"What's wrong? Why'd you signal?"
The fog clung to Jendara as she grabbed the dinghy's mooring line and tossed it up. She reached for the rope ladder and shivered as a tendril of mist wrapped around her wrist, all cold and damp. She climbed fast.
At the top of the railing, Tam appeared. He offered Jendara his hand. Sailors already scrambled to pull the dinghy out of the water. Jendara looked back over her shoulder. There was no sign of the island she'd just left—only fog.
Tam gave her bloody gear a double take. "Well—" he began, but another voice cut him off.
"There's a vessel out there," Boruc said, voice tense. He nodded up at Vorrin from his perch on a barrel, his plastered leg hoisted on a crate. "Out in the fog."
"We tried to hail it," Tam said. "I couldn't make it out too clearly, but I think it was a longship. I saw just one sail, and by sounds of it, it carried a good-sized rowing crew."
"They must have hounds with them," Boruc said. "Glayn and I heard a ferocious lot of growling and barking."
"We signaled with lanterns, but they didn't respond," Tam continued. "I used the spyglass, trying to determine their course, but the fog's gotten too thick out there."
"And now the fog's hidden the island," Jendara mused. "If they're not familiar with the area, they're not going to know about the underwater rocks."
Vorrin shook his head. "I'm less concerned with them, and more concerned about us. Hounds on a longship? Ignoring a friendly hailing? I'm betting they're raiders. I think we should put some distance between us and them."
"We can't risk raising the sails," Tam said. "Milady's a deep-water ship. Wouldn't take much to run her aground."
Out in the white dampness that had swallowed the world, something howled. Jendara felt goose bumps rise on her arms. She'd heard plenty of hunting hounds howl before, but she'd never heard ones that sounded this eerie.
"We could use the dinghy to try to catch up with that longship," she said. "A small crew under paddle power to warn them about those rocks—or to scout them out."
Vorrin's eyes flashed. "And if they're raiders? We just let that crew row out blind?"
Jendara sighed. "No, I'd go slow and quiet, so nothing bites me in the ass. If the Milady is stuck here in the fog, we're better off knowing what's out there."
Out in the water, something splashed. Vorrin jumped.
His face twisted. "All right. I don't like feeling there's something out there planning to harm my ship. Tam, I want this ship ready to sail at a moment's notice." He turned to Jendara. "You go find Alex. He's probably just waking up, since he stood night watch. But he's a good man with sharp eyes. You two take the dinghy out in the direction Tam saw the other boat."
His voice was pure captain at that moment. Jendara nodded and hurried to the hatch leading below.
"And Jendara?"
She turned to face him. "Yes?"
"Keep in mind that you're the cargo officer and business manager of this ship. Don't go getting heroic out there."
Jendara saluted. As she climbed belowdecks, she realized she wanted nothing more than to stumble into her own hammock. Hammocks, not heroics, she thought. That's what she wanted. But duty called.
∗ ∗ ∗
"I don't think we'll find anything tonight, Dara," Alex said. The second mate rubbed his eyes and spread his hands. "I mean, look at it out here."
Glayn nodded. The green-haired gnome had been sailing with Jendara since the old days of piracy, and she was glad he'd insisted on coming with her. The little man had sharp eyes and sharper hearing.
"There's naught out there but devils and ghosts," Glayn said. "If there's ever been a more cursed patch of water, I ain't seen it."
Her skin crawled. She wished it was just a reaction to the clinging dampness against her skin, but she knew it came from his words. Cursed. Maybe this island really was.
A few feet away, something splashed. The fog had rendered the world beyond the dinghy invisible. Jendara was more worried about the rocks beneath the mist-shrouded water than she was any kind of attack.
"Hello?" Jendara called. "We're a scouting vessel from the trade ship Milady. Is anyone out there?"
A breeze stirred the mist, parting it in places. Jendara squinted. She thought she caught a glimmer of red, like the red-and-white-striped sails popular on older longships. "Call out if you can hear me," she shouted.
