Beyond the Moons Read Free Page B

out of the water, ready to bolt like one of the rabbits that sometimes crouched at the edge of his fields. Muck ran down his scratched and burned body, but the farmer was too intent on the blazing scene to notice. Cautiously, he stepped up the bank and slowly began to circle the burning wreck.
    Abruptly there was a loud groan of timber, followed by a single thundering crack as the vessel’s keel split. Teldin sprang back as the shattered form lurched, then split in two, the back half settling, slightly canted on its outspread wings. The front, with its long, jutting spar, tore free and dropped onto the remains of the chicken coop, smashing it flat. Stunned hens reeled out of the wreckage and staggered through the rubble-strewn yard. The knifelike bow wobbled and fell over, tipping away from the wreckage of the house, and the upper decks listed toward Teldin. A short mast thrust out at him like a misguided dragon lance, wavering up and down, a tattered pennon at its tip. The few hens that remained fled, squawking in alarm. When the ship finally settled, Teldin stalked forward, his hoe clutched in both hands. He could barely make himself move, he was so tense and ready to bolt, but the need to know more drove him forward.
    As he advanced slowly, weaving from side to side, Teldin studied the wreck. The main hull and most of the ship seemed to be made of wood, but sprouting from the keel of the rear section were four flaring fins, definitely not of timber. Ribbed like a trout’s fins, the strange sails were mangled badly by the crash, broken in several places when the vessel sheared through the trees. Bits of a fleshy membrane, of which only torn and burned strips remained, once joined the ribs of these wings. A similar fin rose out of the middle of the deck, its arching shape tangled in the shattered branches overhead. Trailing into the darkness at the back was something that looked like a flamboyant fish’s tail.
    Teldin had never seen these things on any ship in Kalaman. He blinked, wondering if the explosion had addled his senses. The strange wings, combined with the gleaming portholes near the bow, made the vessel seem like a living creature. This was furthered by the leaping shadows of the fire, which gave the shattered hulk the image of pulsing life, as if the last breaths of the ship were being gasped away.
    “By the Dark Queen of the Abyss!” Teldin swore softly under his breath, letting loose the strongest oath he had ever used. The farmer ducked down to go under the mast of the fore section when a scratching noise came from the deck. Whirling about, Teldin watched a dark, limp shape slide across the tilted foredeck, break through the railing at the edge with a wet thud, and drop behind the broken wall of the house. “A person!” Teldin blurted.
    He froze in place, torn about what to do. If there were beings on board, Teldin finally realized, the gods only knew who or what they might be. Part of him suddenly wanted to flee, to get away from this monstrosity, but other parts, his curiosity and his decency, urged him forward. It was with slow steps that Teldin finally edged forward to the broken log wall. With his hoe held ready like an axe, the farmer thrust his head over.
    The other side of the wall was dimly illuminated by the leaping flames that showed through the shattered porthole in the bow, but there definitely was a body crumpled atop the tumbled piles of shingles and rafters. Teldin could not tell if the body was male or female; that much it was too dark to discern. Taking up a burning brand, Teldin held the rude torch up for a closer look. The being’s frame was light and thin, like an elfs. The body was strong and muscled, though, and certainly not like the few elves he’d ever met. The face was toward the ground, but the black, tangled hair glistened wetly. Probably blood, he thought. Whoever it was, it wasn’t human, of that he was almost sure.
    Teldin poked at the body with the handle of his hoe.