Lady Vera of Beit-Orane (v_eritas) wrote in caeleste, @ 2008-12-05 19:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | sun and water, vera of beit-orane |
A Sharp Spin [ narrative ]
As Lord Faxril's ship, The Archer, traveled farther south on the Western Sea, the world became darker and darker. The enormous head of clouds, once so distant, moved with ferocious speed across sky. Lightning broke from it in crooked arcs, giving the storm fingers to reach beyond them all, far across the graying sky of the Western Sea. The brigantine ship finally took shape against the black mess of waves and wind; it swayed dangerously back and forth. The colors flown were those of a ship that had no nation, no affiliation. Perhaps it would be classed as another merchant ship if a seaman was naïve, but The Archer moved toward the brigantine, being led by a more cunning man than most. He seemed intent on treating the brigantine as a rogue. A pirate ship.
Being a nimble vessel, The Archer cut through the swelling waves as if an invisible knife was attached to the stern. The helmsman's eyes were focused, but he was not shaken. There was sturdiness to the frame of the ship. As rain fell on the deck in sweeping rushes, the crew did not fear being thrown in the face of Chaos itself. Instead men rushed across the deck, absorbed in the tasks of maintenance and survival, shouting out orders to each other when in the absence of the first mate's bellowing. More than preparing for the teeth of the storm to come down, the men saw what battle their Lord wished to engage in. Alchemists rushed around below deck with their assistants scrambling to keep up with their orders. Weapons had already been distributed among the crewmen. This was a Lord who helped clear the trade routes along the coast after the Breaking, who sailed through the monstrous southern seas after his enemies and took pause on the cursed black coasts when it suited him. For all the loyalty that ran through the crew, Faxril inspired as much fear as the storm did, as the pirates might if they were worth anything in a sea battle. No man wanted to be caught off his guard.
Vera clutched the rail as the helmsman spun the wheel. He, perhaps, could be as daring as her brother, sailing the ship in a storm as he might on a clear day. Perhaps that was why he was at the helm. Wind ripped at her hood and her braid whipped against the back of her neck.
"Want to hear a poem, m'lady?" the helmsman shouted to her.
Vera squinted at him as a spray shot up the side of the ship. "No!" she shouted back. Idiot…
“But you look nervous!” The helmsman laughed.
Could he see the look of pure murder she gave him? Likely, from the smile he had on his face, he was ignoring it. She looked across the deck to where Faxril stood, his dark hair whipping in the wind, his clothes drenched but somehow still bright with the colors of Eistocene. When the ship swayed, he walked as if his feet were rooted to the wood, as if he did not feel the violence of the world surging beneath him. Vera hugged the rail as the ship leaned at a dangerous angle again, but her eyes stayed on Faxril. He had never been possessed of magic, never wanted to take meditations that led one down the corridors of the mind. Faxril had less time for the temple than she did, no matter how he admired the god Armas. Now, however, his stillness now seemed a supernatural gift and the sea his element.
“We are a violent people, accustomed to taking risks,” Vera told Lady Naevain. The elf sat with her head in her hand, staring at the maps spread out on the table. “You knew that when you approached Lord Faxril. You wanted that, otherwise you'd have approached someone like me.”
“I did not want that. If this could be solved without violence, I would have taken that route. He put weapons on this ship. Weapons! That will be hard enough to explain, but if the ship is damaged…”
“It won’t be.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because this ship belongs to Lord Faxril now. He values it, Lady Naevain, as much as he values his own children. The pirates of the West must be something to behold if they intend to destroy such a thing.”
“This is crazy, what we are doing.”
“I know.”
“You agree?”
“Yes. If he weren’t insane, I would not trust him nearly as much as I do.”
The brigantine attempted to maneuver around the edge of the storm and use the strong winds to outpace The Archer, but the sharp turns the helmsman made cut just inside the terrible black clouds. They were sailing along the lip of the storm, dangling dangerously before the high waves, to gain on the brigantine. This was unexpected of a merchant ship and Vera was sure they knew now what Faxril meant to do. She saw the rush of men on the brigantine’s deck. The flurry of activity came with a flurry of hail. The helmsman spun the wheel again and The Archer was set on a parallel path with the fleeing pirate ship. Vera held tight to the rail, tugging up her hood again as hail cut at her cheeks. There was no use to be on deck yet. She was of no value there. The wind was too poor for arrows.
“Get ready you sorry sons of bitches!” the first mate bellowed.
This ship built by elves was unbelievably quick. They would be alongside the brigantine in the span of a few breaths. Faxril stood where his crew could see him, his sword was drawn and his lieutenant stood at his side. Thunder shook The Archer as ruthlessly as the wind did; Vera could feel the rumbling in her heart. The helmsman was singing now, but she couldn’t focus on the tune. She was waiting just as the entire crew waited, sweat dripping down their foreheads as steadily as rainwater.
