[To Face The Sun And Ask For More]
The next few weeks were some of the most tense of my life. I went through the motions of my day to day, mining seastone and trying to keep Umi’s spirits up, all while knowing that at any moment, the order could come down and we would all be lined up against a wall. I had done everything I could think of to prepare, but it still didn’t feel like enough.
I had the map, a dagger, and a rough plan. What I didn’t have was any sort of guarantee that any of this would work. The entire thing hinged on so many variables that were completely out of my control that it made my head spin just thinking about it. Would the other slaves actually fight back? Would the marines be caught off guard enough for us to gain an advantage? Would I even be able to do anything against people with guns when I couldn’t even use haki?
These questions and more swirled around in my head as I lay in my cot at night, staring up at the rocky ceiling above me. Umi’s small body curled up against mine for warmth in the damp, cold air of the mines. I could feel her ribs through her ragged shirt, each one pronounced and jutting against my side.
It doesn’t matter, I decided. I had promised her that she would see the ocean again. It was a promise I intended to keep, even if it killed me.
—
The day finally came a month later.
I was in the middle of my shift, arguing with another slave about some inane nonsense that I couldn’t even remember, when a horn sounded throughout the mine. It was a sound I had never heard before, a long, droning tone that echoed off the stone walls and reverberated through my very bones. Around me, the other slaves stopped what they were doing, confusion and fear written across their haggard faces.
“All slaves, report to the surface immediately!” A voice boomed from somewhere above us, amplified by a den den mushi, “I repeat, all slaves report to the surface immediately! Anyone found in the mines in ten minutes will be shot on sight!”
The announcement was followed by the sound of many boots hitting metal and stone as marines began filing into the mine, their rifles held at the ready. They weren’t aiming at anyone yet, but there very presence was a threat in and of itself. I grit my teeth,.slowly setting my pickaxe on the ground.
Guess it’s time.
The marines didn’t give us a choice and we slowly got moving. Those who were too slow to respond were prodded with the butts of their rifles, shoved forward into lines and here’s towards the exit. I kept my head down as I walked, making myself as small and unthreatening as possible while my eyes darted around, taking in everything I could.
Umi quickly found here place at my side, grabbing my hand and grinning like a vice. I could feel her trembling through the contact, and I gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
Jerrik fell into step beside us, his massive frame drawing more than a few nervous glances from the marines. One of them actually flinched as he passed, clearly recognizing him from some past altercation. The giant man’s face was stony, his jaw set in a hard line that I had never seen before. He knew what was coming just as well as I did.
“Ira,” Umi whined so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her, “what’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, “but stay close to me, okay? No matter what happens, don’t leave my sight.”
She nodded, her grip tightening until her knuckles turned white.
The journey to the surface was a long one. The mine extended deep into the earth, and it took us nearly fifteen minutes of walking through winding tunnels and up rickety metal lifts before we finally emerged into the light of day. I squinted against the sudden brightness, my eyes stinging after years of being exposed to nothing but dim torchlight and flickering candles.
The island was... not what I expected. Then again, I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. Something more dramatic, perhaps. A looming fortress or a barren wasteland. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of a surprisingly mundane port town. Old wooden buildings lined a dirt road that led down to a dock where a massive marine ship sat anchored in the harbor, its sails furled and its figurehead gleaming in the afternoon sun.
There weren’t any civilians as far as I could see and the town itself looked abandoned. The Marines probably cleared everyone out the day they moved in and used the houses for themselves. Meaning that there was nobody here who would object to what they were about to do to us.
A row of marines stood between us and the town, their faces stony and rifles held at the ready. There had to be at least fifty of them.
Behind them, standing on a raised platform that gave him a clear view of everything below, was a man that I had never seen before. He was broad shoulders and bore a grizzled face that stared down at us all with a blank expression. A marine coat was slung over his shoulders, hinting at his rank.
The man stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked down at us with the kind of detached indifference that one might give a herd of cattle being led to slaughter. Behind him, the marine ship rocked gently in the harbor, its cannons gleaming in the afternoon light.
“I am Commander Aldric of the 47th Marine Division,” the man’s voice carried across he all as he introduced himself. “I’m here today on behalf of the World Government and our benefactors, the Celestial Dragons, to inform you that this mining operation is no longer viable.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd of assembled slaves. Some looked confused, others hopeful---the new or stupid ones. The ones who had been here long enough to know how the World Government operated had already put the pieces together, and I could see it as they too realized what was about to happen.
Commander Aldric continued, “The seastone deposits in this mine have been depleted to the point where continued operation is no longer cost-effective. As such, the decision has been made to cease all mining activities on this island effective immediately.”
