“How are we getting out of here?” she asked.
The pirate grinned. “We wait.”
“For what?”
“Chaos.”
After Jez agreed to participate in the escape Drake refused to elaborate on the plan and fell uncharacteristically silent. Frustrating was the only word Jez could think of to describe it but it was a word that did not do her feelings justice.
It’ll be a fucking miracle if you don’t end up killing that man, Jez.
She thought to herself but she knew she wouldn’t, right now she needed him but even more than that she needed to know his motives. He had implicated her in a crime that would sentence them both to death despite it never having taken place and now he intended to free her from prison so they could run away and be forever banished from the Dragon Empire. Something didn’t add up and Drake’s refusal to satisfy her curiosity only served to make her all the more curious.
“It’s time,” Drake said eventually stepping up to the bars of his cell and taking a firm grip.
Jez got to her feet and gave the pirate a sceptical look. “You going to bend the bars? The cast iron bars…”
Drake looked at her with a grave expression. “You might want to hold on to something.”
“Why?”
Then the world realigned itself. The whole dungeon tipped to its side so far that all the water and Jezzet with it lost grip on the floor and crashed to the stone wall hard enough to make all of her injuries scream in pain and her with them. Somewhere nearby Jez heard an almighty crack followed by the sound of gushing water. A part of her registered how incredibly dangerous that sound was but her mind was stuck trying to figure out what had just happened.
Still lying flat against the wall of her cell Jezzet gasped, the stale air of the dungeon rushing back into her body. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw water rushing past her, flowing into the dungeon and rolling past her towards their one and only exit.
If she had thought she had experienced a strut shift before, this one taught her the error of her ways. For such a pronounced shift to occur half the city must have been sitting at an angle, the destruction and panic would be on a scale she dare not even imagine. It occurred to her that a good portion of the city might now be underwater. It would be chaos both inside and out and would provide the opportune moment to escape.
Jez struggled to her feet, balanced at an angle between the wall and the floor. She heard a grunt and a moment later Drake Morrass grabbed hold of the bars to her cell, somehow freed from his own he had leapt the gap over to her.
“You knew this would happen. How?” she accused.
He grinned, already at the door to her cell and fiddling with the lock. “Is that really important right now?” There was another crack and a stone crashed along the floor along with even more water rushing down towards the exit of their prison. “I think we have more pressing concerns.” He looked at her. “Now before I let you out, how about a kiss?”
Jez glared at him.
“Worth a try.” Drake pulled the door to her cell open with a clang and clambered down a short way to give her room to pull herself out of her cell. “Now I should probably have asked this before but, you do know how to swim?”
Jez shrugged. “Point where you want to go and kick.”
“Good enough. Follow me.” With that Drake let go of the bars and dropped into the growing pool of water at the bottom of the dungeon.
Jez waited a few moments but the pirate didn’t re-surface.
The prison was filling up quickly now and Jez had no intention of drowning here or anywhere. She sighed, took a deep breath and let go, dropping into the pool just inches from where Drake had taken the plunge.
Cold water assaulted her on all sides and Jez lost discipline, her body gasping despite her fervent orders against just that. The Emerald Sea rushed into her lungs and she panicked, kicking and thrashing in the dark wet. Then she felt air on her face. She coughed and spluttered and tried to gather her bearings. She was still in the prison, in the gathering pool and that meant she needed to dive down to find the exit. Another great crack sounded from somewhere above her and Jez needed no more encouragement. She put her head down, her arse in the air and kicked, pulling herself through the water, hoping she could find the exit.
She saw a blurry Drake-shaped image in front of her and steered towards it. The blur looked to be waving at her and then it turned and swam away, Jez followed as quickly as she could and tried not to think of all the blood thirsty monsters that called the Emerald Sea their home. Water was their element but it was most certainly not hers.
Jez followed the Drake-blur up a small set of stairs that bent back on themselves and through a near pitch-black room then up another similar set of stairs before he disappeared from view. Again panic started to set in, compounded by the lurching of her lungs as they rebelled, insisting that she was suffocating and attempting to trick her by claiming she could breathe water.
