Wren and the Ravens

by Eric Buffington

  “Wait a second?” Debir held out his hand. “Jump off the ship? Are you crazy? They offered to pay us for the work we’ve done. If we stay until Astyr we’ll make enough money for supplies to get us inland as far as Freyr, maybe even farther. We can probably make a couple of coppers helping them to unload the ship too.”

  “Right now we’re within sight of the shore, if we get her out, we’ll all be able to get off together. If we wait until we land, there’s no way for us to get Sarta out.”

  “Where’s Sarta?” Knell asked from behind the staircase, startling them.

  “We think she followed us onto the ship and was caught as a stowaway.”

  Knell slammed her fist into the wall. “I’ll kill that girl!”

  “Um, if you don’t want to get her out, we could just leave her in there,” Liden suggested, seeing how upset Knell was.

  She turned on him with anger in her eyes. “Are you crazy?! She’s my sister, of course we’re getting her out of there. What are you, heartless?”

  Liden turned to Debir, hoping for some support in this unexpected turn of Knell’s rage. “Yeah, Liden, that is cold.” Debir replied with another grin. He really seemed to be getting a kick out of Liden’s suffering on this ship.

  “I was just… It seemed like you were… Oh never mind,” he concluded, dropping his hands to his sides. “I have a way for us to all get away, but we’ll need to first find out if it actually is Sarta, then we’ll need to gather our supplies by the back of the ship.”

  “Okay, let’s go!” Knell grabbed Liden’s arm and began walking toward the second ladder that would lead them into the lower levels of the ship.

  Over his shoulder, he called back to Debir, who was giving him a thumbs up. He didn’t need to say a word. Debir would have things worked out when they came back together. Knell practically pulled him through the ship to the lower levels, fuming as they went. “If it isn’t her down there, I’m going to be so mad at you!”

  “At me?” Liden asked in complete shock. “What did I do?”

  “You got me worked up, that’s what. It was hard enough for me to leave her behind, but Debir said when we had our big break in Zulholm, we’d make enough to come back for her in style. She was supposed to stay and let us work it out for her. Arghh!” With a growl of frustration she jerked on his arm, swinging him around a corner.

  Liden kept quiet, not sure he could make anything better by talking. The closer they got, the more he hoped, strangely, that it was Sarta in that cage, because it seemed like that was the better option than having Knell’s anger directed at him.

  As their feet hit the floor boards of the ship, Liden tried to quickly make a scan of the room that was only lit by one small lantern. Most of the space down here was filled with boxes and barrels piled from the floor to the ceiling. There was an older sailor sitting on a stool under the lantern and a series of cells with iron bars along one side of the room containing a single prisoner. Sarta. When they came in, she stood up straighter and seemed about to burst out of the cell.

  “Whadya want?” the old sailor demanded, staring at the pair who had just invaded his domain.

  Knell let go of Liden’s arm, and without needing any prompting, he slumped down to the damp floor. “I’ve been on the top deck the entire trip from Ryr,” he explained. “I just got cleared to go find a cot. Where should I go?”

  “Go up there,” he pointed back up the stairs where they had come from. “Anywhere up there’s fine; just take a cot that’s not got stuff ’neath it.”

  Liden reached around and grabbed onto the ladder that led up to the next level and started trying to pull himself up. He flopped his arms about and skidded his feet as if he couldn’t get them under himself. “Come on,” the man rose to his feet and crossed the space, grabbing Liden from under his arms. “Up you go!” Liden rested his weight on the sailor and twisted slightly so he could see Sarta.

  The petite girl reached out between the bars of the cell and snatched the keys from the sailor’s belt. “Ouch!” Liden shouted out as Sarta snatched the key ring, trying to make some noise to cover the sound of her theft.

  “What be ur problem? You city folk are soft as feathers, ‘n heavy as bricks!” He shoved Liden up the ladder where he flopped on the wooden boards above. “Hold on,” the man said, shaking his head as he ascended the ladder.

