The Journey to Karrith

by Ted Neill

  “Best you all board,” Cody said, pushing Haille and Katlyn towards the Tameramb. They needed little urging and sprinted up the gangway. Gunther dashed from the wheel well to the masts to lower the two lanteen sails. Victor Twenge called out from the dock.

  “You’ll add piracy to your crimes, Mandaly. You’ll hang for sure if I don’t kill you!”

  Two of his men reached the base of the gangway but Chloe stepped from behind a stack of crates, deflected their spears with her staff, knocked one on his rear and the second she tripped up and flung into the water. Twenge wove between the cargo to pursue Val himself. Val drew his own staff and caught the swing of Twenge’s sword in the center.

  Twenge’s teeth were barred, his eyes burning as he met Val strike for strike, his blade clanging against the strange but solid wood of the elven staff.

  “I won’t kill you Twenge—”

  “After all this time, you Oban Knights are still fools.”

  More men came down the pier. Chloe and Cody, seeing they were outnumbered, retreated to the ship, which was beginning to draw away from the dock, Gunther speaking charms into the sails. Three men tried to climb the gangway as it slid off the deck. Cody gave it a kick and all three men went tumbling into the harbor.

  “Captain, ship’s leaving!” Cody called out.

  Val could only spare a glance at the departing Tameramb. Twenge had his way blocked. Haille watched with growing panic as the ship continued to slip away from the planks of the dock. Out of the mist, a man screamed. His voice was followed by the sound of another body hitting the water. Azure, Sapphire, and Cyan came swooping through the air and with a clatter of hooves on wood, Adamantus appeared out of the gloom, casting aside Twenge’s men and sending cargo spilling over the dock. Twenge had no time to react as Adamantus caught him on his antlers and sent him spinning into the harbor. In the same motion, the elk came alongside Val. Val threw a leg over the elk’s back and grabbed hold of his fur as Adamantus galloped across the planks of the dock. The elk launched them both into the air, clearing the gunwale and tumbling onto the deck, legs, antlers, battle staff clanging together in a tangled heap.

  Gunther called out a spell, his voice rising over the clamor of Twenge’s men, and the sails stretched out in a gust of wind.

  “Thank you, elk,” Val said, spreading out on his back.

  Adamantus let out a long huff. “Couldn’t leave without you. Or let you leave without me.”

  Chloe drew her sword, lifting it up, on guard, towards the elk.

  “Oh yes,” Val said. “I think I forgot to mention our friend Adamantus here. He has a lot to say for himself.”

  Chapter 26

  The Hand Sea

  The rising sun brushed the sky in streaks of magenta and gold before slipping behind a lid of clouds. It turned into a gray day. The pewter-colored sea was choppy with jagged waves, ropes of white froth curling about their crests. Val stood with the others behind the wheel, staring out to the north with a spyglass.

  “They are following,” he said, squinting at the two sets of sails that had appeared to their stern. They had only been at sea in the Tameramb for a few hours before the trailing ships had edged over the line of the horizon.

  “Shouldn’t the charm you spoke into the wind keep us ahead of them?” Cody asked Gunther, who stood behind the wheel, his hands resting on the spokes. The amateur sorcerer looked up to the sails, filled like fat clouds above them. “I’m not so practiced that I can call down a wind just for our ship. They likely follow in our wake on the same breeze that pushes us.”

  “Then why do they gain?” Val asked, handing the spyglass to Chloe.

  “They are smaller, lighter crafts. They are not much more than fishing skiffs,” Chloe said, aiming the cylinder north. “Twenge would not have had time to outfit them with supplies either. They will starve out here.”

  “Then they will have to turn back,” Cody said, hope in his voice.

  “No, it means they will have to catch us. It’s just the kind of motivation Twenge would want for his men.”

  “At the rate they are coming, with these conditions, they will reach us before nightfall,” the elk said. Haille noticed Katlyn pull her cloak tighter and Cody touch his sword. Chloe shook her head, as if still unused to hearing the elk speak. Gunther, by contrast, was happy to engage the elk.

