Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

  “Not here,” Quill said. “Do you have something meaningful to relate or are you merely fawning for attention?”

  “I ain’t fawning, Kelpie!” Violet snapped. “Just watched three ships drop off the mother-load of all Draugr. Hundreds of them. Alliance ships, colours, and soldiers.”

  Quill hissed disdainfully but appeared otherwise unmoved. “What of it? None of that concerns us.”

  “Weren’t just Draugr, Quill,” Violet said. “Saw golems too.”

  The faintest edge of suspicion crept into Quill’s visage.

  “Saw one,” Violet added. “Might have been─”

  “No!” Quill interrupted her fiercely. “Impossible.”

  “Looked just like it,” Violet insisted. “Just like Scarlett’s pet rock.”

  “The one we left floating in the void,” Quill reminded her.

  “You think that’s gonna bother a golem any?”

  “I think it did for the golem’s master. The Guildswoman is dead. The golem would not function without her.”

  “Where’s the captain, the skipper, Quill?” Violet asked. “I want her to know.”

  “Both are ashore. The captain, I imagine, is driving us deeper into debt at the card tables. The skipper is trying to find suitable, acceptable plebs so we may be quit of this tiresome place.”

  Violet glanced ashore. “I’m going to find her. Where’s she at?”

  “You,” Quill grabbed her by the wrist, “are going nowhere. If there are Alliance ships newly arrived, the last thing we need is someone as unsubtle as you attracting their attention.”

  “Thought you said them didn’t concern us.” Violet tried to yank her arm away, but Quill held her tight. His grip tightened at her efforts.

  “I have no desire to rescue your furry hide from yet another fracas. You will stay here. I will go ashore and find the skipper.”

  That didn’t sound right, to Violet. Quill was in charge when the captain and Skipper were both away from the ship. Third in command whether anyone liked it or not. And it wasn’t like him to waste those opportunities.

  “You can’t go ashore,” she told him. “Who’s in charge after your scaly hide?”

  Quill opened his mouth to snap a reply at her, then hesitated. He frowned, obviously just as stumped as she was.

  “It ain’t gonna be me, Kelpie. I’m coming with you and you can’t stop me,” Violet warned.

  “I told you to stay here.”

  “Can’t make me if you don’t stick around to watch me.”

  Quill glared at her, but she could see his wordless concession to her argument. She fought hard not to smile. It wasn’t every day she got one up on Quill.

  The navigator finally released her, turning his head this way and that over the crew while Violet rubbed at her wrist. She knew his choices were limited. There wasn’t much of the original crew left to choose from, certainly no other officers. It would have been Piper but . . . Violet pushed that thought aside before it started to hurt.

  The wind seemed to pick up, whistling through the timbers, until Violet realised it was Quill, breathing out through his teeth. The Kelpie turned on his heel and strode towards the stern of the ship, where the galley was. Violet grinned now that his back was turned and hurried after him. She didn’t want to miss this.

  “Cook!” Quill snapped, stopping in the doorway to the smoky galley. He blocked the entrance, obstructing Violet’s view.

  “What do you want, Kelpie?” She heard Jack, the galley assistant, bellow back.

  “Where is the fat one?” Quill said. Clearly Gabbi, the Tantamount’s cook, wasn’t inside then.

  “Not here,” Jack confirmed. “Why? You sick of cooking your own meals now?”

  Quill declined to answer Jack, ignoring him and turning back towards the hold. Violet scurried after him, determined not to miss the encounter. Quill didn’t slow as he descended into the dark of the cargo deck. Violet strained her eyes trying to see, just managing to keep the dim outline of Quill in her sight and cursing as her feet bashed into badly stowed items littering the floor. Ahead of her, Quill was repeatedly yelling out “cook” at the top of his lungs, covering any noise she herself was making.

  “What in all the Lanes do you want, Kelpie?” a woman called from up ahead. Peering around Quill, Violet could vaguely make out Gabbi’s plump and squat outline. The cook dropped the sack she was hauling and put her hands on her hips, matching glares with Quill.

