Chapter 20
A Dread Tide Rising by Walt Shuler
Happy Monday (if there is such a thing). You’ve officially made it halfway through A Dread Tide Rising (there are 40 chapters, plus a brief epilogue). Thanks for sticking with me so far!
Previously: Kye and Mattie broke into Holua’s bedchamber and learned of Mac’s fate after visiting his supposed “friend”.
Currently: We finally get full closure about what happened to Mac.
A Dread Tide Rising is a serialized, pulp-flavored, epic fantasy novel set in the world of Thalrassa. It follows the Talon, a group of mercenaries, thieves, and smugglers, as they come face-to-face with an ancient enemy intent on the destruction of the Rakkian Empire.
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Chapter 20
Water gurgled.
Mac floated, weightless, cold, and wet, but he could not bring himself to care. Nothing mattered any longer. He was just so tired. All he wanted was to drift away. The numbing cold crept deeper into his bones, his brain, his very soul. It would be easier to just let go. To disappear into nothingness.
A sound intruded on his solitude, water lapping wood. Something grabbed the back of Mac’s jacket, and then calloused hands were lifting him. They placed him on a rough, wooden surface, not gently. The deck of a boat?
He heard voices, then more hands patted him down. Probably searching for valuables or weapons. The voices returned, raised in argument. One voice, deeper than the others, cut across the hubbub, and silence fell.
Where was he? He opened his eyes the barest crack. There was a smear of blue above, golden light filtering in from somewhere. Several indistinct forms clustered nearby. The voices came again, but Mac was once more plunged into the sea of dreams.
His next coherent thought was the realization of motion. It was a rhythmic, rocking motion that he knew well. A gull cried out somewhere high above him. What had happened? Dully, he struggled to recall.
He remembered the trip to House Coët, the easy affability Holua had shown. He remembered the money and then…
“The bastard tried to kill me,” he yelled indignantly, or tried to yell. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out. A coughing fit wracked his body, and pain lanced from his belly through his lungs and into his skull.
“Stop, you’ll rip the stitches loose. Then they’ll toss you back in the waves,” a voice rumbled. The same voice from before? Maybe. Mac tried to cling to consciousness, but it was a tenuous thing, more moon-fever imagining than solid reality. Where am I?, he tried to ask. Who are you? His mouth worked, lips and tongue forming words, but no sound.
“Hush now,” the deep voice urged. Large hands pressed Mac back down. “The sea’s taken your voice, at least for now. Rest and give your body a chance to heal.”
“Fat lot of good that will do him,” another voice whispered. “What’s to look forward to if he wakes? The gods-damned oar? The puking lash?”
“Be quiet,” the deep voice said, and the other voice went away. Mac was glad. He didn’t like the whispering, hissing voice. Darkness claimed him again then.
The next thing Mac knew was thirst. It squatted in his throat, a demon made entirely of hot sand and sharp rocks. “Water,” he tried to ask, but again, no sound came out. He cracked an eye and found himself surrounded by stifling gloom. An attempt to sit up left him gasping in pain. Footsteps whispered across wood planks, coming closer.
“Here,” the deep voice said. A moment later, something was pressed to Mac’s lips. Pain erupted at the pressure, and the water was warm and brackish, but at that moment, Mac could think of nothing more amazing. Then the water skin was taken away. Mac must have made a noise of complaint, because the voice replied, “Not too much. Small strokes, little fish.”
Little fish? Mac wondered, but the thought did not linger long. The darkness inside swallowed him once more. When he awoke again, it was to cries of pain.
At first, Mac thought he’d been crying out in his sleep. Fire burned in his abdomen, and his joints felt like they were filled with jagged glass. He clamped his mouth shut before realizing that the cries were not his but came from somewhere else. Opening his eyes, he found dim light surrounding him, the weathered planks telling him he was aboard a ship. There was a sibilant hiss and then a loud crack, followed by another cry of pain. The sounds came from above.
As his eyes adjusted, Mac took in his surroundings. Dim sunlight filtered in through chinks in the wood planks above. He was definitely in the cargo hold of a ship, but one unlike any he had sailed in his life. It was long and low, and even at the waist, she was as narrow as a rich man’s generosity. “Where am I?” he tried to ask, but his voice refused to obey. Not even a whisper emerged.
“Don’t tax yourself,” the deep voice said from behind him. “You were floating in the drink, who knows for how long. It’ll take time to regain your strength.” Too weary to be surprised, Mac glanced backward. Behind him squatted a hulking, blue-skinned man. Mac’s eyes widened in sudden realization. The man before him was a Sanean, and the manacles on his wrists told Mac everything he needed to know. He knew what sort of ship he was on, and his heart skipped a beat. He’d been pulled from the sea to face a fate worse than death.
