“You know our story?” Mel said in a low voice.
July nodded. “Julius Omen, travelling with my aunt, Amy, to Ginzo to see my uncle––your husband, Jack.”
“Good. Keep it simple––the less details you start telling people, the less you have to remember later.” Mel tipped the front of the hat low, only revealing the lower half of her face. The line was moving quickly, and they were almost to the boarding point. “Shina’s blessing for commercial waterlines. We could never get new passports this fast.”
“Ticket?” A man in a green vest with flashy golden trim asked. She radiated the widest, fakest smile she could muster and displayed two slips of brown paper, stamped with the ferry’s logo. He mirrored her smile––which was to say, equally fake––and moved on.
“I never want to see you smile like that again,” July said, although based on her tone, this was exactly what she wanted.
“You won’t have to––we’re splitting up once we get onboard.” July started to respond but Mel held up a finger, shushing her. “They’re looking for a pair; a doctor and a young woman with a sword. The more factors we can disqualify, the better.” July swallowed and nodded, nervously turning back to the boat and the mass of waiting travelers. Mel hoped this charade would go a lot better than she suspected.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
July grunted and pushed harder, her hand starting to gleam and slide with sweat but her grip tight. She huffed out a strained breath and leaned forward. She began to feel leverage on her side, and her hand moved closer and closer to the table, until it slammed home onto the wooden surface. The sailors cheered.
“A pint for the little man with the unbeatable arm!” One shouted, hoisting his glass in the air. Many others followed suit, raising their glasses and clinking with neighbors. July grinned, eyes wide with delight as she lifted her own and bumped it into a nearby group. It had been approximately six hours since they had set sail across the Amoran Channel, and the bar had come alive with the fall of night. The bartender, a man with bushy sideburns and a perpetually twitching eye, found himself making constant trips up and down the ship’s stairs to fetch more barrels of beer and rum––until he realized that he could pay the sailors in discounts to do it for him. From that point onwards the bar got much louder and friendlier. His partner, a stout woman with an infectious laugh, came to the arm-wrestling table and placed down another round of full glasses.
“Keep on winning and you’ll put my son in an academy,” She prodded, leaning close to be heard over the conversation and laughter. July could smell her breath––evidently, she’d poured a couple for herself behind the bar. July fished a silver coin from her pocket, then placed it on the woman’s tray and winked. The woman leaned back and roared with laughter. She swooped in and kissed July on the cheek.
July stood up, taking her glass to find a less crowded table. The other men didn’t seem to notice, as another sailor filtered into her spot easily. I guess everyone is friends tonight, she thought warmly.
“Hey, lover-boy,” A voice called. She turned to see a man sitting alone at the bar, looking in her direction. He was tall and slender, his face gaunt and his eyes heavily bagged under his long mess of brown hair. He had an arm extended in her direction. “Take a seat.”
She sat. “You saw that?”
“She’s been flirting with you all night,” He responded, twirling his glass lazily. “Didn’t you notice?” July shook her head. “Oh, you’re that type––ladies all over you. D’you have a girl at home? A long-time sort of girl?”
“Yes,” July said, without thinking. She scolded herself internally––the less details, the better. This wasn’t the time to make up long-distance girlfriends.
“What’s her name?” He seemed to be watching her carefully. July noted how pink his cheeks were, and wondered how many barrels he had helped carry up the stairs. For that matter, she wondered how many barrels she had helped carry up the stairs.
“Putna.” She blurted.
He studied her for another moment, then chuckled. “Interesting name. Exotic.”
She blushed. “Yeah. I think it’s a dialect of something. Old Aslatan, maybe.”
“She’s Aslatan, then.”
“Ajan Shore, yeah.”
“You’re heading in the opposite direction,” He noted. His gaze was largely unfocused, and sometimes drifted past her, but she felt she was still being carefully observed.
“I didn’t catch your name,” She said.
“Damien.”
