The Outcasts by John Flanagan Read Free Book Online Page A

well concealed and he had no wish to reveal it to someone else. The location of a prime fishing spot like this was something to be protected and he decided he’d wait until he was sure that Stig had moved on.
    He followed, maintaining the distance between them, moving carefully among the rocks to avoid drawing Stig’s attention. There was no telling how Stig might react if he realized someone was following him. Hal felt a sense of relief as he saw the other boy go past the point where the track led away down the cliff face. He saw that Stig was heading for the next inlet around the rocky cliff top.
    Stig was carrying a long willow pole, around three meters in length, and a large wooden bucket with a tight-fitting lid. He had a coil of rope around his shoulder. He was going poaching, Hal realized.
    Hallasholm’s professional fishermen had their own special spots, where they set traps for lobsters and crabs. They paid a fee to the Oberjarl to reserve these spots for their exclusive use. No other fisherman would go near them, but it was not uncommon for the boys in the town to slip out and raise the traps, taking any of the succulent shellfish that were inside. Hal had done so himself on several occasions. It was a risky business. If the fishermen caught a boy poaching from their traps, he would be severely beaten. Perhaps it was that element of risk that made the practice popular among the boys.
    The inlet Stig was heading for was a spot where a canny old fisherman named Dorak set his traps. It was an exposed spot, but the deep water and jumble of submerged rocks at the base of the cliffs made it a prolific breeding and feeding ground for lobsters. Dorak had several traps set there, each marked by a colored buoy. He would wait for relatively calm weather, then access the cove by boat. Stig must be planning to climb down the cliff face and use the long pole to reach the closest traps, Hal thought. He’d store the lobsters in the sealed wooden bucket.
    Hal watched as the other boy uncoiled the rope, tied it to a low tree stump close to the cliff edge, then dropped it over. With the pole slung over his back and the bucket looped over one arm, Stig seized the rope and began to walk himself backward down the cliff face.
    Hal waited several minutes, then moved to the cliff to peer over the edge. Stig was at the base of the cliff, standing on a rock shelf and leaning over the water as he reached for a yellow buoy a few meters out. The willow pole had a hook on the end and Stig tried several times to snag it through the ring on top of the buoy, without success. The pole was long and unwieldy and he had it at maximum reach. And the buoy was surging up and down as the waves passed under it so that he repeatedly missed his mark.
    The waves slapped against the rock shelf where Stig crouched, throwing spray high in the air and drenching him. Angrily, he dashed the cold salt water out of his eyes and reached once more for the buoy. The distance was just a little too far. Dorak had been robbed before and he had taken to setting his traps farther out from the shore—close enough to be in among the lobsters’ feeding ground, but just too far to be reached easily by a boy with a long, hooked pole.
    A wave slammed into the rock, then sucked back, revealing a shelf below the spot where Stig was standing. It was a meter or so closer to the buoy, but when the waves came in, it was fully submerged. Hal could see the green shine of weed covering it. It would be slippery, he knew.
    But now Stig lowered himself so that he was sitting on the edge of the rock, reaching down with his feet for the ledge below him. A wave came in, hitting the rock with a muffled whump! Then it receded, momentarily revealing the submerged ledge. Stig slid his backside off the rock, reaching down with his legs for the treacherous foothold.
    “Careful … ,” Hal muttered to himself. He could swim well. His mother, raised among the fenlands of Araluen, had taught him