Emily's Saga

by Travis Bughi

  “What?” Nicholas asked, breaking away. “Are you surprised?”

  “Only a little,” she admitted. “What I’m laughing at is a little memory of us in Lucifan when my normally talkative brother was suddenly dead silent upon seeing a group of handsome knights. It should have been obvious then.”

  Nicholas reddened and gave her shove. She thought he meant it to be forceful, but he was too weak to give it much strength.

  “Now come on,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

  Chapter 15

  Nicholas took the colossus almost as well as Takeo had when she’d first told him. Her brother was in awe, but accepted Emily’s brief explanation of inheriting it from Quartus as obvious fact. Not even Fritjof voiced any questions, despite how he stared slack-jawed at the huge statue.

  “I’ve never seen a colossus,” he said. “It’s so big. It can move?”

  Emily made it nod, and Fritjof jumped. She giggled.

  “It’s so,” he struggled for a word, “massive. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Without a doubt.”

  “You haven’t seen a kraken before?” she asked, skeptical.

  “I have. I’ve seen a dragon, too, but this thing isn’t alive. It’s moving stone. What I mean by massive is that it’s larger than life. It’s greater than life. It . . . it makes me question everything I’ve known.”

  His candid words struck the smirk from Emily’s lips. She’d never thought of such an idea, or perhaps she had, but she’d never put words to it before. The colossus was a work of the angels, and it was certainly greater than life. It surprised her that Fritjof had put all that together so quickly and stated it so plainly.

  Combined with his earlier display of manners, Emily could understand her brother’s attraction to this young man.

  “You’re not a typical viking,” she mused, “are you?”

  Fritjof gave no response other than a sly glance.

  Emily’s question caused the two to stop staring at the colossus, and that’s when they noticed Carlito’s head on the floor. They both sighed in relief, but Nicholas went a step further by storming over and violently smashing the head with his foot. He did so with such anger that Emily thought he might break something else, but Fritjof came over and touched a hand to the back of Nicholas’ head, and they shared a nod. Emily suddenly remembered how much she missed Takeo.

  Thankfully, Jarl Valgrith’s ship was clearing the channel and heading straight for the floating home. It could be clearly seen through the open doors—as could most of the town. Emily saw the once vacant streets filling with distant figures rushing from their homes. The sight of the colossus made more than a few women and children scream, but most ran in silence, headed either for the snowy hills or the nearby ships. A few were mounted on large, four-legged creatures with thick, black and grey fur and shaggy tails. Emily guessed those to be wargs, but couldn’t know for certain at this distance. Nicholas and Fritjof, seeing the approaching viking ship, gave Emily worried glances.

  “Friends!” she answered their curious faces, and then ran to the doors to wave frantically at the coming vessel.

  Jarl Valgrith swung his ship up against the docks. The first off was Takeo, who leapt overboard and threw open his arms to accept Emily’s charge. She barreled into him and clung tightly, trying to shake off all the vileness of Carlito’s intentions with a single act of pure love.

  It almost worked.

  “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was worried,” Takeo admitted.

  “I’d be lying if I said you didn’t have a right to be,” she answered.

  They shared a kiss, brief, as Takeo broke away to look over her shoulder. Emily remembered her brother and turned to see Nicholas staring the samurai down like a minotaur poised to charge. It took her a great deal of strength not to roll her eyes.

  “Nicholas,” she said. “This is Takeo Karaoshi. Takeo, this is my younger brother. The man next to him is Fritjof. They are together, like us.”

  “Hi,” Nicholas called out, eyes still narrowed.

  “Hello,” Takeo replied. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Hey!” Jarl Valgrith called from above. “Unless you have something that needs doing, introductions can be done onboard. I don’t want to stick around this place any longer than I have to. Get on my ship now, or stay here!”

  They boarded immediately, and the jarl had oars in the water the moment they shoved off from the docks. A steady drumbeat was produced, and they were sailing away as fast the crew could pull.

