Storm Raven

by K Hanson

  “Come on, pirate, let’s get out of here and keep —.”

  “Imperial bastards!”

  Nereyda looked through the door to see a man charging across the street toward them, a club held high over his head.

  “You killed everyone!” he screamed.

  When he had almost reached the door, Nereyda flicked the knife past Erhan.

  The blade stuck in the crazed man’s chest, and he collapsed, the club rolling away from him.

  “That’s why you should give me a weapon,” said Nereyda.

  Erhan ignored her as he stepped out of the house. As he bent to retrieve his knife, he briefly examined the man. “You killed him.”

  “Well, yes. Next time, should I let the crazy man with a club get to you?”

  Before he could respond, a shout came from the other side of the village. “Commander! We found someone.”

  Erhan took off running, and Nereyda chased after him. When they reached the source of the shouting, they found a group of marines standing around a man lying on the ground. He was badly burned and gasped for air.

  The commander knelt beside him and spoke, “What happened here? Who did this to your village?”

  “They came in the night,” he said. “They burned us all. They’ll burn everything.”

  “Who are you talking about? Who did this?”

  “They came on a ship of terrors. I don’t know where they came from or where they went,” he gasped. “But I do know that they will destroy whatever they see.”

  “I need more, man. Who were they?”

  But the man gave no further reply. He started shaking violently, then fell limp. His breathing stopped as he finally succumbed to the burns that had consumed his body.

  “Shit,” said Erhan. “We still have no idea what happened here. Just the ramblings of a dying man.”

  “Like I said earlier, whoever was here couldn’t have gone very far. With the way the wind is blowing and how these islands are situated, they don’t have many options on where to go. But, if we’re going to chase them, we need to get back to the ship now.”

  Erhan looked around the village, then glanced out at the waters.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “We need a decision.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. We should at least try to catch up to them. Everyone, return to the boat.” He blew three times on a whistle to signal to the rest of the shore party that it was time to go back.

  They all clambered into the rowboat and slid into their seats. Before Nereyda could climb into the boat, Erhan grabbed her arm by the elbow. “What is it?” she asked.

  “I need to put your shackles back on.” He pulled the irons out of the boat where he had left them.

  “Are you serious? Whoever burned this village to the ground and killed its people is getting away, and you want to waste time on bullshit like this?” She tried to pull away, but his grip remained firm.

  “You agreed to it on the ship. That was the deal for getting to go back. You can stay here if you’d rather.”

  “Fine. Just get it over with so that we can go do our actual job.” She crossed her arms impatiently.

  He sighed, then bent over to lock her ankles in irons. He stood and offered Nereyda a hand to help her into the boat, but she just shoved his arm away. Despite the chain keeping her feet together, she grabbed the side of the boat and jumped over the side, then took a seat.

  Once everyone was in the boat, the same marines as before started to paddle them to the ship. When they had returned, Erhan took the helm, with Nereyda at his side.

  “Well, navigator, where do you think they went?”

  Nereyda observed the way the wind blew and studied how the islands were laid out.

  The burnt village sat on a strip of beach on the northern point of its island. From here, she saw four other islands nearby, with narrow straits between each.

  “Based on the wind, the fastest and safest way out of here would be to take the northeast passage. If I wanted to get away from here, that’s the direction I would go.”

  “Very well.” Erhan gave the orders to get the ship ready to shove off, and the vessel began to move. He angled the ship toward the northeastern strait.

  For the first several hundred yards, the black smoke obscured their vision. Erhan carefully navigated into the rocky passage. As the smoke thinned, he ordered the sails unfurled more to pick up speed. His knuckles were white as they gripped the wheel, while he worked to navigate the treacherous waters.

  “Do you need me to take the wheel?” Nereyda asked.

  The commander shook his head. “No, I can’t let you do that.”

  “You look like you need help. I can get us through this.”

  “Absolutely not. A prisoner can’t take the helm.”

  Nereyda huffed in frustration. Erhan clearly had never piloted a ship in these conditions. Most of his experience probably came from large warships. Imperial ships of the line were well suited for heavy combat in open water, but ill-prepared to maneuver in tight spaces.

  Looking forward across the water, in the thinning haze, she spotted a ship on the edge of their vision, miles farther down the canyon.

  “Erhan, I think that might be who we’re looking for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That ship on the horizon.”

  “Oh, now I see it. Keep an eye on it. Hopefully, we can get closer.”

  “We need to go faster. At this rate, they’re going to outrun us. Or they’ll turn into another passage, and we’ll lose them.”

  “We can’t go any faster than this. If we try, we’ll crash into the rocks.”

  “We can fly through here. Give me the helm. I can do this.”

  “Whether you can or not is irrelevant. If something happened and you crashed the ship, it would be my ass that got roasted.”

  “If you’ve been hunting me, then you know my reputation. You know that you would have never caught the Storm Raven in a place like this. A lot of that was because of a wonderful ship and an even better crew. But all of that starts with a captain and a pilot that knows how to use the ship. I may not care about you or your empire, but I just saw a family that had been burned alive in their home. I do care about that.”

  Erhan hesitated.

