The Call of Crows

Chapter 29: History Repeats

Ruhak cracked his eyes open as his back landed with with a thump. Two hands held his shoulders up under his armpits that dragged him onto the sand.

He glanced up, squinting in the sun's face.

"Cecile?" Ruhak groaned.

"You're awake." Cecile gasped lightly, letting his shoulders down. As she did, pain stabbed into his right shoulder.

Ruhak cursed as he cradled the injury.

Cecile knelt down next to him, "Let me see that."

Her pale face had been blackened with soot. She pushed his hand away and tentatively touched his shoulder, drawing a hiss of apprehension from him.

"Your shoulder is dislocated. I'm going to pop it back in place. Ready?"

Ruhak nodded, clenching his teeth. Cecile sharply pushed on his shoulder, eliciting a crack from the bone and a grunt of pain.

"There. Take care for a few days. Don't put too much stress on it." Cecile said.

"What the hell happened?" Ruhak asked.

"The Nikan happened." Cecile grumbled, "Blew our way of escape to smithereens. Now they're just circling this island." She pointed out at Guanyu's ironclad, with its sails up while the crew repaired the damaged steam engine.

"And the others?"

"Most of them are fine. Bjorn got a pretty nasty gash in his side and Peng's head is killing him. But aside from that, we're just disoriented. The longship crew, though...they took a few losses."

Ruhak staggered to his feet with only his good arm and followed her up this beach they'd found themselves on.

It was one of the many Koini Isles, so a wall of even whiter stone that rose in a long, jagged cliff side surrounded the white beach, topped with vegetation.

Near the back of the beach stood the rest of his allies. Bjorn sat with a bandage around his abdomen, while Peng lied down in the sand, covering his eyes with an arm. Besides them, a Khongirat woman and Gustave attempted to separate themselves from the loitering Ascommani that chatted with each other and bandaged their wounds.

Taya was speaking with a furious blonde woman.

"-Not only are we out of a ship, but now we're being circled by that...that thing that can kill us pretty much any time it wants!"

"Panicking is not going to solve anything." Taya insisted.

"I should've had you pay me three- no, five times more if I knew this was going to happen."

"The past is the past. Leave it be. We should focus on finding a way off this island." Taya said.

"There is no way off. We're dead!"

"Why not build a boat? We can launch off in the opposite direction to the ironclad."

"That would take weeks, even if eleven of my men weren't dead. Where would we find the food to sustain us all? And even if we wanted to, all the trees I've seen so far are cypress. We can't build anything out of those."

Taya looked at Bjorn.

"She's right." the Ascommani muttered.

The woman scoffed, "You didn't believe me?"

"Look, Katla," Bjorn grunted as he adjusted his position, "I get that you're mad. But I'm sure Taya's just trying to help and-"

"Is that all people around you are good for? Thinking that you're helping and actually helping are very different things, Stormtamer," Katla spat, "You of all people should know that."