Thad pounded on the next door with the flat of his hands. He could hear movement inside, but, just like at the house before, no one answered. "I know you're in there!" he called. "Come out and help!"
Why is nobody doing anything? He stopped in the lengthening shadows of an alley on the north side of town, catching his breath. The pirates hadn't seen him yet. He'd passed at least a dozen already, but from what his grandfather had taught him about ships, he knew that the single-masted sloop in the harbor could have carried more than seventy men. He was glad that the rain had stopped, but he could have done without the chill in the air. The temperature dropped rapidly after the sun went down; typical, given the fickle nature of an Aldean spring. He shivered, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.
So strange, being back in Pravoka. Thad always knew he'd return someday, but he hadn't expected the city to be under siege when he did. Pappy had told him that the Stone City was the safest place in the world, with its wide moat surrounded by unscalable walls, and Thad had believed him. He'd seen the heavy iron gate rusting away in the canal near the city's entrance - Pappy said it had been unused for so long that when it snapped off its hinges in a fierce storm years ago, no one saw the need to replace it.
"Attackers don't exactly sail clear across the Aldean Sea to get here, Thaddie. Pravoka isn't wealthy, and we're not strategically placed enough to be valuable," he'd said.
But these pirates had done just that. It made no sense. Why would pirates attack a city? Why this city? The people of Pravoka had no enemies that Thad knew of. Even now, most of the citizens cowered indoors, avoiding conflict. Only a few hot-blooded folks had come out to face the threat, but most had returned to their homes when it became clear that the pirates weren't attacking indiscriminately: they were targeting certain houses.
The fighting seemed to be contained to the western streets, what Pravokans called Dock Side. Dock Side was where all the moneylenders were, at least one jeweler that Thad could recall, and all sorts of other things he imagined a pirate would be interested in. But Dock Side also held the guardhouse, a heap of trouble amounting to nothing of value that the pirates couldn't have found more easily elsewhere. Thad could think of only one reason for the attack: the pirates were looking for someone. As he hid in the shadows of an alley, watching a group of pirates guard the doors of a large manor house, he suspected he knew who that someone was.
Before he could examine the thought more closely, a hand clamped over his mouth. His assailant dragged him kicking farther down the alley, deeper into the shadows. Thad tried to cry out, but then a familiar voice said, "Hush, fool boy! Do you want to bring the pirates down on us?"
That was Lord Redden. He seemed to be speaking somewhere nearby, but Thad couldn't see the bard anywhere. He stopped struggling, and another voice nearer his ear said, "We must work on your situational awareness, young master Shipman. I snuck up on you far too easily."
The unseen hands released him. He turned, but there was no sign of Lord Orin either. "You really can turn invisible!" he said. "How are you doing that? Can I do it too? Is everyone else invisible?"
"Lord Redden specializes in a number of white spells adapted for combative purposes," said Orin.
"It's only the two of us here. We seem to have lost the others somewhere along the way." The bard sighed, the sound coming from near the mouth of the alley. Thad heard his soft footsteps coming back, stopping in front of him. "Orin and I ought to take turns boxing your ears, boy. What were you thinking, running off on your own like that?"
Thad shifted from one foot to another as he imagined how Redden must be glaring at him. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I ran. I guess I thought I could do something."
"Perhaps you care more about your old home than you thought?" Orin suggested.
"These people were kind to me," said Thad. "It's not their fault I couldn't stay here anymore."
"Well, you can't stay here now, either. Keep low, and keep quiet, and we'll make our way back toward the bridge," said Redden.
"No! I can help! Look!" He pointed toward the manor at the end of the alley. "I stayed in this house after my gram died. There's a window on the east side I've snuck out of a hundred times! I can get in that way, I know it!"
There was silence. Thad felt something brush past him - one of the men moving in for a closer look at the manor house - but neither Redden nor Orin said anything for a long moment. Then Redden said, "It's no good, boy. You'd never make it to the window with all those pirates around."
