Ashuram
isn't mine sob!. Lodoss isn't
mine, either. Poop.
Everybody
else though…mine mine mine!!
Also
I want to point out that this chapter has its violent elements. If you don't like that sort of thing, please
don't read! I really don't like
violence or depicting it, but if you're writing about violent times, it's the
sort of thing that needs to be included to preserve the genuineness of the
story. Blah blah *kicks herself off of
her soapbox* Enough! Ok, now….on with
the show!
…Poor
Ashuram! (-_-);
Chapter Four: Humility
"Well, I don't care
if you're the blasted Lord of Darkness himself," the rough, supercilious voice
of the Captain carried loudly over the dock as he eyed the gaunt, pale man
before him with obvious dislike.
"Since
my ship and crew were liberated," he continued, "I don't take orders from
anybody 'cept the person that hires me and my crew. Lord Garing didn't say anything about taking on an extra
passenger in Marmo, of all Goddess-forsaken places." The last was muttered under his breath, but quite audibly.
Ashuram was coldly furious. He didn't know which frustrated him more,
the ignorance of this small frigate-Captain or the fact that he was in a
position that made him dependant on the man's good will. It had been a long time since he had been
with so little authority over any situation put before him, and he was
completely unused to being thwarted, much less with such obvious malice.
"Cap'n, sir," one of the sailors said, moving up
beside the heavy-set, swarthy man with a look of fright directed in Ashuram's
general direction. "Don't you know who
Lord Ashuram is? The Black Knight,
Cap'n sir. The Marmo army." Ashuram held himself still patiently. It was a struggle to keep himself standing
upright, but pride and anger kept his backbone stiff.
The war was over: Marmo had been defeated.
He did not expect that recognition would bring him
any change of fortune, and he was right.
"He doesn't look like any black knight to me," the
Captain replied dubiously. "In fact, he
looks like something the gypsies might take pity on. There's no room for you, black knight or whoever you may be."
"I can pay my way," Ashuram said calmly, no trace of
the anger he felt touching what was naturally a chill, commanding voice. He patted the money pouch he had hung on his
hip with a confidence he did not feel.
After he had found food in the kitchens, Ashuram had
gone to what remained of his old chambers.
The castle crumbled slowly around him, and his sparse chambers had been
a mess of fallen stone and dust. Most
of the valuables and his clothes had been stolen by the servants, although he
had found the small chest of gold hidden behind his wardrobe that he had stored
there when he had first come to the palace, when his monthly salary had seemed
tremendous to a young man that had never seen such wealth in his life
before. That had been long ago. Fortunately for him, his habit of hoarding
things had served him well now, and the servants had not found the hidden
chest.
He had also found a pair of cracked, old boots that
had belonged to him long before he had become the fearsome dark general of Lord
Beld's army. They were unrefined brown
leather, but they were far better than going barefoot. Not even his stiff, fierce pride could have
suffered standing in front of these sailors in his bare feet. Any clothing that remained had been stolen
for the value of the cloth. Not even an
old practice tunic had been left, and he had to be content with the clothes he
wore, which were fast growing filthy and foul.
However, the state of his clothing was the least of
his worries. Burning foremost in his brain
was the desire to get away from the decaying island. Beyond that he had little in the way of a plan. He simply wanted to put the crumbling prison
of Marmo far behind him.
He had been extremely lucky that there remained a
ship in Marmo's small harbor. He
suspected they were doing something illicit there; what, he was not sure, nor
did he even care. All that mattered to
him was that there was a ship – only one – and it was his chance to get away
from Marmo. He cared not at all where
they were bound, only that he go with them when they left.
He had tied his tangled hair back in a semblance of
order, and the dark cloak gave him some dignity of office. Otherwise, however, he knew he was a sorry
sight. He was a man walking with
injuries that would have killed a lesser man – would have killed him, too,
except for the inexplicable sword. He
imagined he must look as though death rode not far behind him, and in truth, he
felt that way. If these men had any
clue of how much willpower it was taking merely to stand here before them
straight-shouldered and steady, they would undoubtedly rob him of the very few
possessions he had and leave him for the vultures.
