CHAPTER TEN
BESIEGED!
The skinny pirate looked up at me, a lopsided smile cracking his face. “Mis-mistress Jae-En! It is you. When I heard your voice, I could scarcely—”
“Lhan!”
I scooped him up in a big hug and held him tight—not too tight, ’cause of his bandages, but tight enough. He winced, but hugged back. I kissed him, hard and deep. It wasn’t the freshest smooch ever. His mouth tasted like dirt and stale water, and mine probably wasn’t much better, but I didn’t care. He was alive and here and so was I, and I poured all the hoping and praying and crying I’d been doing since we’d been seperated into that kiss, trying to fill him up with it so he’d know how much I’d missed him, and how glad I was to be with him again. He gave as good as he got. He made my toes curl.
Finally we came up for air and looked at each other, grinning like idiots.
“Mistress, you live. I feared—”
“Not half as much as I feared! I thought I was gonna get back here and find out those fucking priests had—” I blinked. “Hey. You look terrible.”
I’d been so staggered to see him again I hadn’t noticed much more than the bandages, but Lhan looked like a zombie—gaunt, unshaven, dark under the eyes, and that bandage was disgusting, all black with dried blood and crusted yellow around the edges.
“Jesus, Lhan. What happened to you?”
Lhan swallowed, then looked around at the rest of the pirates, who were all standing around staring at us. They were as skinny and bashed up as he was. I stared back. I’d completely forgot they were there.
Braid Face got up from where I’d dropped him and pointed at Lhan, his eyes cold. “He happened to us. The fugitive. If not for him, the priests would not have come for us. Our ships would not have burned. Our men would not have died. We would not be trapped on this rock without water or food. And now he brings demons among us.”
Lhan bristled. “Mistress Jae-En is no demon! I’ll not deny the evils I have brought down upon you by my presence, but Jae-En is not one of them. She is flesh and blood just as you are, Lo-Zhar. A brave warrior from distant lands, and my… my great friend.”
Lo-Zhar wasn’t convinced. He took a step forward, his sword held low. “Well, perhaps it’s time for you and your ‘great friend’ to go back to ‘distant lands.’ Maybe then the priests will leave us alone.”
Lhan drew his sword and stepped in front of me. “I have already said I will give myself up, but you will not touch Mistress Jae-En. She has done nothing to you.”
Lo-Zhar kept coming, his guys filling in behind him. “Nothing but knock my men flat and pull my arm from its socket. You will both go out, and—”
“Hold, Lo-Zhar! What is this fighting?”
I looked back as another handful of pirates piled into the room from the door behind me, blades out and all business. I put my back to Lhan’s, ready for a last stand, but then I saw a big burly guy at the head of the new gang, holding a mace the size of a butter churn, and a little woman in a red bull-fighter jacket beside him, glaring past me toward Braid Face.
“Kai-La!”
She blinked, then refocused on me. Burly did too.
“’Tis the barbarian girl!”
“The strong sister!” Kai-La lowered her sword and gave me a hug. She was skinny too. I’d remembered her being built like J-Lo with more bootie. Now she was more like Angelina Jolie on crack. “Where have you sprung from?”
“And what foolish notion inspired you to share our doom?” Burly clapped me on the shoulder. He’d been as big as a fullback when I first met him. Now his armor was hanging off him like a bad Halloween costume.
“I came to see….” I swallowed. “I was afraid you were already dead.”
Lhan laughed bitterly and looked toward Lo-Zhar, who was giving Kai-La and her gang the stink eye. “We are already dead, mistress. And as Lo-Zhar has said, it was I who have killed us.”
Kai-La slapped her hand on her flat chest. “And I have said that only makes you a pirate like the rest of us.” She turned blazing eyes on Lo-Zhar. “We are all fugitives here! We all have a price on our heads! And so we must all band together against those who would destroy us, not fight amongst ourselves like shikes over a carcass. Do you hear me, Lo-Zhar?”
Lo-Zhar looked as sullen as a gangbanger in the back of a patrol car, but eventually he nodded. “Aye, Skelsha. But you best keep them away from me. Hunger makes my temper short.”
“Then you should try eating your pride. That is a meal that would fill us all.” Kai-La laughed, then turned and motioned for me and Lhan to follow. “This way, sister. Pay no mind to the growling of toothless vurlaks.”
Lhan stepped back from Lo-Zhar, then sheathed his sword and offered me his arm like we were off to cotillion. “Aye. Come, Jae-en. Let us show you our palace in the sky.”
A few yards down the low-ceilinged hallway, a door opened into a big room that looked like it had been a storage cellar at one point. Now it was a refugee camp, with rows of bedrolls laid out on every inch of floor, and little cook fires dotted around, though I had no idea what they were cooking. Nobody in that room looked like they’d eaten in a week. And half of ’em were as torn up as Lhan. I saw more slings and bandages and stitched wounds than I could shake a stick at.
There were a handful of openings in the walls of the room. Half of ’em looked original, with door posts and lintels, but the other half looked like they’d been dug out by hand.
Lhan noticed me looking, and nodded toward the holes. “The pirates have made extensive additions to these catacombs since they appropriated Toaga, all those centuries ago. There are tunnels and rooms all through the rock. None, alas, goes all the way to the ground. Not anymore. Those were sealed up long ago as a security measure. Ha!”
He laughed, bitter, and it turned into a hacking cough. He clutched his ribs. I held onto him until it passed.
“Goddamn it, Lhan. Y’all gotta get outta here. You gotta get fixed up.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Impossible. Would the priests land and make a fight of it, we might win, but they are cowards. They have no stomach for meeting us steel to steel. They would rather float in safety beyond our reach and let us starve to death.”
“There’s no food at all? Not even upstairs?”
Burly shrugged. “Pirates are not known for planning for the future. There was some, but most was on the ships.”
“And no water?”
“There is a great cistern, built by the old kings to catch the rain. But it has not rained for more than a moon, and it is nearly empty.”
“And what water there is….” Kai-La made a face.
Lhan motioned me toward one of the carved-out doors. “But if you thirst, if you are hungry, I have a little left to share. I would not have you think us all as ungracious as—”
His knees buckled as he said it, and his eyes rolled up in his head. I caught him before he hit the floor, then laid him down.
“Lhan! Lhan, are you okay?”
Kai-La knelt beside us. “He took a bolt as we were rescuing those who fell in the priests’ first attack, and I fear the wound festers. He will not let us see it, though, so I know not.”
I looked down at him, tears filling my eyes. “Goddamn it, Lhan. Why you gotta be such a fucking hero?” I looked up at Kai-La. “Where’s his bed roll? I’m gonna have a look at this wound, no matter what he says.”
She shrugged. “There is little point. We are doomed here. You will only delay the inevitable.”
“You’re damn right I will. For as long as I fucking can.”
She turned to Burly. “Find our medicine bag.” Then she stood and motioned to me as he hurried off. “Come. Lhan-Lar has taken a cell for himself in the old dungeon. I will show you.”
I picked Lhan up in my arms and followed.