Chapter 6 - Part 1

CHAPTER SIX – YO, HO, HO & A BOTTLE OF TROUBLE
18th of Olarune, 993 Y.K., off the coast of southwest Breland

The sun climbed, warming the sailors who worked with bare feet and chapped hands. The sailors were mostly half-elves, along with two humans and one halfling. All worked in the service of House Lyrandar. Their ship moved powerfully through the water, propelled by a great warbling and whooshing from the stern of the vessel. The wind bit against the sailors, fighting off the sun’s warmth, but it was losing. This far south, winter had little grip on the weather.

A cage sat in the middle of the deck, all four corners on tight chains to various deck rings. The cage was cramped, barely big enough for a large dog. A hobgoblin in sweated, filthy clothes was within the cage, folded up by rough hands into a fetal position. A gag was stuffed in his mouth, and his wrists and ankles were tied together as well. A breathing tube snaked out from the gag and over the hobgoblin’s knees. No one on the boat knew the prisoner’s name, and they did not care to.

The sails were folded for emergency use, as the ship moved efficiently through the water under the power of a bound elemental. It took the form of a huge circle of moving liquid, beating against the water of the Straits of Shargon between the Barren Sea and the Thunder Sea. To the port side of the craft the cliffs that the Brelanders called the Gray Rakes were beginning to fall behind.

The ship, one Small Potatoes, was captained by Belliose d’Lyrandar. A half-elven woman of wit and charm who had long been part of the profitable alliance between Tharashk and Lyrandar, she knew Delegado from when he was a child using his dragonmark to help prospect for dragonshards. Right now she was manning the helm at the front of the ship, laughing at every spray the ship kicked up, her gray hair fanning out behind her.

Delegado was not laughing. He had not laughed since boarding the ship in Droaam with his prisoner. He had come alone, as the orcs that had helped him move the hobgoblin south were still slated for Droaam duty. Truth was, he didn’t need them anymore. The Lyrandar skipper and crew were trusted allies who had been doing the Marches-Breland-Zilargo run for years. Marcuiss wasn’t going anywhere until they got to Sharn, and a large contingent of Tharashk soldiers was waiting there to take custody of the hobgoblin wizard.

Perhaps another day of sailing, and they would be within sight of the fabled towers. Belliose had a dragonmark that let her calm the local weather to allow smooth sailing, so there was little that was likely to delay their arrival. Delegado tried to keep from brooding by thinking about spending money in the Glitterdust nightclub, one of Sharn’s more interesting places to enjoy oneself.

“Oy mate!” said Meddin, slapping Delegado on the back. “You been sitting and staring at yon pugly dolt for ‘ow many days now? Gonna rot’cher mind out.”

Delegado found a small grin forming on his face despite himself. He and Meddin had been friendly for some time now. They had hunted crocodiles together about three years back, and the half-elven First Mate of Small Potatoes always managed to make people laugh. “I’ve been in a bad mood,” Delegado said.

“That an explanation or kinda like a statement of natch-ral law?” Meddin asked. He tipped the ridiculous hat that he always wore to the side and peered down at the half-orc. “Whatsis all about? You mad somebody’s finally uglier than you?”

Delegado shrugged. “Droaam was unpleasant.”

“Yeh, and galig is brown, whassyer point?” Meddin asked.

Delegado finally laughed, but it was still bitter. “Just hard to get out of my head, that’s all. Right before I left I –” The half-orc realized that the caged and gagged hobgoblin was watching the two of them, listening intently. “Mind your own f’test business before I cut off your other hand!” the bounty hunter snarled, kicking the hobgoblin in the face through the bars. Marcuiss let out a muffled cry of pain, and one of his eyes began to swell up.

“Hm,” Meddin said, peering down at the hobgoblin. “That didna make him any prettier. Here,” the half-elf said, tossing a bunch of papers at the half-orc. “Read the fav’rite paper of us masses, yon Korranberg Chronicle, picked up at t’cove what we restocked at yesterdays.”

“I read it,” Delegado said. “The usual war and mayhem. Thrane and Aundair had another artillery duel, Karrnath and Cyre smashed an army of undead and an army of warforged together on a bridge over the Cyre river, the investigation into the explosion that derailed lightning rail ride number 475-W080 continues with no new leads, the Valenar princess who is unmarried is pregnant, and the Darguun emissary to the Talenta tribes was eaten by a dinosaur. I miss anything?”

“Cover t’cover, eh? Not much t’fill yer time beyond whackin’ around pugly the spell-tosser here?”

“I was going to go check out those big crates in the cargo hold you and the captain keep trying to shoo me away from,” Delegado said, half as a joke, half as a probe.

“Ye dinna want to, me lad,” Meddin said, his jocularity slipping a notch. “Private House stuff.”

“Relax, I was kidding,” Delegado said. “The only concern of mine on this boat is my prisoner.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t strollin’ about, is he then?” Meddin laughed, clearly glad that Delegado was respecting Lyrandar privacy. “Haven’t ya found anythin’ t’do?”

