by K Hanson
“Do you know where the pirates and Islanders are?” she asked.
“They’re toward the back of the formation. If we’re lucky, they might be far enough back that they’re not aware of what’s happening.”
“Maybe, but they’re going to know what’s going on after I talk to them.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Go find the men. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Limbani rushed away from the wall and found Jax huddled with the rest of Nereyda’s pirate and Islander crew in a small plaza. Some of them refreshed themselves in a fountain, others slumped on the ground after the fight.
“What’s going on up there?” Jax asked.
“The church has Nereyda. They want to use her to get them out without a fight. They’re taking her with them and they’ll kill her if we try something.”
“But we’re going to try something, right?”
“Of course. I need ten of you to come to the east end of the temple wall. Along the way, stop at a supply cart and grab some rope and climbing hooks. At least ten. Twenty if possible.”
Jax nodded. “I think I get what you’re thinking of doing. I’ll find our best people and meet you there as soon as we’re ready.”
Limbani jogged back through the formation of rebels and found the squad her lieutenant had assembled waiting under some trees that hung over the east end of the temple wall. The plant life obstructed the view of anyone within the temple grounds, which would prevent them from being detected for the time being. Even with the moon, they were lucky that it was still dark.
Once Jax arrived with some crew members, Limbani waved all twenty people to gather around her.
“Now that we’re all here,” she said in a low voice, “we’re going to free Nereyda and get the church to surrender. Our friends picked up some climbing equipment on their way here. How many did you get, Jax?”
“They only had ten. Sorry we couldn’t get more, but I didn’t figure we had time to check the other supply carts.”
“You’re right. We’ll make ten work. First, I will take my soldiers over the wall. We’ll stay hidden and keep watch as Jax and the others climb over to join us. This is the only spot along the wall where this could work because of the trees. Once all of us are assembled in the small grove on the other side, Jax, I need you to take your people toward the gate so you’re ready to open it when the time comes. You’re not in uniform, so you will hopefully blend in with the crowd. Once you’re in position, let me know, and we’ll do our jobs. I don’t see any guards other than the two who are by the priest and Nereyda. You two,” she pointed to two soldiers and beckoned them forward.
They stepped ahead of the others.
“Can you take out those guards when I give the order?”
“Absolutely,” said one.
“Of course,” said the other.
“Good. I’ll face the priest and get Nereyda away from him. The rest of you,” she said, looking at the remaining soldiers, “cover us and keep an eye on that crowd. You also need to protect this spot on the wall so we can climb out of here if this goes wrong. Everyone understand their job?” Limbani looked around at all twenty and got nods in return. “Good. Let’s get over this wall.”
The pirates slung the lines and hooks up and over the wall, then passed the ropes to the soldiers. Limbani took hers from Jax and put her weight on it to test it. When it held, she walked her way up the wall, which was only about twice as tall as she was. Once they reached the top, the soldiers hopped down to the ground on the other side. Limbani stayed crouched, behind the tree branches that overhung the wall. When the pirates finished their climb, they hung the ropes off of the other side of the wall, in case they needed them to get out.
Once everyone had landed on the ground on the inside of the wall, Limbani crept in a crouch toward the edge of the grove of trees. Peeking out from behind a wide trunk, she had an unobstructed view of where the guards and priest stood over Nereyda’s crumpled form at the top of the stairs.
She remained conscious, but barely. The pirate’s eyes contained none of her characteristic purple spark. Sweat matted her black hair. If Nereyda wasn’t trying to fight back, that meant they had broken her, either physically or mentally.
Limbani’s jaw clenched. I made the right decision.
As soon as her sharpshooters took out the guards, Limbani would have a clear path to run around the crowd to reach the priest and Nereyda.
“You all know your jobs,” she said. “Jax, head to the gate.”
He nodded and gestured for the small group of pirates and Islanders to follow him along the wall. They slipped into the crowd and disappeared. Limbani held her breath as she waited for Jax to give the signal. The crowd was becoming increasingly rowdy.
