Storm Raven

by K Hanson

  “Excellent, glad to hear it.”

  “Will you join me for a drink ahead of our voyage?”

  “No, thank you,” said Erhan. “I don’t want to drink the night before we leave.”

  No, you’re supposed to drink, too!

  “Well, I hope you’re fine with me having something.”

  Nereyda heard the navigator pop the cork out of the bottle and pour himself a glass.

  He took a sip. “Hmmm, not quite as fresh as yesterday. Still delicious, though.”

  Nereyda didn’t pay attention to most of their conversation. She just waited and hoped that Erhan would change his mind and drink some of the wine. As the evening dragged on, he continued to abstain. Finally, he left without a sip.

  Frustrated, Nereyda went back to her room. She hoped that at least the navigator would get sick and that it would delay their trip to the Shattered Sea so she could figure out another way out of her sentence.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nereyda slept little that night. Conflicting emotions of hope and fear prevented her from sleeping. Finally, as light streamed in through her window, a knock on her door brought her back from her thoughts, and a pair of guards stepped into the room. “Time to leave,” one of them said.

  “So we’re still doing this?” Nereyda asked.

  “Of course. Come with us.”

  Apparently, her plan hadn’t worked.

  They escorted her out of the palace compound, through town, and down to the main dockyard for the Imperial Navy. They brought her to the side of a large fully-rigged ship of the line, with seventy-four total guns on two decks. As Nereyda looked at it, she realized that it stood taller than most other ships of the same kind that she had seen. It actually had an extra deck below the gun decks. This ship featured an expanded hold, which meant that they weren’t expecting to come back to shore for a long time.

  Her escorts brought her to the gangway that connected the dock to the ship. “Here you are. Board the ship and check in with the marines at the top of the walkway,” directed one of the guards.

  “You mean you two don’t get to come along?” she asked.

  “No,” replied the second man. “We’re happy to stay here, thank you. Besides, we haven’t done anything to earn a trip to the Shattered Sea. It’s not just a punishment for you. Most of the marines and sailors here are also serving a sentence.”

  “The Empire is just giving a ship to a bunch of criminals? How do they know we won’t just run away with the ship?” Nereyda asked.

  The first guard spoke, “The Empire has an insurance policy to stop you from doing that. If this ship doesn’t report to a check-in point just shy of the Shattered Sea within a week, the families of anyone on board will be killed. Not everyone has a family, of course, but enough do to stop anyone from trying anything.”

  “What about Commander Erhan? How did he get here? Somehow, I don’t imagine him breaking very many laws.”

  “The commander volunteered for this trip, actually. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes marines and sailors will sign up for a voyage to the Shattered Sea.” He shrugged. “They probably do it for the extra pay or because it looks good. For some, the danger is worth it. Me, I’d rather stay here where it’s warm and where I don’t have to worry about the marauders up north.”

  “Well,” interjected the other guard, “that’s enough chatter. Get on your way onto the ship.”

  Nereyda turned away and walked up the gangway to the deck of the large ship. At the top of the walkway, a marine had set up a flimsy table as a makeshift desk. On it, he had a large book that she figured must be some kind of ledger.

  The man kept his gaze on his book, a quill in his right hand. “Name?” he asked.

  “Nereyda.”

  “Full name, if you please.”

  “Nereyda is my full name. I don’t have a family name.”

  He lifted his head, finally looking away from his ledger. “No family name? Then, where are you from?”

  “I guess I’m from my ship, the Storm Raven.”

  “Ah, the pirate captain, I remember now.” He looked back down and flipped a couple of pages, then found the line he needed. He ran his quill across the page to cross something off, then he signed something next to the entry. “We have some special accommodations for you.”

  “What kind of special accommodations? Am I getting the luxury suite?”

  “No, when you are not on duty, you will stay in one of our solitary cells.”

  “So you’re keeping me away from the other prisoners? Why?”

  “You’ve been designated as the sort of person who could cause trouble if allowed to mingle too much with the others.”

  Nereyda smiled at him. “I have no clue how they got that idea. In fact, I specialize in not causing any problems for anyone.”

  “I’m sure that you do. Unfortunately, you still have to stay in solitary.” He turned and waved to another marine. “Private, will you give this prisoner her shackles and take her to her quarters? Isolation cell three.”

  “Yes, sir.” He turned to her. “Follow me.”

  The man led her down a hatch to the first level below the main deck. On either side of the ship, guns sat at their stations, currently unmanned. Nereyda followed the marine as he led her aft of the gun stations. He opened a door into an area with several cells. Another guard sat at a desk. Behind him, some key sets dangled from hooks on the wall.

  “I need set three, please.”

  With only a grunt in response, the guard at the desk stood and turned to find the correct set. He passed it to her escort, then sat back down. When they arrived at cell three, the marine unlocked the door and pushed it open with a creak. “Here you are. You will stay here whenever not on duty. As soon as your shift ends, report to the guard at the door, and he will let you into your cell.”

  Nereyda saw a thin bedroll on top of a bed of straw and a bucket in the corner. “This looks lovely. You sure know how to treat your guests.”

