A soft moan caught his attention. Turning the corner, Raylan stumbled over Harwin’s feet.
“Harwin! Are you alright?”
The warrior sat with his back against the wall. His hands were pressed against his stomach, blood dripping through his fingers. Harwin let out a cough.
“That bastard got me good,” said Harwin.
Raylan looked around. The prisoner was nowhere to be seen.
“Come—you need to get out of here,” said Raylan.
Putting Harwin’s arm around his neck, he pulled the warrior to his feet. Harwin grunted in pain.
“Come on. We’ll go out the side doors,” said Raylan.
The others were already on the ground, waiting for them near the ripped-open cargo hold. Galen and Ca’lek helped lower Harwin from the ship. Moving him a safe distance from the slumped airship, they carefully laid him down.
Xi’Lao and Peadar immediately began examining Harwin's wound.
“It’s deep, but it looks like nothing vital was hit. We need to stop the bleeding as soon as possible,” said Xi’Lao.
“The soldier,” said Harwin, then clenched his teeth from the sharp pain Xi’Lao’s checking fingers gave him.
“Save your energy; he’s long gone. I found a single track of footprints going up into the forest, but they disappeared as soon as they passed the tree line,” said Ca’lek.
As the group gathered around Harwin on the beach, the onlookers Galirras had scared away hovered around the edges of the forest, curious to see these people and their flying ship, but ready to flee at any time should things go awry.
“I’ll get some wood for a fire. We'll need to close the wound if we are to stop the bleeding," said Peadar.
But before he could take a step, the thunder of hooves erupted from the forest. Soldiers on horseback came pouring out of the woods and along the beach. Within moments, Raylan and the others were surrounded by thirty horses and their riders. Looking at the crossbows and spears pointed at them, Raylan's hand automatically checked for his sword, only to find no such thing. Apart from Xi’Lao, who was rarely seen without one or more of her knives, no one on board the ship was carrying weapons. They had no way to defend themselves.
A dark-haired rider ordered his horse forward and slowly approached them, sword in hand. The emblem of a ship was clearly visible on his light gray chest armor. His cape was light blue with a yellow line on the border. On it, the same emblem was embroidered.
“By order of the royal seal of Shid'el and the Council of Azurna, city under the protective seal of the Thyraulos family, state your intent, or prepare to speak with our spears!”
Chapter 5
Goat
Flames rose up around her in the dark night. The sound of swords clashing rang through the air. Trista looked around, but could not see beyond the fire.
“Decan!” she yelled above the roar of the flames. Where is he?
She tried to walk, but her legs felt heavy. Something grabbed her ankle, cold and boney. The corpse of Moran clung to her leg, moaning incomprehensible words. Trista pulled her leg away, but tripped backward on the scorched ground.
The decaying man pulled himself toward her, stretching his slumping mouth wide open. Raspy, choking sounds rose from his throat. Trista tried to crawl away, but the corpse lay heavy on her legs, making it almost impossible for her to move.
The corpse pulled itself closer and closer. Its rotten face pushed into Trista’s clothes, then it went still. Trista dared not move, but nothing happened. She stretched out a trembling arm. Perhaps she could push it off now. But then its hollow-eyed face rose from her lap and stared straight at her. It opened its mouth a final time and screamed.
“Behhh!”
The image of Moran distorted further with every bleat that came from his mouth. Trista groaned, opening her eyes. The sight of the decomposing fisherman dissolved back into the far corners of her mind. Yet the bleating somehow persisted, much to the dismay of Trista’s thumping head.
“Is this my breakfast?” said a voice in Trista's head.
It took her a moment to properly place the voice and assign it to her new companion. The goat let out another nervous bleat. Dalkeira slowly walked around it, observing the peculiar animal.
Trista abruptly sat up, now wide awake.
“What’s going on?” said Decan, also woken by the ruckus.
“I’m so sorry. I fell asleep while keeping watch,” said Trista quickly.
“Don't worry, Triss,” said Decan, looking around. “We’re all still here.”
She looked at her brother, wondering if his words were wisdom or naivety.
“Can I eat this…goat, now?” said Dalkeira, who had searched the right word from an image in Trista’s mind and was ready to pounce the animal.
“No, don’t! She’s not food,” said Trista hastily.
“But it's leaking. I think it’s broken. It would be wasteful not to eat it, right?”
“Leaking? Where?” said Trista, trying to understand what Dalkeira meant.
“There. On her belly,” Dalkeira said. She nudged the goat’s udder with her nose, almost giving the poor animal a heart attack.
“She’s giving milk? She must have had a kid recently,” said Trista, surprised. “I wonder what happened to it. Can you give her some space, please, Dalkeira? You’re frightening her. You can’t eat her, but there’s some leftover fish from last night if you’re hungry.”
Dalkeira looked at Trista, apparently deciding if she would do as she was told. In the end, she reluctantly walked over to the leftover fish and sniffed it. With flies swarming around it, it did not look very appealing anymore. But she seemed too proud to complain. After all, she had caught most of the fish herself. She quickly gulped up the last few pieces and went straight to the water puddle to wash her muzzle.
