by Heath Pfaff
"Alright, it's our tu . . ." I didn't get to finish that sentence. The world flashed red.
I was burning hot, and then I was freezing cold, in between there was so much light that I felt my eyes might explode in my skull. I felt something heavy hit me, and then I was surrounded by frigid water. I struggled, thrashing about, trying to find the surface, but I couldn't find the direction that was up. My eyes cleared, and suddenly I could see motion, trails of light falling downward, away from me. I realized what I was seeing after a moment. I was seeing fragments of the ship, blasted off by the red streak that had just struck, sinking into the ocean. One object though, a streak of motion falling into darkness, was different than the others. It was man shaped. Tower, I realized with a start. I abandoned my struggle for the surface of the water and swam downward. I grabbed his limp body and tried to swim back up, but my sword, and his sword, our armor, and our clothes, were just too much for me to handle with only one arm to swim with. I willed my claws sharp and tore the bindings of my sword, and then Tower's. Our weapons fell away, and then I cut free the fabric of our cloaks, and the armor beneath. Suddenly I could move upward. I surged towards the surface with all the strength I could muster. At some point I had breathed in, the water filling my lungs, but I was not dead. As had happened before, my body was wresting air from the frigid brine.
I didn't believe that Tower would be so adaptable. He wasn't moving in my grip. The surface of the water opened up before me, and suddenly I was in the air again. The bitter chill of the wind sunk even deeper than that of the cold water all around me. I breathed out, and water sputtered out of my mouth, my next few breaths were a strange mix of water and air that caused me to gag and choke. I was not suffocating though. I made every effort to keep Tower's head above the level of the water. It was difficult in the turbulent waves, the giant swells constantly threatening to engulf me and my waterlogged companion. I squeezed my arm around his diaphragm, and put as much pressure on it as I dared, willing him to breath. Nothing.
I tried again and again, still nothing.
"Damn it, you haven't told Snow that you love her yet you worthless tree of a man, breath! You will damn well breathe!" I squeezed again, and as if on command, he choked, vomiting out the sea that had filled him. He thrashed for a moment, in panic, and then he stopped, calming. I released him and he trod water beside me. The sea surged beneath us, lifting us up higher than a castle wall with each crest. I grabbed his shirt so that we would not be parted.
"I hurt!" He yelled into the storm. "I think I've been burned."
"You were almost dead, be happy you hurt." I answered.
"Thank you, Noble." He said, after a moment of no other sound than the fury of the storm. I was about to reply when my eyes caught sight of the prow of a small boat moving towards us.
"They're here!" I heard a familiar voice yell, Snow I thought, and then there were hands reaching down to us, and we were lifted up into the relative dryness of a life boat. I had never been so happy to see Ethaniel's face before as I was when his powerful arms tore me from the grip of the sea.
"Damn fool." He said, though it seemed to me there was some relief in his voice.
"You're right, I'm a damn fool." I agreed. I was a fool, but at least I was alive.
Keeping our relatively small vessel afloat amidst the surging seas was a difficult endeavor. We crested swells that spanned higher than buildings, and narrowly avoided further red streaks. The explosions from those close strikes knocked our boat over on more than one occasion, leaving us all desperately scrambling to flip over our craft and get back inside. When we were not fighting the waves or the red streaks, we were struggling to keep the water out of the boat. It rained so hard that it was a near constant battle to keep our craft afloat.
I couldn't say how long the storm raged around us, whether it were only days, or weeks. Underneath the black skies time was lost to the torrent of rain, and the constant need to keep moving. Our boat contained all the Knights of Ethan, and Telistera. In those very rare moments of calm, I wondered what had become of the others who had fled the ship. Their boats, wherever they had gone, were nowhere near ours. Had Liet and his people made it to safety? What of Captain and his men? I did not know, and no amount of worrying about it did any good. I could only hope that they fared as well, if not better, than did we.
The storm ended. It was a gradual transition. One moment the skies were black, and then they began to lighten as the hours passed. The rain trailed off, and patches of blue broke through the pervasive darkness, great rifts in the blanket of storm above. The sea grew calm, and we slept. There was no decision made to rest. It was a simple matter of necessity. None of us had closed an eye through the entire ordeal. There was plenty of room for all of us to lie down, as the life boat had been meant to carry 25, and there were only seven of us: Tower, Telistera, Snow, Silver, Malice, Ethaniel and myself.
When I woke, it was late in the day. The sun, a friend I had thought forever lost, was sinking below the horizon, and the brightest stars were already visible in the sky. I sat up, noticing that I was covered in part of a shifting cloak. As I moved to right myself, I felt a stirring to my left. Malice sat up as well, curled under the cloak at my side. Hearing the stirring, others began to get up. Soon all of us were awake, staring out over the still sea, the bleak realization of our situation settling in. There was no land in sight, and we were adrift without our sails. Worse, we were still in deep water, and with no way to propel ourselves forward, it was only a matter of time until the creatures of the deep found us again.