  The guard ignored her. “Before I go, you also need to be shackled.” He reached toward a set of irons that dangled from the bars of the cell. Using the second key of the set, he unlocked both sides.

  “Shackled? Where do you think I’ll go? I can’t exactly run away in the middle of the ocean.”

  He crouched down and placed the first cuff around her right ankle and locked it. “No, but you might try swimming. If you try swimming with these, you’ll sink like a rock.” After he locked the left iron, he stood up. “You’ll stay in your cell until the gangway is removed. Then, you’ll be released to report for duty and receive your first assignment,” he said before leaving the cell block, tossing the keys to the guard at the desk.

  As soon as he had left, Nereyda sat down on her bedroll and inspected the locks on her shackles. She tugged on them, but they didn’t budge. If she wanted to get out of them, she would either need to find something to pick the lock or actually steal the key. For now, she’d have to bide her time and wait. Wait for both a way to get free of her chains and an opportunity to escape the ship.

  ---

  Nereyda had been sitting on her bedroll for only a few minutes when the door to the cell block opened again. She looked up to see Commander Erhan himself walk into the cabin. The guard at the desk snapped to his feet and saluted the officer.

  “At ease,” Erhan said. “May I have the key for our guest here?”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard replied, turning to grab the key ring. “She is in cell three.”

  “Thank you. As you were.” Erhan walked to her cell and unlocked it.

  “We leaving already?” said Nereyda as she stood up. “I thought I’d have to wait forever before we shoved off.”

  “Actually, we’re not ready to leave yet. The man assigned to be our navigator has fallen ill, and will not be able to sail for quite some time.”

  Well, at least the chicken kind of worked. “Tough luck. I guess we’ll just have to stay here, then.”

  “Th
at’s actually why I’m here. I need someone who can read a map and plot a course.”

  Nereyda took a step back and let out a short laugh. “Wait, after everything that’s happened, you want me to be your navigator?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re the only one on this ship aside from me who has captained a ship. I don’t even know if anyone else here can read a map.”

  “What’s to stop me from drawing up a shitty course and sending us into the rocks?”

  “The fact that I’m not an idiot and will be looking at any course you chart. Besides, while I don’t trust a pirate like you, I do trust your desire to not drown or freeze in the waters of the Shattered Sea.”

  Nereyda laughed. “You must be pretty desperate if you’re coming to me for help.”

  He frowned. “Unfortunately, I don’t really have a choice. Either I recruit you for the job, or I have to wait and find someone else who can do it. We’re already almost completely loaded with both men and supplies, and I don’t want to just sit at the dock nor do I want to unload everything.”

  Nereyda crossed her arms and gave him a sideways look. “What’s in it for me? What if I refuse?”

  “There isn’t anything in it for you. From now on, you will do as I tell you. If you don’t want to be my navigator, you can have latrine duty and take care of emptying all of the shit buckets. Somehow I doubt you’d prefer that.”

  Nereyda thought about refusing just to spite the commander and make his life more difficult. But, then, she considered that this might be an opportunity to both get close to the commander and take charge of her situation, even in a small way. She sighed and said, “Fine, I’ll do it. Probably the best job I can expect to get on this ship, anyway.”

  “Excellent. Now come with me. We need to chart our course to the gateway to the Shattered Islands.”

  She followed him out of her cell, the shackles around her ankles dragged on the ground, weighing her legs down. “As your navigator, I don’t suppose I could get these taken off, could I?”

  “No, those will stay on.” He passed the keyring to the guard at the desk on the way out of the cell block. “You need to remember that you are here as a punishment, not as a member of a crew, even if you are filling the role of an officer. Besides, I’m guessing that you can swim. I can’t have you jumping ship to escape to some island.”

  He led her across the deck and into his cabin at the stern of the ship. As she walked into the room, she took in her surroundings. A table surrounded by four chairs dominated the center of the room. A chart lay spread over the surface, with several others rolled up to the side. At the back of the chamber, a spacious bed with a mahogany frame sat next to the windows that covered the aft of the ship, from floor to ceiling. Right now, they provided a full view of the harbor outside. Full bookcases lined the sides of the room.

  “Impressive,” she said. “I can see why you volunteered for this, just for the room alone.”

  He gave a curt nod. “Being an officer in the Imperial Navy does have its perks.”

  Nereyda walked over to the shelves and read the spines of the books. “Are all of these yours?”

  “Most of them. Some of them were the previous captain’s. I didn’t know pirates could read.”

  “Heh, most can’t. But Captain Nogre would always steal books whenever he had a chance, and he made sure I learned as much as I could.” She ran her fingers over the spines of the books. “Can I borrow some of these?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Now, we have a job to do.” He gestured to the table of charts. “Here are all of the maps I have of the area where we’re supposed to be patrolling. The chart that’s open shows the area from where we are to the checkpoint.”

