LITMIR.BIZ

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“Mayhap we can rely on the weather more than we have to rely on your luck.”

      “An’ if ye keep runnin’ yer mouths the way ye are,” old Maldrin snarled in his gruff voice, “mayhap them guards what ain’t sleepin’ up there will hear ye and let go with some of them ambushes these damned pirates has got set up. Ye know people talkin’ carries easier over the water than on land.”

      “Aye,” Darrick agreed. “An’ I know the sound don’t carry up to them cliffs from here. They’re a good forty feet above us, they are.”

      “Stupid Hillsfar outlander,” Maldrin growled. “Ye’re still wet behind the ears and runnin’ at the nose for carryin’ out this here kind of work. If’n ye ask me, ol’ Cap’n Tollifer ain’t quite plump off the bob these days.”

      “An’ there you have it then, Ship’s Mate Maldrin,” Darrick said. “No one bloody asked you.”

      A couple of the other men aboard the longboat laughed at the old mate’s expense. Although Maldrin had a reputation as a fierce sailor and warrior, the younger men on the crew considered him somewhat of a mother hen and a worrywart.

      The first mate was a short man but possessed shoulders almost an ax handle’s length across. He kept his gray-streaked beard cropped close. A horseshoe-shaped bald spot left him smooth on top but with plenty of hair on the sides and in back that he tied in a queue. Moisture from the river and the fog glistened on the tarred breeches and soaked the dark shirt.

      Darrick and the other men in the longboat were clad in similar fashion. All of them had wrapped their blades in spare bits of sailcloth to keep the moonshine and water from them. The Dyre River was fresh water, not the corrosive salt of the Gulf of Westmarch, but a sailor’s practices in the King’s Royal Navy were hard to put aside.

      “Insolent pup,” Maldrin muttered.

      “Ah, and you love me for it even as you decry it, Maldrin,” Darrick said. “If you think you’re miserable company now, just think about how you’d have been if I’d up and bloody left you on board Lonesome Star. I’m telling you, man, I don’t see you up for a night of hand-wringing. Truly I don’t. And this is the thanks I get for sparing you that.”

      “This isn’t going to be as easy as ye seem to want to believe,” Maldrin said.

      “And what’s to worry about, Maldrin? A few pirates?” Darrick shipped his oar, watchful that the longboat crew still moved together, then eased it back into the water and drew again. The longboat surged through the river water, making good time. They’d spotted the small campfire of the first sentry a quarter-mile back. The port they were looking for wasn’t much farther ahead.

      “These aren’t just any pirates,” Maldrin replied.

      “No,” Darrick said, “I have to agree with you. These here pirates, now these are the ones that Cap’n Tollifer sent us to fetch up some trouble with. After orders like them, I won’t have you thinking I’d just settle for any pirates.”

      “Nor me,” Mat put in. “I’ve proven myself right choosy when it comes to fighting the likes of pirates.”

      A few of the other men agreed, and they shared a slight laugh.

      No one, Darrick noted, mentioned anything of the boy the pirates had kidnapped. Since the boy’s body hadn’t been recovered at the site of the earlier attack, everyone believed he was being held for ransom. Despite the need to let off steam before their insertion into the pirates’ stronghold, thinking of the boy was sobering.

      Maldrin only shook his head and turned his attention to his own oar. “Ach, an’ ye’re a proper pain in the arse, Darrick Lang. Before all that’s of the Light and holy, I’d swear to that. But if’n there’s a man aboard Cap’n Tollifer’s ship what can pull this off, I figure it’s gotta be you.”

      “I’d doff my hat to you, Maldrin,” Darrick said, touched. “If I were wearing one, that is.”

      “Just keep wearin’ the head it would fit on if ye were,” Maldrin growled.

      “Indeed,” Darrick said. “I intend to.” He took a fresh grip on his oar. “Pull, then, boys, while the river is steady and the fog stays with us.” As he gazed up at the mountains, he knew that some savage part of him relished thoughts of the coming battle.

      The pirates wouldn’t give the boy back for free. And Captain Tollifer, on behalf of Westmarch’s king, was demanding a blood price as well.

      “Damned fog,” Raithen said, then swore with heartfelt emotion.

      The pirate captain’s vehemence drew Buyard Cholik from his reverie. The old priest blinked past the fatigue that held him in thrall and glanced at the burly man who stood limned in the torchlight coming from the suite of rooms inside the building. “What is the matter, Captain Raithen?”

      Raithen stood like a mountain at the stone balcony railing of the building that overlooked the alabaster and columned ruins of the small port city where they’d been encamped for months. He pulled at the goatee covering his massive chin and absently touched the cruel scar on the right corner of his mouth that gave him a cold leer.

      “The fog. Makes it damned hard to see the river.” The pale moonlight glinted against the black chainmail Raithen wore over a dark green shirt. The ship’s captain was always sartorially perfect, even this early in the morning. Or this late at night, Cholik amended, for he didn’t know which was the case for the pirate chieftain. Raithen’s black breeches were tucked with neat precision into his rolled-top boots. “And I still think maybe we didn’t get away so clean from the last bit of business we did.”

      “The fog also makes navigating the river risky,” Cholik said.

      “Maybe to you, but for a man used to the wiles and ways of the sea,” Raithen said, “that river down there would offer smooth sailing.” He pulled at his beard as he looked down at the sea again, then nodded. “If it was me, I’d make a run at us tonight.”

      “You’re a superstitious man,” Cholik said, and couldn’t help putting some disdain in his words. He wrapped his arms around himself. Unlike Raithen, Cholik was thin to the point of emaciation. The night’s unexpected chill predicting the onset of the coming winter months had caught him off-guard and ill prepared. He no longer had the captain’s young years to tide him over, either. The wind, now that he noticed it, cut through his black and scarlet robes.

      Raithen glanced back at Cholik, his expression souring as if he were prepared to take offense at the assessment.

      “Don’t bother to argue,” Cholik ordered. “I’ve seen the tendency in you. I don’t hold it against you, trust me. But I choose to believe in things that offer me stronger solace than superstition.”

      A scowl twisted Raithen’s face. His own dislike and distrust concerning what Cholik’s acolytes did in the lower regions of the town they’d found buried beneath the abandoned port city were well known. The site was far to the north of Westmarch, well out of the king’s easy reach. As desolate as the place was, Cholik would have thought the pirate captain would be pleased about the location. But the priest had forgotten the civilized amenities the pirates had available to them at the various ports that didn’t know who they were—or didn’t care because their gold and silver spent just as quickly as anyone else’s. Still, the drinking and debauchery the pirates were accustomed to were impossible where they now camped.

      “None of your guards has sounded an alarm,” Cholik went on. “And I assume all have checked in.”

      “They’ve checked in,” Raithen agreed. “But I’m certain that I spotted another ship’s sails riding our tailwind when we sailed up into the river this afternoon.”

      “You should have investigated further.”

      “I did.” Raithen scowled. “I did, and I didn’t find anything.”

      “There. You see? There’s nothing to worry about.”

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