"Why not? Can't you make me invisible like you?"
"It isn't that simple," said Redden. "It takes training to learn how to move while Vanished. You won't know how much you rely on your sense of sight until you can't see yourself move. You'd be as good as blind."
"Perhaps we could arrange some manner of distraction long enough for young master Shipman to reach the window?" said Orin.
"Why in Bahamut's name would we consider such a thing? There must be twenty pirates in front of this house alone!" Redden said.
"Exactly," the monk said. "We've seen no other large groups of pirates. They appear to be focused on this spot. Why this one house?"
"You said you stayed here, boy? Who lives in this house?"
"Pravoka's mayor," Thad said. He heard Redden mutter a curse, and quickly added, "Please, Redden! She's a little old lady who wouldn't hurt anybody!" More or less, he thought to himself. "You could follow me! They won't see you! I'd be just as safe with you in there as I am out here!"
Silence again. Then the bard huffed out an exasperated breath."Kane never gave me this much trouble at your age." Thad felt a hand gripping his shoulder, steering him farther into the alley. "Fine," Lord Redden said at last. "Tell us everything you know about the layout of that house, every detail you remember, but be quick about it."
On the east side of town, Kane motioned the mages into an alley and peeked carefully around the corner. The streets here were narrower than Cornelia's, not even wide enough for an oxcart, but then Kane supposed they didn't use oxcarts in the Stone City - not enough pasture land nearby, nothing but forest and coastlines. The architecture was different here too, all straight lines and square buildings, not a curve in the whole place, so it was easy enough to see the pirates patrolling the street ahead of them. "That's the cathedral up there," he said. "Three guards… No, four, at the door. And that patrol there, but there might be others."
"How outnumbered are we?" Jack asked, cutting to the point. Lena huddled behind him, shivering in her white cloak either from fear or from the cold.
"Hardly at all, really," said Kane. "You could throw a few lightning bolts at them from here, couldn't you?"
Jack looked at Kane below the broad brim of his hat with obvious disdain. "That isn't how black magic works."
Kane shrugged. "Do let me know if you have any other ideas."
The tall mage motioned Kane out of the way, then edged up to the corner to take a look himself. "Maybe some kind of distraction?" he said. "To pull a few of them away from the door?"
"What, you mean like a lightning bolt or something?"
Jack gave him that look again, then sighed and said, "I might have a spell that can stun a group that size, but I've never tried it before. I have no idea if it'll work."
Someone behind them in the alley shouted, "Oy! What're you sneaking around for?" Kane's head whipped around. Four men were heading toward them, weapons drawn.
"Try it!" Kane hissed. "Try it now!"
Jack stepped in front of him and Lena, facing the approaching men. They stopped, muttering nervously when they saw the black mage standing there. Jack raised his staff, making a sign with his free hand as the corona lit his eyes. There was a flash of light in the air and a shower of gold sparks that left Kane blinking. The pirates stood in wide-eyed silence for a time. One of them looked down at his shirt, patting his torso as if to make sure he was all there.
"That didn't work," Jack said, stepping back until he bumped into Lena.
"What else have you got?" said Kane.
Down the alley, the pirates yelled and charged toward them.
"Run!" said Jack.
"What, that's it?" Kane said, but the mage was already pelting past, pulling Lena behind him. Kane cursed and ran after them.
Thad hid in the doorway of the building beside the manor house now. He was jittery, but it was excitement rather than fear. Fighting and monsters may have been beyond him, but breaking into a second story window? That was easy. He squinted at the wall across from him, planning his route.
"Wait for the signal," Orin said.