“Julius. You’re right. I’m visiting my uncle in Ginzo.” The two sat in silence, and July became more and more sure that she was found out, that she had left some gaping hole in her story, until he began to speak again.
“I’m sorry,” He offered a dry laugh. “I’m not usually so blunt. I’ve had a bit much to drink, I think. You just remind me of someone I know––a lady-type, no offense.” Her heart skipped a beat, but he continued unimpeded. “She was an old friend. Lived in eastern Amora, spoke just the same way you do. Same little twang––‘A-Jun’. She was a seamstress in a little town in Tallan, by one of the Great Walls.”
“I know the one,” She affirmed.
“Then you know how piddly-shit those little towns are. I tried to talk her into moving out this way, to a real city. Historia, Pelf, even Ginzo would be better than backwoods Ambleway.” He sighed. “I’m rambling. You oughta get back to arm-wrestling, huh?” He grinned, revealing two silver teeth and a few more headed in that direction. July nodded, polished off the remnants of her glass and stood up, unsure how to feel about the strange, tired man. He watched her go with that same careful stillness.
She didn’t head back to the arm-wrestling, or the bar. She walked past them to the stairwell and headed in the direction of the stern. The halls eventually came out to a square room with long, rectangular windows, flush with the ship’s hull. Three rows of back-to-back benches filled the room, facing the glass. It was an observation room. At one of these benches, a wide, floppy straw hat dangled, its owner nose-deep in a book.
July sat at the bench closest to the window, her back to the floppy hat. She didn’t say anything, instead looking out at the tireless channel, where waves broke and reformed, fractured and refracted, turning over the moon’s light like shards of broken glass. The night was cloudless, and the water was jet black, lit in celestial white. She saw her reflection in the glass––hair disheveled, eyes wide and weary, shoulders broad under her sleeveless shirt and features square and boyish. She tried to picture the girl who left the farm in Little Rock months ago, headed for San Della on a simple job, but found it hard to do so. The images were hard to connect, as if one rejected the other. Julius, she thought. She felt something move in her chest, warm and unbidden, a nameless something woken from a deep sleep.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Halfway across the channel, two boats met. The green and yellow ferry called the Temerity came to a slow, unannounced stop––not that it would have mattered, as the majority of the passengers were drunk or asleep. The other ship, a small red cruiser with a black sail and aggressive lines, circled around until the two ships sat parallel. The captain of the Temerity, who had never been hailed by a Lhord’s Army vessel before, presented himself at once, standing on the deck of the ferry as two soldiers extracted themselves from the cruiser and boarded the ship.
“Are you steering this vessel?” The taller, female soldier asked.
The captain nodded. “Sander Briggs. I don’t want any trouble, please. I can present paperwork if that’s what this is about–”
“That won’t be necessary,” The second soldier cut across. “We’re looking for two individuals, a doctor and a sellsword. Both women, Amoran, relatively young. Amelia Saul?”
“Oh,” Briggs sighed, relieved. “No, I haven’t seen either of them. I would know if Amelia Saul were on my boat, she did my home village a good service years ago. I’ll never forget her face a
fter that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I would know,” He repeated. The soldiers looked to each other, then turned to leave. They took a single step before another voice rang out over the rumble of the sea.
“I know where they are.” A figure leaned against the doorway of the hull, arms crossed. “Amelia Saul, and her bodyguard.” The female soldier looked back.
“Are they onboard?” She asked. The captain gulped. The figure stepped forward, out of the dark. The wind swept his messy brown hair out of his face, revealing his tired eyes. He nodded.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GINZO. THE POLITICS OF FRIENDSHIP.
July awoke to the sensation of the boat slowly coming to a stop. She hadn’t even realized that she’d dozed off, but based on the kink in her neck, she had spent at least a few hours sitting on that bench, head crooked. She noted that someone had drawn the blinds on the windows for the sleeping passengers, of which there were a few; Mel’s floppy hat dipped up and down with her gentle snores, and a pair of sailors sat in a bench across the room, facing each other, heads down. She felt a miserable companionship with their aching necks.
