Killers, Traitors, & Runaways: Outcasts of the Worlds, Book II Page 21

  “And what happens now?” he asked. “Where do you go from here?”

  “I run. Till old and bloody gray, and even then.”

  When Flynn nodded at her confession, she thought he might leave, right then and there. Instead, he glanced back at his unseen companion and asked her to wait “just a minute,” before giving Shea his full attention once more. “Whatever happens next, you’ll be fighting for your life?”

  “Seems that way.” Her heart had steadily calmed. She could almost laugh about it. “Gone back, survived, might have seen peaceful days. That’s shot, innit?”

  Flynn considered her words, nodding in agreement. His hand flinched, and he seemed reticent to do something with it. Finally, he sighed in defeat and extended it for her to take. “I can give you something to fight for.”

  Shea didn’t want to fight at all. But the alternative was to run, deny who she was forever, and do it all alone, or among people who would never really know her. She was tired of hiding to survive and at last reached out and clasped Flynn’s hand with her own.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: True Allegiances

  The smoke pillowed softly into the dawn sky, and it guided Jean long before she could see the distant campfire it heralded. It comforted her to see their companions when they drew near enough, the four gathered around the dancing flames.

  “Been days since I … ditched,” Jean commented. “They ain’t pissed with me, are they?”

  “They’ll look past,” Shea assured. “Didn’t leave in a bind, came back ’fore things got hot. More welcome than I’d be, promise that.”

  “Chariska and Zaja worried the most,” he told her. “Poe…”

  “Still a dickhead, got it.”

  “Zella has been keeping her distance. Try not to take it personally.”

  It had been almost two days since they’d reconciled. They could have rejoined the others in one, but Trynan soldiers were scouring the countryside in search of stragglers from the Cavonish forces. They’d spent hours in hiding, Shea shaking all the while, trying to calm her nerves and repeating to herself, “Not here for me. Not here for me.”

  The sun had peeked over the western mountains by the time the three reached the campsite, and Chari was the first to run to them; she swiftly threw her arms around Jean, who stumbled back in surprise.

  “I feared never seeing you again,” Chari said.

  “Uh, hey, Chari,” Jean replied, hesitantly patting her friend’s back. “And same here, I guess. Glad yer okay.”

  Chari gave one last squeeze before disengaging, and Jean felt a mixture of relief and guilt. If she hadn’t returned, she’d have never felt this sense of appreciation, but it also meant she’d doubted the authenticity of their friendships.

  “I found her back at the manor,” Flynn explained. “Should’ve gotten on my way sooner, but leaving wasn’t as easy as I thought.”

  “I’d have waited, had I known—” Chari started apologetically.

  “No sweat off my back,” Jean replied dismissively. “Job to do. I know the score. Worked out for us anyway—look what we found.”

  Shea, who’d kept aside until now, intruded and raised her hand in greeting. “’Ello, again.”

  “You’ve fallen into our ranks?” Chari asked.

  “Seems so.”

  Shea couldn’t take her eyes off Chari. She had given the same treatment to Jean during their recent journey, as though she were trying to identify all the things that made them different from her.

  “Is something the matter?” Chari asked.

  “Ah, sorry.” Shea turned red with embarrassment. “Just … really looking for the first time.”

  Chari smiled gracefully and said nothing, guiding the trio past the wagon resting on the side of the road to a small clearing in the grasses, and the campfire dancing within.

  “Mind the noise,” she requested. “Some are still at rest.”

  Zella stirred a pot of stew with tired disinterest and gave Jean a token nod, as though she’d merely returned from a morning walk. Zaja and Poe were both fast asleep, resting against a nearby tree. As they settled in, Chari looked Jean in the eyes and smiled.

  “I feared you would not return. The malice between Flynn and yourself has been sorted then?”

  Jean looked to Flynn, who offered no response, so she gave Chari an embellished shrug and said, “Kinda? Eh?”

  Chari look dismayed, but tried to put on a bright smile. “At least we’ve come together again.”

  Jean couldn’t agree more.

