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fractured-legacies · 11 months

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Imprudent, Chapter 5: Instigations

Prologue | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Chapter 5: Instigations

The current reigning theory for our failed transit is centered around our pilot and navigator, Lt. Alphonsoni, as Nephaas is his homeworld. The lieutenant has been emotionally unstable since our arrival, especially since the discovery of the state of the planet, but has been vocal and emphatic in his insistence that he did not direct our ship here intentionally.

~o0O0o~

Raavi ava Laargan

I ran through the snowy streets; behind me, at least fifty or sixty armed revenants followed in my wake. I knew that they were revenants, despite having only seen Beeno before, because nothing alive could have that gray-purple skin, the color of an old bruise, all over. They were yelling in some language I didn’t recognize, and chasing after me.

They had spears, and flails, and axes, and scythes, and hammers, and whips, and more, not that I’d stopped to take inventory, but it was still something I’d noticed in the moment between me spotting them and them spotting me!

If they caught me, I was dead.

So I ran.

I ran, screaming, heading towards the ironworks.

I’d just crossed the canal bridge when I looked behind and saw that they were still following me. They weren’t in any hurry. And why would they? They didn’t have to worry about the cold. I didn’t even know if they could still feel it, and it wasn’t as if I wasn’t leaving tracks!

I was scrambling for my key when a bellow echoed through the darkness, and another figure appeared from around a corner.

I blinked as she—a redhaired woman dressed in a cloak and a torn undershirt and pants and nothing else—came barreling out of a sidestreet towards the revenant mob. She swung her sword with enough force to chop off the arm of one of the revenants, sending its ax plummeting to the snowy ground.

I stared.

So did all of the revenants, who went “Huh?” as a group.

I didn’t understand their language, but some things apparently transcended both death and language.

The moment ended when she reached down, grabbed the ax, and threw it into the head of one of the revenants. The sound of the impact was like dropping a ripe melon on stone, and I jerked back as the revenant dropped.

“Get inside!” she screamed at me.

“Wha—”

“Get inside and bar the doors!” she shouted, cutting off the arm of another revenant, and grabbing its hammer with her off-hand before it hit the ground.

Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse

Fia slammed the hammer into the head of another oath-walker as the kid obeyed her orders. Which was good, because these were unquestionably oath-walkers. There were too many of them to be simple obsession revenants, and they were moving with too much intent.

Where was a necromancer when you needed one?

She shoved the thought aside and focused instead on beating them back. This wasn’t her first time fighting oath-walkers, and she knew their weak points. Head, joints, spine. Limbs wouldn’t do much, although it could be effective if she was facing one or two; you could cut off the arms and legs—a thought that made her shiver—and interrogate them without having to deal with much more than swearing. And if you had someone willing to do some repair work with Breath, you could even reattach the limbs afterwards.

But with this many, she had to go for kills, and put them down.

The fight became a blur. A spear lunged for her and she blocked it using a flail taken from another revenant, the strands of the flail wrapping around the haft of the spear. She used the leverage of that to yank the spear out of her opponent’s hands and then kicked it into the crowd, sending some of them stumbling and tripping. Another came in with a whip, and expertly lashed her. It hurt, but she knew pain and how to handle it, so she sliced the leather with her sword and let the revenant stumble back into the crowd. A trio of scythe-wielders came up, trudging awkwardly through the snow. She moved away from them, interposing a group with hammers between her and them, but they split up and tried to encircle her.

A sound hissed through the air, and an arrow sprouted from the middle one’s head.

Fia dared a glance up where the arrow had come from, and saw Yufemya standing on a nearby rooftop, nocking another arrow. Giving the other woman a brief salute in thanks, she moved back in, disarming one of the scythe-wielders with a solid blow of her sword as the revenants tried to identify the new threat. Grabbing the scythe with the revenant’s hand still gripping it, she swung it around, forcing the encircling revenants to keep back.

