by Jamie Davis
She felt the bone in her upper arm break, the pop resonating up into her chest as it snapped under the crushing blow. Her dagger fell clattering to the ground as her arm dropped useless to her side.
Health damage — health -20
Pain from her shoulder eclipsed the pain in her knee and side. She felt the ends of the splintered bone grind against each other each time she moved or shifted her weight.
The final attacker snarled when he saw her falter and drop her dagger. He saw his advantage and drove in at her with several attack combinations that kept Cari from launching her own attack and activating her speed burst.
He was fast, too. Faster than her.
As Cari’s back reached the cavern wall and she had nowhere else to go, she dug deep, pushing past the pain and concentrated on her special ability.
And with a familiar chime in her head, everything slowed down around her. Her opponent’s eyes widened in surprise as she launched her own combination of attacks, lunges, ripostes, and slashes, each faster than should be possible.
It was his turn to stumble backwards, and Cari had to admit she was impressed when he managed to parry most of her attacks.
She got a few minor slashes past his guard. He was bloodied in several places. None of them was enough to kill him.
Her speed timer ticked down in the corner of her eye and Cari knew she had to hurry. If she didn’t manage to finish him off before the timer hit zero, he’d be able to recover and kill her without any problem during her recovery period.
She’d never encountered anyone who could match her speed during her special ability boost and she wondered if some sort of magic was at play.
She had only five seconds left to finish him, and her coordinated moves turned to attacks of desperation.
As her timer ran out, Cari lunged past his guard and stabbed her sword deep into his thigh, high up near the groin. She hoped to sever the major artery there.
Time ran out. Cari sank to her knees, wincing as her injured knee flared with agony. The renewed injury left her toppling to her side to land on her injured shoulder, new lightning flashes of additional pain searing her whole right side.
The leader staggered backward, attempting to staunch the flow of blood in his thigh. Somehow, he managed to keep upright and the tall man in the fancy coat limped forward to stand over her.
“You’re her, aren’t you? The famous Cari Dix.” He sneered down at her. “He told me you would likely come to stop my operation here. And, despite my efforts to remain hidden, here you are, cocking up my plans.”
“Who?”
“Oh, who warned me about you? His Grace, the Duke of Charon did, of course.”
Cari had to stall, to keep this man talking until she recovered.
Her eye on the recovery timer in the corner of her eye, she smiled.
“How is the Duke? I’m sure he’s more than a bit pissed at me by now. I keep showing up to mess up his plans.”
The man laughed. “To say he’s merely pissed off doesn’t do justice to how he feels about you. Let’s just say, there’s a sizable price on your head, at least there was. I’m about to claim it.”
“Are you sure?” Cari gasped, trying to catch her breath as her strength started to return.
He laughed again but didn’t say anything else. He drew back his sword and raised it overhead for the killing blow.
Cari tried to move, to scrabble like a crab backward across the uneven floor but the combination of her power-up induced fatigue and her injuries betrayed her.
A crashing boom rang out across the cavern followed by the sound of rushing water.
The man turned to see what it was and his eyes widened. He looked back at Cari.
“How did you—”
Cari raised herself up on one elbow and smiled at him. She saw the rushing wall of water rush past below them on the cavern floor, flushing out the pools of poison feeding the underground river.
“Did you think I was alone?”
Shouts came from around the edge of the cavern wall, calling out for Cari.
The man glanced down at her and shook his head.
“I’ll get another chance at you. Something tells me you’ll turn up again. Until then.”
He raised his blade in salute and then limped as fast as he could up the slope and out of the cavern into the tunnels beyond.
Cari slumped back to the ground, staring at the jagged ceiling above her as Helen’s frantic voice drew closer.
She activated her new regeneration ability and felt a flow of warmth throughout her body from the infused troll blood.
They’d done it. They’d cleansed Tandon’s water supply.
Quest completed — clean the poison from the river
15,000 experience awarded
Chapter 22
Cari sipped from the canteen and handed it back to Helen. A check of her health levels showed she’d regenerated almost back to normal. That would have to be good enough for now.
Her shoulder and knee were still sore, aching as the bones and ligaments knit back together. She’d recover, though.
“What about the others?”
Helen looked over her shoulder at where Stefan knelt tending to Rodrigo, who groaned under the pressure applied to bind his wounds.
“Rodrigo and Francesca will survive, though I think she’ll lose her eye from a wicked slash across her face. Beau was gone by the time I got here.”
Cari gritted her teeth. She wasn’t fool enough to think they’d come through unscathed. She had hoped, however, not to lose anyone.
Worst of all, she knew they’d have to leave him here. There was no way to drag his body out through the twisting cave system back to the mine. They had too many injuries among the living to manage it.
“When I got to you, I heard you cursing at someone under your breath. Who was it?”
“I never got his name, but he was the man in charge here, and he admitted the Duke of Charon was behind it. Of course, we were alone when he said it so it will be my word against the Duke’s, so it’s no help in the long run.”
