Snared: Voyage on the Eversteel Sea

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “No one knows exactly where it is,” Odette said. “Some say it’s beyond the Salt Isles. Others guess it is far off in the South Ocean. It seems as if your father may have figured out the true location.”

  “I know for a fact he’s wanted to find the Eversteel Forge for decades,” Pryvyd added.

  “Why would he leave the book behind?” Wily asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “He was in a rush,” Roveeka said.

  “No,” Wily countered, “he is too careful for that. He left it here on purpose. He wants us to know about Drakesmith Island.”

  “You’re reading too much into our good fortune,” Odette said. “It’s the only clue we have. I think we should consider ourselves lucky we have a clue at all.”

  “If Stalag and Kestrel are off to find a hidden island,” Pryvyd said, “they’re going to need a ship. And every ocean-faring ship on the west coast of Panthasos is in Ratgull Harbor. Not that I am suggesting we continue on that path. I think we should head back for the palace. Get Lumina and Valor and then we can all make a decision together.”

  After a moment of consideration, Wily stood up and leaped onto the back of his horse.

  “Perhaps if we move fast, we can catch them before they reach the harbor,” he said with determination. Then he turned to Pryvyd. “I know you want what’s best for me. But this is a risk we need to take.”

  Pryvyd sighed, realizing he wasn’t going to be changing any minds this evening.

  “Think of the adventure ahead,” Odette said with a grin.

  “Right now, I’m only thinking about the danger.”

  Wily was thinking of something else. He looked to the western horizon, where he could imagine the two figures riding off side by side. He felt anger bubbling up inside him. His two horrible fathers were working together again.

  4

  THE RATS OF RATGULL HARBOR

  The dawn swallows left their nests just before the sun peeked over the horizon. Flitting from the twisted branches of the tawny pines, they took to the sky, letting the light of the soon-to-be-rising sun paint their white feathers a soft pink. It was a beautiful sight, but Wily could barely lift his head to see it.

  The group of adventurers had been riding for three days since they had left the Dirty Vagabond, with very little rest. An occasional stop to let the horses drink and eat had been the only times Wily had spent out of the saddle. Roveeka had caught some deep sleep when Moshul agreed to carry her in his arms like a baby being cradled by her father.

  “I should have purchased a bowl of noodles back at the Dirty Vagabond,” Odette said as she ran her fingers through her long blue hair. “I’m crazy hungry.”

  “You can fill your belly at Ratgull Harbor,” Wily said, feeling his own stomach grumble too. “We can’t risk letting my father and Stalag get too far ahead of us.”

  Nearly every moment of the last three days, Wily had been thinking of his two mortal enemies in league with each other. His birth father, Kestrel, had imprisoned him in Carrion Tomb with the evil cavern mage Stalag for the first dozen or so years of his life, while he wreaked terror across the kingdom. Then after Kestrel was imprisoned it was Stalag’s turn for a reign of terror. He had been solely responsible for building the army of stone golems that nearly destroyed the land. Wily could only imagine what the two would do now that their forces were combined.

  “What’s so important about Drakesmith Island and the Eversteel Forge anyway?” Roveeka asked the group from Moshul’s shoulders.

  “Swords and axes made in the belly of the forge can cut through stone as if it were made of candle wax,” Pryvyd said. “Armor pulled from the forge is tougher than ten-foot-thick steel walls.”

  “And a machine built from parts made in the forge would be impossible to destroy,” Wily added. “Impish and Gremlin would never be able to bust one apart. Moshul’s fists wouldn’t be able to crush it. Think of the new gearfolk, snagglecarts, and prisonauts my father would be able to build. It would mean the return of the Infernal King, and this time he would be truly invincible.”

  “Then why didn’t your father try to find it before?” Roveeka asked.

  “He did,” Pryvyd replied. “When I was still under the command of the king, before I realized what a horrible tyrant he was, a group of Knights of the Golden Sun was sent out to find it. They were the bravest warriors and sailors in all the land. They never came back. We sent a second group of men and women after that. They never returned either. By then Kestrel was already controlling Panthasos with an iron fist. We had no need to send out another party to try to find the Eversteel Forge.”

