by J M D Reid
“I know,” Vel whispered.
She fell into darkness.
“Ary! Ary!” she called as she ran through the Snakewood, her skirt flapping about her ankles. “I’m not it. You don’t have to run from me!”
“Vel touched you!” young Ary shouted. Even as a youth, he had the stature of a stout barrel. He raced hard in his coveralls, his back and shoulders darkened to a rich brown by the summer sun. Light dappled him, bleeding down through the broad oak leafs. “You’re tainted. He touched you.”
“No, no, Ary! He didn’t touch me!” she shouted, her voice so girlish. She tripped on a root and fell on her face amid the soft loam.
She looked up and he’d vanished. She shook her head, her body trembling as the tears threatened to overwhelm her. “I’m not it! I’m not! You don’t have to run from me! You can trust me, Ary!”
“How can he trust you?” Vel asked, his arms going around her naked form as they lay on a bed. He pressed against her feverish flesh, his skin much cooler than hers. She wanted to cling to him.
This wasn’t right.
“I’m Ary’s wife,” she protested again as Vel pressed atop her, his handsome, lying, disgusting face looming over her.
She thrashed, her hammock swaying. “I’m . . . Ary’s . . . wife . . .” Agony scraped across her larynx. She shuddered and a loud, explosive cough tortured her throat. Sharp talons raked across the inside of her windpipe with every exhalation. She thrashed, so hot in her blankets. She whimpered, her arms hugging her body as she shivered. “A . . . ry . . .”
Where was her husband?
She looked around the Dauntless’s lower hold, her dream spilling across her vision, the trees of the Snakewood sprouting amid the swaying hammocks. Her glassy eyes searched for her husband hiding in the bushes or behind a footlocker. Sweat poured off her forehead. Her clothing clung to her body.
She wheezed. Hands choked her. She struggled to suck in the next breath. The hand squeezed tighter and tighter. Waves of darkness washed across her vision. Her heart screamed in her chest.
I’m dying . . . where’s Ary? Why isn’t he with me?
You! Know! Why! screeched the bitter voice. You’re worthless. You don’t deserve to live, do you?
A new face appeared looming over her, a hole drilled through his skull. The sailor grinned at her as his hands clenched about her throat. His mutilated appearance filled her universe.
Ary knows what you did! Murderer! How can he love a faithless woman like you? You break all your oaths, Chaylene!
“I . . . had . . . to . . .” she spoke, each word an explosion of breath and pain, air forced past her shrinking windpipe. The effort made her dizzy and swallowed reality.
She aimed down her pressure rifle. The sailor peered back, waiting for her bullet to slam into his face. He had a grim expression, full of hatred. Disgust. He threw his arms wide. He stood alone on the deck of the pirate ship. No threat.
She fired.
“MURDERER!”
His head snapped backward. Blood and gristle burst from the wound. He collapsed onto the deck, his body twitching as the death spasms ran through him, legs kicking like an ostrich butchered at Ary’s farm.
“H-how could you, Lena?” Ary asked.
He backed away from her hammock as it swung amid the Snakewood.
“Ary, I had to,” she sobbed. She aimed her pressure rifle at his head, sighting right above his left eye. “Don’t you understand? I was defending the Dauntless.”
“But you were a Stormwall.” He shook his head, retreating another step.
“I’m dying, Ary. Can’t you forgive me? Can’t you just be with me?”
“No one was there for him!” Ary said, pointing at the pirate ship hovering to their right, bobbing up and down beneath the bows of a mighty oak tree. “No one held his hands while he died.”
“Please, Ary.”
“MURDERER!”
She fired.
“A . . . ry . . .” she choked, shuddering in her hammock. Her entire body convulsed. Where was her husband? She didn’t kill him. It was a dream. Right? Where was her husband? Why wasn’t he with her?
She breathed through the tearing pain in her throat, staring up at the dark ceiling. She couldn’t move her body. She was so weak. She felt so numb. He had to come soon. She didn’t have much time. He’ll come. He loves me.
