Shadows Rising (World of Warcraft: Shadowlands)

by Madeleine Roux

  “You can go join them, you know,” Mathias pointed out, studying him over the edge of his book. It was a history of Zandalar, old and somewhat out of date. Dry stuff. His companion, however, seemed more inclined to cozy up to his bottle.

  Flynn shrugged. A chandelier of lanterns rocked back and forth, sending light skittering across the table toward the pirate. “Crew has less fun when captain chaperones. They need time to relax and just be themselves.”

  “Don’t you need that also?” Mathias asked, cocking a brow.

  “Everyone does.” Flynn nodded to the water-damaged book he held. “Except you. Do you ever stop working?”

  “Not really.”

  Flynn snorted. “See?”

  “Fine.” Mathias closed the book and placed it on the table, then stretched his stiff arms over his head, groaning a little. “I stopped working. What now?”

  “You’re hopeless,” the pirate chuckled and rolled his eyes, but swiveled and managed to put down the bottle for a moment. “What shall we discuss?”

  “This was your idea,” Mathias replied.

  Sometimes on the Bold Arva, when the sailing was smooth and the work of the day done, the crew would all sit around telling tales and singing, but Mathias kept to the captain’s quarters. Flynn often joined him, ever inebriated, but most nights he would just sip to keep his end of the conversation flowing. At first, the constant company annoyed Mathias, but gradually, as he was prone to do, he built a profile of the strange and fascinating Flynn Fairwind.

  He wondered if he would ever truly understand Fairwind, who seemed to him a man haunted, smiling and laughing to distract from something else. Maybe he didn’t need to understand him, though the desire to remained constant. It was simply in Shaw’s nature, to try and scrape away the façade and see what lay beneath—and that skill, that obsession, made him good at his job.

  “My mother was a thief, you know,” Fairwind blurted out then, unprompted. The ship creaked around them, a sailor’s lullaby, rocking them just like a doting mother might do. Maybe that was what made Fairwind say it.

  “I did not know,” Mathias responded. Sensing this was going to be a long talk, he stood and fetched himself a rare tumbler of wine from the cabinet behind him.

  “She was, she was.” Fairwind sighed and shook his head, raking both hands through his long, golden brown hair, then fussing with the ribbon tying it back. “Always insisted she was a barmaid, but one night I hid under the bed in our cottage and waited for her. She must have thought I was out back playing, but no, I was watching…

  Mathias couldn’t help but lean forward a little, interested.

  Flynn smirked. “I could only see the hem of her skirt and her shoes, worn through to the soles of her feet. She went to a loose brick by the hearth and pried it up, then stuffed a few necklaces and brooches in there.”

  “Did she catch you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I waited until she went back out looking for me and popped up, crawled out the window and scrambled around in a bush to make it seem like I had been out there all along. For a while I was…I don’t know, angry, or sad because I wanted her to trust me. But then I realized: Any mother willing to do that for her son, risk her life and her liberty, must be full of love.”

  “And bravery,” Mathias told him softly.

  At that, Flynn snorted, looking at him askew. “Says the man working for the crown.”

  “You work for it now, too.”

  “Blimey, you’re right.” Flynn reached for the bottle, chugging liberally.

  It was Mathias’s turn to smirk. “So. Where is she now? Your mother…”

  Flynn made a clicking sound with his cheek and stared at the bottle for a long moment. “She’s dead. Hanged for being a thief. I think that was the day I stopped being a stupid little boy. I made myself go and watch, I remember being so small I could barely see anything in the crowd.” He laughed bitterly at the memory, then gazed out the curved windows that showed the darkened sea. He kicked his feet up on the table, boots scuffed and salt-stained. “I remember the sound most of all. Everyone but me knew when it was coming, and then there was a breath in, everyone all together, and then…” He squeezed his eyes shut, and Mathias held his wine midway between mouth and table, transfixed. And then? “And then a crunch, like a hammer striking wet gravel. I thought I would hear her scream or cry out for me, but no, just the breath in and then the end.”

