“Then yes, I’ll be happy to let you see me to Hulburg. But you won’t have to go to any more trouble on my account. My family’s coster has a trading concession there. I’ll be fine.”
“In that case, I suggest we ride another few miles and then get off the trail. We’ll be home by noon tomorrow.”
“Home?” Nimessa looked more closely at Geran. “Of course. You’re Geran Hulmaster, the harmach’s nephew. You’re the one who fought the King in Copper and killed Mhurren of the Bloodskulls. We heard the story. But what in the world were you doing by that beach? You must be mad to challenge so many enemies at once.”
Geran allowed himself a small smile. “I’ll answer, but let’s ride while we talk.” He helped Nimessa up into the saddle again, not that she really needed the assistance, then settled himself behind her. They rode eastward along the crest of the coastal hills, following the winding trail. The moon draped the dark landscape in silver and shadow; it was clear enough that the promontories and inlets for several miles ahead were visible, and the Moonsea was a great, gray plain stretching out of sight on their right. With Nimessa’s slim body in front of him and her golden curls just under his nose, it did not seem like such a bad night for a ride after all.
“How did you come to find me when you did?” Nimessa asked.
“An accident. I left Thentia early this morning and was looking for a place to make camp for the evening when I stumbled across the pirates and your ship. I was about to ride offwhen they brought you out and tied you up.” He shrugged awkwardly, even though she couldn’t see him. “I couldn’t leave you in their hands without at least trying to help, but I had to wait until it was dark before I could move. You saw the rest.”
“The fire on Whitewing?”
“Yes, I’m afraid that was my doing. I figured that she was a loss already, so I might as well deny the pirates their prize while making a distraction.” They rode on for a short time, and then Geran sighed. He hated to ask what he asked next, but he thought he’d better. “I watched for a while, Nimessa. I didn’t see any other captives. Were you the only one they spared?”
“Yes.” She looked down. “There was no one else left to save.”
“Were you-” he began, and then he stopped himself. He was going to ask if she’d been traveling alone, but he knew better. A young noblewoman of a good family would have been accompanied, most likely by a maid-in-waiting or a kinsman. There was a chance that the pirates would spare wellborn captives in the hopes of winning a rich ransom, but somehow he doubted that they’d intended to ransom Nimessa back to her family. And if they hadn’t intended to ransom her, no one else in her party would have been worth keeping alive. He let the question die on his lips. He could only imagine what she’d seen and been through. Even if she was made of stern stuff, it would not be easy on her.
After a while he realized that she was shaking inside his oversized cloak, and she failed to stifle a sob. He frowned behind her, trying to decide if it was kinder to leave her to her thoughts for a time, distract her with meaningless conversation, or draw her out and let her tell her story. Half an hour ago you were thinking of her as a princess in a Waterdeep romance story, and you the brave knight, Geran fumed at himself. She’s seen more murder and cruelty in a few short hours than most people do in a lifetime. And he’d certainly contributed his own share with his furious skirmish on the beach. All she knew of him was that he’d stolen her out of a pirate camp, savagely cutting down anyone in his path. Regardless of the reasons he gave for his actions, she had to wonder whether his motives were honorable or not.
Not knowing what else to do, he squeezed her hand and said, “It’s over now, Nimessa.” She nodded but did not answer.
Geran found a spot that he remembered along the track and paused to look around. They still had the trail to themselves, as far as he could tell. He spurred his horse up and over the crest of the hill. An old footpath led into the low thickets and hedgerows of a small valley where a stream descended to the sea below. They headed inland into the empty hills. If the pirates were still in pursuit, Geran figured that they’d likely follow the coastal trail. They couldn’t know where Geran and Nimessa had left the trail unless they had a very good tracker with them.
A long-abandoned homestead stood at the head of the valley. It might have been wiser to keep on going, but he was exhausted, and the moon would be setting soon. There were dangers other than pirates abroad in the Highfells at night, and Geran didn’t care to meet them in the dark. He dismounted and led his horse inside the old house. There was a back door leading out to overgrown fields behind the house; if they had to, they could flee deeper into the hills.