The Captain squinted at the tall, jet-haired man,
interested in spite of himself.
"Let's see the color of your coin," he said at last,
the challenge obvious in his whisky-rough voice. Ashuram dug a coin out of the bag and tossed it to the man. The Captain caught it, and frowned
suspiciously down at the thick, dark gold coin.
"…Marmo gold," The Captain growled, mostly to
himself. "Dark as the island." He bit it carefully. Looking up, he speared Ashuram with a sharp
gaze under bushy, greasy grey eyebrows.
"Gold from the island of a fallen, ruined Goddess,"
he said flatly. "Probably cursed four
ways to Sunday." He looked at Ashuram,
expecting denial. The tall man
shrugged, and despite his gauntness all assembled on the deck could see the
muscles ripple in his broad shoulders at the slight movement. He stood completely still, the same stillness
a panther might have as it readied itself to spring, and held himself with a fighter's confidence. Not even the Captain could resist a chill
feeling of fear looking into the man's pale, predatory face and dark, flat
eyes. Unbeknownst to the Captain, it
was this fear that motivated his immediate and intense hatred of the man. Ashuram knew it for what it was. He had seen it many times before, on many
different faces, and he saw it now in the face of the weathered, shabby
Captain.
"Perhaps," Ashuram said only. "It comes from Khardis' island. But gold is gold; after the expense of war,
do you think your lord will truly care where it comes from?" It was a long shot, he knew. War was expensive, and now that it was over,
he knew that recovery would be slow.
However, the darkness of the gold marked it as Marmo coin.
He saw that it hit home, however. The sailors met each other's eyes uneasily.
"…got a point there," he heard one of them mutter
unwillingly. "Lord Garing certainly
won't give a toss whose gold it used to be, just as long as it's in his
control."
The Captain gave Ashuram a long, measuring
look. Ashuram kept his gaze neutral,
trying to look relaxed. His legs were
beginning to tremble ever so slightly with the strain, and soon the sheen of
sweat across his brow would be highly visible.
"Fine," the Captain said grudgingly, at last. "You have passage with us only 'till we
reach the first port in Alania. We
leave with the tide. It'll cost you
that entire bag of gold, though."
"Fine," Ashuram echoed, feeling weak with relief.
"You'll pay me now," the Captain continued. Ashuram couldn't argue. He threw the man the bag of gold carelessly,
and the Captain caught it gingerly.
There was a
roaring growing in Ashuram's ears that threatened to engulf him, and his vision
seemed to be growing dim. He fought
lightheadedness fiercely.
"…had better get your sorry, bedraggled self aboard,
then," the Captain was saying, turning away.
"But you had better not be expecting any special treatment, for you
won't get it. You'll sleep on a hammock
in the hold with the rest of the sailors."
"…I understand," Ashuram replied, hoping his voice
didn't sound too faint. Blinking hard
against the grey that was slowly stealing his vision, he made his way carefully
down the dock and, somehow, kept his balance well enough across the narrow
plank to the frigate waiting in Marmo's dark waters. The sailors made way for him, ducking out of the blank, fevered
stare of the darkly clad man, muttering imprecations and wards against bad luck
as he passed.
"Your bunk is this way," a sailor told him as he
came aboard. The voice sounded neither
friendly nor threatening, just a statement.
"Come on, I'll show you."
"…My thanks…" Ashuram nodded, following the
voice. He blinked again, hard, his
vision slowly beginning to clear.
In the hold he was given a hammock, and the sailor
that had shown him down to the hold showed him how to hang it.
"You'll have to figure out how to sleep in it on
your own," the sailor said, and now Ashuram could see that it was a young man
speaking to him, with a shock of bright blond hair and skin dark with years of
sun and wind. His eyes were sky blue
and seemed somewhat friendly as they offered him a small, wry smile.
"I thank you," Ashuram said again,
nodding. He couldn't bring himself to
return the man's smile, but the cold stiffness around his eyes relaxed
slightly.
He noticed then the man eyeing his
throat with frank appraisal. The
coldness came back to Ashuram's eyes rapidly.