  Mathias flinched and put down his wine, then turned the tumbler a few times. “No little boy should know that sound.”

  “You’ve heard it before, I gather.”

  “Yes, many times.”

  “And does it always make you feel sick?” Fairwind asked.

  “Always.” Mathias knew they had both killed the conversation, even if unwittingly. But he didn’t want it to end. “My grandmother was a thief, too.”

  Fairwind choked up a mouthful of rum. “Pardon?”

  He should have heard the footsteps coming, but Fairwind had distracted him. There was a frantic pounding on the door. “Captain! Captain!”

  No sooner had both men leaped to their feet than the Bold Arva listed precariously, sending book and tumbler and bottle and men careening toward the liquor cabinet. Flynn wasn’t sober enough to keep his balance, arms flying out as he went along with the rest of the items not nailed down and crashed into Mathias. The spymaster caught him by the shoulders.

  “Thanks,” Flynn muttered, not moving away. “Sounds like trouble.”

  Mathias had never observed the other man from this distance. He hadn’t noticed that Flynn smelled as strongly of salt and soap as he did of whiskey, and the combination was intoxicating. His leather coat was warm to the touch, holding lingering sunlight and body heat.

  “Yeah.” Shaw blinked rapidly, finally taking a step back. “Trouble.”

  “Captain!” The door burst open and Flynn tumbled toward the intrusion. “On deck, sir, now! You need to see this!”

  * * *

  —

  “New plan!” Flynn Fairwind could only hope his crew could hear him above the war drums of thunder booming across the sky. “We land and we land fast! If we can land at all…Oh, please let there be land out there somewhere…”

  He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be dry. Good fortune had followed them for less than a full day. Choppy seas were a welcome change from the last storm, but now they faced another wall of rising, deadly waves. Ordinarily he would blame the drinking for his confusion, but even a sober man would know that these storms were unnatural. Rain poured down less like a squall and more like bucket after bucket being dumped directly on his head. The winds tore at their sails viciously, blowing in random directions that defied even the most skilled sailor’s steering ability.

  “Melli! Melli, if you’re still aboard and alive, get us to shore!”

  Flynn crashed across the main deck, using any spare piece of rigging or barrel or railing to reach the stern, where he hoped to find their tidesage and their only hope of surviving the storm. The shearing wind caught any voice and carried it away. A seagull whipped by his head, rocketing out to the sea behind him like a squawking cannonball. He flattened his hand above his eyes but it was pointless. There was nothing to see but a solid sheet of rain and darkness.

  A door. Finally. He threw himself toward the quarterdeck, the stairs leading upward providing a railing to which he clung desperately. The door behind him banged open, the gale catching it and slamming it hard enough to scatter splinters across the floor.

  “Shaw!”

  The spymaster emerged, already shouting something, a black, sodden cloak pulled up over his head. He yelled again, but the sound was lost. They were almost nose to nose but it was bloody impossible to make out a single word.

  “What?” Flynn grabbed him by the shoulders. “I…I can’t read lips, what are you
saying?”

  The wind changed direction suddenly, flipping the sails the other way with a clap, leaving a brief, swirling vortex of quiet.

  “LAND!”

  A warning? A jubilation? Flynn felt the Bold Arva lurch and heard the ear-rending crunch no captain ever wanted to hear. The hull had made contact, rowdy contact, with a sandbar, though it appeared to be intact. He and Shaw hit the boards and slid, luckily, into the quarterdeck. Unluckily, an instant later the rest of his crew appeared, tumbling toward them, until Flynn, Shaw, and a half dozen bedraggled, limp sailors lay in a groaning heap, piled at the bottom of the quarterdeck stairs.

  “Land,” Nailor wheezed, wedged under the bulk of a Kul Tiran gunner.

  “We noticed.” Flynn pushed at random hands and legs, dislodging himself from the human ball of yarn. He crawled slowly to his feet, wobbly, squinting into the heavy fog that dissipated with landfall. The storm moved off, suspiciously responsive, rain and gusts and threatening clouds retreating farther out to sea, leaving them in the stagnant, tropical sludge the Zandalari called “air.”