  There was a moment’s indecision before Quill spoke. His words came out quickly and rushed. “I am going ashore to bring back the skipper. Ensure nothing happens to the ship until I return.”

  Without any further explanation, Quill turned his back on Gabbi and started making for the stairs. Violet had time to register the shock and surprise on Gabbi’s face before something sailed through the dark and struck Quill on the back of the head. The Kelpie stumbled, covering his head protectively, and spun to face the cook.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me, Loveland Quill,” Gabbi admonished him sternly, hefting another missile. “I was gonna mash these tubers anyway and I can use your head to do it. Now why are you dragging your scaly behind ashore?”

  “To find the skipper,” Quill growled, scraping something from his head with one clawed hand.

  “Why’s she need you to walk her home, Quill? She’s a big girl, can handle herself.”

  “Not so big as some aboard this ship,” Quill muttered contemptuously. Gabbi hurled the potato at him for that. Blue sparks flashed around Quill’s hand as he batted the projectile aside with a wave. The tuber burst in mid-air as Gabbi used her own thaumatic abilities to send it back again, covering Quill in a shower of white fleshy vegetable matter. The navigator shrieked his fury, and Violet clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle herself.

  “Keep flapping that mouth, Kelpie,” Gabbi told him. “Got me a whole sack of these things here. I can do this all day.”

  With very deliberate, barely restrained caution, Quill wiped the mash off his hide. He glared at Violet as if this were all her fault.

  “This one,” he said grimly, “has seen Alliance ships arrive. With Draugr and golems both. She is concerned.”

  Gabbi looked suspicious. “Since when do you care what Vi thinks?”

  Quill turned his head and spat, refusing to answer.

  “Fine,” Gabbi relented. “Go find the skipper.”

  “She,” Quill pointed with one finger, “is not to follow me. Make sure of it.”

  “Violet, don’t follow Quill.”

  “But . . . !”

  “I said don’t be following Quill.” Gabbi held up her weapon of choice in warning. “Kelpie says don’t be following, you don’t be following!”

  It was doubtful either Gabbi or Quill could see the face Violet made. She made it anyhow.

  “Good.” Quill wiped the last of the potato mash off his face but appeared deeply satisfied with the outcome. “I will return with the skipper once I locate her.”

  “Be quick about it,” Gabbi said.

  “Yes, yes.” Quill waved his hand in dismissal, still crowing about his victory that he didn’t bother responding to her pestering.

  “Since when do you side with Quill?” Violet demanded once the navigator was out of earshot.

  Gabbi shrugged. “Quill’s in charge. End of discussion, Vi.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Who ever said it was?”

  “Well, it ought to be.”

  “You know better, Vi. Skipper’s at the Pavilion. Pike’s.”

  Violet stared. “But you . . . Quill said.”

  “Said don’t follow him. You ain’t. Skipper said anyone needs to find her she’d be at the Pavilion. Quill didn’t ask that neither. Kelpie needs to learn to talk better. Still won’t take him long to find the skipper but if you run you should make it there before him.”

  Violet grinned. And took off at a run.

  QUILL AND VIOLET reached the watering hole within moments of e
ach other. It hadn’t taken Quill long at all. Maybe he had stopped to ask another of the crew on the way or maybe the Kelpie had some innate tracking abilities that let him keep tabs of their erstwhile Skipper. However he managed, any satisfaction he had derived vanished upon sighting her. Even then he didn’t appear surprised, or Violet just couldn’t recognise Kelpie surprise. He muttered a string of incoherent nothings, either nonsense or foreign, impossible to tell, before ignoring her and pushing his way inside.

  The tavern was a dive. Violet had seen dozens like it on as many worlds. Built on the cheap and close to the docks, meant to attract the dregs of society and scrape the last few coins from their purses. It was a favourite haunt of sailors and labourers, the general riffraff of public life, and those more privileged who were looking to slum it. Then there were those who were looking for easy marks and some who just didn’t know any better. And finally them who were bruising for a fight.

