“Haas... I can’t,” Megan said in exasperation. “It’s too outrageous.”
“Oh? Really?” Haas said, turning his piercing eyes toward her. “Aren’t you the one who looted the castle of Baron Kjellstroll, disguised as one of the wait staff during a ball he was having for his friends? You walked in and out of the front door, unchallenged because the guards thought you were hauling out trash and food scraps. That was you.”
Megan’s jaw dropped. How did he know about that?
“And what about Cord the Conqueror?” Haas continued. “You hired two dwarves to tunnel straight into his treasure room and avoid all of the defenses he employed around his stronghold.”
Megan felt the blood draining from her face.
“Yes, yes!” Boris agreed heartily. “You’ve overcome awesome challenges before—ones that no one thought could be done. Even Hutto of the Haagenan, for God’s sake!”
Oh, God. How could she get out of this?
Kalam moved cautiously toward her. “Megan. I know it seems overwhelming right this second. So let’s sit down and plan this out. Our fate rests on your shoulders. The Harbor Master here will not charter a ship to go out into the open sea. No other Harbor Master in any coastal city will be any different. Our adventure ends here without your help. We must find a way, or it’s all over.”
“Kalam... I can’t...”
“I know the idea is scary, but we must do this.”
“I—I... no, I can’t...”
It was too much.
Surrounded by her party, unable to run, confronted with the thought that she may have just spent weeks without an income to participate in this fool’s errand... It was too much. She took a step back and her knees buckled, ungracefully plopping her down on the pavement.
God, she just wanted to run away. She didn’t handle peer pressure well in real life, and the world of Safari was no different. She never should have joined this group. She should have just kept adventuring the way she knew how, and there would still be money coming in, still enough for groceries, still enough for rent, still enough to accrue for next semester’s tuition. Now, not only had she lost her cash flow, she was going to get cut out of the big payout, too, when some harbor guard’s arrow pierced her through the throat and she ended up reincarnated far, far north in the distant stronghold she used to call home.
What a mistake this has all been.
Megan lost track of time. It gradually dawned on her that she was crying.
“Megan?”
Boris was crouched down in front of her. Megan blinked back in surprise. All her companions were silent and looking at her with varying degrees of concern, with the exception of Haas, who was just looking.
“Megan,” Boris repeated softly. “Don’t cry.”
Megan wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I’m going to get killed trying to do this. I hope you’re happy.”
“No,” Haas said.
Megan glanced up, confused.
“You’re not going to get killed. Not today. And all of us are going to help you get this done.”
The ranger’s cold, analytical manner was somehow inexplicably reassuring. Megan thought back to Haas’s fight with the bandits. Realistically both of them should have been killed. But they weren’t.
Could they really find a way to pull off the theft of an ocean vessel?
Megan closed her eyes. After a long time, she nodded her assent, and prayed that she wasn’t agreeing to a spectacular suicide.
* * *
The full moon shone brightly over the coastline, its light glittering off the gentle waves rolling in with the tide. It was a clear, beautiful night. So it was unusual that a gradual fog was building up around the Seahorse Tower, near the edge of the Bangor Shipyard.
The fog rolled in quickly. It was thick, and within minutes the visibility was reduced to just a few feet over the docks. One guard who was no longer able to see his patrol area grabbed a lamp and marched purposefully along the perimeter wall to the tower. If he couldn’t see his watch area from a single vantage point, he was going to have to patrol it on foot.
He went down the tower stairs and slid aside the heavy bolt securing the door. The fog was heavier here. The guard took a few steps. Then he dropped the lamp with a crash as a wicked backstab from the shadows ended his life.
Megan dashed past the body and up the tower stairs until she reached the top. There she tied her burglar’s rope around the closest crenellation and threw the end over the side. The Bangor Harbor walls extended out into the water some hundred feet on either side of the shipyard docks, built upon the massive stone jetties to break the swells of an angry sea. Such a design also made for great security—most of the time. Megan had used her iron climbing claws to scale the twenty-foot-high wall and get inside.