  Gradually, the crew reassembled behind Flynn. Melli stumbled down from the sterncastle, dazed and wide-eyed.

  “Melli, you’re fired. Wait, no, we still need a way off this damn island. You’re back on the crew.” He narrowed his eyes. “For now.” Flynn sighed and wiped a piece of seaweed off his shoulder. Mathias Shaw, joined him at the edge of the ship.

  “That storm was chasing us specifically,” he rumbled.

  “I’m no expert, Shaw.” Flynn tossed him a weary smile. “But I think it’s safe to assume we’re not dealing with ordinary weather phenomena. If we don’t find a way to stop whatever magic is causing this, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

  “That won’t happen,” Shaw assured him. “Let’s get to shore, have a look around and make camp if there’s a secluded spot.”

  “What about the footholds you lot put down here? Fort Victory and the rest?”

  “Abandoned. Once the armistice was signed, we ceded control of those encampments.” With no need for a rowboat to take them in, Shaw simply swung himself over the railing and began climbing a rogue rope down the hull. “Any sign of us here will be taken as an act of aggression.”

  “Oh! Brilliant! Then I’m glad we shipwrecked with such catlike subtlety.” Flynn rolled his eyes, motioning to the crew. “Don’t get cozy, just bring enough for a meal and protection, then we find a place to lay anchor and hide the Arva.”

  It was probably wiser to stay aboard altogether, but he could read the faces of the men and women serving under him. They were tired, morale was low, and a brief stint on land always did a sailor good.

  Shaw had already begun snooping around on the sand, consulting a rain-drenched map and a compass.

  “Marshlands to the north, river to the west,” the spymaster said, tapping the map.

  Flynn nodded, surveying in every direction, grateful to finally be free of the obscuring mass of the storm. A pair of spiny diemetradons observed them a little ways inland, chewing their grass with blasé disinterest. Green mountains rose sharply behind the beasts, and farther down the beach the pointed tops of huts emerged from the mist.

  “There’s a village to the south,” Flynn told him.

  “That must be Zeb’ahari. Blast. We should be much deeper into Nazmir. I wanted to avoid veering this close to the troll city.”

  “Well, pardon me.” Flynn stomped off toward the remnants of a campfire. “I thought we had until the White Lady was full to get there. Silly me!”

  “Don’t get defensive. We don’t have far to sail; once the crew is back on their feet we can follow the shore north and stay close to land to avoid the storms.” The blackened timbers thrown on the old fire still smoldered, and a trail of footsteps in the sand led away from it, at least three sets of prints and fresh enough to be marked deep into the wet ground. Without another word, the spymaster inspected the prints, following them.

  A high, short whistle came from behind them. Flynn glanced over his shoulder to find the crew hadn’t managed to unload a single thing from the Bold Arva. Instead, Nailor hung over the railing, a looking glass dangling from one hand, pointing toward the wall of dense jungle trees where the owners of those footprints watched in a crouch from the shadows.

  “Shaw! Look lively!”

  Flynn pulled his blunderbuss at once and aimed, but the powder was useless, soaked by the storm. It would have to be the cutlass, then. Drawing his sword, he charged after the trolls peering at them from the forest. Shaw calmly stuck his arm out to the side, keeping Flynn from racing into the jungle.

  “They’ve spotted us,” Flynn hissed. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Spilling blood will only cause more attention. They aren’t dressed in the royal colors,” Shaw explained, keeping Flynn at bay. “They’re moving off. Probably just foragers.”

  But the spymaster frowned, brow pulled down tight.

  “White and black,” he heard Shaw murmur to himself.

  Flynn lowered his cutlass but did not sheathe it. “What about it?”

  “Just…strange. Did you get a look at their garb? It was white and black, with some sort of design on it.”

  This was Shaw’s mission, and he didn’t seem overly bothered by the onlookers, so Flynn determined he should not be too bothered, either. Besides, the crew was apparently keeping a good lookout from the ship.

  “Lots of eyes and legs,” Flynn said, wandering away and back toward the campfire. “Almost like a spider.”