They spoke to each other, and she didn’t recognize the language, a fact that she knew she’d focus on later—if there was a later—and started to move to encircle her.

She jumped back, skewering one of the encircling revenants with the point of the scythe, but it didn’t bring it down.

Leaving the scythe embedded in the revenant’s chest, she pulled back. Yes, she had her advantages, but she was still healing from the cold, which was not helped by having been in that damn trunk, and they could still bring her down with numbers.

Spying four revenants with spears moving as a group, she ran towards them; they set their spears, ready for her charge.

Perfect.

She dropped and slid under them, the snow and ice coating the ground aiding her, even as the chill was a shock to her system. If she survived this, she was going to find or steal some clothes, that was for sure!

There was a beautiful moment as she slid to the feet of the quartet, when they looked down at her in surprise. Reaching out with her sword at full extension, she pushed, springing up in a swing, her sword describing an arc that went through all eight arms of the four revenants.

Their spears thudded to the snow, and they beat a hasty retreat, thankfully. Fia jumped to her feet, and then, kicking up one of the spears into her hand, threw it through another revenant. It was poorly weighted, and her shoulders screamed at her for compounding new mistreatment on top of what she’d just survived.

Another arrow arrived, piercing the head of another revenant behind her, and she gasped in gratitude to Yufemya. She owed the other woman, and owed her big. But for the moment, Fia had bigger concerns, as a coordinated rush from another group of revenants forced her away from the spears, which they reclaimed, along with the arms of the ones who had held them.

They were moving in a more coordinated fashion now, and she could hear them calling to each other. What tongue it was, she still had no idea, but they were planning on taking her down and moving onto the rest of the sleeping town, that was unquestionable.

She gave ground; regardless of her own skills and advantages, she had to. And they were moving in; she backed herself up against the building, just so they wouldn’t be able to come up from behind her.

And then her guard faltered and she yelled as the spear punctured her chest, running her through.

This was it, because she’d thought she could still be a hero—

The sound of wood against stone echoed above her and she looked up, just as a trio of wooden barrels came plummeting out of the air, shattering in the middle of the crowd of revenants, crushing at least two of them and spraying the contents of the barrels everywhere.

A few droplets hit Fia in the face.

Oilsap.

Her eyes went wide just as the lit torch followed from above.

She dove down into the snow, chest screaming as the spear wrenched at it, but that saved her from the blast of heat as the oilsap burst into flame.

The revenants screamed, and as she pulled herself up from the snow, she watched them run.

Looking up, she spied the young man she’d sent into the building looking down at her with concern, and gave him a thumbs up.

“I stayed inside, just like you told me to!” he called down.

She laughed. It hurt. But that was fine. Reaching up, she pulled the spear out. Better to get that free before there were awkward questions. Hauling herself to her feet, she waved to the archer, who was clambering down from a different rooftop than the one she’d started on.

Shouting came, and she heard the familiar sound of a Fire Siphon as more people arrived and put out the blazing oilsap, sucking the heat out and dumping it into the water and snow. Meanwhile, she was healing, and the feeling of the ice cold against her back was oddly welcome, numbing away the pain as the whispers started to quiet down in the back of her mind.

Whatever was going on, Fia had no idea, but she was out of that trunk. And she was going to make the people who had put her into it pay.

Raavi ava Laargan

The armory was bustling as I came in—and then someone called out, “It’s Raavi!” and everyone burst into applause.

I flushed. In the several hours since the revenants had attacked, everyone was treating me like a hero—me, the guy who had screamed and run away, and not Fiaswith, who had, dressed in her nightclothes, gone running at them.

Thankfully, she’d gotten some donated clothes from someone, but I was going to remember seeing her dressed like that for a while. And I sort of didn’t want to. It felt disrespectful. She’d gone charging in and nearly gotten killed, and I’d been hiding inside of the warehouse.

