[Chapter 6 continued]
Both of them crouched before the metal door. It had a large round hand wheel to keep it closed tight. Elisa was leaning forward pushing her ear against the door. She listened intently for a while, then relaxed back. Turning to Cara, she said:
“Looks like the there is no one behind this door. Also judging by how often you got visitors, there shouldn’t be anyone on their way over here yet… With a bit of luck we have a clean run out of here. Stay close to me. Keep our back clear, if you have any trouble tell me immediately, even if I’m busy myself. Understood?”
“Yes”, Cara said. Elisa was about to say something, when Cara added “But try not to kill anyone, please.”
Elisa exhaled audibly, massaging her face with her free hand.
“Little ingot, I don’t go around killing people for fun. You understand that, right?”
Cara felt a bit offended by the change of tone in Elisa’s voice but she decided to be displeased later.
“Yes, I know”, Cara said, although right now she was not that sure. “But these people aren’t murderers.” Cara gesticulated as she said this, her hand encompassing the general area in front of them. “They use black weapons. They did not kill me or injure me. They did put me in a cage and that rope was really uncomfortable though”, she said, sliding towards some darker thoughts. “But they did give me food and water. These are not totally bad people.”
Elisa in front of her was going through several stages of exasperation. As she listened, she tried out several reactions, in gesture, expression and word. All of them failed. When Cara was done with her appeal to Elisa’s better judgement, Elisa sighed, slowly shaking her fist.
“Look, little ingot…”, Elisa sucked her lips in her eyes darting around as she kept looking for the right words. “The reason, why these pirates have been so ‘nice’ to you is because they are slavers. They see you as a trade good and they have been taking care of you, because you are worth more to them if you are in good shape. If they mistreat you, you are worth less and you are skilled, that makes you even more valuable. Besides, the Purgatory Gap isn’t a place where you can go on extended man hunts and sell people as bulk.”
Cara’s eyes grew wider as she listened to Elisa.
“I can see that you are understanding what I’m saying”, Elisa said relaxing, she opened her hand and put it lightly on Cara’s shoulder. “The reason I have to kill them is because we can’t risk being caught. Once they know that we are trying to flee they will put us in chains and weld them to our cages. Also knocking someone out cold is really hard to do. Doing it without it turning into a spectacle that everyone in the vicinity will hear is even harder. Also, people you knock out have the horrible tendency to wake up. Causing us more trouble. Do you understand that?”
Cara had started feeling sick as she listened. “I understand”, she said. “But I would prefer if we don’t kill anyone…”
“Me too, little piggy iron, me too”, Elisa said. “If we are really quiet and if Fortune smiles a tiny little bit at us, we’ll make it out of here without anyone else noticing us. OK?”
Cara, pulling her sword closer to her heart, nodded.
“Good”, Elisa said, “let’s go.”. She reached up and gently tugged at the hand wheel. It began moving with a tortured squealing sound that made both Cara and Elisa wince.
“So far for Lady Fortune”, Elisa said. She got up, took the hand wheel in both hands and began turning it as fast as she could. The screeching was reduced from banshee, to the wailing of an ordinary damned soul whose heart wasn’t really in it anymore. A few moments later the bolts of the door reached their inner resting point with a big resonant clunk.
Elisa mouthed several colourful curses, then, gritting her teeth, pulled the door open. The door swung open without a sound. “Now you’re quiet?”, Elisa hissed. Behind the door was a short metal corridor with another similar metal door a few steps from them away.
They both carefully moved forward, trying to listen for any noises from beyond the next door. Cara still heard the memory of the last door louder than anything she could actually hear in the present. Elisa seemed to be satisfied though, as she moved forward. She crouched again in front of the next door, listening intently.
“Coast is clear. After this door we turn sharp to the right, walk quietly up the corridor and to our right we will find a stair way that will lead us onto the deck. From there we need to look for a way back to disembark. Ready?”
“Ready”, Cara said.
Another hand wheel, another impersonation of a soul being tormented in hell. ‘Rather fitting for the Purgatory Gap’, Cara thought. This time it was a deeper, corrugated metal groan. Much easier on the ears, but this one travelled through the walls, the floor and the ceiling of the ship. In contrast to the last door, this one also kept complaining when being opened.
