice any weakness displayed by his compatriots.
But the others, even his own kind, recoil as well. He alone does not fear what emerges from the sea.
Four of them drag themselves out of the water until only their tails remain in the surf. Waves sigh up to engulf them, then retreat with a murmur down through the rocks. Those flat red eyes betray no obvious gleam of intelligence, but this very strangeness is deceiving. They grin to display sharp teeth. Their hair twitches and churns, alive in its own way, because each thick strand boasts a snapping mouth that seeks air, or prey, or water, or some trace of his thoughts—who can tell?
The largest heaves itself up all the way onto the shore. Its huge tail makes it clumsy but nevertheless none of the land-bound venture close. The claws and teeth of the merfolk can shred a man’s flesh to rags in moments; not even the skin of the RockChildren is proof against their claws.
Its slit nose opens and closes as if sniffing. It speaks in a voice almost too low to hear, and the words sound oddly formed, too round and too flat, because its mouth and throat are not meant to voice human sounds. Yet they are able to speak the language of RockChildren.
“We have come in answer to your summons.”
“So you have, and I thank you.”
“What do you want, Stronghand? We give to you aid. Food, you give to us. What do you want from us now?”
“I have heard a rumor that your people can swim upriver into fresh water. That you are not confined to the sea.”
It made no reply.
“If I had known that, I could have asked your people to be scouts. If I had a more efficient way to summon you, we could work together in this.”
“What more can you give us?” it asks.
“What do you want?”
Their reply comes in a hum so low that at first no words can be distinguished, but the pebbles all along the shoreline vibrate and actually begin to roll, grinding one against the other, slipping and shifting. Rocks tumble down from the high rock columns all around them and crash into the waters. Wind screams through the rocky inlet as the storm shoulders in. Rain falls in sheets, so cold and sharp that it opens a tiny cut on Erling’s cheek as he hunkers down, drawing his cloak over his face for shelter.
“Revenge.”
“He’s blind and mute, Captain.”
“Is he deaf, too?” Laughter followed. Men might laugh at drowning animals in such a way, not caring for their suffering but amused by their struggles.
He became aware of smells and noises and a cold draft rising up from below, the breath of the pit.
Where was he? How had he come here?
Distantly a hound barked, but the laughing man’s voice drowned it out.
“All the better, Foucher. We’ll put him on the deepest wheel where it will make no difference if he can see or no. No need for chains. Rope will do for him. How’s he to escape if he’s blind?”
“Are you sure he can work? He looks soft in the head.”
“He looks strong enough to me.”
“If he’s too stupid to know what to do?”
The laughter sounded again, this time mixed with the smell of onions that flavored the man’s breath. “Prod him like a beast. He’ll figure it out. Walk and he’s let be. Stop and he’s whipped.”