Chapter Eighteen. Eban
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EBAN
On our third night in the Lashing, I awake from a nightmare.
I’d been running through the alleys of the Sleeve as a little boy, except I couldn’t run, because the ground was slick with blood, and when I looked down at my palms, they were stained deep blackish red.
And then, suddenly, people were crying out for me, from every direction.
Only, the cries are real. I sit up, disoriented. Shouts ring out in the night, followed by loud banging. The room shakes. Then another bang, this time followed by metal clanging and shouts of, “Breach! Breach!”
The other men in the infirmary sit up in their squeaking beds and look around, too.
A couple of them have bandaged heads, one has a broken arm in a sling, another is battling a fever.
None will be able to defend themselves if we’re attacked.
I fly out of bed and grab my blades from beneath the straw mattress where I’d stashed them.
“Where are you going?” the healer, a small elderly woman with cropped hair, calls to me. I ignore her and rush to the exit. Whatever’s happening, first I have to find Gin.
Outside the infirmary, people are running to the south end of the colony, armed with bows and longswords and sticks, prepared to fight.
There’s thick gray smoke coming from that direction.
It billows into the air, an ominous cloud.
A young boy, around age twelve, runs by.
I grab the sleeve of his scruffy, homespun tunic and yell, “What’s happening? ”
Then the piercing sound of a tambuli horn echoes throughout the night. A warning.
“Lacon ambush,” the kid tells me. He yanks his arm away and runs back with the others. “Another one!”
I head the other way, fighting against the current of the crowd. They shove past me, eager to take on whatever enemy awaits, so focused on the goal they hardly seem to notice me, barking information and commands at each other. “A dozen ships!” “Fire the arrows!” “To the towers!”
When I finally get to Gin’s quarters, I whip open the partition to her room without knocking. “Gin? Where are you? Gin!” I don’t see her anywhere. The room is empty. My stomach sinks. What if the enemy got to her before I could?
As I’m about to leave and rush straight into the chaos, she steps out from behind a changing screen. “Eban! I said I’m right here! Couldn’t you hear me?”
She’s fastening a leather breastplate to her chest. It’s a traditional Ophir design, painted in swirls of red and gold. “Where’d you get that?” I ask.
“Darius sent it over before he left,” she explains. “It’s a raid, isn’t it?”
“A dozen Laconian ships, I heard. Come on—they’ll need our help,” I say, just as a blast tears through the side of the room. “Watch out!” I shout, throwing myself in front of her to block her from the attack.
The blast opened a hole that suddenly rips open wider. A figure climbs inside the room. A Blackcoat from Lacon. His eyes are fixed squarely on Gin.
I react without another thought, pulling my dagger from its scabbard, furious at the thought of any danger coming to her.
I tear across the room, stumbling into a chair, knocking a table to the ground.
The Blackcoat is focused on Gin and doesn’t see me coming at him from behind.
I drive my shoulder into the small of his back.
With a grunt, I hit him with everything I have, but he doesn’t fall.
He spins, pivoting, planting his feet to absorb the blow as he sizes me up, looking me up and down, his eyes filled with disdain.
It’s the same look Blackcoats have been giving me since my earliest memory, that cruel stare that tells me I’m lesser, that I’m no one.
The harsh sound of metal striking metal fills the room.
Gin struck him with the breastplate. Not having a weapon, she turned her armor into one. Clever. But now she’s both weaponless and defenseless and she staggers backward, the Blackcoat grinning, wondering which of us he ought to kill first.
I cut the air with my blade, hoping to draw him to me.
Instead, he lifts the chair I stumbled into and tosses it at me, then turns to Gin, blade raised for the killing blow.
She’s backed up against the wall, a heavy tarp.
There’s nowhere for her to run, nowhere to go, and I see the panic in her eyes, sweat running down her face.
I let the heavy wooden chair hit me. I don’t flinch.
I take the blow without slowing, my fingers wrapped tightly around the pommel of the dagger.
I see a place where the Blackcoat’s armor is thin, a gap in the heavy plates.
I put two hands on the base and drive the blade into it.
The steel hits something hard yet flexible.
Rings of steel or chain mail. The armor snaps and breaks, the rings pulling apart, spreading for my blade.
The man grunts as the dagger parts his flesh.
He hits me hard on the head with a gauntlet fist and my vision goes black.
He curses me and strikes me again. He calls me every foul word he can muster.
There’s a ringing in my ears, but I don’t stop.
I force the blade deeper into his back and he hits me again.
I scream out my fury and put all of my strength into the attack, pushing until the dagger bottoms out and warm wet blood flows over my hands.
It’s done. I stagger backward. My vision returning, I search frantically for Gin, my heart in my throat.
If she’s hurt … Finally I see that she’s pressed up against the wall, immobile.
Unharmed, thank the spirits. Shocked perhaps.
“You okay?” I ask.
She’s too startled for words, so she just nods. It’s enough. She’s all right. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relief than at that moment.
The Blackcoat falls to the ground, his stare blank, arms limp.
I nearly fall over on top of him. My every breath is a gasp, and I stand half bent over for a heartbeat, trying to calm myself. More of them could appear at any instant. There’s no time for rest.
I get to my feet and look down at the dead man. “That one’s for Vergel,” I say.
I spot Gin’s sword, sheathed, leaning against a chair. I grab it and throw it to her. She reaches out and catches it in midair.
Impressive. I suppose the shock has passed.
“Thanks,” she says.
“No need,” I tell her. “Come on, let’s get rid of these bastards.”