74th Day of the 1st Quarter of the 42nd Year under Her Glory Empress Teadora II
Vyse stretched. Every muscle in his back, arms and legs felt tight and sore.
He had no idea how Drachma had run a ship this size alone.
As it was, the last two tendays had been a sort of grinding hell. Sails had to be repaired, ballast, stores and cargo shifted and secured, the lines and spars had to be fixed, hull cracks patched, ribs bound, the list was unending.
And there were only three of them to do it all.
Still, they had made it to Sailors Isle. And that was something.
There was, as Vyse was coming to think there always would be, a problem.
They had no goods for trade, no coin, and no ship.
They had, in fact, nothing more than the clothes on their backs, whatever gear they had on them when the skiff was destroyed, and a list of expensive parts that needed to get back to Windmill Isle.
All of which meant he needed to have a talk with Captain Drachma.
Wonderful…
He didn't bother brushing at his shirt before knocking on the captain's door; he'd quickly learned that the man didn't care about a little dirt.
"Get in then" he heard through the thick door almost before he finished knocking.
He went in.
O0O
Drachma sighed as he carefully sank into a chair. It had been a long haul up through the Great Cavern and into the neutral zone, and the Harbor at Sailor's Isle was more crowded than he was used to.
The children had turned out more competent than he'd thought, which had made the whole thing a great deal less trouble than he was used too. And they didn't complain about fixing the damage their damn boat had done to his poor Jack.
They might, he admitted grudgingly, be worth a damn, right enough.
He fumbled through his pockets for a bit until he found his pipe and carefully packed a few pinches of tabak into the bowl.
A splinter lit over the archwhale-oil lantern on the table set the weed burning and he leaned back contentedly.
There was a knock on the door, several in fact.
Boy probably thinks an old man can't hear.
"Get in then" He grunted.
The boy did. He looked like he'd just crawled out of an engine.
Good, means he's doing the work he's been told.
"Found the problem then boy?" He asked.
The kid nodded, looking rather pleased with himself.
"Bolt worked lose on the second rotator shaft."
Drachma nodded, not a fatal problem, but one that he was glad to be done with. The Float Engine had been acting up for days, and you couldn't pull one apart without setting down in a solid dock.
"'Spect yer wondering when you and the girl can get off then?" He asked. It was hardly a leap, the pair had been near frantic the whole trip.
The boy licked at his lips and shifted his hands nervously.
Drachma's eye's narrowed, and a goodly portion of the solid contentment he'd felt washed away. Whatever this was about had the boy twisted up worse than his lines had been.
He shoved the pouch of tabak across the table.
"You have paper don't you boy?"
The boy nodded, muttered something vaguely thankful and pulled a bit from his pockets. He fumbled a bit, his hands were still unsteady, but managed to get the better part of a pinch of leaf rolled into the scrap.
Drachma watched with interest as the boy frowned for a moment, then snapped his fingers, sparking a tiny flame that he cradled in his hands to light the roll before shaking his hand to put it out.
"Thought you were from the Silver Isles boy." He said, though now that he looked closer, there was perhaps a touch of the Nasr in the set of his face, and beneath the sailors tan, the boy might be a touch darker than was common in the southern isles.
That at least brought a smile to the boy's face.
"From a sailor's line sir."
Well, that would explain it. As well as why the boy worked like one born to the sky.
But it would have been nice to know the boy was touched by the Firechild before I took him on my ship.
Nothing to be done about it now of course, and if he'd gone this long without setting the Jack aflame, he wasn't likely to lose control of himself.
Drachma heaved another sigh, sending a thick jet of smoke to float near the deck above.
"Well then, out with it lad." The tabak should have settled him some, made it easier to find what was going on.
The boy made that odd sucking noise Islanders sometimes used to show reluctance, then leaned forward.
"We, Aika and I, we'd like to sign on for a long haul, paid in advance."
Drachma nearly let his pipe fall from his mouth.
Deepspawn take me…
He pulled himself together.
Damned if I'll let this pup put me out of sorts.
"How long a haul, boy, and how much pay?"
Vyse smile was sickly as he pulled a larger bit of parchment from somewhere in his coat and smoothed it on the table before pushing it across.
"Enough for this, and to ship it to Windmill Isle."
Drachma picked up the parchment and ran his eyes over it, not a long list, but a pricy one.
…lost half the resonance fluid and still kept the damn thing flying…cracked one of the tilemon braces…
His respect for whoever it was the kids usually worked for rose a good deal. The kind of damage the list pointed to would send most ships straight to the Deep before the crew even realized someone had hit them.
Before he realized it, he was running through his mental tally of the notes and coins in the chest under his bunk.
He could afford it without any real trouble, he was careful with the Jack and wasn't prone to throwing away coin, and the extra hands would be useful, if unneeded.
Drachma wavered. It had been a long time since he'd hired crew.
Hn, can always toss them over the side if they get too annoying.
"One year." He said.
That was fairly generous, the parts really were expensive, and shipping to the Silver Isles wasn't cheap either.
"Done." The boy said. Apparently he was smart enough to see a good deal.
Maybe not so much of the Nasr then. Drachma thought.
"Now," he said, puffing again on his pipe and settling back, "a list like that demands a story."
Vyse sat back himself, and let out a cloud of smoke with a sigh.
"Well…"
O0O
75th Day of the 1st Quarter of the 42nd Year under Her Glory Empress Teadora II
It was the surprise, more than the impact, which sent him over. He'd been paying more attention to the blasted cobbles than the people around him, and had run headlong into someone.
Fina had also spent the previous evening attempting to prepare a Silvite meal for him, and by this point he was hungry enough to be more concerned for the food he'd nearly dropped in the sewer than his dignity and manners.
