Chapter 25
25
Toorin
Two days of sailing later, we made it to Dry River Port.
A miracle?
Or the universe’s way of fucking with us? Getting our hopes up that we might pull this gamble off despite the infinitesimal odds?
But I wasn’t the only one feeling the euphoria. Darwin laughed as Lyric climbed the mast and burst into an off-color, off-key sea shanty about mermen and their sailor conquests that made heat rise to my cheeks and my smile spread.
For once, Bodie didn’t act put out helping Marc drop the anchor. Juniper had a brightness to her eyes that had nothing to do with her blades, and Marc…
Marc had woken me with a blow job that had left my balls drained and my soul energized, as if Marc had shocked my mechanical heart into infinite efficiency.
Even the whirring in my chest didn’t sound as worrisome. Probably not a real byproduct of the mind-altering blowjob, but I’d take it.
Juniper came on deck with three full packs for Bodie, Marc, and me and three empty ones patch-worked together from the few un-dry-rotted sections of cloth we’d brought back. We were in dire need of a resupply, especially items such as blades, before we dared crossing the badlands.
The Lark tightened against the anchor line, the grind and groan of the rope under tension as familiar to me as my own voice.
I preferred not to leave the Lark unguarded, but in a busy port like Dry River, we could more easily hide it among the many other vessels in the harbor.
Juniper held out her hand with that defiant tilt to her chin I’d come to admire.
I knew what she wanted. I also knew she was used to fighting for everything she wanted or needed. It was time she learned that’s not how things worked on the Lark. If you were one of us, you were family, and your contribution mattered as much as anyone else’s.
Besides, I’d need a little banked goodwill when it came time to tell her that she had to stay on the boat with Darwin and Lyric when Bodie, Marc, and I left for Mercy.
I removed the camel leather pouch I’d tucked into my trousers, removed two of our better chips—the ones with only a little corrosion and a few warped edges—and dropped them in her hand.
Her eyes narrowed. “Just like that? You’re going to give me two chips? With chips as good as these, I could land on shore, and you’d never see me again. I could survive on this for months if I were careful.”
She was testing me. Juniper didn’t like anyone coddling her, but moon and mars, I hoped the truth hit differently.
Our eyes met, and her chin climbed another notch.
“I trust you.”
Her eyes narrowed as she dropped the chips into her pouch, hiding the hint of a smile that broke free.
“We’ll need strong blades. Blades that—”
“You trust me with valuable chips but not to choose your blades?”
Of all of us on the Lark, Juniper knew her blades better than anyone. Better than anyone I’d ever known. I had no doubt she’d choose wisely. “Fair.” I did leave her with one parting piece of advice she didn’t need, but I couldn’t help myself. It was the captain in me. At least, that’s what I told myself. “Quality over quantity.”
She merely rolled her eyes when she looked like she wanted to flip me off with both fingers. “Duh.”
She picked up one of the empty packs and disappeared into her cabin.
I waited for the others on deck, partially disbelieving we’d made it that far. As eager as I was to get to shore, I leaned over the railing and cherished the temporary peace.
After some time, Marc came out of our cabin, wearing a pair of my trousers and a shirt two sizes too large. He’d shaved his face, cut his hair again, and blackened it.
He didn’t look regal.
Or anything like the spoiled spawn of a chancellor.
Good for us, but I already missed the scruff on his jaw.
It was a risk, taking him into the Dry River, but chances were good the chancellor guard had not made it as far as a whole other province.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.” I brought him in for a quick kiss that turned not-so-quick and left us breathless, and Bodie clearing his throat behind us.
We stepped apart, and Bodie picked up the empty sacks and tossed one each to Darwin and Lyric, who met us amid-ship.
“We don’t have time to waste.” Bodie glanced around the boat. “Where’s Juniper?”
“The lass was—” The rest of that sentence died on Darwin’s tongue.
We all turned toward the bow as Juniper emerged from her cabin. Lyric whistled. Not a catcall but a musical embodiment of the awe we all felt.
“Wow,” Bodie managed. At least he wasn’t rendered speechless.
Juniper strode toward us, fighting the smile and pride her eyes couldn’t hide.
