Chapter 8
They drugged Ulla.
Whether because she fought them–biting, scratching, and kicking–or because they feared she would call other Yvri to her once they reached the sea, Bastion didn’t know. Several of the men now bore wounds, a reminder that she was far from helpless.
She’d fought with such ferocious beauty. If Bastion remembered nothing else about today, he hoped it was that.
He looked between her, lying at his feet, and the receding shore.
Inland, just out of sight, they’d left a group of men in an established camp.
Another party that had joined them, leading horses laden with bounty.
Bastion had noted the quality of their gear and the blunt cut of their manes, standard for mounted guards.
A patrol that had been waylaid.
He hoped their riders survived, but he doubted it.
Bastion’s eyes cut across the choppy water to Buck.
He stood at the front of a second rowboat, one foot braced against the bow.
He appeared to be talking to himself as he toyed with the Acari pendant, using it to scratch his chin through his beard.
He’d pried it out of the dead man’s chest and dropped it around his neck, still glistening with blood.
Their eyes met, and a smile spread across Buck’s face. He wore Bastion’s sword at his waist, stoking the anger that burned hot in Bastion’s gut.
It almost smothered the gnawing dread that had filled him since Buck had uttered Bastion’s name and title. To no avail, Bastion had searched his mind, trying to ascertain when and where he’d met the man.
Over his shoulder, a weathered and stained ship bobbed on the waves, drawing ever closer. The Basilisk, he’d heard the men call it. It looked ready to swallow them whole, not unlike its namesake, and with as much venom.
Worse than that, dark clouds bloomed on the horizon.
Bastion sank into his training. He listened to the sea, using the rhythm of the rowers to anchor himself. Hanniel had made sure to expose his trainees to varying degrees of mental and physical duress so that when it came upon them organically, they would not fall victim to it.
As Bastion had.
He wouldn’t let it happen again. He vowed then and there, as they came alongside The Basilisk, that he would take the first chance to escape.
A pirate heaved Ulla over his shoulder. Four swollen gashes shot up his neck and over his jaw where she’d raked him with her claws.
“Careful with her!” Bastion growled.
The man grinned and slapped her buttocks. Then he shimmied up the ladder onto the deck. As soon as he laid hands on a blade, Bastion was going to cut that man’s hand off.
The remaining men shoved him forwards. With his hands bound, he couldn’t climb the ladder.
Before he could protest, an iron hook descended, nearly clipping his nose. It caught him quickly between the wrists, and he was hauled upwards. He grunted as the sun- and salt-hardened rope cut into his skin.
He tumbled onto the deck. Pirates scurried like lice on a mangy animal, climbing the rigging or dragging wooden boxes and barrels out of the way. Bastion got to his feet, assessing their numbers. The ship had to be at capacity. A sense of finality descended on him as the remaining crew came aboard.
“HADDRICK!” Buck roared. “RUM, NOW!”
A squirrely man nearly jumped out of his skin before racing over to Buck with a brown bottle in his hands. Buck seized the bottle and tossed back half of it, grimacing as the liquid touched his torn lip.
Haddrick’s eyes darted from Buck to Bastion and finally to Ulla, still draped limply over the scarred man's shoulder. He didn’t appear to be cut from the same cloth as the others, his skin paler and his build leaner, like he was unaccustomed to spending time outside.
Old bruises colored his exposed skin a sickly yellow, and he wiggled his fingers anxiously, like he’d touched something sticky.
Buck shoved the bottle back into Haddrick’s hands and pointed at his lip. “Fix this.”
Haddrick cast a fearful glance at Bastion. Buck slapped him.
“If I have to tell you again…” he whispered, his hand shifting to Bastion’s sword.
A fury to match the vengeance burning in Bastion’s heart boiled up.
That blade may only be a standard-issue longsword, but the pommel still bore the flower bud of the royal family.
It didn’t belong in the hands of a man who would relish spilling blood.
Haddrick stiffened, his face turning white. He lifted his hands to Buck’s ruined lip, now reminiscent of a newly ruptured hot spring. A soft green glow emanated from his fingertips. Bastion’s eyes widened.
Human healers were less common than Yvri, the gift more innate to dragon-kin. Both could kill someone as easily as mend them. Buck had to know that, so what leverage did he have over Haddrick to treat him so cruelly?
