by K Hanson
He waited a moment but received no response.
With his hope of finding another survivor diminishing, he turned to scan the wreckage for any supplies that could be of help. He found a length of rope, a tarp, and a pack of some dried meat, along with a canteen, but couldn’t carry much more than that by himself to shore.
Erhan lugged his loot onto his back, using the rope to help secure it, and slipped back into the warm clear blue water of the bay. He swam his way back to the beach, near where he had washed up overnight. He set down his supplies and found a sturdy tree that could support a small tent. Then, he tossed the rope over a branch a ways up the tree and tied it to the tarp. Once he had secured his tent at a good height, he tied it off on the trunk of the tree. It wasn’t much, but it would at least keep out the wind and the rain while he figured out a better solution.
As he stepped back from his creation, he spotted something he had not seen before. Near where he had woken up, a set of footprints led into the forested island. Someone else was on this island with him. Someone who had rescued him but chosen to leave him. Who else could be there? And why would they save his life just to abandon him on the beach?
It was too late in the day to investigate the prints now, especially since he had no idea what might be lurking in the interior of the island. He walked over to the small stream to fill the canteen with cool fresh water. After it had been filled, he waded into the river to wash the salt water from himself. Finally feeling refreshed, he returned to his makeshift tent and lay on the ground.
As he munched at the dried meat he had obtained from the wreckage, he felt the weight of his situation press in. He had never failed so thoroughly on a mission before. To lose a whole ship, along with the crew, was a terrible mark. Most of the crew had been prisoners serving a sentence, but still, it was his duty to see that they carried it out as fairly as possible.
It had all happened because of that fool Nereyda. She should have let him handle the ship in the storm. Instead, she had insisted on fighting him for control of the wheel, causing them to smash into the rocks. Then, she had the nerve to flee as the ship went down.
Now that he remembered the incident, he realized that the pirate captain had actually sprinted over the deck of the ship. Fast enough that he couldn’t catch her. Somehow, she had already taken her shackles off. He did not spend much time wondering how she had gotten out of them. People like her were always clever and slippery enough to eventually find a way to free themselves.
But why had she chosen that moment?
Of course. She had been trying to escape. That’s why she had plotted that course near the island. She had planned to jump ship here the whole time. Then, when she saw her chance to dash the ship against that rock, she had run back to take the wheel. No survivors. No witnesses. Nobody would try to hunt her down. Hopefully, the wench had drowned in the stormy waters along with the rest of the crew. It’s what a pirate like her deserved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
How could I be so stupid? Nereyda just knew that leaving Commander Erhan alive on the beach would come back to bite her in the ass. Even though she had rescued him, someone ruthless like that would never give her his gratitude. Why had she gone to the trouble of hauling him to shore? Maybe it was her instinct, as a captain herself, to do whatever she could to help the people on her ship. Maybe she couldn’t stand to see someone drown when she could help him, even if it was just one person. Or, perhaps, she was just dumb.
Whatever had made her do it, it was done. He was still down on the beach, as far as she knew, and she wasn’t about to go back to do anything about it now. No, now she just had to find a way to survive on this forgotten island, and stay hidden from the commander along the way.
After leaving the marine on the beach, Nereyda had stumbled through the dense forest of the island in the dark. Drenched to the bone from the storm, she eventually found a small cave. It was shallow, no more than a few stride lengths into the hillside, and her hair nearly brushed against the top. As someone who had spent her life out in the wide open ocean, the cramped space had made her feel claustrophobic.
Now that dawn had arrived, she had left the confines of that tiny cavern to explore the island for a better place to take shelter and set up camp. In the daylight, she found it much easier to navigate the tangle of roots, weeds, and small plants that covered the forest floor than it had been the night before. She found a creek that wound its way between the hills and followed it upstream.
As she went farther inland, approaching the hill that dominated the center of the island, she heard a rush of water through the trees. She broke through the forest into a large clearing. From overhead, a waterfall cascaded down from a cliff about halfway up the hill. The water landed in a crystal clear pool, which then trickled into the stream that Nereyda had been following.
The trees surrounding the pond grew bigger, greener, and lusher than the trees she had seen until this point. Maybe the waterfall carried some extra nutrients down from the hill. Next to where the waterfall landed, Nereyda spotted an opening in the cliff wall. She walked over to the gap and gazed inside. As her vision adjusted to the darkness, she saw that it was much larger than the cave where she had taken shelter the previous night.
The cave ceiling rose to at least twice Nereyda’s own height. It measured about twenty strides deep and ten wide. It would provide plenty of space for a shelter until she could explore more of the island. In this place, she felt strangely at home. Like she could settle down and live here. Just being in this cave at the side of this hill, she felt a renewed energy, as if she belonged here.
Now that she had found a suitable place to camp, she wanted to deal with her clothing that remained damp from the storm the night before. Setting her sword belt against a tree, she sat on a log to pull off her boots, flexing her toes as her feet enjoyed their freedom. She stripped off her wet trousers, shirt, and underclothes, and rinsed them in the clean water of the pool. After draping them over a branch to dry in the sun, she slipped into the pool to rinse off the stink of the salt water and sweat that she had accumulated.