Does he? asked the sailor. Why?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lheshoa 1st, 399 VF (1960 SR)
Vel draped a fresh, wet cloth across Sharthamen’s forehead. The sailor shivered violently in his thin blanket as he lay on his hammock. His lips moved, but almost no sound escaped. Like the others, his throat had engorged to the size of an orange and possessed a deep, purple-black hue. Vel grunted as he rose on exhausted legs. Sleep’s sand coated his eyes. When the sun set the previous evening, only six of the crew were down here: Chaylene, Voasin, Sriechen, Zeirie, the Bosun, and Lieutenant Xoaren.
More had joined them.
Vel moved on to Lieutenant-Captain Chemy. Vel had no clue who commanded the Dauntless. He knelt down next to the officer’s hammock and removed the dry cloth from her feverish forehead. She coughed hard, her entire body convulsing as air barked through her swollen esophagus. Vel waited for her fit to subside before he replaced the cloth on her forehead, now soaked with water from his bucket.
This is all my fault.
He gazed across the dimly lit hold. Thirteen men and women lay dying around him from the acting captain to lowly sailors. Even Vel’s fellow cook, Shayis, thrashed in her hammock. He went to her next. She stirred when he squeezed her hand.
“Vel,” she muttered. “So hot. I can’t . . . think . . . Need to . . . cool off.”
“I know.” Vel took the cloth from her forehead and dipped it in the bucket of cold water the medical officer had precipitated a few minutes ago. He dabbed at her fever-hot face. Beads of water ran across her sallow features. “How’s that?”
“Th-thank . . . you . . .” she choked out, her eyes closing.
Vel’s eyes burned with tears that wouldn’t come. Every cough, every moan, every hoarse exhalation condemned his selfishness. Chaylene’s hurt the worst. He moved to her next. She wheezed so loud as she breathed, sucking hard to draw in a breath.
“Ary . . .” she choked.
“I’m afraid you have to settle for me,” Vel said as he peeled the sweat-caked cloth from her forehead. He dipped it into the pail, let the water soak into it, then wrung it out. He wiped at her face and neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Where . . . is . . . he . . .?”
“Above deck. Helping out,” Vel answered, replacing the cloth on her forehead.
“Need . . . him . . . I’m . . . scared . . .” Her hammock swayed as an explosive cough rocked her body.
“Me, too,” Vel answered. He took her hand and squeezed it. Ary had avoided Chaylene. He’d only spent the briefest time with her. He kept moving, his red eyes distant and haunted. It almost angered Vel, but his guilt strangled out all other emotions. “You’ll be fine. Get some rest. He’ll visit you when he can.”
Her gray eyes closed. Vel held her hand for a moment longer. He couldn’t even comfort her while she was dying.
Vel moved onto Ensign Tsopfein.
Heavy boots trooped down the stairs as he dabbed at the young officer’s face. Ary and Lieutenant Jhoch carried the captain down, her body convulsing. Ary held her right leg and the stump of her left as they maneuvered her to a hammock. A sallow hue stained the captain’s once stern face yellow.
“Tell . . . my . . . husband . . .” she choked out, sounding like a frightened girl. She clutched at Ary’s unbuttoned coat as they settled her on the hammock. “Love . . . him . . . daughter . . . too . . .”
“Aye, Captain,” Ary said, words hollow.
“I . . . don’t . . . want to . . . die . . .” The captain’s voice was quiet, almost like a little girl’s.
“You won’t, Soshele,” the lieutenant promised h
er. He said that a lot.
Vel turned back to Ensign Tsopfein. “You’ll be fine, too,” he whispered to the dying man. “Just keep fighting it.”
He didn’t know what else to say.
Tsopfein gibbered in Agerzese, his brown eyes unfocused.
Vel picked up his bucket and moved on to Voasin. “You’ll be fine,” he said as he pulled off Voasin’s rag and dipped it into the water.
Voasin didn’t make a sound.
Vel frowned as he replaced the cloth on the man’s forehead. “Voasin?”
He felt icy flesh.
“Lieutenant,” Vel groaned, voice strained as he stared down at his first victim. Voasin’s eyes were still open, his mouth half-agape, spittle staining the edges. The color had left his cheeks, giving him a clammy pallor. Vel’s trembling hand closed Voasin’s eyes.
“Lieutenant!” he shouted louder, the hold spinning about him.
Vel stumbled away, squeezing his eyes shut. Guilt pummeled him from a dozen directions. Riasruo forgive me. But Vel knew the Goddess wouldn’t. He’d murdered one of her children.