They slipped out of the door.
“Keep an eye out for visitors”, Elisa said as she turned around and closed the door again behind them.
“Why?”, Cara winced through gritted teeth.
“Because,” Elisa whispered loudly through the noise, “if we leave this one open, anyone will see that something is off.”
“They will hear right now that something is off”, Cara hissed back as Elisa was shutting the door.
“Hearing is here and now. Seeing is forever”, Elisa said.
“That hardly makes any sense”, Cara said.
“It makes enough sense for now and now… SHHH!”, Elisa put her finger against her lips, moved past Cara and signalled to follow her.
At first Cara was happy that the infernal noises of the doors had died down. But now that the silence had flooded back into the corridors of the ship, she wished that some kind of noise had been left behind. There was no motor noise, no creaking, or anything else for that matter. Right now there were only the steps of her and Elisa, as well as Cara’s own breathing which with each step sounded more and more like the loud wheezing of a slowly dying animal.
Elisa didn’t seem to notice or at least care as she moved forward. After what felt to Cara like two or three eternities, Elisa signalled her to stop. She gestured towards the front right. There Cara could see where the corridor opened to the right. Elisa mimed walking up stairs with with her fingers, followed by a thumb’s up gesture.
They moved a bit faster now.
Again, their steps and breath violently pushed away the silence. Cara was about to wish that something happened, just to take away the stress of the uncertainty weighing down on them, as they arrived at the niche where the corridor opened to the right. It opened to a small space with another steel door as one turned right, as well as a stairwell leading up and down.
Elisa exhaled. She was about to signal the next step of the plan to Cara, when they both heard the characteristic lamentation of a steel door being opened.
‘FUUUUCK!’, Elisa mouthed, stomping her foot into open air, then putting it very carefully down on the ground again. As indistinct voices started to get louder with the door above them opening wider, she urgently gestured downstairs. She gently pushed Cara down the stairs and then followed her. They moved far enough downstairs that they were out of direct sight. As they heard steps coming down the stairs, Elisa grabbed the large bag holding her weapons. She opened it, pulling out a staff almost as long as Elisa was tall, followed by a head for the staff, which she fastened to the top of it. She kept her hand on the staff head that extended into a blade roughly the length of her lower arm, while her head began to nod with the steps the pirates above were making. After three nods, she twisted the head around, which snapped into place with a sound that would have been deeply satisfying in any other situation. Once she was done with that, Elisa wasted no time with listening if that manoeuvre had given them away, instead closing the bag again, handing is back to Cara. Elisa put her other weapon into a magnetic holster on her belt that Cara only now noticed. She made a mental note of feeling envious of it, in case they made it out here alive.
“I swear, if I catch him down there sampling the wares, I will drown him with my own two hands”, a loud male voice said.
“Bullshit. Even our dumbest prospects know better than that. Gerhardt is always an utter professional. If you ask me he’s being too soft again. Helping the merchandise eat or some shit like that”, an female voice said.
The male snorted. “Yeah… true.”
“I bet you a litre of korn, that he’s being too soft and not an idiot.”
“Nah, you’re right. And he isn’t too soft. He’s right too. The merchandise he takes care of always sells for a better price.”
The voices had arrived on the floor above Cara and Elisa and were now moving down the corridor they had just come from.
Elisa turned to Cara, slowly counting down from three with her fingers. When she arrived at zero she moved up the stairs again. Much faster than before, but softly enough to make less noise than the two pirates moving down the corridor.
Cara, now shivering with terror, was following Elisa, trying to focus only on the person in front of her. She would have liked to breathe, but right now holding her breath was the only way she could make sure not to make any noise. Her hands were clammy from cold sweat as she gripped her sword so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.
As the steps grew fainter behind them, Elisa increased her speed, now taking two steps at a time. As she reached the door at the top of the stairs she immediately started to open it. If it made a noise, Cara couldn’t hear it from the thundering of the blood in her ears and the drumming of her heart in her chest. It was only when cold air hit her face that she noticed that the door was open.