Their plan was simple. Megan would scout for a suitable ship under the cover of Sameer’s Magic Fog spell to help her remain undetected. The rope would allow Haas, Kalam, and Father Corman to follow behind her. The four of them would commandeer a vessel and sail out of the harbor to meet up with Boris, Sameer, and their supplies outside of town. Then they would set sail toward the lost continent.
Megan quickly went back down the tower steps and padded over the slick cobblestones until she came to the first pier. She passed several merchant ships and a war sloop before coming across a schooner with a deck much lower than the other great ships. It seemed perfect for the size of their crew and what they had to do. She climbed aboard and reconnoitered the helm, the main cabin, and finally even peeked through the large, central hatch into the hold. She found not a soul.
The ship is deserted.
Cool. That was enough for her.
Megan signaled the others with a birdlike whistle to call out her location. Kalam appeared soon after on the pier, his footsteps mixed with the creaking of the rigging.
“Kalam, over here!”
The bald warrior jumped on to the main deck, followed by Corman and then Haas. Kalam was clearly still on guard, his eyes scanning through the fog.
“Is the ship clear?”
“You know it,” Megan said.
Haas and Corman vanished aft to begin untying the many lines holding the ship against the pier. Kalam examined the mainmast. The gaffed sails were furled neatly around the boom, which meant that the four of them would have to heave the sail up rather than climb to the top of the mast and let gravity drop the canvas. Megan helped Kalam untie the lashings until the sail gradually began to spill out. It was a lot of work.
Haas and Father Corman had been gone a long time before the sound of boots approaching finally echoed through the fog.
“Come on you guys, hurry up!” Megan whispered.
The footsteps stopped abruptly.
Megan waited for a hushed reply that did not come.
Something was wrong. As a dozen different thoughts crashed through her brain, Megan started thinking that the noise had not come from the ship deck but rather from the... pier?
The clatter of boots resumed, running this time, and Megan heard swords being drawn. Kalam gave her a quick look of dismay before unsheathing his own blade and dashing to the edge of the deck. Six sailors appeared out of the fog on the pier. They all had weapons, and they were all very angry.
“Aye! Someone’s trying to steal our ship!”
“Get them! And someone get help!”
One of the men peeled off from the others and disappeared back into the fog.
Oh, dang it, girl! Megan cursed herself and drew her own sword. “Haas! Corman! We’ve got company!”
Kalam moved to the railing to command the entry to the main deck. One of the sailors jumped bravely from the pier only to get stiff-armed into the water. Two more saw what happened and leapt across further toward the bow. As they closed with Kalam, he thrust his longsword into the belly of the first sailor and then pivoted just in time to parry the second man’s cutlass. A violent flurry of swordplay ensued before Kalam found his opening and cut the sailor’s righ
t arm off, then finished him with another slash across the chest.
Meanwhile, the remaining two sailors had boarded aft and were approaching Kalam from behind. Megan slinked around the perimeter and launched a vicious backstab into one sailor’s spine, causing him to instantly collapse like a rag doll carelessly tossed to the ground. She was slow in pulling her blade back out of the sailor’s flesh, however. The other sailor swung his cutlass at her and sliced a huge gash in her thigh. Megan the Student cursed as the damage indicator lit up on her computer monitor. Megan the Thief cried out in agony as she fell to the deck.
But no death blow came. Megan heard an unfamiliar yell from over her shoulder. Father Corman charged the sailor and struck his collarbone with his wickedly spiked hammer. The cutlass flew out of the sailor’s hand as he let out an anguished scream. Megan the Student, barely able to keep it together through frantic mouse clicks, pulled the dagger from her belt and finished him off.
Corman looked down at the writhing, moaning thief. “What happened?”
Was he freaking kidding? “My leg!” Megan shrieked. Panic was taking over as she thrashed about in a growing pool of her own blood.
