Storm Raven

by K Hanson

  “The dark hair and your eyes, mostly. I’ve never seen purple eyes in anyone outside of the isles. Even there, they’re very rare. It’s said they’re a gift from the gods.”

  Nereyda snorted a laugh. “I’m not sure how good a gift they are if I ended up here.”

  “No, perhaps not. Though, maybe they have something else in mind for you.”

  “I guess we’ll find out sooner or later,” she responded. Nereyda didn’t feel like talking about how she had thrown wind from her hands and shot lightning from her fingers. Somehow, she didn’t think it would achieve much other than making him think that she was crazy. Hell, half the time she felt crazy for just remembering those things. Part of her hoped that they were all from some crazy dream she had had on the island. Though, she knew that it was still real.

  If only I could control those abilities and call them whenever I want. However, it seemed that they would only show up on a whim whenever they felt like it. Waiting for them to fire didn’t seem like a very good strategy if she couldn’t rely on them. Some gift from the gods, indeed.

  “My name is Nereyda. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Jax. So you said you’re a pirate?”

  “Not anymore, I suppose. But my crew and I got captured attacking a merchant ship that was carrying some valuable cargo, which turned out to be a trap. How did you get here?”

  “The Empire attacked my town and took everyone prisoner. I’ve been here for a year or so.”

  “Wait, they attacked your town in the Shattered Sea? Why?”

  “The Empire has been harvesting us as slaves for years. Why else do you think they send their ships up there?”

  “Well, they say that they’re going there to protect the mainland from marauders.”

  Jax scoffed. “Marauders? The ships that they call marauders are the ones trying to protect us. They’re the closest thing the Shattered Isles have to a navy. They’re part of the reason any of us is still left living up there.”

  “So when I was forced to sail up there, it was to find more slaves for the mines?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but that’s a good bet. After the Empire took the mines from Stalsta, they’ve been burning through workers constantly.”

  “Wouldn’t it just be easier for them to pay workers to do this rather than keep finding new slaves?”

  “Probably, but try telling them that. Slavery is in the Imperials’ blood.”

  “Speaking of Stalsta, we saw one of their ships up in the Shattered Sea. Not sure what they were doing there, but they were leaving the site of a burned village.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Without a map in front of me, it’s hard to say. I don’t know the names of the islands. It was in a place with a bunch of canyons, but that’s not very helpful. Have you ever seen a Stalstan ship in the isles before?”

  “No, not that I know of at least. As far as I know, they don’t take slaves. They actually pay their workers.”

  “A mystery for another time, I guess.” She looked around at the other miners in their area. “Are any of the other people from your village still at the mine?”

  “About half are still left. Many have died of disease, exhaustion, or at the hands of the guards.”

  “I’m sorry. As I see what this place has done to my crew, it is an awful place. Have you ever tried to fight back or escape?”

  Jax gave a sad laugh. “Escape from here? You have to be joking. Nobody has ever done that.”

  “If I helped them escape, do you think they’d serve in my crew?”

  “Nereyda, if you got us out of here, we’d all kneel down and call you queen if you wanted us to do that.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I may be a captain, but I’m not exactly queen material. Since my first mate ran off with half of my crew, I just need people to fill in.”

  “How exactly would you escape, even if something like that was possible?”

  “We outnumber the guards pretty heavily. We just have to work up the courage to fight back.”

  “With what? They don’t exactly give out weapons to us?”

  “What do you think these are?” Nereyda waved her pickaxe at him. “We just have to kill some guards, take their weapons, then fight our way out.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You make it sound simple. You don’t think anyone has tried that before? They have. I heard stories of a slave rebellion a few years ago where they took over a whole mine. But the guards on the surface surrounded the entrance. Without food and water, the slaves were forced to surrender after a few weeks, once the stores in the mines had been exhausted. Even though they surrendered, the administrators decided to put all of them to death. Not kindly either. They strung them up and crucified them throughout all of the other mines as a reminder about what happened to anyone who dared to defy the authority of the Empire.”

  “Who did you hear that from?”

  “Just other slaves around the mines.”

  “And who told them the story?”

  He shrugged. “How should I know?”

  “It sounds like some bullshit that the guards planted themselves to discourage slaves from trying anything like that.”

  “Doesn’t it sound like something the Empire would do to us, though?”

  “It does. But they haven’t taken me into account yet. They caught me by surprise when I first tried to break in to get my crew out. This time, we’ll get out for sure.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  A scuffle and a cry from over her shoulder made Nereyda turn around. She saw one of the guards harassing one of the Islanders working in the same cavern. She looked exhausted and had slowed down from the pace she needed to hit the day’s quota of ore.

  “Pick up the pace, you lazy bitch,” said the guard.

  “I’m doing my best,” replied the Islander. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  “Maybe you need a break. How about we head into one of these side mine shafts and we can relax a bit to take your mind off of the work.”

  Hearing this, Nereyda threw her pickaxe over her shoulder and casually walked over.

