by Ivan Kal
“This crew has worked together for a long time, and you are an outsider. It is normal that they wouldn’t want you around them, and the mode of your arrival was very suspect. It is a rather big coincidence that you appeared just as we were floating motionless on the open ocean.”
“Yes.” Vin nodded. “I understand. It is strange even to me. But I can offer no insight as to how it happened.”
Ashara looked at him with narrowed eyes. She believed him when he said that he didn’t know how he arrived here, but she also knew that there was more to the story that he wasn’t telling. She only hoped that he would tell her eventually. “Well, it will take time, but you will get there. They just need time to accept you,” she told him as they stood up.
Vin opened his mouth as if to speak, but shouts from the starboard of the ship and the ringing of the ship’s bell drew their attention. They turned to look just as the captain arrived and raised his spyglass to look at something in the distance. Vin and Ashara made their way to the captain, and they looked in the same direction he was.
“What is it?” Ashara asked.
The captain didn’t respond for a long moment, and then he lowered his spyglass and turned to look at his first mate. Mr. Jorvasi’s face twitched, and the captain turned to look at her. “Pirates.”
Ashara’s eyes widened. “But we are in Islander waters, and your ship flies Islander colors. No ship captain has dared practice piracy here in centuries!”
The captain shook his head. “No, they haven’t.”
“Are we sure that they are targeting us?” she asked.
“They are on an intercept course, and their ship is faster.”
Ashara was shocked, and she looked at the captain in disbelief. “Are they insane?” she asked him. “If the Islanders find out that a ship had practiced piracy in their waters there would be no hiding anywhere in the world for them—for any pirate, anywhere! The Sky Riders would reign fire down on every pirate port and every pirate ship in the known waters!”
“Unless there are no survivors, and no evidence left for the Islanders to know it happened.” Ashara turned to look at the first mate, who had spoken. Jorvasi continued, “They would need to kill us all and sink the ship.”
“But that’s…” Ashara couldn’t get the rest out, as the fear had slowly started to seep in. Pirates rarely actually killed anyone; they mostly intimidated their targets to give over the cargo they were carrying. They were not known for taking unnecessary risks, and fighting was a risk. But if these pirates were insane enough to attack them in Islander waters, they might not be the reasonable kind—and as the captain had said, they would only avoid the wrath of the Islanders if they left no evidence behind. Ashara shuddered.
“The only question is why they would choose to target us,” the captain said. “No pirate would risk the Sky Riders’ wrath, as you say, unless they were sure that they could get rich off that one hit. They wouldn’t attack just any random ship—they must know that our cargo isn’t valuable.”
“Unless they are not after our cargo,” Mr. Jorvasi said.
The captain nodded, then turned to look at Ashara and Vin. “Is it possible that they are after one of you?”
Ashara was taken aback, and she opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Vin, however, shook his head and he spoke.
“No. I do not think that my captors would’ve cared all that much about me. And that is even assuming that they know where I am—there is no way for them to send someone after me when they don’t know. But, still, I hold little value to them.”
Ashara gathered her thoughts, and answered as well. “I don’t believe so…” she said, but in the back of her mind a little voice was chirping. Lord Jauvek was a proud man, and she had humiliated his son, his house. And he was most certainly capable of offering enough gold to the pirates that they would risk attacking them in these waters. But would he actually do it? she asked herself. Already he had destroyed her house, her family. Had taken away from her everything that she had and forced her out of her home. She was insignificant. But Ashara knew men’s pride was a thing many held most dear. Kingdoms had fallen for that pride, and one lord sending assassins after her was not out of the realm of imagination. “It… It could be possible that they are looking for me,” she whispered.
The captain’s eyes darkened for a moment as he glared at her. “You said that there was no one coming after you!”
“I didn’t think that there was!”
“We could just give her to them,” Mr. Jorvasi said.
Ashara turned on him, aghast, and Vin stiffened beside her.
The captain’s eyebrow twitched, but he shook his head. “Even if they are just after her, they can’t let us leave. Her fate will be our own—they won’t be able to risk letting us survive. If word gets back to the Shattered Isles, they are as good as dead.”
The other man considered this briefly, then nodded. “We fight, then?”
The captain narrowed his eyes. “Open the armory, and arm the crew,” he ordered. Ashara frowned at the fact that a merchant ship even had an armory, but before she could say anything, the first mate nodded and left. The captain then turned back to look at Ashara. “They’ll catch up to us within the hour. You should get down to your cabin, my lady.”
Ashara nodded mutely.
“Captain,” Vin spoke and took a step forward. “May I have a weapon as well? I can help defend the ship.”
The captain mulled it over for a moment, then nodded. “Go below deck, and tell Solunwari that I gave you my permission.”
Vin bowed to the captain and then pulled Ashara with him below deck.
