The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “I need more arrows!” he shouted at the men below. His quiver was nearly empty now.

  “Here they come my lord! You’re winning! They’re going to run, but the other ship’s coming in now,” a sailor said as he climbed up the mast and handed a fresh supply of shafts to Kestrel.

  “Thanks,” Kestrel grunted as he quickly spun around to begin to fire in the other direction, then dropped the new quiver of arrows as he lost his balance and started to fall. He grabbed hold of the mast, shocked by his clumsiness. “Please hand those up again,” he called as he settled into his new posture.

  The ship ahead of them was reducing sail and slowing down, letting Kestrel’s ship catch up to it. He lifted the quiver of recovered arrows that was handed up to him, and began sighting the next opponent, trying to account for the difference in the wind he would be shooting with instead of against.

  “What’s happening?” he heard Moorin’s voice call down below. He looked down and saw her standing at the top of the stairs, looking up at him.

  “His lordship’s turned into a one-man force of destruction!” an officer told her. “He just single-handedly destroyed the crew of the first attacker.”

  The next ship was approaching rapidly as Kestrel’s ship sailed towards them, driven by the wind.

  “Bring her around a bit. Give me a clearer shot!” he called out to the man at his own helm, then looked at Moorin, who was looking up at him with her jaw hanging open.

  He grinned at her, feeling the joy of battle upon him, then turned, aimed at the apparent leader of the planned boarding party, and released his arrow.

  The two ships were further apart than the two ships had been in the last encounter, but Kestrel had the wind behind him now, giving his arrows assistance as they flew through the air, so he was able to begin his battle for freedom sooner. He sent arrow after arrow into the air, dropping armed men onto the deck or into the ocean. Consternation began to take hold of the attackers, no longer licking their chops over the expected plunder they thought they were entitled to.

  Kestrel saw the officers lined along a railing on the forecastle, and he adjusted his aim. His ship bucked a large wave, and he grabbed hold of the mast again, then took aim again, and released a flurry of arrows as quickly as possible, so that four officers all fell forward over the railing nearly simultaneously and hit the deck below. The helmsman at the wheel came into sight as the other ship turned slightly, and Kestrel aimed for him, then shot an arrow at a deckhand trying to help the fallen officers, then fired at a man up in the sails, then shot at the replacement who tried to take control of the wheel as it spun out of control and the enemy ship began to drift.

  “Can you get us away from here?” Kestrel shouted to his own men.

  “Yes my lord. We’ll start limping toward freedom now. They won’t try to chase us anymore,” one of his own ship’s officers replied.

  “Let’s give Prince Ruelin three shouts men!” the officer called. “Hip, Hip, Hip, Hoorah!” and his cheering was followed by a throaty roar of every other man on the ship, all astonished by the display of archery skill.

  Kestrel sat atop the yardarm, stunned by the name given to him. Moorin had called him Ruelin in the cabin, and he had dismissed the name, but now a whole deckful of men were cheering him by the same name, the name that wasn’t his, the name that he despised possibly more than any other name he knew.

  The ship began to turn, to make a wide, sweeping adjustment to its course, and they passed by their former attacker, now lying dead in the water, its decks empty of men as they all hid from the deadly arrows that they feared would fly from Kestrel’s ship. Kestrel sat on the yardarm and watched the ship as they passed it, and he tried to make sense of all that was happening.

  He had left the North Forest within a circle of imps, and the journey had been a difficult one. And that was all he remembered until he woke up – three days later according to Moorin. And now here he was, being called Ruelin.

  “Aren’t you going to come down now?” Moorin stood at the foot of the mast he had climbed, and he looked straight down at her, her gorgeous face and her dark golden hair, and he was at a loss to understand what he should do.

  “I’ll stay here a little longer in case they come after us again,” he demurred returning to her for the moment. He needed time to think, to analyze, to understand if he could.

  “Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater,” he called softly and waited.

  “Odare, Canyon,” he called. “Killcen?” he mournfully added the fourth name as none of the others appeared.

