A trained swordsman (if somewhat lacking in actual combat experience), he was prepared for some kind of assault – a punch or kick or perhaps even a hidden dagger at worst – but something he definitely didn’t expect was to find a heavy, wooden chair coming at him in a wide, around-the-shoulder swing from Nev’s right. Already in the process of raising his own weapon to strike, he was suddenly forced to completely abandon that idea and instead throw his arms up to his right to defend against the incoming furniture.
“Hyah…!” Using her body weight and centrifugal force to increase the power of her swing, Nev screamed a short, sharp kiai shout and smashed the chair hard into her attacker.
Baal’s reflexes probably saved his life. Had he not thrown his arms up at the last moment, the thick wood of the chair would almost certainly have caved in his skull. As it was, there was enough force to snap his forearm and still strike the side of his head hard enough to knock him senseless. He collapsed against the table where Godfrey had lain moments before, landing in a pile on the floor with the weak and wailing Silas.
“Packs… weapons…!” Godfrey barked urgently from the other side of the room, having finished off the first guard with a series of cracks to the back of the head, using the pommel of the man’s own sword as a club. “We’ve a minute or two at best before all hell breaks loose out there, and we need to find a way off this ship before that happens…!”
With a nod and not a single word, Nev stepped lightly over Baal and the croaking Silas, both of them completely forgotten for the moment, and moved straight across the table where their belongings lay strewn. Working at a feverish, adrenalin-fuelled pace, she hurriedly stuffed everything back into their respective packs, strapped the katana to her belt and slipped her duffel bag over her shoulders. She had no idea what she should do with the necklace itself, but she was certain that giving it up would be a bad idea at that point. Instead, she took a moment to wrap the chain snugly around her right wrist and tie it off, tucking the crystal pendant into her sleeve.
As she turned, Godfrey’s sword and rucksack in hand, she found him bent over Lester on the table, carefully cutting the boy’s bonds with his sword.
“Come on, mate… wakey-wakey… time to get going…” he whispered in sad desperation, shaking Lester’s shoulders and trying in vain to rouse him from his unconsciousness.
“Oh, no…” she breathed softly, her heart wrenching with sudden emotion as Godfrey fought his own tears and used a sleeve to wipe away the blood that had trickled from the boy’s nose.
“Come on, Toadface…” he pleaded softly, continuing to shake the boy and not ready to accept what seemed to be the inevitable.
“Is he…?” She asked in a lost, lonely voice, dreading the answer.
“Still breathin’… no thanks to this bastard…!” Godfrey spat bitterly, sudden anger in his eyes and tone as he glared at Silas, who’d taken the opportunity to drag himself away from the table and was now cowering in a far corner of the room, near the table their belongings had rested on. Lifting himself away from the table for a moment, Godfrey raised his sword and received a whimper of fear in return.
“If he’s still breathing, then there’s still hope…” Nev insisted, feeling some of the same killing rage she saw in Godfrey’s eyes but fighting against it for the sake of reason and their own, continuing safety. “What do we do about these two…?” She added, knowing something needed to be done but not sure she liked the idea of killing defenceless human beings… even ones who probably deserved it.
“Much as I’d love to lop the heads off these two, it’d be more than my life’s worth …” Godfrey growled, glaring at Baal’s crumpled form. “This one’s a king’s cousin, and the Southern Oster don’t need that kind of grief…”
“But he’s betraying his own country…” Nev pointed out, illustrating the man’s shortcomings rather than any real desire for execution.
“Aye, and there’s only our word for that right now, yeah…? I’ll not start a blood feud against Huon if I can avoid it.” Godfrey countered with a raised eyebrow, knowing well enough the harm that would come of another royal assassination. “And as for this one,” he snarled darkly, levelling the blade of his sword at the old man cowering in the corner. “Southern Oster’s little more than a minor irritation for The Brotherhood right now… kill one o’ their head honchos though, and they’ll come after all of us with the force of a crusade…! He’ll get his for what he’s done to Lester here…” he added, glancing down with sorrow at the boy’s unconscious form “…but that’ll have to wait…”
“You’ll die a thousand deaths… both of you…!” Silas hissed, emboldened by Godfrey’s words.