  The skipper had been in a fight. Bruises mottled her bare arms, her neck, her face. One eye was dark, the flesh around the socket angry, and her lip was swollen, blood still trickling down her chin, though mostly dried. Not all of Nel Vaughn’s injuries were recent. They’d started blooming the day the Tantamount had reached Port.

  Everybody dealt with grief in their own way, Violet thought, her feet frozen to the floor as she stared at her skipper from across the taproom floor. Violet’s own shoulder was still red and raw in remembrance. The skipper’s way involved finding a different kind of pain.

  Quill was likewise frozen in shock beside her. The skipper had never looked this bad that Violet could recall, not even after Rim. Violet glanced at Quill just after he started forward, so she missed his expression. There was little doubt about his resolve though as he shouldered and barged his way across the room. Even the normally hardened and raucous sailors got out of the way when they glimpsed his face. Violet stepped along in his wake.

  The Kelpie stopped at the skipper’s table. She wasn’t alone but her drinking companions were mostly in a state of unconsciousness. Whether from partaking of the empty vessels adorning the table or from being beaten into submission it was hard to say, but a half-empty tankard was clutched in the skipper’s hand. She didn’t acknowledge either of their presences.

  Quill didn’t speak. The bench opposite the skipper rose in the air at a gesture from him, tilting until its insensate occupants slid to the floor in a heap. He took his seat after that, placing his clawed hands on the table in front of him. Violet hovered awkwardly at his shoulder.

  Quill reached across and took hold of the skipper’s arm, the right one, festooned with inked artwork. His touch looked almost gentle, nothing like the callous handling he subjected Violet to, turning the skipper’s forearm over for inspection.

  “This is new,” he said quietly, tracing a clawed finger over the design. The skin was still raw and inflamed, spotted with blood, the design sharp against a red background. The skipper pulled her arm back, holding it tight against her chest. Quill waited until her eyes rose to meet his.

  “Quill,” Nel muttered, “why am I looking at your ugly maw?”

  “You seem to have exhausted all other options. Perhaps your behaviour has something to do with this.”

  “You giving me advice on playing nice now?”

  “No.” Quill glanced at Violet, letting out an exasperated sigh. “The girl has seen something.”

  “Is it my next drink? The servers have gotten slow.”

  Quill made a show of looking round. “I believe you have had enough to drink. No, the girl has seen Draugr, golems, Alliance colours. Perhaps more.”

  “More?”

  “A certain . . .”

  “It was Onyx,” Violet broke in. The skipper and her navigator both stared. Under their combined gazes, Violet felt her throat go dry. “Least . . . I think it was.”

  “You think?” the skipper repeated.

  “It was dark, but I know what I saw,” Violet insisted.

  “And what exactly was that?” Quill rasped.

  “A golem. Made of rock. Dark.”

  “You said it was dark. How could you tell?”

  “Because it was dark!”

  “Then how could you see?”

  “The golem was dark, Quill.” Violet glared at him. “Dark rock. Black. Black, like wet rocks. How many golems you know go around looking like that?”

  “One was enough,” the skipper muttered. She pushed her drinking vessel away, watching it teeter on the edge of the table before falling to the floor with a clatter. Nobody seemed to pay it any mind.

  “Did it give you any trouble, lass?” she asked.

  “No, Skipper. Don’t think it saw me.”

  “But you saw it.”

  “Aye, Skipper. But I got out real fast.”

  “It is likely nothing.” Quill looked across at her. “But it is time you returned to the ship.”

  “If it were nothing why’d you haul your scaly backside down here to come bend my ear about it?” the skipper growled.

  “A discussion we can continue later.” Quill stood up. “Back at the ship.”

  “Don’t need your hells damned nursemaid routine, Quill,” the skipper muttered.

  Quill ignored her. “Help her up, girl,” he ordered Violet. “We are leaving.”

  Chapter 2

  THERE WERE HALF a dozen souls clustered near where the Tantamount was docked. Violet didn’t recognise any of them, but one stood out: a Mantid, multi-legged and covered in chitinous plating.