  *

  Another fourteen days passed before they reached the mountains that stood between them and the shipbuilders of Kin-Kin. While there were safe and stable paths through, Shea warned against them—such trails were frequented by Trynan soldiers venturing to and from the Inland Sea. They instead took a forgotten trail, hidden in the brush, whose steep and rugged surface overlooked a chasm of jagged stones below.

  Every step felt like a struggle to Poe. The air was thinner here, and he found himself hyperventilating within the first hours, and scorning the pitying eyes of his companions. He left his father’s blade and cloak in the wagon to lighten his load, but refused to ride in it himself, for that would have been the final admission of weakness.

  On the second day, the trail became so narrow that their wagon slipped, and Mr. Prim-Prim began bleating in terror as he fought to keep from begin dragged down with it. Poe quickly scrambled onto the outer slope and pressed his backside against the wheel to keep their supplies from crashing down. The distance to the bottom was dizzying, and if the soil gave way here, he would suffer an ignominious end.

  By the time the crisis was averted, Poe’s body was wracked with pain from the muscles he’d torn and strained, but he could do nothing for it until nightfall. When they made camp, Poe saw he was not the only one the day had taken its toll upon, and he felt contempt for their ignorant steed, whom Zella pampered as though it were the only one that had suffered.

  Zella herself glowed softly in the darkness, patting the beast as it chewed vacantly on its feed. She brings nothing to our struggle, Poe thought to himself. I could strangle her within minutes and leave her body to the slopes.

  Poe felt no hesitation in approaching, and Zella didn’t notice until he was right upon her. Poe reached out, and his hand found the ridged back of Mr. Prim-Prim and came to rest on one of its many horns.

  “You are an albatross,” he accused. “You contribute nothing to our cause, and the first sight of you from our enemies will bring hell upon us once more.”

  When she replied, it was as though she were speaking to the wind, rather than Poe himself. “What aid I provide or not is my own business. Have you forgotten, Guardian? I am here as a witness. I am not one of you.”

  “Then you should keep better distance. Even by being, you meddle in our affairs.” Poe rounded the steed and stared into Zella’s radiant eyes. They burned brightest in the dark. “A poor witness indeed. You claim independence, yet feed from our stock and barter our protection.”

  “If I pretend to be less involved, you pretend to be more than you are,” she replied, her tone soft yet accusatory. “You call them allies now, but would toss them aside the moment you become something greater.”

  “It is my divine right,” Poe hissed. “I do not cower from the role I am asked to play: I embrace it.”

  Zella smiled, amused by some unspoken joke. “We are so utterly opposed. I have harmed no one, yet millions clamor for my suicide on faith it will better their lives. You have ruined hundreds, yet my same devotees would place you on a pedestal, for you’re more useful to them alive and empowered.” She glanced back toward the campfire. “I live knowing millions wish me dead every day. Forgive that I have less love for the six who selfishly want me alive.”

  Poe wrung one of Mr. Prim-Prim’s horns in his hand. “You’ve managed to find one exception.”

  Zella nodded as she patted the creature’s head. “I find more sympathy for innocent victims of circumstance
. Harbor no illusions about you or your ‘friends’: you all chose this life.”

  Poe’s blood ran hot at Zella’s contempt for him, and it took a great deal of nerve to turn away. He returned to the fire, the Bagwell girl glancing at him as he took his seat on an uncomfortable stone. “You’re a soldier, yes?” he asked. “How many have you killed?”

  Shea’s glance said she found the question rude and inappropriate, and she didn’t answer right away. She poked the fading fire with a stick, and waited until the flames found new life. “Eight.”

  Poe suppressed the urge to laugh. “As a soldier?”

  “As a soldier, twat,” she confirmed. “Already too many. Fought with mates who killed twice, three times that. Might fancy their company more?”

  Zella’s barbs still stung Poe, and for all the lives he’d taken, the shame was new and vexing. Visiting Selif had been his first peek into the repercussions of death, and he was searching for an insight that differed from his own.

