Snared: Voyage on the Eversteel Sea

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “No one deserves that kind of punishment,” Pryvyd said. “Even someone as awful as Kestrel Gromanov.”

  “Have you already forgotten your roguish ways?” Odette asked. “It wasn’t so long ago that you abandoned your position as a Knight of the Golden Sun in favor of treasure hunting. Now it’s like you have long forgotten that. I think you have been spending too much time around the palace walls. And Lumina.” Odette said that last bit with a teasing smile.

  Pryvyd blushed a slight red in the moonlight. “The only one that has been pushing me to be more noble again is Righteous.”

  The hovering arm gave a big thumbs-up and then patted the bald knight on the back.

  “And he has done a pretty good job. Mostly because I can’t seem to get rid of him.”

  Righteous changed his friendly pat into a slap across the back of Pryvyd’s head.

  “I’m kidding,” the knight said, waving his left hand over his head to block another smack from Righteous.

  Moshul turned back to the others and put a large mossy finger up to where his lips would be if he had them. Then he gestured to Roveeka, who was resting on his shoulders and fast asleep.

  “How does she do that?” Odette asked. “She can sleep anywhere.”

  “Oh yeah,” Wily added with a chuckle. “I’ve seen her sleep through a full-scale ambush, swords clashing all around her. It’s been one of her secret skills since she was a toddler.”

  “Well,” Pryvyd added, “let’s not wake her. We could all use a little rest when we can get it tonight.”

  It wasn’t more than an hour before Wily saw a large cloth tent surrounded by lit torches stuck into the ground. The tent was made of black-and-white fabric woven into a hypnotic swirl that seemed to vibrate in the flickering light of the burning wood stakes. Around the outside of the tent, mounts and carriages could be seen parked and waiting for those inside.

  “Do you see a snagglecart?” Wily asked.

  “Not yet,” Pryvyd said as they approached. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not on the other side of the tent or hidden in the hills nearby.”

  As they got closer still, Wily could hear the cheers of rowdy patrons screaming from within. Pryvyd pulled up to an unoccupied post near a pack of riding snakes, which hissed menacingly at the horses. Moshul prodded Roveeka, stirring her awake.

  “Just a few more hours,” she said as she lifted her heavy lids. Once she saw what lay ahead, she immediately sprang to attention.

  “Don’t worry,” Odette said to her mare. “The riding snakes are tied up.”

  “They look pretty slithery,” Roveeka said. “What if they slip out of their harnesses?”

  “Righteous will stand guard to make sure they don’t hurt the horses,” Odette said. “Is that okay with you, Righteous?”

  The hovering arm saluted Odette proudly before pulling its sword from Pryvyd’s sheath.

  “Look what I see,” Pryvyd said, gesturing to a spot near the back of the tent.

  Wily looked where Pryvyd was pointing, and his heart dropped. A rush of nightmarish memories flooded him. He recalled seeing carts just like this one terrorize the peaceful residents of Vale Village while his father watched from the high wall of a rolling prisonaut. This was without a doubt a snagglecart. Then he remembered that the first time he had seen his mother, although he hadn’t known it was her at the time, had been during the very same battle. How strange to think that his family had been reunited under such strange circumstances, with none of them aware of the significance of the moment until much later.

  “If you see my father leave the tent,” Wily said, “hold on to him. And don’t let go.”

  Righteous gave an even prouder salute as if to say, “I will not disappoint you.”

  The inside of the tent was much larger than it appeared on the outside. Wily wondered if the same magic that was used on everstuff satchels was being used here in the Dirty Vagabond. Food and drink stalls formed concentric circles around the large caged area at the center of the tent. Wily could see (and smell) how the traveling tent had gotten its name. No one in the whole place appeared to have showered or bathed in the last decade; even the pale-skinned moon elves were gray with dirt and grime. Looking around, Wily spied many types of creatures he had never seen before. Some were similar to humans and gwarves but had horns sprouting from odd parts of their bodies, like their shoulders and chins. Others were far more bizarre, like the completely translucent beings that resembled walking mounds of mucus, leaving trails of slime in their path.

  As Wily and his companions moved toward a cabbage beer bar, he could see that many of the odd customers were giving them sideways glances. He wondered if they recognized them or if this was how all new guests at the Dirty Vagabond were treated. Or maybe they stood out simply because they were so clean compared to everybody else.

  Pryvyd put his single fist on the counter and gave it a loud knock.

  “Can I get a cabbage beer?” he said throwing a few coins down on the counter.

  The bartender grabbed a grimy glass off a rack and stuck it under the nozzle of a wooden barrel. The glass filled with pale green liquid that fizzed like a pool of acid. As he slid it over to Pryvyd, Wily caught a whiff of the malodorous beverage and wondered if perhaps it wasn’t just the customers who were stinking up the tent.

  “Are you going to actually drink that?” Odette asked.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” Pryvyd said, taking a sip. His face screwed into a grimace, and it looked like it took every ounce of control for him to refrain from spitting the liquid back into the glass. “Clearly one I haven’t acquired yet.”

  A few stools down from Wily, a rowdy squatling smashed a glass over the head of a scar-faced hobgoblet.

  “I’m going to punch your teeth out,” the hobgoblet screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “You’re too late for that!” the squatling said with a big toothless growl.

  The two began trading blows while other customers of the cabbage beer bar continued to go about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

  “Any sign of your dad?” Roveeka asked Wily quietly.

  “Not yet,” Wily answered.

  “Let’s see if we have better luck near the cage,” Pryvyd said, leaving the barely touched cabbage beer on the counter.

