Soulwoven

Chapter Thirty-Three

~33~

Something hard and scratchy dug into the side of Litnig Jin’s face. His lips pressed up against his teeth. He couldn’t breathe.

His eyes shot open, and he jerked his head away from coarse, twisted rope. Inky darkness surrounded him. There was more rope below his legs. His hands and arms were tangled in it and—

He was lying in a hammock half his size.

Water lapped gently against the wood next to his head.

The Rokwet. The sea. I’m at sea. Just at sea—

Litnig sat up and coughed. His head ached. His hammock swung from side to side when he moved, and he had to focus on deadening its oscillations so he didn’t get too dizzy. He heard Cole start the coughing of the dry heaves across the cabin. The others seemed to be asleep. A thin line of natural light crept beneath the cabin door.

Aside from the water and the creaking of wood and rope, the morning was strangely quiet.

Litnig heard no laughing, no singing, no thumping of feet as the Aleani worked the deck above. He swung dizzily in the air and tried to remember where the floor was so that he could get out of the hammock without falling on his face.

A moment later, he heard footsteps.

He had barely managed to get his toes down before Aldric Derimsun burst through the door and brought the light of day with him. The Aleani captain’s tattooed face was flush with color. His eyes were shining.

“Heruan, Len. Kobolds,” Litnig heard. The sentence was followed by a string of Aleani syllables he couldn’t even parse into words.

Derimsun spat and looked around the cabin. “Current pashed us ta’rd th’ shar. I wan’ t’ye all on dack in tan minnits. Odd sare, we’ll have a fight on ahr hands b’fore t’ hour’s out.”

Kobolds.

Litnig had heard the word before. The kobolds were half-sentient beast-men who lived in the coldest corner of Guedin. They had been the first children of the dragon—cursed, wretched, evil.

Litnig had forgotten they were even meant to exist.

Derimsun left, and Litnig heard a strangled gurgle from the far end of the cabin. Quay was on his hands and knees over a bucket, retching. The prince’s eyes bulged. His back arched. Saliva dripped from his lips.

For a moment, Litnig felt bad for him. Over the past few days, Quay and Cole had faced by far the worst of the seasickness. Cole had Dil to take care of him. Quay had no one.

Quay’s heaving stopped. He wiped a shaking hand across his lips and lifted his eyes. “You heard him,” he rasped. “Quick as you can. Bring weapons.”

And Litnig’s sympathy was gone. He grabbed the orphan breaker and his boots from the chest below his hammock and strode toward the door.

Cole moaned. Dil hopped lightly down from her hammock to give him a hand. Leramis and Ryse slid slowly from their berths.

Litnig stomped past his sweating prince without a word or a glance. Let Quay writhe, if he couldn’t stop giving orders for ten seconds. Let him writhe.

#

A few minutes later, Litnig was on deck and looking at the shore. The morning was cold enough that he could see his breath. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of wind in the air. The sun hovered just above the horizon. The orphan breaker hung from his hip.

The Aleani, carrying weapons of steel and iron, glanced disparagingly at it as they walked around him.

Litnig ran his hands over the wood. Let them stare. He would show them what a man could do with a good club.