Authors: Sean T. Poindexter
Exiles of Forlorn
Table of Contents
Exiles of Forlorn
Sean T. Poindexter
Exiles of Forlorn
© Copyright Sean T. Poindexter 2015. All rights reserved.
Print ISBN: 978-1-941637-23-4
First Edition
Editor: Jen Ryan,
Imagine That Editing
Cover Art:
M Joseph Murphy
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All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
EXILES OF FORLORN
Sean T. Poindexter
Dedication
For my mother
1.
T
he dark slopes of the mountains of Forlorn filled the horizon, an island on the placid blue sea. Its snow-capped peaks pierced the firmament as tiny black clouds circled like crows over carrion. It had been all I could stare at since it emerged on the horizon hours ago, when the dark night sky split beneath the sun, giving view to my new home. I couldn’t stand to look, but didn’t dare look away, even as I felt a small tear well beneath my eye. Others were watching, friends, strangers, fellow shipmates, and the thought of showing weakness sickened me. I longed for a distraction . . .
“It looks like a zit,” said Blackfoot, followed by a snort and a crusty snicker.
That would do.
Reiwyn giggled, a delightful sound like the songbirds that used to sing in the towers of Standwell Keep, my childhood home. Reiwyn stood with her hands on her hips, long fingers covered with rings of bone and pewter. Her raven hair was bound in a tail and tumbled over her dark, tattooed shoulders like a wind-starved banner. She wore a blouse of loose cotton that hung in a wide V, exposing her shoulders. Leather thongs decorated with bits of bone and short feathers splayed across her heart, the lighter bits dancing in the soft ocean breeze. She had a way of wearing clothing that promised glimpses of flesh not casually seen, but carried her body in such a way that those promises were never fulfilled.
I would never get tired of looking at her.
Blackfoot was a different matter. While not overly hideous, he was difficult to mistake for anything but a street urchin. His clothes were ratty and plain, his grayish-brown hair short and wild, and his eyes narrow and sinister. He had arms and legs like sticks, and seemed to have missed more meals than he’d eaten. The smallest of us, he stood barely one and a quarter stride, five inches shorter than even Reiwyn, who wasn’t tall by any tale or measure, a half-foot less than me. He was the youngest, too, only thirteen, three years younger than the rest of us. The name was born from the soles of his feet, black as midnight from the sooty, dirty streets of Garraport upon which the little urchin had grown. He walked barefoot always, claiming that shoes mark a man’s steps like thunder, and thunder was no friend of a burglar.
Then there was Uller. Tall and pasty skinned with fair blond hair and slender arms that had never lifted anything heavier than a book. He still wore the robes of the Magespire academy, albeit thoroughly soiled by sweat, sea salt, and vomit.
“Oh, thank the Daevas, land,” Uller gasped. He raised his eyes from the sea, grasping the rail with sweaty hands as he brought his head up from where he’d knelt. His short hair stuck to his scalp with sweat and sea-spray. He’d spent most of the day with his head over the edge of the deck, gurging into the sea until he had nothing left but spit and stinging bile. He’d been seasick the entire voyage, but it only got worse as we drew closer to land. No sooner had he wiped a line of spittle from his lips with the back of his arm then another came over him. With a groan of frustration, he pressed his chest to the rail and commenced with another bout of heaving.
“Antioc is sure taking a while with the old graybeard,” remarked Reiwyn, referring to the only member of our merry crew not accounted for on the deck. I felt a burn of jealousy in my chest at her mention of my closest friend. Had she lamented my absence while I was with the graybeard just a few hours ago? Somehow, I doubted it.
My attention returned to the sea and the island rising there from. Thin, wispy clouds cut the sun and threw shadows across it. I saw no trees, no sign of green land or white sandy beaches, only the gentle, curving dome formed by a ring of dead volcanoes that shaped the center. They seemed lifeless, though I knew better. Blackfoot was right; it did rather resemble a zit. A big, black zit with a sharp, snow-white tip.
Uller gurged over the side again, this time more violent than before.
“I’ll be glad of land if only to be done with your weak stomach,” said Reiwyn. Blackfoot and I chuckled.
“It’s not fair for the daughter of a river pirate to mock Uller for his poor sea legs,” I said, only half chiding. Truth be known, she’d spent more time on the deck of a boat than on land.
