Imperfect Justice

Red Marigold Dressed (Part 2)

I found my way after the Musarsk Shipping Company murdered my family and destroyed my home. There was nowhere else to go as the rest of the village burned. Erased from the map. What little remained was covered in scars. A crushing defeat under marching orders.

I did what needed to be done.

Survive.

Earth is uneven at the best of times. There was a path through the sea. Some official noise spewed from the mouth on one of their traitorous soldiers. I stabbed him with no hesitation. Many soon followed.

His kind paid mine no mercy.

I repaid the courtesy.

My name grew into a mythos for those on that coast. Islands and treasures meant nothing to me. That was why they failed to capture Zerah the Salamander.

Until the day I heard something new.

“The gravity anomaly is just a calculation error!” My latest victim shouted at me as his blood pooled in the wet sand. High tide. I would commandeer his captain’s boat and command the crew. “Something about the surface! That’s all it is!”

“What’s hiding in the shadows?” I raised my blade. I needed to sharpen it.

“What?” His voice was raspy as life left his veins. “You can’t see anything out there! You’ll never even notice…”

“And yet you cite the differences in what is observed and what is theorized?” I raised my other hand and looked down the barrel. Traitors are of little use. I shot him dead and left him where he lay.

Against the rocks where his body would be surely swept away by waves.

The way the water reached his neck reminded me I needed to get moving or I’d miss the right winds and weather.