The Way of Ancient Power

by Ben Wolf

  Lilly made it out first, and Calum followed with the sack slung over his shoulder. He found a grip on the outside of the doorframe and began to pull himself out of the captain’s quarters, but the ship pitched again, this time so far that its bow pointed straight up into the sky.

  The sack of armor slipped, but Calum snatched it before it could fall into the whirlpool below. Now he dangled over the watery chasm below with his right hand clamped onto the doorframe and the sack of armor hanging from his other hand.

  He looked up at Lilly, who reached down to help him.

  A loud crash sounded below Calum, and the entire ship shuddered. The cabin windows shattered, and the edge of Brink’s table disappeared in the water rushing up to meet them.

  “Take my hand, Calum!” she shouted over the ship’s groans and the roiling, churning water below.

  As she continued to reach toward him, a massive dark form materialized in the rising waters below. A black fin emerged from the water’s furious surface and circled underneath Calum.

  A shark.

  “Drop the armor and grab my hand!” Lilly pressed her chest against the doorframe and reached even farther down toward him. She couldn’t lose him.

  Calum’s face tightened with strain, and he hefted the bag up to her instead. Lilly grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder, then she reached down with her other hand. Just as Calum’s grip slipped from the doorframe, Lilly caught him by his wrist.

  He yelped, but he clasped his fingers around her wrist as well and anchored his free hand on the door frame again.

  The shark spiraled closer, and the froth lapped at the bottoms of Calum’s boots.

  “Help me!” Lilly yelled at him. She yanked and pulled and used her flight to help with the strain, and Calum strained along with her.

  Gaping jaws and spearhead teeth burst from the water below and chomped shut just beneath Calum’s right foot as he made it above the doorframe. When Lilly looked down again the shark had clamped its jaws on Brink’s body, and then it disappeared into the angry waters.

  As Calum stood to his feet, Lilly glared at him. “Why didn’t you just drop the armor?”

  “Axel would’ve killed me if I didn’t get it back for him.” Calum shrugged.

  Lilly rolled her eyes. “Come on. This ship is going down fast.”

  “I can’t go into that water,” Calum told her in calm tones. He hardly seemed worried about it. “My armor’s too heavy, and I’m too exhausted and weak to keep my head above the water for long. I’ll sink.”

  Calum grabbed the railing above his head, which, when the ship had been floating, lined the staircase that led up to the wheel and the captain’s quarters. He pulled himself over it.

  “Take the armor and get outta here,” he continued, equally as placid. “I’ll climb up higher to give the lifeboat a chance to circle near me.”

  Lilly took to the air, even though his plan baffled her. If he could fly like she could, then maybe it would work, but he couldn’t. “How are you going to get to the lifeboat without getting into the water?”

  “I’ll swing over.” He grabbed a rope and pulled himself off the rail toward the first of the masts. “If you hurry, you can drop that off and get back to help me.”

  Lilly nodded and sped off. She wouldn’t let him die. It wasn’t an option she’d even consider. She landed on Magnus’s lifeboat and dropped the bag next to Axel. Both of them looked at her.

  “We worried you were dead,” Magnus said. “What happened? Where is Calum?”

  “Long story.” Lilly sprang back into the air. “Just get the boat as close to the ship as you can without letting it take you under. Hurry.”

  She darted back toward Calum.

  With each tug on the network of ropes that hung from the masts, Calum’s body raged against him. Exhaustion and a lack of food plagued him. He felt weak, yet determined.

  But if he let go, or if he slipped, he was as good as dead. So he kept going.

  The ship’s black sails tore loose and whipped past him as he climbed higher. Something above him snapped. A barrel from the ship’s bow plummeted toward him.

  He leaped clear, his arms outstretched, and he grabbed a rope with greedy fingers. It tightened, and he swung out of the barrel’s path.

  The ship seemed to be sinking faster. As soon as he swung back to the second mast, water licked his heels. Water meant sharks.