Zoy came over and impudently reached up and tostled my hair. “You had to just get into a fight without me,” she said, smirking.

I flushed. “Sorry, Zoy. Next time?”

She snickered, but before she could say anything else, Fiaswith came over and pulled me into a bear hug. “You little smart-ass genius.”

“Air,” I gasped, making her laugh and loosen her grip. My eyes only barely came up past her shoulder.

“Sorry. I owe you, and I owe you big. Those oath-walkers would have ripped me to pieces, and you pulled my ass out of the fire.”

“By incinerating theirs,” Zoy said. “And I missed it.”

“Who are you?” Fiaswith asked.

“Uh, this is Zoy, another traveler overwintering with us.”

“Well, if you have teasing privileges on Raavi here, know that he was still enough of a smart-ass to shout down that he’d stayed inside, just like I told him to… after dropping those barrels.”

Zoy laughed. “I definitely have those privileges now!”

I sighed, and then the doors opened; the mayor and Stylio came in, along with at least fifty of the overwinterers, all of them armed.

“The revenants are in retreat!” the mayor boomed, and people cheered. “Our sleepers are safe, and we’ve just returned from sending them off back where they came from!”

Fiaswith marched over to him. “Mister Mayor.”

He focused on her. “You’re the warrior who blunted their initial attack, yes? We owe you a thanks.”

“My name is Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse,” she said flatly, making my eyes bulge a little. She was nobility!? “You say that you owe me thanks? Then I claim the debt and I will require an escort to the capital in order to report this attack.”

He blinked. “What are you doing here, so far from home in winter, my Lady?”

“My own business, but know that I was ambushed and left for dead,” she said. “All I had to wear was my nightwear. So I have, shall we say, reason to get back to the capital as soon as I can. Understood?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m not sure what I can offer, though, in terms of transport. We usually depend on canal boats for summer transport, we only have enough ponies to handle our own internal logistics, and I don’t have the men to spare for an escort.” He spread his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult—gods know that I want you to be able to report this to the King—but I don’t have the resources to spare.”

She frowned. “Then try to think of what you can do.” She turned and walked over to the other woman she’d come in with, the archer who had been shooting the revenants until they’d forced her to move from her rooftop.

Stylio came over to me and Zoy. “Are you all right?” she asked, poking me with the tips of her fingers.

“I’m fine. You should check over Lady Fiaswith,” I said. “I was hiding inside the warehouse the whole time. She was outside fighting them, in her underwear!”

“And I missed it!” Zoy said with joking relish. “Sounds like it was an amazing fight!”

I remembered watching the Lady slide fearlessly under a group of spears, somehow keeping herself from getting skewered. “It was.”

Leena came over at that moment, handing me a steaming mug from a tray balanced on one hand, and used her other hand to give me one. “For the heroes of the hour, here! Mulled beer, with spices from my cellar.” She gave another mug to Stylio with a smile, and then a third to Zoy before moving off in pursuit of the Lady and her archer friend.

I looked down at the mug and took a sniff. It smelled delicious, and I cautiously took a sip. It was hot, and I could taste all sorts of unfamiliar flavors in the mix. It was the sort of thing you drank at Midwinter, still more than a month off, but…

Apparently Leena thought I had earned it.

I leaned against the wall, sipping at the steaming beer, the scents from the spices rising up and tickling my nose. I remembered seeing the revenants coming in, weapons in hand.

And Lady Fiaswith was right. We needed to report this to the king.

But what was she going to use? Horses? What would they even eat? And would they even be fast enough?

And I had something fast and dangerous…

I thought about it. And I thought about it. It had been my toy, my idea, my ‘hey, isn’t this a fun thing to try in the winter?’ pet project that I’d been working on for over a year. It was nearly finished, and I had been planning on using it to go play around on the frozen lake that the canals used as a water source.

And who was I kidding? I was an eighteen year old boy whose first thought on seeing a bunch of undead was to run away. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t a hero. Not like the Lady, or even Stylio.