A man near the front of the crowd, an older slave who had been here longer than even me, stepped forward. His voice was ragged from years of breathing in stone dust, but there was still some fight left in it, “What’s going to happen to us then? You can’t just leave us here!”
Commander Aldric’s expression didn’t change, “Relocation of the workforce was considered, however, the cost of transporting such a large number of bodies to a new site was deemed prohibitive. Alternative measures have been approved.”
“Alternative measures?” The old man seemed confused. “You’re letting us go?”
The Commande’s face hardened. “No.”
The word was followed by the sound of fifty rifles being cocked in unison, and the old man’w face paper with realization.
The crowd of slaves surged backward as one, a collective gasp ripping through their ranks. Panic spread like wildfire, igniting the already fragile embers of fear that had been smoldering in their chests for years. People began to shout, to scream, to beg for their lives as the reality of what was happening finally set in.
“You can’t do this!” The old man cried, his voice cracking with desperation, “We’ve done everything you asked! We’ve worked ourselves to the bone for years! You can’t just—”
CRACK
The old man’s words were cut short as a bullet tore through his skull, sending him crumpling to the ground in a heap of ragged limbs. Blood pooled beneath his head, seeping into the dirt like rainwater, and a woman near the front of the crowd screamed so hard that her throat gave out.
“Any further disruptions will be met with similar force,” Commander Aldric said, his voice as calm and measured as if he were reading a weather report, “Stand down and accept your sentence with dignity. You will be doing the world a service.”
More shots rang out. Three more people fell, and I pulled Umi backwards into the crowd as people began to stampede back towards the mines in hopes of some sort of shelter.
But as we pressed back towards the entrance, I could already see that our escape route had been cut off. A squad of marines had emerged from behind us during Aldric’s speech, and now stood between us and the only cover available. Their rifles were leveled at us, fingers resting on triggers as they prepared to fire.
More shots rang out. More people fell. A young woman near me crumpled, her eyes going wide as a bullet tore through her throat, and I watched the light fade from them as she hit the ground, clutching her neck.
Something inside me shifted at the sight, a feeling welling up behind the adrenaline and panic of the situation.
It wasn’t courage; I don’t think I’d ever felt true courage in either of my lives, wasn’t sure I was even capable of feeling it. It was the same feeling that had been building in my chest for years, the same rage that I had nurtured and cultivated with every beating, every broken bone, every moment of helplessness.
“Stay here,” I told Umi, my voice barely audible over the screams around us.
Her eyes went wide, “Irana, no—”
I pushed her towards Jerrik and surged forward, leaving her to the giant’s care. I broke free of the mass of bodies and charged towards the marines blocking the mine entrance.
My hand found the hilt of the dagger tucked against my thigh, and I pulled it free in one smooth motion. The blade caught the sunlight, gleaming brightly for just a moment before I was among them.
The first marine never saw me coming. To him, it was probably just a flash out of the corner of his eye and suddenly he was sporting a hole in his throat as flesh was replaced with steel.
Blood sprayed in an arc, painting my arm and the side of my face in a sticky spray or crimson that was almost disgustingly warm. The marine’s eyes widened and he brought his hand up to abate the flow, but it was like trying to block a dam with a pebble.
He fell to his knees and I wrenched the dagger out of his throat, letting him fall asleep I turned and brought the blade up to catch the edge of a sword as it came down upon my head.
The marine who had swung at me was around my age and probably expected a lot of things when he signed up for this posting. Putting down a bunch of malnourished slaves probably hadn’t been something he expected, much less finding one who fought back.
But he was still a trained soldier, and his training kicked in even as his courage failed him. He pulled his sword back for another swing and I had to give him credit; he recovered fast. But not fast enough.
I stepped inside his guard and grabbed him by the face. My fingers dug into his flesh, my thumb pressing into the soft hollow beneath his cheekbone as I gripped him like a bowling ball. His shout was muffled as I squeezed and pushed him away, slamming his head into the stone wall with a crack.
I turned away as he slid down the wall like a puppet with its strings cut, leaving a dark smear of blood against the cold stone
I scooped up the fallen marine’s sword, and turned, only to freeze as I was met with three rifle barrels pointed at me.
Time seemed to slow as I stared down the barrels of those rifles. The marines’ fingers were already tightening on their triggers, and I knew with absolute certainty that I wasn’t going to reach them before they fired.
I charged anyway. I had already been shot once and these guys had to go if we were going to get into the mine.