"A word of advice," the young man
told him, meeting the cold gaze again without flinching. "You might want to keep that little trinket
of yours hidden. Nobody'd think twice of
stealing it from you. Not even
me." He gave Ashuram a grin that held
little comradeship in it, and gave the taller man a nod. Turning on his heel, he left smartly.
Ashuram's hand stole up to his
throat, and he remembered Pirotess' headband.
There was no where else he could keep it where it would be completely
safe, but he pulled the neck of his tunic up to cover it again.
Carefully, he sat in his newly hung
hammock, sighing to himself. The hands
he ran through sweat-slicked hair trembled with exhaustion. His head rang and a mist seemed to have
attached itself to his thoughts, making his mind feel fuzzy and lethargic. I am not well off, he finally
admitted to himself, resting his face in his hands.
* * * * * * *
He woke unpleasantly to the sharp
pain of something hard jabbing him in the ribs ungently. Ashuram opened his eyes blearily, exhaustion
unwilling to release him into awareness.
He looked up, confused and not quite remembering where he was, to see
the Captain standing above him, looking angry.
"Get up and get yourself on deck,"
the Captain snarled. "You're nobody's
guest, and I'll certainly tolerate no freeloading on my ship." He was holding a long cutlass, the hilt of
which he had apparently shoved into Ashuram's ribs.
"Do you understand me?" He said,
bending down into the pale man's vacant face.
Ashuram blinked, dragging his awareness back from sleep.
"…I do," Ashuram replied, voice
grating on weariness. Underneath him,
he could feel the heaving of the ship as it moved ponderously over the ocean.
The smell of salt-cured rope and wood was almost overpowering.
"Then get yourself up and report to
the First Mate for duty," the Captain growled, standing back. "You're obviously no sailor, but if you
want your rations, you'll work for them
like everyone else."
Ashuram could not help the look of
cold hatred that flashed in his eyes, but he merely nodded. He was in no position to oppose this man,
and he knew it. The Captain took a step
back from the look in the pale man's eyes instinctively.
"Bloody idiocy," the Captain growled,
turning on his heel and marching out.
"On the double, black knight."
Ashuram pulled himself out of the
hammock with uncharacteristic clumsiness, the motion of the ship nearly sending
him to the planks below as he tried to stand.
He had never particularly cared for sailing. He pulled himself fully upright against the painful stiffness of
his limbs with the help of the roughly planked wall, lips thinned in a wince.
Looking around the hold, he saw he
was the only one in it. All the other
hammocks had been stowed away. He
wondered how the shifts worked on the ship, and decided someone would tell him
exactly when he was in error. The
thought made him smile to himself blackly.
He rubbed his hand over his face in exhaustion. Pulling his tunic up so Pirotess' charm was
hidden, he made his way up on deck.
He soon found himself hoisting sails
with the other sailors. None of them
took kindly to his presence, muttering as he joined them. A single look quelled their comments so that
no one said anything out loud, but he could feel their suspicion of him none
the less. He ignored them,
concentrating more on not letting the pain of his limbs make him lose his
already tenuous grasp on consciousness.
Hoisting sails was not helping his wounded body, and he gritted his
teeth and did what he could.
When they at last stopped for the night, Ashuram was so tired he could
hardly eat the small plate of rations he'd been given. His eyes kept drifting closed despite his
best intentions. He was nearly
sleepwalking when he dragged himself down to the hold and into his
hammock. He was surrounded by the
chattering voices of the other sailors, but he tuned it out easily enough. Kicking off his boots and storing them
neatly beside the post that supported his hammock, he fell into a deep slumber.
* * * * * * *
When he woke the next morning to the
jolt of the Bosun's whistle piercing the air, his boots were gone.
Ashuram blinked in groggy disbelief
as he realized they were nowhere to be seen.
His jaw clenched in frustration.
Somehow, every small setback seemed so major these days. Had his world really grown so narrow? He knew the answer to that. Those boots were one of the only things of
value he still had, and he wanted them back.