Maybe I could just give it to them and watch them go.

Zoy clapped me on the shoulder. “Hey. You okay in there? Something swimming in your beer?”

“Nah. Just thinking.”

She mimed patting herself down as if cleaning off mud. “Don’t get any of it on me!”

I laughed, and she laughed with me before giving me a smile and moving off. I watched her go, and remembered what I’d asked the crystal die when I’d woken earlier.

Is there any way for Zoy to like me as a boyfriend? And I’d drawn circles for the next month, the end of the winter, and ever.

It had landed on ever, and given the answer of no.

At the time, it had hurt. But now… it just seemed so little of a thing. So she wouldn’t be interested in me as a boyfriend. That was fine. She was still becoming a friend, one who teased me and joked with me.

But since I’d rolled that die this morning, I’d nearly died, and my home had been invaded.

Across the room, the Mayor and Lady Fiaswith were arguing.

I knew what I had to do, if I wanted to be a good person.

I pushed away from the wall and walked over. “I will take the Lady to the capital. I’ll… just need directions.”

The Mayor blinked. “Raavi, what are you talking about? How are you going to take the Lady there? It’s almost a hundred and fifty miles!”

“I have a way.”

The Lady looked at me, her eyes narrowed. “Raavi, how old are you?”

“I’m eighteen. I’m old enough to help. How old are you, my Lady?” I asked.

She snorted. “Almost forty, thank you. And I want to get back to my husband and daughter before anything happens to them.” She caught me looking her up and down and said, “I look young for my age, I know. Healthy living.”

“I guess so!” I wouldn’t have put her at more than thirty. Her skin was flawless, without any wrinkles or crows’ feet.

“And what about your guests?” the Mayor asked.

Stylio stepped forward. “I have helped with the injured from the skirmish, but I am willing to go with the Lady to the capital as escort.” She smiled at me. “And it would feel wrong to have my host leave without me, or my ward. And you can surely spare us, Mister Mayor.”

He frowned, and nodded before looking to Lady Fiaswith. “All right. If you’re willing to accept this aid… but I insist that you all rest and get some supplies in order before you go on this harebrained scheme.”

She looked me up and down before she reached down and squeezed my shoulder. “Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

Taking a deep breath, I reached up and took down her hand. “You saved my life. The least I can do is help you get back to your family.”

Slowly, she nodded. “All right then. Show me whatever it is that you have in mind.”

“You built this?” Lady Fiaswith asked me, sounding impressed as she circled my project, her hands on her hips.

“Took me a year, but yes,” I said. “I made the skates myself.”

Zoy, leaning against the wall of my workroom, had her arms crossed. “This… is a terrible and yet awesome idea and I want one.”

“You’re going to get to sail in one,” Stylio said. “Will it fit all five of us?”

I nodded. “It should.”

“I can handle the rigging,” Lady Fiaswith said. “I have enough sailing experience.”

Stylio looked at her and then her mouth opened in a small “o.” “Ah. Fia the Bloody?”

“At your service,” Lady Fiaswith said. “Retired, though.”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

“The Lady here was a renowned privateer on the Center Sea for over a decade,” Stylio said quietly. “She retired a few years back, if I remember the rumors right.”

“Yup. Those were the days. Driving off slavers, pillaging imperial treasure ships, sneaking through the Dormelion Straits… oh, those were grand days.” She grinned. “And then I retired. Took my fortune, found a noble husband in search of a wife, and called it quits.” Her smile evaporated. “I think some people need a reminder on why I was a terror on the deck, and not just the dancing floor.”

Stylio clapped her supportively on the shoulder. “Will this contraption work?”

“Oh, this?” She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen them used before, in some places south, on pack ice.”

I grinned. “Yeah, that’s where I got the idea from. I was reading up on it, and I saw no reason why it shouldn’t work on the canals and rivers when they’ve iced over. I also made some skis, to give that a try over the snows.”

