Flaithriaoh, the Prince of Fire (emblematic) wrote in adusta, @ 2009-05-06 00:52:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | leironuoth, skandra tyullis, the box |
The Drowning Box (Skandra)
It had been but a few short years since bein stripped of his title. Little over three, if he remembered correctly. A paltry amount of time in the eyes of the average elf. Yet the humiliation of defeat, the agony of exile, cast a gloom over each and every one of Leironuoth's hours. And so, by the time any of this happened, he felt as though it had already been a thousand years.
He wandered many great miles from his home, from the songs and fires of his people, and he inflicted his rage upon the wickedness of the outside world. Far and wide he roamed, carving a name for himself with the Champion's blade. He killed brigands and slavers, marauding orcs and ogres. When his path crossed that of the tyrant and the thief he destroyed them with a fury unmatched in the lands of humans: this is how he became a privateer of Trone.
They were a bold bunch; sashes of blue and gold round their waists, a hoop in every ear, a sea chantey on every set of lips. In the warm waters of Aurum Harbor their ships made berth. On contract by the leaders of Trone they tracked privateers sent by other nations to interrupt Trone's trade flow. They hunted pirates down and put an end to the dogs wherever they showed those black and blasphemous flags.
With them he sang songs, hauled rope, felt the wind the spray and the salt. He put his sword to work against the pirates and the corsairs until the surf ran pink. He learned how to play their games and drink their rum. He soon became the prized blade of The Admiral's Daughter, a xebec crewed by the seventy saltiest veterans Trone had to offer.
He made more money than he could spend, and he even made some friends within the humans and dwarves of the Daughter's crew. But the Daughter also made him many enemies. Pirates cursed the ship and dogged it through the waters. They tried to run her aground on the great reefs, they tried to board her with their knives and hangers, and they set fire to her sails. But still she sailed on, and with each battle the scurvy curs grew more frustrated. There was a demon onboard Trone's Daughter.
But there were other demons out there on the seas so black and bottomless. Not all of them feared the blade of the elven swordsman. One such hellspawn was Djokole. A man with skin as black as sun grown tobacco, he stood head and shoulders above anyone under his command. He was a pirate lord, captain of The Twisted Noose; a massive vessel painted blue and bruise-black like the waves beneath it. Some said it attacked only at night, when it could not be seen on the approach. They were right.
The Noose rammed The Admiral's Daughter in the dead of a fog-born night. The decks shook and splintered. Men were cast overboard or had their throats slashed. Leir tried to save the boatswain from drowning but the old seadog was trapped beneath a beam. He couldn't find his sword. He was surrounded. Leironuoth, the elf known as The Demon, The Blade, Trone's Tempest: he was taken captive.
*****
For over a month he sat in the brig. At first they would mock him, as pirates would. When he bit the secondary carpenter's throat out, however, they learned to keep their distance. Why Djokole kept him alive, none knew. Not even Leir could guess. He was useless as an oarsman: he either refused to row, or strangled his guard with the tie-chain. He had no useful knowledge: for all his prowess with fists and blade, he never made captain or navigator on his own vessel. But no one questioned their Captain, lest he pull his brutally hooked cutlass from it's satin sash.
And Leir simply sat in the dark, listening to the creak of the Noose's beams, the scurrying of her rats, and the chantey's of her cursed crew. He scratched the days into the wooden wall next to his head and ate whatever morsels they provided.
But one day they ran aground.
*****
"Elf!" Djokole greeted him on the beach. The massive man laughed. A bellowing laugh, the sort that managed to be sarcastic and sincere all at once. He ran a black hand over his bald head, ringed fingers glimmering in the bright sun. It was so bright and hot that Leir couldn't believe it. The sand was hot as ash around his ankles. Leir spit into it, his only reply. His parched mouth could only produce foam.
Djokole sneered his pirate's smile. Coins and charms adorned his steel-grey beard. The sun was high and large, yellow as the gold in Djokole's teeth.
"Happy to stretch your legs?" the Captain asked.
"Happier still to hear the birds," Leir answered quietly. He balled his hands into fists and strained at his shackles.
The crew laughed. A decksman kicked Leir's legs out, drove him to kneel in the sand. How they could see in the blinding sun he didn't know. It was unbearably hot, wherever they were, but he had been accurate: somewhere behind them, in the bamboo and the steam, birds of paradises sang their song.
"This is why I kept you alive," Djokole called. He was addressing his crew as much as the bound elf. "To die a pig's death."
And then something hard hit Leir in the back of the head.
*****
Waves, crashing in the surf. Gone was the sun, but it had done its damage. Leir's forehead and shoulders were burned and raw. The warm saltwater washing over him was no relief. He coughed and sputtered into it and racked his sore shoulders against their bonds. And then he noticed how quiet it was: the only noise he heard was the call of the gull, the wash of the wave.
It was night, but the sort of night only seen in the tropics. The air was still balmy and close, tight to the body as if joining it an embrace. He squinted his bleary eyes and tried to look about. He couldn't see his hands, for they were bound behind him. And up...up.
He brought his chin out of the water. There was a cage around him, made of bamboo shafts bound and lashed into a rectangle. A low box set out in the tide. His knees were driven down into the sand. This is what the pirate had meant by a pig's death: it was a drowning box. A crew would set the cage out on the beach with its occupant bound to the ceiling, and then wait for the tide. When the waters rose, the prisoner was treated to his last sunset. He died alone, for there was no purpose in guarding such a box.
Except, glancing to his left, Leir realized he was not alone. No, his drowning box had another soul locked within. A human, by the looks of it, but not a crewman of the Daughter. Leir didn't recognize the unconscious form.
"Hey!" Leir coughed. "Wake up!"
His left hand was tied to the man's right; then both lashed to the bamboo above. The water was rising. It touched Leir's chin even though he tucked his head back and away.
"Up, damn you!"
Leir dipped his mouth dow. He took a mouthful of the warm salt water and nearly wretched at the taste. He craned his neck and spat a stream into the man's face.
Nothing. Not a stir.
Leir's feet began to kick. As if trying to push off into a sprint, he kicked his heels and toes down into the water and sand beneath. He began to dig a trench between the bars.
He took another gulp of water, accidentally swallowed some, and spat the rest at his deathmate.
"Wake up!"