On the Hills of Eden

Qingxi readied her fists, raising her guard as the sailor’s footsteps grew closer, the faint amber glow in his bloodshot eyes from the streetlamps below growing brighter by the second. Her eyes fluttered about his stance, searching for gaps in his defence. And soon, she saw it. Blade still firmly stuck in sheath, she closed the distance in between the two of them.

The sailor in turn raised his fists, matching the Chitite’s stride as he leapt back to weave through a left jab and a right hook.

He lunged forward, fist aimed for her shattered headpiece.

And his knee caved. The Chitite had sprung her hind leg forward, propelled by the wind, digging her heel into the sailor’s angled knee. She sent her entire body into the kick, buckling the joint and forcing it against itself as it went from braced to locked to broken.

Reeling from the pain, he stumbled backward on his back leg, hopping in place as he pulled himself from the shock to face the girl again.

A jump, a whirl and a blast of air later, and the sailor found his face slammed into the clay-tiled roof, bone and ceramic shattering against each other as the Chitite swung her shin against his face in a devastating display of martial skill.

And that was that. The sailor moved no longer, his face unrecognisable and his chest still.

Her breathing heavy, she picked up the sailor’s limp body, dragging it along the roof towards where Pallas had left her trail of blood. Throwing his corpse just over the red streak that now painted the white walls of the almshouse, she brought her boot down upon his neck, letting his blood flow alongside Pallas’.

She soon joined the three of them on the ground, Soleiman instructing them on what to do as he and Pallas dragged the cart into position at the very top of the street leading almost directly down to the port.

“When I say ‘right’,” he said as they got onto the cart. “Pallas, you’re going to shoot a little bit of your blood onto the axle of the right front wheel, alright?”

Pallas nodded.

“The rest of us will lean to the right as she does so- and the same goes for when I say ‘left’-”

“Rats!”

They turned to look in shock as Avar crawled out from behind the building, slowly staggering to his feet as though he had been renewed by a second wind.

“Alright go go go!”

Soleiman leaned forward as he sat at the very front of the cart, sending the cart slowly tipping forward. Qingxi and Rumi both sat at each side of the cart, and at the very back of the cart Pallas took a knee so that she could oversee the two front wheels.

Slowly, as Avar called out in rage in the background, the cart picked up speed. A trot at first, but then a canter, and eventually a gallop.

It picked up more and more speed as its wheels strained against the ground, the four of them leaning in unison and the sticky blood Pallas used working in conjunction to give the cart some semblance of control over where it went.

Wood skidded against stone as passersby dodged out of the way, the party’s screams of caution just barely enough to clear the streets in time for their cart to come tumbling through at breakneck speeds.

They heard as Avar’s yells faded into the distance, overtaken by the sound of rushing wind as the lights of the port slowly came into view once again.

“Which ship did the Duke say was ours?”

“I don’t know!”

“Does it really matter? Just grab anything that looks fine, we’re already fugitives anyway!”

“Fugitives?”

Pallas and Qingxi looked at Rumi as she virtually shrunk into her little corner of the cart, face frozen in shock given the fact she had just been chilling in the almshouse mere minutes prior.

“Ah, no, I-I just,” Rumi continued, her words trailing off midway.

“It’s alright,” Qingxi reassured, pausing to lean to the right. “You’re safe now!”

Rumi nodded.

Not so long later, they slid to a grinding halt before the port, Pallas’ blood having completely ground the wheels to a stop. As they hopped out of the cart, a single sailor ran up to them- flustered, out of breath and taken off guard.

“Duke Thosmodeus sent you?”

“Yea-”

“What the hell happened?”

“We got found out.”

The sailor began scampering his way to a small catboat moored nearby, beckoning to them to follow along.

“Okay then, hurry! Hurry!”

He brought them to their vessel, a solidly constructed fishing boat nearly free of blemishes and any form of wear-and-tear. Its singular sail nearly pitch black and essentially invisible against the backdrop of the night.

“In! In!”

He ushered the four of them onboard, looking back and forth at the street they came from.

“There’s a manual in there that’ll teach you how to work the sail- but in short, don’t touch any rope other than the blue one. Use it to change where the sail’s pointing and make sure to keep it facing either port or starboard.”

He paused to look around again, staying silent long enough for the sound of a second cart barrelling down the street towards them to surface.

“Err- uh- read the rest of the manual for when to use the other strings- make sure the sail doesn’t tear- and have a safe journey!” He cut himself off, slicing the rope that held the ship in place before bolting across the pier to slip into the pitch black of the strait’s waters.

“Pull the blue line, he said?” Suleiman asked as he grabbed the hempen cord dyed a deep navy blue.

“Yeah, to the right or to the left,” Qingxi responded. She picked up the manual, desperately flipping to the pages dedicated to sail control.

Pallas held onto the ship’s gunwale, bracing herself against it as she stood tall above the others in anticipation of Avar’s arrival. She faced down the street they had come down by, hyper focused on keeping the Officer from foiling their departure.

Before long, the ship began to lurch forward, accompanied by a low rumble as the wind pooled in the sail’s draft and by Soleiman’s groans as he strained to keep the sail properly oriented.