The marines flinched as they realized I was still coming after them and prepared to fire, but then a massive shadow fell over them.
Jerrik bowled into the group like a human battering ram, his massive frame running them down like they were made of paper mache. One of them managed to fire, and a dark stain quickly spread over his side but he didn’t even seem to notice.
His fists were like sledgehammers connecting with bodies and sending them flying. The first marine was hit so hard that his feet left the ground, his body cartwheeling through the air before crashing into the dirt a dozen feet away. The second managed to get his rifle up to block, but the force of Jerrik’s blow shattered both the weapon and the man’s arms in the same instant. The third tried to run, but Jerrik’s hand closed around his collar and yanked him back, throwing him to the ground and putting a boot on his chest
As the last marine crumpled to the ground, Jerrik was already turning back toward the crowd of slaves who had frozen in place behind us.
“GET INSIDE!” He yelled in a booming voice, “ALL OF YOU, NOW!”
The command broke the spell that had held the slaves in place and they rushed towards the door. Bodies pressed against one another, jostling and shoving as they fought to reach the safety of the tunnels.
I was about to follow them when I saw movement below Jerrik. The marine that he was standing on was still conscious and clutching a sword. Before I could say anything, the man thrust the blade into the only part of the giant he could reach.
The blade sank into Jerrik’s leg, and the giant grunted in pain, his knee buckling slightly. He looked down, eyes blazing with pain, and stomped his foot down even harder.
The marine gasped, a sound like a deflating balloon as all the air left his crushed lungs, before he went limp.
Jerrik stepped off the body, limping away. Blood stained the ground and his pant leg in a trail behind him, but he seemed to pay it no mind as he herded the last of the slaves through the entrance.
“Get a move on! Don’t stop!”
I was the last one through. As I passed Jerrik, I could see the marines on the other side of the yard already regrouping. Commander Aldric was barking orders, his face twisted with fury as his men scrambled to reload their rifles and form back up. The giant man followed me inside, and together we grabbed hold of the massive wooden door that served as the mine’s entrance, and heaved it shut.
Once it was closed, immediately set about barricading it with whatever we could find. Ore carts were overturned and shoved against the door. Heavy wooden beams that had once supported rickety scaffolding were pressed into service, and a pile of stones that must have weighed several tons was heaved into place by Jerrik’s massive arms.
It wasn’t much, but it would buy us time. Time that we desperately needed if we were going to figure out our next move.
The interior of the mine was chaos. Slaves were running every which way, screaming and crying and generally acting like a herd of frightened animals. I pushed through them, looking for a head of blue hair.
“Umi!” I called out, pushing my way through the crowd, “Umi, where are you?”
“Irana!” A small voice called out from somewhere to my left, and I turned to see Umi rushing toward me. I held my arms out and she all but fell into my embrace. She was shaking and borderline sobbing as she held me.
“It’s okay,” I said, my voice coming out steadier than I felt as I wrapped an arm around her, “I’m here. You’re safe.”
“They killed them,” Umi said, her voice cracking, “They killed them right in front of us! They were going to kill all of us!”
“I know.” I said, keeping my voice low and calm so I didn’t scare her more, “But they didn’t get everyone. We’re still here, and we’re going to figure a way out of this.”
Umi pulled back to look at me, her eyes red and puffy, “How? There’s so many of them and they have guns! We don’t have anything!”
“Hey,” I said, tilting her chin up so she was looking me in the eyes, “I promised you that I would get you out of here, didn’t I?”
She sniffled, but nodded, and I pulled her back into a hug, holding her tight until she calmed down.
After making sure Umi was situated, I went to check on Jerrik. The giant man had slumped against a wall near the entrance, his back pressed against the cold stone as he examined the wound on his leg. I knelt down beside him, eying the dark stain.
“How bad is it?”
Jerrik grunted, pressing a hand against the cut, “It’s deep, but I’ll manage. I’ve had worse.”
“Somehow I don’t doubt that,” I said, “Just stay off it as much as you can. We’re going to need you mobile.”
“I told you, I’ll manage,” He repeated, giving me a look that told me he didn’t appreciate being fussed over, “What’s our next move?”
I stood up, turning to face the crowd of slaves who had gathered around us. Some of them were crying, some of them were angry, almost all of them were scared.
“We need weapons,” I said. “There’s fifty marines out there but a lot more of us in here. The only real advantage they have is that they have weapons and we don’t.”
“The armory was emptied out weeks ago,” Jerrik grunted, lifting himself onto his feet with a grunt.