Below she heard the lament of the outer door that lead to the storage hall where here she had been held prisoner. She almost fell over when Elisa pulled her over the threshold outside into the cold.
As Elisa shut the door, closing it and looking all around here as she did so, Cara remembered breathing again. She gasped for air.
“Look around”, Elisa said as she worked the hand wheel. “The gunwale should be around that corner over there”, Elisa pointed with her lips in to the direction she meant. “Go look if there is a way to leave this ship over there.”
“Now, piggy iron!”, she added when Cara didn’t react instantly.
Cara just nodded, still mostly busy with breathing. Jeanne D’Arc firmly in her hands, she moved into the direction Elisa had told her to go. They were outside, it was light already, but they were surrounded by old weathered containers blocking the view of their surroundings. Judging from the light and how cold it was, Cara assumed that it was still early in the morning.
As she reached the corner Elisa had indicated, she stopped to carefully peak around it. Another corridor made of containers which had rusted into the deck they had been placed on a long time ago. But this one short, leading directly towards the outer railing of the ship.
Cara cast a look back at Elisa, who had produced something that looked like a longer more sturdy version of the defence sticks Cara knew from Monasteria, using it to block the hand wheel. The moment Elisa had wedged the stick into the mechanism of the door, she hurried after Cara, shooing her forward with her hand.
Cara moved forward, cast a quick look around the outer gangway; it was empty. Cara relaxed. Only now she smelled the rust, felt the cold creeping humidity from the canal below, the smell of wet earth wafting in from somewhere close. The cold wind made her shiver, but for the first time since waking she could almost feel freedom in reach of her fingertips. To the left and right was only a very narrow gangway, much narrower than on the Ruhig Blut. One would only be able to shuffle along them sideways. She looked over the railing. Below them was a weird little park, mostly a moribund patch of soil with some tufts of grass which had not yet quite decided to die but weren’t really interested in living either. The whole thing was dotted with smallish, trees that were more long warped branches than anything else. The weirdest part about it were the strange metal parts breaking out of the ground here and there. That down there wasn’t land, it was a rather pathetic example of an orchard ship.
She heard a heavy sigh behind her. It took all of Cara’s willpower not to yelp and jump over the railing. Elisa had somehow materialised right behind her, also looking at the failed garden ship below. Elisa’s head was shifting left and right, while she made a tsking noise with her tongue.
“Yeah…”, Elisa said. “I guess that is the best way.”
“Which…”, Cara said, Elisa was already past her and had vaulted over the railing, “way,,,?” She landed below on the deck of the other ship and somehow rolled over the floor despite all she was carrying. She stopped in a crouch looking left and right than back up at Cara.
“What are you waiting for?”, she whisper-yelled. “We need to get a move on.”
“Can you catch Jeanne D’Arc?”, Cara asked.
“Less talking more throwing”, Elisa said, beckoning her with both hands, “and hurry upping”, she added.
Cara threw her sword. Elisa casually pulled it out of the air. Then Cara carefully climbed over the railing. Then began to slowly cling down the railing until she hang off the gunwale of the larger ship with her feet still, from Cara’s perspective, several miles from the lower deck.
“What are you waiting for?”, Elisa said, her her whisper-yell fighting hard not to turn into a yell-whisper.
“It’s really high!”, Cara said.
“No it’s not. It’s not even three meters.”
“It looks higher from where I’m hanging”, Cara said. Right now rather happy that until Natalie and Walter had stopped her from doing so, she had spent years gripping her sword really tightly. Because right now her fingers could hold on for a little while. Saving her from if not certain death at least from broken legs. She tried to pull herself up again, but that didn’t work. When she tried to mover her legs, she suddenly felt something grabbing them.
Below her Elisa had moved to her and had now gripped her, with a bear-hug around her lower legs. She unhooked Cara from the ship above, turned her around, Cara’s upper body wobbled around a bit as she did that, and let her down in front of her.
“There”, Elisa said, “now take your sword and move.”
Cara took her sword and followed Elisa who was running towards the edge of the garden ship.
“Fuuuuck…”, Elisa said.
