Setsuna bristled with outrage. “You hog, you think that is of equal value to my honor?”
“You misunderstand,” Privet shared. “That represents the freedom I gave up by coming back. Surely you can appreciate the value in that.”
As Athel watched him, her heart would not stop pounding. She could feel how flush her face was, how dry her mouth was. Her chest felt tight just looking at him.
Setsuna flicked her wrists and a throwing knife appeared in each hand. “I'll make you pay for insulting me.”
Privet swung his saber around and pointed it at her heart. “Only if you win.”
There was another thud on the vault door. The entire room seemed to shudder. Everyone else instinctively backed away, respecting the rights of a traditional dual.
Privet held his saber up before his face in salute. “Are you ready?”
Setsuna balanced on one toe and crossed her daggers in front of her face. “I’m not going to lose to you.”
Privet grinned. “Amateurs should not talk trash.”
“Ohh hoo,” Setsuna gasped in rage, her eyes wild. “You'll pay for that one, Wysterian!”
Losing her composure, Setsuna roared and threw both her blades. Privet deflected them easily, then spun around and kicked up his knee, catching Setsuna right in the gut as she appeared behind him. Grabbing her stomach in pain, Setsuna created a gate beneath her and fell down through the floor, but Privet grabbed her by a pigtail and swung her aloft, attempting to slam her into the ground. A hidden blade extended out from her boot and she kicked at his neck. Privet released her and backed up, her blade passing just inches from his face. Faster than thought, Privet slashed his blade, deflecting a thrown knife, then continuing on to her neck. Setsuna disappeared at the last second, a look of bewilderment on her face as his saber nearly decapitated her.
Four throwing knives shot out at him from behind, but he instinctively spun to one side and avoided them. Another two streaked down from above, but were deflected by a slash of his blade. Three more came at him from one side, and he rolled forward out of their path, coming to his feet just in time to block two more that zoomed in from straight ahead.
“So long as she keeps him at a distance he can’t win,” Captain Evere observed as Setsuna landed before Privet, breathing heavily.
“She’s thrown more than a dozen already, she must be nearly out by now,” Ryin opined.
With a grin, Setsuna flicked her wrists and fanned out six more blades in each hand. “They were on sale.”
Athel had been watching, and caught Setsuna’s fingers disappearing down into something, then emerging with knives in hand. “She’s pulling them out of gates on her gauntlets. She could have hundreds!”
Four gates appeared before Setsuna and she flung a dozen blades into them. The throwing knives exited from gates all around Privet, streaking in at him from every angle. He leapt forward as the ground where he had been standing became studded with blades. He sidestepped another pair, the knives passing so close that they tore off the front of his shirt, revealing his sculpted chest. His saber turned another pair aimed at his head, while he jinked to one side, avoiding a third. With his free hand, he snatched the final throwing knife out of the air and threw it back through the gate from which it had emerged. Setsuna noticed too late, and barely managed to duck beneath it as it came out of her gate straight at her face. When she looked up again, he was nearly on top of her. He feinted to one side, and she took the bait, slashing a fresh blade where she expected him to be, but he had moved up alongside her.
He caught her in the side with a knee to the ribcage, forcing the air out of her with a heaving grunt. She reversed her grip and stabbed at his head just as he ducked beneath it.
Privet slashed upwards with his blade, threatening to cut her in half, but she disappeared at the last second and he cut only air.
She dropped to the ground a good distance from him, clutching her pained midsection, barely able to stay on her feet. “Why can’t I hit you?!” she roared, her eyes wild with hate.
For the first time in the duel, Privet smiled. “You make the same mistake the women on my island make,” he explained. “Your magic has become your crutch. You rely on it too much, and so your basics have become weak.”
Privet now went on the offensive, charging at her like a lion. “In reality, the principals of swordfighting are very simple.”
Privet threw a knife straight at her, then jumped to one side. Setsuna disappeared to avoid it. When she reappeared her eyes widened. He had guessed right where she would reappear and was nearly on top of her.
