The ship hove closer as Fin sank a little deeper, hiding us as much as possible. When it drew alongside us, Fin swept us closer and the remaining three of us jumped as one. I jumped the highest, intentionally this time, and landed on the spar holding up the mainsail. Then I instantly shifted into a spider to watch the fight below.
The crew was just a little shocked at the two men jumping up on deck. They were more surprised when two more men — Ant and Foggy — appeared in their midst a moment later. The pirates, at a quick count, looked to number perhaps close to twenty, though I quickly amended that count as more ran up on deck. There were thirty at least. Thirty on four. Ant had seemed confident before, but I was suddenly worried for my companions below.
Then… they began to fight. Jack used a slender-bladed rapier in one hand and a long parrying dagger in the other. Ant used a thick quarterstaff, spinning it in defense, while tripping up his foes and bashing them into oblivion. Fennec had knives, lots of knives; he’d throw one and another would appear in his hand. Foggy… didn’t so much fight as confound his foes, dancing and capering around the ship, narrowly avoiding so many lethal blows, while somehow managing to nudge, kick, or trip foes such that they often died on the weapons of their allies. Very quickly it was four on twenty; then four on fifteen and…
There came a sharp, high, trembling cry from nearby; a sparrow’s call. I looked around quickly and saw what Sparrow was indicating. A woman, dressed in fine and flowing robes was standing on the stairs to the lower decks, watching the fight as I was. Then… she looked up at me and smiled.
I have a bad feeling about her, Auwei muttered, and I had to agree.
With a wave of the woman’s hand a fine spray of mist shot out from her fingers and shot across the deck, by the time it reached where the fighting was, it was a wall of mist which slammed into everyone — pirates and Nobles alike — knocking them off their feet, throwing them across the wooden boards.
A mistweaver!
The woman strode slowly, purposefully up onto the deck. She looked up at me again. “Time to come down, little spider.” And with a grasping motion a ball of mist appeared around me and held me tight, pulling me from the yard, to float down to the deck.
Hazra! I knew it was her, even though I’d never seen her before.But how?
She knew…
A cold feeling filled me, settling first in my gut and spreading icy fingers into my very muscles and bones. Yes, she’d somehow known where I was, that Maverick House fought the coastal pirates off the south of Elista. She’d known and set a trap for me.
But why me? I still couldn’t answer that.
“I want to see your face when I kill you, slippery one,” she said, and the fog surrounding me seemed to seep within me. I tried to hold my avatar form, even if only to confound her, but the mists ate at my very nature, eroded it until I was forced back into my body. I sat on the deck, near the side of the ship, as she approached. The tiny ball of fog that had surrounded me as a spider was gone, so I tried to rise,
“No,” she commanded with a grin and I was stopped. I struggled as mists appeared over my feet and around my waist, neck, and wrists, keeping them in place.
“Why?” I called out to her, even as the mist — like iron bands — around my neck began to constrict and cut off my air.
She came to stand before me, slightly shorter, but seeming so very large and powerful, radiating an aura of intensity I couldn’t ignore. I was terrified and so was Auwei.
With a subtle wave of her hands, fog surrounded her feet and lifted her so she looked down upon me. Her eyes burned with a heated thrill. “Why?” she whispered with a manic grin. “Because I like to kill,” she said with a tilt of her head. “And you’re in the way of our plans. Well, not yet, but you will be, and we can’t have that, now, can we?”
I flicked my gaze to where the men lay. Ant was rising, the others starting to regain themselves.
“They can’t help you, child,” the mistweaver said and with another casual wave of her hand, sent them all flying. “I made a mistake last time, hiring out your death. This time I’ll do it myself and, just for fun, I’ll make it slow and painful. Would you like that? No, probably not, butI’lllike it.”
She’s mad,Auwei said in horror.
Yeah, I was getting that.
She stepped back as the bonds around the various parts of me began to tighten. I’d already been struggling to breathe, and now I was without air entirely. Meanwhile, my waist, wrists, and feet were being constricted and crushed as well. I would have screamed if I could. Then, because this wasn’t bad enough. The woman made a sort of sprinkling motion with her hand and pain, like a hundred points of needles pressed into me from all over.
My eyes were wide, bulging with the pain, and the woman laughed. “I want to hear one scream before you die,” she said, and the restraint on my neck eased just enough for a gulp of air. Then — as much as I didn’t want to comply with her desires — I screamed, feeling agony burn all over my body. One long, clear cry, then the neck-binding tightened again, this time working faster, crushing my neck.
The world shrunk. Darkness threatened the edges of my vision and despite my desperation to live, I also craved that darkness and an end to this pain. All I could see was her, that pale face, blissful as she watched me die.
Then… there was a small white and brown flurry before that face and the woman screamed, waving her hands.
My bonds released, and the pain stopped, but I was too weak and too broken to do anything. I couldn’t breathe, my throat still crushed. So, I slumped into a ball and with the next roll of the ship… simply rolled off the deck entirely.
I felt the cold clasp of the ocean around me as water poured into my mouth. But I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do anything. The darkness closed in again, this time aided by the dark waters swirling around me as I sank deeper and deeper.
Then… there was nothing.
Chapter 20
The others tellme I wasn’t dead, but it sure felt like it to me.
