by T B Phillips
His father dying affected him more than he thought it would. He did not particularly care for his father, but he loved the man nonetheless. Abraham Horslei was a brutal and hard tyrant, especially after the death of his wife. He would often explode in a tirade of verbal abuses aimed toward anyone around him, oftentimes turning them against his two children. Amash would shield his little sister, Sarai, but all too often his attempt was unsuccessful. When Abraham drank, he grew even more violent, sometimes even striking Amash, but never Sarai. No, she reminded her father too much of their mother to strike her.
Sometimes he felt sentimental and thought about home, but he would never return. Even after learning of his father’s death, he would stay away. Sarai was safe and that was all that mattered. His father had no doubt told her that he had died, for that was easier than the truth. He was a disgrace to everything Horslei and did not deserve the name. No, Amash would stay far away from the green fields of Weston and be buried upon the sea.
A key in the door caught his attention and he slowly sat up in the bed with anticipation. It wasn’t time for his midday meal, that was delivered hours ago. Fear and anxiety leaped through him when he remembered Nevra’s plans to ransom him back to Weston. If they were here to take him back, then he would die at the tips of their swords before allowing them to profit at his expense.
He slowly reached his left hand to a slit that he had cut into the mattress. There, he had hidden a spoon that he had slowly and deliberately sharpened into a weapon. The handle was wrapped with straw and threads of burlap from the bed, making for a comfortable grip with which to plunge. His knuckles popped as he tightened his hand around the instrument, ready for whatever lay beyond his cell door.
Abruptly, the door swung open and light flooded in, revealing the outline of a man in the doorway. As features came into focus Amash released his grip and pushed the weapon back into its hiding place.
“Twice in one imprisonment? To what do I owe this visit, Alec?”
Pogue spoke not a word until the door was securely shut behind him. Then he listened to the retreating footsteps as the guard left them to privacy. Finally he uttered, “You were right about the ledger.”
“Of course, I was.”
“How did you recognize what he is doing?”
“I am an accountant, Alec. That was all my father taught me. How to cuss and scream and how to keep ledgers.” Amash narrowed his eyes. “You realize the implications, then?”
“I’m good with numbers, but it took a thief and master bookkeeper to spot the discrepancies. And that wasn’t until after the third read through.”
Nodding, Amash agreed. “He’s an accounting genius, I’ll give him that. What did you find, Alec? I want to hear you say it.”
Pogue sat down against the wall on the far side of the cell. “He’s trafficking slaves from the mainland to the southern continent.” Alec shook his head as if hoping to wake from a dream. “How can someone profit from such a horrible act?”
Amash nodded. “I wasn’t positive, but I had my suspicions. That’s why I asked for a transfer. I feared he would try and work me into it somehow.”
The captain stared at the ground, finally speaking quietly, “I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I’m ready to help arm you and the rest of Artema’s men. I’ve no idea how many of the city guard I can win over, but I think that I can get a few officers. The bulk of them follow the money, and we’ve none of it.” Pogue’s eyes were closed, strained against the words coming from his own mouth. “I know that I can get swords down here, I just don’t know how soon.”
“You realize that we’ll get cut down rather quickly, don’t you? One hundred and fifty men is barely a riot, much less a rebellion.” Amash fought against the urge to smile at the lunacy of what Pogue was suggesting.
“If I can arrest and imprison him, then the core of resistance in the city will show itself.”
“Who leads it? Who’s their guy, Alec?”
“Adamas Creech.”
“Creech?” Horslei was taken back. “That selfish prick isn’t much better than Nevra.”
“Maybe not. But he hasn’t been trafficking humans back and forth to the mainland.”
“No. I suppose he has that going for him.” The both sat in silence for a moment, digesting what they were planning. “We could just wait for Braston.”
Alec shook his head. “No. He’s a poor choice because the Esterling’s won’t back him after he cut down their mother. I also doubt that he’d stand up to a vote of the council.”
