by Rose Francis
“Quinn,” Farid bellowed. “Get that anchor stored!”
In response, the sound of grinding metal rang through the ship.
The red jackets were running now. They readied their weapons as they neared.
Farid yanked a heavy lever, straining against it until the muscles of his oiled arms stood out like buried slabs of stone brushed clean by desert winds.
With a loud clunk the drives engaged and the Letherine took off like a shot.
The red jackets ceased their running, vanishing rapidly in the distance.
Lucia wanted to relax, to talk with Conwynne about all that had happened. But she had a job to do. Farid tugged his goggles and sand-scarf down over face, nodded to her.
She nodded back and braced herself for learning the ropes.
Chapter 6
Voyage to the West
The first day was the hardest.
Lucia had never been more than a day’s journey from her uncle’s estate before. She assumed the whole world was painted in shades of brown and gray. All the land must be made of gritty dusty sand that stuck to your teeth and itched on your skin. She’d heard mention of oceans and forests but had passed them off as oddities. Like going to market and seeing a bird shifter with pink plumage.
So when she stood on the deck, lashed in place, doing the work of two men at once, she found it exceptionally frustrating that she couldn’t look around. Dunes the color of gold spilled beneath them. A wrecked aircraft—the tallest thing she’d ever seen—stood on its blunt nose, a rough camp gathered at its base like worshippers. A ribcage large enough to walk through protruded from the wastes, bones shining white from decades of wind scouring. Lucia wanted to gawp at it all. To ask a thousand questions of the half-naked sand pirate.
But that was not how things were done.
The first time she tried to ask him a question, he shouted back, “Unless it’s an emergency, no talking. Keep it zipped.”
How dare he talk to her like that? Wasn’t he working for her? Lucia was so furious she missed the next signal from Farid and the ship nearly ran into one of the shattered ancient concrete walls that dotted the desert like spines on a cactus.
She resolved to pay better attention after that, if only to keep the ship in one piece. The man’s piloting skills were flashy, loud, and irritating. He whooped with joy as they sailed across the sands, dancing in his harness quite improperly. He steered them as near as possible to sinkholes, to wrecked structures, only to shout commands at Lucia, trusting her rope skills to save them.
The sands parted, revealing a sea of smashed automobiles. “Blue three!” Farid barked, and Lucia complied, submitting to being a mere instrument of the sand pirate’s will. Hauling on the third blue rope in her arsenal opened a flap somewhere on the side of the ship or unfurled a sail or slid some gear deep in the thrumming belly. The ropes never seemed to do the same thing twice. It was as if they’d been designed by a madman. But she did as she was told, grudgingly, and they skirted around the sea of smashed autos, leaning crazily to one side, the deck almost vertical.
Farid laughed with the joy of it. And soon Lucia was laughing too.
They took their break just before midday. Nothing in the desert moved at high sun except fools and madmen. Lucia and Farid unsnapped themselves from the deck and descended into the cool darkness of the Letherine. The rest of their crew was waiting for them in the mess. From her bag, Foxtail served up rounds of sausage and dried fruit. Quinn revealed his true calling as a fine ship’s cook, turning a bag of root vegetables and a handful of spices into a delicious dish served in a clay pot shaped like a teardrop. From beneath his robes, Conwynne produced a heavy flask of whiskey. “Living alone in the wastes, distillation becomes quite the comfort,” he muttered.
Lucia had nothing to offer. What skills did she have that could really aid this crew? Rope-pulling? Any monkey could follow orders. Her palms burned from the work. The shifter blood in her veins brought quick healing amongst its many gifts, but the discomfort of the rope burn lingered long after the skin had knit itself back together.
“You should have seen this one on the ropes today, Quinn.” Farid sat down hard next to her, his warm body pressed against hers in the tight quarters. “You wouldn’t believe it was her first day on a boat.” He winked at her, stuffed his mouth full of Quinn’s tagine stew.
“Well, the way you steer, I had to be good. It’s like you have a death wish!” She turned to Conwynne. “This pirate, he aims the ship directly at every obstacle. No smooth sands for this one.”
