Page 38 of Nyall

“Dinnae fret, sweet prince,” Fiacail whispered against his ear as she pressed her knife under his chin. “I shall remember you, always.”

As Merrick left the north side of the island to return to the bay he considered going beyond into the sound. The pack of whale-killers he needed find often haunted the depths between Caladh and the mainland. He also needed more time away from his people to compose himself. Everything inside him demanded he go and find Margret, and take her away with him to a place where they could be alone. If he made love to her, he wondered if that would convince her to come to him. He could also drive her mad by forcing her into the water.

As the last of the sunlight faded, and the turquoise waters turned midnight blue around him, Merrick wearily resigned himself to go on denying the only thing he had ever truly wanted.

The sleek black and white figure of the matriarch came to him just outside the mist barrier, and from her agitated movements he knew she had been very recently disturbed by something. She calmed when he reached out to touch her thin, sensitive skin and looked into one of her brown eyes. One of the oldest of her kind, she usually met him with a serenity that came from decades of memories of him. Whatever had distressed her made her incapable of communicating at the moment, so he followed her back to her pod.

Nearly a hundred of her sons, younger daughters and sisters swarmed around them, all showing the same signs of distress as their leader. The females kept herding all of the youngest in their center, as if they detected a threat nearby. Merrick finally caught the attention of the matriarch’s second, another female past her bearing years, who allowed him to clasp her conical head between his webbed hands.

Reaching into her mind with his power, Merrick closed his eyes to receive her thoughts. Unlike the Selseus the whale-killers had no language of words, but expressed themselves in emotions, memories and patterns that formed intricate combinations with the sounds and movements they made.

The second female recalled something like his own power enveloping the pod along with the taste of blood and waves of a single sound. It had triggered the matriarch’s terror, for she had never encountered such a fearful occurrence. The entire pod seemed to be on the verge of mourning a death, and yet not from the loss of one of their own.

A terrible being, he thought, had killed somewhere close enough to taint their water.

Aware that he would get nothing more by pestering the creatures, Merrick made a gesture of respectful gratitude. The matriarch began a gathering swim, using her movements to tell the pod they were to leave the area immediately. She paused only long enough to briefly show him a farewell before she led her family away.

Merrick knew whale-killers to be highly intelligent and sophisticated beings who feared nothing. The pod mostly ignored the Selseus, the MacMar and any mortals they encountered, as they did not consider them prey animals. When they grew threatened, however, they formed a vicious and merciless pack, and pursued whatever they considered a danger, which was why other creatures gave them a wide berth. He’d once watched his matriarch and her sisters hunt and kill a gigantic white-mouth that had strayed across the border currents of what they regarded as their territory. They had worked together so well the shark hadn’t enough time to even defend itself. Whatever had frightened them now presented a similar danger, he suspected, yet they wished to flee it.

What could terrify the terrifying?

Merrick finally returned to the bay, and then swam to shore. From there he went to the walking labyrinth, where Connal stood waiting for him in the center. Thoughts of Meg and the matriarch tangled inside him, rendering him incapable of finding calm along the shell-lined path. When he finally joined the laird, his bewilderment had hardened into a tight dread.

“You found Shaw.” Connal looked into his eyes, and frowned. “Never tell me dead.”

“Your brother yet lives, and seems sane. He bid me say he shall return when he’s able. From his state I reckon he’ll come home soon.” Now he had to somehow convince the laird of what he still did not know, nor understand. In the simplest terms he told him of the encounter with the matriarch and the pod, and what they had done.

His friend looked out at the sea. “’Tisnae time for the whale-killers leave our waters.”

“Aye, and still she took them away. I wonder if I shall ever see them again.” He glanced over to see Jamaran, still dripping with water, assume his position as second on the side of the labyrinth. “Why came you here alone?”

“Kai, that castaway you pulled from the bay, went walking tonight but never returned.” Connal sounded tired now. “My men found his tracks at the water’s edge. They approached the water, but didnae return.”

He thought of the strangeness of the whale-killers, and remembered what they had sensed, and the severed hand they had found indicating a shark attack on a mortal. “You reckon ’twas the white-mouth?”

“I cannae tell you. Brochan says the lad’s a hard worker, and seemed happy enough to serve in the kitchens. ’Twas no reason for him run off.” The laird’s expression darkened. “If ’twas the shark killed him, we need end the beast now.”

“Aye, so we do.”

A third man came into the Selseus side of the labyrinth, and as soon as Merrick saw him he swore softly. Bered seemed indifferent to his displeasure as he approached and joined them, and even ignored Jamaran when he stepped into his path.

“I ken you dinnae wish welcome me here, my king,” his former heir said, staring stonily at the commander, “but I bring news of the lost traitor, Duxor. He nearly captured with a net trap that dark mortal wench who swims as we do.” As Jamaran went rigid, he added, “I saw him attack her and then flee the settlement with my own eyes. ’Tis why I dared your displeasure and came here, so I might tell you.”

“Such ’twillnae restore you to the palace,” Merrick told him.

Bered shrugged. “I’ve made my peace with that. What I desire, ’tis an end for your cousin’s schemes. I reckon he intends use that female as bait so he may lure and kill you, and then take the throne for himself. He yet carries royal blood, and never did you exile him. The elders, they couldnae refuse his claim.”

“What he says makes sense,” the laird put in, sounding grim.

Dinnae trust him, Jamaran thought at once. You ken he lies whenever he opens his mouth.

Looking into the smaller Selseus’s handsome face, Merrick tried to detect any flicker of deception. All he saw was weariness and determination, two things he’d never before seen Bered show so plainly. While he knew his commander was correct, he also understood how desperate his cousin had become, living a non-existence on the outskirts of the settlement.

“If you’re lying to me, I shallnae exile you,” he told Bered softly. “I shall cage and starve you.”

“Aye, and so you should.” His cousin reached into his suit and pulled out a familiar-looking chain that had been broken. “I found this by the reef where he set his trap.”

Jamaran took the necklace, which Merrick recognized as one fashioned by his uncle just after Duxor’s birth. “The pendant?”