Water & Storm Country

by David Estes

  The nine leather ribbons tickle my back.

  I pause, thinking how easy it would be to chuck the cat o’ nine over the railing, into the sea. It would take my father a while to locate another one. But that would only delay the inevitable. And he might even take it to mean I won’t do it.

  I can’t have that.

  I can’t.

  I swing my hand forward, not hard—but not soft either—just enough to bring the whip arcing over my head, dragging the nine endings through the air like bolts of lightning. When my arm reaches the point where it’s parallel with the deck, I snap my wrist.

  Crack!

  Jade grunts, but doesn’t cry out. Nine tears split the back of her shirt, showing her brown skin beneath. As I watch, the brown turns to red.

  I did it. I really did it. Can I ever go back? Can things ever go back to how they were?

  Then I realize the crowd’s booing, low and mournful, some of them spitting and shouting insults, like “Weakling!” and “Piss-ant!” My father steps forward, flush with anger.

  Once more, he hisses in my ear. “If you embarrass me, I’ll kill her anyway. Swing like you mean it or the eighteen won’t count.”

  My lips tremble, barely holding back my rage, barely stopping me from spitting in his face.

  When he steps back, I focus on a spot above Jade, where the mast is stained white from the sea spray. It’s the type of uncleanliness Jade would normally go out of her way to remedy. I stare at that spot like it’s a beautiful sunset, like it’s Jade’s face in the bird’s nest, alive with near-joy as she tells me about fire country, about her sisters.

  I swing, harder this time. Much harder.

  CRACK!

  The shrill sound echoes in my ears, slices through my skull, threatens to wrench tears from my eyes.

  Jade is silent and I’m focused on the white-stained wood.

  CRACK!

  My breath is coming in ragged huffs and I’m on the verge of a breakdown. A low moan rumbles from Jade’s lips, but I pretend she’s someone I don’t know, stricken with the Scurve.

  CRACK!

  Finally, she cries out, and I almost drop the whip in surprise, because I’m not hitting her, I’m not doing it, I’m just watching the sunset with my mother.

  I don’t stop. Can’t stop until it’s done.

  CRACK!

  She screams. I can’t look down, can’t see what I’ve done. It’ll break me as I’m breaking her.

  CRACK!

  Her cry has become distant, like a dream, fuzzy and fading and not real. The only thing real: Jade’s smile, her eyes, alive alive alive.

  CRACK!

  I’ve lost count, which I can’t do, because I have to know when to stop. I retrace my swings, try to work it out. Seven. I’m sure of it.

  Again and again, cracking and snapping, just whipping a salt-stained mast, almost like I’m practicing for the real thing. Fifteen times already.

  She’s stopped screaming with every blow, her reaction nothing more than a soft whimper now. Does that mean it doesn’t hurt anymore? Or has she simply screamed her lungs dry?

  Three more.

  My mind is red and orange and pink and yellow with a long-ago sunset as I bring the whip down once more. This time she shrieks, and I almost do it,

  (I almost look down.)

  but I remember myself at the last second and keep my chin tilted back, above the agony and pain and stark reality.

  The second to last blow falls, but I don’t even realize my arm is moving, like it’s not mine anymore. Like my father has taken control, like he always does, forcing me to bend to his will.

  She howls and my heart snaps in two.

  One left. Can I finish it with a broken heart?

  My eyes finally snap down when I feel him striding toward me. I want to look to the side, to see what’s happening, to prepare myself for whatever’s coming, but I can’t pull my gaze away from her.

  She’s dangling from her wrists, which remain tied tightly to the pole, her wrists red and raw and chafed. Her knees drag on the deck, scraped and bleeding. Her once beautiful, brown skin is slick with a sheet of red, darkened and clotting in stripes of torn skin, like a battleground after a war, its trenches filled with the blood and bodies of the dead.

  I’ll never be able to touch her again.

