Yamani Treasure
Chapter One: Pirates
Yukimi and Shinkokami watched their Tortillian friend go from one sailor to the other, making sure that everything was going according to plan. Kel for some reason was feeling as if something wasn't right. It was strange, for days now the pirates hadn't tried anything against the Yamani's and it was grinding on her nerves, something was about to happen and it was going to be BIG!
"'m tellin' ya miss, there aint nothin' wrong, we'll reach tha port in a month" Kel groaned, she'd known that it would take that long, but still. Looking over to where Yuki and Shinko were standing she rolled her eyes, she felt a lot calmer around the two Yamani ladies and felt that she could express what she was feeling on her face instead of masking it. The maid Haname noh Ajikuro was in her chambers, sea sick. Going over to her friends Kel stood there for a moment.
"what did they say?" Shinko asked, her eyes showing how amused she was at Kel's irrational jitters. Kel shrugged
"Said we'd reach the Port in a month, which is what I already knew, also said that I should stop worrying, that nothing is going to happen, blah blah blah. I know something's going to happen, I can feel it." Kel looked away from them, her eyes scanning the waters, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Sighing she lent against the rail, her eyes watching the waves crest against the hull of the ship.
"So…Kel, who is this boy you keep writing to? You never tell us anything about him. What is he, some secret lover?" Yuki nudged Kel, her perfectly shaped eyebrows going up. Kel grinned and shook her head.
"I don't know if I should tell you." She teased, The two girls whined, tugging at Kel like children, Kel was so stunned that they were acting so un-like-them that she conceded, just to make them stop acting so strangely. "His name is Joren, we were friends back in Tortall before my family moved to the Yamani's, we just promised to write to each other and have done so, every six months. He's a knight, and as far as I know he is betrothed to some girl he despises, has blonde hair, ice blue eyes, and is a sarcastic and rather rude person. We get along fine."
The two Yamani ladies exchanged looks and shook their heads. Kel looked between them trying to figure out what was going on, but they changed the subject.
"Did you ever meet the prince? Raold, the one I'm supposed to marry?" Kel shook her head and Shinko sighed in disappointment.
"I'm bored, want to play fan toss?" Yuki asked, eyeing Kel's Shukusen. Kel rolled her eyes again and unclipped the metal fan from her gold rope and flicked it open. The ivory silk felt smooth and familiar in Kel's hand as she gripped its base and the three of them started the game, the sway of the boat giving the three girls more of a challenge.
Three and a half weeks later
"how boring can this get?" Kel grumbled, Yuki, Shinko and Haname, who was now over her sea sickness. The three girls didn't deign to give Kel an answer as they continued with what they were trying to learn about Tortall.
"So…when I meet someone who is below my rank I offer them my hand and they kiss it?" Shinko asked, her eyes wide "isn't that a little forward of them?" Kel shrugged
"you'll get used to it" the three Yamani ladies all shuddered.
"I don't see h-" All four women looked up at the roof of their chambers, the sound of men yelling, frantic cries and pounding feet didn't sit well with them. Kel stood up, unclasping her Glaive from the rope tied around her torso.
"wait here, all of you get ready for a fight though…I don't like the sound of this" Kel moved cautiously closer to the door, mentally making note of where all her weapons were just in case she needed to use them. One hand holding her Glaive tightly, the other gripping the handle to the door, she flung it open and peered out. The halls were quiet 'it must be just the deck.' Moving swiftly down the corridor she walked up the steep steps, the hatch led to the galley. Making sure to allow room for her glaive to point upwards in case she had to fight the second she opened the hatch she unclasped it and pushed the heavy wood open.
The sight that greeted her wasn't a good one. Cringing at the amount of blood that was on the wood before her she pushed herself up, all sense open for an attack. Looking out the small window she saw that the storm that had been gathering looked about to crash down on them. Cursing her lack of luck. Keladry quickly took note of everything that was around her. She could her a battle taking place outside of the Galley, there were dead men, some crew members, others seemed to be dressed as pirates, there was a storm brewing, she had to protect the princess and her entourage, she…wait…pirates? 'oh crap.'
