Had to be that fargin dwarf, thought Hyden, as he darted to the bushes for the fifth or maybe the sixth time that afternoon. Phenilous wouldn’t dare betray me. Brady Culvert was a possible suspect as well, but not a likely one. The Wildermont guardsman’s sense of duty was second to none. Hyden knew that someone had betrayed him though. Someone had conspired with High King Mikahl to get the squat weed into his cup or his canteen. Maybe it was the wagon driver, or one of his two helpers; or was it someone else in the escort?
“It’s like traveling with a wee little girl,” commented Oarly the dwarf from the top of his mule. His legs weren’t long enough to get around and over the back of a horse, so rather than teeter to and fro like a child’s toy, he chose a narrow-backed mule that his stumpy body could manage. On top of the hairy little man’s head was a pointy-topped, wide-brimmed hat that had long ago flopped over in the middle.
“I have to admire King Mikahl’s mode of revenge. It’s… It’s…”
Brady started to say “effective,” but the moaning grunt that Hyden Hawk made from the bushes on the roadside caused him to finish with the word “brutal,” instead.
“I swear by the goddess that if I find out which one of you helped him,” Hyden called out breathlessly, “I will… I’ll… Ooh! Ah! Oooh! Blast you!” The wet sloppy sound that followed caused them all to make sour faces and urge the horses a bit further away.
They were somewhere between Jenkanta and the High Port – Old Port split. They had crossed the Doon River the day before and camped at an often used cave called the Midway. They were on their way to Old Port to catch their ship and should have been beyond the split by now, but Hyden Hawk’s condition forced them to stop every few miles so that he could relieve himself.
At first Hyden thought that he had eaten something that disagreed with him, but then he remembered Mikahl’s comment as they had said their goodbyes. “Take plenty of soil cloth,” the High King had joked with a stupid grin on his face. Hyden thought that he’d meant to take extra soil cloth for the sea voyage. He understood the jest all too well now. This was Mikahl’s revenge for Hyden displaying him naked before the Princess, and it was, as Brady put it, “brutal.”
“Should we let the wagons run ahead?” the commander of their customary twenty man escort of Blacksword soldiers suggested to Brady from a discreet distance. “Captain Trant will want to load the gear and make ready. He likes to keep his schedules.”
“Aye,” Hyden called from the roadside. “All of you go on. I’ll catch up to you.”
“Escort the wagons on to port, Sergeant,” Brady said. “I’ll escort Hyden Hawk.”
“I’m staying with Hyden too,” Phen said. His loyalty to Hyden, as well as his worry, showed plainly on his face.
The sergeant spurred his horse away and spoke to the wagon master. The procession began forming back up and eventually started away.
Oarly made no move to join them. As soon as the procession had moved on, he urged his mule toward the clump of shrubs where Hyden was now standing to lace up his leather britches.
“It was I who got ye,” Oarly confessed with a mixture of pride and shame. “By the order of the High King, mind ye.” He began rummaging through his pack and brought his stumpy arm out with a grin. “Here, eat it.” He offered Hyden a thumb sized dried vegetable that still had the stem attached to it. It was glossy black, like a polished stone. “It might burn a bit going in and out, but it’ll plug you up, if you know what I mean.”
Hyden studied the dwarf’s eyes, which were on a level with his own since Oarly was still seated on his mule. It was hard to read the dwarf’s expression because his big silly looking hat shadowed most of his face. Hyden saw no malice or mischief in the squat man’s gaze though, so he took the offering and bit off a big piece. The heat of the pepper crept up on him as he was walking back to his horse. By the time he got there his entire head was glowing red and on fire. Sweat poured down his brow and his mouth felt blistered.
“Ahh!” Hyden yelled. “Wah-er! Wah-er!” He walked, almost sprinting, over to Brady who was unshouldering his canteen. “Whaaat-er!”
“It’ll only make it worse,” Oarly said with a grin, but it was too late.