Warm water enveloped her, and she closed her eyes to enjoy the relaxing and rejuvenating sensation. For the next hour, she soaked in the pool. She swam a bit to get her muscles loose and stood under the waterfall to rinse out her hair. Once she felt clean, Nereyda climbed onto a flat rock to dry off. Laying back, she closed her eyes to relax.
A twig snapped, and Nereyda jolted awake. The sun sat lower in the sky than when she had closed her eyes.
Shit. I must have fallen asleep.
Jumping up, Nereyda ran to the tree where she had hung her clothes. She threw them on as her eyes darted around the forest surrounding the pool, searching for the source of the sound.
Probably just some sort of animal.
Even if it wasn’t something threatening, she needed to use the rest of the day to find food and gather anything else she could find that might be useful.
Another snap, this time closer, it seemed.
Nereyda slid her feet into her boots, then stood and clasped her sword belt around her waist. As she stood, she felt a stillness around her. And a presence.
She turned around to see the new threat and found herself face to face with a large black cat. A panther, she thought, as she remembered stories she had heard of the animals from other parts of the world. The beast slunk toward her, staring at her with narrow slits for eyes. Its muscles moved beneath its dark fur with grace and power that Nereyda had never seen in an animal before.
Before she could draw her sword, the panther crouched back, then pounced.
Nereyda dodged to the side, but not quite in time to avoid the animal entirely. She yelled as its claws sliced along her left shoulder like a set of daggers.
Whirling, she drew her sword and pointed it at the panther.
It turned back to her and stalked sideways, planning its next attack. Its eyes remained fixed on Nereyda, sizing her up. It almost seemed like one of the man
y people she had faced with her sword.
Each of them eyed each other, figuring out whether to make the first move or to let the other make a mistake.
Nereyda feigned a step toward the animal.
Startled, it jumped at her.
This time, however, she was ready. As the beast flew through the air toward her, she raised her sword and thrust it into the panther’s body. The momentum of the large cat carried it into Nereyda, the weight of the beast knocking her to the ground.
It fell limp on top of her.
Struggling to breathe beneath the weight, Nereyda rolled to shove the corpse off of her. At least now she wouldn’t have to worry about finding food for the day. She dragged the body of the panther to the mouth of the cavern she had found.
As the adrenaline of the fight wore off, her left shoulder stung where the claws had gashed through the leather and her skin. She examined the wound and saw three scratches through her clothes, blood dripping from the cuts. Tearing off the left sleeve of her blouse, she splashed water from the pool onto the gashes to clean them. Then, she tied the sleeve around her shoulder as a makeshift bandage. It still hurt when she moved the joint, but at least this would prevent it from getting worse.
Before darkness set in, Nereyda scavenged the woods around the pool for enough firewood to cook the panther and keep her warm through the night. She piled up the wood she found, then pulled out the flint and steel she had pilfered from the ship’s supplies before attempting her escape. She noted as she ate the meat that it tasted a bit like pork but tougher and stringier. It would be good enough to get her by, but not something she would look for again whenever she got off of this damn rock.
When she shuffled around the cave to search for a good place to settle in for the night, she spotted something black sticking up from the dirt. Nereyda clawed at the earth to get a better look and extracted what appeared to be a human skeleton, but charred as if from a blazing inferno. Whoever it had belonged to was long dead, as the bones were nearly clean. Among the remains, she found a bound leather book. She grabbed it and flipped it open, seeing what appeared to be journal entries.
Skipping to the final entry, she saw what looked like desperate last notes. In hasty handwriting, she read the owner’s last thoughts.
It’s here. I know it is. I feel it in my bones. The source of power that we read about in the legends. Except, it isn’t a legend at all. I know it is real. I just have to find it. Everything I have read, all the myths, point to somewhere around here. I hear someone coming, which is strange because I was sure I was alone on this island. I smell something burning. Almost like something rotten is burning. The smell is getting stronger, I need to see what it is.
When she had finished reading the entry, Nereyda looked back at the scorched skeleton. What had happened to the man who had written the journal? What could possibly burn someone this thoroughly?
She flipped through the journal and saw quotes from various myths and legends, as well as maps and sketches. One such map marked an island that she guessed was the island she had crashed on. Another sketch showed some sort of fountain, but it didn’t appear that it was a fountain of water. The crude nature of the drawing made it difficult to tell, though.
Whatever it was, it must have been incredibly valuable to draw someone all the way here. Who knows how long this corpse had been here. She hadn’t seen any other ships or boats near the beach, but perhaps this person had landed on the other side of the island and hiked in from there. She set the book down and gazed out into the night air. It was too late to go exploring now, but in the morning, she could set out to see if this journal was right. If that fountain held something valuable or anything that could help her get her crew back, she wouldn’t hesitate to seize whatever it was.
In the morning, she would set out to find whatever this journal was talking about.
CHAPTER TWENTY
As the light of the dawn sun poured into the cave, Nereyda’s eyes eased open. Birds in the forests surrounding the pool chirped cheerfully to each other. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was stranded on an abandoned island in the middle of nowhere near the Shattered Sea, this would be a great place to spend a vacation. Maybe someday when she’s ready to retire, she can come back and open a little resort.
