With that, Longhart took a decisive stance, and allowed Flynn time to do the same. It was with uncertainty that he followed her lead, for he had never truly fought with a sword and had little grasp of the technique. Her first strike would have killed him, had he not been allowed the time to know her and understand how she moved. Her every thrust was barely parried, each strike poorly deflected.
“You could have attacked before I was ready, taken to your crew,” Flynn said between breaths. “Why didn’t you?”
“I am a Trynan officer. I shall not sully my reputation with unsportsmanlike conduct,” she replied, her voice as calm as her breathing. “To add: this will not be a lengthy duel.”
The ship shifted, and though both combatants were left unsteady, it was Longhart who recovered first, more used to combat at sea. Even so, she did not strike when his back was turned, intent on allowing him an honorable death. Part of him scorned himself for allowing the fight to run this long, for not burying his claws in her back after she tossed him her sword. It was a tactic he would have employed without hesitation once, local taboos be damned.
Flynn was tiring out. Every effort to defend did nothing but keep him alive, every attack exposed him to her in return. She’d slashed his leg, stabbed his arm, and grazed his cheek—and had barely broken a sweat while doing so.
“Have you any kin I should report your death to, Master Carolina?” she asked. Already, she was so confident. Once she won, she would return to the fields of war where her death or survival could be determined as easily by a stray shot. If Flynn died, the mission would suffer a deep setback at best, with worlds at stake.
“Nearly everyone … I’ve ever cared for … is right here, on this boat,” he heaved. Flynn lunged at Longhart, trying to drive the blade through her, his left hand on the flat edge to put the pressure on her. A simple adjustment in her stance was all she needed to fend him off, and already she was beginning to force him back.
It was then he spied the opening.
Flynn’s left hand dropped free and Longhart’s parry found new strength. He knew the moment he stumbled back, the riposte to follow would kill him. He had used up her mercy.
Longhart did not expect him to plunge the claws of his free hand into her gut. He stumbled back, but caught her insides and held his balance. As Flynn found his footing, his sword smoothly guided Longhart’s away. Her blade arm fell slack, drained of strength. Her insides were being shredded, and only the shock kept her from crying out, even as her eyes welled with tears.
She drifted to her knees and Flynn’s hand slipped out of her, soaking red. Her lips barely parted, and her voice cracked as she spoke.
“How could you?”
The ship rocked from the storm, Longhart shifting like a limp doll.
“I am sorry,” he admitted. She gave no response, and he knew she was dead. Flynn wiped his hand sloppily on her coat before hoisting her body over his shoulders. There was still work to be done.
* * *
Zella remained huddled in her dank cell. “It will be over soon,” she reminded herself again. Her sole comfort was that the fighting above barely registered; the crashing waves on the hull of the ship drowned the commotion, and only the crack of intermittent thunder broke through. The gunfire, by comparison, was faint, save for the occasional shot that became lodged in the deck above her.
She meant to stay below, wait it out. But Zella was curious. Would ruthlessness or camaraderie win the day? The seawater that cascaded into her cell beckoned her out, and Zella kept a hand to the wall for balance as the ship tossed and turned. Emerging outside was like witnessing the last gasps of a mad world.
“Yo, Zell!” Jean was on the far side of the ship, gesturing her to come over. She’d shed her jacket and was tying a rope around her waist.
As Zella walked, every step careful for all the scattered bodies, she saw Chari engaged in a firefight with a lone soldier in the mast, prolonged by the winds. The sails were half furled and riddled with holes. Zaja was at the bow, locked in a stalemate with a soldier who wouldn’t venture near the lashing of her whip.
“Tie this to somethin’ for me, thanks.” Jean shoved something into Zella’s hands, then promptly turned and dove into the rolling seas. Zella, in a haze from so much sensory input, realized only faintly that she’d been handed a coil of rapidly unspooling rope, and bound it to the nearby mast.
Shea was fighting two soldiers on the stair to the helm, when one stepped into her blade to save his comrade’s life. The soldier didn’t waste the moment and tried to catch Shea before she could recover, while several others hurried to ambush her.
That was when Flynn emerged, Captain Longhart draped over his shoulders. He said nothing and looked at no one, but simply hobbled to the rail to dump her body. As he staggered against the rail and turned to face them, those of the Callah’s crew who remained lost any will to fight. Shea climbed to take the wheel, but Lieutenant Cloven was stubborn and would not surrender it, even though he seemed unwilling to actually fight her for it.
Shea lifted a pistol that had skidded on the deck and pointed it at Cloven, who still stood his ground. She averted her gaze, closed her eyes, and shot him, point blank. The wheel spun quickly before she caught it, wrenching it back upright.
Zella walked past the remaining soldiers, a half-dozen by her count, over to Flynn. He was bleeding profusely in several places.
“You’ve come out at last.” He sounded woozy.
“This was meant for me, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “Some grand plan to show naïve Zella how bad things can get?”
“This wasn’t about you.” He shook his head. “This was about surviving. If we can’t even take steps such as these, do you think we’ll really have a chance against your father?”