She nudged Mel. “Rise and shine, child of mine.”
“Been a while since I heard that nursery rhyme,” Mel’s muffled voice mumbled from beneath the straw hat. Evidently she was not a heavy sleeper. “How did the response go?”
“Be right there, honey bear.” July smiled. It was one of her mother’s favorites. Mel sat up and lifted the hat, revealing her worn, smudged makeup and surly expression. July concealed a laugh behind a well-timed yawn. “Gosh, did you sleep on your face? Or did you get busy with some big burly sailor last night?”
“Speak for yourself,” She said, smiling dryly. She reached out and rubbed her finger against July’s cheek. “You’ve still got lipstick on your face.”
July felt her face burn bright red as she spat on her fingers and scrubbed furiously. “It was out of nowhere, okay? I didn’t invite it.” Mel only looked at her. “Okay, I didn’t invite the first one. I may have been a little tipsy for the next few.”
Mel shook her head. “I can never tell if you’re joking about these things.”
“I can’t help it, Julius is a stud,” July smirked, standing on legs that ached comparably to her neck––and head, she lamented. A considerable hangover was brewing between her temples. They moved together towards the door and up the stairs. “He understands women better than other men.”
“I wonder why.”
“I don’t–” July cut herself off when she saw a figure dressed in red plate-mail at the door of the ship. His shoulder bore the Lhord’s Army insignia in gold, underlined twice in black to indicate his rank. July abruptly shoved Mel back into the last hallway.
“Go back downstairs,” She whispered, drawing her sword. The sound of metal sliding through leather caught the man’s attention. He started to walk down the hall. She hoped the clatter of his armor was enough to mask Mel’s footsteps down the stairwell.
“Do you know Dr. Amelia Saul?” He said, stopping a few feet from her. His face was stern but surprisingly young.
“Can’t say the name is familiar to me,” She replied. In a narrow hallway, she had no chance––they would be restricted to thrusts and vertical slashes, and his plate would stop a much stronger stab than her cloth. She backed through the hall, hoping to reach the bar door before he noticed. “Why, is she onboard?”
“Yes,” He said curtly. He took a step forward. Shit. “You’re sure you don’t know her? She’s quite famous in Amora.” She took two more steps back, feeling the doorframe on her side. Then she turned and ran into the bar.
The rest of the sailors and travelers onboard were chatting agreeably at the tables, save the bartender, who watched the channel from the window. Nearly all of them looked up at the sound of clicking plate-mail. Some saw her wielding a sword and reached for anything they could find; knives, glasses, bottles, and in one case a wooden chair. The rest did not move, paralyzed at the sight of the Lhord soldier entering the room, yanking his sword from the sheath at his side.
“Hey!” One shouted, holding up a steak knife. “Back off. He’s just a boy––if he said somethin’ testy, he prob’ly didn’t know much better.”
“Yeah, talk to one of us instead,” Another piped in. The soldier ignored them, still moving towards July. She kept backing up until she hit the bar, sword held tight. The room fell perfectly still.
“Amelia Saul,” The soldier said. “Where is she?” Nobody replied. He looked at each of the passengers in turn, perhaps calculating whether he could take them all down on his own. If so, the results weren’t in his favor. He sheathed his sword. “By order of the Bal’Lhord Prince, nobody is allowed to leave this vessel until every room has been checked for fugitives. Is that clear?”
“Go back to the mountains, snakeskin,” The steak-knifed sailor spat, then made an obscene gesture with his hand that July didn’t recognize. The soldier, stony-faced, turned and walked out.
“You alright, lover-boy?” July turned. The tired man from the night before, Damien, sat in the same spot in the bar. He watched her with those same intelligent eyes; this time less foggy with drink and fatigue. She nodded, feeling shaken. He seemed to know that, and gave her some space, turning to the bar and observing each passenger, just as the soldier had. The room was silent until he spoke again. “Three missing. Where’s your aunt? The woman you boarded with?”
