Triumph Over Tragedy: an anthology for the victims of Hurricane Sandy

by R. T. Kaelin

  “No! No!” the princess cried. “Don’t fight! Help each other! If you don’t fight, there’s enough for all!”

  The survivors didn’t listen to her. Instead, they became even more frantic in their attempts to win the supplies.

  “Pull for all you’re worth!” Ali ordered his crew. The two skiffs jostled through the milling crowd and rowed out toward the Starcutter. A few wretches swam after them initially, but soon turned back to fight over scraps with the rest. Some of the survivors left the water and dashed along the shore, in a futile attempt to catch up with the boats. They screamed and howled as they ran.

  “Why didn’t they listen?” Makachiko asked. “Have they lost their minds?”

  “No,” Ali replied, “but they’ve very nearly lost their humanity.”

  “The disaster has turned them into animals,” Rina whispered.

  “What are your orders, Captain?” Sarifa asked as Ali and the crew returned to the Starcutter. “Shall we sail on to the next isle—see if we can be of any help there?”

  “After those savages nearly sank us?” Kor replied, incredulous. He focused his poison-green eyes on the Starcutter’s captain. “It’s gotten worse at every isle, Captain. If we keep tempting fate this way, we’ll end up dead just as sure as that unfortunate lot back there.” He glanced from Ali to the shoreline, where masses of wild-eyed people ran along the beaches, fighting each other for supplies Ali’s crew had cast overboard.

  “There must be something we can do,” Doran said. “‘While life clings, there is yet hope.’”

  Ali shook his head. “No, Doran. Kor’s right, this time. Fate is against us. If we persist against such ill winds, we’ll only be killed for trying.” The captain’s voice brimmed with bitter resignation. “Bring the Starcutter about. No more stops. We sail for Sunrii.”

  Doran sighed and gave the princess back her necklace.

  “Perhaps the isles ahead won’t need our help,” Toshi suggested. “Perhaps the people there will be cooperating. Maybe they’ll be helping each other, not fighting for scraps like frenzied sharks.”

  “Maybe the girl is right,” Makachiko added hopefully. “Maybe they’ll be able to save themselves, even without our help. Or perhaps the great wave went no further, and this is the last of the wave-cursed isles.”

  Her words rang hollow over the gently rolling deck of the ship.

  The princess looked around, clearly hoping someone might confirm her wish. The faces of the crew remained grim. Makachiko’s jaw began to tremble. “I-it has to stop sometime, doesn’t it?”

  No one answered. A floating corpse struck the side of the ship with a sickening thud.

  The young princess fought to remain calm, but the trembling took hold in her whole body. Tears budded in her dark eyes.

  “Please,” she said, “tell me it will stop!”

  Ali angled the Starcutter to pass between the rocky arms of the mountain and out of the devastated bay. “We’ll have you home soon, Princess,” he promised.

  Makachiko and Toshi stared back toward the ruined town, unable to tear their eyes from the unfolding horror. The rest of the crew gazed forward, anticipating the freedom of the open sea beyond the strait.

  “There are people running along the beach toward us,” Toshi said.

  “Let them,” Ali replied. His hazel eyes remained fixed on the waters ahead. “Maybe when they’ve run enough, they’ll be too exhausted to fight each other.”

  “But captain,” Toshi said, “they have ropes and grappling hooks.”

  “What are they going to do,” Kor asked, “swim out and try to board us?” His massive chest shook with a deep, ogrish laugh.

  Simultaneously, Ali and Sarifa glanced up at the cliffs, looming close to either side of the ship, as the Starcutter passed through the narrow strait at the bay’s head. Before captain or siren could speak, grappling ropes and nets rained down on the ship from the cliff tops.

  “Damn!” Ali cursed. “They’ve gotten ahead of us!”

  “Some must have climbed the heights even as we sailed into the bay!” Sarifa cried. “To arms!”

  As she said it, a barbed and weighed net fell over her. She reached for the sword at her hip, but the net constricted around her and the hooks dug into her wings. The siren winced with pain.

  Crude spears and rocks hurtled down from the cliff tops as the savage raiders pulled their grapples tight. The Starcutter groaned as the tethered ropes slowed it nearly to a halt.

