The dwarf stopped and planted his hands on his hips. Sharessa knew that gesture of old; it was what Rings did when he was talking to the captain.
A night after Blackfingers had met his final fire and water, the Sharkers had a captain again.
As the Morning Bird slipped away into the night, Rings squinted up at the man whose eyes were looking knowingly back down at him.
'I understand what ye're about,' Rings began, 'fooling them on the black ship, them as tried to ram us, into thinking we're ablaze from stem to stern, and going down. But what if they see us, now, and aren't fooled?'
Belmer looked back at the flames behind them for a moment, and turned to face the dwarf again. 'Then,' he said softly, and Sharessa saw the white flash of his teeth as he smiled mirthlessly in the darkness, 'youll all have to start earning your jargoons.'
Chapter 5
'I've sailed ships before,'' Anvil growled to Brindra, as they stood shoulder to shoulder hauling in a mainsail line, 'but by the looks of 'em, that's more than these Tharkar rats've ever done.'
His barrel-shaped comrade spat over the rail, nodded grimly, and replied, 'Our new master would've done better to leave them all behind on the docks, to be sure. I never heard of crew who had to be clubbed senseless to keep them from leaping to their deaths in the sea!'
'If I'd known we were going to be fighting fires and dancing bones half the night, I'd've put away a few less tankards back at the Masques,' Brindra said. 'When d'y'suppose Belmer will think we've run far enough and let us all find a bunk? Or does he think his jargoons buy folks' sleep, too?' She yawned for perhaps the hundredth time.
Anvil groaned. 'Don't do that, woman! I'm afraid 111 be wakened by my head bouncing off the deck after I fall asleep and then fall over!'
Brindra chuckled hoarsely. 'That's better than not waking when you crack your head open on the deck, if you take my meaning.'
'Ho ho,' Anvil agreed with weary sarcasm. 'Are we going to work the sails all night? I hear Kara-Tur's notautfwrffarofr…'
'Was that someone yawning I heard?' a dry voice asked, out of the darkness down the rail.
Anvil turned. 'Belgin? What news?'
'Supper,' was the wry reply, as Belgin and Rings staggered into view, a dented carry-cauldron between them. Its edges bristled with ladles, hook-jacks, and pans. 'Some sort of soup our mysterious and all-talented master cooked up.'
'He cooks, too? Gods above,' Brindra muttered.
'So that's where he went,' Anvil said, accepting a pan of steaming liquid. It looked thick and green in the moonlight, and when he stirred the spoon that came in it, pale lumps surfaced momentarily. He peered at them rather suspiciously as a hungry-looking Ingrar joined them. 'Any idea what went into this?'
'Dead things,' the dwarf said laconically.' 'Shrooms, sea turtles by the score, a crab he netted, and herbs- lots of herbs.'
'Not like that powder he threw on the boats, I hope,' Sharessa said with a yawn, joining them. 'If I didn't think he wasn't quite crazed, I'd guess he intended to keep us hauling on sails and trying to outrace black ships all night!'
'No,' Rings joked, twisting his voice into strangled mimicry of the gaunt sailor back in the Masques, 'it's ghost ships ye has to watch out for, lassie! Late at night, when folk on the moon watch are a-yawn, they rise out of the deeps, trailing bones and seaweed, and creep up on the leeboards of unsuspecting ships, seeki-'
'Oh belt up, nimble tongue of the Olnblades,' Sharessa said affectionately, patting the dwarf's tanned bald head. She knew he hated that.
Rings gave her a glare. 'You sound to me like a lass too sleepy to have any o' this fine soup, hey?'
'Give,' Sharessa told him grimly, 'or youll be wearing that ladle in a shorter time than you'd think-the handle in your gullet and the bowl out your backside.'
Grinning, Rings passed over a steaming skillet. As Anvil had before her, Sharessa stirred and looked at it curiously.
''Sgood,' Anvil assured her, licking the last errant drops from his thumbs. 'First time I've ever really liked sea turtle.'
Sharessa raised her own hot spoon, sniffed, and sipped. It was good, with a strange taste, like lemons, under the stronger briny tastes of the seafood. She dug in.
'Anyone hazard who gifted us with fire arrows and skeletons?' Brindra asked idly. 'I'd like to know who we're running from-so I can accidentally run into them in Tharkar-port some night, with my sword unfortunately drawn.'
The ghost of Blackfingers, furious that we've taken ship with someone else?' Rings teased.
That's not funny,' Sharessa told him. 'I liked Ralingor,' she added, almost in a whisper, after a moment- and then wondered why she'd admitted that aloud. She never wanted anyone to know about the nights she'd crept into his cabin, so late that even Destra and his other wenches were snoring.
Angrily she banished those memories, and the tears she knew they'd bring. Gods, why was she thinking this way?
'I never wanted to go to sea,' Belgin told them, his voice low. 'I just ran out of cities that my neck was safe in.'
'Who doesn't?' Rings grunted, 'what with the Five Kingdoms the way they are-all double-dealing merchants, and nasty feuds wherever idiots aren't hurling armies!'
'Or fleets,' Anvil grunted. 'Which reminds me: unless Master Belmer knows some back way into wherever we're to search for this lady of his, we'll be turning south soon-into the very teeth of the Doegan Dogs.'
The Doegan Dogs were pirates-freebooters sponsored and chartered by the self-styled Emperor of Doegan to hunt down the ships of Ulgarth, Parsanic, Konigheim, and anyone else who came within reach
… while the Emperor's Imperial Fleet kept busy in the south, fighting the pirates of the fabled Golden Lands (and, some said, other lands for Doegan to conquer). The Dogs made sailing dangerous anywhere south of the Free Cities, but then, they kept all the kingdoms from rising in enough strength to wipe out the folk of Tharkar and other 'honest' pirates, too.
'Kurthe swore some Dogs burned his ship,' Belgin told them.
'What, in Port Halovar? Likely enough,' Anvil grunted. 'What made you think of that?'
Belgin frowned. 'Your mention of the Dogs, of course,' he said slowly. 'I didn't mean to let it slip out, though.'
Sharessa matched his frown. Why were they all spilling old secrets?
'So why are the Five Kingdoms 'the way they are,' as you put it?' Ingrar asked Rings. 'I've always wondered.'
Anvil laughed cynically, but the dwarf held up a hand for silence, scratched his chin, and said solemnly, 'It's a secret.'
'What?' Ingrar asked, eyes shining in eagerness. 'Tell me!'
'Ah, lad,' the dwarf said, a sudden answering twinkle in his eyes, 'if I knew just why the gods make everyone who climbs on a throne crazy, I'd be Emperor of the Five Kingdoms, and not trading words on the deck of this hulk now, with ye!'
'That was well said,' Belgin said grudgingly.
'Well put, indeed,' Anvil agreed.
'Hmm,' Rings pondered thoughtfully, emptying his pan, 'I wonder if good Master Belmer has put a little something extra into this soup?'
'Of course I have,' a calm voice spoke out of the rigging overhead, stunning them all into gaping silence. 'Not to learn your secrets, but to keep you awake. Anyone still yawning?'
