Where the Arrow Halted

By: Brianna Lee Hubler

Copyright © 2022 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved.

__________Kylas rested his elbows against a steel railing, which ringed the main deck of the Larkspur and prevented tipsy or otherwise clumsy sailors from toppling over the rim of the deck to a laughable, untimely death. Officers of the Cloaked Hive—the specialized militia Kylas served—cared little if one of their worker bees drowned. Stupidity, like weakness, was best uprooted before it could sprout into full-blown incompetence. The officers of the Cloaked Hive installed the railing only to appease inspectors and to protect the company’s public image. Renowned for its ruthlessness and its effectiveness, clients hired the Cloaked Hive to sweep the most dangerous fields clean and leave not a trace of themselves behind. If worker bees met laughable deaths en route to one of those fields, they disgraced the company; tainted its public record as a one-stop solution to scheming aggressors.

__________The officers of the company loathed a soiled reputation. They treated those who committed such blunders, like clumsily toppling overboard, with no more respect than a wine stain on the sleeve of one of their fine, white blouses; better to slice the whole sleeve off and burn it as cannon fodder than appear so blatantly tactless. Sleeveless shirts exposed their glory tattoos and battle stripes, which adorned the muscled arms of these high-ranking mercenaries; emphasized their strength far better than amassing underlings and hiding behind those disposable sleeves. Perhaps that was why Kylas normally ditched the company ensemble, as easily as he exchanged his flashy uniform for tailored leather, and steadily worked alone.

__________A pair of the Cloaked Hive’s worker bees wrestled ropes around the mizzenmast sails. Threatening gales blasted their torsos, whipped their hair back, and tangled the ropes around their fists. Amidst their battle against the wind and sails, the sailors wearied. Their gaze dipped to Kylas. From their position atop the stern castle, Kylas appeared lesser than he was, which emboldened the sailors to belittle him from afar.

__________“A scrawny welp that one,” the first sailor muttered. “Amazing he’s garnered such a bounty in the badlands.”

__________“Aye,” the second sailor replied. “Talks too clean too. Wrong fit ‘mong us brazen folk.”

__________“Ought to be charming some heiress out of ‘er wealth or least ‘er skirts.”

__________“Could be how he chalked up so many zeros under ‘is likeness.”

__________The first sailor chuckled. “Nah,” he said. “Should know from the posters what he did, if you read more than the ones and zeros after the dollar sign.”

__________“Not got time to be readin’ charges. Busy keepin’ the Larkspur seaworthy. Picture and numbers tell me who to shoot ‘fore they can board ‘er.”

__________“Thick as a brick you are!” the first sailor scolded. “That there is Kylas Ravenstorm.”

__________The second sailor squinted. “Doesn’t ring any bells in me noggin.”

__________“Call ‘im Ravenstorm ‘cause not a ship he’s been on hasn’t been attacked. Say he signals the birds to peck apart the sails and then they carry ‘im ashore while ship and crew plunge to the depths.”

__________“Second part there’s old wives’ tellin’ me figure, but that first part… What maddened management into lettin’ such bad luck ‘board the Larkspur?”

__________“Simple, bad luck’s needed crossing enemy waters.”

__________Kylas turned his head, lifted his gaze, and smirked at the two sailors lazily jabbering when they ought to secure the sails. Kylas had not heard their conversation, but they clammed up, straightened their spines, and faced the mizzenmast when he glanced their way. Their rash behavior spilled the subject of their conversation; reminded Kylas of the time the cabin boy’s soured supervisor kicked the boy’s wash bucket asunder and spilled the dingy water onto the deck. The supervisor’s poorly placed bets triggered his outburst, but the boy readily mopped up the mess, as if he were to blame. Similarly, Kylas regularly acted in his employers’ best interests, wreaking enough havoc to support the rumors about him, even though his legend was grounded more in fear than fact. He had communed with ravens since he was a child, heard voices others perceived as a cacophony of caws and squawks. He had listened intently to the secrets those voices shared and sometimes preferred the company of his feathered friends to that of his own kind. They had preferred his ears to the deafened ones they usually encountered on the sides of human heads. Once the ravens swarmed him as a ship went down with him aboard, saved him from a watery grave, but it was a longshot to claim he summoned them at will.

