She slammed a fist into his gut, forcing the air out of his lungs and sending an immediate volley of pain through his whole midsection. The raging woman followed this up with another punch – this one from the other hand – to the side of his temple, eliciting an equal amount of pain and trauma. And then she put her hands around his throat and squeezed.
His panic increased a hundred-fold. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to arch his back and buck her off, but she was too heavy and his strength was fading. He beat at her arms with his fists, but she wouldn’t let go. His eyes looked to either side, hoping to see an ally coming to his aid, but there was no one. Everyone around him was locked in their own personal battles. No one would rescue him. This was it. He was going to die.
And then it happened again, that click in his brain, that sudden jolt of velvet electricity. Singular lucidity penetrated his mind. Outside, his vision was beginning to narrow, the first sign that he would soon lose consciousness. But inside, he knew what he had to do.
With his right hand, he reached over to the cutlass lying beside him. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. He could recall it falling there in his mind. His fingers touched the steel of the blade. It would have been better had he found the hilt, but no matter. He grasped the blade with the dull edge in his palm and the sharp edge facing up, and then, with all the strength he had left, he swung upward and smacked the weapon into the side of the woman’s head.
She shrieked out in agony, instantly released her death grip on his throat and tumbled away to Kettle’s left.
Oxygen! Kettle gasped it into his lungs in pained gulps and did his best to ignore the burning sensation in his chest, not to mention the throbbing around his neck. His brain told him to move, stay fluid, protect himself, look at what was happening around him.
The sailor he had hit with the cutlass was standing up, a disfiguring gash on the left side of her head just in front of her ear. The old part of Kettle’s brain said, Oh God! I’m so sorry, but the new part of his brain, which was taking firm control, stated in a very calm manner, This is what war looks like. Best get used to it quickly.
The sailor pulled a knife from her belt and charged him. With agility he didn’t know he had, Kettle tossed the cutlass he was still grasping around the blade into the air, re-catching it by the leather grip beneath the cross-guard. He then easily parried away her thrust with the cutlass and followed up the maneuver with a knee straight to her gut. She doubled over, and he brought the pommel down on the back of her head. She was unconscious before she even hit the deck.
“How did I know how to do that?” Kettle wondered aloud.
For the moment, he was alone and could take in the breathtaking pandemonium being unfurled on the Triumph.
The first thing he noticed was the sickening amount of viscous red matter splashed on wood. One poor wretch a dozen feet away from Kettle was trying in vain to stuff her intestines back into a gaping wound in her midsection. Again, whatever process was happening in his brain caused him to suppress any feelings of repugnance or even empathy. Instead, he continued analyzing the battlefield.
The second thing he noticed was Saeliko. The harker definitely wouldn’t be needing Kettle’s assistance. Or anyone’s, for that matter. She was the Devil incarnate. The scimitar in her right hand whirled and shimmered, the long knife in her left hand danced in tune. Her body was an orchestra of destruction, cascading from victim to helpless victim. Bodies littered the ground around her.
Ollan was less an orchestra and more a one-man demolition team. Kettle watched him grab one lady and headbutt her, twice. Once she was sufficiently dazed, he picked her up and threw her overboard. There was blood running down from his blond hair, but Kettle was pretty sure it wasn’t his. The Lavic let out another roar of battle rage and looked for the next person to clobber.
Not all of the attackers were doing so well. He saw Mohdheri lying motionless in a pool of blood. Little, pot-bellied Lakkari was also down, though still moving. She was pulling herself by her arms, dragging her legs behind her. One leg was obviously broken below the knee. The other had a knife sticking out of the thigh. She was screaming gibberish.
And then he spotted Haley, Tyler and Soup. The three of them were backed up against a wall near the stern of the ship, probably part of the harker’s cabin. Soup had his back pressed right up against the wooden planks, a cutlass in his hand. Tyler and Haley were standing a few feet in front of him, obviously trying to protect him from danger. Tyler looked to be in bad shape, however, the front of his shirt soaked red and a crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder. Kettle doubted the bolt wound would have created that much blood, so Tyler must have sustained multiple wounds.