“Only takes one death…” Nev observed coldly, almost working on reflex as she extended her right hand toward Silas, his body instantly wracked with rigid convulsions. “…even a monster like you…! Heart attacks happen all the time, I’m sure… there’ll not be a mark on you…”
All she needed to do was imagine his heart in her hand… his heart being crushed as she slowly squeezed her open fingers tight around it. A faint glow shone from inside her sleeve, and a few tiny crackles of static discharge arced across the back of her hand.
“I’ll tie ‘em up…!” Godfrey suggested hurriedly, breaking her concentration as he gathered scraps of rope from the floor and moved toward Silas. The old man sagged to the deck once more, again staring at Nev in abject terror and disbelief over what she’d just done to him. It’d also concerned Godfrey, although he was more disturbed about what she was suddenly able to do with the power of that crystal rather than any danger of Silas or Baal being harmed. With the moment gone, Nev almost staggered backward a step or two, a horrified expression appearing on her face as she realised what she had been about to do… and how easily it’d been able to do it, both in technical and moral terms.
“We… we need to get out of here… now…” she stammered softly, skin crawling and feeling deeply ashamed as she wrenched the warm crystal from her wrist and stuffed it into a pocket, well away from her bare arm.
“Now that I can’t argue with…” Godfrey agreed, making a show of roughly pushing the old man’s face against the wall as he tied his hands. “I’ll just gag this bastard and we can be off. Do you think you can carry Lester? I’d rather I had my sword arm free, in case we run into any opposition.”
“Just lead the way…” Nev assured, instantly stepping over to the table, slipping her arms beneath the boy’s legs and shoulders and hoisting him from the table. With the bulk of the bag on her back already, an extra thirty kilos or so of unconscious human being required a fair amount of exertion but she managed it well enough as Godfrey ditched the guard’s sword in favour of his own, buckled it to his waist and then took up Lester’s crossbow, taking the time to load it with one of the boy’s heavy iron bolts.
“This is the prince’s personal transport…” Godfrey observed, pausing for a moment at the closed door at the opposite end of the room. “Stands to reason there must be lifeboats or something like that aboard, somewhere. We just need to find a way up on deck without being seen and make our escape…”
“Sounds easy when you put it like that…” she remarked in return, trying to make her sarcasm sound light but unable to keep the quaver out of her voice.
“It’s still night out there…” he grinned, glancing over at the darkness beyond the porthole in the far wall. “They’ll have the oarsmen going ten to the dozen, but likely as not there’ll only be a skeleton crew up on deck… if we’re lucky…” he admitted eventually.
“Now, I really feel confident…”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured with another of those grins that somehow made her feel that everything was right with the world. “You got the boy, so I’ll keep myself between you and any threat if things do go south. Just follow my lead and keep to the shadows where you can.”
“Okay…” she muttered, staring into his eyes for support but mostly speaking out loud for her own benefit.
“Okay… I can do this…” God, I hope I can do this…! “I can do this…!”
With the crossbow raised and ready in his right hand, Godfrey carefully unlatched the door leading out of the room and drew it slowly open. The fact that it was the prince’s personal vessel at least meant that everything was well-maintained, and he released a sigh of relief as no sound came from the hinges as the door drew inward.
“Ready…?”
“No…” she answered honestly, shifting Lester awkwardly in her arms “…but let’s get it over with…”
“Then let’s go…” he grinned, and stepped out into the corridor beyond.
The hallway was short, narrow and surprisingly empty. Four metres to their left stood a pair of closed doors while a similar distance to their right, the corridor ended in another, rather solid-looking wooden door reinforced with thick bands and bolts or iron. An ornate emblem depicting a blue bird of prey on a golden background adorned its centre, and it was obvious even to Nev that they were looking at some kind of official emblem.
