2
Fire in the Night
"Blast!" the dwarf barked. His dark face and beard were illuminated dimly in the night by a yellow light. Tomon was walking up the steps from below deck when he heard the word.
It had been a difficult few days sailing up the coast and hearing the word Blast! barked out by a deep voice had been a regular occurrence. Vagano had largely been accepted as the captain without much discussion. He had been first mate to the deceased captain and there were precious few others aboard with experience at sea. There were only a handful of sailors, a lucky few that had been on board when the trouble started. There were even fewer soldiers to guard the food stocks and keep order, but one of them was a large, powerful looking kerran named Vargas. Master-at-Arms he was called most often by Vagano. Able men, women and some children had been pressed into emergency service to keep the boat going. Durgin Stouthammer had blustered about above and below decks with a few amateur assistants in repairing damage from the escape and keeping the The Seahorse, or old tug as Vagano was fond of saying, afloat and moving. There were a couple of people tending to the wounded and injured that made it aboard during the escape. They'd labored on in hopes of making it to the next town up the coast. Talk was they would reach it this night.
The dwarf's moonlit face was the first he saw among many in a crowd on deck looking in the same direction. Behind him was the large ogre he'd seen earlier in the day. He was immense, seemingly the only one on the ship who was bigger than Master-at-Arms Vargas. He had dangerous looking teeth sticking up out of his lower jaw, almost like tusks. His large face of yellow-green skin was illuminated by an odd glow that did not look like moonlight. Beside them were a few sailors, men and kerran, several men with swords that Tomon knew served Vargas as soldiers of the night watch, and a couple of fair skinned and fair haired elves with very tall ears. Tomon had seen the couple walking arm-in-arm earlier in the day about the deck. They were all standing still, staring, and whispering in the night.
Tomon stepped out onto the deck and followed the gaze of the crowd. The sight of a town, wharfs and many ships alight in flames made for a grand spectacle off in the darkness of the night.
"First our own Dalnir, now Warslik" said Durgin grimly. "Do you think those bloody Shissar are burning Kurn's Tower too?"
"They will paint the high walls of Kurn with shissar blood first," said one of the soldiers in the crowd defiantly. "At their best with all their iksar slaves doing their bidding, they were never able to take the tower."
Tomon noticed a few iksar elsewhere on the deck looking toward the soldier but saying nothing. He paused his gaze on them for a moment. He knew many of them had broken from the shissar empire and joined the Combine, but he also knew there was mistrust amongst some of the races and the iksar still. Tomon thought it might have something to do with their scaly skin, lizard-like heads, and tongues that seemed to stretch out forever from their mouths.
He turned back to look at the burning town. The flames were growing brighter and Tomon felt the ship start to turn away from the burning docks.
"Snakes are for stepping on," growled the ogre. "If there were more of my kind on this ship I'd tell Captain Heartless there to turn us toward shore and have us step on a few more in the name of the Warlord!"
Tomon heard a thin chuckle from behind the crowd. Some turned to the sound. A shadow in the dark with gleaming eyes looked out. "Anashti has blessed us with but one of your kind, Rorshif." The voice was little more than a hiss but it carried over the deck. "Any more and we would be ramming the docks on fire and challenging the flames themselves in a duel to the death."
The ogre growled in response, turning menacingly toward the voice in the shadows. "Filthy little black elf. Step out of the shadows and I will step on you first!"
"The question remains," Vagano interrupted, "if we should continue up the coast toward Kurn, or set our sail for Antonica."
There was a sudden murmur of surprise and doubt from the crowd. Clearly what Vagano had said was unexpected.
"Antonica?" questioned Rorshif, turning away from the dark elf. "I will not!" His lower jaw seemed to stick out further in defiance, his tusked teeth standing taller. A few voices murmured support.
"Rorshif," Vagano said patiently as he continued to steer the ship away from the burning remains of Warslik, "we were very fortunate that the supplies were loaded on to this boat hours before the attack on Dalnir. We do not have an inexhaustible supply, however. Even a cook such as yourself cannot make something from nothing. If we cannot make land, and we sail to Kurn and find it in ruins, we will not have food nor water to make it to Antonica."
"I don't need food or water to make it to Antonica," Rorshif growled, his massive hands clenching into fists now. "I'm not going to Antonica. I'm staying right here on Kunark."
There was a good deal of whispering and wondering gazes amongst those on deck. Nobody said anything for a few long moments. The eerie sound of a large building collapsing in flames echoed across the water. The flaming ruins were receding into the night as the ship moved onward.
"Rest assured, my good ogre," Vagano said for all to hear. "Any man wishing to be put ashore will be when it is safe to do so. But they should consider carefully that we may be the last ship out of Kunark." A silence settled over the deck, broken only by the creaking of the rigging and the passing of the water.
"Get to your bunks, everyone," Vagano finally said. "We'll call council in the morn and give folks a chance to say their piece before our next move."