  And then he’s there, my father, muscling me out of the way, ripping the whip from my gnarled grasp, raising it over his head like a scythe—

  —bringing it down hard, at least ten times harder than my own strokes—

  —Jade’s final cry, a horrible howl of pain and surrender—

  —and then my father is raising the whip again, even though it’s been eighteen blows, and

  the crowd’s screaming for more blood, more blood

  and I can’t believe these are my people,

  these are who I belong to.

  I grab the whip as it dangles behind my father, just before he snaps it forward for the nineteenth blow. His eyes widen in surprise and he drops it, whirls at me, swings a heavy fist at my face.

  I duck, lower my head, barrel into him, pushing him back with all my might, not stopping until he crashes into the crowd behind him.

  We both go down in a tangle.

  And though I’m ready to do this, ready to fight him, ready to do whatever it takes to stop him (even kill him?), something changes in the attitude of the crowd. I push to my feet expecting the stares of hundreds of men and women on me, but they’re looking away from us, toward land.

  Toward land where…

  …where in the distance…

  …hundreds of black-clad Riders gallop across the plains. There’s no doubt where they’re headed, and no doubt why they’re here.

  The Riders at the front of the column are carrying the black flags of war, flashing with shards of light from the bolts of lightning slashing from the sky above them.

  A storm is coming.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sadie

  The heavy cloud cover grows darker as we gallop across the plains, the thunder from the horses’ hooves matching the thunder in the sky above.

  When the ships appear in the distance my heart skips a beat, but then races onwards, double time, matching Passion’s speed.

  Siena grips me tighter from behind.

  Trusting Passion to run us in a straight line, I gaze over the thin stretch of ocean that separates the Soakers from us. Something’s happening. Hundreds of Soakers are assembled on one ship, so tightly packed they almost look like ants, crawling over each other to get into their hole.

  The crowded ship looks strange compared to the others, like something’s missing. Like there’s a huge gap in the middle of it. Where the other ships have a thick, wooden pole in the center, stretching higher than any of the other totems, this ship has nothing, making it appear weaker. It’s not by design—of that I’m certain. Something happened to this ship, crippling it. Is the assembly related to whatever disaster overcame the ship’s wind-catcher?

  The ants have spotted us. The barks of loud shouts can be heard over the crash of the waves on the sand. Soakers are pointing our way, gesturing wildly.

  Someone must give them their orders, because the people of the sea begin swarming across thick wooden planks, returning to each and every ship in the fleet. Boats begin dropping into the water with white, frothy splashes. Men clamber down ropes, swords gleaming from their belts, filling the boats to overflowing.

  Someone ordered them to go to war. Was it the blue-clad boy I saw atop the hill, the one in my father’s vision? Am I approaching the moment predicted by my father, where destiny will meet vengeance?

  Yesss, the Evil whispers in my ear, once more clutching my shoulder. This time, whether real or fantasy, I don’t shake it off.

  Huck

  My father’s clutching the back of his head, where he must’ve hit it when I tackled him onto the deck, but that doesn’t stop him from shouting orders over the heavy murmurs of the crowd. “To
arms! To the boats! To war!”

  The men charge back to their ships, grabbing weapons and preparing the boats, while the women scamper below deck seeking shelter.

  I’m in an ocean of activity, swarming and cresting and crashing about me, but I can’t take my eyes off of her.

  Jade hangs awkwardly from her wrists, swinging slightly in the breeze. With her shirt completely torn away in the back, exposing her ripped and shredded skin, she almost doesn’t look human. Just a piece of meat, drying in the wind.

  My heart sits in my throat and I can’t manage to choke down the sob that suddenly convulses in my chest. “Jade,” I whisper. “Oh no, Jade. What have I done?” Other than the slight swinging motion, she’s not moving.

  As I take a step forward, the rains begin, swept onto the ships by an offshore wind. I barely feel the cold of the drops, which pelt Jade’s exposed flesh, mingling with the blood, washing it away in streams of red.

  Beneath the thin layer of blood, her brown skin is almost indistinguishable as that of a Heater, slashed to ribbons and pocked with bulging welts from those of the leather straps that didn’t manage to break the skin.

