The Tide of Ages (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 2)

by Robert J. Crane

“Where?”

  “To the last temple. Alone.”

  “But … what happened to waiting until tomorrow?” After I didn’t answer, Carson said “She doesn’t want our help?”

  I shook my head.

  And damn it. Why was this hurting me? Why was it hurting Carson? This was for the best.

  Bub fell in at Carson’s side. Whereas Carson had come back with a single fish, Bub had what looked like a whole school. I counted at least five, each as long as my arm, silver scales flickering with reflected fire. They’d been tied up at the mouth with thick strands of long grass, bound together like twine.

  “Where is the angry girl?” he asked.

  “Gone,” I said simply.

  “Which way did she go?” Carson asked.

  I pointed.

  He dropped his fish at the fire and headed with determined strides in that direction.

  “What are you doing?” I called out.

  “She’s going out on her own—it’s not safe. I’m going after her and bringing her back.”

  “Carson—” I began. But he was already disappearing, every step long and determined as he followed in the wake of Heidi’s footprints, just divots in the sand.

  I rose—

  Bub rested a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “Let him go,” he said.

  “But—what if he gets lost out there?”

  “The fire will guide him back. Let him do what he needs to.”

  I was concerned. Partly out of fear that Carson would run headlong into danger, as he had in the swamp this afternoon … but mostly because I didn’t want him to catch up with Heidi. Because I didn’t want her to come back? Maybe.

  Or maybe because I didn’t want her to lash out at him again. If I could save him from that pain, I should.

  Or, perhaps, I shouldn’t. Let him catch her. Let her tear into him. And let him see that Heidi was a lost cause, a fiery hate-spitter whom we were better off without.

  I sighed, nodding to Bub, and sat again. More fell, really, landing in the soft sand and feeling it spill between my fingers in a cascade of tiny grains.

  Bub scooped up Carson’s abandoned fish and took up position opposite the fire. Splitting his bundle, he unsheathed his oversized sword and set to work removing a fish’s scales. I expected him to end up slicing the thing in half, yet somehow he was delicate and careful. Having removed the scales, he disappeared to the edge of the swamp and returned with a bundle of sticks. Judging by the cracking noises that preceded him, he’d snapped these ones straight off a tree. He erected a crude spit by the fire, then skewered this first fish and set it in place.

  Upside down, a single silver eye stared accusingly at me.

  My stomach threatened a growl. Not much of an apology.

  We sat like this in silence, Bub de-scaling the fish, me despondent, legs drawn in to my chest.

  Eventually, Bub rumbled, “You’re troubled.”

  I sighed.

  “It pays to talk, you know. It helps.”

  Did it?

  I closed my eyes, resting my head on my knees.

  “I was going to be alone,” I whispered.

  Bub didn’t say anything. Had he even heard? My knees muffled my words. The fire crackled. My clothes had dried roughly, stiff like they’d been starched. And Bub’s blade shifted up and down, dislodging a flurry of scales like snowflakes with every sweep.

  But I’d started … and now that the dam had been opened, I couldn’t stop it.

  “That’s the whole reason I ran away. To be by myself. To be in charge of myself, no one else.”

  And …

  “And to prove myself to my family.”

  Quiet, but for the pop of a log.

  Then Bub said, “Family can be trying.”

  “Mine weren’t just rough on me. They didn’t support me; that was bad enough. But when I told them what I wanted—to be a Seeker—they … they actively thwarted me. Told me I couldn’t do it.” I shook my head. “It was all I could do to get away from them.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “January.”

  Bub began, “I don’t—”

  “Four months ago,” I clarified, lifting my head to peer at him. Then, wondering if perhaps that was another lost concept between our species, I added, “A bit over a season, where I’m from.”

  Bub got one of them, because he nodded. “And when were you joined by your companions?”

  “It was, um, after our scuffle. Carson that day, and Heidi the next.”

  “And before then, you didn’t get … lonely?”