The priest put down his hammer and thrust both open hands onto the gash in Megan’s thigh. Suddenly there was no wound.
Megan tried to get up on her feet and found that her body responded as if nothing had ever happened.
“Oh, God. I’ve never been healed like that before. Thank you!” she said, still out of breath.
Kalam rushed over to where they were standing. “Reinforcements are coming. Megan, go help Haas. Father Corman and I will do our best to hold off the enemy.”
“There’s no way you can handle more than a couple at a time, Kalam.” Megan wrenched her sword from the dead sailor she had backstabbed. “I will help you—”
Kalam cut her off. “Damn it, Megan, the victory is not in the fighting. It is in the leaving! Corman will be with me. Go help Haas!”
She turned and ran to the stern. Before she had made it ten paces, she ran into the ranger coming the other way.
“The aft end is free. We’ve got to do the bow.”
Megan heard a large body of men approaching from the dock. When she turned to question Haas she found that he had kept walking. She chased after him. “Haas, I’ll undo the lines. Kalam is going to get overwhelmed. Go help him. I’ll take care of the ropes.”
“Forget it.”
“Haas, Kalam needs help—”
“The lines are too heavy for you, Megan. They’re that big around.” Haas made a circle with both hands, his fingertips touching.
“I’m stronger than you think,” she bleated.
“It will take you too long.”
Megan continued to follow him. “Then I’ll cut through them with my sword.”
Haas did not break stride. “Didn’t I just show you the textbook definition of big? It takes time to cut things. It’ll be faster if I lift them off the moorings and throw them free.”
“Haas!” Megan yelled. “Kalam will be killed unless you help him!”
“We’ll all be killed if we don’t free this ship.”
In exasperation, Megan hit Haas’s arm as hard as she could.
The ranger stopped suddenly. Grabbing her fist, Haas fixed his icy stare on her and took a step close toward her—too close, until his face was just inches from her own. Megan wondered if she had crossed some line in trying to get his attention. But they were in a desperate situation, and she had to get Kalam help.
Haas must have sensed her worry, and his sharp eyes softened an infinitesimal amount. He released Megan’s hand and reached behind his back.
“Can you shoot a bow?”
Megan blinked. “Yes.”
“Here,” Haas said, handing her his longbow case. “Give Kalam and Corman cover. I will be there when I can. But we need to free this ship, or we all die.”
Megan ran back amidships and notched an arrow. Her first target was one of the shipyard guards hacking at Kalam. The bald warrior had just dodged a guard’s blow and connected with a counterthrust.
She drew the bowstring back—holy smokes, this bow is hard to use—took aim, and let loose. The arrow smacked into the railing just in front of his nose.
Kalam jerked back like he had touched live electricity. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to keep you alive! Sorry!”
“I appreciate it! But aim at them!”
Gongs and horns were sounding all around the shipyard now. An entire platoon of soldiers, armed with long pikes that would far outreach the range of Kalam’s sword, were trotting down the pier to join the fray. Megan’s heart fell. There was no way they were going to escape a fight with so many men. She saw Kalam and Father Corman giving each other a knowing look as well. Grimly, she reached down and picked up another arrow.
Four men in hardened leather cuirasses jumped from the pier at the same time, too many at once to either attack or defend against. Another four boarded right behind them. Megan let loose an arrow and sent one guard to the deck. Kalam parried an enemy’s thrust but was tripped by the pike of another. Corman was already casting healing spells on Kalam. Megan reloaded and took aim but there were too many targets.
One of the soldiers in the next wave looked unusual. Megan turned her attention long enough to see a giant Mongolian warrior jump aboard. He twirled a flashing scimitar in each hand and let loose a blood-curdling yell that made the planks on the deck rumble.
“Boris!”
The massive man was all business at this point, slashing from the middle of the soldiers like a giant whirling dervish. Two guards fell immediately, while Megan picked off another soldier on the end of the skirmish line. It was incredible how much difference a single ally could make in turning the tide of battle.
