[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
they had ripped out the spines. The spines would grow back eventually, however.
She had expected that attaching the spines to Rissi s back would be the hard part,
but he solved the problem by cutting himself a strip of wide leathery sea grass
and making it into a vest shape. He drilled holes through the base of each spine
with his knife, then pushed the spines through the back of the vest and secured
them with another thinner spine threaded through the holes.
Out of sight of the boats, Rissi practiced swimming up and diving down again so
that only the spines broke the surface.
You re kicking your feet up out of the water, Imi told him.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Canavan,%20Trudi%20-%20...02%20-%20The%20Last%20of%20the%20Wilds%20(v1).htm (199 of 637)28-12-2006 12:46:31
THE LAST OF THE WILDS
If I keep them together, it ll look like a tail fin, he replied, grinning.
Flarke fins go sideways, not up and down.
His face fell. Oh. Yes. That s right. I ll keep my feet down then.
Are you ready?
He shrugged. Are you?
She nodded. Yes!
Let s go then and be quick. Who knows how long they ll believe this for.
They swam back to the boulder and watched the landwalkers long enough to be
sure they knew where each was. She looked at Rissi expectantly. He stared back
at her, then nodded. Without a word, he sank under the water.
Her heartbeat began to quicken as she watched for him surfacing again. When
the spines finally rose out of the water she held her breath and looked to see if
the landwalkers had noticed.
They were all hard at work.
The spines broke the surface again, but still the landwalkers didn t notice. Rissi
moved back and forth, sometimes slowly, sometimes diving under the surface
abruptly. Imi realized he had probably seen a flarke before and was mimicking
its behavior.
A shout drew her attention back to the landwalkers. They had finally noticed the
spines. She grinned as they stopped working and milled anxiously about in the
boat. One pounded on the outside of the boat with a hard object. She could hear
the dull sound of it. A head appeared beside the boat and she felt a surge of
triumph as the swimmer hastily climbed aboard.
My turn, she thought.
Taking a deep breath, she dove under and swam hard in the direction of the
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Canavan,%20Trudi%20-%20...02%20-%20The%20Last%20of%20the%20Wilds%20(v1).htm (200 of 637)28-12-2006 12:46:31
THE LAST OF THE WILDS
boats. Her heart was pounding with excitement, fear and exertion by the time she
saw the elongated shadows above her.
Looking down, she almost let her breath out in amazement.
Her father had once taken her outside the city to show her a forest. She had
looked up into a tangle of branches and leaves. It was a sight she had never
forgotten. Now, gazing down at the branches of the sea-bell plants swaying
gently in the sea current, she knew what it was like to look down on a forest
from above.
It was also like looking at the night sky. Growing from every twig and stem were
faint pinpoints of light. Swimming closer, she realized that these were the sea
bells. Each was filled with tiny grains of brightness.
She hadn t known that they glowed. As she reached the swaying strands and
their burdens of light, she stretched out and touched one. It was surprisingly
soft nothing like the hard translucent bells she had seen before. She took the
knife Rissi had loaned her and carefully cut through the stem.
As soon as the bell was severed from the stem, the light died. She felt a pang of
guilt and sadness. It seemed a shame to disturb the plants. They were so pretty.
She then thought of her father and all that she had gone through to get here. She
began cutting more bells. While Rissi had been making his flarke costume she
had made a rough bag out of another leaf of sea grass curled into a cone and
pinned with short lengths of spine. She put the bells in this.
A splash above her drew her attention upward. She saw a silhouette of a
landwalker and her heart stopped.
The diver s back!
She held the bag closed with one hand and dashed away.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Canavan,%20Trudi%20-%20...02%20-%20The%20Last%20of%20the%20Wilds%20(v1).htm (201 of 637)28-12-2006 12:46:31
THE LAST OF THE WILDS
They must have worked out they were being tricked! Or maybe the costume
started falling apart. Or
Something pressed into her face. It slid across her skin, enveloping her before
she could react. Rope. Fine rope woven into a net. She threw out her arms but
felt the net curl around them.
Don t panic! she told herself. Now that she was caught she was conscious of the
growing need for air. She had heard stories of Elai that had drowned, tangled in
landwalkers nets, but also others of how people had freed themselves. She knew
if she thrashed about, she d only become more tangled. I must stay calm and
work my way free.
Looking at the net, she saw that the spaces in the weave were wide enough that
most fish could swim through. It extended to either side in a curve that suggested
it surrounded the sea-bell plants. What that implied set her heart racing again.
Had these landwalkers put it there to keep off predators, or Elai?
She did not want to find out. In one hand she held the bag of sea bells. In the
other she held Rissi s knife. She needed both hands to cut through the net.
Holding the bag in her mouth, she sawed at the net until she had made a hole big
enough for the bag. She pushed it through and let it go. It slowly sank to the
sandy bottom.
Now she began to cut her arms free. Just as she had released one arm, she felt a
tug through the net.
She looked up, her heart sinking with dread as she saw the net was slowly
moving upward.
Not yet! she thought, as she set to sawing at the weave frantically. Another tug
came and she felt the strands tighten around her. She slashed at them. An easing
in water pressure told her she was moving upward. She realized more of her was
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Canavan,%20Trudi%20-%20...02%20-%20The%20Last%20of%20the%20Wilds%20(v1).htm (202 of 637)28-12-2006 12:46:31
THE LAST OF THE WILDS
outside the net than in it. Yet still the tangle of it around her legs pulled her
upward, feet first. She saw the surface rapidly approaching. Felt the looming
hulk of the boat nearby. Heard voices.
She felt a surge of panic and hacked at the net. Something caught the blade and it
slipped from her grasp. She twisted and grabbed for it, but her fingers closed on
water. Sunlight flashed on the blade once before it sank out of sight.
The net tightened on her legs as she was hauled upward.
No! She shrieked into the water and twisted about to claw at her legs, but the
next pull lifted her into air. She gasped in a fresh lungful then tried to reach up to
her ankles again. Free of the buoyancy of the water, she didn t have the strength
to reach them. She heard voices above her. Angry voices. One of them barked a
word.
Then hands were clawing and pulling at her. She struggled and struck out,
shrieking in terror. The hard edge of the boat rolled under her, then she fell onto
a flat surface.
The hands left her. She stopped shrieking and stared up at her captors, panting
with fear. They stared back at her, their pale, wrinkled faces twisted with disgust.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]