She’d shaved the sides of her head and tied the intricate braids on top with a thin strip of the sailcloth. She’d blackened the dark skin beneath her eyes with the soot from the oil lamps, her blade at the ready on her hip.
Her clothes were the same ill-fitting rags the rest of us wore, but her confidence had transformed her.
Fierce.
Proud.
Capable .
Despite her tender years, only a fool would mess with her. Too bad the fringe had fools aplenty. As much as I feared for her safety, I wouldn’t— couldn’t —tell her that.
When she got close, Bodie wrapped an arm around her neck and planted a smacking kiss on her temple.
She pushed him away, but not hard, and refused to catch anyone’s gaze. “Gross.”
She started walking backward toward the dinghy, that infrequent smile busting loose again. “Last one in has to row.”
Darwin and Lyric scrambled after her. Then Bodie took off after them. I twined my fingers with Marc’s, only releasing him when we sat at the oars while Darwin and Bodie lowered us.
In port, boat wakes didn’t cause as many problems as the current. As soon as we dropped the bridles of the tackle and pushed away from the hull, the current pushed us back into the Lark. We had to skim along the hull until we reached clear water to row.
“Push,” Bodie said from the bow. We both knew that between the current and our rate of speed, we’d likely miss the docks altogether and end up tangled in the mess of tree limbs and vines overhanging the water.
I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen so much green. Like sure, a single tree or a hapless plant here or there, but not everywhere .
It was beautiful, which wasn’t a word used much these days. Maybe Dry River wasn’t as bad as everybody said.
We’d barely made it halfway to shore when Bodie pushed his way past Marc and bumped me out of my seat.
“Oi.” I landed on my ass at the bottom of the dinghy. The bottom was never dry and immediately soaked through my trousers. “What’s with you?”
He gave me one look over his shoulder as he muscled us toward shore.
“A little rowing isn’t going to kill me.” Especially if the sessions Marc and I’d had in my bunk hadn’t. With the bruising fading on my chest, I was even starting to believe Marc might be right, that maybe Juniper had knocked something back into place.
That somehow, she’d fixed me.
“We didn’t face a squall, pirates, and run the Dry River only to find out you’re wrong.”
I flipped him off, but he’d turned his attention toward the shore and the two men squabbling near the water’s edge. Tempers always ran hot. On the fringe, when little things could be the difference between life and death, disagreements could be over almost anything.
The smaller man pulled a blade, then the bigger man did.
“Oof.” Juniper cringed as the blades clanked together again and again as they fought for their lives.
A small circle gathered around them and cheered them on. The smaller man drew blood first, a wide swath across the other man’s abdomen. A curtain of blood dripped down. Seconds later, the big man cut a devastating gash on the backside of his opponent’s knee.
The small man crumpled to the ground. And the larger man made quick work of him. As much as Juniper loved her blades, she turned her back to the gore. The small crowd started walking away, but not before a few of the more desperate robbed the dead man of his shoes and the very clothes on his body. The victor took the man’s blade and yanked the small pouch from the man’s belt. No surprise there.
“Welcome to Dry River,” Lyric muttered as our bow nudged between two other dinghies and hit the dock with a thump. He jumped off and secured the boat then the rest of us climbed out.
We agreed to meet back at the dinghy when the sun started on its downward arc. That would give us a few good hours to scrounge what we needed.
Because of where the dead man fell, we had to step around him and the pool of blood congealing and soaking into the starved earth.
I didn’t look. I couldn’t.
Maybe I was getting soft.
Or maybe because I could imagine how my world would end if Marc met a similar fate.
I hurried to catch up with Marc and Bodie. When I caught up, I leaned close to Marc and said, “Stick close.”
Marcelis
Bodie had been given the name of a camel man in Dry River Port, but that didn’t mean he was an easy man to find. The problem was that everybody had heard of him, and everyone we asked told us a different place to find him.
My feet ached, Bodie was grumpier than normal, and Toorin looked paler than he should have. I sighed with exaggeration and dragged my feet, feigning more fatigue than I felt. I figured Toorin would stop if I needed to, though he’d already proved that he wouldn’t stop if he needed to.
At this rate, he’d kill himself before we got to Mercy.