Kalam was locked in a heated battle with the sergeant in command of the soldiers. Megan readied another arrow. Before she could shoot, a giant fireball erupted in the midst of the soldiers still standing on the pier. Their remaining opponents fell into the water amid shrieks of pain as they burned alive.
A small, brown man with a linen robe scurried up what was left of the pier. “Don’t leave yet!” he was shouting.
Megan suddenly realized the schooner was drifting away. Haas had freed the ship from its moorings. She dropped the longbow and sprinted to the deck rail to toss a line to Sameer. “Grab hold and swing over!”
Sameer did as he was told. Fear was plain on his face as he splashed into the water and bounced off the side of the hull with a thud. Megan hauled the line and its passenger onto the deck.
“What are you doing here?” Megan exclaimed, overjoyed at the desperately needed reinforcements. “And Boris? I thought you had left for the rendezvous point!”
Sameer brushed off his robe. “We were staying nearby until we knew the operation was successful. The alarm suggested you might need some help.”
“Yes we did!” Megan said, giving the little man a hug.
“I’m sorry my Ball of Flaming Death was so slow in coming,” Sameer apologized. “I didn’t want to hit Boris. And we had to abandon our supplies.”
“That’s okay. You guys arrived just in the nick of time.”
Megan turned and saw Kalam and Boris fighting side by side now, with Father Corman dishing out healing and defensive prayers in equal measure. Four of the soldiers were still alive.
“Can you take out the rest of the guards, Sameer?”
“Yes, all I need to do is—”
A large, flaming boulder streaked through the dissipating fog and splashed sickeningly close to the hull of the schooner. A geyser of water and steam hissed up into the air like an angry snake. Megan instinctively ducked down and dragged Sameer down with her.
Sameer was shouting to Kalam and Boris. “Catapults! They’ll sink the ship!”
“Who will?” Megan asked frantically.
“The naval garrison in the harbor,” Sameer replied. “I had to release my Wall of Fog spel
l in order to run over here. Their visibility on the next shot ought to be better than we would like it to be!”
Megan felt like a fool. Everyone had been telling her the entire time how important it was to get the ship out of the harbor as fast as possible. The thought of siege engines had never crossed her mind. Again, her inability to trust her companions had put her in a bad spot. She had to start putting faith in them. Just as Haas had known what he was doing with the brigands, if she had listened to him instead of arguing about the mooring lines....
Haas.
His name rang in Megan’s mind with unusual clarity. She strained her eyes toward the bow of the ship and, amazingly, saw him trotting back through the thinning fog. He had his Gaussian blade out and was making his way back to the melee.
“Haas!” she shouted.
A fiery boulder came streaming through the air and smashed into the starboard deck. The ship lurched back past equilibrium as it tried to find a level setting. Two large holes, one from the entry point and another where the boulder punched out above the water line, allowed for an excellent view of the seawater.
Megan realized she was on her hands and knees, disoriented by the impact. She looked up and saw Haas holding onto the foremast. He was still on his feet and staring back at her. Megan hoped he would know what to do. God knew she didn’t.
There was a cough behind Megan as Sameer wobbled back onto his feet.
“Wizard!” Haas shouted. “Make the wind blow with your magic!”
“Huh?” Sameer answered, confused.
“Do it!” the ranger ordered. “Megan, go man the helm and don’t leave it.”
Megan realized man the helm must be fancy nautical talk for go drive the boat. She scrambled aft until she was at the ship’s wheel, which was five feet in diameter and had handle grips around the perimeter. A brisk breeze started flowing almost immediately. Sameer is doing his part, Megan thought. Make sure you do yours.
Haas had run to the foremast and grabbed the halyard, the line responsible for raising the sail. What was he intending to do? The sail was too heavy for a single person to hoist alone. Now the ranger was running to the bow?
Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller) Page 17