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

may sound, who can say for certain what deeper meaning they may carry. Likely, we are not meant to know, lest it would be solved already and all the five pieces of two gathered.”

“But you’ve seen things . . .” said Chidi. “You have to know.”

The confidence in Marisa’s gaze darkened. “If only what you say were true,” she said quietly. “Again, for all you may think of me, Chidi, I am not all-knowing or seeing. I witness only so far as whoever gives me such dreams allows. The same as can be said for all who receive such visions.”

“Who is giving you these dreams, then?” Chidi asked. “How are they even doing it?”

Marisa smiled ruefully, her mouth opening as if meaning to speak further on the question. Another voice spoke up before she could.

“Bourgeois,” Bryant called down from the captain’s quarters above. “Chidi, get up here. Quick! We got company.”

Company? Chidi wondered. All the way out here?

She had little time to debate anything else, even in her own mind.

Marisa was leaving the table before Bryant had finished calling to them. The mystic Silkie flew up the ladder leading to the upper deck, and she vanished before Chidi could think to question her.

“Chidi!” Bryant called again. “Get up here!”

Chidi started to obey, but hesitated when Allambee began to rouse.

“What is it?” he asked, blinking away the drowse in his eyes. “What is wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Chidi. “There’s someone—”

“Chidi! Up here. Now!”

The urgency in his voice commanded her to obey. Despite Bryant’s continued shouting after her, a coldness surged in Chidi as Allambee looked back at her with similar uncertainty and the question as to why they must hurry. Though her instincts compelled her to stay, curiosity and the need to make sure Allambee was safe won out. “Just stay here,” she said to her younger friend. “For now. I’ll come back once I find out what’s going on.”

“No, Chidi. Wait!”

She heard him call out to her as she ascended to the upper level. Chidi continued on anyway, hurrying into the captain’s quarters to join the others. Their coyote guide and Selkie captain, Girard, was at the wheel, his steely gaze focused on the open stretch of Salt that his ship continued speeding across. Marisa stood silently alongside him, not bothering to acknowledge Chidi as she stepped in to join them.

“Where is Bryant?” Chidi asked.

Girard motioned toward the ceiling. “Went topside,” he mumbled.

Chidi was about to ask why when a spotlight kicked on from above the cabin. The searchlight shot out among the darkness, illuminating the open, empty stretch of unending Salt. Chidi sighted no other sign of a boat in the vicinity. “Bryant yelled down that we had company,” she said.

“We do,” said Girard. “Left them in our wake . . . not that their kind can’t catch up.”

Their kind? Chidi wondered. She looked behind her, and found Allambee coming up from below to join them.

Then, some thirty yards off behind the boat, Chidi witnessed the first of several plumes of sea-spray. Orcs . . . she gulped as the pod exhaled one after the other.

Above them, the spotlight wheeled in the Orcs’ direction as Bryant homed on the incoming pod.

The hairs on Chidi’s arms raised at the pod’s relentless pursuit, their black dorsal fins rising above the surface like a slew of gathered submarines that moved in tandem to make their presence known, only to then vanish below once more a second later.

Allambee touched her on the arm, Chidi startling at the simple gesture. “Chidi . . .” he said. “Why are you frightened?”

Is it so obvious? She wondered, taking him by the arm and leading back to the steps that would take him below. “Allambee, you need to go back down below.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because if the Orcs are really after us, it might not be safe up here.”

Allambee frowned. “If someone means to attack us, then it will not be safe down there either,” he replied easily, standing his ground, despite Chidi’s continued insistence to push him toward the ladder.

“Allambee, please,” said Chidi, the exhales of the approaching pod resounding in her mind even above the roaring boat engines. “Please, just listen to me and go below.”

“No, Chidi,” he said. “If we are in danger, then I will stand with you. I will not leave your side again as I once did with Mr. Zymon when your master Henry came for us.”

“It isn’t Henry chasing us this time,” said Chidi, pointing to the continued, ongoing plumes as the Orc pod kept nearer to the surface in their relentless pace to catch up to the boat. “There’s more than one killer back there hunting us now.”

Allambee smiled. “In my village, I was well known to bring home fresh meat whenever I ranged.” He glanced back at the approaching pod as another wave of sea-spray shot into the air. “If those creatures are to come for us now, they will find a hunter among us also.” His teeth flashed as he patted her on the arm. “But a hunter will need a weapon.”

“A what?” Chidi asked when Allambee left her to descend into the lower cabin. She had the thought to follow him there when Girard’s voice rang out, distracting her.

“Cowboy!” the captain shouted at the ceiling and Bryant atop it. “Get the spotlight to starboard. There’s more out there!”

Chidi winced when Bryant swung the light to the left side instead. The shaft of light cut thought the night, scattering the darkness, illuminating the endless, choppy waves, but revealing little else beyond.

Girard mumbled a response. “Can’t hear us. Bloody fool.”

Or he doesn’t know what direction you were asking him to focus the light on. Chidi thought. She gathered Girard’s assessment correct a moment later when Bryant’s muffled voice shouted over the engine whir. With the Salt crashing around them, his words were dulled and lost to those inside the captain’s cabin.

The Orcs are still out there. Chidi knew, scouting the surrounding water. But where did they go? Squinting, she