Controlling her breathing and placing on her Yamani mask she stepped gingerly around the blood she stepped out onto the deck, wind whipped around her unbalancing her slightly, and turning to look she dodged the fist aimed at her. It took only a bare second to figure out what was happening before she blocked the second attack with her glaive, spinning around she knocked the pirate on the head swiftly with the end of her Glaive, effectively knocking him unconscious. Searching around she picked out the crew members, the Prince, his body guards and where the pirates were. There were two ships, both owned by pirates on either side of the small vessel that was carrying the princess. Figuring that the best place possible for her to be was near the prince so she could protect him from these heathens and hope that they were enough to at least deter the pirates and make them leave before the Yamani ladies came out on deck to see what was going on.
Moving deftly around the swashbuckling crew members and pirates, sometimes engaging in one or two of their fights to help out a crew member she made it to the Prince. Standing back to back with the high ranking man she asked in a monotonous voice
"what happened?" The Prince shook his head to the side giving Kel the answer she was looking for, turning and looking she saw the captain of their ship dead. So that was it, they didn't have their captain, the crew members were falling down around them, there were just too many pirates to deal with and the Prince had no idea what was going on. Growling she looked up at the sky, the clouds looked about to burst, and the wind was picking up. Slashing a pirate with her glaive she looked back at the Prince.
"what do you suggest we do?" the prince grunted and threw his attackers back slightly so he could answer her.
"swim for it, the storm will hinder the pirates in coming after us, and we can see the outline of the shore. Get the princess and her women out and overboard, we will follow."
Keladry glanced around and nodded, bowing slightly even in the midst of battle and quickly dealt with the man fighting her with a roundhouse kick to the neck, snapping it cleanly in half. Not even flinching anymore she hurriedly ducked and weaved amongst the pirates and crew members until she came to the Galley. Kel stopped in the doorway, what she saw made her heart leap into her throat. There stood all three Yamani ladies, surrounded by five pirates, their glaives set off to the side, showing Kel that they had been taking before they could fight. Seeing the pirates backs to her Kel silently stalked over to where the glaives were and calculating everything in her mind she picked one up. She could only toss one at a time unless she dropped her own. Making a quick decision, weighing the odds of what might happen she placed her glaive down softly and picked up another. Crouching low she titled her head to the side gorging how much strength would be needed to toss the two glaives accurately above the heads of the pirated and into the hands of the Yamani ladies.
Sticking her tongue out Kel made a small cricket noise to alert Shinko what was happening, Keladry saw the almost imperceptible nod of the princess before she deftly threw the two glaives high over the pirates heads before she turned, gathered the last one and threw that too as well as picking up her own and charging at the five heavily armed men. There was slight confusion amongst the pirates, but they seemed to be the smarter of their breed as they quickly set to work, two against Kel who looked to be more of a problem then the shorter more delicate looking Yamani ladies. Keladry dodged the sharp edged curved knife and flicked her glaive up only to have it wrenched out of her hands by the other one. Both smiled crookedly down at her, thinking her to be unarmed. Kel smirked and pulled out her two Shukusen, snapping them open she hid the bottom of her face with their metal spikes. She allowed herself to grin as both men laughed
"whatcha gonna do luv? Fan us ta death?"
"well, that is the idea" she answered coldly, looking briefly over at the princess and seeing that she needed to hurry it up and help the three slighter women. Going down into a low spin stance, she could feel all her muscles getting ready for this fight. She was wound, ready to spring, and spring she did. Leaping high into the air she flipped the fans around, their metal spikes glinting in the small magical light, the first man had been too close to her and his throat was sliced open with the first flick of her wrist, crimson blood spurted out and covered her clothes, Kel didn't even stop to look at the already dead man. The second only scored a gash to his cheek. The man snarled at her
"Y'll pay for that luv" they both circled each other, waiting for the moment when their opponent would lapse in their concentration. A scream startled Kel and she glanced over her shoulder to see Haname fall to the floor, holding her arm. Snarling she was about to go after the man that had harmed the Yamani lady when her opponent struck. She twisted at the last moment and felt the knife cut along her stomach, it wasn't too deep, but it would cause some problems. Ignoring the pain she sliced down and lopped the mans head off with her fan.