More splashing, but softer. Jendara was reminded of the sound oars made when wrapped in canvas. She'd used that technique on more than a few raids. She wished she'd brought her bow along for this little outing.
"Let's pick up our pace," she whispered to Glayn. "I don't think that boat wants to be caught, and I want to know why."
They rowed hard, but the fog didn't clear. Jendara leaned forward in the bow, eyes straining for signs of another craft.
Ahead, a shape loomed. She gave an angry blast on her whistle. "This is an expedition from the trade ship Milady. Identify yourself now!"
"Jendara? It's us!" Tam's voice sounded thin and forlorn and somehow nearby.
Jendara frowned. "Tam?"
Alex stopped rowing and let the current carry them forward. Off the starboard side of the bow, the soft yellow glow of a lantern appeared. "We must have gotten turned around out there," he muttered.
Glayn spat over the side of the boat. "Cursed waters."
They glided neatly up to the Milady's side.
"Did you find anything?" Tam asked.
"Not really." Jendara answered. She peered back over her shoulder. Had she really seen those sails out there, just moments ago? She couldn't doubt the evidence of her eyes, but that meant a longship had slipped by only a few yards beyond the Milady's prow. Had it been circling aimlessly in the fog like Jendara's dinghy? And why had no one answered her hails?
She shook her head. "If there's someone out there, they don't want to be found."
In a few moments, Tam had them back aboard their ship, and by the time all the gear was stowed away, a hint of sun had appeared behind the curtain of fog. But no one relaxed until the anchor was lifted and the Milady was moving quickly away from Crow's Nest.
paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas
Chapter Nine
Black Ship, Cold Water
The fishing vessels of Sorind appeared first, the usual congregation of smaller boats whose owners called a friendly halloo as the big ship slipped by. Jendara grinned. Her dark mood had fallen behind her, blown away by the wind and the simple joys of working in the rigging.
The Milady moored with the ease of a ship's crew that had worked together a long time. Jendara helped Tam wrestle the gangway into place and realized they'd been moving the balky thing together for more than five years—two and half covering this trade route, and those three lean years carrying cargo off of Varisia. He must have signed on just around the time Ikran died.
But he and Glayn were the only two of the crew that had been on the Milady in its pirating days. The gnome was already going over the skiff she'd used this morning, checking for any scraped paint or other quick repairs. Glayn shot her a smile as she crossed the deck, looking for Boruc.
He was sitting on his cask, admiring his plaster cast, now painted in gaudy shades. She had to laugh. "Did you get bored?"
"I thought a spot of color might add a bit of cheer." He reached for a pair of crutches someone must have found down below. "I have my reputation as an artist to maintain."
"You're not like other islanders that I've known, Boruc. You're..." She searched for the word.
"Eccentric?" he asked.
"Artistic," she said. "And lighthearted in a way that not a lot of men can pull off."
"I go my own way," he reminded her. "You should try it. Who cares what other people think as long as you're happy?"
The man hoisted himself onto his crutches and made his way toward the gangplank. Tam rushed forward to help him down to the pier.
She watched the pair stump their way
along. Yes, if there was one thing Boruc did well, it was go his own way. In a family of farmers and fishers, he'd become a talented sculptor. She had no doubt his carvings would sell well on the mainland. There was a power and grace to his soapstone figures that was unusual in stonework. If Jendara was looking for an idol for her clan altar, she would want Boruc to carve it.
She felt a tiny twinge. Someone had carved the totems back on the altar at Crow's Nest, someone who had worked hard to capture the likeness of a crow. She'd snapped it in two without even the slightest thought of the craftsperson who'd made it. She'd been too absorbed into her own rage.
Vorrin waved from the end of the dock, and she pushed away her musings on the past. She had a new life to focus on.
Jendara picked up her pace, giving Vorrin's shoulder a comfortable bump when she reached his side. "Did you see Boruc's cast?"
He grinned. "A definite improvement. At least it adds color to the place."
"What did you do to my brother?" Morul called. The island leader stood in the village square, tapping his toe as he waited for Jendara and Vorrin.