  “Not for a second,” I lied, staring at the fire and not at him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I was doing what I was supposed to do—going on adventures. Finding treasures. Discovering new worlds, and chasing down legends.”

  “By yourself,” Bub said.

  “Sometimes, I wonder if that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  Bub looked up from his handiwork. He watched me with a dark eye, difficult to penetrate—if it even could be read. What was the range of orc emotions? Did they show in the looks they gave? Could they be read like books, the way I apparently could be?

  A peculiar thought slapped me: that he was thinking of Carson.

  Going back to de-scaling, slower now, Bub said, “I could not do it. Being alone. Not willingly, at least.”

  “Weren’t you alone out here?”

  “Yes,” said Bub.

  “For how long?”

  “Forty-one days.” He met my gaze again over the fire. “I was exiled. I’ve been alone since.”

  “Exiled? Why? By whom?”

  “For failing in acquiring Decidian’s Spear.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  Heidi’s words echoed: that Bub could not be trusted.

  Yet instantly I batted them away. I was the cause of Bub’s forced isolation in this world, yes … but he’d had plenty of chances to take Decidian’s Spear from me. We’d run into Borrick, too, so he could have then had plenty of opportunity to hand it over. Heck, I left the thing in Carson’s hands; how difficult would it have been for Bub to just snatch it and shove Carson in the water, making his way proudly and victoriously to Borrick?

  This orc was genuine.

  Which meant he’d been suffering because of me—and yet still he had saved us; saved me. And he had still joined forces with us in our hunt for the Tide of Ages.

  I didn’t know what to say. So I chose the one word that was on my tongue, but which was nowhere close to enough:

  “Sorry.”

  It felt so lame; so empty and useless.

  Bub shook his head. “You apologized once. There is no need to speak it again.”

  Didn’t feel like that to me. But then, saying it again hadn’t felt like it came close to making things right. So maybe I shouldn’t waste my breath if neither of us were going to get anything from it.

  “Did Borrick exile you?” I asked.

  “Not Mr. Alain, no,” said Bub. “Another in my clan.”

  “Does everyone who loses to me get exiled? Because if so … that’s a lot of exiled orcs.”

  Bub rolled his shoulders in a clanking shrug. “I could not say.”

  Oh. Right. Exiled, and all that. With no grapevine via which to receive news, Bub had no clue what had happened to the rest of his companions in Borrick’s last army.

  We quieted after that. I had no more to say, and Bub didn’t ask. I suspected he’d receded into his own head too, pondering his weeks alone in this world. He kept stealing glances over the fire, currently with three roasting fish positioned above its flames now, and so I wondered if perhaps this was why he’d joined forces with us; after so long alone, he was happy to have anyone as company—even if “anyone” included a seventeen-year-old who’d stabbed him with a spear, an over-inquisitive American, and a pixie engaged in an ongoing tirade of abuse.

  After some time—when the first fish was cooked, and Bub handed it to me, still on its st
ick—Carson returned. His footsteps preceded him. Pricking my ears over the fire’s soft crackle and my own chewing, I was painfully aware that he was alone.

  “I can’t believe she left us,” he breathed when he rejoined the fire.

  “Did you catch her?”

  “Fish here,” said Bub, handing one over. Carson took it, dropping distractedly to his backside. His manbag slumped beside him.

  “No. I followed as far as I could, but then the sand turned to dirt, and her footsteps grew too faint.” He shook his head, reaching his free hand under his glasses to pinch the corners of his eyes. “I thought we meant more to her than that.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t,” I said flatly.

  “How’s she even going to get to the temple? It’s out at sea, isn’t it?”

  Bub nodded.

  “So how’s she planning on getting there? Unless … you don’t think she’s—she’s not going to steal Bub’s boat, is she?” Wide-eyed, Carson looked ready to jump to his feet and sprint into the darkness once more, lest Heidi deprive Bub of his transport.

  “My boat is well-hidden,” said Bub. “But she may reach the temple unassisted. Trees grow that way with hollowed trunks. Your friend may use one as a canoe, if she’s willing to paddle.”