“Gods know the winds are strong enough…” Lady Fiaswith said, musing, her hand on her chin, examining my iceboat. It wasn’t much—basically a glorified canoe sitting on top of a trio of steel skates, with a main mast and a pair of sails that I had rigged up after a lot of pouring over books and prints of ships. But there was room enough for five people and some food and maybe a small tent if we packed it in right. “All right. I have spent the last three weeks or so trapped in a box. I am going to go to bed, have a screaming nightmare or three, and then dream of bloody revenge on the people who put me in there. So I suggest all of you also get some sleep,” she motioned to me, Stylio, Zoy, and the archer, who had introduced herself as Yufemya, “and we’ll set off once we’ve gotten some supplies together tomorrow?”

I looked around and we all nodded. “Sounds good.”

I went down into the caverns, envelope in hand. I’d been down here a few times already, helping with the routine checks. Now, though…

Well, I’d almost gotten killed twenty hours earlier. Which was the sort of thing that made you think.

So I went over to where my family was sleeping away the winter, not knowing about what sorts of dangers and adventures I would be facing.

But I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye.

Slipping the envelope under my mother’s hand, I gave her a kiss on the top of her head, followed by a similar kiss to my father’s head, and then my two siblings. Quietly, as if not to wake them, I leaned down and said, “Hey. I’m going to go help someone. I’ll be back, I promise, hopefully before you even know I’m gone. But in case I don’t…” I tapped the envelope, “here’s my message. I love all of you.”

I rose, and walked to the exit. Climbing the stairs slowly, I tried not to think of what I was leaving behind, and tried to think on if I was prepared. Did I have everything?

Tools for repairing the ice boat if it was damaged en route? Check. Personal gear? Check. Clothing? Check.

By the time I had reached the canal, where the ice boat was waiting, I had checked all of my pockets and pouches for the gear I was bringing. By all rights, I should have clanked as I walked, but I’d packed well. Waiting by the boat were Lady Fiaswith and the others, along with a number of the other overwinterers, waiting to see us off.

“You said your goodbyes?” Stylio asked.

“I did. They didn’t hear me, though.”

“The important part is that you said them. Trust me.”

I nodded, and, awkwardly, we climbed in. Leena had apparently tried to give us as much supplies as she could. We wouldn’t be going hungry anytime soon, that was for sure!

With a heave the others helped push us up to speed, and the ice boat began to move, slowly at first, but then faster and faster and faster, the ice starting to hiss under the skates.

“Now!” Lady Fia shouted, and, with a yank, I unfurled the sails.

We lurched forward, like an arrow from a bow, and the hissing turned into a wail as we flew with the wind down the canal.

“This is amazing!” Zoy shouted from behind me as we sped down the frozen canals under the watchful gaze of the Night-Light, the snow glowing across the landscape. I was at the front, the tiller in my hand.

“Raavi!” Lady Fia barked. “Fifteen degrees to port!”

I twitched, trying to remember what port meant, and managed to turn us to the left before we plowed into a snowbank.

“Aaaah!” I shouted, along with everyone else as I held onto the tiller for dear life, the ice boat tilting alarmingly.

“Thirty degrees to starboard!”

This time I was ready, and I managed to twist the tiller to match the curves of the canal’s path more smoothly.

Once I got the hang of it—with some close near-misses with the sides of the canal, but we didn’t hit them!—I dared a glance backwards. Lady Fiaswith was manning the sails with panache, pulling the ropes this way and that to let the sailcloth catch the wind. I could believe that she’d spent more than ten years at sea, watching her work!

“What do we do when we reach the locks?” Stylio asked a short while later. “They’ll be drained in the winter!”

“This is a bad time to be asking that sort of question!” Yufemya said.

“We’ll have to stop and work our way around!” Lady Fiaswith said. “And it won’t be long now, so keep a weather eye out for it!”