  “Princess, get below!” Ali called. He ducked, and a roughhewn spear sailed over his right shoulder.

  The savages mobbed the ship. Some slid down their ropes, while others swung over and dropped onto the main deck.

  Some of the crew, like Sarifa, had fallen under the hail of spears, rocks, nets, and ropes. Most of the Starcutter sailors remained on their feet, though. As the invaders attacked, the shipmates avoided the entanglements and drew their swords.

  The Coralshell sisters fought side by side, protecting each other. Some attackers they cut down with their swords; others they pushed over the rail into the brine. “So much for trying to help,” Rina hissed.

  “I’m beginning to think humanitarianism is not worth the effort,” Lia replied. She kicked one invader in the knee and cut a second down with her sword.

  As the sisters traded barbs amid the battle, the rest of the crew struggled to stay alive. Toshi pushed past a half-dozen ruffians and scrambled up the masthead. Two raiders tried to scamper after her, but Toshi turned and drew two whalebone-handled daggers from her leg sheathes. She slashed at her pursuers, all the while clinging to the rigging with her toes.

  Doran and Princess Makachiko stood next to each other, trapped on the forecastle. Barbaric attackers scrambled up the ship’s stairs toward them.

  “Is this the price of compassion?” the healer asked rhetorically. “To be dragged down and drowned by the very people we sought to help?” He clouted his fist against the chin of a man reaching for his throat. The man tumbled backward down the steps onto the quarterdeck, taking two of his companions with him. There, Kor grabbed the raiders and hurled them over the side.

  “Stop philosophizin’ and get below!” the half-ogre bellowed at the physician.

  Doran pushed Princess Makachiko toward the forward hatch. As he did, a rough-cut spear struck his back, just below the ribs. The healer gasped and collapsed onto the deck. Makachiko screamed.

  “Thrice-damned sons of dogs!” Ali cursed. “This is the thanks we get for trying to help you?” He put his sword through the eye of a man trying to skewer him, and then cut down two more attackers. The raiders kept coming, like a sea of pestilent crabs swarming over the ship.

  Sarifa struggled in the barbed net. The attackers threw more ropes over her, pinning her to the deck. The net’s hooks cut into the siren’s flesh. Rivulets of blood trickled down her pale skin into the red feathers of her wings. Three savages stepped forward, surrounding the siren and raising their rough-hewn spears for the kill.

  Ali charged into them, knocking two over and gutting the third with his cutlass. More invaders sprang forward to take their place. “Kill the siren demon!” screamed one. “Her evil magic’s the cause of all this!” howled another.

  Before the savages could reach Sarifa, though, Ali cut the siren free with a few deft slashes of his sword. The Starcutter’s captain smiled as Sarifa rose from the deck. She looked grim and terrible, like an avenging angel.

  “Snakes!” she hissed in her birdlike voice. “Flee while you still can!”

  Instead, the pestilent mob surged forward. Ali laid into them, hacking and slashing with his cutlass. Sarifa threw off the last of her bonds and drew her sword.

  At first, it seemed as though the siren’s weapon had no blade. The air beyond the hand grip shimmered, like a mirage on a hot summer day. As Sarifa stood, a fiery blade grew from the pommel. The siren warrior spread her wings, buffeting two invaders over the sides of the boat. She looked around, her hawk-keen eyes assessing the
battle.

  Nearby, the ragged woman who had stabbed Doran pulled out her spear and reared back for a killing blow. Makachiko threw herself over the healer’s body in a futile attempt to save him.

  The woman stabbed at the two of them. Her spear descended, but then suddenly stopped. The scabrous woman jerked into the air as Kor seized her by the back of the neck. Before the savage could react, the half-ogre flung her over the side and into the cliff face. She hit with a wet crunching sound and slid into the dark water below.

  Kor bounded up onto the forecastle, hurling raiders over the side as he went, quickly clearing a path to Doran and the princess. The healer lay bleeding in Makachiko’s arms. The girl wept quietly over the physician’s pale body.

  Kor’s eyes went blood red. “Sawbones is hurt!” he bellowed. “We could use some help here!”

