Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

14. Cry, Birds

22nd of Uirra

The next two days passed without incident. At all. Of any sort. Not even a cloud showed up to mar the sky, and the wind was ridiculously kind. Nature did not deign to give me any extra time to figure out my mess.

We reached Lordstown shortly before noon, and the Captain came ducking down into the hold to inform us that we would be able to leave as soon as the Harbor Master had given his approval.

A few of the women began packing up their things, glad to be leaving these cramped, crowded quarters for solid ground. They talked of eating meals that didn't involve salt-pork or hard biscuits.

Many were doing much the same as I, though, sitting idly on their cots, simply existing while the world spun by around them, with nothing to pack and no one to go home to.

They were lost in their grief.

I was lost in other things.

If I hadn't been on the Galvania, all those people would still be alive. How could I keep on living, now, when so many others were dead? How was that fair? Some of the women were mourning children, but I was still there, breathing anyway. Living anyway. Surviving anyway.

I couldn't even get rid of those stupid papers.

What good was I to anybody?

There was no answer. Only questions continuously coiling through my head.

An hour after we arrived, we were still waiting to leave. Whatever anticipation some of the girls still felt vanished when one of the Midshipmen finally came down to inform us that the Travel Bureau was closed for repairs, and we were to stay aboard until they could find accommodations for us.

There was a stir when one of the women heard Captain Arramy come back aboard. That wasn't as difficult as it might seem, even from below decks. He had a distinctively long, firm stride, as if he did not walk, but rather rolled the world around beneath his feet, and the officer's cabins were located directly over the rear half of the women's quarters in the hold. We knew he was in the map room well before Midshipman Arriankaredes came down again, this time to tell us we would not be going ashore that day. We had been rerouted to the Travel Bureau Holding Center in Porte D'Exalle.

There were groans and sighs of disgust.

I sat on my cot while the girls began unpacking. I wasn't paying any attention. Instead, I was turning over Arri's announcement, puzzled. We really should have been removed to a civilian boat for transport. Even if the Ang was to be commissioned into the Navy, the Navy wasn't tasked with civilian travel. Rescue, yes. Port to port, no.

Odd.

But, odd or not, it wasn't as if any of us could have done anything about it. Whatever the Lordstown Civil Port Authority was doing, we were all bits of collateral stuck under the wheels of bureaucracy. We had to go wherever they wanted us so they could process us back into the system.

23rd of Uirra

We left Lordstown and sailed southeast, veering around the point of the Endevan Peninsula. Another two days went by smoothly, and we made good time, coursing ahead of a brisk landward wind. By the third day we had already passed the halfway point, and the other girls had begun talking about what they would do when they finally got home.

It was almost peaceful. There was nothing to do, nowhere we had to be. There was plenty of food, even fresh fruit. We were allowed to stretch our legs on the deck during the day, slept in relative safety at night, drifting in a sort of silent limbo as we sat about waiting for life to start again. I didn't even bother trying to get the binder. I figured I might as well just enjoy the extra little bit of time before we reached civilization and all my lies caught up with me.