  Maybe Magnus could survive one, but Calum didn’t stand a chance. He had to get above the third mast, grab a rope, and then try to swing out over the water. Hopefully there’d be a lifeboat nearby, if not underneath him, by then.

  Calum jumped up and clamped his fingers around an iron ring mounted to the third mast. His arms protested when he tried to pull himself up, but they did the job. He managed to grab one of the ropes just above the mast, and—

  He dropped. Water smothered him. The rope was loose.

  He surfaced and pulled on the rope still in his hand, silently praying it would catch on something, but the opposite end dropped into the water next to him. He had to get out of there.

  Too late. A black fin cut through the surf toward him.

  Calum scrambled and splashed, but couldn’t get ahold of anything, and his armor kept trying to tug him ever downward toward a different kind of demise.

  The shark zoomed closer, growing larger and larger as it approached. Its gigantic jaws broke through the water and spread wide to receive him.

  Before the beast could reach Calum, the shark’s jaws clamped shut, but it still collided with him. The impact spun him in the water as if he weighed nothing, and he sank down low, confused and trying to find the surface. Something red in the water blinded him, and his armor pulled him down fast. He flailed his arms.

  It was blood. Was it his? He didn’t feel wounded, but that didn’t mean he was whole.

  Something fastened on his wrist. Shark teeth, but much softer and more forgiving than he’d expected, dragged him toward the surface.

  Not shark teeth—fingers.

  The instant Calum’s head broke through the water he gasped, and precious air flooded his lungs. His entire body left the water, and the sinking ship shrank beneath him. Then it rushed up to meet him once more. On the way down, he grabbed a rope on the third mast and held on to keep from plunging back into the water.

  He looked down. All his limbs seemed to be intact, and he didn’t see or feel any blood gushing out of his body.

  When he looked up, he saw Lilly hovering just above him. She held her bow in one hand and beckoned him toward her with her other.

  Had she shot the shark? That would explain the blood in the water.

  “Wake up, Calum!” She motioned toward the lifeboat behind her, occupied by Magnus and Axel, who rowed furiously to stay out of the whirlpool created by the sinking pirate ship. “Swing over!”

  Beneath him, the water continued to consume the Malice. The shark’s head resurfaced, but something long and narrow was sticking out of its right eye.

  An arrow.

  Lilly had shot the shark. In its eye, no less.

  Calum marveled at it. Incredible.

  “Calum, now!” Magnus roared from the lifeboat.

  Calum snapped back into the present. He kicked his feet back toward the mast and landed on one of the sail rods that extended from the mast itself.

  He found a new rope to grab, and then he pushed off the sail rod with all his remaining strength and swung toward the lifeboat. But even with all his momentum, he’d never make it all the way to the lifeboat—it was too far.

  When Calum released the rope, hoping for a well-timed release to get him as close as possible, Lilly grabbed onto his wrist with both hands and dropped toward the lifeboat right along with him. Her flying thrust helped him traverse the extra distance between the Malice and the lifeboat, and they fell into Axel and Magnus’s open arms.

  The lifeboat rocked so much that it almost tipped over, but it stayed upright.

  Calum pushed himself up, ama
zed that he’d even made it into the lifeboat. Twenty yards away, the ship sank deeper and deeper until it disappeared under the water entirely.

  “There she goes,” Axel said, back to rowing along with Magnus. In all the commotion, he hadn’t yet put his armor back on, so he once again resembled the farm boy Calum used to know back from his days in the quarry, rather than a budding warrior, strong and powerful.

  Calum turned to Lilly, who also sat up. “Why didn’t you just pull me to the lifeboat in the first place?”

  “I can only fly with as much weight as I could carry on the ground.” She smiled at him. “But I can redirect heavier things with my momentum, which is how I got us into the boat.”

  Axel whistled. “Can all Windgales do that?”

  “Sure, they’re capable, but not all of them know how. I’ve had special training.”

  “Thank the Overlord for that.” Calum lay back down in the lifeboat, closed his eyes, and exhaled a long, painful breath. Everything hurt. Everything. He opened his eyes again and looked at Axel and Magnus. “How many prisoners survived?”

