For once luck was with Nuriel, or at least the poor fortune that had been dogging her for days had decided that nearly walking into a tomb infested with giant spiders was enough for now and gave her a bit of a break, in that despite running blindly through the jungle with little thought to stealth and awareness of her surroundings, she didn’t encounter anything trying to eat her, smash her, or infect her with something exotic and horrible.

When enough of her senses returned to her to at least take stock of herself, she was standing in a part more brightly lit than most, due to the trees overhead not being as thick so as to blot out the light. Where she was in relation to the tomb, the grove, the path, or the field, she couldn’t even begin to judge. But her heart was still pounding, her hands were shaking, and she was jumping at every sudden noise.

Nuriel anxiously looked around. No, nothing was stalking her, nothing was crawling toward her, nothing was crawling on-

Wait.

The second the thought entered her mind, Nuriel frantically slapped herself all over, searching for any disgusting stowaway that might have picked up a ride. It took searching herself twice over before she was convinced that there was no spiders clinging to her ass or slugs crawling up her legs.

All right.

Nuriel slowly inhaled through her nose and exhaled out her mouth over and over. She was safe. She was good. She had gotten away.

She stood there, still and alone, staring off into space.

Then she began to shake. It started small, just a tiny trembling of the fingers, but from there it spread to her wrists, up her arms, and from her shoulders it went both down and up, until her whole body was shaking.

Don’t scream, said that small voice of rationality, the one that always became the most insistent whenever she was in trouble, which was often. Let it out if you must, but do so quietly!

She listened. She bit back on the shriek she felt forming, clenching her jaw tight and refusing to let it out.

But she did everything else though.

Her vision misted over, and she attacked everything that was near, kicking tree trunks and pounding the ground with her fists. She tore up ferns with ripped them to pieces. She slammed her knuckles into a large boulder until the skin threatened to break.

From there, she grabbed up everything she could get her hands on, from stones to leaves to handfuls of dirt, and threw them as hard as she could. She did everything she could to channel her rage out while making as little noise as possible.

And why shouldn’t she rage? Everything about her current situation was completely and absolutely unfair! Sure, she was a thief and a bit of a liar, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be blamed for a hurricane and thrown overboard to drown, end up marooned on an island full of monsters, get attacked by bugs at every turn, and now have to deal with vengeful ghosts! It wasn’t right at all!

In time her anger burned itself out, leaving her feeling drained, but just a little bit better. After all, she was still alive. Nothing had eaten her yet, she had suffered no serious injury, nothing had really focused on her yet. She was, for the time being, all right. She just needed to keep her head on and her wits about her.

Nuriel slowly breathed out. Fine. She was fine. She could do this.

Then, as she continued to calm down, another piece of good fortune made itself known to her. She heard the distinctive trickle of water coming from somewhere nearby.

Heartened by this, Nuriel followed the sound until she came across a small creek running through the trees. She almost dove right at it, only for a sharp memory to force itself into the forefront of her mind.

A deal had gone south, and she and Father had had to flee the city for a time, taking refuge in the woods. And nearly a solid day of walking, Nuriel had been hot, tired, and thirsty, and upon finally coming across a small stream much like the one she just found, she had darted for it just like she was now.

Only that time, Father had seized her by the bicep and roughly yanked her back.

Are you mad? he had demanded. Do you want to be heaving your guts out? That little trickle’s flowing so slow, and you could piss in it a mile away, and it would still flow back into your greedy tongue!

That had stunned her. Sure, the water from the canals in the city were filthy, but this had been out in the wild! Surely the water had to be clean out there!

But when he had calmed himself some, Father had explained that small, slow-flowing streams moving through the dirt and mud were likely to be full of animal shit and pieces of animal carcasses and whatever else they picked up. Larger, faster rivers were better, and water that flowed through and off rocks was the best, which did come to make sense once Nuriel had thought on it some.

Nuriel followed the creek. It seemed to be getting bigger. Soon the green-covered soil gave way to rocky ground, and other creeks were running in to feed the main channel, turning it into a proper river.

What was more, she could hear the sound of a waterfall up ahead.

Now it should be safe enough to drink. Nuriel knelt down next to a large stone that divided part of the river into two, cupped her hands to catch the water flowing across it, and drank. Once her thirst was finally quenched, she began rubbing the water all over her, essentially giving herself a quick whore’s bath to wash off the film of dried juice and sweat.

When she was done, she felt a whole lot better. Sure, those fruits hadn’t exactly stuffed her, but they were something at least, and where there was one kind of fruit there was probably more somewhere about. And now the flies would leave her alone at least. And hey, the spiders hadn’t gotten her! That was a definite point in her favor.

