He studied her, watching her eyes. “You have seen it, haven’t you?” he said softly.
Carth nodded. She didn’t even need to feign the intensity with a hint of sadness in it. “I can’t let what happened to me happen to others,” she said.
“What happened?”
Carth swallowed. “They killed my parents because of who they were.” She didn’t know if that was even the truth, but she knew that it was close enough that it didn’t matter. Her parents had died because they were of Ih-lash. That much she knew. Beyond that… she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
Guya sighed. “Where would you like this distraction?”
Carth let out a deep breath, and her shoulders relaxed. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding in so much tension, but she’d worried that he wouldn’t help her, and she didn’t think that she could handle the ship on her own, not without the help of Guya. She’d watched Tessa and Adam sailing toward Odian, and she’d paid some attention to Guya sailing as they’d made their way toward here, but she didn’t think she could handle a ship herself, and certainly not fast enough to outrace storms heading toward them.
“If you do this, you’ll put yourself in danger,” she said. “You’ve said that the storms coming might be powerful.”
“Bah! I’ve dealt with lots of storms over the years. You get us a ship, and we find a way to go fast enough, we’ll see how we can do it. Not saying we will. Chances are good that we’ll end up swallowed by the sea, but damn if I won’t try with you.”
“The distraction has to be far enough away to draw the sailors off. I’ll do that, and then get back to the ship. You have to make sure they get off and then you get it ready to depart.”
Guya nodded. “I’ll do it.”
Carth eyed the line of ships and thought about which one would be close enough that it would pull the sailors off the ship, but far enough away that they would have time to get it out of the docks.
There was one—a wide-bottomed ship the dock over and close enough to shore that any fire could possibly spread to other ships or to the shore. She pointed. “That one.”
“How do you intend to get a fire started?” He nodded toward the sky. “With the rain coming, there’s not coming to be much chance for fire to take off, let alone spread.”
“You let me worry about that,” she said.
Guya watched her a moment, then shook his head. “Whatever, Anisa. This is your plan.”
“Watch for me to get it going and then get moving.”
“You’ll have to be fast, otherwise I don’t know that I can wait for you.”
“I’ll be fast.”
Guya grunted. “That’s right. You have stamina.”
Carth grinned. “Something like that.”
She ran toward the end of the dock, and as she did, she started wrapping herself in shadows, pulling them around her as she moved, pausing long enough to grab them, so that she remained cloaked as long as possible. When she reached the ship she intended to target, she crouched in the shadows, watching it for a moment. There didn’t seem to be any men on the ship, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anyone. It had an oily odor to it, one that reminded her of some of the ships that had come through Nyaesh in the months when she’d lived along the shore.
Where to start the fire?
The sails made the most sense, but that would be the hardest to explain. What she needed was something on the ship to ignite. That meant that she would have to crawl onto the ship. She wasn’t really that interested in getting on the ship, because that meant that she would have to get off the ship without getting caught, and once she started the flame, she’d have to move quickly—and if there were others on the ship, they would be moving quickly as well.
Pulling the cloak of shadows around her, she let the darkness move around her like a fog. Then she went for the ladder, climbing aboard. She paused at the top of the railing and let the fog of shadows flow around her again until she was once more cloaked.
The way below the deck reminded her of the Levelan, and she hurried down the stairs and into the belly of the ship. There she paused, searching for anyone who might be aboard, but not hearing anything. If she could find a hold, that would be a good place to start the fire, and if she could push the flames through the hull, she could get the fire going quickly.
It didn’t take her long to find the right door. Carth pushed it open and was pleased to see bags of grain and rice inside. There was more here than would be needed for supplies, so she wondered if this was what they transported.
It didn’t matter. They would burn quickly and were exactly what she needed.
Carth focused on her A’ras magic. It didn’t take much for her to reach it, especially with her heart racing as it was after sneaking aboard the ship, afraid of who might find her.
She pulled on the A’ras flame that burned within her, directing it toward the nearest bag of grain, focusing the flame as it erupted in the bag. She pushed it toward the nearby bags until all were burning. Once they were, she pushed the fire toward the hull.
It had smelled oiled, and she couldn’t think of many reasons for the ship to have been oiled. She wished Guya were there with her for that answer.
Surprisingly, when the fire hit where she thought it oiled, the flames started dying off.
Was it some way of dampening flames?
Carth let the burning of the A’ras magic course through her until she was filled with it.
What she needed was one of the A’ras knives, but all she had was the one Invar had given her. It wasn’t paired to her the way an earned knife would have been, so this would have to be something she did without it. The A’ras magic was not something she had practiced nearly as much as she had practiced with the shadows. Maybe that was a mistake, but reaching that magic was never something that she had managed as easily.
As if blowing out, she sent the flames away from her, away from the bags of grain, and into the hull. There was something of a resistance, but she continued to push on the flames until they penetrated the resistance and reached the hull.
