A Paladin's Journey Ch. 16

Lissi's head popped out of a doorway between Berten and Kyra, and she beamed when she saw Kyra. "Come on, Tessa!" She called as she hurried out into the hallway. She wore nothing but a short, filmy white robe, and the Andrakin's slender yet lush body was illuminated pleasantly by the glow of the lanterns hanging lopsided from the hallway's ceiling.

Tessa emerged right behind Lissi, and the half-Giantess was wearing not a stitch. She clambered out of the doorway easily until she stood crouched in the tilted corridor, her height not allowing her to fully stand.

"We need to go," Kyra said firmly. "Now." As she finished the words, water began to seep up from below and eddy around their feet. Thankfully, however, the storm seemed to finally be letting up. The lurching was less extreme, and the rain and wind not so forceful.

Berten threw his hands up in frustration. "I'm not leaving my gold!" He growled. "That was my ticket to a new life!"

"We'll come back for it!" Kyra urged as she ushered Lissi and Tessa up the stairs behind her. "I'll help you."

Berten scoffed. "I have no doubt you're a talented woman, Kyra, but how do you propose to help me retrieve a hundred-pound chest of gold from the bottom of the bloody ocean?"

Kyra held Berten's glare and swung a fist to the side without looking. Her hand connected with the wall, which immediately splintered and broke before her blow, leaving a sizeable hole. Berten's eyes widened, and his bodyguard blinked. "That will be your head, Longhand," she said levelly. "If you don't get off this ship now." She could leave him here, but for some reason she found that she cared about him. Besides, a Paladin did not leave behind those that could be saved.

"Fuck!" Berten exclaimed as he scurried toward her. "I could use a woman like you for security! Why didn't you tell me you were so strong!"

"There are many things you don't know about me," she said dryly as he passed her. "Now get going."

Once everyone had clambered up the stairwell, Kyra followed them. The ship was now resting almost completely on her side, but she at least appeared to have stopped sinking. Kyra sensed the reef beneath the ship, all jagged rocks and coral. She found herself wondering where in the world they had ended up.

Once at the stairwell's landing, the group had no choice but to leap out the doorway and slide down the deck into the sea, where they trod water and tried to avoid being dashed against the ship by the waves. "How the hell am I going to get them to dry land?" She muttered to herself as she cast around for something to use while she perched on the doorframe.

The port side of the ship was in the water, which left the starboard side high in the air. Kyra smiled as an idea came to her. Drawing on her vala, she leapt upward, sailing thirty feet through the air to catch the starboard railing. She hoisted herself up to stand on it. From here, she could see the long, wide dinghy lashed to the ship's side, still tied fast despite the rough seas. The small boat was easily big enough for all passengers and crew, she just needed a way to get it safely into the water without sinking it.

Walking forward onto the ship's hull, she drew Anar and cut away the dinghy's lashings, the vala-forged knife easily parting the strands of rope. She grabbed the topmost part of the dinghy - which at this angle was its starboard side - before it could topple over onto its keel. Once untied, she stepped inside the dinghy and hoisted it up and over her head. It was heavy, but her vala made it possible. Once she had it in the air, though, the wind threatened to snatch the heavy boat out of her grip.

Grunting with the effort, she walked back toward the deck and looked down at the sea below. Berten and his Orc bodyguard were down there, clutching at whatever they could to stay afloat. Tessa held fast to a thick line that dangled from one of the masts, her fiery hair plastered to her head. Lissi held onto Tessa, hugging her from behind like a baby monkey. Most of the crew and Berten's girls were down there, too, their faces desperate to a man.

Sadly, Kyra sensed bodies floating in the water around the ship; some of the passengers had not been so lucky. Gathering herself, she jumped out off the railing and fell, guiding the boat in mid-air until it was falling keel-down with her inside it. It hit the water with a heavy splash, well clear of the survivors.

"Get in!" She called as she held out a hand. Tessa reached the dinghy first, Lissi still on her back. Kyra hauled them in easily, despite the per'Norothi's weight. The others followed, and one by one, Kyra pulled them aboard. She noted with approval that Berten waited until his girls were all aboard before getting in himself.

Once the last man had been lifted out of the water, Kyra turned to see the passengers of the Slipfinger scattered about the boat, wet and bedraggled. Some of them were coughing up seawater. Many of the girls - most of them scantily clad or completely naked - were clutching each other and crying.

Wasting no time, Kyra stepped to the centre of the boat and pulled free the oars lashed to the side. In a few moments, she had the oars threaded through the metal rings on either side of the boat and was pulling away from the wreckage of the Slipfinger.

No one spoke to her as she rowed, nor thanked her for saving them, except for Tessa and Lissi who sat huddled on the bench in front of her. She had expected that, once she showed her abilities. It wasn't that the survivors were ungrateful - Kyra's vala told her that much - it was that they were unsure what she was, that she could perform such feats. Regrettably, Kyra was not terribly skilled in aligning, or she would have used it to put them all at ease. One or two people she could manage, but two dozen was beyond her. Her talents lay in other areas.

The rain continued to pelt down and the sky threw jagged forks of lightning into the sea as Kyra rowed as hard as she could without snapping the oars. She kept her vala as wide open as it would go, hoping to sense some land nearby. Surely, a reef meant a high chance of a shore of some kind. The ship dwindled from sight after a few minutes, veiled in the rain.

Kyra's stomach dipped nervously as her vala sensed a wave of monstrous proportions rearing its ugly head out of the gloom of the storm, not two hundred feet away. She heaved at the oars, trying desperately to outrun it, but knowing it was futile.

"Rogue wave!" One of the crewmen shouted from where he sat in the bow. He pointed a trembling finger at the tower of water, it's top lost in the shroud of rain from which it emerged. Screams erupted the other passengers, and Kyra heard Berten cursing, his words whipped away by the wind.

Kyra found herself bellowing at the wave in defiance as the boat lurched upward, higher and higher until the bow was pointed almost vertical. Releasing the oars, she reached forward and snatched a hand each of Lissi and Tessa, pulling them in close to her as the boat reached the tipping point and began to fall backwards. It was a long way to the water, and time seemed to slow down as she fell.

Somewhere in the far distance, beyond the howling wind and the heaving ocean and the screaming people she had just failed to keep safe, she could still sense that vala far to the south and east like an enormous mountain of light. It was the last thing she was aware of before blackness took her.

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END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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