She had never considered herself a fighter, but this time there was no way to escape the looming combat. For a brief instant Annika thought of taking the bronze rod from her belt, but Zarne's warning, coupled with her own fears of finding herself incinerated by another fireball, quickly made her forget the erratic magical item in favor of the dagger in her boot. By the time the thief had drawn her weapon, Zarne was already locked in vicious combat with three of the cultists, spinning his sword in a tight defensive arc to ward off the short swords and daggers wielded against him. Quickly Annika tried to race up to the constable's side, but the cult leader fixed her with a stern glare that stopped her in her tracks.
"Nerull's fear grips you," the scythe wielding priest snarled in a chilling voice. Annika felt her muscles tighten as he spoke, freezing her in place as if she was a statue. Frantically the thief tried to force her body to respond, but she could not even open her mouth to call for help. Helplessly the thief watched as the other cultists closed in on Zarne, praying that she could fight her way free of her paralysis before the constable was overtaken.
Whether he knew her predicament or not, Zarne paid Annika no mind as he concentrated on his three immediate attackers. Two of the cultists quickly tried to flank him on either side while the largest of the group lunged at him in a frontal attack, but even Annika could not believe how quickly the constable moved. Unable to draw his long sword back for a full swing in the narrow confines of the passage, Zarne simply exploded forward, ducking low under the short blades of the two attackers on his sides and ramming his shoulder into the cultist in front of him. The constable gave his initial target no time to recover; as the cultist fought to keep his balance and regain the wind blasted from his lungs, Zarne slammed the pommel of his sword straight up into the cultist's jaw with a sickening crack. Even as he did so, however, one of the other two cultists scored a hit of his own, stabbing his short sword into Zarne's shoulder and only narrowly missing the constable's neck.
"I could use a little help here!" Zarne shouted, whirling on the two cultists behind him. Desperately Annika tried to free herself from the priest's spell, but still her body remained rigid and immobile. She could only watch as Zarne barely managed to dodge out of the way of one cultist's dagger, stumbling and nearly falling into the knee deep sewage as he scrambled quickly to avoid his second attacker's short sword. The evasive moves cost the constable his balance and he fell back against one wall, but even as the short sword wielding cultist rushed in for the kill, Zarne shoved himself off of the wall with his own sword leading the way. The constable growled in pain as the cultist's blade found its way through his chain shirt and pierced his side, but nothing could stop the constable's momentum. The cultist's eyes shot wide as Zarne's blade plunged through his chest, driving far enough to punch through his back and chip the far wall as the two men fell across the passage. At the same moment, however, the priest of Nerull hurled a ray of sickening green energy at the constable, impacting squarely in the constable's chest as he tried to tear his blade free of his attacker. Zarne stumbled back with the impact, but Annika could not see immediately what the ray had done to her companion. One cultist had fallen, but Zarne's first target was already struggling back to his feet, holding his broken jaw with one hand as he turned on Zarne.
"Finish him!" the cult leader ordered. His two remaining subordinates rushed in to obey their leader's command, but Zarne, despite the fact that he suddenly struggled under the weight of his own blade and armor, somehow managed to fend off his two opponents as he staggered backwards to the thief. Behind them, the cult leader whispered a prayer to his dark god to guide his weapon. Already hard pressed by his two attackers, Zarne would never be able to take on the priest as well.
Annika's taut muscles suddenly relaxed. The thief nearly fell forward as she was suddenly able to move again, but managed to catch her balance and whirled on the priest. The scythe wielding priest lunged past her before she could get to him, his pitted weapon slashing between his two cultists and slamming into Zarne's side before she could stop him. Zarne screamed in pain as the weapon opened a deep wound in his side, but Annika forced his injuries from her mind as she collided with the death priest and shoved her dagger to the hilt into his side. The cult leader howled in agony, but instead of falling to the injury, he whirled on the young thief. The haft of the priest's scythe nearly knocked Annika senseless as it crashed into her temple, sending a bright spray of colors across her vision as she tumbled backward. She felt her blade pull free of her momentarily weakened grip, but through the swirls of light she had no idea where her weapon had fallen.