“I need to stop,” I finally said. “You two go on. I’ll catch—”
That pulled Toorin up short when nothing else, even his sense of self-preservation, wouldn’t. “Sit.”
We had shade. From a tree, no less, on the side of the dirt track that we’d been told led to a watering hole and hopefully the camels. The leaves shook in the light breeze. The sun less brutal this close to the river than even on the milder days in Toonu.
I plopped down in the dirt, taking Toorin’s hand and Toorin with me. He sat down and rubbed his calves. We must have crisscrossed seven miles of questionable terrain trying to find the camel drovers, and with not even a camel track in sight, we had a ways more to go.
The sun had already started on its descent in the sky. We’d miss the designated time to meet the rest of the crew, but it couldn’t be helped. At this rate, we’d be lucky to return to the dinghy before dark. Hopefully, they would wait for us and not risk their lives searching. You never knew with this crew. Darwin already had more lives than a cat. I wouldn’t put anything past him.
And where Darwin went, Lyric went, and moon and mars, there was no chance Juniper would stay behind.
“We’re not here to take a bloody nap.” Even as those words fell from Bodie’s disgruntled face, he settled in the dirt beside us.
“No naps.” I reached for one of the waterskins with sun-warmed mead and handed it to him. He took a couple of long gulps and passed it on. “Just some much-needed rest. We haven’t come this far to kill ourselves now.”
As much as Bodie wouldn’t like it, someone had to be the voice of reason. Not that I didn’t think Bodie was concerned about Toorin. He was. And now that we were so close to getting to Mercy, he couldn’t wait to get Toorin there so he’d be that much closer to getting his heart back.
I understood. Mercy was a milestone in this impossible journey.
We leaned back on our elbows, our faces to the sky as we let the relatively cool breeze wash over us. I got the prick of hair on the back of my neck and the surge of adrenaline searing the inside of my veins a split second before I heard the scuffle of feet and felt the tip of a sun-warmed blade at my neck.
“Oi,” Toorin said.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Toorin with a blade to his neck. Bodie muttered, ‘Bloody bastards,’ and I assumed he, too, felt the sharp kiss of the blade on his skin.
“Who are ye?” the sneer on the woman’s dirty face would have made Metta proud. She had stringy sun-bleached hair and, like many of the outliers and people on the fringe, few teeth to call her own.
“We’re looking for Jord,” Bodie said. “We need camels to go to Mercy.”
“And men,” Toorin added. The woman’s blade pressed tighter into his neck. “Or women,” he added a little too late. The woman eased the pressure on her blade, but not enough for Toorin to sit up.
“I don’t know a Jord,” one of the men said.
Bloody brilliant. Had Bodie remembered the name wrong? Were we about to be killed because Bodie was bad with names?
“Who gave you this name?” the woman asked.
Bodie described the man, from the scar on his brow to the blade at his side, the clothes he wore, and the bar we’d found him in. Anything. Everything . “And he could be a bit off an ass, truth be told.”
The tall man with the scraggly beard and the blade at my neck couldn’t hold his smile in. The blade dropped from my neck as he bellowed out a laugh nearly as frightening as the blade. “That’s me sire.”
The other blades dropped, and we sat up. Toorin had a thin slice at the corner of his jaw, and he swiped the trickle of red away.
The woman stepped back, and her long, wide blade nearly touched the ground. It was the kind of curved blade that could cleave heads and chew through thigh bones. “No real harm done.”
They sheathed their blades and took a step or two back. We scrambled to our feet. Getting those new blades from Juniper couldn’t happen soon enough. We were vulnerable without them, and having blades drawn on us drove the point home.
“Toorin.” Toorin stretched out his hand to the tall man to shake.
Finally, the man took it. “Jord.”
He swept his hand in the general direction of his counterparts. “Kenner,” he said, indicating the short, stocky man nearest to Bodie, who had yet to utter a word. The quiet man gave us a nod. “Arren,” Jord said, indicating the older woman. She didn’t say anything, already looking bored with us.
Now that they stood near us, it was a miracle we hadn’t smelled them long before they’d ambushed us. Tension eased from my shoulders as we finished the introductions.
