Peril & Profit

by M. H. Johnson

  "Forgive me, Sorn, but they are not that husky of build. They look fit for their age, but they can't be older than what, twelve? thirteen? They are quite skilled, considering, I will grant you. So despite their age, I think they would be good for my men, who are willing to suffer some bruises, and should be, if the lessons they learn may save their life one day."

  Sorn just sighed and shook his head. "Oh they're strong, all right. Their frames are deceptively powerful for their size, Vaughn. Let's just say that it's an underlying facet of our family tree, part of what defines us as who we are, for all that our rank is perhaps not quite so apparent. We've fought before, in far less amicable circumstances than sparring with crew we consider friends. They may not look capable of it, but bones have shattered under their blows."

  Sorn didn't feel it necessary to mention that the blow in question had in fact been of sufficient force to actually cave in the chest of the bandit Lieberman had fought that fateful day they had rescued Lord Canterbier and his family. He could still remember Chestnut's expression upon seeing the man, and her later confiding to him that it had looked as if the man had been fatally kicked by a charger. And for all his cousins' lighthearted banter, that had been no practice bout. No doubt the bandit, though he had proven himself inept to the task, would have killed Lieberman without a second thought, if he could have.

  "So you see, sir, why I am a bit leery with practicing at the moment. Imagine what it would do to ship morale were we to risk such an injury, and at perhaps the most precarious point in our lives on ship, up to this point. Better by far if we just keep things as they are and wait for safer times, I think. At this point, it is just not worth the risk of another injury before attempting to navigate the most dangerous voyage we may ever make. We're already understaffed, crew wise."

  Vaughn gave a curt nod, all seriousness once again. "I understand your position, Sorn, and your point is well made. Perhaps not at sea then, but certainly an armored tutor would be to their benefit, and mayhap yours as well."

  "Perhaps," Sorn allowed. "In any event, thank you for your kind words and the offer of practice. Were things less tense, it’s quite possible that I, at least, would take you up on it. But alas, I will be kept busy doing wizardly things."

  "Indeed you will," Vaughn allowed with a wry chuckle. "And if you see us through half so well as you did the last time, by bird and fireball both, I will count myself well served by mages indeed. A good night to you too, young Sorn." With those final warm words and an approving nod, Vaughn made his way back to his own hammock.

  Sorn proceeded to make his own way back to quarters then, his cousin’s ebullient good cheer washing over a yawning Sorn as he entered their cabin, animated as they were with the prospect of all those shiny gold coins waiting to be counted over and admired one last time before they too called it a night.

  “Do you know how many gold royals we have here Sorn?” A gleeful Fitz queried of a now tired older cousin.

  "Two thousand four hundred and eleven. Two hundred and thirty gold phoenix, one hundred and eleven gold crowns," a tired Sorn mumbled into his pillow, just now starting to drift off.

  "Oh, he's good." Murmured an impressed Lieberman.

  “I’ll say, he wasn’t even here to count it all with us!” a nodding Hanz agreed.

  “That’s not so impressive,” disparaged Fitz, peeved at having Sorn beat him to the punch. “He was there with Halence getting it in the first place, remember? No doubt he got lots of opportunities to count it over and over again in the carriage."

  Sorn might have argued the point but found himself too tired to care, his sleepy thoughts transforming the tinkling melody of his cousin's fervent counting to the bemused laughter of a girl whose warm smile and gentle eyes he found almost as captivating as the lustrous sheen of gold flashing in the sun.

  7

  It was the clanging of the captain's warning bell and the sound of muffled shouts, thuds, and cries that jolted Sorn and his cousins from their peaceful sleep.

  "Captain's under attack! Head for the captain!" Sorn's acute hearing picked up the muffled rallies even through their sealed door. Heart pounding, Sorn dove in a near panic for his blade under his bed before dashing to the door. The frantic cries were overladen with a terrible anxiety, and he felt the desperate need to dash to his friend's aid immediately.

