by John Booth
“We shall be there,” Jalia replied, with a similar smile to Lady Sala’s. Hala was confused and didn’t know if either was being genuine or if they were still playing some subtle game.
Lady Sala signaled to Halad and they walked carefully to the steps, holding tightly onto the rail. They descended from sight, leaving Jalia and Hala alone on the swaying platform.
“What was that all about?” Hala asked.
“Just two lionesses marking out their territory,” Jalia said, leaving Hala none the wiser. “Did you hear what Jak called himself? A simple healer? A simple healer my…”
Jalia’s word was lost to the horn of the Steam Dragon. The horn sounded repeatedly over the next few seconds. She walked around the funnel to the front to see what the problem might be. There she saw another boat on the river and the Steam Dragon rapidly catching up with it. It looked like one of the larger sailing ships she had seen on Lake Telmar. It was in the way of the Dragon, though Jalia couldn’t see why the Captain didn’t just go around it. The river looked more than wide enough to let him.
“Let’s go to the main deck and see who is on that boat and why our good Captain seems so annoyed with them,” Jalia suggested.
“I’d love to come with you, but you might have to help me pry my hands off the rail. They don’t pay attention to anything I tell them.”
Five weeks earlier in Telmar…
Sila Klint, the only member of the Mine Owners Association of Telmar who recognized that they were already defeated, walked out of what would be the last meeting of the Association, feeling nothing but disgust.
It was clear that they were sure to be murdered in their beds by Jalia al’Dare if they stayed. The assassination of her man had obviously made revenge her first priority.
Sila turned back as she reached the door and looked at Yandin Selda before speaking to him for what would be the last time. “I do hope you turn out to be one of the survivors.”
Halfway down the corridor, she was intercepted by Alin Bredan who stepped into her path. Her men began to draw their swords, but she motioned them to stand down.
“What can I do for you, Alin? Your master and I have already had words, I’m afraid.”
Bredan looked around furtively to make sure that no one could overhear them. “I take it, my lady, that you understand the seriousness of the situation?”
“I will be ensuring that these assassins do not alight on the shores of Sep, if that is what you mean,” she replied cautiously. Sila knew she must be careful what she said to this man, his loyalties were to Yandin.
“My master has not realized the gravity of the situation. He believes he can stay and fight.”
“You have advised him to flee?” Sila wasn’t startled by this revelation, but tried to act as though she was.
“My lady, I have been with Yandin Selda for twenty years and this is the first time I have had cause to regret it. It might be time for me to seek someone wiser who has need of my talents.”
“Are you seeking a position with me?”
“Are you offering one?”
“Selda would never permit you to work for me in Telmar,” Sila stated as she looked at Alin appraisingly. If he responded correctly, she could use him.
“I very much doubt that that will be a problem, will it my lady?” Bredan replied, with a degree of humor in his voice. With those words, Sila Klint was sold.
“Have you brought your luggage?”
“It is already packed on your ship. I bribed your men to put it there.”
“Walk with me, Alin. I would have you tell me where you think a woman of my skills should travel to; purely from a hypothetical viewpoint of course.”
“I believe that there are opportunities in Slarn, my lady. The king of Slarn has died and there is no agreed successor. If the stories are true; that you alone did not trust the vaults at Brinan and have sufficient funds, then it might be possible for you to buy a kingdom.” Alin said as they walked towards her waiting ships.
“I like the way you think, Alin. Please call me Sila, there is no need for formality between us.”
Her three ships sailed within the hour and moved as though they were heading for the harbor at Sep. Once they rounded the island of Sep and could no longer be seen from the rest of Telmar, the ship with Sila onboard continued east across the enormous lake.
“It is convenient that we can join the river Jalon and travel all the way to Slarn. I would hate to be inconvenienced on my way to buy a kingdom,” Sila said as she took Alin down to the hold.
“Do you think this will be enough gold?” she asked as she opened the lid of a massive chest sitting on the floor.
