Of Ashes Born: The Sundry Crew
Being the second instalment of a serialised fantasy novella.
This is the second of five instalments. Here are the other instalments, in case you are up to a different one:
Part One: The Janzacs of Hazathsad
(You are here.)
Part Three: The Golden Janzacs
Part Four: The Burning Janzacs
Part Five: The Birth of the Taranor
And here is an audio clip for those who’d prefer to listen to a reading by yours truly:
PART TWO: THE SUNDRY CREW
CHAPTER FIVE: SURFACING FROM THE HELLSPRING
Sailing out of a Hellspring storm is about as easy as overthrowing an empire. The storm is the tyrant’s troops; you are a peasant trying to rout them with a pitchfork. Only a Janzac crew could survive Whiterock Sea, and no crew as small as five had ever pulled it off before.
Often, in those waters, it feels as though you are completely submerged the entire time. The wind seems only a warring current in the body of water that is the rain around you. The waves are never seen in the bedlam, only felt. You are suspended in watery chaos. You have nothing to hold onto except a lunatic’s ethereal hope.
No matter how strong the Janzac, every time he crossed that sea, he would end up praying to every god he knew—and he would accept, before the end, that he would more likely die than make it out of the Hellspring.
Rachrinor was proved right. A crew of five was too few. But then again, it is said even to this day that no five ever fought the hells so long or so vehemently as they.
Rador battled at the helm, one foot on the deck and one foot on one of the two wooden crates fastened on either side of him. He always took such a stance during a storm—maintaining a little extra balance by switching which boot was raised as the ship tilted madly to and fro. His double-ringed irises—green surrounded by grey—roved the obscure waters constantly as he hollered commands at his crew, desperately trying to keep the caravel’s bow pointing into the largest of the waves as they ricocheted off shoals and pillars of craggy stone.
Toran relayed the commands as he tumbled about the ship, overseeing the welfare of the deck, masts and rigging. Much of the labour in bailing water and adjusting the hell-sails—smaller canvases designed specifically for improved maneuverability in a storm—was carried out by Coran, Gallamis and Braddin. Of the three, Braddin was the strongest, and the others were often forced to rely on his might to bring the rope and canvas under control.
The ship was a mess when the clouds finally fled, blue opened above them and they surfaced from the Hellspring—an eternity later. They’d lost the mizzenmast completely and had a slow, persistent leak in the starboard hull.
In response to their miraculous survival, the crew fell, exhausted, into their hammocks below deck. One man—switching every few hours—kept watch for potential threats at the same time as trying to work out where they were.
After three days of fair weather, they had sighted no landforms and still had no idea what their location was. On their fourth day, however, Toran spotted something from his position in the crow’s nest.
‘I can see a fire on the horizon,’ he called to his companions below.
CHAPTER SIX: THE BURNING COG
‘Land?’ Rador shouted back from the tiller, shielding his gaze as he squinted in the direction Toran was pointing.
‘No,’ came Toran’s hesitant reply. ‘I think it’s a burning ship.’
In a few minutes, it was confirmed, and Gallamis declared he could make out the wreckage from the prow. Drawing closer still, they saw a galley was pulled close to the burning wreck—and the situation became clear. The long galley was a Janzac Raider. The burning merchant cog was flying a scorched Geremor flag, which meant the galley must have been patrolling the eastern trade route between Naranon and Hailanna.
They had boarded the cog, taken its cargo, set it aflame and were now struggling to return to their own galley—intending to leave the Geremorians to burn. The merchants, though, were putting up a desperate fight, trying to take as many of the raiders with them as possible.
Sound carries swiftly over still waters on sunny days, so when the battle was yet a little ways off, its pandemonium found the renegade Janzacs. The roar of the flames greedily devouring wood, tar and canvas with constant hissing as they dipped in and out of the water—fighting the ocean itself. The shouts of the skirmishers and the ringing of their weapons. Then, following closely behind the cacophony, the smell of smouldering cloth, hair and seasoned timber …
Toran was scuttling down the rigging. ‘That fire’s nearly caught the galley as well,’ he said as he hit the deck, running to the hold.
He disappeared below.
Gallamis, standing beside Braddin at the prow, was shaking his head slowly.