“I expect he was testing you,” Conwynne said. “And making our tracks harder to follow.”
“Is that why the ship rocked so much? Good heavens. I fell down so much while cleaning that my body is one large bruise.” Triptongue nibbled on a corner of sausage, but avoided the rest of the food. He seemed to sustain himself entirely on worrying.
Quinn banged on the table and signed to Farid. The mutt reached out and ruffled Foxtail’s hair.
“He says you did great work on the Letherine’s drives. They’re running better than ever. Where’d you learn to do that?” Farid’s hand crept onto Lucia’s thigh under the table. His touch was hot through her cotton leggings. She wondered how his hands would feel on other parts of her body. Should she slap his hand away?
Foxtail’s bowl was heaped larger than anyone’s. “Maintained the fleet in Sierren. Senior mechanic and engineer.”
“That who we’re going to see?” Farid’s hand slid farther up Lucia’s inner thigh. She wasn’t entirely inexperienced, but she’d never been touched like this before. There’d been a guard or two she’d tumbled with, but when her uncle had found out, they’d been fired and sent away. The tumbles had been hurried, clumsy affairs. She knew it would be different with Farid. She wanted to part her thighs to give him better access. She wanted to take his hand and run to his cabin and spend midday working out all the kinks in her shoulders riding the sexy pirate.
“We’re looking for the prince,” Conwynne said, fixing Lucia with his stare. “Or his people. We have information vital to his fight against the Suzerainty.”
At the mention of the prince, Lucia stiffened. What was she doing, letting this pirate paw her like this? She saw the noble face of the prince in her mind—did she want to come before him as a proud alpha, or as the dust-fingered lover of a smirking and disrespectful pirate?
“I need some air,” she said, taking Farid’s hand off her thigh and clambering over the entire table to get away. Conwynne followed her as she made her way down through the cargo hold and out onto the blazing sands. Even in the shadow of the Letherine, the sands were nearly too hot to bear.
“That man takes too many liberties,” Conwynne muttered, pulling his hood over his head and squatting at the edge of the shadow. “We should be careful with him. He is charming, to be sure. But charm can be a mask, worn and discarded when the moment suits. We carry a great secret with us, my lady. And secrets are valuable.”
Lucia stripped off her boots and dug her toes down into the sands, past the burn point, to the deep coolness under the surface. She’d heard stories of travelers digging through the sands only to find water just below the surface. Hidden rivers, lost reservoirs. How many secrets did the wasteland hide?
“He needs us. He can’t sail without us.”
“A captain who can’t keep a crew isn’t a man to be trusted.”
“What does he owe my uncle for?”
Conwynne sighed. “We have hours until it’s safe to sail again and I’d rather not spend it wagging our tongues about that foolish man. I’m old, Lucia Brightwolf. My patience for such things ended long ago.” The old man rose from his crouch in a fluid motion and went into the ship, leaving Lucia alone with nothing but dunes in all directions. Thick white clouds hung useless in the sky, refusing to block the sun for even a second. The heat made Lucia sleepy. She closed her eyes, her toes rooted firmly in the cool darkness of the earth. She took a breath, willing herself to rela
x, to open before the world.
Foxtail and Triptongue lay curled about each other. Their hands cling together like two halves of a whole. They’re terrified of what lies before them, of the mission ahead. Foxtail forces herself to be braver than she is, to keep Trip going. And he voices all the fears that she feels unable to utter without losing her pride.
Quinn is asleep in his long narrow berth, in the captain’s quarters. This job feels different to him. The captain is acting oddly, showing off for the girl, clowning for the old man. He’s on the verge of dreaming of a great forest, trees impossibly thick and close together, so tall their tops are out of sight. Lucia is in his mind as the dream falls upon him and pushes her out.
In the hold of the ship, Conwynne moves aside a hidden smuggling panel—missed by Lieutenant August and her men. Inside are two swords, one whole and one shattered. He wonders if the kid is ready for it. If she’s too much like her mother. The man starts, looks into the shine of the glaive’s blade and sees Lucia’s reflection staring back at him. “Get out of my head,” he roars.
