Diamond Bonds

by Jeff Kish

  “Allerian!?” Di’s small voice cries out, the only Valvoran amidst the band of Allerians.

  Turk glances to Jem and asks, “She’s with you?” Jem cautiously nods an affirmation, and Turk pats Di’s head. “Don’t worry, little girl. You’re among friends here. We don’t turn our backs on fellow Allerians in these waters, nor their comrades.” Turning to the crew, he bellows, “Men, we have ladies on this ship! I expect you to be on your best behavior!”

  Not one of the brigands seems particularly trustworthy with such a request, their eyes hungry for anything of the female persuasion. Di nervously steps behind Jem.

  The crew’s reaction isn’t missed by the captain. Leaning to Jem, he mutters, “On second thought, I’ll keep you two in my cabin.” He finds his second-in-command and orders, “Jenkit, I want you to make a count of the missing. It looks like we may have lost a third of our crew to that psychotic demon.”

  Jenkit looks around. “Pardon, Captain Turk, but methinks it might be a tad more.”

  Turk grumbles, “Never one for optimism, eh Jenkit? Just make the count.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  Turning to his lady escorts, he motions toward his cabin. “Shall we?” He allows the two to lead the way, and as he follows he feels the jealous gaze of nearly every member of his crew.

  Once inside Turk’s cabin, he closes the door behind him. The room is lightly decorated, with maps and clothes strewn about the floor. A mat is the only sign of a bed, and two large windows in the back allow sunlight to stream directly in.

  “Sorry for the mess,” the captain says sheepishly. “I obviously don’t have many guests in here. Please have a seat anywhere.” He bows as he introduces himself, saying, “As you may have caught wind, my name is Captain Turk. Pleased to make your acquaintances. What are your names?”

  Jem glares at the captain with pent-up anger. “Look, why did you drag us over here? What do you want with us?”

  “W-Well, you’re a fellow Allerian, and you were a captive on a Valvoran vessel. I thought it only right to save you.”

  “Save me? You kidnapped me! Our friends are back there!”

  The captain is alarmed. “There were more Allerians over there?”

  “Get over the Allerian thing!” Jem yells while throwing her arms in the air, forcing Di to do the same with one hand. “Why are you so obsessed with that?”

  Turk casually flops onto his mat, propping himself up with one elbow. “I consider it a matter of pride to aid any Allerians I find in distress. After all, many Valvoran vessels use Allerians as slaves.”

  Jem is surprised. “What? Really?”

  “About three years ago the Valvoran military sold off their Allerian prisoners-of-war to the sea trade. Didn’t want to keep them in their jails any longer, I guess. During our raids we always save any Allerians we find. Nearly half my crewmen are former slaves.”

  Jem slinks against the opposite wall, and Di does the same thanks again to the handcuffs. “I didn’t know Valvoren did that.”

  “One reason we sail so deep into the Lidoran is to liberate our comrades, but apparently word of our operation has spread. We pushed our luck too far.”

  “Do Allerians do the same thing?” Jem abruptly asks. “Do they enslave Valvorans?”

  “Sure, but that’s different,” Turk says indignantly. “I’ve seen what Valvoran pigs can do. They deserve everything they get.”

  “And so the hatred never ends,” Jem whispers with a distant stare.

  Eyeing the girls suspiciously, he asks, “So what’s your story, then? Why were you prisoners on that naval vessel?”

  “We have a knack for landing in trouble,” Di interjects, puffing her cheeks.

  “Can’t disagree with that,” Jem says. “We thought we were stowing away on a cargo ship. Two members of our group are still back there.”

  Turk ponders the situation. “So why are you so deep into Valvoren then? And traveling with Valvorans, no less? Even your accent is Valvoran.”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” Jem says, doing her best to look vulnerable. “But we need to get to Canterin if at all possible. That’s our best chance of meeting up with our friends. Can you… Can you help us?”

  “Canterin? The big Valvoran city on the coast?” Turk frowns and starts searching one of his maps lying on the ground. He finds it and taps it. “No can do, missy. Not with a naval vessel hot on our heels. We need to break for open water and then get back to friendlier seas. You’ll come with us back home to Glouak, and we can figure something out from there.”

