Chapter Fifty-two

Krissintha Arlonet Dar Ghelain followed the rangers, trudging up the steep and narrow path to the cliff-top. Her legs started to hurt. It was a strange kind of pain, maybe not even pain. An unusual, unpleasant sensation in both her legs she had never felt before. She wasn’t sure if the words to describe it even existed. Was it because she used too much of Kevin’s power for that jump? Perhaps there was such a thing as overusing a familiar’s power. The spirit hadn’t seemed too happy about her using too much of the so called “Mana”, and maybe with good reason. But the pseudo-pain wasn’t unbearable, so she wasn’t going to complain.

They reached the top, and Krissintha found the view of a grassy field and trees so much better than the rocky beach below. She watched Arde as he said his good-byes to the kids, and as Narak the archer took them to find a runner who could take them to safety.

Then it was marching time.

Krissintha lifted the misery mask to her face. Her familiar did whatever it was he did, and the mask stayed there. It was just one of the numerous things Kevin could do — there was no point in pondering how. It was spirit power. Or Mana. She could call on it, feel the tingle, and it made her faster, stronger, and even let her cut an enemy that was out of her reach nearly in half. That power was hers to use: she could control it by will and instinct.

The short conversation with Arde was still rolling over and over in her mind. Arde was right: it was terrifying what a spirit could do — no-one could see or know what it looked like when a spirit devoured a soul, but the idea itself, and that even familiars could and would do it … well. Being a spiritualist wasn’t exactly as reassuring as she had thought it to be before. But at the same time it was satisfying. It felt good to be in control of such power. After her first battle, or skirmish, or brawl, she understood more than ever why people off all stations strove to become spiritualists, or have spiritualists in their service. Or both. Her father had said power always came at a price, and you wouldn’t always know right away what that price was. She was beginning to understand how true it was.

The elves marched — if one could call their brisk jogging a march — and as always, Krissintha had no choice but to use a little bit of Kevin’s power to keep up with them.

It didn’t take long to reach the place where Dimal and the other teams kept watch over the beach and the cave below.

‘Anything?’ Sini asked the moment they saw Dimal lying on his belly in the patchy grass at the edge of the cliff.

‘The elf comes out from time to time. He’s got a spyglass. They’re definitely waiting for a ship to pick them up,’’ Dimal said as Sini settled down next to him.

Krissy and Arde did the same and lay down, close enough to the edge to be able to see the beach below. The rest of the rangers dispersed, crouching or crawling, but staying in elven earshot.

Sini rummaged through her bag, which wasn’t easy to do lying on her stomach, and she brought out the spyglass they had taken off the dead elf. She handed it to Dimal.

‘Nice,’ the man said, put it to his eye, and scanned the horizon. ‘I think that ship will come before nightfall.’

It was past midday, and Krissintha knew there was going to be another fight before the day was over.

‘Probably,’ Sini agreed. ‘Who’s down there?’

‘Zivek’s team, with one of Third Rangers’ trainees and the other spiritualist.’

‘Good. So we have the numbers. Assault?’ Sini asked.

Dimal sighed as he put the spyglass down.

‘Sure. We just need to wait until they all come out of the cave,’ he said. ‘Going in there is not an option.’

‘Fine with me,’ Sini said, sighing, too. ‘I wish we could get the fucking ship.’

‘Yeah? How do you suppose us landlubbers will do that?’ Dimal grumbled.

‘Swim?’ Sini said. Dimal just turned his head to give her a stern look. Sini tried to shrug, and said, ‘I know. Where are the tar-lickers when you need them?’

Krissintha turned to Arde and whispered to him,

‘Tar-lickers?’

‘Uhm… sailors. The navy,’ Arde whispered back.

‘The sea is a big place. They’re spread thinner than we are,’ Dimal said, clearly not happy with the unavailability of their own navy.

‘Maybe a kraken will show up and drag them down?’ Sini said, her voice hopeful.

‘Maybe,’ Dimal mumbled.

Krissintha shuddered at the mention of the monstrous sea-creatures — a kraken was the last thing she wanted to see, even if she wouldn’t be in its path this time, if one really showed up.

‘Hey, look!’ Sini whisper-yelled. ‘Someone’s down there.’

Krissintha followed the woman’s gaze, squinting, trying to see what was going on down on the beach. She was sure the elves could see everything just fine, but all she could make out was a moving figure.