__________As the sailors returned to their work, Kylas turned away from them and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a brass compass, rested his elbows again along the railing, and held the compass out, over the waves. He flipped back the lid that protected the compass and watched the arrow navigate between the N and the E. Kylas eyed the currents stirring in the sea and the enormous, grey clouds rising along the horizon. He compared them to where the arrow halted.

__________We’re off course, Kylas noted.

__________A raven flew overhead. Kylas clenched his teeth, stashed the compass in his pocket, and gripped the railing. The storm clouds swooped in from the horizon, as if they nipped at the raven’s tailfeathers. The sea roared, as if it raged against the sky. Thunder and lightning answered. Raindrops assaulted the main deck, like bullets. The Larkspur sloshed from side to side between two towering waves. Its hull crashed into the first wave and then the second, like a mouse batted between a cat’s paws. Like blood splattered from each wound that cat’s sharp claws inflicted on that tiny mouse’s hide, boards peeled off the Larkspur with each smack. The first wave washed over Kylas. The collective screams of the Cloaked Hive mercenaries pierced his ears. The second wave flung Kylas into the air, engulfed him, and silenced their screams. The dowsed steel of the railing betrayed Kylas’s grip. The malicious wave snatched him and cast him into the sea.

__________Kylas held his breath and swam upward, but the waves chewed him like so many teeth, thrust him downward. The ravenous sea was determined to swallow him, drop him into its monstrous belly, and digest him.

__________Then defecate me onto the rocks along the shore, Kylas finished. Is this really how I die?

__________He swore he heard a raven screech overhead, though the seawater plugged his ears and deafened him. The waves bashed his head against a green-algae-slimed, barnacle-encrusted boulder. Something rope-like whipped across his ribs, forced him to exhale his stored breath. Water dove into his lungs. A sturdy fishing net drew him from the water. Kylas coughed until he blacked out.

__________Later that day, Kylas’s other senses awoke before his sight. His skin was warm and dry. Smoke from a crackling cookfire wafted into his nostrils, along with the bittersweet aroma of simmering porridge. A pair of feminine voices argued around him in a foreign tongue.

__________After a series of scoffs and sighs, someone slammed a door shut, something that hung from the wall nearby fell onto the floor, and a pair of narrow feet tramped out of earshot. A second pair of narrow feet stomped over to wherever Kylas lay. Two soft hands pressed against his breastbone. Someone gently pressed her forehead to his. Kylas inhaled a deeply feminine scent and long, soft hair fell to the sides of his face. Kylas’s heart raced, and his cheeks reddened. A woman spoke directly to his thoughts, so he might understand the words she spoke.

__________My name is Rokesha. I’m not the best healer. Those who elected me to save you are counting on that, she warned. Be still, son of man, so my hand won’t slip.

__________Suddenly, Kylas’s eyes snapped open. His gaze met Rokesha’s. A warmth stronger than the that of the cookfire filled Kylas’s body. Rokesha leaned back and smiled.

__________The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Kylas acknowledged.

__________Rokesha laughed. She perched along the edge of Kylas’s bed, slid her hands off Kylas’s chest, and stacked her hands atop her thigh.

__________You’ll think differently soon enough, she explained. Affection kindled when your life is saved fades before the life returned to you.

__________Kylas lurched over and grabbed Rokesha’s hands.

__________“Not this time,” he mistakenly said aloud.

__________Embarrassed, Kylas recoiled into his mind. Since Elvish etiquette demanded she award privacy to beings unaccustomed to the melding of minds, Rokesha retreated into her thoughts.

__________She tilted her head to the side and offered Kylas an awkward smile. What had the shipwrecked mortal said to her? His voice was strong and augmented with urgency, but she had not understood a single word. His animated nature appealed to her. It was so unlike that of her kind. She decided she would use her desire to study the stranger as an argument for keeping him around long enough to learn his language and ask him what he had said.