"I know." He could sense Orin behind him, but knew that if he turned his head, the monk would still be invisible. Moments before, Thad had handed the old man his sword and watched it disappear as Orin took it. Though he still didn't know how to use it well, Thad was surprised to find that he felt vulnerable without the short blade, but the sword might have interfered with his climb. He waited, steadying himself by counting his breaths as the monk had taught him. In and out, one. In and out, two…
At sixteen breaths, the signal came. Fire sprang up farther down the street, one of Lord Redden's spells. A few pirates yelled and headed toward the blaze, though all were looking that way, poised to face whatever might be coming, oblivious to the invisible red mage who had, Thad hoped, just snuck inside the open front door.
"Now!" said Orin, but Thad was already moving.
He kept to the wall, trying to be quick as he turned into the alley on the manor's east side and hoisted himself onto the ledge of the first window he came to, reaching for the decorative stone frame above it. More pirates shouted behind him, but Thad knew Orin would keep them from looking down the alley. He focused on finding handholds in the rough stone wall, scrambling both up and over. The room beyond the third window was brightly lit, making it easy to see the spot where he could press the right-hand shutter just enough to wiggle the left side open.
The window opened into a steward's office, all bookcases and chairs and a heavy oaken desk. He hadn't bothered to look in the window before he slipped inside, so intent was he on getting there before any of the pirates below noticed him, so he was startled to find he wasn't alone. Off to one side, a woman, gagged and tied to a chair, looked right at him, her eyes growing wide in surprise. Only her wrinkled face gave away her age, for her hair was still the color of cast iron and her back was still straight. It was obvious she recognized him, and was trying desperately to say something to him through the cloth stuffed into her mouth.
"Mayor Gordon!" Thad said, rushing to her side, pulling the gag free.
"Hide!" she said. "Hide, you stupid boy!"
Behind him, the click of the doorknob turning was as loud as a thunderclap.
Jack held her hand, squeezing it tightly, and half dragged her along as he turned down another alley. She struggled to keep up with his longer stride. "Jack!" she gasped. She heard pirates shouting behind them, giving chase. "What are you doing?"
"I'm running away!"
They turned down another street, turned again at an alley, until she was quite lost. Somewhere between one turn and the next, she'd lost sight of the guardsman. "Wait! Where's Kane?" she asked.
"Running, if he knows what's good for him."
"We can't just leave him! We have to do something!"
"My lady, I have a confession to make," he said, looking quickly up the next alley before turning into it. "You know how white mage philosophy forbids harming any living person?"
She slipped in a rain puddle but kept her feet. Her shoes were all wrong for running. "Technically, it's any living thing but-"
"Black mage philosophy has that too."
"It... What?" She stopped short in the middle of the alley, and he jerked her arm painfully before he stopped as well.
He reached for her hand once more, looking quickly around as though wondering where to go next, but he didn't run again. "I can't use my powers against a human being."
"But you can fight! I've seen you!"
He pushed her into an empty doorway, pressing into it beside her just as a group of pirates ran down the street where the alley ended. One of them stopped and peered through the gloom toward them, but the darkness concealed them well enough and the man moved on. Jack sighed in relief, then turned to her. "I can't fight with magic, not directly. It's in the Black Oath. I can use the aether any number of ways but 'Never to harm my fellow man.' I swore to it."
"But, back there..." she said. Only a stun spell, she realized, nothing that would truly hurt anybody. She'd seen him summon ice and fire plenty of times in their short acquaintance, but she had never seen him specifically target a person. Not even when Kane asked him to. If what he'd said was true - and she could sense that it was - he'd walked into a potentially hostile situation with no other weapon than a stick.
She remembered Kane's smile as he said, At least I know I can count on Jack here in a fight…
"Kane is going to kill you," she said.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Not if the pirates find us first." He looked cautiously out of the doorway, then looked back at her, blue eyes serious. "Wait here."
"What? Where are you going?"
"I'm going to check the street and see if it's safe."
"Jack!" she protested.
"Hey," he said, placing his gloved hands on her shoulders, bending slightly to look her in the eyes. "You're going to be alright."
"It's not me I'm worried about!"
"I'll be fine. Just wait right here."
