The Price of Faith (17 page)

Jaeryn and Lei took the opportunity to step up beside her, sensing the tide was turning in their favour. Lei looked at Jez, his mouth open to speak and his eyes went wide, he stepped back, giving her some room. She could feel the blood spatter on her face and the wild grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth, no doubt it was scaring their attackers as much as her own allies but Jez didn’t care, she was revelling in the bloody action.

One of the assailants threw something towards them, something small, dark and fizzing. Instinct, more than understanding told Jez to shield her eyes but her body was slower than those instincts. The thing exploded mid-air in a flash of light as blinding as the sun. Lei and Jaeryn staggered back screaming but Jez had managed to cover at least some of her eyes and she squinted against the darkness that rushed in all around her punctuated by brightly coloured pulsating orbs of light.

A painful man-shaped blur loomed out of the sea of colours towards her. Jez couldn’t tell if it was friend, foe or trick of the light but she wasn’t about to wait around to find out. She ducked, tucked and rolled, feeling something sharp and deadly pass just over her head. Mid-roll she thrust out with her sword and felt resistance, someone screamed and something heavy hit the deck. A moment later what seemed like a laugh.

Jez rubbed furiously at her eyes and some of the spots of light faded, others resolved into men with weapons and the large, noisy one crying at her feet turned out to be the boat man. He clutched at his ankle and cursed in at least one language Jez didn’t understand. She spared close to a moment’s thought to apologising but decided against it and turned to face the armed blurs coming towards her again.

Too late she saw another sparkling object hurtling her way. It exploded in a flash of blinding agony and this time Jez had nothing covering her eyes.

Shit, Jez, you’re blind. Run. RUN!

She turned and ran, not knowing where to only knowing what from. Even as good as she was she couldn’t take on five armed assailants while blind. Her foot caught on something and she stumbled, her left hand hitting the deck of the boat, covered in something wet and sticky with an earthy metallic smell. Then she was up and moving again, hearing shouts from behind as though they were very far away. Her leg hit something hard and there was nowhere else to run.

The edge of the boat.

The realisation came too late and Jez was already tumbling over the edge of the little craft, head first into the monster-filled waterways of Soromo. Her fingers caught onto the lip of the railing that ran all around the edge of the boat but she found no purchase, covered in slick blood as they were. Tepid water hit Jez, enveloped her, rushed into her mouth and nose and ears.

Don’t panic, Jez.

Still blind she somehow managed to right herself in the water and came up gasping for delicious air. Something brushed against her feet.

Panic, Jez!

Her vision was a mess of dark colours all merging into one formless quagmire of confusion but she could see the boat nearby, an imposing mass in front of her, still in the calm waters. Even closer still, lashed to the boat was a smaller strip of brown that Jez hoped was one of the little rafts the assailants had used to board them. She kicked towards it, thanking all the nameless Gods Yuri had taught her to swim.

As she reached the raft Jez wasted no time in hauling herself up and onto the construction. It was little more than a number of wooden planks treated and then lashed together  but it would serve to keep the water-bound monsters from chewing on her.

Jez rubbed at her eyes, trying to dispel the blobs of coloured light that throbbed in and out of her vision. Only then did she realise her sword was gone, she’d dropped it when she went overboard.

That glorious piece of metal, a gift from Thanquil and the most beautiful thing you’ve ever owned and now it’s lying down at the bottom of the Emerald Sea.

To say she was angry didn’t even start to cover what Jez was feeling as she pushed herself to unsteady feet and with a jump she mantled the railing and was back on the boat.

She could see four of the black-clad men left, the other was gone and so were all of the oarsmen, dead or fled. Lei and Jaeryn were backed towards the cargo cabin and Sal was at the fore of the boat with two of the assailants attempting to put a second hole in him. Jez broke into a run and was on the two men fighting Sal. Her right hand found one of the dual short swords sheathed at the small of her back and the blade flashed out, slicing a long cut along the first man’s back before he even knew she was there. He went down alive but Jez left him for Sal to finish off, her blade changed directions in her hands and buried itself in the second man’s neck before he could react.