  “Couldn’t we all!” Lia called. She and Rina were bleeding from dozens of small cuts, though none were serious enough to slow them down. The sisters moved through the savages like twin whirlwinds, their swords dealing death to anyone unlucky enough to stand their way.

  Sarifa T’Liil flapped her wings and rose into the air. The siren’s face twisted with rage and her eyes blazed with fury. “By the Gods of Wrath,” she cried, “you will all pay!” Her sword blazed bright in her hand as she dove on the raiders. Her keening war-cry echoed off the nearby cliffs.

  The ambushers froze and their shabby faces went pale as the siren dived toward them. Ali cut down four savages trying to capture the Starcutter’s wheel. Kor threw raiders overboard two and three at a time, protecting the princess and the wounded physician. The Coralshell sisters used their swords and fists to clear the port side deck of savages. Toshi sent a man tumbling from the mast into the dark waters at the base of the cliffs.

  Though the savages still vastly outnumbered the Starcutter crew, fear ran like wildfire through the mob. As Sarifa dived on them, most of the invaders leapt over the side. Others caught fire as the blade of her sword passed near them. The burning wretches also dived into the water to escape. Those that didn’t get out of her way, the siren cut in half.

  Kor laughed, seized a boat hook, twisted it sideways, and shoved a half-dozen ambushers into the drink all at once. Having cleaned out the port side, Rina and Lia began fighting their way to starboard. Toshi dived into a mass of savages surrounding one of the deckhands. The H’Leng-Ru’s blades pierced the backs of two ruffians before the invaders even knew what was happening. Ali cleared the aftercastle of raiders and then fought his way toward the quarterdeck.

  The three dozen attackers remaining screamed in fear and leapt overboard. Ali sprinted back to the wheel and took control of the ship once more. Sarifa dove on the savages as they floundered in the blood-stained bay. Kor and the other members of the crew cut the ropes holding the ship, and the Starcutter surged through the strait and into the open sea.

  “Sarifa!” Ali called.

  The siren turned. A mask of blood covered her wrathful face.

  “Sarifa!” he called again. “Doran needs you!”

  For a moment, the siren hovered in the air, torn between bloodlust and duty. Then she wrenched herself free of her fury and flew back to the ship. Sarifa’s sandaled feet touched down lightly on the forecastle, next to the unconscious healer.

  Rina and Lia were already at Doran’s side, putting pressure on his wound and unwinding a roll of bandages. When the siren arrived, the sisters made way for her and went to tend the other injured crew members.

  “W-will he live?” Princess Makachiko asked the siren.

  “If he does not,” Sarifa replied, “those barbarians will wish they had never been born.” She cast her hawk-like gaze back to the wretches floundering in the surf behind the ship.

  Makachiko stood, confusion playing across her pretty face. “No,” she said. “No. You can’t. Desperation has driven them mad. They’re starving. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “They know,” Sarifa said. “And they will pay.”

  “Killing them in self-defense was one thing,” Makachiko said, “but killing them now…” Her eyes wandered from the surf to the ruined port, where the survivors still fought like dogs for the scraps of food the Starcutter had brought. Tears streamed down the princess’ tanned cheeks.

  The siren didn’t reply. As the Coralshell sisters tended the rest of the ship’s wounded, the remainder of the Starcutter crew began casting the bodies of their enemies overboard.

  “Kor, take the wheel,” Ali said. He sprinted to the foredeck where Sarifa knelt over the injured physician. “Well…?” he asked the siren.

  “It is too early to tell,” Sarifa replied.

  Makachiko looked from the bleeding man, over the carnage-strewn decks of the Starcutter, and out to the ravaged island and its desperate people. “It…it’s all too much!” she whispered and buried her face in her hands.

  Ali rested his fingers on the princess’ bloodstained shoulder. “That’s the way of the world,” he said gently. “We all do what we can, but sometimes it isn’t enough.”

  “Not nearly enough!” she sobbed. Her delicate fingers twined themselves around the amulet at her neck.

  “Princess…?” Ali asked.