  He hadn’t been able to leap up into the mast the way he had expected to. He hadn’t been able to see as clearly as he should have. His body was displaying none of the best features of his elven heritage, except that he could shoot a bow with uncanny precision, but that was perhaps the ability of the bow, not his own ability. He might very well be in Ruelin’s body, he realized, if such an impossible thing was possible. His hand went carefully to his ear, and his fingertips traced the rounded curves that were pure human stock. There were no elven points on his ears.

  Kestrel gave a howl of confusion and mourning and fear.

  “Ruelin? What’s wrong?” Moorin’s voice called to him again, as she approached the mast again.

  “I’m not well Moorin,” he said haltingly. “I’m,” he paused, “Something’s wrong.”

  “Come down and let me check you. You’ve just risen from a coma and performed an impossibly heroic feat; I’m not surprised you’re suffering some reaction,” she told him. “But you’ll feel better. I’ll give you what you’ve been demanding ever since you arrived in the Eastern Forest, so just come on down and come to our cabin.”

  Chapter 20 – Strange Identity

  Picco and Wren and Creata and Phillip all sat at a table in the palace, with the four imps hovering above their shoulders.

  “He insists he’s not Kestrel,” Philip repeated. “He says he’s the prince of Seafare.”

  “He isn’t Kestrel,” Picco confirmed. “He doesn’t have the gracefulness. He doesn’t have the memories or the abilities. He’s a nice man, but he’s not Kestrel.”

  “But how can he be in Kestrel’s body?” Philip asked. “And where is Kestrel?”

  “If he is here in Kestrel’s body, we have to believe Kestrel is in his body,” Creata answered. “And according to Ruelin, his body is on a ship sailing in the Great Sea from the North Forest to Seafare.”

  “We were in the North Forest for several days with Kestrel,” Canyon confirmed. “And we went with Kestrel friend to watch a ship sail away. I do not remember what humans and elves were sailing on it though.”

  “But that was when Kestrel became so anxious to use our ability to travel back to here, and so we made the terrible trip,” Stillwater took up the narrative. “It felt very bad. We all know we felt unusual energies on the trip.”

  The conversation continued on as the friends tried to piece the facts together. “He’s astonished by the whole thing. He likes Kestrel’s body,” Picco said. Believing that the person who had arrived unconscious was Kestrel, she had maintained a constant vigil beside his unconscious body for three days until he had suddenly woken for no apparent reason. “The elven body climbs and runs faster than his human body, he says. But he wants his own body back,” she added hastily.

  “So his body is on a ship, bound for Seafare, and we presume that Kestrel’s soul is in that body, while his soul is here, in Kestrel’s body?” Philip asked.

  “Correct,” Wren agreed.

  “Can you imps confirm that? Can you go to Kestrel’s soul?” Philip turned to Stillwater.

  “We cannot,” the imp said hesitatingly. “The sun’s problems are still too dangerous for us to travel, plus we don’t know where Kestrel is, exactly. I thought I heard an echo of his call not too long ago, but,” his voice trailed off.

  “I thought I heard him too,” Odare volunteered, “But it was a distant sound.”

  “Like he was calling dow
n a long tunnel,” Killcen agreed, and Canyon nodded.

  “Perhaps we should prepare a ship to go to Seafare, to find out if Kestrel is in Ruelin’s body,” Creata proposed.

  They all looked at one another. “Who will go, and what will you do if you get there and Kestrel’s not there? For that matter, what can we do even if he is there? Order them to switch bodies?” Wren asked.

  “I’ll go,” Picco answered. “And Ruelin will go.”

  “I’ll come along,” Wren chimed in.

  “And me too!” Creata added quickly.

  “And we’ll just do what Kestrel always does; we’ll make it up as we go along,” Wren answered the rest of Philip’s question. “And hope for the best.”

  “Yes, we’ll hope for the best,” Odare echoed.