Jezzet put her foot on the man’s back as he dropped and wrenched her sword free in a spatter of blood and flesh and bone. Turning she found Lei was down, crawling away and Jaeryn had been manoeuvred away from the cargo cabin and was still struggling against his own opponent. The other attacker was busy fiddling with the lock on the cabin. Jezzet wasted not a moment.

She ducked, plucking a dagger from the inside of her boot and launched it at the man attempting to murder Jaeryn. She heard the scream as the dagger found its target but paid it no more heed as she launched herself at the last man.

He never even turned to face her, too busy attempting to open the lock. Her sword plunged straight through his chest and buried itself an inch into the thick wood of the door. Jezzet heard an unmistakeable feminine squeak.

She looked across just in time to see Jaeryn, breathing heaving and wild eyed but uninjured, kick the corpse of his recently deceased attacker. The leader of the little guard crew took a deep breath and sighed it out in prayer for the dead before turning to her.

“Damn Jez,” Jaeryn said, the ghost of a smile returning to his lips. “You really do know how to fight.”

She nodded, looking past Jaeryn to the residential district behind him. Lanterns had been lit and people were out, watching and whispering. The screams and metal-on-metal clashes had brought unwanted attention to the scuffle and she did not doubt the city guard would be far away.

“Fuck,” she swore all too loudly.

“What?”

“I dropped my sword,” she admitted to the survivors. Sal was helping the boat man up and Lei was busy tending to the shallow slash across his ribs, his shirt off showing a chest even more hairless than most women’s.

“Where?”

“Overboard.”

“Oh.”

“Fuck,” Jez swore again and kicked the door in impotent anger. Again the frightened squeak from inside the cargo cabin.

Jezzet looked at the door, then at Jaeryn who shrugged, then she looked over to the boat man as he limped towards them, supported by Sal’s massive frame.

“Open it,” Jez ordered the man on his own boat.

“No,” the boat man replied his voice quivering even as his chin stuck out in defiance.

“Please,” Jezzet put as much menace as she could able into the one word.

The boat man seemed to shrink away from her. He detached himself from Sal and sat down on the deck, taking his weight off of his leg, off of the ankle that Jez had wounded. “As scary as you are, woman. I am more scared of Captain Morrass and this is his cargo. That door opens when we get to the drop off point and not before.”

Jezzet spat and was rewarded by a sharp intake of breath from the boat man. In the wilds spitting was considered a waste of water and nothing else but here in Soromo spitting on a person’s property was considered a great insult, one that only violence or recompense could justify.

“Sal, the door,” Jez said.

The big man grunted, limped towards the cargo cabin door, put his shoulder to the wood and shoved with all his weight and strength. A grunt and a crash later and the door burst inwards, the lock ripping from its housing. Sal took a moment to stare into the cabin and then stepped aside with a whistle. Jez walked to the doorway and gave her eyes a second to adjust.

Inside the cabin were seven women and each of them showing the tattooed arms of those either born or promised to one of the noble families. They huddled at the back of the cabin, as eager to distance themselves from their other captives as they were Jezzet standing silhouetted in the doorway. Each one of them was short, as was befitting for a woman in Soromo, but not too short, each one had dark eyes, long dark hair and each one was timid and terrified.

Jezzet backed out of the cargo cabin shaking her head. “You gotta be fucking joking, Drake. Of all the stupid…”

“Close the door, Sal,” came Jaeryn’s voice from behind. “You,” he pointed at the boat man. “You know where the drop point is? You can get us there?”

“Uh, yes,” the boat man stammered out, clearly shaken by the entire episode. “But I have nobody to…”

“You tell us where we’re going and we’ll pole the damned thing,” Jaeryn said. “Sal, close the door now!”

Jezzet was standing between Sal and the cargo cabin door and she did not feel particularly incline to move. The big man looked first at her, then at Jaeryn, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

“We’re not delivering these women to Drake,” she said very loudly and very clearly. “I’ll not see them sold into slavery to line his pockets.”

