Jedit Ojanen saved Whistledove's life by brushing half a dozen coasters aside and scooping the brownie from the floor where she was in danger of being crushed under churning feet. The feisty fighter had tears of rage in her big eyes and her rapier out ready to sting. Jedit took it away and stuck it into a ceiling beam like a needle.
Above the noise, while flicking aside fists and daggers,
Jedit said, 'Adira desires we not kill. Do you know why we fight at all?'
'Eh? Let me go! I want to hurt the bigfoots!'
Whistledove leaned from Jedit's arms and snagged a woman's ear to bite it. Jedit jostled her loose.
Whistledove panted, 'What's wrong with you?'
Jedit asked himself the same question, not realizing he was immune to the prejudice-invoking charm blown about the room by Johan's hired agent. In fact, the tiger-man was the only being in the room not outraged. With wry bemusement he watched humans shout and mill and brawl, unsure if this was normal behavior. He decided to ask Adira for guidance, so flipped the brownie across his shoulders like a sheep, then waded through the mob.
A double drumming pricked Jedit's ears. The two centaurs galloped headlong down the room, heads ducked below the beams and heedless that they trampled fallen coasters. The dark-furred horse-men bore bruises and gashes from their scrap with the tiger not twelve hours past. Whether they were ensorcelled by the prejudice charm or just hung over didn't matter much, for they raced at Jedit with murder rimming their round black eyes. Weapons jingled from their harnesses, but they rushed with giant, four-fingered hands outstretched as if to tear the tiger between them like a chicken.
One bellowed as he charged, 'Meat eater! This time we'll break your back and stomp your limbs to pulp!'
Whistledove bleated and leaped onto a ceiling beam. Jedit made no move except to push some coasters aside, then lazily half-turned and dropped one paw behind his hip.
As the centaurs thundered within arm's length, the tiger draxvled, 'Pull dung carts, you cud cutters.' He swung.
A fist big as a smoked ham whistled through the air and walloped the first centaur alongside his long jaw. Bones shattered as the horse-man was hoisted off all four hooves to crash into his partner. The building shook like an earthquake as tons of horse-human flesh crashed to the floor. Jedit overstepped the kicking, groaning tangle to again seek Adira Strongheart.
Swamped by brawling bodies, Jasmine the druid, never comfortable indoors, found herself stranded as a fish out of water. Desperately she ran down her mental list of spells. Nothing seemed useful. Cowering between the howling Murdoch and Virgil, Jasmine noted the Circle was being overrun by baymen with more spilling in the door. On such a bright morning, she thought, half the town might attack them…
'But we sit by the ocean!' she caroled alone.
Casting amid surging bodies, Jasmine ducked under Virgil's arms as he throttled a dwarf and splashed her hands in beer spilled on the floor. Rising to a crouch, Jasmine flicked her wet fingers at the ceiling three times, each time chanting, 'Sav-be-gol, lav-be-nol, tel-be-tolloh!'
Nothing happened. The druid strained her eyes and wracked her brain, wondering how she'd flubbed the incantation. Then, slowly, the wooden ceiling was obscured. A cloud grew, mushrooming across the ceiling, then billowing downward. Jasmine grinned when the first wetness kissed her face. Already she couldn't see the tavern door. A few coasters noticed too. One shrieked in fright. Some raced out the mist-filled doorway.
Adira Strongheart wondered if she'd been thumped and rendered half-blind. Fog clung about her head. Even her own crew seemed ghostly just a few feet off. Cool air soothed her fiery brow and flushed away the last of the prejudice-invoking charm. The pirate queen could think clearly. Funny, though, that a fog should roll in at mid- morning.
A pair of beefy coasters still pressed Adira, one fencing with a long knife and the other plying a stool. Tired of fighting, Adira feared she must kill the coasters to stop them. Feigning a stumble, she lured the stool wielder close, then flicked her blade past the wood to pink his arm. As he yelped and dropped the stool, Adira caught and reversed it just in time to block the other's dagger. As the point thun-ked in wood, Adira twisted and plucked the weapon away. Two quick thumps with the stool laid the coasters at her feet.
