Indebted (working title)

Whirlwind (part 1)

The chef stared skyward, his eyes only half-opened and completely devoid of all life. As his killer's busy hands searched his body, a few silver coins fell to the floor and lay partially submerged in the mess oozing from his torso and throat. She'd hoped to find keys but realized that this was a long shot. With her suspicions confirmed, she stood up, turned around and walked to the door. She could hear that the storm had gotten worse. The rain was falling harder now, and it seemed to strike the walls outside with the impact of musket balls. As her hand came into contact with the door handle, a burst of lightning sent a blinding flash tunneling through the cracks in the door frame.

She paused for a moment. "I'm safe here...", she thought. "...at least for now. I'm safer than I would be out there". It only took a glance back at the Chef's corpse to disabuse her of this notion. If someone were to come in and see what she'd done, they'd kill her without question, she'd be better off seeking mercy from the storm. For her, there was no safe haven aboard the Almsgiver, there never was. She allowed the hopelessness of her situation to sink in, and then smiled as it began to strengthen her resolve. She opened the door and bolted back into the rain, somewhat empowered by having nothing to lose.

Shakale looked across the deck from atop the ship's helm. Melody and a short, skinny, deckhand named Prewitt, stood in front of him and struggled to turn the ship's wheel to guide it against the barrages of wind that had been battering the sails.

They grunted and strained with effort until finally, and reluctantly, Melody said, "Bear!", and Shakale, with a single hand, turned the wheel two full rotations to the left. Melody scowled at him and Shakale scowled back. There were few things in this world that Melody hated more than letting Shakale, or his kind, touch the wheel of his beloved ship, but he had no choice. Shakale turned away from him; Melody's self-preservation instincts had only barely won out against his desire to avoid indignity, He figured it was best not to tip the balance with a staredown. Shakale's eyes glanced down at Melody's feeble hand as he grabbed a spoke on the wheel and pretended to guide Shakale's turns, a desperate bid to create the illusion of control.

Prewitt, exhausted and furious, opened his mouth to shout something at Shakale, most likely a reprimand for withholding assistance for so long, but before he could expel a sound, a quick head turn and a sharp look from Melody, silenced him. The words caught in his throat as if he was being choked by the air itself. Without Speaking, Prewitt hung his head and fled the captain's sight. "The rule is simple", Shakale thought to himself. " I don't touch the wheel unless Melody says so... and Melody said so". Granted the captain did not use his name, he never did. "Bear", was all he ever called him and Shakale hated the name so deeply that hearing it would instantly twist his bearded face into an angry glower with gritted teeth and flaring nostrils.

The Almsgiver's entire body shook as the rudder turned beneath the waves. Battered and weakened by the storm's unrelenting assault, the ship protested with a hollow bang accented with the prolonged squeal of heavy timber straining to stay in one piece. Shakale watched as water splashed onto the deck in torrents powerful enough to knock men to the floor. Eventually, his eyes found Prewitt who was now trying to fasten himself to a post with a coil of rope to avoid being thrown overboard by the ship's violent shifts. Shakale never liked Prewitt, in fact, he hated him. His unique combination of arrogance and uselessness made him a joke on the best days and a liability on the worsts. Still, when the sails above Prewit's head shifted and sent gallons of accumulated rainwater crashing down onto him, Shakale's hatred almost gave way to amusement. Water filled his lungs and he coughed and wheezed against his post.

"What a fool", Shakale mumbled under his breath. Watching Prewitt choke made Shakale think of the people bound in the hold beneath his feet. "Has the hull started to flood", he wondered, "Would they drown down there". Shakale assured himself that this concern did not come from a place of genuine empathy. He'd been at sea for months and the thought of the cargo that he'd voyaged to transport being rendered worthless, both worried and enraged him.