  “As scary as that statue is,” Valgrith said to Emily, “I don’t want to be here when the locals work up the courage to come protect their land. It’s bad enough I gave them my name, fool that I am. Habit beat out my sense. How much damage did you do in there?”

  “Believe it or not, I only killed one immortal,” she said.

  “You or the colossus?”

  “Would you like the details?” she asked in response.

  The jarl huffed, let that question slide, and asked another, “At least tell me who it is you saved there. I want to know if I’ve brought thieves or murderers into my midst.”

  “They are fine,” she replied. “That one there is my brother, and the other is his friend. Did you not hear me introduce them?”

  The jarl’s shocked face showed he clearly hadn’t. He gave her several long blinks with parted lips and then shook himself as if struck by a chill.

  “First the colossus, and now this? You have a way of leaving out important details, little girl. Did you ever think that if you came to me and told me you had a towering work of stone at your command and a family member to save, I might have helped you on principle?”

  “No,” Emily replied emotionlessly.

  “Well, you thought right.” He laughed. “Still though, it would have helped.”

  “Doubtful.” Emily threw the words back at him with her tone. “It would have changed nothing. You knew I was up to no good from the start, Valgrith. Don’t pretend to be surprised that I left this place shaken. You wanted to see me do it, and who can blame you? You didn’t ask too many questions because you wanted to claim ignorance if survivors came looking for you. Well, let’s get one thing clear: you can lie to them all you want, but I’m not buying it.”

  The jarl paused a few beats, avoiding eye contact. For a moment, he seemed about to speak, but then that moment passed, and they both let silence fill the void.

  They sailed in concentrated, drum-and-oar-broken silence up the channel, through the bay, and back out to sea. The fleeing ships gave them a wide berth, as right behind Valgrith’s ship was the colossus, slowly sinking beneath the waves as it followed. Its blood-soaked hand and arm were cleansed with frigid saltwater, and the wakes it created died out once it disappeared from sight. Emily could still feel it, though, obedient as ever, despite what it had done.

  I made it shed blood for the first time, she thought, and yet it still follows me.

  To Emily’s dismay, her brother and Fritjof partook in the rowing. Their condition seemed nothing more than an added challenge to them, and they eagerly rejoiced at the chance to be vikings once again. Emily found them food—a viking’s favorite meal: meat, meat, and the occasional non-meat—which Nicholas and Fritjof devoured once the wind came and the rowing stopped. Jarl Valgrith never said a word about his stores being plundered so, and Emily silently thanked him for that.

  In between large bites of salted warg meat and chilled milk, the awkward introductions that had begun on Ragnar’s dock resumed.

  “So, Takeo, right?” Nicholas asked, seated cross-legged on the upper deck, eyeing Takeo and then looking to Emily. “Firstly, I just want to say I’m very thankful you all came to save me.”

  “Likewise,” Fritjof mumbled with a full mouth.

  Takeo bowed while seated, taking the motion slow and going deep in a sign of respect. Emily wasn’t sure Nicholas would understand that, though.

  “I’ve never been so hungry,”
Nicholas admitted. “There were times, so many times, I thought we’d never be free.”

  “It was your sister, all her,” Takeo said.

  “He lies,” Emily said with a huff. “I wouldn’t be here, alive, without him.”

  They shared a glance, a smile with their eyes, and then Emily looked back to see Nicholas had stopped chewing.

  “So,” he mumbled. “Where’d you two meet?”

  Emily blinked once at her brother’s tone. Unless she’d heard wrong, those words were laced with blatant hostility. It was enough to make her recoil a hair, doubting what was clearly written on Nicholas’ face.

  No, she begged. Oh, please don’t do this.

  “In slavery,” Takeo replied. “I helped buy her.”

  The samurai’s face was placid, and he leaned back with the calm readiness that never really left him. He spoke plainly, but Emily looked into his dark eyes and saw the humor there. Obviously Takeo had heard the protectiveness in Nicholas’ tone, too, and was now prodding him. He thought this was funny, but she caught his eye and gave a scathing stare that showed she was not sharing in the enjoyment.

