Whalemoon: Wyrmwind Tales, #1

By Dustin Porta

Fireside stories. Strange travelers from far away. Ancient tales of distant dragons and sharks that walk on land.

For as long as anyone can remember the islanders of Brodthrop Atoll have lived in peace. The still airs keep the sailors away and the dance of the whalepike calms the seas. When Phehl's turn came to be pike keeper, she looked forward to long days of watching the ocean for whale spouts and tending the small creatures that inhabit the lagoon. But, when a frenzied shark interrupts the ceremony and a strange girl washes up on Whalegrave Beach, the winds begin shifting and more strangers are quick to arrive. Things turn dangerous and Phehl must choose between disappointing her people and protecting her newfound friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dustin Porta
• Release date: Aug 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393018070

Book preview

Wyrmwind Tales

Whalemoon

By Dustin Porta

Copyright 2019 Dustin Porta

Cover Design by Perie Wolford

For anyone who needs a story to fall asleep.

Table of Contents

A History: Dragon’s Alba

Chapter 1: Whalemoon

Chapter 2: Ahoy!

Wetlung Folk Lyric: Trundlecrab Round

Chapter 3: Lagoon

Chapter 4: Trader

Chapter 5: Torrant

Chapter 6: Hermit Djinn

Fartrader’s First Tale: The Tale of the Winds

Chapter 7: Kalwind

Chapter 8: Sleepless

Fartrader’s Children’s Tale: Crown of the Octopus King

Chapter 9: Friends

Chapter 10: Third Arrival

A Wetlung Pirates’ Chantey: Eel’s Black Road

Chapter 11: Tale of Blades

Chapter 12: East Isle

Fartrader’s Second Tale: A Knight of Sargassum

Chapter 13: Hospitality

Chapter 14: Things

Chapter 15: Stowage

Fartrader’s Round: A Guildship Chantee

Chapter 16: Tricks/Ending

Epilogue: How Mako Found Her Feather

Message in a Bottle

Questions and Answers

A History: Dragon’s Alba

Beyond the edge of Tableau Mer

upon the Broodcalm Sea,

the whale lancer Depthsinger

secured a victory.

Imprisoned there on atoll bare

and spoke out from the deep

a warding poem inscribed in bone,

was bound in blood to keep.

But tide does shift on Tableau Mer

and wierwinds wefting blow

and those that would divine it there

will seeking glory go.

Chapter 1: Whalemoon

Phehl rested on the high dunes of North Isle and watched the deep crescent of the whalemoon as it sank toward the broodcalm sea. Small crabs picked-over the beach and a piper bird hunted the old coral jetty, poking its beak into little pools of water left by the outgoing tide. She closed her eyes and listened to the cadence of waves lapping at the coral rock.

An odd north wind began to stir, rustling her hair and lifting the hem of her ceremonial garment. Phehl frowned and tied her hair up, squinting at the sun as it crept nearer to the horizon. North winds were rare and portentous. It made her nervous about the task ahead. She was ready though, had practiced, and until now she had believed that she would be brave enough. She gripped the handle of the ancient whalepike that rested across her lap and watched the beach a minute longer. Two rays hunted in the shallows, scooting about in the ankle-deep waters, searching for crustaceans just below the sand.

Reluctantly, Phehl stood. Humming her father’s whale-calling song, she raised the pike overhead then began the movements of the dance that would lead her down into the lapping surf of Whalegrave Beach. Each step caused the bracelets on her arms and legs to shake. Carved of whalebone, they told the stories of keepers past. One carving on her wrist depicted a whale smashing a galleon to bits, its fierce eyes and wide mouth seemed to snarl with the rattling of the bangles. Phehl swallowed and focused on the dance.

In her heart she hoped to never see a whale, let alone kill one. It seemed cruel to kill something that only came to hear your singing, but she tried not to think of that. How many pike keepers had danced down the beach on whalemoon as the crescent moon hung overhead, swirling the waters with the haft of the whalepike and singing the ancient songs? The whales had long learned to avoid Whalegrave Beach. Phehl’s people were the ones who kept coming.

That didn’t make her any less scared of the deep water where the old bones lay in the trench just off shore. When the ceremony ended, she was to swim down and dig up as many whale bones as she could before the sun sank into the sea.

