by PT Hylton
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dustin stared out at the two figures floating over the water, one held up by his wind, the other suspended by unknown means.
“What the hell are they doing?” Captain Syd asked, her voice heavy with tension.
“It looks like they’re talking,” the Storm Caller answered. “Actually, if I know Abbey, she is either scaring him off or she’s about to escalate things. There’s nothing for us to do but wait and see which one it is.”
They got the answer to that question a moment later when the mysterious figure’s hands began to glow. Dustin squinted toward him, trying to understand what he was seeing. “Is that fire?”
The man raised both hands into the air and two fireballs flew toward the ship.
There wasn’t time to do much other than brace themselves.
In the course of a moment, a dozen thoughts flashed through Dustin’s head. He felt fear for Abbey against this unknown but apparently powerful opponent, and fear for himself and his crewmates. He felt the grim determination and detached excitement he always felt when a battle was starting. He wondered about the man’s powers. They appeared to be some strange spin on what Benjamin could do plus the added benefit of flight.
All that and more ran through his head in the time it took the two fireballs to cross the space between the man and the ship. And then all thought was driven from his mind as the fireballs hit.
The ship shook with the force of them. One hit the mainsail, and it instantly caught fire. The other landed on the foredeck not far from Dustin.
Syd recovered more quickly than he did. “Let’s go!”
When he didn’t immediately respond, she grabbed his arm. He almost went with her, but then he shrugged her off. Abbey was still floating on his wind out there, facing down that fire-throwing freak. Without Dustin’s wind she’d be helpless.
He could see sailors on the deck of the other ship now, bows in hand, taking aim at Abbey. He had to get her out of there.
Ignoring the fire at his back and the panicked cries from his shipmates, he gripped his staff and closed his eyes, conjuring a wind that would bring her toward The Foggy Day. He opened his eyes just in time to see her take a swing at the fire-throwing man with her sword, before Dustin’s wind pulled her back.
As she began to move toward The Foggy Day, Dustin turned and for the first time truly understood the gravity of their situation. There weren’t just two small fires on the ship. The fire from the mainsail had quickly spread and the ship was now ablaze.
Two more fireballs struck the ship, and Dustin cursed. He hadn’t even seen the mysterious man throw them, and it was his job to prevent attacks.
Chaos erupted all around as sailors vainly attempted to douse the flames. A single look told him there was no way that was happening. He could bring down the heaviest rainfall of his life and it still wouldn’t make a difference.
The fire on the foredeck wasn’t as bad as the inferno blazing on the main deck now. He moved around it, and spotted Syd leading the efforts to fight the fire. Damn that stubborn woman, he thought. He knew she wouldn’t give up her ship, even when it was obviously beyond saving. Not unless someone talked some sense into her.
He scurried down the causeway, yelling as he went. “Syd! Look around.”
She glanced up at him for just a moment, and he saw absolute fury in her eyes. Then she turned back to the line of men hauling buckets of water from the sea.
He marched up to her and touched her arm. “It’s too late. You have to give the order.”
“No way,” she snarled, not even looking at him.
“Listen to me! Your crew would follow you to hell. They’ll keep fighting this fire as long as you tell them to, and every one of them will die. Unless you give the order.”
Syd looked up, and he saw tears standing in her eyes. She was shaking with rage. “Who the hell is this guy? Why’d he attack us?”
“We’ll figure that out later. You have to give the order!”
“I know!” She looked around at her ship, what she could see of it through the billows of smoke pouring from the hull. Then she spoke in a loud voice. “Crew!” She paused for only a moment before giving the order. “Abandon ship.”
The crew obeyed without question or hesitation, as they always did for her. Men and women, some of whom had been sailing on The Foggy Day for years, ran to the rails and jumped into the sea.
Dustin hurried to the ship’s boat, hoping he could lower it and use it as a base of operations for his rescue efforts. That idea was quickly quashed when he saw that it too was on fire.
He found Syd on the poop deck on the starboard side, an area the fire had not yet reached. He knew she wouldn’t leave until she was sure her entire crew was off. From the number of sailors treading water near the ship, it had to be close to empty.
Syd took one last look at the inferno blazing on the main deck.
“There’s nothing more you can do,” Dustin called over the sounds of the fire.
“Promise me we’ll get him,” Syd said. “Whoever the hell he is. Promise me we’ll make him pay.”
Dustin managed a weak smile. “We’ll get him.”
He climbed onto the rail, took a deep breath, and jumped.
The fall seemed to take much longer than it should have. As he landed, his head collided with something. It could have been a piece of wood from the ship, something that had been tossed overboard, or even another person. But whatever it was, the world went momentarily dark, and he had the detached realization that he was about to drown. Then there was nothing.
He came to when someone grabbed him around the waist. Something pulled at him, and his head broke the surface of the water. He gasped, and salty air filled his burning lungs.
A voice whispered in his ear. “Stay still. I’m trying to save your ass. Again.”
At the sound of the voice, everything wrong with the world—the chaos around him, the fact that he’d just lost his ship to an unknown foe—all slipped away. Abbey had him in her arms.