  “Glouak?” Jem asks. “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “Not surprising. It’s a tiny town over on the Truitt peninsula. We set up port there.”

  “You mean in Alleria?” Di whines, aghast at the thought of traveling to the foreign nation. “I can’t go there! I need to go home!”

  Turk grimaces. “Sorry little lady, but I just lost half my crew, and I’m not about to risk the rest of them in a gesture of goodwill.”

  Jem bites her lip, knowing there’s little point in arguing with the pirate captain. They’re at his mercy. “Can you drop us off at Canterin after harboring at Glouak?”

  Turk frowns. “I think we need to stay out of Valvoran waters for a time, what with that crazy captain out there hunting us. You’d probably be best to find another option.”

  Di slumps backward, banging her head into the wall. Jem also finds herself distressed as her thoughts turn to Era. He may well be at the mercy of the captain who thought them to be spies.

  Turk recognizes their change in demeanor. “H-Hey now! I’ll give you two full run of the ship, and I’ll see if I can find you faster transport once we’re home.” As Di starts to sniffle uncontrollably, Turk quickly moves toward the door. “I uhh… I gotta go do something.” He makes his exit with great haste.

  Curling her knees to her chest, Di chokes back the tears as she buries her face into arms. “I thought I was finally going home, but now I’m…”

  Jem is surprised it’s taken this long for the journey to emotionally break the small girl sitting next to her. As the sniffling turns to sobbing, Jem places her arm around Di’s shoulders, taking care to maneuver the cuff chains in front of her face.

  “And Era! He’s gone, Jem!” Di looks at her with red, teary eyes. “He’s gone for good, isn’t he?”

  Jem can’t argue the point despite her best attempt to do so. As the ship rocks them back and forth, she wonders if there is any chance Era escaped the wrath of that captain. In that moment, it strikes her that she could possibly never see him again, and the thought brings tears to her eyes.

  * * *

  The crew works frantically to replace the rune installed at the base of the ship’s aft. “How much longer?” Marin barks at Giarva as he oversees the implementation.

  The soldier whirls around and salutes. “Ma’am! We should be ready in about twenty more minutes!”

  Marin looks up at the mainsail, her eyes narrowed. “They’re undoubtedly headed for Allerian waters. We’ll catch up to them before they make it past the boundary.” Turning to survey the deck, she asks, “How many did we get?”

  Giarva pulls a crumpled paper from his pocket. “Eight dead, ten in the brig,” he reads. “Probably about half their crew.”

  “And our losses?”

  Giarva hesitates before reporting, “They killed seven of ours, ma’am. Another seven have serious injuries.”

  Marin’s clenches her fists and glares at her second-in-command. “We outnumbered them, ambushed them, and we only claimed FOUR MORE?” Slamming her fist into the rail, she turns and marches briskly away. “Lieutenant, I’m headed to the hold, and I’m not to be disturbed. When I return, I want the rune ready to go.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Giarva salutes and returns to his work, knowing full well what it means when his captain is not to be disturbed.

  Chapter 16

  Era collapses against one of the many crates in the hold, exhausted from his fru
itless search. Scared to raise his voice, he had hoped to quickly find Fire, but the poor lighting has made it impossible to find his ally. He wonders in disbelief if she really slept through the commotion as a flurry of voices continue to loudly echo from above.

  He becomes dizzy as he considers the situation. He reaffirms to himself that he could have done nothing to get Jem and Di back once they were on the pirates’ ship, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling guilty for diving into the stairwell, essentially abandoning them. Finding the lower deck void of soldiers, he had raced to a porthole just in time to watch the pirate vessel accelerate away. Though desperate to find Fire, he recognizes she won’t have an answer for how to get them back.

  Era clumsily gets to his feet, his hands still shackled, this time deciding to call out for his companion. “Fire!” he calls, keeping his voice just above a whisper. “Fire, where are you!?”

