“You used to be some kind of hero, right?” a male voice said, pulling Mokoto from a dream where she hunted deer alongside a giant white wolf.
She eased her eyes open. The roof above her was a thatched dull yellow, and the warm room reeked of salt and sweat mixed with vapors of rum.
Her head throbbed where her horns grew, and her lips were cracked and sore.
She pushed the ratty cotton bed sheets off her body—not caring that she was naked except for her boots—then threw her legs to the side and sat up.
She didn’t bother to look over her shoulder at the man. There was no point. What even was his name? Galen…? Kalen…? She was supposed to be up and gone before he woke. She shot an accusatory glare at the empty clay jug sitting next to her side of the bed. Rum was a demon worse than Kuu.
“Hero?” She said. “Maybe once.”
She got up, took an uneasy step to the window and pulled the shutters open, wincing at the sunlight and allowing a gust of briny, humid air to sweep the room.
In the war, before they’d lost, she was a hero. Before that, she was a hunter. And before even that, she’d been given a title of honor: Maiden of the Horn.
“I never kiffered no hero,” the man said with a snicker.
Mokoto tried to remember last night, but the rum made it foggy. Instead, her thoughts drifted, like they always did, to the war and the betrayals... to all their losses. She rubbed her eyes and muttered, “You still haven’t.”
She stared out at the makeshift coastal village of Overeen. Rows of little thatch-roofed buildings, much like this inn, lined the mud road that flowed to the coast. Clouds were gathering on the horizon, and gulls wheeled above the houses, trying to snatch scraps before the eventual storm.
She tracked one as it landed where the real action was—at the line of docks jutting out into the brackish water of Bastards Bay.
Moored at the last and shortest excuse for a dock was a dilapidated little skiff. The Ilith Saran.
Mokoto’s eyes strained to see it. She could almost hear Loranna’s sanctimonious voice calling out to her from the ship’s meager deck last night, “If you want to go all lone-wolf… fine. Do try to bring back something useful, though. And if you can’t manage that—stay out of trouble.”
“Thing is,” the man said, pulling her back to the present. “Last night, we were drunk. And that was fun. But this morning, I got up and wondered… What a horned beauty like you would want from a man like me? Got me thinking.”
Mokoto took a breath.
“Maybe you should leave thinking to others,” she said, still refusing to look at him. She’d hoped her apathy would get him to gather his clothing and get out. Hoped he hadn’t checked his belongings.
She gave the empty rum jug another angry stare. She should have been long gone.
“Well,” the man continued. “You're no hero, that’s for sure. You’re a kiffering thief. And a bad one. So grab my map from whatever hole you stuffed it in—and give it over.”
Mokoto bent down at the waist and finally looked back. She sighed. He was a scrawny man with a strange, pointed nose that was far too long for his face. In the right light, and with a lot of ale, he might have been considered just plain ugly. He stood at the door holding her curved longsword. Her clothes and short sword lay in a pile next to him.
By the All-Mother, she was slipping.
The man’s eyes narrowed at her bent-over pose. “Mmmhmm, well… You gonna try to convince me not to hurt you? That it?”
“Something like that,” Mokoto said, meeting his eyes as she reached a hand inside her salt-stained boot. Right next to the folded-up map she stole from him, her hand closed on her silver dagger.
She threw it at the man with a flick of her wrist. It spun, end over end, before the hilt hit him square in the throat. He dropped her sword and fell back against the door. His eyes were wide, and he gasped like a beached fish.
Mokoto leaped the bed in one spring. She scooped up her short sword, yanked the man away from the door, and smashed the flat of her blade across his face. He bounced off the side of the bed before crashing onto the wood floor.
She took a few long breaths. Then knelt down and surveyed the sword-shaped welt across his bloody face. His nose was broken and flattened quite a bit. "One day, some woman will thank me for that," she said.
She rifled through his clothes, collecting a few extra silver Loranna might be happy about. Then she stopped cold, noticing a black tattoo on his shoulder. It was an oval octopod but with only three tentacles. It branded him as a part of the Rujara—low ranking with so few arms—but nonetheless a member of one of the few crews that actually held some sway out on the fringes.
She stared at it for a moment until a loud knock shook the door. A deep male voice yelled from the other side. “Falen! Damnit, Falen! Enough banging around with that whore. The whole place heard you. We’re leaving. Get your ass out here.”
Mokoto rubbed her eyes. She got dressed, gathered her weapons, and slipped out the window—dropping ten feet to the ground.
Then she ran. Down the rutted mud streets of Overeen, like the deer she chased in her dream. Toward the docks. Toward The Ilith Saran.
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