  “Hey,” said the guard as he noticed her, “get back to work. I’m not talking to you.”

  Nereyda walked in front of him so that she stood between him and the Islander. “If you have a problem with someone here, you talk to me.”

  “You think you’re still in charge down here? You just got here.”

  “It looks like you’ve been here too long yourself.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If you need to pick on slaves for fun, that tells me quite a bit about your social life.”

  “My social life doesn’t concern you, whore.”

  “Interesting that you use that word. I just saw you proposition my friend here. You tired of having to pay for sex so you think you’d try to get some from a slave here? Can’t get a girl to sleep with you without money or force?”

  “I do plenty well with women.”

  “I’m sure you do. Showing off and bragging are always signs of someone who is good in bed. I’m also sure that you’re definitely not compensating for anything.”

  “Need me to show you? You can take the place of your friend.”

  “Oh, I’d love to. Let’s go right now. You’ll love what I have in store for you, too. It’ll be to die for.”

  Nereyda turned away to walk to the side corridor that the guard had indicated to the Islander girl. As she moved past the guard, he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her ahead of him.

  “Eager now, are we?” she asked. “Let’s save the rough stuff for another time.”

  “You’re mine right now. I’ll do anything I want.”

  When they slipped into the narrow side passage, he pressed Nereyda against the rocky wall and shoved her down to her knees.

  “Let’s see how much you can handle.”

  “I’ve eaten a peanut before, so I’ll probably be okay,” she said.

  He just grunted in res
ponse and moved to drop his trousers. When they were halfway down, Nereyda gave him a swift punch to the groin. The man bent over in pain. She whipped her head up to catch his face with the back of her head, sending him yelling in pain and reeling back against the other side of the hallway.

  Before he could recover, Nereyda bent down and grabbed his sword from the belt in his dropped trousers. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the deep black abyss of a mining shaft at the end of the short narrow passage. She couldn’t tell what it was for, but it would be good enough for what she needed to do.

  “Thanks for the sword, friend. But, unfortunately, I can’t get over how you were going to rape my friend. So, today is sadly going to be your last day working in this fine establishment.”

  He raised his hands to protest, but Nereyda plunged the sword into his belly, then kicked him into the dark hole. He let out a gargled scream as he fell. It faded, then came to an abrupt end.

  So the hole at least had a bottom.

  She wiped the blood from the sword onto one of the wooden support beams in the hallway, then realized that she had nowhere to put it. She should have at least taken the sword belt along with the sword before tossing the guard into that pit. Without a place to hide the sword, she realized that it was as good a time as any to try to get out of this place.

  She wandered out of the hallway and called to her fellow miners, “Okay, team, now that he’s out of the way, how about we find a way out of here?”

  “Won’t they kill us if we try to fight back?” asked the Islander girl.

  “They’re already killing us. I can see in your faces what this place has done to you. If they kill us, then at least we’ll go out quickly and on our terms.”

  “What did you have in mind?” asked Jax.

  “With these pickaxes, we already all have weapons. We need to head to the guard station at the top of the mine and fight our way out.”

  “Just us?”

  “No, not just us. Let’s go get my crew back, then we’ll all get the hell out of here together.”

  ---

  With her newly acquired sword in hand, she led the Islanders up the halls of the mine. She had no idea how to find her way around, but she just had to find her way to the next major junction that connected the section for the Shattered Sea slaves to the area that held her own crew.

  As they ran up the hallway, most of them armed with just pickaxes, a guard turned the corner from an intersection ahead. His mouth opened as he saw the approaching band of slaves. He was isolated, and his voice froze in his throat.

  Taking advantage of his surprise, Nereyda ran up to him and shoved him against the wall. “How do we get to the section where my crew is?”

  “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The Storm Raven. The pirates. Where are they?”

  “I think they’re back down that way,” he nodded to his left.

  “Lead us there.”

  “No, I can’t. If I help you, they’ll kill me or, worse, throw me to work with the slaves here.”

  “If you don’t help me, I can guarantee you’ll die right now. But, if you help us, they might not even find out that it was you. I promise that I won’t tell anyone.”

  “No, I refuse.”

  Nereyda began to slide her blade across the skin of his neck, causing blood to bead up along the line of the cut. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Okay, stop, stop. I’ll take you where you want to go.”

  The captain stepped back, dropped the sword from his neck, and let go of his shoulders. “Good choice. Lead on. And, if you decide to lead us into a trap, you’ll be the first to die. So if we run into any other guards, you had better think of a good excuse for us to be away from our assigned section.”

  “I’ll think of something. Now, let’s just get this out of the way before someone sees us.”

  “A good lad.”

  Nereyda and the Islanders ran after the guard as he led them through the tunnels

  After several twists and turns, they began to head down again. At one intersection, the guard stopped and raised his hand to indicate that they should do the same. “The next guard post is ahead,” he said.