It wasn’t an ork, that much she could tell. One of the elves, working with the marauders then. The figure walked to almost where the sea began, and climbed on the top of a boulder the size of a wagon. Then it just stood there.

‘He’s got the spyglass. Can’t be long before that ship comes,’ Dimal commented. ‘We need to make a move as soon as they all come out. I want to capture one of the greens alive,’ he continued, and wriggled forward a little to be able to look at Krissintha over Sini, who lay between them. ‘Your familiar will be able to find out where the bastards came from, how many of them, and so on?’

Damn right I will. Kevin chimed in all of a sudden, startling everyone. I have a few ideas how to make them talk. Any objections against some … soul-torture?

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‘Not if it’s barbarians,’ Sini answered without hesitation.

Good to know, because they will regret the day they were born. Kevin said, his ghostly voice ringing more sinister than ever in Krissintha’s mind.

She thought about it for a single moment, and concluded she had no problem whatsoever with inflicting pain on the green bastards. They were slavers, not even people but monsters. But there were elves among them, too, which was, or should have been a different story altogether.

‘What about the elves?’ Krissintha asked. ‘Why are elves working with the barbarians?’

‘They’re not working with them. They’re slaves,’ Dimal said, his voice low and angry. He nodded his head to indicate the one down on the beach. ‘Probably born and raised as a slave. Serving the barbarians is all they know. They are elves only in body. The best we can do for them is kill them.’

‘If there are captives on the ship that’s coming, it would be better for them if a kraken showed up,’ Sini said, her face in a grimace of rage. ‘The greens breed their slaves. That’s why they try taking more women than men. I don’t even want to imagine it.’

Krissintha didn’t want to imagine it either. Maybe a kraken would really be the best thing for the captured elves. If Kevin hadn’t been there, death would have been the better choice for those children, too. She wished there was a way to get on that ship when it arrived. Kevin liked eating souls, didn’t he? He could handle a shipload of barbarians, even the spiritualists. Probably. Maybe. But getting on the ship was impossible, wasn’t it? Impossible. Was it really?

Krissintha closed her eyes and hung her head for a few moments, letting her mind wander from memory to memory until the one she was looking for surfaced. She lifted her head and said,

‘Listen, I think we can get on that ship.’

‘Listen, if we try to swim there, their archers will pick us off before we could even touch it,’ Dimal said.

‘No, no, no, that’s not how,’ Krissintha said, the idea getting clearer in her mind.

‘What then? Take their dinghies when they come to shore? Same thing. We’ll be killed before we reach the ship,’ Dimal argued.

‘Not that either,’ Krissintha said, shaking her head.

Where are you going with this, Krissy? Kevin asked.

‘So, when I was about four or five years old, some people wanted to remove my father from his seat as a baron. I remember the story. He knew someone was plotting, but he didn’t know who or how to find them. So, he baited them into kidnapping him, and when they did, then he knew who they were. It was a trap of course: my father was a spiritualist, like most of his retainers.’

‘Alright Misery, thank you for the great childhood story, but how does that help us?’ Sini said, sneering at her.

Krissintha sneered back at her, but the woman couldn’t see it under her mask.

‘We let some of us be taken,’ Krissintha said. ‘The orks will take us right to the ship.’

Krissintha felt a bubble of guilt forming in her chest. This would put Kevin on the spot for the second time today, but she was willing to do it regardless. But this whole affair of innocent people being taken against their will, being dragged away to become slaves … she couldn’t stop the memories of her own family being dragged away from surfacing, or the memory of Jevan handing her over to a ship captain as mere merchandise.

It’s way too dangerous. Kevin protested immediately. There’s no guarantee we’d even make it to the ship. Let’s focus on the cave, eh?

‘It’s a stupid fucking idea,’ Sini snarled, agreeing with the spirit.

And it seemed this was the end of the discussion, but Dimal spoke up before Krissintha could.

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ the man said, turning on his side so he could see Krissintha. ‘Maybe it’s not.’

‘Are you mad?’ Sini demanded.

‘Misery, can your familiar handle a whole ship filled with barbarians? There might be hundreds of them,’ Dimal said.

Krissintha opened her mouth to answer, but Kevin spoke first, this time sounding contemplative instead of dismissive.

I don’t think we’d be facing them all at once. Ships have a lot of decks and rooms and holds and whatnot, right? he said.