In the meantime, Trista approached the goat, reassuring the animal she had no ill intent.
“Here, Decan, I’ll show you what to do,” said Trista over her shoulder. Spitting in her hand, she quickly washed the dirt off a teat. Milk already dripped out of it.
“The udder is rock-hard. She must not have been milked for days, poor girl. No wonder she was happy to see us,” said Trista, “Hold your hands like this, little brother.”
Trista squeezed the teat, moving from top to bottom. The goat let out a relieved bleat as the pressure in her udder slowly eased. Dalkeira returned from washing her mouth and sat down a ways from the animal, trying to see what was happening.
Decan thankfully drank the warm milk puddling in his hands. Trista sipped a few handfuls herself before moving to the next teat.
“You have to drain the udder equally or you risk creating an infection in the teat,” she explained to Decan.
“How do you know this? We didn’t have any goats back home.”
“Granny Lulak showed me once when I helped them with the fields.”
Dalkeira’s head poked around Trista’s shoulder.
“Do you want to try some, Dalkeira?” said Trista, holding a hand full of goat milk toward her.
Dalkeira sniffed the white liquid, but then backed away quickly, letting out a disapproving rumble.
“No, thank you. I will stick to water, if you do not mind.”
“Guess she doesn't like the smell of it,” laughed Decan, resulting in a somewhat offended-looking dragon. Dalkeira turned around and jumped up the rocks with a few beats of her wings. Scrambling to the top, she surveyed their surroundings, no doubt looking for something to eat.
Decan fell quiet, looking at the goat.
“Trista, what are we going to do?” he asked softly.
Trista stroked her little brother’s hair. “I think we need to leave the island,” she said carefully.
“But everything we know is here,” said her brother. The insecurity in his voice made her ache.
“I know, but let’s think of it as a big adventure. You’ve always wanted to get away from here, haven’t you? Be a merchant, or a hunte
r, perhaps go to one of those big cities father used to tell stories about?”
“I want to go there,” Dalkeira suddenly declared.
Trista looked confused. “Where?” she replied privately in her head.
“There. You call it…west.”
The dragon looked to the western horizon, and although she struggled for the right words, Dalkeira sounded strangely determined.
“Why do you want to go there, Dalkeira? Do you see something?” said Trista out loud, standing up and looking at the dragon on top of the rocks.
“No. I just have a feeling that is where we need to go. Where I need to go. Something is there, far beyond what we can see. I would like you to take me there,” said Dalkeira in a way that would not accept no for an answer. The dragon spread her wings and glided down toward them.
“What is it?” asked Decan, who could not hear what Dalkeira was saying to his sister.
“Dalkeira wants us to go west. Toward the mid-continent,” said Trista. “And I think perhaps we should.”
Trista gathered a few rocks, arranging them in a pattern before drawing lines in the sand with a twig.
“Father explained to me that east of us is the large island of Tal’Kabur. You know that name, right, Decan?”
Her little brother nodded quickly.
“The big ships that the villages trade with come from there, right?” said Decan.
Those trade ships came twice per year with all kinds of goods. Smaller ships would take fish and crops to Tal’Kabur more often, but the big trade ships were always special. People would save for many months to buy one of the many colored fabrics or metal tools that were created on the island, or came from the mid-continent through the main port of Tal’Kabur.
“Right. Father once said that Tal’Kabur is known for two things: wood and iron. Most of the island is covered in thick forests with trees that grow nowhere else in the world. They’re known for their hardness and endurance, and easily reach hundreds of years of age—yet they grow fast in their younger years,” Trista explained, accustomed to telling her brother interesting little facts.
Decan listened intently. The island on which they had spent their entire lives was a stark contrast to such forests. It only had low vegetation with the occasional thin, twigged tree. Neither brother nor sister had even seen a proper-sized forest.
“For the iron, they mine the purest ore in the world. They may mine less than the great kingdom of Aeterra, but it’s not for nothing that throughout history, the ruler of Tal’Kabur has been deemed the King of Iron.”
The combination of wood and iron had led to generations of carpenters and smiths within the island kingdom. Family secrets were passed on from generation to generation about how to craft the best steel in the world. Be it swords, arrowheads, or—in smaller quantities—farm tools, having Talkarian steel at your side meant you could not do any better in the world in that particular respect.
Decan knew some of the older boys went to work on Tal’Kabur, either loading and offloading cargo in the main harbor, Tal’Ostar, or getting jobs as lumberjacks or miners. He had always wanted to go there as a first step on his worldly travels.
“The ships that we’ve seen, flying or not, all come from the east and are headed toward the west,” continued Trista.
Decan quickly caught on.
“They’re coming from Tal’Kabur?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think the port of Tal’Ostar could house that many ships, or soldiers. Father said that at any time, only fifteen ships would be anchored there…and these soldiers don’t look Talkarian.”
“How do you know?” asked Dalkeira, interrupting her thought process.