  Nereyda walked to the table gazed at the chart for a second. “I’m not sure why you need me to plot this course since there isn’t much in the way. But, if you want to get there as fast as possible, I would sail out to sea for about ten miles before turning north toward our destination. Then, both the current and wind should be with us. If we do that, we should make the checkpoint in four days, five if the wind is weak.”

  “You know what you’re doing.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “You pirates are always the same. So sure of yourselves. Where did that get you?”

  Nereyda shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it was a lot of fun along the way.”

  “Was everything just a game to you? Even when you were murdering people and stealing from them?”

  “Hey, I always gave them a chance to leave without fighting. Anyone who fought me made that choice. And I never killed anyone who couldn’t defend themselves.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose.”

  “Are you really going to pretend that you’re so much better than me?” Nereyda walked toward him and looked him hard in the eyes. “Yesterday, I watched you murder one of my crew members, and you threatened to do the same to my first mate.”

  Erhan stood up straight and looked down at her over his nose. “You and your crew are a threat to the safety of the Empire. I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you to justice and keep you in line.”

  “From what I’ve seen so far, your Empire isn’t exactly worth saving.”

  “Watch what you say.” He placed a warning hand on her arm.

  She yanked herself free of his grasp and stepped back. “Your emperor and nobles live standing on the backs of everyone else, and they build a literal wall so they can ignore it. Do you even look around when you walk through the city?”

  “Success has its rewards. People can always work their way up if they try hard enough.”

  Nereyda huffed. “I’ve had enough of this.” She whirled around and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” said Erhan. “I didn’t dismiss you.”

  “I’m dismissing myself.”

  “Come back here now, or —”

  “Or what?” she asked. “You’re going to toss your only navigator off of the ship? Fine by me.” She pushed the door open, then stopped and looked back. “You know, when you kicked that beggar, you were trampling on the very people that you claim to protect.”

  She didn’t wait for a response before she strode out of the room and threw the door shut behind her. Walking down the stairs that led to the deck, she expected that Erhan would come chasing after her, but he didn’t emerge from his cabin. Nobody tried to stop her or paid much attention to her as she wandered around the deck. Marines stood around the perimeter of the ship, as well as on the docks, watching the forced labor work on getting the ship ready for departure.

  As she paced aimlessly around the deck, Nereyda’s mind automatically began to look for a way to escape her new floating prison. Whenever she approached the side of the ship, the nearest guards bristled and gripped their guns tighter. If she ran fast enough, she might be able to dive between them to the water below before they could move to stop her. However, as soon as she came up, they would certainly open fire on her. Even if they missed and she made it away from the ship, she didn’t exactly have anywhere to go. Swimming to shore would just get her captured again. Alone, she couldn’t commandeer and operate a ship that would be fast enough to escape any naval vessels that would pursue her. For now, she’d have to wait for another chance when there were fewer guards or once they had let their guard down.

  “What are you doing?” said a man’s voice.

  Nereyda turned to see a guard standing over one of her fellow prisoners as he tried to tie a rope to one of the cleats on deck.

  “You call that a knot?” asked the guard. “You’re going to be no use if you can’t even tie something basic.”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” said the prisoner. “I’ve never sailed before. All of this is new to me.”

  Nereyda walked over. “What’s the problem?”

  “This idiot can’t figure out how to get this line secured.”

  “Maybe you can show us how it’s done then?” she said.

/>   The guard shrugged. “Fine. It’s not my job, but I’ll do it this once for something to do.”

  The prisoner moved out of the way as the guard knelt to tie the line. As Nereyda watched him, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing at the tangle of rope he created.

  He looked up. “What?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You don’t know what you’re doing any more than he does.”

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  “What isn’t wrong with it?” she asked. “Get out of the way, and I’ll show you.”

  The guard let out a huff as he stood up and crossed his arms.

  Nereyda sat on the deck to untangle the mess the guard had made. Then, she demonstrated to both the prisoner and guard how to properly tie a cleat hitch. “See? That’s not so hard. Now you try,” she said to the prisoner.

  She watched as he took his time, but managed to get it right. “Good work. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Yusuf,” he said. “How did you know how to do that? You’ve been sailing?”

  She stifled a laugh and gave him a thin smile. “Just a bit, yeah. My name is Nereyda, and —”

  “Enough chatting,” said the guard. “Go find something else to do.”

  “Fine,” said Nereyda. “Come on, Yusuf. I’ll teach you a few more things.”

  She spent the next three hours walking Yusuf around the ship, showing him different parts, and helping him learn some of the skills that had become second nature to her. As she wrapped up her introductory lessons, Commander Erhan walked across the deck to her, his face etched of cold stone. “Navigator, it’s time for us to shove off. Report with me to the bridge.”

  After joining Erhan at the helm of the ship, she watched the crew prepare the vessel to push off from the dock. It felt strange to just stand by and watch them make their preparations, without being the one giving the orders. Nereyda felt like she was both at home and in a foreign land at the same time. The moves and orders were things she had seen and heard, as well as done and said, a million times before. However, none of the faces were the same from before. Everyone around her was a stranger. Aside from Yusuf, the only person whose name she knew was the enemy who had put her here.