  “He must have learned something in the prisonaut,” Odette said. “New clues he had never heard before.”

  “But how?” Roveeka asked.

  “There were many cavern mages trapped in there with him,” Odette said. “Who knows what they could have learned from their dark magic?”

  “Or what Stalag might have discovered while he was in hiding,” Pryvyd added. “Perhaps he brought the new information.”

  Roveeka nodded, then seemed to brighten as she looked ahead.

  “I think I see the city we are heading for,” she called out. “At least I think it is a city.”

  When the horses reached the next rise, Wily understood why Roveeka was slightly doubtful. Through the gentle mist, the port town itself looked as if a great wave had washed hundreds of ships out of the harbor and onto the shore. The overturned boats jutted up at strange angles, exposing their barnacle-covered bellies to the sky. Metal anchors dangled from the bows of the boats like candle-less chandeliers. A spiral of stacked rowboats looked like a giant staircase reaching toward the clouds. What at first seemed like a chaotic mess was anything but. Wily realized the boats had not been haphazardly tossed but instead carefully placed along twisting roads and footpaths. The painted hulls of ships were rooftops, with portholes serving as windows and doors to the strange buildings. Chunks of broken pier had been used to create a wall that bordered the city.

  “Long ago, Ratgull Harbor had only a single bait shop,” Pryvyd said, “a few houses, and a dock. When the locals wished to expand, rather than gathering fresh wood from the nearest forest, which was a full day’s ride away, they took a shortcut and just used the planks and boards from an abandoned ship that had washed onto the rocky beach. Not long after, when the town was ready to grow again, a particularly lazy builder realized he could cut even more corners by dragging a whole ship right onto the shore, flipping over, and turning it into a building. From that point on, it just became cheaper to buy old ships and turn them into houses rather than build houses from scratch.”

  “I think it is quite pretty,” Roveeka said.

  “Agreed,” Odette said. “Shall we go and get a closer look?”

  The group followed a broken shell trail down to the entrance of town. A large sail attached to a mast stuck into the ground swung with the breeze. Written in black squid ink across the white fabric were the words RATGULL HARBOR WELCOMES ALL. In slightly smaller lettering below, the words THE LAWS OF PANTHASOS DO NOT APPLY BEYOND THIS POINT were also written.

  “What does that mean?” Wily asked, eyeing the slightly off-putting statement.

  “It just means they have their own way of doing things here,” Pryvyd said. “There is no mayor or ruler of this port. Just businessfolk out to make a profit.”

  “I’ll fit right in,” Odette said with a smile.

  As they passed underneath the entrance sail, an easterly breeze swept across the harbor, filling Wily’s nose with the smell of rotting oysters and squid guts. If he had been hungry before, he certainly wasn’t now. The group dismounted their steeds and tied them to nearby horse posts. Then they moved down a narrow avenue between two schooners, each of which had been tipped so the fronts of the great sailing vessels pointed to the west. The one to the right had a wooden bust of a woman with flowing ringlets carved into the bow and the words LADY SEAFOAM painted beneath. A dozen seagulls sat on her head,
cawing loudly. A pair of elves with strands of seaweed in their hair stood by the strange building’s front door.

  “Driftwood for sale,” the elderly elf said as she plucked long hairs from her ears. “Gathered it off the beach this morning. Still salty and wet for bending.”

  “Not today,” Roveeka said as they passed.

  “Have you seen a pair of hooded men on horseback passing through here?” Wily asked.

  “Is one as pale as a fist of bone coral?” the elf asked. “And the other wears spectacles of bronze?”

  “Indeed. That sounds like them.”

  “Then, yes,” the elf said. “Just this morning. They were heading down to the schooner docks. Odd pair. Didn’t look like the seafaring type.”

  “The schooner docks?” Wily said. “Which way is that?”

  “Just cut down this alley back here.”