“There’s plenty of pickaxes laying around,” I countered, gesturing around us. “We don’t need military grade arms, just something to even the odds a little bit. Everyone here can swing an axe, or else they wouldn’t been gone a long time ago.”
“But they have guns,” a thin slave with a scar across his nose, pointed out. “We can’t just rush them. They’ll mow us down before we even get close!”
“He’s right,” another slave agreed, a woman with greying hair and a hard set to her jaw. “I’ve seen what those rifles can do. We go out there like this, we’re just giving them easier targets.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd, and I could feel the fragile thread of courage that had started to form among them beginning to fray. Fear was a powerful thing, and years of beatings and deprivation had left most of these people with little left to draw upon.
“We can’t stay in here forever either,” I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. “That barricade won’t hold them for long, and once they get through, we’ll be backed into a corner with nowhere to run. Our only chance is to go through them.”
“Through them?” The scarred man laughed like I was crazy. “They’re trained soldiers with guns and swords. What are we supposed to fight them with? Our bare hands?”
“Pickaxes,” I repeated, my voice hard. “Hammers. Shovels. Anything we can swing. We outnumber them more than two to one. That has to count for something.”
“It counts for nothing if we’re dead before we reach them,” a woman said. “They’ll pick us off from a distance. We need cover if we’re going to have any chance of making it to them alive.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words died in my throat. She was right. Without some kind of protection, we’d be cut down before we could even swing our weapons. We needed shields or something else to hide behind while we closed the distance.
“The lift.”
Several heads turned to look at Umi, confusion written across their faces, but I caught her meaning immediately. The bottom of the lift was a massive slab of wood, at least a foot thick and capable of withstanding hundreds of not thousands of pounds of stone day after day.
I turned to Jerrik, finding him already looking in the direction of the lift. “Do you think you can lift it.”
Jerrik nodded. “I won’t move fast, especially with this leg, but I can manage it.”
It took a little work to actually pull the lift up and tear it off of its rigging, but soon enough, Jerrik was standing before the barricaded entrance, holding the massive wooden platform by a pair of sturdy ropes. The giant’s muscles bulged beneath his skin as he hefter it testing the weight.
“I’ve lifted heavier,” he said confidently.
The slaves had armed themselves in the meantime. Pickaxes, shovels, hammers, lengths of chain, and in some cases, simply thick chunks of stone that had been pried from the walls. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. They were still scared, but every single one of them knew that there was no other way out of this than through those marines.
“Stay behind Jerrik,” I called out, raising my voice so that it could be heard over the murmur of the crowd, “He’s going to be our shield. When we get close enough, spread out and surround them. They’ve got guns, but they can’t shoot all of us at once. Overwhelm them and don’t give them time to reload.”
“And what about you?” The scarred man from before asked. He was holding a pickaxe in both hands, his knuckles white around the handle. Unlike the others, it wasn’t fear written across his face, but anger.
“I’ll be right up front with Jerrik,” I said, gripping the sword I’d taken from the marine earlier. It was a standard issue cutlass, nothing special, but it was sharp.
I turned to Umi, who had been standing silently at my side throughout all of this. She looked up at me with those big cyan eyes, and for a moment, I saw something in them that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Hope.
“Irana,” she said quietly, “what should I do?”
I bent down so that we were at eye level, placing my hands on her thin shoulders.
“I need you to stay here,” I said, keeping my voice low so that only she could hear me. “Stay safe with the others who can’t fight. Keep them calm. Can you do that for me?”
Umi’s face crumpled, her lower lip trembling as tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head, her grip on my shirt tightening.
“No,” she said, her voice breaking, “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you. Please, big sis, let me come with you.”
My heart clenched at the moniker, but now wasn’t the time for that. I pulled her into a gentle hug.
“It’s going to be okay,” I murmured into her hair, gently pressing my lips to her dirt-smudged forehead. “This is what I’ve been training for---to protect you. But I can’t fight properly if I’m worrying about every time I look away. You staying here means I’ll have the best chance to come back.”
Umi pulled back, her hands still bunched in the fabric of my shirt. Her face was a mess of tears and dirt, but something in her expression shifted. Not acceptance, never acceptance, but understanding. She knew I was right, even if every fiber of her being screamed against it.
“Okay,” she whispered. “But you have to come back. You have to promise me, Irana. You can’t leave me again.”
I looked into her eyes, fearful for a life that wasn’t her own, and was struck with an awful nostalgia.
In my last life, I had squandered my relationship with my sister. Self pity and depression sucked out any desire I had to form or maintain connections, and though I’d like to think that mine and Bianca’s relationship was good in the end, I knew it wasn’t all that it could be.
