“I don’t really have an opinion,” I replied honestly. “They’re rare, but I’ve never heard them lauded or objected to. All I can say is it’s a good thing you don’t turn into a hummingbird or something, or else we might not have gotten out of there.”
Risk made a thoughtful sound. “Guess it can come in handy every now and then.”
He didn’t sound proud of this fact, or happy, or even surprised. He sounded almost dejected. I suddenly wondered if there had been a time in his life when being a shifter hadn’t been a positive trait. I knew by Risk’s accent that he wasn’t from Pheras. Maybe there were places where such things weren’t as neutrally-regarded.
“Hey, are you doing okay?” I asked gently. I wanted to ask, and at the same time, didn’t want to nag. I frowned when Risk shrugged. “Come on, let’s not beat around the bush, you look more than worse for wear.”
“That’ll happen after you spend a few days rotting in a pirate’s brig,” he said testily.
“That’s why I’m asking! You look like you’re wasting away right in front of me. Like you’re coming off some awful bug. It’s only been a couple of days! What did they do to you?”
“You don’t need the details.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are we still doing this?”
Weren’t we past the whole ‘keep everything from Nina’ phase of the journey? We were on the ship, heading to our destination again finally, and the people on the ship no longer wanted to kill us. I’d hoped to finally get some godsdamned information for once. My frustrations must have been clear, as Risk sighed.
“You really looking for every gory detail?”
I looked down at my lap. At some point I’d linked my fingers, and I watched my thumbs overlapping each other for a moment. “No, I just want to know what has been going on.”
Risk took a deep breath. “Okay so, smugglers yeah?” he began, and I settled myself in for a long story. “They’re due to drop off their cargo, in the Miraban Territories at a port north of where we’re being dropped off. But the news around of a spy setting up ambushes for other smugglers has got the crew rattled. Hell, some of them thought the spy had even set up the sea serpent attack.
“Anyway half the crew were threatening to walk off the ship the moment we made land in Nyuesi. Not a good look for the Seacow as a business. So the captain needed a scapegoat.” Risk casually jerked a thumb at himself. “I’d already gone and said what he wanted to hear on the beach, so it didn’t take much to point all the fingers at me. If I’m the spy, and I’m in the brig, well how am I supposed to set anything up when the ship reaches the drop-off point, right? Me being in the brig calmed a lot of tempers behind the scenes, I can tell you that.”
Maybe so, but that hardly felt fair, taking the first available person and just blaming everything on them. What if Risk hadn’t confessed for my benefit? The whole thing would have fallen apart. Then, where would the captain have been?
“How did you hear about all of this?”
“The captain was pretty open about some of it,” said Risk. “Had to if he wanted me on board, and being down in the brig gave me plenty of chat time with the rat.”
He jerked his head at where Skeever was still draped over the side of the boat. Though the rat-man and I had more-or-less warmed to each over the last few days, the sneer on my bodyguard’s face spoke volumes of his attitude towards him. But given the circumstances, I wasn’t going to try and convince him to give Skeever another chance.
“So, have your opinions on our chances changed from when we talked in the brig?” I asked, a small smile on my face.
Risk rolled his eyes. “Dunno how it happened, but you really are a luck sack aren’t you? I tell you to keep your head down and let things play out, and you go running off into the woods to nearly get yourself eaten. And you managed to drag ratface along with you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You think I broke out of the brig when I heard you’d gone missing?”
“I assumed the captain had released you.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t you he wanted rescued.”
“Because Skeever and the captain are—”
“Oh don’t,” interrupted Risk with a groan. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“So the captain knew you were a shifter, then?”
Risk’s expression became evasive again. “It might have come up while I was in the brig. Anyway, he let me out to come get you guys. He knew I would want you safe, and I guess he was betting that you wouldn’t let me leave the others behind.
“I’d like to say I found the bastard legging it when I reached the temple, but he was in the process of signalling the ship for reinforcements.”
“But you’d already arrived.”
“He sent a message earlier, but the captain didn’t buy that everything was fine, so he went straight to the brig to let me out. He said he’d drop the witch hunt against me if I brought ratboy back safe.”
“And if you couldn’t?”
“Then you and me were making new homes on the island.”
I had expected that might have been the case. I wonder if Skeever knew that would be the outcome when he charged the apparition, guns blazing? Is that why he’d jumped first? So the crew would be willing to catch the rest of us? My brain was still full of questions, but it seemed some things could only be speculated on.
“So do you know who the spy is?”
Risk waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not relevant anymore, alright? The people who need to know, know, and what will happen will happen. Don’t go feeling sorry for them,” he added, fixing me with a knowing look. “Every single man on this ship deserves prison a thousand times over for the lives they’ve led.”
I couldn’t deny his point. They were criminals, all of them. And yet. A grunt of pain made me abandon my thought and look up.
Conon was sitting up against the mast with Theron kneeling beside him, tending to his broken horn. He was holding a cloth soaked in some kind of oil, but every time the grey-haired minotaur would so much as brush it over the break, Conon would jerk away with a pained hiss.