Her face broke the surface of the water and Jez gasped on instinct long before her eyes cleared enough to focus. Strong hands grabbed her underneath her arms and helped pull her out of the water and she collapsed on top of someone, gasping for air and coughing up water in equal measure. Dimly she was aware that they were still on a distinct slant and it was only by the effort of the person she was collapsed upon that she wasn’t rolling down the floor of the room.
Jez wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand as she coughed up the last of the water and looked about herself. She was lying on top of Drake who, it had to be said, looked good wet. He was grinning at her and returning the look. Jez realised she was still wearing somewhere close to very little and what she was wearing was clinging to her. She felt something move beneath her and Drake gave her a wink.
Rolling off the aroused pirate Jez struggled to her feet, slipping once but managing to stand up in the distinctly slanting room. A paper lantern hung from the roof at a dangerous angle, still alight and giving the room an eerie blue tint. The room seemed to be a antechamber with a weapon rack attached the wall and two guards piled in a corner between the wall and the floor each with their throats well and truly slit. Jez glanced at Drake with a cocked eyebrow.
The pirate coughed. “What luck, the guards appear to have conveniently committed suicide. It’ll be sometime before our escape is reported.” He looked back at the stairwell from which they had come. “Or they might just assume we drowned. Either way, we should go.”
Jez started towards the weapon rack. The swords there were curved and not her favourite style but they were sharp and Blademaster without a blade was a master of nothing.
“Leave those,” Drake ordered, already struggling towards the entrance to the corridor. “Weapons will only draw attention. Best folk just think of us as harmless foreigners attempting to escape the mayhem.”
Jez thought about it for a moment then relented, following the pirate and praying to all the nameless Gods he knew where he was going.
Drake hadn’t been wrong when he said he was waiting for chaos and, though Jezzet still didn’t know how he had predicted the strut shift, he certainly got chaos. There was evidence everywhere of the violent and destructive change in orientation. Water was everywhere as was the dark smoke that always accompanied uncontrolled fire. Distantly Jezzet heard people screaming and others shouting for help or giving orders, they passed people in the corridors who were in obvious shock, some curled up in balls muttering to themselves, others running about frantically with no thought of purpose, but they stopped to help no one. They had a mission and that mission was saving their own hides, Jezzet was more than happy to let the people of Soromo fend for themselves. She had had enough of this city weeks ago and now she was finally leaving though not, as she had imagined, with Thanquil.
She let Drake lead the way and he did so happily, steering them through hallways and occasionally short-cutting through rooms when fallen debris blocked their way. He checked behind him from time to time, no doubt making sure Jez was still following and giving the odd word of encouragement. Jezzet laboured on in silence. Wet and miserable pretty much encompassed how she currently felt and no amount of forced cheer from her accuser and saviour was likely to lift the sullen mood she found herself in.
Eventually Drake battered down a wooden door now sitting slanted in its frame and they were outside. Crisp air, dark and heavy with a spitting rain greeted them with invigorated gusto and it set Jez to shivering which in turn set all of her aches and pains to aching and causing pain.
Drake took a deep, overly-dramatic breath and let it out with a happy sigh. “Told ya I’d get us out.”
Jez considered leaving the pirate and running off, finding Thanquil and begging him to believe her, to run with her but she couldn’t be sure he would, couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t turn her back into the empress’ custody. The idea that she no longer knew whether she could trust him hurt more than any of her physical wounds and she wagered it did little to make her engaging company but Drake showed no signs of disappointment.
Even from their low vantage point with the water of the Emerald Sea lapping up onto the covered walkways and the nearby garden completely submerged, Jez could see the city was a mess. Some sections leaned at awkward and unreal angles so much so that she couldn’t see how the buildings remained standing, other sections seemed to be almost unaffected. It was as if half the struts in the city had shifted and the other half had remained as before. It was almost like looking at the whole city sideways.
Fires were raging in many parts of the city. Entire buildings had gone up in flames and black smoke belched into the dark sky in giant plumes. People were everywhere. Soldiers, commoners, merchants, thieves and nobility all forgetting their rigid class structure and pitching in to put out fires, clear debris, save loved ones, all labouring to bring order back to their beloved city. Even the women were helping in whatever ways they could though they kept the voluminous clothing wrapped tightly about themselves.
