A thin smirk graced the raider’s lips as she stared back at Seishin. He could feel power exuding from her as she stepped over the soldier’s body. Without warning, she rushed him.
The young warrior immediately found himself hard pressed. The raider’s twin blades flickered almost faster than the eye could see. It took every ounce of his skill to hold her back, her swords slashing from angles he didn’t think humanly possible.
The style she used was not all that unfamiliar. It was almost as if she’d had Shin Tauri training, although some of her movements were quite unorthodox. Still, he adjusted his defense, and slowly, but inexorably, fought her to a standstill. Seishin then launched an offensive of his own.
Four blades flashed back and forth in intricate patterns as each struggled to gain the advantage. Slash, parry, feint, counter—she matched him move for move. It took all of his concentration to keep up with this incredible swordswoman.
Doubts began to creep into his mind on whether he could win this battle. Sweat poured down his brow, threatening to impede his vision. If that happened, he’d be dead for sure.
“Stop!”
The loud scream reverberated across the docks. All at once, the fighting up and down the pier came to a halt. Even his fierce opponent pulled back in mid-strike. All eyes turned toward the source of that cry.
Korti stood on the other side of the battle, her gaze firmly fixed on Seishin. Their eyes met for a moment, and he thought he detected a glimmer of regret in them. Abruptly, her countenance hardened.
“Dasati, fall back!” she cried in a tone that brooked no quarter.
Seishin watched in awe as every pirate along the dock unquestioningly obeyed her command. As one, they disengaged from the battle and made for the end of the wharf.
Seishin’s opponent obeyed her as well, but not before taking one last swipe at him. It was a quick flick of the blade, which he easily knocked away.
“It’s been fun! Kill you later,” the swordswoman called over her shoulder as she, too, retreated down the dock.
The soldiers gave chase, but Seishin stayed rooted to the spot. Korti’s a pirate. He had wondered about her mysterious past, but nothing about her fit the stereotypical pirate mold. She certainly wasn’t bloodthirsty. Still, all the pirates had listened to her without question, which meant she wasn’t just any pirate.
She’s a pirate captain! The realization felt like ice cold water being splashed in his face.
Down the dock, the pirate vessel suddenly let loose a volley. Seishin watched in horror as the troops scattered, but when the shell struck, it merely exploded into a cloud of thick fog.
The incident shattered Seishin’s paralysis. Korti’s not a killer.
Despite being a pirate leader, she had shown mercy at every turn. It proved to him that deep down inside, she was still the same woman he had met back in Islen—the woman he had come to care for these last few weeks.
The realization spurred him into action. There was a skiff tied to the dock just below. If he hurried, he could make it before the fog rolled past him. In three great strides, he reached the edge of the dock and launched himself into the small boat.
A quick flick of his blade sliced the line. He grabbed the oars just as the thick white cloud blanketed over him. Seishin rowed as hard as he could, but the unnaturally dense fog forced him to struggle with each stroke. He silently prayed he was going in the right direction.
After a few tense minutes, he passed out of the thick bank of fog. The tall hull of a retreating vessel rose out of the thinning mists before him.
A slight breeze blew across the bay. Seishin hoisted his small sail and the skiff took off across the water. Within minutes he had nearly caught up to the ship, but when he saw the name across the bow his blood ran cold. The words clearly read Blood Tears.
A chill ran up Seishin’s spine. I’ve been chasing the wrong ship!
He frantically scanned the nearby waters. A vessel nearly the twin of this one sailed across the bay about five hundred yards to starboard. That has to be Korti’s!
Seishin grabbed the lines and had just brought the skiff about when he heard a loud boom. The water around him exploded, upending his tiny boat and sending him flying head first into the murky depths.
Seishin should have been dead twice over by his count. The cannon fire didn’t kill him. Instead, he had been fished out of the water by the crew of the Blood Tears. Amazingly, they also didn’t kill him. They tied him up and brought him before their captain, a man named Rikton.
