Chapter 40 Samson #2
“I have,” Samson said, remembering the lone lantern fighting against the suffocating darkness as his mother guided their boat.
He had been seized with terror as he thought about the bottomless pit yawning beneath, and the thin wood separating him from its maw.
“The rumors are true. All sensors and lights fail within the pit. Except for fire.”
“It’s like in the stories,” Chandi said. “‘Sorceress of the water, son of the sea. Give up your fire, and the pit responds to thee.’”
“Old wives’ tales,” Rhumia snorted.
“Most ships skirt around it, but we don’t have time. We need to cut through,” Daz said, throwing his grandniece a look. “Do you know a way?”
“Sorceress of the water, son of the sea.” His mother tipped the dead Jantari soldier overboard, and Samson recoiled as he heard the body slam into the water. Their boat shook upon its impact, and then began to vibrate as the sea heard their call. “Feast upon the enemies of thee.”
“Fire can help guide you, along with the stars,” he said.
It was not a lie, but neither was it the whole truth.
The sea was always hungry. The Great Serpent desired Her sacrifices, and he did not have the heart to give one.
But fire? He glanced at Elena. The Great Serpent would allow them passage if a fire bound their ships.
It would require him to summon for a prolonged period, but he was still too weak to wield. Unless he drew on Elena’s own Agni.
Samson vacillated, looking between Elena and the blue holo of the pit.
If he siphoned her Agni, he’d reveal their connection.
She could just as easily draw on him then—if she knew how.
But he could not give her this power over him.
Even if she gave him soft smiles. Even if his name on her lips sounded like an utterance of faith, borne on the truths they had surrendered to each other.
The Ayoni slipped behind him. It was only then that Samson noticed that his and Chandi’s bands were glowing, but not Elena’s or Jaya’s. He began to question their host when Jaya threw up her hands with a cry.
“I know!”
She quickly tuned the panel in a flurry of limbs and curses. Samson watched, transfixed, as the holomaps blurred, Jaya’s voice quickening.
“The killdoms won’t sail straight from Rysanti to Tsuana like we think.
If they head straight east, they’ll inevitably run into the merchant and carrier ships sailing north of Seshar.
Everyone will see them. Sesharians will gossip about the infamous flesh crawlers seen heading east of Seshar.
Word will spread to Tsuana of foreign ships bearing down upon her waters. Farin can’t risk that.”
“So they head south,” Samson mused, tracing a finger along the map. “Curving along the islands and out back, where no one can see.”
“Exactly.”
He saw it now, clear as day. “So we ambush—”
“Exactly,” Jaya chattered excitedly.
“—before they turn around the islands—”
“Yes. It’s a straight shot. If we sail through the pit, we’ll cut right through their path. Take the battle on open seas.”
“‘Everything is settled on the open waters,’” he intoned. “‘If it is not, then laugh, son of sea. For you have died and your enemy has lived longer than thee.’”
The Ayoni spoke up then. He approached the panel, pointing to the two Yumi ships and making pincer cuts with two fingers.
“He says that with Sesharians on board, we’ll win on the open sea, so long as—” Afira halted then as the Ayoni continued.
He finally stopped and looked at Afira, but she stood stiffly, eyes skittering away.
Her sister fidgeted. Even Daz looked uncomfortable as he suddenly focused on the edge of the panel.
Samson had the distinct sensation that whatever else the Ayoni had said was something caustic, an insult directed toward Seshar.
He knew as soon as the Ayoni glanced at him.
There was derision in his eyes, tinged with distrust. He knew the Ayoni were often unfriendly hosts, but he had not known of their prejudice against Sesharians.
His skin crawled, and had he had the strength, he would have summoned an inferno so hot it would have dried the insults on the small man’s tongue.
The Ayoni spoke again, and this time, Daz recovered quickly.
“Apologies, friend.” He rose, beckoning the Ayoni to take a seat again. “Our host cautions us to be careful about… treacherous force waves. There have been more winter storms around Seshar than we’ve seen before. Please, continue.”
Samson slowly turned back to the panel. “I can lead a ship,” he began.
The Ayoni sneered, and suddenly, he was a young boy again, filled with the gnawing desire to prove himself and rub his victories in all the naysayers’ faces.
They could not disrespect him once they feared him.
“I know this part of the sea better than anyone here. Elena, once we’re in the open sea, you peel off to trap in the first killdom. ”
She nodded, though he noticed panic creasing the corners of her eyes. I’m afraid of the sea. He touched her hand and bent close so that only she could hear.
“I’m with you, remember?”
She was so close that he could see her top lip quiver as her eyes caught his. A flash again, that fleeting emotion he could not name, before she nodded.
“I’ll do it,” she murmured.
He did not notice that the others were staring until he turned. Jaya looked amused, Chandi as if she was ready to berate him, and the Yumi indifferent, except for Daz. The general smiled, though it was cold and devoid of kindness.
“How brave of the two of you,” he said.
The door slid open, and their Yumi escort stepped through.
“The ships are ready,” she said.
Two black Ayoni ships floated at the end of the dock.
Their hulls curved elegantly, each plank perfectly melded into the other so that there seemed to be no seams but a collective whole.
Even the guns outfitted along the sides had an organic quality, as if they were living, breathing beasts.
Samson had not heard the ships approach.
They made no sounds as they floated, a marvel in itself. Elena drew up beside him, eyes wide.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” she asked, her voice soft with awe.
He shook his head mutely.