He helped Nimessa down then busied himself with setting up a small camp. “I think it’s safe to rest a couple of hours,” he said. “We can’t ride all night, and I’m too tired to go much farther. My apologies for the accommodations.”
“For some reason a lonely old ruin in the middle of nowhere doesn’t seem so bad to me tonight,” Nimessa answered. She found a small, rueful smile. “Do you know where we are?”
“More or less. I used to hunt up here when I was younger.”
Geran found some dry brush and built a small fire inside the old hearth. He stepped around the corner to change into the last of his dry clothing and spread his wet clothes out in front of the fire. Then he shared his provisions with Nimessa, and they made a supper out of a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, dried sausage, and apples. She ate ravenously.
When Nimessa finished, she looked up at him and brushed a hand across her eyes. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday evening,” she explained.
“I understand.”
“And I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet for saving my life.” Nimessa dropped her gaze. “I don’t know what moved you to risk your own life to save a stranger, but I’m very glad that you came along when you did. The things they said they would do to me-I can’t even think of it.”
“Do you know who they were?” Geran asked gently.
“The ship’s name was Kraken Queen. I saw it painted on her stern. The captain was a fierce man, maybe fifty or so, and almost as tall as you. He wore braids in his hair and beard. I never heard any of the crewmen call him anything other than ‘Captain.’”
Geran remembered the figurehead of the tentacled mermaid. The name fit the ship. “How did they catch you?”
“They stole up on us before sunrise this morning. When the sun came up and we spotted them, they were only a couple of miles off. Master Parman tried to outrun the pirate ship, but the wind died down around noon, and after that Whitewing didn’t stand a chance.” Nimessa hesitated, and she huddled deeper in Geran’s cloak. “They killed everyone else, but the pirate captain ordered his men to spare me for-later.”
“You don’t have to say more.”
Nimessa fell silent, and Geran frowned, digesting the story. Whitewing made five ships he knew of that hadn’t reached Hulburg in the last few months. Piracy was choking the trade of the city little by little. Something would have to be done, and soon. “Well, it’s over now,” he told her. “You’re out of their reach. Try to sleep for a few hours.”
He let her have his bedroll and went to tend to his horse. He gave the animal an extra pat on the neck by way of apologizing for a hard run at the end of a long day. By the time he returned to the fireside, Nimessa was curled up on her side under his blankets and breathing deeply and slowly. He studied her face; she had wide eyes, a delicate point to her chin, and smooth skin that seemed a pale gold in the firelight, hinting at sun elf ancestry. In sleep she looked young and innocent. It was hard to say with someone of elf descent, but he would have guessed her to be twenty-five or so. Younger than Alliere, he decided. And she was fair-haired, while Alliere’s hair was dark as moonshadows. Of course he’d never watched Alliere sleep during the brief months that he’d loved her. Elves didn’t sleep as humans-or half-elves-did. Strange how two peoples could be so much alike and yet so different.
; “She’s not Alliere,” Geran told himself softly. With a sigh, he turned away and looked to settle himself for a long night. Nimessa had his bedroll, so all he could do was wrap himself in his cloak. He resigned himself to a night with little rest and found a spot where he could sit with his back to a wall and have a good view of the overgrown fields outside. The night was still and quiet.
He dozed off a couple of times during the night, but no one came along to interrupt their rest. Finally, as the eastern sky began to gray, he roused himself. He didn’t think Kraken Queen’s men were anywhere nearby, but his trail would be easier to follow in daylight. He packed up the camp quietly, allowing Nimessa to sleep a little longer, then he woke her. “Morning is near. We should move on.”
Nimessa opened her eyes, looked at him, then sat up sharply with a gasp. She frowned in puzzlement, then she remembered where she was. “Sweet Selune,” she murmured. “For a moment I thought it was all a terrible dream.”
