by Heath Pfaff
"Thank you, Sir." He said, shaking where he stood.
I nodded. "Get moving." He snapped to the order and was crawling out through the door in a moment. Once all the humans were safely in the hallway, the rest of us fell in behind them.
"Where are Telistera and the others?" Malice asked.
"I'm sure they're getting to the escape boats just as we are." I answered calmly, though I understood her concern. I was worried for the others as well. We all knew what to do. I would have to depend on them doing what was necessary to get free of the ship, even as we were doing the same. The vessel was going down. That was the only reason that second bell would be rung. The craft that had been our home for nearly two years was sinking, and I was still months out to sea. How would I ever reach Kay without the ship?
I had to push that thought away. Down that road of thought lay only desperation, and I couldn't afford such a bleak mindset at a time when I needed to protect those around me. An explosion sounded, dulled by the hull, and a light tremble rolled through the deck.
"Are we under attack?" It was Silver who spoke.
I didn't know how to answer that question, so I didn't. The answers, I knew, waited for us above. It was a long trip up to the top deck, following behind the humans who had difficulty moving through the heavily slanted halls without the aid of claws and inhumanly powerful muscles. The dangerous extent of our situation was not clear until we reached the world outside. The wind whipped across the deck with a terrible ferocity, driving the rain against one's skin so hard, that it felt like needles piercing flesh. To make matters worse, occasionally a massive ball of hail would fly down from the sky and crash into the deck, leaving a dent as it hit. If such a ball of ice struck a person, it could severely injure or kill them. Luckily, they were infrequent enough occurrences that they were not a continuous risk.
I turned to look in the direction in which the ship was listing, and staggered backwards in shock. There was a smoldering black hole in the starboard aft section of the ship. The hole was large enough to drop two complete carriages down, side by side. The bell was still ringing, and I looked for the bell tower to see who had sounded the alarm. I briefly saw a glint of silver hair through the open window in the small building. It was Telistera.
"Man the life boats!" I called out, having to yell at the top of my lungs to be heard over the torrent of rain. I could see no sign of an enemy ship, or any apparent cause for the damage that had been wrought. Some of the life boats were already being lowered, though on the surging seas it was a difficult task. The black cloaks were working on several boats for themselves, and the human crew, with the aid of tower and Silver, had started on another. Each boat could comfortably keep twenty-five men, and there were ten such boats.
"You should get to a life boat, King Noble." I spun at the words, yelled just behind me. They were difficult to hear in the storm. It was Ethaniel. I had not seen him since our last fight. I felt Malice press close to me, and I turned back to look at Telistera, still desperately ringing the bell, calling to any who may not have heard the warning. Did she know she'd rung the bell enough? Why wasn't she abandoning ship as well?
"Ethaniel," I turned to the old Knight. "Please, see that Malice makes it aboard a boat. I will be back in a moment."
"No!" Ethaniel and Malice called out together with the same angry retort.
"You need to get safely aboard a boat." Ethaniel barked.
"I'm not letting you go off alone at a time like this." Malice retorted angrily, their explanations, while completely different, were spoken at the same time.
Tower approached, his imposing figure like an immovable stature in the powerful wind of the storm. "I'll go with you." He said.
I nodded to Tower. His strength, and his size, would make him an asset. I didn't know what it would take to get Telistera out of the bell tower, but it couldn't hurt to have his muscle aiding the cause.
I looked at Ethaniel and Malice. "I have to do this." I said. "Tower will be with me. We will be fine."
Ethaniel shook his head, his facial expression still full of anger. "You're a fool, Noble. Hers is one life. You would risk two for hers alone?"
I pointedly ignored Ethaniel. Malice looked worried. She was worried enough that she hadn't even been bothered when I referred to her as Malice, and not Laouna. I leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
"Damn you Lowin, sometimes you really are a fool." She said.
I smiled. "I can't help it." I turned and walked away. Tower fell in at my side. Ethaniel would see that Malice was safe. I had to hope he would do as ordered. Of course, Malice could take care of herself, so long as she didn't do anything stupid like try and follow me. I had confidence that she would be safe.