Cari glanced at the cavern entrance where the man had limped away, escaping just before Helen and Stefan returned.
“He was good, Helen. Very good. Better than me in many ways. I almost killed him but, in the end, he managed to escape despite my best efforts.”
“It looked like he almost killed you, too, though you’ve somehow managed to heal up on your own faster than I’ve ever seen. You’ll have to tell me how you managed that.”
Cari shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I would if I believed you were the Lost Princess returned to save the Empire once more.”
“That’s enough of that nonsense. I thought you said you didn’t believe all that.”
“That was before I watched you recover from near-fatal wounds right in front of me. Cari, I’ve seen you do a lot of impossible things over the last year. You’re correct when you say I used to scoff at the crew’s tales about how you were the princess returned. Let’s just say, your secret is safe with me.”
Helen capped off the statement with a wink and a smile.
Cari didn’t have an answer, and she didn’t think anything she could say would change her first mate’s mind anyway.
Stefan pulled Rodrigo to a sitting position and wrapped a length of cloth across his neck. He created a sling to support Rod’s injured arm and tied it off.
Francesca was on her feet. Bloody bandages wrapped around her head and obscured half her face. Blood had already seeped through the spot where her eye had been.
Cari wished they’d found a cache of healing potions. She didn’t want her crew to pay such a hefty price for her desire to do the right thing.
Francesca caught Cari staring her way and smiled.
“It’s alright, Cap’n. I’m gonna live.” Her eye grew somber as she glanced down at her friend, Beau, lying nearby, his cloak pulled up to cover his face.
Cari h
ad an idea. “Francesca, let’s you and I gather rocks and build a funeral cairn for Beau. I think it’s fitting to bury him here where he did so much to help the people of Tandon.”
“I think he’d like that.”
Together, the two of them started bringing rocks of various sizes and shapes over and started piling them gently over the body until Beau was covered.
Cari shoved the cutlass into the sandy ground of the cavern floor at the head of the oblong cairn. “I don’t know the right words to say. We came here to right a wrong. We did what we came to do. Beau gave his life and helped us save hundreds, maybe thousands of people back in Tandon. I can’t think of a better way to remember him than as a hero, buried here surrounded by the bodies of his fallen enemies.”
“I think that was perfect, ma’am,” Francesca remarked as they gathered their weapons and started back up the trail and into the tunnels beyond the cavern.
“Thank you, Francesca. I’m glad you liked it.”
Cari left it there after an awkward pause as she stared down at Beau’s final resting place. She didn’t know what else to say. Both women nodded at each other and turned their attention to the rough terrain ahead of them as they climbed back through the cave system to the mines above.
———
Cari’s heart fell when they finally reached the fissure opening leading back into the mine. She crawled through first and was the first to see the bodies.
Gary’s and Killian’s bodies lay near the opening. From the looks of it, they’d been sitting by the entrance to the lower tunnels, watching the mine’s passages for signs of trouble. They probably never saw the man who killed them.
Cari had little doubt the well-dressed man from the cavern had done this. Westy and Bradley both lay farther out into the chamber.
They’d put up a fight, but Cari knew how good their adversary had been, even when wounded. Hopefully, they’d managed to injure him more before they died. There was some blood on Westy’s cutlass.
She had no way to tell for sure if that blood was the opponent's or Westy’s own, though. The blood on the blade and staining the floor around her crewmen was most likely their own. There was no sign of a blood trail leading away from the chamber into the mine passages.
Cari heard the gasps of the others as they climbed out of the lower tunnels behind her. These losses were hard to take after losing Beau in the cavern attack below. They had no reason to believe their friends up here had anything to worry about.
They were wrong.
“Let’s get moving and bury them as we did Beau below. We’ve got to get back to the Vengeance and sail to Tandon. I cannot prove what I heard about the Duke of Charon’s involvement with this plot to destroy Tandon. I think, however, the Duke will believe me when I tell him about what we’ve learned here.”
The others pitched in, first gathering the four bodies of their crewmates and lining them up side by side. Then they moved about the chamber and into the mine passages beyond until they’d gathered enough rocks to cover their comrades.
Cari repeated similar comments as she’d said below over Beau’s cairn.
They gathered their friends’ belongings to take back to the ship and started back up through the mine to the surface. Cari and the others got turned around several times in the warren of tunnels until they finally found their way out of the mine shaft entrance. Finally, they stood on the hill overlooking the collection of buildings below the mine entrance.
A grunt from nearby startled Cari as she emerged into the moonlight. Peering into the darkness, she saw a huge form step out of the shadows and into the light of the torches they carried.
It was Chrrrak.
He growled a few words she couldn’t make out and pointed back into the mine shaft.
It took a few tries but then Cari understood.
“Yes, we found the source of the poison. We destroyed it. You shouldn’t have trouble anymore.”
