Day 1 of the reign of Setenet Ahit-Kau
Saisummunu was nervous, but he started to get excited. He could sense that feeling in his chest that always arose right before a fight. It was fear, yes, but there was also a large amount of hunger. Hunger for that heady dose of satisfaction that comes after landing a strong blow on your opponent. It was the reason Saisummunu felt like he'd never survive in a palace his whole life; no matter how much he ignored the need, there was no denying he craved violence.
The first bandit who made it on the deck was within slashing range of the captain and right as he was pulling himself onto the boat, sword in his teeth, she cut the bandit across the hand, slashing off his fingers. The man fell, screaming, back into the water. Saisummunu bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Then suddenly Saisummunu and the sailors were surrounded on all sides as eight bandits hopped aboard the ship. Chaos broke out and Saisummunu noticed a broad shouldered man with no hair directly in front of him. Saisummunu engaged the man, eagerly slashing at his chest but missing as the pirate ducked to the left.
The pirate stepped forward with a confident grin, throwing a bold overhand cut, which Saisummunu parried easily and reflexively. The man kept trying to land blows, but as Saisummunu gained his fighting berings he could see the man was slow and clumsy. With that euphoric battle-clarity Saisummunu saw his attacks coming before they were even close to landing. Saisummunu waited till he had tired himself out somewhat, but it was hard to hold himself back.
Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore and as the man sent a thrust toward Saisummunu's abdomen he slided out of the way, grabbing at the man's arm. He brought his knee up to the man's forearm, like he was trying to snap a branch, and felt a sickly crunch. The man's eyes spoke to the red hot pain Saisummunu had inflicted as his sword fell to the ground.
Saisummunu let out a barbaric howl as he threw the man onto the deck and plunged his sword into the bald man's neck. A spray of blood covered his neck and face, going right into his mouth, making him gag and distracting him from one of the pirates coming up behind him.
He felt a whoosh of wind past his ear and turned around to see a lanky man had missed a swing at him. Saisummunu reacted quickly, heaving an angry blow across the man's face. The skinny man staggered back, reaching at his face. Saisummunu panted, smiling at the man whose face was now almost completely concealed in blood. Saisummunu thought he may have cut off the man's nose but he couldn't tell.
Miraculously, the man kept fighting, attempting a thrust which Saisummunu dodged. He was starting to feel cocky and angry. The rush of adrenaline filled his head, making him dizzy. Sasiummunu tried to land a blow, but he was drawing back too far, putting too much energy into the swings, making them easy to predict. Saisummunu got more and more frustrated as the man blocked him again and again.
Suddenly Saisummunu's breath left him. The skinny man had slashed at his chest, cutting a wide gash. He couldn't tell if it was superficial or a serious blow, but he looked down, gasping for air, and saw his own blood spilling onto his sandals. His mind filled with screaming and as he staggered back, looking up and locking eyes with his attacker. This man is better than the last guy, Saisummunu thought, but he's not better than me. The man looked confident; he had mocking eyes and he smiled annoyingly at Saisummunu.
Then a calm came to Saisummunu and, heart racing, his lunged at the lanky man, landing blows on his shoulder and across his thigh. The man fell and Saisummunu kicked his face as hard as he could. Suddenly this man's face was covered with blood too. He tried swinging in retaliation but he was trying to protect his face with his other arm, so he couldn't see and was swinging blindly. Saisummunu didn't let up and as the man tried to pull himself away, he came too close to the boat's edge, lost his balance, and fell off the side.
Saisummunu turned to the rest of the boat, looking for another victim but as he turned to look, he saw that all of the pirates were laying on the deck, covered in blood and motionless, surrounded by panting deckhands. He stood there for a second, muddled and dizzy. His hand reflexively guarded the wound on his chest. As he surveyed the scene he noticed two of the captain's deckhands laid dead on the deck.
The captain raised her sword and yelled triumphantly, to which all of the surviving deckhands replied with another yell. Still grabbing at his wound, Saisummunu fell backwards onto his butt, into a small puddle of a blood river water mixture. He let his head hang a little, feeling a strong wave of fatigue flow over him.
"Are you injured?" The captain asked her three remaining deckhands. Both of them shook their heads. "Okay, you and you go swim to the dock and un-do that net," Panting, she walked down to the bow and, pointing to the other living man besides Saisummunu, said, "And you go check their ships for money and anything valuable." The men dove off the side of the ship and swam over, doing as they were told. "Muno!" she yelled. Saisummunu's head whipped up to look at her as she crouched down to pull up the anchor. "Help me with this!"