Fog blanketed the room from end to end. Adira's breath frosted, and the clammy touch chilled her heated bosom. Only a dozen people were even in sight.
Huffing, dappled with dew, Adira called, 'What a pea soup! Robars! Make ready to break free!'
'How?' called someone.
'Follow me,' came a growl.
An orange-black nightmare loomed from the fog like a sea serpent. Jedit Ojanen laid gentle paws on two brawny coasters and heaved them a dozen feet to clatter amid spilled stools and benches. Between fog and fights sparked just among coasters, the pirates enjoyed a tiny respite.
'Follow you?' Adira's bosom heaved as anger surged anew. 'Who in blazes elected you captain?'
'I only seek to help,' rumbled the tiger. 'Is that wrong?'
'Damn right it is!' rapped the pirate queen. 'I give the orders, you numb furball! Step on my toes, and I'll carve out your liver! Robars, brace up! Jedit, grab a table and clear a path to the door!'
'Very well.' Looking up, Jedit put out a paw and caught someone lurking in the dense fog. Whistledove Kithkin had skipped along ceiling beams to retrieve her rapier and find the pirates. Tucking the brownie on one shoulder, the tiger-man hefted a scarred table big as a coffin and marched for the door. Caught in swirling fog, Buzzard's Baymen and women were bowled aside like tenpins as the tiger bore down like a barge.
Cursing, Adira tugged her crew by sleeves, belts, and collars. Murdoch and Heath had to drag Virgil off the floor, for he'd been hammered from behind. Wilemina bit a man who'd slid his hand down the bodice of her leather vest. Jasmine broke a stoneware mug on his skull. Lagging and lurching like a batch of balky children, the Robaran Mercenaries blundered after the tiger's broad back and swinging tail.
Fourteen paces in blinding fog spilled them through a doorway into open air. Gasping, tugging clothes and tackle aright, mopping off blood and sweat and beer, the pirates blinked about, for even an overcast morning seemed eye-squintingly bright.
Adira cursed. Outside would prove as dangerous as inside. Dozens of bay folk had spilled outdoors to see the fracas. Bewitchments notwithstanding, their friends had been thumped by Adira's crew. Already some coasters pointed at the disheveled pirates.
'Have we a plan?' lisped Simone around a split lip.
'Aye!' blurted Adira. 'Run like nine devils!'
'What in Stangg's benighted name happened back there?'
Murdoch puffed as he and Heath lugged Virgil, whose toes trailed furrows in mud. Jedit, still wearing Whistledove on his shoulders, picked up Virgil like a kitten. Trotting, they made better time as the crowd behind shouted.
'It was deuced strange!' chirped Wilemina. 'One minute everyone's talking polite as you please, and the next we're all shouting and fighting!'
In a pack, Adira's crew jogged into narrow alleys between warehouses and boathouses. The high buildings gave them momentary cover, but Jasmine fretted, 'We'll be trapped against the water!'
'That's what we want!' said Simone but shivered in the keen wind, for she was doused to the skin with beer.
Bangles at her booted ankles jangling, Adira Strongheart chivvied her underlings with a hard hand. Fortunately, only Virgil was knocked groggy, and they all had weapons.
'Hush, all! Let me think!' Adira blocked a mucky alley, cutlass at the ready. At the far end, fishermen and laborers pointed her way. She panted. 'The room was hexed. Johan must've left agents behind to muddy waters against us. If we don't get a chance to talk, we might be lynched first and questioned later. These locals share more than a drop of berserker blood. Sheer aport!'
Past the warehouses they ran out of street. A corduroy wharf of pine slabs on mud gave way to ramshackle docks and piers in a ring. At midday, the fishing fleet was out, all the nearby slips bare. Farther out were moored deep-water vessels: south-sea luggers, carracks, and caravels like upturned shoes. A few nets lay idle, for fishermen repairing them had wandered up the street to see the fuss.