"Do you know how far out from land we still are?" I asked Telistera after we'd all sat in silence for a few hours. The stars had settled in above. Telistera looked up, as did we all. The stars were in strange places in the sky. We had come so far that even the familiar points of light that seemed constant above us, were no longer where they should be.
"The ship's instruments indicated we had a month, maybe less, when last I checked, but it's impossible to know if they were accurate in the storm. The ship is gone anyway, so our pace will be much slower. These stars look familiar to me. That means we are getting close to my home, but without the right equipment, I just can't say how much further we have to go." Telistera explained, her expression crestfallen.
"By ship, we are about three weeks out from shore." Ethaniel said, and every eye in the boat turned to the old Knight. His statement was a shock to everyone. It was more the confidence with which he spoke, than the actual statement itself which was so surprising.
"How do you know that?" Snow asked, echoing the question that had been at the tip of my tongue.
"I studied the charts in great detail while aboard the ship." He answered. He pointed to the sky, to a bright green star just above the horizon. "That is Teretal Tui'en. We travel away from that star, and when it is beneath the horizon at this time of night, we will be at our destination."
His answer seemed legitimate, but it didn't settle well with me. Ethaniel had never studied the chats that I knew of. He'd spent most of his time locked away in his room. The charts were kept elsewhere, and had they gone missing people would have noticed, particularly Telistera. She had done most of our navigating. I looked to the silver-eyed woman. Her expression was difficult to read, but I felt that she was having the same thoughts as me. Ethaniel was lying, but only partially. He obviously knew something of the local stars, and the methods to navigate by them, but how had he learned? His eyes could see far and wide, but being able to see a distance didn't necessarily give one an understanding of how long it would take to travel that distance. Besides, Ethaniel had always said that his eyes worked only when they wanted to. Under other circumstances, I might have pressed the point. With just the seven of us on our small boat, it was not the time to make an issue. Conflict could cost lives. I would need to keep a close eye on Ethaniel. My distrust of the old Knight was growing.
"We have oars. We should begin paddling." Ethaniel added.
"What will we do
when the creatures in the sea come?" Snow asked. There wasn't fear in her voice, but I knew it was a question that lay inside of all of us. Just because I could not hear the fear, did not mean that it wasn't there. I was afraid, and I was sure the others were as well.
"They might not notice a craft as small as ours." I answered. My words were an attempt to give the others hope. I didn't put much faith in them myself. I did not doubt that the great sea monster would come again. It was only a matter of time. The further we got from the storm, the more obvious our presence on the surface of the water would be. Being small might make it more difficult to find us at a distance, but then I wasn't sure how those behemoths of the sea found their prey.
"How are our supplies?" It was Silver who spoke, her voice quiet.
Ethaniel answered. "We have fresh water to last us three weeks, food to last a month. If we ate and drank the way humans did, we'd only have a few days of both, but we have a slight advantage."
We were lucky. Even Telistera ate as we did, infrequently, and small quantities. Of course, Malice had grown accustomed to eating more, and sleeping more than a normal Knight. She had not done so during our struggle to survive the storm. She had stayed awake with the rest of us, breaking her normal sleep cycle for the first time since she'd lost her memories. It had not occurred to me before that moment. I looked at the green-eyed Knight. She didn't seem any worse for wear than the rest of us, and she was stoically accepting the fact that she would be eating only every couple of days, as well. Would she feel as though we were starving her? I worried, but I tried not to show it outwardly. Her memories were gone, but had anything changed about her physically? She seemed as strong and willful as ever. She'd already been on light rations for a week. Time would tell.
We broke out the oars and began to paddle, Ethaniel guiding our direction. We had no choice but to trust his guidance since none of the rest of us knew how to navigate without equipment. We were not men of the sea, despite the fact that we had spent so long on its surface. We were fighting men, and that was what we did best. If Ethaniel said he knew the way, we would have to believe that he did. I could see no benefit in him misguiding us. He was as much stranded as the rest of us. Until we reached land, we were all dependent upon one another.
We paddled for what felt like forever, working the six oars constantly, only stopping when it was time to shift one person off of the paddles for a time. This went on for an entire week, with only one break for a few hours of sleep. The work was unrewarding. No matter how much paddling one did, it always felt as though we were not moving at all. The ripples of the passing of our boat were the only indication that we were changing position at all. I watched Malice for any sign that she was ill affected by the sudden change in her normal patterns, but she did not complain. She smiled little, though, and spoke rarely. In a way, she was more like her old self than ever before. If that were true, though, why did I miss her smile so keenly?
We were eight days paddling when a dark spot appeared on the horizon, small, but growing larger. We all stopped at once, drawing our oars from the water.