  Nicholas, unfortunately, missed it all.

  “You were a slaver, huh?” he asked. “Maybe I was too quick to thank you. Not that I haven’t seen slaves myself, but I’ve never bought little girls before. You must have been in Savara, I’m guessing, which is strange because I thought honorable samurai served masters in Juatwa. I must be mistaken, though. I have to be. My sister’s with you, so you must be the perfect gentlemen. Am I right?”

  Takeo likely had a witty follow up, but after exchanging looks with Emily, he bit his tongue and looked away. Emily was in no mood for any of this so, after corralling one banshee, she looked to silence another. She leaned forward into Nicholas’ space, summoning his attention. He looked down at her, and what he saw made him pause.

  “Takeo and I just spent the last several months,” she took in a deep breath, “hiking over the Khaz Mal Mountains, evading orcs and dragons, and trudging through the frigid North to acquire a voyage so we could come save you from an immortal who thought you a personal whipping post. Would you like to show some more gratitude? The last we met, you’d grown so much, both mentally and physically, that I barely recognized you, but now you are making me think that everything I saw was a hoax. You want to know if he’s worthy of me, right? I just barely freed you, and already you’re trying to be the good brother you never were because you ran away from home and left the family who raised you. Is that what this is about? Fine, here’s your proof: this man you’re trying to intimidate would cut his own throat if it would save my life, and I would do the same for him. Does that satisfy you?”

  Nicholas flinched. Life with the vikings had made him more stubborn than he’d already been, but her sharp words chipped away at that mountainous ego that even Carlito had failed to break. He swallowed, pursed his lips, and suddenly found the ship’s decking more interesting to look at than his own sister. Then he muttered a ‘sorry’ under his breath, and Emily saw the little brother she’d always known once again.

  “Um.” Fritjof cleared his throat of food. “I’d still like to know how you two met, really.”

  Emily looked to him and smiled. “And I’d like to know about you two, as well. Looks like you and me are the only adults here, Fritjof. Would you like to go first?”

  “Certainly.” He nodded. “I have a feeling your tale is going to be grand, and I’d rather not follow it with my own meager one.”

  “Modest, too? You certainly aren’t the typical viking.”

  He and Emily shared a laugh, while Takeo and Nicholas sulked. Emily’s brother started eating again, and Fritjof told the story of how he’d met Nicholas.

  To give credit to Emily’s words, Fritjof admitted to being different than the average viking. He lusted more for stories than he did for combat, and this had earned him many beatings from his father, one of Ragnar’s crewmen. However, his two sisters, both stronger fighters than himself, rarely laid an unkind word on him, despite his inability to keep pace with them. He assumed their pity sprung from seeing their father’s scorn for his only son. Either way, Fritjof grew up as a scholar, a rare breed in a land where barbarism was the only accepted career beyond homemaker.

  Still though, despite his lack of physical prowess, he made up for it in mental fortitude. He took his beatings with a dash of salt, read what few books he could find, and toiled away on what projects he could hide. Over time, his own breed of endurance and resilience won over Ragnar, who recognized in the boy the skill for fashioning sturdy ships after having seen him build his own rowboat at age twelve. Ragnar gave Fritjof his chance by making a ship of his design and said it was the greatest ship he’d ever known.

  “That was the ship we captured your pirates with,” Nicholas commented. “Fast, wasn’t it?”

  Emily nodded in remembrance and asked them to continue.

  Fritjof admitted it was Nicholas who took interest in him first. Emily’s brother had pretended to be interested in shipbuilding as a ploy to fool both Fritjof and their fathers.

  “He was sly.” Fritjof smiled. “I think it took me an entire month to catch on that he wanted more than my friendship.”

  Sadly, the news that Fritjof would not be having children only deepened the divide between him and his father. Both daughters had already left for other villages to join their new husbands, and that left a void in Fritjof’s father’s heart that stayed with him until he died in his bed of sudden illness. No reconciliation was ever sought by either father or son, marking the event tragic by any viking’s standard.

