01 - Thieves of Blood

by Tim Waggoner - (ebook by Undead)

  “Be my guest,” Yvka said. “I’m not setting foot on that muck!”

  “I don’t blame you, lady!”

  Startled, the three of them turned toward the direction the new voice came from. Perched atop the tip of the bow, straddling it as if he were astride a horse, was a halfling. Diran judged him to be three feet tall, an average height for his kind. He had an athletic build, ruddy skin, dark eyes—brown, Diran guessed, though it was hard to tell from such a distance—and straight black hair tied into a ponytail. As was common for halflings, he had pointed ears, though not so sharply pointed as Yvka’s. He wore sailor’s garb: brown leggings, bare feet, an orange sash around his trim waist, a white shirt with billowy sleeves, and a red scarf covering the top of his head as protection against the sun. Tucked beneath the halfling’s sash was a long knife that, in his small hands, would look like a sword, and Diran guessed he wielded it as such. Though Diran had never spent a great deal of time around halflings, he judged this one to be a young adult in his early to mid-twenties.

  “I guess we don’t have to hail the ship now,” Ghaji said.

  “The name’s Hinto,” the halfling called, “and you can bet I’m glad to see you three! Tell me something, is your ship really made out of soarwood, or have I been alone too long and am starting to imagine things?” An alarmed looked came over the halfling’s face. “Maybe I’m imagining this whole thing! The ship and you three!”

  “Calm yourself,” Diran said before the halfling could get too worked up. “We’re real enough, though I fear we’ve wandered into the same trap that ensnared your vessel. You said you’re alone, so I assume there are no other survivors.”

  “That’s right, I’m the last one. That’s because I know how to hide. When I put my mind to it, I can hide so good I can’t even find myself!” Hinto chuckled at his own joke, then sobered. His eyes darted back and forth nervously, as if he were expecting to be attacked any moment from any direction. “I’ve been alone for days now, or maybe it’s been weeks.” He looked at them and smiled apologetically. “I’ve track of time out here.”

  “I don’t think that’s the only thing he’s lost,” Ghaji muttered, then he let out an oof! as Yvka elbowed him in the side.

  “I’m Diran Bastiaan, priest of the Silver Flame. These are my companions, Ghaji and Yvka. Can you tell us what happened to your vessel and crew?”

  . “You mean can I tell you what’s going to happen to you,” the halfling said, an hysterical edge to his voice.

  Diran was beginning to think Ghaji had been right: Hinto’s mind was somewhat the worse for wear after being trapped alone in the Mire.

  “It’s this place…” Hinto began. “The Mire… though it’s not really the Mire, not like the stories say it is. Oh, it looks like a mess of seaweed, but that’s what it wants you to think. It’s something else, something worse. Something… hungry.”

  Diran, Ghaji, and Yvka looked down at the seaweed between the Zephyr and Proud Pelican.

  The half-orc shrugged. “Still looks like seaweed to me.”

  “Of course it does!” Hinto said. “Haven’t you been listening to me? Don’t you get it?”

  Ghaji gripped his axe and bared his lower incisors.

  Diran lay a hand on his friend’s arm to calm him. “Can you throw that grappling hook so it catches on the Pelicans bow?”

  “I think so,” Ghaji said.

  Diran turned back to Hinto and explained their plan.

  “Why don’t I just climb over there?” Hinto asked. “Not that it’s going to make any difference since you’re all going to die.”

  “I’m afraid you may be too weak to hold onto the rope after being trapped here for so long.” This was true enough, but Diran was also worried that Hinto’s mental state made him so unpredictable that the halfling might well let go of the rope of his own accord for some reason before he reached the Zephyr.

  “I appreciate the thought,” Hinto said, “but I wouldn’t try coming over if I were you. It won’t like it, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, we don’t know what you mean!” Ghaji shouted. “You don’t make any sense! Now get out of the way unless you want me to bounce this thing off your head.”

  Hinto rose from his perch on the bow and scampered out of sight.

