The Southern Trail (Book 4)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  He unbuckled his belt as he strode across the narrow room, then sat on his bunk to pull off his boots, and gave a gasp.

  “My lady!” he spoke in surprise, as he stood up, then grabbed his pants to hold them up. The princess was standing in the corner of his cabin, hidden behind the door when he had entered, and now stood facing him, pale-faced, just the two of them alone in the confined setting.

  “I didn’t expect anyone to be in here,” Marco apologized. He spoke slowly as he focused his attention on trying to slip his feet back into his boots. “My apologies for intruding upon you.”

  “It’s quite alright Marco. You didn’t do anything wrong, young hero,” she told him. “I’m sure you didn’t expect to find me here; I slipped in because I thought the room would be empty and give me a place to be alone at peace for a little while.”

  Marco finished shoving his toes back into his boots, and he started towards the door. “I’ll leave you in peace, my lady,” he said as he reached the door and placed his hand on the latch.

  “Why did you come in here?” the princess asked.

  “I misunderstood; I thought the midshipman told me this was to be my cabin,” Marco told her. “I was just coming in to take a nap.”

  “It undoubtedly is your cabin, and in that case, I should be the one to leave,” Ellersbine stepped towards him and the door.

  “No, oh no,” Marco protested. “You’re a princess. You’re entitled to be here. If you want a private place, you shall have it.”

  She rested her hand upon his that was still holding the door latch. “If anyone’s entitled, you’re the one who earned the right. I’m just a princess by birth, but you fought your way to being a hero. You were truly magnificent today; without your efforts I wouldn’t be a princess right now – I’d be dead or I’d be a captive.

  “You go lie down and rest. I’ll go back to my cabin,” she told him in a firmer voice.

  “Why aren’t you in your cabin now?” Marco asked, surprised at his own boldness in questioning the princess, while standing with trembling awareness of the feel of her hand touching his.

  If I stay there, I’ll have to listen to Argen go on and on and on. He’ll bluster about how great he is, how lucky I am, what a failure father has been, what a wretched upstart you are,” she stopped, realizing that she had revealed more than she intended.

  “I apologize for complaining. And I don’t believe any of what he says. I’ve even disagreed with him, about father. And you,” she said. He felt her hand squeeze his.

  Marco looked down at her, and smiled to try to comfort her. He hesitated to say anything, acutely aware that the name of this woman was etched on the back of the torq around his neck. He was aware that Iasco intended for him to travel all the way to Foulata, possibly in the company of the same woman. He was aware that Ellersbine was vulnerable, and needed protection; most importantly, he was aware she needed a friend.

  “I think that we could perhaps both stay here, until you feel ready to leave,” Marco told her after a long silence. “I will go lie down, and if you wish to sit on the chair,” he moved his hand from under hers to point at the lonely piece of furniture, “you should certainly know that you’re welcome to stay here safely for as long as you wish,” he told her.

  “That would be improper, for the two of us to be together without a chaperone,” the princess answered. “You go lie down and rest,” she said as she pulled the door latch open to leave.

  “I’ll find Rhen and be back soon,” she surprised Marco by saying as she started to slip out of the door and pulled it closed behind herself.

  Marco sat alone, and stared at the door in surprise. He hadn’t anticipated the princess’s departing remarks, and he didn’t know what to think. He did know, he reflected, that if Duchess Rhen came into the room, he would get no rest. She would not be a silent, passive visitor to the room, he was sure, though the prospect was not upsetting.

  Marco placed his knapsack on the floor, along with his sword, then pulled his boots free again, and lay down on the thin mattress pad atop the wooden bunk, and closed his eyes. He immediately felt stupefied, as his mind and body embraced the opportunity to rest. He imagined numerous scenes from the day’s long ordeal, the work at the oars, the battles, the encounter with the dolphin, and then the ripping away of the false façade, the personality that had hidden the person underneath.