As Nuriel rose up, her gaze fell upon a relatively gentle pool that sat near her feet.

Her reflection stared up back at her.

It had been a long time since Nuriel had seen her own face. The last port she had taken ship hadn’t left her much time for anything of the nature. She had just enough time to pawn what meager findings she had managed to scrape together, get herself a meal, pick a few pockets, and find a new ship to set sail on.

But now…she looked different from what she remembered. Her pale woolen hair, normally cut short so as to make passing as a boy easier, was now past her jawline, while her freckled elfin face was thinning out, the baby fat in her cheeks disappearing.

Nuriel sighed. She was getting older. In times past stowing away in a ship or passing as a boy had been so easy. She just had to find a ship looking for a cabin boy and join the crew. Then she would have a designated place to sleep, semi-regular food, and didn’t have to worry about being caught. Granted, she would sometimes find herself having to ward off members of the crew who were growing lonely at sea and frankly didn’t care about her sex, but she had learned a trick or two to quickly divest them of those notions when it happened.

But lately it was just getting more and more difficult. It didn’t matter that she was binding her chest, it didn’t matter that she was cutting her hair and dressing up in man’s clothes, it didn’t matter that she had no voice to give herself away, they were starting to notice more and more. If she kept growing, even that would be a problem, as she wouldn’t be able to fit into the same spaces that she used to. She had always been small for her age, but that only went so far.

Then Nuriel glanced up. Well, at the very least she didn’t need to worry about any of that here. The locals didn’t care what was between her legs; they would eat her just the same. It was kind of refreshing in macabre sort of way.

Furthermore, there was one other thing she no longer had to do.

Nuriel unbuttoned her shirt, starting from the top and working her way down. Then she shrugged it off her shoulders and carefully laid it on a rock. Now with her shoulders and stomach bare, she knelt down to yank out St. George and used him to slice the strips of linen she had used to kept her bosom bound.

Her breasts had never been much to speak of, and honestly, given how baggy her shirt was, she probably didn’t even need to bind them down, but it didn’t pay to take chances. Still, she felt a measure of relief once they were freed. If there was one advantage to being marooned on an island of monsters and ghosts, it was that she no longer had to care much about societal conventions. The monsters didn’t care if she was a boy or a girl; they would eat her much the same.

It wasn’t much of a relief, but she would take what she could get.

As she straightened up, she glanced around and saw nothing. Then she looked back down at the stream and shrugged. Oh, what the hell.

She untied and pulled off her boots. Then she undid the ties of her trousers, stuck her thumbs into the waistline, and shimmied them down her waist and stepped out of the legs.

Now as naked as everything else on the island, Nuriel stepped into the shallows of the pool and knelt down. It made for a poor bath, but she was able to scoop water up with her hands and clean off the worst of the sweat and dust. Bathing was never very high on her list of priorities, and she didn’t get many opportunities to clean up, but she wasn’t one to snub the chance when it came by.

When she stepped out of the pool again, she felt even better. At the very least those flies might leave her alone now. She dressed again, finishing up by sliding St. George back into his home and stuffing the strips of linen into the back of her trousers, just in case if a situation came up that needed something wrapped. Then she headed off again.

There was a break in the foliage coming up. Nuriel sidled up to the last tree before the boundary and concealed herself. She listened for any sign of one of those animals, but could hear nothing more than falling water. Then she peeked out. There was no sign of movement beyond the last of the fronds.

Satisfied that she was alone, Nuriel stepped out of the jungle.

Beyond, she found herself standing on a jutting triangular shelf of rock that had thrust herself up over a steep cliffside. The river ran all the way across to pour off of the tip down into a lagoon far below.

A lagoon that drained out into the sea.

She had come to one of the island’s borders. Here, it was divided into a labyrinth of smaller islands and peninsulas, connected by natural stone bridges with their bottoms worn away and separated by shallow green water. The place was lush with vegetation, and Nuriel could see several of the strange animals moving around, though these were considerably smaller than most of the ones back at the field.

Furthermore, she was pretty sure she saw the mast of a ship, poking over the hills near the far shore.

Nuriel’s breath caught in her throat. If there was a mast, then that meant that someone had come ashore, perhaps merchants stopping to water and search for provisions before setting off again! Maybe even the Royal Navy! They surely would have no problem giving a poor, stranded girl a lift, would they?

Then again, it could be smugglers, or something even worse, like pirates. She wasn’t exactly having much luck with those sorts.

