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Maat awoke in a lightless environ. He couldn’t move due to a cold metal clamp that stung at a wound between his shoulders.

Muffled wails cut through something plugged into his ears. While his eyes were open, pitch blackness stared back at him. Safe to assume there was a blindfold over his face.

Hours passed with Maat attempting to decipher something, anything with what limited senses remained. There was a slight sway, even though he was otherwise forced into an upright position in a narrow, metallic hollow. Like a coffin.

And then there was the heat. A great sweltering warmth, more than just the usual stormheaths humidity. There were a great many bodies nearby. Moreover, their surroundings were metal. An acrid smell of sweat filled the chamber, layered on from days after days in a sweltering metal tube.

There was really nothing to do but sleep. After some uncountable period, Maat was awoken again by a fist striking his mask repeatedly.

“Wake up, savage.”

The beating had knocked his ear-mufflers out of the way, at least.

“… Mostly been killing knife ears, cross breeds, and gone-native shipwrecked types on sight for the past month and a half.” The Warden’s tell-tale gravel-voice sounded from somewhere in front and to the right. “You are neither.”

“Mmmph?” Maat still couldn’t say anything with his face still stuck in the metal apparatus.

“You look like the boss,” the Warden said. “Faint similarities in facial structure, like your kin’re from the same island. He knows things.”

There was a squishy sound as the Warden wiped a bucket of flop-sweat off his forehead. At least that’s what Maat suspected from context.

“Doesn’t know not to build materials out of metal near the center of the world-plain.” The Warden rasped, then took a swig out of something canteen-sounding. “Where are you people from?”

Again, Ma’at couldn’t speak. Something angered the Warden. He started beating Maat again. Most punches were aimed at the sensory-depriving helmet, but he got in several debilitating body blows to the young outlander’s defenseless person.

“Course, that’s mostly a problem down here in steerage,” the Warden said after he’d winded himself out. “You’ve got the VIP cell. Rest of the loincloths are just outside. Prestige prisoners get the luxury of a daily sip of water. We’ll rustle the knife ears down to one of the bosses’ camps like we do cattle back home. Chains around the neck. Oughta brand them, in case they get away. But the boss seems to have a soft spot for his own kind…”

The Warden threw open a hefty bulkhead door. Immediately the muffled sounds of countless dying and dehydrated elvan entered the cramped quarters.

“… You’re very lucky,” the captor said, and slammed the bulkhead shut.

Once more, the sounds of suffering became a muted, muffled blur.

Maat didn’t feel very lucky.

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A sway that varied from gentle to pitched and wild would indicate they weren’t on the waning Torrent. It was a craft out at sea, out of range of even the sturdiest whitewood canoe.

There was no talk of or indication they were sailing away from the isle. Seems the craft was just idling. Every once and awhile the pained moans from the primary holding chamber would filter out, the population of this prison ship was marched off to parts unknown, only to quickly be replaced with new victims.

At least once a day, someone came in to hold a cup of water to Maat’s lips for him to slurp up whatever he could. Hours after that, another pair of Jean’in came and unchained Maat enough so that he could walk out on deck for some basic exercise.

In this way, Maat could count the days even though he had a sense and a half working for him. Five cycles of this meant five days.

On the sixth day, the Warden came back to beat Maat some more. His punches dented a hole in the copper mask, letting just a sliver of light shine through. Not enough to see or make out anything interesting. But just enough to know when light is streaming into the prison ship’s “private suite.”

It was day eight when this routine changed.

The rocking of the waves stopped. Instead, a constant scraping sound could be heard against the ship’s metal hull. They were heading up the remains of the Torrent. Probably in one of the larger fingers of the delta.

No more exercise sessions on the deck, though daily water rations were doubled now that they were back in the more humid jungles of the isle. Instead, there was an occasional ping-ping sound of blunt objects against the side of the ship; they were sailing upriver against sporadic arrow barrage.

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The ship came to a stop after several hours, and the whirring of forge-born industrial equipment penetrated down into the holding cell from the top deck.

Even in his lightless environs, Maat could guess as to where they were. They’d sailed up to the dam to offload… supplies? Human cargo? Bodies? Possibly all the above.

After no more than an hour the ship was sailing back the way it came. The grinding against the riverbed prevented Maat from getting even his restless jail-cell sleep.

The trip back to the rough waters of the ocean took three hours, by Maat’s estimate. A long night was spent on a turbulent sea. And immediately the next morning, the ship set out again.

This time, there were numerous stops along the way. The ship paused to receive cargo from sources at a regular interval. Every forty-five minutes or so, probably every twelve or more miles, the adjacent holding room received another shipment of human cargo. Upriver they steamed, until the holding cells were standing room only. And once they reached the dam, everyone was offloaded save for Maat.

This cycle occurred for three more days. Eventually they brought in smaller boatful’s worth of prisoners overnight, so that the next day the prison cells were even more cramped and miserable.

One final night, no extra shipments arrived. The ship started sailing before sunrise, ignoring all its previous stops. There wasn’t even the tell-tale ping of arrow or spear fire from the shoreline.