His dismay must have shown on his face. The Sanean reached forward and clasped his shoulder. “Mute you might be, but it seems you understand the situation aright.” He glanced upward, a look of intense fury passing over his features briefly, then vanishing as quickly as it came. “But where there’s life, there’s a way, eh?”
Mac couldn’t bring himself to echo the other’s optimism. Only one nation built ships like this, and the Estari were not known for their lax guard. Only the dead escaped an Estari slaver, went the old saying. Was this where he would die, then?
Just then, a commotion erupted toward the fore of the ship. The light in the hold momentarily brightened as a hatch above opened, allowing a hulking form to descend the short rope ladder. “Murgha, the new slave has rested overlong. He works or we throw him back to the sea gods!” the newcomer shouted, brandishing a whip. Mac felt the Sanean behind him cower back at the presence and realized that the threat must have been addressed to his caregiver.
“Show fear or they will take it amiss,” Murgha hissed at him through clenched teeth. The idea rankled Mac, but the weakness in his limbs told him that he lacked the strength to protest overmuch, or possibly to survive the punishment for rebelling. Grinding his teeth at the need, he cowered in mock fear of the slaver’s whip.
“You must stand, walk to the bulkhead, and climb the ladder to the oar deck above,” Murgha advised. “You must do it unaided, and if you fall, they will most likely kill you on the spot or toss you to the sharks.”
Well, this will be interesting, Mac thought to himself. He gingerly tested his muscles and found them weak and limp. With further exploration, he found coarse stitches across his midsection, the legacy of his run-in with Holua. With friends like him… Mac thought and then heaved a huge sigh. There was nothing else for it. Sink or swim, he thought to himself.
A quirk of Estari shipbuilding likely saved Mac’s life. His roll took him to his feet, and then a lunge carried him the rest of the way up. Once standing, though, his legs almost gave out. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the starboard side of the ship was so near at hand, he would have fallen again and ended up food for the fish. As it was, the lash snaked out and cracked near his ankle anyway.
“Move, fish bait!” the slaver growled. “Up the ladder now, double-time!” He punctuated the order with another crack of the lash. This time, the tip of the whip lightly grazed Mac’s flesh, and blood flowed.
Mac tried to snarl a response, but nothing came out. He had to settle for a hate-filled glare.
The guard laughed heartily, spittle flying from beneath his massive mustache. “Spirited, eh?” He reached out, snatched a handful of Mac’s shirt, and pulled him so close that Mac could feel his hot, stinking breath on his face. “Breaking you will be a pleasure. You’ll fetch less on the auction block, but I think it’s worth it.” The slaver pushed him away, and Mac stumbled, catching himself on the swaying rope ladder. He had time for one hate-filled glare at the other man, and then he was climbing upward.
He emerged onto a second deck, long and low and almost as narrow as the last. There were differences here, though. More sunshine filtered in here through chinks in the deck above, brightening the atmosphere considerably.
Bench after bench lined both sides of the ship, manned by men and women chained to the floor. Each bench was wide enough for two rowers as they worked the huge, leaded oars. More than anything, though, it was the fresh air that came through the oarlocks that gave Mac pause. He had not realized how close it had been below. It was fresh as a spring meadow here by comparison.
“Move, newcomer, or by the gods they’ll cut us both down,” came a voice from behind and below. Mac stepped away, and Murgha clambered up the ladder, followed closely by the guard from below. Mac’s erstwhile caregiver moved away from the opening to give the slaver ample room, under the scrutiny of two other nearby guards.
“The new one is your responsibility, Murgha,” the guard from below warned. Another guard indicated that Mac and Murgha were to move toward the aft with a wave of his whip handle. Murgha wasted no time or energy in argument; his muscular back bowed to keep his head clear of the upper deck supports as he walked down the narrow track between the slave benches. An empty bench stood waiting near the aft end on the starboard side, and this proved to be Mac and Murgha’s home.
Mac slid in beside the blue-skinned man, and the guard clamped manacles around their legs. Chains ran from Mac’s manacles through a central ring mounted to the floor and then connected with Murgha’s, effectively chaining Mac and his companion together and to the ship itself. Murgha noticed Mac’s attention.
“They chain us together so that individually we cannot escape. They chain us to the ship as a reminder that if the ship sinks, we die.”
What charming folks, Mac thought. Then Murgha was shoving the end of the oar into Mac’s hands. “We row, little fish. I hope you’ve rested from your ordeal because now you must work.”
With little other choice, Mac bent his back in time with his companion and began rowing.
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Great addition, in the most stressful way! This is quite the pickle for Mac. Like, if pickles were impossible lol