“They’re late,” said Jaeryn, apparently un-fazed by the recent re-aligning of the city. “If they don’t deliver, Drake can’t blame us can he?”
It took Jez a moment to realise that Jaeryn was asking her. She shrugged. “They’ll be here, Jae. People don’t tend to survive pissing off Drake Morrass and not delivering his cargo would be a good way to do just that.”
“Sure, sure. It’s just it’s good pay, really good. Maybe even enough to… you know, move up a class. Get my family, get us all out of the Breakers.”
The Breakers was the nickname given to the very outskirts of the city of Soromo. Those districts tended to be newer and less-well maintained. The ravages of the Emerald Sea and its accompanying elements were worst out in the breakers and it was not unheard of for people, especially children, to go missing, either from falling into the waters never to be seen again, stolen by one of the beasts that called the sea its home and only came up from the depths to feed, or even the occasional kidnapping.
Slavery is only illegal if you get caught
, Jez mused to herself.
And children fetch a high price. Easier to train to be docile.
Jaeryn had latched onto the idea of working for Drake, dreaming he could secure himself some more permanent work in Soromo, work that would pay better. The man wanted the best for his family and though Jezzet could understand she was not so certain that working for Drake Morrass was the way to achieve his goal.
“Is that them?” Sal asked, pointing a finger towards the open water. He looked far from comfortable with the way the city was still rocking.
It was a wide boat, low and heavy in the water and rowed by a number of people. Jez made a quick count of six oarsmen and a man with a monoscope standing at the fore of the little boat. He was big and no mistake but by the colour of his skin and the slant of his eyes he was no doubt a native to the empire.
As the boat pulled closer Jez could see the cargo shack, a small room no more than ten feet long and wide sat at the back of the boat. It was an outdated boat design but not one she was unused to seeing. Sails were not used on the waters of the Emerald Sea and to even think of raising canvas in the city of Soromo was a good way to find out what the dungeon looked like. Though Jez had never been there herself she had it on good authority that it was wet and to be a permanent resident you'd need to be able to hold your breath for a very long time.
“Nobody say or do anything to mess this up,” Jaeryn said, all his usual smiles long gone now.
Sal gave Jez a poignant look. “I think he’s talking to you, Vel’urn.”
As the little cargo boat drew closer the oars stopped rowing, the men attached to them taking a grateful rest from the strain of pulling against the water.
“Which one of you is Jaeryn?” called the big man standing at the fore of the boat. He’d put away his monoscope, revealing a light pair of wire-glass spectacles giving him a learned appearance. Though close enough to talk the boat still floated outside of boarding distance. If Jezzet and the others did want to get aboard without permission they’d be taking a dip in the Emerald Sea along the way. Now she could see the man up close she had to admit he was ugly as all the hells with only a horseshoe of mud-brown hair around his head that managed to make it look altogether too small for his body.
“That’d be me,” Jae shouted back. “We all set to go.”
The man on the boat studied the little guard crew for a while, his eyes lingering on Jez for an period of time that bordered on being rude to the point of an insult, before nodding his assent and ordering his rowers to take them a bit closer to land and then shipping the oars in favour of the poles that were often used to navigate Soromo’s waterways.
Jezzet was first aboard when the boat touched dry land. She hopped over the little railing and stood face to face with the man in command. She squared her shoulders, adopted a smirk and stepped aside as Sally leapt onto the boat. The Five Kingdomer was taller than the boat man but not by much.
Definitely broader though, the man in charge may be tall but his bulk’s gone to fat. Not even a challenge, if it comes down to it.
An ingrained response Jezzet had learned at Yuri’s command early on in her training was to assess the potential threat and combat ability of everyone.
“Assess and re-assess,” the old bastard always used to say. “See everyone, watch everyone. Know which ones you can kill and which ones you can’t and any that you can’t watch and learn why not.”
It was good advice and no mistake, it had saved her life on more than one occasion and Jez would happily put money on it saving her many times again before her time was through. Some part of her deep down registered at times like this that it might be worth her taking on an apprentice of her own one day but she knew that could only ever end one of two ways; either she’d kill the apprentice for not being good enough or they would be good enough and would end up killing her. As neither of the two prospects appealed she had consciously taken the decision to delay the process for somewhere close to forever.
