Flint grumbled something unintelligible.
Their little cove was sheltered by a horn of rocks. Beyond that, the dark and forbidding Blood Sea stretched to the horizon. Light from the two moons, Lunitari and Solinari, speckled the black water with silver. They could hear nothing but the crash of surf and the lapping of waves.
For hours, Tanis and Flint waited for Kirsig, shivering. At one point, thinking Flint hadn't said anything in a long while, Tanis looked over and realized that the bone-weary dwarf had fallen asleep as well, sitting up against a rock with his broken leg stretched out in front of him. With a sigh, Tanis settled in for the night watch.
It was an hour or so before dawn when Tanis caught sight of a small craft wending its way across the cove. Kirsig was sitting on one of the forward seats, but someone else was pulling the oars. Tanis roused Flint and Raistlin.
As the boat pulled up next to them, Kirsig jumped out, followed by the other occupant of the boat, a tall, well-proportioned black-skinned man with a gleaming bald pate. He was bare-chested, wearing only a thick breech-cloth and high-strapped sandals. A fine bone necklace curved around his muscular neck, and a small jeweled knife hung from a loop on his waist.
'I'm sorry I took so long,' explained Kirsig hurriedly. 'I had to go to town and hunt up Nugetre. Then I had to pack my things…' Suddenly she stopped and stared, wide-eyed. 'Garsh, what happened to the pretty dwarf!'
She rushed over to Flint, who remained sitting against the rock, and knelt down to examine his leg solicitously. The dwarf scowled.
The one called Nugetre was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at Tanis and Raistlin, grinning as he sized them up.
'Kirsig…' began Tanis.
'What do you mean, you had to pack your things?' Raistlin asked Kirsig pointedly.
The female half-ogre turned to Raistlin. 'Well,' she huffed, 'I had to kill one of the ogre guards. I couldn't very well stay there, could I? So I'm coming with you!'
'But-but-' stammered Raistlin.
'A woman on such a voyage?' Tanis said.
'If you ask me-' began Flint.
Nugetre silenced them all with an outburst of loud, lusty laughter.
After a long pause, Tanis asked Kirsig, 'What does he find so funny?'
'What I find funny, half-elf,' said Nugetre, eyeing the three of them scornfully, 'is that more than half of my crew are female. And they meet the standards I set just as well as the men do.'
'I've known Nugetre for years,' said Kirsig hastily. 'He used to buy food from my father to take on his crossings. He's one or the best seamen around and is willing to take us across the Blood Sea.'
'For a fee,' reminded Nugetre, wagging a finger at the female half-ogre.
'Besides,' added Kirsig enthusiastically, 'you're going to need some help with this dwarf… medical help, I mean. I've picked up a few tricks over the years. They won't cure the plague, but they should lessen the pain and speed the healing of that broken leg.'
Flint looked helplessly at Tanis and Raistlin. Tanis and Raistlin looked at each other.
'Okay,' Tanis said resignedly.
Kirsig and the three companions all squeezed into the boat, and the muscular Nugetre began to row with an easy rhythm. Within minutes, they were out of the cove and hundreds of yards from shore. They could barely glimpse the shadowy shape of Ogrebond atop the steep, rocky hill.
A pale rosy light had begun to show in the sky as they reached Nugetre's ship.
Chapter 8
Something grabbed At Sturm. Weakly the Solamnic looked up, his vision blurry. He felt himself being lifted.
The next thing he knew, as if experiencing it through a haze, Sturm was lying in the bottom of a small wooden boat alongside Caramon. His friend's clothes hung on him in tatters; encrusted sores and bruises covered his body. What skin remained intact had been baked a deep bronze-red by the sun. Sturm stared at the young warrior, whose eyes remained closed. With relief, the young knight noted that his companion breathed steadily. Then Sturm, too, passed out.
A gnarled old fisherman named Lazaril had scooped them out of the sea, cut their bonds, and dumped them into his boat.
Now the fisherman, bent and wiry, regarded them, his hand on his chin, thinking. Lazaril had been hoping to catch a stringer of eels this morning to sell later in the day at the open market in Atossa, a city on the north coast of Mithas. But if he worked it right, these two humans would fetch more than a dozen stringers of eels.
They looked terrible, though-possibly near death. He ought to clean them up as best he could. He took off his leather vest and put it on the smaller one, whose shirt had been torn off. And he made an effort to wash their faces and rinse their wounds. They had a good many of them, but Lazaril could fix them up. They were in no condition to resist. Perhaps their ship had sunk or been raided by pirates. That was unlucky for them, but a lucky break for Lazaril.
The two companions woke up briefly, choking when Lazaril poured some spring water down their gullets, then force-fed them some dried fish. The larger one, the first one he had fished out of the sea, looked up at him with questioning eyes, swallowing hungrily but dazedly before once again losing consciousness. The other one seemed in worse shape. Lazaril couldn't get more than a few bites down his throat.
Working quickly, the fisherman did some hurried, makeshift mending of their clothes and daubed their skin with a folk balm to soothe the blistering. A little touch here, a little remedy there, and the two half-drowned humans looked almost normal. Well, not quite, but almost.
'You're missing your true calling, Lazaril,' the old fisherman said to himself admiringly, chuckling. 'You should have been a practitioner of the healing arts.'
The fisherman grabbed the oars and pulled strongly, making headway against the slight wind, and within an hour, the boat came into view of the small harbor of Atossa.
Neither of the two companions had regained consciousness. That would be too much to expect. As they approached the harbor Lazaril pulled a tarpaulin over the two unconscious figures so that none of his competitors would spot his unusual cargo. On the main pier, the old fisherman spotted a ragamuffin and gave the boy a copper to run and find the minotaur who served as harbormaster.
The small harbor bustled with trade and activity. Human pirates and mercenary brigands rubbed shoulders with the hulking beast-men who ruled the island. Pitiful slaves-mostly human, but a smattering of other races as well-shouldered cargo, watched over by minotaurs who strode the docks imperiously and, when the slightest occasion warranted, wielded their whips viciously.
A strapping minotaur with fierce eyes and jutting horns came marching up the boardwalk, the ragamuffin behind him hurrying to keep up. Lazaril gave the boy his copper and shooed him away officiously. The minotaur folded his arms and waited, a stern, impatient look on his bestial visage. Lazaril gave him a sly, toothy grin.
Lazaril knew this one by sight, although until now he had always been anxious to give the harbormaster of Atossa wide berth. This was Vigila, appointed by the king himself. All fishermen, and any other harbor regulars, knew him for his brutality and iron command of the small harbor. It was he who dispensed justice on the docks, collected the king's tithe-keeping a portion for himself-and maintained the necessary quota of slaves. It was with him that Lazaril must bargain.
With a modest flourish, the fisherman pulled aside the tarpaulin, revealing the two humans. He looked up at Vigila expectantly.
'What?' asked Vigila, sneering. 'You have caught a couple of human carp, old fisherman. Of what interest are they to me?'