  Diran and Yvka stepped back to give Ghaji room. The half-orc held the grappling hook in his right hand and the rope it was tied to in his left. He took a moment to gauge the distance and the direction of the wind, then he drew back his arm and threw the hook. The barbed metal object soared through the air, the rope trailing out behind it. The hook passed over the upraised bow of the Pelican and landed on the other side with a thunk against the ship’s hull. Ghaji slowly pulled the rope until the hook caught on something. From the angle at which the Pelican was jutting out of the water, they couldn’t see what the hook had taken hold of and whether that hold was strong.

  “Hinto!” Diran called. “Can you check the hook to make sure it’s holding fast?”

  There was no reply for a moment, and Diran started to wonder if the mysterious // of which the halfling had spoken had snatched him when he was out of their view. Then Hinto, from wherever he was hiding, shouted, “It’s caught tight against the bow roller! It’s not going anywhere!”

  The bow roller was the fitting over which the chain of the forward anchor ran. Good enough.

  Ghaji tied the other end of the rope to the Zephyr’s guardrail. He then turned to Diran. “Which one of us goes first?”

  “Of the two of us, you are the stronger.”

  “Where’s Yvka?”

  The two companions looked at the rope line that now stretched between the two vessels. Yvka was walking across, hands held out to her sides for balance.

  “She’s a juggler and acrobat, remember?” Diran said.

  “I’ve been thinking of her as a spy for so long, I’d almost forgotten.”

  Hinto’s head poked up over the edge of the Pelican’s bow. “Be careful,” the halfling said. “It’s been awhile since It ate the last of my friends, and it’s bound to be awfully hungry by now.”

  Yvka didn’t respond to Hinto’s warning, and she didn’t look down at the surface of the Mire as she carefully made her way along the rope.

  Diran and Ghaji, however, did look down, and they didn’t like what they saw. Four holes opened in the thick seaweed, and from each a sinuous gray creature slithered. The serpent-like things had no features, save for openings on their rounded ends that resembled puckered mouths. The mouths gaped open to reveal circular rows of tiny sharp teeth.

  “Watch out, Yvka!” Ghaji warned, then to Diran he said, “What are those things? Some kind of eel?”

  “Eels can’t raise up out the water like that, and their mouths look more like those of lampreys.”

  The four creatures, whatever they were, possessed no obvious sensory organs, but the lack didn’t seem to impair them as they lunged toward Yvka, ringed mouths opening even wider. Diran reached for a pair of daggers, but fast as he was, the lamprey-like things were faster.

  Just as they were about to fasten their hungry mouths on Yvka’s legs, the elf-woman crouched down, bent her knees, and launched herself into the air in a forward roll. She tucked her chin to her chest and kept her arms held out straight as she spun around and landed lightly on her feet. The rope bowed beneath her weight and shimmied from side to side, but Yvka managed to keep from falling off.

  The lamprey-things waved about in confusion at the sudden relocation of their prey, but Diran knew it wouldn’t take long for them to attack again. He had only seconds to take advantage of their confusion. He drew two daggers and hurled them at a pair of the creatures, and before those daggers had time to strike their targets, he drew and released two more. All four daggers found their marks, but the rubbery gray hides of the creatures were so thick that the needle-sharp tips of the knives barely penetrated the flesh. The lamprey-things shook the daggers off, and the blades fell to the seaweed-covered surface of the
water. Three of the four daggers landed on their side, but one fell point-first and embedded itself in the thick layer of plant material. The seaweed, dense as it was, wasn’t as resilient as the lamprey-things’ hides, and the blade sank up to the hilt. The seaweed surrounding the blade shuddered and the dagger popped upward, as if violently thrust by something below. The knife landed on its side this time, and its steel surface was coated with a viscous dark-green slime.

  “Did you see that?” Ghaji asked.

  “I did,” Diran replied, but he had no time to consider the implications. He’d managed to distract the lamprey-things long enough for Yvka to keep walking across the rope, and she’d nearly reached the Proud Pelican. The creatures, as if sensing their meal was close to escaping them, turned in Yvka’s direction and stretched for her.

