In the Claws of the Tiger

by James Wyatt

  “He bribed you to take him instead, then killed you instead of paying you,” Janik said quietly. “Nashan, you were the spawn of a sea devil, but you didn’t deserve this.”

  A flicker of a smile passed over Nashan’s face, but he said no more.

  THE PHOENIX BASIN

  CHAPTER 10

  Dania appeared in the doorway, casting a long shadow into the room. “There’s no sign of the crew,” she said. “Nashan is dead?”

  Janik nodded, pushing the captain’s eyelids closed. “Send Auftane to tell the wharf guard, will you?” he said. “I want to look through Nashan’s log before they get here.” Dania stepped away from the door and Janik stood up. He opened all the shutters to let in the daylight, then began rustling through the parchments scattered across the desk and floor.

  When Dania returned a quarter hour later, she found him sitting beside Nashan’s body, a neat stack of parchments beside him and the leather-bound captain’s log open in his lap, showing two blank pages. He was staring vaguely toward a porthole.

  “Janik?” she said.

  “He fed on Nashan every day for the month it took them to get here,” Janik said, still staring toward the porthole. “His lackeys killed off the sailors one by one. Apparently the Emerald Claw agents with him could sail the ship by themselves, at least well enough to get them here once they were through Shargon’s Teeth. Nashan was the last one alive, the only one to see port. And Krael left him in no shape to get off the ship.” He shook his head. “And for no reason. He writes that they just seemed to enjoy killing people—the warforged most of all. Nashan seemed unsure whether to be more afraid of Krael or Sever. But he was powerless—he wrote that whenever Krael looked at him, he just went limp.”

  “I know the feeling,” Dania muttered.

  Janik looked at her for the first time. “What do you mean?”

  Dania sank down to the floor beside Janik. “The first time we encountered Krael in Atur,” she said slowly, “we were talking, exchanging barbs like we did here last night. But closer, face-to-face—the point of my sword was at his neck, even. I didn’t know yet that he was a vampire. And then the next thing I knew, he was in my head, his voice right in my mind, commanding me—and I couldn’t resist. He made me attack Gered, made me stand by while he drank Gered’s blood. He wanted me to watch my friend die. If Kophran had not returned when he did …”

  “You didn’t mention that before,” Janik said quietly.

  “Can you blame me? It still hurts to admit it—that I stood by helplessly while my friend nearly died. I know it wasn’t my fault, but …” She shrugged. “Well, I have no intention of doing that again, standing by while a friend dies.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, then heard the heavy tramp of feet along the dock that signaled the arrival of the wharf guard. Janik jumped to his feet, and offered a hand to Dania.

  “Thanks,” Dania said softly, squeezing his hand before letting it go. She walked toward the cabin door as the sound of feet came up the gangplank and onto the deck. “In here,” she said, and the guard captain came in. A gnome, he had no need to duck through the doorway, and he strode over to Nashan’s body. Two human guards stood outside the doorway, craning their necks to peer in.

  “What happened here?” the gnome said, and Janik gave him a quick summary, finishing by handing over the captain’s log. He gave the gnome a description of Krael, though he had little hope of the wharf guard finding the vampire or having the strength to overcome him. An hour later, they were allowed to leave.

  “Well,” Janik said, “now it’s even more important that we get underway as soon as possible. Krael is unlikely to stick around for long with that mess in his wake.”

  “Let’s find Breddan,” Dania said. “Where’s this wreck of a ship you told us about?”

  “Just up there,” Janik said, pointing vaguely ahead. “Unless Krael has sabotaged her.”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” Mathas muttered. “I wouldn’t be surprised at this point.”

  They quickened their pace and reached Breddan’s ship, Silverknife. To Janik’s relief, the ship was crawling with sailors and shipwrights making repairs, and he quickly spotted Breddan on the poop deck.

  “Janik! Dania!” Breddan called out. “Come aboard!” He jumped down to the main deck and met them at the top of the gangplank.