Someone started a chant. “Kill her! Kill her!” The rest of the crowd soon joined and pumped their fists in the air.
So far, the priest had convinced them to stand back, but it wasn’t clear how long that would work. With only those two temple guards, there wasn’t much he could do to stop the mob if they decided to rush them.
At the gate, Jax’s head appeared in a gap in the crowd as he raised his hand and waved at her.
“Okay, it’s time.” She looked at the two shooters she had chosen. “When I give the signal, take out those guards. Everyone else, make sure we don’t get swarmed by that crowd.”
“We can’t stop all of them, ma’am.”
“I know, but I doubt many of them are willing to be among the ones who die.”
The two shooters took positions, leaning against trees to steady their aim. They each gave her a slight nod to show that they were ready. As she flicked her hand toward the guards, they took their shots and Limbani sprinted out of the grove.
The guards yelled and fell to the ground. The priest jerked his head around as he searched for the source of the shots. The crowd screamed and cowered. Some ran for any available cover, but most stayed where they were, not knowing where to go or who to run from.
The high priest spotted Limbani as she ran up the slope. He bent and grabbed the sword of one of the fallen guards. Kicking Nereyda onto her stomach, he stretched her left arm out to the side so that its hand hung off of the top step, then stood on her arm with his left foot and raised the sword over her.
“Stop right there if you want your friend intact,” he said.
Limbani almost tripped as she brought herself to a halt twenty feet downhill from the priest. Nereyda struggled, but she couldn’t get enough strength to push herself from under the priest’s weight. Her shoulders looked malformed, bulging out in a strange way. Limbani’s heart hurt to see her friend suffer.
“You know what,” said the priest. “Maybe it will be better if I do it anyway.”
He swung the sword down and through Nereyda’s wrist. She screamed in agony as her hand fell onto the step below her, blood pouring from the wound.
Anger poured an extra surge of adrenaline into Limbani’s blood. Her heart pounded in her ears with every stride as she powered up the slope. Her vision narrowed until her sole focus was on the man who had hurt Nereyda. All sound became white noise to her ears.
The priest raised the sword to strike again, but Limbani leaped the final distance and thrust her sword into his chest, then shoved him off of her blade and to the ground.
Trusting her soldiers to cover her, Limbani knelt next to Nereyda, who lay on her side and clutched her stump of a wrist and writhed in pain as blood dripped between her fingers. The back of her shirt had been cut open, and her back was a mess of blood and torn flesh. Tearing the sleeves off of the priest’s robe, Limbani used one to fashion a tourniquet around Nereyda’s upper arm to slow the bleeding. The other she used as a bandage around the severed wrist. Guilt seeped into Limbani’s mind. I took too long. I shouldn’t have even let her go on that stupid mission.
She shook her mind clear and reminded herself that it wouldn’t help Nereyda to sulk in the past.
�
��Can you stand?”
“I think so, but I need help,” said Nereyda, her words labored.
Limbani started to pull Nereyda up by her right arm, but she let out a scream.
“My shoulder!”
Following what she had seen medics do, Limbani held the top of Nereyda’s shoulder at the base of the neck with one hand while grabbing her arm with the other. In one motion, she pulled the shoulder out, moved it up, and popped it back into the socket. Tears welled in Nereyda’s eyes, though the pirate didn’t make any noise.
“Better?” Limbani asked.
“We’ll see. Still hurts.”
Limbani wrapped her arm under Nereyda’s arms and helped her stagger to her feet. She glanced down the hill and found Jax. “Open the gate so Devrim can come in,” she called.
Jax and his group shoved the guards out of the way and unlocked the gate.
“Grab my sword belt,” said Nereyda. “One of the guards had it.”
“Can you use a sword right now?”
“Probably not, but I want it.”
Limbani found the familiar sword belt and wrapped it around Nereyda’s waist, helping her fasten it.
