Carth pointed into the distance. “There’s ships moving out there. I can’t tell how many, but with flames like that…”
Dara’s eyes widened slightly.
Guya nodded and relaxed. “Nothing is going to catch the Goth Spald,” he told Dara. “Don’t hurt to get tacking a little more easterly, though.”
He hurried off, leaving Dara and Carth standing at the bow. Spray would hit Carth in the face, and she’d wipe it off, only to have more strike her. It left her dark hair constantly damp, and with the cool breeze, slightly chilled. That was probably the reason Dara held on to the power of the S’al, giving her skin a soft glow. Carth had seen how powerful she could be with it, strong enough that the Hjan had intended to use her against the Reshian.
“You’ve seen this before,” Carth said to her.
Dara blinked slowly and nodded.
“What is it?”
Dara licked her lips, taking a deep breath, finally managing to tear her gaze from the water and the now-distant fire. “When they came for me,” she started, a hitch clear in her voice, “we knew enough to hide. It wasn’t the first time slavers had come toward Ganduhl, and I doubted it will be the last.”
“They wanted your abilities, or those like you.”
“That time,” Dara agreed. “There were other times when men would come, always on fast ships, carrying swords or crossbows or…” She shook her head. “They would take girls. Sometimes only one or two. Others times, they would take as many as they could carry. My father… my father fought, but that day the S’al wasn’t strong within him.”
Dara fell silent as she squeezed the railing in a white-knuckled grip. The ship groaned as it moved through the waves, with the wind snapping the sails.
Finally, she looked up again. “When the villages resisted, they would take a woman. Not a girl, not like they preferred, but a woman. If we were lucky, she’d float back to shore a few days later, but we weren’t lucky often.”
Carth looked back toward the dinghy. The flames had subsided somewhat, but the dark shapes on the horizon grew larger. There were at least three ships, all with massive square sails, heading in their direction. Guya was right about the Spald in that it was fast, but they weren’t racing away from those ships. If they were unlucky, they’d get cut off.
“They were like that?” Carth asked.
“Like that. Sometimes worse. Throats were always slit, and the bodies were often chewed at by the birds, but they came back. It gave us a certain sense of closure, and for that we felt a twisted sense of thanks.”
Carth shook her head. Things like that happening bothered her. They were things she couldn’t stop, that she couldn’t change, even if she wanted to. How could she intervene when slavers attacked small villages?
“I’m sorry,” she said. There was nothing else for her to say, nothing she could tell Dara that would make the horrors that some of the island villagers experienced any better. There was nothing she could say that would change things.
She had brought peace to a people, but she still felt powerless in some ways.
“That’s why I’m with you. If there’s anything I can learn, anything I can do that will help prevent others from going through that, I want to do it.”
When Dara started sobbing, Carth pulled her into a close embrace and hugged her, letting the emotion wash over her. Dara sagged into her, sobbing heavily for long moments before finally taking a deep breath and stepping back.
“I’m… I’m fine.”
“I know. And I’ll make sure you learn what you need to know to keep yourself safe.”
“That’s just it, Carth. I don’t want to keep only myself safe. I want to learn whatever I can to keep those I care about safe too. I want to be able to return home and make certain that no one else suffers the way those in my village did.”
Carth started to tell her she would see to it that Dara learned to use her ability with the S’al well enough that no one would be able to attack her people, and that she would help ensure that it didn’t continue to happen, but there wasn’t a way for her to ensure it didn’t happen.
But maybe there could be.
Now that she’d created a sort of peace—tenuous though it might be—she needed to make certain that others didn’t suffer. Wasn’t that the best way for her to use her abilities?
So far it was her, Dara with Guya, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t collect additional help.
They’d been sailing for weeks. Weeks upon weeks. And during that time, Carth hadn’t decided what she wanted to do, other than her vague assertions that she eventually wanted to find the Reshian and understand her shadow abilities. Guya had given her space and had been willing to sail her wherever she asked, but it was time for her to decide on a different plan.
Which meant recruiting others to help.
But help with what?
She looked at Dara, thinking about the group of women who had been trapped on the ship with her, women who had been taken from their homes, but who had been helpless. With Carth’s ability with the shadows, and with the S’al, it was possible for her to prevent others from suffering as well. All she had to do was decide, but it was a decision she so far hadn’t been willing to make. Carth still wasn’t sure if she was ready, but she thought she had to be. If she didn’t do it, who would?
“We’ve got a stop in Lonsyn,” she said to Dara, “and then we’ll make our way to Nyaesh.” She stared at the ships and noted that Guya had put distance between them. They would move beyond those ships now.
“Why?”
“Because you need training if you’re going to get strong enough that others can’t hurt you. There’s only so much I can teach.”
The muscles in Dara’s jaw clenched as she nodded.
Carth wasn’t sure what sort of welcome she’d receive in Nyaesh. Now that they had peace with the Reshian, it couldn’t be what it once would have been. But knowing that didn’t change the nausea that gnawed at the pit of her stomach.
