Free Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards Page A

up and pressed on. The wind was so strong he had to lean into it to stay on his feet. The shingle sucked at him; he plodded with giant, unsteady steps, like a man wading through a swamp. At last he reached the waterline, where a slender rock pointed like a gigantic finger at the sky.
    A boat was wallowing in the shallows. Its hull was smooth and grey. Its prow rose high; at its peak was the carved likeness of a wolf's head. A hollow bowl sat between the animal's ears. Flames licked from the bowl. So that was the source of the light.
    The boat was on the brink of disaster. Huge waves hurled it against first one boulder then another. Over the sides of the hull, the faces of men now flickered into view, now vanished: the boat's crew, trying desperately to steer their vessel safely to shore. Their faces looked deformed, monstrous even; or perhaps it was the eerie light. Oars thrashed, but Bran could see it was hopeless.
    Trapped in the chasm between the rocks, the boat had fallen victim to an endless churning whirlpool. Mir, the spirit of the sea, was angry.
    Lightning connected the clouds. Bran flinched. This was too much like that other storm, that other night. Keyli's face had come and gone from view just like the faces of the boat's desperate crew, alternately exposed and concealed by the waves. Maybe he'd passed through the doorway after all, and here he was in the afterdream, where death ruled all ...
    'Help us!'
    The voice cut through the storm: the cries of the many distilled into a single desperate plea.
    Bran cupped his hands, the good and the bad, around his mouth. His beard was sodden.
    'Row back!' he shouted.
    The sea seized the boat and tossed it against the rocks. The hull shuddered along its entire length. Suddenly Bran understood that the boat was immense—bigger than any he'd seen. Big enough to hold at least twenty men.
    He flapped his hands. 'Go back!'
    He had no idea if they heard him. Then one of the oars flailing over the side of the boat started to press against the waves rather than with them. All instinct would be telling these men to beach the boat before it was wrecked; someone on board, on hearing his cry, had found the courage to do the exact opposite.
    'Throw a rope!' Bran moved his arms, miming the act of catching and pulling. Could anyone see him?
    The answer came in the form of a coiling snake-shape lashing out of the murk. It cut into the sand ten paces away from where Bran stood. At once it started slithering back towards the water's edge. Bran chased it, managed to grab it just before it vanished into the waves.
    So like his dream.
    The boat was retreating now, crawling back out of the whirlpool that had been holding it captive. But escape meant returning to the open sea, where the storm would sink it for certain. The rope snapped tight, threatening to drag Bran into the water. He set his weight against it, tried to wrap the rope round the finger of rock. It would make a perfect anchor, if only he could secure it. His heels scrabbled in the shingle. The rope began to slip through his good hand, burning it.
    Lightning flooded the night sky, turning it entirely white.
    A voice beside Bran's ear said:
    'Have you noticed how low the boat sits in the water?'
    It was Talus: casual, eternally bare-headed and quite unaffected by the catastrophic weather.
    'Grab the rope!' Bran yelled. 'Make a fish-loop! Hurry!'
    While Bran battled to stop the boat pulling him out to sea, Talus took up the loose end of the rope and circled the rock with it. For the brief moment he was hidden, Bran had the delirious sensation his friend had passed not just out of sight but out of the world altogether.
    Talus reappeared from behind the rock, his teeth bared in a rictus grin. He looped the end of the rope over the place where Bran was gripping it and made a knot.
    'There!' he said, dusting his hands. 'You can let go now.'
    Bran did so, at the same time dropping to his knees and allowing the rope to snap tight in the air.