Faxril shouted the order to fire. Vera could see balls of glass catapulted from below, they glowed like crazed fireflies in the dark storm. She had no idea what they were until they broke against the opposing ship. The Archer‘s entire deck reverberated with the violence of the explosions, forcing Vera to brace herself. Shards of wood, metal and men flew outward onto the roiling sea. The brigantine didn‘t return fire. One strike wasn’t enough to bring down a ship of that size, but the attack set the enemy crew reeling. The first mate shouted for the alchemists to prepare another round as the ocean pushed onto the deck. Vera squeezed her eyes shut as the helmsman spun the wheel hard, chasing the brigantine further into blackness.
Vera could barely keep on her feet as the earth quaked beneath them again. Rain made the ground slick and even rock seemed to melt into the mud. Soil either clung to her boots or made the leaf paved trails of the forest too slick to run on. She had no idea where she was going. It was enough to make anyone collapse and let the world do as it might, but the thought of her friend dying motivated her to keep running. The fear of what they’d left behind them kept her from tripping. Those spirits that ripped at Alatariel reached well beyond the mind and hurt something deeper, had grabbed at the very essence of what the elf was…
Now Vera only had thought for the ground and the lightning bursting above the canopy of Ellecdral. Alatariel leaned heavily on her shoulder and elf’s blood ran down Vera’s arm as if it were her own. The woman was speaking in a language Vera didn’t understand, muttering in feverish bursts that were nearly as chaotic as the forest around them. She knew then that she was utterly alone. Vera was terrified that she wouldn’t make it. Terrified of dying.
Hadn’t she wanted to die?
The tattoo on her wrist burned and burned. And then, as Alatariel clutched at her arm, she heard it…
“Hold fast!” the first mate shouted.
The sails of the brigantine flapped uncontrollably in the storm. One of the masts had cracked. Waves spilled across the ship’s deck as The Archer pulled up alongside it. Men on the brigantine slid from its deck as if they were barrels or some useless equipment not properly tied down. Vera thought it odd that no wave touched The Archer in such a way, but there wasn’t much time to dwell on the observation. This time when the alchemists hurled their concoctions at The Archer, the brigantine answered. Lightning cut across the space between the two ships, hitting the starboard side enough to shake the crew and ruin the molding along the rail. The attack was just not as powerful nor as fast as that delivered by the disciplined line of alchemists Faxril kept below his deck. Vera kept her footing as the helmsman directed the ship to lean heavily to the left, scraping against the side of the brigantine as another round of explosions went off. Faxril didn’t intend to merely destroy the vessel, as he'd promised to Lady Naevain. He meant to take it as a prize.
Vera’s gloved fingers clutched the railing as she ran for the steps. If they were going to board that pirate ship, she wasn’t going to be stuck with guarding the helmsman. Faxril must have seen her coming because he turned in her direction to give her an impatient wave, as if he’d expected her to be at his back all along. She ducked and dodged the moving crewmen on deck to as quickly as possible, only to be stopped by one man who thrust a sword into her hands.
“Lord Faxril said to use that,” he said.
She frowned at him, but he was gone onto something else before she could say anything. Vera paused to look at the weapon and adjusted her grip on the hilt, slick from the rain. It was exactly the right weight, unlike what she’d been forced to use in her sparring matches against Faxril. How long had he been holding out on her? This was something she continued to ask herself even as she came to Faxril’s side. She could see him counting the beats, timing each second that passed. He would lead when they flung themselves over unsteady wood boards to invade the other vessel.
The river.
At first the sound was like knives clanking together in the dark, but soon it became like a voice, speaking through the woods to her. Water was pushing forward over rock, shoving past the rotting moss and bloodied statues of Ellecdral. Water going to the Western Seas. The Nostariel River was the only thing that crossed safely through this cursed place.
Vera lurched to the left, using the next shake of the earth to propel her and Alatariel forward. She was suddenly glad that Alatariel wasn’t coherent enough to realize what they were doing. Vera could see the river through the trees, the currents twisting like snakes around the bend, writhing against each other violently over each bump and jagged break in the water. The rapids of the Nostariel were some of the worst in the region. She remembered this as she dragged Alatariel onto the river bank.
Behind them, the trees were screaming.
