“How was I to know that the axe was poorly made?” Nachal defended. “I thought axes made by the dwarves were unbreakable.”
Dhurmic growled a low, menacing growl. “What is thy blade made of, Nachal?” He enunciated each word through gritted teeth; the sound of his boots stalking closer sounded suddenly loud within the empty hold.
“Dragon steel,” Nachal said fast, looking around for a convenient exit. “Stronger than adamantine. Infused with dragon tears. Very rare.” His voice went up before he finished speaking as his backside hit the crates. Trapped like a rat. He turned again just as Dhurmic reached him with his fists clenched tightly.
“I can buy you a new one,” he said in an effort to placate Dhurmic, eying the crates to the side of him, judging his chances of climbing them quickly enough to avoid a dwarven fist in his gut.
That was when he saw it. They had been sparring in their little corner of the hold, with the crates piled high around them, effectively blocking them from view. But out of the corner of his eye something popped into view and he turned quickly. It was the female elf. The breath whooshed out of him as Dhurmic finally punched him in the stomach. He doubled over gasping for breath as a dry voice spoke from the crates above them. Liran, with the strange, blazing eyes.
“Are we allowed to place bets? My gold is on the dwarf.”
“What are you doing on my ship?” another voice bellowed from a different stack of crates. Nachal had hit his knees at Dhurmic’s blow and was trying to catch his breath. Now he looked up at the corner that the angry voice was vibrating from. He watched Dhurmic out of the corner of his eye go suddenly still, realizing too late that their sparring had prevented him from hearing anyone entering their little hiding place.
Nachal rose slowly to his feet again. Ignoring the very angry captain glaring balefully at him, he turned his attention to Liran. “I need to speak with you,” he said quietly.
Liran nodded, accepting this without question. “And I you.”
Nachal gritted his teeth as Dhurmic stomped on his foot, trying to get his attention.
“Dhurmic would like to be there as well.”
Liran looked amused. “Very well.” He glanced at the captain. “I would like to speak with these two privately please.”
The captain turned sharp eyes to Liran and nodded brusquely. “Do you need me to leave a few men with you?”
Liran didn’t even hesitate. “I will be fine on my own.”
The female elf spoke up then. Her clear, rich voice made Nachal’s mouth go dry. “Do you need me to stay?” she asked Liran.
Nachal looked up at her, finally able to see her clearly in the white illumination that the lumacrystals threw outward. Seeing her made him feel as though Dhurmic had punched him in the stomach again, only a lot harder. He tried to suck in air, but couldn’t. He gasped. His eyes burned.
She was stunningly, achingly beautiful. She had full lips, delicately arched midnight brows, and large, luminous eyes. Her eyes. He felt as if a lance had been driven right through his chest. Her eyes were the exact same shade of blue as Cerralys’s. Fathomless dark blue.
The exact same eyes.
“How?” His mouth formed the word, but no sound came out. His knees dropped to the planking beneath him, suddenly weak. He gaped at her as everything within him caught fire.
Liran spoke again, his voice a subdued murmur. “I think it would be best if I handled this alone.”
The female nodded, looked back once more at Nachal, and then jumped lithely down from the crates. The captain had apparently already left. Liran dropped down in front of Nachal, landing lightly on the balls of his feet like a cat might. Nachal didn’t even flinch. He was trying to suck air into his still gasping chest. His mind spun.
Dhurmic crouched down next to him. “What is the matter with ye?” he hissed.
“Who … is … she?” He spoke each word with supreme effort.
Liran’s look showed pity. “Her formal first elven name is Aurelias, but she goes by the shortened human version of Auri.”
Dhurmic grunted beside him, his jaw going slack. “Great Brulna!” he muttered hoarsely.
Liran ignored the dwarf’s expletive and focused intensely on Nachal. His eyes were burning again. “Your purpose was to find someone. Their name?”
Nachal looked down, trying to stop the hold from spinning. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into them, struggling to find air and voice. “Auri,” he rasped. “The elf I’m looking for is named Auri.”