“You’re freeing the gift thief!”
Down the stairs, a man shoved his way out from the crowd of civilians.
“I won’t let you take her.” His eyes gleamed with a wild rage.
He sprinted up the stairs.
A shot rang from the grove, and he dropped to the ground, rolling back down the steps.
Instead of settling the crowd, this just made them angrier. Stones flew up toward them, mostly aimed at Nereyda.
The crowd hurled stones and insults at Nereyda as she stood next to Limbani at the top of the temple slope. As they kept falling, a breeze rustled past Limbani as Nereyda tossed out a wave of wind that pushed the crowd back. They became silent and froze, staring at the pirate.
“What do you want from me?” Nereyda called out to the crowd. “This was good enough for Antalia.” She held out her remaining hand and sparks sizzled between her fingertips, then cascaded to the ground. Blood dripped from her stump and spattered on the ground below. The irises of her eyes glowed purple.
Those nearest to her took a step back.
Even Limbani edged away. She knew what had happened at Antalia, but it was entirely different to witness Nereyda’s abilities in person.
“Are you afraid I’m going to use it on you? Why? Are you an Imperial soldier trying to kill me? No? Then what do you care?”
“You’re a gift thief! You took your powers from the gods!” called a voice from the mass of people.
Nereyda scanned the crowd. “I don’t know who said that, but there were no gods where I got this. And I certainly didn’t choose this. Do you want to take this from me?” she asked, her voice pleading. “Do you know how? If so, please, let me know.”
Limbani hated to see Nereyda so broken and desperate. “Reyda, let me get you out of here.” She put a guiding arm around Nereyda, but the pirate shrugged her off.
There was a shuffle in the crowd, and Devrim stepped out from the masses.
“Nereyda, you’re scaring them. We’ve won the battle, so step away and let me handle this,” he said, his voice and face filled with concern.
“They’re only scared of me because they’ve been fed a steady diet of bullshit about how I’m some sort of demon.”
“I know you’re not a demon.” He climbed the stairs as he spoke. “And that’s all I need to know. But these people put a lot of stock in their church. This Inquisition has gotten much bigger than I could have predicted and it’s gotten people fired up about what you can do. They don’t know what to make of it. But just settle down. They’ll see that you’re only here to help.”
“So this Inquisition is the problem? Where did it start? That church on the hill, right?”
“The Temple of Ameretat? Yes, but the priests aren’t there right now. They evacuated before we got here.”
“You mean the same people who have been spreading rumors about me being some sort of witch ran away at the first sign of trouble?” Nereyda spat on the ground. “While they’re out, maybe I should let them know what I think of their Inquisition.”
Nereyda turned around to face the mountain and raised her hand upward. Dark clouds formed above. Limbani’s hair stood on the back of her neck. Reyda closed her fist, then pulled down. As she did, a lightning bolt surged down into the top of the temple. The building, which had stood for hundreds of years, exploded. Bits of stone rained down on the mountainside, and the remaining structure of the sanctuary collapsed.
Nereyda turned back around to face the crowd, barely staying on her feet as a wave of exhaustion came over her. She forced herself to stand up straight and pointed her cutlass up the mountain. “See? Your church couldn’t even protect itself. What makes you think it can protect you?”
“Nereyda,” said Devrim from a couple of steps down, shaking his head, “you’ve gone too far. Limbani, arrest her.”
“What?!” asked Nereyda.
Limbani nearly said the same thing, but Devrim would just get someone else to do it if she refused.
She wrestled Nereyda’s arms behind her back. Nereyda struggled against Limbani, though her attempts lacked any real strength. It seemed that the combination of her dislocated shoulder, hand loss, and calling down that lightning had exhausted her. After a moment, she passed out and went limp in Limbani’s grasp.
With the remains of the temple smoldering up the mountain and Nereyda collapsed in Limbani’s arms, the crowd had, at last, become quiet with fear.
