Ice, Rage, and Sea Water

That evening, Leo sat on the hardwood deck of the slaves’ cabin, while Skrag the old-timer applied a salve to his wounds by the light of the moon.

“I admit, when I started hearing them whippings,” said Skrag as he rubbed the salve into Leo’s back, “I thought to myself, ‘he done finally lost his mind, the poor soul.’”

Leo clenched his fists as the salve burned something fierce, but didn’t complain. It was one of the few possessions that slaves were allowed aboard the ship, as it was what kept wounds from rotting. The boatmaster held little pity for his slaves, but a dead slave was a useless one, and the herb used to make the salve was readily available in the coastal regions of Khrueshma.

“You’re lucky he didn’t take an eye with that cut to the forehead,” Skrag rattled. “A slave don’t need to see to row, and I’ve seen him take both eyes from a man before putting him back to the oars.”

Leo knew the story. Three years ago, he would have taken the boatmaster’s head for such insolent cruelty. But now…

He stared at his callused hands, still held heavy by chained manacles.

“Seek the boatmaster’s cabin, and I will deliver him into your hands.”

Could the spirit really have been telling the truth?

“I bet you’re thinking of home, ain’t ya boy?”

Leo grunted non-committally. He would let the old-timer think what he would.

“Y’know, when I first boarded this fine vessel,” he spat in derision to the side, “the veterans told me, ‘now Skrag, don’t you even think of home. You’ll never see it again.’ Well, joke’s on them. They’re all dead, and twenty years later, old Skrag’s only go three months left on his sentence.”

Leo blinked in surprise. “Skrag, you’re almost done?”

Not only would that make the old-timer the only person Leo had ever met to serve out his sentence, but it would also mean Leo would’ve been just a baby when Skrag had first been enslaved.

“Yep,” Skrag clapped him on the shoulder, sending a spider-web of pain across Leo’s back. “Ah, sorry. In any case, you know what kept me going all this time?”

He held up a wrist bracelet, wrapped twice around his emaciated forearm so that it wouldn’t slip off. It was made of rough twine with a single stone bead.

“My daughter made me this, long ago. I imagine she’s all grown up now, with a family of her own. I tell you what, first thing I’m going to do when I get off this boat—” he spat again, “—I’m going to go find her, fall down on my knees, and beg her to forgive her foolish father for leaving her all alone.”

Leo glanced up at the man. The old-timer’s eyes were glistening in the spare shafts of moonlight, that crept through the floorboards of the upper deck.

“So I take it the wife has passed already,” said Leo quietly.

“Aye, she has. Taken by the plague. Gods above, do I miss her. But you know what kept me going all this time? It was knowing that my little girl is still out there. Even if she’s given up on her father coming home, even if she hates me, if I can just see her face one last time, it’ll have been worth living through this hell.”

Leo considered that. He didn’t have a family to go back to. And even if he survived this servitude, he would be even older than Skrag when he finished his sentence. The boat may change, the master may change, but he was still doomed to ride these ships until the day he died.

And yet, he persisted. Slaves who’d arrived after him had already gone and perished. But Leo refused to die.

The brand on his neck marked him a slave for life and cut off his access to magic, but he knew—he just knew—that one day, he would be free of this place, and free of that infernal brand.

Because he’d made a promise, if not out loud then to himself: he would find and kill the men who put him in these chains.

The spirit’s words haunted him still. “Danger is coming, Leo. Do not delay, or you will die.”

What danger could she have meant? And how in blue skies was she going to help him, when she hadn’t been helping him at all before?

Then again, why would she bother to help him at all? What could a spirit gain by aiding a mortal?

“I can see you’re lost in thought,” said Skrag, patting him on the shoulder again. Then apologizing again, before continuing, “Farbeit from me to help a man find thoughtlessness, so I think I’ll call it a night.”

He found a nice piece of bulkhead to lean against and curled up with a thin rag that was alleged to be a blanket.

Leo sat in the cold silence for a long moment before saying, “Skrag?”

The old-timer was snoring already.

“Thanks for everything.”

***

That night, he dreamt the same dream he always dreamed. In the court of a high duke. Ordered to murder a child.

He refused.

And for the high crime of mercy, he was sentenced to slavery for fifty years.

He woke to the spirit’s voice. “Leo, it’s time to go.”

Leo didn’t hesitate. He rose from his sleeping spot and began to move.

There were three decks to the ship. The main deck, the crew deck, and the ship storage. The slave quarters took up most of the space of the crew deck, partitioned from a corridor running the length of the ship by iron bars with a locked gate. Each night, a different hired hand was assigned by Boatmaster Uric to keep watch on the slaves, which usually consisted of snoring on a cot on the other side of the bars, just out of arm’s reach from the slaves.

