Red Dragon

Episode II Return of the Dragon

Chapter 11 Reunion

Che Sha tied the last of the logs in place. She had been stranded on the island for several weeks waiting for someone to come to her aid. It was now apparent that there wasn’t going to be any rescue, so she had decided to take matters into her own hands.

How Granny Thorn and Uzon had communicated with the mainland she had no idea. She had searched the island for a boat, but there wasn’t one. Finding herself stranded she had made the best of a bad situation. Immediately after killing Granny Thorn and Uzon she had burned the giant’s body by piling driftwood upon it. Uzon was much too heavy for her to place on the pyre so she had buried him in the wood and then added the body of his mother. Granny Thorn’s oil-soaked body burned well and Che Sha had kept adding wood until nothing remained of either of the bodies except a pile of ashes. She had also burned many of the items in the cave home, including the skulls of the young women Uzon had murdered. She had burned them separately performing a Shang prayer ritual as she did so, and had carefully collected the ashes for proper burial. Granny Thorn’s and Uzon’s ashes she left to the wind to eliminate.

Surviving on the island was not difficult. The cave was well stocked with food and all other items necessary for a comfortable existence, and if she had been forced to she would have had little trouble collecting clams, mussels, and crabs. However, there was no way off the island, so she had decided to construct a raft. Although she knew a little about ships, Che Sha’s boatbuilding skills were minimal. She could, however, tie logs together. The problem was that the unwieldy craft would be at the mercy of the wind and waves. Although she had fashioned a crude paddle it would be difficult for her to move the raft if the sea decided to push it in the opposite direction.

But she had little choice. She could not wait on the island forever and so she had built the raft. She had waited until low tide and then had worked feverishly throughout the day assembling it. She made it with about an hour to spare. Placing a cask of water on board along with several days’ food she waited until the tide floated the raft and then pushed off. The receding tide now carried her out to sea. Using her hand-crafted paddle she steered the raft toward the land, hoping that once she cleared the lee of the island the waves would push her toward the mainland.

She had a bout a league to go and for the first part of the voyage things went well. She had crossed about half the distance when the raft was suddenly swept parallel to the coast by a powerful offshore current. There was nothing she could do to fight it and so she just let it take her where it chose. As night closed about her she clung to the raft and hoped that this time nature would be kinder and deposit her on a shore where she might find refuge and perhaps someway to be reunited with her friends.

Vayasha was roused from her exhausted sleep by violent cursing. At first she was too confused for the words to register, but then they slowly filtered into her fogged brain. She became wide awake at once.

“Filthy whores! If I ever catch those silver-haired bitches I’ll skin them alive. But only after I’ve mounted them until they can’t walk.”

Several other voices joined in. Vayasha rolled to her knees and peeked out from the cluster of rocks where she and her sister had sheltered. Her gaze took in the beach. Just thirty paces away was captain Valjo, his red beard wagging as he cursed enthusiastically. But there was more than that. Standing beside him was most of his crew and lying half in and half out of the water was the ship on which she and her sister had been imprisoned. It was considerably the worse for wear, its sails hanging in rags and scarred with the marks of fire. Its bow was buried in the sand, the ship having apparently been deliberately run aground.

She crouched down behind the rocks, thankful that she and her sister had managed to hide themselves. If the pirates had found them…. She shuddered to think what they would have done to her and Shasara. She looked back to her sister and was surprised to discover that Vayasha’s blue eyes were trained on her. They had a strange look, one that she had never seen before, but she seemed alert and the air of defeat seemed to have disappeared.

“Come, my sister,” Vayasha said, taking Shasara’s arm. “We must get away from here before we are discovered.”

To her surprise Shasara pulled hr arm away. “No,” she replied. “I will not run. Those brutes defiled me. They must be punished.”

“But they are too many,” Vayasha protested, “and we have no weapons.”

“We have your knife,” Shasara said, her eyes like steel. “With it we can get more.”

Vayasha shook her head. “This is madness. We must get away and find proper shelter. We need food and water.” She ran her tongue over her parched lips as if to emphasize her point.

“You go,” Shasara said quietly. “I will stay. I have unfinished business.”

One look at her sister’s determined face told Vayasha that she could not talk her out of her stand. She seemed to have undergone some sort of transformation; from a women dishonoured and despairing, to an avenging spirit intent on destroying the men who had soiled her virtue.

“Alright,” acquiesced Vayasha. “We will stay.” It never for a second entered her head that she should leave her sister alone. They would fight together. If one of them died then they would both die. “But could we wait for night before making our move?”

Shasara smiled, but it was a smile devoid of warmth. She nodded. “Night then,” she agreed. “And then we make the pirates pay.”

The crashing of surf alerted Che Sha to the fact that the current that had swept her down the coast had released her. She was being carried toward the shore by the ingoing tide. Unfortunately, it was a moonless night and her only way of detecting the shore was the sound of the waves as they tumbled onto the beach. Readying herself she waited. Suddenly the raft was lifted and then tilted sharply. Clinging desperately to the ropes she held on for dear life as the wave picked up the raft and hurled it toward the beach.