In this new life, Umi had unconsciously slipped into the place Bianca once occupied. Though Umi younger, the similarities between them were almost scary.
All for her, I thought, squeezing her tightly. No matter what happens, it’s all to make sure she gets out of here.
“I promise,” I lied
She released her grip on my shirt, her fingers lingering for just a moment before falling away. I stood up, turning my back on her before she could see the crack in my composure, and faced the barricaded door.
“Everyone ready!” I called out, and a ragged chorus of acknowledgment answered me. Some voices were strong, others trembled, but every single one of them was present. That would have to be enough.
Jerrik planted his feet, adjusting his grip on the massive wooden slab. Blood was still oozing from the wound in his leg, but it had slowed substantially.
“On my signal,” I said, positioning myself beside him with my stolen sword in hand. “Don’t stop for anything. If we slow down we’ll just get them a chance to recover.”
The slaves formed up behind us in a loose formation, their makeshift weapons clutched in white-knuckled grips. The scarred man from before was right behind me, his pickaxe held at the ready. Behind him, dozens of others waited with bated breath.
I gave Jerrik the nod and the giant returned it before turning and growing his weight against the barricade with a roar. The massive door groaned on its hinges before swinging open, and daylight flooded into the mine for the second time that day.
We surged forward as one, a ride. I f desperate slaves pouring out into the light. Jerrik led the charge, the lift platform held before him like the world’s largest shield.
The marines were ready for us. They had reformed their lines during our brief respite, their rifles leveled at the mine entrance in two neat rows. Commander Aldric stood behind them, his face twisted into a snarl.
“FIRE!” He bellowed, and the world exploded into noise and smoke.
The first volley of shots slammed into Jerrik’s makeshift shield like hailstones on a tin roof. Wood splintered and cracked, bullets punching through the thick planks to spray deadly fragments in every direction. I heard screaming behind me and the sounds of bodies falling. , but I didn’t look back.
“KEEP MOVING!” I shouted. “DON’T STOP!”
Jerrik grunted with each impact, his massive frame shuddering as bullet after bullet buried itself in the wood he carried. Blood began to seep through his shirt where fragments had found their way through, but he didn’t slow down. His long stride ate up the distance between us and the marine line, each step bringing us closer to our goal.
The marines ran out of ammo and scrambled to reload, their movements frantic and uncoordinated. The next volley was messier than the first, shots going wide as hands shook and composure crumbled. More screams behind me, more bodies falling, but we were almost there. Ten more feet. Five. Then, we were upon them.
What followed was absolute carnage.
Fifty fresh marines versus over a hundred sickly, weak slaves. On paper, it should have been a slaughter in the marines’ favor. They had training, discipline, and better weapons . But no amount of training or discipline could have prepared them for the natural desire to survive, and the anger of the truly desperate.
These slaves had nothing left to lose. They had been beaten, starved, and worked to the bone for years. They had watched their friends and loved ones die in front of them, had been treated like animals and told that their lives were worth less than the seastone they mined.
When Jerrik’s shield crashed into the marine line and the first of the slaves poured through the gap with nothing but makeshift weapons and years of pent-up rage, they fought like demons.
Jerrik barreled into their formation, tossing bodies left and right like they weighed nothing. The lift platform swung wide, catching three marines across their midsections and sending them flying, and then the giant was among them and I was right behind him.
The first marine I reached tried to bring his rifle up to block my swing, but the blade sheared through the wooden stock like it was made of paper and continued on into his neck. Blood sprayed across my face and chest as I yanked the blade free, spinning to meet my next opponent.
This one had drawn his sword, and his blade met mine with a ring of steel that sent vibrations up my arm. I caught his blade on mine and shoved, sending him stumbling backward before stepping in and driving my sword through his chest.
He made a gurgling sound as I pulled my blade free, but I was already moving on to the next one.
The world narrowed down to a single point of focus. There was no thought, no strategy, no plan. Just the next body in front of me, the next blade to dodge, and the next life to end.
A marine came at me from the left, trying to stab me in the stomach but I twisted my body just enough to let the blade pass by me, then grabbed his arm and used his own momentum to hurl him into the man coming up behind him. Both went down in a tangle of limbs, and I brought my boot down on the first one’s throat before he could recover.
My cutlass was a compass of violence, guiding me through the chaos around me with arrows stained in blood. I didn’t feel the blood that quickly soaked my clothes, nor the wounds that I slowly accrued as many after man fell before me. All I could feel was the fire in my chest, the rage that had been building for four long years finally given an outlet.