  Liden pulled himself up to standing, holding onto a barrel as if he would collapse if he let go. He only released his grip on the thing to lean on the man, who took him down the hall and around a series of stacks of supplies until they found a dark corner that had an unoccupied cot. “When we land, do us all a favor and don’t get back on the ship.” The man dropped Liden down in the cot like a sack of flour, then without another word turned and left.

  “I’ll do one better,” Liden said to himself as the man disappeared. He pushed down the nauseated feeling in his stomach and got out of the cot to go back to the ladder. When he grabbed onto the ladder to climb up, he was joined by Knell and Sarta. “How much time do we have?”

  “We made a bunched up pile of straw and covered it with a blanket,” Sarta responded with a satisfied grin and a glint of excitement in her eyes. “We’re stealthy like snakes in a shower house.”

  “So we’ve got about a minute before he realizes it’s not you?” Liden asked, looking to Knell.

  “Maybe five,” Knell added.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sarta looked back and forth between them. “What?” They remained silent. “What!” She balled up her hands into fists and took a step at Liden as if she was going to hit him.

  “Exactly!” Liden took off his shirt and threw it at Sarta. “Keep that scowl, it’ll make you fit in more. Pick up that bucket over there and put this on. We’ll be lucky if we aren’t all sharing a cell within the hour.”

  Knell climbed up the ladder to the main deck. “Keep your head down,” she added as they helped Sarta get up onto the deck. Knell and Sarta got down on their hands and knees and started scrubbing the deck, moving toward the rear of the ship, and Liden waited below for a few minutes, then came up onto the deck, exaggerating his staggered walk to the side, then he leaned over the edge in case anyone was watching, or if Kaves saw him and wondered why he was back up again.

  He made his way along the edge of the ship, ducking between large stacks of crates until he found himself at the back of the ship with the rest of his friends. “Thank goodness you’re all here. We need to get moving.” Liden swayed a little, losing his balance, but Knell caught him from falling completely over.

  “What exactly is the plan here?” Hunlok looked over the side of the ship, then back at Liden.

  “I’ve been stacking the extra wood from the pulley system here.” Debir kicked a pile of wooden planks on the deck. “We want as many of these fastened together as possible. That will help us float our supplies to the shore.”

  “My supplies!” Knell dropped Liden off her shoulder and ran back through the stacks of crates.

  “Wait!” Sarta moved to go after her and Hunlok grabbed the back of her shirt. She turned around, looking like she was ready to fight, but instantly softened, and even batted her eyes a bit when she saw who was holding her back.

  The four teens knelt down on the deck and started piecing the wood together into a floating, makeshift raft for their packs. Debir matched the pieces according to similar lengths, while Hunlok, Liden, and Sarta tied them together. They had just made one small raft when Liden heard some feet approaching. “Thank goodness you’re back,” he started, but quickly realized it wasn’t the light, quick steps of Knell.

  Kaves rounded the corner with his arms crossed and a glare on his face. “Wat ‘r ye doin’?”

  Sarta stepped behind Hunlok and they all backed up to the edge of the ship. Kaves closed in on them. “I thought ye were tryin’ to avoid trouble?” He looked at Liden, shaking his head as he inched forward.

  “I was.” As they backed up, he held out the end of the rope behi
nd himself and felt it taken from his hands. “But you were right; it seems to have found me.”

  Kaves pointed at Sarta. “Who is she?”

  “She’s our friend. Knell’s sister,” Liden responded. Kaves had stopped closing in on them. Maybe he was open to listening to his story. “She was just chasing after us. We’ll pay for her passage out of our wages,” Liden suggested, hoping to make the best of the situation.

  Kaves shook his head. “Cap’in won’t have it. We needs ‘t be strict ‘gainst stowaways.”

  “I understand,” Liden responded, “but she’s family. We needed to get her out. There’s got to be some way we can make an arrangement. The pulley system is going to revolutionize loading and unloading your supplies. Can’t we make a deal?”