And then suddenly the wave broke, tilting the raft to an impossible angle. Unable to hold on she tumbled into the water realizing as she did so that the overturning raft was likely to come down on her head.

She dove deep, hoping that the raft would overshoot her, but she was so close to shore that she slammed into the sandy bottom. For an instant she almost lost her breath, but although dazed managed to keep her presence of mind. She was, however, now at the mercy of the waves. The backwash dragged her back out and then the next wave picked her up again and hammered her into the shallows once again. This time the breath was knocked out of her. She swallowed water and was dragged out once more, but this time fate intervened on her side. The raft came up under her and with a final rush hurled onto the beach, dumping her unceremoniously onto the wet sand. She lay there, coughing and sputtering for several hundred heartbeats, until finally she revived enough to drag herself out of the surf. Staggering forward, she was about to head directly away from the water, when a glimmer of light caught her eye.

“A campfire,” she thought. It was a long way down the beach, but it promised warmth and human company. She staggered toward it.

Fortunately she was not so stupid as the blunder into the firelight without investigating. It was well that she did not. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled forward so that she could see the people huddled around the fire. They were about as foul a bunch of men as she had ever laid eyes on. “Pirates,” she thought. She shivered. She had almost walked right into their camp. She could imagine how delighted the band of thugs would be to have an attractive young woman stagger out of the darkness. She changed direction and began to crawl toward a line of large boulders at the back of the beach.

Gaining the shelter of the rocks, she got to her feet and then was struck from behind. The blow caught her at the base of her skull. She fell forward onto her knees and then a hand cupped her mouth preventing her from crying out. The blade of a knife touched her throat and she went still, realizing that the slightest move would result in her throat being cut. Then a familiar voice whispered in amazement. “Che Sha!” The knife was removed and the person who had grabbed her took her in her arms.

“Vayasha,” Che Sha murmured. She clasped the Silvani maiden. “Where is Shasara? Where is Sha zhu?”

“I am here,” Shasara’s voice said. “But we know nothing of the Red Dragon.”

Che Sha looked toward the fire. “Why are you here? Those men…”

“We are here because we choose to be,” Shasara said. Her voice was flat and unemotional, but Che Sha sensed there was something wrong. She wished that she could see the Silvani girl’s face. She felt Vayasha’s had close on hers and give it a warning squeeze. She suddenly knew without being told that something terrible had happened. Her mind immediately went to her own ordeal, and knew intuitively that Shasara had experienced something similar.

She looked toward the fire and the figures gathered about it. “I will help,” she said. She removed her zjin ta from her belt.

“Wait,” said Vayasha, “we are weaponless. Our bows were taken from us by the pirates.”

Che Sha nodded. “Then I will get you weapons.” Without another word she crept from the rocks and headed toward the water.

It would actually have been better for one of the Silvani maidens to be doing this, but she judged that Shasara was probably not up to it and it would be better if Vayasha stayed with her sister. However, Che Sha was not entirely unskilled in the art of infiltrating an enemy’s camp. Sha zhu had been trained as an assassin and she had passed on some of her skills to her companions.

Che Sha splashed into the water’s edge. By now the tide was receding, and the height of the waves was reduced. Lying half in and half out of the water she eased herself closer to the ship. In this position she could easily make out the pirates gathered about the campfire. Correspondingly, they would be blinded by the light of their own fire. Slowly she eased closer to the ship until she was in the shadow of its hull. Catching hold of a line trailing into the water she pulled herself up the side until she was level with one of the oar ports and insinuated herself through the opening.

Peering toward the stern she noticed the silhouette of a couple of men against the starlit sky. Confident, however, that she could not be seen in the waist of the ship, she moved toward the stern cabins. With any luck she would find what she wanted there and eliminate two members of the pirate crew at the same time.

Entering the stern cabin she probed around in the dark. In was almost pitch black and she realized that although no one could see her, she couldn’t see anything either. However, she had been on enough ships to find what she needed. Hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the cabin was a lantern. Taking it down she took out flint and steel and struck a light. The lantern had shutters so that she was able to close off most off the light and shine it where she needed it.

She was in the captain’s cabin. She could tell that from the size and the fine furniture. Quickly she scanned the interior. As she had hoped there was a collection of weapons, mostly swords and knives secured in racks on one wall. Then she saw something else, something that confirmed her suspicions about what had happened to Vayasha and Shasara. Secured to one of the racks were two bows and their quivers of arrows. She had seen that design of bow before and knew who its owners had been.

“Scum,” she thought. Somehow Vayasha and Shasara had been captured by the pirates. She could imagine what might have happened to them. Her thought went back to what Uzon had done to her. She wondered if it would have been worse for the two Silvani girls, surrounded by several dozen pirates and perhaps raped by all of them. A wave of anger swept over her, but she kept calm. They would be avenged, beginning with the two men on the deck above her.

Slinging the two bows and quivers over her shoulders she crept from the cabin. She took her two razor edged weapons from her belt and started up the companionway to the stern deck. The two men standing there were so lax that they never even noticed her until she was less than two body lengths away. She killed them before they were even certain of who she was. Then, dropping over the stern of the ship she lowered herself into the water. By now it was no more than waist deep, and holding the bows over her head to prevent the strings from getting wet, she waded away from the ship, and then once more concealed by darkness, moved toward the shore and the hiding place of the two girls.