  “Violet, go see what they want,” the skipper ordered. She twisted her shoulder with a grimace, throwing off Quill’s hand. Violet shrugged and walked out briskly ahead of the pair. The group didn’t notice her approach at first.

  “You all waiting for something?” Violet called out loudly.

  “Looking for the Tantamount and her captain,” one of them said—a woman, dusky skinned and covered in sailor’s ink. One side of her face was significantly darker than the other, already swelling under the noon day sun. Sweat glistened on bare and heavily muscled arms. She seemed to be the leader of the group from the way the others deferred to her.

  “That’s the Tantamount right there,” Violet pointed. “Says so on the side.”

  The woman shrugged. “Ma always said reading might come in handy, never did believe her. All right you lot, guess this is the one after all.”

  “Told you so, Hounds,” one of the others replied.

  “Told me about the last two ships as well, so find a new parrot to stick your hand up, Denzel.” The woman, Hounds, heaved a burlap sack atop her shoulder, grimacing up at the deck of the Tantamount. “This is the one then, boys and girls. All aboard.” Then to Violet, “You’re aboard for the ride then too, little lass?”

  Violet opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. There hadn’t been any new crew since she’d come aboard. She wasn’t sure she cared for the idea of strangers on the Tantamount. Didn’t feel right.

  “Who hired you?” she asked instead. “Was it the captain?”

  “Ain’t met no captain yet,” Hounds admitted. “Was some redhead who pointed us this way. Said she needed the crew and gods know there’s precious other work going of late.”

  “She hire us before or after you two tore up the tap room?” Denzel cat-called.

  Hounds touched the side of her face gingerly. “After,” she admitted. “Woman’s got a mean right hook. I respect that in an employer. Speaks of a good negotiator.”

  “Never cared much for negotiating,” the skipper called out, coming up behind Violet. “See you found the ship easy enough.”

  “Aye, eventually.” Hounds touched a hand to her hairline in an odd salute Violet hadn’t seen before.

  The skipper gestured to Quill. “Mister Quill here will show you to your berths. Quill, after that you can take Mantid to the chart room and show him the lay of the ship.”

  “And why would I do that?” Quill muttered darkly.

  “Because he’s our new na
vigator, and as such he’ll be sharing duties with you, taking the load off so to speak.”

  “Which he doesn’t,” Hounds volunteered. “Speak, that is. Makes some clicks and such, but don’t speak none.”

  “I can live with a crewman who don’t talk back.” The skipper grimaced. “All aboard then, and after you, Quill.”

  It would have been impossible to miss the murderous look Quill directed at the other navigator, but the Mantid didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and Violet still couldn’t tell. And she’d thought the Kelpie navigator a hard one to read.

  “Ain’t never had another navigator aboard before, Skipper,” Violet said after the new crew followed Quill aboard.

  “About time we did then. Hells, my head is pounding.”

  “Quill don’t like the Mantid none.”

  “That’s his problem.”

  “The Mantid got a name, Skipper? Or we just gonna stick to tradition?”

  “You want I should start calling you Kitty, Vi? Mantid is his name, or at least they don’t got individual names. We call Quill Kelpie oft enough so there’s your tradition, if you must. We were lucky to find him. This close to the High, navigators are scarce on the ground and we need them up in the sky.”

  “If you hired them all, why’d you send me out as if they were strangers?” Violet asked, suspecting she’d been played.

  “Forgot, mostly,” the skipper shrugged. “Woman’s got a fist like Jack’s head and a head like I wish I didn’t know. Rattled me some. Lass, do me a favour and stop with the questions. Go find Gabbi, and get me something. She’ll know what.”

  “KELPIES AND KORRIGANS and Kitsunes. And now Mantids,” Gabbi muttered, searching through her cupboards. “Sometimes I think the captain’s just out to found some collection. Got one of everything aboard these days and no two alike.”

  “Thought the captain liked to do the hiring.” Violet sat with her legs dangling off the galley bench. “He got the skipper doing that now too?”

  “Captain knows if he puts this and that off long enough the skipper will do it for him.” Gabbi shrugged. “You know he knows that too, Vi. You got something against our new hands?”