“Adversarial perception,” he said, stabbing straight at her heart. Setsuna yelped and turned to the side, barely avoiding being impaled, the blade tearing off her leather vest. She flicked out a new pair of throwing knives into her hands.
“Distance,” she said as he leaned back, her first slash passing harmlessly an inch from his neck, the second missing his abdomen by a hair’s breadth.
Privet slashed up with the back of the saber, cracking her hard in the wrists, nearly breaking the bones, and knocking the weapons from her hands. Setsuna jumped back through a gate but he jumped and followed her, catching her in the throat with a thrust from his elbow.
“Timing,” he said as her fingers came up to her neck. Privet grabbed her wrists and spun her around.
“And leverage.” Privet used his superior strength and weight to force her to the ground. She slammed against the floor of the vault, her arms wrenched behind her, him straddling on top of her, his knee in her ribs.
Athel could not believe what she was seeing. This was not the Privet she had known, nor was it the silly ideal she had fantasized about in her youth, but a mixture of the two. She felt like her stomach was full of butterflies.
“Ahh, let me go!” Setsuna coughed, her voice hoarse and strained. Her cheek pressed against the floor. Her green hair wild and frayed.
Privet spoke to her in a commanding tone. “Open the gate back up or I will break your arm!”
Setsuna breathed heavily. “You...you don’t have the guts to...ahhhhh!”
Privet pushed her wrenched arm further and the bone snapped with a sickening crunch.
“But the most basic of all,” Privet concluded, placing the blade of his saber across her throat, “is the will to fight and the will to kill in order to win.”
Privet took a moment to let his words sink in. “Do you yield?”
“Never!” Setsuna hissed, her body quivering with injury. “My...my people do not yield to foreigners. If I did I would be forced to...”
Privet kicked his knee into her cracked ribs, breaking them with a horrifying crunch.
Setsuna cried out in agony. Tears rolled off her face and pooled on the floor beneath her. It was pitiful to watch.
“Do you yield?” Privet repeated, his voice unwavering. He pressed his blade even harder against her skin.
Setsuna coughed up blood. Her eyes swam. Her lip trembled. Her pride was shattered.
“I yield.”
“Privet twisted her broken arm further. “So everyone can hear you.”
“I said I yield!”
The exit portal, which had been a mere keyhole, now opened up again until it was wide enough for a ship to pass through. Sunlight and clean air flooded the vault once again. Privet withdrew the blade from her throat. Ryin and Captain Evere set on her, tying her up with rope.
“How?” Setsuna asked as she looked at Privet, her eyes jittering with disbelief.
Privet sheathed his weapon. “You assumed I would hold back because you are a beautiful woman. Never make that mistake again if you want to be treated like an equal.”
Privet turned and found Athel there, her hands on her hips. “You never hold back on a woman, huh?” she quipped. “So how come I never saw any of that from you before?”
“Shut up, Athel,” Privet said as he walked past her.
“I'll shut up when I get my money back,” she complained as she followed
after him. “Your swordfighting lessons weren’t worth spit.”
Privet turned to her, his eyes deep and focused. It made her heart skip a beat when they locked with hers. “Look, I may have taught you everything you know about swordfighting, but that doesn’t mean I taught you everything I know.”
There was another thud and the vault door cracked.
“Time to go,” Captain Evere commanded, grabbing Mina and making a run for the airship.
“Too bad we didn’t get a chance to fill up the Dreadnaught,” Dr. Griffin bemoaned as he followed after them.
Ryin stopped in his tracks. “Are you serious? Are you telling me we've been here all day and loaded every ship except our own?”
There was another thud, and the vault cracked again.
“Get on board Colenat,” Mina called out as she climbed the rope ladder.
Ryin fell to his knees. “Are you kidding me? We're sitting in a vault of gold and we're going to leave without anything?”
There was another thud, and the cracks widened.