Still, it was worth exploring. Nuriel looked around until she saw that the cliff merged into a nearby hillside that would take her down to the lagoon. And from the lagoon, she ought to reach where the ship sat anchored.

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Nuriel hurried over to the hill and began her descent. At first it was steep going down a grassy slope, and she had to sit on her ass and scoot her way down to avoid slipping. But then it evened out enough, allowing her to stand again.

Soon after, the ground straightened out into a wide shelf covered with grass and a few scattered trees nestled between two high walls of rocks. Beyond that was a short drop-off onto another shelf, which led to another, and another, all the way down to the ground. Nuriel ran to the edge and lowered herself down.

As she readied herself to run to the next ledge, a gruff snort told her that she ought to have been paying greater attention.

Nuriel froze. Swallowing, she slowly turned her head.

Standing nearby was one of the monsters. This one was closest to those chicken-legged, long-necked lizard things, in that it was roughly the same size and stood on two feet, with its arms held close to its chest and was balanced by a fleshy tail sticking out the back. Its rough skin was covered with dark brown scales. However, that was where the similarities ended.

Most of the creature’s body, when compared to the long-necked lizard, was both shorter and thicker, from its stumpy, yet powerful looking legs, to its meaty tail, to its normal-sized but heavily muscled neck. Its head was much larger, with two green eyes on either side and a stubby horn on its snout.

And the top of its head was taken up by a thick dome of bone, surrounded by spikes. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what that was for.

The dome-head rose up and croaked at her in agitation. It clearly wasn’t happy that she was here on its shelf, and it wanted her gone.

Well, Nuriel was more than happy to comply, but given that this thing seemed made for short bursts of acceleration, she didn’t trust it to not charge the second she showed her back.

When Nuriel didn’t immediately flee, the dome-head then lowered its head, lining up its neck, spine, and tail in a straight line right to the dome. One foot tipped with thick, blunt claws pawed at the ground.

Oh shit.

With one last gruff cry, the dome-head charged. Nuriel leapt to the side, barely missing having her chest caved in.

The dome-head kept going right past where she had been standing to slam into the thick trunk of a sturdy-looking tree. The whole of the tree shook upon impact, and it was forced noticeably a few inches forward.

Nuriel gulped.

Despite the knock it had taken, the dome-head seemed none the worse for the wear. It backed up, shook its head, and turned around to face her again. It bellowed again.

Nuriel took off, legs pumping as fast as possible, desperately focused on the nearby ledge. If she could just reach that, then maybe she’d be safe.

Behind her, the dome-head charged again, the gruffness of its growls and snorts coming closer alarmingly fast.

Faster, faster, faster, Nuriel’s mind begged her legs. Must go faster, must go faster, must go faster-

She was at the ledge! With no other choice, Nuriel took a flying leap, all the while praying that the drop on the other side wasn’t too high.

As it turned out, it wasn’t high enough to be lethal, but still higher than she would have liked. The ground rushed up to meet her, and she landed hard on her side, forcing a pained gasp from her lungs.

For a few seconds Nuriel lay stunned on her side, convinced that in her desperation to escape getting smashed to pieces she had ended up smashing herself. She was almost afraid to move, for fear of finding herself full of broken bones.

But she had to move. Grunting, she rolled over onto her back and made a quick self-examination.

Well, her side was throbbing, especially her hip, but nothing seemed to be broken. That was fortunate, though she really needed to stop dropping from various heights, as sooner or later her rash of bad luck would take notice and start interfering with that as well.

Then, as she gingerly sat up, she heard a hoarse growl of annoyance.

Nuriel looked up. The dome-head was peering over the ledge down at her. It chuffed and growled, but it didn’t follow. Apparently it was just too steep and too tall for it to risk, so it had to content itself with glowering.

Nuriel glowered right back. Then she shot it a rude gesture and stomped off, leaving it to bellow impotently at her.

The rest of the descent wasn’t nearly so eventful. The bruise on her hip slowed her down some, but she had dealt with worse, and soon she had touched down onto the soft sands at the bottom.

Nuriel took a moment to catch her breath. She checked to see if the mast was still visible. It was, but she couldn’t hear any sign of the crew, no voices in conversation and no sound of them going about their work.

Frowning, Nuriel slowly made her way around the bank of sand, sometimes sloshing through warm, shallow water from one bank to the next, keeping the mast in sight. As it grew closer and its condition became apparent, her heart started to fall.

Finally she turned the final corner, and all hope died.

