by J M D Reid
“Estan!” he bellowed.
His friend lay still, eyes closed, his ebony skin blanched to a sickly gray. Ary reached Estan’s side, dropping his sword as he fell to his knees. Metal clattering, Ary seized his friend’s leg above the terrifying cut.
The blood didn’t gush. Dread clenched Ary’s stomach.
“Please!” he groaned as he directed the heat into his friend.
He felt that barrier like with Lieutenant-Captain Chemy and Chaylene. His heart seized as he forced the heat into it, attacking the separation between life and death. He’d reached through with Chaylene, catching her soul in the moments of her passing.
“NO!” Ary bellowed. Terror transformed his will into molten determination.
The barrier burst into flames.
Ary’s vitality flowed into his friend.
Any thicker, if Ary had waited a heartbeat longer, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to reach through. He couldn’t heal death. But Estan hadn’t fully died. The veil hadn’t fully engulfed him.
Tears fell down Ary’s cheeks. This time, he’d saved his friend.
He couldn’t save the leg. Too many fighting around the courtyard had witnessed the devastating wound, but he could stop the bleeding while he prepared a tourniquet to mask what he did. “You’re not dying,” Ary whispered, his body shaking. “You’re not dying today.”
*
Nrein was dying. He pushed the last of his heat into his side, healing his wound as much as he could. It was too large a cut. He bled out too fast and had spent too much of his Healing already. His Fleshknitting gave himself just enough strength to stand. Blood poured down his side. Knitting muscles protested his moment. He gripped his shattered blade in his hand as he staggered to his feet. Black rage pounded through his veins, drowning out the pain in his side, sustaining him.
He would kill both men.
Nrein took a step, forcing his battered body to move. Spittle dripped from his lips as his breath came in ragged gasps. The big marine tended to the oily bastard’s wound. You will not save him! He DEFILED my sister!
Nrein growled as he took another step. The world dwindled. The edges of his vision darkened to a cone focused on the big marine’s back. The man had the Gifts. He had Fleshknitting and Metalforging. One strike! Decapitation!
The pirate captain raised his shattered blade.
*
Chaylene’s head throbbed as she sat up. She peered out at a fuzzy, blurred world. Her stomach clenched. Bile rushed up her gullet and spilled onto the battlement. She rubbed at the back of her head, her hair wet and sticky. Her hand came away slicked with blood.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. What happened? She glanced over her shoulder and—
The Dauntless was gone. Burning scraps of sail drifted through the sky. Horror gripped her stomach. She had just signaled the captain. Where did the ship go?
The world tilted to sickening angles as Chaylene twisted her head around. In the courtyard below, the marines and two of the Zzuki routed the pirates, breaking their spirits. Some threw down weapons as they ran while others raised their arms in surrender, cowering on the ground. She scanned for her husband and spotted him kneeling over Estan’s bleeding form while—
“Ary!” she screamed in warning.
An Agerzak pirate raised a shattered blade as he loomed behind her husband. Chaylene grabbed her fallen pressure rifle. In a heartbeat, she formed the bullet and fired her rifle as she brought it up.
Her bullet went wide.
*
“Ary!”
Ary reacted to his wife’s warning cry. He twisted his head and saw the pirate looming over him. A pressure bullet whizzed between them, rippling the air. The pirate snarled as he swung the broken half of his sword at Ary’s neck.
He raised his left hand without thought while lunging backward. The shattered sword flashed. The sharp edge cut through his hand right above his thumb. The blow jerked his hand. For a heartbeat, he felt nothing as his four fingers, attached to half his palm, tumbled through the air, severed from his hand.
The pirate snarled in rage, bringing his weapon round for another swing.
Ary gathered his charge in his right hand. He lunged forward without thought, planting his hand into the pirate’s chest. He discharged. Sparks exploded. The pirate screamed in pain as he crashed back, twitching on the ground. Smoke rose from his stomach, blood flowing from the gaping wound in his side.
“Ary!” Chaylene shouted.
The pirate moved. Despite taking a lethal shock, he struggled to rise.