“AAHHHHH,” Hyden yelled as he guzzled water like a mad man. When it didn’t cool his mouth his eyes grew panicked and desperate. He made a pleading gesture with his hands. “AAHHH! AAHHH!” His eyes were squinted and watering. Water from Brady’s canteen was running down his chin and his head looked as if it might explode.
By that time, even Brady and Phen were laughing.
A few moments later, after he’d cooled off and mastered himself, Hyden Hawk summoned what dignity he had left and climbed back up into his saddle. Without a word, but with plenty of angry looks, he spurred his mount down the road.
“What did High King Mikahl give you to do that?” Brady asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.
“For slipping him the squat weed he gave me this.” Oarly reached his stumpy arm over his shoulder to his back and patted the handle of the wicked looking double-edged axe that was strapped there. “That cinder pepper I just gave him, though,” Oarly chuckled, “now that was me own gag.”
“He’ll get you back, you know,” Phen boasted in Hyden’s defense. “He’ll get you back good!”
“No lad,” the dwarf said with a confident smile on his hairy face. “After that cinder pepper works its way out of him, he’ll know better than to jest with the likes of me. Mark my words.”
From Phen’s shoulder, Talon the hawkling cawed out his sharp disagreement with the dwarf.
Oarly hadn’t lied. True to his word, the effects of the squat weed quickly dissipated. Nevertheless, Hyden kept them trotting a few hundred yards behind the wagons and the escort just in case.
The land around them was green, but rocky. There were very few trees, but many clumps of shrubs and bushes dotted the landscape. They passed several herders whose large flocks of sheep and goats looked fat and healthy. After they took the Old Port branch of the ‘Y’ in the road, they began to see lively farms, and other humble dwellings out along the hills. It appeared that this part of the world hadn’t been touched by Pael’s madness.
As they drew closer to the ocean, Hyden grew excited. He’d never seen the sea. Berda the giantess had told him and the clan folk many a tale about it. The last few nights, at the fire, Hyden and Phen had taken turns reading from a book about tides and the moon’s other effects on the ocean. This only made Hyden want to see the splendor of the sea that much more. Before he could see or hear the water, though, he could taste the salt in the air. As soon as he did, he sent Talon ahead to explore. With his eyes clenched shut, he watched as the world passed below through the hawkling’s razor keen vision.
The road wound its way down among the sloping hills into a long stretched conglomeration of gray topped roofs and crowded, narrow cobbled streets. It extended southward farther than Talon could see at his present height. Hyden sent the hawkling rising in an upward circle, using the warmer air reflected off the rooftops until it was all well below him. Hyden saw through Talon’s eyes that they were starting out onto a finger-like peninsula that extended a good distance into the gray-blue ocean. The road went the length of the finger, with smaller dirt and cobbled lanes cutting across it toward the white rolling shores. Ships, boats, skiffs and trawlers lined the myriad docks that extended from the western side of the formation. To the east, the finger was open and a fat dark gray line separated sea from shore. As Talon swooped lower Hyden saw that it was a crude wall made of granite blocks. Rolling white-capped waves crashed into it, sending up huge explosions of foam and spray. Gray and white gulls were everywhere calling and shrieking and diving on schools of baitfish. They scattered when Talon soared past.
Hyden urged Talon across the finger to the other side. The billowy sails of several gliding ships glowed amber, illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. All along the shadowy docks people swarmed like ants loading and unloading boxes, crates and net-loads of fish. Some of the ships looked like trees-their masts stood proud but empty like limbs that had shed their leaves for winter’s coming. Farther up the docks the buildings started. There the lanes were full of carts and wagons. Swarms of people scrambled among others who were gathered in crowds to buy and sell fresh sea-fare. From above, it all it looked like chaos. Hyden couldn’t wait to get there.