Once they were all aboard Jaeryn took the boat man aside and they spent a few minutes arguing in dramatically hushed voices. Jez watched, out of earshot, with a forced casualness.
Drake promised a fight. A real fight. Certainly not going to be from any of these lot.
Jez found herself hoping the boat would get underway again soon. The sooner she got to flex her sword arm the happier she would be. She was full of a nervous sort of energy, excitement mixed with anticipation, the same feeling she got when she saw Thanquil only for very different reasons.
She knew she couldn’t trust Drake Morrass, knew she had no reason to believe he had been telling the truth even for one second but none of that mattered. She was pent up, ready to explode and ready to sate her desire on the first target that presented itself. As the boat finally pushed away from the district into the waterway Jez found herself once again standing at the front of a boat, with her foot on the railing, her hand on her sword and a wild grin lighting her face.
The attack came sooner than she anticipated and it seemed none but Jezzet were expecting it. The whistle warned her the arrow was coming a moment before she saw the shaft. Jez had no time to dodge the deadly missile but then she didn’t need to, it flew past her and she heard Sal scream in pain.
Jez risked only the barest glance behind her to assess his condition. He was down on his right knee with the arrow protruding from the meat of his left thigh. The head had passed clean through the flesh and stuck out the other side.
Small mercies. Apparently it’s a lot worse if it hits bone.
Jez had never been hit by an arrow herself, one of the few weapons she hadn’t experienced the business end of, but she had been around enough folk who had and knew as well as any and better than most how to deal with such a wound.
“Snap off the ends and pull it through,” she called behind, turning her eyes back to the front, scanning the nearby buildings and looking for the archers. The arrow had come from a fair way in front of them, it seemed they were floating right into a trap. Her blade sang a beautiful harmony as it slid from its sheath. It was a work of art even Yuri would have been proud to own. A straight single-edged blade folded hundreds of times in the style that only the smiths of the Dragon Empire knew. Those same smiths boasted their swords were sharp enough to cut through rock and, though Jez wouldn’t normally believe such a claim, she had seen it done. The charms along it were Thanquil’s addition. Six of them and etched painstakingly in his own hand. Never had anyone given Jez such a beautiful gift and the night he had given it to her she had repaid him many times.
Another arrow flew out of the murky darkness from in front of the boat and to her left. The shaft went well wide and plopped into the waters that surrounded them.
Sal grunted and gasped in pain as the shaft was pulled free from his leg and even without looking Jez knew Lei would be ministering to the wound. The silent man wasn’t nearly so good at fixing people up as her but Jezzet wasn’t about to waste time tending to someone mid-battle.
“Turn the boat around,” Jaeryn ordered. “It’s a trap!”
“Belay that,” shouted the boat man, his cheeks as red as a slapped arse. “We keep on through. They’ll have to board us if they want the prize and then it’s a fight on our terms. That’s why you’re here isn’t it? Harder, boys. Push harder. Get us through or we’re all target practice.”
Another arrow whistled and ended with a wet
thud
as it found the bared chest of an oarsman. He went down silent as only the dead can be and the men either side of him picked up the slack and poled even harder. Another arrow flew out of the darkness, almost level with them now, and stuck in the deck, harmless.
Jezzet sucked at her teeth.
“What is it?” Jaeryn asked her, his voice hushed and his stance low and ready.
Jezzet glanced at him and cocked an eyebrow. “There’s only one of them and they’re a fucking bad shot.”
“Only one?”
She nodded slowly. Another arrow arced over their heads and landed somewhere in the district to their right. “And they’re a fucking bad shot.”
A last arrow flew out of the darkness and buried itself in the wall of the cargo cabin. Jezzet heard a squeak but she didn’t have time to investigate.
“Boats!” the boat man shouted. Pointing ahead of them as if there were anywhere else they could be coming from. They were in a particularly straight stretch of water wedged in between two large districts, one primarily warehouse and one residential and there wasn’t a turning in sight in front or behind.