  Janik was impressed. The money he had given Breddan had clearly been put to good use. Silverknife looked worlds better than the last time he’d seen her. More than that, Breddan looked better. When they had first met, the hobgoblin seemed awkward and a little slow. Now he was sprightly and agile. Janik wasn’t sure whether the money had put the spring back in Breddan’s step, or whether he was simply more at home on the deck of his ship than he was on land. Perhaps both factors were at work, but the improved appearance of the ship and her captain made Janik feel much better about his chances for success on this journey.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Breddan said with a small bow.

  “You’ve done a fine job fixing up the ship,” Janik said.

  “Thank you. I am proud of my ship, and proud to be able to maintain him as he deserves.”

  It took Janik a moment to remember that ships were masculine in the goblin tongue. He smiled, casting his eyes on Silverknife again, imagining her as a hulking male bugbear.

  Dania hadn’t missed a beat.

  “You haven’t met our other companions,” she said. “This is Mathas”—the elf bowed—“and Auftane.” Auftane extended his hand with a wide smile, and Breddan shook it.

  “Welcome aboard my vessel. I hope you find him comfortable on your journey.”

  “Breddan,” Janik said, “about that journey. You said you’d be ready to leave in two more days, right?”

  “The day after tomorrow, yes.” Breddan looked a little nervous, anticipating Janik’s next question. “That was our agreement.”

  “What are the chances we could leave earlier? Any earlier. Tomorrow if we have to, or even today? The ship looks great, we’ve got supplies packed and ready to be loaded, and we can help with anything more that needs to be done.”

  “Is there trouble?”

  “No. No, it’s not like that. Well, not exactly. See, we need to get where we’re going before a rival of ours does. We just learned he has arrived in Stormreach, and he’s not likely to stay long. We want to make sure we set sail before he does and lessen his chances of getting there before us.”

  “Hmm.” Breddan did not look happy at this, and he stroked his stringy beard for a moment. “Let me ask my boatswain. Make yourselves at home.” He hurried toward the aft ladder and disappeared into the hold.

  Janik looked around. Not seeing any place where he could get comfortable, he stayed on his feet. Mathas sank into a kneeling position, resting his hands on his knees and closing his eyes. Dania leaned against the bulwark behind her, and Auftane stood beside Janik, shifting uncomfortably.

  “What do you make of that?” the dwarf asked Janik. “Is he up to something?”

  “No,” Dania and Mathas said at once. Mathas did not open his eyes.

  “I trust Breddan completely,” Dania said. “He’s got a good heart, and he wants to be treated right. He knows that if he wants fair treatment, he’s got to give it.”

  Auftane nodded. “Mathas, what’s your explanation?”

  Janik laughed. “You have to understand Mathas,” he said. “He can read volumes from the way someone holds his hands while he talks.”

  “At the risk of perpetuating this endless joke, which Janik seems to enjoy so much,” Mathas said, opening his eyes long enough to give Janik a sidelong glare, “when Breddan was not speaking, his eyes were flicking around the ship. They came to rest on each item still needing attention. He was checking off a list of things to do and worrying that he might not be able to get them done in time, even for our original departure time.”

  Auftane nodded. “Makes sense to me.” He held his hands behind his ba
ck and rocked on the balls of his feet.

  A moment later, Breddan returned from the hold, and Mathas rose smoothly to his feet. The hobgoblin was shaking his head, which they all could read as a bad sign.

  “To be blunt,” Breddan said, “one week was a hopeful estimate. I think we can still set sail the day after tomorrow, but we will still be making repairs during our first few days of travel. I cannot imagine leaving any earlier than that.” Janik scowled, but said nothing. “There is one thing I wonder about,” Breddan continued. “This rival of yours—is he a very large man with long blond hair?”

  “Krael,” Janik said. “Have you seen him?”

  “My boatswain tells me that he was here last night, making inquiries about our work. I was not aboard, or I would have sent him on his way.”

  “So he knows we’re taking this ship,” Dania said. “Breddan, you are in danger.”