‘What’s he thinking?’ Braddin asked his friend, frowning.
Toran re-appeared, dragging Coran with him, a bundle of three axes under his other arm. ‘We can sink the damned thing,’ he said, dropping the weapons before his companions and letting go of his brother’s arm. Coran began to string his bow.
Braddin swore under his breath. ‘They’ll have at least forty raiders on that galley,’ he said.
Gallamis, however, was already picking up an axe—a resigned grimace on his face.
‘Forty sailors can’t save a ship once there’s a fire under the mainmast,’ Rador growled, guiding their caravel closer to the galley. ‘I don’t think there’re forty left, though. I count less than a dozen …’
Braddin was following Gallamis’s lead, though it looked like the movement was against his will. ‘Why the devil would we want to take the risk, though?’
‘It’s phase one,’ Toran said, rolling his shoulders. ‘Phase two: save the Geremorians.’
‘Exactly what question was that an answer for?’ Braddin muttered.
‘Phase three:’ Toran continued, grinning at him, ‘hope the story spreads.’
And Braddin understood, just in time. This was the beginning of their new reputation.
They were only a few dozen metres out now, and the Janzacs were cheering them on, having recognised the characteristic shape of their Janzac caravel. They believed Toran’s crew was there to help them. Rador, however, swung them to port, gliding alongside the galley.
Most of the Janzac crew had boarded the merchant cog to try to save their compatriots. The galley’s captain was screaming for the few deckhands remaining to throw the gangplank and abandon their fellows. The first mate was trying to shout over him—believing he had gone slightly mad—saying that there was no way they could manoeuvre the galley back through the Hellspring with the half-dozen still onboard.
‘Put an arrow in the captain,’ Toran told his brother as he mounted the rigging of the mainmast again. Coran nodded, sliding a missile out of his quiver. The captain was lunging for his first mate now in an attempt to silence him.
Only one or two of the deckhands seemed to have realised their real peril—and they were staring, dumbstruck, as Toran, Gallamis and Braddin leapt from their rigging and swung silently across the gap between the Janzac vessels. Their landing covered the sound of the captain’s head hitting the quarterdeck—he had died before he even saw the arrow buried in his chest.
Gallamis and Braddin made straight for the galley’s mainmast with their axes, attacking the planking at its base—weakening it and creating airflow for the fire Toran was transferring from the cog.
‘Onto the galley!’ Toran shouted at those fighting there as he lighted the torch in his left hand. The battle was down to four Geremorians holding out against the five remaining Janzacs.
The Janzacs retreated, either heeding Toran’s call or recognising for themselves how much water the cog was taking in through the holes burnt in its hull. The merchants pursued them. All nine of the skirmishers were utterly perplexed when they saw that the galley was also burning by the mainmast.
The first mate had gone hoarse, screaming obscenities at the treacherous Janzacs who had set fire to his ship. Gasping for breath between his hollers, he leapt from the quarterdeck to join the fray. Coran’s second arrow took him mid-air. His legs went limp, his scream cut off, and his body hit and slid across the main deck.
‘Onto the caravel!’ Toran shouted, slaying one of the last of the Janzac raiders.
The battle was all but over, and the Geremorians, flummoxed and exhausted beyond words, followed Toran’s instruction. They left the other two ships burning themselves into the ocean.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE STEEL WATERS
Their crew was now nine, and nearly half of them were Geremorians. They knew their general location—southwest of Geremor—and Braddin had even had the sense to duck below deck on the galley and retrieve a few extra supplies.
For the rest of that afternoon, the Geremorians didn’t speak to them. Coran set up hammocks for them, Braddin found blankets for them and Gallamis told them to feel free to move about the vessel as they liked. Once they found the hammocks, though, they all settled there and spent hours talking and resting. Coran never found out what they said, but when they joined the Janzacs in the evening, they all still looked petrified.
Toran could imagine what they may have been thinking. Are they taking us as slaves? What kind of heartless Janzac turns even on his own kind? He saw one of them sneak a knife from the weapons cache in the hold and hide it under his sleeve.
They shared dinner in silence; afterwards, the knife thief spoke up.
‘We are headed north?’ he asked quietly. ‘Are you planning to sell us back to our own people?’