4
A somber air overtook them as they sailed. Carth played Tsatsun, preferring to play by herself. Occasionally she would play with Dara, though Dara didn’t progress very fast. Had it been the same with Ras? Had that been the reason he’d preferred to play Tsatsun alone more often than not? Dara was descended from Lashasn. At least while playing, Dara slowly managed to emerge from her shell, and she began to demonstrate some of the humor Carth remembered from when she’d first met her.
Shouldn’t Dara have more skill than she did? Carth tried not to let it trouble her when they played, and tried not to take it out on Dara, but Dara didn’t seem to notice any subtleties about the game.
Guya sailed with a determination he hadn’t shown before. Carth wasn’t certain whether it came from the fact that they had a destination once they reached Lonsyn, or whether he worried that she’d change her mind. He remained mostly silent.
The third day after finding the remains of the woman, Carth spied another ship in the distance.
It headed in much the same direction, sailing along the coast as if making its way toward Lonsyn. When she pointed it out to Guya, he studied it through his spyglass.
“That’s a fast ship, Carth. Doubt we’ll overtake her.”
She borrowed the glass from him and stared at the ship through it. It had a sleek and narrow hull and massive wide sails. It should streak through the water, but it didn’t appear to be moving nearly as fast as she would have expected.
“It’s slowing,” she noted.
Guya grabbed the glass and whistled softly as he did. “Damn, but you be right. I can tack us around so we don’t get too close—”
Carth shook her head. “Don’t.”
“We don’t want to run afoul of another ship like that on open water. There’s only the three of us.”
She grinned at him. “Are you really worried about what might happen if we come across another ship?”
He nodded. “You have to be, Carth. There are dangerous men out on t
he seas, men who want nothing but to hurt the next ship and take what they can. Think of what you saw back in that village. For that matter, think about what you saw when we found her.” He motioned to Dara. “Too many only look for what they can take.”
“I am thinking of that.”
Guya’s eyes widened and he scratched his chin. It had been several days since he’d shaved, and the black-and-gray-peppered growth was getting long for him. “She’d be swift enough for what we saw, wouldn’t she?”
“Not much storage,” Carth said.
“Don’t need much if you’re only moving people.”
“You seem to know a bit about slaving.”
His brow furrowed. “You don’t get out on the sea if you’re a fool. I’ve seen enough to know what men think they can get away with. There’s not much of a market for slaves in the north, but to the south…”
“What about the south?” All that Carth had heard about was the Hjan. There would be other problems in the south, but they weren’t hers.
“There are places where these women have value. They train them, keep them as courtesans.”
“Courtesans?”
“Whores. Women the men will use for their own purposes, things like—”
“You’ve made your point,” Carth said. Her mind started puzzling through what Guya said, but it didn’t entirely make sense to her. “Why take them from here and move them south? That seems like an awful lot of work. Wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier to bring women from the south to these places?”
“You’d think so, but they don’t work quite like that. Prefer to keep them scared. They don’t want these women knowing they have a chance of escape. You get them into a foreign city and with none they know, some who don’t even speak the language, and what choice do they have?”
“There’s always a choice.”
Guya grunted. “The choice is death. That’s not much of a choice if you ask me.”
They drew closer to the narrow-bodied ship. As they did, Dara stood, finally noting the other ship, her eyes widening. “What are we doing so close to them?”
Guya pointed to Carth. “This one thinks to get us closer to it. I suspect she intends to board.”
Carth flashed a hard smile. “I thought about it.”
“How close do you need for me to be?”
Carth looked up at the sun. At this time of day, the sun was bright and burned off most of the shadows. There were always some coming off the sails, but they were faint, and not enough to be of much use to her. The power of the S’al would work, but then she didn’t have the same control over it as she did the shadows.
“Close,” she said.
Guya remained at the helm. When Carth glanced over to him, she noted the way his knuckles whitened around the wheel, matching the clench to his jaw. His dark eyes were narrowed to slits.
Carth moved to the railing and Dara followed. “You should go below,” she suggested to Dara.
“If you’re going to risk yourself and go aboard, I’m going with you.”
Carth shot her a look. “This isn’t the time for you to make a stand. Go below. I’ll take care of this.”
“What if they have some way of stopping you?”
Carth doubted they would. If they were slavers, they would be brutes, but she doubted they were powered in any way. She unsheathed her knives, gripping them tightly. “I have other abilities as well.”
She climbed to the top of the railing, balancing on it as they neared the other ship. They were close enough now that she could make out three men wearing nothing but breeches on the other deck. Two of them held crossbows, aimed at her.
Carth smiled.
There was a part of her that enjoyed the fight. That part of her welcomed the violence, and welcomed the danger. If these men were a part of the attacks on the women, she would do what was needed.
She leaped.
As she did, she exploded the S’al through her, using that power to propel her across the water and carry her toward the distant ship. She’d used shadows this way before but had never used the S’al to power her crossing like this.