I parried a thrust and opened a man’s throat with a flick of the wrist, before turning to plunge my sword into the back of a man who had been about to shoot one of the fleeing slaves. I watched as the scarred man from the mine caught a marine in the side with the pointed end, the weapon punching through the man’s uniform like it was made of tissue paper. Another slave with a hammer, brought her weapon down on a marine’s head with a sickening crunch, tears rolling down her angry face.
We were winning. Against all odds, against all logic, we were actually winning. The marines’ formation had completely broken apart, their discipline shattered and replaced with fear. They were scattered across the yard, fighting individual battles that they were quickly losing.
“YOU!”
The voice cut through the haze of blood and battle. I turned just in time to see Commander Aldric bearing down on me, wielding a bloodstained battle axe and a face twisted with murderous rage.
“You’re the one who started this!” He roared, his voice carrying over the din of battle. “I will cut you down for all the lives you’ve so thoughtlessly destroyed!”
“And our lives mean nothing? You people were about to snuff us out like cattle without a care!” I snarled even as I dove to the side as his axe came down where I was standing. It split the earth like butter and he quickly wrenched it out, pursuing me as I backed away.
“The World Government’s mandates are absolute! It was not my decision to make, but it is my duty to follow!” He roared, rearing his arms back for another swing.
Aldric was the highest ranking marine in the group, and it was clear to see that title wasn’t earned through nepotism. Every strike was delivered with enough power to split a tree in two and fast enough that even the wind passing me by felt sharp. If I wasn’t careful and blocked at the wrong time, he might just split my sword in two, and then me as well.
Aldric came at me like a man possessed, his axe whistling through the air in a diagonal slash. I barely managed to throw myself to the side, feeling the wind of the blade as it passed mere inches from my face.
I countered with a thrust aimed at his midsection, but the Commander twisted with a grace that belied his stature and deflected my sword with the flat of his axe. The impact sent a jolt up my arm that made my teeth ache, and I was forced to skip backward as he pressed his advantage.
“You think you can overthrow the natural order of things?” Aldric snarled as I ducked underneath a swing. “The World Government exists to maintain stability! To keep the world from descending into chaos!”
“Stability?” I spat, rolling to the side as his axe cracked the ground where I had been standing. “What could this possibly have to do with stability? Working people to death and then executing them when they’re no longer useful!?”
“It is the price of order!” He roared, yanking his axe free and advancing once more. “Every decision made by the World Government is made for the good of the whole! They guide humanity toward its proper destiny, and our role is to fulfill that vision, not question it!”
His axe came down in an overhead strike that I caught on my blade, and for a moment we were locked together, our faces inches apart. It was there I could see the conviction burning in his eyes. He wasn’t doing this out of cruelty; he truly believed what he was saying.
Somehow, that made it so much worse.
I headbutted him, cracking my forehead against his nose and making him stumble back with a roar of pain. I pressed the advantage, swinging my cutlass to force him on the defence, but he recovered faster than I would have liked, catching my blade on the haft of his axe and shoving me away.
We circled each other, both breathing hard. Blood dripped from Aldric’s nose and my arms were trembling from the repeated impacts of his strikes. One clean hit from that axe and I would be dead, no two ways about it. But the same went for him. My blade had found gaps in his guard twice already, and only his reflexes had saved him from mortal wounds.
Around us, the battle continued to rage. The sounds of screaming and steel and gunfire filled the air, but it was all background noise to the fight right in front of me. Aldric was the most dangerous person here. If I took him down, our chances of escape skyrocketed.
The marine feinted high and then swept low, aiming for my legs in a move that would have hamstrung me if I hadn’t jumped over the blade. I landed awkwardly, my foot turning on the uneven ground, and for a split second I was off balance.
Aldric saw it and he lunged forward, shouting in triumph as he threw and attack that would split me from shoulder to hip. I rolled to the side, grazing the edge of his weapon as it passed me by, carving a long gash from my temple to my cheek.
I came up from my frantic roll as he roared in frustration, and there, I saw it. An opening. His side was completely exposed, the gap between his arm and his torso a perfect target for my blade. If I thrust now, I could end this.
But I could see the rest of it too. The way his arm was already moving, the momentum of his missed strike carrying his axe around in a wide arc. Even as I registered the opening, I could see the path his weapon would take on its return swing. If I went for the kill, I wouldn’t be able to dodge in time. His axe would catch me wholesale, and that would be that.
Don’t do it, some rational part of my brain screamed at me. Wait for another opening. There has to be another one.