Gallamis shook his head, and Toran said, ‘No. You’re free to do as you wish. You are not slaves.’
‘That’s one of my knives you stole, though,’ Gallamis chuckled. When the man paled, flinching away in expectation of violence, Gallamis held up his hands. ‘It’s alright; I’ll just want it back before you go. Feel free to carry your own weapons about …’
The Geremorian’s puzzled frown held for a little while before he turned back to Toran. ‘Why did you save us?’ he asked.
Toran took a slow breath. He had been rehearsing these next words. ‘We are traitors to the Janzac crown,’ he said. ‘Our king is planning a conquest. He plans to make an empire of all of Durnam, and he is gathering the resources to do so. We want to warn the world and take our place on your side of the war. We denounce the evil ways of our people.’
Again, the Geremorians were quiet in the wake of his words. They took their silence to their hammocks and broke it there in whispered conference. In the following days, they crossed the Steel Waters and came within sight of the island of Geremor.
CHAPTER EIGHT: UNJUST REWARDS
They beached their ship a few hours’ walk from the capital of Geremor, Teeloth. Hoping none from the city had spotted them drawing into the sheltered cove, Toran led the Geremorians ashore.
When they stood on the beach, he asked, ‘Could we have a few words more, friends?’
They stopped, turning to him. He continued.
‘We wish to spread those tidings which we told you some days ago,’ he said, ‘and we want people to know that there are Janzacs who would not side with their king if given the chance. Would it be too great a favour to ask if you could keep that in mind? I can imagine that endorsing any kind of Janzac would not be beneficial for a man’s reputation, but this is important news that must spread.’
One of them—the one that had stolen and returned Gallamis’ knife—nodded slowly.
By the looks on the others’ faces, Toran guessed that the speaker’s agreeable sentiment was not shared by all. All the same, he pushed on. ‘In your opinion,’ he asked, ‘would there be a way for us to spread the word ourselves in Teeloth.’
Slowly, the man shook his head. ‘You would be slain the moment you drew near enough for your eyes to become discernible,’ he said softly.
‘Could you take these then?’ Toran asked, holding up a little wad of pamphlets that he and Coran had written. They bore the tidings Toran wished to deliver. ‘I know it is much to ask of you …’
The Geremorian took the pamphlets. After a moment of reading one of them, he looked up and asked, ‘You can write?’
Toran almost laughed. It seemed people knew that most Janzacs couldn’t. He nodded, cracking a small smile.
The Geremorians left, taking the pamphlets with them. Toran didn’t imagine they would actually use any of them. A man seen putting something like that up would probably be cut down in the street. Toran hoped, though. He hoped they did it in secret—that they might catch the eye of just a few people with influence …
The recalcitrant Janzacs spent the night on solid ground—for change—around a small campfire on the beach.
They woke sometime past midnight to the sound of thick timber cracking under vehement flames. One of the Geremorians they had saved had led twenty or so of his friends back to the beach. They had set the caravel on fire and were now headed for the waking Janzacs. Before the shouting mob, the crew fled into the palm trees beyond the beach.
Braddin, the slowest to rise and the largest of the Geremorians’ targets, took an arrow in his back as he ran. He fell silently, and the other Janzacs only realised he had been slain a few minutes later. By then, four of the Geremorians had taken the stonemason’s body and thrown it on the burning caravel. Toran, Coran and Rador struggled together to restrain Gallamis, whose mouth went rigid with rage as he tried to break free and avenge his friend.
‘He saved you!’ Gallamis roared. ‘He brought you blankets and cooked you food …’
They forced him to escape—and for weeks after, he would not forgive them.
They spent the following few weeks hiding in Geremor’s woods. Having abandoned everything on the beach, they were forced to hunt their own food and create their own shelter. Deprived of their ship, they had to form new plans.
They emerged from those woods looking quite different from the raiders they had been. Have you ever seen a Golden Janzac? Most have heard them described. Heavy cloaks made of animal hides or the hair of wild goats. Eyes shadowed by their cowls and unkempt beards protruding underneath. Decidedly not golden in any visual sense.
Golden their work would be, though, and gold they would be paid for it.
(END OF SECOND INSTALMENT. CLICK HERE FOR THE THIRD.)