“Talkarian soldiers are known for fighting with two swords. One of the boys from the village worked a few seasons in the harbor. He told me stories about how King Baltor’s great-grandfather held a tournament to determine the best fighter, many years ago. The winner, one of the local lumberjacks, had come up with this unusual style of fighting with two swords—although some say it was actually two axes,” said Trista. “Anyway, after the tournament it was announced that from that day on the style would be known as the official Talkarian double style. There are still shield-bearers and archers, but the majority, and certainly the highest rank, of soldiers are all double sword style fighters.”
“I haven’t seen any soldiers fighting with double swords,” said Decan, swallowing the memories of that night away.
“Me neither. They had lots of weapons on them, but none had two swords, which makes me think they attacked Tal’Kabur as well. There’s no way to be certain, but either way it seems unwise to go there. Besides, it will take at least three days by boat to get there, longer if we can’t find one of the small sailing boats instead of a normal rowing boat.”
Trista continued drawing the crude dirt map.
“So, we’re west of Tal’Kabur, the side where the sun god approaches the goddess. Further west is the mid-continent with the Southern Cities, and way north, the kingdom of Aeterra.”
As Trista recalled all the things her father had taught her, she was glad that her parents had insisted on teaching her the ways of the world. Her father might have been set in his ways as a fisherman, as was the traditional waterclan way, but he was by no means limited in his understanding of the world and that which happened in it—even though much of his information and knowledge was confined to what came through the trade ships or what he heard in Tal’Ostar.
“Between us and the Southern Cities on the main continent are dozens of islands. Some have people living on them, others are nothing more than rock and sand. If we can find a boat, we can move from island to island until we get to the mainland.”
“But the black ships are out there too, aren’t they?” asked Decan.
“Yes. That’s why we should leave under cover of darkness, preferably tonight. Hopefully, that will allow us to get away without being spotted. Old man Moran’s son used to store his sailing boat in one of the coves on the south west end of the island. If we’re lucky, it might still be there.”
“And the goat goes with us? I cannot eat her?”
“The goat goes with us.”
The unusual quartet spent the entire day moving toward the western coast, further moving away from their own village. Judging from the column of smoke, every step brought them closer to another burned settlement, but also closer to possible escape. Twice they had to detour as Dalkeira spotted a small group of soldiers on patrol. It seemed dragons had exceptional eyesight, because neither Trista nor Decan had spotted the soldiers until much later.
Dalkeira was quick to get up in the air and fly short distances, but her flight muscles were not fully developed yet. To prevent herself from getting too tired, the dragon was alternating between walking and flying.
She was quick to adapt her flying into hunting—surprising one of the island hares during a flight. It was her first official land prey, which she proudly declared. She immediately tore it apart as Trista and Decan took a moment to rest.
“The main problem will be water,” said Trista, “The ocean is too salty to drink, so we need to find some water to take with us on the boat. Most of the islands are pretty close together. It shouldn’t take more than a few days to get from one to another, but the boat will offer us little protection from the sun. The exposure is sure to dehydrate us quickly if we don’t drink enough.”
Dalkeira swallowed the last of the hare.
“Can you not drink the milk from the goat?”
“What about Rudley?” asked Decan at the same time.
The boy had named the goat after one of the old men from the village. Trista had mentioned the goat was a female, but he had not cared; the beard reminded him of Rudley, the village storyteller.
Trista smiled at his use of the name.
“Dalkeira just said the same thing, and yes, that’s why I want to take her with us. But she will need to drink water to be able to make milk. Not to mention it will be
a challenge to find food for her if she does not eat fish.”
The goat looked at them and simply commented with a bleat.
“That’s really not helpful at all, Rudley,” chuckled Decan as they got up to begin the final stretch to the coast.
“When we’ve found the boat, I will circle back to the village—what’s left of it—and see if I can find some water bags,” said Trista.
She did not like the idea of getting close to the village, as the soldiers were likely still there, but she could think of no other place to find the much-needed drinking water, and she did not want to go out to sea unprepared.
By the time the sun touched the water, they were overlooking the ocean toward the west. They had taken the long way around the burned settlement and moved further south along the coast. There, they saw several ships still lying anchored near the destroyed village.
Trista looked around doubtfully. She had been convinced that she would know where to go when they got closer, but as she surveyed the shore, nothing seemed familiar.
“It’s been years since I was here,” she said apologetically. “I think it was past that rock point in the distance.”
They moved slowly, deliberately staying close to large boulders on the rocky shore in case anyone was watching. As they turned the point, things started to look more familiar.
“Yes, this is it. It should be just around this corner.”
She held her breath as they turned the corner. There was no guarantee the sailing boat would still be in the same place after all these years. Perhaps someone had taken it already to flee; or maybe the soldiers had found it and destroyed it, or Moran’s son might have simply moved it somewhere else during the years.
Scenarios flashed through Trista’s head, but as they went on, it became clear the water goddess was watching over them. The sailing boat lay, slightly tilted, on the beach. A rope secured it to a rock and the back of the boat was just getting wet from the rising tide.
The boat was well-hidden from sight in case any ships came by. A natural bridge at the entrance of the bay shielded the beach from prying eyes. They would be safe here for now.
Wavebreaker (Book II of the Stone War Chronicles): Part 1 - Trickle Page 10