Not bothering to even glance at the man or her wound she jumped over the dead pirates and cut down Haname's opponents back, effectively killing the man with one stroke. Flicking her wrists to get the blood from her fans she turned to see Yuki and Shinko rend their opponents unable to battle. Kel took damage control, Shinko looked to be in better shape then the rest of them with no visible cuts, Yuki had a scratch down the left side of her throat that was still bleeding, Haname was holding her shoulder obviously stabbed through and Kel could feel the sting of her stomach and of the slight cut on her cheek from one of her fights on deck.
"Lets go" she said breathlessly, her eyes scanning the room where she went over and picked her Glaive from off the floor, clasping her Shukusen back onto her ropes she turned to the other girls. "we have to swim to the port, there's no other way." Kel didn't tell them that they were going to be swimming in shark infested waters, during a storm and with pirates going after them, they'd figure it out on their own if they had time to think about it. "now!" she ordered, filing them out of the Galley and pushed them non to gently overboard, she could see the Prince still battling, his two guard with him, and a few of the crew mates were still going at it. She bowed to the Prince before following the Yamani ladies over the side of the boat.
The water was cold, their wounds stinging with the salt water. The waves towered over their heads, as did the three boats.
"There!" Kel cried out, pointing a finger at the land mass they could see "head for that" Kel gripped Shinko's arm and pushed her forwards "swim" she screamed out at them and started to follow them, her weapons were heavy, as were her clothes, but she needed to keep her weapons just in case they ran into trouble. The other women were wearing Kimonos which would be weighing them down mightily in the water. Cursing Kel swam over to Haname who was struggling and started to rip off the clothing, using her boot knife to help, the other two Yamani women headed back to them taking the offered knives from Kel to start taking off the heavier outer layers. They didn't take off the last layer because they still had to get to safety when the reached the port. Handing Kel back her knives they started swimming again, their strokes strong, even as they struggled in the raging waters. Kel turned back, seeing that their ship was now on fire and that the two pirate ships were headed in their direction, closing her eyes she dived into another wave and used the undercurrents to get her closer to land.
"hurry, their coming, come on, hurry!" she couldn't believe how desperate she was, they had to get to safety. In the back of her mind she realised that she was right, that all those calm weeks had been building up to something big. Cursing herself for bring right she swam harder, pulling the other girls along. It seemed as if the land wasn't getting any closer and she could feel tears of frustration and pain gathering in her eyes. She refused to allow them to fall and strove on, always aware that the pirates were getting closer. Rain started to fall from the sky, gently at first but soon the torrential fall obscured their vision and made it hard to figure out if they were above a wave or underwater. The four of them continued, Kel still pulling the tired Yamani's along with her, her muscles ached but she'd be dammed if she left any of them behind.
Kel almost didn't believe it when she felt the wood of a pier against her shoulder. Pushing the three almost unconscious Yamani's against the wood she told them to hang on while she felt along for a rail or some sort. Trying to not get crushed against the wood by the waves her hand secured around a metal rung. Calling over the howling winds for the Yamnai's she pulled them up the rails and onto the wood of the pier, one by one she pushed them up until all four women were laying on the wooden pier trying to catch their breath. Kel was about to get up when she felt the cold sting of metal on her throat. Biting her lip she looked up at the tall person standing over her.
"who are you?" Kel, who had expected it to be another pirate was surprised at the cultured voice. Blinking up at the person through the rain she tried to make out anything that might suggest they could be a friendly. The sword pressed harder against her throat "I wont ask again. Tell me, who are you?" Kel glared at the person above her.
"get your sword off my throat and I'll tell you." There was a shuffling off to the side of the man and she tensed, thinking that maybe the pirates had come into Port and were going to kill her and the man. She had no need to be worried though, it was another man, he held a lantern and she could see in its soft glow that he wore the amour of a knight of Tortall. The other man had brown hair and green eyes, he eyed her and the three passed out women beside her.
