Witches of the Deep (The Memento Mori Witch Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

T
he morning sunlight
burned her eyes, and her head throbbed. Last night, in an attempt to purge her mind of violent thoughts, she’d downed two cups of blackstrap. It had worked, and she’d fallen into another dreamless sleep.

But now everything seemed bright and hazy, and she had a burning desire to stand on dry land. Instead, she would be training with Lir in the hot morning sun. On the bobbing ship. She chugged another glass of water, desperate to rehydrate.

Each recruit stood on the deck across from the mainsail. Rohan stood to her right, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and a few strings of black beads, his top hat dangling from a hand. To her left, Ives whistled nonchalantly, his blond curls unruffled.

Fiona watched as the Guardians strode across the deck, each gripping a sheathed cutlass. Lir wore a white embroidered shirt, and two brown leather straps crisscrossed over his black trousers. One of them held a second blade in a scabbard.

Pausing a few feet in front of Fiona, Lir bent low, hand on heart, in a bow that she could only assume was sarcastic. She returned the gesture.

Captain Nod, standing beside his hulking Russian trainee, held a sword above his head in one hand. “Today, you begin your training with swords. As much as some of you might enjoy the idea of running a blade through your fellow recruits, these are different. They’ve been treated with a charmed oil, and while you can hurt each other, they will not cause any lasting damage.”

He lowered his sword, drawing the blade along his arm. Wincing, he carved a deep gash. But as soon as he lifted the sword, the wound closed up, leaving only a faint white mark on his arm and a few drops of blood on the steel.

He grinned. “Let the fun begin.”

Fiona shielded her eyes and drained the last drops of water before tucking the cup away in a corner.

When she rose, Lir stood inches from her, leaning against the ledge. “I take it you’re feeling a bit rough.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He rested on his elbow, looking almost bored. “Do you have any idea how to wield a sword?”

She tightened her lips. It would be ridiculous to pretend that she did, but to admit this weakness would be to play right into Lir’s obnoxious assessment of her. “I took a self-defense class. I was very good at it.”

“So you have no idea.” He straightened, pulling the cutlass out of its sheath.

She squinted at the gleaming waves before turning to face him. “Why don’t you use guns?”

“We do, sometimes, but Nod is fond of tradition.” He pointed the cutlass at the mainmast.

“But what do you do with the swords? I mean, who do you fight?”

A sigh escaped him. “We’re pirates. We steal things. And we guard things. Are you ready, or are you going to keep stalling?”

The rolling of the ship was nauseating. “I’m just waiting for you to start.” Through his wide collar, she could see a few scars intermixed with the tattoos on his chest.

He lifted the blade. “Don’t think of it as just a point. Every part of this is a weapon.” He turned it over in his hand. “The hilt can be used to bludgeon someone, and the knuckle guard can be used to break a man’s nose. Since you don’t have physical strength on your side, you’ll need to find your opponent’s weakness and exploit it, however you can.”

He handed her the sword, and she glanced at the silver hilt, decorated with skulls. She gripped it, pointing it at the mainmast.

Lir moved behind her, and he pulled her left arm off the hilt. She felt an unwelcome thrill as his skin brushed hers. “One hand only. Lay your thumb along the side of the blade. Don’t grip it too tight, or it will be useless. It needs to pivot in your hand. Think of it as part of your body, something you can control as nimbly as if you were dancing.”

She shot a quick look at Ostap, the trained dancer. Standing on the port side, he was already flicking his blade like a natural. He had both brute strength and grace, and she stared as he knocked Rohan’s top hat off his head with the tip of his blade. With Godwin gone, she had a feeling Rohan would be the next target.

“Have I lost you?” snapped Lir.

“No.” She blinked, focusing on Lir as he talked her through the footwork, parries, and attacks. Her memory was her greatest asset, but while she could recall each of his instructions, coordinating the movements wasn’t as easy.

In the blazing sun, Lir made her practice the same moves over and over. As the day wore on, her sword arm began to ache. Her upper body wasn’t in as good shape as her legs.

By late afternoon, her right arm burned and her mind buzzed from fatigue. The other recruits had long returned from lunch, and they now laughed and drank rum while Valac played fiddle on the quarterdeck.

