Author's Note: a bit late, but here's the second chapter. The third one's almost done, but it's taking longer to get to the jungle than I thought.


Chapter 2

Captain Klein planted his fists and looked down the length of the table. All the officers from both ships were there, and lined up along their respective sides. It felt good to finally be sitting with her people; Neana took a chair between Katra, the Kitten's First Bow, and Moira, the ship's boatswain. Moira gave her a hesitant smile, exposing only the tips of her fangs. "It's good to see you," the shy young shifter whispered. "I've… we've missed you. The ship isn't the same without you."

Before Neana could reply, she was interrupted by the Captain. "Somebody ask me how my day went." When nobody immediately spoke up, Captain Klein added, "That's an order."

So it was going to be one of those meetings.

"How was your day, sir?" Everyone in the room asked in a bored monotone.

"Lousy! Now ask me why."

In dreary unison: "Why?"

"Because I just got done having the nobility crawl so far up my rectum that they found hidden gold." Klein showed his teeth, and his one good eye was blazing. "We are talking miners with pickaxes here, people. Major excavation going on in my colon. Serious, bearded dwarves carrying hooded lanterns, pushing carloads of ore up steel rails and into my backside. Rocks fell. Men were trapped. Canaries died. And this ongoing ordeal has done the unthinkable: it has fractured my normally calm and cheery disposition. And do you know what happens when my calm gets damaged?"

Neana shrugged. Most of the people at the table looked edgy, or unsure, but Sam and Razze both piped up in chorus, "You spread it around, sir."

"Thank you, children. Yes, I spread it around. When I feel the pain, I make sure everyone gets a piece of misery pie. That means all of you – excepting, of course, my dear lady ir'Arth," he bowed graciously, and Alexia nodded amiably, "get to swallow a big old slice."

Big talk. It rolled over Neana like water. Klein wasn't her Captain, Alexia ir'Arth was. The two of them had returned together straight from the palace; Klein had been in a storm of a mood, but Alexia seemed relieved. Whatever had gone down couldn't have been too bad, or she wouldn't be content to sit idly by and let her oldest friend rage and rant.

"Tarn!" he barked.

The big Half-Orc blinked sleepily. "What'd I do?"

"That's a damn good question. What have you been doing? Certainly not keeping order, or I wouldn't have come back to find my deck turned into a gladiatorial arena."

"Yeah," Tarn chuckled, "that was pretty good." When he noticed Klein's good eye bulging in its socket, he added, "and totally the pointy-ear's idea, boss. Just following orders, I was."

"Whose idea?"

"A training exercise," Razze inserted smoothly. "The Lieutenant and I – that is, Lt. Tacey, not Lt. Sam – thought that the men, being restless from days of enforced idleness, might appreciate a good, old fashioned, militarily approved combat drill."

"Right. And did this combat drill happen to involve the two of you stripping down to your skivvies and smacking each others arses with sticks while my disloyal and disturbingly androgynous First Bow ran the numbers?"

"Those are not… the exact words… that I would use to describe what happened, sir. But that's about right," Razze allowed.

"Neana pulled through on three to one against," Sam added happily. "We made fifteen gold."

"We?" You could have used Klein's voice to shave at this point.

"The ship, of course," Sam replied instantly. She tossed a coin purse on the table. "All proceeds to be donated towards completing repairs on our sister ship, the Dire Kitten." Sam smiled at Captain ir'Arth, and tipped a conspiratorial wink to Neana. Alexia, looking more amused than anything, graciously bowed her head as she picked up the jingling sack of money. "The crew was only too happy to pay up once I told them where their hard earned money would be going."

"Sam?"

"Yes, boss?"

"Cough up the rest of the gold."

Neana was impressed; Sam's innocent smile never wavered for a second as she dug through her pockets to produce another, even larger bag of coins. "Of course, Razze also made good at one and a quarter on the first fight."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, that will be all." He fixed his eye of doom on Neana. "Do you have anything to add to this debacle?"

She shrugged. "I just wanted to hit somebody."

"Of course you did." Captain Klein gripped the table like he wanted to snap it in half. Ir'Arth reached over and laid and hand on his shoulder, and just like that, the anger was gone. It was all for show. "We'll deal with it later, I promise you. But before that, Captain ir'Arth has some news."