“‘Steps such as these,’ as you put it, are what he seeks to end! You are clever and devious like no man I’ve ever known, Flynn. Yet this was the best outcome you could produce?”
Flynn took a moment to clutch his wounded limbs, to let the rain wash some of the blood from him. Zella knew not all of it was his own.
“I worked with what I had,” he replied. “And what did you do?”
Zella was speechless. What did she do? Nothing. The Callah’s crew was ambushed and massacred only meters above her, and she did nothing.
“You know, even if you’d dashed out as soon as Shea opened the grate,” Flynn said, “even if you ran above deck and warned the entire crew, I wouldn’t have been mad at you. The others? Probably. But at least you’d have tried doing what you knew was right.”
“I promised I wouldn’t get involved,” she replied, trying to keep from cracking. “I came to observe and define my own fate.”
“Maybe your fate calls not for observation, but for action,” he said, grunting as he pushed away from the railing. “Whose side you’re on is up to you. We brought you with so you could find out for yourself.”
As Flynn staggered toward the rope that tethered Jean to the ship, she genuinely considered for the first time taking a more active role. Assisting the others instead of merely following them. But then, Zella asked herself, how far would that go? Foraging for food and supplies was fine, even theft might be necessary wherever they ended up. But if she was asked to hurt another person, would she be allowed that one compromise? Decades traveling the worlds, and she had never harmed another person, except perhaps by accident. Never killed.
“And what if I take my father’s side, here and now?” she demanded as Flynn assessed the rope. “If I ally myself with the first Reahv’li we meet and return to my father with sacrifice in mind?”
Flynn glanced back at her and answered. “You’re not going to.” She cursed him for reading her the way he did. “But if you did … that would be a different conversation. For all of us.”
Jean was bobbing in the waters below, fighting not to drown. Poe was in her arms—uncon
scious or dead, Zella couldn’t tell. Flynn was already pulling at the rope, calling his allies for help. Zella was about to step back, get out of the way. But she found her hands on the rope behind his, felt the cords digging into her gentle skin, and began to pull.
* * *
Poe faded in and out of consciousness. He had only a vague memory of choking up salt water on the deck, of the clamor made over him, of being carried below deck. The ship around him was creaking steadily, rocking like a cradle. He had been stripped naked and was buried in blankets, but still his skin felt chilled; Poe’s skull pulsed with a rhythmic pain and his breathing was marked by a steady wheeze. Time dragged on, and it could have been minutes as easily as hours from when he awoke to when Chari entered the room.
“Chariska.” It hurt to speak.
“You’ve awoken,” she said with some surprise. “Some among us had our doubts that you would.”
“Who … saved…?”
“You were drawn up from the depths by Jean, but it was Flynn who resuscitated you.” She paused, then smirked. “Briefly, I mistook his technique for a series of strange, breathy kisses. But he breathed life back into you, a method unknown on TseTsu.”
“Then I should be dead,” Poe said in a steady wheeze.
Chari ignored his comment, and peeled away the blankets covering him. She placed her hands on his chest, but he could barely feel anything save the pressure, as his skin trembled from exposure. As she put her magick to work, the agony in Poe’s lungs subsided and his wheezing ceased. As his comfort returned Chari’s own strain increased, but she did not waver until the task was done.
She clutched her arms to her chest in shared pain. “This feels dreadful.”
Poe did not yet have the strength to sit up, but speaking came easier. “You’ve never mended my injuries before.”
“Never have they been so grave,” she replied. “I have seen the drowned survive only to be ruined by untreated injuries. You have value to our cause, Guardian, so I suffer for the sake of you.” When the pain subsided, she collected herself once more. “You tremble,” she observed, as he lay naked before her.
Chari wrapped her hands gently around his neck before slowly, meticulously, gliding them down his body. His shoulders to his arms, his collar to his chest. At times, he suspected, she was staying longer than necessary, but the warmth was returning to his skin and his tremors eased, and so he gave no complaint. She paused from time to time to let her own chills pass before setting to work once more.
“I have done something terrible.” She stopped her work and looked at Poe as though he’d confessed the blindingly obvious. His head throbbed, making it difficult to think. “It … was not recent. Long ago, when I was a boy. When allowed a choice, between love and legacy or lustful power, I chose poorly.”
“Why bring this up now?” she asked as she continued her work.
Poe’s arm slowly pointed at the darkest corner of the room. Though thoroughly obscured, he knew the Dark Sword teetered there, mocking him. For the first time, the allure of claiming it was gone. “Because the sacrifice I made was what tethered me to that thing.”
“And what was this sacrifice?”
“Her name was Moira,” Poe replied. “Fainshild Moira. She was my dear friend and the intended mother of my child. When my father died, she accompanied me to the Dark Lands, where I sought the sword of fabled legend. We were not the clever thieves we thought, and were met by the Dark Madam of that ancient keep, who offered me that prize in trade.”
“And you accepted?”
Poe gave no reply; there seemed little point. He allowed Chari to continue her work in peace, turning onto his stomach at her prompting. She sat on his back and continued her efforts, starting with the crown of his head. The swelling in his brain finally subsided and he could think clearly for the first time since awakening.