  “I imagine Twenge commandeered those boats much as we did this one,” Gunther said.

  “Twenge can be very persuasive when he needs to be. It’s best we prepare to be boarded,” Val said.

  “There is still cargo in the hold,” Chloe said. “Should we toss it overboard to gain speed?”

  “No,” Val said. “See if there is anything we can use. Move what you can to barricade the railings. Surely we can build a wall or crates around the gunwales and force them to board where we want them to.”

  Haille and Katlyn followed Cody and Chloe below, carrying lanterns for them in the gloom. They emptied the foodstuffs and trading goods and carried the empty boxes topside, stacking them along with wine casks to build bulwarks along the starboard and port of the ship. By placing obstacles close to the stern they would force their pursuers to board at the bow where the chop was heaviest.

  “It won’t stop them, but it will slow them,” Chloe said.

  Katlyn found tubs of lard in the hold which they spread along the railings, making them slick and difficult to grab. Aside from securing the crates and barrels, there was not much left to do but wait. Katlyn and Cody both gravitated to the middeck behind Gunther,where the elk had stationed himself, Sapphire and Azure in his antlers, their feathers ruffling in the wind. Cyan, on the other hand, floated in the breeze behind the Tameramb, dipping and diving with the seagulls that followed off the stern. Val and Chloe had sat down at the stern together, their staffs in their hands, watching, waiting, as the sails of the following ships drew closer. Haille crossed the deck and sat down next to them. They were quiet and he hoped he had not caused them to abandon whatever conversation they were having. But then Val spoke.

  “Prince Haille, I’m glad you joined us.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “We were just discussing contingency plans. The close call on the docks left me thinking, what happens if I am taken and you all escape.”

  “You won’t be.”

  “Willing does not make it so. In a pinch, I would be the first to stay behind to cover our retreat. It only makes sense. I could also freeze up again.”

  Haille swallowed, unsure how to address Val and his candor.

  “I could tell Twenge I am the prince.”

  “He’s not likely to believe you,” Chloe said, tapping her staff softly with the heels of her hands.

  “No, if the time comes, I want you to be able to act without me,” Val continued. “It is one of the reasons I wanted Chloe with us. She can take command in my place.”

  “With all due respect to Madam Chloe, sir, I can’t imagine, such a scenario.”

  “I don’t want it to happen any more than you do,” Chloe said.

  Val squinted at the approaching sails. They had grown larger in the past minutes.

  “Twenge might not give us a choice.”

  The sea grew rougher, with heavy swells crashing up against the hull of the Tameramb. Haille felt off, his head aching, his eyesight blurry. He wanted it to be seasickness, but he was worried it was something else: a coming seizure. It had been weeks since his last, but the exhaustion and the tension were mounting within him, and he had learned that an episode of the shaking sickness would follow. Cyan retired from frolicking to rest inside the corner of Haille’s hood. He rubbed his feathers against Haille’s cheek, but Haille felt numb.

  “Are you seasick, Haille?” Katlyn asked.

  “Worse, I think it’s the shaking sickness.”

  “It has ill timing,” she said, moving closer to him. She placed her hand on his. “Haille, I’ll never forget the sacrifice you made at the font.”

  Haille nodded. “In
the moment, the choice was easy.”

  “But now?”

  “Now I’m still grateful, long as I don’t fall overboard.”

  “Well then, maybe you stay back from the railing,” she scolded with a gentle smile.

  Haille obeyed, stepping backward. “I’m going below to find a cork or something for my teeth. My bite pallet has been missing weeks now.”

  Haille negotiated the steps to the hold with extra care, his head spinning and his right leg beginning to twitch. It was dark below deck but he was reluctant to carry a lantern and run the risk of dropping it in a full seizure and lighting the ship afire. Instead he navigated by feel and found a crate of wine jugs packed in straw. He wrenched a cork free and slipped it into his breast pocket. His leg was growing more stiff with each step he made back to the main deck where the wind was blowing spray off the curled tops of the waves. The sun had set but the growing dark did not deter Twenge and his men. As expected, they closed from either side of the Tameramb, their hulls low in the water with their heavy cargo of men and weapons. On the skiff to starboard, Haille could see Twenge himself holding to the mast, issuing orders to the man at the tiller.