He pulled himself upright, letting
his legs get used to the sea heaving beneath them, and came up on deck
purposefully. The salt smell of the sea
filled his nose bracingly, and he took a deep breath of it. He spotted the Captain standing forward in
the bow, and approached him with a look of grim determination on his face.
"Captain," he said, getting the man's
attention. He was favored with a grunt
and a look of dislike. "A word with
you. One of your men has stolen my
boots." The Captain regarded him
blankly, pipe clenched between his teeth, the bitter smelling smoke drifting up
in lazy coils.
"So?" The Captain barked around the
pipe stem, turning away.
"I want them back. Now." Ashuram's voice had grown dangerously
soft. The Captain eyed him, not quite
turning to face him, smoke streaming from his broad nostrils.
"It's none of my concern if you fail
to stow your things properly," the Captain replied at last with a shrug. "Be glad no one tried to slit your throat
first, man." He turned away completely
then, the conversation obviously over.
Ashuram fought the urge to simply
kill the Captain with his bare hands.
The grim thought somehow brought dark humor bubbling up from somewhere
deep within him. Why did everything
have to be so hard for him? The ironic
smile he was fighting at the position he suddenly found himself pulled his thin
lips up into a smirk.
"Very well," he said. "I'll take care of it myself." He turned and left the Captain starting to
splutter some answer after him, which he ignored.
* * * * * * *
It was during his supper that night that Ashuram saw
one of the sailors wearing his boots, making no effort to hide them. Such a small thing, he thought, but they
were his, and he would have them back.
"I lost a pair of boots just like those," he said to
the sailor casually, moving to sit by the man at the long table, moving other
sailors out of the way ungently. The
man, a truculent looking sailor, gave him a surly look.
"Tragic," the man said, returning to his supper
without a second glance in Ashuram's direction. Ashuram suddenly was
disinterested in the game of bandying words.
"You and I both know those are my boots," Ashuram
said quietly. The man looked up at him,
the truculent expression deepening.
"And who the hell are you that you think you're the
only one that has leather boots aboard?" The sailor demanded, quite
defensively. "Go away, man, and let me
eat my supper in peace. Before you get
hurt."
Ashuram grabbed the steel steak knife he had been
issued with his rations and went for the other man's throat with a sudden
calculated movement. Only sheer luck
saved the sailor – he fell backwards off of the bench and onto the planks with
an inarticulate yell, moving backwards as fast as he could away from the tall
pale man. Ashuram followed him
single-mindedly, eyes clear and indifferent, the nominally sharpened knife
poised to strike. He sprung again for
the sailor, and Ashuram felt his little strength leaving him. The sailor grappled with him, muscles made
hard and tight from years of hoisting sails easily keeping Ashuram at bay. They
strained against each other's strength, effectively at an impasse.
"I'm going to take that knife and smash it up your-"
the sailor started to snarl, eyes scant inches from Ashuram's own.
"By the seven hells! Somebody stop them!"
Someone cried, interrupting the sailor's threat.
Ashuram went limp in the sailor's grasp suddenly,
his substantial weight making the sailor grunt in surprise and loosen his hold
for just a split second before he realized it was a ruse. That was all the time Ashuram needed. Coming to his feet, he efficiently hooked
his fingers around the sailor's ears and drove the man's face into his
knee. The sailor cursed, blood seeping
from a suddenly split lip. Coolly,
Ashuram pressed his thumbs against the man's eyes, his fingers still hooked
around the man's ears.
The black knight felt strong arms encircle his own
and pull him forcibly away from the man who had stolen his boots. For a moment he thought about struggling.
"Easy there, wild man," a voice said warningly by
his ear in a familiar, friendly-sounding, blunt accent. "Just let it go." Ashuram looked up into the eyes of the sailor who had spoken to
him earlier in the voyage, and sky blue eyes met frigid black ones. Ashuram let the man pull him away; there was
little else he could do.
It took more men to hold the sailor back. Now that there was a crowd, he had grown
fierce, lunging towards Ashuram in the surety that he was being held securely
back.
"I'll kill the bloody son of a bitch!" He kept
saying savagely.