Garbed all in black, the tall pirate appeared quite intimidating. His scraggly hair and craggy features added to his harsh appearance. Yet, the amount of power the man radiated is what truly unnerved Seishin. It rivaled anyone he had ever met, with the possible exception of his uncle, Draigo.
Rikton seemed quite interested as to why Seishin chased them down on his own. It amused him further when Korti marched aboard and demanded Seishin be handed over to her. Rikton taunted her, guessing at the relationship between her and the ‘Isandorian.’
Korti then surprised everyone by declaring that Seishin “be put to the slow death—a fitting lesson for any buffoon who chooses to chase after me.” Her words cut Seishin like a knife.
Rikton remanded him into Korti’s custody. They brought Seishin to the pirates’ village and chained him to the wall of a dungeon cell. He had not seen Korti since.
“Seishin, you’re a fool!”
A tiny amount of light filtered in from one small window high above. A single torch anchored to the opposite wall barely augmented it. Korti stepped into the dim circle of light and leveled a glare at him that could have seared through armor. “What were you thinking, following me like that? Do you have any idea the position you’ve put me in?”
Korti’s slim frame shook with anger. She crossed her arms and squeezed her eyes tight as she struggled with her emotions.
Seishin did not speak. Instead he watched silently as the woman he had come to care for, the same woman who had declared his death sentence, stood only a few feet away. Dark shadows played across her features in the flickering torchlight.
After a long silence, Korti drew herself up and threw back her shoulders. “I am Kortiama Ozden, daughter of Berngal Ozden—the man the world knew as the dread pirate Eboneye. I am, further, Lord Captain of the Dasati tribe of the Clans of the Coast.”
The leader of a pirate clan? Eboneye’s daughter? The blood in Seishin’s veins turned to ice. The woman he knew simply as Korti was in reality the daughter of the most infamous pirate warlord in history.
Eboneye had united the thirteen clans. He led them on a path of destruction along the coast and across the sea. Had he not met an untimely death, there is no telling how much devastation he would have wreaked on the world of Arinthar.
Not trusting himself to speak, Seishin grappled in silence with his emotions. Until this moment, he still believed the Korti he knew existed somewhere inside this woman. Now he realized it was all a lie.
His lack of response seemed to add to Korti’s anger. She began to pace back and forth, her hands waving around wildly as she spoke.
“I am responsible for my entire clan—nearly four-thousand of them. They look to me for leadership. As it stands, I can barely hold them together. They are fractured and at constant odds. On top of that, I am surrounded by sharks like Rikton just waiting to tear me down. My every move is watched—my every decision questioned.”
Seishin half-heard her rant. What have I done? My father, the Queen, they were all counting on me. How could I have screwed up so badly?
Korti halted in front of him, her hands on her hips, her eyes burning into him. “A liaison with a Shin Tauri from Isandor would be the end of my rule. It would be the end of my people. If warmongers like Rikton were to seize control, they would be dragged into a war that would spill carnage up and down the coast. None would survive unscathed—not the Dasati, not the other clans, not Isandor.”
Her words wrenched Seishin out
of his self-loathing. Is she serious? Is she really trying to prevent a war instead of starting one?
Seishin stared into her eyes until the anger there dissipated. She looked away from him, her voice faltering. “I—I cannot do that to my people.” She folded her arms across her chest and hung her head. She looked worn out.
Seishin began to have second thoughts. Perhaps it hadn’t all been a lie. Maybe there was a trace of his Korti in this pirate captain after all. Seishin understood honor and responsibility only too well. It had been ingrained in him since he was a lad. This Kortiama had to do what was best for her people.
“I understand.” He forced himself to say the words, though they left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Kortiama did not respond. Mixed emotions played across her face as if two facets warred with each other on the inside. Abruptly her countenance reddened, and she spun toward him. “Do you? Do you? You understand nothing!”
She grabbed the front of his tunic, her eyes burning with anger, her face mere inches away. Then, without so much as a word, she grasped the back of his neck and kissed him hard on the lips.
It was a passionate, desperate kiss that went on ‘til they were almost breathless. Seishin lost himself in it—the taste of her lips, the smell of her skin, the heat that coursed through his entire body.