"Joren their women, let them up." Kel's eyes widened and she looked up at what she could see of them man, white blonde hair, cold ice blue eyes, he was absolutely handsome. Kel smiled up at him.
"Joren? Of Stone Mountain?" she asked, she felt nervous all of the sudden, but the hope of actually finding her friend overwhelmed anything else she might have felt. The sword pressed a little harder, and his lips thinned into a grim line.
"who are you? How do you know me?" Kel rolled her eyes
"Well this is a rude welcome if I ever saw one Girly boy" She could see out of the corner of her eye the brown haired boy gape at her. She looked up and her smile became wider at the look of surprise on Joren's face, 'surprise looks good on him.' She thought, not even trying to figure out why she had thought that she placed it under extreme tiredness. The sword left her neck and he reached down and deftly pulled her to her feet. She could feel his strength even in that one movement.
"Kel?" his voice was a little uncertain, she could see his ice blue eyes take in her form, his hand traced the still open wound on her face. "what the hell happened?" she shrugged and yawned tiredly.
"our ship was attacked by pirates, we had to swim here." He looked down at the other women with her.
"uh, Joren, I think we should get them out of the rain, I don't believe that they are pirates who swam ashore to kill everyone in the port." Kel looked quizzically over at the other man. He grinned and ran a hand through his wet hair. "the inn keeper saw you from the window and thought you were pirates, he's a paranoid old man." Kel didn't say anything to the man, she looked back at Joren who was still searching her face.
"where are you hurt? And them?" Kel looked over at the Yamani women and bit her lip.
"Haname has a stab wound to the shoulder, Yuki, a scratch on her throat, and Shinko is alright." Joren scowled at her and Kel rolled her eyes "I was careless and was slashed across my stomach and my cheek, that's all. But you should have seen them, hell we could have taken them all on and won." She bragged, but the effect was broken when she stumbled and Joren had to catch her before she fell to the ground.
"whatever, Queenscove, go back and get some men to carry the others in." Both waited until the other man had run off before Joren sighed and shook his head "stupid tomboy, could have gotten killed, and you did promise that you'd see me again." Kel grinned and pinched his cheeks sleepily.
"oh stop being such a worrywart, I'm here aren't I? And I always keep my promises…girly boy." Joren glared at her and Kel smirked before her eyes rolled up and she fainted in his arms. Joren smirked
"always seem to have that effect on women." Then he placed his other arm under her knees and lifted her off the ground. He waited until Neal came back with two other men before he walked back to the inn with Kel in his arms.
Susannah De Silva: well. That was um interesting? Ok, I've figured out that I don't believe Joren would hate Kel if she was a girl, you know if she didn't go to become a knight they wouldn't hate each other. That kind of stuff. Sure he probably wouldn't agree with her fighting against pirates, but it saved her life and they are friends. Hehehe I love Joren and he does seem a bit soft at the moment, but well, we'll wait until they get back to the castle, then we'll see the nasty pasty we all know and love.
Thanks for all your reviews,
Lady of the Shadows: hehehe, original? Yay! Thanks for being my first reviewer
Ruff Collie: here you go, I cant believe that I updated so quickly, but I just got so excited that it all just rushed out of my mind. Is this a little longer?
Tazzmania Tygar: hmmm, interesting idea, me personally though I feel that Kel's character would be just as strong even if she wasn't a knight. I'm trying for something different so people will be changed because Kel wasn't in their lives.
Almighty sleepy one: hahaha, that's a good idea, though he is a knight, do knights eat there? I cant remember. Um this is a j/k fic, but I do think ill have k/n friendship, although he did seem a bit annoying in this chapter, or is that just me.
Peach: hehehe, heres the update
Nikita, Lady of the Rogue: no he didn't die, Joren is a bad guy, but not to Kel, they just pay each other out.
Xirleb70: interesting name, hmmm well I don't really care about you getting more people to read it I just like to know if you like it. Thanks for reviewing
The Blind Assassin: I am honoured that you reviewed. Ahhh, I hope this is worthy of you oh mighty k/j writer. Hehehehe. Hahaha, its alright to be squeaky, I don't mind mwhahahaha. Hope you enjoy this :D