“If he takes this city by force then he won’t need to put it to a vote.”
“If he takes the city by force then he proves to the entire world that it’s possible to do so. Ending our way of life forever.”
Amash nodded, taking in the words. Finally, he offered, “Not if he takes it in a way that no one else can duplicate.”
Pogue remained silent for a long time. After quite a few breaths he got down to business. “I’ll get a set of keys and the first of the swords to you in a couple of days. There’s an empty cell about five doors that direction,” he indicated with his right hand, “I’ll load up some chests and put them there. Wait for my signal and then release the others.”
“They’ll be too weak to swing swords, Alec.”
“I’ll double their rations during the night shift.” The Captain of the guard, having said all that he had come to say, stood and pounded on the door for the jailer.
“Alec.”
“What?”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“It wasn’t just you, Amash. This man’s just a total shit of a person and needs to be deposed.” He paused as the door opened, as if he had more to say but couldn’t with the untimely interruption. He finally stepped out into the hall with authority, the heavy door slamming shut behind him.
The room again plunged into darkness and Amash smiled for the first time in many days. “Braen,” he said into the darkness, “wherever you are, whatever you’re planning, you need to do it soon.” He let out a chuckle and added, “And you’d better have a bottle of 754.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Eusari stared across the open waters at hers and Braen’s pitiful armada. Four longboats packed full of men looked ready to capsize. It was a wonder that they had stayed seaworthy for so long. Miraculously, Braston had managed to keep his word and the seas remained calm within a mile radius around the fleet. Picking up her spyglass she peered into the distance. Anxiety welled up in her gut as forty-foot swells tossed the ocean around them. If he were to lose his grip for even a moment, their army would be destroyed in that instant.
Gelert whined at her feet. He disliked the unnatural calm of Braen’s aura even more than his master. She reached down and stroked his ears to calm him, and he settled back down with a sigh.
“I know, boy. I don’t like it either.” Someone tugged at her sleeve and she looked down to see Niko grinning up. She swallowed her fears and feigned a smile before kneeling to look him eye to eye. “What is it, Nikolas?”
“I’m tired and I want to let Marita take over.” He pointed at the girl who was standing by the helmsman.
“How does Marita feel about this? Is she ready?” She gave a thumbs up to the girl, a tiny thing despite her thirteen summers. The girl responded back with a smile and her own thumb sticking up into the air. “Okay. But let me signal the other ships first.” Moving to the signal deck, she ordered Jacque to send the message. He flashed his flags in the correct pattern and awaited a reply from each. Ice Prince was the last to respond but the answer came back, signaling that the other children and Braen were ready to coordinate a shift.
She smiled down at the boy who truly looked exhausted. He had been steering their sails for several hours and had pushed his little body very hard. “What did they say, Eusari?”
&
nbsp; “They’re ready.” All at once the ships raised a blue flag and then dropped it on Braen’s order. “You can stop now.”
The ship lurched a little as Niko let go of the winds. The sails on each vessel fell limp as the other children did the same, and Braen kept the aura of calm waters within the new slower speed. “Thank you, Eusari.” He gave the captain a hug around her waist and then turned to leave.
“Go down to the galley and get something to eat, okay?” The boy nodded back that he would and then went below decks. The black preparatory flag raised up atop every ship and then dropped. “Now, Marita!” The ship lurched as the little girl took her turn on the sail. Eusari panicked as her vessel began to outpace the others. “Back down a little! Too fast!” She watched as the swells on the close horizon loomed toward her ship’s doom.
“I’m sorry! I’m trying, Eusari!” After another moment the sails dipped just enough as the ship slowed to match the others. The girl flashed another smiling thumbs up.
“Good girl!” Eusari was convinced she would die of heart stoppage before they actually arrived at The Cove.
