Captain's Sacrifice
Page 8
out. “Assan, I need your help! Please! Stand and fight!”
The golden-haired merman made no answer. His eyes were sightless stones, unable to accept Meyroth’s betrayal. Never had such care touched Assan’s innocent face. It mirrored Chatir’s own when she had realized that Assan’s heart was on the surface. Seeing herself in him, Chatir realized the absence of her unrequited love. Already those feelings seemed as distant as childhood tears.
“I see you kept busy in your own realm, Assan!” Meyroth spat his name as though it were gall. “How many others were there? Did I mean so little to you?” With each question, she drove her sword harder against Chatir’s, forcing the smaller woman to give ground. Jealousy gave her wild strength that breached Chatir’s weakening defenses. In moments, Meyroth had disarmed Chatir and driven her against the mast.
“Well, Assan.” Meyroth sneered, her blade tracing a light line against Chatir’s neck. “How shall I kill your lover? Slit her pretty throat? Gut her like the fish she is and forcefeed her to you?”
“N…no…please!” Assan’s plea was little more than a croak.
“No?” Meyroth mocked. “Hmm. I know what to do.” The sword point slipped down Chatir’s throat to the sunshell’s cord. “I’ll smash this shell she’s wearing. The one you told me was so rare and expensive! And then…”
Now Assan got to his feet. “Please, Meyroth! Don’t do this!”
Chatir was watching from the corner of her eye, so she could not be certain; it seemed Assan was inching toward the geluvial. He would never make it in time, she realized.
So it would end here, Chatir thought, closing her eyes. She hoped her duty to Zurolind would be fulfilled. Beneath her feet, the wooden planks trembled. Meyroth’s crew, no doubt. She would show them what it meant to die with honor.
“Throw down your weapon!” a familiar voice commanded.
Chatir’s eyes shot open. Egudar! Egudar, not only alive, but standing before her, his double-sided spear poised to attack. And behind him, the last of the Third Brigade, just short of ten in all. Each bore wounds worthy of a tale. Each stood strong.
Chatir’s throat tightened. Part of her was grateful that so many lived, while another part of her experienced her grief for the dead as a sword blow, stunning disbelief at first, followed by crippling pain.
“And if I don’t?” Meyroth challenged Egudar with snapping eyes.
“This ship is ours.” Egudar’s voice was as hard as steel. “Disobey, and we will make an example of you to the other prisoners.”
“You’re lying!” Meyroth screamed. She lashed out with her strange, straight sword.
Egudar raised his spear to meet her and sent her stumbling back. With his usual stern gravity, Egudar motioned the Brigade forth. Meyroth’s dark face turned ghastly pale. She leaped into the rigging. Chatir thought she would pull herself to the safety of the topsails, but instead, a splash sounded.
Chatir rushed to the side with the rest of her Brigade. Meyroth was swimming for the wreckage of a small ship.
“Why aren’t you going after her?” Chatir started to say. It would be a simple matter for a mersoldier to catch the human woman in the water. “Egudar? What is it?”
“I left fifteen mersoldiers holding back humans on the Q deck,” Egudar said. “I knew this area had to be clear if I was to fool Meyroth.”
Chatir shook her head in amazement. Leave it to Egudar to tell a lie that she herself believed.
“Come.” Egudar raised the hilt of Chatir’s geluvial to her. “They will surely rally to learn their captain lives.”
{****}
The battle of the big ship lasted until dawn. The fray took its toll on the mersoldiers, reducing the brigades to less than ten. Assan and Radien were among the fallen. Every time Chatir thought the big ship conquered, another pocket of humans would surge out of a hiding place like rats. At last, in the sun’s light, it seemed none remained to oppose them, or none dared.
“Honored comrades,” Chatir said when she had gathered her remaining soldiers to her. “It would seem that, at last, this day is ours.” Behind her, the sun shone on her skin. It did not burn as she had imagined it would; in fact, the sensation was rather pleasant.
The mersoldiers were too spent to cheer. The most they could manage were weary smiles.
Though Chatir had spared one man to stand watch, he had yet to herald the long-awaited signal. Chatir tried to cheer herself, but she knew without the First and King’s Brigade, Zurolind would be defenseless against human reinforcements, if they came. She had not yet decided if Meyroth was more vengeful or cowardly.
“Captain!” a mersoldier stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. “What is happening to you?”
Chatir looked down at her hands. Sea-green fire raged around her flesh. Yet, she felt no pain, and the flames did not scorch the deck. “Zurolind is safe now,” Chatir whispered.
“Fire cannot survive in water.” Egudar’s brisk tone could not disguise that he was shaken by the sight. He reached for Chatir gingerly. Finding that the fire did not burn him, he lifted her gently, as though he carried her wounded from the battlefield. For an instant, they fell together. Then the sea wrapped Chatir in its embrace, rocked her, murmured a consoling song in her ears.
“Captain! The flames still burn! Have you any idea what this new devilry can be?” Egudar’s harsh voice grated in her ears. He drew closer to inspect the fire.
“To call upon the leviathans, a sacrifice is required. The summoner must trade his or her own life,” Chatir softly recounted from the great tome. “They are calling me…I can hear their songs from the Rift.”
Egudar shook his head in slow disbelief. Grief pooled in the corners of his otherwise impassive eyes.
“Here.” Chatir reached among the green tangles of her hair and freed the flat effigy of the leviathans. She attempted to hold it out to Egudar, but her hand fell. “Keep this. Should Zurolind ever need it again…”
“The signal!” a voice called, it seemed from miles away. “The signal!”
Then Egudar was turning with Chatir in his arms, pointing into the distance at mist raised by no wave. Out of the spray winked the jewel-facet flash of tails. Nine times, the mersoldiers leaped free of the waters. Chatir’s own heart danced with them through the blue and white. The Brigades had returned! All her being sang out in gladness, as though she were once again a little merchild.
Mustering all her strength, Chatir raised her head to Egudar. Somehow her hand found his.
Above, the seagulls mourned, even as they soared.
“Egudar. Give Lillia my love.”
“Yes,” Egudar whispered. The wetness on his cheeks might have been a mere trickle running down a cliff’s crags.
“And remember. Zurolind is in your hands.”
Chatir surrendered herself to the leviathans’ fire. As all that she was passed into flame, her lips curved in a smile.
The end.
The End
{****}
Other stories by Meghann McVey:
This concludes the unrequited love stories...for now. For the next story, I intend to post a big chunk of my fantasy novel Lachlan of Marinus. Hope to see you there!
PS: You can find a teaser for Lachlan of Marinus here.