Wielder's Prize

by Elle Cardy

  She heard the men in pursuit. They fell into the boxes, they trampled the nails and kicked the planks. She dashed into a shallow nook on the right and stopped. Rain began to fall. She hugged her body against the wet stone wall. All she could hear were her heavy breaths and the soft hush of rain.

  Be hidden, she told herself.

  “Where’s the cur gone?” Roberts asked nearby.

  She held her breath when they appeared in front of her hiding place.

  “He can’t have gone far,” Blondie said with his back to her. “There’s too much coin at stake if we give up now.”

  Roberts sheathed his knife. “Fine, but if I see him first you’re gonna have to hold me back from kill’n’ him.”

  Their noisy movements disappeared down the alley. When Jasmine was alone again, she took a gasping breath and felt it rake through her chest. The strength in her legs failed and she sank to her knees. She would have cried if she’d been able. The ability to cry had long been beaten out of her.

  After a while the rain stopped. Jasmine stirred when the sun broke through the clouds. She had to return to the ship. She’d be safe there. And she still had the message from Madam Bruosh to give the captain. Duty got her to her feet.

  Jasmine staggered through the back alleyways. She followed the stench of dead fish and the cacophony of excited seagulls. She found the wharf, but held back. Staying in the shadows of the alley, she searched the crowds for any sign of the three men. When she was convinced they weren’t anywhere close, she stepped out.

  “Midge!”

  Jasmine almost bolted, but she recognized the caller. It was Mathews along with Hensley and Curtin from the Prize.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said with genuine relief.

  “Aye and you. Come have a pint with us.”

  Jasmine didn’t want to spend any more time on dry soil than she had to. “I have to head back to the ship. Thanks anyways.”

  “Not even one pint?” Matthews looked like he’d already been drinking.

  “I have a message for the captain.”

  “In that case, half a pint.” He dropped a heavy arm on her shoulders and tried to guide her toward the Pig and Weasel. If she hadn’t encountered the men from the Seahawk, she would’ve joined them. And she would’ve stayed for more than just half a pint. It would’ve earned her another beating, and normally she wouldn’t have cared, but she’d had enough trouble for one day.

  Jasmine twisted out of his drunken grasp and shuffled away. “Another time.”

  A hand clasped her upper arm. Tight. “Now’s as good a time as any,” said Roberts behind her. Blondie and Scarface were there too. They all grinned with delight at having found their prize.

  For all the seaweed in all the seas. This could not be happening.

  “Roberts!” Matthews declared. “Good to see ya, mate.”

  Jasmine stared from one to the other. “You know each other?”

  “Aye, mate. This here is Roberts.” Matthews waved his hand in Blondie’s general direction and said, “That’s Peters, and good ole scarface here is Lars. We worked together on the Celeste.”

  She tried to pull herself free from Robert’s clasp, but he held her in a vice-like grip. “Didn’t the Celeste sink?”

  “Aye, mate. Such a tragedy.” And they all burst out laughing as if they shared some hideous joke.

  She gave him another useless shove. “You’re hurting me.”

  “You’re such a girl. I’m barely touching ya.”

  “Matthews, these men tried to attack me.” He was her only hope now.

  Matthews frowned. He peered at his mates through his drunken haze. “Naw, you must be mistaken. Let’s all have a pint together.”

  The men cheered and dragged Jasmine into the Pig and Weasel. It was filled with more smoke than earlier and more patrons populated the tavern. The men claimed a booth in the back. Roberts crammed Jasmine into the corner against the wall and sat next to her on the bench. She couldn’t move. Peters sat opposite her with a very drunken Curtin and Hensley.

  Lars and Matthews went to the bar. While they were gone, Roberts pulled out his knife. “Remember this?”

  Jasmine didn’t reply but neither could she take her eyes off the polished blade. Roberts slammed it into the table in front of her. She tried not to flinch and failed. Roberts laughed. “You near broke my jaw earlier,” he whispered close to her ear. “I’ve half a mind to repay the favor.”

  She squirmed in her seat, making Roberts squeeze her against the wall even more. She could barely breathe. The stench of tobacco and rum threatened to drown her. She had to escape, but she couldn’t see how.

  “Get some ale into ya,” Matthews said when he returned from the bar with a large tray of tankards. Jasmine couldn’t see where Lars had gone.

  Curtin and Hensley needed no encouragement.

  “To the high seas!” Curtin toasted.

  “To buxom women!” Hensley added.

  “Aye!” and they drank. Jasmine stared at the tankard pushed in front of her and made no move to take it.

  “Midge, drink up,” Matthews said.

  “It’s rude not to drink to a toast,” Peters said. “You got something against the high seas? Or buxom women?”

  She ignored the taunt. “Let me go.”

  “Not until you drink.”

  She took her tankard of ale. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined her first taste of ale would be like. She always imagined it would be something she’d have to sneak past Cook. She scanned the patrons of the Pig and Weasel in the hope that her father might be there. It was the most likely of places she’d find him. But she couldn’t see him anywhere. Of course he wasn’t around when she needed him. Typical.

  “Well, what yer waiting for?” Roberts elbowed her.