"You'll pay for that, child!" the priest shrieked furiously. Annika's vision cleared in time to see the cult leader already swinging his scythe forward, but thankfully the narrow confines hampered his attacks as much as it did Zarne's. The tip of the scythe bit into the wall only an inch from the thief's head as the cult leader tried to swing in the tight passage. Quickly Annika scrambled out of the way of the pitted, curved blade, seeing with horror that her only dagger was still embedded in the priest's side.
"Zarne! Zarne, help me!" Annika screamed, ducking under another tight arc of the priest's scythe.
"I'm a little busy right now!" Zarne snapped in reply. Annika glanced back to the constable, to see Zarne barely holding his own against the two remaining cultists as they hacked away at his defenses. Frantically Annika dodged out of the way of another of the priest's attacks, then desperately yanked her rod free of her belt.
"I wonder what this does!" the thief screamed, pointing the rod at the priest. The cult leader was suddenly lined in purple fire, but within a heartbeat both Annika and the priest realized that the flames did nothing more than illuminate him. Annika glanced at the rod for a moment, but then looked back up to the death priest.
"Good try," he said simply. Annika scrambled back out of the way of another swing of the scythe as she smacked the rod against the palm of her hand, praying that she would knock a far more useful effect out of the metal.
"I wonder what this does!" she shouted again. The priest hesitated, almost ready to spring out of the way, but for a moment nothing seemed to happen. With a cruel smile that somehow showed even through his skull mask, the cult leader raised his scythe and advanced slowly on the cornered thief.
A low rumbling began to echo through the passage, freezing all five combatants where they stood. The rumbling rapidly escalated to a deafening roar, and within moments a wall of water came hurtling around a last intersection on a direct course for the passage's occupants.
"It will cost over a hundred pieces of gold just to replace the burned sails and rigging, to say nothing of the cost of labor and the fact that the main mast may be irreparably damaged."
Evgeny simply stared up at the main mast of the Narval in dismay, squinting his eyes in the midday sun to see the top of the charred structure. The rigging could possibly be replaced in a matter of a week or so, if his crew worked from dawn to dusk to complete the work, but if the mast itself was badly damaged the Narval could end up in the Tierwaal repair docks for the entire summer. For the moment, Lev and Saveli were climbing to the top of the mast to survey the damage that the thief had caused the previous night with her fireball. The only positive out of the whole night was that none of his crew had been seriously injured in the fire.
"At least a week to repair it all," Evgeny muttered, voicing his problems. Standing next to him, the ship's quartermaster, Miroslav, nodded in agreement.
"At least a week," the wiry, gray haired man concurred. "Maybe more. And if the main mast is charred through…"
"Don't remind me," Evgeny grumbled with a disgusted shake of his head. "Think of all the money we're losing. The captain already lost a shipment of grain to southern Tourant because of this."
"The crew is getting anxious to sail," Miroslav added. "One or two of them are talking of signing onto another ship. Even a week in port is a cut into their pay that they don't want."
"I'm aware of that," Evgeny stated dismally. The first mate watched his sailors as they began their inspection of the main mast for another moment before finally turning to the quartermaster. "What about the girl?"
"She disappeared," Miroslav said with a shrug. "That thief, Bartel, says he doesn't know where she is, but that he's still looking for her."
"We should be taking the money out of his hide," Evgeny snarled. "I would say he's hiding her, except that he came to us."
"These thieves and brigands, they have no sense of honor, no loyalty to each other," Miroslav stated. "He wants thirty gold for the girl. He'll find her, or at least try to."
"And how much can we get for her in Jhaeward?" Evgeny inquired. Duchy Jhaeward, one of the two duchies on the large islands just east of the Utrecht Peninsula, would only take two days to reach under full sail, and the many brothels and lecherous aristocrats there were always in search of new girls for their stables. In the time it took to repair the Narval and get underway, the girl could be put to use on the ship in one way or another.
"Not enough to pay for all the damage she has caused," Miroslav answered.
"I am aware of that," Evgeny said. Miroslav shrugged again.
"Possibly between twenty and fifty gold," the quartermaster answered. "We will need to shop her around a little, find someone with a taste for her before we sell her. The brothels will likely only pay minimum price for her, as they will need to train and discipline her."