  “I…” she began, her voice quiet and uncertain, “I call…” She straightened up, seeming to draw strength from the medallion as she spoke. “I call on the power…of the dragons!” Her voice came loud and clear now, full of determination. “Argentia Lumus, hear my plea! Remember your promise to my people!”

  A peal like distant thunder shook the heavens and the sea around the Starcutter quaked.

  “Another wave!” Kor shouted.

  “No!” Ali cried. “Look!”

  He pointed to the sky. Amid the clouds and the clear blue heavens, brilliant stars suddenly flashed to life. For a moment, they blazed as brightly as the sun, before dimming to a silvery luminescence.

  Toshi gasped. “Dragons!”

  Argentia Lumus and her court swooped down toward the tiny ship. The dragons were huge, many twice as long as the Starcutter. They had teeth like swords, claws like lances, and armor that glittered like the purest metal ever forged. They glistened with the colors of the rainbow. The dragon queen herself was covered in scales of brilliant silver. Her sea green eyes sparkled with intelligence and a wisdom older than mankind.

  She dipped toward the ship, and, as she came, she transformed into a beautiful maiden garbed in a diaphanous silver gown. Her bare feet touched down lightly on the deck next to the princess.

  Ali and the rest of the Starcutter crew fell to their knees, all save Sarifa, who continued to work on Doran. Makachiko knelt as well.

  “Daughter of Sunrii,” said the dragon queen, “you have called and I have come. How may my people serve you and, thereby, repay our debt?”

  “Queen of d-dragons,” Makachiko said, her voice quavering, “help these people—the ones whose homes and lives have been destroyed by the great wave.”

  Argentia Lumus gazed from the princess to the blasted island, already receding into the distance behind the Starcutter. “But these are not your people, daughter of Sunrii,” she said. “Your island lies safe and sound, beyond the wave’s terrible reach.”

  “M-my heart thrills to hear it,” the princess responded, “but my request stands. I want you to help the people who have been harmed by the wave, all of them, no matter who they are. No matter where they live.”

  “Some may be wicked people,” the queen said, “pirates or slavers.”

  “Then help them so that they may see the error of their ways.”

  A smile crept over the dragon queen’s face, and she slowly nodded.

  “And what of you, Princess Makachiko,” she said. “Is there a boon I may grant you as well?”

  “For myself I ask nothing,” the princess replied. “But, if it is within your powers, heal the good people of this ship. They have risked much to help others—myself included.”

  Again, the dragon queen smiled
.

  “You have chosen well, daughter of Sunrii,” she said. “For your sacrifice, your people will be thrice blessed. All those we help will know of your generosity.”

  “I…I’m not doing it to be rewarded,” Makachiko said. “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “And so it is, child. Sometimes the only moral thing to do is to give up that which you hold most dear. Again, you have chosen well.”

  The silver-garbed woman spread her arms and her diaphanous gown flowed outward, like a great glittering cape. Silvery light blazed around the dragon queen as the garment transformed into her wings and she lifted into the air.

  Renewed vigor flowed through Ali’s body. The pain of fatigue and combat slipped away in an instant. He marveled as Argentia Lumus arced into the sky once more. She wheeled once around the ship, and then collected her retinue and sped off toward the ravished island.

  The dragons quickly vanished into the distance, like stars winking out with the break of dawn.

  For a long moment no one on the Starcutter even dared breathe.

  Doran sat up and coughed. His eyes flickered open. “Did I miss anything?” he asked.

  The crew burst out laughing, but Makachiko merely threw her arms around the healer’s neck and cried.

  “We’ll be taking you home now, Princess,” Ali said.

  Makachiko fingered the dragon-twined medallion hanging around her throat. Its gems didn’t glitter as brightly as before, but the princess didn’t seem to notice. “Yes,” she said, drying the tears from her face. “I’m ready to go home now.”

  “You did the right thing,” Ali said, “to give up the gift of the dragons.”

  “I know,” she replied. “I only wish I’d known it sooner.”

  “It’s never too late to learn,” the sea captain replied. “Never too late…for any of us.”

  “And that,” Doran said, “is the hope of the world.”

  “Aye,” Ali agreed. “There may be hope for all of us yet.”