“They’ll do,” Jaya said.
Rhumia started. “They’ll do? The bounders aren’t styluses you swap in and out like in one of your games.”
“Everything is a game, dear Rhumia,” Jaya said as she walked the length of the boat. “Everything.”
“Let’s load in now,” Daz said.
Samson nodded, unable to tear his eyes away. “Yes. Chandi, bring in the men from the tankers. It’s time we set sail.”
As his soldiers filed onto the docks, Samson watched them take in this strange, silent port.
Like him, they observed the workers in the distance and the glass city they could not touch.
They watched the lone Ayoni, who stood in his rigid black coat and counted off on his holopod, his eyes sweeping over them.
“There’s something odd about that man,” he whispered to Elena.
“The quicker we get everyone in, the faster we can get out of here,” she said.
Suddenly, a whirring started beneath their feet.
Samson startled as the dock shifted. Elena cried out in alarm, and he grabbed her hand, pulling her to him, as the dock where she had stood turned inward, blocking off the first boat.
His men shouted, pinned against the trapped ship.
On the other side, the adjacent dock blocked the second bounder, and the workers in their helmets marched onto the platform.
Armed with guns.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Sam.” Her hand was warm against his chest, her voice urgent. “Sam, look.”
Behind them, Daz shouted in Ayini. The Yumi were cornered on one end, and then Samson noticed the dockmaster standing on the only stable part of the dock, a stylus glinting in his hand.
“I knew it! You fucking chicken-livered sandbag!” Jaya screamed. She was balanced on two planks that precariously floated before the ship engines. “You took my design!”
And then Samson saw that she was right, that the docks hedging in the two boats was like the gameplan Jaya had made earlier of the bounders trapping in the killdoms.
“What’s happening?” Chandi called. She stood on the other end of the plank with Jaya. “Daz, tell us!”
“I’ll tell you,” the Ayoni said in perfect Hind. “We have been awaiting payment for three days now, and here you are speaking of setting sail. That will not do, friends. General Daz must pay.”
“Then make him pay up and stop fooling with us,” Jaya shot back.
“I’m afraid you are a part of the payment,” he said.
Elena whipped to Daz. “What kind of payment?”
“This was not a part of our agreement,” Daz snapped. “Bresingi, we already paid our fare with contracts pledged to your empress. You are breaking the good faith between our—”
“You came with Sesharians,” Bresingi said coldly, and the look he gave to Samson then made his skin curdle. “Our empress asks for fifty hail Sesharian sailors to work and sail the ships you’ve contracted to us. I believe there are over fifty who came with your guests.”
“No,” Samson spat.
The Ayoni ignored him, speaking only to Daz. “Fifty for your guests’ fare.”
“These are free men, not Jantari servants,” Daz said.
“And they will be free after their contracts.”
“Keep your horrid ships,” Samson said. He wished he had never set his eyes upon them. “We don’t need your help. We’re leaving.”
“But you do need these ships, little Sesharian,” Bresingi mused. “How else will you enact your great revenge? How else will you make the great metal king bend?” He smiled. “All I require are fifty men.”
“Bresingi,” Daz implored. “Let us talk this through, eh? Surely your empress does not want tired, malnourished soldiers. They will be useless to you.”
“Remember your place, Mokshi,” Bresingi said, and there was something hidden in his voice, the soft whisperings of warning, because Daz fell back, his face shuttered with regret and helplessness.
Anger spiked down Samson’s throat. You fool.
How could he have not seen it before? The black-market sensors.
Bresingi’s slow, unpeeling examination. The Ayoni were traders, forcing free men into servitude behind their iron curtain of self-solitude.
He should have never come. He should have never trusted the Yumi.
“Done.”
His heart plummeted as Chandi called to the Ayoni. “I will pay their debt.”
“Chandi, no,” he said.
“You need to stop those killdoms and make it to Tsuana,” she said to him. “Remember your promise.”
She looked at him, her face resolute, and if he had not known her better, he would have thought her brave. But he saw fear in the quiver below her cheek. “Chandi—”
“I will pay the debt too,” said another Black Scale, stepping forward.
“As will I.”
“As will I.”
Samson watched, helplessly, as his men followed their commander to their own ruin.
“Black Scales,” he called. “I demand—I order—take up your arms—”
With a wave of his stylus, Bresingi pulled Chandi’s plank in, and Samson’s commander stood face-to-face with the Ayoni. He examined her slowly, and Samson felt bile rise in his throat as Bresingi made a soft, satisfactory cluck.
“This one will do,” he said.
Immediately, the docks opened beneath Chandi, and she dropped.
“CHANDI!”
The force field cut her scream short. But Samson heard it, and he clawed forward, only to be repelled as the planks shifted. He howled in frustration.
“Careful, Sesharian, or else I’ll drift you and her out to sea,” Bresingi said.
It was only then Samson noticed that Elena had been separated too.
She was on her hands and knees on tiny planks, shaking violently, and he thought, with a sudden malignant venom, of how she had not spoken up when Bresingi told them the price, how she had remained silent in this exchange, but then she looked up, and he saw her white-lipped fear.
I’m afraid of the sea.
“You fucking purple-brained brute—” he began.
Bresingi twirled his stylus, and a sudden force field ensconced Samson. He screamed, shouted, yelled—but he could not hear his own voice, and they could not hear him.
“Much better,” Bresingi said as he turned to a pale-faced Daz. “Pleasure doing business, General. Now get off my docks.”