It doesn’t take long for all of us to assemble at the top of the cliff. Pek carries Kol over his shoulder, but Kol doesn’t complain. I think he’d rather accept help from Pek than from anyone else. We stand in a clump facing north, Kol leaning against his brother, with the sun dipping over our left shoulders in the west. The day is growing late and hunger gnaws at me. No one says anything, but I’m sure everyone is hungry.
The ledge below us drops straight down to the water, but to our right, a strip of sand extends from the base of the cliff out into the sea. This is the beach—the far northern edge of it at least—where Lees, Noni, and I set up our camp last night. Squinting, I can see the shadowy outline of the tent in the distance. The kayak Lees and I came in is only a little farther east, tucked up against the wall of rock. According to Seeri, the two double kayaks she came in with Kol, Chev, and Pek are on the eastern shore of the island, too.
“What about the boats the Bosha came in?” I ask Morsk. “You were following them. Did you see where they left them?”
“Right beside the kayaks your family came in.”
“And your boat?”
“In the same place.”
My thoughts race. If we can reach them safely, there are enough boats in one place to get us all out of here. But would we be able to make it to the boats if we started down this cliff now? Or would picking our way down in the open, under a sun that’s still high in the sky, leave us too exposed? We will have to go slow, finding the best way down to the sand while Pek carries Kol. If the Bosha are nearby, we’d be completely vulnerable to an attack.
I glance around at the others. Everyone except Kol, Noni, and me still have spears by their sides. I doubt Noni ever had one, and mine and Kol’s were lost when the passageway collapsed. Both Pek and Noni carry packs.
“Pek?” I try to speak quietly into his ear. “Do you have any food in that pack?”
“I do,” he says, “and I’m more than happy to share it.”
“I have food, too,” says Noni, “though it’s not much.”
“Let’s find a place out of sight,” I say, noticing what sparse choices we have for getting under cover. The trees facing the north coast are few, and those are thin and spindly. Still, Pek finds a place where there is shade enough to conceal us. Everyone is excited about the prospect of food, and the mood is lighter than it’s been all day. Only Noni still stands at the bare edge of the cliff looking out.
“Come sit,” I say. “Everyone’s hungry. I know you must be, too.”
“I am,” she says, but her eyes don’t leave the beach. They stay fixed on something in the distance. I turn to see what it is that has her so entranced, and I see what she sees. A man, walking toward the base of the cliff. My breath catches in my throat.
“Is that your father?” I ask, sweeping her behind me.
“No, but I know him,” she says. “He’s my uncle.”
“Your father’s brother?” I ask. Fear ripples under my skin at the thought that Noni’s father might have found her.
“My mother’s brother,” she answers. We both watch him as he follows the curve of the shore. All at once he looks up at us and throws his arms up to wave. “I don’t know how he found us here.”
I stand staring at the form of the approaching man, wondering if he’s a danger, and wishing I had a spear. I remember the man who pursued Lees and me out to sea in a kayak from the Tama’s shore. I can see even from this distance that this is not that man—his hair is much longer—but that doesn’t mean Noni’s uncle doesn’t intend to do her harm. He reaches the base of the cliff and begins to climb. “Noni!” he calls. “I’ve come to warn you!”
“I trust him,” she murmurs.
We watch him climb—not coming straight up but choosing to pick a path that winds up the cliff. Still, despite this easier route, he struggles. I watch him grope for handholds as if he were weak, as if he were a man much older than he appears.
“Something’s wrong,” Noni says. “I’m going down.”
I watch him advance up the cliff as she works her way down, panic growing inside me. We should not be out in the open, exposed to the Bosha. Noni should not be climbing down this cliff, even if she does trust this man. I start down a few steps behind her, my eyes on her uncle, when suddenly he falls forward, landing on his face on the sand. A long dart protrudes from his back.