“Wait, the first locks on the way to the capital aren’t for miles!” I protested.

“Raavi, haven’t you noticed how fast the mile markers are passing?” Zoy said.

“Uh… no? Been focused on the tiller.”

She pointed to one stone, the wind having scoured the snow away from the face of it.

I started counting.

A hundred seconds later, we passed another one.

I did the math, and if I could have paled any more than I already had from the cold, I would have. “We’re going thirty-five miles an hour!?”

“At least! So please be careful and don’t steer us into a snowbank! There are stone walls hiding under there!”

That made me swallow hard, and I redoubled my attention on navigating us down the frozen road that was the canal. It wasn’t long until we got to the nearest set of locks, twenty-five miles away from my home. Less than an hour.

Lady Fia slowly furled the main sail and then the lateen sail that stretched over my head, before calling for Zoy and Yufemya to drop the anchor over the side. The metal plate, festooned with small spikes, fell with an echoing clatter onto the ice, and I cringed at the aching scraping sound as it slid across the ice.

“Oh, that’s charming,” Zoy said, holding her gloved hands over her ears.

“Mmhhmm,” Yufemya echoed. “I can feel every hair on my body standing on end.”

I had to agree with them, but the anchor worked, slowly dragging us to a stop. The screeching sound of the skate over the ice seemed to echo in my ears, though, even though I could tell it was dead quiet around us, the only sound being the soft hiss of the blowing snow.

We shakily disembarked, and Lady Fiaswith gave the ice boat a look of respect, her hand patting the top of the frame. “Amazing. That was, what, twenty-some miles, and we left only an hour ago?”

“Judging by the angle of the moon in relation to the Night-Light,” Yufemya pointed; the moon’s quarter-lit face, barely visible through the streaming clouds, “I think so. Which is… amazing.” She turned and gave me a look of respect. “Well done. We’re in your debt.”

Zoy nodded, and then walked over to the lock. The large stone and wooden chamber was pumped dry, of course, so that the freezing water couldn’t do the pumps any damage over the winter. The rest of the canal was visible off in the distance beyond it, a ribbon of ice that vanished into the hills. But for this twenty yard long—and ten yard drop—it was interrupted. “So… how are we going to get it down there?”

I frowned. “To be honest… I hadn’t thought this far.”

Before anyone could chide me, Stylio spoke up. “We’ll have to empty it of our provisions, and carry them and it down separately.”

We all glanced at the ice boat, and Zoy, her tone wry, asked, “Raavi… just how much does that thing weigh?”

I frowned. “Upwards of a thousand pounds, at least.” Between the wood, the skates, the skis in their holders on the side, the sails, the ropes, the anchor… “We can break it down a little into more manageable chunks, but it’s going to be a pain for the five of us to deadlift.”

“Yeah, and, no offense, you had a problem with your cart full of iron blocks,” Zoy said, her hands on her hips.

As I winced a little at that—I could tell that Zoy wasn’t being mean, she was just stating a fact, but it still hurt—Stylio stepped forward. “Let’s get the provisions out. And then I have a suggestion.”

I reached in and pulled out my rucksack, as the others did the same. “What’s the suggestion?”

“Simple. We carry these packs down, and then come back up here and sing a Strength Shanty together.”

I winced. “That’ll hurt.”

“Yes.” She looked at me. “But I think that it’s our best option for getting the ice boat down to the lower canal without incident. And once there, we take a break, eat some of our provisions to replenish our strength and let our Breath recover, and then we continue on. But here we have at least some shelter,” she pointed to the control hut for the lock, “and we can possibly eat in there while we rest.”

“Let’s just stash the provisions in there first,” Zoy said, “and then get the ice boat.”

“An even better idea. What do the rest of you say?”

I looked at Lady Fiaswith and Yufemya, both of whom nodded after a moment.