The ship had cast anchor several hundred yards off the coast. Storms were uncommon this time of year, so Boatmaster Uric preferred to moor far from shore to discourage land-bound bandits from taking the natural step to piracy.

Leo timed his strides with the creaking of the boat on the waves, so that the clinking of the chains between his ankles wouldn’t disturb the sleeping slaves, nor the hired hand.

Despite the riskiness of his endeavor, Leo found his heartbeat to be calm. There was little doubt in his mind as to what he should do: only intent.

His bare feet knew the floor boards well, and he knew without thinking where to step to avoid errant shafts of moonlight.

When he reached the gate, he was surprised to discover it was unlocked. Ever so carefully, he opened the gate just wide enough, then slipped through.

He left the hired hand to his sleep; killing him would risk waking the others, and Leo didn’t want to give the boatmaster any warning.

Fate, however, had other ideas.

There was a tremendous noise, like the sound of a log snapping, and the boat shuddered. It continued, cracking and popping as Leo glanced back at its source.

At the far end of the boat, he saw something the didn’t make sense. It looked like the glimmering pale-blue white of an iceberg, but it appeared like a great spear jutting up through the hull of the ship. And it was growing.

Damn.

Leo started running as fast as his chained legs could carry him toward the shipmaster’s cabin. A fresh wave of cold air blasted past him, even as the terrible rending noise increased in volume and pitch.

Doubtless, the others were awake now, but Leo couldn’t hear them over the terrible sound of ice breaking ship.

He reached the boatmaster’s cabin at the back of the ship and flung the door open.

Uric’s cabin was a small, cramped room with a single cot to the side, a desk in the center, and a matchlock pistol hanging from the upper back wall. Uric himself sat at his desk, facedown on the wooden surface.

Is he dead?

Leo entered into the boatmaster’s cabin and locked the door behind him. A moment later, there was banging on the door as one of the hired hands reached them, but Leo couldn’t make out what they yelled over the horrendous noise.

Uric stirred and sat up groggily, his eyes deeply bloodshot in the lantern light. Leo nearly leaped across the cabin to strangle the man before he could go for the matchlock

Instead, Uric merely hiccuped, then fell to the cabin floor. A clay cup of wine toppled over, emptying the remainder of its contents over the wood. An empty bottle lay carelessly strewn across his desk.

Leo strode across small cabin, rage forming like a knot in his gut. Uric was drunk off his ass and completely at his mercy. It would not be difficult to kill him right here, right now. Choke the man to death with the very chains that held Leo bound.

He stretched out his hand to do just that, then hesitated.

As much as he hated Uric, could he really kill him in cold blood like this? He didn’t know why, but something about killing the now-defenseless man felt wrong.

The ship shuddered again, and icy cold sea water water began rushing into the cabin from beneath the door, immediately soaking Leo’s bare feet.

The frigid water must have shocked Uric into a degree of lucidity. He sputtered about, groping in the lamplight for something, though Leo couldn’t tell what.

Leo knelt on the boatmaster’s chest, pinning him down. Uric flailed helplessly but would be unable to free himself before the water filled the cabin up past his head and drowned him. It would be so damned easy to drown him.

But if he died, he would die as a result of his own ineptitude, not because Leo murdered him.

Leo reached for the keyring at Uric’s belt and ripped it from him. His prize claimed, Leo lifted off of Uric’s chest and left him to his fate.

He needed to hurry. The water was already up to Leo’s ankles and swelling by the moment.

It took around thirty seconds for Leo to find the key for his shackles and unlock his wrists. The chained manacles plopped into the water, and he gently rubbed skin that had not seen sunlight in two years.

The water had reached his calves and was rising fast.

Leo shoved the key into his leg restraint and sighed in relief as the fetter clicked open. He moved to unlock the other one.

Uric shoved into Leo, knocking him against the cabin wall. Leo was more surprised than harmed. He’d been so focused on releasing his shackles that he hadn’t noticed the boatmaster getting to his feet. Moreover, sometime during his rush to free himself, the sound of the strange ice breaking the ship had ceased.

“Yooouuuuu filthyyyy, rrrrebellioussss ssslave,” Uric spat, voice audible over the noise of rushing water.

The rage that had quieted at the chance for freedom now roared to life in Leo’s breast.

He rushed the slavemaster and pinned him by the throat to his desk. Leo squeezed with hands strengthened by years of rowing. He looked deep into Uric’s eyes and snarled. And then…

Leo saw his own reflection in Uric's eyes. He saw a wild man, lost of his senses, given over to the basest instincts of rage and bloodlust. A man he never would have recognized three years ago.

He'd sworn he would never become that man. No matter what the world did to him, he would not let it destroy him. No matter how hard, how brutal, and how cruel. He would not become like that.

And so Leo released Uric, took a step back, and fled.