Suddenly she realized where the soldier was headed, and she bolted across the room, through the hallway and into the stairwell. She took the steps four at a time, practically leaping to the bottom floor. There were footsteps and shouts behind her, but she ignored them, intent on reaching the observation room.
There was a shout from ahead, then the sounds of struggling and the clatter of metal. July dove into the room, sword already in hand, to see the soldier standing with Mel’s arm in one gloved hand, sword in the other. Across the room, half of the pair of sailors was stretched out on the floor in a pool of blood; the other half was hunched over on top of him, holding a palm to his leaking side. July saw all of this through a bubble of disconnect, her senses heightened but somehow detached from her thoughts. She filtered through the information in that moment; ignoring the sailor’s body, ignoring the pool of blood and the red handprint on the canvas blinds, ignoring the way his companion sobbed quietly, and focused on Amelia. They made eye contact, and July saw fear, and bitter dismay. She did not see a plan; Mel meant to go quietly.
“Don’t move,” July said, knowing that it meant nothing.
There was a flash of light, and his sword was at Mel’s throat. He adjusted his grip so that her neck was in the crook of his arm. “Stand aside,” He prompted. Neither of them moved. She felt a wave of contempt wash over her like nausea, not just for the soldier but for Mel. Images of the burning Chitinwood floated across the front of her mind. You goddamned coward, she thought. Her sword clattered to the ground, and she stepped aside.
With unexpected agility, he reached out and kicked the sword aside before pushing Mel in front of him, bypassing July and heading out the door. The moment she heard footsteps on the stairwell, she grabbed the hilt of her sword and followed them quietly.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mel walked in front of the soldier with no struggle, wondering if it ever got easier to watch people die. It must, she thought, or these soldiers would never sleep at night. Nor July, or Mercury, or Szukin. It seems everyone speaks the language of violence but me.
They reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall towards the boarding door without incident. She could see the other passengers peeking out of the bar, watching her and her escort––a portly woman with curly red hair and full lips, a bearded sailor with a lazy eye, a young man with a mess of chestnut brown hair––but she paid them no mind. It was better if they didn’t try to involve themselves.
When they
reached the boarding door, she had to stop. The sight of the pier was crushing; two carriages with Lhord’s Army emblems sat in a ‘V’ at the mouth of the boardwalk, blocking entry; between them and the ship, two rows of eight soldiers, the front row carrying axes and swords, and the back holding tall shields and winged spears; and heading the battalion, a sizeable man in a set of red plate-mail more elaborate than the rest, a greatsword sheathed at his hip. Mel deduced that this was a general of some sort, and began to walk towards him. The faster she facilitated this process, the less lives would be put at risk. She raised her hands, showing that she was unarmed.
“Amelia Saul?” He called, his voice clear and deep like a bronze bell.
“At your service,” She said flatly.
“My name is Emil Bolton. By the order of the Bal’Lhord Prince, you are righteously detained for crimes against the Throne, to be tried in the House of Lhords under–”
“Yes, I know.”
“I’m sorry?”
Incredibly, she found it in herself to laugh. “I’ve been arrested for treason before. Mind you, that was a Sul’Lhord, but they’re all the same in the end. Lop off the wyrm’s head, it only grows back meaner.” Bolton seemed somewhat put out by her nonchalance, but he stepped forward, taking her from the soldier’s grip. The soldier immediately set to work binding her hands behind her back.
“If you think this will be easy for you,” Bolton said, low enough that even the man binding her hands couldn’t hear, “you’re wrong. You were the Council’s favorite crackpot once, but times have changed. They won’t start a war over you.”
“Isn’t that the Amoran way?” Mel quipped in return. It hurt, because she knew he was right, but she kept a stern face. “All in the name of peace.”
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