  Diran reached into his cloak for another pair of daggers, but these weren’t like the others he’d tried—these had been specially prepared. The blades struck their targets with the same result as before, sinking into the creatures’ hides only an inch of so, and just as they had before, the lamprey-things paused to shake off the blades before resuming their attack. This time instead of lunging toward Yvka again, they stiffened, the tiny wounds made by Diran’s daggers rapidly swelling and turning an ugly black. Thick grayish-green ooze began bubbling out of the creatures’ tooth-ringed maws, and their snake-like bodies shrank in on themselves as their hides grew wrinkled, dry, and leathery. Twitching feebly, the four desiccated creatures withdrew back into the holes they’d emerged from, and the seaweed filled in after them.

  Yvka made it the rest of the way to the Pelican and crouched upon its upturned bow. Once more, Hinto was nowhere in sight.

  “Hinto?” she called. “Are you hurt?”

  At first there was no reply, and Diran feared that the halfling had been taken by other lamprey-things while hidden from view. Then Hinto called out, “I’m fine,” and crawled into view.

  Diran looked down at the surface of the Mire and saw that, while all four of the special daggers he’d thrown had landed on their sides, the seaweed around them had turned black.

  “Interesting…”

  Ghaji groaned. “I hate it when you say that. It often means we’re in worse trouble than we thought.”

  Diran turned to his friend and smiled. “Aren’t we usually?”

  The half-orc smiled back. “I guess. Why should this situation be any different, eh?”

  Diran glanced once more at the black patches of seaweed and noted they were slowly widening. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the greenery surrounding the black patches was quivering, as if in pain.

  Diran’s smile fell away. “I’m afraid things are different this time… and if what I suspect is true, the situation is far deadlier than anything we’ve ever faced before.”

  “Worse than—”

  “Yes.”

  “How about—”

  “Not even close.”

  Ghaji looked over at the Pelican and sighed. “Now I really wish Yvka hadn’t been meditating when I went into her cabin.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  “Poison?” Hinto said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What kind of priest uses poison?”

  “The kind that helped get you off that death-trap of a ship,” Ghaji said.

  Hinto looked at the half-orc as if he expected the big man to try to take a bite out of him. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” he said to Diran. “Just surprised is all.”

  The four of them sat on the deck of the Zephyr, eating hardtack and drinking fresh water from Yvka’s supplies. It wasn’t the most satisfying meal Ghaji ever had, but he’d choked down worse during his years as a soldier. After Diran had used his poison-coated daggers to stop the lamprey-things, Yvka and Hinto had managed to cross back over to the Zephyr without incident. Ghaji figured that the poison had killed the creatures that had attacked Yvka and perhaps their deaths had frightened any others away, but when he’d said as much to Diran, the priest had merely grunted, and Ghaji hadn’t pressed his further. He knew that Diran would share his thoughts with the rest of them when he was ready and not before.

  “What can you tell us about the Pelicans demise?” Diran asked Hinto.

  The halfling bit off a chunk of hardtack and chewed as he spoke. “We set sail from Tantamar, carrying a hold full of spices and silks, bound for Port Krez. Well, that’s a long voyage, and the captain and crew of the Pelican like … liked their drink, and it wasn’t long before our supply of spirits began to dwindle, so when we spied another two-master on the horizon, we changed flags and set off after her.”

  “Changed flags?” Ghaji said.

  “Life’s hard in the Principalities,” Diran explained. “Lhazaarites do what they must to survive. One day a ship might fly a merchant’s flag, the next a pirate’s. It’s a matter of pragmatism.”

  Ghaji sniffed.

  “I didn’t say I approve,” Diran added, “but that’s the way it is.”

  “True enough,” Hinto said. “A man has to live by his wits on the sea. Now, if I can get on with my story?”