  “Oh no, Jade,” I say again as I go to her, oblivious to the war cries erupting all around me.

  Right now, in this moment, she is the only person on earth.

  My fault my fault my fault.

  If I hadn’t taught her to repair sails would she have tried to save us in the storm? If I hadn’t taken her to the crow’s nest, would she have climbed up there in fear? If if if if…

  …if I hadn’t raised my hand and struck her, would she be broken now?

  At least I know the answer to that question is yes. Given the vicious manner in which my father delivered the final blow, it’s clear he would’ve brutally issued the punishment on his own if I had refused.

  I reach her, withdraw a knife from my belt, grab her under the arms being careful not to touch the rawness of her wounds, and cut her down. Her body is limp and lifeless as it falls against me, her shredded shirt clinging to her front because of the rain.

  Slowly, slowly, I lower myself to the wet deck, letting her lie on top of me, her head resting on my chest. I can’t put my arms around her, because then they’ll touch her back, so they stick out awkwardly at my sides.

  Her eyes are closed, but her lips are open, breathing. Exhaustion and shock from the pain have rendered her unconscious. For that I’m thankful.

  And now, while the rest of the seamen go to war, I’m content to just hold her until she awakes, drinking in the rainwater streaming down my face, quenching my burning throat.

  “Oh, Jade, I’m so sorry,” I say, although I know she can’t hear me and that it’s not enough, that my words are but a drop in the oceans of forgiveness.

  I raise my head as heavy footsteps clomp across the deck. My father stands above me, his shadow falling over my face. Water drips from his admiral’s cap, obscuring parts of his face like I’m looking at him through a rain-drizzled glass portal.

  “Not as sorry as you’ll be if you don’t board the officer’s landing boat,” he says.

  “I’m staying with her,” I say between clenched teeth. The time for listening to my father’s orders is long past. First my mother, and now Jade. Enough.

  He has the sword at Jade’s neck before I even see him draw it.

  “You’ll fight or she dies.”

  Sadie

  The first of the boats rides a long wave onto shore, allowing the heavily armed Soakers to leap out without trudging through knee-high water.

  Another boat lands. Then another. Soon there are dozens, all in a brown-and-blue-striped line, scattering men with swords and knives like a pinecone scatters seeds.

  Gard has halted on the plains, even with where the boats are landing. We stand in a long ribbon of black, both horse and Rider. As one, we melt into the storm, which has raised a light fog, reducing visibility to barely the edge of the ocean. We know the ships are there, bearing more men in more boats, but we can’t see them until they run aground.

  “I can start feathering those baggards now,” Siena says from behind me.

  At first I don’t know what she means, but then she holds out her bow to the side. Even as she does, Gard shouts, “Archers! To arms!”

  Remembering the satchel of arrows hanging around my neck in the front, I unloop it and hand it to my riding companion. “Can’t hardly shoot from up here,” she says, swinging a leg over and dropping to the ground. Her legs tangle and she almost falls, but she manages to catch her balance with the tip of her bow, like a walking stick. She flashes me a smile, says, “I’d be lucky to hit a blind tug in a sandstorm.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I turn my attention back to the beach, where the Soakers are already charging up the slight incline to the plains, swords swinging with their arms.

  “Aim!” Gard shouts. At the edge of my vision I see Siena nock an arrow, bringing it up to eye level. Down the line, dozens of archers do the same.

  “Fire!” A flock of arrows sings through the storm, illuminated by dual flashes of lightning, joining the drops of moisture that rain upon our enemies. Soakers fall in droves, tumbling to the sand and tripping up those who were lucky enough not to be hit. Every man I can see is wearing brown. Where are the officers?

  The Soakers reach the edge of the plains and pick up speed as their feet find greater purchase on the hard-packed grass than they had on the constantly shifting sands. Another round of arrows fly, and this time I watch Siena shoot. Her form is impeccable and her arrow lodges within the upper chest of a particularly angry-looking Soaker. When he drops, there’s no question it was a fatal wound.

