Fenris ducked down a side-street, then into an alley, leading them on a twisting course away from where they'd been ambushed. Only once they were some distance away did he lead them back to one of the main streets, and from there on down to the harbour. They had no further problems on the way there.

Of the three ships at dock, two were headed the wrong direction – northeast to the Rialto Bay – and one was a coaster, working the northern shore of the Waking Sea and Amaranthine Ocean between Hercinia and Cumberland; no use to them. There was a tender at dock from one of the anchored ships, a lone crewman waiting aboard. He was willing to admit that the ship he belonged to was bound for Ferelden, but for the answers to any further questions he said they'd need to wait and talk to the captain.

They sat down on some barrels in the shade of a nearby warehouse, and waited. And waited. It was past noon before a large well-dressed man attended by two even larger and well-armed sailors came walking along the dock, clearly heading for the tender. The three of them rose, and walked over; the waiting sailor was speaking to the man, and gestured their direction as they approached. He turned, and gave the three of them a wary look, then spoke to Feynriel. "You looking for passage to Ferelden for yourself and your servants?" he asked.

Fenris bit his lip, but declined to correct the man; as Feynriel's bodyguard he supposed he technically was a servant right now, and Feynriel being considerably better-dressed than Anders, and human, it was a natural assumption for the man to have made.

Feynriel, experienced at travelling as he was, made short work of arranging passage for the three of them to Amaranthine. The ship was due to sail that night; as they had all their possessions and a good amount of supplies with them already, they simply boarded the tender along with the captain and his men, and rode out to the ship with them.

They were given a tiny cabin below-decks, adjacent to the hold and doubtless serving as extra cargo space much of the time, the ship not really being designed to take passengers. At the captain's orders they were supplied with three hammocks to string from hooks set in the wooden walls, a hanging lantern to light the space, a tightly lidded bucket to use as a chamberpot, a small table, and a single chair. As small as the cabin was, that used up almost all of the space in it anyway; only two of them at most could be on their feet at the same time, the third having to remain either in a hammock, on the chair, or out in the passageway.

The captain – Captain Lavell – made it clear that he preferred them to remain out of the way during the voyage, staying in their cabin and out from underfoot as much as possible. It should, thankfully, be a fairly short voyage; three days west to Ostwick first of all, and then two days to cross south to Amaranthine.

They spent some time packing away their belongings as well as they could, which mostly involved seeing that their packs and other supplies were stacked on the floor under the table and the lowest hammock in some reasonably secure but accessible fashion, after which Anders and Fenris stretched out in two of the hammocks while Feynriel sat down at the table and wrote in his journal for a while by the light of the lantern; not an easy task, especially with the ship rocking slightly. He soon gave up, and simply sat back in the chair, arms folded and staring off into space.

Fenris found the quiet very relaxing; the slight rocking motion and the sounds of the waves against the hull, the creak of rope and wood, these were all familiar things to him from his voyages with Isabela. He wondered how she was doing, and if she had managed to talk the Nevarran authorities into making her a privateer. He smiled, easily imagining her in such a role; she was, after all, a pirate, and privateering was just piracy with a thin mask of questionable legality on.

He craned his head enough to the side to see Anders, in the lowest hammock, and smiled slightly when he saw the mage was already napping, eyes shut and head rolled to the side, mouth slightly open. A nap, he decided, was a good decision, and made himself more comfortable in the hammock.


Feynriel woke him a few hours later, handing him a mug of small beer and a handful of dried fruit and hard cheese for his dinner. Anders was seated at the table, already eating. Feynriel moved over to lean against the wall beside the table, freeing what little floor space he could. Fenris, moving carefully, sat up and let his legs dangle off the side of the hammock, leaning back across the width of it so that it acted as a chair, rather than attempting to find room to stand as well.

"We should be setting sail shortly," Feynriel said. "Evening tide."

Fenris nodded, his mouth too full of dried apple slices to bother answering. "Close quarters," he said once he'd swallowed. "Though I'm sure we'll be allowed on deck occasionally. To empty and rise the slop bucket, if nothing else," he added, nodding toward where it sat in the corner by the door.

Feynriel nodded in agreement. "I've been up once already, to ask the Captain about that. He says we can have an hour or two on deck each day, though preferably not all three of us at the same time. And I've already bribed the cook to see that we get hot water twice a day for tea," he added.

"And purchased beer?" Fenris asked, raising an eyebrow and his mug.

Feynriel grinned. "Yes. From the Captain; says he never trusts the water and it's safer to drink beer."

Anders made a sound of agreement and nodded his head, before sipping from his own mug. Fenris agreed as well; it was one of the things he'd learned while travelling with Isabela. Never trust the local water unless you'd boiled it first, or cut it with a good measure of some strong drink. Beer was usually, though not always, safer. Ignoring that rule when travelling was a good way to end up with a bloody flux of the bowels. Doubtless Feynriel was aware of it too, from his own travels. Hence the purchase of a keg of beer for their own supply on the run to Ferelden.

They had little to talk of during the meal, or afterwards, Fenris telling Feynriel what little he knew of Ferelden from his few visits there, with occasional grunts of agreement or brief interjections from Anders. The older mage knew the place best of the three of them, but communication would always be a problem, and he clearly didn't think he had anything to currently contribute to the discussion that was worth the effort of trying to write it out.

"There we go," Feynriel said after a while. Fenris nodded agreement, listening to the familiar sounds from overhead of a crew readying a ship for sail, and the feel of it turning to catch the wind and run. The movement of the ship at sail was different than when anchored in harbour, a smoother movement at first until they got out beyond the breakwall, then choppier for a while before settling down on her westward course.

There being nothing else to do, and no reason to waste their lamp oil, they went to bed not long after that, each of them settling down in a hammock, then Feynriel, in the topmost one, leaning over to extinguish the flame. It was very dark in the cabin after that, and quiet.

Fenris lay awake some time, listening to the sounds of the ship, and eventually to the soft snores of the other two men, unable at first to settle to sleep himself. He rolled over on one side, settling himself more comfortably in the hammock, then after a while hummed very quietly to himself. And smiled, as two wisps popped into view, something about their movement expressing pleasure that he'd finally called them again. Hider and Singer, he thought from their tones, and cupped one hand against the canvas near his head. Hider promptly slipped into the little cave thus formed, its faint glow almost entirely hidden, while Singer began a slow exploration of the cabin, humming its three notes at random; a soothing sound. It wasn't long after that before Fenris finally slept too, lulled at last by the comfort of their presence.