The north wind blew again, stronger this time, rustling her sleeves and rattling the bangles on her arms and legs. Phehl gave the bones a little shake to cheer herself and hummed more loudly. The wind rose behind the chorus of the whale song and thrilled her, just as much as if she had seen the shadow of one of the great beings. But no shadows rose beside her. The wind fell off and the water lay flat again and ceased lapping against the shore. It was almost time.

All year she had practiced the dive, in safer, brighter waters. It would be a dismal celebration if she failed. Her parents would be embarrassed, the feast would go uneaten. The keeper before her had said that a wasted feast was worse than the whale grave. She had asked him to take the pike back and give it to another. But the pike chose its keepers, not the other way around.

Phehl's song trailed off. The hem of her dress was wet and heavy. The world was still. She lifted the pike from the water and the swirling stopped, settling like a mirror around her knees. Farther down the shoreline, a gull dove into the water, snatching baitfish from the shallows as another gull landed behind it, trying to steal the fish away. Phehl kept her eyes on the gradient where turquoise water darkened to blue. She would give the whales another minute to appear and then she would have to swim before the sun set. Phehl was alert and watchful.

But she had not expected to hear a scream. The terrified shriek of a young woman cut through the stillness of the beach. As Phehl spun around, her heel caught in a lobster’s burrow and she tripped into the water. She stumbled to her feet again and looked around. The water beside her was calm and empty. The birds were gone.

Then she saw it—something thrashed about on the other side of the jetty.

There was another scream and Phehl splashed toward it. The sharp coral rocks cut into her feet as she dashed across the jetty toward the churning water on the other side. Phehl reached the edge, feet bleeding, heart pounding, and was about to jump into the foam-thick water when she saw the shark.

A fin cut through the foam, then a thrashing tail. She gripped the pike and watched with the same uneasy feeling as before, she could feel it in her stomach, like a bad meal. Usually Phehl could not wait to get in the water with a shark, the small ones that came to the lagoon were her favorite to race against. But the water here was deeper and this...this was a very big shark.

This wasn’t the time to be afraid, she told herself. Someone was in trouble, and the whalepike would protect her, just as it protected the atoll.

But the deep water of the whale grave sat to her left, the darker blue dropping into black, and the fear just wouldn’t go away. She could feel it even in her toes and fingers, clouding her eyes causing her arms to grow stiff and her legs rubbery. The bracelets rattled on her wrists, their carvings, the story of generations of Brodthrop heroes; no one would be recording this story in scrimshaw. Stories of cowards were not carved onto whalebone. The north wind blew one final time and then dropped off. She heard the scream again and the sound chilled her.

Sandfleas! Phehl cursed. She could not force herself to jump in. Maybe her legs would cooperate if she came at it from the beach. Phehl ran back along the jetty, toward the beach, coral rock as it cut into her feet. She stumbled once and caught herself with the whalepike, hopping over the last sharp rocks and back to the sand. Then she turned and waded out until she was up to her knees. The cuts on her feet burned in the saltwater.

The shark thrashed back and forth, each movement bringing it that much closer into the shallows. Phehl raised the blade and held it between them. She looked around. Where was the woman?

The shark’s jaws snapped at the foam on top of the water. There was no person caught in its teeth.

Phehl scanned the water behind it. Nothing. She backed up as it thrashed closer, staring through the foam below the great beast’s tail. No woman there.

Where was she?

The whalepike was long enough to strike at the shark. But the pike keeper’s duty was to protect, she didn’t want to hurt a shark any more than whales or people. And what if she stabbed the woman instead?

Phehl needed to get closer. She looked at the bracelets on her arms. The heroes in the stories never hesitated. Phehl held her breath; her arms and legs were heavy, her head still dizzy, it took all of her will to push through that wall of fear. One step, then another. All the while her head swam, her knees shook, and she worried that she might trip. Reaching out with the back end of the whalepike, she prodded at the shark.

Its jaws opened in a terrible yawn, seeming to snap at her, and Phehl jumped back. The shark had thrashed so far into the shallows that its body was halfway out of the water. Another scream came from somewhere in the foam.

Now what? She looked for blood in the water. She looked for a body in the shallows. She tried to peer under the shark’s flailing tail, but this was all the closer she could get. She wasn't about to start reaching around in the foam, with the shark gnashing its teeth at her.

Then she heard it again, and her eyes went back to its mouth. The shark opened its jaws and Phehl saw the outline of a hand for just a moment. The light caught the curve of a young woman’s face inside the mouth, just before the teeth snapped shut.