When he called Talon back to him and opened his eyes, he was pleased to find that the group was already a good way out along the peninsula. The bay off to his right sparkled as it reflected the light of the setting sun back at them. The gray tidal wall that ran the length of the other side of the peninsula was almost invisible beyond the buildings to his left. Torches were being lit and lanterns hung along the roads. As the sun left this part of the world behind, wells of wavering light transformed shadowy corners into welcoming points of commerce and congregation. It reminded Hyden of the crowded Ways at the Summer’s Day Festival, especially the calls of the hawkers as they tried to draw attention to their particular wares.
More than a few people stopped to gawk at Oarly the dwarf as the group passed. Only a score of dwarves remained in the realm and all of them lived in or very near Queen Willa’s Xwardian palace. To see one out on the docks was rare. Some of the older tavern songs said that thousands upon thousands of them lived somewhere far below the earth’s surface, but when Queen Willa had blown the magical horn that was supposed to summon them to Xwarda’s aid, none had come.
Oarly made silly faces at the younger spectators, which put smiles on the faces of everyone else. Before long, rumors that the hawk-man wizard who’d saved Xwarda from the dragon was in Old Port caused the crowds to grow. Luckily, Captain Trant, the captain of the Royal Seawander had anticipated as much and paid some men from the docks to block off the mass of people as Hyden’s group gained the entrance to the yard of the Royal Seastone Inn.
“Wow!” said Phen as men came out of the shadows and took their horses away. “You’re a regular hero, Hyden Hawk.”
“Hardly,” Hyden replied with a blush. He was starving and thirsty, but afraid to consume anything. He didn’t know whether to be repulsed or enticed by the warm savory smells that wafted out of the inn’s open doorway.
“Well met, sirs,” a big barrel-chested man with a thick, but well-trimmed ginger beard said to them. He had a cob pipe clenched between his teeth and wore a spiffy gray and green captain’s uniform.
“You must be Captain Trant,” Hyden said with the slightest of nods. Mikahl had instructed him on rank and etiquette over the winter. Mikahl had explained that Hyden’s role as a key defender of the realm in the battle against Pael gave him a status that was beyond rank, yet still of a knightly nature. He was more often than not addressed as Sir Hyden Hawk. Since he was not a kingdom born man and his rightful allegiance was not to any of the realm’s human kingdoms, the slight nodding bow wouldn’t offend anyone. Still, Hyden felt uneasy whenever someone of note was around. If it were up to him, Queen Willa would be just Willa and High King Mikahl would just be Mik, like he used to be, and all the titles could fly out the window. Yet here, the ship’s captain was calling all of them ‘sirs’.
“Hyden of the Skyler clan, I presume,” Trant said as he reached out and shook Hyden’s offered hand.
Hyden was shocked to speechlessness by the fact that the man knew how his clansmen would have addressed him. He was saved from the awkward moment when Oarly approached.
“Ah, Master Oarly,” Trant reached down to shake the dwarf’s hand.
Master Oarly? Hyden thought. Master of what? Already schemes of revenge began plotting themselves out in Hyden’s mind. It’s going to be a sweet kind of revenge, Hyden promised himself. His thoughts were interrupted when he saw Brady starting to go help the other military men of the escort with the unloading. “No, Master Culvert,” Hyden stopped him. “Your sword can’t protect the three of us if you’re off with them.”
“Master?” He rejoined Hyden. The boyish grin on his face showed that he was glad to be included. “I’m no master.”
“You are now the Master of Defense for our exploratory party, Brady.” Hyden informed him. “And any man who can go seven minutes against Mikahl’s blade is a master swordsman in my book.”
“Phenilous, my lad, you’ve grown some since I last saw you at the palace,” Captain Trant was saying as he ruffled the hair on Phen’s head.
“Aye,” Phen replied. “You came up for the Harvest Ball last year. I didn’t realize that it was going to be you steering the boat.” Then to Hyden with excitement growing in his eyes he said, “The Captain has a blue monkey that dances on a leash. It can do flips even.” Then back to Captain Trant with his eyes darting all around the Captain’s feet, “Where is he? You still have him don’t you?”