“I am going to die alone,” he concluded. “Whether it is on this journey or after a hundred lifetimes of godhood, I have ensured there is no one left who would bury me.”
“If you seek absolution from your sins, I can offer you none,” she replied. “You have done terrible things to get this far, and you will do many more. We all have, we all … will. That is why now, more than ever, it must all count for something.”
As their session closed and Chari blanketed Poe’s body once more and headed toward the door, he noticed something.
“You’re wounded.”
He hadn’t realized it before, but she was walking unsteadily. Chari lifted the folds of her garment to reveal the bloodied wrappings underneath, where her right hip had been injured. “A graze. There is no urgency in it. I’ll tend myself when I know it to be safe.”
“You should take care of it soon,” Poe advised. “It’s easier to avoid the pain, but it may be more damaging than it appears.”
“I intend to,” she replied. “But there are others who now need my care. My own injuries will have to wait.”
Poe was left alone with that, lying back to recover his strength as he could do nothing more now than ride out the storm.
* * *
Captain Longhart’s blood stained the floor of her former cabin. It had set in, dried, and there seemed no point in trying to wash it clean. Her crew was gone, and Flynn had taken her favorite chair—brought over from the Callah. He was alone now.
“You think yourself a good Samaritan?” Taryl Renivar stood across the room, near the bloodstain. A construct of the Living God. “Allowing what remains of her crew to live is an empty gesture when one casts them out to sea in a lifeboat in the middle of a storm.”
The ship jarred as if on cue.
“The worst had passed,” Flynn replied, though this did nothing to ease the judgment he now felt.
“It seems to me that the worst remained right here on this ship,” Taryl replied. “Captain Longhart at least bore a compassionate heart while doing what she felt necessary. For every mercy given, you spat in her eye.” He glanced down at the stained wood. “To the end.”
Flynn tapped his fingers on the desk, bothered by the truth of it. “Should she have lived? Gone off to fight her country’s wars until your people could come and take the noble soldier away from all this?”
Taryl shook his head. “Edia Longhart deserved no place among my people. She fought for country, not justice, and did the terrible things demanded of a soldier. Had she maintained the strength of character to resist the commands of uncaring leaders, she may have found a place in Yeribelt. But she waived that chance the moment she took another’s life.”
While Flynn could not know Renivar’s true feelings for certain, this facsimile more than likely reflected the reality. “Seems hypocritical,” he said. “Maintaining your own army while denying application to the soldier of a less noble cause.”
“The Reahv’li know what they sacrifice. It is not just their absence of sin, but their devotion to the cause that belies their value. Soldiers like Longhart fight for a land that will one day no longer be, and such attachments to this old reality will foster the sort of hesitation that gets good people killed.”
Flynn rose from his seat and crossed the room, while Taryl watched him silently. The swords Flynn and Longhart had clashed with lay abandoned on the floor; the one she had wielded was sticky with his blood.
“It wasn’t hesitation that got her killed,” Flynn replied at last. “It was a proper lack of ruthlessness.”
“Ruthlessness?”
“She was devoted to her cause, but she still fought fair. You’re right—she was better than me. And she’s dead for it, because she put her own integrity above what needed to be done.” Flynn kicked her sword, and it clattered against the one he had wielded—clean but for the nicks in the blade. It hadn’t mattered how many times she’d struck him; he had gotten her where it counted. “Ruthlessness, Taryl, is something you understand.”
Ren
ivar bristled at the accusation. “Ruthlessness may be a necessary evil of this reality, but at least I seek to erode it. Your actions here have broken families and orphaned children. And what takeaway have you found in all this carnage?”
“If I found myself in the same circumstances?” Flynn asked. He grasped the door handle, and didn’t spare a glance back. “I’d do it all again.”
CHAPTER TEN: Trails of Blood
The shore was less than an hour away, and the winds had turned chilly when Zaja walked to the bow. She had contributed all she could, but there were no duties left worth performing for the vessel they were preparing to abandon. She ached all over, and it was a pain she bore proudly.
The ship had been ravaged in its retaking. The sails were riddled with bullet holes, turning their remaining two days’ journey to four. The cold of the storm and exhaustion had both taken their toll on Zaja, who’d slept for a day and a half, and barely slept in the days that followed to make up the difference. But she hadn’t fully recovered, and the sudden gust that seemed to pierce her very skin reminded her of this.
Her hair fluttered in the wind and as she combed her fingers through to hold it in place, a tuft came free and danced between her fingers. This terrified Zaja, who quickly looked to make sure no one else had seen. Only Shea was above deck, manning the helm and paying Zaja no mind. She let the strands fly off to the sea and excused herself below deck.
“Near the shore,” Shea reminded her. “Time comes, brace.”
Zaja nodded, then hurried below. There were no ports in the area, and they’d have avoided them if there were. Anyone this far north would see their Trynan vessel as the enemy, so they were going to beach the ship and walk inland from there.
Killers, Traitors, & Runaways Page 25
