Morgan Rice - Night of the Bold

Chaos ensued as the huge Pandesian army began to wake, dozens of its ships aflame, the flames spreading on the steady wind with every passing moment.

Seavig’s men all turned to each other and let out a great cheer.

The battle for Ur had begun.

Merk stood at the bow of the small ship, Lorna beside him, sailing in the black of night up the western coast of Escalon. The Sorrow was still, eerily calm. All that was audible was the gentle splashing of tiny sea creatures jumping alongside the hull. Merk looked down and saw them swimming alongside their ship, following it, lighting up the night with their fluorescent scales as they glowed beneath the water. Merk found himself getting lost in their brilliant colorful patterns, and he felt as if the entire sea were following him.

Once again Merk found himself on a ship with Lorna, and again, he found himself overcome by his feelings for her. He had never truly felt close to anyone in his life, had never taken comfort in anyone’s presence, but with her, it was different. After all, she had saved him back there, in the Bay of Death; without her, he would surely be dead by Vesuvius’s hands. No one had ever saved him before – or even cared about him.

Lorna’s mystery only deepened for Merk when he watched her heal Duncan on his deathbed in Baris. It had been miraculous to watch, and made him wonder even more about her powers. When Duncan had recovered and had asked Lorna to head north, to aid in the battle of Ur, she had selflessly accepted the duty. Merk had insisted on accompanying her, and she had not resisted.

Was it because she liked him? he wondered. Was it because she felt for him as he did her? Or was it only because she needed the company in the pending battle?

“You have barely spoken,” Merk said to her, wanting to break the silence, eager to know more about her, to establish some connection with her.

Lorna glanced at him, and her glowing blue eyes, looking gray in the night, captivated him as always.

“You know we sail into the entire might of the Pandesian fleet,” he added.

She nodded back knowingly, and he was surprised to see her unfazed.

“Yet you are unafraid?” he asked, eager to understand her.

She shook her head, and he could see that she was not. It only deepened her mystery.

“Death has never held fear for me,” she said, her voice as soft and mysterious as the twilight. “Only not living with purpose.”

He wondered.

“But your powers,” he said, needing to know. “With your powers, can you stop an entire army?”

“No,” she admitted. “I cannot.”

His heart sank. He had hoped that she was secretly confident of their victory, yet he could see from her face that she was not. The death sentence awaiting them seemed ever more certain. And yet, as this was where they were needed, neither of them would let their country down.

“Duncan does not need two more bodies to die with him at the Devil’s Gulch,” she replied.

“Would you rather die up here, in the north, in the blackness of the ocean?” he asked.

She smiled.

“Where else would you propose?” she asked.

He shrugged, nervous to say what he was really thinking.

“Maybe…” he began, his voice tremulous, “we can forego this war.”

Lorna turned and stared at him, her eyes widening in surprise, and Merk felt his throat go dry. He wondered if he had gone too far.

“Forego?” she asked.

He hesitated. Then, finally, he summoned the courage.

“Just you and I,” he continued, softly. “Leave. Somewhere…away from all this. After all, what good will two more dead soldiers do in this war?”

“And abandon our homeland?” she asked, and Merk felt himself sinking. Perhaps he had made a mistake to ask.

He shrugged.

“Our homeland has abandoned me many times,” he said. “I care far more about you than I do about it.”

She stared back, and he could see she was grappling with her thoughts, her feelings. He plunged forward, knowing he had gone too far, and it was now or never.

“Not every battle is ours to fight,” he continued, speaking it all in a rush. “I love Escalon. But I love life more. My entire life has been one of shifting loyalties. Most of all, loyalty to myself. To survival. To the highest bidder. I want to live now. Finally, I know what I want from life, and I want to live with you. Let’s get away from all this,” he said, stepping forward and taking her hand. “Let’s be together.”

A long silence fell as she stared back, seemingly stunned. Merk felt his hands shaking in hers; he had never felt so nervous.

Finally, she looked away and removed her hands, and as she did, he was crestfallen. His heart pounded, as he wondered. Had he gone too far in revealing his feelings? What if she did not feel the same for him?

Suddenly, he felt stupid, feeling sure that she did not. He wanted to curl up and die, to be anywhere but on this ship.

Finally, she spoke, her voice soft in the night.

“My father served as king,” she said. “And his father before him. Loyalty to our homeland runs in my blood. I am sorry, Merk. This land, this war, is all I have.”

She still did not speak to his proposal, though, did not speak to her feelings for him and he wondered if he detected anything in her voice.

“And there is nothing that will change your mind?” he asked, tentative. “Not even I?”

She looked away, and he felt foolish.

“You are a fine man,” she said. “Finer than you know. You have done dark deeds in your life, yet I understand you – you have lived a life of survival. I suspect inside you there is a yearning for more, a yearning for a cause. Yet what I have learned is that we survive not by thinking only of ourselves; we survive through our causes . Through looking out for others . Through a purpose bigger than ourselves. That is what it means to be alive. Otherwise, we are not truly living.”

Merk pondered her words as the two of them slipped back into an interminable silence, the only sound that of the splashing of the waters against the hull. The silence engulfed them for hours as they sailed ever north. The wind picked up, sails flapping, adding to the chorus, carrying them into the distance.

Shoulders slumped, Merk retreated into himself, feeling rejected, feeling more baffled by her than ever. Most of all, he felt ashamed. Something in her words had rung true. He had indeed always looked out for himself, for his own survival. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the key to survival had been lying, all this time, somewhere outside of himself.

Yet he felt conflicted. Merk was not scared of dying; he just did not want to die for other people’s causes. He would rather die in his own way, in his own place, his own time. The life of a soldier had never meant anything to him, and Escalon had never looked out for him. Why should he serve it?

Hours passed as the silence grew thicker, the blackness more absolute, the stars shining. Merk found his eyes growing heavy, and he had nearly fell asleep when he heard a soft gasp.

He looked up, eyes heavy with exhaustion, to the water before him. Lorna stood there, gripping the rail, and as Merk saw what she was looking at, he, too, stood up straight. Now he was fully awake.

The picture before him made no sense: there, on the horizon, the sea appeared to be aflame. He looked closely and saw the silhouette of thousands of Pandesian ships surrounding Ur, and saw dozens of these aglow. Men were shouting orders, distant from here, and some ships fired cannons. Chaos and confusion ensued. It appeared the Pandesians were under attack.

“Seavig has begun his attack,” Lorna finally observed, shattering the silence.