*
Estan watched the sun set on the Dauntless at the end of its second day ravaged by the plague. The ship drifted off of Tlele. His hand clutched onto Esty’s garter. Every time he sneezed, every time he swallowed and felt a bit of discomfort, he clenched it.
He knew all about the choking plague. The rarest strain, the very one afflicting the Dauntless, had killed the heretical poet Nzuuth sze Hyesk. Estan’s teacher always suspected the Church had murdered her for being Stormtouched. That was why they’d banned her poems after her death.
And now the same plague afflicts a ship with another Stormtouched. Estan feared the Church knew of Ary. His sickness during training matched the symptoms of Purple Kiss poisoning, a substance manufactured from a species of flower growing around the Aerie of Adjudication where the Church’s assassins trained.
A man coughed.
All the healthy crew spun, facing the source. Facing Guts. The burly marine groaned as he rubbed at his throat.
“Oh, no,” Estan said, his stomach clenching. Already nineteen members of the crew lay sick or dying. Zeirie and the Bosun were so sick they were down in the lower hold with Chaylene.
The crew around Guts backed away as he coughed again. The big marine covered his mouth, knocking aside the fake leather nose he wore strapped about his face. He looked around at everyone, then at the hold’s entrance where Messiench stood guard.
Guts closed his eyes and straightened his shoulders. He marched with a stiff, clockwork gait towards Messiench. The Agerzak marine backed away, keeping his thunderbuss leveled at Guts, which was pointless, but fear gripped the ship. Dread squeezed Estan’s heart. Would Guts ever return from the hold?
I want to see Esty again. There’s so much about the Agerzaks that she . . . He shook his head. That wasn’t why he ached to see her again. They could discuss any topic. Or none.
The stairs creaked as Guts marched downstairs to join Corporal Huson, Lieutenant-Captain Chemy, the chief of the boat, and the captain. It had stunned the crew when she had been carried out of her state room by Ary and the medical officer an hour ago, her left leg a bloody stump. Besides Ary, only three others were immune to the plague: Vel, Chubren, and Aychene.
“The choking plague’s initial symptoms mimic a number of common respiratory diseases lumped together as “bad vapors” by the common folk. Headaches, mild fevers, cough, and sore throats persist for up to a week before more serious symptoms appear. The glands in the throat and beneath the underarms swell as the fever intensifies. Breathing becomes laborious as the swelling glands squeeze the trachea and collapse the airway. When combined with the buildup of phlegm in the throat, the body’s common reaction against a respiratory infection, death can result. A number of strains are known to exist of varying degrees of mortality.”
Estan tried to keep his mind from remembering the medical texts he’d studied, but the words kept echoing in his mind.
“When the swelling is severe, asphyxiation can result. Even if the patient does not asphyxiate, there are a number of other complications that can cause death. The fever can burn hot enough to damage the brain, leading to fever comas and death within days to a few weeks. If the disease enters the bloodstream, marked by reddening of veins visible beneath the skin, death takes only hours as the disease attacks the heart. Pneumonia can also set in, particularly with older patients. Even if the throat swelling diminishes, complications in their respiratory system can still lead to death.”
Estan squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop thinking about it,” he muttered. “You’re not sick.”
He swallowed. His throat ached just a bit. You’re just dehydrated. That’s all. It’s not the sickness.
“The choking plague’s initial . . .”
*
Ary saw Srias every time he gazed at Chaylene’s feverish face and swollen throat. Each time he paused by her hammock, the helpless fear clenched about his heart. He couldn’t watch her die. Not again.
He always retreated, flagellating his own soul. Coward!
More of the sick filled the lower hold. Ary thought it was evening of the second day since Chaylene had fallen ill. He couldn’t be sure. Everything had become an exhausted haze, one heartbeat bleeding into the next. He hadn’t slept. He couldn’t stop moving. If he halted, Srias and Chaylene swallowed his universe.
Ary paused at Guts’s hammock. His big friend gasped and choked, staring up with sightless eyes. Ary patted his friend’s shoulder through the blanket.
“Is . . . Zori . . . here . . .?” Guts asked, voice quiet.
“No. She’s back in Onhur. She’s safe. She won’t get sick.”