As quickly as it started, the kiss ended. Korti let go of his tunic and drew away, the flush of her face still evident.
The Lord Captain of the Dasati absently straightened her outfit, her eyes never leaving his. When she spoke, her voice was hollow, as if the life had been drained from her. “You are to be put to death in the morning—buried up to your neck in the sand and left to drown in the tide.”
Seishin said nothing. He no longer blamed her. She was only doing what was best for her people. He only wished he had the chance to do the same for his.
Yet Korti could not quite abide his silence. Her cheeks turned flaming red as her frustration burst forth. “You brought this on yourself. I cannot stop it”—she caught herself, her voice dropping to a whisper—“even were it my heart’s greatest desire.”
An ironic smile spread across Seishin’s face. Somewhere deep down inside, she did still care for him—not that it mattered. He would be put to death, his mission over. He would fail his family and his country. Still, it was his own fault. He pushed down his bubbling emotions and spoke three soft words.
“I forgive you.”
Kortiama’s eyes went wide. A sharp gasp escaped her lips. She stared at him for a long while, faint traces of moisture appearing in the corners of her eyes. When she spoke, her words were just above a whisper. “Oh, Seishin—if only I could forgive myself.”
With that, the young Lady Captain of pirates whirled on her heel and fled through the cell door. It clanged firmly shut behind her, leaving him alone in that dim cell.
As promised, the next morning Seishin found himself buried up to his neck in sand. Low tide had passed, and now the waves inched their way up the beach toward him. Based on their progress, he would probably be dead in little more than an hour. He had tried to make peace with his fate, but couldn’t quite come to terms with how miserably he had botched things.
Father, I’m sorry I failed you.
Kortiama stood a short distance off, her arms folded, and her gaze turned away. A tall, broad-shouldered man hovered beside her, garbed in a blue coat with gold buttons and trim. A sparse brown and grey beard decorated his well-weathered features. The man had a strong air about him, but Seishin noted a hint of sympathy in his keen brown eyes.
On the opposite side of Korti stood the swordswoman he had faced in Korsol—the one who bore a striking resemblance to her. In stark contrast to the tall man, the swordswoman wore a hard demeanor, but it was not directed at Seishin. Instead, she stared with open hostility at the group across from his sandy tomb.
Captain Rikton waited there, flanked on either side by a hulking raider. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed his eyes, but did little to hide his craggy features. A wicked grin spread between his thin mustache and scraggly greyish-brown beard.
“Nothin’ so fine as a drowned Shin Tauri first thing in the mornin’,” Rikton chortled at the group across from him.
Kortiama chose not to respond, her frame remaining rigid. Yet her female companion was not so forgiving. “Shut your piehole, Rikton, before I come over there and shut it for you.”
She took a step forward, her hands straying to her weapon hilts. Korti put out a staying hand, forcing her companion to halt her advance. Seishin could barely hear Korti’s words over the sound of the crashing surf.
“Not here, Solais. Not now.”
Solais shrugged, her lips curling to one side. “You’re lucky, Rikton. Thanks to Kortiama, you get to live another day.”
The wicked smile never left Rikton’s lips. “The day we do cross blades, lassie, ye better hope yer swords are as sharp as yer tongue.”
The tall man next to Korti had been silent up until now. He breathed a long sigh at Rikton. “Why must you constantly foster dissension between us, brother? Don’t the Dasatis have enough problems as it is?”
Seishin raised an eyebrow. The man next to Korti is Rikton’s brother?
Rikton glared at his brother and scowled. “Aye, Tharne, n’ we wouldn’t have under a strong hand.”
Tharne merely shook his head, but Korti didn’t let the slight go unchallenged. “You mean under your hand, Uncle.”
Seishin nearly choked. Rikton is Korti’s uncle?
A chuckle escaped Rikton’s lips. “Aye, if it comes ta that.”
Korti squared her shoulders as she held the older pirate’s stare. “It won’t, Uncle. I can promise you that.”