“Stop moving around,” the navigator snapped irritably. “I can’t get at it properly!”
“Maybe if that ungrateful asshole hadn’t cracked it, you wouldn’t have to be doing this!” snarled Conon in return, his voice thick with pain and anger.
“Cracked or not, you didn’t have to go to the lengths that you did. I thought you’d washed your hands of the clan.”
“Did you want me to leave him to get his head bitten off?”
“Wouldn’t have been a loss,” the older minotaur grumbled.
“He’s your chief, not mine.”
“Then why are you the one constantly going out of a limb for him?” Theron demanded angrily.
Conon didn’t reply.
I got up and approached them. When Conon noticed me and shifted his attention, Theron took the opportunity to press the sodden cloth to the broken section of the minotaur’s horn. Conon roared in pain, flinging out an arm to push him away, and I swore I could hear sizzling the moment the cloth touched him. My nose wrinkled as the smell of burning reached me. What on Alvis was in that oil?
“Leave it!” Conon roared.
”It needs treating!”
“It’s fine!”
Theron frowned and grabbed the bull by his remaining horn, pulling his head down to examine the break more closely. I saw Conon’s hands clench into fists, but he didn’t object to Theron’s manhandling.
“You’ve split the core,” said Theron, releasing Conon, who averted his gaze. “The fire oil’s not going to be enough, it’ll need to be cauterized.”
“Later.”
“No, not later,” said Theron frowning. “You want horn rot in your brain?”
“Later.”
Theron followed Conon’s gaze to where I was standing, watching then rolled his eyes. “Fine, just keep it covered. And I’m holding you to later, you hear me?”
<
br /> Conon waved him away. “Yeah, yeah.”
The navigator shook his head and stood to leave, then glanced sideways at me. “Make sure he doesn’t overdo it.”
I nodded in promise, then joined Conon in sitting on the deck.
“How are you doing?” I asked hesitantly.
“Yeah fine,” said Conon dismissively.
No you’re not, I thought. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said. “You just take care of yourself, alright?”
Can’t I do both?
“Oh, by the way,” Conon grabbed my bag from where it was sitting next to him and tossed it to me.
I caught it against my chest, then almost dropped it. When had it gotten so heavy? All that should have been in it were a few notebooks.
“What did you put in it?”
Conon raised a confused eyebrow. “That’s how it was when I grabbed it at the village.”
I dropped it as gently as I could to the deck, the bag landing with a muffled thump. When I reached for the flap, the bag gave a jolt and rolled over on its own. I snatched my hand back and Conon leapt to his feet. He raised a hoof over the bag, poised to bring it crashing down, but a familiar chirping cry made me lunge forward.
“Wait!” I exclaimed, pulling the now writhing satchel into my lap.
I fumbled with the buckle in my haste and excitement, and threw back the flap. A slender reptilian head poked out, looking this way and that with its blind, milky eyes. Its nose twitched, and a long tongue slid out to taste the air, before its head swivelled to face me.
“What on Alvis is that!” exclaimed Conon.
The sudden burst of noise made the baby whimper and flail inside the bag. I carefully extricated it, and it immediately nuzzled up to me. It had been so fragile when I’d first held it in the cave. I’d no idea what had happened in those intervening days, but whatever it was had transformed the creature in my lap.
Its scaly skin, which had once crinkled like crape paper under my touch, was now smooth as silk, the scales shimmering like the inside of a shell. The first time I’d held it, there’d been almost no weight to it at all, every rib visible along its side. Now, I cradled a comfortable cat-sized weight, its body still slender but solid. Its eyes remained unseeing, and I doubted that would ever change, but its other senses seemed to be making up for it. Most importantly, it seemed strong and alert to its surroundings, rather than the feeble lethargy it had displayed before.
Conon knelt down next to me and watched the lizard snuggle up to me.
“Is this that thing you found in the cave?” he asked, then frowned. “The one that bit you?”
“Its mother tried to kill it,” I said softly. “I wanted to help, but ended up spooking it, and it ran away.”
“But how’d it get in your bag?”
“It must have crawled in at the village.” At Conon’s confused look I elaborated. “It came back to me and helped me escape. Didn’t it free you as well?”
The bull shook his head. “Skeever freed me then ran off after you. I never got a chance to ask him how he’d gotten out.”
Heavy booted footsteps made me look up into the grumpy face of the captain, whose narrowed gaze was fixed on the monster baby. Skeever was with him, headscarf back in place.
“What is that?” the captain demanded. “And why is it on my ship?”
“Oh, it’s that thing,” said Skeever in a curious tone, before I could even start to think of an explanation.
“You know this creature?”
“It was at the troll village. Chewed through my ropes. Actually come to think of it…” his expression went thoughtful. “I think it was probably touching that thing that broke the speaking magic that was on us.”
“How?” I asked.
“Didn’t you have the boys dig up arcane crystals from the cave they were in? Living around elemental stuff can do weird things to you.”
“You think it’s magic?” asked Conon, sounding concerned.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Skeever. “Who knows, maybe I’m wrong, but either way it got us out of there.”