  The Tameramb climbed a tall swell then dropped down into a trough. Gunther strained at the wheel.

  “Going to make some interesting fighting,” Cody said.

  “Take positions. Cody and Chloe to port. I’ll take the starboard with Adamantus. Haille, Katlyn, hang back with Gunther,” Val ordered. The others obeyed while the jays left Adamantus’ antlers to perch in the rigging. The skiff to starboard disappeared behind a swell only to reappear sliding down, its face closing on the Tameramb. The helmsman turned it hard to port and the wood hulls banged up against one another. The cargo they had barricaded the deck with served its purpose, limiting the space of attack. The first man leapt to the rail only to slip on the lard spread along its length. The next bunch of men met with the same fate. The one man who successfully climbed over the rail, Adamantus tipped back into the sea.

  The skiff to port came flush against the Tameramb and the same results played out: the first attackers slipping off the greased rail, the second batch knocked overboard by Chloe and her staff.

  Haille became hopeful they would repel all of the men as easily, until the skiff to port crashed so hard into the Tameramb that the railing buckled and the remaining men were simply thrown overboard, some into the sea, others rolling onto the deck. Among them Haille noticed hired thugs from Pinky Port, including Konrad with the gold chain between nose and earring. The fighting on the port side soon turned bloody with the men raising their axes at Cody and Chloe. Cody did not hesitate to run them through with his blade. Konrad had a special grudge against Chloe and he dashed for her as soon as he found footing on the deck. She was ready for him, meeting him with a swing of her staff into his gut then following with a strike to the back of his head. He fell flat, face down at her feet, Gunther pounding the wheel in triumph.

  “Watch out!” Haille cried as a raider clambered up onto the main deck and made for the wheel well.

  “Take the wheel, steer us into the waves,” Gunther said, drawing his own sword and meeting the attacker while Cyan snapped his wings and flew into the man’s face, distracting him long enough that Gunther could plant a foot in his chest and sent him sprawling to the starboard deck. Adamantus was quickly on him, lifting him up over the rail with his antlers and tossing him overboard before catching the sword of another raider in his crown.

  Gunther was quickly engaged with more fighting. Haille concentrated on keeping the wheel steady but his muscles were increasingly unresponsive. Eventually he slumped back entirely, his vision darkening at the edges.

  “Haille, are you all right?” Katlyn asked

  “I don’t have much time,” he said as a red flame flared at the corner of his vision. Men on the starboard skiff had knocked over a lantern to light a fire on the Tamerbamb. The railing, covered in grease, lit up blue then orange as it took off. Twenge’s face was a mix of light and shadow, the delight of the chase displayed naked on his face. He leapt through the wall of flame onto the deck and wasted no time drawing his sword and engaging with Val.

  “Katlyn, you have to put out the fire. I’ll hold the wheel as long as I can.”

  “But you are weak.”

  “We have no choice,” Haille said, probing his pocket with his fingers to find the cork.

  Katlyn nodded, took a bucket from next to the water barrels and carried it to the growing inferno to starboard. Haille leaned into the wheel, holding it in place more with his dead weight than any strength in his arms. The paralysis affecting his right side, his arm through his leg, was throwing off any balance he had left. He was nearly at the mercy of the swells, sliding back and forth as the ship heaved, their course changing and the angle of the waves beginning to change too, striking them off the port bow and sending foam and spray onto the fighting.

  Cody and Chloe had the edge: most of the fighters on their side were injured or swimming in the sea back to their skiff. Others were knocked cold on the deck boards, but Konrad was coming to, lifting himself up on his elbows, then his forearms as he shook his head and recovered from Chloe’s blow. Chloe had taken the measure of the few fighters remaining on the port deck and left them for Cody, crossing to the starboard where she ducked under a man’s sword swing and swept his legs out from beneath him with her staff. No man was able to slip past the spinning windmill of her staff or escape an elbow to the face or a knee to the groin. She was closing on Twenge, ready to take him from behind when a wave hit them broadside, causing the Tameramb to list heavily to starboard. Every fighting match paused while combatants struggled to grab rigging or railings. Chloe bent at the knees and propped herself against the wall of the main cabin but the angle put her at a disadvantage, the main deck rising up over her and with it, Konrad.