Faxril cut into a man with his sword as soon as his feet found the brigantine’s deck. The ragged scream was short but picked up almost immediately by the next man Faxril cut down. Vera had yet to use her sword and already blood ran as thick across the floorboards. There was no pause, no consideration for fighting a wounded man or an elderly man. Faxril and his crew killed indiscriminately upon boarding the brigantine. The goal of taking a ship, Faxril once told her, was to bring total violence against the opposing crew at the very beginning. If that didn’t inspire surrender, then it would cripple the ship’s staff enough that exterminating the rest would not be an issue. It wasn’t something Vera’s code agreed with. It wasn’t a tactic Vera believed was right. But when a man fell into her path with the desire to survive in his eyes, she had little choice but to end him. She wielded her blade as mercilessly as her brother in that moment, stabbing and hacking at whoever might fling himself in her direction. Blood and salt clung heavily to her uniform. It was all she could taste when she swallowed.
No honorable fight got them to the quarters of the enemy captain. Everything she and Faxril ripped open, every slash, every punch was a step forward in murder. There was no time to think about the implications of this sort of fighting; if it wasn't murder, it was death. Pirates were beginning to drop weapons and simply throw themselves at the sides of the ship. If they didn't end up in the water, they clung for their lives at the rail. Once Vera came to the cabin, Faxril's men kicked down the heavy oak door and rushed inside. All the noise was for nothing. The room was still. Vera stepped in after Faxril and looked to the ceiling, where the captain dangled from a piece of rope.
"Move down below with Renold," Faxril told the two men at his side. "I want every room cleared, every pirate up on deck."
"But sir--"
"Follow through with questioning me and I will cast you down with every piece of scum we toss in the brig."
The men were quick to file out of the room and careful not to look Faxril in the eye as they did so. Vera remained in the corner of the room, her hand still clutching her sword and her hood still dripping wet over her eyes. She didn't move when Faxril shut the door and moved to the desk, brushing the captain's feet out of the way as he spread the parchment there with his hands.
Vera looked up at the captain's face again. His mouth gaped open and his eyes were empty. He looked as if he'd chosen suicide without realizing what it entailed. His clothes were mismatched and slightly dirty and she doubted that he'd truly owned a ship with such fine woodwork in the captain's quarters. Still, she thought about climbing up on the desk, despite the unsteadiness of the ship, and cutting him down. It seemed wrong to ignore a corpse. Faxril acted as if the man were nothing more than a white flag.
"Vera," Faxril said. There was an annoyed pause. "Vera."
She blinked and drew in a quick breath, instantly regretting it for the taste in her mouth. "I'm sorry. What is it?"
"I want you to take these to my quarters on The Archer," Faxril said as he lifted a large pile of parchment and slid it into a cotton sack that once held fruits. He had dumped the apples, oranges and pears onto the floor while she hadn't been paying attention. He seemed completely unconcerned for where they rolled. Faxril slid a few maps and bound journals into the sack as well. "Read them. All of them."
"Why?" Vera asked. She moved toward the desk, holding her arm out for the collection of papers.
"They look like contracts. If this is more than a swarm of brigands, something organized, I want to know what sort of problem I'm dealing with."
It was no secret that Vera had a sharp mind. Her studies in Agethlea and Simanel were one of the reasons the Beiten-K'danav allowed her to become an ambassador at such a young age. Still, Vera did not consider herself a scholar or academic. What she knew of law and written word was purely out of an interest of being a better Rider, a better citizen. She had no honors in that field and didn't hope to. So with the weight of the papers in her arms, Vera was tempted to tell her brother to read them himself. She much prefered the weight that came with a sword.
The empty eyes of the captain stared from the ceiling. His body turned slightly as the ship leaned left.
Faxril's face broke out into a smile. It was a quiet thing. A slight thing. Vera felt uncomfortable, suddenly, for no reason other than that smile.
"You were correct. I do not need you for your sword, though it was immensely helpful. Your eyes have always been superior to mine. Tell me what you find."
"And you?" Vera asked.
"I am going to make sure this ship does not sink so that I have a souvenir to bring to Axis Betelgeuse," Faxril said. He stepped out from behind the desk and moved toward the door. Though his men were running the halls now, he was still cautious in opening it for her.
Vera slung the sack over her shoulder to free her sword arm. She frowned at her brother, who had not lost his smile in their conversation, and passed through to the corridor. The ship groaned as the wind shoved at it. She could feel the cold coming in from below. Vera tried not to swallow as she moved toward the steps, for topside. The taste was familiar now, though she'd never been in a sea battle before. Nostariel River, water that should have been fresh and clean, had tasted like blood, like salt and rain. She nearly drowned choking on that taste, holding Alatariel up or to the side when the rocks appeared in the rushing white water. How was it that the river followed her out to sea? Was that the curse of coming back out of the water? That it kept reaching inside of her life?
Vera pulled at her mask as she ascended, as the storm pushed and pulled at her body on deck. Faxril's men were tossing corpses overboard and chaining up those that lived. She wanted to vomit, but could only spit. It did little for the taste. And even less for the ghosts.