“Wrong side?”, Cara asked.
“Yep. Only water down there. But that’s OK, lets go…”, Elisa looked left and right. “Over there”, she pointed left. “With a bit of luck we find a small boat we can steal along the edge or at the end of this ship quilt.”
Elisa turned, Cara followed her, wondering how they would get past the cabin space that was at the end of the ‘garden’. But then she spotted a ladder leading upwards. Where she also saw something move.
“Elisa.”, Cara said.
“What is it now”, Elisa said, not turning back to her.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen”, a voice echoed over from all around them. “We have another bracing winter morning. It´s a fresh 1° C and we are experiencing a rather unpleasant front of escape and…” the voice from the PA system paused dramatically. “Murrrderr!”, it yelled.
The yell was answered from all sides apart from the water side. A few voices behind Cara and Elisa, some in front and several more from the side where the large freighter they had fled from was. Now pirates were appearing from their hiding places. A few others were just now rushing in to join the spectacle.
“We lost Gerhardt today, a great comrade and friend. We have one piece of merchandise who threw our hospitality in our faces, brothers and sisters.” Booing and hissing. “However, it also uncovered a stowaway. So at least our loss will be balanced out at least somewhat by now having two new pieces of merchandise.” The people around them were all on the higher levels. Elisa moved backwards, keeping herself between Cara and the pirates in front of them. Her eyes darting around.
“Sadly, we will have to punish these two human resources. It will significantly reduce their return on investment value, but it will send a strong marketing message to our future assets, that it is far better to keep your head down. They who cause trouble will be troubled in turn.”
“Get ready to fight for your life”, Elisa said to Cara with a low voice. “The bag contains an assortment of weapons, if you need one, take one from there. You have my blessing to do so.” They were now at the point that was furthest from all the pirates. Elisa had turned her back to the canal. Cara did the same, trying to gauge their situation. It didn’t look good. There were at least a dozen pirates surrounding them and she had spotted at least two others taking advantage of the spectacle that the speech had caused to slide down on deck. Also, there was a least one metal hatch on the deck of the garden ship that had opened a few inches and then closed again.
As Cara was trying to get her racing heart under control and push her panic back, she saw Elisa drawing her breath.
“I AM ELISA KLEIN CUNNINGHAM, I AM A SOLINGEN RANGER AND A FORGE WALKER. I CARRY DEATH IN MY HANDS AND AM PROTECTED BY THE LADY OF THE FORGE. STAND DOWN, LET US GO AND I WILL OVERLOOK YOUR INSOLENCE”, she roared, her voice projecting all over the ships as effective as the PA system had done.
A bright column of light appeared to Cara and Elisa’s right into which stepped a large figure. A man wearing an ancient bomber jacket and a cowboy hat, holding a very long sleek sword in one hand and a microphone in another.
“Oh!”, the voice echoed over the deck, “We have a special guest with us today. Well, well well. I am Commander Johannes Aurei von Brecksbach and we are the Aurei free trading company. Please brothers and sisters, make sure not to break her too much,” a chuckle went through the crowd, “we can ransom her for a tidy profit.” Commander Aurei von Brecksbach turned towards Cara. “And who might you be, girl?”
“I am Cara Gibson Müller”, Cara yelled, “And I will become the Empress of Swords!”, she added.
Elisa shot her a confused glance over her shoulder but then smiled. “Sword Empress? I like that.”
The Commander just laughed. “Don’t break that one either, comedians always sell well. Attack.”
With that, the pirates rushed jumped down towards the lower deck.
“Use the trees for cover. Use your surroundings”, Elisa said as she moved forward. “Once you start fighting never, ever stop. Unless you win”, she pulled out a large double barreled gun from the depths of her coat. The pirates slowed down for a moment. “May the forge protect and aid us”, Elisa whispered, pointing the gun to the sky and firing. Two flares one silver and sparkling one red as blood shot into the sky. She dropped the gun grabbing hold of her weapon with both hands now.
“Let’s go”, she said bearing her teeth.
Leaving her fear behind her, deciding to push forward so fast that it would not catch up with her, Cara rushed into battle.