  “And? So what? Do you want to deal with them or should we handle it?” she asked.

  The man let out a huff and said, “Let me get them out of the way.”

  He walked around the corner, and Nereyda leaned to peer toward the post where the guard was heading. She saw two other guards standing next to a heavy metal door. That must be the gate to the next section of the mine, she figured.

  The guard she had coerced to be their guide got the job done perfectly without alerting anyone along the way. He delivered a message that all currently stationed guards were supposed to report to the barracks section. They all left, assuming that new guards were coming to take their place. Of course, the new personnel never arrived. With the way clear, they continued deeper into the mine.

  They were now in the section of the mine where her crew had been assigned before she had been separated from them. Turning the final corner into the main cavern where they were working, the sight hit her like a stray gust of wind to the face.

  When she saw the half of her crew that remained, she instantly knew why Brynja made her deal with Erhan. They all looked worn, exhausted, and bruised. Most of them had slumped backs and winced whenever they moved. The backs of most of their shirts were bloodstained, probably from being whipped. “All right, crew, it’s time to report for duty.”

  The members of her crew started and turned with wide eyes to look at the captain who had just returned to them. Hob spoke up first. “Where are we going, captain?”

  “We’re getting out of here. Finally, and all together.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “They’re some new friends I made. They’re going to help us.”

  “So how do we get out of here?”

  “You don’t,” boomed a male voice throughout the cavern.

  Nereyda turned around to see dozens of guards, armed with muskets, stream into the cavern. They moved to surround the pirates and Islanders, their guns aiming at them. Behind them, Commander Erhan walked into the open area of the cave.

  “You’re still here?” Nereyda asked. “Haven’t you done enough? I’m sure you can find something better to do than wait around for me.”

  “I always knew you’d do something reckless to try to get your crew out of here. I just wanted to be here when it happened.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The guards led Nereyda and her crew deep into a part of the mine she had not seen before. They stepped from the corridor into a large round chamber. Around the circumference, cells had been carved into the dark stone walls. As she looked through the metal bars of the cells, she saw that all were empty. In the center, a stone platform stood a step above the rest of the dungeon floor. Two tall wooden beams stood with chains dangling from them. If that didn’t give away the purpose of the room, the red stain on the stone between the poles certainly did.

  Commander Erhan looked at Nereyda. “For attempting to escape the mines, you will each receive fifty lashes.” He turned to the head guard. “Start with the captain here,” he said, gesturing toward Nereyda.

  As the commander started to leave the room, the guards shoved the pirates into the cells, so that they would have a clear view of the central platform. Nereyda called, “I’ll take them all.” She ignored the protests of her crew.

  The commander turned back. “That’s hundreds of lashings. You won’t survive.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?” she asked.

  He shrugged, “Fine. I’m disappointed that I have somewhere else to be. I hate to miss this.”

  After he walked away, two guards grabbed Nereyda’s arms and dragged her onto the platform. They stretched her arms over her head and clasped her wrists to the chains. The head guard stepped up in front of her. As he ran his filthy hands over her, she spat in
his face. He grinned as he wiped it off. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  The man walked around behind her and ripped open the back of her shirt. She shivered as the cold damp air of the dungeon met her bare skin. Nereyda flinched as a whip cracked the air, echoing off of the stone walls.

  “I hope you’re ready,” said the guard, “you’re going to be there for quite a while.”

  She heard the sound of the whip sailing through the air. This time, it snapped across her back. The blow staggered her, but she gritted her teeth against a scream that wanted to escape her lips and held her ground.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  As the whip struck her back, Nereyda gripped the iron chains that bound her and turned her mind inward.

  She found that tiny squall in her stomach, that feeling she had had ever since touching that mysterious glowing fountain in that ruined temple. It felt like wind blew, waves rolled, and rain fell in her gut.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  Nereyda felt blood running down her back, but focused again on the storm in her belly. As the pain mounted with each blow, she could feel it growing. It felt like one of the storms in the northern sea: cold, windy, and deadly.

  Snap.

  Another blow.

  The storm became a hurricane.

  Something inside her broke free.

  An icy chill flowed through Nereyda’s arms. She opened her eyes and saw a white frost spread from her hands up the chains. With the next strike from the whip, she yanked on her bindings, only for them to shatter.

  What is happening?

  Nereyda stumbled onto the ground, landing on her hands, which were numb as if they’d been frozen. As she lay on the platform in a pool of her own blood, the head guard again raised his whip to strike. The storm raging inside her, she threw her hand up to block the blow, only for a stream of lightning to shoot from her fingertips. The man collapsed to the ground, dead or at least incapacitated.

  How the hell am I doing this?

  Power still coursed through her body, and Nereyda could do nothing to bottle it up. Nor did she really want to. She turned toward the other guards, held up her right arm, and let the lightning stream into their bodies. It stung every nerve in her body as the electricity surged through her, but she didn’t care. She would fry herself if it meant getting her crew out of this hellhole.