  “Another three lifeboats, including one with the five men who tried to attack us, all big enough to hold about twenty men, but most of them are only half-full with limited supplies.” Axel glowered at them over his shoulder then turned back.

  “Speaking of which, we have seen no sign of either the man Axel called Yurgev or Captain Brink. Do you know what happened to them?” Magnus asked.

  “Dead. Both of them.” Even talking seemed to sap Calum of his energy. He wanted to closer his eyes again and rest, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  “What happened?” Axel leaned forward and rubbed his lower back with his hand.

  Calum motioned to Lilly so she could talk for the both of them. He couldn’t make his mouth form words. He needed just a little more rest, so he lay back again and stared up at the blue sky above.

  “Yurgev ambushed us while we were getting our armor back,” she said. “Calum fought him off for awhile until Brink showed up. He killed Yurgev, then came for us. I put my sword through his chest when he wasn’t expecting it, and he died. Last time I saw him, he was wedged between a shark’s jaws.”

  With renewed energy, Calum sat up to look at Lilly, and his view greatly improved.

  “Impressive. Brink was no ordinary foe.” Magnus smiled. “Well done, Lilly.”

  “I never would’ve had a chance had Calum not held off Yurgev for so long.” Lilly showed Calum a smile that totally eased his exhaustion for an instant, and then it returned full-force. “He was incredible.”

  “You wanna talk about incredible? Calum, did you see that unbelievable shot Lilly made to save you?” Axel whacked Calum’s shoulder, probably on purpose. The blow disrupted most of the progress Calum had made through resting.

  Calum ground his teeth and shook his head. “Only the result.”

  “She hit the shark right in its eye.” Axel chuckled and turned to Lilly. “How does that even happen? How are you so accurate all the time?”

  Lilly shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice. I started learning when I was four years old, and I’ve been shooting ever since.”

  “More ‘special training?’” Axel asked.

  She grinned at him. “Exactly.”

  Calum lay back in the boat again and exhaled a relived sigh. “So what do we do now?”

  Magnus peered over the side of the lifeboat. “The sharks are circling the wreckage, probably picking at the dead bodies that were on board the ship. I expect they’ll leave us alone for awhile, but all the same, I’d like to row toward shore immediately.”

  “Which way do we go?” Axel asked. “It all looks the same to me.”

  “South.” The voice came from behind Magnus, but there was no one else on the boat.

  Calum sat up too quickly, and this time his head throbbed as punishment. One of the lifeboats full of prisoners floated toward them. Calum recognized them as the mellow prisoners from the other cell while he and Axel—well, only Axel—fought off Yurgev.

  “Head south from here.” The man speaking had a long gray beard and matching hair, except for a bald spot on his head, and he wore gray rags about the same color as the Baroness of Destiny had been. His sharp, blue-green eyes resembled the color of the lake water on which they all floated. “Sharkville is south of here.”

  “He is right,” Magnus said. “But with the sun overhead I cannot tell which direction is south. I got turned around after I boarded the ship, and now it is noon, or close to it.”

  The bearded man extended his hand and pointed to his left. “It’s that-a-way.”

  “How do you know?” Magnus asked.

  “When you’ve been sailin’ these waters as many years as I have, you just know.” The bearded man glanced at the young man next to him in the boat, who stared at Calum. “This here’s my son, Jacobus, or Jake for short. I’m Puolo. Used to captain a fishin’ vessel ’bout the size of that pirate ship before they found us and took most of us captive.”

  “Pleasure to meet you both.” Calum marshaled enough strength to introduce his companions. “And thank you for not trying to kill us.”

  Puolo waved his hand. “You set us free. If anything, we should be thanking you, and we certainly do.”

  He bowed to Magnus, who returned the bow with one of his own.

  Axel cleared his throat. “Anyway, how far do you think it is back to Sharkville?”

  “A solid day, at least. Could be a day and a half.” Puolo added, “Depends how fast you row.”