Haley seemed fine, all things considered. Unlike the other two, she looked light on her feet, adopting one of the defensive stances that Brenna had been teaching them and occasionally taking a hack at anyone who got too close. There was a dead sailor sprawled out on the ground in front of her. Had Haley killed her? Kettle took a moment to appreciate that a couple weeks ago, Haley had been an ornithologist.
She wouldn’t be okay for long by the looks of it. Kettle saw five blue-uniformed women approaching Haley, all of them with cutlasses in their hands and murder in their eyes. One of them was also bending down to pick up a flintlock.
Kettle didn’t hesitate. He sprinted forward toward the sailor going for the pistol, knowing that he’d have to be fast to prevent the woman from taking pot shots at his three friends. Someone stumbled into his path, blocking his line of sight for a moment. He ploughed into the new obstacle, his shoulder smacking into the side of her jaw, causing her to spin and crash in a bungling heap on a big coil of rope. Kettle accelerated, leaping over two fallen bodies and then again over a pool of slick-looking blood and guts.
His peripheral vision briefly caught sight of Dallas scrambling up the stairs to the quarterdeck with a big axe in his right hand. There were three sailors in hot pursuit. Atop the quarterdeck, Kettle could see Dommel, Deshi and two other pirates engaged in a pitched assault on five or six foes. Dallas had probably felt his odds would be better with a group rather than alone.
Kettle’s intended target – a tall, inflated woman who must have weighed close to a couple hundred pounds – now had the flintlock pistol and was pointing it at Haley. Luckily for the cutlass-wielding Korean, the sailor didn’t have a clean line of sight for a shot and could only edge forward, waiting for an opportunity to pull the trigger. The four other Triumph sailors had closed in and were probing Haley and Tyler with exploratory thrusts and jabs.
Kettle threw himself into the air like a football player trying to sack the quarterback, with the exception of course that he was wielding seventy-five centimeters of sharpened steel in front of him. The point of his cutlass drove straight into the side of the woman’s barrel-shaped ribcage with a sickening squishy-crunchy sound. She had never seen him coming. A fraction of a second after penetration, the pistol went off. Kettle didn’t have the opportunity to check if the bullet had found its mark; his inertia carried him forward with unstoppable rapidity until he impacted the mortally wounded sailor’s already crumpling body. Together they went down in a tangle of limbs.
When he regained awareness of his predicament, he realized that he had somehow ended up underneath his prey. His very heavy prey. He could feel her convulsing. She was dying in grotesque agony, blood pulsing out of her mouth and angry spasms contorting her face. Kettle watched grimly, though his newfound mental strength prevented him from panicking or feeling sick. He instead tried to roll the nearly-expired enemy over to one side so that he could get up again to help Haley.
Before he could free himself, he heard the pleas for the fighting to stop. It started as an isolated shriek that was barely audible above the din. Then more voices joined the first, yelling out the Maelian words for We surrender! Regardless, Kettle didn’t want to leave his luck to chance. He squirmed and writhed until he was finally able to extract himself from his weighty predicament
and get back onto his feet.
“Hold, sistren!” a new voice rang out. It was Saeliko. “Hold!” she yelled again.
Kettle watched as opponents broke off and disentangled themselves from one another. The uniformed sailors of the Triumph – those who were still standing – began dropping their weapons and putting their hands behind their heads, clasping their fingers at the back of their necks. He supposed this was the Maelian equivalent of the more conventional raising one’s arms in surrender. The pirates, on the other hand, kept blades and firearms in hand, apparently ready to re-initiate the bloodletting should the signal be given.
Saeliko was smiling. Her scimitar was painted red. Gore dripped from her hair and armor. Splatters of blood decorated her cheekbones and forehead, surrounding those strange green eyes.