"At least we'll get some compensation for her, after what she's done," Evgeny said. The first mate paused for a moment, again considering the fire damage to the Narval. "And if she did this for someone else, I want to know about it. That Mardanian captain, Colbert, seemed to pick up our grain shipment a bit too quickly."
"You think he hired the girl to sabotage our ship?" Miroslav asked.
"I've seen it done before," Evgeny stated simply. The first mate opened his mouth to continue, but a low rumbling caught his attention somewhere behind him, towards the docks.
"What is that?" Miroslav asked quietly, turning to try to find the source of the noise. Evgeny said nothing as he continued to scan the docks. The rumbling sounded like a wave, or some sort of sudden rush of water…
A gout of filthy water suddenly shot out of one of the half submerged sewer drains, throwing a foul smelling mist into the air as it churned the harbor. As the sudden, inexplicable deluge ended, two figures washed out of the sewer pipe and into the water.
"I will never figure this city out," Miroslav said. "Is that how they clean their sewers?"
"I have no idea," Evgeny said, shrugging as he watched one of the two figures fight her way to the surface. For a moment the first mate wondered why the girl looked familiar to him, but his eyes went wide as he saw the bronze rod in her hand. "That's her!" Evgeny exclaimed, hardly believing his luck. "Hextor's Blade, that's her!"
If he had simply fallen off a pier into the harbor, it would have been difficult enough to keep afloat with his chain shirt. Now, it was close to impossible.
Zarne barely managed to break the surface of the churning water, desperately gasping for air before the weight of his armor could drag him back into the depths. Already weakened by a half dozen wounds and the cult leader's ray of enfeeblement, the constable could not keep himself afloat. Still he refused to surrender, kicking violently towards the sky and clawing at his chain shirt in a vain attempt to peel off the cumbersome armor. With his heavy cloak already beginning to wrap around him, impeding his movement even more, Zarne quickly found himself sinking to the bottom of the bay.
Something suddenly yanked his cloak away, freeing the constable from its added weight and hindrance. Still fighting with his armor, Zarne at least found his legs free enough to kick for the surface. A heartbeat later he could feel hands wrapping around his chest, and a cloud of dark hair momentarily blinded him. With a final, powerful kick as some measure of his strength returned, Zarne broke the water's surface, inhaling a lungful of air and choking on the salty spray of harbor water around him.
"Zarne! Zarne, are you all right?" Annika asked frantically, still holding him afloat. Zarne tried to answer, but found himself unable to do anything more than choke on a mouthful of seawater.
"Fine!" the constable finally managed to gasp out. "What… what happened?"
"I think that was the rod!" Annika answered, shouting over the last splashes of her conjured wave. Zarne freed himself from her grasp as he turned angrily on her.
"I told you not to use that thing!" Zarne snapped. Without Annika's support, the constable nearly slipped beneath the water again until the thief caught him in a tight embrace and forced him back above the surface.
"What did you want me to do, let them kill us?" Annika retorted, shouting even though she was less than an inch from his face. "I didn't exactly want to use the thing, you know! But that priest was about to scythe my head off!"
Zarne snarled in fury, but he found himself unable to refute the girl's statement. After losing his strength, he had almost been overwhelmed by the two cultists. Annika had fared no better against the priest. The thief's wave had probably been the only thing that had saved the two of them. At any rate, it had seemed to wash a majority of the filth from the pair. While he would likely need to burn his clothes, take a week's worth of baths he could not afford, and find some way to remove the stink from his chain shirt, his sudden landing in the harbor had at least started the process.
"Just get us to shore," Zarne grumbled, not entirely willing to admit that Annika's use of the rod was justified. Almost on cue, a voice sounded from across the water to his left.
"You in water! We come get you!" a sailor was yelling, perched on the edge of a small skiff rowing its way towards them. Silently Zarne thanked Pelor; although his strength was returning, the constable had not relished the thought of trying to climb up the algae covered pier supports or the rocky dock walls. "You wait there!"
"Thank the heavens!" Annika exclaimed, waving to the skiff with a huge smile on her face. She turned to Zarne as she laughed. "Thank Pelor they're here. You're heavy!"