She watched as he crept toward the alley mouth, peering down the street in the direction the pirates had gone, but then there was a shout from the other direction, and the sounds of running feet. Jack glanced back toward her, briefly, and she saw the panic in his eyes before he turned away again. Then he was running, two pirates no more than an arm's length behind him.
She covered her mouth with her hands to stifle her own startled cry, but they hadn't seen her. She heard more shouting, saw more pirates running after Jack. He's leading them away, she realized. She pressed back in the shadowy doorway, breathing heavily through her nose as she tried not to cry.
She bumped something and it fell clattering to the stones at her feet, causing her to squeak in alarm, but it was only Jack's staff. He hadn't taken it with him when he'd gone to check the street. But if his Oath forbids fighting with magic, what can he do without a weapon? Clutching the staff in both hands, she huddled in the doorway, waiting, hoping the black mage would come back for her.
Thad ducked behind the desk - there was nowhere else - but he didn't fit under it completely. If the pirate took a single step to this side of the room, he'd be caught for sure. He tried to hold perfectly still, tried not to make a sound, even when the snap of the door closing made him jump in fright.
A man's deep voice spoke. "Well, Leila. It's pleasant to see you again."
Thad's heart beat faster. I knew it. They've come for the mayor.
Mayor Gordon snarled, "Bikke. I might have known it was you. I'll have your hide for this."
Thad moved, slowly and carefully, inch by deliberate inch so that he could peek around the edge of the desk. The man laughed, a low rumble that masked any noise Thad might have made. Thad was able to see the pirate's back now, a big man with a curved sword through his belt, but Thad could see nothing of his face save for the edges of a snarled black beard. When Bikke spoke again, his was not the voice of a young man, but he didn't sound as old as the mayor. "Is that any way to treat an old shipmate? I would have thought you of all people would still honor the Code."
"Pirate's Code has some pretty definite things to say about attacking cities."
Bikke laughed again, but there was a bitterness to it this time. "It's not like it was back when you sailed, Leila. Ever since we lost Safe Port, the ocean's changed, turned on us. Man who sails on those waters takes his life into his own hands."
"I run a port city, Bikke. Don't try to tell me what the seas are like."
"The seas? The seas?! You think you know trouble in the Aldean Sea?" Bikke slammed his fists into the wall beside the mayor's head, leaning in close. His voice was cold, angry. "When was the last time you had a ship out of the North Sea? The Stone Coast? I'll wager your docks have seen nothing outside of Cornelia or Elfheim in more than a year. There are no ships on the open ocean anymore, Leila! None! Nothing to steal, nothing to trade, nothing out there for pirates like us."
"I'm not like you."
"No, I suppose you aren't…" Bikke turned his back on the mayor suddenly. Thad froze, but the pirate never looked his way, instead walking toward the window.
That was close! Thad thought. He could faintly hear fighting in the hall outside; Bikke didn't seem to have noticed. Orin and Redden, Thad realized. He'd told them to meet him in this room. If they'd both made it inside, both invisible… What would Bikke do to the mayor if the door burst open right now? He had to act fast.
He reached for his sword, and found nothing, remembering only then that Orin was carrying it for him. He looked about the tiny office for a weapon. The mayor saw him there and jerked her head toward the desk as if to indicate he should move back again. He shook his head. She glared at him, but returned her attention to her captor. "What are you doing here, Bikke?"
Thad was on the wrong side of the desk to see the man near the window, but his voice carried clearly across the small room. "Lot of stories going around about your old friend Shipman. Folks say he was lucky, say he had a way of making the winds blow fair."
Unbidden, Thad's hand seized the front of his shirt, and the green gem on its long chain underneath. The mayor's eyes twitched but she didn't look Thad's way. "Josiah's dead. The Syldra went down with all hands two years gone."
