26. Escape #2
I held my glowing hands up. A silver haze steamed from my fingers, hissing.
Squire huddled under my wet braid, trying, and failing, to stay dry. He chirped with annoyance. Hooves smacked into puddles, water and mud flying as Black Beauty kept sprinting over the jagged hills. She leaned her head low, charging through the shower.
Visibility decreased as the rainfall intensified. Mini floods sent water cutting through the rocks, gushing down the hills. The world was a somber shade of gray, and my exposed skin glowed with magic.
Black Beauty reared back abruptly, neighing. I shouted and Squire screamed as we careened, mud flying. Hooves grappled for traction as we slid sideways along the rocks. Finally she came to a stop.
Squinting through the growing darkness, I spit out dirt. Nothing but air to our right and a roaring crash down below. I gasped. A rocky cliffside plummeted into the sea, and we stood on the edge.
We were at the Moor Ocean.
Over ten thousand miles of uncrossable waves.
Shivering, I folded inward to stay warm as the scent of salt filled my lungs.
“We drown?” Squire cawed as he huddled against the back of my neck, hiding from the elements as Black Beauty shook her head, backing away from the free fall she’d narrowly avoided.
“No, dear, we can swim.”
“Is this sea?” Squire hooted with excitement.
“Yes,” I said with awe. “We’ve finally made it to the ocean.”
Squire ducked as rolling thunder shook the land.
Grief hit me out of nowhere. Aurora never got to see the ocean. Mom was also out here somewhere, scared. The feelings were crippling. I pounded my fist against my chest, trying to restart my heart. Numbness had spread.
Squire bobbed his head. “Survive we must—”
“—it’s up to us,” I finished the poem, rain sputtering off my lips.
I leaned forward, the sharp rocks rising jaggedly below. There was no easy way down off this cliffside. I’m going to have to jump.
I screamed into the wind, voice cracking.
Lightning exploded over the churning white-tipped waves that crashed against the sheer face. The flash illuminated a single long, meandering path that led all the way down. It passed under a gate and ended where stone buildings stood by a pier.
A monstrous ship rocked in the waves. Its sails were lowered, and a heavy tarp covered the deck. Its bow bobbed violently, a gigantic figurehead protruding high over the sea—a roaring dire lion with arching dragon wings, the symbol of the Draconis Empire.
They were here to take me to Mom.
“I, Zora Ravenal, am a Mage, a Keeper of the Barren Forest, the Bear of the North, a hunter, and a peasant,” I shouted, drawing strength from the storm that had showed me my path. “I will complete my quest!”
Just as quickly as the port appeared, it disappeared under the dark deluge of rain.
My hands glowed with a guiding silver light.
I led Black Beauty tangentially along the edge of the world as we traversed down the exposed, wet path at a slow clip with trepidation.
Hooves slipped on rocks, and each step downward was more dangerous than the last.
Finally we made it to the arch with Port Crow whittled into the top.
Wanted posters were nailed up and around the structure. A black object hung below the arch on a rope. It blew back and forth in the blustery wind. I squinted through the icy rain and reared back in my saddle, clutching Squire.
The posters depicted a woman covered in blood holding up a masked royal with a knife in his stomach: me and Tarantula.
Further proof that the pirates of the Eastern Coast were loyal to the Empire. Treacherous cowards. Cold determination intensified. I will not lose.
Head throbbing, I let the rage warm my icy limbs. Black Beauty neighed, flashing sharp canines as she shook her head. She walked around the arch, refusing to go beneath it. Squire cawed out with horror.
I looked back and felt sick. The black object fluttered as it rocked, wings spreading wide in the rain.
It was a corpse of the port’s namesake: a dead crow.
The lack of respect for life was despicable.
After I hunted, I always buried the remains of the animal corpses that weren’t used by the Commune.
Rule of survival: Respect life or it will not respect you.
Down the path, Black Beauty walked into the town. Misshapen stone buildings towered along both sides of the road, their third floors leaning at sharp angles, lower floors too narrow, like they were built inverted and were seconds from crumbling.
Waves crashed loudly against a low stone wall, the white foam spraying high into the salty air. Soggy wanted posters with my face on them were nailed to the hanging lantern posts that lined the curving empty street.
Rain hissed, falling faster.
The pier came into view, the ship towering above the buildings. Up close, the entire deck was covered with an immense tan tarp. Black Beauty came to a halt. I snapped the reins and dug my heels in, but she refused to move forward.
I dismounted with Squire perched on my shoulder and unsheathed one of my bone knives.
A sound echoed behind me. I whirled, holding my knife at the ready, head on a swivel.
A tall, scraggly man stood a distance away in the rain. His head cocked to the side as he stared at me. His dark beard was long and braided, covered in chains. He coughed loudly, a dry rattle. The wasting sickness. I squinted through the gloom. He was missing an eyeball.
“Who are you?” I shouted.
He smiled, and there were no teeth, just black gums. “The bounty’s here!” he shouted at the top of his lungs with a coarse accent.
I backed up.
Three more men joined him, each holding machetes and coughing intermittently. They were skin and bones, and their infected tattoos bubbled as gaudy jewelry glinted on their necks.
Pirates.
Two more joined.
I turned, preparing to flee, but Black Beauty had run off—and five more men blocked my path. The wasting sickness had given their complexions a green pallor, and their eyes were a sickly shade of yellow.
They surrounded me. Squire trembled on my shoulder.
Rule of survival: Meet the danger head-on.
Gently I picked Squire up. “Fly to the wall and don’t look, dear,” I said as I kissed his soggy head. He hooted and flapped over, settling onto the wall. He swiveled his head, obediently looking out to sea.
With a war cry, the pirates charged.
“You must fight for those who cannot help themselves.”
The men stalking toward me were riddled with disease and emaciated by starvation. I wasn’t sure if my new duty included them. Will Barren punish me for killing them? My magical scar itched.
I wasn’t willing to take any chances.
Ducking under an arm, I stabbed one of the pirates in the chest from behind, purposefully missing his heart. He cried out in pain as I broke his outstretched arm and ripped his machete from his hold.
He dropped as I spun away. He clutched his chest, but he was still alive.
Another approached, and I glanced down at the new machete in my hand. I dropped low and sliced it across the tops of his thighs, not deep enough to bleed out. Incapacitated, he also fell to the ground.
I chucked my bone blade with my left hand, and it buried deep into the fleshy part of a shoulder—another pirate toppled.