Water is Thicker

Sweat dripped from Calen's forehead as he moved through the sword forms. He dropped from Howling Wolf into Patient Wind, bringing his elbow in tight as he stepped back onto his left foot. The cool wind tussled his hair, nipped at his skin, and rolled over the rail of the ship as the massive wooden vessel ploughed through the water. The setting sun dipped its toes into the horizon, casting a deep orange-red glow across the sky.

The ship lurched, a particularly high wave crashing into its bow. Calen stumbled, but caught himself, pushing his strength through his back leg. He grimaced, pain shooting through the leg and along his spine. It had been ten days since they boarded the ship. Ten days since Alleron and the others had broken them out of the cells in Arisfall. The pain was ebbing away, though it still lingered. It would take weeks for Calen's full strength to return, probably longer. The time spent locked in that cell with little to no food had stripped his body of a large portion of his muscle.

Calen had never been one for ships. He didn't mind them, but if it were up to him, he would spend as little time aboard one as he could. Though he couldn't complain too much: at least he didn't suffer in the way Vaeril had been suffering. The elf had been bedridden since the start of the journey, only surfacing above deck when his vomit bucket was full to the brim.

Deciding that was all the pain he could endure for the day, Calen slid his sword into the brown and green leather scabbard at his hip. With a heavy sigh, he dropped onto a crate that was strapped to the deck by lengths of rope secured through iron loops. His chest heaving, he snatched his waterskin, unscrewed the cap, and took a deep draught. The water felt cool as ice against his wind-chapped lips, soothing his throat as it went down.

Around him, the deck hands scuttled about. Calen found himself holding more than a little jealousy at the way they moved about the ship with ease, their natural gait taking the ship's motion into account. He supposed after years of seafaring life, even his own muscles would carry the same effortless grace.

The clothing choices for those who worked the deck of the ship varied wildly. Some roamed about shirtless, wearing nothing but baggy trousers and thick-soled sailors' shoes, while others wore cloth or linen shirts. Some even wore heavy doublets not dissimilar to Captain Kiron's. For the most part, though, beneath the clothes – or lack thereof – the deckhands looked as though they could all be brothers and sisters. Each had dark, leathered skin stretched over frames of wiry muscle. Even the women held more muscle on their bodies than most men Calen knew, their shoulders rippling as they hoisted themselves up along nets and ropes.

They wore their long, matted hair in a variety of styles: tied up in knots, nestled in bandanas, draped down over their backs. Most of the men looked as though entire summers had passed since they had last shaved their beards. Much like the seafaring folk of Salme, back in the villages, most wore big looping rings and studs of brass in their ears and noses.

Calen's head spun at the sheer variety of tasks that each of them had to perform. Some climbed up ropes and nets, checking their stability with firm tugs, while others carried buckets and mops, slopping sick – mostly Vaeril's – from the deck. One particularly slim man with no shirt on his back strode about the deck, inspecting each of the iron-banded barrels in turn. Calen figured him for the cooper. Both Vars and Lasch Havel had met with plenty of coopers throughout the years and it was not difficult for Calen to tell the practised efficiency with which the man went about his task.

On the other side of the deck, a man and a woman, both shirtless, lounged about, letting the fading sun kiss their already leathered skin. One look at the woman's bare breasts and Calen jerked his head to the side, staring out towards the open water. He was sure his cheeks were glowing red. The woman seemed to care very little that she was completely exposed to the eyes of any man on deck. That did not make Calen's embarrassment any less.

He nearly fell from the crate at the sound of Erik's voice.

"How goes practice?" Erik emerged from a staircase that led below deck, a thick loaf of crusty bread in his hands. He wore a thin cloth shirt and a pair of dark brown trousers tucked into heavy sailor's boots. Erik broke the loaf of bread in half with a snap, tossing one end to Calen.

Calen just about managed to catch the bread; his arms were still heavy from moving through the sword forms.

Erik must have seen something in the way Calen was sitting, because it only took a second for him to start laughing. "What is it with you people raised out in the middle of nowhere? Have you never seen a woman's body before?"

If Calen's cheeks had been glowing red, they were now blazing infernos. He could physically feel the heat radiating from him. "I just… not like that… The women in The Glade always…"

"You're not in The Glade anymore," Erik said, leaning against the rail of the ship, taking a bite out of his half of the bread loaf. "There are all sorts of people in the world, Calen. Do you not find it funny that you have faced down kerathlin and Uraks, yet you shy away from a woman's breasts? Does the man's chest cause you to blush as well?"

"No! I just… leave me alone." Calen took a bite out of the bread, staring out towards the ocean as he chewed it with a fury.

Erik shook his head, still laughing. He pushed Calen's shoulder. "Relax, I'm only teasing you. You will see. The longer you are away from your village, the less these things will cause your cheeks to redden. You village folk are an easy bunch to rattle, I'll tell you that much."

Calen didn't respond. He just kept staring out across the ever-shifting waves, keeping his eyes firmly away from the man and woman lounging on the other side of the ship.

"So," Erik said, a more serious tone entering his voice. "What if we can't find him?"

"What?"

"Rist. What are we going to do if we can't find him? Berona is a big city. We need to be prepared."

"We will find him."

Erik sighed, turning around and resting his arms across the ship's rail, staring out over the water with Calen. "What if we don't, Calen? Or what if he's dead?"

Calen gritted his teeth, feeling his anger begin to bubble, partly fuelled by Valerys in the back of his mind. Calen pushed Valerys's thoughts back, just a bit. Anger seemed to be the emotion Valerys fed into more than any other, and Calen didn't want to lose his temper with Erik. "Then we will deal with that as it comes."

"We need to deal with it now." Erik turned to Calen, his mouth a thin line, his eyes locked with Calen's. "You can't control yourself when it comes to Rist and Dann. I know you know that. And we can't afford for something to go wrong here, or for something to go wrong in the heart of Berona. We'll die, Calen. Promise me, if we can't find any sign of him, or something has happened to him, we will leave."

"I can't just—"

"Promise me, Calen."

"Rist is like my brother, Erik. I can't leave him there. I can't let the empire hurt him. I would rather die."

"I know you would, and that's the problem. What about Dann? Are you going to leave him alone? I need you to use your head, all right? We will do everything we can to find Rist. All I want is for you to understand that might not be possible. We are by your side, Calen. And my father is already going to kill me for letting you run right into the empire's grasp, so please, can we not get ourselves killed?"

Calen couldn't help but laugh at that. He couldn't argue with Erik. Nothing the man had said was even close to wrong, though Calen was loath to admit it. "All right. I promise."

Erik reached over, draping his arm over Calen's shoulder. "Good. Now, eat up. That was actually Tarmon's loaf. He's a big man. It's best we don't leave any trace."