“I’m afraid not,” he told her. He gave her a crooked smile. “I’d offer you some breakfast, but we ate everything I had with me before we went to sleep. Lunch is in Hulburg.”
In a few minutes he packed up the last of his gear, and they set off again. A high overcast was stealing in from the west. Rather than heading back to the coastal trail, Geran decided to put the sunrise on his right and cut northeast through the hills. It would shave a couple of miles off their journey, even if it was more rugged country, and it was also much less likely to lead them into any pirates who might still be looking for them. These hills marked the rolling fall of the land from the high moors of Thar to the Moonsea. The folk of Hulburg called them the Highfells, and Geran knew them well. As a youth he’d explored every vale and hill for a day’s ride around his home. They rode at an easy pace for several miles, slowly climbing higher into the hills and leaving the coast behind them. The higher slopes were treeless and marked by wide slashes of bare, mossy rock.
“It’s so empty,” Nimessa said as they crested a ridge. “Nobody lives here?”
“Shepherds and goatherds sometimes bring their flocks into these hills in the summertime, but we’re past that now,” Geran answered. “A few people settled the coastal hills in the time of old Thentur, but that was two or three centuries ago. Now?” He shook his head. “No, no one lives up here.”
“Where are the mines? And the forests your people cut?”
Geran pointed past her at a faint, gray-green range that marched across their path many miles away. “The Galena Mountains. They lie about fifteen or twenty miles east of Hulburg. That’s where you’ll find the mining and timber camps. West of Hulburg there’s nothing but the Highfells and Thar.” He reined in and swung himself down from the saddle. “You keep riding. I’ll walk a bit.”
“I’m perfectly capable of walking a few miles,” Nimessa answered.
“I don’t doubt it, but I’d feel better if you rode.”
She looked at him with a skeptical expression. “You don’t have to impress me with your gallantry, you know.”
“Would it make you feel better if I said I was mindful of the horse, not you?”
Nimessa laughed briefly and shook her head. She had a pleasant laugh, light and soft, much like many of the elves Geran had known in Myth Drannor. He smiled and set off again, walking at her stirrup as they picked their way down a hillside. If he had his bearings right, they’d hit the inland trail from Thentia soon. “So what business do you have in Hulburg? It seems a fair distance from your home.”
“I’m taking over the management of our House’s tradeyard. My father isn’t satisfied with the return on our investments in Hulburg. He feels that it’s time a Sokol stepped in to put things in order.”
Geran looked up at her. He wondered if she had much experience in overseeing Sokol business. Was her father seeing to her education in the affairs of House Sokol, or was she expected to take a direct hand in the business? He was more than a little responsible for the decline in Sokol profits over the last few months, since he’d played a large part in exposing the corruption of the Merchant Council in Hulburg-although it was Geran’s own cousin Sergen who’d been behind much of that. In the aftermath of Sergen’s failed attempt to seize power, Harmach Grigor had closely examined the leases and rents paid by each of the foreign merchant concessions in Hulburg. Most of the big merchant costers were now paying much more for the right to cut the harmach’s timber and mine the harmach’s hills than they had when Sergen was running things. Of course, that meant Nimessa would be on the other side of the table from him when it came time to negotiate those rights.
“There are still plenty of Veruna leases available,” he observed. House Veruna of Mulmaster had been Sergen’s chief accomplice in the recent troubles. “House Sokol could do worse than to bid on a few of those, since the Verunas won’t be getting them back.”
“The Verunas have made it clear to us that they’d take a very dim view of other families or costers buying up their Hulburg leases,” Nimessa answered. “They feel they’re still the rightful holders, and they’ll retaliate against any other House that takes advantage of your uncle’s draconian measures.”
“Draconian?”
Nimessa tilted her head. “So the Verunas say. I wasn’t here, so I really can’t make a judgment about whether the harmach was within his rights to expel House Veruna and confiscate their holdings.”