Liran nodded. “And now that you’ve found her?”
Behind his closed eyes Nachal could see the massive fire consuming the forest and Obsidian circling overhead like a monstrous carrion bird. He could see the orange flames of Tristan as it burned to ashes and the bodies of the women and children as they burned upon the pyre. “To protect her,” he whispered softly. “To keep her alive.” His haunted eyes found the elf’s golden-amber ones once again.
Liran nodded, staring into Nachal’s soul.
Dhurmic was completely and utterly still beside him. The hold was drenched in absolute quiet.
“You have found what you have sought, but I sense that you have also found something that you did not seek.”
Nachal looked down at his fisted hands in front of him, seeing her eyes. Her deep, fathomless, impossible, blue eyes.
“I can’t.” His hoarse voice broke. He shook his head slowly back and forth, agonizing over the evidence that he had just witnessed, agonizing over the feelings crushing him from within.
Oh, Cerralys! You will lose her too! You will lose everything!
Tears ran warmly down his face, dripping onto his tightly clenched fists. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. His cold and pale lips pushed the words past the pain in his chest.
“I must speak with another first.”
Chapter Twelve- Driven
He didn’t know how but, somehow, after everyone else had left the hold, Nachal managed to get up onto his feet. Liran left. Dhurmic left. They all left him, staring at his hands, feeling completely lost.
It seemed so pointless. Why was he doing this? Why love if you were just going to lose? Why fight at all? He knew the answers should be there, but they weren’t. He hurt. More than any other pain he had ever felt before. His stomach was burning. His chest felt like ice had exploded inside of it. His mind was an indistinct buzz. His eyes felt raw and swollen.
He took a step across the floorboards of the hold—and got suddenly tossed backward. His whole body smashed into the crates behind him. The crates at the top of the stack toppled and crashed down onto him. He threw his arm over his head to protect it, and flinched when they smashed into various parts of his body.
An explosion of sound tore through the air at the same time. It was only after he lay there for a minute, half stunned, that he realized what the sound was. He flung the crates off of him, shook his head to clear the double vision, then got up and sprinted for the ladder. Once he reached it, he started ascending quickly. Right, left, right, left. Up. Up. Up. CRASH!
Another explosion rocked the vessel. His right hand slipped off the rung; his feet got knocked away as well. He hung there by the fingertips of one hand, dangling, terror clawing its way up his throat before his slick-with-sweat hands were able to re-grip the rung. His feet found purchase again, and he started to climb faster.
He reached the hatch and threw it open with a crash. When his feet touched down on the crew deck, he started to run. Men rushed past him, holding aloft short, curved swords. A few were yelling from the main area below the stairs for the others to get topside now. He ignored them, drew his own sword, and elbowed his way through the mass of people getting their weapons. He gripped the blade between his teeth as he climbed the second ladder then he landed on the deck of the ship and looked around him.
Everything was absolute chaos. They had collided with another ship. A black ship with dark red sails. A ship that would get noticed anywhere. Men were swarming both de
cks, fighting hand to hand. Some were aloft in the rigging, shooting arrows with soft hissing thuds into the enemy.
He took a step and staggered as the ship was rammed again. How many times could you ram one ship? A sword came out of nowhere, swiping at his chest, cutting the cloth of his shirt. He jumped backward, barely missing it pierce his skin. Then he turned and met the blade with a one-handed defense, smashed the owner in the nose to stun him briefly, then drove his blade deep into his chest. He looked down at the still figure on the deck for a moment in regret then raised his head and scanned the chaos surrounding him.
“Dhurmic!” he bellowed.
Men fought all around him. Swords clashing, the two ships groaning, arrows hissing, and men shouting were the only sounds that he could hear for a moment. And then a voice bellowed back to him over the tumult.
“Here!”
