The Orion's Daughter : To Lands Beyond

Parley and Purpose

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Chapter Sixteen | Parley and Purpose

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Words could not describe the immense ship currently eclipsing the sun. I thought our ships in the neighborhood ports were massive, but this ship was on a whole other level. Yes, it belonged to giants, but there was a difference between hearing about the ships of the Orion and then seeing them in person.

Steele's shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly beneath my momma and me. I didn't know if that was merely because Steele was a little older or if he was wary and nervous for what was to come. Whatever the reason, I was prepared for nearly every scenario. Sure, I didn't have my emergency bag, but all I needed was my sword and hidden dagger to start problem solving.

My momma reached over and held tightly to my left hand. I assumed it was because she liked the reassurance or that she needed the stability as we sat there perched on Steele's shoulder, but neither of us spoke as we rode up to the Bennevis.

The ocean rocked and churned under the dinghy, feeling a bit like a bucking horse, as Steele stood and followed Wofur's lead in standing and grasping the rope ladder that hung over the edge over the bow of the ship. As Steele grasped the ladder, two of the oarsmen leaned over and held the bottom of the ladder to keep it from twisting and pulling away from the ship.

"Allow us, Ser," they said in almost perfect unison.

Ser? For some reason, I imagined the word capitalized and spelled with an "e" and not an "i," but that was usually reserved for knights and officers.

Wait...

I looked up at Steele, glimpsing only part of his profile, as he kept his keen violet eyes affixed to the top of the ladder and the bow of the ship. An odd sensation crept over me as I braced for each step that he ascended.

Steele told me he was part of the military and that he studied warfare as well as some of the battles and strategies he used, but he never said where he was in the fray. Was he a grunt? A foot soldier? Or was he a knight? An officer?

I gazed up at Steele in awe.

There was still so much I didn't know about him.

I decided to interrogate him about it later. For now, I kept my eyes wide open as Steele finally made it to the top. I glanced down and instantly felt a partial wave of nausea swirl in my gut. I haven't felt something like that in a while, but looking down at the dinghy and the ocean from what was surely a lethal distance made me the slightest bit uneasy.

I didn't let it show though. I swallowed dryly and turned my attention to the deck of the ship.

There was so much to see that I could have spent hours evaluating the scene before me. There were a few dozen deck hands scurrying around this way and that performing different tasks. Some of them were cleaning the deck. Others were checking the rigging. Others were swinging from ropes making sure the sails were being taken care of.

Regardless of what they were doing at the time, the moment Steele stood on the bow, all of them stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him. Silence settled over the ship and nothing but the occasional flapping sound of a tarp being jostled in the wind broke the veil of silence.

It wasn't until the shrill scream of a whistle snapped the crew to attention that anything happened. I turned my eyes to the Captain's quarters and felt my jaw slacken as I spotted someone who I could only assume to be the Captain and the First Mate, but this isn't what caught me by surprise. It was the fact that they were both women.

The Captain, Tanna Aludor, wore a light blue frock coat that was the same shade as the vests of the crew members. She wore a tri-pointed brown leather hat that sat on top of straight black hair that fell right to her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes were that of a predator, ready to strike and sound off a command without hesitation. Her knee-high boots sounded heavy as she strode across the wooden planks toward Steele. Her movements were sure and determined, just like how Steele had taught me to be.