  She’d be willing to paddle, all right. From here all the way across the Atlantic, or whatever this world’s equivalent was. Heidi didn’t lack for determination, I’d have to give her that.

  “If I may,” said Bub, “why do you spend your time with someone so incendiary?”

  “Good question,” I murmured.

  “She wasn’t always like this,” Carson said. He paused a moment, then corrected, “Or at least not as bad. I guess she does kind of have an attitude … but she’s not nasty, or stubborn for the sake of it.” He paused again. Dejectedly, he finished, “At least, she didn’t used to be.” He fell into a short silence, then looked to me over the fire. “What changed?”

  Another good question. Because Carson was right, of course; Heidi’s icy, impenetrable personality had been apparent from the outset. Before that, even—on the steps outside Lady Angelica’s, when our paths had crossed as we left and she headed inside. She wore the ice queen thing well, and connection hadn’t made it cool. Somehow, she had hardened. Turned sour. Cruel.

  How the tables had turned. Little more than a month ago, I had been stuck thinking Carson needed to go; that he was dead wood I was forced to lug around, utterly useless to me. If I’d had to choose either of them as an ally, it would have been Heidi, with her finesse with Feruiduin’s Cutlass and no-holds-barred approach to combat. Compare that with today—the last couple of weeks, in fact—and Carson was pulling more weight than her.

  Carson Yates—whom I’d written off.

  Like I was doing now, with Heidi.

  I paused, fish halfway to my mouth.

  I’d thought Carson was an utter waste of time; that he should be cut loose at the earliest opportunity. And then he had proven me wrong. He’d shown heart, courage, more than I ever could have asked. He’d used quick thinking to dispatch the Order of Apdau in the Chalice Gloria’s final chamber. And here, tonight, even after taking a battering from Heidi, he had gone after her, to try to bring her back into the fold. He had defended her to Bub.

  “Mira? Mira, why are you staring at me?”

  “Because you’re the best of all of us,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Because …” My eyes widened.

  Because he was—and he wasn’t willing to turn his back on someone who, for whatever reason, had lost her way.

  And I wouldn’t turn my back on that same person either. Not if it meant being more like Carson. And not if it meant we could still take Borrick down, all three—four—of us.

  I leapt up. Round the fire—

  “Mira—”

  I fell to my knees at his side and snatched him up into a tight embrace.

  “Don’t you dare change,” I whispered.

  “Um …” He pulled back, a harried look on his face that bordered on terror.

  “We’re not letting Heidi go alone,” I said.

  The fear was gone in an instant. “We’re not?” he asked, voice pitched up with hope.

  “No,” I confirmed. “We’re going to go after her. And we’re going to take the Tide of Ages together.”

  “But she doesn’t want our help,” Carson said.

  “I don’t care. She can keep the Tide of Ages all for herself, if that’s what she wants. But whether she likes it or not, we’re going to fight by her side. There’s no way she can take Borrick and the marachti alone. After that—if she doesn’t want to deal with us anymore? Then fine. She can be on her way. But you both helped me with my dream, and we are damned well going to be there to make sure she achieves hers.”

  Carson whooped and lunged back to snatch me up in a hug. Another arm went out to Bub—then he thought twice, spying the bony spines sticking out of the orc’s armor,

  “We’re going to the temple?” Bub asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Tonight, if you still have it in you.”

  “I do,” he said. And he rose, snatching the last of the fish from over the fire, and stamping the flames out in four heavy footfalls.

  Carson and I were up, ready to move out ourselves. For the first time during all of this, a buzz had crept into my body. It snaked its way up and down my spine, vibrating the vertebrae. My lingering fears this morning, about having nothing left on the cards to pursue after the Tide of Ages, were all expunged. Fierce determination replaced them—determination to snatch victory from Borrick, claiming the prize as our own—as Heidi’s own. But more than that, I was awash with determination simply to help her—however she felt.