“All of you,” said Limbani from the stairs, “are you ready to stop fighting? You’re not soldiers. You don’t need to fight. It’s time to be at peace and let us show you that we’re on your side. I don’t want to fight you. None of us do. But, if you do choose to fight, you will lose.”
“So are we your prisoners now?” asked one of the citizens, a scowl across his face.
“No, you’re not prisoners. Drop the rocks and walk out that gate. This city is still yours. You don’t have to leave. We’re not here to take anything from you.”
“Tell that to your friend who destroyed our temple. And you killed the high priest. We’re people of faith in this city. You can’t attack our church and be our friends.”
“You’re right,” said Devrim as he stood next to Limbani. “We have not shown ourselves to be good friends so far, but we are going to work to make it up to you and prove that we are indeed on the same side. General,” he said in a terse tone, “why don’t you take Nereyda and lock her up in my tent, then get a medic to tend to her wounds? I think you’ve done quite enough. Leave the crowd to me.”
“Why do I need to lock her up?”
“She has committed a crime against our new friends here. I need to contemplate what the consequences will be. Please don’t argue with me on this.” His eyes delivered a warning.
Limbani glanced down at Nereyda’s still form and nodded. “Very well, sir.” Limbani hated to haul off a wounded ally like this, but she chose to be glad that at least she didn’t have to calm the crowd down. Devrim was much better at dealing with people.
She leaned the unconscious pirate against her as she staggered down the slope. Jax hurried out of the crowd and took hold of Nereyda from the other side, taking some of the weight off of Limbani. “Thanks,” she said.
“Of course.”
Once they made their way down the stairs and out the gate, she found a stretcher on a cart. Jax and Limbani laid Nereyda down and wheeled her through the city to Devrim’s tent.
An hour later, Nereyda remained unconscious on the cot as Limbani and Jax tended to her to the best of their abilities, along with the medic that they had grabbed on their walk through the city. The bleeding from her wrist had mostly stopped, and her other shoulder had been set. Now, they were cleaning and dressing the wounds on her back.
“This is ugly,” said the medic. “Even by my standards. There are a
couple of places where there are more than cuts. Chunks of flesh have been ripped off. This burn stopped some of the bleeding, but it wasn’t a proper cauterizing. It’s going to get infected if we don’t care for it. Even then, it still might. It’s a burn on top of a deep cut.”
“Will she recover?” asked Limbani.
The medic shrugged. “Maybe. If she gets through the next couple of days without an infection, she’ll probably live, though there is permanent damage, even beyond the severed hand. And if her back or wrist do get infected, she’ll get a slow, feverish death as it overtakes her.”
The tent flap opened, and Devrim stepped inside. “How is she, Doctor?”
He chewed on his lip as the medic gave him the same information he had just told to Limbani and Jax.
“Do you think she’ll go off again?” Devrim asked with a whisper, fear creeping into his voice.
“Go off? What do you mean?”
Jax spoke. “I think he means her powers. But I’ve never seen her accidentally use them while sleeping.”
The medic scrunched his face with confusion. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“So what can we do for her?” asked Devrim.
“I don’t know,” said the medic. “We just have to wait and see for now.”
“Well, do everything you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This tent is starting to feel a little crowded,” said Jax. “I’m going to go update the others.” Jax slipped out through the tent flap.
“How is the crowd now, sir?” asked Limbani.
“They’ve settled down for the most part,” said Devrim, “though they still clearly want Nereyda dead. This city is going to be a problem. We can’t afford to have a city that hates us in this key location. And we can’t spare the troops to leave a large garrison. That leaves one other option. Have someone find a criminal who looks like Nereyda, preferably one who is sentenced to death.”
Limbani narrowed her eyes. “Sir? Are you sure you want to go down this path?”
“Absolutely. We can give the people what they want and keep Nereyda alive.”
“So you’re going to kill someone in Nereyda’s place and hide her away forever? I’m not sure I like this plan.”