Tower and I ran across the deck towards the tower, the bell still blaring loudly through the darkness of the storm. A bright red flash erupted in the distance, and a loud, concussive explosion sounded afterwards. The ship shook with the blast, though it had been quite far away. I had seen only a flash of red, and only for an instant so fast that I was barely sure I'd see it at all, but my eyes, sensitive as they were to movement, held onto the traced path of that bolt.
I had seen lightening many times, spidering its way through the sky so quickly a blink might cause one to miss its passing, but the red streak was faster. Telistera's father had told the truth. The hole in the ship was the result of one of those legendary events. No doubt remained in my mind. What an unearthly power, that could rip our ship asunder with such terrible ease and speed. Red streaks were real, and they were terrible. I wondered if they were some form of magic, or just another monster of the natural world that lay unknown beyond the realms of men.
I don't know what triggered my next move, but suddenly the world slowed around me, and I found myself diving backwards. A piece of ice the size two fists held together slammed into the ground where I had been standing a fraction of a second before. I watched it shatter, exploding into tiny fragments of shining slivers, and a cloud of ice dust. Sped up as I was, it was a beautiful destruction. Whether it had been my hearing, or perhaps something I had seen out of the corner of my eye, I didn't know, but in that moment my preternaturally sharp reflexes had saved my life. I let the speed carry me forward, flashing across the remaining distance to the bell tower, and scaling it as quickly as I could with one hand.
Tower sped forward as well, though he moved slowly through the abyss of speed in comparison, and I reached the top long before he did. Telistera was ringing the bell for all that she was worth, a look of panicked desperation on her face.
I slowed down as I pushed open the door to the small room.
"Telistera, we need to leave now. It's time for you to go as well." I told her. She jumped as I spoke, oblivious to my presence until that moment. Her free hand kept ringing the bell. The other hand was wrapped around the handle of her staff weapon.
"We must make sure everyone knows." She said. Her face was tear streaked. I realized then that she wasn't just suffering the loss of our ship, but the loss of every ship she'd seen go down on her first voyage across the endless seas. How many of her people had died in that damned journey? How many did she feel directly responsible for? Telistera was a warrior of her people. They had put their faith in her protection, and in her eyes she had failed them. I had seen it in her before, just beneath her silver gaze, a haunted look that never quite left. I had seen that same look in my own eyes often enough. I had given up on mirrors, tired of seeing myself, and what I had become in them. Had Telistera done the same? Did she see only her own failure to protect her people when she looked at herself?
"Everyone knows, Telistera. Please, we too need to leave now." It was Tower who spoke this time. His voice was uncharacteristically strong as he spoke to the silver-eyed woman, perhaps because he'd found his strength in action, or perhaps simply because it had to be to be heard over the crush of the rain pounding on the wood of the bell house.
Telistera seemed to come to. Her hand stopped on the bell. She
withdrew it.
"Of course, I guess it's time to abandon ship." She said, she looked empty, as though she had rung out the last vestiges of her spirit with the tolling of the bell.
We hit the deck running. Tower dragged Telistera with him, holding her hand so she did not fall away. We ran for the side rail of the ship, even as the deck slanted further into the sea beneath us. I didn't know which boats we were running to, I just hoped we would find the other Knights there when we arrived. My ears twitched, and the speed enveloped me.
I drew my sword and leapt into the air even as my conscious mind became aware of what I was doing. My blade hit a massive piece of ice that had been barreling toward the unwary backs of Tower and Telistera. The ice chunk split against my steel and smashed harmlessly to the deck to either side of them instead. I rolled to my feet coming up in front of the other two. To their credit, they did not slow pace. We reached the railing, and found a boat still waiting below us.