  We fell into step, making our way down the coastline through the night by light of two moons and a scattering of stars.

  “You know,” said Bub, “we’re more alike than different.”

  “What do you mean?” Carson asked.

  “Humans and orcs,” Bub answered. “You’re driven by the same honor as we are … at least, you humans are, anyway.”

  Another unheard of thing that I’d have never expected to think just a month ago: I took Bub’s words as one of the deepest, most sincere compliments I had received in a long, long time.

  24

  Bub’s boat was a dinky little thing, so tiny that it was easily hidden by the canopy of foliage he had draped over it. The deck was positively minute, and though there was a very short sail that could be no taller than Carson with me sat upon his shoulders, the two large oars Bub fished from where he’d buried them in loose topsoil told us that this journey was going to be made with muscle more than wind.

  “Hop in,” Bub ordered. “I’ll push her out.”

  “Err … is there going to be room enough for all three of us?” Carson asked nervously.

  “It may be a little cramped,” Bub admitted. “I’ll do my best not to step on your toes.” And he winked—winked—before ordering us on board.

  I clambered up. Carson followed, struggling until I took one hand and helped pull him onto the deck. Bub had gone to great effort to hide the boat in a slightly less natural spot than the water’s edge, shoving it a full thirty feet inland. This far out, the silt was bone dry.

  Once Carson and I were arrayed on deck, his fear only intensified. We were going to be dreadfully, dreadfully close.

  “Pushing now!” Bub called. “Are you on?”

  “Yes,” I said, plugging my ears. Why shout? He was literally a half-dozen feet away. No need for the outside voice just here.

  Bub shoved—hard. Carson jerked forward, almost falling to his knees before grabbing me for anchorage. Pointless grabbing me though, because I nearly face-planted the deck myself. I’d been duped by Bub’s delicate de-scaling of our dinner.

  When the boat was out to sea, and Bub was waist-deep, he sloshed around the side to the opening onto the deck. “Excuse me,” he said, planting great green fists gone g
rey in the moonlight. Then he dragged himself up, perfect in his ungainliness. The boat tilted—Carson yelped, clutching my arm again—and then Bub rose to his feet.

  The yelp on Carson’s lips died. I suspected he had breathed out as far as he could go—because that’s what I’d done, lest my chest come into painful contact with the barbs protruding from Bub’s armor.

  “Excuse me,” he said again. The oars chucked onto the deck at our feet, he stooped to reach for—and Carson and I tried to break the laws of the universe and condense our matter into a black hole. We failed—but by some miracle we avoided being penetrated by spikes as Bub fished around for the rowing tools.

  Reprieve came; he edged into the opposite side of the boat. It definitely canted slightly, causing another terrified expression to cross Carson’s face. But it held just steady enough that by leaning carefully backward, we could brace ourselves without falling forward and, you know, goring ourselves on orc armor.

  “I’ll row,” said Bub. He dunked one oar in the water to either side—and then, like an Olympian rower (a grossly oversized, green-skinned Olympian rower) he began. The sheer might of his strokes was immense, propelling the boat forward quickly, and sending huge splashes behind us.

  Carson still looked somewhat terrified, so I patted his wrist to calm him. He looked to me, and forced a very poor approximation of a smile. I returned it, thanking my lucky stars that Carson did not suffer seasickness, and that Bub’s assault on the sea had not triggered it. Yet, anyway.

  The land receded. In daylight, we could have seen it for some time yet. At night, though, the darkness stole it away quickly. Only the second temple was visible for some time, an ever-shrinking triangle that dipped closer and closer to the horizon.

  “How far out is the Tide of Ages temple?” I asked after some time.

  “If it’s the one I believe Mr. Alain and your friend are heading to? Some hours yet. It’ll be a long journey.”

  Figured. But then, that was sensible. Only a mad builder would put all three temples close together. Doing that would be like leaving your front and back door keys by their respective doors, probably next to bright neon signs proclaiming, “KEYS!”

  Carson asked, “Did you make this boat?”