The troll chieftain gestured at her group and pantomimed counting on his fingers.
“Where others?”
Cari shook her head. “Our friends died during the mission.” Another thought occurred to her. “You didn’t see anyone else come out of the mine, did you?”
The troll shook his head and shrugged, pointing up at the cloudy sky. “Too dark, even for troll. Only saw you because torches.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. The leader of the plot to poison your people and the human city to the west got away from us. I hoped you might have seen him. It doesn’t matter. We stopped him and his plot. Let him run back to his boss and tell him about his failure.”
“Where go now?”
“We return to our ship and sail back to Tandon, the city to the west. I’m worried about the mine here. There’s nothing to stop someone from returning and trying the same thing again.”
“My people take action. We gather clan. Come pull down timbers. We collapse mine tunnels. No one enter after.”
“That would be best. Thank you, Shrek. I am glad we were able to work together.”
“We related now, like cousins,” Chrrrak said. He pointed to his palm where he’d cut himself and let his blood mingle with hers.
“Yes, I guess we are.” She held out her hand and clasped wrists with the huge troll chieftain. “Farewell, cousin. Perhaps we will meet again someday.”
“I like that.” The troll’s face split in the most horrifying grin she’d ever seen.
His mouthful of jagged blackened teeth would be an image she wouldn’t forget for a long time.
Cari and the others turned and started down towards the cliff path leading to the cove and the anchored Vengeance.
Chapter 23
Cari stared out over the stern rail at the ship’s wake as the Vengeance cut through the waves on the return journey to Tandon. Her thoughts turned back to the man who’d almost killed her.
Helen joined her at the rail. “Still thinking about the man from the caverns?”
“I can’t help but think I could have found a way to stop him.”
Helen let out a wry chuckle. “It sounds like he almost killed you and you want a rematch. You are a piece of work, Cari.”
“What’s wrong with wanting a rematch? I want to find him and who he is. He could be the key to tracking down a definitive link to the Duke of Charon. That would allow us to present the evidence needed to charge him with treason in the Crystal City.”
“You just said it. You don’t even know his name. How are you going to track him down?”
“Somehow I think he’ll end up in front of me again before this whole thing is over. Until then, we’ll call him the well-dressed-man, for lack of a better name.”
Cari turned and took in the ship’s course and speed with a glance. It was second nature now to call up the course vectors in her mind. She laid in the vectors over the current and wind direction she saw. The speed and destination adjustments appeared before her and she smiled.
“We’ll be in Tandon before sundown. I hope the Duke will allow us into the harbor and grant us an audience. He needs to know about this and take steps to defend himself and the city against further attacks.”
“What’s the plan if they don’t let us into the city?” Helen asked.
“We sneak in if we have to. We’ve got to retrieve young Jane before someone else discovers who she really is.”
“There’s been a plague in the city, Captain. Are you prepared for the possibility she’s ill or even dead?”
The statement bothered Cari for a moment. She called up her quest menu and relaxed. In the open quests area, she saw the highlighted text of the current mission.
Active quest — retrieve the missing princess
“Don’t ask me how I know, Helen, but I know. She’s still alive, at least for now.”
“I’ll take your word for it, just like I always do. Someday, though, you’re going to tell me what you see when you get that faraway look in your eyes. It looks like you’re reading something that’s not ther
e.”
“Someday, maybe I will tell you. You won’t believe me, though.” Cari changed the subject. “How are Rodrigo and Francesca? I’m hoping we can take them to one of the temples while we’re in Tandon and purchase a healing spell or two from one of the priests.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to add a chest full of healing potions to that shopping list, either. As to how those two are doing, Francesca will recover well enough with rest and food. The impact of Beau’s death is starting to set in for her. It will be harder for her to adjust to that than it will to heal the physical wounds.”
“And Rod?”
“It’s a good idea to get him looked at by a priest. I was able to keep his life from slipping away but he’s still unconscious, and we’ve exhausted the limited healing skills I have.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Helen. You’ve been able to bring me back from the brink of death on more than one occasion.”
“You’re different. I’ve never seen anyone heal as fast as you do without a healing potion or spell. It’s as if all I have to do is stop the bleeding and splint up your wounds and your body takes care of the rest before I can do anything else.”
“I’m just lucky to have strong stamina, I guess.”
Helen looked from side to side to make sure none of the crew was close enough to overhear over the wind and waves.
“Cari, did your father possess healing skills like this?”
Cari shot her first mate a stern glance. This wasn’t the first time Helen had brought up her parents since she’d decided Cari was, indeed, the legendary Lost Princess.
Cari gave up on arguing the point with Helen and shook her head in answer. “I honestly don’t know. It’s not like he told me how anything in this place worked before I came here. Knowing him, he probably did. He’s the luckiest person I know. Sometimes, without even trying, the strangest things will just happen so that a series of events just land in his favor. He calls it his superpower.”
“That kind of luck could come in handy.”