Only Fiona’s lesson stretched on, and their laughter began to grate. She had the feeling they were laughing at her.

Lir circled her, watching her cut the air with her blade. “Your fingers are suffocating the hilt. It needs to be flexible in your grip. Again.”

Fiona took a deep breath, trying not to snap at him. She didn’t have the wrist strength for this. He was clearly punishing her for something—for being soft. She loosened her grip on the hilt, parrying.

He stared, arms crossed. “You must maintain control. Again.”

“I’ve got it. I don’t need to keep doing it.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d screwed up.

His green eyes widened, and he took a step closer. “Oh, you’ve got it, have you?”

“I mean, it’s as good as…” she stammered. What she wanted to say was,
Can’t I have a break?
But that would only confirm she was soft.

“As good as it needs to be?” He finished the sentence for her, though it wasn’t what she was going to say. She’d been thinking something more like,
It’s as good as I’ll get today.

Surely she’d already learned as much as the others had. Rohan was only a scholar, after all, and he didn’t seem athletic. “I know it as well as the other recruits.”

He licked his lips. “So you think in a fight between you and Ostap, you’d have a chance.”

She swallowed, unwilling to back down.
Screw it.
Probably going to die on this ship one way or another.
Might as well go out with style.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, she bellowed, “Ostap!”

Valac stopped fiddling, and the other men lowered their pewter cups to stare at her.

Ostap rose, brushing off his trousers. At some point he’d taken off his shirt, and she got a glimpse of the network of tattoos that covered his torso—among them, a coiled snake. “What do you want, little girl? You need a man to take care of you?”

She lifted the sword above her head in one hand. “Care for a duel?”

O
stap grinned
, climbing down the ladder.

Captain Nod jumped from the quarterdeck, entirely bypassing the rungs. “See? I told you Fiona would be fun.” Grinning, he crossed to the mast. “Since these swords won’t kill, the first person to extract a concession is declared the winner.”

That sounds… violent.
It would have been nice if the winner were decided through a careful evaluation of technique instead of a forced surrender, but apparently pirates weren’t big on civil competition.

She turned to Lir, whose lips were pressed together in a tight line. He probably thought she was about to embarrass him.

She ignored him, flicking her eyes to Ostap. The Russian wiped a hand across his damp forehead, and planted his feet near the mainmast.

Fiona approached, pointing the sword at his chest. The sea had grown choppy, and she widened her stance for balance on the shifting deck.

Ostap placed a hand on his hip, lifting the sword with his other. With his long dancer’s limbs, he had a distinct advantage over her. He smirked, flexing his wrist to roll the blade.

The longer she stared at his enormous frame, the more she wanted to take a flying leap off the side of the ship, but she forced herself to stand her ground.

Gritting her teeth, she lunged for him, and their swords clanged. They shifted positions, circling each other before Ostap countered. Retreating to the quarterdeck, she parried, and Ostap’s blade sliced the air near her face with a
whoosh
.

With the stupid smirk on his face, he didn’t even seem like he was trying. After hours of training, Fiona’s sword arm ached, and Ostap drove her toward the wall.

Sensing she was about to be trapped, she faltered, and Ostap’s blade cut her forearm. Pain seared her arm, and she nearly dropped the sword, but the smug look on Ostap’s face tightened her grip. Almost instantly, the wound healed itself, but Ostap struck again, stabbing her shoulder. She gasped at the pain. She was going to lose before she’d even begun.

Her breathing grew ragged.
Maybe Lir is right—maybe I don’t belong here.
Then again, she didn’t belong anywhere.

She spied the quarterdeck’s ladder out of the corner of her eye and climbed two rungs, still facing Ostap. She was striking from a greater height, but Ostap parried the blows with ease. The air filled with the sound of clashing steel and the frenzied jeers of the other recruits.

Lir’s words played through her mind.
Find your opponent’s weakness.
Did Ostap even have a weakness? It didn’t seem that way. Even if he did, she was trapped on the ladder, and her entire body begged for rest.

She struggled for breath as his attacks became more forceful, and she nearly lost control of the sword.
Might be time to retreat.

Scooting up to the top of the ladder, she sprinted across the quarterdeck. She leapt down again from the other side.

Ostap spun round, bounding across the deck. As a dancer, he could cover a lot of ground quickly, but maybe his strength and long limbs were a disadvantage.