  “Hopefully we grabbed enough food to sustain us until then.” Axel rummaged through a burlap bag in the boat with them. “There’s not much in here.”

  “Pirates typically aren’t fishermen. They survive by plunderin’ and tradin’,” Jake said. “We’re lucky we found anythin’ at all.”

  “We grabbed some basic fishin’ equipment and some bait they took from your vessel yesterday, though.” Puolo held up a harpoon. “We can do some fishing and see if we can supplement our supply. The only thing we got to worry about is rowing away from these sharks before they decide to…”

  It all sounded great to Calum, but his body still weighed him down, and his eyelids drooped low. How Axel even could tolerate being awake, Calum didn’t know, but now that they’d escaped harm, Calum couldn’t fight his fatigue anymore.

  As the others continued to talk, he lay back in the lifeboat and let the motion of the water slapping against the hull rock him to sleep.

  A smack on the wood under Calum’s head jarred him from his sleep. He jerked upright, and his body reverberated with dull pain. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Are you alright?” Magnus asked from somewhere behind him.

  The boat rocked against the waves under a starry moonlit sky. Calum stretched his limbs and his back but the tension only sharpened his misery. “Yeah. I’ll be alright.”

  He turned to face Magnus, who sat in the center of the boat. He held an oar in each hand and rowed against the black surf in a steady rhythm. Farther behind him, the other three lifeboats chased his wake, two on the left and one on the right.

  “How long have you been rowing?”

  “All day,” Magnus said. “Do not fret, though. I take pride that I am the only one rowing this lifeboat, yet we still lead all the others, each of which has at least six men rowing.”

  Calum smiled at him, fully contented. Magnus had survived, he’d saved them, and now they were all reunited, more or less unharmed. “I’m glad we didn’t lose you, Magnus.”

  “Even if you had, I am certain someone else would have rowed in my stead.”

  Calum chuckled. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  Now Magnus grinned. “Yes, I know.”

  “My body is—” Calum twisted his torso and a chorus of cracks and pops sounded. He didn’t feel quite as exhausted as before, but the aches of all the strain he’d endured over the last few days still lingered. “—killing me. I just don’t know how A
xel does it sometimes.”

  “Even if he will not show it, Axel is just as beat as you are.” Magnus must have noticed Calum’s eyes scanning the back half of the lifeboat. “He is sleeping back there.”

  “Where’s Lilly?”

  “She’s back there too, also sleeping.”

  Calum swallowed. “Together?”

  Magnus smirked. “No. Near each other, but not together. It is not quite cold enough for Axel to use body heat as an excuse to draw close to her. Or at least not cold enough that she would agree to it.”

  Calum nodded, and Magnus chuckled.

  “What are you laughing at?” Calum asked.

  “I find humans much more entertaining now that I am not enslaved by them.” His oars lifted out of the water and then dug back in almost parallel to where Calum was sitting. “Specifically, you and Axel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since the moment you discovered Lilly, neither of you have been able to restrain yourselves. You both posture like colorful birds displaying your finest plumage, you take risks you would not otherwise take, and you go at each others’ throats whenever you think it will give you an advantage.” Magnus snorted and carved another swath into the water with his oars. “I find it amusing.”

  Calum frowned at him. “I haven’t done any of those things.”

  Have I? he wondered.

  Magnus stopped rowing, tilted his head, and huffed through his nostrils.

  “Alright.” Calum bit his lip. “Maybe I’ve done some of those things.”

  “That is putting it mildly.” Magnus started rowing again. “I could point out several instances where one or both of you went a bit overboard on her behalf.”

  “If I remember correctly, you’re the one who went overboard,” Calum countered with a smirk.

  Magnus shook his head. “You jumped ship more recently than I did.”

  “That’s because it was sinking.” Calum pointed at him. “You fell off.”

  “I was forced off and nearly eaten by a shark, thank you very much.” Magnus grunted. “Perhaps we should just drop the subject.”

  “I never did hear how you got away from that shark. What happened?”