"Thank you, Asheel." She patted him kindly on the shoulder, and Captain Klein gave the rest of the room a death look, daring them to laugh at his given name. Alexia cleared her throat. "I am happy to report that King ir'Kesslan has graciously agreed to make accommodation for the civilian refugees. Right now, House Ghallanda is preparing temporary shelters, and House Jorasco is sending healers to the boats to see to their medical needs."

"Gods bless them," Kiana, the ship's chaplain, murmured.

"Definitely," Alexia nodded. "We should all be grateful to our Halfling friends for their much needed charity in the face of this tragedy. As the Voice tells us: 'The flame of righteousness dwells in the smallest heart as well as the largest.'" She smiled. Neana noticed that the less devout members of the crew – i.e., everyone else – avoided meeting her gaze. Vassals of the Flame were just so damned earnest about their faith. "As well, we have spoken to House Lyrandar and House Orien representatives, and they have promised to arrange notes of passage for our people to the temporary settlements in Breland, Aundair, or Thrane, where so many of our surviving citizens have taken refuge. I know that most of the survivors are eager to be reunited with their friends and family. Finally, King ir'Kesslan has agreed to turn over use of Newthrone's sole shipyard, to help in repairing the Kitten's damaged main-mast."

"How much are we paying him for this privilege?" Chandrasitar asked. Kiana and Alexia both gave her disapproving looks, but the Kalashtar mind-witch only raised one delicate eyebrow. Apparently the ability to read minds hadn't left her with a glowing view of human nature.

"Nothing," Klein answered. "But he isn't exactly doing it out of the goodness of his heart either. Ir'Kesslan wants us gone. As of yesterday. And if he needs to lend us a few cranes or a little lumber to make us go away faster, then so be it."

"The King has been most kind," Alexia stressed. "He's certainly shown no hostile intent—"

"He doesn't have to," Klein said. "I know a brush off when I feel the broom smack my ass. He's afraid of us, and the sooner we're gone, the better."

"He's afraid?" Neana chuckled. "Of us? We barely made it out of Seaside alive. We've hardly got one whole crew between two ships, and the Kitten's still half crippled. What does have to fear?"

"One and a half fully fitted warships is still one warship more than all of Q'barra can field on a good day," Captain Klein answered. "The whole realm only has two real cities in it. They have no army and no navy; just a city guard and a few defensive sea walls to protect the harbor. Sure, they have a flimsy little merchant fleet to keep the pirates in check, but we could tear through that like paper with one good Cyran ship, let alone two."

"Not that we would," Alexia added.

"No," Klein sighed. "Not that we would. But it's what ir'Kesslan fears. It took us two days and a dozen letters sent back and forth between he and Admiral ir'Matast before he would accept that we weren't an incursion fleet. Q'barra is neutral in the war, and he desperately wants to stay that way."

"He thinks we're cursed," Moira whispered. When the table turned to look at her, she blushed a bright shade of crimson and shyly ducked her head. Speaking in public made her uncomfortable; the quiet shifter always assumed that everyone was staring disapprovingly at her fangs, and tufted ears, and the other traits that marked her as not-human. "It's true. I heard people talking about us when I went into town… to fetch new pages of the list. I have… good ears. They said that we were cursed. That we brought bad luck with us out of the mist."

"Well," Klein grunted. "Whatever the reason, he's in a hurry to get us gone. Which puts us in a hurry to get gone. I promised him we would leave port in a week and a half. Which brings me to my next piece of bad news. Moira; in order to get us fully patched and stocked by then I'll need you and Tarn to work the crew in double shifts."

Everyone at the table groaned. Tarn said something guttural into his fist.

Klein grinned. "That better have been orcish for 'Yes Sir, I love the smell of sawdust and pine tar.' Think of it this way, people; every hour you save by working your ass off is an hour of shore leave you get to spend before we ship out. Get me?"

Captain Alexia folded her hands. "Kiana, you and I and Katra will be helping the civilians settle in to their temporary shelters. The people are afraid; they will need guidance, and calm heads."

Klein said, "Right. Tarn and Moira, I'll also need a list of your more… presentable sailors to help with the refugee situation. Any men and women that you think can be depended upon to handle the terrified and the seasick."