Kettle looked away and sought out Haley. The Korean was still alive, as was Soup. However, they were both kneeling on the deck hunched over Tyler. Even from where Kettle stood, he could see the bullet hole in his neck. His body was still. Haley was shaking her head, and Soup was crying. Tyler Grabowski, the 26-year-old Navy lieutenant from St. Louis was dead.
And in a perplexingly invigorating way, Kettle felt extremely alive.
3 DAMAGE
A woman can seek revenge, or she can heal her wounds. She can’t do both.
~ Kalleshi proverb
3.1 JANX
“She’ll see you now,” said the attendant, a small girl of no more than thirteen or fourteen with a ruddy complexion and a deformed left leg. She used a cane to walk. The governess of New Dagos was known to take hard luck cases into her employ, though it was debated whether this was a tactic to gain favor with the populace or whether she actually cared. She was a politician after all.
Janx, having known the governess for more than a decade, suspected it was both.
With shaggy-headed Seventy-two in tow, she walked past the attendant and into the antechamber that served as a buffer between the administrative portions of the governess’ mansion and her private office. Twelve busts sat on pedestals in the antechamber, six on each side, all of them carved out of white silkstone. The Sollian was devoid of silkstone, which meant that the busts had either been carved abroad and then imported or the stone was imported and the busts carved locally. An expensive proposition either way.
Janx recognized some of the faces immortalized in chiseled relief. Torina the Strong, Seventh Admiral of the Bear Fleet. Farrish of Clan Tark. Mochi the Conqueror.
One of the busts meant more to Janx than all of the others combined. The fourth bust on her right showed a face half-hidden by a hood. The half that was visible clearly showed the intricate tattooing of a Saffisheen. This was Sova the Silent, Thirty-ninth High Commandantess of the Saffisheen and leader of the Tibusha Restoration. She had been dead for forty-odd years now, but Janx had known her, had studied under her at the Temple of the Pedagogues. Sova had already grown old by that time, but Janx remembered being amazed by the woman’s speed and skill, leading students in a dance of death beneath the croaker trees in the courtyard.
The door at the end of the antechamber was open. Janx stepped in and found the ruler of New Dagos and the primary decision maker for all of Mael’s Sollian possessions sitting at her desk by the window writing on a broad parchment.
“By the Five and the Twenty-four!” Governess Teverin exclaimed upon seeing Janx and her companion enter. She immediately stood from her chair and walked around the expansive table to get a better look at her guests. “Harker Janx, what happened to you?”
“Setbacks,” the Saffisheen stated. She hoped the strength in her voice would compensate for her pathetic appearance.
Teverin reached forward and took Janx’s bandaged stump into her hands. “Setbacks indeed.”
Normally, Janx wouldn’t let politicians touch her. In fact, she wouldn’t let anyone touch her without permission. Teverin was a special case. The governess was undoubtedly good at her craft; she forged alliances, danced the political dance and brokered beneficial deals with the best of them. But there was more to Teverin than calculated machinations and strategic maneuvers behind the scenes. In this woman, Janx sensed absolute sincerity and real empathy, two rarities in New Dagos. Well, rarities in all the Sollian and beyond, truth be told.
All in all, this was something of a paradox for Janx. As a rule, politicians were to be distrusted in all cases. They were little more than opportunistic leaches, letting real women do the hard work while they reaped the rewards. And yet here was Teverin, the only woman within fifty days sailing that she wholeheartedly trusted.
The Five had a sense of humor.
Teverin was as devout as Janx. The first time Janx had called to port in New Dagos, the two of them had sat in the orchard behind the mansion for over two hours discussing the importance of faith. That was about thirteen years ago now.
It had not been long after that when Janx had decided to ask Teverin to watch over the humble little fortune she had amassed over the years. Janx didn’t trust the dodgy-looking money houses that had sprung up in New Dagos and elsewhere despite assurances that they had backing from the more formal institutions back in the Concord of Mael. Instead, Janx kept her loot in Teverin’s vault, which was in the mansion’s basement and kept under guard day and night. To reassure Janx, Teverin had also offered, for a small fee, to insure the money against theft or destruction, two scenarios that seemed highly unlikely. Given that Mael had been in a state of war, however, Janx had agreed.
