Slave of the Sea (The Chronicles of Salt and Blood Book 1)

by Dawn Dagger

  The Captain was ignoring the men’s cries, cursing and pacing. He pulled out his sword and began to swing it in circles, tossing silver light. Quinn stood and quieted the men, raising his own voice, “hush up you scoundrels!

  “What attacked Norrin is called a festering barnacle! They usually do not dwell this close to the surface, but we’ll just have to deal with them! Get some oars, men, and begin knocking the things off. If you piss around, we’re going to sink because they will eat through the wood of the ship!”

  None of the men moved.

  “Don’t make me tell you twice!” Quinn snarled. The men all started, then began a flurry of movement. They grabbed oars and ropes and began to try their darndest to remove the barnacles from the side of the ship.

  Rakifi suddenly stormed toward Levanine, his face blotchy and red and his eyes sparking. Levanine was afraid. Why was he angry at her? What had she done? He grabbed her arm so tightly she cried out in surprise, then dragged her a few steps away from Braxton, who was beginning to help with the removal of the barnacles.

  “What?” She gasped.

  “You didn’t dare try and use bait runes, did you?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the air and stabbing into her angrily. His skin radiated heat, but his silver eyes were pleading, begging her to tell him that he was wrong.

  “Of course not!” Her voice was shrill. She had no power to cast or charm runes or… whatever. “I’m not stupid!”

  “I know…” Rakifi sighed and dropped his hand from her arm. “I know you’re not… I’m… sorry. I did not mean to be so sharp.” He chuckled in a frightfully unhappy way, looking sheepish and somewhat sick. “Don’t try to Runecast… I am begging you.”

  “Of course not.” She whispered, her throat dry. She was horrified he thought she would ever attempt such a thing. “Never.”

  It was silent in the cabin as the Captain slept, his chest rising and falling slowly. Levanine crept out of the cabin and onto the deck, clutching the sheet of paper tightly in her shaking fist. Her gaze was focused on the one lantern swinging against the mast, the only thing bright in the darkness that enveloped everything around her.

  The air smelled like blood.

  Her cracked fingernails pulled the glass panel of the lantern open and she tipped the edge of the paper toward the dancing flame. She watched as the orange slowly consumed the brown page, each rune glowing orange before disappearing forever.

  Her palm caught the rest of the ashes that fell and she wandered toward the edge of the ship in the dark, and when her fingertips brushed the side, now free of barnacles, she dumped the ashes into the sea, to be carried away.

  She wasn’t sure if it was too blame, but she prayed it was. She prayed that it was but a mistake, something she had not created, and that her movements had corrected the problem.

  They should be safe now.

  As Levanine closed the door to the cabin and crawled into the Captain’s bed, a long, low wail trembled through the ocean and air. It was not the melodic song of the whales. It was something terrifying.

  The Captain shifted in his sleep and Levanine laid with her back pressed against the wooden wall, trying to steady her quickly beating heart. Her stomach growled softly and she clutched it.

  She wondered how far to Avondella it was yet.

  Chapter 16

  Levanine felt so very sick as she curled closer to herself, ignoring the growling of her stomach. The sky was grey and cloudy and the men were angry. They grumbled and threatened each other and tossed dice with such force it might have broken the surface had the crate of cloth been glass.

  Levanine began to wonder if one could eat cotton without getting too sick. Maybe it would fluff and fill the stomach as it did in one’s ears. She’d certainly never heard of anyone trying to eat cotton, so perhaps no one had, and they would be fine if they did.

  Rakifi, although he had been thoroughly tormented for it, sat vigilant at the starboard side of the Royalty, one hand on a limp rope net. Palae was pacing and muttering ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it,’ his gnarled hands clasped behind his back. Braxton and Eldred spoke in hushed tones beside the sick room, where Awla sat beside Norrin’s bed, his face tear streaked. Kasha continued to scrub the same spot on the deck as he had for three days, as if he still saw blood no one else had noticed.