The air hissed. The pirate’s head snapped back, a bloody hole punched into his cheekbone right beneath his right eye. The life fled his body. He collapsed into a limp heap, beard head staring skyward, face twisted with inhuman rage, forever frozen in fury.
A moment later, Corporal Huson stumbled to a stop, lowering a metal sabre smeared in crimson. Sweat dripped from her brow. Her chest heaved. She turned, staring at Ary holding his maimed hand.
“I . . . I . . .” the corporal stuttered, staring at his hand in horror. With a groan, she wrenched their gaze to the pirates surrendering, fleeing.
“Go,” Ary gasped while a chill rippled through him. “Y-you have the command.”
Corporal Huson retreated, leaving Ary to stare at his left hand. Only his thumb and a bloody stump remained. A tremble went through him. His stomach went queasy. “My hand’s gone,” he whispered. Sluggish molasses filled his mind, slowing his thoughts. “How can I be a farmer with only one and a half hands?”
His breath quickened. The world spun about him. Ary fell back onto his right elbow. He couldn’t peel his eyes away from the stump.
Heat surged up his arm.
*
Chaylene raced down the stairs, her eyes locked on her husband. He stared at his severed hand in shock. She reached the courtyard and leaped over flaming debris and corpses to reach him. Her rifle fell from her hand, clay barrel shattering against pitted stone.
“Ary!”
“My hand’s gone, Lena,” Ary slurred. Sweat covered his face. “I need to heal it.”
Chaylene fell to her knees and engulfed him in her arms. She cradled him from behind, pressing her lips against his ears. “You can’t, Ary.”
“What?” Ary shook in her embrace. “But . . .”
“People witnessed it. You can’t heal your hand. They’ll know, Ary. They’ll know you’re special.”
“But . . . I can’t be a farmer, Lena.”
Hot tears blinded her. “I know. But that’s okay.” She rocked her husband. “Everything will be okay. You can only a heal enough. Just a little bit.”
Ary lowered his arm.
The fighting petered out. She heard no more explosions. The Gallant and Adventurous orbited above. Zzuki auxiliaries loomed over surrendering pirates who looked as dazed as Chaylene felt. The back of her head pounded. Stabs of pain rippled across her scalp while her stomach quivered, threatening to spill more bile upon the ground.
It was over. Chaylene grieved at the price. She studied the faces of the survivors of the Dauntless. They gathered around her, Ary, and Estan, faces ashen. All looked like they had suffered blows to the head, leaving them stunned. Zeirie picked up a smoking tricorne hat, shaking her head. Even the two Zzuk had slumped shoulders, their tongues drooping as they flicked out.
Her eyes fell on Whitesocks, legs bent and stiff.
Me, Ary, Estan, Zori, Guts, Velegrin, Corporal Huson, Messiench, Zeirie, Jhech, and a pair of Gezitziz. The Dauntless carried sixty-four when she sailed from Onhur.
“Only twelve,” she croaked as she held Ary.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chaylene leaned on the gunwale of the Adventurous, staring down at the bustle in the pirates’ fortress, her head throbbing from the piece of debris that had knocked her out hours ago. It made her thoughts shadowy, everything distorted at strange angles. Sailors swept through the base, moving almost like wraiths while the world felt . . . ephe
meral.
Her eyes felt dry when they should have been brimming with tears. She should have been shaking with grief, but she felt wrung dry by a laundress’s wrinkled hands, twisted and twisted until she held not a drop of emotion. The Dauntless was destroyed. Whitesocks, dead. Ary, maimed.
The one time she needed to slay someone—a righteous, justifiable kill—she’d missed.
“It feels like a dream.”
Chaylene jumped at Ary’s words. Her husband leaned on the railing beside her, bandages wrapped about the stump of his left hand, his thumb fingering the yellow-white linen. Spots of crimson bled through in places.
He wasn’t healing himself. Chaylene stared at the stump, her body shaking. Her eyes stung like tears filled them, but they remained dry. All she’d had to do was hit her target, and he’d be whole. Another half a heartbeat to aim . . .
She swallowed. “Yeah.”
He studied the horizon.
