Kellan woke on dry grass and leaves. For a moment, the absence of movement confused him. The ground stayed beneath his back. Nothing pitched or rolled.
A fire burned beside him. Someone had balanced a helmet above it, and the smell coming from inside made his empty stomach tighten. He shifted closer to the warmth.
A man's voice spoke behind him. Kellan turned sharply. A young man was coming out of the trees with a load of branches in his arms. Dark brown hair, gray-green eyes, a broad smile. Kellan understood none of the words.
* * *
“Careful. Don't knock the pot over.”
Oliver stopped a little way from the fire. The boy was awake, which was good, but he looked ready to scramble away from him. Fair enough. Waking in a stranger's camp after being washed ashore was probably not much more reassuring than being the stranger.
He had carried the boy back from the beach, laid him on a bed of dry leaves and grass, and built up the fire to warm him. The seafood in the basket had gone into the helmet, cleaned and chopped small with the dagger. He had only left to fetch more wood.
Now he took the long way around the fire, leaving the boy a clear view of him. He set down the branches and crouched on the other side. The long wooden spoon he had made was beside the hearth. He used it to stir the soup, lifted a little fish and broth, and tasted it.
Ready. He ate a few more spoonfuls, watching the boy swallow each time. Then he offered him the handle.
“Go on. You must be starving.”
The boy hesitated before taking it. He ladled broth into a wooden bowl, added a few pieces of chopped squid, and began with careful little bites. That restraint lasted about two mouthfuls. He put the spoon down, lifted the helmet, and drank.
Oliver let him finish. When the last of the thick broth was gone, the boy lowered the helmet reluctantly, stood, and bowed with his right hand over his chest. He spoke at some length.
Oliver had no idea what he had said.
He looked up at the sky. Apparently whoever had supplied the fishing knowledge had decided that understanding people would be an unnecessary luxury. He sighed, waved the boy back down, and pointed to himself.
“Oliver.” Slowly, this time. “Oliver.”
The boy stared, then tried the name. Oliver repeated it; the second attempt came closer, and he nodded. The boy brightened and touched his own chest.
“Kellan.”
“Kellan,” Oliver repeated.
The boy's expression changed again. He said something longer, and Oliver listened carefully. The sounds stayed in his mind. He repeated them back.
* * *
Kellan had given his name in full: Kellan of the Turner family, from Coldwater Burn in the Fingers. The stranger said it almost exactly as Kellan had, with an accent that belonged at home.
If Oliver had lived in the Fingers, why couldn't he speak their language? If he hadn't, how could he copy the sounds so well?
Oliver shook his head after repeating the words, then pointed to the fire and asked something Kellan couldn't understand. Kellan looked from the pointing hand to the flames.
“Fire.”
Oliver repeated the word. Then he picked out a leaf.
“Leaf,” Kellan said.
That word came back just as clearly. They went on from there, pointing and naming, while the sun climbed and the shadows shortened. The stranger seemed able to remember whatever Kellan told him.
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At last Oliver got up and crossed to the recess in the cliff. When he returned, he had a short sword and a mining pick.
Kellan tensed. Oliver held out the pick handle-first, which was an improvement, though it still left the sword unexplained. Kellan accepted the tool and waited.
On higher ground where the woods met the riverbank, Oliver scratched a rectangle about as long as Kellan was tall. He marked eight places down its two long sides and mimed digging.
“Hole,” he said. “Dig.”
Kellan tried one of the marked spots. Oliver nodded.
“I. Forest. Tree. You, dig hole.” The stranger pointed in turn, then went into the woods with his sword.
Kellan looked at the rectangle. If this was meant to be his grave, surely the digging should be in the middle. The little holes along the sides would be useless. A place to shit, then? Why go to all this trouble when there was a perfectly good forest?
He couldn't make sense of it. But Oliver had pulled him from the sea and fed him. He was unlikely to kill him immediately afterward. Kellan knew nothing about this place, had no money, and had nowhere to run. For now, he would dig.
