Calris sweated and swore, darting forward and thrusting a wooden sword, his blow checked effortlessly by Ban, who brought his other axe around towards Calris’ head. Calris ducked it and swept at Ban’s leg, missing as the other marine lifted his foot clear and retreated a few paces. They circled each other warily, both men evenly matched. Around them, the rest of the company went through similar drills.
For some, it was no holds barred, using this one last voyage on The Tide to prepare themselves for the battle ahead, while for others, it was physiotherapy. Actually, for most, it was physiotherapy.
The clearance of the excavation site had proven to be relatively uneventful, aside from Sergeant Dubbo wrestling a five-meter drake for shits and giggles, but the company had a few casualties from the trip up the river and they were still bloodied from the battle at the Keep. There had been an argument between Ferez and Erwell about what their next move should be, with the captain wanting to stop by Griffon Keep for reinforcements, and Ferez arguing that they had no time. In the end, Ferez had won, persuading the captain that beating High Mage Politis and the Guild Master to their objective was the only hope they had of bringing them down. So here they were, desperately training their arses off one last time before going all in to retrieve the Key.
Calris charged again, aiming to drive Ban back under a barrage, but Ban had learned quickly during his bouts with Elizabeth and held his ground, turning or blocking everything Calris could throw at him before he found an opening and smacked Calris in the solar plexus.
Calris retreated, gasping, and collapsed to a knee. Behind him, sitting on a stack of barrels and munching on some fruit, Jasmine cheered and Calris gave her the finger. She laughed and hopped down from her perch, swanning over and draping an arm around Calris’ shoulders.
“Awww, did mean old Ban hurt you?” she asked, tweaking his cheek with her thumb and forefinger. He laughed and swatted her hand away. “Easy for you to joke, you were sitting on your arse eating an apple!”
“Actually, I was doing my own training. Mages require extreme meditative concentration to enhance our mastery of magic.”
“Really?”
“No, I was eating and laughing at you two boys beating each other up.”
She laughed again at her own joke, and the sound was absolutely magical to Calris. With her smiling face just inches from his own, her eyes sparkling like the sunlight glinting off the waves, he thought about trying to kiss her. Then Ban dropped his guts a few feet away and ruined the mood.
“Oop. Mea culpa, just slipped out,” he said, genuine embarrassment on his face for once. He shot Calris an apologetic look. Jasmine recoiled, covering her nose.
“Gods, Ban. What is wrong with you?” she asked, her voice muffled by her arm.
Yeah, Ban. What the fuck is wrong with you?
After the Sixth had rescued them both from the assassin, he’d run back to the city, bloody and broken, desperately trying to reach the college to find Jasmine. It turned out the mages had already won that battle, and she was doing the same thing, searching for Calris. When they found each other, they’d run, splashing through the bloody and brackish water of the swamp, and embraced so hard it hurt. Then Calris had pulled her away, looked in her eyes, and known that in that moment, he was going to kiss her and tell her exactly how he felt. And then Ban had run up and jumped in on the hug too. It had completely ruined the moment.
Since then, Calris had struggled to find the right time and words to tell Jasmine how he felt. He fancied, now and then, that she was doing the same thing. But he couldn’t know for certain, and so here he was, too scared to say or do anything. Again.
“No offence, Jaz, but shouldn’t you be training, though?” Ban asked. “Our last encounter with Politis’s cronies was a closer call than I would have liked.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, I have training planned,” she replied cryptically, giving Ban a side eye. Ban glanced at Calris, but all he could do was shrug. He had no idea what she was on about, either.
“I’ll take your word for it then,” Ban said, “got anything useful to tell us at least? Fez, spilled the beans on what’s waiting for us up north?”
Calris scoffed. He’d been trying to get information out of the head shed since before they put out to sea a week ago. They’d been less than forthcoming, likely because they had no bloody clue. All they had to go on was Rory’s theory that a frieze in the college showed the location of the other half of the artefact. Based on the map’s icons, Calris agreed it was as good a theory as any, but he still didn’t like it, because it meant the other half of the artefact supposedly sat in the Frozen Wastes.