“I suppose it can stay,” the captain grumbled, then pointed a stern finger at me. “But you’re responsible for it, ya hear? I won’t have it crawling all over the ship and getting into things. If it starts causing problems, I’m throwing it overboard.”
I hugged the lizard tightly to my chest and it chirped happily. “Understood.”
The captain turned and addressed the crew on deck. “Alright, listen up! We’re finally back on the water, and on course for Nyuesi. We’ve been through some hell, so I’m letting you have a day. Break out the kegs, and if you’re still conscious when morning comes, well, that’s not my problem.”
Theron’s voice piped up from the back of the crowd. “Give us a hit!”
The captain hesitated, but the crew cheered and started chanting “Sa-tin, Sa-tin, Sa-tin!”
The bear made a show of sighing in capitulation. “Alright, but try not to get completely off your faces.”
“What are they talking about?” I asked, confused as Conon and I retreated to Risk’s corner.
The mercenary eyed the minotaur warily, but didn’t protest.
“Best not to know,” said Conon. “And if anyone ever asks about it, you definitely don’t know.”
“It’s powder made from the Silkweed flower[15],” said Risk, as if to be contrary just for the sake of it. “If you mix it with Serpentroot[16] it becomes crazy addictive. On the street, they call it ‘Satin.’”
“On the street?” My eyes widened and I turned to Conon. “You’re dealing drugs?”
“Silkweed is legal medication—” Conon started to defend.
“Prescription medication, you mean,” said Risk. “Call me paranoid, but I doubt you guys are approved transporters.”
“Look, we don’t make or sell Satin alright—”
“No, you just deal in one of its main ingredients.”
“Yeah, okay, you can make Satin with it, if that’s your game. It can also go to dinky backwater clinics who can’t afford the prices set by the approved distributors.”
“Oh, so noble art thou,” said Risk sarcastically. “And I’m sure you don’t make a tidy sum from it at all.”
“I don’t pick what we carry, alright?” snapped Conon.
“You still work here, drug-runner.”
“Big talk, coming from an ex-slaver!”
Risk made to stand, fury in his eyes. I flung out a hand to keep him back. The last thing I needed was for them to get into a fist-fight when they were both in such bad shape. The harsh movement dislodged the lizard off my lap, and it squawked in objection.
“I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, rushing to pet it in apology.
After a moment, it calmed and wasted no time curling up on my lap again, and falling asleep.
“So,” said Risk, after a little while, still glaring at Conon out of the corner of his eye. “What are you planning on doing with that thing?”
“I don’t really know. I can’t leave it on the ship, and I don’t know how well it would fare on its own.”
“It’s managed this far.” Conon pointed out.
“Yes, but the island was its natural habitat, I can’t say it will have the same luck on Nyuesi or anywhere else.”
“So you’re keeping it then?”
“I guess so.”
For now, at least.
“Gonna name it?”
I looked down at it, and lay a gentle hand on its back, feeling it breathing under my touch. I suppose if I was going to keep it, a name would be a good idea. But what name could I possibly give to a giant, possibly magical lizard? I didn’t even know if it were a boy or a girl. If nothing else, I felt it should have a dignified name though, one with power, authority. Something royal. It had saved my life, after all. I felt it deserved something suitably impressive.
“Eleanor,” I said slowly, thinki
ng of the first Queen of Pherasia. Everything I’d read certainly made her out to be a forthright and independent, political lion.
“I beg your pardon?” said Conon his eyebrows shooting up.
“Lady Eleanor,” I continued, enjoying the flabbergasted expression on both their faces. “The fifth.”
“I’m sorry, why five?”
“She had four siblings,” I said, as though it should be obvious.
“Lady Eleanor V,” repeated Risk incredulously. “Really?”
I started to defend my choice but the lizard’s name was quickly put on the backburner, because the next thing I knew, kegs of mead were being dragged up onto the deck and broken open. Tankards were filled with sweet mead and passed around. Risk took one and drained half of it in record time.
“Someone’s thirsty,” noted Conon, as he and I accepted our drinks.
A short time later, once most of the crew were already starting to get drunk and rowdy, someone started making the rounds with a tray holding rows of little folded paper packages. The surface of the tray held a fine dusting of white powder in places, suggesting some of the packets had leaked.
“We’re good,” said Conon, when the crewmember came around to offer us the tray.
The man shrugged, but before he could leave, a grey hand grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Have some,” Theron said, looking at Conon. “You’ll need it.”
“Its fine,” said Conon dismissively.
“I’m serious!”
“So am I.”
Theron sighed and threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m not getting into an argument with you.”
He stomped off, and the crewman turned to leave. Just before he could, Risk flagged him down and took a packet. I stared.
“Here,” the mercenary said, tossing the packet over my head to Conon.
The bull caught it but shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“Just take your fuckin’ drugs alright?” Risk snapped irritably. “You nearly got your fuckin’ head bitten off. I don’t care what kinda brave face you wanna put on for your slice of cake, kill your fuckin’ pain.”
The Island of Wolves Page 20