"I had to rescue Jendara from a sea snake," Boruc said, eyes twinkling. "The others will all agree that my heroism was unparalleled."
Jendara laughed. "He was very brave." She paused, not sure how to explain everything that had happened during their trip to Flintyreach. An entire group of a workers murdered, a bizarre monster tracked, Boruc's leg broken...it made for a long story.
Movement in front of the meeting hall caught her eye. Kran, collecting a spear from a target set up on a pile of straw bales. She nudged Vorrin, and the whole group turned their heads to watch the boy march back to the "firing line" he'd drawn in the dirt. Yul stood with the boy, making a few adjustments to Kran's stance. The man fell back and the boy raised the spear.
Jendara held her breath.
The spear soared in a controlled arc, thudding into the target and slicing through the straw behind it. Jendara beamed.
"Strong arm on that boy," Boruc said.
"And a good shot, too," Morul pointed out. "That was pretty close to center."
"Takes after his mother," Vorrin said, but his pride in the boy was obvious. Jendara wasn't sure she'd ever seen the man smile so wide.
Morul cleared his throat. "So what really happened out there? We weren't expecting to see the Milady back in harbor for a number of weeks, and we certainly weren't expecting Boruc to come with you."
The group explained what had happened back on the island, Morul listening quietly. When they finished, he scratched his yellow beard, eyes focused on some distant point as he thought.
"I don't like this," he said, finally. "I don't like the fact that you only found one creature and that it may or may not be dead. I wish you'd just found a pack of vicious trolls."
"I don't like it, either," Jendara agreed. She thought about the troll she'd faced on Crow's Nest. It had been vicious, dangerous, and terrifying, but she didn't believe a creature like that could pull off the kind of killing she'd seen back at the quarry. Trolls weren't entirely stupid, but they definitely lacked the control it took to kill a group of men and then leave their remains in a neat pile. "Trolls would be a lot less worrying, really."
"Hey!"
At the call, they spun toward the docks. Glayn waved at them, still holding his tarry caulking brush. Jendara and Vorrin hurried toward him.
"Something wrong?" Vorrin called.
The gnome bobbed his head. "A boat! A small one. It's floating in on the tide, but it's not under any kind of control. Tam's taking the skiff out to get it, but it's in ugly condition."
"How ugly?" Morul had caught up, and his voice was grim. Boruc stumped along behind him, straining to see beyond the Milady.
"Well, the sail looks good, but that's not the bad thing." Glayn looked from Vorrin to Jendara. "There's blood all over it. Might be folks left inside, but it was hard to tell with just my old spyglass. The boat's full of gear and debris."
Vorrin's mouth tightened. "Let's go help Tam salvage it."
∗ ∗ ∗
Tam had moved quickly. The skiff was already trudging toward shore, the other craft strung behind it on a towrope. Jendara studied the bloodstained boat. A faering, she'd guess, the kind of small craft a family might use to visit their kin on another island, or to take their furs to market. It could run fast with just a few oarsmen or the small sail. Despite the bloodstains, the hull looked sound. What could have happened to it?
Jendara waited for Tam to toss out a mooring line while Vorrin hurried to grab a grappling hook. As the two boats eased toward the docks, he hooked the side of the abandoned boat and slowed its approach. He suddenly stiffened. "Did you hear something?"
Jendara listened. Waves slapped the sides of the dock and the boats. Sea gulls shrieked. But there was another, smaller sound, like the groan of an injured man.
"I think there's someone still on board." She jumped aboard. Wads of shredded and bloodstained canvas filled the bottom of the boat. A rank, musky scent hung over it all, the kind of stink she associated with animal lairs.
She pulled back the corner of the nearest scrap of canvas.
"No!"
A jagged length of wood shot out at her. She barely twisted aside in time to evade the spiky thing—a broken oar. She wrenched it away. Someone was babbling, shrieking, sobbing. Jendara tossed aside the canvas.
The man beneath slapped at her with one bloodied hand. His other cradled a long, gory slab or something to his chest. Jendara brushed off his blows.
