PoraBora

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Akoni dragged himself onto the island with heavy breath. He'd done it in one go, inside to out, probably more than a hundred feet. But he had no time to waste on the shore. It was the worst kind of island, with no sand for beaches, only rocks and mussels and tidepools hoping to shred an errant foot.

He looked up to see Keasau atop the island's highest point, hundreds of feet above him. The god had nothing left but oil, and it trickled down the island's exterior like a trail of lava. The entire thing would be black by the time the sun rose.

To Akoni, it mostly was already. Without the sea glow, there were no lights here except the stars above. It was enough to pick a step, but not enough to see what hid in the tidepools.

He picked his way up, knowing Noikoa's men wouldn't be far behind. He could see the outer ring of boats, most of them with lanterns lit, as if they were not in danger of the oil leaking out from the cavern. It had already started to reach the foremost trimarans. With a swell, the oil would be dumped on their bows and they would need nothing more than a spark from a linstock to go up.

Akoni would have appreciated the cover of the resulting smokescreen, but for now, night seemed enough. Even if they could pick out that he was a man, they would be unable to pick out which man he was, on what side, and without those answers, he could have been their chief.

Unlikely that they would even consider it because Noikoa would be on the eel. And Makaia with him. Akoni cursed himself for leaving him alive, cursed himself for trying to have him killed and risking his family, and cursed Makaia most of all. But now he had to worry about the whale, for Keasau was on the island itself.

The vegetation had done its best, considering it was a relatively young island. Truthfully, it meant the birds and winds had done their best, because the seeds had to come from somewhere. They were succulents, mostly, tiny towers of ihi, whose thick leaves seemed more like coral than any plant found regularly on the southern islands, and curdling aloe, which scraped oil off his legs as he walked by, but there were patches of naupaka, glowing in thick fields up the island, where the dirt was loose.

He knew there were men who could tell him the age of the island, based on the color of the dirt and the vibrancy of the plantlife, but it hardly seemed important to know. Keasau was going to change the color of it all anyway, and the plantlife wasn't going to survive the waves of oil that drained down the island.

The lights by the cavern's mouth pulled further out and began to create a perimeter. What the tiny boats would do when Keasau made it to the water, Akoni didn't know. Ikaika probably didn't either, but he would throw men at the problem until the solution presented itself, if he had to.

And Makaia? What would he do, when he took charge of his ship?

Akoni had probably climbed up a hundred feet, his legs sliced by the salting plants, his hands covered in dirt and oil and probably scratches, by the time the net ships had successfully pulled back. The other ships weren't far behind. He could just pick out their shapes, and was still waiting to see the manta. No sign, but he told himself the boat was small and could easily hide behind any of the other ships.

He kept going, hand over hand, step after step. The oil finally reached him and he nearly slipped, Keasau's protection against not enough to cover friction and gravity. He had hoped.

The oil lapped up and over his boots, which were themselves filled with water from his swims. He was glad not to have abandoned them and wished he might have the god of aloe's protection too.

Keasau bellowed, all three of its mouths open. From below it, Akoni was forced to appreciate truly just how big he was. It could slide down the island in seconds without effort, or dive back down into the crater as if it was just a short hop down a small embankment. Akoni wasn't even a remora to the god's shark, barely a barnacle to his whale.