Boats were out in force, everything from the small skiffs and rafts to the giant pleasure barges and cargo haulers. They ferried the wounded to safer areas, brought more people to help and evacuated folk from sections that seemed all but lost.
The Emerald Sea is swallowing the city. Has Drake doomed everyone just to free himself… and me?
A small boat, no more than twenty feet long and poled by a man in a dark coat with a hood pulled up so his face was invisible, bumped onto the wooden walkway nearby. It was crewed by three more men all similarly dressed to the poleman. Drake strode over to greet them.
“Perfect timing,” he said with his usual golden grin.
“To the minute, Captain,” said the poleman. He was a broad man, thick with muscle and long, dirty-blonde hair that hung in wet clumps around his hooded face. “Brought ya coat an’ hat.”
Drake took the coat and swept it over his shoulders, buttoning the royal blue great coat in a swift motion. Then he took the well-used tri-corn hat, gave it a courtesy dusting and affixed it atop his head. For the first time since Jez had met Drake he actually looked like the legendary pirate everyone thought him to be.
And it suits him well.
“Thank you, Princess,” Drake said to the poleman with a wink.
Jez snorted out a laugh. Both men gave her a curious look.
“You call all your crew, Princess?” she asked the pirate.
“Only the ones whose name it is,” Drake replied with a straight face.
“Your name is Princess?” she said smirking. “Your dad must really have wanted a girl.”
Princess did not look amused. His jaw was clenched and his brow well and truly furrowed. He spat once on the wooden deck and looked to Drake. “Captain?”
Drake shrugged. “You’re welcome to try but I don’t rate your chances, Princess. She’s tougher than she looks… And she looks pretty tough already.”
Princess nodded and gave Jez an appraising look. “Me ma’ gave me the name an’ I’d thank ya not to besmirch her memory. That and,” the man drew a sword from its scabbard attached to his belt, Jez’s sword, the same one Thanquil had given to her and Drake had rescued, “if you take the piss again you’ll not get this fancy bit of metal back.”
Worth being civil to get it back, Jez. Best sword you’ve ever owned. Not to mention…
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Princess held the sword for a moment longer before re-sheathing it and handing it to her. Jezzet took it gladly and only wished she had a belt upon which to attach it. She might have lost Thanquil but she’d be damned before she’d lose the sword he gave her again.
“Excellent. Glad we’re all being civil about this,” Drake said looking up at the sky. “I’d say we have about two hours.”
“Less,” said Princess. “Storms moving fast.”
“And we really don’t want to be here when it hits,” Drake concluded. “Storms like this come along once every decade or so. Fair to say Soromo has not seen the last of its sorrow this night.
“Princess, take the pole. Boys, un-ship those oars. You too, Jezzet.”
She looked at him incredulous.
“I don’t care how much you pout, even if it does make you stunning, nobody gets a free ride on any of my boats no matter how small they might be. You either row or you swim.”
Jez gave him a dark look but relented, clambering onto the little skiff, sat down next to one of the pirates and picked up one of the oars.
How hard can it be?
Drake climbed aboard last. He took up position at the front of the boat, standing with one leg on the side looking ahead. It was a striking pose and one Jez liked to use herself though she doubted she looked quite so good doing it.
“Right then, boys… and Jezzet, put your backs into it and fucking row!”
That night Jezzet learned the hard way just how much work rowing a boat was. Her Blademaster training had made her strong, far stronger than most women her size, and had shown her how to best use the muscle she built. In the years since she had completed her training and become a Blademaster by duelling and killing Yuri she had perhaps lost some of that strength but she kept herself in passing good shape. Rowing appeared to use muscles she did not even know existed. Before ten minutes were out her arms were aching and her back felt as though it was on fire. It was almost two hours before they finally reached the shore of the Emerald Sea and she was somewhere beyond exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and rest under Thanquil’s watchful, and often sleepless, eye. Unfortunately she had neither the Arbiter nor the time for such luxury.