Ashuram freed himself from the sailor's hold with
minimal effort and straightened, composing himself. Ridiculous, he thought in some dismay. When did a pair of boots become worth
this much? Low….I've fallen low.
The Captain arrived, face red with contained anger.
"What the hell is going on here?" He demanded,
looking from Ashuram to the sailor. His
eyes narrowed as they sized Ashuram up.
"Ask him," the sailor sneered after delivering a
viciously derogatory comment about Ashuram's parentage, jutting his chin in the
pale man's direction. "He's the one
trying to kill people with butter knives."
The sailor wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand roughly.
"That true?" The Captain asked, in a deceptively
casual voice. Ashuram crossed his arms,
standing easily in a position of relaxation he forced himself into.
"He is wearing my boots," he said in a quiet voice,
his words quite clear. A crowd, sensing
trouble, had gathered, and Ashuram suspected nearly the entire crew was
watching the spectacle unfolding in the hold.
"Well?" The Captain said, swinging his blunt head to
look at the other sailor.
"Didn't see his name on 'm," the man offered lamely,
fidgeting, sucking his lip. The Captain
sighed, looking ferociously annoyed.
"Thief's the worst kind of rat to have aboard," he
said, giving the sailor a disdainful look.
"But you," he continued, swinging round to glower at Ashuram, "I knew
you were trouble the moment I clapped eyes on you. The country your kind comes from I hope never to find. Get both
of their sorry asses up on deck. Twenty
lashes for the both of them."
He could not even manage to be angry at the Captain's
words, but instead felt a glum sort of resignation. It had been almost fifteen years since he had been whipped like a
common page or a criminal, and he supposed he ought to feel indignant. Instead, he merely let himself be shepherded
up to the deck by the sailors. He had
no energy to feel anything.
"Face front," the blue-eyed sailor advised him as
they congregated around the main mast.
"If you take the lashes on your back, you won't sleep until we get to
Alania."
"Why do you care?" Ashuram wondered. He was not defensive, merely curious. The sailor shrugged.
"I don't, particularly," he said. "But if you die on board, that's damned bad
luck. From the looks of you, man, you
could use all the sleep you can get.
And we could use all the good luck we can get." Ashuram nodded. He appreciated the man's bluntness far more than he would have
any offer of friendship.
He allowed them to strip his tunic off, making a
markedly calm comparison to his fellow offender. The sailor being forcibly stripped to the waist beside him was
busy struggling, yelling epithets and curses, most of them directed toward
Ashuram.
When Ashuram's tunic was off, somebody whistled at
the sight of the pale, gaunt body.
"By the Goddess," one of the sailors said disgustedly,
"did they raise you in cave, or don't they have sun where you're from?" Ashuram looked down at himself and felt
almost shocked at the sight of his protruding ribs and the dark blue shadows in
the deep, curved well beneath his ribcage.
Muscles like finely strung fibers stretched across his bones tautly, but
it was an ashen body that looked weakened and pallid. He hardly recognized it.
He wondered how long, exactly, he had been down in the deep caves
beneath Marmo. The knowledge that he
should very well be dead rested heavily on him.
There was something of a watchful stillness, and he
noticed that furtive stares were being directed at his throat. Suddenly Ashuram felt like cursing himself
for a fool. Pirotess' pendant still lay
about his throat, and in the scuffle he had forgotten about it. It was not like him to forget such things,
and he felt furious at himself. There
was no way he would have peace on this ship now; they would surely try to steal
that pendant from him at the first opportunity.
Both he and the other offending sailor were tied to
large wooden gratings so they couldn't flinch away, escape, or collapse, their
backs against the splintery wood. It
looked as though the Captain himself would deliver the lashes, for he held the leather
cat o' nine tails casually in one thick hand as he made his way to the mast,
face stormy and deep set eyes glittering with enmity.
"Alright," the man said with an impatient breath,
"let's get this bloody business over with."
* * *
Oh and one more thing…Pirotess
really doesn't make much more of an appearance in this story. She's dead!
Don't kill me! Maybe I'll write
a Piro/Ash story next…hmm…