“Criminals!”

Avar emerged from the street, leaping from his cart as the ship continued to pick up speed, Rumi rushing to help Soleiman with keeping the sail steady as the strait’s calm waves began to break in the face of the catboat’s growing speed.Qingxi squinted her eyes as she scanned the instructions, though they may well have been alien scripture to her given the extensive use of special ship-related terminology even Pallas would’ve been unfamiliar with.

As the Officer rose above the glow of the streetlamps, his form now shrouded by the darkness of the night, Pallas made out only the glimmer of a few shards of silver- shards that very quickly made their way to the ship’s only sail.

“Qingxi! Watch the sail!”

She dropped the manual, tossing it to Soleiman’s side as she squared herself, bending the winds that raced by them into torrents that threw the daggers off course.

Splash! Clink! Thmp!

Two of the daggers missed, but one struck home. Though the damage was not as pronounced as it could’ve been, the sail nevertheless tore slightly in one spot, a slit that grew and spread as the billowing gale forced itself against it.

Pallas backed up, firmly placing herself between Avar and the others as he made his landing- a force great enough to rock the entire boat, kicking its bow well above the waves.

The Officer said nothing as he rose to his full height, two vicious cutlasses having been drawn from his cloak, like the fangs of a serpent ready to strike.

He rushed forward, crossing the blades before slashing outwards, Pallas just barely managing to back out of the way quickly enough to dodge it. He went again and again, following slash up after slash, his attacks devoid of any method or grace, his hunger for blood like that of an animal.

Pallas was able to slip in between his deluge of strikes and stabs, clocking him square in the nose with a punch mean enough to halt his onslaught. She rushed onto him, grabbing his hands in an attempt to wrestle the daggers off of him. She pulled her head back, preparing to slam the ceramic of her helm against the bone of his skull until-

A boot found its way into her chest, slamming against her ribcage and sending her careening backwards.

Qingxi then jumped into the fray, pressing their numerical advantage and going for a blow to the chin.

Avar dodged, slipping out of the way and exploiting the gap in her stance to slash his blades across her armour- though both failed to cut through, having been too shallow.

Qingxi stumbled back slightly, thrown off guard, though she readied her hands again to go in for another.

But he suddenly collapsed backwards, landing on her knees as the bite of the serpent’s fang found itself well into her abdomen.

“Villain!” Pallas cried out, throwing and whiffing a shot to his face. She tried again, failing to hit home as the Officer weaved through shot after shot.

He in turn retaliated, sinking below her guard and rocketing back up, his other blade poised to strike right into her very heart.

Pallas slipped out of the way, throwing her balance to the side in doing so as Avar went for the kill again, this time aiming for her face.

There was a miss, and then another, but with each dodge Avar grew more aggressive, and Pallas felt as though the world had been tilting as she felt gravity pull her to the edge of the boat.

Avar slammed himself into her, her spine straining against the gunwale as she just barely caught his arm before it could sink his fang into her neck.

“Your end, cesspool, will be my beginning,” he snarled, the malevolent heat of his breath flowing across her face.

Pallas’ eyes gleaned over the statement, blood flushing her face as she fumed, nevertheless futile in the face of adversity as she felt the pressure on her spine build the harder she strained.

“Pallas…” Qingxi groaned, struggling to get to her feet before collapsing back down, her blood staining the wooden floor of the catboat a grim red.

The blade cut through the cloth that covered her neck, pressing itself against her beating arteries, until eventually a single bead of blood formed.

And then a trickle, and then a stream.

“Pallas!” she could hear as Soleiman called out.

Pallas’ blood sprayed itself at Avar’s face, coating his eyes and nose and mouth in a viscous, smothering substance that blinded and threatened to choke him out. But the blade kept going deeper.

Until it stopped.

Pallas felt the force leave the blade and the Officer’s arm. And behind the Officer, she saw as Rumi stood behind him, her hands on a dagger driven deep into his back.

Wasting no time, she jumped the opportunity, throwing a fist into his face and cracking his cheekbones open as he stumbled backwards.

Her blood now erupting from her neck in an indescribable fury, she lifted the Officer well above her head, throwing him overboard with nothing more than a splash and the reddening of the waters.

Pallas sat herself down in the corner, a hand on her neck as she tried to stifle the bleeding. Soleiman let the sail be blown by the wind, orienting it forwards and saving it from being torn any further- slowing the ship as a result. Rumi then went to tend to Qingxi’s stab wound, digging through whatever supplies had been stocked on the ship to do so.

“Are you alright, Pallas? Pallas!” Soleiman said, kneeling down before the rest as he put a hand on Pallas’ wound, the bleeding now having stopped completely.

She nodded slowly in response.

The atmosphere felt weak, like the very air had exhausted itself, the winds- while still powerful, now lifeless and empty. Illuminated only by the two lanterns set up at each of the two edges of the catboat, a light they’d have to put out sooner or later, the four of them were but a speck in the strait, an insignificant dot in the greater design of this uncaring world of theirs.

And though they could not see it, too busy tending to their wounds and keeping the sail together, not far before them stood none other than the Phian continent.