"So I hear. During that hurricane off the Stone Coast, wasn't it? The one that took out Safe Port and half the world's pirate ships. Biggest storm there ever was. The way I heard it, though, that storm veered south, straight for Pravoka. But, Leila, I can't help but notice that your whole stinking city is still here."
The noises in the hallway were getting louder now. Thad could tell from the mayor's face that she'd heard them too, but her voice was calm as she said, "Hard to blow over a stone, Bikke."
"Or maybe the winds here only blow fair." The big bearded pirate walked back to the mayor again, his face only inches from hers. "Syldra's Tear. Tell me where it is."
Thad renewed his search for a weapon. Something, anything! But there were only books!
Outside in the hallway, someone cried out. There was the sound of a body slamming into the closed door. Bikke drew his sword.
"It sounds like you're out of time, Leila."
Thad reached for the nearest shelf, for the biggest book he could find, gripped it in both hands, and swung with all his might at the back of the pirate's head.
Jack leaned against a wall, panting, thoroughly lost. He'd tried to double back for Lena, but by the time he'd lost the pirates chasing him, he was completely turned around. Even an attempt to read the aether had failed - there were too many auras in the narrow city streets. He remembered Kane saying, "I can't protect her if I'm not with her," and the words stung. He could count on his bad hand the number of people in this world who trusted him completely and he'd left the most helpless one alone in a city swarming with bloodthirsty pirates.
Stupid! he thought, closing his eyes and tapping the back of his head against the wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He stood there for a full minute, trying to catch his breath, before he opened his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was a steepled bell tower rising up behind the building across from him. The cathedral! He'd run right to it!
About time something went my way for once. All he had to do was go over there and face down what could very well be an Oath-breaking, black mage pirate. With his bare hands. He could handle that, couldn't he? As long as he didn't try to do any fire magic, he didn't really need the staff… right? Nothing to it.
I should never have left the Lake, he thought. He looked up and down the street before he moved, skirting the edge of the building slowly.
He heard fighting, only a few people from the sounds of it. Peering around the corner, he looked toward the white mages' sanctuary. Aside from the belfry, it was identical to the other buildings in this town: squat, square, unadorned. Only the entrance was different, a set of wide double doors meant to welcome in the masses. In front of those doors, an unskilled pirate wielding only a knife fought against a swordsman in red leather armor.
Kane! Thank the gods, he wouldn't have to do this alone. His luck truly was turning around! He hurried toward his friend.
With his sword in one hand, the guardsman parried the pirate's knife as though he were swatting a fly away, then struck out with his free hand to punch the pirate in the jaw. The pirate flew a considerable distance before he came down hard on the street, motionless. Kane was kicking in the cathedral door before his opponent had even hit the ground.
"Kane, wait!" Jack called, but he was still halfway up the block and the guardsman didn't seem to have heard over the sounds of the door's destruction. He sprinted the last several yards, reaching for the aether as he went, pushing through the doorway behind Kane. He had only a moment to take it all in: the chapel, the sleeping bodies strewn about the floor like fallen leaves, the lone man standing near the altar already shifting the aether against him and Kane. With his hands, Jack pushed Kane to the left, hard, while with the full weight of his mind he grabbed the shifting aether and forced it to the right, disrupting the spell as he went.
Another blast of aether surged toward him, another sleep spell, but he dismantled it just as easily as the first, drawing the aether in until he couldn't hold anymore. He stood, facing the other mage, ready and waiting for the next attack.
But instead the man at the altar screamed. It was a pathetic scream, like a child's, high-pitched and whining. Jack couldn't sense any power from him at all, as if he had run out. "Don't kill me!" the man said, waving his hands in front of him as if to ward off an angry bee. "Don't kill me!"
Jack ignored him for the moment, rounding on Kane. "Are you completely mad?"
"Me? What'd I do?" said the guard, struggling up from the floor where he'd been pushed.
"I just watched you run headlong into a magical trap! Even though you had forewarning that it was a magical trap!"