He felt himself grow lighter and the sea carried the two of them. For a long time, he said nothing. He simply trusted Abbey. Then his head began to clear, and he spoke. “What are we doing?”
“We have to regroup.” Abbey’s voice sounded absolutely cold. “We’re going to kill that son of a bitch, but we have to regroup first.”
Dustin accepted that. Abbey wasn’t one to retreat, not ever. If she said they needed to regroup, he absolutely believed it.
A few moments later Dustin felt sand beneath his feet. Abbey released him, and he struggled his way to a standing position. They were on the island, the one he’d seen in the distance beyond the ship.
He looked out at the water and saw both ships, one burning and the other triumphant. He also saw smaller boats in the water. Those would be the enemy taking the survivors of The Foggy Day captive, Dustin knew.
“Abbey, I saw you talking to that man. Who is he?”
Abbey clenched her fists, and her voice was choked with emotion when she answered. “I don’t know who he really is or what he really wants. All I know is what he told me. He says he’s my brother.”
With that, she turned away from the sea and walked up the beach. Dustin took one last look at The Foggy Day, then followed his friend.
She was right. It was time to regroup.
***
Abbey marched up the beach, her eyes searching the landscape. The island was heavily forested beyond the beach, and a number of hills rose in front of them. She saw a few columns of smoke rising from the peak of the nearest hill.
“Dustin, look,” she said, gesturing toward the smoke. “There’s some kind of settlement up there. Maybe they know of a boat we could use, or maybe they can point us to a fishing village on this island.”
Dustin stumbled up beside her, and put his hands on his knees. “That’s great, but don’t you think we should discuss what just happened?”
She struggled to keep the emotion out of her voice wh
en she answered. “What’s to discuss? You were there, same as me. He has our friends. Talking about our feelings won’t save them. We need to act.”
She started walking again, but Dustin quickly stopped her.
“Hold on. We need to figure out what’s going on before we go running off into the woods. That guy said he’s your brother? Is that possible?”
Abbey sighed. “You want to talk about it? Fine. His name’s Simon. He’s obviously a physical magic user, so maybe he’s from Arcadia. Could he be my brother?” She paused for a moment, allowing herself to consider the possibility for the first time. “I highly doubt it, but maybe. He looked ten years older than me, and he referenced us having the same mother.”
“So maybe he’s your half-brother?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
Dustin leaned on his staff. How he’d managed to hang onto that thing while nearly drowning, she had no idea. “Any thoughts on why he destroyed our ship?”
Abbey closed her eyes for a moment before answering. This was why she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. If she could avoid talking about it, she could avoid thinking about it. “He said he was here because of me. He wanted to teach me a lesson so we could be the family we were always meant to be.”
“Seas and salt,” Dustin muttered. “That’s some serious horseshit. You know this isn’t your fault, right? The guy’s a lunatic.”
“A lunatic who might never have been in Kaldfell if it weren’t for me. I saw him in Holdgate, you know. I think he’s been watching me.”
The Storm Caller shook his head. “Something about this doesn’t track. We have to assume he burned Undertow. Was that about teaching you a lesson too?”
“I don’t know, but I do know this.” She turned toward him, raising a finger. “If you hadn’t pulled me back, we might have stood a chance in that fight.”
Dustin’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I was signaling for you to send me forward, not back! If I could have gotten aboard their ship, maybe I could have done something.”
“Like what? Our ship was already on fire! I’m not going to apologize for saving you from your fire-wielding crazy possible-half-brother.”
“Maybe you should. Our ship is gone, and our friends might be dead! Maybe the only—”
The sound of coughing from nearby interrupted her, and both Abbey and Dustin turned toward it.
A figure lay on the beach twenty yards north of them. They glanced at each other, then ran toward the person.
Abbey reached the spot just as the person rolled over. It was Hekla, and although she was pale and still coughing a little, she wore a wide smile.
“Never let it be said a Barskall can’t swim as well as a Holdgatesman,” she said weakly.
They allowed her to rest for a minute, then Abbey helped her to her feet. Abbey had to admit, it was pretty impressive that Hekla had managed to swim all that way when none of the others had.
“So it’s just us?” the Barskall woman asked.
Abbey nodded. “I’m afraid we have to assume the others are dead or captured.”
Hekla grimaced. She hadn’t been on The Foggy Day long, but she’d been working closely with Elliot and Sigmund for years on Gren with the Tall Grass Raiders, and she had a blossoming relationship with Olaf. “We need to find a way off this island. That fire-throwing asshole won’t defeat himself.”
“Our thoughts exactly,” Abbey said. “We can either wander the coast searching for a settlement, or head into the woods and find the source of that smoke. I vote for the latter.”
Hekla nodded. “We should go where we know there are people.”
Dustin sighed. “Fine. A walk in the woods it is.”
The forest proved to be fairly easy to move through. Unlike the one near Holdgate, there wasn’t a lot of undergrowth. The large trees blocked most of the light on the forest floor, and they were spaced far enough apart to allow for easy walking.
They lost sight of the columns of smoke as soon as they stepped into the forest, but they knew if they continued uphill they would reach the settlement. What they’d find there remained to be seen.