“Where are your blades?” Jord asked. “Trouble will find you.”
I didn’t think this was a good time to tell him that trouble seemed to find us whether or not we had blades. We’d keep that to ourselves.
“Long story,” was all Bodie admitted. Kenner looked unimpressed. Arren looked bored.
“It’s five days to Mercy with the camels… if everything goes right.” Jord looked from Bodie to Toorin to me. We knew it wouldn’t be a quick, pleasant hike. “Rarely does everything go right.”
“That’s why we want protection, too,” Toorin said. “How much?”
Best to get to the point as fast as we could. This quest could end now if we didn’t have the chips for it.
Jord rubbed his beard as if considering, but a man like him already knew his price. “Ten chips. Ten good chips.”
“Ten chips?” Bodie’s voice reached an octave I’d only heard on a toddler having a tantrum. “Have you lost your bloody mind? That’s enough to—”
“Get you to Mercy with an escort. It will be ten more if you want to come back.” Jord glanced away as if he’d already written us off as potential customers.
Toorin motioned with his head, and Bodie and I followed him out of earshot. With Toorin’s back to them, he pulled out his chips pouch. Bodie kept his eyes on the three drovers. We had no plans for getting ambushed again.
He poured a small mountain of chips into his hand. Some could be considered good. Others were questionable at best. He sorted through them, putting the worst ones back in his pouch. When he’d finished, Bodie glanced down at the chips in his hand. “Moon and mars. That’s not enough to get us there and back.”
By my count, we had thirteen good chips. Far short of the twenty it would take us to get to Mercy and back.
“I say we worry about getting back after we make it there,” I said.
Toorin’s slow grin underscored his approval. “Agreed.”
Bodie huffed out a sigh. “We’ve come this far.”
Straightening, Toorin poured all but five of the chips into his pouch and kept the others in his hand.
“You have a deal,” Toorin said as he reached the group.
Jord held out his hand for payment, not a handshake.
“No. We want to see your animals. If they meet our requirements, I’ll pay you two now and the rest when you pick us up at the wharf in the morning.”
I could have kissed Toorin right then and there. I could have kissed him through all the dirt and sweat on his face. It didn’t matter how dirty we were. Not having to walk back here with our gear in the morning would be a gift.
Jord considered Toorin’s demands. Toorin had to look up to meet Jord’s assessing gaze.
“Five now.” Jord turned without waiting for Toorin’s answer. He knew if we wanted to get to Mercy, we had little choice.
His crew fell into step behind him. We followed a good fifteen paces behind. Arren and Jord started bickering, so we weren’t concerned our conversation would be overheard.
Even so, I leaned in toward Toorin when I said, “You know what to look for in a camel?”
“Not a fucking clue,” Bodie answered for him.
“I want to make sure they have them before I risk five of my best chips on nothing.”
I didn’t trust Jord as far as I could throw him. And considering his size and my tired muscles, that wasn’t far at all. “But what’s to keep him from fucking off with your chips instead of picking us up at the wharf?”
“His want for five more,” Toorin said.
I couldn’t argue with that, so I kept walking. And walking. The sweat streamed down my back again, soaking into my sweat-stiffened trousers. At least with the fabric softer from my sweat, they didn’t chafe as much.
We came up to a rise, my thighs complaining. The wind shifted, and the unmistakable stench of the camels made my stomach heave. The drovers had corralled the animals in a low area near a pond. They were packed so tight they’d churned the piss and shit and dirt into a thick stew that stuck to their feet and lower limbs.
“The camels,” Jord said, standing on the ridge above them as proud as if he’d birthed them himself.
Below, Jord had more people working for him. Some gathered water from the pond to fill the troughs. Some pitched dried grass in the middle of a large ring. The camels gathered around, munching on the grass and filling their bellies.
Under the shade of a tree, two women were packing three camels for a trip to Mercy, I presumed. Satisfied, Toorin dropped the chips onto Jord’s open palm. Jord looked them over, one by one, checking the solders for corrosion. I wasn’t worried. Those were some of the cleanest chips I’d ever seen.
Adding them to his full pouch, Jord said, “Be at the wharf at dawn. And for the bloody stars and your sorry lives, bring blades.”