It was just as she had feared. The ship was a wreck, beached on one of the many sub-islands that made up the tropical labyrinth and long abandoned by its crew. It seemed to be a brig, a smaller sized vessel favored for their speed and maneuverability. This one had apparently been privately owned, if the custom ornate trimmings were any indication. Nuriel tended to avoid them, as smaller craft made it harder to divert attention, but she had seen many of its like in ports. However, they had all been in much better condition than this. Though the hull seemed mostly intact, it was still battered and cracked, the sails torn from the mast, and the railings in ruinous condition. It clearly had sailed its last voyage.

However, there were two things that quite frankly did not make any sense at all. For one, the island it had run aground upon was well within the chain, a fair distance and several other chunks of land between it and the ocean. For it to have gotten this far in, the crew would have had to have navigated the network of natural canals, which didn’t make much sense at all. Why hadn’t they simply laid anchor on the outside and trekked in by foot, or at least come in by rowboat?

The second was that the ship wasn’t actually aground, but rather…atree. To be specific, it had somehow gotten thrust up into the branches of several beech trees, which were now growing around its hull, forming a sort of vise that locked it in.

Now, how in the hell had that happened? Had some great sea giant plucked it from the water and thrown it, like she had to the Santa Lillian in her dream the previous night? It made about as much sense as anything else she had seen so far. Or had it been carried off by a massive storm, hurled over the surrounding bits of land by a monster wave? For a wave to throw a ship that size that far, she honestly had a better time believing the sea giant theory.

That having been said, while the ship clearly wasn’t going to provide her with a means of escape, that didn’t mean it was useless. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to be ideal as a sanctuary. It was far enough from the main island to keep all but the most adventurous of the monsters away, it was held high enough to deter those from that latter category, spiders weren’t likely to be nesting this far from the jungle, there was a fresh water source within walking distance, there was probably several food sources nearby as well, and it would shield her from the worst of the elements.

Hmmm.

Nuriel walked over to the beech trees and looked the situation over with a critical eye. From there, she could see the words Carmilla’s Fancy (whoever that was) inscribed in gilded letters on the ship’s side, but more to the point, she could also tell that the trees were climbable. She spat in both palms, rubbed them together, and set to work, leaping up to grab onto the lower branch, hoisting herself up, and ascending up to reach the ship itself.

She paused as she reached the cannon ports, which were all snugly sealed up. That might actually be a good sign, as it meant fewer places for local critters to crawl in. If the wreck turned out to be monster-free, then it might make for an ideal hideaway so long as she was trapped on the island.

Finally she reached the deck. She hauled herself up and stood up straight. The boards creaked a bit, but they had been made to last, so they held.

In fact, while it was clear that the ship had taken a beating, it did seem to be in pretty good shape. It might even still have been seaworthy, with the main problem just being how to get it out of the damned trees and back into the water. Granted, even if she did have the means, Nuriel wasn’t about to test that theory without a very close and very thorough examination, but it was good news.

Then she looked down the deck sternward, toward the captain’s quarters.

One of the two wooden doors lay open.

Nuriel frowned. Well, after they had found themselves stuck, the crew had probably just taken what they could use and abandoned the ship. There would be no need to close and lock everything up, right?

But why abandon the ship at all? Why not work to get it down? If there had been a full crew, they could have probably worked something out with ropes, saws, and whatever tools they had on hand, and the ship would provide better shelter than anything else until the task was done. Why leave at all? There didn’t seem to be any reason to.

Unless they had been chased out.

Nuriel swallowed. She pulled out St. George and cautiously made her way across the deck, headed toward the door. In the dying light it had a rather eerie look, like the open mouth of a slumbering monster. In all the stories that Father had told her, the monster always made their homes with ominous entrances.

Nuriel reached the door. She lifted her hand to push aside the one that was still closed, but then hesitated.

It hadn’t been too long ago that she had disturbed human remains. What if it happened again? What if she found the corpses of the crew inside, maybe even the captain himself? Ghost ships were nothing to fuck with, and if she ended up angering their spirits, then she was probably going to wish that those animals had trampled her that morning.

Swallowing, Nuriel glanced inside. The sun was setting behind the Carmilla’s Fancy, so there wasn’t much light getting in through the door that was open. She couldn’t make much out besides what looked like to be a leaning table with a broken leg.

Nuriel closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and shoved the remaining door open with her shoulder.

As expected, the room beyond was a wreck. She could see the remains of smashed barrels, destroyed furniture, and unidentifiable rubbish. It also smelled quite awful, a thick, musky scent that reminded her a little of chicken coops, only so, so, so much worse.

She took a step inside.

Something cracked under her foot.