Her chest tightened, aching as she drew in a breath. Her heart labored faster. She wet cracked lips, swallowing past the emotion building at the back of her throat. “How’s . . . Estan?”
“Stable,” Ary said. “He lost the leg, of course. I couldn’t heal that.”
“Of course. No one can know . . .”
“No one,” he nodded. “I did what I could . . . shared my fire as discreetly. He’ll mend fast, and so will others.” He shook his head. “The Dauntless . . . what do you suppose happened?”
“I don’t know.” Their words danced around her mistake. She could feel it hanging between them. “Pirates must have . . . must have hit the powder magazine or something.”
Ary grunted and glanced at her. “What do you suppose that means?”
“Transfer.” She swallowed. “Ary . . . I’m s—”
“Lena, your head,” he gasped. He grabbed her hand with his whole one, fingers flaring with heat. “Riasruo Above, I didn’t know you were hurt.”
Her eyes widened as the soothing heat washed through her body and reached the swollen knot at the back of her head. His healing fires burned through the shadows hanging about her thoughts, the rising sun banishing night.
He released her hand. The flames snuffed out. The back of her head still felt . . . tender, but she didn’t feel overripe back there, swollen. She flexed the fingers of her hand. The world felt . . . more present, more real.
“Sorry, you were about to say something,” Ary said, leaning back on the gunwale.
“It was nothing.” She pushed down that guilt. It was easier now that she could think straight. She’d done the best she could. She shouldn’t feel guilty about missing. Ary had survived. She should focus on that, not the half-a-heartbeat. “Just . . . regrets.”
Ary let out a snort. “Yeah . . . they fill you up, don’t they?”
“And weigh you down.”
Half-a-Storming-heartbeat . . .
No! I did the best I could. Ary’s alive. That’s what’s important. But she still saw herself raising her weapon and panicking.
She kept seeing the Vionese sailor glaring at her. “You didn’t miss me, Chaylene.”
“I just can’t shake some of them,” Ary said. He glanced at her. “Remember when I tried to grow a mustache?”
“That fuzzy caterpillar perched on your upper lip wasn’t a mustache, Ary,” Chaylene said. “Please don’t say you regret shaving the horrid thing off.”
“I don’t know,” Ary said. “I’m older. I bet I could grow a manly caterpillar. Thick and bushy.”
A smile touched her lips as she remembered the younger him sporting that scraggly, yellow thing. “Don’t expect another kiss from me, then.”
“Oh, don’t want it tickling you?” he asked, leaning his head closer to her, mirth dancing in his red eyes.
“Eww, no,” she said, a shiver racing through her body, her skin itching. “Why are you bringing that up?”
“It made you smile,” Ary said. “You always try to make me smile when I’m lost in the dark fog. Figured I’d try.”
“Ary . . .” Her grin grew. For a moment, all the death and pain of today vanished as simple joy bubbled through her. She wasn’t thirsty at all. Didn’t feel the immensity of today, of yesterdays, upon her shoulders.
A piercing whistle blew from below. She glanced down. The sight slew her mirth.
*
The delight melted from Chaylene’s face. Frowning, Ary followed her gaze down, wondering what she saw. He’d heard a whistle sound, but where had it come from? His eyes flicked past sailors stretching out the Autonomy’s dead, covered by blankets, to others stacking the loot found inside the main tower in a large pile.
He found it.
His gaze arrested on a line of pirates. They stood on crates beneath makeshift gallows, ropes tied about their necks. A red-coated marine kicked the box from beneath the first pirate’s. He fell a few fingerswidths then twitched and swung from his gibbet, his feet kicking. He didn’t die right away. He spasmed like an ostrich hit in the head by a maul, stunned and ready to be bled dry.
The marine moved down the line, kicking out the crates from beneath the others.
Ary had seen much death. Too much. It overflowed his mind with images. Ahneil’s body cut down. Vay’s back flayed open. His sword sheering through a Stormrider’s armor. Hehad run another Stormrider through the stomach as she’d gazed up at the blue sky. He’d butchered Agerzaks by the score at Offnrieth. His greatsword had hacked them into kindling. The Dauntless’s ballistae had reduced more to bloody ruin. He’d press-ganged those sailors from the merchantmen ship and brought them to their deaths.