I shrugged and got to work. “Okay, taking off the skis, but I’m leaving the mast in place. Don’t want to have to redo the rigging,” I said, sliding the polished wooden slats out of their holders. “Anchors away…”

“It’s anchor’s aweigh,” Lady Fiaswith said with a laugh. “It means that the anchor is clear of the sea bottom and we’re ready to depart.” She took the anchor and its rope from me, and the skis, and started hauling them down to the lower level of the canal.

I took a few minutes and detached the skates. Between the four of them, they weighed over sixty pounds and I’d designed them to come off, after all. Yufemya and Zoy took them and carried the yard-long pieces of sharpened metal down. By the time I’d gotten them all loose, someone had taken my pack over to the hut, and I hadn’t noticed.

Stepping back from the ice boat, I looked it over. The last time I’d lifted it, it had been with a chain hoist in my workshop. A few hours earlier, twenty people had helped carry it out.

Now we were going to carry it with five people.

I took a deep breath as the others came over to me.

“Ready?” Stylio asked, and we chorused yes.

She began to hum on key, and we joined her, and then she began to sing.

“Oh I work all through the sun and sleep with the rum,

Yay the jolly old man!

Oh I slink through the run and wink at the mum,

Yay the jolly old man!”

She kept singing, as we joined in. The words didn’t matter; it was the tone that did, with the words just being a focus for her Will to shape ours in doing what we wanted the spell to do. As we sang, our Breath streamed out from our mouths, hanging in a blue-white fog around us, and then down into our muscles; I felt a surge of strength on the fifth verse, and together, we reached down and lifted.

And the ice-boat rose.

Keeping time with the song, we carried the ice boat over to the hillside where steps were hiding under the snow. A few footprints showed the safe path, and slowly, one step at a time, continuing to sing, we carried the ice boat down. My shoulders and knees were screaming as the pain mounted, and I just focused on the song and on directing the Breath to enhance the strength of my muscles and joints. The more I was able to join my Will in step with Stylio’s, the more efficient we would be, and the less Breath it would take.

We reached the bottom and carried the boat over to the ice. Putting it down, we sang one last stanza of “Yay, the jolly old man!” and I wavered, my vision blurring, holding myself upright by gripping the side of the boat.

“You all right there, Raavi?” Lady Fiaswith asked. Annoyingly, she didn’t even seem winded, and I suddenly felt weak.

“Yeah. Don’t mind me. I just don’t use that very often, so I’m not very good at it,” I said, the excuse feeling oily in my mouth.

She frowned and nodded. “You’ll get better then with practice, especially with a group. Come on. Let’s eat some of these provisions before you put the boat back together. While we don’t have much time, we’ll get to the capital in a few hours at this rate, so we can afford a short rest.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound sullen, and probably failing miserably.

We made our way up to the hut, and ate. Some of the food was still warm, and I felt the pain in my body start to lessen as my Breath replenished, the nourishment helping my body revive.

As we ate—sandwiches of fresh dark bread, packed with fried sausages and tart pickled vegetables, and seasoned with horseradish, mustard and, to my tongue’s amazement, rich and smooth mayonnaise—I closed my eyes. I’d barely dared to blink while we’d been moving, for fear of us hitting one of the sides of the canal. So I just chewed and tried to picture the food breaking down in my belly and from there traveling through my body and rejuvenating it. It was a familiar sort of visualization; I’d been taught it for the first Sundown I’d been old enough to sing in, as opposed to being sung to. Of course, without me using my Breath now, I could visualize it all I wanted—it wouldn’t do anything. And if I used my Breath, that would sort of defeat the purpose of eating in the first place…

We sat around as we finished, one by one; outside, the wind howled, and while the hut wasn’t exactly the best sealed structure ever, it was solid enough to give us respite.

Finally, though, we stood and filed outside. “I guess I need to get the boat put back together,” I said, stretching and putting my toolbelts back on; I’d taken them off when we’d carried the boat down.