Turning her foot, she saw the what looked like the leg bone of some kind of small animal. It was shattered, but not by her boot. Actually, it looked like something had already ripped it apart.

Oh no.

Then something let out a cackling cry of warning. One of the shadows moved, and Nuriel found herself locking gazes with a pair of luminescent golden eyes.

A moment later Nuriel found herself tumbling backward as a musty, feathery, shrieking something threw itself at her. It hit her full in the chest and sent her sprawling back onto the deck.

Chaos enveloped Nuriel’s world. Her vision was taken up by nothing but swirling grey feathers. Cackling shrieks filled her ears, while sharp blades swiped at her clothing, trying to reach the soft flesh beneath. Gasping with fear, tried to push the thing off, but it dug in its claws and stayed put. White-hot pain erupted where her flesh was punctured.

In pure desperation, Nuriel shoved her forearm up against the thing’s throat and pushed back. Her vision cleared, and she saw herself facing the most terrifying bird she had ever seen. It was an ugly thing, with feathers the color of both old iron and fresh blood, its murderous eyes bright yellow, and its beak long and…

Toothed.

The fucking bird had teeth!

One hand still wrapped in a death-grip around St. George’s handle, Nuriel quickly scrambled to her feet. The bird was now perched on the deck railing, wings outstretched as it cackled angrily at her.

It was an ugly thing all right, though surprisingly not as large as it had first seemed, barely larger than a raven in fact. But that didn’t make it any less scary. It seemed to be an unholy amalgamation of bird and lizard, with three sharp little claws extending out of the bend of its wings; scales around its eyes and talons; and a long, stiff tail. Both of its legs were covered with wide feathers, almost like a second pair of wings.

Nuriel stared at the beast. Her whole body was shaking with fear and anger. It was the first thing on this damned island to actually take a piece of her. She could see her own blood smeared around the tip of its beak and on its talons.

But she had taken a piece of it in turn. Salty blood was dripping from its chest feathers, blood the same color as the smear on St. George’s blade.

The bird raised its head and shrieked at her again. It crouched down, as it readying itself to hurl itself at her again.

Before it could, Nuriel rushed it, slashing at it wildly. Apparently it had not expected this sudden aggressive response, as it jerked back and tumbled off the railing.

Nuriel looked over the side. The bird had landed in an awkward heap in the sandy grass below. It flopped about until it got its wings situated and its feet underneath it. Then it angrily hopped away, flapping as it went. Each hop took it higher and higher, until it managed to get airborne.

Nuriel watched as the terrible thing flapped away. She noted with grim satisfaction that it was having trouble staying up, on account of the wing closest to its wound being out of rhythm. Good.

As Nuriel stood there on the deck, gazing out into the distance, the haze of anger and fear slowly lifted from her mind, and she began to take notice of things, things such as how the ocean breeze was chilling her sweat-drenched face, how her arms and legs were starting to shake, and how points of hot pain were making themselves known.

Nuriel looked down. Her shirt was torn around the belly where the bird’s talons had ripped through, and tiny dark rivulets of blood were starting to seep into the fabric.

Then she looked over to her right hand, where St. George was still held tightly in her fingers. Dark red blood dripped from the blade onto the weatherworn deck.

Then she lifted her free hand to her ear, which was burning hotly. The pain flared up at her touch, and when she moved her hand away, she saw drops of her own blood on her fingertips.

Nuriel rubbed her fingertips together. Oh, this was not good.

Then suddenly her upper body pitched forward. Nausea twisted her guts, and she heaved once.

Realizing what was happening, Nuriel dropped St. George, wrapped her arms around her aching stomach, and clamped her jaws shut like a vice. No! She was not going to let this happen! She had worked too hard to get those fruits into her belly to just let them just spew their way out now!

Her stomach lurched and heaved, and hot bile leapt into her throat. Still, Nuriel refused to let it win. She sank to her knees, arms still hugging her stomach, head bowed and watering eyes squeezed shut as she gritted her teeth and waged war on herself. She wasn’t going to let it win, she wasn’t going to let it win, she wasn’t going to let it win…

Finally the worst of the nausea passed, and her stomach finally stopped rebelling. Nuriel crawled over to the edge and spat out the mouthful of saliva, mucus, and what little bits of stomach acid and fruit that had managed to make its way past her throat. It fell down, down, and down to plop onto the sand below.

That done, Nuriel finally allowed herself to curl into a ball and collapsed onto the deck of the ship. Her whole body was trembling now, her wounds were still bleeding, and now she felt sick inside. And she had only been here for a little over a day!

It was official. She was going to die.