  Which made him think of Mitment, the girl who was hidden from everyone, every living person, except him. For no new reason he felt a kinship with the girl, the spirit that guarded the Lady Iasco. He would find a way, somehow, to restore her to her body, he vowed in the silence of his soul. It was his responsibility, since he had killed her in the first place, and then brought her back to the world of the living.

  “Are you awake?” he faintly heard Duchess Rhen’s voice speak in a stage whisper, just as he heard the wooden door rasp against its frame as it was pushed open.

  “He’s awake,” Rhen said confidently, and Marco heard footsteps in his room. He opened his eyes, sat up, and saw Rhen and Ellersbine and the silent maid Gielle enter the room.

  “Did you imagine there’d be such a surfeit of beauty entering your room?” Rhen asked.

  “There isn’t room for all of us in here. I told you, Rhen!” Ellersbine protested.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Rhen dismissed the comment. “Princess, you sit there,” she pointed to the chair as Marco watched. “I’ll sit here,” she planted herself upon the mattress, near his feet, “and Gielle can sit here, right beside me,” she patted the empty spot between her own spot and the end of the bunk.

  “There, everyone has a place and there’s a place for everyone,” she declared brightly. “Now you just pretend we’re not here and go to sleep,” she spoke to Marco, then gave a wink and a laugh.

  Marco lay back down on the mattress, his hands crossed behind his head.

  “We need to leave,” Ellersbine said, standing immediately. “He wants to rest.”

  “No, no, you don’t have to go,” Marco said. “It’s nice to have friends visit,” he told them, as he looked at Ellersbine.

  “Friends? You called us friends?” Rhen snapped back. “This is a royal princess you’re talking about,” she said sternly. “Just because we’re in your room, on your bed, hardly makes us friends.

  “But if you’d like to play a game or two, then we can be friends,” she stopped her straight-faced pretense and smiled at him. “I’m bored Marco; can’t we play a game?” she suddenly wheedled as if she were a young girl.

  Marco looked at her, first startled, then amused. “Life is never dull when you’re around, is it?” he asked, sitting up again.

  “I will modestly admit that I do have a certain charm,” Rhen answered.

  “It’s so dark in here,” Gielle spoke for the first time. Her voice was high and soft, like that of a girl much younger than she evidentially was. She stood and walked over to the port, and raised it, letting a flood of light enter the room.

  Marco had his back to the outer wall as he faced towards the doorway, and so he only saw the amount of the light in the room increase for five seconds, before there was a tremendous crashing and splintering noise. The whole cabin shook, and the women screamed, while the cabin was overwhelmed with light, then shadow. Marco took only a split second to swivel his head, and as he did, he saw that the wall of the cabin had been splintered inward, causing fragments of wood from the massively thick hull to fly into the cabin and prick the occupants.

  And outside the cabin, its shadow blocking sunlight from directly shining into Marco’s cabin, was the body of a huge sea monster, rising up from the surface of the sea to attack the ship.

  Marco gaped in astonishment, horrified by the sight of the bulky, scaly body that was just feet away. He sprang from his mattress, drawing his sword, while the monster outside reached its highest point of rising from the sea, and started to fall back down into the water. As the monster’s body slid downward before his eyes, Marco had anothe
r sudden flashback to his nearly-calamitous battle with the Echidna. That too had been a vast creature with scales.

  The body disappeared, and the monster’s head sudden dropped into momentary view. It was no Echidna, with a human face; it was a scaly, feline-looking face, with large round eyes, a protruding snout that featured sharp teeth, and a size that was larger than the Echidna. Marco distantly heard the shouts of the men overhead, up on the deck of the ship, where they also saw the assault by the sea creature.

  As it passed in front of the opening where Marco and the women were watching, the monster suddenly jabbed its snout forward into the cabin, and locked its teeth on the arm of Gielle, who was standing right next to Marco. Her eyes looked directly into his, wide with fear and horror, and then she disappeared, pulled through the opening and into the water by the descending monster.

  “Gielle!” Ellersbine screamed.

