Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

30. You're Done For, You Are

33rd of Uirra

ARRAMY

[Addended From the Personal Correspondence of Brenorra Warring]

Brenorra:

I've rewritten this four times now, and you probably won't even find it. I'm nearly out of paper, so I fished this one back out of the bin.

Why did I just tell you that?

I'm writing to let you know (scratched out lines)

Flaigha. I've never been one for sending letters. Yet another thing I find myself doing because of you. I also keep whistling that (scratched out word) tune you were always humming. Kyrro looks at me like I've gone crazy. It wouldn't be so bad if it were a shanty, but no, it's a dance tune.

What am I doing? You didn't need to know that either.

I reached Aethscaul two weeks ago.

This will come as no surprise to you, but my welcome was not exactly warm. I was nearly shot by a sentry before I had even passed the outer rocks.

The pirates were on high alert. They had heard about NaVarre and Orrelian and were anticipating an invasion. I also arrived the same day they received word from their Illyrian commander: Coventry forces are crossing the southern border of the Illyrian Exploratory Region, and all able-bodied men and women have been summoned home.

The pirates are running under NaVarre's second, a terrifying Illyrian woman named Ulari.

You would like her. She wears shark teeth in her hair.

The threat from the Coventry must have outweighed possible invasion. As soon as I was brought into her office, Ulari offered me a deal. I would train her pirates in Coventry tactics, and she would allow me to captain the Stryka again, this time under Illyrian colors.

The Stryka was still there, intact and resting in harbor. The pirates had no use for her, preferring their light coursers, and after six months without orders, Commander Kyrro had allowed the crew to disband. Many of them joined the pirates, including Kyrro, but when they learned that I was back, all of them volunteered to sail again under my command.

So now I am on my way north, with a familiar deck beneath my feet, a full complement of guns at hand, and a dependable crew.

And I'm one step closer to finding out if you're alive, or if I'm chasing shadows and you never left the mainland.

It has been three months since I last saw your face. Please be alive. Stay alive. Stay alive until I can find you again.

Rathe

~~~

BRENORRA

Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang!

I lunged upward on the first sound of the bell, going from horizontal to standing before I had even opened my eyes. Opening my eyes didn't help at all. For several seconds the floor rocked like the deck of a ship, and I stumbled over nothing, my sleep-deprived brain tricking my feet into stepping wrong. I went still, blinking at the rows of bunks lined up along each wall, barely visible in the blue-grey light creeping through shuttered windows.

Around me, women were rising, silently pulling their jumpsuits on over their small clothes, moving around in the dark of the bunkhouse with an ease born of familiarity, their breath pluming in the predawn air.