“We’ve almost finished unloading her. We’ve gotten several tons of foodstuffs, and a considerable amount of armor and weapons that are being moved into the armory. The goods that the ship had in its hold are more… unusual… now that I’ve had the chance to look them over.”
“Go on…” I said, shifting to lean against the side of the ship and considering him with interest.
“Well, I’ve spoken with Isabella, and some of the items in the hold definitely did not come from her village.
There are a lot of strange items aboard for a warship, bundles of cloth, a few small totems, and a large frieze that appears to have been broken in two when loading. There are at least a dozen magelights, from what I’ve seen so far…” He stopped at my look of confusion. “Magelights are, well… lights made by mages, I guess. Never really thought about the name before.” He shook himself and went on quickly. “They are charged with mana, and they provide light throughout the night. They’re not particularly expensive, but candles are far cheaper, so they’re unlikely to have come from another small village. I suspect the ship found a traveling merchant and robbed him. The crew members seemed to think the ship was collecting taxes for the city. I believe they were collecting wealth for the captain, judging from the conversations I’ve had.”
“So, we had a captain that was using his ship to go pirating?” I asked, grinning, and Oren jumped in as well.
“Aye, laddie, an’ judgin’ from the damage we’ve fixed so far, ‘e was makin’ the ship look more damaged than it really be. Probl’y tryin’ to get away from th’ fightin’! As to the piratin’, well, it no be that uncommon. Warships be expected to help supply themselves, now an’ then.”
“Sneaky fuckers!” I said, still grinning.
“You seem inordinately pleased about that, Jax,” Cai said, leaning against the ship as well and facing me after scanning the area to make sure we weren’t being observed. “What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?”
“I’m just thinking that if there’s no way to prove which goods are whose, we can’t be expected to return anything. That means it’s all ours, spoils of war and all that, and if pirating is that common, well…”
“Well, what be stoppin’ us from doin’ th’ same!” Oren chimed in, grinning wolfishly.
“Exactly! Ans if it’s known that the Warship has been doing this, and that others do too, well, Barabarattas might think the ship went rogue, rather than being captured…”
“So, he’s more likely to be annoyed and wait a while before sending other ships after this one. And he didn’t think his ships had arrived yet, so he probably thinks we’re all fighting you for the tower or something now…” Cai concluded, and I grinned back at him.
“Exactly! We really need Decin on our side, then, as I bet whatever we try to pull on the city to steal those manastones would work a lot better with two ships than one!”
“Damn right, laddie!” Oren said, his grin stretching his face even further.
“Time for a quick test flight. Let’s go see if we can convince Decin, save anyone that we can, and get his ship repaired and back here!” I said, clapping my hands together. Cai saluted and spoke quickly before turning away.
“I’ll get on with things here and get the cargo sorted.” With his departure, Oren and I headed up onto the ship, dodging crew that ran and weaved about, carrying the final piles of gear off the ship, and straightening the trio of cylinders that sat on the deck.
“What are those?” I asked Oren, and he grunted as he saw what I was looking at.
“Flamin’ dangerous be what they be! There be three o’ them, yer see?” He said, gesturing to the two on the deck, one on either side of the ship.
The third and final one was set in the bow, heavily secured in place, compared to the other two, with a mass of metal strapping it down. “Those two, they be for fightin’ ships; fire a great big rock up to a mile. Sod-all accuracy, though. Iff’n yer need to use them, yer need to be in close! T’other one, though? That’s a Lightnin’ Shot. Yer use that on buildin’s. I only ever see’d one fired afore; well, two, but the second wen’ ‘boom’ an’ th’ ship done vanished. The time it worked, though? Hellish powerful!”
“Wait… the other one exploded? What happened?” I asked, Oren eyed the explosive construct as he shrugged.
“Who knows! They be new to the fleet. Ain’t nobody seen ‘em afore a few years back. Some ol’ design Barabarattas found in a ruin. Like th’ first airships, there be a lot o’ trial an’ error. More error ‘n not, if yer get it…”
“Fuck, man, that’s insane.” I said, shaking my head and inspecting the cannons. All three were totally different looking, for all that the first two were similar in design. One of the smaller two had fanciful swirls and patterns on it, where the other was bare. The big one was clearly lashed in place to try to counter some kind of kickback. “Wonder why they never used them on us?” I said aloud as I studied them.
“Probl’y didna give ‘em time, or we’d all have been fucked.” Oren said, shrugging again and moving off to shout at someone that was coiling rope on the deck exactly like everyone else, to my untrained eye. Oren yanked it from her hands and did…exactly the same thing. I frowned, trying to figure out what was going on, but I had a lot more important things to try to figure out first. Hell with it.
I turned around and watched as Oracle appeared from the Tower and flitted over to me. She smiled, then flew straight to Bob, landing on his shoulders and folding her arms over the top of his skull as she regarded the four ruffians still inside the