“More than enough, my lady,” Alin said and rubbed his hands in glee, “This is going to be the start of a most prosperous friendship.”
Jalia helped Hala down the steps and they hurried to the walkway that ran around the bridge. The port side was crammed with passengers and crew as they stared at the sailing ship floundering in the river.
The stricken ship listed hard to port and the deck was only six inches clear of the river. It was possible the wake of the Steam Dragon would sink it, which is why the Captain had brought them to a stop alongside it. He was running the engines t just fast enough to keep the vessels level.
“Why isn’t it moving downstream?” Jalia asked no one in particular.
“Its keel is stuck in the mud,” a boy’s voice answered. Jalia looked down and saw the boy who had been looking up her skirt beside her. “That’s the only thing keeping it afloat if you were to ask me,” Nin continued.
“Did you enjoy your look up my skirt, Nin, isn’t it?” Jalia enquired. The boy’s face turned red.
“Why doesn’t the Steam Dragon get stuck in the mud? And what’s a keel anyway?” Hala asked.
“Sailing boats need a big length of wood sticking down in the water so they don’t tip over when the wind blows. They call it a keel,” Nin said in a superior tone. “The Steam Dragon doesn’t use sails so it has a flat bottom. And speaking of flat bottoms, Jalia’s bottom is much prettier than yours.” Nin stuck his tongue out at the girl.
“And your bottom will be red after I beat it for your rudeness,” Jalia said in a voice that brooked no arguments. “And I will do that in front of Hala, if I should hear you being rude to her again.”
Nin lapsed into silence, which was undoubtedly a good thing.
The Steam Dragon was much bigger than the wreck. The sailing ship appeared to be devoid of life. There was no sign of the crew.
“Ship ahoy!” Captain Toren shouted.
“Can’t see anybody, Captain,” Seb Halder, the first mate, shouted from inside the bridge where he had the wheel. “If we try and stay here much longer we’re liable to hit her.”
“Can’t leave without checking for survivors,” the Captain said decisively. “I expect they abandoned her and swam shore, but you never know. Someone will have to go across to check it out.”
“The rivers flowing too fast,” Seb objected. “That ship could come loose at any moment and how are we supposed to get someone across anyway?”
“I’ll do it,” Jalia offered to Hala’s horror. “If you can get this boat close enough for me to jump over to the other’s mast. It’s leaning towards us and I could get to it from the roof of the bridge. The problem is; how would I get back?”
“Break out some lines, Nin,” the Captain ordered and Nin pushed his way around the passengers’ to get to a storage locker. The Captain turned to Jalia. “If you can take the end of a light rope with you, we can tie a mooring line to it and you can pull it across. You can use it to get back.”
The Captain brushed at his thick black beard. “Of course, we might end up pulling the ship off the mud once we are tied to it. So you need to be ready to get off at once if you feel it start to move. We’ll have no choice but to cut the line once it moves. I would remind you that you don’t have to go.”
“I don’t see any other volunteers.”
Ni
n passed Jalia a length of light rope. As she climbed up onto the roof of the bridge, he tied his end of it to a thicker one.
Hala stood watching him. “If those two ropes come loose, you won’t have to wait for Jalia to punish you,” she said severely.
“I’ve been tying ropes from before I could walk. Besides which, I’m much stronger than you.”
“Not with a knife against your guts, you won’t be,” Hala said coldly.
Nin looked into her eyes, thinking that she was joking, but he saw no humor in them. For the first time, it occurred to him that Hala might be someone special.
Jalia reached the bridge roof. The wind was rolling the Steam Dragon from side to side. The Captain took the helm from the first mate and brought the boat closer to the wreck. However close he thought he was getting it, it proved not to be close enough. Jalia found she was still a good three feet from the nearest part of the mast.