But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it for the lie it was. Aldric thought he was going to kill me with that swing and that was the only reason the opening was even there. He was too skilled, too experienced to give me another chance, and I would be too tired to take advantage of it even if he did.
If I wanted to end this, it was now or never.
My legs drove me forward before the thought had even fully formed in my mind. I closed the distance between us in a single bound, my cutlass leading the way. Aldric’s eyes widened as he realized what I was doing, his face twisting with a mixture of fury and disbelief, but he couldn’t do anything about the oh come.
The steel of my blade punched through Aldric’s side with a sickening squelch, sinking deep into the flesh between his ribs. I felt the grating vibration travel up my arm as the tip scraped against bone, and hot blood spilled over my hand, soaking into the ragged sleeve of my shirt.
Aldric let out a choked gasp, his eyes going wide as my cutlass found a home in his body. For a fraction of a second, his face was completely shocked, as if he couldn’t believe this was a really happened. Then the shock twisted into an animalistic fury that stripped away every pretense of discipline and order he had clung to.
I saw the axe coming. The arc of the blade, the path it would take across my neck, and there was no way for me to dodge in time. My body was committed to the thrust, my weight forward, my balance off. Even if I tried to pull away now, the best I could hope for was the axe loping of an arm instead of my head. Either way, I was a dead woman.
Guess that’s it, I thought, the moment of my death approaching in slow motion. I remembered my old life, the disappointed words of the being who brought me here, hoping to give me a second chance. Guess he was going to be disappointed.
As the axe grew closer, I expected my life to flash before my eyes, one or both of them. Instead, to my surprise, there was only a single memory. Umi’s face, tear-streaked and filthy, her small hands bunched in my shirt.
”You have to come back. You have to promise me, Irana. You can’t leave me again.”
The memory dragged up something ugly from the pit of joy soul. It worked its way past the depression and the rage, the nihilism and the acceptance of my death.
I promise.
I didn’t even know I was doing it. My arm rose, throwing itself into the path of the axe. It was a futile gesture, the kind of instinctive movement that your body makes when it refuses to accept the inevitability of its own destruction, but there was something behind it other than instinct.
The axe hit my arm with a sound like a thunderclap... And bounced off with the sound of a ringing thunderclap.
My filthy shirt was shredded, but underneath, the skin was completely intact. Shiny black skin gleamed in the sunlight, completely unscathed after deflecting what should have been a death blow.
I stared, and Aldrich did too. His mouth opened and closed, words failing him as he tried to process what had just happened. The arm that held his axe trembled, the weapon suddenly too heavy for him to bear.
“That’s... that’s impossible,” he breathed, his voice barely audible over the sounds of battle still raging around us. “H—How could you possibly...”
His words brought the world back into focus and with a violent twist of my wrist, I wrenched my cutlass to the side. The blade, still buried in Aldric’s side, ground against his ribs and tore through flesh with a wet, awful sound. The Commander let out a choked scream, his body convulsing as the damage was done. I felt the sword catch on something vital and wrenched it free with a yank.
The blade came away broken. The lower half of my cutlass remained lodged inside Aldric’s body, a parting gift that he would carry with him to the grave. What was left in my hand was barely six inches of jagged steel, the edge twisted and useless. I let it fall from my fingers, the ruined weapon clattering to the ground at my feet.
Aldric staggered backward, his hand pressing uselessly against the wound in his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark and thick, spreading across the front of his uniform, and his axe dropped from nerveless fingers, landing in the dirt with a dull thud.
Aldric’s knees buckled and he hit the ground hard, his body finally giving out beneath him and sending him sprawling
I stood over him, breathing hard. The Armament coating was already fading from my arm, leaving grimy skin and a tattered sleeve. After years of trying to achieve something even half as real, the irony of it unlocking now, in the moment I had already accepted my death, was almost enough to make me laugh.
Aldric’s voice drew my attention back to him. He was trying to speak, his lips moving weakly as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. I knelt down beside him, bringing my ear closer to catch his fading words.
“You...” he rasped, “You’ll be hunted for this. They won’t let this go unanswered. You’re already ... Dead.”
I stared at him for a long moment, watching as the light slowly faded from his eyes. His chest rose and fell in increasingly shallow breaths, each one accompanied by that awful wet sound. I reached down and picked up his axe from where it had fallen, testing the weight of it in my hands.
“I’ve been dead for years.”
Aldric’s eyes flickered one last time, a final spark of something alive passing through them, before they became unfocused and glassy and he went still.