  Ghaji gritted his teeth. One moment the halfling acted terrified of him, then the next he was insulting. Another sign of the man’s mental instability, Ghaji decided, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  Hinto continued, “We caught up to the other vessel and took the crew by surprise which, considering they were all drunk themselves, wasn’t too difficult. The Pelican’s captain recognized the merchant’s flag they were flying, and we couldn’t believe our luck. The ship was likely carrying a hold full of Regalport spirits, and the fact that the crew was mote than three sheets to the wind meant they’d been sampling some of their own cargo. We subdued the crew, which mostly consisted of just tying them up. No need to hurt folks unless you have to, right? Then we set about emptying their hold of spirits and filling ours. When the deed was done, we sailed off, but only after untying a couple of unconscious crewmen so they could later free their fellows.

  “The Pelican continued on her way to Port Krez, and the crew lost no time getting into the spirits.” He grinned. “I have to admit to sampling a bit myself. That night most of us were dead drunk and sleeping it off.” His voice grew softer then, and his tone hollow. “I guess we must’ve sailed into the Mire without realizing it, for when I woke up the next morning, half the crew was missing and the ship had a leak in the hold and was slowly sinking, though it never did go all the way under. Those of us left alive salvaged what food and water we could and broke out a couple of longboats. After the first one set off and the crew was devoured by those gray things, the last of us didn’t bother launching the second longboat. Instead, we concentrated on keeping ourselves alive. Much good it did us. After the last of my shipmates was gone, I was alone in the dark, with those things out there, searching for me, slithering around what was left of the Pelican. I could hear their mouths opening and closing, hear the sound of their tiny needle teeth clacking together…” The halfling began shivering as if caught in a sudden cold breeze that only he could feel. “None of us will ever escape. It won’t let us.”

  Yvka reached out and put a hand on Hinto’s shoulder to comfort him, but the halfling let out a startled cry, and she quickly took her hand away. All they could do was sit and wait for Hinto to regain control of himself.

  After a bit, the halfling’s trembling eased, and he gave the others an embarrassed smile. “Sorry about that.”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Diran said.

  Ghaji didn’t want to disturb the halfling further, but they needed to understand as much about the Mire as they could. “You keep saying It, like there’s only one great, powerful creature, but four of those seaworms attacked Yvka, and we got rid of them easily enough. Are you sure you’re not making the Mire out to be worse than it really is?”

  “I don’t think our new friend is doing anything of the kind,” Diran said. “I’ve been thinking a great deal about our encounter with those ‘seaworms’, as
you called them, Ghaji. I’ve come to the conclusion that they weren’t separate creatures, but rather a single beast of some sort—one incredibly vast creature that is the Mire itself. That is the It of which Hinto speaks.”

  Ghaji had been expecting his friend to make some sort of statement about the nature of the seaworms, but he hadn’t been expecting anything like this. “Didn’t you say the Mire was reputed to be thousands of square miles in size? How could a beast that large possible exist?”

  “If it did, how could it ever find enough food to feed itself?” Yvka added. “There’s no way it could get enough nourishment solely by ensnaring sailing vessels and devouring their crews.”

  “I doubt the Mire subsists only on unfortunate sailors,” Diran said. “It most likely preys on undersea life as well. As for the issue of its size, I believe that the vast majority of the creature—what appears to be mile upon mile of seaweed—is in fact some kind of sensory apparatus, lure, or camouflage, and quite likely a combination of all three. The heart of the creature lies here, at the center of the Mire.”

  “What where those seaworms then?” Ghaji asked. “Something like octopus tentacles?”

  Diran nodded. “That’s my guess, though with mouths on the end. Whether those orifices are for ingesting or merely grabbing hold of prey, I don’t know.”

  Diran went on to tell them of his observations of how the “seaweed” had reacted to being stabbed by one of the daggers, how it shuddered when the lamprey-things had been poisoned, and how the toxic coating of the daggers had killed the surrounding seaweed when they’d landed upon it. They had all seen the large black patch of dead seaweed that had resulted. It covered most of the distance between the Pelican and the Zephyr. The daggers themselves had been retrieved by Ghaji with the aid of the grappling hook, now that the line between the two ships was no longer needed.

  Yvka frowned as she considered Diran’s words. “I suppose it makes sense. It certainly would explain why no one ever escapes the Mire… and it’s difficult to believe that simple seaweed, no matter how thick, could really trap a vessel, especially one that’s powered by an air elemental.”