  * * *

  THE GROUP TOOK the elf’s directions down a tight, winding road. The buildings on either side creaked as the wind blew through the loose boards holding them together. They hadn’t made it far when a group of skrovers, overgrown rodents that rather disconcertingly had learned to walk on only their hind legs and enjoyed a reputation for being rather unpleasant and untrustworthy, surrounded the group.

  “Hand over all the coin in your pockets,” the nastiest of the skrovers said as he hoisted a pointy wooden stick. “And your weapons too.”

  “Is that an old soup spoon?” Odette asked, eyeing the piece of wood in the skrover’s front paw. “Are you trying to rob us with a spoon?”

  “Well, yes,” the skrover said. Then he fingered the pointy end. “But I sharpened it real good and now it could poke out an eye.”

  “I’ve seen him do it,” one of the other skrovers said.

  “And it don’t feel good,” said another skrover with a patch over his eye.

  “I would actually like to keep both my eyes,” Roveeka whispered to the others.

  “Now give us your coin,” the leader of the skrovers said.

  Suddenly, the sewer grate below them popped open and a dozen brine elves and gwarves sprang out, each holding throwing sea stars.

  “This is a mugging,” the salt-encrusted gwarf said. “Hand over ye valuables.”

  “Sorry,” Pryvyd said. “You’re a bit too late. We’re already being mugged by someone else.”

  “It’s true,” the skrover said, turning his sharpened spoon on the gwarves and elves. “We got to them first.”

  “I saw them right when they came under the entrance sail,” the gwarf said, clearly frustrated.

  “Then you should have robbed them there and then,” the skrover said. “They be ours now.”

  “I needed to round up a gang,” the gwarf complained. “I couldn’t have taken them alone.”

  “That’s not my problem,” the skrover snapped.

  The gwarf looked around at the group of barely armed skrovers.

  “This is all you brought?” the gwarf asked. “They have a golem on their side. How did you think you were going to defeat them? With that old spoon?”

  “I sharpened it real good,” the skrover said a little defensively. “It can take out an eye.”

  The skrover with the eye patch nodded. “And it don’t feel good.”

  Wily looked at the gwarf. And kept staring at him. The gwarf looked very familiar.

  “Have we met before?” Wily said.

  “Maybe,” the gwarf said. “Are you the kid who sells crab claws down in the muck tunnels?”

  “Nope,” Wily said. Then it clicked into place. “In the Floating City. I met you there. You’re friends with Needlepocket, the bounty hunter. I remember now. Your name is Scullygump.”

  The gwarf was taken aback. And maybe a little flattered.

  “That’s right, I am,” he said. “You remembered my name!”

  “What brought you to Ratgull Harbor?” Roveeka asked, treating the mugger as a new friend.

  “After the new prince took over,” Scullygump said, “the Floating City wasn’t the best place for burglemeistering. Too many guards keeping order and making things safe. Here in Ratgull, the same rules do not apply.”

  “We’re heading for the schooner docks,” Pryvyd said. “If you take us there, we can make it worth your while.”

  “Well, then what are we waiting for?” Scullygump turned back to the other gwarves and brine elves. “The mugging is called off. Go back to your scavenging.”

  The elves and gwarves, disappointed, turned and headed for the entrance to the sewer tunnels.

  “Right this way,” Scullygump said as he pointed the companions in the direction of the harbor.

  As the group started to head off down the road, the skrover started waving his wooden spoon in the air.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said. “We’re robbing you of all your money.”

  “Maybe another day,” Roveeka called back brightly.

  Scullygump led them through the maze of dry-docked boats to a long pier where dozens of sailing vessels were being relieved of their cargo. They moved past dockhands loading a sailing vessel with crates marked with the words EXTREMELY DANGEROUS—DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT GLOVES. Wily could only wonder what lay within the wooden walls of the bolted boxes.

  * * *

  “THIS IS THE place you were looking for,” Scullygump said with an outstretched hand. Pryvyd slipped a few coins into the gwarf’s palm. Before Scullygump had even pocketed them, he had scampered off, grunting with delight.