  “Baggard,” she mutters under her breath as she draws another arrow. “When I’m done with the lot of you, you’ll be pricklier’n Perry.”

  Although I don’t know Perry, I’ve got a pretty good idea what she means. Her next arrow is every bit as effective as the first two, bringing down another Soaker.

  “Hold your fire!” Gard shouts. “Riders!” My ears perk up. The Soakers are much closer now, perhaps only a hundred strides away.

  I grip Passion’s mane. “You are mine and I am yours,” I whisper in her ear. She bucks, rising onto her hind legs, kicking her front hooves in front of her, anticipating the command.

  She starts forward a split second before Gard yells, “Chaaaarrrggge!”

  Huck

  “I hate you,” I say, but I obey him, easing myself out from under Jade, resting her gently on the deck. Head pounding, I realize I’ll kill him if I have the chance. I want to kill him.

  The admiral doesn’t move, keeps the tip of his sword at her neck.

  “I love her,” I say, shocked at my own boldness. The time for caution and subservience is long past. “If you kill her, I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” my father says. “Get in the boat.”

  It’s only then that I notice groups of bilge rats—both girls and boys—milling about near the edge of the ship. Every few seconds, another one leaps over the side. When they’ve all disappeared below, large rafts float into view, pushed forward by dozens of oars.

  “What are they…” I say, but I don’t need to finish the question to know the answer. Anger rises so fast and hot that it feels as if I’ve swallowed the burning end of a lit torch.

  “Today, even the filthiest of rats must fight,” my father says. Then, motioning to Jade’s sleeping form, he adds, “If she could stand, she’d fight too.”

  My anger fades in an instant. My mind buzzes with a strange and unexpected excitement. Although everything I’ve done, every choice I’ve made to this point has led to Jade being bloody and broken, it also might’ve saved her life. She doesn’t have to fight, and when this is all over, I will go to her, I will mend her wounds, and I will take her away from this awful place. I will. I will find a way.

  Casting a final glance at her, I stride across the deck to where the other officers are boarding a sleek, poli
shed-wood sea-craft. Hobbs is already sitting near the front, along with a dozen other blue-clad lieutenants and captains. Even Montgomery is there, although he looks like he might be sick, his face greener than the churning ocean around him.

  Cain waits for me. “Stay alive for her,” he says, low enough that only I can hear him. “The time for mutiny isn’t far away.”

  I lick my lips. Although he’s helped me keep my secret from my father, I never expected him to go so far as to openly rebel against his leadership. “Thank you,” I say, clasping his shoulders. “Fight alongside me.”

  He nods and slides down the rope. I follow shortly after him. Last to board is my father. I make a point of inspecting his sword, which is perfectly shined silver, not a speck of blood on it. Unless he wiped it clean afterwards, he’s spared Jade for now.

  We push off from the ship and pull toward shore, which is nearly invisible in the growing fog.

  Sadie

  Wind whips around me and rain spatters my face, but Mother Earth isn’t trying to stop me—more like egging me on, telling me that she sees what I’m doing and she approves. When lightning flashes, it flashes for me.

  We’re halfway to the charging Soakers and closing fast. I spot Remy, who looks dark and dangerous and ready, and a sudden and surprising lump gels in my throat. This could be the last time I see him. Then I notice Skye behind him, hanging on with one hand, holding her sword in the other. She sees me and smiles, a devilish, slightly maniacal, and remarkably calming smile that refocuses me.

  There is only one thing I should be thinking about: killing our enemies.

  Revenge! the Evil screams.

  The Soakers are so close I can see the drops of rain—or is it sweat?—on their faces, see the anger and determination and fear in their eyes.

  Twenty steps—I raise my sword…

  Ten—I hold my breath…

  We crash into the line of Soakers like a wave crashing on shore, Passion’s weight and strength battering through them like a falling tree on a flower patch. Swords poke and prod at me, but I deflect them away, hacking and hacking and stabbing and cutting. A Soaker falls when I slash him across the throat, a line of blood showing just before his skin gapes open.