Vayasha welcomed her into her hiding place. “My bow,” she said, running her hand lovingly over the heavy yew stock. She handed the other to Shasara who took it silently and immediately knocked an arrow to the string. By the distant light of the fire Che Sha could see her deadly determination.

“We will take them from both sides at once,” Vayasha said. “I will move around to the rocks on the other side.”

Shasara said nothing, which Che Sha took as a sign of agreement. “I will go with you,” she said. “The rocks on the other side are closer.”

“Right,” Vayasha said. “Give us five hundred heatbeats,” she said to Shasara.

Boriz Valjo tossed another log onto the fire. He glanced back toward the ship. Tomorrow he and his crew would try to repair the damage the silver-haired bitches had caused. He had no doubt that it was the work of the two women he had captured. Who else could it have been? They had to be witches. Weasel and Gorm had been right. He should have had them both thrown overboard. Unfortunately neither of the two men had survived the fire that had broken out. He had lost a dozen men in that fiasco. Even worse the fire had spread into the part of the hold where the brandy was stored, completely consuming the high alcohol brew. That had led to the loss of half his crew as they had gone stomping off toward the nearest town in search of drink. There was little he could do about it. Part of the pirate creed was the right to join or leave any ship as the crew members saw fit. It was a part of pirate tradition, but one that he found occasionally frustrating. No doubt the lot of them would be dead drunk by now and totally useless for the next few days. He would have one demon of a time refitting his ship.

He spat toward the fire. He was a mite thirsty. He had half a mind to head into town himself. He bent down to pick up another stick of wood to toss onto the fire.

Wwzzzt! The arrow passed so close to his head that the flights brushed his hair. Instinctively he dropped and rolled toward the shelter of a large driftwood log. A scream told him that another of his crew had not been so lucky. Then there were several other screams. The arrows came out of the darkness like an angry swarm of bees. Valjo guessed that his men must be under attack by at least a dozen archers.

“The loot,” he thought. “They’re after the loot.” The last voyage had not been a particularly successful one; nevertheless the ship was loaded down with goods stolen from several victims. It would be worth taking and it was almost certain that was what the attackers were after.

He cursed to himself. Half the crew was missing, leaving the ship poorly defended. The attackers must have seen the men march off and waited until dark. Stupidly he had allowed the crew onto the beach where they could have a fire rather than keeping them on the ship where they would have some defence against a surprise attack.

The arrows were not coming quite as quick and fast now. That was because most of the men who had been standing in the open were dead. Whomever was out there was damned good. Each arrow had been a killing shot. Silhouetted by the fire the crew had made perfect targets.

A scream sounded from the rocks. “Die, pirate scum. You will despoil no more women.”

The scream sent a chill through him. Valjo suddenly realized who was out there. It was the two silver-haired witches. Through some sort of supernatural means they had escaped, killing the men that guarded them and setting fire to his ship. Now, like demons they had come back to take further revenge.

But, he realized, he had captured the two witches before, and that meant they could be captured again. He raised his head and shouted to his men. Those that were still alive in any case. “It’s those whores we captured, boys. Keep low and work your way to the rocks. We’ll flush them out.”

Moving on his belly, Valjo followed his own advice. A number of his man had been killed, but the remainder still heavily outnumbered the two witches. Even if they had somehow found companions he should have more than enough men to flush them out.

Moving into the rocks, he rallied a dozen of his men about him. There were a number of others close by, but they had not dared move from where they lay for fear of receiving a feathered shaft. Not all of the men he had assembled had swords, but they all had knives. It would be enough to deal with the two witches who had ambushed them.

By this time he had determined that the arrows were coming from two different areas of the rocks. One of the witches was right above him and the other was about fifty paces away. He took a knife in each hand and got ready to charge. They would take out the witch closest to them first and deal with the other later.

He opened his mouth to order the attack and then froze. In the light of the fire he picked up a glimmer of steel. He had just a heartbeat to realize that there was a dark figure moving toward him and then he screamed as his guts spilled out of his abdomen. He clutched at his entrails, trying to stuff them back where they belonged. In a red haze he realized that there was considerable screaming all around him and then everything slowly faded as he lost consciousness.

“Burn it,” spat Shasara. “Burn it and the scum who sailed her.”

“It is full of valuable cargo,” Che Sha replied. “Might it not be better to turn it over to the nearby fishing village? The people there would benefit greatly.”

Shasara did not answer, instead turning away. Vayasha looked at Che Sha and nodded. It was more than obvious to Che Sha that Shasara had undergone some sort of ordeal. The normally optimistic and outgoing Silvani maiden was now withdrawn, but given occasional outbursts that revealed her inner turmoil. Considering where Che Sha had found the two girls she was quite sure that she understood what had happened. She and Shasara now had a common experience. Sadly it was not one that either of them would be comfortable talking about.

Vayasha took her arm. “Come, sister,” she said addressing Che Sha by her honorific. “We are best away from here. We still have to find Sha zhu.”

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