“Your vote changes nothing,” Loranna said, turning her back on the Ilith Saran’s increasingly dissident crew. She wished her open parasol could deflect their questioning the same way it did the sun.
She stood at the stern of her ship, looking out at the barge of whale bones, muck, lard, and rotted wood that it towed. They’d secured a makeshift bridge of planks and rope connecting the two bobbing vessels, but crossing wasn’t easy. Nothing about this job was, and her crew wasn’t happy about it.
But Loranna didn't care. This barnacle crusted boat they hauled represented a chance at freedom for all of them.
She took a breath, flinching at the tainted breeze filling their sails, before turning back to the argument.
“I had a job all lined up, ya,” Vinsant said through lips clamped on a lit cigarillo. “Easy, right. Like all the ones we did before. Good silver too, eh. You're slipping if ever I saw slipping, cap’n. None-a-us want to haul this kiffering barge.”
Loranna frowned at the bald thief and newest addition to her crew. He was a fine navigator, but he was also becoming the mouthpiece for all the crew’s complaints.
Aveenda, Loranna’s niece, gave her a shrug but nodded in agreement with Vinsant’s sentiment. Mokoto smirked at Loranna having to solve this problem. And Gyaro, the long-tailed Teeling that was the ship's helmsman, grunted his agreement from aboard the garbage barge—where he rummaged for usable salvage.
Loranna collapsed her parasol and pointed it in Gyaro’s direction.
“Hauling this grants us a writ of passage out of Bastards Bay and past the blockade. We can find much more pleasant work in the isles of the Great Sea. And then we’ll actually find a way to Shiazra.”
Shiazra was a destination the whole crew wanted. The one island, far off to the west, where the Torian Hegemony—the constantly expanding empire of technology—held no sway. A place where magic was allowed to exist and people were free. A pocket of the old Aardehn that was lost in the war.
“You think this boat’s gonna get us to Shiazra?” Vinsant spat on the deck. He swept his arms wide, encompassing their meager mast, derelict tail-drive, and tattered sails. “Storms. Big storms, right. Serpents, ya. Does Ilith Saran mean ‘bottom of the sea’ in elf talk? Cuz, that’s all we’d be seeing outside Bastard Bay, ya? What we need is more silver. Pay passage to the Rujara, eh. They wou—”
“My order is final,” Loranna cut him off. He had many good points, but she wasn’t about to concede them.
“We voted, ya!” Vinsant shouted back, thumping his foot on the deck.
“I’m quite done talking. Return to your posts,” Loranna snapped.
Aveenda slowly began to shuffle away. Mokoto took a few light steps as if complying. But Vinsant stayed. He raised his chin at Loranna and took a deep drag from the cigarillo at his lips.
Mokoto sniffed and caught Loranna’s eye. The horned maiden didn’t have to say it; Loranna knew what was next.
“A challenge then!” Bellowed Vinsant. “From me, ya. First blood decides it.”
Loranna gave a shrug and said, “Fine.”
Aveenda did an about-face, her young features contorted in concern. “Vinsant wants to be captain?”
“No,” Mokoto said, intercepting the girl and pulling her to the starboard rail. “But the law of the sea says anyone can challenge a captain’s decision. Once.”
Aveenda gave a slow nod of understanding. “But… but, what’s this about first blood?”
“First to draw blood wins. Even a drop. Or first to concede. And each one has to choose a weapon from something at hand. Those are the only rules.”
What Mokoto left out was that 'first blood' often meant 'last blood.' Many a captain’s bones ended up in graves of dark algae over one drop of blood.
“No magic neither, ya,” Vinsant said. He pulled a razor sharp dagger from his sash. “I use this stabber.”
Loranna nodded and patted her collapsed parasol. “I have my weapon.”
Vinsant gave the parasol a wary look but nodded, and the challenge began.
Loranna had seen him spar with Mokoto once. Mokoto had smiled at his attacks—quick and strong as they seemed. She’d called him reckless and sloppy. Disarmed him on his first thrust.
Seeing his crooked grin and the practiced ease in holding the “stabber,” Loranna didn’t need a reminder that she wasn’t Mokoto.
But then again, she had no intention of letting that dagger get close enough to try a disarm.
Instead, she slid open her parasol and held it before her like a shield of silk. Then, as Vinsant took a cautious step forward, she began spinning the handle, causing the coiled serpent engraved on its canopy to blur. To become a spiraling ouroboros.
“No magic!” Vinsant snarled.
“No magic," Loranna agreed. "Just elegance.” She circled Vinsant in the reverse direction of her canopy's spin.
Vinsant’s eyebrows squished together. His eyes darted across the spinning parasol while he circled with Loranna and tried keeping his balance on the ever-shifting Ilith Saran.
Loranna stayed patient. Waiting. Circling. Spinning.
Finally, Vinsant growled and lunged forward with an off-balance strike. Loranna pulled away, collapsing the parasol and sweeping him aside like an old matador would a minotaur. As he stumbled by, she skipped back and holding her parasol two handed, like a crossbow, pointed it at his leg.
With a playful grin, she clicked the button on the handle, and a bolt sprung from the parasol’s tip.
It was a good shot. It would have been perfect had the Ilith Saran not swayed just slightly.
The bolt sailed at Vinsant’s left leg and tore through his baggy pantaloons. He froze at the strike. Then, wide-eyed, he reached down and pulled at the fabric, exposing his dark skin. He patted around for blood… and then smiled in surprise when he didn’t find any.
Loranna felt a bead of sweat roll down her back as he stalked towards her, dagger pointing high like a shark fin.
“Maybe, I like you too much fer killin', Cap’n. Maybe not. But we’re dumping this garbage.”
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