by Jamie Davis
Cari turned and headed back to the two boats pulled high onto the sandy beach beside the smoldering fishing boats. She had to catch up to the slavers. They were likely working their way down the coast to meet up with their ship at a pre-arranged point.
It didn’t take long to get everyone back aboard the Vengeance and they started on their way to the next village.
They saw the smoke before they rounded the headland and soon after saw the village’s smoldering ruins. A few of the buildings were still on fire. It had taken them the rest of the day to reach the next village and they must have just missed the slaver’s raiding party.
Once again, they picked up a few survivors, and once again, Cari discovered Janey had not been in the village.
“We need to keep going. The slavers are likely to raid the next village at dawn. The survivors say they marched east from here once again.”
Helen shook her head. “We can’t, Cap’n. Sailing along these coastal waters in the dark will only get us run aground or worse, even with your uncanny ship-handling abilities. To get around the next headland, we’ll have to range out to deeper water before turning east again. It’ll take us a full day to round just the small headland here and arrive at the next village. The fourth village is all the way around the whole peninsula. That’s even a longer trip by ship. The slavers are traveling overland. They will arrive much sooner than we can get there.”
“So, we take a party overland and chase after them on foot. They can’t be moving that fast with all the slaves chained together.”
Stefan nodded. “We should be able to overtake them quickly if we can find their trail in the dark. We will definitely catch them soon after they arrive at the third village.”
“Cap’n,” Rodrigo offered. “It would be better to camp here for the night, send the Vengeance on ahead, and we make our way overland first thing in the morning. One of the women told me there is another trail that’ll take us just under a day of travel overland to get across the narrowest part of the peninsula. We can go past the third village in line and head straight to the fourth village. We wait for the slavers to come to us there. They won’t expect a defensive force protecting the village and we can surprise them, rescuing the captives they’ve already taken. The Vengeance will take more than two additional days to get around the peninsula safe and sound.”
“A fine idea, Rod. Helen, take the survivors and return to the ship. I’ll remain here with the two lieutenants and an additional ten members of the crew. You’ll need the rest aboard the Vengeance to crew it in a fight if you run into the Sultanate slave ship or any of the Duke’s pet naval vessels. We’ll set out in the morning and try and get around the slavers.”
“I’ll head back to the coast as soon as I can, Cari. It’ll take just over two days by my reckoning. Be careful. Keep heading east. I’ll meet you at the fourth village in no more than three days, the wind and the seas willing. Hopefully, we both arrive there before the slaver’s ship does and we can stop them there.”
Helen and Cari clasped wrists and the Vengeance’s first mate headed back to the ship in the two longboats along with the crew members not selected to remain behind in the shore party.
Cari and the others set up their camp and settled in for a what was hopefully a quiet night before they set out the next day cross country.
There were no intrusions during the night and Cari awoke the following morning only a little stiff from sleeping on the ground. She packed up her bedroll, stowing it in her magic backpack.
Joining the rest of the shore party after helping to gather up the rest of the camp items, Cari pointed inland.
“Time to head out. Stefan, you take the lead. You have the training to navigate across rough ground and get where you’re going. Set an aggressive pace but make sure we don’t get off course. We still don’t know how fast the slavers are moving and we want to get ahead of them.”
“Aye, ma’am. I’ll get us there.”
Stefan shouldered his pack and started into the forest. Cari and the others filed in line behind him on a well-worn trail through the woods.
They’d been on the trail for almost three hours when they found the first bodies. A woman and two young children, killed and left to rot on the side of the path.
Cari stared at the bodies, anger filling her at the waste of life lying there. She suspected the mother and children couldn’t keep up with the others and the slavers just killed them rather than slow down.
The bodies were cold, so they’d been there overnight for at least a day. Animals had already been at them, but Cari made herself stare at the three corpses a little longer, internalizing the rage she felt towards the slavers. They were going to pay for this.
“Take a break. Dig three graves. We’ll bury them here so they can find some peace in whatever afterlife they follow.”
“We’ll lose time, Cari,” Rodrigo whispered so no one else heard him. “We don’t have any shovels or picks.”
“I don’t care. They made better time than we thought and got ahead of us. We’ll pick up our pace and catch up, but we’re not going to just leave these people here as food for the scavengers. Get it done.”
It took them too long, just over an hour digging in the hard ground with nothing but their belt knives and sharpened sticks cut from the trees around them.
In the end, though, that stop alone might not have stopped them from reaching the fourth village on time. What delayed them the most was the six other times they stopped to bury more dead left behind by the slavers.
By the time they were finished digging the seventh set of graves, Cari’s anger bubbled like a lake of hot lava beneath the surface, ready to erupt at a moment’s notice. The rest of the shore party looked to be in the same boat. They were all looking for blood.
The last burial party finished their work and Cari said the few words of comfort she knew. They rang hollow in her ears at this point. She wasn’t sure there was anything comforting about anything she said.