CHAPTER EIGHT
VIN
After making sure that Ashara was safe in her cabin, and after he had retrieved a weapon from the armory, Vin found himself on the top deck with the rest of the crew. All of them held weapons in their hands, and all looked ready for a fight. The mage was standing alongside the captain with her hands glowing as she inscribed strange symbols in the air in front of her. The magic made Vin’s skin crawl. Any spirit artist could sense mages using their magic from hundreds of paces away. But here, on this world, it was so much worse. The very air hummed with magic around her, the aura twisting as it was bent to the mage’s powers. In a way it reminded him of the Bending techniques of the spirit arts—only it seemed somehow wasteful and slow. The mages of the Arashan had always used power from their trinkets, but here the ship’s mage was simply using the aura around her. Vin wondered if his people had been so efficient exactly because there was not as much aura in the air on his world.
He shook his head and focused on the pirate ship. His glanced down at his weapon, and a sudden pang of sadness hit him. The weapon in his hands was a strange sword, a thick blade that was curved and short. It was sharp enough, he supposed, fit to be a kitchen knife, perhaps, although none on his world would craft something so poorly made and so ugly, no matter what function it was crafted for. He missed his blessed arms, his Thundering Spear and his Armor of the Thousand Scales. In comparison to his blessed arms, all the weapons on this ship looked like a babe’s toys.
Yet he had no choice. The blade was as good of a weapon as he was going to get. He cycled his ki in preparation, frustrated with the restricted levels of power he could summon. At most he could use the most basic Surging techniques, could augment his physical strength for mere moments—resulting in short bursts of power. Bending was beyond him, and none of the raw-power techniques he knew and could use as a spirit artist of the first step would do him much good in a fight. Even those that were more powerful were less likely to help him than they were to crack his core. He had no time to attempt Engraving; at his current level it would’ve taken him months to Engrave anything into his weapon. He could use the most basic Shaping techniques, but he would still need to be careful. His ki reserves were too low for him to unleash a barrage of techniques, and his stamina was not yet where he wanted it to be.
He wondered for a moment wh
y he was even standing here with these strangers preparing to fight even more strangers. It was not his fight. He cared little for the lives of men around him, and ending the lives of the pirates would bring him no honor. They were not spirit artists—they were no better than the low caste of his own world, those who did not even attempt the first step. Yet Vin could not bring himself to care about any of that, as his only goal was to find and stop the Arashan. These pirates were simply in his way.
Only now, when he was close to battle, did he truly realize the magnitude of his anger. His fingers tightened on the blade’s handle painfully. His eyes glared at the oncoming pirate ship. During his imprisonment he had kept himself calm, in balance, waiting. Even after they had ripped his soul out of his born vessel, he had not allowed them to break his balance, to break his will. But now, at this moment, it hit him all at once.
His people, his world—they were all gone. Wiped out by the Arashan. No more will I see Father Storm rising above my head. Never again will I taste the air of the Tin Chao Mountains. Never again will I see all that my people had built. All the secrets of the clans, the spirit arts, were now in the hands of the ones that had destroyed them. His anger consumed him now, more than it ever had before in his life. And he knew what was happening—he could feel it in his core. The churning, the desire for blood. Many a spirit artist had lost themselves in their desires. And with a conscious effort, he pulled back.
I live still, he thought to himself. In time I will become what I had been before. And the Arashan will pay. He focused all his willpower on that single thought. And, almost as if it had a will of its own, his anger subsided—drew back at the promise of future vengeance, and only calm remained.
Vin took a deep breath, calming himself. There were still good things in his life. In the few short days he had spent here, he had made a friend. Ashara was the first person with whom he had spoken who he could call that in over a year. More, even.
A part of him hesitated to call her his friend—he had never really had a true friend. His life had been consumed by the path. Ashara was the first person with whom he had had simple conversations that hadn’t been about the spirit arts. And she had saved his life. He owed her a life-debt. That alone was enough for him to fight against these people who otherwise would be beneath him. To protect the one to whom he owed a debt was not dishonorable. He would not lose that which he had practiced for his entire life. Strength was paramount to the spirit artist.
Yet he was not who he had been, and he was not as far above these pirates as he once had been. If he still had his old body, he would’ve sunk that ship long before it could ever have threatened the Norvus. Now, however, he did not know what to expect. He couldn’t so easily judge his current strength against the strengths of those around him, not with precision. It had been a long time since he had been as weak as he was now, since he had been a child. Still, he could perceive enough to know that he was stronger than the people standing next to him, even if he couldn’t tell by what degree. None of them were spirit artists. None of their ki was cultivated or developed. They had no real cores, and their ki was but a spark that sneaked around their bodies wastefully as they moved. He could not know their skill with the weapons, but without access to their ki, it would matter little. The mage was the only one that Vin counted on in this fight. He had seen what mages were capable of unleashing back on Orb, during the war. He had seen their ki—also uncultivated, but vast and roaring.
Their wait was interrupted as ball of fire flew from the oncoming pirate ship toward the Norvus. The mage whispered a word and the ball of fire struck a blue light just shy of the ship itself. Several more fireballs followed, with the Norvus’s mage meeting them all. As the pirates drew closer the barrage stopped, and the captain yelled for everyone to get ready. The pirate ship drew close alongside the Norvus, and Vin could see the enemy crew.
He considered if his honor would demand him announce his intent, give warning. But from what he had learned from the captain and his crew the pirate’s intent was clear. And they were a dishonorable mob, the worst of the worst, if what he had learned was to be believed. No, they did not warrant him following the codes, they were not worthy of them.