She needed to anger him, to catch him off guard. She retreated again, winking at him. “Quite the sob fest you had on the plank the other night. Did someone hurt your feelings?”

His face whitened, and when Fiona feinted, he swung hard—right into the deck. The tip lodged in the wood, and as he moved to pull it out, she seized the chance to push in closer to him. With his long arms, he wouldn’t be able to hit her when she was up close.

Using the hilt like a set of brass knuckles, she punched him in the throat from below. Ostap stumbled back, dropping his sword as his hands flew to his neck. Fiona slashed at his gut, which blazed crimson, and the sight of blood stole her breath. If the sword hadn’t been charmed, that swing would have slaughtered him—and she hadn’t thought twice before thrusting it into his flesh.

For a moment she thought the fight was over, until Ostap hurled himself at her in a graceful twirl, slamming her in the temple with his powerful fist.

Fiona’s world tilted, and the sunlight dimmed.

I
t was
dark by the time her head stopped throbbing, and she sat alone in the galley over a bowl of cold clam chowder. A single candle guttered in the wooden room, casting a wavering orange light around her. The quiet was a luxury.

She didn’t want to be around the other recruits after her disastrous fight. She’d gotten a few blows in, but overall Ostap had dominated, and he’d roundly beaten her at the end. He’d been declared the winner by default when she lost consciousness. She had only herself to blame for picking the fight in the first place. She should have just got on with her training instead of trying to show off.

In her brief time here, she’d puked over the side of the boat, thoroughly irritated her mentor, and lost a fight against another recruit. She wasn’t exactly proving Lir wrong.

When Rohan poked his head in the doorway, she quickly looked away, hoping he’d leave her to eat in peace.

“Mind if I join you?” He no longer wore his hat. Ostap had sliced it to ribbons during practice.

“I was eating alone.”

“I can see that.” Without waiting for her approval, he slunk into the galley and took a seat across from her. His voice was soft, and though he was from Bangladesh, he spoke with a British accent. “Brilliant performance today.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

She stared at him. “Ostap controlled the whole fight. He knocked me unconscious at the end. It was stupid of me to challenge him in the first place.”

Rohan’s brow furrowed. “So why did you?”

“Because Lir said I was soft, and…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too idiotic.
Because my feelings were hurt, and I wanted to show off, and I was sick of training.

“You wanted to prove yourself.”

She had. She’d wanted to prove that she’d be able to slaughter all the witch hunters when the time came. “And I failed.” She threw her spoon into her empty bowl. One of the perks of this galley was that Valac had charmed the dishes to clean themselves.

Rohan ran a finger over his goatee. “I disagree entirely. Had it been a real fight—if those blades hadn’t been charmed—you would have killed him.” He shifted forward in his chair. His dark eyes, lined with kohl, grew intense. “How did you do it? He’s twice your size.”

Fiona let out a long breath. “I insulted him and feinted; got him to overextend his strike. When I was close enough to his body, he was exposed, and he couldn’t get a good hit.”

Rohan studied her, eyes gleaming with admiration. “I like the way you think.”

She somehow doubted Lir was equally impressed, but what difference did that make? The moment he’d met her, he’d already made up his mind that she was worthless.

Rohan leaned in confidentially. “I was watching everyone today. Berold is well trained, but distractible, and Ives is scared of coming near the sword. He’s intelligent, which means he’s been able to avoid fights in the past. Ostap and Berold are more impulsive.”

She tucked the information away for later. “I don’t get Ives. He’s no bigger than I am. How did he end up so chummy with giant thugs?”

“He’s calculating. Watch out for him.”

She cocked her head. “Why are you telling me all this?”

He straightened, and his long hair fell over his shoulders. “The other recruits will come after us. They have little in common with each other, and the only thing uniting them will be their hatred of the real outsiders. We’ll have a better chance at surviving if we work together.”

Rohan was their target right now. She could see why he wanted her help.
But do I really need him?
“They’re mostly ignoring me,” she pointed out.

“Ostap won’t forget your insults so easily. Berold hates women. And Ives will do whatever he must to get ahead.” He slowly twisted a skull ring on his finger. “And you and I both know that as soon as I’m gone, you’ll be the one they go after next.”