  “Cavaan said he seemed dangerous,” Breddan said, stroking his beard.

  “He is dangerous,” Dania said. “He’s a vampire. Breddan, listen—we just saw the ship he took from Sharn to get here. He killed every man aboard, the captain last of all. Krael is extremely dangerous.”

  Breddan’s eyes were wide, and he fixed them on Dania. “Why don’t you destroy him? Isn’t that the call of the paladin?”

  “If an opportunity arises to destroy Krael, be assured that I will take it,” Dania said. “But I know his power, and he is surrounded by many allies. To attack him in his strength would be suicidal, and the Silver Flame calls no one to useless death.”

  The hobgoblin nodded. “Perhaps it was a mistake to accept this mission. But I cannot return the money you have given me, and I will not break my word to you. I think …” he paused, and this time Janik noticed the way his eyes scanned the ship, “I think we will sail before the sun sets tonight. It will be difficult, and I’ll need your help. We’ll need to work through the night as well, but at least we will be out of port. And with the help of the Silver Flame, we will not be food for sharks or vampires.”

  “Put us to work,” Janik said. “Mathas, I’d like you to get our things together—anything left in our rooms, and the supplies we need loaded aboard. Then, please go to House Kundarak and get the rest of Breddan’s payment. I assume you’ll prefer running errands around town to hard labor on the ship.” He smiled, and Mathas nodded. “The rest of us are under your command, Breddan.”

  The day went by in a frenzy of activity. Janik mended sails and spliced ropes and could never quite shake the feeling that Breddan gave him those jobs because he thought Janik was useless for anything else. Janik also made periodic sweeps of the ship, checking for any sign that Krael had infiltrated.

  Dania spent a great deal of time in the water, demonstrating an amazing ability to hold her breath while exerting herself, and before long, the sailors were calling her kak-darzhul, the Goblin name for the warforged. Auftane proved his value once again. He spent most of the day in the hold while Janik worked on the deck under the blazing sun. Janik heard the sailors whisper in awe about the dwarf—how he excelled at every task though he professed no experience. They said he chanted spells as he worked and wove magic into the wood of the ship. In only a few hours, Auftane had significantly increased the morale of the ship’s crew, an accomplishment not to be taken lightly.

  As the sun barely slipped behind the tops of the highest buildings in the city, casting long shadows over the docks and the harbor, Breddan declared the Silverknife ready to sail, and the sailors gave a mighty cheer. Janik looked around the deck at the crew—his first look at all the sailors together. They were a motley bunch—a number of hobgoblins and goblins, a big bugbear covered with matted fur and missing one eye, an assortment of bedraggled humans, a halfling who looked like a recent immigrant from the Talenta Plains, and a surly half-orc with no tongue. Breddan was not a former pirate, but clearly, many of his sailors could not make the same claim.

  Despite the strange blend of crewmen, they worked well together. On Breddan’s orders, they moved into action as if they shared a common mind and a single will. They were boisterous, to be sure, yelling more than was necessary and chanting songs in Goblin that Janik felt sure would make Dania blush—and it was rarely easy to make Dania blush. In fact, Dania seemed caught up in the spirit of the crew and contributed some soldiers’ marching songs in Common that made the goblins screech with laughter. Auftane joined in the high spirits as well, and bellowed as loud as the human crew-members in Dania’s call-and-response chants. Janik was too tired to do more than grin as Dania clambered in the rigging like she’d been born on a ship. Mathas sat beside him, clearly worn out from his day’s activities.

  “Another departure,” Janik said with a sigh. “You ever feel like you’re always leaving places and never really arriving anywhere?”

  “What do you mean?” Mathas said. “Every journey has its end. We set sail from Sharn and landed in Stormreach. Was that not an arrival?”

  “But as soon as we arrived in Stormreach, we starting getting ready to leave. When we get to Mel-Aqat, we’ll turn around and leave. We’ll come back to Stormreach, go back to Sharn. And then what?”

  “Then what, indeed?”

