Axis thought that with the small battle raging around them, the man would be caught off-guard, and Axis could finish it quickly.
But the man was faster than Axis had expected.
Just as Axis thrust the dagger forward towards the green eyed man, his ears were met with the earsplitting clang of steel against steel. A short sword, gleaming and sharp, had blocked Axis’ attack. Axis didn’t stop to think. He slid his dagger down the blade of the sword, pushing it aside and darting in for another hit.
He sucked in a breath as he felt a hand start to close around his wrist, and he snatched his hand back to his side. His eyes met the man’s eyes for a split second. The man’s sword arm tensed and Axis’ knees buckled, just as the sword slashed in an arc where his head had been moments before.
Axis straightened his legs, shooting upwards like an arrow, and flicked his dagger around in his hand so it pointed towards the man’s neck. The man grimaced and dodged, leaving only a thin, shallow cut where the edge of the dagger had caught the skin under his jaw. A rush of energy coursed through Axis’ body, and he bolted out of the way as the short sword came down in a stabbing motion. He felt the tip of the sword cut though the bottom edge of his pant leg, and a slight sting alerted him to the fact that the sword had, indeed, tasted his blood, if only a small amount. He paused for a second to steady his rapidly beating heart.
“Axis!” He heard a familiar voice shout. He felt someone grab the back of his shirt and pull him backwards, out of the reach of his opponent’s weapon as it slammed down against the wood of the deck. He glanced over his shoulder, but all he saw was a flash of wavy black hair as Aniha raced past him, her H̱aue-Iẖi* clutched in her hand. She gripped the handle with two hands and lunged out at the man, who blocked her attack with his own blade. Axis watched, a little awestruck as Aniha twirled around, slashing the curved blade down and creating a long, painful looking gash along the man’s sword arm. He cried out in surprise and he dropped his weapon.
Axis grabbed the blade of the man’s sword, sliding it out of the reach of the other’s questing hand. Blood seeped into the white fabric of his cloak, and he glared at Axis. Aniha had disappeared into the battling crowd again, and Axis reminded himself to thank her later.
Axis grabbed the front of the man’s grayish shirt and held the dagger to his throat. “You didn’t wait until I was on the boat to tell Captain what became of Taylor… Were you telling the truth?” He growled.
The man sneered at him. “Unlike you and your company, I play fair, boy! I had no reason to lie to you!” He spat. He was holding his bleeding arm. “But rest assured, your father won’t be free long enough to find another place to hide… and you will be seeing him soon enough.” He grinned maliciously and straightened up, his hand leaving his wound and dropping to his side. Axis frowned and kept a firm grip on the man’s collar.
“Soon enough? You think you’ll be able to drag me onto that damn ship of yours?” Axis snarled, pressing the edge of the dagger a little harder against the man’s throat. Blood beaded up, but the man didn’t move.
“Perhaps not today, boy, but I think we have proven today that you are not safe, even at sea.” The man’s lip curled in contempt, and Axis felt a chill rake down his spine. Without thinking, he jumped backwards, just as the man tried to bury his dagger into Axis’ stomach. The man backed away, a scowl etched into his lined face. “And that power of yours is exactly what we need… we won’t give up so easily.” He huffed and took a deep breath. “Retreat, men, we don’t need to waste our time with these mongrels.” He bellowed.
The ship fell silent for a moment, before someone raised their voice. “But, Darcy Sir-”
“I said retreat. We have what we need for now.” The man- Darcy – cut in. He turned his head towards Captain, who was standing in a wide spaced stance, his hand on a blade similar to Aniha’s. “Enjoy his company while you can, Pirate… it will not be long until we have what we need.”
With that, he stormed towards the edge of the ship, followed by his own remaining crew members. Axis backed off, too worn from the past week’s events to continue the brawl. He heard a few loud protests from his crew mates, but Captain seemed to understand that this was a battle they couldn’t fight at the moment… they couldn’t risk more injuries… or deaths… not now.
