“Let’s kill ‘em, Buck,” someone said.
“Yeah, shuck ‘em right now!”
“No!”Buck snarled.A sneer distorted his face as he touched his mangled lip, blood soaking his gloves.He looked between Ulla and Bastion, his barely contained rage tempered by cold calculation.
“No,” he said again, so calm and quiet it sent a shiver down Bastion’s back.He crouched in front of Bastion, sheathing his knife with a snap.“I’m going to make her suffer.And I’m going to make you watch.”
Bastion surged forwards with enough force that another one of the crew had to help hold him back.
“Touch her again,” Bastion growled, “and I’ll spill your guts and let the crabs eat you alive.”
More blood dribbled down Buck’s chin as he smiled.“You can try, but you’ll fail,Bastion of the Royal Guard.”
Chapter 8
They drugged Ulla.
Whether because she fought them–biting, scratching, and kicking–or because they feared she would call other Yvri to her once they reached the sea, Bastion didn’t know.Several of the men now bore wounds, a reminder that she was far from helpless.
She’d fought with such ferocious beauty.If Bastion remembered nothing else about today, he hoped it was that.
He looked between her, lying at his feet, and the receding shore.Inland, just out of sight, they’d left a group of men in an established camp.Another party that had joined them, leading horses laden with bounty.Bastion had noted the quality of their gear and the blunt cut of their manes, standard for mounted guards.
A patrol that had been waylaid.
He hoped their riders survived, but he doubted it.
Bastion’s eyes cut across the choppy water to Buck.He stood at the front of a second rowboat, one foot braced against the bow.He appeared to be talking to himself as he toyed with the Acari pendant, using it to scratch his chin through his beard.He’d pried it out of the dead man’s chest and dropped it around his neck, still glistening with blood.
Their eyes met, and a smile spread across Buck’s face.He wore Bastion’s sword at his waist, stoking the anger that burned hot in Bastion’s gut.
It almost smothered the gnawing dread that had filled him since Buck had uttered Bastion’s name and title.To no avail, Bastion had searched his mind, trying to ascertain when and where he’d met the man.
Over his shoulder, a weathered and stained ship bobbed on the waves, drawing ever closer.The Basilisk, he’d heard the men call it.It looked ready to swallow them whole, not unlike its namesake, and with as much venom.
Worse than that, dark clouds bloomed on the horizon.
Bastion sank into his training.He listened to the sea, using the rhythm of the rowers to anchor himself.Hanniel had made sure to expose his trainees to varying degrees of mental and physical duress so that when it came upon them organically, they would not fall victim to it.
As Bastion had.
He wouldn’t let it happen again.He vowed then and there, as they came alongsideThe Basilisk, that he would take the first chance to escape.
A pirate heaved Ulla over his shoulder.Four swollen gashes shot up his neck and over his jaw where she’d raked him with her claws.
“Careful with her!”Bastion growled.
The man grinned and slapped her buttocks.Then he shimmied up the ladder onto the deck.As soon as he laid hands on a blade, Bastion was going to cut that man’s hand off.
The remaining men shoved him forwards.With his hands bound, he couldn’t climb the ladder.
Before he could protest, an iron hook descended, nearly clipping his nose.It caught him quickly between the wrists, and he was hauled upwards.He grunted as the sun- and salt-hardened rope cut into his skin.
He tumbled onto the deck.Pirates scurried like lice on a mangy animal, climbing the rigging or dragging wooden boxes and barrels out of the way.Bastion got to his feet, assessing their numbers.The ship had to be at capacity.A sense of finality descended on him as the remaining crew came aboard.
“HADDRICK!”Buck roared.“RUM, NOW!”
A squirrely man nearly jumped out of his skin before racing over to Buck with a brown bottle in his hands.Buck seized the bottle and tossed back half of it, grimacing as the liquid touched his torn lip.