He spun and found Dhurmic at the prow of the ship, holding off two men with his axe. He ran toward him, skidding over the bloody planks, diving past swinging swords and colliding bodies. He backhanded a man who staggered toward him with a sword raised, and sent him crashing into the side of the ship.
He reached Dhurmic, and took on one of the two he was fighting. “Where’s Auri?” he shouted above the sound of screeching steel and Dhurmic’s cackles of glee.
“Liran has her,” Dhurmic answered, sliding his axe under his opponent’s defenses, and burying it in their chest.
Nachal batted away his opponent’s sword with his own, swept his legs out from under him, and stabbed him through the neck. He didn’t look this time, knowing it would hurt if he did.
“Where?”
Dhurmic pointed high above them to the crow’s nest. Auri was standing to the side and back, and Liran was front and center, picking out people on the deck with unerring accuracy, and burying his arrows inside of their skulls—right between their eyes—nearly up to the fletching.
“Do you need help?” he called up.
“No,” Liran answered tersely, releasing another arrow that zinged past him, burying itself into someone at the far end of the deck.
Nachal nodded, and started to turn back to the fight when someone barreled into him with the force of a battering ram. His breath whooshed out of him as his head slammed hard against the deck. The momentum made him slide along the slippery boards for a few feet before he slammed into the foremast with a crash. He sucked air into his lungs to clear the spinning in his head then kicked his attacker in the stomach. Dhurmic grunted.
“Dhurmic?” Nachal said, confused. “What—”
“Oh, nothing,” Dhurmic said acerbically, heaving himself quickly to his feet. “Jus’ tryin’ to save yer ungrateful hide, tha’s all.” He pointed, and Nachal followed his finger, up past the limp, red sails, all the way up to the top of the vessel. He could barely make out a figure standing there. Arrows zinged from their position . . . and apparently one of them had almost hit him.
He looked back to Dhurmic with gratitude in his eyes. “Thanks.”
Dhurmic grunted in acknowledgment, swung his axe up, and went barreling back into the fight with a roaring bellow. Nachal eyed the figure in the crow’s nest, debating going over there and taking him out. It wasn’t necessary. As he watched, an arrow hissed from high above his head, and drove into the person’s skull. The figure toppled from the nest, and slammed into the deck of the black ship.
Liran.
He looked up to watch him for a second. Liran kept drawing arrow after arrow, nocking them then releasing in the time that it would take a normal person to draw a single breath. His supply seemed inexhaustible. He had never seen anything like it in his entire life. Not even Cerralys was that good.
“Thank you,” he called up, figuring he would get no answer. He was right.
He dragged himself to his feet painfully and found his sword. His head reeled. Dhurmic finished off the person he had been dueling, and stood panting with his hands on his knees, dragging deep breaths into his lungs. People were fallen, spread across the distance and width of both of the decks.
Nachal looked back up at Liran who drew another arrow and sent it flying into the last remaining enemy standing. The elf lowered his arms, skimming the decks with intense eyes.
“Liran, is he here?” He knew Liran would know who he was talking about.
“No, this is just a scout ship,” he replied.
Nachal nodded. It made sense. His chest tightened when he thought about the distinct possibility of many scout ships, swarming the waters like restless sharks tracking the scent of blood. He looked back up as he caught movement. Auri and Liran were descending the rungs of the crow’s nest, coming down to the main deck.
He reached out to help Auri down the last few feet, keeping his eyes away from her. He couldn’t look at her. It made him sick inside, shaky. She accepted his hand without comment. It was warm, burning almost, inside of his. He looked at it in surprise, blinking in confusion. Was she sick or something? But no . . . she was just. . .
He drew in a quiet, stabilizing breath, gathered enough courage to look at her face . . . and then felt the air he’d just inhaled hiss out from between his clenched teeth. It hurt to look at her. It hurt to see the expression in her eyes. The confusion. The wariness. “Are you alright?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
She nodded without speaking. Her eyes were like deep, blue fire, delving into his. He looked away from her quickly, protecting himself, and walked away.