  Odette moved to a stack of barrels and bounded to the top of the pyramid. She cupped her hands on either side of her mouth and shouted to the sailors on the pier in her loudest voice.

  “We are looking for a pair of men that might have been seeking passage to Drakesmith Island? We will pay for information.”

  A great murmur followed, and dozens of sailors began shouting over one another. Each was eager for some quick change.

  One voice spoke louder than the rest. “If you are willing to pay, you might as well spend it on something more than information.”

  Wily looked up to see a tall man in a black silk vest, satin pantaloons, and a scarf as colorful as the ones his mother had worn. He was leaning over the railing of a magnificent ship that looked particularly out of place among the less impressive ships surrounding it. It was built from wood as gray as an overcast sky. The figurehead decorating the front of the boat was carved in the shape of fox, its bushy tail melding with the front railing of the vessel. A crew of brine elves were busy scrubbing down the decks with soapy brushes. Others were loading up crates from the dock into the hold of the ship.

  “They sailed out of the harbor this morning on the Squall Singer,” the curious individual said, to the groans of the other greedy sailors who would have been able to pass on the same information for a few gold coins.

  “We need to catch that ship,” Odette said to the crowd. The majority of the sailors sighed and went back to their work.

  “The ship is extremely fast,” the same sailor continued. “And with the wind offshore blowing in from the south, the vessel will be making doubly good time. None of these vessels have a chance of catching up with the Squall Singer.”

  The satin-pantalooned sailor swung down to the pier on a dangling halyard line. Wily could now see that on his bare feet, each toe was painted with either purple or dark blue nail polish.

  “Except one. My ship. The Coal Fox charter ship. I’m Captain Thrush Flannigan.”

  Odette eyed him skeptically. “And how would the Coal Fox do what the others can’t?”

  “By taking a shortcut through the Drecks. A stretch of windless sea that the Squall Singer will have to circumnavigate. Even a schooner with the tallest sails finds itself drifting aimlessly there.”

  “I don’t understand,” Roveeka said, scratching the side of her bumpy head.

  “The Coal Fox is an experimental vessel with sails and enchanted oars. It can move even without the wind. And I would be willing to take you for
a price.”

  “How much would that be?” Pryvyd asked, already seeming not so keen on the answer.

  “I’ve heard the stories told of you, Pryvyd Rucka,” Thrush said. “And you too, Wily Snare, Prince of Panthasos. I am quite sure you will pay more than I need.”

  Wily looked to Odette for her thoughts. She was already smiling as she stared at the sailing ship.

  “They left a few hours ago,” Thrush said. “There really is no time to waste.”

  “Then we leave at once,” Wily said, eyeing the gray ship.

  Thrush gave Wily a bow. “Welcome aboard, Your Majesty.” Then he turned back to the brine elves on the ship. He shouted to them, “We have new, more important cargo to transport. Dump the cargo. Prepare the guide gulls. We leave at once.”

  With that, Thrush grabbed the dangling line he’d swung down on and hoisted himself back up onto the deck. He approached a long wooden board and, with a kick of his boot, knocked it over the side of the Coal Fox. One end came crashing down right at Pryvyd’s feet. It formed a ramp from the dock up to the ship’s deck.

  “All aboard,” Thrush said. “Let’s catch the Squall Singer.”

  5

  THE COAL FOX

  As the crew of the Coal Fox skittered about the deck like pincer crabs, Wily looked back at the docks and dense clusters of buildings that made up the bustling harbor town. From a distance, Ratgull Harbor appeared to be far more majestic and far less decrepit than it actually was. The charter ship, with a single sail raised, slowly drifted toward the mouth of the bay in the light wind.

  “It’s time for the oars!” Thrush called to his crew.

  As they passed the last of the large ships and houseboats moored in the bay, Wily heard the sound of metal grinding against metal. It was a sound he knew well: gears. He followed the noise to an open hatch in the deck. He peered inside to see that the belly of the Coal Fox was an enormous machine. The rows of oars that jutted out from either side of the boat were not magical but mechanical. Gears activated pistons, which pushed the oars back and forth in a steady rhythmic pattern.