  Not long after that, Carlito killed Ragnar and locked Fritjof and Nicholas in a cell in the vain hope of using them as bait for when Emily came looking for them.

  “We hardly knew each other when we were thrown in the dungeons,” Fritjof said. “Now, though, I feel like I’ve never known anyone more. Can I be completely honest with you, Emily?”

  “I’d prefer you were,” she answered.

  “It was difficult not to hate you. Every time the lash fell on either Nicholas or me, my heart told me you were to blame for it all. Every part of my anger told me it was your fault that this had happened, and every part of my pain cried out ill intentions for your future. Carlito did this to us because of you, and if it were not for you, he would not have treated us so cruelly. My love wouldn’t have suffered so much if you were not his sister, and every day we were kept in that dark hole was due to your personal indifference to our situation. That is what my heart told me.”

  “I take it you didn’t listen to your heart?” she said.

  “I rarely do,” he said with a nod. “If I did, I would have abandoned my father long ago. I took my beatings from him, like I did from Carlito, turning that boiling anger inside me into a well of determination. I told myself that I could not hate you, that I could not think ill of you, because no matter what my heart said, my mind understood that our chance for survival rested in your hands. I turned what could have been hatred into hope. Nicholas helped me with that.”

  Emily was dumbstruck by Fritjof’s words. She had not anticipated such candor, not even when he had warned her it was coming. She had a nagging sensation his words had been prepared, and she voiced that thought carefully.

  “They were, indeed,” he answered. “I have been wishing to tell you that for some time. I wanted to tell you that because I want you to know that I truly am grateful to you for rescuing us, and I wanted you to hear it before you ever told me anything about yourself so you’d know it was my honest opinion.”

  “Wow,” Emily exhaled. “You are enlightened.”

  She could think of nothing else to say. Thankfully, that alone was enough to turn Fritjof bashful, and she left it at that until she remembered her manners.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “You said you wanted to hear about me?”

  Nicholas and Fritjof both nodded their agreement.

  “Takeo tells it
best,” she replied, truthfully. “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.”

  Her quick shift made all three of them blink. She left the group before they could voice a protest and went to Jarl Valgrith. He was steering, as usual. In the short time she’d been on this ship, she had yet to find the jarl awake and not commanding his vessel. He even ate while steering, entrusting the task to no one else except when he was forced to by nature’s callings.

  “Old sibling rivalry?” Valgrith asked, watching her approach him.

  “Hm?” she responded, showing her confusion.

  “I saw you go head to head with your brother and give him a right scolding. He must be jealous?”

  “No, just protective,” she answered. “I can topple empires, command a colossus, and kill immortals, but I can’t escape my brother’s need to feel important. The worst part is that I have two brothers, and convincing the second one to accept Takeo will be much harder.”

  “I sense a story?”

  “A good story at that, but it will have to wait. I have other things to discuss with you.”

  The jarl waited a moment for Emily to continue, but she wanted his approval first. He gave such by nodding and extending an open arm.

  “Your curiosity about me continues to grow,” she said, “and you’re right to assume that what you just witnessed was only the tail end of a long history. I have another debt to settle in Lucifan, another immortal to kill, and then afterwards, I intend to fight a sizeable battle that will involve warriors from just about every corner of the world.”

  Valgrith licked his lips in the cold wind and leaned forward to turn the rudder.

  “That’s a mighty boast—”

  “No boast,” Emily jumped in. “It will happen, but I’ll need a swift ride to Lucifan for everything to come together.”

  “Ha!” Valgrith smiled. “And what makes you think I’ll take you?”

  “You still think I’m an idiot? You knew this was coming from the moment you came back for me. There’s a reason you didn’t leave me stranded in Ragnar’s lands. Don’t play coy with me; let’s settle this. I want your help, or specifically, passage to Lucifan. What do you want in return?”