Once it did, once the flames reached the wood of the hull, they took on a life of their own, one that Carth could guide but couldn’t control. Fire could be slow to burn, but once started, it would burn uncontrollably, especially with fuel like there was here.
She started toward the stairs back up toward the upper deck. Smoke started billowing down the hall, making it so that she barely needed the shadows, though she held on to them as well. Would the smoke work like the shadows did for her? When she had more time with the A’ras magic, she’d have to test it.
Reaching the stair, she heard a scream.
Carth almost continued up the stair, but she couldn’t let anyone burn simply because she needed to get to the north. She understood sacrificing pieces, but it became harder when they represented actual people.
The scream had been on the opposite end of the hall, away from where she had started the fire.
Carth pulled on the shadows, readying herself for whatever she might find. She considered a few possibilities. It could be crew who had noted the flames, but with the screaming, she thought that less likely. They could have come from the families of the crew. That wasn’t something that she would have expected, but it was possible. Could there have been people paying for transport?
The door where she thought she’d heard the scream was locked.
Why would it be locked?
Carth kicked it. When she used the shadows, they gave her augmented strength, not only stamina. With as much of the shadows as she pulled on now, she splintered the door.
She waited, not sure what she’d find.
Nothing came out.
Swearing under her breath, Carth considered turning away, but she needed to see if there might actually have been someone in the room. Smoke already started filling the hall and billowed out of the room.
She moved cautiously into the room. Smoke and shadows swirled around her. Cart
h used the A’ras magic to clear the shadows so that she could see through them. When she did, she nearly lost control of the magic.
Nearly a dozen girls were huddled in the middle of the room.
A slaver ship?
After what she’d told Guya, what were the odds that she’d choose a slaver ship to start the fire?
No longer did she feel bad about what happened to this ship, but she had to help these girls get off before the sailors returned.
The nearest girl looked up. Carth released the shadows so that they could see her. “Come on,” she urged. “We need to go before the fire spreads.”
The girl shook her head. “If they learn that we moved…”
“They aren’t going to hurt you again,” she said.
“When they find us, they will. They’ll think we started the fire.”
Carth laughed darkly. It was moments like this that she felt a darkness within her that matched the shadows she could control. “I started the fire. And I’ll get you off.”
“How? Who are you?”
“Carth.” She slipped her arm under the girl and helped her to her feet. The girl was light and couldn’t be more than two years younger than her. A few bruises told her how the sailors treated them as well.
She started carrying the girl toward the doorway when the smoke became too thick to move any closer. Carth hesitated. Going that way wouldn’t be best anyway. If she went back up the stairs and attempted to leave the same way she’d come aboard, she risked exposing herself and the girls to the sailors that had brought them on board.
The alternative involved somehow getting them off the ship, but how?
Could she create a hole in the hull? If they reached the water, she could swim, but could the others?
How injured were they?
Carth surveyed the girls lying on the ground. A few turned to look at her, but for the most part they kept their heads hidden, as if afraid of whatever she might do to them.
No. They wouldn’t be much good trying to escape through the water.
And now that she’d started a fire on the ship, she had to do something to get them off, but she wasn’t sure what that would be.
Shouts sounded from above, and she heard the thudding of boots along the deck, followed by an occasional hiss.
The crew had returned, and they worked to put out the fire.
Whatever she did, it would have to be fast.
21
“I need your help,” Carth said to the girl. She forced her to meet her eyes.
The girl was thin and pretty, and the bruising gave her a haunted expression. She brushed a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ears and grabbed the rest of her hair in her fist, holding it while looking at the other girls. She wore a tattered dress, one that might once have been a clean white, or even a pale yellow, but that had become so dirtied that Carth couldn’t tell anymore what color it was supposed to be.
“I can’t help. If they find out—”
“If they return, you’ll end up no worse off than you were. You work with me, and there’s a chance that you could escape.” Carth took a deep breath, steadying herself. The room was getting hotter, and she knew either she’d have to get them out of here or she would have to use the A’ras magic to push back the heat, and she wasn’t sure that she was strong enough to do that. “Listen… what’s your name?”
“Dara,” the girl said in a hoarse whisper.
“Dara. Good. I want to help. I don’t want those men to harm you anymore, but you have to work with me.” Carth looked down at the women huddled. “Do you know the others here?”
Dara nodded. “I know them.”
“Do you think you can convince them to work with me? I’ll need your help, especially if we’re to get you to safety.”
A new plan started forming in her mind, one that involved a different sort of rescue than she’d envisioned when she’d first noticed the girls trapped here, but one that might be just as effective, only it required that they all work together.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing more than walk. Do you think you can get them up? They have to stand before the smoke gets much worse.”
“It’s better if we stay down with the fire,” Dara said. “I’ve been around fires before, and if you don’t stay low, it fills your lungs.”