The rolling of the boat gave Jalia an idea and she retreated to the far side of the roof. She waited until the roll put the boat at its furthest from the mast and started to run. It was a little like running up-hill as the bridge roof rolled up to meet her. Whether she was going to grab the crossbar or not, Jalia was fully committed the moment he jumped off the roof and high into the air.
She thought she had misjudged it and even had the time to wonder if she would be able to swim to shore as she flew towards the crossbar on the mast. Then her hands caught around the rigging and she pulled herself up until she could wrap her feet around the crossbar. She heard cheering coming from the Steam Dragon.
Working her way down the mast was relatively simple. When she reached the deck of the ship her real problems began.
The ship was heeled over at about forty-five degrees. One wrong move and she would slide down the deck and into the fast moving water. The first problem was to pull over the larger rope from the Steam Dragon and tie it off. The crew assisted Nin and Hala as they inched the heavy line across as Jalia pulled at her end.
If the Dragon rolled too fast, the rope might pull Jalia from the ship and into the water. She couldn’t fasten the light rope to the ship as that might tear the ropes apart. It was a delicate operation and Jalia heaved a sigh of relief when she finally got the heavy mooring rope in her hands. She tied the rope as high as she could on the mast. That should allow her to climb back to the Steam Dragon with little risk of going into water on the way.
Her means of escape now as secure as she could make it, Jalia made her way into the ship. There was a door near the bow, below the ship’s wheel. She sighed with relief when she reached it and stumbled into the innards of the ship.
“Is there anybody onboard,” she shouted as soon as she was inside.
She paused to listen for a response though she certainly wasn’t expecting one.
“Down here,” a man’s voice came back from below her.
Jalia slid down the steep steps to the next deck down and found herself standing in near darkness. There was a lantern hanging from a hook on the wall and she lit it with her tinder box. The decks angle made it difficult to walk. She called out again.
“Over here,” the man shouted. “The first cabin you come to.”
Jalia found the cabin and discovered a grey haired man in his fifties on a bunk. His right leg was broken and someone had tried to splint it with sticks and torn sheets. They didn’t appear to have done a good job.
“Alin Bredan,” he said by way of greeting.
“Jalia al’Dare,” Jalia answered. Jalia was too busy looking around the cabin to notice the shock on the man’s face. “Is there anybody else onboard?”
“I think Lady Sila… Glan is in the hold. When the ship hit the mud she was down there. If we are watertight, she might still be alive.”
“I’ll go and look for her once I’ve got you up on deck. Can you walk if I help you?”
“I think so,” Bredan said doubtfully. “I broke my leg when we hit. That was two days ago. The crew decided that their only hope was the long boat and they left in it. They left me when I refused to go without Lady Sila.”
“I’ve said I’ll look for her. What’s the fastest way down to the hold?”
“From the covers on the deck. If you can get one off you should be able to see into the hold.”
“Come on then.”
Jalia helped the man to his feet. He was smaller than her and weighed much less. If it hadn’t been for the slope of the deck Jalia could have carried him out. As it was, it took them ten minutes to get onto the deck.
A round of cheers broke out from the Steam Dragon when they appeared.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get him back over,” Jalia shouted to the Captain.
“I’m coming to help,” Don Marin shouted and climbed over the side of the walkway. He grabbed the rope and started to swing hand over hand towards the stricken ship.
The ship groaned and slipped to a steeper angle. Water began to lap over the deck. Don dropped about two feet but his feet stayed above the river. The crew on the Steam Dragon pulled on the rope to lift him higher.
“We can’t stay like this for much longer,” Captain Toren shouted. “If you are going to save anyone else, you better do it quickly.”
Jalia slid down the deck to the covers. The covers were rectangular wooden lids, six feet across, nine feet long, and six inches high. They sat over a frame like the lid of a shoebox. The covers protected the contents of the hold while making it easy to get them out in any port equipped with pulleys.
The covers had to be heavy enough not to come off easily while being strong enough to withstand waves breaking over the side of the ship. If a cover should come off during a storm then the sea could overwhelm a ship. They were tied to the deck in bad weather and were very heavy.