  Jasmine frowned into the golden liquid and saw an ugly face staring back at her. If only she could run. She’d run away from these men. She’d run away from her father. She’d run away from herself.

  She took a tentative sip of the ale. It tasted of barley and bitterness.

  “Drink it all, boy.”

  She lifted the tankard again and this time she gulped the liquid down. Every last drop. It burned down her throat and settled in her knees. The room seemed to rock as if she were still on the ship. Her stomach wanted to turn.

  “Now,” she said. “Letmego.” She frowned at her slurred words and then a burp escaped her lips. The men at the table howled with laughter. Someone thrust a second tankard in front of her. “Nomore.”

  “Yes, more.” She had no idea who spoke. Maybe Peters?

  She concentrated on her words. “Let. Me. Go.”

  “After you drink, mate.” Someone closed her hand around the tankard and she drank again. A warmth began to fill her being. All her cares and fears seemed to melt away.

  “Am I glowing?”

  “Sure.”

  “I feel like I’m glowing.”

  “How many has he had?” This was a new voice.

  Jasmine recognized the voice. “I know you! You’re Lars…with the scars.” She giggled at her joke.

  “He’s had five.”

  “No, I’ve had two,” and she held up three fingers to prove it.

  “Are the others secure?” Peters asked. His voice seemed to float around her like flotsam.

  “Aye, they followed without a fight.”

  It was only then that Jasmine realized all three crew members of the Prize were missing. When did they leave? A sense of danger tried to force entry into her befuddled mind, but all she could think about was the ale swirling in her belly.

  “He looks like he’s gonna hurl.”

  “Give him one more for good measure.”

  “You’re evil, Lars.”

  “He broke my nose! This one ain’t getting away again. Give him another and then we can get out of this stink hole.”

  A tankard of ale appeared in front of her. She peer
ed at it with suspicion.

  “Drink!” someone commanded.

  “MustI?”

  “And then we’ll take you home.”

  There was something Jasmine had to remember, but she couldn’t. She wanted to sleep.

  “Just drink the ale like a man.”

  She remembered now. Her eyes lit up in drunken delight. “I’m not a man. I’m a girl.”

  “Perhaps he has had enough.”

  “I’ll say when he’s had enough.”

  “But,” Jasmine held up a hand to interrupt the argument. It seemed to sway as much as the room around her. “I can pretend to be a man.” With that she tipped the tankard up and downed its contents.

  The room tilted. Her warm glow turned into a sickly knot. “I don’t feel so good.” A sea breeze touched her sweating forehead and cooled a fever that burned there. She realized she was on her feet and she was outside. Two men flanked her and held her up. She’d forgotten their names. One was blond and smelled of salted fish. The thought of fish made her pale. She groaned.

  “I told ya he’d hurl.”

  Jasmine lay on the ground with a cheek pressed against the wet cobbles. “Leave me,” she murmured.

  “We ain’t leaving you nowhere.” Someone hauled her to her feet. The world rocked and the night sky shot past her vision in a starry blur. Throwing up again was a mighty good option. If she had the strength.

  “Can yer walk?”

  “Aye, captain.” She saluted the air. Her knees gave out the moment the men let go. She felt wood beneath her hands. With some help she managed to stagger to her feet again.

  “Get this disgrace below decks. We’re leaving.”

  She swayed. Firm hands held her up then guided her forward. She felt the power of the ocean below her. Its familiar swell comforted her. She leaned into one of the men, she didn’t know which.

  “Thank you for taking me home,” she said.

  “Aye, it’s what you deserve.”

  She smiled with contentment. With that foolish grin still fixed to her face, she collapsed in a heap, oblivious of everything around her.

  Chapter 4

  Jasmine woke to both darkness and a soul-wrenching sense of loss. Without having to look around, without having to be told, she knew she wasn’t on board the Wielder’s Prize. She was on the lower deck of the Seahawk.

  She sat up and felt the ocean surge. Her stomach flipped and she threw up into a bucket that someone had left by her side. She tried to purge all the sickness within, to expel the weakness that rattled through her bones. She only felt more debilitated as if a massive slice of her had been violently snatched away.

  “Breathe, boy. You’ll feel better in the morn.”

  Jasmine shifted. She hadn’t realized someone else was in the dark.

  “Who’s there?” She heard a soft clink of chains.

  “It’s me, lad. Your father.”

  “Cook?” That was the last person she’d expected to find there. He sounded… defeated. Was he hurt? She tried to crawl toward the sound of his voice but something caught her foot. Groping in the dark, she found an iron shackle wrapped around her ankle and chained to the floor. What was Cook doing on the Seahawk? “They captured you too?”

  “Aye. Curtin, Hensley, Arassi, Philips, and Stenson are down here with us also.”

  The names washed over her. She had difficulty concentrating. “Not Matthews?”

  “Nay, lad.”

  The ship rocked. Jasmine felt her stomach turn again. She lay back down against the hard boards of the hold. She closed her eyes but her world tilted as if she were in perpetual freefall. She opened her eyes and focused on a dim pool of lantern light filtering down from a hatchway by the ladder. The lantern swayed with the ship. Jasmine threw up again.