  Chapter 21 – Moorin Saving and Saved

  “I’m ready,” Moorin said as Kestrel entered the tiny cabin. She was lying under the sheet on the narrow bunk, clearly unclothed beneath the thin cloth.

  “Ready for what?” Kestrel asked, startled by the new set of unexpected circumstances and the resigned tone she used, so startled that he momentarily lost his sense of self-pity.

  “For the consummation you’ve demanded. We’ve carried out the betrothal to make it legitimate and you’ve signed the contracts with my father’s carriers. You’ve done what you were supposed to, and now I’ll fulfill my obligations, since you’re apparently healthy enough now,” Moorin told him staring at his face without an expression. “And perhaps you’ve even earned it for your heroics this afternoon; you shot so well I would have thought you were that Kestrel in the tournament.”

  “I don’t want to do this! Not like this,” Kestrel protested without thinking.

  “You’ve made quite clear that you do want to do this,” Moorin sat up, pulling the sheet up with her.

  “I’m not ready. I’m not the man you think I am,” Kestrel felt panic coming over him. Panic at the impossibility of thinking that he could explain in a rational way the irrational, unbelievable story that he would have to give. And panic at facing such unexpected intimacy with such a beautiful woman, even if he thought he had almost had such intimacy with someone who had almost been her.

  He wouldn’t presume to take advantage of his altered identity. But he didn’t want to try to tell her who he was or what he had done, not yet, not until he could decipher what was happening and figure out how to explain it coherently. And with her apparent attitude, most importantly, he could see that there would be no passion, no affection, on her part.

  There was a sudden shout, and then an anguished scream on the deck overhead.

  “I’m going to go see what happened,” Kestrel said, he opened the door behind him and fled from the cabin, leaving Moorin gaping in astonishment.

  Upstairs on the deck he found a cluster of men looking up at a ship hand who had been struck by a falling spar along the uppermost yard arm of the main mast. The injured man was pinned in a difficult location at the end of the wooden arm.

  “Who’s going to go help him?” Kestrel asked, as the man’s moans came forth in gasps.

  “He’s the only man who goes out there my lord,” the captain answered. “We had three men to attend to the ropes out there, but two died during the attacks on our ship, and Latons is the only man left who will climb that high without falling.”

  “Let me go,” Kestrel spoke. He looked at the mast. Climbing it, with all the ropes and arms and spars available, would be as easy as climbing a tree in the Eastern Forest, except for the fact that he didn’t have his elven body and elven abilities. Still, he reasoned, if other humans were making the climb, he should be able to as well; he’d just have to match his expectations to the reality of his body.

  Kestrel walked to the mast. “My lord, surely you shouldn’t do this?” the first mate suggested.

  Kestrel didn’t answer, but reached over his head as he gave a leap, and pulled himself upward, then began climbing. He went up as fast as any human would have, yet slower than his elven psyche was accustomed to. When he reached the topmost arms of the mast he began to crawl out along the top of the wood, then paused as the wooden beam narrowed, growing weaker. He was only a few feet from the injured man now, whose eyes were glazed with pain as he looked at Kestrel.

  “Here, you’re going to be okay,” Kestrel told him reassuringly. He looked at a broken length of a wooden spar, one piece dangling freely from the rope it was connected to, while the jagged end of the other piece was jammed into the thigh of the sailor, and a rope was wrapped around his arm. Kestrel looked up at the ropes, following the trail of the one that bound the man in place, and he saw the pulley it turned through, then he followed it down to where it wound around another pulley below before returning to be wrapped around a cleat on the mast next to him.

  “I’m going to lower him to you,” Kestrel shouted down to the men below. “Get ready.” He looked around momentarily. The sun was close to setting, and the view from the top of the mast gave him a seemingly endless view of the watery horizon in all directions. The comet was setting in the west, with its tail already sunk under the water and its head still aimed at the sun, which was not far above it, making the western waters turn gold and red and orange. It was beautiful to observe.