  Quinn and the Captain were nowhere to be seen, huddled in the Captain’s cabin, discussing something. The men thought they were selfishly eating food none of the sailors knew existed. Levanine knew it wasn’t true.

  “I’m wonderin’, yet again, if we couldn’t eat that darn bird.” Levanine looked up to see Silva approach and sit beside her on the stairs leading to the hull. “Three days and my boots are startin’ to look kinda delicious…”

  He was joking, well, half-joking, but his voice was like a mouse’s, so the amusement seemed veiled as concern. Over the days of talking to him, Levanine had learned how to differentiate his worries from his quips. Levanine nodded, staring at the colored bird that stayed a good distance from the men. The bird must have realized the men wanted to eat him.

  “Perhaps clothes would be tasty… rats seem to think so.” She offered.

  “Or, we could become fearsome cannibals.” Levanine cocked her head, clutching her stomach as hunger pangs shot through it. “Quiller is useless, and a dog mostly anyhow. Let’s eat him!”

  Levanine chuckled forgivingly, but she was a little worried about how he seemed to be just a little bit serious. She watched Kasha scrub at the deck for a moment. “Can you eat barnacles?”

  “I dunno. Ask Eldred.”

  “You ask Eldred!”

  “No!”

  Levanine sighed and rested her forehead on her knees. She was so hungry that it was forming a fog in her mind. Silva dashed his sleeve under his nose, then sighed, leaning back. “Do you think it’s true? The Cap’n has food ‘e’s hidin’ from us?”

  “Of course not!” Levanine gasped, offended he would suggest such a thing. “The Captain is a good captain, he would never do such a thing!”

  “He’s also a pirate,” Silva countered.

  “And so are you! And you would share your food.” Levanine pouted angrily. How could all the men think such horrible things about their Captain? Stupid dogs. Silva sighed again, and, seeing he upset her, hugged his knees and kept silent. “Silva?”

  “Mm?”

  “When is the next stop?”

  Silva buried his face in his knees and covered his head in his hands, tangling his fingers in his caramel colored curls. “There is none,” he whined. “There are none ‘cept Avondella. We were goin’ to stop at Dalphi, but the currents changed and there’s a storm that way. We wouldn’t make it safe. We’re stuck starvin’ until the fishes decide to stop by.”

  “Oh,” the sound came as a small whisper from her lips. She felt panicked. Would they just go hungry until they reached Avondella? Would they be able to live that long, or would they be forced to eat the bird and boots until they slowly died from starvation?

  Maybe it was worth using the baiting runes… maybe…

  No. Levanine covered her own head with her hands, a headache pounding through her skull. She sighed and stood up, beginning to pace as her muscles clenched painfully. It barely felt as if her muscles existed anymore. The only thing that was left of her body was the growing chasm in her stomach.

  She found her feet carrying her towards the sick room, where Awla was now lying on the ground, staring blankly into space. Eldred was tending to Norrin, who was whiter than bone, his breaths shallow.

  Levanine leaned against the doorframe and watched Eldred work, trying to figure what question had come to find just moments before that she wanted to ask. The men began to shout as they threw die-- their voices sounding jagged and angry.

  Eldred crossed over to her and looked past her for a moment, then turned his dark eyes to regard her. “Aye?”

  “Do…” The question sounded quite s
illy. “Um, is he going to live?”

  Eldred’s long, yellow-brown fingers ran themselves through his long braid. “We need food.”

  He did not answer her question, but she knew what he was doing. He did not want to upset Awla further. Awla seemed dangerous if he became too distressed. She could sense the intensity crackling through the air when he was tense.

  “Why do my hands shake?” She asked suddenly, thrusting her palms forward to show him the trembling.

  Eldred watched them for a long moment, then blinked slowly. “We are all starving.”

  “No, I mean…” She struggled for words for a moment, feeling herself panic. She shouldn’t have asked the question. “They… they always shake. Always have. Why? I need them to stop.”

  Eldred’s cool fingertips brushed against her palm and he turned her hand side to side, and she got shivers across her back from the contact. She was tense, but not quite afraid. After a moment he let go.