“We'll leave with our lives, now move it!” Captain Evere ordered as he unmoored the ship.
Ryin dropped down to the ground and began grabbing up the loose coins, jamming as many as he could into his pockets. “No, no this is stupid, there’s always time for a few handfuls.”
Hanner scooped up Ryin and climbed up onto the ship, Strenner tucked inside his jacket. Margaret created a wind that crabbed them sideways in line with the open gate.
There was another thud and the cracks in the vault door widened further.
“No pressure, but if you tear the sails we all die,” Captain Evere cautioned. Margaret turned to look at him and let off a squeak of fright.
As Athel helped Privet hoist Setsuna up onto the deck, she glanced over at Blair, still lying on the ground, bound up in her roots. Somehow, over the noise and voices, she was able to hear him speak to her.
“It doesn’t matter you know,” he explained.
“What do you mean?”
“Even if everything you hope for comes true. Even if you defeat the massive navies of the League, your forest will still die. Soon my father’s spell will be complete, and the canvas of this world will be wiped clean.”
“Go Margaret! Go! Go! Go!” Captain Evere shouted. With a gust of wind the Dreadnaught surged forward and through the gate, leading out of what was now a nearly empty vault.
The gate closed behind them just as the vault door exploded inward.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The capitals of Stretis were in complete chaos. The waterfalls of Celecard had ceased running after a strike from the Stormcallers union. The absence of the water made the air feel dry and parched. No perfumed streams of air flowed through the towered buildings. All was stagnant and sweltering. In the surrounding cities civilians hid in their homes, forced inside by emergency curfew decrees. With all the law enforcement officers recalled to the palace, looting had become rampant, and lawlessness ruled the day. Shattered windows and pillaged storefronts replaced what had only a few days before been thriving market districts. Everywhere the sounds of breaking, shattering, and screaming filled the air, and already the days of peace and prosperity was beginning to feel distant and hazy, like a clouded memory.
Crowds of screaming bankers and merchants choked every entrance to the royal palace, barely held back at gunpoint by overwhelmed palace guards. Rotten vegetables and broken bits of masonry launched up anonymously from the fearsome crowd.
Inside the palace the new Queen, Erin Strelan, kicked over a stack of papers and shoved the adjutant away from her throne that sat at the head of a gilded table. “I said, I want the gold found and returned. Are you too stupid to understand that?”
“We've got ships looking everywhere,” explained the diminutive Lord Aghael, Minister of Defense. “As near as we can, tell the pirates scattered in every direction. We could send every ship in the fleet and never find all of them.”
“So why aren’t we sending every ship?” Erin barked as she spun around, her crown slipping askew.
“Because we are still trying to regroup for the offensive on Wysteria. If we send them all off it will take months to reform.”
“We don’t have months, Lord Ewjell, Minister of the Interior, pointed out through his thick mustache. “The Stone Council wants the war over yesterday.”
“I know that!” Erin bellowed, a strand of loose hair falling across her face.
Erin turned to face the heavy doors at the far end of the disheveled hall. She knew The Stone Council would be calling for her soon. She was essentially a condemned prisoner in her own palace.
“Perhaps we could bring in some of the Navy soldiers,” Lord Aghael suggested. “We could use the additional manpower to restore order in the capital.”
“The more soldiers we bring in, the more we risk the news of the robbery spreading off-island,” touted Lord Apolinano, Minister of Security.
“No one says the word robbery, you hear me?” Erin yelled. “That word is forbidden.”
“We barely have it locked down as it is,” forewarned Lord Dahool, Minister of Transportation. “How much longer we can keep all of these civilian ships trapped in our docks?”
“Our people are Stormcallers,” Erin yelled. “No one leaves this island without wind, and no one allows wind to exist without my say so!”
“Be reasonable, My Queen,” Lord Apolinato enjoined, scratching his jowls. “This is too big to keep secret.”
“No!” Erin yelled, holding up her royal scepter. “I will not spend my reign taking the blame for the incompetence of others. No one must know the treasury was raided.”