Moira nodded vigorously and Tarn grunted. Neana's pointed ears perked up. She shared a look with Sam. That was a whole slew of orders that didn't involve the lieutenants in any way. Something was up.

"Good," Klein said. "Tarn, Moira; inform the crew of what's going on and get those lists to me within the next two hours. If anyone has a problem with the extra work, send them to speak to me." He grinned. "You know how they all love my open door policy on criticism."

"If no one has any other questions, then meeting dismissed." Neana hadn't even scooted her chair back before he added, "Lieutenants Tacey, Nanteel, Chandrasitar and Sam can stick around. I have something I need to discuss with them personally."

"Good luck," Moira whispers to her, and then they are alone.

The four lieutenants all shared a tense look.

Klein sat down with a groan and a sigh. He unfolded a silk handkerchief and swabbed the perspiration from his forehead. He even flipped up the patch of his eyepatch and patted beneath it, giving Neana a glimpse of clean, pink scar tissue. "Relax, relax," he told them. "I'm too tired to shout." Neana looked questioningly at Chandrasitar, who just shrugged. Even after two months on his ship, they hadn't entirely taken the measure of the human captain. Sam and Razze took his word for it; the half-elf leaned back and propped his boots up on the table, while Sam pulled out a small briarwood pipe and tipped a pinch or smoking tobacco into it. From another pocket she produced a Cannith everlighter, and pressed the tiny magic stone into the bowl until it took flame. Neana wrinkled her nose; she despised the bittersweet smell and the cloying smoke. Sam was forbidden from smoking in their cabin.

Klein said, "Alright, folks, here is the real stuff. Alexia and I spent the last two days doing more than bickering with some tinpot King. We kept the entire staff of the local Sivis postal station occupied trading whispers back and forth with Admiral ir'Matast. I don't have time to detail all the," he rolled his eye, "wrangling we had to go through with that woman – all I'll say is, she's more used to barking orders than accepting bad news. The short of it is this: we aren't exactly at war any longer, but this isn't exactly peace, either. Karrnath and Thrane are calling for the surrender and total disarmament of all remaining Cyran forces, but the Admiral is refusing."

"Surrender?" Neana's lip curled involuntarily. Sam puffed thoughtfully. Chandra raised one perfect eyebrow. Razze rubbed the red welt on his forehead ruefully.

"Yes. Well. It isn't going to happen any time soon. The Admiral is dead set against it, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't. It takes a Queen or King to start a war, and it takes one to make peace as well. Or at least someone from the royal family. And right now we're fresh out of royals."

Sam stopped her puffing, horrified at the idea. "You mean none of them made it out? Not one?"

"No. Not one single member of the Cyran branch of the ir'Wynarn's has surfaced since the Day of Mourning. As far as we know, even the distant cousins and the black sheep were in country at the time of the attack; it hasn't been safe for them to travel abroad since Queen Dannel escalated the hostilities with Karrnath. The royal family may be a total loss. We haven't entirely lost hope that some will turn up: Sivis is still struggling to sort through all the names, and it's damn hard to communicate with Breland and the western kingdoms now that there's a huge scar where the middle of the continent used to be…" Klein covered his eye with his hand, and the rest of them had the decency to glance away.

Time was when you would never think of seeing an officer cry. Now you just ignored it politely until it passed. Neana noticed thin tear tracks as the corner of Sam's eyes. The Changeling cried some days for no reason; she didn't even seem to notice she was doing it.

Neana hadn't cried since the death of her parents, nearly two decades ago. She thought that she might have forgotten how.

Klein wiped his palm on the side of his pants. Nothing had happened. "Bottom line, though, is that there is no longer any real chain of succession. And, frankly, of all the nobles so far accounted for, Admiral Sallacia ir'Matast has one of the best claims to the throne, and she shows every sign of intending to pursue it. There are already some rumblings from the other surviving nobles about contesting her assertion. I'm not a genealogist; I couldn't tell you how strong her place in the succession is. I do know that she has control of the Navy; that counts for a lot. So I don't expect her to surrender her swords any time soon."

"So you are telling me," Razze groaned, "that we might be looking at a civil war breaking out, while we're already in the middle of civil war?"

"That's about the long and the short of it."

"Why?" Chandrasitar asked.