When she awakens, Conwynne is standing over her. When did she fall on her back? Her skin is itchy and sensitive from the burning sands.
“I saw you. I saw your thoughts.”
“You’re manifesting your power, young alpha. Impressive, but rude.” Conwynne didn’t even try to hide the annoyance in his voice. He tossed a long bundle onto the sands. Without looking, Lucia knew what was inside.
“How did I do that? It was amazing. I felt so close to everyone, like we were family or almost one being.”
“We’re becoming pack,” Conwynne said. “The bonds of pack are deep. The gifts are numerous. Pack is the source of an alpha’s strength. An invisible web between you and your packmates. You draw strength from them as they draw strength from you. You are made greater by it.”
“I want to do it again.”
“In time it will become second nature to you. You will either love it, or find it the headwater of an ocean of misery.” He tapped his head. “We all carry a darkness within us, my lady. In our own heads we do not always say what we mean or mean what we say. Be careful what you may see when you peer into another’s thoughts.”
“I couldn’t see Farid’s. It’s like he wasn’t even there.”
“I’m not surprised. If you could see that pirate’s mind, that would truly be extraordinary.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he’s a pure.”
“A pure what?” Lucia unwrapped the bundle, revealing the half-shattered blade of her mother’s sword.
“A pure human. He has none of the shifter gifts. None of our senses or healing.” Conwynne drew his glaive. “Honestly, I’m amazed he’s survived this long.”
Lucia had never met a pure before. He was nothing like she’d imagined them to be. In the stories from her uncle, the pures were always sickly, covered in cuts and bruises, and dressed in rags. Avar Farid did not look sickly and Lucia had seen enough of his body to tell. How could he survive—and thrive—in a world full of shifters without sharpened senses or the ability to heal?
They sparred on the sand. General Conwynne showed Lucia the basic steps, the guard, the parry, the thrust. He began with the real glaives then switched to the wooden practice swords for sparring. All the while he told her of the alphas, of pack, of shifting.
“There is more than one way to tap into your primal nature, to shift. Pack bonds will only take you so far.” Conwynne brought his glaive across in a slow chop. Lucia, also moving slowly, brought her blade up to deflect. “Strong emotions are the key to shifting, but they also shape us. If you choose hate and fear and anger when you shift, you will become a nightmare.”
“Like my uncle.” Lucia’s arms grew tired from the slow movements. Conwynne explained that mastering the motions with a slow, purposeful fluidity taught your body how to fight. Learn it slow, do it fast.
“And like so very many before him. That darkness is deep and there is so much to grasp. Fear is irrational, when you give in to it, friend becomes foe. Love becomes a trap. Paranoia follows. The shifter who chooses fear will manifest great power, but little control. They will hurt people.” Conwynne shifted into a guard position.
“So what’s the right way?” Lucia shifted her footing, the sands scorching the skin of her feet.
“Compassion. Empathy. The desire to protect and to guide. This is where I pull from to shift. When I saw you on the wastes before that myriad, it wasn’t fear of the myriad that drove me on. It was the desire to save you, to save Triptongue. Let yourself care about others. Open your heart to the wonders of the world, and shifting will come easily to you.”
“I’m imaging a ring of keys,” Lucia closed her eyes and found herself blocking each of Conwynne’s attacks. “Each key is a memory, a feeling. Each key unlocks the shift, but each lock is in a different door. The pain key opens a door of rage. The sorrow key opens a door of regrets.” Their blades rang out like music as they struck faster and faster.
“Stop,” Conwynne yelled. He was on his back, his sword lay on the ground ten paces away, just outside the ship’s shadow. The ragged end of Lucia’s blade rested on his throat. She hadn’t even realized she’d been fighting so hard. It was as if a trance had come over her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What happened?”
“We’ll resume lessons tomorrow.”