  "Don't you dare leave without your wards!” Sorn demanded of his cousins before slamming out the cabin door, berating himself simultaneously for a fool for not doing the same. Yet his anxiety on the ship’s behalf demanded an immediate response. He felt too keenly the need to act to find the calm necessary to cast defensive wards of his own. And every moment spent trying to find his calm could be putting the ship and its crew, men he counted friends, in ever greater peril. Indeed, the very fear of this happenstance would make it all the harder for him to center himself, a feat which would have come near effortlessly to him even hours before, when all was at peace.

  He knew he should have been keeping defensive wards in place every night before he even fell asleep! It was good practice, and made good prudent sense, especially as vulnerable as he presently was. The warm balmy days, friendly atmosphere, and gently rocking sea had once again lulled him into complacency, and this even after having gone toe to toe with two cutters!

  He continued to berate himself even as he was dashing off to his friend's aid, dreading what the all too likely well-informed thieves were doing to the captain, desperate to get their hands on his share of the incredible haul they had pulled in so far.

  For all he knew, they had already killed his friend and were even now desperately searching his quarters. Filled with a dark rage, Sorn charged toward the Captain's quarters, sword held in one hand, fingers ready to direct a deadly stream of arcane orbs with the other.

  For though he was far too alarmed and in far too much of a hurry to cast any of his warding spells, his orbs were a different matter entirely. It was a spell he had mastered so completely that he was able to cast it reflexively, almost without thought. Other magics were quite beyond him during those panicked moments, save for fire magics, of course; their webs conversely growing all the brighter and sharper in his mind's eye the more fierce his rage became. Indeed, the hotter his anger, the easier it was to saturate those webs of power with the force of his essence, that core of self which gave spells their power. Yet throwing around balls of immolating flame hardly seemed like a good idea in the bowels of a ship.

  Sorn's focus snapped back to the hear-and-now. For guarding the captain's door were two imposing figures, clad in black leather and regarding Sorn with a coolly professional eye. Their movements were neither panicked nor rushed as they calmly raised their loaded crossbows at the madly charging figure rushing towards them, preparing to fire.

  For a moment Sorn's piercing sapphire eyes locked with their cold icy blue ones, Sorn feeling a sudden fierce hatred for these violators of his de-facto home, reacting with lightning speed as the mercenaries simultaneously fired their crossbows.

  "Vorac!" Sorn shouted, his fingers forked, splitting the stream of streaking red globes of energy roaring toward their targets even as not one but two crossbow bolts sped for Sorn's ducking body. The first quarrel slammed into Sorn's shoulder, piercing a good half inch before clanging against bone and windmilling away down the corridor, drops of Sorn's smoking blood spraying behind it, hissing as it spattered against the floor.

  Shoulder yanked back, Sorn's head snapped back an instant after he had instinctively ducked down to protect his vulnerable neck, as the second bolt slammed into his forehead. The blow momentarily stunned him, though the bolt was sent ricocheting away harmlessly off of his skull after tearing into his skin, leaving him dazed with the warm trickle of blood running down into his eye.

  His body, for all its incredible supernatural resilience, did have its limits. Despite essence-laden durability and strength, power sufficient to penetrate mail armor at point blank range could certainly cut into it. It was only his bon
e that was so laden with his true essence so as to be near indestructible.

  Still, for that instant necessary and despite the shock of his wounds, Sorn had managed to keep his concentration focused on his targets. His outraged fury had been catalyzed to bloodlust by the pain of his injuries, and he took a grim satisfaction in the mercenaries' surprised expressions as their chests literally exploded with the force of the multiple arcane missiles that slammed into them. As if they were marionettes carefully laid to rest by a puppeteer, their bodies gently slid to the ground, leaving crimson streaks on the rich oaken paneling behind them, eyes still blinking with the horror of their own imminent deaths.

  It was that agonized roar Sorn recognized as belonging to no one else save the captain himself that compelled his mad charge into his friend's quarters, too panicked and enraged on behalf of his friend to even think about any alternative action. Though perhaps it ended up being to the captain's benefit, as the shattered cabin door, bursting with the fury of Sorn's entrance attested to. For the man who had been so enthusiastically sawing at one of Halence's fingers was even now lurching up in surprise from his bloody task, taking cover behind a struggling Halence. This while a rather grim looking burly figure, no less than three hundred pounds of solid muscle, stood up from holding Halence's arm pinned and proceeded menacingly towards Sorn, drawing a wicked looking scimitar as he did so.