“Not much. Been letting Feather catch fish, he shares some with me.”

“You and t’duster dinna like me own cookin’ then?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Delegado told him. “I don’t call what you make ‘food.’”

Meddin had a hearty guffaw at that, wiping his eyes. “S’truth! Is the truth it is! I could nae feed a warforged!”

Delegado grinned, already in a better mood. “What do those walking tin cans eat, anyway?”

“How in f’test would me own poor soul know some weird thing as that?” Meddin asked, widening his eyes. Delegado thought he saw the halfling – who was the ship’s third officer, oddly enough – give Meddin a glare, but he was sure that he imagined it. The half-orc and the half-elf chuckled some more, spending a few minutes exchanging bawdy jokes. Suddenly the half-elf squinted up at the sky and his face grew serious. “What’s yer dustmop all inna tizzy for?”

Feather came screeching out of the east, yelling loud enough to distract the sailors from their tasks. The hawk landed on the edge of the cage and kept making agitated noises.

“What’s going on?” Captain Belliose called from the wheel. “What is it?”

“Give me a second,” Delegado said. The half-orc was not all battle and stealth. He had been in tune with the wild for so long that he had found some subtle nature magic within himself. It was not flashy or overwhelming, but it served him well. The bounty hunter moved his fingers to stroke Feather’s neck, to attune his mind with the bird’s mind. Words that were just slightly more than sounds of the marsh in the morning came from Delegado’s lips.

Gradually Feather’s squawks, guttural sounds, and even the bird’s posture made a picture in Delegado’s mind. He spoke with Feather over the sensory impressions that linked their thoughts. He saw the shapes over the horizon, three of them, large nests of wood, spreading out to catch them as a flock of ravens spreads out to find carrion.

Delegado moved out of the mind-link, thanking his bird for a job well done. His face grew wan.

“What’s going on, Del?” Captain Belliose asked him. She was leaning beside him, looking very worried. Meddin had taken over the helm.

“Three ships, spreading out, heading dead for us,” he told her. “They have the wind at their backs and they know we are here. Small interceptors, fast, but they have a bunch of warriors on deck.”

“Pirates?” she asked.

“No flag that I could see,” Delegado told her. “But I recognize the make, they’re Riedran.” He stood up, stretching his legs and looking tense. “The men on deck are armed to the teeth, and I think they may have some spellcasters.”

“Feather saw all that?” she asked doubtfully.

“He’s a hawk, he can pick out a mouse from a mountaintop,” Delegado told her bluntly. “We’re in trouble.”

“We can outrun them,” she said. But her voice did not sound so confident. The Small Potatoes was a cargo ship, not a quick military interceptor.

“Now’s not the time for misplaced optimism,” he said, unlimbering his bow. “Get your weapons out and loaded, Belliose. Get some men on your ballista.”

She began barking orders, having lines tightened, weapon lockers opened, and sailors ready themselves. Delegado paced near his prisoner, tapping on his quiver and taking mental stock of his equipment. In no short order Belliose’s crew was ready for a fight, and those who weren’t actually steering the vessel, which was basically Meddin, once Belliose had given some mental instructions to the water elemental, were nervously scanning the horizon.

“South-by-southeast!” Belliose called out.

“Aye, aye,” Meddin called back, turning the vessel.

Above them, the halfling Second Mate hurriedly climbed into the crow’s nest where the ship’s spyglass was stored. For some reason Delegado couldn’t remember the man’s name.

“What do they want with us?” Delegado wondered aloud. “And how do they know we were here?” He glanced down at the hobgoblin. “You were secretly a Riedran agent, Marcuiss?” The bound hobgoblin glared at him, but could not answer.

“I don’t know how they knew we were here, but they’re not after him,” Belliose told him firmly. “I’m sorry Delegado, I think I pulled you into a mess of mine.”

“What?” he asked her, surprised. “What are you talking about?” Belliose had always done cargo runs with the occasional passenger. So far as he knew she was never involved with intelligence operations of any sort, certainly nothing involving the odd and paranoid people from Sarlona.

“How many men on each ship?” she asked him, ignoring his question.

“Over a dozen,” he told her. “I couldn’t get too close a count. From what I can tell about the size of the ships, there’s a handful of crew and a decent-sized landing party of armed and armored men, maybe eight, maybe more, on each boat.”

“Ranged weapons?”

“No ballista, but you don’t need one if you’ve got a decent wizard,” he pointed out. “I’m sure they have some hand-held ranged weapons, hopefully all on the shorter end of the range scale. Feather told me what he perceived, and since he’s just a hawk it’s kind of hard to be as detailed as a human would be.” He checked his inventory yet again, hoping the people chasing them had no longbowmen. “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going below to take care of something, I’ll be right back. Push it hard, Meddin!”

He stared dumbfounded as she went below.