Jezzet counted three boats, little more than rafts really, each carrying no more than four assailants and they all looked to be well armed and dressed all in black with their faces covered.
“Eleven men,” Jaeryn said as he stepped up beside Jez. She detected the hint of a tremble in his voice.
“Twelve,” Jezzet corrected him. “The archer is still out there somewhere.”
Jaeryn nodded and she saw him look behind. “Not sure how much use the others will be, Sal’s pretty badly hurt and the oarsmen…” Jez heard a splash. “Well two of them have decided to swim for it. How many can you handle?”
Jez laughed. “All of them.” The boats were closer, she guessed they’d be within boarding distance inside of a minute. Jez stepped away from the edge of the boat and crossed towards the centre of the vessel. The boat man stood, large and sweaty, with a dagger in his hand that looked comically small.
“That’s… uh… reassuring,” Jaeryn said as he followed her. “But really…”
Jez could hear a soft whimpering coming from somewhere, barely audible over the sound of the boats moving through the water, Sal’s sharp intake of breath and the rapid praying of one of the rowers. Somewhere behind them a man screamed and then the noise was cut off rapidly. Strange creatures hunted the waterways at night and the swimmers seemed to have found one of them.
A three pronged grappling hook looped over the side of the boat and pulled taut. Something heavy and solid bumped against the front of the boat. Jez relaxed into a fluid combat stance, light on her feet, ready to move.
“Try not to get in my way,” she said quietly.
Jaeryn looked at her. “Huh?”
A hand appeared on the railing to her left and Jez was already moving by the time the man jumped up, pushing himself over the lip onto the deck. The little rafts were lower down in the water and the attackers would have to open themselves up to attack as they boarded. The first man learned the hard way just how vulnerable boarding made him. There was no point stabbing the man, Jezzet hated to do it but in this situation it was easier to wound him and allow the things in the water to finish the poor bastard. Her blade flicked out, quick as a lightning flash and took off his right arm at the elbow. He toppled backwards, staring at but not comprehending the stump at the end of his right arm. Jezzet had already turned away by the time she heard the splash of the newly-maimed hitting the water.
Two more of the masked assailants vaulted onto the boat and Jez knew more would be following. The closest rushed her, closing the scant feet between them in moments. Jez flowed to her left, moving around the cut of the man’s sword and found herself face-to-face with another of the attackers. She ducked the second man’s wild attack, stepped backwards and blocked another thrust from the first.
Jez twisted her wrist, locking the man’s sword against his chest and brought her left knee up, striking him in his kidney. The unlucky assailant went down on one knee and Jez both pushed, span and stepped away all in one easy motion. Her sword cut through the man’s throat as easy as it did the air and blood sprayed onto the deck of the little boat.
She glimpsed Jaeryn and Lei backing towards the aft of the little boat, two of the black-clad men waving swords at them. A guard crew they may be but Jez’s friends were not used to real fighting, they were little more than hired thugs and were far less than capable of standing up to trained warriors. An arrow slipped out of the darkness, narrowly missing Lei and burying itself in one of the oarsman.
Jez broke from her opponents into a run that none of them expected. She leapt between Jaeryn and Lei’s attackers, her sword flicking first left, then right and both went down hard. The first man was dead before he hit the deck but the second gurgled out a bloody moan before dying. Her own opponents were close behind her so Jez stepped forward to meet them, putting herself between them and her friends.
Her blade was a blur, blocking once right and another left. Both men were taller than her, both had reach to their advantage but neither was a match for an experienced Blademaster. Jez feinted right, ducked left and with a downward slice took the man’s leg off at the ankle. He never had time to scream, Jez’s back-swing rent a gouge along his face and her sword met the next man’s with a glorious ring of metal on metal.
I should remember to thank Drake.
The man made a grab for Jezzet’s hair but the fool underestimated her strength. The moment he took his left hand from the hilt of his sword Jez pushed, crushing through his defence, she forced his sword down and thrust, twisted and withdrew. The man continued to spurt blood from his wound long after he was dead and Jez was left with five opponents.