The Mosque Hill Fortune (The Sons of Masguard, Book One)

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

It had become a game. In the eighteen hours since the ship had gotten underway, McKinley had made five separate attempts to hurl something into the back of Marshall's head, always with whatever was handy (an apple, a can... a hammer), and always without success. Each time, the projectile was caught with ease by Marshall's uncanny awareness. And each time left McKinley a little more baffled than the last.

He'd come to the conclusion that Marshall was, quite simply, a freak.

On one unfortunate occasion, the Kota brothers had tried to join in on the fun only to find themselves knocked to the ground by Ryder, whose condition had significantly improved since the application of Doc Calum's new brew.

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should," she warned them. "Ever."

Following a brief, stunned silence, the three had laughed jovially and agreed to leave the shenanigans to their incorrigible leader who, they happily admitted, brought far more flare to the stunt than they ever could.

"As long as we get to watch!" Lumber joked.

"Ain't no nevermind,"grinned Ormac.

"Mind helpin' a lad up wi' that lovely gloved hand o' yers?" Gil winked.

Between Ryder's temporary friendship with Amelia and Gil's shameless adoration of her, the strong-willed collie was gaining an odd favor with the pirate band. She found their tolerance astonishing, especially considering her clear and intense loathing of their most-revered member, Father Faiz. They argued little when she moved her hammock from the middle to the lower gun deck, nearer to the Negvar crew. Some of them fancied her reason for doing so as a growing fondness for them. Amelia knew better, noting that Ryder hung her hammock between the crews.

She was acting as a shield.

Her suspicion came with good reason, of course. Not even Amelia could be certain whether the Marauder was genuinely amenable to this alliance, or if he was just biding his time. That uncertainty dominated her meditation until she was interrupted by someone sitting bolt upright from the neighboring floorboards.

"Father?" concern creased her features as she came to Faiz's side.

He was drenched in sweat and his fur bristled with a primal tension that made him look far more frightening than a priest ever should.

"What is it?" She put a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. "Was it that same dream?"

He stared at her for the longest time, as though trying to remember her face through a fog. "No," he finally said. "It wasn't something from my past. But it easily could have been, for it was just as bad."

She waited patiently, knowing he might not continue at all.

"It's this mist." He leaned forward, bowing his humble head and staring at the space between his splayed hands. "Something dark lurks within it, something evil. It was... gloating, as though about a terrible crime. As if it had strangled, gored, and killed, and still wasn't satisfied." Hesitantly, he met her eyes. "For all the evil it has done... it isn't finished yet. Not by a long shot."

Amelia drew a deep breath, reading the true meaning behind his words. "You're saying that it is coming for us?"

He did not respond, not right away.

"It's alright," she reassured him. "You can tell me."

He relented, a visible heaviness in his shoulders. "For one of us, yes."

"I see," she nodded. After several very long minutes, she simply grasped his hand and said, "Whatever is to come is what must happen. We will find reason in it, or we will make our own. Either way, life will go on."