  Unfortunately for Sorn, however, it was only after his mind took in the scene that he noted the crossbowman sitting calmly in the shadows at the back corner of the rather large captain's quarters, who had taken that moment to, with adroit swiftness, take a bead on Sorn's heart and let his bolt fly.

  It was a true hit, and deadly. Sorn was jolted from his intent gaze to feel the crossbow bolt hit home, tearing between his ribs, so expertly was it shot, to force its way past his resisting enchanted flesh, its cruel head actually managing to nick Sorn's very heart. A wave of dizziness nearly consumed him, and he felt the roar of red fury/ his wounded heart's blood at that moment demanding, hammering for its release into true form, as his present self was literally dying second by the second.

  Grimly, Sorn held that pounding overwhelming dark fury at bay. Desperately he held to consciousness, using his fury, if anything, to help fuel the launch of that one spell he knew so well. Channeled by his own raging essences more than their arcane counterpart, the stream of missiles he released from his clawed hand toward the crossbowman were the color of flame, and they did not explode into the crossbowman so much as burn. He was some moments shrieking before slumping into a charred heap.

  "Vrim, kill him!" cried the panicked man at Halence's back. The hulking man charged, his shock at his friends' grizzly demise turning to a panicked fury. With the survival instincts that had been sufficiently honed to have allowed him to survive and prosper in his chosen profession as long as he had, the bulky man charged, lashing out with his blade in a dizzying barrage of slashes and thrusts, Sorn focusing his hot, burning fury with fierce intensity, countering blow for blow, lashing out to vicious effect in turn.

  The hulking intruder known as Vrim blinked in some surprise, his look of confusion turning to horror when he raised his blade, only to find that sword and hand alike were missing, a bleeding stump all that met his horrified stare.

  Shieldless, Sorn had parried Vrim's furious offensive much as a trained fencer wielding the lightest of sabers, whipping his broadsword with the same effortless grace as he seized the offensive, cleaving completely through Brim's armored forearm.

  Only as a suddenly wheezing Vrim collapsed to his knees did his remaining good hand grasp at the spurting wound to his chest, only in that instant realizing that his opponent had cleanly run him through. And then he knew no more.

  Sorn was gasping, his head throbbing so hard he felt his soul was screaming for release. He knew in those mad seconds that he was dancing on the razor’s edge of oblivion and madness. Near collapse, he knew what his body's reaction would be, and seriously wondered if any of the crew would survive it.

  "You have five seconds to drop your knife and let the captain go or so help me I will blow you to pieces where you stand." Sorn, voice little more than a harsh whisper, coldly informed the now terrified-looking man who was presently using Halence, who looked more than a little dazed himself, as a human shield. The smaller man, now shaking with wide-eyed terror, had a knife resting against Halence's neck.

  "If you don't back off, I cut him, I cut him dead! See his finger? I'll cut off his head!" The man, in a near panic, screamed at Sorn.

  Sorn only smiled coldly, knowing that he himself had mere seconds.

  "If you cut him, then I will put you in such agony you could not even dream." Sorn uttered in a near guttural growl. "I will feast upon your flesh, drink your blood… I will burn your soul!" Sorn's grin was manic, and the hitch in the man's breath told Sorn that, in his terror, the man thought Sorn's threat a real one. "If you let him go, you get to leave the ship alive. If you don't, I know full well you would kill him anyway, and I promise you, I will make you pay in torments undreamed! You have to the count of five before I burn you just as I burned your man with the crossbow. One! Two! Three!" Sorn raised his hand, and the terrified man sprung away from Halence, raising his arms and dropping his knife.

  "Please! Please!" With that and a panicked cry the man, hands raised, dashed around Halence's table making a mad dash for the exit. "You promised," he yelled at Sorn as he dashed past. "He promised I could go!" The man could be heard screaming as he made his way to the top deck.

