“Come to the window. They are being herded out to the dock like animals. It’s not even daylight yet.”
Agis managed to make his way to the window for a brief look but having weight on his knee without a cane was quickly becoming too much for him. He wasted no time in making his way to a nearby chair to sit and take the load off his bad leg.
“So, you never answered my question. What are you going to do?”
“I wish I knew. I want to fight back, but it’s not that easy. We have maybe twenty good, fresh warriors against… hundreds?”
“Don’t count out the young ones. They are all ready to fight for you. Even Star.”
“Even dear Star. What a spirit she has.”
“She has your spirit. Just like Char and Winter. Each one would make an excellent Queen Mother someday.”
“They would probably fight to the death to prove which one was most worthy!”
kDira and Agis shared a laugh, but it was short, and reality came rushing back quickly.
“We sit here and joke,” kDira said, a serious tone once again in her voice. “The Survivors are just now pulling out to sea to hunt for those awful fish. Who knows what kind of conditions they will have to endure, all because I wanted to show the Queen who she was dealing with.”
“That was our meat. She had no right to think she could keep it for herself.”
“I know. But if I hadn’t been so stubborn…”
“Sooner or later it would have come to this, anyway. How long do you think she would allow us to freeload off them?”
“It would be different if we were doing it by choice. To force us is slave labor, at least by my understanding.”
“You have to stop beating yourself up over this. You will figure this out. You have a lot of good people ready to back you up. Just say the word.”
“All I know is that I need to get down there this evening and find out how the Survivors are doing, or I will go crazy.”
“I guess if we eat tonight, we will know if they did okay or not.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“This is an impressive boat,” Lucas Brown remarked. “I am amazed the Ravengard are capable of sailing such a floating behemoth.”
Tina Davis, walking alongside Lucas, read the name off the back of the boat, “Harvey.”
“It has to be over one hundred feet long. Maybe one-fifty?”
The boat stretched out before them along the pier, its old wood in desperate need of refinishing and repair. The dark browns and tans showed a greyish hue in places, dried and caked with a thin layer of salt from many years of use and neglect.
The twin masts of the Harvey pointed skyward toward the early-morning purple and orange sky. The sails were tied up to the yardarms, and Miss Davis could see that in addition to the four sails on the masts, there was one or two more on the stays leading from the bowsprit. It surprised her how much she knew about boats, having never actually seen a real one before. In her earlier years, she had watched movies of great ships and sailing and had often wondered what it would be like. Now she wondered if what she was about to experience would be anything like what she had imagined. She doubted that those that used to sail for pleasure had the feeling of impending doom she was feeling this morning.
“Up the ramp and form a line on the deck!” one of the Ravengard warriors called out, pointing up the gangway that led onto the boat.
As ordered, the Survivors, as well as the Ravengard that were used to working on the boat, made their way up the ramp onto the ship. Once aboard, they fell in line along the railing of the ship closest to the pier and faced the center of the ship.
The deck was as worn and unkempt as the sides of the vessel. The smell of rotting fish permeated from every crack and crevice of the boat. Several of the Survivors rushed to the side to vomit; others barely managed to maintain control.
“It is good that you did not puke on my deck!” one of the deckhands said. “You would be swabbing the entire ship if you did.”
“They seem to have some knowledge of the lingo, at least,” Tina said. “Let’s hope their seamanship is as good.”
“Quiet down there!” the Ravengard warrior yelled. He turned and spoke to the deckhand a moment, then made a hasty departure back down the gangway.
“Mister Personality isn’t going to join us on our trip, I see,” Lucas observed.
“Everyone, stand at attention for the Captain!” the deckhand called out.
Miss Davis and Lucas looked down toward the end of the line of workers and saw a tall, rough-looking male figure, dressed in what appeared to have once been an ornate military uniform. Time and wear had taken its toll on the outfit, and it was a mockery of what it had once stood for. Still, the Captain wore it with pride, and no one could question that he was the one in charge.
“Look ahead!” another deckhand shouted, stepping directly in front of Tina Davis. “You do not look at the Captain when you are called to attention. You look ahead! Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Tina said, snapping her head forward, as did several others that had been gawking at the sight of the Captain.
“I am Captain Anderstrand,” the Captain announced. “You will call me Captain, or Sir, or even Captain, sir. I understand that we have some outsiders here that have volunteered to help us in our work today.”
“Volunteered?” Lucas said to himself quietly.
“Shhh!”
“You will be shown how to haul in nets or move fish into the holds. Once we return to the docks, hopefully with a hold full of fish, you will then be expected to get those fish from the ship to the shore, and then into the processing facility for storage or consumption.”
“Sounds delightful,” Miss Davis said, under her breath.
“Whether you get a meal tonight depends on how many fish we bring back with us. Is that understood?”
There were some mumbled yes, sirs and yes, Captains but none were very enthusiastic. This seemed to anger the Captain.
“I couldn’t hear a damned one of you! Is that understood?”