  “Essential tremors or you are just nervous. If it is the first, you will never have still hands, save if you smoke honeydream.”

  Levanine could not conceal her distress. She did not want her hands to shake for the rest of her life! How could she ever be a pirate if they were constantly twitching? Damn them. Levanine opened her mouth to protest, ask if he could be wrong, when a sudden shout of anger made her jump.

  One of the men tossed a crate and it went crashing across the deck, splintering against the starboard side, inches from a pale Rakifi. The men were yelling at one another, waving their hands, red faced. Levanine could not understand the commotion as they screamed in strange languages. Braxton tried to push one of the men, equal in size to him, back, but the man shoved him aside and two of the pirates began to brawl.

  Eldred watched with arms crossed, glaring at the men. Shouts went up and they soon began to draw a crowd. Levanine hugged herself as crates went splintering against the deck of the ship and more men joined the brawl.

  When would the Captain and Quinn emerge from the cabin to yell at the men? Had they somehow not heard the ruckus?

  They were truly like teenaged boys, the idiotic pirates. Screaming insults and destroying things and punching one another all because of a lost game. Couldn’t they carve wooden figures or sew the sails? Anything productive?

  Eldred gave her a look that she assumed meant he was thinking the same thing. Eldred did not seem very concerned about the brawl. She assumed the men would not die, so it did not matter if they broke their noses.

  Then there was a splash of red.

  Levanine gasped as one of the men stumbled back from the cacophony, holding his shoulder as blood seeped through his fingers. Eldred cursed and stepped forward while the pirate was pulled back into the brawl, which had now turned into a knife fight.

  Above the din of howling men and fists hitting flesh and wood being destroyed, she heard another, strange noise. It was a distorted noise that sounded like a waterfall was slowly coming closer to the ship, despite them being in the center of the ocean.

  Levanine looked past the men and gasped softly. A wave was moving towards them- a splashing, frothing line of white. Eldred followed her gaze and his eyes widened as well. “What?”

  Before Levanine could even begin to guess what was causing the wave, silver began to sparkle within the white bubbles. Flashes and dances of pale silver in the cloudy day, as if there were invisible pirates holding knife fights in the wave.

  The visible pirates fighting did not notice the wave about to crash upon the ship, but Eldred and Levanine braced themselves against the doorway to the sick room so they would not be thrown.

  Levanine cried out and stumbled as the wave struck the ship hard against the side, raining salt water down. Just as she regained her footing and wiped the stinging from her eyes, she was hit in the knees by something sharp and wet.

  She jumped back with a yelp and looked down to see a silver fish the size of Braxton’s arm flopping at her feet. The whole deck was covered with the fish! The creature flopped around, sparkling dully, and the men stopped their brawl long enough to notice.

  Braxton began to run around the deck, slamming his fist into the heads of the sharp fish. They were stilled in a spray of thick, pinkish liquid. Levanine turned away, feeling a bit sick. The men cheered and began to wrestle with the fish, stabbing them between their scales and cutting off their large heads. Rakifi and Silva were pulling a bundle of them from the ocean, struggling with the full net. Levanine ran forward and tried to help them, the rope cutting into her hands.

  And, almost as suddenly as the fight had broken out and the fish had appeared, the biggest of the wave was going away and the deck was covered in fishes and their blood. Braxton grabbed two armfuls of the wriggling fish, tucking them under his arms as if they were simply bundles of sticks, then disappeared below decks.

  Levanine wiped a few strands of wet hair from her face and panted. She turned to look at Silva and Rakifi. Rakifi’s face was scarlet red and he was huffing. He suddenly stormed away from their newly emptied net, headed for the Captain’s cabin, which still had yet to open.

  The men on the deck cheered, and some launched forward, ripping silver scales out of the bodies before them, their teeth biting into the raw flesh, blood trickling down their chins. Levanine turned away, truly sick from the sight, and Silva gagged.

  Levanine was hungry, but she was not sick enough to eat fish raw and ungutted. They did not even know if the fish were safe to eat!