I saw the other Knights of Ethan holding position for us. Distantly, almost entirely hidden by the torrent of rain that caused my motion sensitive vision to be confusing, I could see what I assumed was another life boat further out to sea. Would the fragile seeming little boats be able to hold up to the storm around us? What if one was struck by a red streak? I didn't know. I didn't want to think about the consequences of abandoning our ship. We had no other choice.
I saw the look of relief on Malice's face when I leaned over the railing to make sure there was a rope down which Telistera could descend. I put the rope in the silver-eyed woman's hands, and made sure she was paying attention to me by touching the side of her face with one hand. I saw her eyes sharpen, though I couldn't be certain they were focusing on me since they had no pupils, there was definite change in their attention. I hoped that meant she was watching me.
"No one else gets off this ship until you are safely in the life boat, do you understand?" I asked her, making sure she knew that Tower and I would be remaining on board until she was safely in the boat below. I didn't want her doing anything foolish. She nodded numbly. She'd heard, though I still felt that she was leaving some part of herself behind with our sinking ship. I watched over the rail as she descended. Tower stood at my side. As she reached bottom, and I saw Snow and Malice taking her to the back of the boat, I turned to Tower.
"Alright, it's our tu . . ." I didn't get to finish that sentence. The world flashed red.
I was burning hot, and then I was freezing cold, in between there was so much light that I felt my eyes might explode in my skull. I felt something heavy hit me, and then I was surrounded by frigid water. I struggled, thrashing about, trying to find the surface, but I couldn't find the direction that was up. My eyes cleared, and suddenly I could see motion, trails of light falling downward, away from me. I realized what I was seeing after a moment. I was seeing fragments of the ship, blasted off by the red streak that had just struck, sinking into the ocean. One object though, a streak of motion falling into darkness, was different than the others. It was man shaped. Tower, I realized with a start. I abandoned my struggle for the surface of the water and swam downward. I grabbed his limp body and tried to swim back up, but my sword, and his sword, our armor, and our clothes, were just too much for me to handle with only one arm to swim with. I willed my claws sharp and tore the bindings of my sword, and then Tower's. Our weapons fell away, and then I cut free the fabric of our cloaks, and the armor beneath. Suddenly I could move upward. I surged towards the surface with all the strength I could muster. At some point I had breathed in, the water filling my lungs, but I was not dead. As had happened before, my body was wresting air from the frigid brine.
I didn't believe that Tower would be so adaptable. He wasn't moving in my grip. The surface of the water opened up before me, and suddenly I was in the air again. The bitter chill of the wind sunk even deeper than that of the cold water all around me. I breathed out, and water sputtered out of my mouth, my next few breaths were a strange mix of water and air that caused me to gag and choke. I was not suffocating though. I made every effort to keep Tower's head above the level of the water. It was difficult in the turbulent waves, the giant swells constantly threatening to engulf me and my waterlogged companion. I squeezed my arm around his diaphragm, and put as much pressure on it as I dared, willing him to breath. Nothing.
I tried again and again, still nothing.
"Damn it, you haven't told Snow that you love her yet you worthless tree of a man, breath! You will damn well breathe!" I squeezed again, and as if on command, he choked, vomiting out the sea that had filled him. He thrashed for a moment, in panic, and then he stopped, calming. I released him and he trod water beside me. The sea surged beneath us, lifting us up higher than a castle wall with each crest. I grabbed his shirt so that we would not be parted.
"I hurt!" He yelled into the storm. "I think I've been burned."
"You were almost dead, be happy you hurt." I answered.
"Thank you, Noble." He said, after a moment of no other sound than the fury of the storm. I was about to reply when my eyes caught sight of the prow of a small boat moving towards us.
"They're here!" I heard a familiar voice yell, Snow I thought, and then there were hands reaching down to us, and we were lifted up into the relative dryness of a life boat. I had never been so happy to see Ethaniel's face before as I was when his powerful arms tore me from the grip of the sea.
"Damn fool." He said, though it seemed to me there was some relief in his voice.
"You're right, I'm a damn fool." I agreed. I was a fool, but at least I was alive.