Then, roughly halfway through the journey upriver, the boat was rocked by a concussive force that reverberated through the ship from bow to stern and back again.

There was a distant alarm that drowned out the shouts of various Jean’in wafting in through the ship’s vents. Smoke filled the cell, though since it was already lightless there wasn’t much of a change.

Another explosion from up on the deck. The ship was no longer steaming forward, instead inching at a crawl. This, too, came to a stop when the ship ran aground. Maat stood still as everything not properly restrained went flying.

There wouldn’t be enough river water left to sink in, at this rate. Still, he was near the bilge. Didn’t want to drown if whatever paltry amount of the Torrent remained began flooding the lower levels.

Now, Maat put his escape plan into action.

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Every article of his had been confiscated. No vial of lucky river water. His clothes were prisoner’s rags instead of the light armor he’d been brought in with. Not a lot that could be used to aid in his escape.

But he had been left here for quite some time with no supervision. Warden hadn’t come in to beat him in a few days. That gave him plenty of free time to tug on the restraints, probe for weaknesses.

Escaping from the bowels of a ship with an unknown layout when you were miles out on the ocean and every guard was on the lookout was more of a feat than Maat was capable of. But escaping while the ship was under attack and in chaos? His odds suddenly shot up.

Maat pulled on his restraints. The cumulative stress of a week-plus of constant yanking on the chain combined with the wear and tear from the day’s explosions caused it to give way. He fell to the floor.

Jean’in metal was tough enough to withstand war clubs and a barrage of arrows, but extended stress could still shatter their constructs.

Maat tried the door. It was locked, predictably. But there were objects in his lightless cell. Maat stubbed a toe on a wooden bench. There was an ornate, carved texture to it, unexpected for an austere prison ship. But after some groping and fumbling, Maat pressed it like a lever against the door.

These bulkhead doors weren’t meant to be the primary method of stopping prisoners. Once out, a bit of force caused the door to buckle, then break off its less-than-prison-grade hinges. The noise echoed throughout the metal halls, but the crew was preoccupied by this point.

This was the first time he’d laid eyes on this next chamber, though he was marched through it on the regular. Iron bars separated out several holding cells, all of which were now empty. But behind that prison façade was a wooden finish that once held ornate chandeliers, cabinets, maybe even rugs. Scuff marks and worn paint signified where luxury furniture was at one point bolted in place.

While it was now a prison, this cell block had been an ornate dining hall. The whole ship was once a luxury cruiser refurbished for war.

Maat ran through the empty cell block. A hefty set of double doors were already blown off their hinges.

Smoke filled a grand staircase that was never meant to see combat of any sort. Bodies lay at the foot of the stairs while more still rushed here and there through a cloud of soot. If anyone recognized Maat, either as friend or foe, they showed on signs of it.

Upstairs ought to lead to the light. Indeed, the next room over had its roof blown clear off. The harsh isle sun fried his retinas, causing him to stumble forward blindly… right towards an unprotected gap in the starboard railing.

A dainty hand wrapped in a fingerless glove grabbed his collar just as his right foot missed the platform and dived through nothing but air.

“Maat. Hold still,” said a familiar voice.

Still blind, Maat turned around.

“Who’s there?”

Maat’s eyes adjusted in fits and starts. The image of Rita’s face gradually established itself from out of a reddish haze.

“We lost you in the retreat. Always figured you weren’t killed.”

All around them, the closing arguments of a pitched battle. Discarded war clubs littered the deck, not all of which were associated with a corpse. The islanders traded their existing weaponry for looted firearms when they scored a kill.

The assailants who’d beached the prison ship were tall and lanky elvan, Rita excluded. Stormlanders, and none that Maat recognized. Most were dressed in odd clothing that matched neither Laval, bird-herder, or the delta clans. A few ran around with wooden explosives cannisters. Some of those even looked as if they knew what they were doing.

“Been training some of the minor clans in how to build and handle these explosives,” Rita explained. “This is one of the smaller war bands. But even we’re able to waylay their ships regularly now.”

A rumbling came from deep below decks.

“Engine’s going to blow. Let’s get out of here,” Rita said, then turned to the deck and yelled: “back to the boats!”

All at once the elvan broke off the attack, some stopping midway through slitting a throat. They dived off the ship, most splashing into the remaining shallows of the Torrent. A fleet of smaller dugouts large enough to hold five to six people but nimble enough to row laps around these larger Jean’in paddle boats, pushed off into the vestigial Torrent.

Maat followed Rita to one of the larger canoes. The front was carved into an ornate, hammer-headed battering ram. Three stormlanders pushed them off from a sizable dent in the larger steamship. Rita handed him an oar, and they got to rowing.

The canoe cut through the water, cutting a sleek wake through the minor stream that was barely twice the length of the steamships.

By the time the steamship blew, the fleet of canoes was already hidden behind the cover of reeds. A column of black smoke rose behind them as the canoes were beached, hidden, and the crews rushed into the dried-out ferns.

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