Kane stood, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, just as Lord Redden often did. "Well, excuse me if I had to make do without the aid of a black mage! Mine seems to have run off somewhere!"
The little man at the back of the room shrieked again at the mention of black mages. He cowered when both Jack and Kane looked his way, as though trying to make himself smaller. "I'm sorry! Don't kill me!"
It was not the sort of behavior Jack expected from a black mage. Or a grown man, for that matter. "Do you know what we do to Oathbreakers where I come from?" he asked.
The color drained from the man's face, making him look wan and pale against the backdrop of his bright purple tunic. "I haven't broken any oaths! Please!"
"What are you talking about, Jack? What oath?" Kane asked.
Jack sighed. Now was as good a time as any. "The Black Mage's Oath forbids the use of one's power to directly harm a human being."
"What?" Kane snapped. "You're telling me this now?"
"There didn't seem to be a good time before," Jack said, embarrassed by the whine in his voice.
"How about before I went tearing off after a rogue mage all by myself?" Kane asked, using his sword to point to the snivelling caster.
The man's eyes widened at the naked blade. "I'm not a mage! I swear, I'm not a mage! This is the only spell I know! Please don't kill me!" His lip quivered. "It's the only spell I know!"
Kane had him backed against the wall. He leaned in close to the man's face, holding his sword between them in a way that almost looked casual. If Jack hadn't known better, he would have taken the guardsman for a stone-cold killer. "You and I are going to have a long talk later, and you're not going to like it."
The man nodded, but made no move to get away.
"What now?" Kane asked, looking about the room at the sleeping figures that covered the floor.
Jack looked at the sleepers too. Through his aether sight, he could see the lingering effects of the sleep spell laid over them like a web of spun glass. It wouldn't take much to shatter that web: they needed noise, and lots of it. He pointed toward a thick rope hanging down against the back wall. "Ring the bell."
"Faster!" said the mayor, as the sounds of fighting outside the door grew more pitched. "I thought you were supposed to be good with knots!"
"Yeah, well, so was he," Thad waved a hand toward Bikke, who lay on the floor next to the leatherbound copy of The Laws and Ordinances of Pravoka, then went back to his task of untying the mayor. "Besides, they wouldn't be so tight if you hadn't tugged on them so much."
"That's quite enough of your sass, boy. Don't think I won't hang you out the window by your ankles for what you pulled."
"I just saved your life!"
"Aye, and you nearly killed me of fright first! We thought you were dead."
"Dead? Why?"
"Sailed off with old Bellweather, didn't you? And he's at the bottom of the Mondmer. Sank in plain sight of Melmond harbor during a storm. Waves so high, no one dared attempt a rescue. Lord Leiden himself sent a letter of apology."
He didn't know what to say, so he focused instead on the ropes. He'd just got them loose enough for the mayor to pull her hands free when the noise outside in the hallway leveled out and suddenly stopped. There was a gentle knock on the door, and Orin's voice called, "Master Shipman?"
"I'm here," he called back.
The door opened, revealing the monk, fully visible now and looking as calm and unruffled as if he'd come from tea with the queen. He entered the room, stepping over the legs of a man who lay defeated in the hall, and bowed gracefully. "Orin Tantal of the Northern Desert, third council lord of Cornelia. I assume I have the honor of addressing the mayor of this fine city?"
The mayor rubbed her wrists where the ropes had been. "Formal fellow, ain't you?"
The monk nodded, smiling down at the fallen Bikke. "When I saw the pirates posted outside this door, the very door you had directed me to, young Shipman, I assumed there would be trouble. I am pleased to see that you handled it." He passed Thad his sword. "Lord Redden awaits us downstairs."
"What happens now?" Thad asked.
He had spoken to Orin, but it was the mayor who answered, "Now, we go rally the townsfolk and root these blasted pirates out of my town."
"It's no good!" Thad told her. "No one will fight!"