“It’s my first time on a boat,” Uller said, his voice weak, mostly taken by the rustle of the sea and muffled by the rail at his chest. “Much less one bound for sea.”
“There are no boats in Magespire?” asked Reiwyn, incredulous.
“There are no cursed seas in Magespire,” Uller snapped, looking back on her with his dark brown eyes.
“Indeed,” I said, patting Uller’s back, “Not all
men
are fit to be pirates, Reiwyn.”
Only Blackfoot laughed at that, but Blackfoot laughed at everything. Uller turned his head to the sea and waited for the relief that never came, his slender, almost cat-like face slick with sweat.
“He
is
taking a while with Roren,” I said, glancing back to the deck. “I suppose he had more to give some of us than others.” I’d seen him first, followed by Blackfoot, Uller, then Reiwyn. Blackfoot’s meeting had been the shortest, after which the little thief had been deathly silent—albeit, only for a few minutes. Antioc had gone in last.
More curiously, when Reiwyn emerged from her meeting, her gait was off, as though she’d slipped and twisted a hip. That brought some jokes from Blackfoot, and a few jealous looks from Uller and me; at least until need took him to the edge of the deck. That just left me and the ridiculous notion, however faint, that in a moment of pity she’d gifted a dying man with something I feared I’d never taste. Compounding it was Reiwyn’s refusal to say what they had discussed, or to explain why her usual graceful walk seemed strained. “It’s none of your affair,” she had said, her voice husky and dark, when I’d asked her about it. She added with a look what words had omitted: do not ask again.
I recognized the sound of heavy feet thumping against the old boards. I turned with the others in time to see Antioc approaching. I was struck almost immediately with the glint in Reiwyn’s eyes at the end of her gaze, and the familiar burn returned.
“All finished?” asked Blackfoot. We advanced on him, even Uller, though he stayed as near to the rail as he could in the likely event that he be taken by sickness. Antioc had to duck under a low-hanging boom to reach us.
“Yes,” he said, not really looking at any of us. I followed his stare until I realized he was looking at Forlorn. He’d been under deck when it had come into view, but it was already old news to us.
“It took you a while,” observed Reiwyn, her voice intentionally loud as though making a point—to me. It was made. “I should like to bid him farewell. He isn’t expected to live through sunset.”
“Then you’re too late,” the warrior replied, giving her a mournful look. “He expired before my eyes. That’s why I was gone so long: I was drafted to help carry his body to the stern.” Antioc gestured to the end of the barge. We looked, but it was difficult to see past the crowd gathered there. I hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed to be looking over the rail at something in the water.
Roren had been a friend to each of us, and it was with reverence that we made our way to the rear deck to see him off. Even Uller, not known for being sentimental in the short time I’d known him, managed to dominate his nausea long enough to observe the graybeard’s send-off.
The other passengers moved aside as we advanced in a silent procession. Whether it was out of respect for our well-seen friendship with the old fellow or because the hulking Antioc made up our vanguard, I couldn’t say. I was too distracted to notice, most notably by Reiwyn, who seemed to be taking this the hardest. I put my hand on her shoulder. It was bare and warm and her skin was soft. She didn’t acknowledge the gesture. I brushed away the frustration and turned my attention to the grim business ahead.
We leaned against the worm-eaten wood rail at the edge of the deck, giving Uller his choice of perch lest he spew bile on one of us. He didn’t seem to need to, however, though his greenish pallor and clammy brow lingered. Behind the ship, floating in the choppy white-foam tipped waves, drifted a simple log raft, upon which lay a bundle of yellowing white sheets wrapped tight around the outline of a human body.
“How is he going to become ashes?” asked Blackfoot, worried.
Antioc tapped the thief’s shoulder and then directed his eyes to the top of the center mast. All but Reiwyn looked up at the sailor in the crow’s nest holding a long wooden bow and an arrow with sopping yellow cloth twined about the end. At a nod from an unseen captain, the sailor drew a sparker from his vest and clicked it against the oiled-cloth until it took flame. A second later, he tensed the bow and let fly the flaming arrow. All eyes but Reiwyn’s followed it to the raft, where upon striking it set the oil-soaked sheets ablaze.