Seventy Shokan on a rickety ship ready to save the world from rebellion. How does it all end?
The captain, and old man that could barely stretch his thin arms up to turn the wheel stared out to the dark sea beyond the portal that swirled like a black hole in the middle of the water. Above us, he ignored the swirl of storm clouds that threatened one another with mock charges and loud roars of anger.
We Shokan swim well enough, but in these waters, should this old ship sink, we will travel down with it. Kitana Kahn has put all of her trust in me to ensure that the rebellion is quelled and the traitors brought to justice. By the fists I clench to hold on for dear life, I will make that happen for her, for her vision of the future.
Seventy Shokan, many with oars in hand that tried to steer us toward a new tomorrow all worked themselves until they could move no longer. As strong as we are, the Shokan are still flesh, muscle, and bone, like everyone else.
"Switch out!" I ordered my men and women. Some must rest as the others rowed to aid this old man's ship forward.
Though we call it old, rickety, and close to sinking, this ship has travelled the seas for longer than I've been alive. The ship has never spiraled to the bottom of the sea, and will hold enough of us and the rebels to return to the city. Ko'atal, Skarlet, Rain, and Motaro will all face justice for their betrayal of the Kahn. All others will die.
My eyes deceived me as the swirl of clouds launched themselves like fists at one another. They screamed in pain and hatred as they collided and merged, bled down upon us with rain, and spat with lightning with each loud curse at their enemy.
The ship began to tilt to the left and to look over starboard as the first porthole raised well above sea level frightened me, but as a General you must hold true to your convictions and show the men and women that follow you to battle the person they need to look up to, the person they need to become.
The old man who steered the ship with such resolve had suddenly disappeared as the rain and lightning flashed and danced around us. As General, it would be my duty to steer us toward the Living Forest's edge. All this danger, just to walk right back into it. All of this for Kitana, all of this for our future.
"General! The captain is overboard!" A shokan reported, almost screamed with alarm, but it was no matter. This was our ship now and we would steer her, us to safety.
"Keep rowing!" My orders pierced the dense screen of rain.
The sky screamed down upon me with fangs bared and hatred loud. My four hands clasped the wheel and took charge of our direction. The Portal wasn't far, but it would threaten to swallow us if it desired. Where it took us, no one could tell you. Without a sorcerer, or great power in your spirit to seek a specific direction, the Portal was random and often fatal. No mere being of flesh and muscle and bone could enter it. It would tear my army apart, this ship, and me.
"Row!" Another scream stabbed through the daggers of rain that pierced our flesh. My men took charge and pumped their muscles raw as the oars were not light, and not easy to churn such troubled water.
"Row!" They echoed even when I could barely hear them, and even when I could no longer see them.
The only thing I could see was the pitch black of that portal as it opened its great maw and bellowed out a promise to devour us all in one gulp. The glisten of the rain in the water and the strikes of lightning as the sky licked its vitriol across the sea surface was all I could use as light to steer west toward the Living Forest.
Should we fall south, the ship will land in the Drylands, or even further south, crash into the rocky beaches along the Isle of Elders. The path was wide, but in this storm, who knows what could happen.
Kitana, I will not fall you!
"Row!" I heard again and again like a drum that beat through my very arteries and as the wheel slipped and my hands grasped again and again to maintain order in this chaos, I used those voices to remember that this ship must land safely.
Then the sky, perhaps betrayer of Kitana and follower of Ko'atal pinched the mast and tugged it with the wind and as it sharply twisted toward the Portal, lightning slapped the side of the ship and its very core spewed like blood into the sea!
No!
So close! So far! So much for our future!
The Shokan beneath may as well be the guts of this ship as they fell into the sea and the ship rocked harder to its side and faster in the wind. If I could see, I know that the Forest was just up ahead. We had spent only several days in the sea before this, and it had to be near. It had to! Ko'atal would be closer to the Keep before we knew it and may have even reached the Centaur Hills with Motaro before we even touch land, if we ever do. Still, my resolve is that of my Kahn's and I will follow, and love her straight to my doom.
"General!" The words sounded familiar, but I could not hear them.
My knuckles were wight, my eyes barely able to stay open. Armor had blown off my shoulders, my leather braces swelled in the rain and united from all the turns and twists my arms made to keep hold of life, but that voice broke the wind, crashed through the rain like a spiral of death that fell into the Portal.
"Sheeva!" My name was called, but I held to this. A captain goes down with her ship, a general dies with her army.
Before the next turn, as the Portal just barely nicked the wood and claimed tens of Shokan me and Women alongside the sea that now chewed bitterly on their sour flesh, I watched as several of my men rushed me and a foot stomped down from the clouds in the form of lightning right against the wheel.
Perhaps that night we sunk into the Portal and it tore our flesh like pulled pork. Perhaps we sank in the sea with land just miles ahead.
Will I know?
The darkness, the bleak emptiness of the Portal, the air, and the future ahead seized my body and my mind went blank.
"Kitana–" My breath fought back against the daggers of rain that cut my lips and face. The warm blood that filled my throat with the cold air and rain, oh my Kahn, is this my mission, to taste my final meal with these men and women who have died for you too?
No!
We must persevere.
If only I could awaken.
Just one more time.
"Lord Fujin, save us!" The last words I thought I heard, or spoke, or perhaps imagined. "For Kitana."