Chapter 4 – Part 10

Orphan woke up. It was a nearly novel experience, since he had only lost consciousness a handful of times. A warforged’s handful, as it had only been three times.

It was a warmth in his foot, a sensation of rocking, and then he opened his eyelids (technically semi-organic composite eyesight shaders). He’d been expecting a stone or metal room, a torture chamber back in Ashtakala. He was on a ship. He quickly jumped to his feet, taking in the ambient light – recognizing that it was late afternoon, and that the ship that was adrift in the ocean somewhere.

Ois was sprawled out on the floor, naked. This surprised Orphan, given the little he understood of gender relations. A moment later he took in the electrical burns on her skin – and the stormstalk, wriggling into the room, getting ready to discharge again.

Intuition and instinct flooded through Orphan. In less time than it took for a human’s heart to beat he realized that his senses were sharper than they had been before he passed out. The headband of the Balanced Palm was around his head, no doubt put there by Delegado from the shape of the knot that Orphan could feel. And its power – it boosted him somehow, in a similar way that the monk’s belt that he’d inherited from his sensei did.

His hands were already moving. The shiruken spun through the air. One, two, then three. None were byeshk, but they were sharp enough.

The stormstalk blasted the first shiruken with a bolt, spinning it aside. The next two slashed it to pieces, gouging its eye and slitting the length of its body, releasing a vile mess of orange pus and bright sinewy tubes.

Orphan was ignoring the stormstalk, knowing that it was dead. He crouched next to Ois, checking her breathing and the bloodbeat in her neck.

“Fine,” Ois croaked out. “Just – paralysis.” She coughed, barely able to form words. “Get Delegado.” A swallow. “Hurry.”

The monk nodded, and took off. Delegado could heal, he’d seen the half-orc hold Pienna from the edge of death and bring her back. In a flash he was in the corridor, looking around. To the left, the hallway went to a door that was open a crack, and the warforged made out pots. A galley. Ahead, a cabin door, firmly shut. He could hear Thomas muttering behind it. Thomas was speaking in another language, daelkyr, from the twisted edge to it.

Iron Orphan hesitated. If Thomas was in there, then the warforged should not have killed the stormstalk. The half-daelkyr would die without a symbiont.

Orphan looked back, Ois was lying face down, her back and the backs of her thighs showing blackened, burnt spots. She needed Delegado. What could be done about Thomas, and how the stormstalk had managed to get free, that had to wait.

To the right, a ways down, a cabin door. He was there in a second, door open, and it was empty. It had a knocked-over wash basin, little else.

Farther down the corridor, light, sea sounds.

The warforged bolted. It had been less than seconds since he’d killed the stormstalk. He heard Delegado topside, felt the wood moving strangely.

The deckboards tore upwards, grabbing at him, holding him like a giant wooden fist.