  What happened next to the rodent-like mercenary Sorn neither knew nor cared. His mortal peril was now great, the horrific needs of mind and body ceased their roaring pleas and now demanded. With a guttural cry, Sorn now lurched away from a rapidly approaching Halence, his injured hand held to his side, bloody pinky now forgotten, such was his visible horror at Sorn's mortal injury. Sorn's last memory was of Halence's shocked and concerned expression, hand tentatively reaching for the bolt wedged in Sorn's chest, right where his heart should be.

  It was then that Sorn lost his ability for cohesive thought, blindly fleeing up the stairs to the deck proper, slamming some wildly gesticulating figure with his hand, just managing to leap off the prow of the ship, sinking into the cool, comforting darkness of the sea before the change overcame him and all was blackness.

  Sorn had not noticed the chaotic tableau on deck with his hasty exit, the blood-soaked bodies strewn with near abandon on fore and mid deck both; shocked wide-eyed stares from sailors and raiders alike. In truth, Sorn hardly saw his cousins at all, only sensed them in a dim instinctive part of his mind, comforted by their nearness as he launched himself, still bleeding from his mortal wound, off the ship. Had he the opportunity and clear-mindedness to view the scene in its entirety, he would have been appropriately proud of his cousins, who had taken the time to cast spells of missile warding and shielding both, in addition to wearing their shirts of mithril armor as they always did, before making their way to the front decks.

  Thus well protected by magic and mithril alike, the triplets had come charging to the aid of the beleaguered crew being near butchered by the professional mercenaries who had indeed invaded the ship. Jumping into the melee with savage abandon, the three brothers tore into the band of mercenary swordsmen to devastating effect, thus giving the remaining crew the time and opportunity they needed to scurry to the top deck and arm themselves with the weapons that would give them the edge necessary to survive the battle as the mercenaries below fought desperately to take down the three golden-haired youths that were causing them such grief, even now.

  "Well, that one certainly got ahead of himself!" Lieberman declared brightly moments after his opponent overextended himself on a desperate swing of his broadsword. Lieberman didn't even bother to parry the blow, slow as it was compared to the lightning fast blade work of the fencing saber, rather using his supernatural reflexes to duck the swing and return a savage one of his own that sent his razor sharp bla
de biting cleanly through his opponent's neck, head and torso both falling to the ground in sprays of crimson with two separate thumps.

  Fitz chuckled throatily as yet another opponent fell to his blade as well, his foe's head sailing gently into the sea with a plop a second later. A sound that immediately sent the three golden-haired youths into fresh peals of laughter.

  "Now you know Sorn would be pissed if he knew you had been hit like that," Hanz scolded a suddenly abashed Lieberman.

  "Well, he doesn't have to know, Hanz! He barely broke my skin when I ducked his blade to cleave him in two!" his brother said, wiping away the tiny trickle of blood on his forehead, all but ignoring the shocked looking swordsmen before them.

  "Okay, who's next?" Fitz quipped brightly, at which point two of the few remaining swordsmen shared a look and a nod, and then fled over the stern of the ship.

  It was at that moment they all saw the screaming gesticulating man, arms raised, burst out of the bulkhead, shrieking about being promised his freedom. The already panicked man started screeching incoherently when he tripped over one of his fellow's heads that had been rather cleanly decapitated.

  "That one's mine!" Hanz informed the panic-stricken bandit proudly.

  "He promised me I could go," the broken man whined.

  "Oh, that would be Sorn, right?" Inquired a curious looking Fitz, absently licking clean his blade.

  The quivering man shook in his horror. "He sent my man straight to hell with his avenging flames, and flinched not at Vrim's mighty blows, only smiled and slew him. But he promised I could go free if I only let his friend go. So I did, see? No knife! I am unarmed. You can't hurt me, I am unarmed!" The man's laughter turned to whimpers as he huddled between the bodies of his fallen comrades.

  "Yup, that would be Sorn, all right," Hanz nodded knowingly.

  Lieberman gave the bandit a too bright smile before wrinkling his nose, the stink of the bandit suddenly releasing his bowels all too apparent to all three of them. "Well, actually, you're hardly unarmed. Now this man, he comes a lot closer, don't you think?" With that, the youth rather effortlessly picked up one of Baler's fallen men who was, of course, lacking both his arms in a quite literal sense.