He found the captain alive. A short man with a barrel chest and thick, muscled arms. He was giving orders to his crew in a quiet, controlled voice of steel. There were no doubts about his authority on this ship. Men—despite the exhaustion that they must have been feeling—went quickly to see to the things that he commanded of them.
“What can I do?” Nachal asked softly, drawing level with him.
The captain turned. His face was set in tight lines of anger; sorrow ate at his eyes. “I already have men scouring the other ship, searching for stragglers. I need a team of people to search the cabins and captain’s office for anything that we might be able to use against them—charts, maps, anything.”
Nachal nodded and turned to search for Dhurmic, who was already heading toward him. “The captain wants us to look for anything we might be able to use against them on the other ship,” he said when the dwarf caught up to him. “You coming?”
Dhurmic nodded. They were met, as they were jumping over their ship onto the other, by Auri and Liran. They all went aboard in silence. The silence seemed unnatural now that the skirmish was over. So many lay dead on the decks that they had to constantly step over and around them. Nachal tried not to look at any of them. Instead, he glanced from the corner of his eye at Liran and Auri walking right beside him.
They both moved with natural grace, but Liran had something else. A tautness, a rigidity that Auri didn’t carry. His eyes seemed to be slightly luminescent most of the time. A faint glow that Nachal found eerie. And then there were the times when they became intensely lit, like a light was shining from behind his eyes outward. He had only noticed it happening when the elf was highly charged about something. Like when he was looking at Auri when she wasn’t paying attention.
Like now.
It was a hungry look. Not a look that wanted to possess, but to consume. Nachal closed his eyes, blocking out Liran’s eyes and what he read in them. His stomach clenched into hard, tight knots.
They made their way to the crew quarters and began searching systematically, starting at one end and making their way to the other. They ripped open bedding, busted locked drawers and chests, pulled up loose floorboards, and even smashed into some of the walls. Then they piled all of the materials onto one of the ripped mattresses and rifled through them carefully. Letters. Every single thing that they had found was a letter. He opened one and scanned it, absently at first, and then completely engrossed.
Mother-
I know I’ll never be able to send this, but writing it gives me comfo
rt. I miss you and dad so much it hurts.
A few weeks ago I was a fourteen-year-old kid. Today, I feel so old. My body hurts. My mind and heart are disgusted by the things I am forced to do.
We have been beaten, one by one. Our wills broken. Our minds emptied and numb. I go along because I am afraid. I fear the return of pain if I fail. I fear that they will find you and dad and kill you. I fear dad getting dragged into this . . . I can’t let that happen.
The letter didn’t have a signature. Nachal sighed and handed it to Dhurmic who read through it with fiery, black eyes drawn tight in anger, and then finally he sighed as well and threw it in a separate pile.
Auri picked one up. Her slim, pale hands trembled as she broke the seal and started to read aloud. Nachal’s mouth went dry. His eyes crept upward, past her collar bone, past her chin, up to her lips. He watched them tremble and form the sounds as she read.
Dearest Teresa-
We aren’t allowed letters, but some of the others have written their goodbyes to their families on paper and then quietly tucked them away beneath their beds, or else hidden them in other places. We have no privacy here, nothing of our own, but there’s something about seeing it on paper. . .
The paper was, of course, stolen. We look out for each other here because we’re all each other has.
I miss you and Maddy. We know—all of us on this ship know—that we will never return home. There is something, Teresa, something far bigger than I once realized happening here. The brutality makes me sick inside. Most of us, most of those dragged into this, are good, hard-working men. Men who have something to live for. Something to keep going for.
But after a while . . . I find myself becoming less me and more something else. It terrifies me. I want more than anything to be with my girls again, even just one last time. But I can’t. What are we fighting for? The brutal War of the Dragons is not our war. At least . . . that’s what I used to think. But now the only thing that I’m sure of is that the one the captain calls Obsidian must be stopped. The extent of his plans—what some of the men have been able to piece together from spy holes and dark corners—is beyond the scope of my imagination.