“Royal Crest of Huon,” Godfrey explained in a whisper, momentarily at a loss as to which way to go. That’d have to be Baal’s private quarters. Doubt there’s any escape in that direction, so I guess that means the only way out is through there…” he added, nodding toward doors at the other end of the hall.
“You’re not sure?” She asked nervously, clearly struggling with Lester in her arms; he’d started moaning softly now – hopefully a good sign.
“Well, I was out cold when they brought me here… don’t know about you…” he shot back with a faint smile. “Come on… let’s…”
He was cut off as those same doors flew suddenly open, revealing a set of steps that presumably led upward in the direction of the main deck. The matter of the two guards now standing in the doorway was not an insignificant one however, although the collective shock regarding the presence of both parties left each staring at the other in surprise for an excruciatingly long moment.
“Guards…! Intruder…!”
The cry of alarm galvanised everyone into action and Godfrey was first to react, lifting the crossbow and firing a bolt straight into the chest of that man who’d called the warning. Instantly casting the weapon aside, he raised his sword, preparing to charge forward, however the second guard had other ideas. As his colleague died without a sound and collapsed to the deck beside him, he raised his own crossbow and fired at Godfrey in return.
The next moment passed too quickly for Nev to think about crying out, either in fear or warning. Far smaller than Lester’s huge weapon, the guard’s compact, stockless model nevertheless packed enough force to twist Godfrey sideways and slam him into the wall as it struck him in the right shoulder. He tumbled to the deck, grunting in pain as his blade flew out of his hand and landed almost at the guard’s feet. As it happened, her first instinct wasn’t to cry out at all. Instead, with a single, apologetic thought of ‘sorry, Lester’, she allowed his body to slump to the deck and leaped into attack past Godfrey’s fallen form, the katana already out of its scabbard and slashing downward.
The second guard should have done exactly as Godfrey had done – cast away the now-useless crossbow and reach for the cutlass at his belt – however the sudden, unexpected chaos of combat being what it was, the man was a long way from thinking clearly. There was a weapon in his hand – one that required reloading – and his first flawed instinct was to reload the crossbow he already held. He’d barely grasped the bow string and drawn it backward as Nev darted forward, and his left hand was reaching down toward the small quiver at his belt as the blade flashed down.
With Godfrey down and wounded, Nev’s reaction hadn’t been thoughtful or considered. Pure and simple, it had been born of the instinct and reflex of many years of training and practice and there was no conscious hesitation now as the two-handed stroke sliced through the man’s wrist, severing it cleanly with a far greater spray of blood than she could ever have imagined in her worst nightmares. His hand clattered to the floor, fingers still grasped pointlessly around the grip of the crossbow, and there was a moment’s silence as everything paused around one stunned guard staring with growing shock and realisation at the bloody fountain where his right hand had once been.
The pain hit then and he fell backward with a hideous, piteous scream, clutching vainly at his severed stump with his left hand as blood poured between his fingers in torrents. Nev was stunned – horrified – by what she’d just done and she found herself frozen to the spot and filled with nausea as Godfrey stumbled past her, grunting with the pain of his own wound and nevertheless managing to let fly with a savage kick to the screaming man’s head that knocked him senseless.
“Damn the luck…!” He snarled, seething with frustration over the futility of the situation as he confirmed that both men were out of action and then pushed the doors closed once more, securing them as best he could with a flimsy wooden bar. Already, there were calls of alarm filtering down from above and the sound of boots ringing on the deck overhead was drawing noticeably nearer. “Never a single thing goes our way…!”
“I – uh – maybe we can…?” Nev stammered, confusion and rising terror clouding her mind. Instinct had been fine in the heat of the moment when she’d perceived Godfrey to be in immediate danger, but that moment had passed and she was now left with a terrible, awful guilt over the violent act she’d just carried out against another human being. “Oh, God… oh God, oh God, Oh God, oh God…!”