Saisummunu grunted as he struggled to stand up, feeling the wound on his chest burn. He went over and, with a lot of effort, helped her pull up the anchor. With each pull on the rope he saw the blood coming out of his wound increase.
"It's Munu, Captain," Saisummunu said between huffs, falling back down onto the deck.
As the captain was wrapping the rope she asked, "What does it matter, Muno, Munu? that can't be your real name, so what does it matter what I call you." She finished wrapping and threw the rope coil onto the deck, around the anchor, and stood with her hands on her hips. She was pretty intimidating standing there in that pose, covered in blood splatter. Saisummunu looked over at the three men working to take down the net and search the boat, then back at her. "Let me see that cut," She asked, crouching down next to him. He lowered his hand so she could look. She inspected it for a second and said, "Well that'll leave a scar, but there shouldn't be any permanent damage. I don't have any clean linen to help you dress it, unfortunately."
"My name is prince Saisummunu," he said quietly, looking her in the eye.
She looked at him blankly.
"The hippo story was true," He said
She sneered at him and turned around.
Saisummunu had to laugh that she still didn't believe him. "Well I'm only telling you because I feel like I have to be honest with someone who I've fought, side by side with," he explained, still laughing.
She moved on to ready the boat in other ways, along with making sure the pirates on the deck were really dead. and the other men came back aboard, the one from the pirate's boat carrying a large purse of silver and a letter on a clay tablet, which he handed to the captain. She paused for a second, reading it.
"They knew we were coming," The captain said, pointing at the tablet "This was a letter from a northern wine supplier to my customer in the capital with an estimate on when we'd get there." She shrugged, throwing the clay into the river and turning back to Saisummunu. "I'll take my sword back," She said, hand open. Saisummunu had forgotten about the sword, which he had dropped to pull up the anchor, but kindly handed it back to her with a respectful head tilt.
The sailors looted and disposed of the bodies into the river and then continued sailing into the afternoon. Saisummunu went back to sitting on his stool, considerably less relaxed than he was before. He eventually came down from the burst of adrenaline and anger that fueled him during the fight, though, leaving him fatigued and aching. The bleeding slowly let up on his cut, proving that it was fairly superficial, but not before almost completely staining his shendyt red. It would scar, making him less desirable to the royal ladies of court.
The journey down the river went on, however, just as peacefully as it had before they met the pirates, but with everyone seeming a bit more tired then they were that morning. One of the sailors grabbed a bucket of river water and began to scrub the blood off the deck. Saisummunu watched him with intensity. He could see tears well up in the corner of his eyes.
"Your deckhands are very good fighters," Saisummunu called from across the ship, still watching the man scrub, "Where did you get them?"
"I bought them in Habeso, from a foreign slave trader. They come from some southern island nation, I don't know which," the captain yelled back, leaning on the rudder shaft.
Saisummunu disdained slavers and slave owners. He also disdained haughty women who thought they were above him. Basically his whole family. No, scratch that, he thought, basically every woman in the empire would be more accurate. He didn't like them, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to change them. He didn't have any silly ideas about resistance like his father. He knew that showing any resistance to social norms was met with strict punishment, and decided it wasn't worth it.
Eventually he closed his eyes and succumbed to his exhaustion. He woke up when the smell of Isitotem hit his nostrils. He opened his eyes to see the city looming upon them: dozens of black columns of smoke rising above a gleaming white clay metropolis. As he sat, staring at the blinding city, he realized that he would have to treasure days of freedom like these, even if some of them did come with the promise of scars and bruises. He was already twenty, and by some miracle he had not yet been gifted off to some lady or foreign nation, but he knew he soon would. And who knew if his lady would be a lover or a prison guard. Chances for a prison guard were stronger.
When they got to the docks of the city, Saisummunu said his goodbye to the captain. He attempted to pay her, but she refused, claiming he earned his fare by killing pirates. He shrugged it off and went on his merry way to the palace, getting quite a few bewildered faces on his way. When he got there, he was surprised the guards didn't recognize him, and were so suspicious of this bloody, tattered man, that he had to pull out his royal seal to prove his identity to be let in. The feast for his cousin's coronation was about to begin but he decided it would probably be better if he skipped the festivities, and he headed straight away to the imperial physician.
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