  And then she immediately screamed again.

  “Marco!” the princess shouted, as he jumped without hesitation and dove out the opening, plunging into the water, going after the monster and the maiden in hopes of rescuing the unfortunate girl. He had his sword in his hand and he was determined to rescue the girl.

  He struck the salty water at a steep angle, and submerged deep beneath the surface, his eyes open in the briny liquid, searching for and finding the location of his quarry. Gielle’s white blouse stuck out as a visible sign of her location, deeper still in the water. Marco held his sword below him as he kicked his legs to drive himself down towards the stricken girl.

  “Help! Dolphin friends! Help me, for I am going to fight a monster of great evil. This is Marco two-legs, friend of the dolphins and merpeople,” he squeaked and grunted as best he could, praying that some brave dolphin was close by and would come to lend support in the face of such an overwhelming opponent.

  The sea monster was not descending any further, and Gielle’s body floated limply in front of it as Marco approached. He was unnoticed by the monster, and he took advantage of his arrival to strike his blade deeply into the back of its neck. Marco stopped as he struck, and then tried to withdraw his sword, while the monster began writhing furiously, nearly wrenching the sword from his grasp before he managed to withdraw it from the scales and flesh that whipped around him.

  The monster was not holding onto Gielle as it reacted to the pain it felt, and Marco stroked over to where she floated, unconscious or worse. His lungs were bursting, and he grabbed her arm as he began to try to reach the surface quickly to find the fresh air he so desperately needed.

  “Friend, you have chosen a dangerous sport,” a dolphin suddenly appeared beside him.

  “Grab on,” it told him, then dragged him to the surface at a speed far in excess of what Marco could ever achieve.

  It was the same dolphin who had helped him during the battle, when he had fallen into the sea between the ships.

  “Friend, I hope I can return the favors I owe you someday,” Marco gasped as he sucked in the air. Gielle was beside him, not looking as though there was any spark of life within her any longer.

  “Keep my friend here on the surface,” Marco told the dolphin, and then he took in one last deep breath, and flipped himself to dive back down toward the monster.

  He didn’t have to go far; the creature was rising to find him and fight him. It sought revenge on the small being that had struck at its flesh and delivered a wound to it, and it was far closer than Marco had expected to see when he dove back down. In a panic, he switched the sword to his left hand, and pointed his right hand, the hand with the hidden golden hue, down directly at the monster, then released a bolt of energy that flew at the creature and struck it in the torso.

  The bolt of bright energy struck at the approximate point where the monster would have had shoulders, had it grown limbs, and the sea immediately became a murky floating globe of bloody water. The creature writhed in agony, but continued to approach Marco, and he veered off wildly to the side, hoping to elude its attack.

  He felt its teeth clamp weakly upon his left leg. He was caught, but the animal was suffering from the battle the two of them were waging. Marco swung his sword and scored the creature across one of its great eyes, making it release its grip on his foot and swing its head wildly back and forth. Released, Marco fluttered his legs as best he could and slowly rose back to the surface.

  He drew in a gulp of air as soon as he reached the top of the water, then momentarily looked around. The dolphin and Gielle were floating fifty feet away, and the ship was floating another hundred feet beyond them, with a fringe of faces looking over the railing, looking down at the drama around him. Marco took two more breaths, then dove back under the water and looked for the monster.

  It was gone. He detected an area of distant seawater that was deep beneath him, and perhaps a shade darker than the rest of the far perspective, but there was no other sign that could be interpreted as the location of the monster.

  After several seconds of careful scrutiny, Marco rose back to the surface and took another deep breath. He thrust his sword into his belt, then slowly swam back to where Gielle and the dolphin were.

  “You are a great warrior. You must fight all the time!” the dolphin said.

  “More than I want,” Marco answered absent-mindedly as he examined Gielle. She was gray and limp, and showed no signs of life.

  “I am sorry to tell you your mate will swim no longer,” the dolphin said softly.