Handing the spyglass to Jacque, she resumed her previous position pacing the deck and worrying over the attack plan. Her part of the raid would be easy. They would approach from the rear entrance, the pathway known only to Artema Horn, Kernigan, Nevra and herself. Even Braen had not been part of the Inner Sanctum long enough to know the secret. Using that approach, despite the narrowness of the passage, the shallow draft of the long boats would make it possible to skim over the tops of the reefs.
They sailed like this for many more hours, with Eusari fretting over every possible miscalculation. A few more shift changes had gone well enough, but one scared her badly when one of the longboats came too near the edge of Braen’s aura. That boat had tipped against the swells, and several men fell into the sea. Thankfully, swift action on the part of Shon’s soldiers resulted in the safe retrieval of every man. Eventually, they had reached their destination and Eusari signaled the all stop.
Eusari watched as Braen’s crew shimmied down rope ladders to the longboats waiting below. He was a fool to attempt what he had planned, but he had wanted to make a grand entrance to The Cove. Not wanting to risk his men, he had encouraged them to accompany Eusari and her teams via the safer route. Only Sippen and Krill had remained behind. He had argued and tried to force them to leave him, but they unwaveringly refused their captain’s order. Had she not spent so much time with the bearded man, she would not have appreciated the gesture by his friends. Looking across the deck toward Pete and Porter, she wondered if they would have made the same choice for her.
Gelert rose up onto his haunches and gave another whine. Through their connection, Eusari shared his uneasiness and swallowed hard against their combined fear. She had made this approach dozens of times, but never failed to lose her breath when she did. A single misstep could toss a ship against the rocks in an instant, and those would be even harder to see in a fogbank. Regardless of her experience making the passage, she had never attempted in seas as rough and unpredictable as these. She had also never made an attempt in the dark.
Niko and Marita approached Eusari as she took the helm in her hands. The wood was dark, worn from the many years atop the seas and the salt had made the wood dry and pitted over the years. A moment of sadness and guilt passed over her as she thought about the last time she had made this journey. Sa’Mond had been there, beside her on that day, calling out hazards as she navigated. On this day she looked to Pete and Porter to do that job, trusting these men to help her and the others safely through. After she had swallowed down her grief, she signaled Jacque who waved a flag toward Ice Prince and the others.
Niko and Marita both smiled, eager to do this part of the plan. They had practiced for weeks how to invert the air, trapping a cooler layer beneath the warmer they had lifted. From his own ship, Braen would do the rest. She waited until she could see vapor forming atop the water, rippling up like smoke until the entire fleet was encased in a dense fog bank. She let out a sigh of some relief that it had worked, and she was now invisible to The Cove.
Sails were bound tightly on all five vessels, and oars placed into the water. The entrance was not visible from the surface, and you had to know the order with which to sail from landmark to landmark. Slowly, she and the longboats entered the dangerous reef passage. Without Braen to calm the waters, they were at the mercy of the sea once they crossed the first barrier.
Artema had been with her the first time she had attempted the rear approach, and that was when he had revealed the secret. She had been so excited to learn the code, but excitement had dashed when he laughed at her disgust at his sophomoric joke. “Cliff, lighthouse, island and trees.” he had said. She repeated the mantra once again in her head, just as offended by the acronym that Artema had taught her long ago. He had also relayed the navigational distances, “It’s fifty-fifty that you avoid the rocks. The final stretch is thirty-six, twenty-four and thirty-six. Thirty-eight if the tide’s out and her shoreline’s exposed.”
She sailed fifty yards with the bowsprit pointed toward the furthest edge of the cliff outcropping. Then, she turned sharply to the starboard and aimed for the lighthouse, sailing another fifty yards. Quickly making another compensation to port, she aimed the stern toward a distant island that had two hills shaped like a woman’s breasts. She again shook her head in disgust and sailed onward another thirty-six yards. One more correction to starboard and she would head toward the grove of trees. Except there were no trees.
“Demon’s Ass!” Eusari screamed. “Where are the trees?” The distant shoreline had been changed, trees cut down and a large and armored gun mount had been set up in their place. Gelert stood on all fours and growled menacingly at the sudden change in his master. Pete and Porter looked up at her in shock and she screamed, “Get your eyes back on the water!” At that moment she needed their hypervigilance.