Not even the Skjar went out there. The only people who ever ventured into the wastes were bored nobles who got sick of traipsing through Marduk, or researcher types with mercenary bodyguards. Over half these expeditions north of the World’s End Mountains never returned, and the survivors from the ‘successful’ expeditions either reported nothing to see whatsoever, or ranted about mythical monsters and tribes of man-eating giants. The only guarantee was that it would be knob-frostingly cold.
“No, nothing of value, I am afraid,” Jasmine said. “They expect we will probably find some sort of structure, as we did in Marduk, but beyond that, we do not know what to expect. We just hope to reach the place before our foes.”
Silence fell on the trio, as they all pondered what would happen if they didn’t. In every engagement to date, they had the ‘home ground’ advantage. They had been defending solid structures at The Keep and in Marduk, and they had either scraped through by the skin of their teeth or been handily beaten. They didn’t have the forces to assault a defended position, and if this really was to be the last battle, Politis and the Guild Master were going to bring everything they had to bear. Calris wasn’t even sure they could win if they did get there first.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He excused himself and walked to the porthole, ignoring the concerned looks from Jasmine and Ban. Below deck, he went to his room and shut the door, lying on his bunk and staring at the ceiling.
His confidence in his abilities had taken a hit in the lead up to Marduk, and the battle at the college had made the issue far worse. Ordinarily, he would be tooting his own horn to anyone who would listen about how he slew scores of swamp drakes and raptors, or stared down Maw’Groth and lived, but the fact was, for all his successes in combat he had made the wrong call.
Ban had been right. They should have given Elizabeth the Key and regrouped at the college. If they’d avoided the fight, they would have been in far better shape to protect the mages, who in turn would have been hale and healthy when the horde was routed. They could have led the company back into the jungle, tracked Elizabeth down before she could make port, and recovered the Key. As it was, none of the surviving Gundies were in a state to lead the search, and Levi’s crew were too busy looking after survivors to hunt her down themselves. She had escaped, and now they were sailing on a prayer to stop a traitorous High Mage from opening a portal to the Pit, with a few mages and about a third of a marine company left.
They were solidly fucked.
He looked up as the door opened and Ban shuffled in. He sat on his own bunk, silently staring.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said eventually.
“And what is that?”
“You’re thinking, ‘damn! I was really hoping Jasmine was going to walk in instead.’”
Calris rolled away from his friend. It wouldn’t do to let him know he was right.
“Hah! I knew it.”
“Shut up, Ban.”
“Come on, Cal, what’s eating you?”
Calris kept his mouth shut. They had this conversation before and it didn’t help last time. There was no need to revisit it. Until he felt Ban’s fist drive straight into his kidney.
“Fucking Val’Pyria’s tits! What the fuck Ban?” he screamed, bucking and thrashing, trying to catch Ban with a backhand or an elbow or something.
“Well, don’t ignore me, you prick!” Ban shouted as he danced back. Calris rolled off the bed and came up, fists at the ready. Ban squared off from across the room, both men glaring over the tops of their knuckles.
“I’ll fucking kill you, Ban!”
“You can try, Cal, but I’ll make you a deal. If I win, you’ll stop being such a mopey bitch and tell me what’s going on.”
Calris stared long and hard, weighing his options. Ban was strong, and he had a jaw like steel, but Calris had the reach, the speed and the skill. It was a safe bet.
*
A few minutes later Calris lay on the floor of the room, panting and spitting out teeth.
“Oi, keep those, Cal. Ally will need them to fix your face,” Ban said as he wiped his knuckles down with a rag.
Calris spat a gob of blood at him but still collected his teeth as he sat up. It turned out speed, reach and skill were less important than brute strength in a two-by-two room. He explored his depopulated gums with his tongue as Ban sat down opposite him.
“I won, so as per the terms of our deal, tell me what’s wrong.”