  “Stop, stop, stop! You are wild dogs, the lot of you!” Quinn suddenly screamed, emerging from the cabin. The men looked up, mid-chew or with their mouths hanging open, freezing with the fish in their hands. Quinn’s face was splotched and he put his hands on his fists, huffing.

  “You clean these damn fish off the deck!” He was bellowing, screaming. Why was he so angry? Silva and Levanine shrunk and stepped closer to one another. “You clean up this mess, and stop acting like boars! You all are fools! You aren’t animals! Bastards and rogues and scoundrels, yes, but not animals! You’ve gone a week and more without food! Those fish could kill you! Pull yourselves together or no one gets paid or fed when and until we dock in Avondella, which is in three days!”

  The men all looked pale and angry at the same time, then obeyed like scolded dogs, beginning to gather the fish and clean the deck. Quinn continued howling angrily. Silva leaned over to her and whispered, “Why is he lying, Levanine?”

  “What?” The smell of roasting fish suddenly washed over them and Levanine’s knees wobbled. It smelt so good she could have cried.

  “We are more than six days from port…”

  She turned to face him. “How do you know, Silva?”

  “I just…” he blushed and began to mumble. “I… I know… I can feel it… I… I haven’t been wrong yet… Unfortunately.”

  Levanine nodded slowly, faking understanding, then began to walk around the deck, picking up loose scales, afraid of being yelled at as well. Boots clopped across the wood and Levanine looked up to see the Captain standing in front of her, anger in his eyes and his hands on his hips.

  “Come. You will help Braxton cook.”

  “Yes sir,” she said quickly, standing up and hugging the fish scales to her bosom. She followed him as he went below decks, then waited behind him as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Braxton.”

  “Yes, Cap’n?”

  “You will use only two of these fish for the meal.”

  Braxton’s eyes widened. “Two?” He repeated incredulously, running a hand through his blue hair.

  “Two. If you cook more than that they will stuff themselves until they are sick, and then they’ll die. The fools are already close enough to death.”

  “Ah, yes Captain.” He muttered, saluting and tossing another filet of fish into the popping skillet at his elbow.

  “Levanine will help you.”

  He left suddenly and Levanine helped Braxton cook
the few fillets of fish, spicing them with salt and the various herbs in the barrels, taking small flakes of fish with his permission. She sucked on the pieces until they tasted like nothing, and only then did she swallow them. The aching in her stomach was curbed slightly, and she was grateful.

  They placed the fish on wooden plates and at each seat in the dining area, put out the cooking fire, and then stepped up onto the deck, which had at least six pirates scrubbing it, none of them being Kasha, to her surprise.

  The Captain was overseeing the work, glaring down at all below him. Rakifi was glaring at him from a distance, his arms crossed, bristling more than she had ever seen. Levanine quietly walked toward the brown-haired man, then asked softly, “what’s wrong?”

  “I think he used runes.”

  “That’s… no. He couldn’t have?”

  “He must have used baiting runes! Must! What else could he have been doing in there all that time with Quinn?” He gestured angrily at the door to the cabin.

  “Um… looking… at the map?” She offered. They couldn’t have used to runes. She still had the book at her waist. Even then, she had burned the paper with the baiting runes. It was truly impossible.

  He shook his head, swearing softly. “Stupid man, going to get us all killed…”

  “Rakifi,” Levanine grabbed his sleeve. “He could not have. You already said he doesn’t have that kind of ability… and… I burned the page.”

  Rakifi went pale for a moment, and Levanine wondered what she had done wrong. Had she made things worse? Or was he pale with fright at being cross with his captain? The color slowly seeped back into his skin. “Oh… well… then… I suppose… we are safe. For now…”

  “For now?” She repeated, looking up wide eyed at him.

  “Did I say for now?” He gave her another one of those frighteningly unhappy chuckles, running a hand through the hair hanging loose on either side of his face. “I… I meant the food. We are safe with the food for now.”

  “Ah…” She said slowly, not understanding his meaning.