  “I don’t make deals wit criminals.” Kaves stepped forward again and Liden heard the rushing of feet on the deck, and it started to sink in. Kaves wasn’t talking to be nice, he was stalling. “Yur gonna spend the trip in the brig ‘till we bring ya back to your mums in Ryr.” He moved his arms forward, reaching toward the group.

  An arrow thudded into the wooden deck boards in front of Kaves’ feet. “Touch my sister and the next one will be through your hand.”

  Kaves stopped moving and actually took a step back, “Easy lass.”

  Knell ran to the group with an arrow knocked and ready. From the sides, Liden began to see the ship workers coming close, but when they saw Knell with a bow drawn they stopped, keeping a cautious distance. Debir and Sarta lifted the wooden raft up over the rails, then tossed it down into the water with a splash. Without hesitating, Debir, Sarta and Hunlok leapt in next to the floating wood and secured their packs. Liden and Knell both stepped over the rails. Liden looked at Knell, and with a nod from her, they both jumped off in unison.

  The cool water washed over him, but he quickly came up to the surface. He looked back and found that Kaves was standing on the ship laughing. “Have a nice swim!” he called out while holding his belly in a full laugh. “Best free help I’ve ever had.”

  “You scoundrel!” Liden shouted back while treading water. “You knew we’d go for Sarta!”

  “Aye!” Kaves called back. “She’s the spittin’ image of her sister,” he pointed at Knell. “Thanks for the pulleys.”

  Liden turned his back on the man and swam to meet with the raft. Knell tried to swim one handed, keeping the bow out of the water as much as possible. The raft was low in the water, but it took most of the weight of the pack.

  “I can’t believe he did that!” Liden protested when he was with his friends.

  “He’s a seaman,” Debir replied as if that explained everything. When he noticed that he was getting blank stares from everyone he elaborated. “They are notorious for making advantageous deals. When we beat his men on the docks, he changed the rules so he wouldn’t lose. That’s what they do.”

  Liden felt something brush against his leg in the water and realized that they could practically touch the bottom. After a few more minutes of swimming they were able to walk the supplies to the beach where Liden slumped down on the sand. “I know we just got swindled and thrown off a ship, but honestly, I’m feeling pretty good about our adventure so far.”

  Knell laughed and shook her head. “That was kinda fun, wasn’t it?”

  Hunlok cracked a smile, “You actually shot an arrow at Kaves! That was amazing!”

  “Thank you,” she responded with a bow.

  “Want to see something else?” Debir asked as he rummaged through his pack. They all turned to him and nodded. Debir pulled three pulleys from his pack and held them up. “I thought he might try something like this, so I disabled the system I built for him.”

  Knell favored Debir with an especially elaborate bow and he offered another in reply, smiling broadly. “Hopefully he figures it out before he drops a crate off the ship,” he added with a laugh. “Smash!” he made the motion of an explosion with his hands.

  “Yeah! This is the best!” Sarta said, giving Hunlok a friendly slap on the back. “So glad we’re off on an adventure together.” All laughing stopped and everyone turned glares down on her like sopping wet predators circling the prey that should have kept quiet. She shrugged her shoulders, shrinking down like she wanted to disappear. “Oops.”

  Chapter 6

  “This wasn’t part of the plan,” Wren said. He was dressed in a long set of red and white robes, seated on a pew in the back of a large cathedral. This time he had fashioned a pair of overly large prosthetic ears and dyed his hair light gray. On the back of his hands he had several artificial liver spots to assist the look. Next to him sat Field Marshal Orwin, a man renowned for his masterful defense of Fort Lyrin some twenty years before.

  “I am not accustomed to having people refuse me,” Marshal Orwin said as he took his monocle in hand and wiped it with a white cloth. “One word from me and my guards would descend on you like vultures.”

  Wren laughed. “If you mean the two men standing near the back of the cathedral, I am not nearly as feeble as my outward appearance may suggest.”

  “No, I wouldn’t expect so,” Marshal Orwin said. “However, there are several men in the upper corridors. Funny thing about these old buildings, there are secret peepholes in the walls. They make for great positions to fire from.”