  “I warned ya to return to the Prize as soon as you finished your errand.”

  “I tried.”

  “You stink of ale. Didn’t try hard, did ya?”

  There was no way of arguing with her father and she didn’t have the energy to tell him the story. “How’d they get you then?”

  Cook growled in the dark. “Cowardly bastards got me from behind.”

  Jasmine heard movement in the far corner. A hesitant voice asked, “Where am I?”

  “You’ve been out a long time, Arassi,” Cook replied. “Hate to tell ya, mate, but you’re on the Seahawk.”

  Arassi swore a long litany of curses, some of which Jasmine had never heard before.

  Something swept over her then, like a whisper from a dream. It stole her breath and seized her heart. She gasped in the dark.

  “What is it, boy?”

  She couldn’t answer Cook. A chill ran up her back. And then it was gone. She took a deep breath of stale air and closed her eyes. The world tilted. She threw up again.

  “Too much ale?” Arassi asked

  “Aye,” Cook replied. “Curtin and Hensley arrived in the same state but they’re sleeping it off over there.” Jasmine imagined Cook pointing in the dark. He seemed oblivious that no one could see him.

  When she thought she had nothing left in her stomach she pushed the bucket away and curled into a tight ball. She stared at a darker patch of shadows as if they were her salvation. She refused to sleep, refused to close her eyes, refused to let the sickness take hold. And she swore never to drink ale again.

  Time passed like a slow ache. Daylight replaced the lantern’s glow. She listened to the creak of the ship, the soft sounds of the men in the hold with her, and the rattle of her own ragged breath.

  A shadow passed over the hatchway. The hatch lifted and a man entered the hold. He carried with him a cutlass and a bright lantern. The light burned Jasmine’s eyes. She closed them for an instant and her world lurched. She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise in her throat and turned away from the light. Only from the shadows cast against the bulkhead did she know a second man had entered. He carried a bucket and placed it down in the center of their prison.

  “Enjoy yer supper. It’s the only free one you’ll get.” Jasmine recognized Robert’s voice.

  Jasmine wanted to sink into the wood of the ship and disappear. Weakness held her. A cool hand touched her forehead. She flinched but she lacked the energy to scramble away.

  “This one may have a fever.” This was the voice of the second man. He sounded almost concerned.

  Roberts snorted. “That one had too much ale. He’ll get over it.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Is it your wielder hocus pocus telling you this?”

  “No.”

  “Fine, the matter is sorted. Let him wallow in his misery.” Roberts turned to leave and the shadow of the second man followed without an argument.

  Once the hatchway slammed shut, Hensley’s nervous voice shattered the silence. “They have a wielder!”

  “Welcome back, Hensley. Recovered from yer festivities in port then?” Cook asked.

  “Aye,” he replied, sounding bemused.

  “Will the Prize be able to take out a ship with a wielder?” Arassi asked.

  “Aye. She has a fearful reputation for a reason, mates,” Cook said. Jasmine wondered at his confidence. “May have to take out the wielder first though.”

  “We can’t fight a wielder!”

  “We can’t even get out of these shackles,” Hensley agreed.

  “Mark my words,” Cook said. “They’ll need us soon enough to add to their crew. Then we strike!”

  “They’ll protect the wielder. More precious than gold, they are.”

  “We’ll take him by surprise.”

  “We’ll need to get a better idea of the layout of the ship.”

  “Aye.”

  “And how will our ship find us?”

  “Captain Kahld will search for us, right?”

  “Aye, I promise you he will.”

  Jasmine let the voices drift over her. She no longer knew or cared who spoke. Again
she tried to disappear into the wood beneath her or the darkness around her, but of course nothing worked. She couldn’t escape this place or the sense of loss that burned through her. She couldn’t pretend she stood in the fresh air. She couldn’t act as if she felt the cool sea breeze against her sweaty face. She was trapped. The ocean swirled around her. It bashed against her shores and wore her down.

  “You awake, boy?” Cooks voice was an anchor.

  “Aye.”

  “I want you staying outa trouble when the battle comes.”

  “Aye.”

  “I don’t want no heroics,” he insisted.

  “Aye.”

  “You all right, boy?”

  Too weary to fight, she closed her eyes in annoyance. The whole ship tilted on its side. She had nothing left inside to throw up so she just whimpered in the dark.

  “Midge?”

  “Midge!”

  There was only darkness and a swirling green ocean.

  Light stabbed like poisonous daggers. She clamped her eyes shut against the pain and a voiceless scream tore through her throat as she plummeted through a watery abyss. A voice in the distance said malady. Another said fever. She heard someone say madness. All the while the water plunged through her skin and washed her bones and swirled around her mind, leaving her bare and bleached and diluted.

  A cool hand pressed against her forehead. She sighed into the touch and felt the ocean settle. It sparkled in the sunshine under her feet as she flew. As she fell.

  “I tell you, he isn’t suffering from a normal man’s fever. Nor is this the work of too much ale.”

  She didn’t want to know who spoke. She didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to continue to fly.

  “My touch seems to help though, doc.”

  “What do you expect, Finn? You’re a wielder.”