On top of the mood of her group, it had grown dark again and they still hadn’t reached their goal. The delays to bury the dead had doubled the duration of their journey. They hadn’t passed the slavers by and hadn’t reached the fourth village. The slavers were going to beat them there. They all settled into camp that night grumbling to themselves at their lack of action.
The morning of the second day arrived along with a slow rain, dripping through the forest canopy to the trail below. By mid-morning, the whole party was soaked to the bone and miserable enough to start snapping at each other for perceived slights.
Their individual pistols and the two muskets they carried were useless. The powder was too wet to burn which would decrease their ability to be useful in a fight.
If Cari thought things were bleak because of the rain, words couldn’t describe how her mood crashed when they reached a point overlooking the fourth village and saw the slaver’s ship anchored in the sheltered cove below.
Not only had the cross-country party of slavers and hostages gotten to the village ahead of them, but the ship to pick up the prospective slaves had arrived, too.
Cari looked out to sea, scanning the horizon in hopes of seeing the Vengeance sailing in to the rescue. The gray line between the low clouds and the horizon was empty of any vessels at all.
Scanning the camp below, Cari’s mind raced, trying to come up with something, some way to make the rescue with the ten sailors she had with her. There were ten times that number now in the group below between the slavers onshore and those cycling back and forth to the ship, loading the slaves.
There was only one thing she could think of, and it was just about the most desperate thing she’d ever considered. Rodrigo and Stefan were not going to be happy with her. She hoped they didn’t disobey orders and try and do something stupid.
Cari turned to her crew and crouched down. “Draw close everyone, I don’t want to raise my voice in case there are any slavers close enough to hear us.”
The men
and women clustered around her in a semicircle and Cari smiled at them, meeting each of their eyes to try and reassure them. They all had a look of failure in their eyes.
“We didn’t catch them, did we? That doesn’t mean we have to give up on our rescue, we just have to adjust our plans.”
“Cari, I don’t think—” Rodrigo began.
“That’s Captain Dix to you right now, Lieutenant. Listen, don’t talk.”
She hated rebuking him that way given everyone’s mood, but she needed everyone to follow her orders or none of this was going to work. She called up her charm attribute and tried to bring the skill to bear as she began to explain what she wanted to do.
When she finished laying out her plan, she saw the rebellion in every person’s eyes. She couldn’t afford a mutiny right now or it would all fail before it had a chance to begin.
“I’m the Captain, people, and you will all obey my orders. This is the only plan that has any hope of succeeding. I’m not any happier about it than you all are. It’s the only way I can see of succeeding. There’s a young girl down there whose fate will determine the future of the entire Empire. That calls for extreme action. I’m willing to take the risk, the question is, are you all willing to follow the plan through to the end to make sure it all comes together. Without you following my orders to the letter, the plan will surely fail.”
Cari stared at Rodrigo first, drilling into his eyes with hers, trying to make him agree with her by sheer force of will.
Charm bonus successful
Rodrigo nodded. Then he looked away as if ashamed of himself. Stefan was next. Cari made sure each member of the shore party understood what had to happen for this to work. Everyone nodded their assent in the end, though Francesca, her new eyepatch giving her a savage appearance, held out longest of all.
In the end, she went along as well, shrugging and muttering, “You’re the Captain.”
Cari took off her backpack and handed it to Stefan. She wouldn’t need it right now, and the others might need the stash of healing potions in there before she did.
“Rodrigo, you have command of the shore party. Follow my orders to the letter or so help me, I’ll come back and haunt you from beyond the grave.”
“If we’re all dead, it won’t matter either way.”
“You let me worry about that, that’s why I get the captain’s pay. Besides, if all goes as planned, I’ll see you again in a few days, a week at the most.”
Cari smiled to try and reassure the others then turned and started down the hill. She drew her sword and dagger, ready to fight her way to the center of the camp if need be. It was time to offer herself in trade to the Sultanate slaver captain.
Quest accepted — get captured alive by the slavers
Chapter 28
The slavers in the camp didn’t post any guards watching the forest’s edge beside the smoldering village ruins. Cari strode out of the tree line, putting on an air of confidence, hoping the knot twisting her gut at the moment didn’t betray her.
It wouldn’t do for her to be found vomiting behind the wall of a collapsed village cottage. For this to work, it was all about bravado of the sort that it was nearly unbelievable. Only by that could she hope to accomplish her mission.
Cari reached the center of the village before she ran into the first slaver. He did a double take in surprise when he saw she was alone. He kept glancing behind her, looking for anyone else backing her up.
When he didn’t see anyone, he called out and charged at the lone woman walking into their clutches. His cry to his comrades was choked off when Cari parried his scimitar with her dagger while in the same smooth motion she shoved twelve inches of her rapier blade through his throat.
2,500 experience
A snarl from behind her announced the arrival of a vengeful comrade of the unfortunate slaver who’d seen her first.