Carth nodded. The girl had a quick mind. That would help. “Stay low, but you have to stand first.”
Dara started moving through the group, touching each of the girls lightly on the back of her head or neck and whispering. As she did, several of the girls started to get up. First to their knees, and then they stood. Most looked at Carth with a mixture of skepticism and fear.
The shouts from outside the room and the deck above began to get louder.
“We have to get moving,” Carth said.
“What about—”
The girl who started to speak couldn’t have been any older than ten or twelve, and she cut off as the door thudded open. Carth had closed it as tightly as she could when she’d entered, but with the door frame broken from how she’d had to kick it open, the door didn’t remain closed like it once had.
The man now standing in the doorway made Guya appear small. He had broad shoulders that were thick with muscle, and his arms strained against his shirt. Soot stained his face, and his shorn head revealed scars, though none appeared to be Hjan.
“What is this?” he thundered.
Dara started to back away from him and the other girls began to get back to the floor.
“Stand up!” she said.
The man turned to her, and a dangerous expression gleamed in his eyes. “You aren’t one of my girls,” he said.
Carth started pulling on the shadows and found herself reaching for the A’ras magic in her anger as well. “I’ll never be one of your girls.”
She launched herself at him, striking him in the head with a closed fist, wishing she’d used her knife. When it connected, she pressed the shadows that she’d drawn into the punch and sent him flying backward, landing on the floor with a loud thud. He shook his head and started to stand, dazed only.
Carth kicked, her leg flashing as quickly as possible as she tried to strike him. The first kick hit home, but the second he caught.
She spun free and lashed out with her other leg while coming around to land behind him. As she did, she kicked out again, this time catching him in the back. His head whipped forward and struck the wooden flooring with a sickening crack before ricocheting back. The man stopped moving.
“Dara,” Carth shouted, watching the man for signs that he might be coming around. She didn’t think he would, not with the force of the kick she’d managed to catch him with, but she had learned not to put anything past a man like that. If she could reach the shadows, and if she could reach the A’ras magic, there was no reason that others couldn’t have similar abilities. And, in the case of Ras, they did. “I need you and the others to move. We have to get going now.”
Dara started moving with more urgency, eyeing Carth with a different expression as she did. There was nothing to be done about that. Had she not attacked the man, they would have been trapped. She might not have needed to attack him quite as forcefully as she had, but she had to ensure that he wasn’t going to be a threat to them.
In the hall outside the room, she held her breath, moving through the smoke and keeping her head low. As she did, she tried to use the A’ras magic to control the fire raging through the hull of the ship, all too aware of how hotly it burned, but there was nothing she could do to slow it. She could keep it from burning too close to her… at least, she hoped she could. And if she could control it a little, she hoped she could keep the girls behind her from getting caught in the smoke as well.
When she reached the stairs, she paused long enough to make certain that Dara and the others followed. She saw them moving behind her, but cautiously, approaching her carefully. Carth waved for them to follow, and hurried up the stairs.
Chaos greeted her on the deck.
Flames crackled around the ship, engulfing it completely, running along the sides and up the mast. A nearby ship had been caught as well, sending it up in flames. The wind kicking up didn’t help, and the sputtering rain did nothing to slow the raging fire.
This ship would be lost. Carth didn’t know if others would be as well. She feared she had used too much of the A’ras magic, pushed too hard. Voices on the other end of the ship called out and she could tell that others tried working together to put out the flames, but the fire was too ferocious.
Carth cloaked herself in shadows, wrapping them around her and stepping to the side of the ship as Dara and the others appeared from below deck. They were tentative, but as soon as they realized they were out, they hurried for the port side, racing for the edge.
Using the shadows to obscure her, she tracked them, not wanting to expose herself too much, but needing to know if they were able to get free.
At the railing, Carth saw no way down.
Men stood on the dock trying to quench the flames, a line sending buckets of water toward the ship.
Carth thought about her options. The odds were good that the majority of the men on the dock were good men and wanted nothing to do with what had happened to these girls. She needed to ensure that they would do the right thing, and that they would continue to provide the distraction she needed. Too much time already had been spent on helping them escape. It had been necessary, but it distracted her from her real purpose in coming to this ship.
Pitching her voice high and helpless, Carth called out. “Help! The fire… we’re trapped. Slavers!”
She said the last with just enough force, enough inflection, that she hoped she drew the attention she wanted.
Someone shouted below and one of the men she’d seen playing cards in the tavern the first night in port looked up. He didn’t see her, but he noted the other girls and his eyes widened.
“Ladder! Get a ladder! There’s women up there!”
Two men raced away, their buckets ignored. When they returned, they carried a tall ladder between them and settled it against the hull, hurrying up. They reached the women and were met with fear and uncertainty.
The Shadow Accords Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 53