Jaeryn took a step forward and Jez noticed his sword was still in his hand. “It’s our pockets I’m interested in lining, Jezzet,” he hissed. “Morrass is paying well for this job, very well. Enough that I can move my family up a class. We can get out of the breakers, my children could be… anything. Anything but us. Move aside, Jezzet.”

She shook her head.

“It’s easy for you to make a high moral choice. Kept by the Inquisition. Given everything you want. Paying visit to the empress’ court then coming down here and playing like the poor with us. Well you’re not poor and you’re not one of us. I don’t complete a job and my family don’t eat for a week. You don’t complete a job and you go crawling back to the palace and beg your Arbiter for another few buls.

“One last time, Jezzet. Step aside.”

To say his attacks had hit home would have been an understatement. That they saw her as some sort of high lady playing at being a commoner cut Jez to the bone but this was not an issue she was willing to budge on, not this time. Again she shook her head. “We’re freeing these women, Jae. However you might feel about me don’t matter. I won’t allow them to be handed over to Drake for his profit and amusement.”

She saw his grip tighten around his sword.
Don’t do it, Jae. Please.

He smiled, not a strange occurrence for Jaeryn but this smile was different. Jez had seen that same smile many times before but usually on the faces of the wounded and the dying.

“Tell Morrass I tried,” Jaeryn said and rushed her, his sword up and swinging.

Jez’s own sword was still in her hand, it was an easy thing to parry Jaeryn’s attack to the right as she flowed to her left. Her other hand found the hilt of her second short sword and it whipped from its sheath, spinning around in her grasp and sliding up into Jaeryn’s side, between his scant armour and through his soft, unprotected flesh. He let out a wet, raspy gurgle and blood trickled from his lips as he teetered. Jez gave her sword a slight twist and pulled it free.

Blood spattered over her boots and the body of her latest boss, a man she had considered, until just now, to be her friend, collapsed to the deck.

“Sorry,” she whispered but it was too late, the light had already gone from his eyes.

Gardens had always held a peculiar fascination for Jezzet. Not the gardens that grew fruits, vegetables and herbs, she accepted those as having a purpose, but the gardens that were designed purely for the aesthetic. They were the domain and the property of only the excessively wealthy and were just so in an attempt to put on display just how excessively wealthy they were. The gardens known as Dragon’s Perch up on the very top tier of the Imperial palace grounds were beyond extravagant in their pure, purposeless existence.

They are beautiful though.

The Dragon’s Perch gardens were originally designed only for the empress, the princes and their dragons but the previous Empress, Neris Chiyo had all but banished the Dragon Princes from her court. She had separated them and given them each a little portion of her Empire to rule over. The princes fought and warred but in fighting each other they left the capital in relative peace. Neris Chiyo had then opened Dragon’s Perch to her dragon-less guests and it was an observance that the current empress had perpetuated. Jezzet, despite her usual cynicism over such frivolous wastes of money, was beyond glad. The gardens had an earthy peacefulness that seemed to calm her even when her inner turmoil was at its very worst and today it was far beyond its worst.

A cherry blossom floated down beside her, swaying in the still air. Jezzet plucked it from its meandering path with practised accuracy and crushed it in her fist. The cherry blossoms were the worst form of impractical indulgence. The entire city was built upon layers of floating rafts so dirt had to be ferried over from the mainland and placed in specially designed troughs. The troughs had to be watered and fed nutrients every day or the trees grew stunted or not at all. It was a remarkable feat of opulence and a remarkable spectacle when all the trees were in bloom. Soft pink petals the colour of a nipple surrounded her on all sides but the balcony behind her.

She leaned against the railing of the balcony and watched and marvelled, feeling a deep peace settle upon her. It didn’t last long. Drake found her.

The pirate captain and empress’ lover approached Jez wearing a smile that most women would no doubt have found charming, Jez knew better, she knew false affection when she saw it. There was a path of crushed white gravel leading up to the balcony but Drake Morrass ignored it, he walked alongside the path, purposefully treading on the short green grass as if doing so was some great victory of his. He was armed, a long sword buckled by his left hip and a dagger secured beneath his jacket that he thought she couldn’t see.