The Sentinel

As waves retreated, wetting the hem of the child’s shirt, she wiggled her toes into the sand and listened to the sound of the sea. A fire died slowly behind her, a few feet from the island’s treeline, while the sky soaked more ink. She fiddled with a fishbone.

A whisper came to her ear, undamped by the ocean murmur. “Run,” her father had said. Shouts drifted from her left. She jumped to her feet. Further along the coast, torches flickered alight, like buds of flames consuming a dry leaf from its jagged edge. “Run.”

Small feet fought for traction on sand.
They splashed cold water; she had veered towards the approaching wave.
Shouts grew louder. Her shadow sharpened.
A pebble whizzed over her shoulder. Turning on her heels, she dashed towards the trees.
She ran until all she heard were twigs cracking beneath her.

She leaned against a tree, then sank to the ground.
“The Sentinel will arrive soon. We only need to hide for two weeks.”
She started another fire, praying that her pursuers had given up for the night, that the trail of smoke above the treetops would alert only distant, passing ships.

She examined the fishbone in the orange glow. Its tip was sharpened and stained. One fire for every life lost. One bone for every life taken. Thirty refugees arrived on the island, inhabited by a tribe of fifty. She had one fire left to light, and five bones to take, before the Sentinel arrived.

The Talisman

We see shapes in the stars, stories in smoke, faces on bark and figures in the clouds. On the burning deck of the Talisman, in a moment of quiet between two of chaos, I saw all of these at once. The stars lamented the bloodlust of men, the smoke foresaw the grief of women and children, the woodgrain mimicked tormented faces of dying sailors, and the clouds chastised my stillness.

“Ruk!” A strained scream cut through my daze. I scrambled towards the bowsprit. Wood cracked behind me and the mast swayed, it’s shadow sweeping over mine. I was starved and weak, which made me slow. But I was light and desperate, which made me nimble. After a few careful bounds, I dove into the water. When I broke the surface, pain and cold thundered through my being. Yet I swam to the waiting skiff. Warm hands pulled me aboard with strength that equalled mine. Vercas and I embraced briefly before turning at the sound of a booming crash. The fall of the mast split the deck in half, spraying cinders into the air. No screams were heard from the Talisman; only she groaned in her demise.

Ahead of us, five skiffs drifted towards the Imperial warship. “We’re alive, general. I can’t believe it, but we’re alive. We’re safe.” Vercas looked up at the stars, and I suspect he read them differently. “We’re prisoners of war, Ruk, only on another vessel. Even among our own, we’ll never be safe.”

The other men rowed as fast as they could. We let the current carry us. Having missed narrowly, peril awaited us again. How quickly we approached it mattered very little.

Pistol

Through the crack between the closet doors, she saw him in the moonlight as he scanned the room. Both listened closely with bated breath. He drunkenly reached for the drawer of the nightstand, his face full of rage, while his wife held the pistol with trembling hands.