  “Come on, I didn’t prevent you from getting clubbed to death just to kill you by smashing into the rocks.”

  He sighed, then nodded. “Just don’t get us killed, pirate.” He stepped away from the wheel. “Ship’s yours.”

  Nereyda stepped up to the helm and gripped the wheel in her hands. She couldn’t help but smile to herself. For the first time in too long, she was in command of a ship, maybe even for the last time. It was no Storm Raven, but it would do.

  “Full sail!” she commanded.

  At first, the crew paused. They seemed confused by the new, female voice commanding them.

  “Are you all deaf? I said to set full sail!”

  Finally, they got back to work and let the sails unfurl. The wind snapped the sails as air filled them, then the ship lurched forward as it accelerated forward down the narrow trench.

  Walls of stone rushed past on either side of the ship, almost close enough to touch. The pale faces of the crew members betrayed their fear. This was not the crew of the Storm Raven, who had been seasoned to handle maneuvers that most would consider insane.

  With the ship ahead fading in and out of the fog, Nereyda knew that she needed to stay aggressive if she wanted to have her ship catch up with their target.

  Their prey slowed as it approached a corner, then turned to the right.

  If Nereyda handled this turn the right way, they could begin to gain some more ground in their chase. Or they could end up smashed against the rocks that spiked treacherously out from the sides of the canyon.

  “Prepare to furl the sails,” she called to the crew.

  Both she and the men and women working the sails would need to time this perfectly. Hopefully, an untrained c
rew wouldn’t be their downfall.

  “Give the order to slow down!” Erhan yelled.

  She shook her head, keeping her eyes ahead. “Do you want to catch that ship? If so, then just trust me.”

  They surged toward the corner, an unforgiving gray wall looming seemingly just in front of the bow.

  Just before the ship entered the corner, Nereyda yelled over the deck, “Half sail!”

  The canvas sheets snapped up.

  Before they slowed, Nereyda whipped the wheel to starboard. The ship groaned and leaned to port as it strained to make the sharp turn. The stern of vessel drifted around, and the wheel shuddered in her hand as the hull scraped the rocks.

  “Is that sound what I think it is?” asked Erhan. “Are you crashing my ship? Give the ship back to me.” He reached for the wheel.

  Nereyda shoved him away. “No, just scraping the paint. We’ll be fine,” she said, partially to reassure him and partially for her own benefit. “Full sail!”

  The crew dropped the sails, and the Imperial ship surged ahead.

  With the sharp turn, Nereyda could see that they had begun to whittle away the distance between themselves and the ship they hunted, as its outline became more defined through the haze.

  She turned the wheel and gave her orders as she zigzagged the ship around the sharp rocks that stuck out from the islands on either side of their path.

  At times, their speed brought them dangerously close to crashing into the cliffs before she’d snap the wheel around to dodge the obstacle. Erhan objected each time, but Nereyda ignored him. She knew what she was doing.

  And the speed paid off. The ship in the distance got closer as they flew down the passage.

  “Can you make out any of the flags on the ship?” asked Nereyda.

  Erhan raised his spyglass and gazed toward the vessel. “Hmm, not quite yet. We need to get closer.”

  “All right. We’ll keep going then.”

  After a few more minutes of swerving through the watery corridor, Erhan tried again to see the colors of the ship they chased. “Wait, I know those colors. They’re flying the flag of Stalsta.”

  “What are they doing up here?”

  “I have no idea. As far as I know, they don’t send patrols to the Shattered Sea.”

  “What do you want to do, then? This isn’t a great place for a fight if it comes to that.”

  “No, I agree,” the commander replied. “Besides, the Empire is not currently at war with Stalsta. Even if they did burn that village, attacking them would be an act of war. Neither of our nations has a claim on the islands here. We will need to sail south and out of the Shattered Sea so we can report this to a regular patrol ship. High command and the emperor need to know that the Stalstans are up to something, even if we don’t know what yet.”

  “In that case, I’ll give the ship back to you,” Nereyda said. “Half sail!” she called to the crew. They furled the sails, then she passed the wheel back to Erhan.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Brynja groaned as she opened her eyes. Even after spending two weeks in the mines, she hadn’t gotten used to sleeping in her cell. Her back felt twisted from trying to find a comfortable position on the raised wooden slab that she had for a bed. As she propped herself up on her elbows, she pushed off the sheet that barely helped against the chill of the mines. Without being able to see the sun, she couldn’t really tell what time it was. Based on how the guards moved around the slave quarters, she knew that they were about to wake all of the slaves and round them up for the day’s labor.

  Her muscles complained as she stood and walked over to relieve herself in a bucket in the corner. The stench from the two-day-old contents made Brynja wrinkle her nose. At least she would be able to empty it today.

  As she finished her business, a guard walked down the corridor and struck his club against each cell’s bars, sending ringing echoes throughout the slave quarters. “Time to get up,” he yelled. “Grab your shit buckets and stand at your cell door.” He repeated these orders as he walked up and down the cell block.

