Airie

The merchant ship looked different from that of the pirates, yet it still stirred painful memories. Just looking at it made Dusan feel the sickening movements of the deck under his feet, the raging storm, the salty waves trying to drown him. He was a farmer and a hunter, not a seaman. Yet the whole plan of traveling to other lands rested on his ability to survive the sea trip, including what storms awaited them—and this time, there would be no magic to disperse the clouds.

“Having second thoughts?” Reijo said behind him.

“Just making sure no one from my village is here,” Dusan said.

Reijo had been quiet lately, barely speaking. Dusan hoped he would bounce back once he had fully recovered, for he still looked unwell. even though the fever was long gone. His pale skin looked translucent, and the dark circles under his eyes seemed to never go away, even though he still spent most of his time sleeping. Perhaps the sea air would do him good.

Dusan turned to the ship again. Hiding behind the shrubs on the forest’s edge, they were a hundred or so steps away from where the sailors were carrying to the boats the wooden boxes with the produce and the craft items they had acquired from the locals. Some of those boxes must have come from Dusan’s own village. He saw two or three familiar faces—not his fellow villagers, but the men who had been coming to trade with them twice a year. He knew the captain, too—Evander was the name—the tall, dark-skinned man now walking back and forth along the shoreline, overseeing his men work. This was apparently their last day here, and if Dusan intended to approach them, it could no longer be postponed.

“How do you know they’re good?” Reijo said, echoing Dusan’s own doubts. “That they won’t grab us and sale us on some slave market?”

“They’ve been coming here for years, and they never tried to kidnap anyone.”

Apparently, being able to stop here and refresh their stocks of food and fresh water, as well as trade with the locals held more value for these men than the possibility to sell their location to the slave-traders. On the other hand, there were many sailors on this ship, and it wasn’t impossible that one or the other of them could have tipped the pirates about the village, resulting in the attack that had turned Dusan’s life upside down.

Officially, though, captain Evander and his crew were on good terms with the locals.

“We have no choice,” Dusan said. “We can’t stay here, and to leave, we need a ship, and this is the only one we’re going to get. Let’s go. I’ll do the talking.”

As they came closer, the men on the shore noticed, and paused their work, and stared. Dusan knew that he and Reijo presented an odd sight. They had washed and made themselves as presentable as they could, yet nothing could have been done about their ragged clothes.

Captain Evander turned and watched them curiously.

“Well met,” he said, coming closer.

“Good day to you,” Dusan said, stopping a few steps away.

Evander studied his face. “Have I seen you before? You look familiar.”

“Probably not.” Dusan preferred not to admit in which village he had lived and why he’d left it. When Evander had visited, Dusan had never spoken to him directly, so the captain was unlikely to make the connection. “We’re here to inquire if you could perhaps take a couple of passengers with you.” Dusan gestured at himself and Reijo.

There was a wave of hums and chuckles from the sailors. Evander tilted his head.

“Why are you looking to join us?” he asked.

Dusan shrugged. “To travel and to see the world?”

“Do you even know where we’re headed?”

“No,” Dusan admitted, “but we don’t really care about the destination, as long as it’s somewhere new.”

“People who don’t care about their destination usually run away from something.”

That was a good point. Dusan cleared his throat.

“I guess you could say we run away from our mundane life. Working the land day after day eventually gets old.”

“I see,” Evander said. “Can you pay for the trip?”

“Pay?” Dusan assumed that their pitiful outfits were answer enough to that, but Evander apparently needed to hear it. “No, I’m afraid we can’t.”

“Then how do you intend to repay the food and the arrangements we’ll have to provide for you?”

“We could work. Tell us what to do and we’ll work alongside your sailors.”

Evander looked him over. “You seem strong, so you could be of some use, but he—not so much.” He nodded at Reijo who stood a good head lower than Dusan and, with his ghostly pale complexion, really didn’t look like someone up to manual work.

“We could find some ways to use him,” one of the sailors said, and a few others laughed.

Dusan looked at the men who were eyeing them, then met Reijo’s tense gaze, and felt a pang of doubt about their idea. Then, Reijo stepped forward.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” he said to Evander, “even though I might not be strong, I could provide you the services of an adviser.”

“Indeed?” Evander’s lips curved. “Will you advise me how to operate the ship?”

“Of course not; but I’m fairly good in predicting weather, and that could be of use to you.”

Dusan hummed, puzzled. Reijo had indeed predicted rains a couple of times during the weeks they had spent in the forest, but this time of year, it could have been a lucky guess. It had seemed like a pitiful attempt on Reijo’s behalf to still act as if his special abilities weren’t gone completely, and Dusan had been patiently waiting for him to emerge from his denial and accept the new reality.

“Indeed?” Evander repeated, sounding more interested. “And how exactly do you do it?”

“I feel it in my bones,” Reijo said evasively. “For one thing, I wouldn’t advise you to sail today, for a big storm is coming.”

“Oh?” Amidst the renewed chuckles of the sailors, Evander looked up at the clear sky. “And when is it going to hit?”

“By sunset.”

Dusan’s heart clenched. The sky didn’t show any signs of bad weather, and he dreaded seeing Reijo proven wrong and forced, once again, to face that he was no longer special.

“I see.” Evander looked Reijo over again, then grinned. “You know what? It’s too late to sail, anyway, so we’ll stay until morning—and if there’ll be a storm tonight, we’ll take the two of you with us. Is that a deal?”

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