Voyage of the Snake Lady by Theresa Tomlinson Read Free Book Online Page A

better than any soothing could have done.
    “At least there are no warriors in sight.” Myrina scanned the landward horizon for movement.
    “Huh!” Kora huffed. “No one but us is crazy enough to claim this desolate spot!”
    Kora tried to rouse the inert lump by her side. “Vita! Vita! Come—wake up, honey!”
    There was no response.
    Kora looked at Myrina and shook her head, her expression grim. “This girl is the same.” She had tried to pull a young woman to her feet.
    “Phoebe! Phoebe!” Myrina shouted, desperate now to see her niece safe.
    A small figure emerged from behind a rock, dragging a broken ship’s timber. “M-making a fire.” Phoebe struggled to speak. “G-got to get warm! I found your drum, Snake Lady, and your bow!”
    Myrina almost wanted to laugh as she hugged her. “Right idea, Young Tiger!” she told her. “A fire’s what we need most, but wet wood’s no good.”
    Only then did she really look around her to see what might be scavenged in this land. They were on a wide beach, and though it was covered with wreckage from the Apollo , none of it would burn until it was dry. Myrina swung around and put her hand up to shade her eyes. The land was low and featureless, a desolate marshy grassland, with no sign of habitation. A copse of plane trees in the distance might provide some dry fuel and shelter.
    She pointed it out to Kora. “We must get ourselves warm or we’ve no chance.”
    Coronilla and Akasya had set to work at once to organize the survivors; now they pointed out two young women, waist high in the water. “Snake Lady!” Coronilla reported. “Leti and Fara are wading into the sea to fetch what they can from the wreckage, but we have women with smashed arms and legs and grit and water in their lungs—they must have rest and warmth. We must find some kindling somehow.”
    “Up there—where there’s trees!” Myrina said. “And we must search for our weapons and gather together all we can.”
    Akasya nodded and held out her hands to Phoebe and Tamsin. “Come on, all the girls—we will walk fast to warm ourselves, then find dry sticks to turn until we make a flame.”
    Myrina let Akasya go ahead with the girls, then she dragged the two bodies that were closest to her away from the sea and laid them side by side beneath a small, stunted tree, thinking sorrowfully that they must find wood for a pyre as well as warmth. “But we must save the living first!” she muttered, as though giving herself instructions.
    Then she went back to the water’s edge to help those who were injured. “Go up to that copse,” she ordered. “Huddle together! Give each other warmth! We will find kindling as soon as we can.”
    Wood was not plentiful in the marshy grassland, but among the group of windblown trees the girls managed to scavenge enough and at least what they found was dry. Akasya pointed out dry animal dung that would burn. A clear stream ran through the copse. Tamsin and Phoebe found dry sticks and shaved sharp points on them. They set them turning on dry logs, rolling them between their palms until their hands were sore. But their hard work was at last rewarded with a skein of smoldering, sweetsmelling smoke, then sparks and flames. They carefully fed the flames with dry kindling, and the freezing, soaked women who slowly gathered beneath the trees smiled with relief and held out their hands to the fire.
    “Well done!” Coronilla approved. “Do not let this fire go out! It is your job to guard it! This fire will mean life or death to us!”
    Phoebe nodded, taking her responsibility seriously, determined to do this job as well as she could. “Fetch those twigs!” she ordered Tamsin. “And more over there!”
    Back at the beach Myrina saw the twirling smoke and smiled. Leti and Fara had managed to garner many items from the water, and so planks of wreckage now became crutches and litters to carry those who’d been injured up to the fireside. They hauled ashore the bodies