“They surrendered,” Ary said, staring at the swinging pirates. He couldn’t look away from the spasming men. The macabre sight gripped him, forcing him to watch more pain. “Do they really deserve to be executed, Lena?”
“Maybe,” she whispered. “How many people did they kill?”
How many people did we?
His wife shook her head. Then she pushed away from the railing, muttering something. He wished he had the strength to follow her, but a chill gripped him. Moving . . . took will he didn’t possess. Not after today.
I saved Estan’s life. I need to remember that. I didn’t just kill today.
His thumb ran across the bandage wrapped about his hand. The rough linen distracted him from the convulsing pirates. He stared down at his maimed appendage. What did his future hold now? What would he do with only a single good hand? He didn’t know. Couldn’t picture anything. It hurt to think. It hurt to do anything but lean and remember simpler times.
He longed to be that boy again playing Pirates and Marines on the watchtower, to use sticks that couldn’t do more than leave bruised fingers or a swollen knot on the temple. To laugh with Chaylene and Vel . . .
I could have saved him. That was one death I could have prevented. Why didn’t I save him? We were friends once.
His gaze drifted back to the hanged men. He tried to picture a world without violence. Without death. Without men and women forced to fight and kill and die. He couldn’t see it. All he could see was the carnage he had wrecked with his own hands, the pirates swaying from the ropes.
Ary maintained his vigil as the sailors gathered the Navy’s dead, the surviving Agerzak whores, the press-ganged sailors, and the loot onto the ships. Only when the Adventurous sailed away from the fortress did Ary stop looking at the swinging dead and instead stared at the Storm.
At Theisseg.
What would he do about her? What could he do about her? He ran his thumb over the bandage-wrapped stump of his hand and let his thoughts drift.
*
Lheshoa 20th, 399 VF (1960 SR)
The pirates had lost. The Autonomy had won.
And yet, Chaylene felt only bitter ashes as the Adventurous docked at Rheyion Naval Port. The Adventurous had lost two marines and a sailor in the battle. The Gallant had suffered another two casualties, both marines. Chaylene didn’t understand how that was possible. How could the Dauntless lose almo
st her entire crew while the rest had sailed through the same dangerous skies and lose only a handful?
No one knew what had destroyed the Dauntless. Everyone endlessly speculated on it during the three-day flight back to Onhur. Chaylene was sick of the theories. They grew more impossible with every telling from, “A shell must’ve been dropped in the magazine and went off,” to, “Them Agerzaks got dark powers from Theisseg. They must’ve change their skin like a chameleon. Blended in, you know, slipped aboard, and destroyed the ship.” By the time the Adventurous neared Onhur, half the crew were convinced Agerzaks had a Blessing that could detonate a shot from a distance.
She and Ary watched from the railing, his thumb massaging his bandaged stump.
Why didn’t I take a half-a-heartbeat to aim? she berated herself. The thought ambushed her hour after hour.
“Home,” Ary said.
Chaylene shook her head. “No, it’s not.”
“You’re here,” he said.
A smile touched her lips.
“I promised Estan I’d see him brought to the infirmary,” Ary said, stretching. “Are you coming?”
She swallowed, thirsty. She should go, too, but she just wanted to escape the ship, to retreat away from everything. She didn’t have the excuse of flying free on Whitesocks for “training.” Of just the simple pleasure of currying his hide. She had no freedom from the crush of the ship.
From all the strangers.
She wanted to go to her home with Ary, enjoy the bottle of wine waiting, and try to forget everything. “I’m exhausted.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you at home.”
Chaylene nodded her head. She touched his maimed hand below the bandage. She didn’t want him to leave right now, not when grief weighed at her heart, but he was a good man. He had to help his friend.
The Adventurous slowed to a halt alongside the pier, the Spirituous doing the same. On the Dauntless’s berth, the waiting families peered out at the sky, cupping hands to foreheads, trying to spot the third ship that would never arrive. Tears almost drowned Chaylene. She wrenched her gaze away.