Keeping our relatively small vessel afloat amidst the surging seas was a difficult endeavor. We crested swells that spanned higher than buildings, and narrowly avoided further red streaks. The explosions from those close strikes knocked our boat over on more than one occasion, leaving us all desperately scrambling to flip over our craft and get back inside. When we were not fighting the waves or the red streaks, we were struggling to keep the water out of the boat. It rained so hard that it was a near constant battle to keep our craft afloat.
I couldn't say how long the storm raged around us, whether it were only days, or weeks. Underneath the black skies time was lost to the torrent of rain, and the constant need to keep moving. Our boat contained all the Knights of Ethan, and Telistera. In those very rare moments of calm, I wondered what had become of the others who had fled the ship. Their boats, wherever they had gone, were nowhere near ours. Had Liet and his people made it to safety? What of Captain and his men? I did not know, and no amount of worrying about it did any good. I could only hope that they fared as well, if not better, than did we.
The storm ended. It was a gradual transition. One moment the skies were black, and then they began to lighten as the hours passed. The rain trailed off, and patches of blue broke through the pervasive darkness, great rifts in the blanket of storm above. The sea grew calm, and we slept. There was no decision made to rest. It was a simple matter of necessity. None of us had closed an eye through the entire ordeal. There was plenty of room for all of us to lie down, as the life boat had been meant to carry 25, and there were only seven of us: Tower, Telistera, Snow, Silver, Malice, Ethaniel and myself.
When I woke, it was late in the day. The sun, a friend I had thought forever lost, was sinking below the horizon, and the brightest stars were already visible in the sky. I sat up, noticing that I was covered in part of a shifting cloak. As I moved to right myself, I felt a stirring to my left. Malice sat up as well, curled under the cloak at my side. Hearing the stirring, others began to get up. Soon all of us were awake, staring out over the still sea, the bleak realization of our situation settling in. There was no land in sight, and we were adrift without our sails. Worse, we were still in deep water, and with no way to propel ourselves forward, it was only a matter of time until the creatures of the deep found us again.
"Do you know how far out from land we still are?" I asked Telistera after we'd all sat in silence for a few hou
rs. The stars had settled in above. Telistera looked up, as did we all. The stars were in strange places in the sky. We had come so far that even the familiar points of light that seemed constant above us, were no longer where they should be.
"The ship's instruments indicated we had a month, maybe less, when last I checked, but it's impossible to know if they were accurate in the storm. The ship is gone anyway, so our pace will be much slower. These stars look familiar to me. That means we are getting close to my home, but without the right equipment, I just can't say how much further we have to go." Telistera explained, her expression crestfallen.
"By ship, we are about three weeks out from shore." Ethaniel said, and every eye in the boat turned to the old Knight. His statement was a shock to everyone. It was more the confidence with which he spoke, than the actual statement itself which was so surprising.
"How do you know that?" Snow asked, echoing the question that had been at the tip of my tongue.
"I studied the charts in great detail while aboard the ship." He answered. He pointed to the sky, to a bright green star just above the horizon. "That is Teretal Tui'en. We travel away from that star, and when it is beneath the horizon at this time of night, we will be at our destination."
His answer seemed legitimate, but it didn't settle well with me. Ethaniel had never studied the chats that I knew of. He'd spent most of his time locked away in his room. The charts were kept elsewhere, and had they gone missing people would have noticed, particularly Telistera. She had done most of our navigating. I looked to the silver-eyed woman. Her expression was difficult to read, but I felt that she was having the same thoughts as me. Ethaniel was lying, but only partially. He obviously knew something of the local stars, and the methods to navigate by them, but how had he learned? His eyes could see far and wide, but being able to see a distance didn't necessarily give one an understanding of how long it would take to travel that distance. Besides, Ethaniel had always said that his eyes worked only when they wanted to. Under other circumstances, I might have pressed the point. With just the seven of us on our small boat, it was not the time to make an issue. Conflict could cost lives. I would need to keep a close eye on Ethaniel. My distrust of the old Knight was growing.
