Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

family? Perhaps to find those who own their loved ones, hmm? Maybe even to buy them back?”

Lenny’s grip tightened on the hilts of his daggers for Henry’s every continued word.

“What of those who lucky few who will escape New Pearlaya to seek their fortune elsewhere?” Henry smiled as he turned on Vasili next. He pulled the Sea Lion suit free of the stack and binding that held it in place. Henry knelt and slid the folded suit across the ice. It came to rest at the feet of Tom Weaver. “You will need money for going ashore and traveling there also, Monsieur Weaver,” said Henry. “If you would leave all these skins behind, there will only be more Orcs to come and return them to New Pearlaya after your would-be Selkie rebellion fails again, as all have done before it. Why should we who have survived their cruelty thus far not profit for our losses?”

Tom Weaver scratched at his cheeks. “I wonder, Henry,” he began. “Would you be saying all this if it was your skin stacked and folded up here?”

Henry shrugged. “I would be dead, Monsieur Weaver. What would I care?” His gaze narrowed. “And I would rather know someone put my death to use, rather than leave it for Orcs to profit from.”

Fire burned through Lenny at Henry’s cold manner and ease of speaking. For all the arguments flying through Lenny’s mind in that moment, he verbalized one of them without thinking. “What if it were Chidi’s suit stacked there, Henry?”

Lenny tensed the moment he spat the words.

Henry’s face and colder eyes darkened like he was a Nomad preparing for attack. “Do not talk about my Chidi,” he growled.

“Why not?” Lenny doubled down. “That change things for ya when it comes to these suits here?”

Henry seemed to not deign the question worthy of a response.

Tom Weaver stepped between them. “Dunno who this Chidi is, but Dolan’s right – someone wore these suits once, Henry. They belonged to people.”

“And now they belong to me,” said Henry, looking out over the faces of all those gathered with Lenny and Tom Weaver, speaking to the others instead. “Say rather, they belong to us . . . and to anyone who would improve their fortune and help us to load the suits onto the train.”

You’re gonna help them, right, Lenny thought of his time ashore with Henry and what few stories Chidi had let slip along the way. And I’ll bet those some helpful people will end up dead before we all reach New Pearlaya.

Henry stalked along the front line of his Leper gang, continuing to speak to those gathered alongside Tom and Lenny. “Despite what others say, I am not a selfish man. Anyone here is welcome to share in the rewards with us, if they are willing to work for their share.”

Tom Weaver shook his head. “No one’s working for anything on this,” he insisted. “The suits are staying here, Henry. You take these suits back to New Pearlaya and sell them to some dealer, then it will just be more people who the slavers bring down and force to wear the coat. Just start the whole process over again. So, I’ll say it like this, for you and all those siding with you – either you all come back with us to the train right now to load up the food and supplies . . . or else you’re staying here to rot. Either way, these suits aren’t coming.”

“Or maybe it will be you left to rot in Bouvetøya, Tom Weaver,” said Henry, fingering the end of his own dagger.

Tom cracked his knuckles. “That a threat you and your boys here mean to make good on, Henry?”

“Oui, for I am no so foolish as to leave these riches behind,” Henry Boucher whispered, his stance straightening in defiance of Tom Weaver and all those standing with him. His eyes glinted when the Lepers with him stood taller also, each of them drawing their own blades. “Come then, Monsieur Weaver,” Henry motioned Tom and the rest of those with him forward. “Test us, if you dare . . . and I will make your Orc son an orphan again.”

Lenny tensed when Tom Weaver sprinted forward, and with Henry and his Lepers waiting to meet the charge. Lenny joined in the fray, then, focusing on the nearest Leper who raced to meet him as well. Nearing his opponent, Lenny had barely drawn his daggers when his foe fell back with one of Jemmy T’s cross-bolts embedded in his throat. The momentum of the bolt sent the Leper fumbling backward and off-balance, the larger man flopping to the cavern floor.

Carrying on to the next attacker, Lenny ducked the ensuing swipe meant to cleave off his head. He replied with a sweeping arc of his blade, slicing behind the knee of his new opponent and dropping him to be trampled by the others. Wheeling in search of a new enemy, Lenny saw Brutus driving his own dagger through the face of another Leper.

Grunting, Brutus kicked the dead man away. “Dolan!” he growled at Lenny. “Stand with me!”

Lenny did as he was bid. Where the larger man went, the little man did also, the pair of them working in deadly tandem to take on and end some of the other remaining fighters in the Leper gang.

Throughout the battle, Lenny glimpsed more than a few from his crew felled by the Lepers too. Like Nomads in a blood-induced frenzy, Henry and his Lepers constantly rallied and raged against their fellow Selkies. For a moment, Lenny feared their side was lost when Tom Weaver cried out in pain – caught off guard and nearly stabbed in the back by one of their foes. The blow fell short of its target, however, Tom Weaver’s life saved by Vasili.

The Russian Selkie dove at the fiercer, larger opponent, driving his shoulder into the other’s belly to thwart his aim of slaying Tom Weaver. Though Vasili succeeded in saving his ally,