Humans

Nathan frowned at the sight of the thunderstorm brewing ahead, the falling rain beating down on him. For the past week Durden had been uncomfortable. Something about the air, he had said. Something wrong. He'd claimed he could feel fear in it.

For ten thousand marks Nathan had ignored it. He believed his souled employee but couldn't bring himself to refuse to go further. When Seth's uncle had returned below deck this evening, Durden had begged him to turn around.

"It's ten fucking thousand marks, Durd," he'd complained. "I can't just turn back. Especially after coming this far."

"Our lives are not worth ten thousand marks, Captain," Durden had answered.

"We won't die."

Durden's response had been a disgusted scoff. "You say this because you do not feel it. We will all die, and you won't be alive to feel the guilt."

Looking at the growing thunderstorm and the rumble in the water, he should've turned back. The power of money, he thought.

"ALL HANDS ON DECK!" he roared as they got closer, the storms growing violence raging on the banks of catastrophe.

He was the captain. It was his duty to ensure they survived. So he would steer this pathetic ship and direct his crew to the best of his abilities.

Not too far ahead of him, Skinny Pete scaled the main mast, dragging their sails, guiding them with naught but his flying body and perfected hands. They would need it to survive.

As his men ran around putting everything they would need to survive in place, Seth's uncle returned to the deck. Nathan liked the young boy but never could bring himself to like his uncle. Now, as dread grabbed him by the spine like a railway groper, he knew why.

Rain pelted the man as he came on deck, but he acted nothing like a man standing at the edge of a thunderstorm. There was neither worry nor fear in his form and he stood straight like a man about to scold a child. Off to the side, Durden had stopped whatever he was doing. He turned to the man as though drawn by something and froze.

Nathan knew why.

Seth's uncle stood in the dark rainy night, clad in nothing but a cassock blacker than any night Nathan had seen. It reminded Nathan that everything was a prey to something as fear licked his cheek.

No normal person carries ten thousand marks in cash, he told himself, knowing that hindsight was always perfect. A priest on their ship was a captain's worse nightmare. No ship was known to come back from it.

Mine will be the first, he smirked darkly.

Durden took a cautious step in the priest's direction, and from this distance Nathan saw the man's muscles tighten beneath his blue shirt. He'd seen Durden in this state on different occasions. Once had been when the Baron's men had tried to take their cargo violently and without justification. Two peak silver soul mages had died in the scuttle at Durden's hands. He'd smashed one into the concrete they'd stood on and crushed the other's head between his hands. They'd been arrested but let free when it was proven as an act of self-defense, regardless of how violent.

There was a deeply dark mystery hidden in the mage's past, and he knew the man was running from something. Why else would a mage as strong as him choose to come under his poor employ. But he'd never asked and was never told.

Seth's uncle simply looked at Durden before returning his attention to the thundering clouds ahead. He'd afforded him the attention one would afford a tossed pebble; a simple distraction where soul mages always displayed caution.

Priests were truly built different.

Durden took another step closer. There was a preparation in this one and Nathan knew a third step would begin a battle capable of damaging his ship. If there was one thing he knew, it was that a wrecked ship would not survive this storm. He was about to speak, hoping he had enough vocal strength to cut through the thundering sound of rain against wood and metal, and ease the impending violence into a negotiation of any sort, when the priest spoke.

His eyes did not leave the thundering clouds as he did.

"It would seem our time together has come to an end."

The man's voice cut through the noise with silent authority, unstrained and unbothered. He did not look at anyone as he spoke, merely kept his eyes on the sky, unfazed by the brewing storm.

In a sudden burst of audacity, Nathan replied, his words different from what he had intended. "If we survive this, you're paying double."

Seth's uncle looked at him, finally taking his gaze from the thundering clouds, and smiled sadly. "None of you will survive this."

His words had barely left his mouth when Durden crossed the distance. The ground broke where he had been standing, shattered by the force of his dash, and he closed the distance between him and the priest in the blink of an eye.