“Right now, we can’t even pay the salaries of the men and women of the Navy,” Lord Aghael warned. “How long are they going to serve without pay?”
“How about without food?” Lord Ilsacv, Minister of Agriculture prompted. “We don’t have funds to feed them.”
“We'll have to do some emergency appropriations,” suggested Lord Arrish, Minister of Labor.
“We can’t just steal crops from the farmers,” Lord Ilsacv reprimanded, his thick eyebrows twitching. “They'll never do business with us again. Think of our reputation.”
“They'll do what they're told or we'll use the Navy to force them at gunpoint,” Erin threatened, her eyes wild.
“You mean the Navy that we cannot pay or feed?” Lord Aghael reminded.
“That’s not our only problem,” Lord Erryk, Minister of Commerce joined in, raising his long, aged fingers. “We have thousands of commissions for new ships being built that we won’t be able to compensate once they are finished.”
“You must face the reality, My Queen,” Lord Acklew, Minister of the Treasury opined, tucking fresh tobacco into his pipe. “Your power comes from the gold, and the gold is gone.”
Erin’s movements were twitchy. She felt like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She snapped her gaze over to Lord Uncan, Minister of Magic, who sat quietly in his ornate chair, eyes half open, deep in thought. “What about you?” Erin snipped. “Why so quiet?”
“My Lady, you don’t pay me to coddle you like an infant,” Lord Uncan explained calmly. “You pay me to give you the truth, straight and undiluted.”
“I’m listening.”
“You have two options,” Lord Uncan said, raising his finely manicured fingers. “You can either keep this robbery a secret and disband the Federal Navy for lack of funds, or you can decree emergency taxes to cover the losses and deal with the repercussions.”
“We can’t disband the Navy!” Lord Dahool burst out, his long white hair shaking about. “The trade routes will collapse from piracy. Entire island kingdoms will starve without trade.”
“The pirates broke into the most heavily guarded facility in the world, and that was with the Navy guarding it,” Lord Apolinano scoffed, his fat cheeks wriggling about as he spoke. “I tremble to think what they would do without the Navy patrols.”
“Could we not blame the rob
bery on some other party?” asked the young Lord Hinsekis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, his dark oily hair glistening in the torchlight.
“On who? We blame it on the Wysterians and we make them look even stronger. They already thrashed our invasion force.”
Erin gripped her scepter tightly. She felt the weight of the world, and the world had nothing but blame and excuses to give her.
I can’t do this. I don’t want this job anymore.
“You are the Queen, what is your decision?” asked Lord Ewjell, leaning forward.
The room grew silent.
Erin ground her teeth. “We will follow Lord Unchan’s suggestion, and declare emergency taxes in the form of mandatory war bonds.”
“I'll get to work on the figures,” Lord Acklew announced, lighting his pipe.
“Officially, the reason will be to fund the war,” Lord Uncan explained. “We will promise the public that the money will be paid back to them once the invasion of Wysteria is complete. The Wysterian people themselves will make reparations to pay off the war bonds.”
“That will take them a long time,” Lord Erryk warned, licking his dry wrinkled lips.
“Yes, but the delay will be perceived as the fault of the Wysterians, not us.”
“And the robbery?” Lord Arrish prompted, cracking his knuckles.
“There will be rumors,” Erin said, wiping the sweat off of her cheek with her sleeve, “but we will deny them.”
“That won’t be enough,” Lord Apolinano forewarned, pointing a plump finger. “When someone loses a coin you can just shrug it off. When you lose a mountain of gold, you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen; people will notice.”
“We could deflect it,” Lord Uncan suggested. “Claim the rumor started as something benign.”
“Like what?”
“A stage play. If there was a play where the plot focused on pirates raiding the treasury, we could claim that as the source of the rumor.”
Lord Hinsekis’ eyes lit up. “We could even fund such a project, and have fliers posted about the theater district.”
Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen Page 30