Keys for the Shackle, Coins for the Ferryman

A short while later, Leo emerged from the crew deck with a soaking wet blanket slung over his shoulder, pilfered from the boatmaster’s submerged cot.

He’d repurposed the blanket as a sack, into which he’d stuffed as much food, candles, and wine as he’d been able to find floating around the shipmaster’s cabin. He hadn’t quite been able to tell what everything was that he’d grabbed, but he guessed it was a lot of dried fruit and meat, which even if humble by royal standards, was above and beyond anything he’d been able to eat as a slave.

He was surprised to discover Fia in the process of pulling Boatmaster Uric’s trousers off his corpse.

“What in blazes?”

She’d already pilfered the dead man’s coat and was using it as a litter of her own. She’d already gathered his matchlock, emptied his pockets of coins, keys, and a belt, and taken his shoes.

“For some reason, I didn’t imagine a goddess would be willing to desecrate a corpse,” Leo said, placing his own sack beside her. He knelt down and helped her get the pants down past Uric’s corpulent knees.

“I’m the goddess of the unconquered,” Fia breathed, her teeth chattering. “Not the goddess of fine silks and delicate lace. Besides, I need to keep moving or I’ll freeze to death.”

From the blueness of her lips, she might freeze anyway.

“C’mon, let’s cut our losses and run,” said Leo. He drew two coins out of her litter, then bundled up the rest and slung it over his shoulder beside the food sack. “We’ll want to hit the shore before sunrise, or we’ll be seen by every hill bandit for miles around.”

“R-right,” said Fia. “Is there anything else you n-need to grab b-before we go?”

Leo would’ve liked to raid the food stores of the lower deck, but with that part of the boat fully submerged and lacking any light, he doubted he’d be able to gather anything useful without drowning.

“Let’s get you loaded into the boat with our supplies.”

“Right.”

Leo had Fia descend the ship’s rope ladder and step onto the moored rowboat first. Then once she was settled, he descended one rung at a time, until he could safely drop the sacks of supplies down at the keel of the tiny vessel.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he began climbing back up.

“R-right,” said Fia.

Leo found Skrag’s body where he left it. He wished that he could give the old-timer a proper burial with rites, but there was no way he could take Skrag with them. Fia was already freezing, and they would need to find shelter, and there was no way they could do that while hauling a hundred-and-forty pound man across the forest.

Still, Leo reverently lifted the old-timer and carried him on his shoulders. Even as dead weight, Skrag was pitifully light.

Leo descended the rope ladder once more and gently laid Skrag down in the boat. Then he slipped a coin each under Skrag’s wrist shackles and looped the key ring around his chain.

“Take the key with you,” Leo whispered in his Skrag’s ear. “When you reach the river of souls, unshackle yourself, and give the coins to the ferryman. We’ll meet again, someday. And I shall repay you for the kindness you have shown me. I swear it.”

Then, Leo lifted Skrag one last time, and lowered him gently into the water. The water accepted Skrag, and there was still a peaceful smile on his face as he descended into the ocean’s moonlit depths.

Leo waited for a long moment, watching where Skrag had disappeared from sight, before he gave a sigh and settled onto the boat’s rowing bench.

“H-he was a good m-man,” said Fia.

“And a good friend,” Leo agreed. He flexed his hands, and found the oars. “Let’s get to shore.”

“Can I h-help?” Fia offered, though she was clearly in no shape to lend a hand.

“I can row an oar one last time,” said Leo, as he began piloting the boat toward the distant shore.

With every stroke of the oars, Leo felt an increasing sense of disbelief wash over him.

He was finally doing it. Finally fleeing that accursed ship. No longer a slave. He was finally free.

And all it cost was the lives of nearly two-dozen men, including one who had become a friend in the midst of this miserable tribulation.

Leo felt sharply aware of the twine bracelet wrapped about his wrist. In that moment, as he began to row away from a living hell, he made another promise to himself.

He was, of course, going to find the men who’d put him in bondage and kill them. That was never going to change. But first, he was going to find Skrag’s family and deliver to them this bracelet.

Leo wasn’t completely sure where he and Fia were at in Crestamere pass, but he’d seen on many a map the narrow strait between Khrueshma and the uncharted wastes of the Sorgoric nomads to the west. They were somewhere on the northern side of that strait, and so after making landfall would want to trek southeast until they reached the Crestamere mountains. There, they would be forced to winter over until late spring, at which point—

Leo shook his head.

One step at a time. First, let’s try to survive the night.

Tonight, the ocean was as calm as it had ever been, with great, soft rolling waves.

However, it took over an hour to row to shore. During that time, the weather began to change dramatically. A fresh wind came howling in, whipping up the waves in a frenzy. Clouds rolled across the night sky, blotting out the stars.

They were only a hundred feet from the shore when the clouds covered the moon, plunging them into near-total darkness. Leo rowed hard, trying desperately to keep the boat oriented toward the coast.

Lightning split the sky, illuminating the sea for a briefest moment before plunging them back into darkness. The thunder that followed was a tremendous, terrible roar.

As he heard the crashing of the surf on the beach, Leo grabbed hold of the mooring line and jumped into the water. It came up to his waist and utterly frigid, but he began pushing through the sand beneath and dragging the boat along behind him.

Rain began to fall in freezing sheets on Leo, somehow colder than the water of the ocean. He pulled and pulled, trudging one step at a time out of the water and onto dry land.

Another flash of lightning, and he saw the treeline beyond the beach. Great, towering pines speared into the sky, swaying and creaking beneath the fierce wind of the western storm.

Leo finished pulling the boat ashore and dropped rope. “Come on,” he bellowed to be heard over the pelting rain.

“What about the boat?” Fia asked as she clambered out onto the sand.

“We cast it off and hope it floats far away from here, then we get inland as fast as possible.” Leo hefted their bags out of the boat and onto the sand, then started pushing.

“Why would we get rid of the boat?” Fia asked, even as she leaned in beside him and helped to push.

“The coast is too dangerous. It’ll be easy for bandits to spot us. If they see the boat on the beach, they’ll know we landed here.”

“That,” she grunted with strain, “makes sense.”

Together, the shoved the boat back out into the tide and let the waves carry it back out to sea. Then they turned, heaving and gasping, back to the shore.

Just making it this far felt like a monumental effort. But they weren’t safe yet. If they didn’t find shelter soon, they were going to die.

Leo shouldered his bag and, to his surprise, Fia shouldered the other. She was absolutely soaked to the bone, shaking from the cold, and blue-lipped. Each step she took seemed like she was about to topple over.

But Fia was a fighter.

Just like him.

I guess that’s why she chose me, huh?

They began trudging together up the rain-soaked shores and into the wilderness.