Nereyda chuckled to herself at the thought of actually settling down, as if she could ever do that. She was too wild, too free, to ever call one place home. She needed the feel of the air and the spray of the sea to feel alive.
As she sat up, her eyes fell on the journal that she had found the previous night. The memory of what she had read came back to her. Today, she would set out into the island wilderness to find whatever it was that this man had been searching for. Based on his scorched skeleton, she knew that it would be dangerous. However, without any way to escape the island, she didn’t have anything better to do with her time there. She stood up, brushed the dirt off of her clothes, and put her boots and sword belt back on.
Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she stepped out into the open air. Rain clouds were rolling in from the direction of the beach this morning. Soon, they would obscure the sun. That didn’t bother Nereyda. She had gotten rained on enough when sailing that it didn’t matter to her whether she got a little wet exploring this place.
Before picking a direction, Nereyda consulted the journal to look for any maps or sketches that might help her find whatever its owner had been hunting. Near the sketch of the mysterious fountain, she found a drawing of some sort of symbol. It was a circle with four diagonal lightning bolts arranged around the circumference. She had never seen anything like it before, but perhaps it would mark the place that she was searching for.
Unfortunately, the journal held no other clues. With nothing else to help her navigate the island, Nereyda decided to climb the tall hill that contained her cave and produced the waterfall. It was really something between a mountain and a hill. It was shorter than any mountain she had seen, but the top shot into the sky like a spire, rather than the rounded crest a typical hill had.
Looking around the forest, she found a narrow game path that seemed to wind around, then up the hill. As she started, she reminded herself to stay alert for more panthers, or any other kind of wildlife that might be dangerous. Other than the potential risk of getting mauled, Nereyda looked forward to a pleasant, though probably rainy, walk through the woods.
From the large paw prints pressed into the dirt, she figured that she walked on the same path that the panther had used the day before. Its hunting trail had led it straight toward her. Nereyda hoped that she could avoid encounters with any of its friends as she made her way through the forest. One fight with a giant cat had been enough, and she didn’t care to eat that stringy meat again anytime soon.
While Nereyda climbed up the hill, the clouds darkened the sky and began to rain on the island. As water dampened her hair and clothes, she pressed on toward the spire at the top of the hill. With mud clinging to her boots with each step and damp cold seeping into her bones, she wondered if it was really worth it to keep going. Perhaps it would be better to turn back, return to the cave, then come back later when the weather had subsided. By now, though, she had traveled more than halfway to the spire. Hiking back would be more trouble than it would be worth.
The trees opened, and Nereyda found a path that led along the top of a ridge to the spire that loomed in the center of the island. While she stepped along the path, the torrent of rain grew stronger, and the wind threatened to blow her from the hilltop. Once, a wind gust struck her with such force that she knelt down and crawled along the ridge until the gale passed. She didn’t really have any experience with climbing mountains, certainly not in weather such as this.
Finally, Nereyda managed to reach the spire without getting tossed off of the hill. She searched the cliffside for an entrance or at least a place to take shelter. Through the heavy rain, she struggled to navigate. A flash of lightning illuminated a narrow crack in the rocky
spire, and she slipped into it. The space was tight, but she could stay there until the storm passed. As she scooted into the space, she didn’t feel anything at the other end. In fact, it felt like the crack widened as she slid further into the spire.
Darkness enveloped the cave, but between flashes of lightning that sent light in through other cracks in the walls of the cave, she saw that she stood on a flat floor, surrounded by actual walls, not merely the rough stone of a cave.
A blue hue that didn’t come from the lightning storm outside shone around the chamber. In the center, a square of stones that measured up to her knees lined a hole in the floor, and a blue light spilled upward from the gap. Nereyda bent over the hole and saw a shaft that led down into another chamber. Stone rungs had been carved into the wall of the shaft. On each corner of the stones surrounding the entrance to the shaft, she saw the same circle with lightning bolts that she had seen in the journal of the burned man.
Nereyda took a deep breath. Already came all this way. I might as well check out whatever is in here.
She climbed over the stones on the side of the hole where the ladder led downward and grabbed onto the rungs. Step by step, she climbed down into the chamber where the glow came from. As the light got brighter as she descended, she felt something else. A strange kind of energy hung in the air. It seemed that it beckoned to Nereyda to keep approaching.
When she was about ten feet from the bottom, her foot missed the next rung, and she had to catch herself. After catching her breath from the shock, she looked down and realized that the last portion of the ladder was gone. It had eroded away or been otherwise destroyed. She looked down at the floor to make sure that it was clear and dropped the rest of the way to the bottom of the shaft.
She crouched and rolled upon landing. The hard stone floor scraped against the cuts she had gotten from the panther. Wincing, she rose to look around the large chamber. She drew her sword, in case she wasn’t alone. A large stone fountain dominated the center of the room. She watched as a sort of bluish light flowed slowly from the top and cascaded down the round sides of the fountain, then collected in the pool at the bottom. Nereyda had never seen anything like it before. However, it matched what she had seen in that journal.