Seishin’s mind spun at the sudden revelation. Rikton and Tharne were both Korti’s uncles. Yet where Tharne supported her, Rikton vehemently opposed her. And I thought my family had issues.
Rikton and Kortiama continued to stare each other down, the tension between them so thick it could be cut with a knife. Rikton finally broke the silence with a snarl. “What kind o’ pirate uses smoke spells in their cannon?”
Kortiama rolled her eyes. “We’re not pirates, Uncle—and it’s called strategy. It’s a better distraction.”
Rikton spat on the ground in front of him. “Bah! Don’t be lecturin’ me, lass. I knows our history better than ye. Since the fall of the baleful moon, the Saricordi have had ta fend fer themselves. No one raised a hand ta help us—not even the high n’ mighty Ralnai.”
He flicked a hand under his bearded chin toward the heavens. “Only by the grace o’ Zesstara and the power o' the mandates did we survive. Still, we was forced ta take tribute as we could, in blood n’ coin if it came ta it.”
Rikton drew his sword and spun the tip around in small circles. “So, we be called pirates and raiders, by the gen’teel folk o’ the lands. We use fire in our cannon n’ these ta make our point. We don’t need no stinkin’ distractions…”
Solais drew her own blades, but Kortiama stepped in front of her, again blocking her advance. The Lord Captain of the Dasati leveled an acid glare at her uncle. “They can call us what they want, but we’re not barbarians—and my father used smoke in the taking of Penwick itself, if you recall.”
The corner of Rikton’s mouth twisted sideways. “I'll give ya this, ya got yer father’s spirit, lass, if not his stomach. But don't ya be tellin’ me about Penwick. I was there, n’ sure Berngal used smoke, but he also burnt nearly half the city ta the ground.”
A smug expression crossed Kortiama’s face. “And what good did it do him? In the end he lost almost half our people, as well as his own life. The other clans will never follow us again.”
Rikton scowled at her—she had obviously struck a nerve. “Aye, but at least they won’t be laughin’ at us.”
Kortiama leveled a finger at him, her voice as hard as stone. “And your way, they don't respect us. The clan is flourishing, we’ve lost almost no one in these last few months, and our cof
fers are fuller than they have been in years. So what if we don't leave a trail of blood behind us in every raid?”
Rikton shook his head in disgust. “Bah! You'll ne’er be a true pirate captain.”
He motioned toward Seishin with his sword. “Why don't ya just take yer Shin Tauri boy-toy here n’ run off together. Leave the plunderin’ n’ pillagin’ to real pirates.”
Korti’s cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “Neanderthal…” she spat under her breath. She shifted her gaze toward Seishin. Her eyes locked with his, the hardness draining from them.
Seishin saw everything in those eyes, from passion to regret to self-loathing. The myriad of emotions left him breathless. If only we weren’t from two different worlds. Unfortunately, she was pirate royalty, and he would soon be dead. There was no use dwelling on what would never be.
Korti held his gaze for a moment more, then spun on her heel and stormed up the beach. Solais followed her, but Tharne lingered behind.
Rikton called after them. “Why rush off so quick, dear? Don’t ya want to see him take his last breath?” A hollow laugh escaped his lips as he turned his attention to his brother. “Shouldn’t ya be goin’ and consolin’ yer darlin’ niece?”
Tharne leveled a hard glare at his brother. “Must you persist at this?” He waved a hand at Seishin. “Is that the work of someone who’s weak?”
Rikton cast a glance at Seishin and chuckled. “I have ta admit, I didn’t expect her ta go so far. Maybe she’s got a bit of her old man in her after all.”
He said it as if it were a blessing, but Seishin knew it to be a curse. The blood of Eboneye had caused her to turn on him. How long would it be before it led her people down the path of ruin?
Tharne edged closer to his brother. “She’s stronger than you think.” He lowered his voice. Seishin could barely hear him over the sound of the crashing surf. “Come with me now. Talk to her. If you still believe she’s too weak to rule, then I’ll tell what I know about the whereabouts of the mandate.”
Tales From Thac Page 11
