orders. It makes us look divided and makes me look stupid in front of the crew.”
“Jenna, these aren’t nameless sailors or soldiers. This crew, these people… they’re friends and family. Every one of them is knowing you care and you’re trying to do what’s best. There’s not a one fool enough to be thinking you’re stupid.” He paused for a breath, then chuckled as a thought struck him. “Not even Rosh.”
She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, but still, I just wanted you to know I’m not angry.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m more worried that you’re not angry,” he said. “What have you done with my first mate?”
She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him. Making him laugh. Then she reached down to the bottom of her vest and started to pull it up. His eyes widened and she laughed before dropping it back down.
“Ah, there she is,” he grumbled. “Get back to work.”
She laughed again and turned to help prepare to land. Dexter watched her go then scanned his crew working. He wanted to yell at Rosh for his actions earlier, risking his own life to save Willa’s. It was foolish and damn near impossible, but he had to admit, it worked. What was worse, Dexter knew he’d have done the same thing without a second thought. Not having the strength of an ox as Rosh did, he suspected he would have failed.
He sighed and admired how everyone was coming along. The only enigma remaining was Logan and his ever present mysteries, still insisting on spending nights locked in the hold.
He caught Willa studying Rosh while the big man was busy working. He smirked, seeing the appraising gleam in her eyes. He shook his head and turned back, walking up and peering over the bow of the forecastle to the approaching ground below them.
Their mission had been a failure. They learned some valuable lessons from the failure, and Xander’s latest scheme, inspired by the near tragic events, might very well serve to help them turn the tide and hasten the end of their contract.
Later that night Dexter sat in his room thinking about his ship and his crew. He could not help but feel the pang of Kragors loss, along with a stab of guilt for the pain Jodyne endured every day. Jenna and Rosh adapted well to their duties and the ship ran as fine as ever. Dexter’s greatest concern remained. None of them were skilled with repairing the ship, should she take damage. Simple repairs, sure, they could do those. Making the ship as whole and sound as it was though, that he feared, was beyond them.
A knock at his door roused him from his thoughts. He took a drink from the cup of ale before crossing to the door. He opened the door, surprised to see, of all the people on the ship, Willa.
He offered her a seat at his table and took one opposite her. He smiled and offered her a cup, but she refrained. “What can I do for you, Willa?”
Willa rubbed the stump of her arm with her other hand, fidgeting. She seemed so very different from the spitfire waif he had rescued from prison. It was almost a pity; he rather liked the feistiness he had seen in her when she lay on her deathbed.
“I… I have a question, Captain,” she said. She glanced around and saw him waiting patiently for her to continue. “I thought I might be crazy, but, well, then I found this under my pillow.”
She took something from a pouch at her belt and laid it on the table. Dexter looked at it and felt the very room shift around him and threaten to throw him from his chair. It was the knife Kragor had used to carve spare chunks of wood; the same knife that Dexter had seen the ghostly Kragor using; and the same knife that Jodyne had tucked into the pouch on Kragor’s body before it had been committed to the void.
“How did you get that?” he whispered.
“It was beneath the pillow on my bunk,” she responded. “I saw a dwarf on the deck one day… not Jodyne, another one. I… I looked around but saw no one else who took notice. He was carving a piece of wood and he looked right at me.”
Willa took a deep breath before continuing. “I walked up to him and asked him who he was and what he was doing. He ignored me at first, finishing up the carving he was working on. When finally looked up at me, he smiled and winked. I turned to ask for some help, but he was gone when I looked back.”
“Kragor,” Dexter breathed.
“You know him?”
He nodded and leaned back. “I can see him at times. He was my best friend,” he said softly. “My first mate and also the man that made this ship possible. He rebuilt it from the hulk I found drifting in space.”
“Jodyne’s husband,” Willa said, connecting the dots. Dexter nodded.
“Why would I see him? I never knew him.”
Dexter could only shake his head. “I don’t know, Willa. Perhaps there’s something about you he likes. He had a great sense of adventure and an equally great sense of humor… for a dwarf. It seems he wanted you to have that,” he said, pushing the knife back to her. “Have you any skill with working wood?”
Willa shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know how good I’d be, honestly… I mean, I can’t hold a piece and carve on it at the same time.”
Dexter smiled reassuringly for her. “Keep it all the same, perhaps you’ll find a use or meaning for it.”
“And if you see Kragor again,” Dexter said thoughtfully. “Keep to yourself. He appears when he is wanting to. His spirit is a boon, not a curse. A truer friend you’ll not easily find.”
She nodded and slipped the knife back in her pouch. She stood up and thanked him again for his time, then slipped out of his cabin. Dexter took a deep breath and blew it out after she was gone. It seemed there would always be some new way to confuse and complicate things. He smiled and reached for his ale; he supposed there was no other way he would prefer it.
Rain kept the Voidhawk grounded for three days. Xander surmised that the unnatural disturbance of the weather had messed up the ecology of the weather system. Dexter had not bothered to ask him to explain what that meant, he just lumped it under the topic of ‘magic causes problems’. The benefit of the short layover was the first of the ingredients for Xander was delivered early the first morning, and he set to immediately concocting his potions. Due the fragility of the work, the Voidhawk was forced to stay grounded for an additional two days until he had fashioned enough of them to generate nearly 60 potions.
Dexter saw to it that the net yield General Havamyr’s troops would have to use was only 50 of the potions, leaving enough for the ship’s stores.
When next they flew they took aloft with them several extra men, three squads of ten men each, with an additional ten in command and support roles. Their mission was to go behind the enemy lines and secure some ruins. Dexter saw no use to the quest, but General Havamyr reassured him that it was a key strategic position to occupy.
They flew high above the enemy, proving that they were immune to the best they had to throw at them. Dexter fought the urge to laugh at how impervious ground forces were to them all. His mood was further spoiled by the sheer overcrowding that took place aboard his vessel. Men were crammed aboard fore and stern castles, rolling an occasional barrel of alchemist’s fire over the side to confuse and disrupt their enemy. They sailed on, leaving the scene of their bombing behind and using the occasional clouds as cover.
When Jenna spotted the ruins, she called out and Dexter rattled off the commands to bring them closer to it so that the soldiers could leap from the sides. The leader of the soldiers, a captain by the name of Aidan, was good natured but stern. They chanced something that had never been tried before, something that involved magic. Few soldiers were comfortable entrusting their lives to magic, and he was no exception.
He waited for Dexter to nod before he addressed his soldiers. “Men, remember to fall a fair bit before you drink the potion,” he told them. “And take care how you open it, lest it spill out and you reach the ground before it does!”
A few of his men let off nervous chuckles.
“Follow me!” He said, then turned and, with a deep breath, he leaped from the side of the hovering Voidhawk. He sailed gracefully through the air for all of a second, then gravity claimed him properly and he plummeted towards the ground. Others followed suit, almost appearing to Dexter as though they were in a race to reach the ground first.
The crew of the Voidhawk watched them fall, fascinated. Some spread their arms and legs and fell at a slower rate, while others plummeted either feet first or head first towards the ground.
“Fascinating!” Xander said as he studied the aerodynamics of the movements.