The pirates did not look very impressive, not to his eyes. Although, their screaming and taunting seemed to have an effect on the Norvus’s crew—he could smell the fear on them. Hooks flew from the pirate’s ship and anchored it to the Norvus before they lowered planks to come across. Before any of the pirates had a chance to jump over, and before the captain could give any orders to his crew, Vin jumped onto one of the planks. He knew the value of good morale in a battle like this, and he could not let the pirates get the first strike in.
As soon as his feet came down on the plank he used a Surging technique and jumped over it onto the pirate’s ship. He came down in the middle of a group of three pirates, who stared at him in shock. In a blink of an eye his arm Surged and his blade flashed through the throat of the closest pirate. Before they could recover, he turned to another, stabbing him in the chest. The third pirate recovered and swung his blade at Vin’s head, but he danced away, his foot striking at the pirate’s midsection, doubling him over. A flick of his blade at the back of the pirate’s neck ended him as well.
As soon as the pirate’s body fell to the deck, everything sprung into motion. Pirates jumped over the other planks and onto the Norvus, and a few of the Norvus’s crew followed behind Vin. The pirates closest to Vin jumped at him, and he moved—settling into the movements of the Way of the Flowing Stream. Reading their movements, he danced between them as easy as a stream through a valley, lashing out with his blade and attempting to strike them when opportunities showed themselves. He was not however in possession of the same luck he’d had with the first three. Those three had been surprised, shocked, that he had attacked them first. The others were more cautious now, and he was not fast enough—he was barely faster than them, he noted with distaste.
He dared not use more of his ki, as he did not know for how long the fight was going to last. Instead, he fought with skill alone. His blade came up and he blocked an axe coming down toward his head. He pirouetted away and swiped low, cutting at the pirate’s leg. An angry shout of pain came out of the pirate’s mouth and his axe swiped wildly toward Vin. He parried and threw the axe away, then lashed out with his weapon, cutting the pirate’s face. Blood splashed and the pirate roared as he started swinging wide at Vin. He kept moving, evading the enraged pirate. Then, seeing an opening, he danced to the side and stabbed his blade into the pirate’s stomach.
He was about to finish the pirate when his senses warned him of a new danger. He abandoned the blade in the pirate’s stomach and jumped away to the side just as a ball of fire incinerated the pirate. Vin turned to the source—a mage, walking down the steps from the upper deck. Another mage was still up there, too, and was throwing spells at the Norvus’s mage, with her responding in kind. The closer mage, however, kept her eyes focused on Vin.
He might know how to fight mages, but the last time he had done so he had held enough power to lay waste to a mountain in a single strike—now, he could barely use the most basic of techniques. The mage stopped at the base of the stairs and raised her arms. With quick, deft movements of her hand, she wrote a symbol in the air and another ball of fire exploded toward him.
But Vin was no longer there. He rolled across the wooden deck and came up to his knees, locking his eyes with the mage’s. She pointed her arm at him again and started casting another spell.
Vin immediately Surged forward, his legs pushing him farther and faster forward. The best way to fight mages, he knew, was to never let them finish their spells. As soon as he drew close, the mage’s eyes widened and she abandoned the spell. Raising her hand, a ring on her finger glowed brightly and Vin felt a faint shimmer of power as it sprung around her. He had fought enough of their kind to identify it as a shielding spell. Unfortunately for the mage, his people had learned ways around such things. The
mage’s eyes widened at his speed, and as he reached her, he threw a punch toward her. As he expected, a shield of force stopped him, but the mage still stumbled back a step in fear. The shield’s relative lack of power surprised him; he could feel its power as his fist made contact, and it was nowhere near as strong as the ones he had encountered before from the Arashan.
He focused his ki into a simple Shaping technique and his palm came down on the mage’s shield. His ki punched into the shield, disrupting it, and a moment later it fell apart. The mage’s eyes followed him in shock as he raised his fist, and with a burst of a Surging technique, punched her directly in the chest. He felt her chest cave in as the bones cracked and she released a harsh gasp as air left her crushed lungs. He grabbed her hair and smashed her head against the stairs, ending her suffering. He didn’t even think about it; all he could see when he looked at the woman was the Arashan mages raining fire down on his people’s villages, burning the defenseless.
A scream of rage was his only warning.
Vin jumped backward as a wave of force crashed into his previous position. Even though it had missed, the blast was powerful enough that it caught him midair, throwing him to the deck. The second mage was glaring at him with hate in his eyes. His hands flashed in front of him lightning-fast and spells flew at Vin. He jumped and danced away through the air as lances of power stabbed into the deck where he had been. Vin focused and tried to Shape a counter attack, but the mage was too fast and Vin too slow and weak. Spells flew out of the mage’s hands, and bindings of light came at Vin. He ducked and then jumped to the side, evading the one, but the other caught his wrist and he jerked to a stop in mid-air. Others soon followed, and Vin found himself bound in the air, unable to move. The mage grained wickedly and raised his hand toward Vin, preparing another spell.