"Funny," Zarne muttered as the skiff closed the last yards to them. "Very funny."
"Thank you so much!" Annika said as the skiff arrived. Zarne looked up to the man on the end of the boat as well, a somewhat thin young man with a mouth full of yellowed teeth and a mop of unruly black hair. "My friend is hurt, and we need to get back on shore quickly!"
"We help, we help!" the sailor exclaimed enthusiastically. The accent was undeniably Urhalian, as were the man's features. The sailor reached down to the water, but instead of helping Zarne into the boat, he grabbed hold of Annika to pull her up first with the help of an older, gray haired comrade.
"Ladies first!" the young sailor explained happily to the constable's questioning look. The two men disappeared back into the skiff with Annika, while another man reached over the side. Zarne took the man's hand, but as he looked up he suddenly realized that he was facing the same man that had confronted him the previous night. The barrel chested Urhalian showed a broad grin through his wild black beard as he tightened his grip on the constable's hand and began to pull him out of the water.
Zarne wasted no more time. The constable immediately stopped treading water and instead tried to dive back under the surface. The Urhalian refused to let go of the constable's hand, a move Zarne had anticipated. Tightening his own grip and using the weight of his chain mail to pull him down, Zarne could already see the boat listing to his side as the rest of the Urhalians tried to hold onto their leader or see through the water to grab the constable. Zarne nearly smiled as he saw exactly what he expected, and tugged even harder on the sailor's arm. With a final effort, the skiff tipped over, spilling Annika and the startled crew into the water.
Zarne thought the sudden shock of being capsized would have cost the Urhalian his grip, but as the constable tried to kick away in an attempt to find Annika the sailor pulled back on his arm hard enough to nearly wrench his shoulder out of its socket. Zarne spun back on the Urhalian in time to receive a vicious punch to his face, turning the water in front of him instantly red as his nose was flattened under the impact. With his head spinning, Zarne somehow landed a counter of his own, forgoing any sort of fighting etiquette and stabbing his fingers into the larger sailor's eye. The Urhalian let go as he grabbed at his face, his scream of pain coming out in a stream of bubbles. Zarne watched the Urhalian for only a moment as the sailor quickly swam to the surface before turning and searching for Annika.
The thief crashed into the constable a second later, evading the gray haired sailor that had originally helped her into the skiff. With much of his strength finally returning, Zarne launched himself past the thief and landed a solid punch just below the Urhalian's belt, doubling him over instantly in pain. Swiftly Zarne kicked off of the sailor to propel himself away from the sailors, grabbing Annika as he did so and swimming as quickly as his armor and equipment would allow for the shore. Annika kept up easily with him as they left the Urhalian sailors rapidly behind, until the constable managed to find his way to one of the many landings along the harbor jetty for rowboats and skiffs. As the two dragged themselves out of the water, Annika turned to Zarne, and started to laugh.
"What?" Zarne asked. "What's so funny?"
"You!" Annika exclaimed. "You have to be the dirtiest fighter I have ever seen!"
"What are you talking about?" Zarne asked, turning a confused expression on the girl.
"I saw you!" Annika said, still laughing. "First you poked one in the eye, then you hit the other right in-"
"You don't get points for fighting fair," Zarne cut in. Annika continued to laugh. "Come on," Zarne ordered, grabbing the thief by the wrist. "Let's get out of here before those guys figure out where we went."
His investigation had begun well. He had found the home of Zarne van Erison after only a few questions to the Chief Constable of Tierwaal, and Annika's current residence in a tiny attic corner of a filthy boarding house had been similarly easy to discern. After that, however, it had become next to impossible to find anything more about them.
It certainly had not been for a lack of trying. Gerrit had crossed the city at least twice, using the daylight hours to traverse Haven-straat first, then some of the taverns and inns on the less rowdy Zilveren-straat on the western side of Tierwaal where Zarne was known to frequent. For all of his searching during the day, however, the pair refused to show themselves. For all of the rumors he had heard of two gangs and the crew of an Urhalian merchant vessel hunting them, however, Gerrit found the couple's disappearance to be no surprise.