Cari spun in place, her prescience ability allowing her to duck under the scimitar seeking to decapitate her. Her extended leg swept the feet out from under the surprised slaver, dropping him to the ground.
A plunging dagger in his chest silenced his shout of alarm.
2,500 experience
Wrenching her dagger free as her sweeping leg continued around, she tripped two more charging slavers coming from the direction of the beach.
Cari pulled in her extended leg and somersaulted forward, slashing left and then right with her rapier, finishing the two new arrivals.
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
Rolling to her feet, Cari moved back into the same purposeful stride that carried her into the village. At this point, the slavers who’d seen her kill four of their crew with such brutal efficiency opted to hold back forming a loose semi-circle in front of her as she reached the beach. It appeared they were happy to have a standoff as long as she wasn’t attacking anyone.
Cari saw the assembled slaves chained at the shore, already being loaded into the boats. A quick scan of the clustered men, women, and children spotted Jaycee immediately. The little blonde-haired girl standing in her child-sized shackles, clutching at the skirts of a woman who placed a protective arm around the girl.
“Stop!” Cari stopped her advance and bellowed at the top of her lungs, using all the powerful command voice she’d developed as the captain of the Vengeance over the last year.
Every face turned to look in her direction. Cari smirked. She had their attention. Now to put the rest of her plan into place.
“Who’s in command here? Come on, show me the motherless son of a dog who belongs to that rat-infested tub out there.”
No one answered her right away. Then the crescent of slavers parted and a big man with a turban of golden fabric stepped forward. He wore a vest of red velvet over his bare, hairy chest. His baggy pants were of fine linen and his pointy-toed boots looked to be made of crocodile skin or perhaps some other reptile.
“I’m the captain of that ship you just maligned. Who the hell are you? I feel like I should know the name of the fool who stands in front of me before I decide whether to kill you or add you to my bounty.”
“I’m Cari Dix.”
The slaver captain’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yes. I’m that Cari Dix.”
The captain looked around the smoldering ruins of the village, looking for some sort of trap or imminent attack that might explain Cari’s bold presence.
“I have to wonder what you think you’re doing. You’ve managed to kill a few of my crew, but you have to know we’d overwhelm you eventually by sheer numbers. You must have something else planned. What is it you want?”
“I’ve come to offer myself in exchange for the slaves you’ve gathered here. You know who I am so I’m sure you know of the price on my head in your homeland.”
“You are correct. Killing a member of the Sultan’s family has a way of gaining you a certain level of notoriety. You are worth a pretty penny, dead or alive.”
“Let the villagers go, and you’ll live to collect the bounty. Otherwise, I’ll kill you first and then finish off the rest of the crew when I’m done.”
“Oh, you think you can kill me as easily as you dispatched a few members of my crew? I’ll make you a counteroffer. I’ve heard you’re a master with that blade of yours. My ship’s champion will challenge you to a fight. If he wins, I take you and the slaves with me. If you win, my crew lets the slaves go, but I still get you and the bounty that goes with taking you alive.”
Cari had wondered if this might be the way the plan worked out. Honestly, she’d also expected him to order his crew to attack her all at once and take her down without giving in to her demands. Her plan would have worked either way, but this was a better option.
She nodded. “I agree to those terms. But how do I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain?”
“You don’t.” The slaver captain smiled, showing a pair of gold teeth. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Cari smiled but said no
thing.
“Otto.” The slaver captain called out. “Take her alive. The Sultan wants to watch her die himself.”
A massive figure stepped forward, a seven-foot-tall orc wearing only a turban, baggy pants, and sandals. He carried a huge falchion, the broad, curved blade nearly four and a half feet long.
He grinned down at Cari as he approached. She decided the time for niceties was over. It was time for action.
Cari rushed directly at the green-skinned brute in front of her, dodging to the side at the last instant in an attempt at getting around him and slashing at the back of his leading knee, severing the hamstring tendons.
That was the plan.
She successfully dodged the descending falchion blade. She didn’t avoid the sweeping backhand blow from the orc’s other hand.
Stars exploded behind Cari’s eyes from the force of the knuckles on the side of her face. It lifted her from her feet, launching her six feet through the air to land on the sand face down and dazed.
Health damage — health -22
Sensing a follow-up strike in the midst of clearing her head, all Cari could do was roll several times to the right, away from the gathered slaver crew and into open ground.
She saw the pommel of the orc’s weapon pound into the sand where her head had been moments before. That blow would have surely rendered her unconscious.
It also told her the captain’s champion was following his orders to try and take her alive. That gave her an advantage, or at least it should.
Rolling over once more, Cari used her momentum to roll back to her feet. Her sword and dagger wove an intricate pattern in front of her to fend off the surprisingly quick strikes coming in at her again and again, seeking to get past her guard.
She heard a hissing intake of his breath when one of her ripostes slipped past his blade and she slashed open a gash on his arm.
It didn’t cause significant damage. The wound only appeared to anger him.