  “No, exactly like a spider.” Shaw had, somehow, managed to fall perfectly into step with him. Unlike their artless landing, Shaw had the ability to move in complete silence. “Let’s have a look at this camp of theirs. Maybe they left something behind.”

  Shaw drew a single dagger then, his boot knife, using it like a shovel to dig through the sand around the campfire. Little by little, the edge of a page became visible, and then the feathery tips of arrows.

  “This,” Shaw said, holding up a brightly colored arrow, “is worrisome.”

  “Why? It’s just an arrow, looks completely normal.”

  “This fletching…” He held the arrow close to his eye, then examined it from several different angles. “I’ve seen modified fletching like this before. We’re on the right track.” He handed Flynn the arrow and then fished out the piece of parchment covered by the sand. “Here. Put these in your pouch,” Shaw directed.

  “What? Why? Why me?”

  “Yours is drier. Just do it, Fairwind, I need to look around more. Get those back to the ship and be careful. I’ll want to spend time with those papers later.”

  “All right, but only because you asked so sweetly.” He nearly dropped the arrow, then carefully tucked it under his arm. The notes were trickier, but he folded them gently and slid the bundle into the leather satchel hanging off his belt.

  Flynn left Shaw playing in the sand with a huff. His entire body ached from being tossed like a rag doll during the storm, and he hadn’t managed to get three hours of unbroken sleep in days. Whenever they seemed free of the magic squalls trailing them across the water, another one caught them from the side or head on. Maybe before they pushed north he could grab a minute or two of shut-eye and a swig or twelve of rum.

  Nailor sat with his legs dangling over the railing, eyeing the horizon with his looking glass while Melli, Grigsby, and two gunner brothers called Harmen and Siward handed down a crate of salted cod, plopping it down on shore.

  “I wouldn’t,” Flynn said, accepting a helping, hoisting hand from Nailor as he came back aboard, scampering up the rope ladder. “Our cheerful master of ceremonies wants us back in the water quick as you please.”

  A general groan came from the crew. He paused, deciding his much-needed date with a bed and a bottle could wait a moment. That grumbling and moaning from a c
rew, now just a scratch, could easily deepen into a festering wound.

  “Now, now,” he said, clapping Nailor on the back. “We won’t weigh anchor far from here, and then you can eat as much cod and chug as much grog as you like. We’ve survived the worst bits, lads and ladies, so pull up your bloomers and let’s hop to it. Melli? Can you…I don’t know…tidesage us out of here?”

  Melli made her way grumpily back up the rope ladder. Her crown of braids had been undone by the storm, reddish hair hanging limp around her shoulders. “Aye, sir. Tide’s going out, and the waves are nice and gentle.”

  “Excellent! See? Good news. Fortune doesn’t favor the bold, it favors the patient!”

  Now to see about that rumsy slumber…

  “Captain! In the trees! More of those trolls!”

  Nailor flailed, letting out three short whistles. Flynn ran to the man’s side, ripping the spyglass out of his hand and searching the edge of the jungle. Just as he said, a squad of well-armored trolls waited just inside the tree line, a single gold boot visible and reflecting the cloud-washed sun.

  “Hey!” Nailor shouted down to Shaw. The spymaster gained his feet, but the trolls had already begun streaming out of the jungle, golden swords flashing. A line of archers emerged, readying their bows. “They’re back! They’re back, and they brought friends!”

  “Run out the guns!” Flynn thundered. “Rifles loaded and ready to fire, now, now, now!”

  Enough of the crew remained aboard to snap into swift action. Nailor, Grigsby, and the Kul Tiran brothers shoved Melli aside, fetching rifles from the crates stacked and lashed near the mainmast. Flynn reacted with the practiced, memorized speed of a lifelong sailor, rushing below deck to fetch a fresh barrel of powder for the rifles while the gunners busied themselves in the gallery. Crash-crash-squeeeeak came the heartening sound of the six-pounders being wheeled out and aimed, and the rhythmic call and response as the guns were loaded, the powder rammed down the barrel, and the wadding after, then came the ball.