Chapter 18 – Behind the Shadows
Chapter 18 – Behind the Shadows
Cafer moved like a shadow through the dark corridors of the ship's lower deck.
Moonlight seeped through the cracks between the planks, casting a misty glow on the damp wooden walls.
Ahead of him... Sabbah.
Merging with the darkness, moving so fast he was nearly invisible.
His back was hunched, his movements a sly, flowing dance.
"I am one of the best at slipping through shadows..."
Cafer thought grimly.
"But this man... he doesn't just blend with the shadows. He becomes the darkness."
He stopped.
His hand reached for his back.
Tomris' bow was cold to the touch — but it pulsed with a heartbeat.
He selected an arrow.
The blood-red feathers gleamed faintly in the dark.
Cafer drew a deep breath.
"Hear me... pierce this darkness."
He drew the bowstring.
The arrow shot forward.
Fvvvvvvvv—
For a brief moment, Sabbah was in his sights.
The arrow was aimed directly at his back —
Ting!
The arrow veered off course mid-flight,
thudding harmlessly into the thick wood of the ship's wall.
Cafer flinched in shock.
Then he saw it.
Something had fallen at his feet.
A spinning top.
He picked it up.
His eyes widened.
It was the same top from earlier that morning — the one the child on deck had dropped.
He looked up.
At the end of the narrow corridor, that same child was standing there.
Smiling.
That same innocent smile.
But something... was wrong.
The child began to shudder.
His eyes turned black, his hair grew long,
his shoulders widened,
his legs reshaped with an eerie elegance.
The child... became a woman.
Her hair fell like an ink-black waterfall down her back.
Her skin was as pale as porcelain.
And her beauty...
was too much for any mortal heart to bear.
The woman took a step forward.
Her whisper sliced through the darkness:
"You shall not reach my master...
shadow of the wolf."
She drew a sealed object from her waist,
and hurled it toward the captain's quarters — where the Sultan stayed.
Then, like mist, she vanished into the shadows.
"Stop!" Cafer lunged forward —
but he was too late.
BOOOOOOM!!!
A deafening explosion rocked the corridor.
The wood cracked, panels flew apart.
The ship's balance shifted violently.
Cafer was thrown against a wall with brutal force.
His ears rang.
The world spun.
The ground slipped away beneath him.
He gasped for air.
Tried to push himself up —
but a searing pain tore through his left leg.
He looked down.
A massive wooden shard, nearly the size of an arrow, was embedded in his thigh.
Blood oozed out, and every movement sent waves of agony through him.
Then he heard a voice:
"Cafer, brother! Cafer!"
He turned.
Balibey emerged from the smoke, sprinting toward him.
Fear twisted his face.