The mayor bent to pick up Bikke's sword from the floor where he had dropped it. "They'll fight for me," she said.
Kane stood near the altar, answering as best he could the questions of the Pravokan officer who stood with him. "I don't know what they're doing over there, but they seem to be gathered on the west side of town. I've seen no more than a dozen on this side. We heard one of them say they were taking the white mages?"
Most of the guards were awake by now, as the last peals of the bell died away. Only a few had been unaffected by the noise, but Jack was helping some of the white mages rouse them. The captain of the day squad, a curt, lean man in his late thirties, turned to an elderly white mage nearby. "Father?"
The white mage held up a hand as he finished a murmured conversation with two other white-robed men, then addressed the captain, "Yes, at least two of the apprentices are unaccounted for."
"We can't worry about them now," the captain said, frowning. "If we can cut off the pirates' escape, we may be able to spare the men for a rescue later. You, there," he said to a pair of guards shaking one of their fellows awake in a corner. "Finish waking the others and then meet us at the bridge."
"What do we do with him, sir?" another guard said, pointing.
The frightened pirate who was apparently responsible for this mess huddled behind the altar, trembling and miserable. He whimpered as the captain glared at him.
"Perhaps you'd like to make use of the strong room in our basement?" the old white mage said.
The captain nodded to the guard who'd asked. "See to it. The rest of you, move out."
Kane almost followed them, so accustomed was he to following orders, but when he saw the cluster of white mages gently waking the last of the guards, a thought struck him. "Jack," he said. "Where's Lena?"
They'd told Thad to wait at the manor, and he hadn't argued. Lord Redden's hastily concocted plan was clever and bold, and as intrigued as Thad was by the idea of being a hero in an actual battle, he'd prefer a battle with fewer opponents. Besides, the wide front window of the manor's second-floor library gave him the best possible view of the fight.
The pirates outside hadn't realized their companions in the manor had been defeated. Guarding against attack from the street, they were taken completely by surprise when the huge front door burst open behind them. Thad imagined what was going through their heads when they saw only the mayor striding out, armed with Bikke's cutlass, flanked by a handful of servants and kitchen staff who had been imprisoned in the house. She's only an old woman, they'd be thinking. A few of them laughed; Thad couldn't hear it, but he could see through the glass.
But then one of them approached her, swinging his sword, only to hit the ground hard before he was even within striking distance. The laughter stopped. Two other men charged in but had no better luck than the first, slamming to the cobbles as their feet were swept out from under them as though the mayor and her people were defended by ghosts. Thad could hear the confused shouting now as other pirates rushed in to attack.
One of the kitchen staff, an old woman with a heavy skillet, struck a ringing blow against a pirate who fell in a heap at her feet. A man in an apron swung a broom nearly as effectively as Thad had seen Jack swing his staff. But the mayor fought in front of them with all the skill of long years of experience.
"Pravoka!" she shouted, and hers was a shout that had once been heard over the roar of the wind and the sea, a shout that gave orders and expected them to be obeyed. "Fight! Fight, you gutter rats! Get out here and fight!"
Farther down the street, a door opened. And then another.
"Leviathan, give me strength," Lena prayed. Gripping the staff until her knuckles turned white, she forced herself to keep walking. She was terrified, but her friends were out there. Kane was alone, Jack was unarmed, she had no idea what had become of the others. But she'd heard the cathedral bell ringing, and that had to be a good sign. If only she wasn't so dreadfully lost!
She'd been following the noise, but the stone buildings distorted the sound of the bell and made it impossible to know which direction the echoes were coming from. Then, the bell had stopped.
At last, she turned a corner and came to the canal. She could see the bridge across from her. If I follow the canal, I'll come to the cross street, she thought, feeling hopeful at last. She knew the way to the cathedral from there.
"Where do you think you're going?" said a voice close behind her.
She whirled.