I glance over my shoulder at the clump of trees where the others are huddled. Kol lies on the ground, but Morsk sees me. He gets up. As I descend the cliff, I hear him coming over the ledge above me.
Noni reaches her uncle. He’s still alive, but won’t be for long. His hands grip Noni’s arm. “I had to warn you,” he says. “I had to warn you and your mother.”
“But how did you know—”
“Your father has been looking for you. He knew a boat was gone.” The poor man chokes. Blood spills over his lips. Morsk hurries to our sides and helps pull the man upright. He leans over and spits blood into the sand. “When he didn’t find even a sign of you up the river, he turned his attention to the sea. He’s had people out searching the coast. But—” He gasps and coughs, and I draw Noni away, as if I mean to protect her from the horror of watching her uncle die. But she pulls away from me and moves closer to him. She wants to hear every word he came to say.
“He noticed a branch with green leaves that came in on a wave. ‘Islands.’ That was what he said that day. He had seen two paddlers heading out to sea. He said they knew where the island was. He said this proved it. . . .” This time, mercifully, his voice trails off instead of breaking into a hack.
I swallow hard. The paddlers he saw were me and Lees. “We gave you away,” I say. “It was us—”
“I don’t care. I would be dead by now if it weren’t for you, anyway.”
I doubt this is true, but if Noni hoped it would make me feel better, it does. “Who attacked you?” I ask. “Did Noni’s father—”
“No.” He coughs again, and this time I think he’s died. He stills. Noni sets a hand on his, and he opens his sunken eyes. “Protect her, please,” he says to Morsk. “Protect her and her mother.”
In reply, Morsk simply nods. I see him swallow hard.
“This dart. It was thrown by someone here on the island. I never saw who it was, but they are here. They are already here, and they will kill to get her back.” He chokes again, gasping for air. His eyes meet Noni’s one last time. “Be careful. Be careful.”
He lies back against the sand. For a moment his breathing comes in a rough pant, and then it stops. His chest stills, and the hand clenched around Noni’s wrist slides to the ground.
He is dead.
“I’m so sorry, Noni,” Morsk says. I notice a knot in his throat as he speaks.
She leans over and kisses her uncle on the brow. “He was my mother’s favorite. Now he’s going to her.” Tears spill from her eyes and she turns her face away.
“The dart was thrown by someone here on this island,” I repeat aloud to myself.
“So her father is already here?” Morsk sets a hand on the dart, rocks Noni’s uncle forward, and tugs hard to pull it loose. With it out, the dead man’s body is able to lie flat against the sand.
Noni slumps against his chest. “That’s better,” she sobs.
Something about the dart is familiar to me. I take it from Morsk’s hand. His eyes stay on it, too. “You’ve seen darts like this before, haven’t you?” He nods. We grew up in the same clan. “Noni, does your clan use darts?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you carve them from?”
“Bone.”
I hold up the dart to the light. “This is spruce,” I say. “I know the design. This is Bosha made.”
We leave Noni’s uncle at the base of the cliff and rejoin the group. They’ve shared some food, but they’ve also stood at the edge of the cliff. They are anxious to ask about the man who died.
“So the Bosha are not far,” Pek says.
“But why would they want to kill my uncle?” Noni asks, passing me her pack so I can try to get some food into Kol.
“I don’t think they knew who he was,” I answer. “They probably thought he was one of us.”
Kol is awake, but very weak. He accepts a sliver of dried mammoth, but takes only a small bite. “You should let me go look for feverweed,” Noni says. But I can’t let her go now, even though I know Kol needs it.
“Soon,” I say. “When I can go with you.”
“So the Bosha are close, armed, and ready to kill,” Pek says. “And Noni’s father’s clan is coming, too.”
“We need to go—to get down the cliff and to the boats before the Bosha find us and before the Tama attack.” I say all this—not as much to let the others know my plan as to clarify it for myself. The sun is sliding toward the sea, and though we still have a long time before dark, we don’t want to push out onto the sea when the day is mostly gone. “But if the Tama come for Noni, I want you to know I will defend her. I will protect her like I would if she were of the Olen clan. But she’s not, so I can’t ask any of you to do the same.”