  The loud stomping of boots interrupts his search, and Era’s heart skips a beat as he dives behind a crate. He peers around the edge of the box to see Marin storming into the hold. Rattled, he presses his back against the crate and holds still to prevent his shackles from clinking. He carefully pulls his pouch of sand open and dips his fingers into it.

  Marin approaches the crates with a canteen in hand. As she pours it out, she catches and molds the water into a long whip. Her breath now trembling, she flings the canteen aside, takes aim at a crate, and looses the whip with a scream of frustration. Unleashing her pent-up rage, she cracks the crates over and over again, reducing several of them to splintered rubble. Marin’s rage takes her around the room, and she inevitably comes to Era’s hiding place. Oblivious to his presence, she strikes it with the same explosive force, and Era finds himself with little choice but to dive behind a different crate.

  The movement doesn’t escape the captain’s notice. “Who’s there!?” she calls out, getting nothing back in response. She watches the boxes and cracks her whip for effect. “Come out!”

  Era grips his weapon, his palms growing sweaty as he waits in frozen silence.

  Marin growls with anger and unleashes a barrage of strikes against crates at random to draw out the intruder. Eventually, she creates enough havoc that Era is forced to dive out from his hiding spot to avoid taking a blow. Fully revealed, he jumps to his feet just in time to have Marin snap her whip around his blade, and she tugs at it as he grips it with both handcuffed hands.

  “The spy!?” Marin exclaims in surprise. “Ah, so you were left behind by your friends!” She yanks back with her water whip, ripping the sword from his hands. Sand scatters around the hold as the blade loses its form, leaving Era defenseless. “An earth shaper,” Marin realizes as she cracks her whip. She snaps her whip at Era, who brings his arms up to shield himself, and the whip wraps itself tightly around one of his wrists.

  Marin grins devilishly as she pulls her whip tight. “This is going to feel better than tearing up a bunch of crates!” Yanking back, she musters enough strength to force Era to stumble toward her, both defenseless and off-balance as he struggles to stay on his feet. Marin slams Era in the gut, shoving him backward before using her whip to twist and fling him into a crate. Her victim rolls over, gripping his side tightly.

  “This is what justice feels like!” she taunts as she slams him into another crate, and then another, and then another. Though Era does his best to brace himself before each collision, he’s powerless to do anything to reduce the impact.

  Marin brings him to a rest, and her watery whip snakes up his body and around his neck. She wills the liquid to pull him up to his knees, and then to his toes. He tugs on the line, gasping for air as the amusement disappears from Marin’s face. “I’ve had my fun. Now you’re going to tell me who you are and how you’re related to Turk.”

  “I’m… I’m telling you, we’re… not…”

  “Lies! You were with an Allerian! That makes you-!”

  Marin’s rant is cut off as a figure appears next to Era and promptly chops her hand through the whip. Her weapon snapped in two, the naval captain falls backward from momentum, and Era hits the floor as the other half of the whip loses form and splashes around him.

  Relief washes over Era’s face as he chokes and coughs. “About time, Fire!”

  Fire looks completely dazed. The handkerchief she normally wears over her head is around her neck, and her short hair is plastered to one side of her face. She shakes her head to wake up and looks down at Era with a slur in her voice. “You idiot! I told you to stay out of trouble, and this is what I find when I wake up?”

  “You’ve been sleeping?”

  “Yes! And that’s what you should be doing as well!” Groggily, she points at Era’s opponent and asks, “Who is this person? Why are you in a fight with her?”

  “Fire?” Marin repeats as she stands, her whip now half as long as it was before. “As in, Fire the assassin?”

  Fire studies her in alarm. “You’ve heard of me?”

  “You’re a menace to the crown. You assassinated the mayor of Trebulin. He was a strong ally of the Valvoran navy.”

  Her eyes narrow to slits. “How do you know about that?”

  “The military knows everything about villains like you,” Marin utters with disgust. “I’ve read your profile. I am Captain Marin of the Valvoran Naval Forces.”

  Fire glares down at Era. “You picked a fight with a naval captain? Are you insane!?”