‘That’s correct,’ Dimal said, nodding, a vicious smile appearing on his face.

Oh, come on, are you serious?’ Sini cried out as quietly as she could, staring at Krissintha. ‘There is no guarantee we’ll succeed, and if we don’t, we lose the ship and the people in the cave, too. Do you really want to risk it? We should save the ones we can and leave the rest to the navy.’

Dimal sighed, scratching his face, but to Krissintha’s relief, he wasn’t going to give up. She began to feel considerable respect for the man. He stretched his neck to look at Krissntha again.

‘The only one who has a chance to do this is you,’ he said to her. ‘Are you absolutely sure you and your familiar can do this?’

‘She can’t,’ Sini whisper-yelled, her face red, close to exploding again.

‘Come on, sir, did you not see my familiar eating a barbarian’s soul?’ Krissintha argued with her.

‘No, no I did not,’ the woman screeched.

‘Neither did I, ’ Krissintha said. ‘But answer this: what would happen if an evil spirit suddenly appeared on a crowded ship?’

‘Everyone would die, I imagine,’ Sini said, furrowing her brows, looking like she was actually thinking about it this time.

‘And what was it you asked me when you didn’t see my familiar eating the beast’s soul?’ Krissintha asked, then added, ‘Sir?’

‘You said he wasn’t an evil spirit,’ Sini said, glaring at her.

‘Exactly. But if I ask him nicely, he could pretend to be one and treat that barbarian ship as a dinner party.’

Actually, I’m beginning to like this idea. Kevin stated, changing his mind, sounding like a starved man salivating in front of a table stacked with all the food in the world.

Krissintha wasn’t sure if the statement and tone of the spirit were helping, but … she smiled under her mask as scout-master Sitanel-Niraki’s expression changed. She was considering it, wasn’t she? Seriously considering it.

Krissintha didn’t want to set foot on the barbarian ship. Of course she didn’t. Who would? But she knew she would regret it if she didn’t even try to help the people whose prospect had been reduced to a life of slavery. She could stomach a lot of things, she could forgive herself for a lot of things. This wasn’t one of them. If unleashing an evil spirit on a ship full of people was what needed to be done, then that was what she would do. She was sure Kevin liked the elves enough to help, even if there wasn’t a soul-feast involved in the matter.

Scout-master Sini finally gave up — she hung her head into her hands as she lay next to Krissintha, letting out a muffled scream of exasperation. Then she looked at Dimal first on one side of her, then at Krissintha on the other.

‘So, shall we start planning, then?’ Dimal asked.

***

Krissintha was as impressed as ever by the speed and efficiency of rangers. They had dragged all the dead orks they had killed as close to the cave as they safely could, all in less than an hour.

The plan was to make the second group of barbarians find their slain cohorts, making them believe they had run into a ranger patrol and got themselves killed just before reaching the cave. Krissintha’s part was to be the kidnapped woman who had been thought dead by the elves and left behind. Sini, Dimal and Havan agreed that a human woman was a fairly believable thing to find — a number of cities in Solace had humans, and dead orks told no tales. Krissintha wasn’t keen to play this part, but the whole operation had been her idea, and she knew she had to suck it up and do it.

There was only one problem.

‘So … you need to take your clothes off,’ Sini told Krissintha as the rangers finished laying out the greenskinned corpses in a manner that resembled the aftermath of a fight.

Krissintha looked at the elf, scowling at her.

‘Why?’ she asked, then added, ‘Sir?’

‘Humans are one thing. A human wearing ranger gear is another. I wouldn’t buy it,’ Sini said, shrugging.

‘Oh,’ Krissintha said, because that was all she could think of.

You know, I still have the dress Deni gave you. Kevin chimed in.

Krissintha swore silently. She didn’t want to undress or change — she had been wearing her ranger attire, the heavy, green robe and her sword for half a year now, and she just knew she would feel naked and defenseless without them. On top of that, she wasn’t sure if Deni wanted that dress back, but she suspected some damage to it would be inevitable in the process of being kidnapped by a bunch of green brutes. But, again, this had been her idea in the first place, so she didn’t have much of a choice. Deni’s dress it was.

‘Fine,’ she said.

Her mask vanished from her face, and the light blue dress appeared in her hands. She hoped the fine piece of clothing would make it back in one piece.