“ She’s alive and well and on the ship.” He motioned them into the common room of the Royal Seastone Inn with a sweep of his arm. “We’ll be sailing out with the tide on the morrow. Enjoy this night’s feast, for it’s all hard biscuits and salted meats for a long while after.”
The torch-lit room was decorated with sail canvas, rope nets, tiller wheels, seashells, and all other sorts of sailing paraphernalia. There were also a few sets of toothy fish jaws mounted on the walls. One was a wide open maw that was big enough for Hyden and Phen to crawl through at the same time. The air was warmer along the coast, so no fire was burning in the hearth. In a corner of the half filled room was a small stage where a harpist prepared his notes and began tuning his instrument with sharp plunking twangs.
“It’s a marsh thresher,” Captain Trant told Phen who was still gaping up at the big set of fish jaws on the wall. “A small one at that.”
Phen grinned at the others with mock terror in his wide open eyes. The serrated teeth in those jaws were as large as his hands. “How big do they get?” Phen asked the Captain.
“Big enough to bite the bottom out of a ship, I’d guess,” the Captain winked at him.
“We’re not going where them threshers live are we?” Oarly asked with genuine alarm in his voice. “It’s bad enough I’ve got to leave the land. Sailing amongst monsters such as that is for birds and fools.”
“Flying is for the birds, Oarly.” Phen said. “We’re sailing, and we’re only going to skirt the southern tip of the marshlands on our way to Salazar Island.”
“Just so,” the Captain agreed with a surprised nod of respect.
“How long will it take us to reach Salazar?” Brady asked, doing his best not to let his eyes linger on the thresher jaws as he passed them.
“More than two weeks, less than three,” the Captain said over his shoulder as he led them through the room. “It’s getting to be true spring now, and might be a storm or two blows at us along the way.”
He stopped them when they reached a long empty table not far from the harpist’s stage. “We’ll lay over at Kahna to fill the water barrels in about a week. You might get some time ashore there if the weather looks questionable.” The Captain looked sharply at Hyden, who was peering back at the entry door.
The door swung open and two finely clad men came in laughing. From behind them, Talon swooped through the opening and glided smoothly across the room to alight on Hyden’s wrist. A woman gasped with fright, and a few men could be heard whispering above the sudden silence that followed. Talon sidestepped his way up Hyden’s arm to the shoulder where he settled in and began preening himself.
They took seats at the table and a pretty lady dressed as a pirate, complete with an eye patch, and mummer’s sword brought out a tall flagon of wine. Hyden stopped her at half full on his and Phen’s goblets and ordered sweet milk for the two of them to come with their courses.
The singer started into a ballad just as hot bread and clam stew came to the tables. The man sang of a sailor who was out chasing treasure, and had left his beautiful lover back at port. There came a time when the sailor had to choose between the treasure and returning to his love. Of course he tried to have them both, and his lover ended up drowning in her own tears.
The wagon master and the commander of the Blacksword escort joined them, along with a senior member of Captain Trant’s crew, who was introduced as Deck Master Biggs. They brought the news that the ship had been loaded. During all this, Oarly put away goblet after goblet of wine but showed no signs of even starting to be intoxicated. He did laugh rather robustly at some things that weren’t that funny, but his speech never slurred and his wit stayed sharp.
They learned that they had suites in the inn for the night, courtesy of Queen Willa herself. Captain Trant told them this after a main course of nut crusted sea ray on a bed of rice that was smothered in mushroom sauce. Hyden was thankful to find this out, for his stomach was starting to roil. Phen was to share a room with him, but the boy wanted to stay and listen to the bard. Brady assured Hyden that Phen would be well supervised, so Hyden let Talon out to hunt, then went upstairs to their rooms to find the privy.
The singer was in the middle of a ditty about a fisherman who filled his boat full of fish and won the love of another captain’s daughter when Hyden’s horrid pain-filled scream cut through the whole place like a fog horn.
“That’d be that bite of cinder pepper coming out,” Oarly bellowed into the hushed awe that filled the common room. The dwarf didn’t care that he was the only one laughing. In fact, it made him laugh all the harder.