  “This one was not my mate, but I am sorry that she will laugh with us no more,” Marco answered. “I will take her body back to her friends,” he told the dolphin. “Thank you for helping us. You are a brave companion,” Marco saluted the marine creature.

  “I will help you move her,” the dolphin said, and began towing Gielle back to the ship as Marco swam alongside.

  They reached the bottom of the ladder that allowed Marco to climb back up, and they said farewell to each other, then Marco paused as he considered how he could carry Gielle up to the deck, just before a large net tied to a rope startled him when it slapped the surface of the sea after being thrown down to him. Marco gently maneuvered Gielle into the net, then rolled himself in as well, preferring to ride up instead of climbing up on his injured foot. As he realized he had the new injury, he placed his left hand in his mouth to sip on the water that flowed from Diotima’s spring.

  There was a sudden jerk, and the net’s edges rose in the four corners, then another jerk and the corners closed together, and Marco and Gielle were pressed together as the net started to rise out of the water, and climbed back up to the deck of the ship a few feet at a time. Marco moved himself to a more comfortable posture as the net squeezed him, then sighed with relief as it reached its full height and was swung inward, to be lowered to the surface of the deck, as a large crowd surrounded the returnees.

  “Gielle!” Princess Ellersbine wailed as she knelt next to the body of her maid.

  “I tried to save her,” Marco told the princess, as he sat up next to the body. “But the monster took her so swiftly there wasn’t a chance.” Hands were reaching towards him from all directions to help him rise to his feet.

  “Marco, your foot is hurt!” the princess said, seeing the bloody mangling of his flesh that was a testimony to the work of the sea creature.

  “It’s not bad; it could have been worse. I’ll heal quickly,” Marco answered.

  “Captain,” Marco heard a voice say. He turned his head and saw that among the many folks nearby was the officer who had become captain after surviving the Corsair attack. “Captain, we’ve got a major leak. The monster struck the hull and broke several timbers below the water line,” a crew member said.

  “I’ll come right away,” the captain responded, and he pressed his way through the crowd to go below deck to inspect the damage to the ship.

  “Are you alright lad? What happened down there?” Captain Fyld asked.

  “We saw a flash of light! Was that something the monster did?” Sergeant Hearst aske
d.

  “Let the boy have a seat and catch his breath,” Prince Ellersby stood nearby, and the men promptly responded, taking Marco to a bench where he sat down.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?” Marco asked one of the sailors that hovered nearby.

  “I’ve heard stories about sea serpents around the islands of Melina, but I didn’t think we were close to there. I’ve never seen those monsters myself anyway,” the sailor answered.

  “Thank you for trying to save her,” Duchess Rhen came over to where Marco sat. “The princess is very upset over the girl’s death, but she thanks you for your heroism in trying to save her. I’m going to take the princess to her cabin to comfort her now,” Rhen said, then walked away, and Marco watched the two women go down the stairs that led to their cabins.

  Count Argen came over at that point. “How’d you happen to see the maid be taken by the monster, and how did you react so quickly?” he asked Marco suspiciously.

  “The girl and I were in my cabin when the monster broke the hull open, and he snatched her through the breach. I dove down after them, trying to save her,” Marco answered. It was a delicate situation, he realized, that would look poorly for Gielle for having been in his cabin; yet it was better than confessing that the Princess had also been in the inappropriate space.

  “She was in your cabin? She deserved what she got,” Colonel Varsen harrumphed.

  “You take that back!” Marco said heatedly, rising to his feet and balling a fist, despite the pain he felt from standing on his injured foot. “She did not deserve to die like that.”

  “I am a superior officer, and you shall not countermand my comments!” Varsen blustered. “I’ll have you whipped for insubordination!”

  “Who do you think you’ll get to carry that order out?” Hearst asked ominously.

  Varsen looked around at the unfriendly faces. “I’m not making the order. I’m reminding you that the military must have discipline,” he said defiantly, then retreated from the scene, followed by Argen.