  Wren brought a hand up to his mouth and made a show of yawning. “You hired me to do a very particular job, and this is not it.”

  “You know how war is,” Marshal Orwin said with a soft chuckle. “Plans are drawn up in the commander’s tent, only to be thrown away upon the commencement of battle.”

  “And are we at battle?” Wren asked. “I will not have any part of kidnapping a young woman. I don’t care what your business is with the governor of Astyr, but I will not steal away his teenage daughter.”

  “Well, squeamish stomachs make for heartless warriors,” Orwin said, reciting an old phrase.

  “And obsessive Field Marshals make for easy targets,” Wren said. He rolled his left wrist out from under his robe to reveal a miniature crossbow.

  Now it was Marshal Orwin’s turn to laugh. “If anything happens to me, the guards hidden above us will rain death upon you. Your threat is empty. It’s bad strategy to trade your life for mine.”

  “But it is good strategy to prepare the battlefield, yes?” Wren asked. He turned and smiled at Orwin. “What time did your men arrive in the upper chambers?”

  “Before breakfast,” Orwin replied. “Long before you arrived in the cathedral.”

  “And you came with them, didn’t you?” Wren pressed. “If I’m not mistaken, you passed by a young priest in the upper chambers just as he was finishing with washing the floors, am I right?”

  Orwin’s smile disappeared. “What are you saying?”

  “Costumes and disguises come as naturally to me as giving orders does to you, that’s all,” Wren said. “I have been in Astyr for two days now. I had plenty of time to arrange my own traps and tricks. As for the priest you saw this morning, he made sure that none of your guards in the upper levels would remain awake. It’s a funny thing, no one ever checks the incense inside churches. Why is that?”

  “You killed them?” Orwin asked.

  Wren shook his head. “No. They’re sleeping, that’s all, as is anyone else who dares to go up there before the smoke clears, which is probably at least two hours away from this moment.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Orwin said. “There isn’t a substance that could fill all of the halls upstairs, surely.”

  “I like to be thorough,” Wren replied. “Now, I am prepared to stick with our original agreement, but I feel I must advise you to drop this notion of kidnapping the governor’s daughter. I don’t hurt women or children. Everyone knows that.”

  Marshal Orwin straightened his shirt and cleared his throat. “Well, before you go pulling that trigger, would it change your mind if I said that his daughter wanted to leave?”

  “I’m listening, but only if you’re q
uick,” Wren replied, holding his crossbow steadily on Marshal Orwin.

  “Truth is she is madly in love with some poor chap who has been called up for war. The thing is, this particular soldier is serving in one of the units I oversee. He is up at Fort Haurt right now. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but he has offered me a sizeable sum of money to let him head north.”

  “North?” Wren asked. “You mean he is bribing you to get out of serving?”

  Marshal Orwin smiled. “I don’t have to tell you that enough young men have lost their lives over the last century. What’s one less soldier?”

  “And she wants to elope with him?”

  “She does.”

  “So you figure why not add her to my duties so you can fatten your own coinpurse, is that it?”

  “Well,” Orwin said with a wry smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “It would help me stick it to the governor a bit better too, now wouldn’t it? You change the demand only slightly. Astyr is a border city that has remained neutral, but only when it comes to actual fighting. It allows both kingdoms to recruit for their respective armies, it allows free movement of medical supplies, and sometimes will even send an armed escort to ensure they aren’t intercepted by spies. But, when it comes to food and other goods, they have taken sides. Their tariffs on goods shipped north make it much harder for my people to get the things they seek. While, at the same time, they do not charge tariffs on goods moving farther south.”

  “Astyr may be a city on the border, but it is part of the southern kingdom’s territory,” Wren replied. “It isn’t too surprising that the governor would choose to skim a bit off the top, and the best way to do that is with tariffs.”

  The officer nodded. “Just tell the governor that his daughter has been taken by someone encamped on the Merrynian side. Have him lower his tariffs on goods moving northward.”

  “And what happens when his daughter is not returned? You will make an enemy of him.”