One of the men fired his crossbow at her while she sailed toward him.
Carth tumbled in the air and came rolling onto the deck.
Knives flashed as she did, and she pressed out in a heat ring from her, mixing with the shadows that coalesced around the ship. Carth drew on this, hiding within the shadows as she pierced the two men’s shoulders with crossbow bolts. They didn’t need to die, and this way she could ask questions of them.
The last man had a sword, but she was quicker than him. She caught him along his wrist, and he dropped the sword, which clattered to the deck of the ship.
She kicked, dropping the first man, and swept her leg around, catching the other crossbowman. The man with the sword backed away from her, but she didn’t let him get too far and knocked him into the deck railing. Much harder and he would have gone overboard.
The Goth Spald pulled alongside and Guya looped ropes around the railing, crossing over and quickly beginning to tie the men up.
“What do you intend to do with them?” he asked as he bound the first of the men with thick rope.
Carth released her connection to the shadows but maintained the connection to the flame, letting it burn through her softly. When she did, the other sailors looked at her, eyes wide.
“Reshian,” the largest of them said. He had been the man with the sword. His eyes were a pale green and he was tall and solidly built, if not quite as powerfully built as Guya.
“Not Reshian,” Guya said, pushing him back against the railing.
“She used the shadows. I saw it. Only the Reshian can do that.”
While Guya worked on securing the other two men, Carth crouched in front of the man she presumed to be the captain. “What do you have on board?”
“Supplies I’m bringing to Lonsyn.”
She sniffed. “Supplies. Like the kind of supplies you took from the village three days south?”
The twitch at the corner of his eyes was enough confirmation for her.
“What did you do to them?”
The man shook his head. “It wasn’t me. I’m not a slaver.”
Carth considered striking him, but refrained. It might make her feel better, but that wasn’t going to get her any answers.
Keeping her knives ready, she made her way below. Down here, without any lighting, the shadows were thicker and she felt better connected to them. She maintained that connection, holding on to it so that she could see through the dimness of the shadows.
The storage area was different than Guya’s ship. Whereas the Goth Spald had three doors, a separate quarters behind each, with a holding area for cargo, this ship had a single door. Carth opened it carefully, not certain what she might find.
On the other side of the door, faint light filtered through the portholes. Two rows of bunks lined the wall. A table rested in the middle. Against the opposite wall were casks that reminded her of the ale Guya intended to transport from Asador. Talun had used the casks to hide the girls stolen from Odian.
She popped one of the casks open and found it filled with grain. The next held a watery wine. The next contained ale. Carth stopped before opening each of them.
They were as the men had claimed.
Why had they slowed?
She had assumed they had been slavers, especially after what she’d seen from the village and the woman in the boat, but that hadn’t been the case at all.
Traders, at least as far as she could tell.
Carth made a quick circle through the hold but didn’t find anything else.
She’d made a mistake.
It wasn’t the first time, and her mind worked through how to make reparations as she climbed the stairs back to the deck. When she reached the top, the first thing that caught her eyes was the pool of blood near where Guya had been holding the prisoners.
“Guya?” she asked.
He grunted, “S
top!”
She raced toward him, ripping the power of the flame through her, letting it burn. Had she more connection to the shadows, she would have used them as well.
In spite of all the blood, he was unharmed.
Dara stood next to Guya, and she clutched the captain’s long sword between both hands. Carth had been working with her to master using knives, but they hadn’t spent much time with the sword. Blood coated the blade, leaving droplets across the deck between her and the captain, who now sagged forward, his belly split open. One of the other sailors also lay dead, cut much like the captain.
Carth realized Guya blocked her from reaching the third man.
The other sailor was bound and tried crawling away from Dara, his eyes fixed on her. Guya held his hands out as if he intended to stop her weaponless.
Carth flickered forward, using a combination of the faint shadows she could find on the ship and the power of the flame burning through her, and caught Dara on the wrists, knocking the sword from her hands.
“What happened?” Carth said, turning to Guya.
The captain nodded toward Dara. “She came aboard, grabbed that sword, and started cutting. Then you came up. You know about as much as me.”
“Dara?” she asked.
Dara blinked. “They were taking slaves,” she said. “Like the ship that took me and the others. My sister.” She licked her lips, her eyes still wide. “Like what happened to that village. I saw how you returned with everything you brought to trade. I don’t need you to tell me what that means, just like I don’t need to see that woman you burned on the boat to know they killed her too. They need to suffer for what they did.”
“They don’t have slaves,” Carth said.
Guya tipped his head and frowned, but said nothing.
Dara blinked slowly as the comment sank in. “No slaves?”
Carth shook her head. “They’re traders, just like they said they were.”
“Traders?”
“Go below. See for yourself.”
Dara made her way below, leaving Carth and Guya alone with the remaining sailor. Carth noted the sounds of Dara’s footsteps on the boards, mixing with the groaning of the ship.
Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4) Page 3