The things I do for country. He thought as he scrambled to pick the least soiled items off the street.
"Here."
He blinked, refocused on the apple two inches in front of his nose, then trailed his eyes away from the rough hand holding it, up the lean arm and into the rather pleasant face of the girl he'd run into.
Who was by some miracle neither running off with half his purchases nor making threatening gestures with a weapon, but instead holding part of her own shopping to make up for the one of his sitting in a particularly vile looking puddle.
Decency, in this hole?
He took the apple.
"Thank you, I'm terribly sorry, wasn't looking where…"
"No problem." She broke in, "I was in a rush myself."
There was an awkward pause, and Enrique realized that for all his covert trips to the lower city, which had really made him feel quite well prepared for living incognito, he had no idea how to actually talk to someone he wasn't haggling with.
"So, what brings you to Sailor's Isle?" She asked, and he realized that they had both resumed walking sometime in the middle of his discomfort.
"Ah, my partner and I are hoping to hire a ship, for an expedition you see…" He and Lady Fina had spent some time working out what to tell whoever they hired. They couldn't very well say that they intended to seek out and claim the six legendary weapons of the Fall so that they could be sent to the remnants of the Silver people who lived beyond the sky.
They certainly couldn't mention that they would be acting directly against the concerted efforts of most of the Valuan Armada.
Shortly, he managed to get her talking, and she launched into a long, certainly exaggerated story about a daring fight with a Ship from below the clouds followed by a two week journey in a skiff.
It wasn't until he'd followed her through two stalls and a shop that he realized that he was going in the wrong direction to get back to his rooms. Before he could excuse himself and escape, however, something from her story caught his ear.
"…was huge, you've never seen an Archwhale like it. I didn't get a good look at it myself, but Vyse said it had to be…"
"You mean Rhaknam!"
She paused for a minute, a piece of fabric still pinched between her fingers.
"Er..yeah, I think I heard the Captain call it that. Sounded pretty upset too."
She leaned over conspiratorially. "I think he's hunting it."
Enrique felt like crying. After all this time he was finally going to get off this cursed island and get back to work.
"That's marvelous," he said, "you see that's exactly what my partner and I are trying to find. That and several other similar creatures…"
He babbled for a moment before managing to reign himself in.
"Do you think that your Captain would be amenable to two passengers? We can pay quite well, and…"
But the girl was already shaking her head.
"Maybe, but he's pretty tough. I don't think he'd take anyone who wasn't willing to work."
Enrique forced back a shudder. Fighting he could do, and shopping, and all the hours of work put in trying to piece together where they needed to go.
But hard manual labor on some scow…
The things I do for Country…
"Would you show me to his Ship?"
O0O
Gilder pasted his most innocent, charming smile across his face and tried to ignore the grim certainty embodied by the solid wall digging into his back.
Not to mention the two pistols pointed at his face.
At least the light was getting bad, most people had worse night sight than he did, and getting out of this was going to be a trick.
"Lovely evening gentlemen, lady, what brings you out?"
The leader of the patrol, a stunning young woman by his estimation, scowled at him.
"You."
He smiled harder. "Ah, you flatter me my fine lady, but I fear I have other engagements this evening. Perhaps…"
He broke off and narrowly dodged the kick aimed at his groin.
"Don't be coy, fool. Gilder of Cordela, in the name of the Imperial Valuan Armada, I place you under bond of law."
Gilder dropped his smile and raised his hands.
"Well, this is a disappointing development," he sighed, "I'm terribly sorry."
A flick of his wrists sent two of the pistols in his sleeves into his hands even as he wrenched himself out of the path of the ones pointed at him. His first two shots took the commander and her underling in the chest, and he dropped the guns and reached for his two main weapons. His right hand grabbed Mathilda the expensive, finicky magazine fed handgun he'd taken years ago from the corpse of a valuan noble, while his left dove for the somewhat less extravagant revolver tucked under his right arm.
The patrol kicked itself into gear, too much to hope for that they would fall apart. The swordsmen shifted carefully around to try and flank him while the four riflemen in the rear leveled their weapons.
Gilder hurled himself in a roll at the swordsmen to his left, the rifle rounds cracking just above his head, and came up shooting. This close there wasn't time to take a stance or properly brace his guns, he just pointed and shot and kept moving. The first round went wide of the first swordsman but the second smashed through the beaked helmet and dropped him to the stones. The rest of the magazine cut down all but one of the guards on this side of the alley, and that one he got behind and smashed the sword out of his grip and then clubbed him in the temple.
He dropped the pistol, no chance to reload and hold onto his shield. The revolver cracked three times and two of the gunmen went down. The next three shots only took down one of the swordsmen now closing in from the other side of the alley, spread out and harder to hit.
He dropped the gun and reached for another, fired and reached for another, and another. He pulled guns from his pockets, his belts, and the straps inside his coat. The swordsmen couldn't close without risking his shield, and he cut them down.
Finally, he ran out of loaded guns and the patrol ran out of men. He shoved the man, still fuzzy from the blow to the head, away.
"Sorry about all this mess." He said, and slammed a knife between the top of his armor and the lower edge of his helm.
There were over a dozen men laid out around him, he could hear the rest of the watch making for the sound of gunfire, and his pistols were empty.
"Hmm, and I was just starting to like the scenery."
He shoved his guns back into his pockets, time to properly clean and load and store them later, slid another clip into his darling Mathilda and hurried out of the alley and into the busy streets of Mercodora city.
Maybe it's time to spend a few months near the Nasr for a change. He thought. Maramba perhaps, I hear Kasad found a wonderful new girl.
He smiled and gave a jaunty wave to a heavily armed patrol of guards as they rushed up the street and then turned for the docks and his Claudia.
Yes, a nice long vacation away from Valua sounds quite healthy.