"Well, I don't know how Kalashtar do it," Klein began, "but with humans, rulership is handed down according to primogeniture—"

"No, that wasn't my question. My query is: why do we care who holds the crown to a throne that no longer exists? Cyre is dead. No one can rule it any longer."

Even Neana was a trifle shocked at the Kalashtar's cold words. She expected Klein to get angry, or explode. Instead he stared blankly at the mind-witch. No flicker of recognition moved behind his eyes. And suddenly Neana had an intuition to how the rest of their lives would go.

Some things were simply too big to think about, and so you never really thought about them, not really. Infinity. Existence. Good and Evil. You could only hold little bits of them in your brain at one time, and you mulled them over and chewed on them like a dog with a difficult piece of gristle. Neana already had one such impossible thing in her head – the murder of her parents, and the all consuming hatred she bore for all Valenar elves since that day – which is perhaps why she recognized it for what it was while the others did not. That one grisly act had settled down into her life like a catapult stone pressing into the taught surface of a billowing sail. It had warped and stretched the fabric of her personality and her upbringing, making her who she was today. Her childhood, her naval career, her casual bloodlust, even her religion and sex life: it touched every aspect of who she was. She could no longer even think about that moment with anything like rational thought. It just was.

Cyre would be like that, she realized. When it had simply been a nation, it had been something that you could leave, or betray, or move away from. Now that it was only an idea, it had trapped them. There would be no surrender for her or anyone aboard the ship. Even if they survived, lived somewhere else, became civilians; they would still be Cyrans. They would never escape that one single day. One and a half million dead, like a weight on their lives.

There was no world where Admiral ir'Matast could surrender, any more than Captain Klein could give up his ship, or Neana could lay down her hate. You didn't ask why these things were true: that was the question you could never ask, because the answer was no answer at all, only weight.

Neana snapped out of her reverie to find Chandrasitar staring at her. It was a strange, troubled look. "I regret asking," she said.

"Regardless," Klein replied. "The Admiral isn't giving up. She has relayed to me, in no uncertain terms, my exact orders. That's where you lot come in. I've got a mission for you."

"Oh, good," Razze smiled. "This sounds fun." He wasn't being sarcastic.

"A mission?" Chandrasitar asked. Every word out of her mouth sounded condescendingly amused.

Klein gave them all a sour look. "I could do with a lot more listening and a lot less yammering." He unrolled a fat, waterstained length of parchment on the table: a map. "Admiral ir'Matast, bless her noble, scheming heart, has made one damned odd request of me. Now, she's apparently something of a history buff, or an amateur archeologist; I ain't sure. But I do know that she has always had a bee in her bonnet when it comes to ancient history. And this stupid, swampy country is full of it. Since we're already here, she wants me to send someone to investigate a set of prehistoric ruins. Guess who just got volunteered?"

"Why?" Razze asked.

"What he said, and also: why me?" Sam added

"You want to me trek though a bloody swamp?" Chandrasitar asked.

"Oh, look: insubordination. My favorite corporal offense," Klein growled. "To answer your questions: I don't know, I don't care, and buy some wading boots. It isn't my job to keep your damn feet dry. Look, this comes straight from the Admiral. She's an… odd… woman, but she's perfectly sane. She wouldn't be asking for this unless it was important. Not that she would deign to tell me why it's important, but it must be. She told me to put my best people on it and, Gods help me, but I'm looking at them. And that means the lot of you get to play jungle explorers."

While Klein was speaking, a certain knowing look crept over Razze's face. "Oh, I get it." He turned to the others. "This is just like in those trashy Stormreach novels they sell in Sharn. The Admiral has probably found some ancient treasure map, detailing the location of a priceless hoard of buried treasure. Gemstones the size of Halfling heads, or golden idols, or a magical crown. You know the drill. And she needs us to swing into danger with a dagger clenched in our teeth to steal the riches from a cult of snake worshippers and bring it back to her so that she can…," he faltered. "Bribe people with it or something, I guess. I don't know what you do with fabulous jewel-encrusted artifacts. "

"Prudently invest it," Sam replied solemnly. "House Kundarak offers very reasonable mixed portfolios."