Calris glared at him, but a deal was a deal, so he opened up and told him everything.
About his guilt. His insecurities and his failures.
He even apologised for not listening when Ban told him to hand over the Key.
Ban sat silent through it all, listening as Calris spilled his guts. When he’d finished talking, Ban reached behind him, his hand searching under his mattress until he pulled out a canteen and uncorked it. He took a swig and handed it to Calris.
“More whiskey?” he asked.
“Rum.”
Calris shrugged and took a long draught, the normally mellow spirit stinging his bleeding gums. He kept swigging until the pain subsided.
“So, you gonna say something, or what?” he asked as he handed the canteen back.
“I’ll be honest with you, Cal. I think you’re a bloody idiot.”
“Harsh. Care to elaborate?”
“Sure. You’re a bloody idiot and an arrogant cock.”
“That’s worse, yet still doesn’t explain anything.”
Ban sighed and leaned back, draining the rest of the canteen and dropping it to the floor.
“You’re beating yourself up because you keep losing these fights, but honestly, what do you expect? We’re just two guys, mate, and, Keep aside, we don’t have any special abilities or magic. Holding yourself solely accountable for the battles we’ve lost is proof of one of two things: you’re either dumb as shit, or so arrogant you actually believe you could have won those fights by yourself. My personal vote is a combination of the two, just so you know.”
Calris snorted and waved his friend off, but Ban kept pushing.
“Listen, Cal. We’ve fought a small fleet of Emrinthian raiders, a large fleet of Emrinthian raiders, the world’s most feared assassins, a death mage, an army of swamp beasts, and fucking Maw’Groth! And don’t get me started on mythical ape monsters. It’s only by the grace of the gods that any of us are alive right now, and you know what? That’s fine. We should be proud, because despite all this crap, we’ve survived.”
As always, Ban raised an excellent point, but it wouldn’t help them running into god’s only knew what in the Wastes. Calris told him so and, unexpectedly, Ban smiled.
“Na, but I’ve been thinking, and you know what I realised?”
“I’m guessing you’re going to tell me.”
“Yep. See, despite the odds, we have been kicking some serious arse. We only ever lose when we get split up. At the Keep, we took Elizabeth on without Fez or the rest of the company. Admittedly, we lost, but we gave a bloody good showing! And in Marduk, things didn’t start going really downhill until we split off from Jasmine. Cal, we do have a magic power, a magical power the enemy can’t hope to defeat.”
“What are you on about, Ban?” Calris asked, rubbing his cheek and wishing he had more rum.
“We’ve got the power… of friendship,” Ban said, sweeping his palms through the air in the shape of a rainbow.
“Gods, you’re embarrassing,” Calris said, pretending to vomit onto the floor. And then the rum hit, and he almost did. “You can’t honestly expect friendship is going to get us through this?” he asked, swallowing a few errant chunks.
“Oh, but I do,” Ban said, climbing to his feet and leaving. “Just think about it, Cal. That’s all I ask. And don’t forget to go see Ally and Simba.”
“Simba?”
“Yeah, Rory. Like the noise, roary lion? Get it?”
“I… not really?”
“Simba is the Emrinthian word for lion.”
“Alright, get the fuck out of my room now.”
“A’ight but you know, deep down, I’m hilarious.”
As Ban left, Calris climbed back onto his bunk, chewing over his friend’s words. They had a sort of logic to them. There had to be something working in their favour to have survived this long, but was it really the bonds between them? And, if it was, where did he fit? He thought back over the battles, all the times others had saved him, the times he had saved others, and he decided Ban was right.
As long as they fought together, they had made it through, each of them nearly dying time and again, only to be pulled from the brink by their friends. Calris might not have magic on demand like Ferez or Jasmine, super weapons like Asim, or Ban’s raw strength, but he could still protect those close to him.
He climbed off the bunk, grabbed his teeth, and headed out to find Alincia. The time for moping was done. They only had a few short weeks before arriving in the Wastes, and he had training to do.