Page 60 of Wicked Tides
I rushed forward, drawing my cutlass to help in slaying the crazed mob. One by one, they fell, each of their faces finding peace in their last breaths as if we’d done them a great favor. They barely tried to fight us. They swung at us but with no skill. No real effort. When they were all dead or dying at our feet, I felt a familiar rage bubbling up inside me. I knelt to wipe the blood off my cutlass with one of the men’s torn shirts.
“Get back on the boat,” I ordered.
I stood and looked back at Dahlia standing next to the boat. I was about to prod her again with questions when I noticed something in the water behind her. A floating head, perhaps. A body. No… a face. Half-submerged, the face remained perfectly still, inky hair floating like oil around it. Dark eyes pierced through the back of Dahlia’s head, watching her.
Dahlia cocked her head at the look on my face when the stranger in the water emerged, leaping from the waves with arms extended. A thin body with sleek muscle and gray skin shot forth. A long, snake-like tail coiled beneath it and propelled her onto Dahlia’s back. She fell to the sand, clawing at the wet grit as the other siren dragged her toward the water.
Dahlia turned over, kicking at her attacker when she raised her clawed fingers up and slashed downward. She didn’t scream, but I could see she’d been cut. The two wrestled like animals. The woman shrieked words I could not understand before Dahlia kicked her off into the waves. She sat up in the water, speaking in that icy tongue of theirs before lunging at her again.
I sprang toward them with Lady Mary in my tight grip. As Dahlia scurried backward, I surged forward, swinging at the woman’s neck. She dodged, but my blade still managed to snag her collarbone. She made a sound so shrill it felt like an ice pick had pierced my skull. Then she dove back into the waves.
“We must go,” Dahlia said, lurching to her feet and holding a hand to her bleeding chest. “She is calling others.”
My men dragged the boat into the water, heads frantically turning from one way to the other.
“Wait!” a voice said.
My head snapped back to see Uther running from down the beach. I wasn’t aware he’d gone so far, but he was desperately sprinting toward us and if he looked that afraid, I did not want to know what might be behind him.
Mullins helped Dahlia into the boat but realized what he was doing quickly and snapped his hands back like she was made of hot metal. Tor and James paddled hard, bringing us back toward the Rose as quickly as they were able. From below, something large bumped the side of the boat. Then another. Bump. Bump. The boat rocked, waves undulating as if to force us backto the island.
~ 23 ~
Dahlia
Blind are we to the evils of our kin.
~Alister Smith
I didn’t recognize her, but she knew me. I could see it in her eyes when she tried to kill me. She went for my heart, but she missed it. She spoke something in the old tongue, but her words were slurred. Tired. She had called me “unchosen.” It was an insult among the most religious of my people. One I’d heard more than once. When Vidar intervened and she backed into the water again, I knew we were not safe. That island had been claimed for nefarious things. Worse things, I feared, than what Vidar and I had witnessed all those years ago.
On the boat, I watched the water intently, waiting for an attack. Whoever the woman was, she was not alone. I pressed my palm to my bleeding chest, waiting for the assault I knew was coming. She bumped us again and again, trying to capsize the boat from below. When she grew frustrated with her failure, she emerged from the water, leaping toward us.
I had no choice. It felt wrong before I even did it, but she was beyond reason. She’d seen me with humans and word would spread.
I lunged forward, reaching for the bronze blade off the belt of the man rowing in front of me. As the woman soared over the boat, she reached out to take someone with her. I pulled the cutlass free and swung it across her exposed abdomen. She screeched as innards spilled into the boat and her body flipped into the water on the other side. Her long, eel-like lower half flopped against the rowing men and then slid in a twitching mass over the edge of the boat.
Alarmed that I had a blade, the man I’d taken it from spun to face me, pulling a dagger from his boot to point at my head. Just when he pulled back to swing, another scream rang through the air. A second figure bolted from the water, winding like a sea snake around the man. He slashed his dagger into the air wildly as he was drawn overboard and into the water. A third dove forth, going for Vidar. I watched as he spun to grab her, flipping her beneath him. Her tail flailed, nearly knocking another man off the boat, but Vidar had cut her throat so deep that he nearly severed her head.
He kicked the twitching body off the boat and took the place of the man who’d been dragged under, grabbing the oar. There was no hope for him. I knew it and Vidar knew it. He was in pieces already somewhere below and plumes of blood had bubbled up under the boat because of it.
When we came to the ship, Vidar was shouting orders to his men above. The sails were dropped. The anchor was raised. Men were at the railings on each side of the ship, armed and ready. The bells were humming as the sirens spoke and whispered and screamed at the men in a desperate attempt to overwhelm the crew.
Vidar forced me up the ladder first, stealing the cutlass from my grip. Perhaps he thought I’d attempt to escape, but these women weren’t my friends. I was as much the enemy as Vidar and his crew were and they made certain I knew it.
I climbed quickly, my fingers slippery with blood, and stood on deck, watching the men organize themselves into their positions. I’d never seen hunters work. I’d never seen how they communicated in the midst of an attack. Not from the inside, at least. I absorbed it.Learned it. I watched them each do their part until Vidar appeared by my side, seizing my arm. Before I knew it, there were irons locked around my wrists. I growled and pulled away from him only to be dragged to the captain’s quarters, tossed inside, and then locked behind heavy wooden doors. I slammed myself against them once. Twice. The wood splintered but did not break. And then I stepped back, listening to every detail of what was going on outside.
There was still a mighty ruckus as the ship lurched forward. My sisters’ screams filled the air, hungry and incensed.
It wasn’t long before the ship was moving with more speed. The sounds of guns firing and sirens leaping and crashing against the side of the ship filled the foggy passage until finally, hours later, everything went quiet. I’d given up trying to get out of that room. It would not matter if I had anyway. I did not care about the crew’s safety and I certainly did not want to fight alongside them, even if I had for a brief second. Escaping only to battle what seemed to be a whole skryll of sirens alone while Meridan was still captured below did not seem wise either, so I stayed put.
Necessity made people do questionable things. I convinced myself I did not cut down that woman to save anyone, but only to save myself. She’d have killed me otherwise.
The silence was thick. I could see out a small window and noticed the fog had cleared. We were leaving the most violent of channels in the island cluster. I could also tell that it was late and the sun was low. Seeing any light at all was a relief, though, no matter the time of day. It meant that damned island was behind us.
I was standing against the side of Vidar’s table, looking over his maps, but whatever words he’d scribbled on them meant little to me. Hunters’ maps were not the same as merchants. Merchants marked safe routes. Hunters and pirates marked the most dangerous ones. The ones more likely to be populated by sirens.
Next to the maps, however, was a leather folder. A corner of charcoal-stained paper stuck out enough to pique my interest and I reached for it, flipping it open in search of things I could learn aboutthe captain. Stacks of drawings spilled out before me. The first to catch my eye was that of a woman. No, a siren. She was beautiful and drawn with expert skill, but she was bound in chains, a fierce look upon her face. Next to the drawing was written a description to compensate for the lack of color.