  “Here now, stay calm,” Kestrel told the injured sailor as he cautiously edged out onto the extension of the arm. The wood was growing narrow and thin and weak, not suited to hold the weight of two grown human men. Kestrel unwrapped the rope that bound the man, then looped it around, and carefully slid it beneath the man’s armpits and then tied it secure.

  “I’m going to pull the spar out of your leg, then I’ll lower you as quickly as I can to the men below. Are you ready?” Kestrel asked.

  “I am my lord. Thank you, sir. You’re too good to be up here doing this,” the man feebly said.

  “Nonsense,” Kestrel replied. “Now you press your hand tight against the wound so you don’t lose blood, do you hear me?” Kestrel asked.

  “Aye, sir. I’ll press firmly,” the sailor replied.

  “Okay now, here we go,” Kestrel warned. He placed both hands on the spar, and jerked hard, pulling the wood out of the man’s flesh and making him whimper. Kestrel flipped the wood towards the sea, grabbed his crewman’s hands and slapped them onto the wound, then gently lifted and slid the man off the yard. As he did, he heard the wood beneath him start to crack and splinter, and the man’s eyes looked up at Kestrel as their gazes met.

  Kestrel reached out to the rope and gave a tug, loosening it from the cleat, and causing the man to start falling rapidly, the rope racing through Kestrel’s hands, giving him painful burns as it rubbed the skin and flesh and caused drops of his blood to strain the hemp of the rope. Kestrel gave a cry, then tightened his hold on the rope to slow the man’s plummet. He heard the wood crack some more, and he started to take a step backwards to the solid part of the yard, as he watched his patient lower into the waiting arms of his companions below.

  And then his wooden support snapped completely. Kestrel started to fall, and as he did he let loose of the rope, reached out with one of his bloody hands, and tried to grab hold of the edge of the canvas sail close by, but his fingers only grasped the cloth momentarily before he lost his grip and changed his momentum, throwing him outward away from the hull of the ship and towards the darkening blue waters of the sea below.

  “Ruelin! No!” he heard Moorin’s voice in particular, a tone he was able to pick out from the medley of voices that shouted at the sight of their prince falling through the twilight night, plummeting towards his doom in the water. With an effort he flung his legs upward, then crossed his hands below him, just in time to make his entry into the water an awkward but survivable dive that carried him and a shower of air bubbles deep under the water’s surface.

  He began to stroke upwards, his hands burning in the salt water without his notice as he struggled to find the surface of the water. To his left he sensed the deeper shadow of the ship’s
hull, its momentum carrying it past his position, and then his head unexpectedly found the surface of the water and he took a deep breath.

  His eyes stung and his vision wasn’t clear, but he tried to tread water amidst the small, choppy waves that flung spray over his head. He dimly saw a white spot between him and the ship, a white spot that grew larger, and then he realized it was Moorin, running towards him in the elven way, running on top of the water. She was already sinking up to her ankles in the sea water, but she was closing upon his location rapidly.

  “Ruelin, hold on!” she called, and Kestrel saw that she was pulling a rope towards him, a rope whose other end was securely held by a knot of men standing on the deck.

  Moorin was drawing closer to him, but her elven speed was falling rapidly, and the water was already washing up to her knees. Kestrel could see that though she was trying valiantly, she was in trouble, and she wasn’t likely to make it all the way to his location. He began to swim awkwardly, trying to reach her before she sank all the way into the water.

  “Ruelin!” she called again, but this time in fear, and then she sank into the water.

  Kestrel rose and took a deep breath, then plunged beneath the surface with a might surge. He stroked his arms and kicked his legs and saw a blurry white something slowly descending in the water. He kicked again, going deeper, and heading towards the descending body of Moorin. He drew close enough to see her move once feebly, then as he reached her the spark went out and she ceased to move other than via the random drifting motions of her hair, her gown, and her limbs in the currents below the surface.

  Kestrel wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed his shoulder against her as he reoriented his body to move upward, and released the last of the air in his lungs. He was seconds away from gulping down seawater as he felt his lungs burning and his mind could focus only on the need to reach the surface.