The Heretic Land Read Online Free PDF

stinging his eyes, the cold snatching his breath away, and he thought of all the storieshe had heard of this dreaded ocean. None of them were good, and most involved biting things.
    Leki’s fingers were long and tight, seeming to envelop his hand entirely, and when Bon opened his eyes she was a pale blur beside him. Above, poor light lit the sea’s violent surface, and below and around him clouds of sand and sediment swirled to the sea’s pulse. He breathed out gently through his nose, and the bubbles seemed to fall rather than rise. He gasped more bubbles of surprise, then saw that down was up, and the faint light was actually splayed across the ocean’s uneven bed. Thousands of fish sparkled with throbbing light, creating a display that was both beautiful and hypnotic.
    Leki tugged at his hand and started swimming for shore. Bon kicked, trying to help, but it was her own sinuous movements – body flexing, feet kicking, spare hand sweeping water behind her – that powered them through the water.
    Bon started to struggle. His vision darkened, and Leki lifted them up to break the surface. The sudden roar and violence of the sea was shocking, and people shouted for help, and behind it all there was a voice calling—
    Leki took him down and started swimming again.
    A shape waved through the sea towards them. It was a silhouette with fine fins, twisting like a snake and always seeming to dance just out of Bon’s view. It might have been as long as his hand or the length of the ship, and then he felt a dull stab on his ankle and the thing was flitting away again.
    Leki paused and turned before him, floating effortlessly in the water. She leaned forward and touched his leg, and then Bon noticed the cloud of blood pulsing from the bite. Like shadows cast by the spreading cloud, more snake-creatures were arcing in towards him.
    Leki flicked out a hand and caught a creature, and even as it whipped itself around her hand, head thrashing and pale teeth exposed,she bit it in half and shook its spasming parts away from her. She let go of Bon and pushed him back from her, snatching at shapes as silent waves broke above their heads. She kicked as well, each movement shifting her in the water so that she performed a graceful dance as she fought the biting things.
    Bon let himself rise, needing to breathe again. Through his blurred vision he could see the roaring waves smashing overhead, carrying vague shapes that might or might not have been his fellow prisoners. And just for a moment he held back, not wishing to subject himself to the violence up there again.
    But then Leki was with him once more, grasping his belt and hauling him after her as she surfaced.
    Bon gasped in several deep breaths. They were closer to the rocky beach than the ship now, and the vessel was already making sail. A wave smashed over them, Bon spluttered and spat water from his mouth, and a body was rolled past them in the sea’s embrace. It was a woman, her dark flowing hair mimicking the blood staining the water around her. Her body was battered, head caved in from some impact. And there were bites.
    Leki pulled him down again. As they dived, Bon caught one last glimpse of the waves breaking onto the rocky shore, and the beach beyond. There were prisoners in the waves, some clambering across the rocks towards the beach, a few seemingly as looselimbed as the dead woman. One of them reached shore and staggered up the beach, passing the two large, dark shapes seeming to stand guard. They were human-shaped, but something about the way they stood was very wrong. They held long objects, and at the feet of one lay a huddled form. As seawater stole Bon’s vision again, he was certain he saw blood darkening the pale sand.
    ‘Bon—’ avoice seemed to call, and then Bon’s hearing was taken also.
    Leki dragged him down and swam again, hauling him against the surge and pull of the undertow. Bon’s eyes must have become more used to the saltwater – either that or