It didn’t take the Cult nearly as long to get off the ship as it did for them to board, even with the amount of decently sized wounds they had obtained. Soon, the clipper was dropping back and the brig was again moving forwards, her sails slowly filling with a wind that seemed to have waited until the Cult was gone to pick up.
The crew stood in a tense, pondering silence as they watched the clipper moved further and further away towards the horizon as the brig picked up speed. Axis frowned, remembering what Darcy had said to him, about “that power”… he felt his skepticism of the whole “mage” idea fading, little by little, as his resolve to believe it wasn’t so was being beaten down by the constant barrage of indication that it was, in fact, true.
A hand clapped down on Axis’ shoulder, and he flinched, gasping a little as he was shocked out of his thoughts. The first thing he registered was the heat coming from the hand, and he pulled away as it irritated the sunburnt skin of his shoulder. He looked behind him and found himself staring into someone’s chest. A little miffed at his own lack of height, Axis tilted his head up.
The man from before, the one who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere over the side of the ship, grinned down at him.
“Your hand’s bleedin’.” He pointed out, nodding down towards Axis’ hand.
Axis looked down, and suddenly became aware of the stinging pain that throbbed in his hand. A clean, shallow cut had found it’s way into his palm and the insides of his fingers, where he’d grabbed Darcy’s sword to pull it out of the way.
Axis frowned. That could wait. He lifted his head again and furrowed his brow at the man. “Who are you? Why are you following us?” He asked. He felt a shifting in the crowd behind him, and he thought he heard Captain sigh.
The other young man, the one with the white blonde hair, came up behind the darker skinned man. He raised a thin, almost silver eyebrow. “No ‘thank you’? I gave you that dagger in the first place.” He said, gesturing to the dagger that was still gripped in Axis’ right hand. He held out his hand expectantly. “Actually, I’ll have that back, please.” He added.
Axis hesitated. “How can I trust-”
“Give him the dagger, Axis. You can trust these two.”
Axis’ gaze flickered over to Captain, who had spoken. He was surprised to see that his arms were at his sides for once, showing that he apparently felt perfectly at ease in the company of the two strange men. He felt the dagger being taken out of his hand, and he didn’t protest. He backed up a few steps, then looked back at the men. The blonde one was wiping clean the dagger and putting it away in a leather sheathe, all the while watching the crowd curiously. “You know them, Captain?” Axis asked, stopping as he reached the edge of the crowd, where he felt a little more comfortable.
The man with the amber eyes raised his hand and smiled. “I helped Captain Lupe out a while back when he was tryin’ to set up trade in Jin-Ttang**. My name is Jackson Church. I just go by Jack, though.” He tilted his head towards his teal-eyed companion. “And this is Alexander Glasse.” He turned his head to grin cheekily at Captain. “Gotten yourself into a bit of trouble I see?” He teased, placing his hands on his hips.
Captain’s face remained unreadable as ever, even if he did seem relaxed. “I am afraid so… but I have to say, I agree with Axis, why did you follow us?” He asked, stepping forward a bit.
Jack and Alexander exchanged a glance before Alex replied. “We were spendin’ a few days in Canlon when we saw your ship in the port. Not long after we saw Darcy, sneakin’ around like the slick bastard he is…”
Captain held up a hand, cutting him off. “You know this man? Darcy?” He asked, frowning.
Alex nodded. “Unfortunately we’ve had a couple run-ins with him… we’re not on his good side.” He muttered.
Jack hummed in agreement, then went on. “We’ll get to that later… anyways, when we found that he was followin’ you and your crew, we decided to see what was goin’ on… So I followed along next to the ship, and Alex took the place of one of those White-Cloaks.” He explained.
Alex rolled his eyes. “For people who think they know everything about mages, they certainly aren’t the most observant… they didn’t even notice I wasn’t one of them.”
