07
❖
“Leah!” Raal cried, waking up. He was sitting exactly where he had been knocked out. He got up as he felt his side. Leah’s cloth was still wrapped around him, though it was soaked in blood. He took it off. The cut was still there, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. He ran to the back of the boat to see Gale controlling the steer. Miro sat against a wall next to him with two bloodstained cloths wrapped around his shoulders.
“Hey, Raal,” Miro said when he noticed him. “Remember when I told you that I wouldn’t let anyone steer my ship? I didn’t consider something like this.”
“Leah,” Raal said, disregarding Miro’s comment. “Where’s Leah?”
Miro and Gale looked at each other. Neither one wanted to answer.
Raal got angry. “Where is she?”
“I’m sorry,” Miro finally told him. “They captured her.”
Raal kicked a plank and put his hands on his head in an apprehensive way. He restlessly walked over to the side of the boat and pushed against the rail. Then he quickly looked back to them. “Where’d they go?”
“They kept going north,” Miro said.
“Then why in Sem’s name are we going east?”
“We need parts for the ship, remember?” Miro answered. “That water dragon did a great deal of damage, and Katu didn’t do so bad wrecking stuff either. So we need to get to Uselles Island and fast. Then we’ll look for Leah.”
Raal stormed over to Miro and swung his fist. He was about to hit Miro in the face but, instead, he hit the wall just a few inches from him.
Raal leaned in. “Why do I not like the sound of your voice right now?” he said to him.
Then, Raal felt cold steel against the back of his neck. Gale had placed the end of his sword there. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Gale calmly said to Raal. “Because I’d have to do something that I’d regret as well.”
Raal tensed up and didn’t move.
“At ease, seafarer,” Miro told Gale.
Gale removed his sword from Raal’s neck. Raal turned his head and looked into Gale’s eyes. They stared at each other with a heart-piercing intensity.
“You were serious,” Raal said to him. “Weren’t you?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Gale responded.
They stared at each other for a while longer. They tightened their grip on their weapons, and their muscles began to contract.
“How far is Uselles Island from here?” Raal asked, keeping his eyes on him.
“About three hours,” Gale told him. “That’s only if we’re high-tailing it.”
“Then, I think you should do us all a favor and put your arse back on that steer so we can hightail it.”
“I will,” Gale told him. “As soon as you let go of your sword.”
Raal stared at him for a moment longer. His grip on his sword became tighter and tighter. Then he loosened it. He put it up against the wall while still keeping his eyes on Gale.
Gale walked back to the steer. “Once we reach Uselles Island,” he said, “we’re going to have to get the boat fixed as quickly as possible and rush out of there. There’s no telling where Katu’s headed.”
Miro nodded. “I know,” he said. “I can’t believe how badly off schedule we are. If we could have taken advantage of that northward wind, we could have been in Ban-U-San by now. As a matter of fact, we’d probably have left Ban-U and heading into the Median. Nothing ever goes right.”
Raal kept his eyes on Gale. He knew that he was in the wrong for lunging at Miro, but he never expected Gale to threaten him like that. “Well,” Raal said, “I guess I’ll just lie here until we get there. I’m sorry about that Miro.”
Miro laughed. “Don’t worry. Everything’s ethical for a man in love.”
“Love?” Raal repeated. “Did I scare you so much that it caused you to lose your common sense? The God of Thieves doesn’t do love.”As he passed Gale, they didn’t even look at each other, but the atmosphere at that moment was cold and malevolent. It was as if a cold wind had blown as soon as they got near each other. Raal continued on to the front of the ship.
***
An hour passed and Raal was still lying on his back eating yan berries that he picked up at Oaka. He was thinking about Gale’s blade against his neck, Leah’s well-being, and how he would justify Katu once he found her. He then spotted a ship. It was a large ship, much bigger than Miro’s and Katu’s put together, by length and width.
“Is that an Auroite’s ship?” Raal asked.
“No,” a crewmember scrubbing the deck with a mop answered from behind him . “It belongs to Trade Runners. They go to different locations and pick up anything that needs to be traded off to other distant locations. It’s quite a cheeky business. It pays well.” He looked up at the approaching ship and then he looked at where it was coming from. “Seems like this one is coming from Uselles Island. I’m not surprised. Uselles is nothing but a big marketplace for people like us.”
“Bandits and pirates, you mean,” Raal said, defining the “us” that he meant.
The crewmember nodded. “And drifters and sell-swords and vagrants . . .” he continued. “The list goes on.”
The gigantic ship started to sail past them, going the opposite direction. Raal looked up at it and noticed a bunch of people in handcuffs on the ship. “Those are people,” Raal pointed out.
The crewmember nodded without even looking up. “Trade Runners trade anything for gleddies,” he said as he continued to mop. “No matter how immoral it may seem. They don’t ask questions. They just do it.”
As the ship continued passing them, Raal noticed someone on it that he recognized. It was Leah! She came closer and closer. Her back was turned. Raal started to scream out her name until she turned around. He then realized that it wasn’t Leah. This woman looked exactly like her but perhaps two decades older. Then Raal gasped. No, of course, it wasn’t Leah. It was her. The one they set out to look for. It was Leah’s mother!
After a while, she noticed Raal too, but she couldn’t say anything either. All they did was stare at each other, shocked. They stared until the boats completely passed and they were no longer able to see each other’s eyes. Then, Raal quickly ran to Miro.
“Miro!” Raal cried. “Miro!”
Miro jumped. “What? What is it?” he asked.
“One of the women on that ship was . . .” Raal couldn’t finish the sentence, he was so shocked.
“What? Spit it out!” Miro cried.
“Was Leah’s mom!” Raal finished.
Miro and Gale gasped with surprise. “Whoa!” Miro exclaimed. “Leah’s mom! What are the chances of seeing her! The Atlohs probably went to Uselles and traded their captives.”
“Well, aren’t you going to go back and get her?” Raal asked.
“Of course not.” Miro said. “Didn’t you hear what I was telling you about our ship? One more major attack and we’ll sink. We need to repair the ship before we do anything.”
Raal understood, but he was still frustrated. It was a perfect chance to save Leah’s mom. He looked up at Gale, who was looking back at him.
“You have something to say?” Raal asked, giving him a smug look.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Gale said, “I traded my grandmother off to one of those Trade Runners.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why would you not?”
They stared at each other in silence. Then, they both started laughing hysterically. “You’re a funny one, Gale,” Raal said, trying to hold back tears of laughter. “You make some of the most insane jokes.”
Gale wiped away tears as well. “I know,” he said with a chuckle. “But I wasn’t joking.”
They stopped laughing, and Raal and Miro looked at Gale, who looked back at them. Then they couldn’t help it. They laughed again, even louder. If anyone could change the atmosphere and lower the level of depression and animosity on that ship, it was Gale. Raal let go of his built-up aggression toward him and laughed through his anxiety to find Leah.
Even though Gale had the notion to take Raal out, it was for the sake of his beloved captain. Loyalty like that is not something that one should hate. Gale’s blade on Raal’s neck didn’t eliminate the trust between them. It caused Raal to have even more trust in Gale than before. From that day forward, Raal and Gale gained a bittersweet friendship that was built upon the unwavering rock of faith and their mutual trust.
Raal was glad that Leah wasn’t there. If she were the one who saw her mother on that ship, she and Gale probably would have killed each other.