The Traveler
Don’t let your ears deceive you
They are ghosts, nay, imitations
It felt wrong to be sitting on the sand of a quiet beach, our boat hidden in the brush, while Dahlia ventured into a town likely infected with bloodthirsty sirens. They’d kill her as quickly as any of us and I knew it.
Mullins was leaning up against a tree scraping at the ground with a stick.
David had his pistol in his hand, his thumb stroking the metal plates on the side.
James sat on a rock, his teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek.
We’d all been waiting for some time. Not knowing what was going on was killing me.
I wasn’t one to sit out when things got dangerous, but I found myself willing to do plenty of things I never would have before because of Dahlia.
She wanted me to stay near the docks, so that was what I was doing.
No matter how unnatural it felt.
The silence was deafening and by the look on the men’s faces, it was making them just as uncomfortable as it was me. It was the kind of silence that had eyes, like something was watching us. Something unseen and menacing waiting for the right moment to pounce.
“Don’t sound like anyone’s here,” James muttered. “This place sounds deader than a skeleton that’s dried up in the sun.”
“If that’s true, they’d have been back already,” I said. “They had to have found something.”
“Or something found them,” David added, drawing all our eyes.
We were all thinking it.
Mullins ran his hand over his head with a hiss. “She looks frail, yeah?”
I knew he was talking about Meridan. She did look frail, but we all knew she was not. Perhaps she wasn’t as hard-edged and imposing as Dahlia, but she had hidden ferocity, which we all saw her use to get Dahlia and me out of Gilly Pine.
I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re far from helpless and you know it.”
He slumped lower against the tree, tossing the twig he’d been toying with like it offended him.
“Vidar,” Gus said.
I whipped my head around at my name only to see the beach and the rocking waves creeping up the sand. The others all turned to the water as well… as if Gus would be there.
But we’d left him on the ship.
The four of us shared in a moment of confusion and exchanged looks. We’d all heard it, but none of us wanted to admit it aloud.
Then he laughed. Gus laughed like our puzzlement was amusing.
I rested my hand on my belt where Lady Mary usually was and slowly stood from the ground, staring out at the eerily calm water. There was a cold bite in the air that wasn’t there before. So chilled I thought I was going to see my breath.
“Cap’n?” Mullins said.
Before I could focus too long on how impossible it was that Gus was in the water laughing at us when we’d left him on the ship, a gunshot echoed from town.
Our heads snapped in that direction. It was distant, but unmistakable.
Every fiber of my being wanted to rush inland and find Dahlia.
The thought of her being overrun flooded my head.
Humans. Sirens. It didn’t matter. Either one in great numbers could bring her to heel.
“Fuck,” I grumbled.
“This isn’t right,” James whispered.
“We stay here,” I said, staring intently at the road leading into Dornwich. “That’s what she said.”
Another gunshot rippled through the air. I balled my fist and braced it on a tree beside me as if the tree would hold me back.
“Cap’n,” David said.
“Keep your eyes on the water,” I ordered, keeping my own on the road.
The moments passed slowly and every second felt like torture.
Like, perhaps we were in a dream. A very bad dream.
I took a deep breath, waiting for something, anything, that would tell me what was going on.
There was a splash near the docks that drew all our gazes.
Immediately following, I heard screams. Familiar screams. Dahlia’s screams. They came from the water.
My head swiveled toward them, but I saw nothing.
They continued, shrill and tormented as if she was in great pain.
“Vidar, help!” she shrieked.
They were so close and yet there was nothing there.
Then, in my peripheral, something ducked beneath the water.
I whipped my head toward it and saw another just out of my immediate line of sight.
Heads, peeking out of the water, fleeing my vision before I got a good look at one.
I stepped toward the shoreline and stopped myself.
The men around me were all standing now, alert and on edge, hands on their weapons.
Another gunshot rang through the air, much closer that time. My eyes were torn back toward the road.
“What the fuck?” Mullins said, unable to decide where to look.
Instinctively, the four of us stood close, back-to-back, so our eyes could see in all directions.
The screams from the water were joined by Meridan, Gus, and even David, who was standing right next to me.
I wanted to run right into the sea and get to Dahlia, but my feet wouldn’t move.
There was something in my gut telling me it was wrong.
It was all wrong. Mullins took a step as if to flee toward the ocean—toward Meridan—but I grabbed his arm.
“It’s impossible,” I said to him, feeling crazed.
The ruckus of a wagon plowing across uneven terrain and the heavy footfalls of a horse’s hooves refocused my attention.
I pulled all four of us further from the water and deeper into the brush as a wagon finally came into view up the road.
A massive horse pulled it with two figures in the back.
Behind them, a small group of villagers were sprinting to catch up and unless my eyes were deceiving me, a couple of them were missing limbs.
“Vidar!” Meridan screamed, leaping out of the wagon before it came to a full stop.
My men opened fire on the villagers as I sprinted toward Meridan on the road. I aimed my weapon and fired a shot above her head, hoping to deter the barefoot man who was hot on her heels. Another figure jumped out of the wagon, unruly hair bouncing around her face. James rushed to her side.
“Christ, Addison!” he barked. They both began unloading sacks of heavy material, wasting no time on a reunion yet.
But Dahlia wasn’t among them and when I realized it, my heart dropped to my stomach.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“They have her,” Meridan said.
“They who?”
“Kroans. They knew who she was.”
I hissed a curse and reached into my belt pouch for a slug and another charger. I ripped the charger with my teeth, emptying the gunpowder into my pistol as I turned to my men.
“Get everything back to the ship.”
“What are you doing?” David said.
“Going after Dahlia.”
“It might be what they want,” Meridan said. “They know she’s been sailing with you and most Kroans want you dead. And she wouldn’t want us to go after her. You know that.”
“Are you saying we should leave her?”
She steeled her expression and ground her teeth, fists tightening at her sides. “Not a chance.”
“That’s what I thought. How many are there?”
Meridan shrugged, but just as she did, Addison’s boisterous voice joined the conversation.
“Seen at least four of them chasing us,” she said, carrying a heavy pack of metal on her shoulder as she and James headed for the boat. “But there’s more than that, I assure you. Just never put my neck on the line long enough to count.”
“Where would they take her?” I asked.
“How should I know? She’s a siren. But if she were human, she’d be taken to the square or to the water for them things to tear her to pieces.”
“The xhoth?”
Meridan nodded. “They’ve been feeding villagers to them. And likely other sirens.”
Aeris’s words lingered in my mind. Everything she said about the Kroans being adversaries to all was as starkly truthful as it could be. They posed a threat even to their own kind.
I stuffed the slug into my gun barrel and slid it back into my baldric.
“What’s the plan, cap’n?” Mullins asked.
I paced slowly, grinding my teeth together. I had to remind myself to blink when my eyes started to sting. I was so focused on a strategy, I was barely aware of what I was doing.
“We need some things from the ship,” I said, staring at the muddy road that led into Dornwich, now paved with fallen villagers. “Come nightfall, I’m getting Dahlia back.”
“I’m coming, too,” David said. “Not about to sit by and do nothing if she needs us.”
“Me, too,” Meridan said.
“Shit, if you’re all going, I’m going, too,” Mullins joined.
“Can we get off this damn beach?” Addison called out from the boat, which she and James had loaded and pulled into the water.