“This isn’t the time…!” He barked in her face, recognising the signs of someone slipping into shock and snapping her out of it. “Pick up Lester and we’ll go that way…” he continue, nodding toward the door that presumably led to Baal’s quarters.
“But… but, we’ll be trapped…”
“…And we aren’t already…?” he asked pointedly, casting an arm toward the sound of approaching enemies from the other direction. “There’ll be dozens of ‘em against us, and we’ll not last a minute here or up there in the open. Barricade ourselves in there and maybe we can buy some time…”
“Time for what…?” She moaned, barely controlling her hysteria.
“Move…! Now…!” He shouted, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing her heavily backward. The action obtained its desired result, and as her left hand caught his wrist and twisted it upward, away from her body, she fixed him with an almost murderous stare.
“Nobody puts their hands on me!” She snarled back, actually causing pain with the force in her grip.
“Good…!” He nodded with a thin smile, immediately withdrawing his hand now her focus was back where it needed to be. “Now… I can’t manage this on my own,” he added, clutching at the bolt still protruding from his shoulder as a dark stain continued to spread on his tunic around it. “Pick him up and let’s get moving…”
Hurriedly wiping her blade clean and sheathing the katana, Nev crouched down and hoisted Lester over her shoulder in an improvised fireman’s lift as they heard the first crash of shoulders slamming hard against the opposite side of the opposite doors, bulging them inward slightly.
“Come on…” he urged tensely, hissing in reaction to the agony in his shoulder as he pushed the door to Baal’s private quarters inward, then turned and collected his own pack in his good hand. “That won’t hold them for long.”
It took some manoeuvring for Nev to slip through that narrow hatch, awkwardly bringing Lester with her and a pair or rucksacks (Lester’s and hers), and she almost staggered through and into the huge cabin beyond. Godfrey slammed the door shut after her and barred that one also, however this time he noted that both the door itself and the bar securing it were both very thick and solid, and it would take a great deal more effort to break through than the ones closed at the other end.
The cabin was surprisingly large, presumably stretching the width of the ship with tall windows that spread across the entire length of the back wall. There was only darkness beyond those glass panes, but it at least clearly
showed that the cabin was at the very stern of the vessel. A single lantern flickered, hanging above a large, ornately-carved desk in the centre of a room that was otherwise shrouded in darkness. The hint of other furnishings showed faintly within the gloom – a table and chairs, wardrobes and the ghost of a large bed – and everything that was visible was clearly quite luxurious and expensively made.
“That should hold ‘em for a little while,” Godfrey conceded with a wry smile, backing away from the door as Nev lowered Lester into the upholstered armchair that stood on the other side of the desk. “Looks like the prince doesn’t trust his men all that well…”
“And what’re we supposed to do now…?” She asked bluntly, still sickened by what she’d just seen and done out in that corridor and starting to shake faintly now with the shock of it all.
Any reply he might’ve given at that point was stopped cold by the unexpected chuckle that suddenly arose from a far corner of the darkened room, somewhere beyond the shape of the bed to Nev’s right.
“Nevaeh and a hot boi, trying to flee… K-I-S-S-I-N-G…” Godfrey instantly tried to reach for his sword, then groaned with the pain of sudden movement and staggered back against the barred door, but there was no mistaking the soft, scornful sound of Persephone’s voice as it sent a chill through Nev’s bones.
XII
Catharsis
“Perce…? Persephone…?” Nev growled, slowly turning in the direction of that voice and consciously resisting an urge to reach for her own blade in that moment.
“Well, who else would it be…?” Percy asked with rhetoric sarcasm, stepping out of the shadows in that corner of the room just enough to become a shadowy wraith against that stygian background. “Think you might want to look after him…” she added, and Nev really didn’t like the unpleasant sound of approval in her tone. “Wouldn’t want to let that one slip away…”
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