  “How do you live with it?”

  “Got no choice,” she replied. “Nightmares. Fits of panic. Don’t want to die—know that much. I soldier on.” She looked Poe over, then added, “Tried to off me, our first meet. Seems you deal alright.”

  Poe felt discomfited by her observation. “Violence became the only way I knew,” he admitted. “It’s … not easy to rise above.”

  “Bad habit?” Shea asked as she plucked a cigarette from her case and stuck it near the flame. “Pisser of one to break.”

  “I’d be a better man if I did.”

  “Never sleep a decent night again, either.”

  That night, Poe dreamt of his first victim, and woke wondering if in her final moments she resented him, or appreciated the weight of his sacrifice. He drew the Dark Sword in reminiscence, admiring its oily surface in the moonlight, and felt proud for having gone so many days without killing. To hold it felt more like reward than relief.

  *

  It was several more days’ journey and as many hazardous bouts with the wagon, but as Shea struggled to hold up one of the wheels, it all seemed worth it. They were near the end and at the mountain’s highest point when she saw the valley of trees that stretched from the ridge’s base to the edge of the inland sea. There was a city on the coast, barely visible in the distance.

  “Yo, Ali,” Jean grunted from the other side of the wagon. “That where we’re headin’?”

  “That’s Kin-Kin,” Shea confirmed.

  Where the climb had been strenuous, the descent was tedious. The road sloped hard and they had to travel in small, steady steps, guiding the wagon down all the while. By mid-morning the next day, things had finally stabilized and Shea could afford to return from real fears to imagined ones. There had been no sign of the military, but every time Shea thought she saw a person, she was terrified it was Sergeant Bodang, or another member of the 13th Division in pursuit of her.

  “There’s nothing you need fear,” Chari said consolingly. And she was right. All was peaceful, and they were alone save for the distant woodsmen who harvested material for Kin-Kin’s principal product. Everyone around her seemed comfortable and secure.

  But she didn’t feel any better, nor did her fears quiet.

  Coming to Kin-Kin meant saying goodbye to a great many things. As a little girl, Shea had been promised a visit to the city of shipbuilders, but the promised day never came. When she finally saw it for herself, the city was stouter than imagined, and disappointingly overextended. The buildings disappeared some distance before the shore, where nearly a dozen incomplete ships occupied wooden carriages, waiting for the day they could be wheeled into the waters.

  Even before they could pursue a vessel of their own, preparations had to be made. They secured temporary storage of their supplies and sold off the wagon and Mr. Prim-Prim. Zella did not take this farewell lightly, and spent some time hugging the steed before letting go.

  When they came to the shipyard to survey their options, the vessels under construction were all far too big.

  “Even were these complete, they would demand more manpower than we have to operate,” Chari observed. “I am skeptical we can even acquire a vessel, let alone the crew needed to man it.”

  “Be rough, but I could teach,” Shea said to them. “Still,” she agreed, “need one smaller.”

  Zaja was looking through the ribs and pointed at a distant vessel, docked at a coastal residence. “How about that one?” she suggested. “That one seems a little more us-sized.”

  Shea shook her head. “Query is, will the builder part?”

  “Anyone can be convinced,” Flynn replied. “Let’s learn their name, to start.”

  Within the hour, the locals had informed them that the builder was one Prenioux Brecks, whose work by reputation focused on speed more than endurance. His ships were primarily employed as scout ships and strike vessels and were not favored for protracted naval battles or, Shea suspected, ocean storms. She’d have preferred something slower but hardier, but there were no other suitable vessels at port.

  Prenioux Brecks’s offices were not particularly large, and she and Flynn entered alone to meet him. Brecks was sitting at his desk studying a set of blueprints when they entered. A stack of papers sat on a nearby table, layered with sawdust. The room was a far cry from well-kept, but the bitter looking man seemed too busy to bother tending his surroundings.

  “Aye? What you two want?”

  “We, ah … hello.” Shea faltered.

  “My associate and I would like to procure a ship,” Flynn said with cold efficiency.

