Captain’s feet, “Where is he? You still have him don’t you?”
“ She’s alive and well and on the ship.” He motioned them into the common room of the Royal Seastone Inn with a sweep of his arm. “We’ll be sailing out with the tide on the morrow. Enjoy this night’s feast, for it’s all hard biscuits and salted meats for a long while after.”
The torch-lit room was decorated with sail canvas, rope nets, tiller wheels, seashells, and all other sorts of sailing paraphernalia. There were also a few sets of toothy fish jaws mounted on the walls. One was a wide open maw that was big enough for Hyden and Phen to crawl through at the same time. The air was warmer along the coast, so no fire was burning in the hearth. In a corner of the half filled room was a small stage where a harpist prepared his notes and began tuning his instrument with sharp plunking twangs.
“It’s a marsh thresher,” Captain Trant told Phen who was still gaping up at the big set of fish jaws on the wall. “A small one at that.”
Phen grinned at the others with mock terror in his wide open eyes. The serrated teeth in those jaws were as large as his hands. “How big do they get?” Phen asked the Captain.
“Big enough to bite the bottom out of a ship, I’d guess,” the Captain winked at him.
“We’re not going where them threshers live are we?” Oarly asked with genuine alarm in his voice. “It’s bad enough I’ve got to leave the land. Sailing amongst monsters such as that is for birds and fools.”
“Flying is for the birds, Oarly.” Phen said. “We’re sailing, and we’re only going to skirt the southern tip of the marshlands on our way to Salazar Island.”
“Just so,” the Captain agreed with a surprised nod of respect.
“How long will it take us to reach Salazar?” Brady asked, doing his best not to let his eyes linger on the thresher jaws as he passed them.
“More than two weeks, less than three,” the Captain said over his shoulder as he led them through the room. “It’s getting to be true spring now, and might be a storm or two blows at us along the way.”
He stopped them when they reached a long empty table not far from the harpist’s stage. “We’ll lay over at Kahna to fill the water barrels in about a week. You might get some time ashore there if the weather looks questionable.” The Captain looked sharply at Hyden, who was peering back at the entry door.
The door swung open and two finely clad men came in laughing. From behind them, Talon swooped through the opening and glided smoothly across the room to alight on Hyden’s wrist. A woman gasped with fright, and a few men could be heard whispering above the sudden silence that followed. Talon sidestepped his way up Hyden’s arm to the shoulder where he settled in and began preening himself.
They took seats at the table and a pretty lady dressed as a pirate, complete with an eye patch, and mummer’s sword brought out a tall flagon of wine. Hyden stopped her at half full on his and Phen’s goblets and ordered sweet milk for the two of them to come with their courses.
The singer started into a ballad just as hot bread and clam stew came to the tables. The man sang of a sailor who was out chasing treasure, and had left his beautiful lover back at port. There came a time when the sailor had to choose between the treasure and returning to his love. Of course he tried to have them both, and his lover ended up drowning in her own tears.
The wagon master and the commander of the Blacksword escort joined them, along with a senior member of Captain Trant’s crew, who was introduced as Deck Master Biggs. They brought the news that the ship had been loaded. During all this, Oarly put away goblet after goblet of wine but showed no signs of even starting to be intoxicated. He did laugh rather robustly at some things that weren’t that funny, but his speech never slurred and his wit stayed sharp.
They learned that they had suites in the inn for the night, courtesy of Queen Willa herself. Captain Trant told them this after a main course of nut crusted sea ray on a bed of rice that was smothered in mushroom sauce. Hyden was thankful to find this out, for his stomach was starting to roil. Phen was to share a room with him, but the boy wanted to stay and listen to the bard. Brady assured Hyden that Phen would be well supervised, so Hyden let Talon out to hunt, then went upstairs to their rooms to find the privy.
The singer was in the middle of a ditty about a fisherman who filled his boat full of fish and won the love of another captain’s daughter when Hyden’s horrid pain-filled scream cut through the whole place like a fog horn.
“That’d be that bite of cinder pepper coming out,” Oarly bellowed into the hushed awe that filled the common room. The dwarf didn’t care that he was the only one laughing. In fact, it made him laugh all the harder.
Chapter Eight
High King Mikahl, King Jarrek, and General Spyra rode three abreast across the wagon-bridge. Not far behind them came their squires. The Pixie River was running fat and swift through the wreckage that was once the town of Tarn. The river flowed out of the Evermore Forest southward and created the border between the kingdoms of Highwander and Seaward. The wagon bridge was wooden and strong, but not strong enough for two hundred Blacksword soldiers and three hundred archers to just come barreling across. There were a few footbridges as well. The three commanders, Mikahl, Jarrek and Spyra, found an old maple full of spring leaves and sat in the saddle under it conversing as the slow process of crossing the men into Seaward began.
“How far is it to Tip?” Mikahl asked the General. Tip was where they would cross out of Seaward into the kingdom of Valleya.
“A week at this pace.”
Barely half a hundred people were left in Tarn. They stopped rebuilding and planting to watch the procession cross the river. A crier had come through earlier to make sure that the way was clear and that the good folk wouldn’t be terrified. They’d been through enough already. King Broderick and Queen Rachel’s combined army had first attacked Highwander here. The fight had been bloody, and ultimately had only served to add more corpses to Pael’s undead army. Not much was left. Tarn had once been able to boast almost a thousand people, but no more. Those who hadn’t died in the first attack were ridden over when the undead came. The ones who survived were either lucky, or fled the mayhem for the forest. The Highwander city of Plat looked about the same when the procession had passed through the day before yesterday.
“We’re back-tracking the demon-wizard’s path of destruction,” said King Jarrek. “It looks like war tore through here, but something’s missing and I just can’t put a finger on it.”
“The bodies are missing. No grave stones even,” Mikahl said somberly. “Pael raised the dead and marched them to Xwarda to fight us.”
“Seeing this is a powerful reminder of what the people have been put through,” Jarrek mused aloud. “If King Broderick had a lick of sense he would have come to Xwarda so that you wouldn’t show up at his door with all of this fresh on your mind.”
“He’s afraid that Queen Willa will lock him away in her dungeon, I think,” said General Spyra.
“He is a coward. He fled his own castle at Dreen and left his people to face Pael,” Jarrek reminded them. “He ordered the small folk inside the red wall and then fled south to Strond. I think that’s where Brady said he went.”
“Brady is your man, the one who braved the enemy lines to warn them?” asked the General.
“Yes. Targon magicked me and a few others out of Wildermont, but barely,” Jarrek said. “I felt it only right to warn the people of Dreen of what was coming. I ordered Brady to ride to them. He stayed and fought with the Valleyans until the dawn broke and the dead started rising. He knew that I was headed to Xwarda with Targon so he rode ahead of Pael to warn everybody. He ran smack into King Broderick and Queen Rachel’s army at Plat. He was captured, but then escaped. He showed up in Xwarda at the palace gates in the middle of Pael’s attack, bewildered and half starved.”
“The boy’s got heart,” Spyra said.
“Aye,” agreed Mikahl. “Who managed to capture him?”
“Blacksword soldiers, I think,” answered Jarrek. “They thought he was one of King Broderick or Queen Rachel’s spies, I’m sure. I think that was why he was so confused. He was trying to warn them all that the dead were about to attack them, but no one would listen to him. His father was killed when Pael brought down the towers at Castlemont. He and I were fighting just a few hundred yards away.” Jarrek paused a moment picturing it all in his head. “I don’t think I want to talk about it anymore, if you’ll excuse me.” Before Mikahl or the General could