“Would be nice,” Yufemya deadpanned.

“Rather useful,” Zoy said in the same tone, and the two of them fistbumped and chuckled.

Stylio sighed ruefully. “Come on.”

We went back down the stairs; already, the wind had deposited a pile of snow in the lee of the boat, and more was accumulating. I pushed it out of the way and started reattaching the skates; Yufemya, Zoy, and Lady Fiaswith helpfully aided by pulling the boat off to the side so that I could work more easily, and Stylio helped hold the blade up so I could get the bolts lined up.

I’d almost finished with the last skate when I heard a shout and the boat lurched.

“Ack!” I jumped back before the long blade could cut me, but Stylio wasn’t so lucky; it gashed open her sleeve, cutting into her arm.

She didn’t hesitate, and started to sing a healing spell as her arm gushed blood, but before I could demand answers, I heard Yufemya shout, “Get down!”

I dropped, and an arrow hissed over my head, and something fell behind me.

I twisted, to see a revenant lying on the ice, an arrow sticking out of its head. And then I heard Yufemya’s bow sing again, and Lady Fiaswith cried out.

Pushing myself to my feet, I crawled over to the side of the ice boat and peered over the side. Another revenant—this one with a bow of its own—was tumbling down the side of the canal’s bank.

But it had shot Lady Fiaswith, who was looking down at the arrow sticking out of her chest—at the arrowhead sticking out of her chest.

“Oh. Damn.”

I gasped, and whirled towards Stylio. “You have to help her!”

“And I liked this shirt!” the Lady said.

“I think we have bigger problems!” I said.

She rolled her eyes, reached up, and yanked the arrow through her chest. For a heartbeat, I could see through her.

Stylio faltered, but managed to keep her healing song going, and then Lady Fiaswith frowned and looked down at her chest. “That’s another cloak, coat, and shirt ruined!”

I felt my eyes go round as I saw the wound heal up in front of me. I turned to Stylio, whose eyes were also going wide. “Was that you?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I’ll explain later,” the Lady said, and looked around. “Is the boat ready?”

“I just need to finish tightening down the bolts,” I said.

“Do that, now. We don’t know where the rest of their friends are, and while I can handle looking like a pincushion, I doubt that any of the rest of you can!” She turned. “Yufemya, get your arrows back. Zoy, get the skis and the anchor.”

Both of them bolted as fast as they could across the ice, Yufemya scanning the top of the embankment for any other threats. I got to work on the skates, even as the memory of watching the bloody wound through Lady Fiaswith’s chest close without the need of a song of healing played out over and over again in my mind.

I’d finished reattaching the skate when Zoy came up with the anchor and skis. We were getting the supplies loaded in, when I heard Yufemya shout.

I looked up, and saw her running down the embankment. “They’re coming!”

Stylio, her arm healed and the tear in her sleeve covered with a strip of cloth to reduce the risk of frostbite, took a deep breath, and started to hum.

I fell into key with her, and we started to sing and push the boat. Lady Fiaswith and Zoy joined in, as Yufemya ran towards us. We’d gotten it up to a walking pace when she caught up and started pushing as well, trying to join in with the song.

A howl came from behind me, and I dared a look backwards.

At least a dozen revenants had just crested the side of the canal and were coming after us. Thankfully none of these had bows, but their axes and spears were still sharp.

We continued to push, faster and faster, as the revenants gave chase.

“Get in!” Zoy shouted as we started to slither over the ice, and jumped in.

I jumped in as well, my hands gripping the tiller, and braced myself for the jolt as Lady Fiaswith unfurled the sails.

We were off, leaving the revenants far behind.

<<<<>>>>

Prologue | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Wheee! Plot! Bit of a longer one this week, but there wasn't any good spot to break it. Hope you're all enjoying the story so far!

#fractured legacies imprudent #imprudent #original writing

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