  “If you’re looking to hire a build, come back in six months,” Brecks replied with an insulting laugh. “Mayhap the war will be over by then.”

  This didn’t deter Flynn, who continued as though Brecks had never spoken. “Specifically, we want the one outside. Tonight, if possible.”

  “That’s a Trynan military vessel, boy,” Brecks replied, his sense of humor departing. “Even if you had what it’s worth—”

  Flynn produced a small bag, tossing it before Brecks. As it slid through the sawdust and its recipient peeked inside, Shea realized what it contained: the remaining den Vier family jewels, save one. She fingered the ring tucked inside her coat pocket instinctively.

  Brecks, however, was unimpressed. “Not a bad start, but hardly enough for a ship. You really want to sail troubled waters that badly?”

  “We’re in something of a hurry.”

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” Brecks said as he sighed in resignation. For a moment, Shea’s eyes widened, believing they might just get what they were asking for. Brecks tossed the small bag in his hand, feeling the weight of it. “I’ll start work for you on the side. This won’t cover everything, mind, but consider this a down payment. Right?”

  “Go on,” Flynn prompted.

  “One second, need to fetch my ledger.” Brecks exited the room.

  “What’re you doing?” Shea hissed once they were alone. “Even with the coin, be months ’fore we sail.”

  “I’m buying us more time,” Flynn said. “Brecks is a businessman first, and his loyalties are not as ironclad as he’ll claim. If we had something sufficient to buy him off, that ship would already be ours. Even so, there may be something he wants. Something we can provide.”

  “He’s a greedy sod. Wants money.”

  “He wants something worth ‘losing’ a valued military scout ship over, and whatever damage his reputation may suffer as a result.”

  Shea couldn’t fathom why Flynn kept the conversation going when Brecks returned—they had nothing to offer. Entering into a deal meant staying in Kin-Kin and risking discovery; stealing the ship meant risking pursuit.

  What would we offer that he could possibly want? Shea wondered. But she already knew the answer, and as she looked at Flynn, she wondered if he’d seen right through her. Shea clutched the ring she concealed, and realized that where she was heading, it had no worth. It was valuable only on Keltia, and the lure of distant wo
rlds was a fruit too succulent to deny. Who she really was didn’t matter anywhere but home, and she’d committed to saying goodbye forever.

  “Got something to offer,” she interrupted. “Sweeten the pot, as it were.”

  “Miss, ‘less those pistols you carry make people bleed diamonds—”

  “No,” she replied with a fake laugh. She reached into her coat and revealed the papers she’d stolen from den Vier Manor. “Just these. And this.” Beside them, she set the ring. The sawdust received it like a pillow, and she knew after today, she would never see its emblem again.

  Brecks cautiously picked up the papers and skimmed over them. “What’s this now…? Writ of ownership … inheritance papers … this a birth record?”

  “Mine,” she replied. “Name’s Alicea den Vier. Survived my family’s execution years ago. As sole heir, manor and surrounding grounds are mine to give.”

  Brecks stared at her, dumbfounded. If Flynn felt similarly, he concealed it well. Shea looked out the window where her new ship was anchored. It seemed a poor trade at first, but there was more value in a ship that could carry her to freedom than in the home she scarcely remembered living in. Whether Brecks claimed the land now or after the war, whether he restored the manor or burnt it to the ground, she no longer cared. If Mother Bagwell ever woke up, if her sons returned from war, they would be the only ones who knew. And they would confess nothing.

  She turned back, and Brecks was still looking at her in stunned disbelief. Finally, Flynn leaned in and whispered in his ear: “I’d take the deal.”

  *

  The climate was ideal for theft. Dark clouds had drifted over Kin-Kin that same afternoon, and late into the night, neither of Keltia’s twin moons could be seen. Though a transaction had taken place, they were still going to have to steal the ship, for Brecks had no real authority to give it away. What the den Vier lands bought was his cooperation, as well as potable water and other supplies for the voyage, and a window of time without another soul around who might raise an alarm.