Her landmark gone, she could not be sure of the passage and only had a short time to guess where the center of the grove had stood. She quickly turned the helm to the right. “Brace for shock!” As She Wolf made the starboard turn it was late, dragging the hull against the rocks on the portside. She screamed as Niko fell over the rail.
Eusari called for Pete to take the helm. “Turn hard to port in twenty yards and take us in to the shore!” She rushed to the portside and looked over. Niko’s small frame was floating above the rocks, with blood trailing out of a gash on the side of his tiny head. If she had killed him, she would never forgive herself. Her pulse throbbed in her ears as she pondered jumping after to retrieve him. Luckily, one of the longboats was able to navigate toward the boy, and crewmen dragged his stil form out of the water.
Pete followed his captain’s orders exactly and the ship made a correction to port. All at once she realized her mistake. “Pete! Wait!” But it was too late. As he turned the ship to port the draft of the ship dipped, tearing a gash in the hull beneath the waterline. She cursed again as her ship took on water.
“Marita!” She called to the girl who had been crying uncontrollably since Niko had been tossed overboard. “Marita!” She screamed to get the girl’s attention, but she was inconsolable. “Gods, damn it! Pete, maintain that heading toward the coast. We only have to make it thirty yards or so!” She also yelled up to the riggers who were staring down from the yardarms. Unfurl the sails! Quickly!”
When Niko had fallen the inverted air had lifted, and the fog was dissipating. Looking toward the gun mount she saw movement inside. Turning to the girl she tried again. “Marita, pay attention!” With an open hand she slapped the girl so hard that her head turned to the side, a red welt forming in the shape of a hand. “Give us wind now, Marita! Blow us to the goddamn shore!” The girl was stunned by the sudden aggression by Eusari. With tears in her eyes she heaved sobs as a gust of wind squared away the sails. The report from the gun mount was deafening as several large ca
nnons fired at once.
Thankfully, the sudden gust of wind blew She Wolf under the salvo. Wood creaked as the ship lurched forward in a full-on rush to the beach. As soon as it ran aground, Eusari leapt with Gelert from the forecastle, landing hard in a sandy patch of ground. The men in the longboats rowed frantically to keep pace and within seconds had joined her on the beach.
Anger filled Eusari. She strode forward as her men lined up, rifles out behind the cover of the rocks. Glancing back, she saw Samani Kernigan following them with a rifle in his hands. “Not you! Get your ass to the boats and watch over Niko and the others.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned back for the boats.
Deliberately, she walked toward the gun mount as the men inside reloaded, ready to rain grapeshot down on her and her army. Behind her, she heard Shon calling out. “Dearie! Get down! Take shelter, Eusari!” But she ignored the shouts, hellbent on taking her anger out on the men inside of the fortification.
Finally, standing in full view of the men inside of the mount, she stopped. The island defenders had not fired, either not wanting to waste their shot on the crazy woman and her wolf standing before them, or out of shock at her boldness. They were no doubt watching for her next movement. Eventually they would have to fire upon her.
Kneeling, Eusari placed both hands on the rocks, head bowed as if in prayer. The rock was dry with a salty film and texture. She could smell the ocean all around her, but the smell of the sweet earth called up to her, drawing her senses and heightening her awareness. Behind her the shouts had stopped, and four hundred men stared in silence. She felt the world around her blur as she tried to become one with the ground itself. Only, something was in the way preventing a true bond.
Slowly, she removed her gloves one at a time, revealing thousands of tiny scars running horizontal down her forearms and across the tops of her hands. Mixed among the cuts were hundreds of round burns that had dulled some forgotten pain. Eusari Thorinson examined the scars with a surreal disinterest. The girl who had made these cuts had been afraid and lost, wanting to leave the world but desperate to remain until she had punished all who had caused her the real agony.