In the middle of the wastes, as they were passing a burned out settlement, the Letherine gave a great groan from somewhere deep in her belly and stopped moving. Farid cursed and shouted down a speaking tube to Quinn below. When Lucia went to unhook herself from the rigging, Farid motioned to her in a panic.
"Don't! Don't unhook!" He bellowed. The wind was strong that day. If the ship had been a sail craft only, she would have flown. But the sails were a steering mechanism for the pulse drive and without the drive, she was dead in the sand.
Lucia tried to shout a question to him, but the winds swallowed her voice. She was hungry and anyway she really needed to pee. She didn't have the same bladder control the experienced smugglers did. Whenever they took a break, she raced to the head to relieve herself while Farid and Quinn laughed.
Screw it. If the ship was stopped, she'd unhook and take care of business. She unbuckled the harness, unclipping from the safety rigging just as the Letherine gave another groan and lurched forward. Without her safety harness, Lucia was hurled off the deck, her hip smashing into the aft rail with a crunch. She flew out over the open sands, plunging into the wasteland as the Letherine darted and lurched off without her.
The bones in her hip had shattered. They ground painfully against each other, as if they'd been replaced with marbles. Without her shifter blood, she would be dead. Even with it, the pain was unbearable. Her hip was pulverized. Her leg was broken in at least one place and the sands were so hot they seared her skin under her clothes. There was no shelter in reach, but the burned out settlement was near. Mustering her strength, Lucia crawled across the scorching earth towards the only shadows within a mile. If she was lucky, she could hide there until her crew returned. If she wasn't lucky, well, best not to think about it.
She wore the glaive on her back. It was awkward to do the rope work necessary to steer the Letherine with it, but Conwynne had insisted. “You need to spend time with the blade. To become attuned to it, and to let it become attuned to you,” the old shifter said. He’d tried to talk her into sleeping with it cradled in her arms, but the silver blade scared her. It was too dangerous. One wrong move and she could lose a finger.
The sands burned her feet and hands as she pulled herself through the wastes. The bones in her hip fought to fix themselves, but the break was severe. Lucia knew that without treatment it’d never reform properly. The fracture could heal itself in any of a thousand incorrect ways, leaving her with a limp for the rest of her days.
Something moved in the settlement. It was hundreds of feet away across the burning rocky sands but still Lucia saw humanoid
shapes emerge from the ground. They were short and thin and pointing at her. Lucia ran through the best and worst possibilities, but didn’t like any of them. People that lived this deep in the wasteland did whatever it took to survive and that rarely included showing kindness to an injured stranger.
Lucia’s uncle and his men loved telling stories of the terrors of the wasteland. It was their favorite topic of conversation, especially as they counted themselves amongst its chief dangers. One story had always stuck with her as the worst. Grave Chaser, her uncle’s chief minion, told it to every new hire and to every new guard. He’d been escorting a shipment of ore north to Sala City when the convoy came under attack from a band of raiders, the story went. He’d been captured, along with the shipment and the merchants, and taken to their hidey-hole. It was a hidden oasis, nestled in a cave in a rocky outcropping. Grave Chaser claimed the raiders were cannibals. He’d said they took shifters and carved them up while they were alive, eating their flesh and then waiting for their gifts to regrow it so they could eat more. Lucia had always hated the story.
She’d heard a different version from her uncle. In his version, it was he who had been captured by the raiders and that Grave Chaser had been one of their leaders. Her uncle had talked the savage shifter into betraying the other cannibals in exchange for a better paying job, with much better food.
Lucia forced herself to her feet. If the dwellers in the settlement came for her, she would put up a fight. Using her hands and the grip of her glaive, she forced her hip back into workable order. If she survived Conwynne could always re-set the bones.
As the dwellers approached, Lucia could tell by their gait and size that they were ratlings. They held thick clubs and nets and coils of rope. She braced herself for a fight.
A wind at her back made Lucia spin and then collapse, as the bones in her hip slid and ground together painfully. Behind her was a dive bike, rocketing across the sands, with a shirtless pirate at the controls.