  Before Era can defend himself, Marin interrupts the conversation with a crack of her whip. “I despise scum like you! I’m going to break you like I broke your idiot friend.”

  “He may be an idiot, but he’s not my friend,” Fire retorts.

  “I don’t think that was her point,” Era comments.

  Marin snags the canteen from the floor and pours the rest of its contents over her shortened weapon, allowing it to absorb the extra water before cracking it against the floor. “I don’t know how you snapped my whip, but it won’t happen again!”

  Fire’s lips curl smugly at the taunt. She withdraws her dagger and crouches low as Marin spins her whip around in front of her. In the dim light of the hold, Fire notices the end of the whip grow slightly in size, taking the form of a mace. She backs off as Marin makes her approach, spinning the mace vertically from side to side as she pushes Fire backward toward the row of crates.

  Era finds that every bone in his body aches from getting thrown around. Angry at himself for getting caught by the captain’s techniques, he tries desperately to will himself to his feet so he can help his ally, but the best he can do is roll in anguish.

  Her back against the wall, Fire runs out of space to retreat, and Marin pushes her advantage hard. Her mace is now twirling at an incredible speed, alternating back and forth between her right and left sides.

  “Making me do this, huh?” Fire is the only one who can hear her own muttering as she swiftly thrusts her blade into the rotating weapon. As the whip enwraps her blade, Fire slams her fist into the taut rope. Water sprays everywhere as the bolstered weapon again snaps, and Marin scrambles to form what little water she has left into a small sword. They meet blades, but Fire’s dagger shatters Marin’s weapon with ease.

  Fire slashes her dagger across Marin’s side, but the desperate captain catches it with a water rope, gripped tightly by both hands. This time, her shaping holds true and she twists the blade from Fire’s hand, only to receive a forceful jab to her abdomen. As she bends over in reflex, Fire’s knee meets her forehead, knocking her out.

  Era is in awe. “Fire, that was amazing! And to think I’ve beaten you twice!”

  “You haven’t beaten me!” Fire barks as she marches over to her injured companion. Squatting, she gets in his face and glares at him. “But if you want to back that up, I’m game for fighting right now.” Era frantically shakes his head. “Thought so,” she sneers.

  “Either way, there’s a lot that makes sense all of a sudden.” She gives him a quizzical look, and he points out over the floor. Alarmed, Fire finds
tiny ice crystals littering the battlefield, each fragment shimmering in the light of the flickering lanterns. “You’re an ice elementalist!” Era exclaims. “No wonder you can snap water weapons like twigs, and that even explains how you shattered that monster’s arms in the caverns at Ugorzi. Right?” She spins back to Era, who grins and asks, “What, did I figure out your secret? Jem’s going to go nuts when she finds out you two have something in common. And to think you’ve been calling her ‘Ice Queen’ this whole time!”

  Fire grabs the collar of his shirt. “You will tell no one about this. Do you understand?”

  Era is delighted. “Sure, sure.”

  “I’m serious, Idiot!” Giving him a shove, Fire jabs her thumb at Marin. “That woman had a file on me. If she had known what I can do, she would never have engaged me like that. Secrets like this can mean life or death in my line of work.”

  Era is taken aback by the gravity of Fire’s request. “Erm… yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

  She looks back at Era with cold eyes. “So are you going to keep my secret, or do I need to silence you?”

  Era wants to laugh, but he finds himself alarmed at the sincerity in Fire’s gaze. He swallows hard, realizing he’s in no position to negotiate. “F-Fine, I’ll keep your secret.” He leans back, careful not to move too much. “But wow, Di would love to see you in action knowing you’re an elementalist. Chopping water ropes with your bare hands? She’d flip out!”

  Fire nods. “It’s not that I’m strong enough to snap an elemental weapon. Water shapers can’t shape ice, so I just froze through the whip at the moment of contact. That’s the whole trick.” She turns and walks over to Marin, unsheathing her dagger.

  “W-Wait, Fire,” Era calls out, “what are you doing?”

  “Just look away, Era. This will only take a moment.” She kneels behind Marin and pulls her head back, positioning her dagger across the front of the captain’s neck.