“I’m fairly certain Sigmund’s dead,” Hekla said suddenly. There was sadness in her voice, but she was holding it together surprisingly well for having just lost one of her oldest friends. “He was still standing on the main deck when it collapsed. I was about to jump over the side, and I saw him fall.”
“He’s a tough old bastard,” Dustin pointed out. “He could have survived. Maybe he climbed out through the hole that fireball put in the hull.”
It sounded ridiculous, but no one challenged the notion. They had to hang onto their hope, as thin as it was.
For Abbey’s part, she tried to remain focused on what would happen next. Find the settlement and ask about the nearest fishing village, then go there and beg, borrow, or steal a boat.
Beyond that, Abbey had no idea. It would be the three of them versus Simon and his shipful of…what? Barskall? Algonians? She didn’t have any idea who he’d aligned himself with.
Assuming she could find him, she’d save her friends, capture Simon, and find out what he really knew about her mother.
But those challenges would come later. For now, it was all about finding a boat and getting off this island.
After they’d been walking for ten minutes, they broke into a clearing and Abbey stopped. Dustin and Hekla did the same. All three of them stared at the strange relic in front of them.
It was Dustin who first gave voice to their thoughts. “What do you suppose this thing is?”
The other two just shook their heads. It was from the old world, that much was clear. The large structure was made of rotting wood and rusted metal, but it was not difficult to imagine how it might have looked when it was new.
Abbey wasn’t focused on the structure itself as much as the symbol on it. It was the symbol she’d seen in her dream.
CHAPTER EIGHT
For a moment Elliot thought he might be dead. The world was filled with fire, then his head went underwater and everything became quiet and dark. He swam as hard as he could toward the surface. When he’d been swimming for ten seconds, he realized the direction he was moving in wasn’t up. He didn’t know where up was. Then the panic set in.
He forced himself to relax, an almost impossible task with the chaos around him and his lungs screaming for oxygen. He stopped, let out a little of the precious air he was holding, and watched the bubbles. To his dismay they didn’t shoot straight in one direction to give him a clear answer as to which way the surface lay. Instead, they swirled in a number of directions, pulled by the currents.
But he did see the general direction the air bubbles went, and he swam hard after them.
When he finally broke the surface, he gulped air greedily and started treading water.
“There’s one!” a voice called.
He turned toward it, and saw three men staring at him from a small boat. They angled their vessel toward him and began to row.
His first instinct was to flee, to swim away from them as quickly as possible. But flee where? His ship was burning. There was an island nearby, but there was no way he could make it there before they caught up to him.
As much as he hated to admit it, his best bet was to allow himself to be captured.
He kept treading water as the boat rowed up to him. Two men reached down and roughly pulled him from the water.
“Thanks, gentlemen,” he said with a weak smile. “Drop me off in Holdgate?”
One of the men smacked him hard. “No talking!”
Elliot did as ordered, but he watched the men carefully as they rowed back to their ship. He was fairly certain he could take the boat from them. He’d start with the one who’d smacked him. He’d slam into the man’s legs and knock him over the side. He’d catch the second man with an uppercut, and shove him into the water after his friend. That would leave the last man, the one who was rowing.
Bu
t again, he wondered what the point would be. The mysterious fire-wielding man stood at the bow of the ship, watching the boats as they captured sailors from The Foggy Day. Even if Elliot’s plan went smoothly, he’d be an easy target for that man’s fireballs in his slow rowboat. His best bet was to ride this out.
A few minutes later the sailors hauled him onto the ship, tied his hands, and tossed him wordlessly through a hatch.
“Ah, thank the sea,” a familiar voice said.
Elliot grimaced. It was dark down here and his eyes had yet to adjust, but he’d recognize his sister’s voice anywhere. “They got you too?”
“At least we’re still alive,” a man said. Elliot recognized the voice as belonging to Fannar.
“You’re not kidding. It was a close thing for a minute. Who else is down here?”
Syd answered. “Looks like they grabbed most of us. It’s getting crowded, but I’ve never been happier to be jammed into such a tight space with so many people.”
It turned out only a dozen of the crew was still unaccounted for. These included Dustin, Abbey, Hekla, and Sigmund.
“Damn it,” Elliot said.
“Yeah.” There was sorrow in his sister’s voice. “I saw Sigmund fall into the fire belowdecks. The others… I don’t know.”
“I know one thing,” Olaf said, his voice shaking with barely contained fury. “That bastard is going to pay.”
“That he will,” Syd agreed, “but we have to be smart about it. I recognize this ship. It’s from Algon. The flagship of their fleet, if I remember correctly.”
Elliot took that in. He’d heard about Algon’s attempts to create a magic school, but he hadn’t heard of them outright attacking Holdgate ships. And he was almost sure he’d seen a few Barskall on the deck before they tossed him down here.
Had the Barskall aligned with the Algonians?
Syd continued, “This is a shitty situation, there’s no denying that, but things aren’t as bad as they could be.”
For just a moment Elliot was glad for the dark, since it meant his sister couldn’t see the skeptical expression on his face. “How’s that, exactly?”