Gerrit turned to the west window in his work shop, looking out over the thatched roofs of the Magie-Vierkant and the rest of the city beyond it as he pondered his next step. Gerrit was a wizard, not a constable or magistrate. Arcane research was his forte, not investigation.
Gerrit turned away from his window, looking over his work shop for a long moment as he rubbed at the neatly trimmed beard on his chin. The wizard's lab was a far cry from Sanna's chaotic work shop; magical tomes were neatly stacked on shelves along the north wall, while his benches and beakers were spotlessly cleaned and components were stockpiled with meticulous order. Unlike Sanna, Gerrit was systematic and methodical, and certainly a far cry more cautious than his companion.
Gerrit finally turned to a large mirror of polished silver set against the south wall of his work shop, studying the ornate gold trim of the object for a long moment as he considered his next move. The mirror would be the focus of a scrying spell, but the wizard was hesitant to cast such a spell to concentrate on anything inside the city of Tierwaal. Annika and Zarne would be little trouble to track down on their own, but the population of wizards in Tierwaal, and indeed any city inside the boundaries of Utrecht, added many complications to the spell. The simple number of runes and wards cast over buildings and properties meant that, at the very least, his spell could be blocked, and at worst, he could be blinded or even killed by a protective ward that he could inadvertently trip. Still, magic was his best bet to find the thief and her stolen rod, and within moments Gerrit had cast his spell of scrying.
For a long moment the highly polished surface of the mirror revealed nothing more than Gerrit's reflection as the wizard carefully wove his spell around the wards and sigils that covered many of Tierwaal's buildings. Finally, his reflection disappeared in a growing haze of smoke, giving way to a dark, open room of some sort. Little was discernable through the murk for the moment save Annika and her stolen magic item. The girl was helping her companion ease down against a wall of some sort, and even though he was partially concealed by the indistinct image Gerrit could tell that Zarne had been injured somehow.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Annika asked as she knelt in front of the beleaguered constable. Her voice, barely audible through the spell, was tinged with concern as she examined the worst of her partner's injuries.
"First thieves, then cultists, then Urhalians," Zarne grumbled as he too tried to see the worst of the vicious puncture in his side. "Is there anyone in this city you haven't gotten angry with you yet?"
"The cultists weren't my fault!" Annika protested. The thief tried to continue in her defense, but Zarne held up a hand for her to stop.
"I know, I know," the constable said wearily. "It's been a long day, I'm soaked, I smell terrible, I've been beaten up repeatedly, and now I'm spending the night in some gods forsaken warehouse. Not exactly the day I was hoping for."
"A warehouse?" Gerrit repeated, although the two had no chance of hearing him. Quickly the wizard strained his eyes as he examined the image a second time, trying to locate any identifying marks in the dimly lit building.
"Are you sure no one will find us here?" Annika asked. Zarne shrugged.
"As sure as I can be," the constable answered. "And I know the person that owns this warehouse. He won't give us trouble if he does find us here."
"I hope you're right," Annika asked, moving slightly closer to the constable. She opened her mouth and seemed to speak again, but the audible components of Gerrit's spell suddenly failed.
"Oh no," the wizard said. Before Gerrit could respond to the sudden assault on his spell, the image in the mirror rapidly shifted to swirling crimson flames. Quickly the wizard jumped away from the mirror, taking cover behind the nearest table only a heartbeat before the mirror itself shattered and a tiny gout of crimson fire erupted from the frame. As the pieces of the mirror crashed to the ground and the fire devolved into a faint pall of sulfurous smoke, Gerrit stood up and took stock of the expensive mishap.
"Another mirror, cast right into the Abyss," the wizard grumbled. "This is getting costly."
After another moment spent examining the ruins of his mirror, Gerrit turned and stalked out of his workshop, resigning himself to another round of the city. His only consolation was that he had at least narrowed his search down to the warehouses of Haven-straat.
As Gerrit disappeared down the steps of his tower, Espen, shrouded by his cloak of invisibility and held aloft outside the work shop's north facing window by his boots of levitation, slowly smiled. Gerrit may not have had the connections to discover which merchant may have employed Zarne van Erison in the past, but Espen had more than enough resources to track down the constable and his new ward.