“I . . . miss her . . .” Guts’s head turned. His eyes focused on Ary. The ruin of his sheered off nose twitched. “You’ll tell . . . her that . . . right?”
“Yeah,” Ary nodded.
“Need to tell her . . . finally . . .” Guts’s hammock swayed as he coughed hard, his back arching up. The coughs sounded loud and painful. He spat up bloody phlegm. It dribbled over his lips. He crashed back into his hammock, his body limp, his breathing shallow.
“I’ll let her know, Guts. I promised.”
Guts nodded, his eyes closing. Ary patted his friend’s shoulder a final time. He forced himself to move. The next hammock contained Lieutenant Jhoch. After Voasin died, the disease overwhelmed the medical officer. Now he lay huddled on his side, his body spasming with each explosive cough.
“Lieutenant,” Ary nodded as he paused. “How’re you feeling?”
“Not great.” His voice was hoarse. “Damn hold’s on fire.” He shivered. Ary drew up his blanket. “We’re burning up down here, son. You got to . . .” Another round of coughing cut off his voice.
“Just get some rest, sir,” Ary said.
The next hammock contained the Master Carpenter. Chief Sharene barely moved when Ary changed his washcloth. He suspected the chief was going to be the next to die. The man barely sucked air through his swollen throat. Voasin and the Windwarden had already perished. Lieutenant Xoaren had passed a few hours after Voasin, strangled by his own throat.
“Ary,” Vel called. “Sriechen’s dead.”
Ary looked across the hold. Vel stood over another hammock, his face pale, his eyes bloodshot. He spent all his time down here helping the sick. Ary wove his way through the hammocks. He passed Chaylene. Her breath was a bare whisper as she fought to inhale.
Just like Srias . . .
Her hand reached out for him. She brushed him, her touch warm, feverish. “. . .Ary . . .”
His hand jerked back. “I need to help Vel. I’ll be right back.”
She nodded her head.
Ary fled his dying wife to Vel. Sriechen’s eyes were still open. Bloody spittle strained the corners of his mouth. He and Vel carried Sriechen in his hammock out of the lower hold, leaving behind the pain-filled coughs. They bore the corpse to the upper hold. The healthier sick watch
ed in grim silence as they sat in groups. There were fewer up here than down in the lower hold. The quarantine appeared to be working. No one above deck had come down in hours.
Ary and Vel carried Sriechen into the menagerie. They worked in silence, setting Sriechen down before lowering the back of the ship. Air rushed in, fresh and unsoiled, driving back the raw stink of the pegasi. No one had mucked out their stalls in two days. Ary barely noticed the stench.
It didn’t differ much from the rank sweat of the lower hold.
They carried Sriechen’s body out onto the lowered stern. The air whipped at Ary’s coat but didn’t touch Vel’s shirt. Below, the Storm churned and boiled. It appeared hungry, like it knew it was about to be fed another morsel.
“Riasruo Above,” Vel said, gazing out at the starry night, “we pray that you watch over Able Sailor Sriechen Vestion as we condemn his body to the dark. May you lift his soul up to your fiery paradise and save him from Theisseg’s foul clutches.”
Ary nodded his head before they pitched Sriechen’s body off the stern of the ship. The dead sailor tumbled for a dozen heartbeats before the Storm swallowed him up. Chaylene’s next. I’ll have to throw her body off the ship.
The world spun about Ary. He stumbled back and seized the taut rope cable that raised and lowered the stern. Hemp rasped against his palm as he tottered. Vel grabbed his arm, steadied Ary, then led him back into the menagerie. Inside, Ary’s legs buckled. He sank to the straw-strewn deck, tears pouring down his cheeks. His entire body shook. Emotion burned the back of his throat.
“She’s going to die,” he sobbed.
“I know,” Vel said. Ary’s former friend sat beside him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “So why aren’t you with her?”
Ary didn’t answer. His shoulders shook worse as he cried. He battered clenched fists into his thighs.
“Why have you been avoiding her, Ary? I thought you loved her.”
Vel’s bitter accusations stabbed Ary’s heart.
“I do love her!” Ary bellowed. He knocked Vel’s arm away and pushed the sailor. “What do you know about love? When have you ever loved anything?”