The battle didn’t end with Aldric’s death, but the fight went out of the marines the moment they saw their commander fall. Some kept fighting, too consumed by fear or duty to realize that the tide had turned against them, but most broke and ran. They scattered across the yard like ants fleeing a flooded hill, some even discarding their weapons in their haste to get away from the horde of screaming, rage-fueled slaves that bore down on them with four years of hatred in every swing.
I watched them go, leaning on the axe I had taken from Aldric’s cooling hands. My lungs burned with every breath and my muscles felt like they had been filled with wet sand, but I was alive.
The sounds of fighting were dying down, replaced by the groans of the wounded and the weary silence of those who had survived. I forced myself to stand upright, my grip tightening on the axe as I took stock of the situation.
Bodies littered the yard. Most of them were marines, their white uniforms stained red with blood, but not all of them. I counted at least a dozen slaves among the fallen, their ragged clothing and emaciated forms making them look even more pitiful in death than they had in life. Each one was a failure, a life that I hadn’t been able to save, and I had to look away before the guilt threatened to drag me under.
“Irana!”
I turned at the sound of my name, and a small body crashed into mine. Umi’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, her face pressing into my chest as she sobbed with relief.
“I’m alright,” I reassured her. “Just tired.”
I held Umi for a long moment, my arms wrapped around her thin shoulders as she trembled against me. Around us, the other slaves were slowly coming to terms with what had just happened. Some were cheering, their voices hoarse and raw as they celebrated their improbable victory. Others were kneeling beside the fallen, their faces twisted with grief as they recognized friends among the dead. Most were simply standing where they were, staring at the bodies on the ground with hollow eyes, as if they couldn’t quite process what they had just done.
“Irana.” Jerrik’s deep voice cut through the din, and I looked up to see the giant making his way toward us. He was limping badly, his wounded leg leaving a trail of blood in the dirt behind him. His face was streaked with more, both his own and others’, and his chest heaved with each labored breath. “We need to go.”
I nodded, gently disentangling myself from Umi’s grip. She whimpered in protest, but I cupped her face in my hands and looked her in the eye.
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” I said firmly. “But Jerrik’s right. More marines are going to come. We need to be gone before they get here.”
Umi’s lip trembled, but she nodded, wiping her face with the back of her hand. I stood up, turning to face the crowd of freed slaves. Many of them were looking to me specifically, and I distantly wondered when I became the leader of these people.
“Listen up!” I called out, my voice carrying across the yard. “We don’t know how long it’ll take for more marines to show up, and we don’t want to be here when they do! We need to get off this island now.”
“How are we gonna leave?” The scarred man asked. I was honestly somewhat happy to see he survived the battle. “There’s nowhere to go!”
“We’ll take the marines’ ship,” I said, pointing toward the vessel anchored in the harbor. “We’ve more than enough people to man it, and it’s got enough space for everyone and probably supplies to last.”
The ship was a marine vessel of impressive size, easily large enough to hold all of us and then some. It sat anchored in the harbor, its white sails furled and its hull rocking gently in the waves. Getting to it was the easy part. The hard part was going to be actually sailing the thing.
Fortunately, we had Jerrik.
“I can manage,” the giant said when I asked him about his ability to pilot the ship. “It’s not too different from riding a horse, really. You just have to know which way the wind is blowing.”
“Jerrik, have you ever actually ridden a horse?” I asked, helping him limp toward the docks.
“No,” he admitted. “But I’ve watched people do it. Can’t be that hard.”
I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. It wasn’t like we had any other options. The marines who had been stationed on the ship had fled the moment they saw their comrades being overwhelmed, and the few who had tried to put up a fight on the gangplank had been quickly dealt with by the mob of freed slaves. The vessel was ours, for whatever that was worth.
Getting everyone on board took time. Many of the slaves were injured, and more than a few had to be carried on board by their companions. I did what I could to help, bandaging wounds with strips of cloth torn from marine uniforms and offering what little comfort I could to those who were too far gone. There were three who wouldn’t make it, their injuries too severe for even the most optimistic prognosis. I stayed with them until the end, holding their hands as the light faded from their eyes, and then moved on to the next person who needed help.
It was exhausting, backbreaking work, and by the time everyone was on board and Jerrik had managed to get the sails unfurled, I was running on nothing but spite and stubbornness. My body ached in places I didn’t know could ache, and the wound on my face had crusted over with dried blood that pulled unpleasantly every time I moved my jaw.
The ship lurched forward as the wind caught the sails, and I grabbed hold of the railing to steady myself as the vessel began to pull away from the dock. Behind us, the island grew smaller and smaller, its rocky shore fading into the distance until it was nothing more than a dark smudge on the horizon.
I watched it go, feeling nothing in particular.