This time the response was louder, though not any more enthusiastic.
“Better. We will work on that. Deckhands, see that everyone has a station and knows what is expected of them. We have work to do!”
“Where is the idiot boy?” one of the sailors called out, walking down the line of people waiting for their instructions. “Idiot-boy, where are you now? Speak up!”
Tina looked at Cliverly, standing two people away, who unwittingly held his hand in the air. It was clear to Tina that he was used to being called Idiot-Boy but she wished she could have stopped him from making his presence known.
“I Cliverly,” he said, as calmly as if he was just introducing himself to a new friend.
“Come here, boy. You will work in the galley. That’s the only place you won’t end up as fish food.”
“Can my friend Tina Davis come too? She nice to me.”
“We have another job for her. She will be needed up here. Come along now.”
Cliverly stopped and looked back at Tina. It was obvious to Tina that he didn’t want to go without her.
“Go on, Cliverly. You will be safer down there, and you will be doing what you know how to do. Now go fix us a good lunch!”
“Okay, Tina Davis!” he said, turning and joining the deckhand to go down below.
“Stupid outsider,” one of the other hands said, stepping up to Miss Davis. “You think he will be making lunch for you? Didn’t you hear the Captain? You will eat this evening if you catch enough fish. Idiot-boy will be preparing food for our crew, not you bottom-feeders.” The deckhand laughed as he walked away.
“And it just keeps getting better,” Tina said, glancing at Lucas. “At least Cliverly will be out of harm’s way, hopefully.”
“Okay, listen up!” said the Captain. “We will be taking some of you to the nets, others will be going down below. When you are told where to go, do not hold us up. Go there imme
diately and be ready to learn what you are told because you won’t get many chances to do something over again if you mess up.”
“Let the games begin…”
pART 3
A New Game
cHAPTER 19
Tuviast, in the solitude of his room, opened his bag and examined the treasure he had found in the store. He turned the item over in his hand, the shiny, silvery finish intriguing him in a way that nothing else ever had before. He found that once he pulled what appeared to be a lever backwards, the center cylinder turned, and the then the lever locked itself back. Puzzled, he pondered over how to get the lever back to its original position.
He fumbled with the device for a bit, then, holding it by the handle, where it felt most comfortable, and inserted his finger into the machined-loop near the handle where a second, smaller lever hung down. He closely examined the lever inside the loop, and with a squeeze of his finger, the smaller lever moved. Much to his surprise, the larger lever snapped forward into its original position with a mechanical click.
Afraid he had broken the mechanism, he shook it to see if anything was rattling inside, but it felt just as solid as ever. He again pulled back the larger lever, and, squeezing the smaller lever again, watched as the larger lever once again snapped back into place.
Tuviast pondered what the purpose of all this fine mechanical action could mean. What could have been the function, and why did it snap so solidly when he pulled the smaller lever? He put it back in his bag. He would have to speak to Elick about it later.
As the sun was peaking over the mountains to the east, the Harvey was towed out to sea by two open boats with a dozen oars each, pulling the huge ship away from the pier. Once clear of the waves near the shore, the large rowboats were cut loose, and the Harvey’s sails were unfurled to catch the wind to drive it south, and then west into open water.
They sailed past several islands, and Tina Davis thought that she could get used to this sailing thing. After spending almost her entire life previously underground, the feeling of so much open space and fresh salt air blowing in her face made her feel young and free. Her feelings of euphoria were short-lived; the bellering of the deckhands brought her back to reality.
Tina Davis and many of her companions were taken to the nets, and a quick explanation was given as to what would take place. In short, they would drag giant nets behind the boat to catch as many fish as possible and repeat the process, recasting and retrieving nets until the ship’s holds were full, or the sun was beginning to set, whichever came first.
A large, hand-cranked crane was positioned aft on the boat to haul in the nets and dump the contents onto the deck. The Survivors were needed only for the manual labor of casting the net, then shoveling the fish into the holds. In all, three nets were in use at any given time. When one was pulled in, two others were out catching more fish. It was a constant rotation that kept everyone busy most of the time.
Down below, each fish was gutted, and the entrails tossed over the side through openings in both sides of the ship. The boat was like a floating fish-processing factory.
The day went quickly, as load after load of fresh fish was piled onto the deck and subsequently shoveled down below to be cleaned and readied for offloading. When the last load of fish was finally below, the topside chore became cleaning the slimy, slippery, fishy coating off the deck with salt water brought onboard one bucket at a time, splashed onto the deck, then scrubbed back off with the stiff bristles of a broom.
Tina Davis spotted the islands she had seen earlier so she could tell the boat was getting closer to home. Home, she laughed to herself. She would never accept Ravengard as her home, not under these conditions.
“Where did you get this?” Elick asked, looking at Tuviast’s mechanism.
“Back at that one place we stopped where kDira let us go exploring. They had a lot of them there, large and small.”