Jack ruffled Alex’s hair. “Nah, they didn’t notice because you’re good at handlin’ your power.” He praised. Alex merely glared at him and shrugged, smoothing down his hair.
“Either way. It looks like you may need a mage or two on your side.” Alex continued, his gaze flickering over to Captain.
“Or three.” Jack added, his mead colored eyes training on Axis.
Axis raised an eyebrow, but he wasn’t as skeptical as he’d like to have been. “I can’t breathe fire, if that is what you are insinuating.” He said dryly, crossing his arms across his chest.
Jack laughed and tilted his head. “No, boy, that’s quite obvious… it seems that you may have somethin’ a little more subtle.”
To Axis’ relief, Captain cut in. “We will discuss that topic later… I don’t completely believe all this… this “mage” talk… I don’t have evidence, but it seems like you may.” He said, looking at Alex for a split second before continuing on. He turned his back to the two men and faced the crew, all of whom were standing in a tense, awkward silence. “All of you, back to work. Ahe, make sure we’re on course for Mao-Lai. Axis, get that hand of yours cleaned up, then get your blood off my ship, it’s an eyesore.” Axis couldn’t help but grin a little, recognizing that Captain was trying to lighten the mood, if only a little. He nodded, and Captain turned back to Jack and Alex. “You two are coming with me to the navigation room.” He said curtly, before he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and spun on his heel, stalking towards the navigation room with his face tensed in thought.
Slowly, the crowd cleared, and Axis backed up towards the edge of the ship. He gazed out at the sea, where he could see the speck that was the Cult’s ship. He exhaled sharply, for once glad that the fight hadn’t dragged on for more than a couple minutes. He was too exhausted to deal with more trouble than there already was.
“Axis, your hand.”
Axis looked forwards, where Aniha stood. She looked a little worse than he did. Her hair was more tangled than usual, and she had pulled it back with a string to keep it out of her face. She was still wearing the blue silk blouse from when they left Tarun, and it already had a tear at the end of one of the sleeves. He grinned.
“I told you… you should have changed your shirt.” He joked.
Aniha glanced at the shirt and shrugged. “I’m not attached to it.” She murmured. She lifted her arm, grabbed the torn sleeve, and tore a long strip of fabric from the blouse. She grabbed Axis’ hand, which was still bleeding, and tied the long piece of silk around the larger of the two gashes. “Besides, it makes a better bandage than a shirt for a sailor.” She added, letting go of Axis’ wrist and backing away.
Axis watched her for a moment, then took in a deep breath. “Do you believe any of this?” He asked. He didn’t want to seem crazy for starting to believe it, but he couldn’t help it. He just needed to know if someone else did.
Aniha chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “I…. I think I may be starting to… I’m not sure, but….” She sighed. “I think, at this point, it would be better to believe it and be prepared, rather than not believe it and be caught off guard.” She reasoned.
Axis nodded. “You have a point.” After a short moment of quiet, he straightened up and stretched. “Thanks for before… and thank you for bandaging my hand.” He said, walking away.
“Don’t aggravate it more than you have to!” Aniha called after him.
“It’s not my sword hand, Aniha, don’t worry.” He replied. When he heard no response, he assumed she had gone about her business, and he made his way to where the mop was. Maybe Captain had been joking when he told Axis to clean the deck, but he’d rather not risk not doing it.
He took in a deep breath. His hand absentmindedly went to the necklace that hung around his neck. He smiled.
Taylor was alive.
And he wouldn’t let Darcy find him before he did.
I guess this is a “filler chapter” but with a little information sprinkled in… Anyways, new characters, blah blah. Hope you enjoyed!
.
.
.
*H̱aue-Iẖi- A curved, broad sword with a leather wrapped, wooden handle. The blade is about 63.5 centimeters (25 inches). // The name comes from the Hawaiian words for “Wave (Hawewe)” and “edge(Lihi)”.
** Jin-Ttang- A country that could be considered somewhat of an equivalent to Korea.
Willowlark 