  Brynja picked up her bucket of slop and moved to wait by her door. The guard returned to a few cells to bang on the bars again when the occupants were slow to get up. The first morning she had been here, one prisoner had been too slow to wake up, so the head guard had walked into his cell and beaten him until he could barely stand. After that, nobody dawdled getting ready for the day. Once all of the slaves were awake, guards came to each of the cells and opened them. Brynja stepped out to the center of the corridor to fall into line. Even after having days to get used to the dim light, she still had to squint to find her way through the darkness. Only a handful of torches along the walls broke the gloom.

  “All right, you pieces of filth,” said the head guard, “come with us. Remember, you will dump your bucket into the sewer hole as we pass it. Breakfast after.”

  Escorted by guards on either side, the column of slaves shuffled down the passage. Their ankle restraints dragged on the ground, filling the air with a grating sound.

  Ahead of Brynja, an older man with a head of white hair tripped on his chains and fell to the ground. Fortunately, he managed not to spill his bucket. The column stalled behind him as he struggled to get back to his feet. Between his shackles and his fading strength, he could not push himself up on his own.

  “What’s the matter, old man?” asked one of the guards. “Forget your cane in your cell today?”

  With the chains around his ankles, he still had trouble standing up. “Please, someone help me up.”

  Brynja began to step out of the line to give the man a hand, but another guard called to her, “Do not help him.” She stepped back into formation.

  Gravel crunched as the first guard walked up to the man. “You’re taking too long and making everyone late for breakfast.” He picked up the old man’s bucket and tossed its contents onto him, covering him in his waste. “Too bad bath day isn’t for another week. Now get up.”

  The older man finally pushed himself to his feet. As the column began to move again, his shoulders slumped with shame and humiliation. Brynja heard the sounds of sobbing coming from the man.

  The group of slaves finally reached the sewer hole. One by one, they emptied their buckets into the hold and stacked their buckets in a pile in the corner.

  They reached the canteen where they ate their meals. The guard checking them in said to the older man, “You can’t eat smelling like that. Go sit in the corner.”

  The man let out a sob. “But, I need food. I didn’t mean to fall. Please, let me eat.”

  “Are you deaf? I told you to sit in the corner. Go now, or you’ll go tomorrow without eating, too.”

  He trudged off and slumped down on the bench in the far corner of the mess hall.

  Brynja waited her turn to go through the food line. When it was her turn, she got a bowl of slop, a thick brown mixture somewhere between soup and stew, too similar to what had just been in her bucket, and a solid brick that was supposed to be bread. Slinking through the crowd of slaves, Brynja approached the table where the old man sat. “Mind if I join you?”

  “I don’t think anybody is supposed to sit with me.”

  She shrugged and sat down anyway. “Whatever. Here, have some of my food.” She handed him her bread.

  “Why are you helping me?” he asked as he accepted the offer.

  “This place has enough assholes. Someone needs to work against the trend.”

  “Well, thank you,” he said through a mouth stuffed with bread.

  Brynja heard footsteps walking up behind her. “I believe I said that he wasn’t supposed to get any food.”

  “You told him to sit in the corner,” she replied without turning around. “You didn’t say anything about us not giving him something to eat.”

  “I think you know what I meant. He’s supposed to sit alone and hungry. He’s making the whole place smell.”

  “Yeah, because one of your buddies tossed shit all over him
.”

  The guard bent down so that his face was right next to her ear. She felt his spit on her skin as he said, “I don’t think you quite get how it works here yet. You don’t get to defy us. Our word is law. Now come with me.” He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her up from the bench.

  “I don’t think I will,” she said as she jerked her arm from his grasp.

  “Very well.” He waved over two other guards. “Chain her to the wall.”

  Each of the guards grabbed one of her arms and yanked her to her feet, knocking the rest of the food to the ground in the process. They dragged her across the mess hall and shoved her face first against the icy stone wall. The guards raised her arms over her head and clasped her wrists in irons that dangled from above.

  The head guard walked up behind her. “For insubordination, you will receive ten lashes.”

  He ripped the fabric of her shirt from her neck to the base of her back. The damp cool air of the mine gave her skin goosebumps. Silence hung over the mess hall. Brynja could feel the eyes of every prisoner and guard on her. She grabbed the chains in her hands, partly to hold herself up and partly for something to grip when the pain began.

  The sound of something cutting through the air reached her ears just before the leather whip struck across her bare back. Gritting her teeth against the strike, she felt her skin welling up with pain, though no blood dripped yet. No matter how much it hurt, she would stay standing, stay silent. She would not give these bastards the satisfaction of seeing her submit to being broken.

  Another crack of the whip made her arch her back, but still, her resolve held firm. For her crew, she would stay strong.

  As the whip kept falling and the guard continued to carry out her punishment, Brynja turned her mind toward hope and determination. Either she would find a way to get her crew out of this place, or she would keep them strong until Nereyda could do it. The captain had things of her own to worry about, but Brynja knew that if she got free from her sentence, the first thing she would do is come and try to get them out.

  Finally, the whip fell silent, and Brynja brought her mind back to the present. Warm blood dripped down her back and began to dry on her skin. As adrenaline subsided, her entire back ached. Her head spun, and her legs weakened. She remained standing but relaxed to let her chains take some of the weight off of her feet.