  He used the opportunity to drop onto her from above, taking her hair in one hand and putting a knife to her throat with the other. He called out to Val, snarling his name, the point of his blade drawing a bead of blood from Chloe’s exposed neck.

  “Surrender or I slay her!” he said.

  Haille’s companions froze, the deck growing unnaturally still. Adamantus squared off with two men; Cody had been rushing across the main deck to aid his friends but stopped in place. Katlyn stood with another bucket of water, poised over the growing flames. Val paused, his battle staff crossed and still against his chest. Twenge smiled, his own sword at the ready.

  “It’s over, Mandaly,” he said.

  Val seemed to know it, his arms slackening, his staff lowering. Except for his eyes: they roved the deck and fell on Gunther, who unlike the others had his eyes shut, closed off from the action, his face twisted in concentration while his lips moved and he clenched his hands into fists.

  Haille became aware that the sea all around them had grown flat with an eerie calm. Off the bow he thought one of the skiffs had caught fire only to realize the wavering orange aura was just the reflection of their own burning craft on the face of a towering wave of water. Katlyn turned to see it, let her bucket drop and clatter across the deck, and grabbed the nearest rigging. Adamantus fell to his knees and struck the ends of his antlers into the deck, anchoring his body. Haille wrapped the crook of his shaking elbow around the wheel and grabbed hold of his own wrist.

  “God’s preserve us,” Val said as the Tameramb pitched up, bowsprit lifting towards the sky. Then the wall of water came down like an avalanche. The wave rolled over the ship, pure, cold violence. When he felt air on his face again, Haille opened his eyes and saw a deck swirling with draining water. His vision was blurred but he could see the decks had been cleared and his friends were holding on to the posts in the starboard rail, the fire there extinguished, the rigging snapping as the main mast tilted then fell like a tree across the bow. The lines caught and the foremast was ensnared too, snapping halfway up and sliding over the bow and into the sea.

  Haille could account for all his
friends, the elk, too. Konrad had ridden out the wave, too, and held onto the slippery rail just next to Chloe. Not forgetting his vendetta against her, he climbed onto the deck and charged her with his knife.

  “No!” came Gunther’s cry from across the deck. He raised his hand and a second wave like a small mountain slammed the ship just behind Konrad. The water swept over the rail and surged around the sailor, foam tendrils enveloping him and tightening around his corded muscles. His body was stuck and as he fought against the force of the sea, Gunther raised his other hand and such a rush of wind raced across the deck that the remains of the foremast snapped, flipped, and caught Konrad in the chest as it tumbled over the railing and into the dark, undulating waters.

  The six of them, plus the elk, remained fixed in place as the crippled Tameramb rolled on the waves—waves that were returning to their normal cadence. Gunther staggered across the deck and met Chloe in a long embrace. Cody, using his sword for balance, helped Katlyn to her feet. The elk, his fur soaking and plastered to his body, pulled his antlers free of the planks with a shower of splinters and shook himself dry.

  Only Val turned to the railing, leaning over, looking for survivors. When he saw one, he called out to Cody who came to his side and held his legs while Val pulled a coughing and choking Twenge out of the water.

  Haille, confused and beginning to convulse, slid free of the wheel, giving himself over to his tremors as he watched the world turn black.

  Haille woke, his head in Chloe’s lap as she hummed a soft melody over him. The others had erected a brazier on the deck where a fire was burning, throwing off enough heat to dry their clothes and boil water for tea. Drinking tea was all they could do, given that the Tameramb was crippled, without sails, and now rode the waves at the whim of the wind. It was difficult to determine the time. The day was dim, the sky gray with low white clouds scudding across it.