The man who had spoken smiled, but she felt no mirth from him. Desperation, her senses told her. Desperate, determined. His clothes, though fine of cut, were filthy, as was his black beard. He stood too close to her, brandishing a short, pointed knife. Angry. "Well, turtledove," he said, his disarming smile contrasting sharply with the emotions he gave off. "Why don't you come along with me?" He reached toward her with his free hand.
Lena's own hands rose instinctively, bringing Jack's staff up and around in a wide arch.
Kane looked at the dark, empty doorway then glared at the black mage.
"I'm sure this is where I left her!" Jack said.
"Fat lot of good that does us now!" said Kane, unable to keep the growl from his voice.
Jack moaned, rubbing his temples with both hands. "Look, I said I was sorry, alright? Would you rather I have led them straight to her?"
Kane clenched his fist until his knuckles ached. Count to ten… count to ten… he told himself. If Sarah ever finds out about this… He'd just have to hope she never did. She adored that white mage. "I would rather you hadn't left her in the first place! What kind of hare-brained, lackwit, craven-gutted man leaves a white mage alone in-"
Jack grabbed his arm, cutting him off. The mage's head tilted toward the street. "Listen."
There was a sound like a whistle, high-pitched and keening, that went on and on. It seemed to be coming from a few streets away. Kane had never heard anything like it. He shook his head, "I don't-" he started to say. The whistling stopped, but then immediately resumed. Not whistling, he realized. Screaming. Stopping for breath and then screaming again.
Jack must have known right away - the black mage was already running - but Kane was faster.
She was in the street by the canal, kneeling over a man on the cobblestones. People in the adjacent buildings peeked through windows and out of doorways at the screaming white mage, but none came out to help her. "Lena!" he said, skidding to a stop in front of her, dropping his sword to run his hands over her face, her shoulders. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
She collapsed against him, sobbing, trying to speak. It was several minutes before Kane realized she was saying "I've killed him! I've killed him!" over and over again.
Oh, gods… He looked toward the man in the street, noticed his bloodied scalp for the first time, a knot the size of a pigeon egg showing through his greasy hair. He couldn't tell if the man was breathing. "Jack! Check him!" Kane said.
Jack rushed to the fallen man, leaning close over him. "He's alive. He's just unconscious."
"You didn't kill him," said Kane, patting Lena's hair as she clung to him, crying hysterically. "Shh. You didn't kill him. Don't cry." He heard shouting across the canal, and then he could see fighting on the bridge, the blue uniforms of the Pravokan guards holding the exit, preventing the pirates from fleeing as they were driven forward by a mob of angry citizens from the western sector. At least we did one thing right.
"We'll get the other white mages to look at him," he said. "And Jack's going to wait right here to make sure nothing happens to him while we're gone. Aren't you, Jack?"
The mage didn't answer. He seemed preoccupied with something he'd found in the street, a bit of broken branch out of place in this treeless city of stone. He held one piece in each hand, looking back and forth between them as though looking for answers. "Jack?" Kane said, sharply.
The mage flinched at his tone. "Yes," he said. "I'll wait here."
He half expected Lena to protest when he picked her up like a sack of flour, but she didn't, only continued to cry.
Author's Note: Let's all give a big hand to our special guest star: the "LOCK" spell, which for sure was bugged and never worked in the original NES game.
As I said last week, Pravoka's layout complicated what I had originally planned as a rather simple pirate fight. Google a picture of it: the town is literally cut in two by a great big bridge, with a lovely wall and a moat. No small pirate crew is taking over the whole town (and they DO take over the whole town: when you get there in the game, every single citizen tells you so. Like, seriously, lazy? Defend your own town, citizen!). But when I started researching pirate ships (TFW you have to take a break from writing fanfiction to research naval history…) I learned that those ships could hold an entire army of pirates. So, yay?
Obviously, my four inexperienced Warriors and their two grizzled chaperones aren't taking out an army of pirates on their own, no matter what the prophecies say. I decided a few of those lazy citizens could help out.