"Children?" Klein snapped his fingers. "I'm still talking. Amusingly enough, no, this is nothing at all like a cheap romance novel. The ruins you're going to? They've already been explored. Anything of value was carted off to Morgrave University decades ago. Sorry to spoil the fantasy."

"Then why are we going?" Neana asked.

"Because in the ruins is a tomb, and in the tomb is a sarcophagus, and on the sarcophagus are some runes. Your job is to write down the runes. Just take some paper and charcoal and stencil in the outlines, and bring your drawings back. That's it."

"That is all? Then why are we going?" Chandrasitar demanded. "Surely the previous expedition recorded these runes. Why does the Admiral not simply visit a library?"

"Strangely enough, I did think to ask her that question, even with my tiny, human, non-psychic brain. It turns out that the writings of the expedition, along with all the other relics, were housed in the Glass Tower at Sharn. They were all destroyed seventy five years ago in the tower's collapse."

"Cursed treasure," Razze nodded sagely. "Ancient goblin curse. Probably warded by the souls of the damned, bound by chains of agony and duty to guard primeval Imperial relics."

"Then I can only pray to the Host that the curse still stands," Klein said. "Because the four of you are going. Now, the ruins are here," his finger hovered over an unlabeled black dot. It sat alone, in the middle of a swath of unmarked green forest. "It's near the banks of the Crimson River, about thirty miles east of this place right here." He pointed now to the only labeled dot in all of northern Q'barra.

"Is that a city? Kar… Karas.." Sam tried. "I can't say that word."

"Ka'rhashan," Neana said. When everyone turned to stare at her, she shrugged. "It's Draconic. It means… 'clutch-gather' or 'egg-gather' or something like that."

"Well, that's appropriate, seeing how it's home to the largest collection of lizard-men in the whole world. It's the only permanent settlement those savages have; something about a bunch of tribes coming together. Not my problem, now." He tapped the dot. "By my estimates, it's a bit more than two hundred miles from here to Ka… Khrah… Lizard City. I've got a guide who claims that the trip can be made in fourteen days. From the lizard city, it's another day and a half to the ruins – less, if the lizard folk lend you a boat to travel by river – and from the ruins it's a straight shot to the sea. I figure it will take you between twenty five and thirty days to trek through the jungle, search the ruins, and make it to the mouth of the Crimson River. With good weather, and assuming no mutinies, I should be able to get the Kitten fixed and sail both ships around the Q'Barran peninsula in time to meet you there. Any questions?" He sighed. "Yes, Sam?"

Sam lowered her hand. "What do we do after the Lizard folk eat us? Because they're giant lizards, and they eat people. That's what lizard-men do."

"Apparently not these lizard-men." Klein rifled through a sheaf of papers until he produced an ornate certificate, worked with calligraphy and gilded at the edges. Neana recognized a pair of Dragonmark sigils. "Admiral ir'Matast has arranged to hire you a House Tharashk guide to conduct you through the jungle. Tharashk has some kind of treaty with the lizard-folk population that keeps them from getting eaten, and grants them safe passage through contested areas. It extends to everyone traveling with an official guide, so you should be safe."

"How long will you wait for us at the meeting place if something goes wrong?" Neana asked.

"Ten days." The Captain looked grim. "That's the longest that I can afford to wait. Ir'Matast is snapping at the bit to consolidate all her ships at Thronehold. If I don't see you there, or receive word from you, in forty days, I'll have to assume the worst. Any other question? Then I'll wish you good luck." He tossed a bag of coins onto the table. "That should buy you supplies for the journey. It isn't much, but it's all we have to spare. We'll barley be able to afford provisions as it is."

"Sir?" Sam saluted. She looked sly. "I think I can help out with gathering supplies. Permission to form a foraging party?"

Captain Klein stared at her sternly for a moment before nodding. "Oh, all right. Permission granted. But don't make too much trouble. And don't take more than three men. Dismissed."

Klein stomped out of the galley. Chandrasitar rolled her eyes and followed him, murmuring something about packing. Razze went to fetch a mug of ale."

"Foraging party? As in, living off the land? Hunting?" Neana asked.

"Something like that," Sam smirked. "Let's go get packed. Oh! And, if you could do me a favor, put on your full dress uniform. The one with the brass buttons."

"Why?"

"Trust me. Have I ever led you wrong?"