Juliet McKenna: Northern Storm

‘Then it’s a good omen when the very first shark to come sniffing around ends up on a spear.’ Kheda nodded his approval. ‘What else can we read into this? A flail-tail is a dangerous shark but nowhere near as deadly as a ragged-tooth. A ragged-tooth will eat a flail-tail, so the very fact that a flail-tail is in these waters should mean the bigger sharks are elsewhere.’

‘Very true, my lord,’ agreed the confident diver and the crowd’s smiles broadened perceptibly at this happy thought.

Though it’s no meagre specimen, at least as long as I am tall and doubtless as heavy as any three men here.

‘Let’s see what else we can learn from this fish.’ Kheda stepped back to let the crowd press forward, eager hands grabbing at the harsh-skinned bluish-grey fins and tail. There didn’t seem to be any life left in the creature but he kept a prudent distance from the vicious maw all the same. The skiffs master and his helmsman lifted the shark’s head between them, using the broad-bladed spears that had slain it and which were still embedded deep in its gills and through its snout. The islanders wrestled the inert mass over the side of the boat and dumped it on the ground. Dark blood oozed from its mouth, staining the sand. ‘Show me its belly.’ Kheda held out a hand and Dev provided him with a heavy barbed spear acquired from someone. The skiffs crew rolled the unwieldy creature over to lie half on its back, half on its side, glaucous underside pallid in the sun, the long pennant of its tail trailing lifeless across the sand. Kheda lifted the spear high above his head with both hands and with a grunt of effort thrust it clean through the shark just below the vicious curve of its jaw, pinning the creature to the ground. There was a murmur of uncertainty from a few directions.

Not what Chazen Saril used to do, then? Perhaps his father never told him of warlords who’d been surprised by a moribund shark and bitten even after they’d cut the beast’s head off. That’s not the kind of omen we want today.

‘A knife.’ Kheda reached behind him.

‘Here.’ Dev slapped a long, brutally serrated blade into his palm.

‘My lord?’ Isei was looking expectantly at him.

Kheda took a deep breath and pinioned the fish’s tail firmly with one foot. He dug the point of the blade into the fish’s cloaca and ripped a jagged slit up its length, fighting against the tough, clinging skin, harsh as a carpenter’s rasp against his knuckles.

Not too deep. Don’t pierce the intestines or mar the liver, blighting the interpretation before it’s even begun. Stars above, this is easier with a deer or a hog.

Wiping sweat from his forehead, he persisted until he had laid the shark’s entrails bare for all to see. A powerful smell rose from the dead fish, not yet edged with the sickly stench of decay, though that wouldn’t take long in this strong sun.

‘The beast is certainly healthy, nothing ill-omened among its entrails, no marks, no deformities.’ Kheda waited to be quite sure that the shark was motionless, then stuck the knife into the sand by his foot. He reached both hands into the cavity to lift out the dark liver, searching for stains or blemishes. What’s the first thing I will see mirrored in its sheen? That’s always the crucial portent. As he sought to get a grip on the solid, slippery mass, something squirmed among the coiled lengths of the shark’s guts. Kheda abandoned all thoughts of securing the liver and snatched up the knife instead. ‘Has it eaten something alive?’ Dev peered into the beast with lively curiosity.

‘Or someone?’ quavered Borha. ‘It’s a flail-tail, not a ragged-tooth.’ Kheda took a firm grip on the salt-roughened handle of the knife.

Which is fortunate because we’ve all heard the tales of ragged-toothed sharks cut open to reveal whole skeletons inside them or at very least fateful collections of skulls and bones. Flail-tails can only take an arm or a leg at worst and one of those could hardly be still fighting or kicking. Besides, the divers said there ‘d been no mishaps on the reefs.

Dismissing his incoherent thoughts, Kheda used the point of the blade to push aside the pallid loops of the shark’s gut, less concerned with piercing them now than with revealing this mystery. He exposed a swollen sac, feebly contorted by whatever lay within in. ‘Whatever this is, it isn’t in the creature’s belly,’ he said, bemused. Setting his jaw, he seized one end of the sac where it was anchored within the fish and sliced it open with a deft stroke of the knife.

A miniature shark twisted out of the wound, as long as a man’s arm and about as thick, perfect in every detail. Black eyes bright, its snapping white teeth missed Kheda’s hand by a hair’s breadth. A frisson ran through the mesmerised islanders.

Teeth more than big enough to do damage. How would that have been for an omen?

He skewered the wriggling infant through its flapping gills and hoisted it out of the dead shark’s belly on the knife blade. It was surprisingly heavy.

‘Has anyone ever seen such a thing?’ he enquired, letting a hint of amusement colour his query. Hearts shook all around, some faces awestruck, others apprehensive.

‘Then we certainly have a mighty portent to read.’ Kheda smiled and threw the baby shark down on the sand, sending the nearest islanders stumbling backwards into those pressing close behind them. ‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What has the liver to tell us?’ As he bent to tug at the uncooperative mass, using the knife to cut it free, he thought furiously. What might be read into such a thing? A shark with a live baby in its belly? What is that an omen for? Who is such a portent meant for?

The dark, unwieldy mass of the adult shark’s liver came free with a suddenness that surprised him and Kheda felt Dev’s steadying hand in the small of his back. The ground was treacherous now, slick with the shark’s blood, and the stench was growing heady, red-eyed flies gathering to defy the islanders’ swatting hands.

‘My lord?’ It was the bare-chested diver, the confident one.

Kheda saw the man’s face reflected in the last gloss on the rapidly drying surface of the shark’s liver and let the weighty organ fall back into the gutted hollow of the great fish with a soggy thud. He smiled at Borha, hovering anxiously on the other side of the shark. ‘We’ve seen all we need to, so I’ll wash now, if I may.’

‘Here, girl!’ The spokesman beckoned to the maidens who had been serving by the pavilion. One hurried forward cradling a broad silver bowl of scented water and, tense beside her, a younger girl clutched a sizeable sponge.

‘In the water with it,’ Dev prompted briskly, taking the bowl. ‘The sponge, girl, the sponge!’

‘I see most favourable omens in this shark’s death,’ Kheda announced as he squeezed water over his arms to wash the worst of the blood and slime off on to the sand. To his relief, besa oil’s astringency cut through the fishy stench hanging all around. ‘To add to all the other positive portents favouring this pearl harvest and this domain at present.’ He submerged one forearm in the bowl and scrubbed with the sponge.

‘This shark came to feed at dawn, as is their habit. But it came alone, so we need not fear a season of losses among the divers, not to the sea’s predators. That’s how I read the matter, anyway. Mind you, I believe it came to lay claim to the reefs and whatever prey it might find there. To give birth in a place is to tie your future to it.’ He looked around to see rapt agreement on every face. ‘It didn’t succeed, did it? Your watch boats spotted the creature and your fishermen speared it before it had a chance to flee or to hide. It had no chance to make its bid for a stake in these waters.’ He gestured to the dead infant shark before beginning to wash his other arm.