The Heretic Land Read Online Free PDF Page B

the light here was different, the water kept clear by back-surge from the land – because he could make out more detail. Seaweed waved feathery fronds, some of them twice his height, and forms scampered within shadows. Corals rose from the seabed in elaborate shapes, beautiful echoes of history building upon the dead past and reaching towards unknown futures. Bon had a sudden, overpowering urge to search for evidence of the Skythian War buried deep; perhaps the remnants of an Engine, a mythical tool used by the Ald to conjure magic. Larger creatures haunted the extremes of his vision – swimming, floating, scampering, crawling. One of them rolled across the seabed, and then he recognised the priest, limbs flailing to the sea’s urges as his sodden robe and boots held him down, drowned. As Leki took Bon upwards once again, he saw more of those shadowy snake shapes darting in to bite the priest’s pale skin. Easy pickings.
    They broke surface, and someone shouted almost in his ear.
    ‘—Ugane! Bon Ugane! Does anyone know—?’
    ‘Here!’ Bon shouted. Leki glared at him, a transparent film passing across her wide eyes. A wave shoved them forward and broke over them, and Leki’s hand slipped from his grasp. Bon panicked for a moment as the sea drove him down, and when something grabbed his leg and pulled he kicked out, mouth opening and bubbles rushing past his chest and stomach for the surface.
    He breathed in air again and Leki pulled him close. For the first time he saw a flicker of panic in her eyes, and glancing backhe saw the looming rocks. Waves smashed across them, and a dead man had been forced into a crevasse by the water. He was facing in, but would never see land.
    ‘There he is. Come on!’ Leki said, and she kicked against the draw of the tide.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Bon Ugane!’ a voice called again, and then Bon saw the boat riding the waves a few lengths back out to sea. With three great kicks Leki pulled them there, and Bon squeezed his eyes closed against the next wave. Once it had passed over them, Leki grabbed him beneath the arms and lifted. Her strength was immense. He rose from the sea as if he were kicking against rock, and the man in the boat dropped oars and reached for him. He clasped Bon by his torn shirt and fell back into the boat.
    Bon landed hard atop the man, and the man gasped, winded. The cigar he’d been smoking fell from his mouth and rolled across his shoulder, leaving a trail of sparkling, smoking tobacco that held Bon’s bemused attention.
    ‘Up and off me, for the Fade’s fucking sake!’ the man said, galvanising Bon into motion. He rolled off and sat up, reaching over the side of the boat for Leki. But she did not need his help. She kicked herself aboard, lifting into the boat with minimal effort, and then she crouched down and stared at the boatman. Water beaded and dripped from her skin, and a tracework of fine bites bled across her left shoulder.
    ‘No need to stare at me like that, water lady,’ the man said. He took up his oars and started rowing, cigar clamped firmly between his teeth once more. The smoke seemed to dance around his head in defiance of the strong sea breeze. ‘I’m no harm, and if I was I’d have not hauled you from the sea, and if you are going to attack me can you do it now instead of later when I’ve saved your skins, save me the effort, save us
all
the effort.’He glanced Leki up and down. ‘Nice teats. There’s a coat behind you if you want to cover yourself.’ Still rowing, he looked ashore, past the cruel rocks at the relatively calm beach. ‘You should see what I’m seeing, then we’ll talk.’ He spoke quieter now, and Bon turned to see.
    Though the boat rocked and the sea spray obscured his view, the violence taking place on the beach was obvious. One of the tall, heavy shapes held a naked prisoner with one huge hand, and with the other it was gutting the man, hacking at his torso with a knife, sawing, then slashing at the guts as