“I bring news,” Janx said.
“You bring more than that,” the governess replied, her eyes on Seventy-two.
“He’s part of it.”
“Oh my, where are my manners?” Teverin questioned aloud. “Please, do have a seat.” She gestured over to a second table, larger than the first, sitting near a large bay window that looked over the city. The mansion was situated atop Mochi Hill, which gave the house clear views of almost the entire inhabited area as well as the harbor. Eight chairs surrounded the table.
While Janx and Seventy-two found seats close to the open window where the breeze might steal some of the humidity and heat away from their skin, Teverin plucked a small bell from her desk and gave it a jingle. They immediately heard the off-kilter footsteps and lightly thumping cane of the attendant. When she arrived, Teverin ordered her to bring glasses of chilled tea and a plate of sliced moosha fruit. With that done, she, too, found a seat.
Janx looked out the window instead. She could see the long docks extending out into the bay, and she could also spot the little sloop that had brought them to New Dagos. It was a ragged little ship, and it looked more ragged still positioned where it was between two big Lavic vessels, a frigate and a reacher. Reachers were exclusive to the Lavic navy. They were bigger than frigates, but they employed a new hull design that helped keep a greater portion of the ship out of the water. This made them fast despite their size. Janx had seen other reachers before, but never this one. Its nameplate read Darree Corgavas. In Maelian, it meant Darr’s Grief. Janx had no idea who Darr was.
It was strange seeing a Lavic ship in New Dagos. Yesterday’s enemy, today’s ally. Six months ago, the sight of a reacher entering the harbor would have set off every alarm in the city.
“Now,” Teverin began once the attendant had left, “my loyal Harker Thomegaras tells me that a Kalleshi sloop found you drifting on a makeshift raft half-starved and near death.”
“She exaggerates.”
“I think not by much. In any case, tell me the truth of it.”
“The Five guided our raft,” Janx clarified. “The Kalleshis picked us up. They were heading toward Buckettown, but they ran into Thomegaras’ sloop about three days out. We were transferred, and she brought us back to New Dagos.”
“The Five be praised,” Teverin said. She brushed back her grey hair so that Janx could better see the genuineness in her eyes. “And I really mean that. You must praise the Five. The Sollian is not such a big place, but it is big enough that a raft can
float for many months without ever being spotted.”
“The Five are always with me.”
“Well, you have served them admirably over the years, so I don’t doubt it. You know, the Five often play their hands in unpredictable ways, ways that are hard for us to grasp. But if you give yourself over to the Five with all your heart, they will always aid you in times of need.”
“Did Thomegaras also tell you that I have urgent news for you?” Janx asked, changing the subject. The topic of faith was a comforting one for her, but the matter at hand was pressing.
“Indeed she did. But I want to know more before you get to that. For instance, how in the Five did you get stuck on a raft in the first place? Tell me what happened on the Epoch.”
“Mutiny,” Janx said. She held her tongue after that. Saying more would stir up the puss-filled cesspool of anger inside her chest. It would be better to remain cold and clinical for the duration of the meeting.
Teverin didn’t press for more answers.
“Where’s the Epoch now?” the Saffisheen asked.
Teverin sighed. “Myffah’s Cove, we think. Your protégé has proven to be very bold. Maybe a bit reckless even.” Janx nearly snorted in disgust. Saeliko was stupid to go to Myffa’s Cove. The Red Council presided there, and they would make her pay a hefty price before letting her out of their clutches again.
“What do you mean reckless? What has she done?”
“Three and a half weeks ago, she overpowered the Triumph.” Teverin’s tone was even and devoid of anger, unreflective of the significance of what she just said.
The Triumph! It hurt to admit it, but that was an impressive beginning to a piratical career.
“What did Saeliko do with the crew?”
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