Real Trouble

The pirate held Amaal’s arm so tightly it made her fingers tingle. She squirmed and gave him an angry look until he loosened his grip. She looked at the expressions on the faces of her rescue team and tried to imagine what they were thinking. They appeared casual, even lackadaisical, glancing around as though they hadn’t a care in the world. She wanted to shout at them to take notice of the trouble they were in, to do something. Then, in the next beat, she saw it. True, they were looking around—at potential weapons: a grappling hook, a wooden pulley, a metal rod—and exchanging glances with one another. Amaal watched the rescuer standing nearest the ship’s torch, his face smeared in camouflage, set his gaze on Kalev. When their eyes met, he glanced up at the torch and then down at a pool of pine pitch spilled carelessly across the deck. Kalev blinked, yes, and added with a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, wait.

Kalev waited a long time. To Amaal, it seemed like forever. He waited until the pirates had raised the anchor and lowered their sail. He waited until the pirate ship had pulled free of the lagoon and sailed onto the open sea. He waited until the lookout shouted that he had spotted Elishat’s fleet. Only when the pirates fell into a celebration of whoops and battle cries did Kalev give the nod. The rescuer near the torch grabbed it from its sconce and threw it down. Kalev pulled free of his captor as the torch landed and the pitch ignited in a river of flame that quickly engulfed the deck and started to eat away at the wood. Nunshin jumped out of the way and screamed orders to put out the fire, but no one was listening.

The pirates scrambled to regain control of the prisoners, but Kalev and his team had found their make-shift weapons and were fighting them off. Amaal knew it was now or never. She pulled the flute case from behind her back and held it firmly in her hands. In the chaos, it was hard to tell which were the bad guys. She sneaked up behind one and took a swing, knocking him silly, or so she thought. In the next second, he was coming toward her. She swung again and again to keep him away. On the third swing, the flute flew from her hands and smashed against the ship’s mast. The case opened and the flute spilled out onto the deck. The pirate came closer. Amaal backed away, defenseless. He reached out and closed his fist around her hair. “Gotcha!” he growled through stinking, rotted teeth. All at once, Amaal knew without a doubt that this was Uru’s assailant. Her heart beat hard in her chest as he started to pull her toward him. She told herself to pull away, but she could not move. Suddenly, an awful thump came from behind him, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He let go of her hair, and collapsed in a heap at her feet. Kalev stood there, brandishing a bloody hammer. He grabbed her by the arm and started to lead her away.

Amaal resisted. “My flute!” she shouted, taking a step toward the fire.

The flute’s beautiful silver pipe gleamed behind the inferno. He started to take a step toward it, but the fire was too intense. There was no reaching it now. Kalev fended off the pirates as he pulled her away and handed her over to the rescue team. Amaal grabbed the escape rope and lowered herself overboard, hand over hand, into the cold sea. The last rescuer on board shouted for Kalev to come. At just that moment, the pirate ship’s sail exploded into a gigantic fireball. The blow knocked Kalev onto the deck and engulfed him in flames. He struggled to his feet and stumbled to the ship’s edge. The rescuers below watched in horror as he jumped, blinded and burning, overboard. Beneath the colossal tower of flames, they pulled him to a safe distance. A moment later, the ship listed to port side, away from the rescue team, with a rumble like thunder that shook the water and mystified Amaal until she realized that everything and everyone on the deck was rolling off into the sea. Tondo, imprisoned in the hold, had no hope of survival now. Her flute, truly gone. One pirate managed to surface on their side, his face a twisted mask of desperation. He splashed feebly, gurgling, “Can’t swim. Can’t swim,” until the sea filled his mouth and pulled him under.

Tondo’s ship rolled and groaned and sank as it sucked its last breath. All that was left was a field of small bonfires hanging onto whatever bits of wood and oil continued to float on the water. The night went eerily silent. A seagull appeared, evidently drawn by the firelight. Its shrill keening and hasty departure confirmed what they already knew: the catastrophe had left no survivors of Tondo’s crew.

Kalev’s injuries were ghastly. The fire had burned most of his body. In the salt seawater, he should have been screaming, but he was in blessed shock and made not a sound. They were not in the water long when the man who was holding him signaled to the others that Kalev had died. Amaal burst into tears, and she was not alone. They held him for a while, and though they said nothing, they knew he would not have wanted his body wrapped in burial cloth and fussed over with incense and prayers. He would have wanted to be returned, unbound, like a giant squid or a narwhale or a long-tentacled jellyfish, to the Great Sea that had held him in its arms his whole life. And so, shortly before the sailors from the Phoenix found them clinging to the flotsam of the sunken ship, the rescuers said goodbye to their hero, their friend, their quiet shipmate, and let him go to be carried with the tide.

The fleet sailed on in silence. The horror of seeing a ship, even an enemy ship, burn and sink eclipsed any relief they might have felt that the pirates were finally gone for good. Amaal wanted to close her eyes and keep them closed forever. Her green eyes, the very thing that connected her to the queen, had brought her nothing but a heavy heart. It was a terrible feeling. Kalev had given his life to rescue her. She could never bring him back. If only she had not insisted that they stop to help Tondo. If only she had not hesitated to rescue the flute. It was painful to admit that she was to blame and impossible to hope that her rescue was worthy of his sacrifice. No one came to sit by her. No one tried to ease her muffled weeping. Every passenger on the Phoenix was a solitary island as the fleet headed southward toward the north coast of Libya. At least they had one thing to look forward to: they would land at Atiq within a day or two—or so they thought.

← Chapter 45 | Chapter 47 →