Phehl stumbled backwards, out of the water, tripping on a mound of seaweed and falling on her behind. She crawled back on her hands, pulling the whalepike along with her.

It had swallowed the woman whole. Phehl looked at those teeth as they snapped at the frothy water.

No, not whole. Nothing passed through those jaws and remained whole. Phehl’s body shook, a tide of guilt welling up behind the fear. There was nothing she could have done.

She sat, and stared, and wondered if it was really over.

But the shark didn’t stop at the shallows. Its body arched one direction then the other, curling back and forth. It worked its way toward beach, turning the placid waters of the peaceful strand into a churning surf. Phehl backed even farther, raising her weapon as if the shark might come all the way onto the sand.

That was impossible. She was safe. So why was she still shaking? The bottoms of her feet burned, and she could see blood on the sand. She felt tears well-up from the corners of her eyes.

What if she had moved faster? What if she hadn’t froze on the jetty? The tears came freely now, and it was all she could do to paw them away and keep her eyes on the water.

And then, with one great heaving motion the shark hurled itself out of the surf and onto the sun baked beach. Now it was Phehl’s turn to scream, and she jumped back again, scrambling on all fours until she was hidden in the tall sea oats, her back pressed up against another grassy dune.

The beast squirmed and swung its tail, eyes soulless and black as the depths of the Broodcalm Sea, it snapped wildly, then went still. Phehl waited as its dark eyes seemed to gloss over. The blues of its body faded to a sickly gray as the life slowly drained out of the great fish.

Phehl's wiped away tears with the sleeve of her dress. Her heart beat in her throat, the merciless heat of the sand making it hard to breathe. She tried to move backward but found herself getting tangled up in the tall grasses on the slope of the dune. A dozen paces were all that separated her from the shark.

Phehl could not force the image of the girl’s face from her mind.

She knew there was nothing she could have done, but as the tide wore on, doubt would creep in and she would wonder, if she were braver...faster...

What would Keeper Torrant have done? What would she say when she saw him next? What about the ceremony? It was unfinished, again. The sun was nearly set—but not quite. There was still time. The flukes of the whalemoon grew red as the sun sank lower toward the Broodcalm Sea.

Then she heard it again.

It was softer, and muffled. Less a shriek, and more a low moan. Phehl thought that she could see the belly of the shark move just a little, as if something was nudging it from inside. But that was impossible. The whalemoon was playing tricks on her.

But the sound came again, and the shark’s belly shifted.

Chapter 2: Ahoy!

Phehl gathered her courage and crawled out of the weeds.

Holding the weapon to her chest, she crept up to the shark. It was a mako. She had seen them before, but never this size. She prodded at its side with the butt of the pike. There was a muffled sound from inside. Could she cut it open?

Phehl lifted the sleeve of her dress and brushed her hand across the many whalebone bangles that hung on her arm. The histories of the Brodthrop people were carved into those bracelets. There were tales of sharks guiding ships out of danger, tales of sharks that raised fishing-folks’ children.

There were no tales of sharks swallowing people whole.

She knew every story on each bangle, not just her own, but every bracelet worn by each of her people. There were larger whale bones hanging in the elders' hall on South Island. She knew those stories too. She had listened to them every night around the fire. They were etched into her memory as indelibly as scrimshaw, but none of those stories told her what to do now.

Cutting it open seemed like a bad idea, too easy to hurt the person inside. So Phehl approached the mouth, carefully. None of the stories told how to determine if a shark was dead, but her mother said that sharks could bite long after they died, so Phehl figured it didn’t matter.

She took a deep breath, stuck the haft of the whale-pike into the garish jaws and lifted, wincing when the teeth scraped against the ceremonial weapon.

The lever worked. The great maw opened, just a little. The beast did not move. She felt a rush of excitement, and her fear lessened a bit. She braced the pike against her knee, and reached out with one hand, put her palm against the snout of the mako. When the pike was free, she pushed her other hand against it with all her strength, higher until the terrifying jaws hung open.

It was all teeth and gums in there, still brightly colored and looking very much alive.

She heard the noise again, and she could see the outline of something, a face and hair, wet and black like kelp washed ashore in a midnight storm. It moved a little. But all Phehl could do was hold the mouth open.

Come out, she said. You’re safe.

There was no answer. Phehl’s arms were growing tired.

I can’t hold it forever. Come out.

Nothing. She would have to let go sooner or later. Her eyes ran across the bangles. There were stories of feasts and fishing, of great