“I believe what you have here was called a gun. I am not certain how it worked, but it was a very effective weapon. They fought wars with these. They were very deadly and much easier and faster to use than a bow and arrow.”
“Well, I can’t figure out how to make it kill anyone unless I hit them with it. Watch, here’s what it will do,” he said, taking the gun back from Elick. He demonstrated how to cock the lever and make it snap shut again. “Not very deadly. Maybe the magic is gone from it?”
“It isn’t magic. It uses a special cartridge that it appears you do not have.”
“But if we had some, we could conquer the Ravengard, could we not?”
“If it is as powerful and as deadly as I am led to believe, it could really change the odds in our favor.”
“Then I will sneak back out and get more, and the cart…”
“Cartridges. But I seem to remember that there were different cartridges for different guns. You really need to talk to the Survivors; they might know more about these things than I. It would be bad to see you make the trip and bring back the wrong things.”
“I will wait, but I will do this, then we will conquer the Ravengard and live in peace, like kDira wants for us.”
“I see the ship is coming back in early. They must have gotten their daily catch. This is good.”
“And what, Queen Lehentis, would happen if they hadn’t gotten their daily catch?” Ari asked.
“Don’t you worry about that. There are so many fish in the ocean that we could go out only every other day and still have enough to eat.”
“Then why go every day?”
“My dear, you do ask a lot of questions. Our supper will be here soon. Why don’t you go put on something pretty and get ready for our evening meal?”
“Why do I have to get dressed up; it’s not like me? Can’t I just eat in what I am wearing?”
“You are dining with royalty, that is why! And when you dine with royalty, you dress as though you deserve to sit at the same table. Any more questions?”
“No, my Queen,” Ari said contritely, turning and heading off into the bedroom to change clothes. She didn’t even understand what it meant to be pretty in the Queen’s eyes; she just hoped she could pick out something that would not upset the Queen further.
When Ari came back out, she was wearing a long, pink gown, and she was even trying to walk in a pair of the Queen’s high heel shoes. She was proud that she was managing to walk rather steadily, though her toes were already beginning to hurt. She hid her pain to try to impress the Queen.
“Oh, how nice you look!” exclaimed Queen Lehentis. “You look very good in pink. And you’re wearing my heels, good for you! Now turn around, I want to see all of you.”
Ari reluctantly did as she was told. The more she stood there on display in front of the Queen, the more uncomfortable she grew. The Queen clapped as though she had just witnessed a fine show and held out her hand for Ari to take.
“Come, let us sit at the table; our food will be here shortly. You see, not everything has to be about hunting and war and fighting. We can take joy in the softer things, and bright and cheery colors. Don’t you feel pretty?”
“I… I guess I do. I am just not used to such things. And these shoes hurt my feet. How do you wear them all the time?”
“After a while, you won’t be able to walk without them. Ah, here is our meal.”
Two people entered the chamber, each carrying two platters of food. There was the usual fish, bread, and some greens. On one plate sat a small steak of rock-goat.
“I had the cook prepare a steak especially for you, from the last of the beasts you brought back from your hunting trip. I hope it is prepared the way you like it.”
“It looks lovely,” Ari said. It was only about half the size of what she was used to, but she didn’t want to complain and make it sound like she was ungrateful for any size portion of rock-goat after eating fish almost exclusively for days.
“Please, try your steak.”
Ari picked up a knife and fork and sliced off a portion of it. It was a bi
t overcooked for her taste and was certainly not the best cut of meat, yet she savored it lovingly.
“It is very good,” Ari said.
“May I have a taste? I don’t remember the last time I had rock-goat.”
Ari pushed the small plate toward the Queen, who cut off her own piece and placed it in her mouth. She chewed it slowly, then smiled.
“Oh my, that is good!” the Queen said, and without another word, cut the steak down the middle and placed half of it on her own plate. She then began devouring her portion of the steak with gusto and glee.
Ari timidly pulled the plate back in front of her, and without comment, began to finish off what remained of her steak.
“We shall get more of that from now on. Would that make you happy?”
“Yes, my Queen,” Ari said, managing to cover her disgust with the Queen at stealing half of the steak.
“Good. Good. Here, help yourself to some of this fish. It is very tasty this time of year.”
cHAPTER 20
“Where did you get this?” Lucas Brown asked Tuviast, who had managed to sneak into the barracks of the shipboard workers that evening. Everyone was resting before their evening meal; the day having taken its toll on all of them.
“I got it at that place we stopped at on the way here where we could go out and explore,” Tuviast replied. “Elick says it’s called a gun?”
“That’s exactly what it is. If you look here on the barrel – that’s the piece here that points forward if you hold the handle – it says S&W .357 Magnum. S&W stands for Smith & Wesson, one of the more popular brands from that time. This type of gun was referred to as a revolver.”
“Watch,” Lucas instructed, pushing forward a protrusion on the left side. The round part of the gun fell to the side, exposing five holes. “This is where the bullets go.”
“Elick called them cartridges.”
The kDira's World Anthology Page 54