“I would do the same.” It’s Kol. The first words he’s said since Pek carried him across the ground. “I may not be well enough to defend her. But I would.”
“I would, too,” says Pek.
“We all would, Mya.” Seeri leans forward and clasps my hand. “You aren’t asking us to do anything we don’t want to do.” My gaze moves to Lees, and then to Morsk. They both nod in agreement.
“Who wouldn’t defend a child in danger?” Lees asks.
Chev might not, I think to myself. Not that Chev was cruel or unfeeling, but he lived by the rule of clan first. He might not have defended Noni if he thought it risked the safety of members of his own clan. He may have forbidden others from defending her, too.
Am I already failing in Chev’s place? Or were his rules for leadership all wrong? Right now is not the time to ask these questions. Instead, I look around the group, assessing weapons and skills. “Since we all agree that we will protect each other and Noni, here’s what I think we should do.”
I outline my plan—Lees will stay back with Kol and Noni. She will be left with a spear, an atlatl, and darts, but they will be expected to stay out of sight under these trees. Morsk, Pek, Seeri, and I will climb down the cliff wall and move up the beach to the boats. We will each row back one of the boats so we can get all of us off the island tonight.
Pek is on his feet almost before I stop speaking—one hand reaching for his spear while the other tugs Seeri to her feet. Morsk has yet to sit. His eyes have been locked on the sea the whole time.
“Before you go,” Lees starts, “I have a comment on your plan.”
“We’ll be careful—”
“I think I should go, and you should stay with Kol.”
My back is turned to Lees—I’m leaning over Kol, my hand pressed to his scalding cheek—but when I turn I see something unfamiliar in her eyes. She hands me her spear. “You’ll need this. I’ll take a set of darts and an atlatl instead. But you should stay with Kol. I would want to stay if Roon were the one sick. He needs you.” There’s a heaviness in her voice I’ve never heard before, and I realize the thing in her eyes is concern. Not the childish kind of concern I’ve seen there before, like the look she gets when she fears she’s missing out, but the concern that I am doing the wrong thing by leaving her with Kol.
By leaving Kol with anyone but me.
“It’s too dangerous—”
“Staying here to defend the two of them is just as dangerous. Noni’s never even held a spear—”
“That’s not true,” Noni blurts out, but I know what Lees means. She can’t be depended on to help if they were found.
“The trip to the boats will be much more dangerous—”
“Will it?” It’s Seeri who interjects now. “I don’t know. Honestly, Mya, I think I would be less worried about Lees if she were with me, Pek, and Morsk than if she were left behind to defend two defenseless people.”
I study Seeri. Is this really what she thinks? Or does she think Kol might die and I should be here if he does?
I know he won’t die—he can’t die—but I bend down beside him and he turns to me. His eyes see me, but I don’t think he’s heard anything we’ve said. His eyes flutter, move to the sky, and fall closed again.
“All right then. I’ll stay. But I want a signal. If any of us gets into trouble, we’ll set a fire. If we see smoke, we’ll know it’s a call for help.”
“But won’t smoke draw everyone else who’s stalking us, too?” Pek asks.
“I’d be happy to have them all out in the open at last,” Seeri says. “It would be better than fearing every shadow.”
With these words in my ears I walk with them to the edge of the cliff, wondering where the Bosha might be at this moment and when they might attack. I watch Pek, Morsk, and Lees drop over the ledge one by one and start down. Seeri goes last. “Don’t worry about us,” she says, pulling me into an awkward hug. “Take care of Kol. We won’t be long.”
I stay low to the ground and watch her descend. When she is halfway to the bottom of the cliff, I creep back into the shade of the trees and find Kol alone.
Noni is gone.