“Boss,” Ulla’s captor said, casting a nervous glance at his crewmates. “What should I do with ‘er?
Buck glared, saying nothing as Haddrick worked. The ship rocked beneath them, and everyone bent at the knees to keep their balance.
When the healer finished, Buck snatched the bottle again, tipped the bottom skyward, and drained it. Then he walked over to the man and smashed it against his temple.
Bastion started forwards, terrified he would drop Ulla. The crew prevented him, one seizing his cloak and another hooking a hand around his bicep. The man stumbled sideways, somehow staying upright as the ship lurched.
“What do you think you should do with her?” Buck asked, his voice a low hiss.
The man swayed, swallowing hard as he tried to form words.
“Um, throw ‘er…” he started. “Throw ‘er in the brig… and ‘im, too?”
Buck nodded and thumped the man on the back, hard.
“Haddrick!” he yelled.
“Y-yes, sir!” the healer squawked.
“See to the men’s injuries. The Yvri bitch didn’t come quietly, and I don’t need infection messing up our plans.”
Haddrick stared at Ulla as Buck disappeared into the captain’s quarters, slamming the door. A good portion of the crew joined him in staring. Then they began to rib each other, sharing lecherous grins. Bastion’s stomach soured.
The pirate carrying Ulla staggered towards the stairs.
Bastion was dragged after her, trading the thin afternoon light for cloying darkness that stank of sweat, pitch, and animal excrement.
They marched him past a pair of sad-looking goats that bleated pathetically.
Bastion looked out over empty hammocks and piles of ammunition arranged neatly beside waiting cannons.
Two lanterns burned in the dark, like demonic eyes, attached to heavy support beams. Rusted shackles dangled beside them, clanking woefully as the ship rocked. Between them loomed a bare space, the floor and beams dark with old blood.
A killing floor.
The earlier feeling of being swallowed whole returned, and Bastion’s stomach bucked. Old hurt festered in the planks with the deep, fatal pain of a belly wound.
The swift, skittering shadows of rodents evaporated into any available crevice as the scarred man skirted the stained floor.
Inside one of the tiny cells, he knelt slowly.
He put Ulla down more gently than he’d picked her up.
The other two shoved Bastion into an adjacent cell and locked the door, turning the key with a creaking echo that promised a slow forgetting.
Then the pirates left Bastion and Ulla to the curiosity of the rats.
__________
The lanterns burned out and in the darkness, Bastion couldn’t tell how much time passed.
Enough for him to check his prison for weaknesses and attempt to sever his bonds against the bars. It took far longer than he wanted, and his wrists were bloody by the end, but eventually, the rope frayed and snapped.
Men came and went, keeping well away from the cells–or perhaps the blood-stained space before them.
Most took what they needed from the ship’s stores, piled in a barricade between the brig and the rest of the lower deck.
They returned to sea and sky quickly, while others collapsed into frayed hammocks, taking sleep where they could get it.
Bastion recognized a few from their initial capture.
After Buck had taken the Acari pendant, the others had stripped their fallen crewmates and left their bodies to the scavengers.
Now, Bastion watched them stitch pieces of the dead men’s clothing into their own–a superstition that promised Death would overlook them a little longer.
Others loitered around a narrow box, at least as long as two men were tall, whispering excitedly. Eventually, they, too, returned above deck. Bastion was left with only the sound of the sea and busy footfalls overhead.
It occurred to him that waiting was part of the torture.
He removed his cloak and shoved it through the bars to drape over Ulla’s prone form. She was near enough that he could lift her head and pull a corner of the cloak between her and the filthy floor. He checked her pulse, pressing two fingers to her throat.
It was quick, but steady, at odds with her stillness. Gently, Bastion swept a strand of hair away from her face, a pearl catching between his fingers. Just last night, they’d forged a deeper connection and now they were prisoners. It sickened him that he’d let this happen.
Eventually, the feeling of eyes raised the hair on the back of his neck. Bastion scanned the deck, but could only see sleeping bodies swinging in their hammocks. His gaze dragged more slowly over shadowed spaces until, finally, he landed on a pocket that felt occupied.
Shrouded by the darkness, wedged between two barrels where larger men would have difficulty reaching him, a boy watched Bastion.