Chopping rang through the trees. By the time he had worked along the marked places, Oliver was coming back with several arm-thick trunks dragged behind him on vines.
He crouched to inspect a hole and pushed his fingers down into it.
“Deeper.” He held his hand where Kellan could see it and indicated the depth he wanted.
Kellan went back to work. Oliver untied the trunks, laid them out, and began cutting away branches and leaves with his sword.
Kellan watched from the corner of his eye. The blade moved smoothly, with startling force. Wood as thick as his arm parted at a stroke.
Once, Lannard had stolen Father's sword to practice cutting wood. He had explained that he needed to learn its weight before he went into battle. Father had beaten him badly. After putting the whip away, he had told both boys that swords were expensive, that wood was harder than a man's flesh, and that a poorly judged stroke could send the blade back into its wielder.
“An axe for trees. A sword for men. Remember that, if you don't want to die a fool.”
Kellan had remembered it for years. Now he watched Oliver trim another trunk and wondered whether Father knew what he was talking about.
He had no way of knowing what the stranger held. The short sword wore the appearance of the Azuresong Mageblade, but the weapon beneath that borrowed shape was a heroic Fang of Twilight, brought from a twenty-five-player raid. No village smith in the Fingers could have matched its balance or edge. In Oliver's unusually strong hands, it was scarcely harder to manage than a small knife.
Nine long poles lay stripped and ready. Oliver set eight into the holes, crossed their upper ends in pairs, and rested the longest pole along the forks to make a ridge. He lashed the frame together, then beckoned Kellan inside.
“Try. Lie down.”
Kellan crawled beneath it and stretched out. The frame covered him from head to foot. Only then did he understand.
A shelter. Oliver was making him somewhere to sleep.
He climbed out and bowed. “Thank you, Master Oliver.”
Oliver smiled and waved him toward the trees. “Come. With me.”
They gathered long grass, Oliver cutting and Kellan carrying it back. Seated beside the frame, Oliver showed him how to weave it into mats. Together they made two thick coverings for the roof, then closed the ends. By the time they finished, Kellan had a little place of his own, where rain needn't wake him in the middle of the night.
* * *
Over the following days, Oliver took him to the beach, worked beside him, and kept asking the names of things. Each remembered word joined the others. He learned at a speed that surprised him, the sounds arriving complete with Kellan's accent. Before long, the broken exchanges were becoming conversations.
He had thought the arrangement would be simple. The boy could teach him the language; Oliver would look after him and gather enough food for two. Tuition, paid in meals.
On the second day after waking, Kellan went into the sea and returned with fish.
Not the little things Oliver had coaxed into his traps. Proper sea fish, with substantial pieces of flesh that were easy to cook and considerably better to eat than another helmet full of odds and ends. Dried, they were easier to carry too. Kellan could swim, dive, and catch them with an assurance Oliver could only admire.
He tried going into the water with him. That settled the question of whether all his physical limitations had vanished along with his old body. He had grown up inland, and even swimming in a river had never been one of his strengths. Diving in the sea was quite another matter.
Oliver abandoned the experiment. Any ambitions he might have had about becoming king of the pirates would have to wait.
Being rescued was one thing; living together afterward was another. A few shared meals were welcome, but as Kellan kept bringing back their dinner, Oliver became uncomfortable with how little he was contributing. Being older, bigger, and stronger didn't entitle him to sit comfortably while the boy did the work.
He considered paying him. In gold? The fish weren't worth a whole coin. Instead of settling matters, that might leave Kellan feeling he owed enough fish to feed them for weeks. Oliver had somehow reached the absurd position of having money and very little he could sensibly offer.
Then he noticed the boy watching him practice.
Every day, after they had eaten, Oliver took his weapons to the beach. Kellan followed quietly and found a place in the shade. He never interrupted, never asked, but his attention stayed on the sword.
There might be something Oliver could teach him after all. Something that could keep him alive.