Geran snorted to himself. He didn’t have any doubt of it, but of course he was a Hulmaster. He decided that Nimessa wasn’t in Hulburg to learn anything. She was here because her father trusted her to look after Sokol interests. Nimessa hadn’t forgotten that he was a Hulmaster, and despite the fact that she was riding through the middle of nowhere with a borrowed shirt and oversized cloak, she was careful to keep her thoughts to herself about her family’s business.
The rest of the morning passed by quietly enough. From time to time they talked of small things; Geran told Nimessa some of the stories he knew about the Highfells and their brooding barrows, while Nimessa told him about events and doings in Phlan. They saw no signs of Kraken Queen’s crew or any other travelers for that matter. Eventually they struck the Thentian trail Geran was looking for, and two hours more brought them to the edge of the Winterspear Vale a couple of miles north of Hulburg itself. As Geran had promised, they came to the Burned Bridge over the Winterspear in the early afternoon.
Hulburg itself lay south of the old bridge, a ramshackle town bustling with commerce and trade. Here, where the Winterspear emptied into the Moonsea, an older city had stood hundreds of years ago. The town of Hulburg was built atop its ruins. On the east bank of the river, the castle of Griffonwatch-home of the Hulmasters-overlooked the town’s landward edge, guarding against attack from the wild lands of Thar. The tradeyards and concessions of the foreign merchant companies stood mostly on the west bank, hard by the town’s wharves. A steady stream of wagons and carts pushed out along the road leading inland, ferrying provisions and tools to the camps outside of town. The ruins of an old city wall meandered around the edge of the town, but stonemasons were at work in various spots-Harmach Grigor was pouring most of the Tower’s newfound wealth into repairing the old defenses.
Geran stole a glance at Nimessa’s face, trying to read her reaction to her first sight of the town. She frowned, perhaps taking in the unpaved roads or the smoking smelters. “It’s not quite as cheerless as it looks,” he told her. “The streets down by the bay-side are a little more, well, civilized.”
She summoned a small smile. “It’s busy,” she observed. “That’s a good sign. Besides, I’ve been told that the lodgings in the Sokol concession are fairly comfortable. I’ll be fine.” Then she nodded off to Geran’s left. “It looks like there was a fire.”
Geran followed her gaze. Near the spot where the Vale Road passed through the ancient walls stood a large wooden building on a footing of old stone. One corner was scorched, and a patch of the wooden shakes over that part of the building was missing. A thin plume of s
moke rose from a hole in the roof. “The Troll and Tankard,” he said with a frown.
“A tavern?”
“The best ale in Hulburg.” They rode by slowly. A number of workmen were busy with the work of tearing down the ruined siding with hatchets and saws. Several more stood watch over the scene, each with a blue cloth tied around the arm. Geran spotted Brun Osting, the tavernkeeper, studying the scene with his thick arms folded across his chest and a fierce scowl on his bearded face. Brun had run the Troll and Tankard ever since his father died fighting to stop the Bloody Skull orcs from pillaging the town five months past. Geran detoured closer and hailed him. “What happened here, Brun?”
The tavernkeeper looked around. He was a young man of strapping build, easily two or three inches taller than Geran and fifty pounds heavier. “M’lord Geran-and m’lady,” he said, touching his knuckle to his brow. If he was surprised to see Geran riding with a pretty young yoman in the front of his saddle, he didn’t say anything. “It was the Cinderfists. A gang of ’em tried to fire the Troll during the night, but they made enough noise to rouse my brothers. We drove ’em off and saved most of the building.”
Geran studied the damage and frowned. “Anyone hurt?”
“The Cinderfists carried off two or three o’ theirs, but I don’t think no one got killed. My brother Stunder took a bad cut, but he’s patched up now.” Brun Osting shook his head. “There’s trouble in the making, m’lord. Mark my words. The Cinderfists try burning out good Hulburgans again, and there’ll be killing over it.”
“I hear you,” Geran said. “Is there anything I can do to help? The Hulmasters are in your family’s debt.”
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