Durden would buy them time. Time for what, Nathan didn't know. But something could happen in the time he could hold off a priest. Perhaps it would be enough for him to squeeze out a few shots at the priest. After all, all he needed was for one shot to make contact and victory would not be so imaginary.

Then the strangest thing happened.

One moment Durden was attacking, and the next he fell face down, dead at the man's feet, blood pooling from beneath his face. The priest's attention never left Nathan.

"Like I said," he repeated solemnly, "None of you will survive this."

Nathan staggered back in as much shock as surprise. It cost him precious moments but his mind didn't focus on it. He reached for the makeshift cabinet beside the massive wheel and took out a hand gun. Through all of this, the priest watched him.

Nathan didn't check if the weapon was loaded, knowing it had been a while since he'd last fired it. It meant there were still bullets left in the magazine. If they were enough to kill the priest, was a different subject entirely. One he felt no inclination to ponder on.

Durden's death plunged the ship into another form of activity.

Guns were not very difficult to come by, and every member of the crew had one, even old Benton who couldn't aim for shit had one. However, while every crew member with one pulled theirs out, ignoring the potential death of a thunderstorm to ward off the immediate one of a present priest, Nathan knew they had no bullets truly capable of hurting a soul mage of gold authority—because that was what he had to be to defeat Durden.

Only reia bullets would hurt a man such as this.

Unfortunately, reia bullets were rare. The control the government and the Barons had over them made the little smuggled into the hands of those not of soul magic horrendously expensive. It made Nathan the only one with them on his ship.

And without preamble or hesitation, the ship broke out in a blaze of gun fire.

.............

Jabari kept his attention on the sky beyond. To any who watched, he would've been an artist watching his muse, thinking how best to capture its beauty. But he wasn't. His irises vibrated in place as he catalogued everything. He watched lightning and destruction aura gather in the heart of the storm, like a nest of snakes to a prey. None on the ship would survive this. They were a sufficient distance from the storm yet he could feel the fear aura all around him.

Even from so far out, he pondered, knowing only one specie with an aura this strongly fused with fear.

Somewhere to his side a man cycled his reia. The action disturbed the ambient reia mildly and he turned to him. The man was called Durden, if he remembered correctly. He had paid the man no attention since boarding the ship but knew he was no more than a beginner in the authority of gold. As a Gold he held no power when compared to the man from the Academy he had killed when procuring Seth, so attention would be wasted on him.

He turned his attention from the momentary distraction to inform Nathan of his inevitable fate. The ship would crumble from a single strike. It didn't matter from whence it came. And nothing the skinny man playing with ropes and sails, flying about like trash in the wind, could do would save them. If they survived the first strike by some stroke of luck, the second would end them comfortably.

"It would seem our time together has come to an end," he said to the captain amidst the noise of falling rain and crashing waves.

A moment after, Nathan spoke in response. His voice quavered with every word but he tried at confidence with each one even as he failed. "If we survive this, you're paying double."

The poor man.

His ability to think of survival was hopeful, at best.

Jabari was not one to leave any with false hope. The life he led did not allow it. The least he could do was look the man in the eye as he told him his fate. So he did. And with a sad smile he said, "None of you will survive this."

Durden charged him as if triggered by the words. Reia suffused the man's skin, lending inhuman power to his muscles as was a realm achievable only to soul mages. The burst of unnatural power created a hole in the deck as he crossed the distance. Fist cocked back in a blow lent power by reia and velocity, the man struck.

Jabari understood the man's actions and gave him a painless death. With naught but a thought, he brought it swiftly.

Die.

Durden's heart gave out inside him. The reia coursing through his reia channels and existent in every fiber of him simply seized.

Durden died before he hit the deck.

Through it all, he'd watched the fear on the captain's face and knew he would end up doing the storms job for it. And in the space of a breath, countless guns took aim at him.

Humans, he thought, pleased. They were a commendable specie. They were a race that sought the hope of survival even in the hands of despair.

He would do them the honor of crushing their hope very thoroughly.

The first shot rang out and sent the ship into a frenzy of gun fire.