Jalia was lucky that the covers were not tied. Unfortunately, they had been designed assuming that six or so sailors would be on hand to lift them. However, what Jalia lacked in strength, she made up for in leverage. The deck was at an angle of fifty degrees from the horizontal. By bracing herself against the deck and kicking the cover she sent it sliding down the deck and into the river. Jalia nearly followed the cover as she slid down the deck. She grabbed onto the lip of the hold and held on for her life.
Don had climbed far enough along the mooring rope for his feet to touch the deck of the ship. It only took him a few moments to reach the relative safety of the mast where Alin waited. This brought another cheer from the passengers of the Steam Dragon who were enjoying the spectacle.
“I can’t get across that rope like you,” Alin said. “I don’t have the strength for such a long journey.”
Jalia peered into the hold. What greeted her eyes was a complete surprise. Sitting on a large wooden chest resting against the bulkhead on the lowest part of the hold was a woman in her thirties. She wore a silk dress so flouncy and impractical that it made the Sala Rotiln’s efforts in the same vein look mundane. The woman looked up at Jalia with a leather cup in her hands and smiled.
“Welcome to the party,” she said in an obviously drunken state and waved her cup cheerfully. “I’ve been down here two days with nothing to drink but that cask of wine. I’m beginning to find it most enjoyable.”
“Why can’t you get out?” Jalia shouted.
“I’d love to, my dear. But I suspect half of the ship’s contents fell on the door when the ship keeled over,” the woman replied. “By the way I’m Sila.., Sila…”
“Sila Glan, I know. Your companion, Alin, told me. My name is Jalia al’Dare.”
“Such a pretty name, Jalia al’Dare. I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere before,” Sila shook her head as if trying to clear it. She looked up at Jalia and smiled drunkenly. “No, it’s completely gone. I didn’t even recognize my own name when you told me. This is very good wine. You should try some. There’s more than half a cask left.”
Jalia looked towards Don and Alin for inspiration. She spotted the rope she had used to pull the mooring line across to the ship.
“Don, untie that rope and throw it to me. I can use it to rescue Lady Sila.”
Don started to untie the rope. He shouted to Jalia as he worked.
“You haven’t any idea how to get Alin back to the Steam Dragon have you? The whole thing got me beaten. I’d carry him on my back if it was a matter of walking, but I could never get the two of us across, hand over hand, along that line.”
Jalia looked at the mooring line and considered the options. She had tied the line several feet above where it was tied to on the Steam Dragon and that gave her an idea.
“Cut off ten feet of that rope before you throw the rest to me. Tie it around Alin and over the mooring line so his weight is taken by the rope. With any luck, he’ll slide down the line most of the way without you having to do anything. Then all he has to do is take his weight on the line while you move the rope forward. One of the crew might be able to throw him a line from the Dragon when he gets close enough and they could pull him in.”
Don grinned. “I can see why you always win,” he shouted as he cut off the length needed for Alin before tossing the rest to her.
Jalia looked down into the hold at the smiling Sila. The woman still sat on the large chest. Then Jalia saw she must have moved while she had been talking to Don because she now had a carpetbag on her lap.
“If I throw this rope to you, can you climb it?”
“I can barely stand up at the moment,” Sila said, her smile growing broader. “I remember who you are now. You’re the girl who destroyed the Miner’s Association because they murdered your boyfriend. That’s really quite funny, when I think about it.”
“They didn’t kill Daniel. We just let them believe they had. It made it easier for us to sneak into Telmar and kill them,” Jalia said absently. She knew that if she went down into the hold she could never carry Sila up the rope. Nor could she drag her up from the top. The woman was at least her own weight and Jalia needed some kind of leverage to do that; leverage that she just didn’t have.
“So why did you assassig… assanigmate… asagignate… kill them?” Sila asked.