"What's that?" Silver asked. We all squinted to see, straining against the unending horizon, trying to make out whatever shape was breaking that line we'd been chasing for a week.
I stood up in the boat and peered, trying to focus on the object. It was still so distant. Our craft drifted out of line, and I used my oar to right it so we could face the black speck again. The dot began to take shape.
"Sails. . ." I said, as I recognized enough of the object to make out what I was seeing. I couldn't believe it. "It's a ship!" An almost euphoric relief passed through me, and those in the boat seemed to explode into an outburst of pleasure. Silver's voice, though, broke the momentary joy we'd all been on the cusp of enjoying.
"What kind of ship would dare sail this far into deep waters?" She said, and her words doused the momentary excitement of the crew like a bucket of cold water dispels the warmth of a fire.
Telistera shook her head. "My people don't sail this deep."
Suddenly the ship on the horizon, which seemed to be sailing unerringly in our direction, no longer looked like salvation.
As the approaching vessel drew nearer, Telistera became more and more troubled. "It's one of our ships." She said, as the outline of the craft became clear against the horizon.
"Then you should be happy. Your people are close at hand, and we're to be saved." Ethaniel said, his voice dry, a hostile edge suffusing it.
"My people do not sail this far out to sea." The silver-eyed warrior restated, her hands ringing the wood handle of her staff weapon.
"You sailed all the way across the ocean. Why is it so strange that others might sail out into the deeps as well?" Ethaniel retorted. He had a valid point, though I too felt that something was amiss.
Telistera ignored the old Knight's reply entirely, which I thought was probably for the better.
"We don't know who they are, or what their business is out here yet. Whatever business they may be about, we couldn't do ourselves any harm by getting out of this life boat and back aboard a ship. If they are willing to take us aboard, we might yet make Telistera's homeland. The alternative is bleak." I said, trying to calm everyone's agitation.
". . . and if they don't intend to return the way they came?" It was Silver who asked the question, but I had already anticipated it. Indeed, that question had passed through my mind shortly after first spotting the foreign ship. What was to be done if the crew of the ship was heading back the way we came, and had no intention of returning to Tett O Sut? The ship might well be full of more survivors of the Hungering onslaught trying to break free. What would we do if they refused to turn about? We should acquiesce, return to our boat, and continue on our long and impossible path. Even that possibility floated through my mind, I felt a searing rage take seat in my gut. No, I would not be turned back, and I would not return to the boat that might never see me to my destination. If I had to, I would make the ships occupants take me where I needed to go. It was a painful realization to come upon, but I could not deny the knowledge. I could lie to the others, but not to myself. I was too close to fail.
"We'll have to take matters as they come." I answered Silver, hoping my hesitance to answer did not so clearly spell out the inner workings of my mind. What would the others think if we were forced into such a situation? Would they still follow me, or would they rally against me? What of Malice? I clenched my jaw and pushed those thoughts away. Speculation would not help the situation that lay before me. I needed to focus on what was happening, and stop worrying about what might, or might not, happen in the future. One could only prepare themselves so much for the eventualities to come. After that point of readiness, further troubling over future events was counterproductive.
The ship loomed nearer, approaching until it began to slow as it drew within hailing range. Its sails came down and an anchor was thrown out. I could make out the shapes of figures moving across the deck, though I could not see them clearly. The ship was less than a third of the size ours had been, but not small. It looked like it had been to sea many times, aged and tired, but apparently well kept. We took up our oars and paddled our life boat closer to the ship, progressing with caution. They had traveled in a straight line out to us, and stopped before reaching us. It was as though they'd known exactly where we were, and had come to find us. That, of course, made no sense, and appearances could be deceiving, but. . .
As our boat drew near, the crew of the ship came into sight for the first time. They were hooded figures, moving quickly about their craft, with agile grace that was somehow familiar and strange at the same time. Each of them was tightly wrapped in shabby hoods and cloth, obscuring any sign of who they might be. A figure stepped to the edge of our mysterious salvation and cast a rope ladder over the side as our boat clattered to the side of the larger craft.
"Do you need transport back to land?" A strong female voice called down, the accent lilting and familiar. It was the
same accent that Telistera spoke with. It didn't obscure the language as some foreign accents did, but it gave the words a distinctly alien cast. The woman wore a brown cloak, as did the rest of her crew, the hood pulled low over her face. I noticed that her hands were wrapped in bandages.
"Our ship was destroyed in a storm. We thought ourselves doomed to die at sea. It is fortunate that you found us." I called up, as I stood to catch the proffered rope ladder. The woman dropped down another rope, a line to tie down our boat. Tower caught it and set to work at securing our craft.
"You're indeed quite lucky we found you. Few ships sail out from shore anymore, and none but ours come this far out." The woman called. "You are welcome aboard. We will turn about and head for shore as soon as you are on deck. I warn you though, keep your distance from our crew. We have the creep, and it's highly contagious."