  “I don’t know,” Janik said. “I just wish that I could arrive somewhere and feel like I had come home.”

  Mathas nodded, smiling as he looked at Dania. Janik turned and watched Dania laughing with Breddan in the bow, saw Auftane slapping the bugbear’s back, and he felt the quiet presence of Mathas beside him. In a way, it wasn’t the departure or the travel he minded so much, and the presence of his friends was a comfort not too different from the feeling of home. But something was missing—someone was missing, and he could almost feel the brush of her hair against his face.

  They sailed through the night, the sailors continuing with repairs to ensure Silverknife stayed afloat. Breddan dismissed his passengers from further work, urging them to sleep, but Janik and Dania both stayed up, pitching in where they could. Despite his insistence that elves don’t sleep, Mathas was exhausted from the day’s work and retired to his cabin shortly after they set sail. Auftane said he wanted to help but needed his sleep so his magic could be fresh for the next day.

  Their course took them east for at least a week, then north around the tip of the Skyfall Peninsula—the northernmost stretch of the vast continent of Xen’drik, the area most familiar to explorers and adventurers. As the sun rose over the sea ahead, Janik stood at the bow, watching the sky brighten and then the light dancing on the sea like gold leaf. He went below to his bunk just as Auftane was getting up.

  The days flew by. Janik enjoyed the night shift at first, when the ship was quiet and the sailors spoke little. He often found himself working beside the mute half-orc, sharing each other’s silence. But he woke up earlier in the afternoon each day, talked with his friends at the evening meal, and by the end of the second week was back to a normal schedule of work and sleep. Silverknife was just beginning to bend her course southward—she was approaching the Phoenix Basin.

  Janik found a new reason to like the daylight hours. Sailors had long told stories of the Phoenix Basin, and the lack of exploration in its waters suggested truth in the tales. Legends said that when the civilization of the giants fell, the entire continent of Xen’drik was torn asunder by the powerful magic the giants had wielded against invading nightmare demons, the quori. Both Shargon’s Teeth and the Phoenix Basin were said to have been solid land that sank beneath the waves in that cataclysm. Indeed, as the ship glided over the still waters of the Basin, Janik occasionally caught glimpses of towering structures deep beneath the surface. The water was not deep and some of the ruins might have gouged holes in Silverknife’s hull, but the water was so clear that the crew easily steered clear of these hazards.

  Janik spent as much time as Breddan would allow—for the hobgoblin remained a driving taskmaster as the journey continued—standing on the prow and gazing down into the deeps.

  “It’s good to be doing
this again,” he said one day to Mathas, when the elf joined him at the prow.

  “To be out of the city and back at work?” Mathas asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been so … inactive these past few years. I mean, I kept busy and told myself I was doing important work. But writing scholarly articles isn’t who I am, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “It took a lot to even consider going back to Mel-Aqat. But I’m starting to think about doing more once we’re done with this. Sea of Fire, what would it be like to explore these ruins here?”

  “Wet,” Mathas observed.

  “Yes. That’s why, as far as I know, nobody has done more than draw sketchy maps of these ruins from above. What must be down there? What secrets of the giants are just waiting for the right team to discover? What treasures there must be!”

  “I would think the sea devils of the straits have plundered the ruins already.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Well, maybe I’ll ask the sahuagin what they know about this area.”

  “You always did enjoy an insurmountable challenge, Janik.”

  “I always surmount them, don’t I?”

  “Up until about three years ago.”

  Janik ran his fingers through his hair. “What are you saying? That I let Maija defeat me?”

  “Hmm.” Mathas chose his words carefully. “I’m saying that it’s good to see you facing those challenges again, and looking forward to new ones.”

  “I haven’t given up on Maija.”

  “You did already, Janik. For three years you sat in your office at Morgrave University assuming that she was lost to you. Maybe you should accept defeat where she is concerned without giving up on life altogether. You need to get past her.”

  “I will, Mathas. One way or another, when we leave Mel-Aqat this time, that challenge will be over.”