"You're okay," she said, in the voice she saved for upset animals. "You're safe."
The man trembled. "Safe?" He pulled his grisly burden tighter to his chest, shifting it a little so that Jendara could make out the blond hair and light beard of a young man's cheek. The younger man was definitely dead.
She squatted down so she was at the survivor's level. An ugly gash ran from his eyebrow to his hairline. The eye beneath it had swollen half-shut.
"What happened to you?"
He shook his head wildly. "They came out of the dark, growling. Some kind of creatures. Couldn't see!"
"It's all right now," she said, quickly. She studied the corpse of the young man. The flesh had been ripped off the left side of his face, and his left arm was missing entirely. She could see the pale glint of an exposed rib between the red shreds remaining of his torso. The youth had probably been dead for several hours. Jendara was suddenly glad she hadn't had any breakfast.
"Can you stand up?" she asked, keeping her voice soft and friendly. "I think your head needs stitching."
He made a move to get up and fell back, hissing with pain. "Hurts to move."
Jendara glanced over her shoulder. She saw Morul and Yul hurrying down the docks, Glayn and Sorend's wisewoman, Chana, just behind them, and felt a surge of relief. There were no people she'd rather have at her side right now. The combination of a head injury and obvious terror could make this man hard to manage.
"We're going to take you to our wisewoman," she said. "She'll help you. But we can't carry two of you at one time, so you're going to have to lay your friend down."
He shrank away from her. "Byrni! No! I won't leave him!" His eyes rolled in their sockets.
"He'll be right behind you," she said. It was like talking to a child. She stretched out her hand to stroke his shoulder and he began shrieking insensibly.
Someone shouldered in beside her. "Now, now," Chana crooned. The dark-haired wisewoman's hand shot out, a tiny vial gripped in her fingers. In an instant, she had the vial between the injured man's lips. "You just need some sleep."
The man pulled away from her, but whatever was inside her vial had already slipped down his throat. "Sleep," he repeated. His open eye, a pale gray, blinked heavily. "Don't want to."
His head dropped forward. Chana felt at his throat. "The pulse is strong. He'll be fine once I get that cut stitched."
Glayn brought over a plank to lay the wounded man upon, and with Tam an
d Vorrin's help, they had the injured man out of his boat in a few moments. The four men eased the plank up onto their shoulders and began trekking up the hill, toward the meetinghouse. Jendara watched them go, thinking.
Creatures coming out of the dark. It sounded like something out of a story—the kind used to frighten children. But she had the half-ruined body of a young man lying in the bottom of the boat to illustrate this tale. She knelt beside the corpse to get a better sense of the wounds. Whatever had attacked the two sailors, it had been tremendously strong. The boy's left shoulder looked as if it had simply been sheared off.
Something caught her eye, and she bent lower. Where the post of the dead man's belt buckle met the frame, several long, coarse hairs had caught. They looked like bear fur.
Like the hair the trackers had found at Alstone Quarry.
The sound of footsteps made her look up. Kran was running down the pier toward her. She flipped a piece of canvas over the mutilated corpse and climbed out of the boat.
Kran stopped beside her, spreading his hands questioningly.
"I don't know what happened," she said. "I guess we just wait for the man to wake up and tell us."
He frowned at her, then offered her his hand. She took it, touched. His hand felt rough, callused. The hands of a hardworking boy.
She resisted the urge to pull him to her chest and ruffle his hair.
∗ ∗ ∗
"It's too late to leave tonight." Vorrin sank into a chair with a sigh. He propped his boots up on Jendara's hearth.
Kran pumped a fist in victory. Vorrin shot him a sour look.
"Hey," Jendara said, clapping a hand on each one's shoulder. "It's a good thing. We can all have dinner together. It'll be a nice change of pace."
"And maybe I can convince Kran he wants to leave with us tomorrow morning," Vorrin said brightly. "What do you think, big guy?"
Kran reached for his slate. Yul wants me to help him build a pole barn.
"Would you rather build a pole barn or explore Magnimar with your favorite uncle? There could be pastries in it for you."
Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers Page 10