  The cage was a large dome of metal nearly as tall as the tent itself. Wires stretched across the middle of the dome, forming a horizontal web that hung a full story off the ground. A jousting match was in progress high up in the web. A pair of ghost spiders, both adorned with colored silks, were snapping at each other with their mandibles as the gwarves, strapped to their backs, swung wooden axes at each other. The gwarf wearing the green armor seemed to be doing a much better job than the gwarf in the bronze armor, clobbering his opponent’s shoulder over and over.

  “Knock him down, greenie!” a lanky troll called out between swigs.

  “We want to see a fall,” a pale moon elf yelled, his fingers wrapped around the metal mesh of the cage.

  The emerald-armored gwarf slammed his opponent in the shin, causing him to begin to slip from his saddle.

  “Hit him again, greenie!” the lanky troll shouted with glee.

  But before the green-armored gwarf could strike, the bronze gwarf’s spider gave a powerful bite to the opposing arachnid’s foreleg. With a scream, both the green-plated gwarf and his spider went tumbling from the web above to the hard dirt ground of the cage.

  A huge group of bystanders on the other side of the cage erupted in a chorus of cheers.

  “That’s a horrible game,” Roveeka said. “Even Stalag wasn’t that mean.”

  Wily disagreed with Roveeka on this point. He had witnessed Stalag, the former master of Carrion Tomb, incinerate rats with a flick of his wrist and imprison noble heroes in the mines to do his bidding without giving it a second thought. Spider jousting was a cruel sport for both the gwarves and the ghost spiders, but for that very reason, Stalag would probably e
njoy watching it immensely.

  “Next match will be a triple-header,” a hobgoblet screamed from the side of the cage. “Three spiders! Three gwarves! One winner! Don’t leave now unless you want to miss all the excitement.”

  Wily was disgusted. This was excitement he could live without. The only important thing right now was finding his father, and unless he was wearing a very elaborate disguise (which was possible), Kestrel Gromanov should be very easy to spot.

  “Let’s check the noodle stalls next,” Pryvyd said. “All the strongest foot soldiers hang out there.”

  “You just want to eat something that will get the taste of cabbage beer off your tongue,” Odette said.

  “That’s not the only reason,” Pryvyd said, rubbing his tongue against the back of his hand. “Although it is one.”

  Wily was about to follow Pryvyd when a pair of spectacles caught his eye. On the other side of the cage, near where the batch of ghost spiders and gwarves were suiting up for the next match, a hooded figure was staring at him. Beneath the hood, Wily could see a pair of glasses resting on a nose. They looked just like the pair his father wore. Wily couldn’t make out the face behind the glasses, though.

  Wily shifted back and forth, trying to better his line of sight. The figure was talking to a gwarf beside the door to the cage. Pryvyd, Moshul, and Odette had already moved in the direction of the noodle stalls. Only Roveeka had stayed behind with Wily.

  “What is it?” Roveeka asked.

  Wily turned to his half sister.

  “I need you to use your hobgoblet vision,” Wily said. “Is that man in the hood my father?”

  Wily turned back to point at the hooded figure, who had moved into the light of a glowing torch. With the figure’s face now illuminated, he didn’t need his half sister’s keen vision to tell him that his father was staring right at him.

  “I found him!” Wily shouted to his companions.

  Wily watched as Kestrel said something to the gwarf and shoved a pouch of gold into his hand. The gwarf responded by throwing open the gate of the cage. The three ghost spiders seized their opportunity and skittered out into the main portion of the tent.

  Panic erupted almost immediately. The crowd that only moments ago had been cheering for blood was now fleeing in terror as the ghost spiders crawled along the outside of the cage, hungrily looking for food. A spider decorated with orange-and-yellow silks pounced on top of the slither troll that had been rooting for the green-armored gwarf and started gnawing on his arm. The troll tried to scratch his way to freedom, but was not doing a very good job of it.

  Wily turned his focus back to his father, who was smiling calmly. Then he shrugged as if to say nice try.

  Just then, a large glob of saliva dropped on Wily’s shoulder. Looking up, he found himself staring at the clicking mandibles of a ghost spider.

  “You look tasty,” the spider clicked in Arachnid.

  Wily was fluent in many languages, including the one spiders used to converse. It was a skill that was required of any talented trapsmith.

  “Why eat me?” Wily clicked in response. “I’m not the one holding you captive.”

  “Have you ever eaten a gwarf?” the spider answered. “They’re tough and bony and their beard hairs get caught in your teeth.”

  “Well, I suppose you do know better than me,” Wily answered honestly.

  The spider dropped from above, landing on Wily. The tips of its pointy legs dug into the soft flesh of Wily’s exposed arms. He feared that he was about to have more scars join the long one that already stretched from his elbow to his wrist. Then he realized that what he should really worry about was that there would be no arm left to display a scar after the spider was done with him.

  Wily pulled his screwdriver off his trapsmith belt and jabbed the spider in the soft part under his jaw. Wily knew that while it might hurt the spider for a moment, it would leave no permanent damage. He had used this trick before, during his many years in Carrion Tomb. The hungry arachnid released its grip, giving Wily a chance to slide out from under it.

  Moshul grabbed the spider by the abdomen and threw it across the tent. The eight-legged creature slammed into a stack of cabbage beer barrels, causing them to burst into a geyser of pungent green.

  “Where was he?” Odette asked Wily urgently.

  Wily pointed to the gate in the cage from which the spiders had been released. Of course, his father was nowhere to be seen. Even the gwarf that his father had paid was gone.

  “He’ll be going for the snagglecart,” Pryvyd said. “Hopefully Righteous has already got its grip on him.”

  Odette took off into the crowd, leapfrogging over slither trolls and boarcus. Wily and the rest of the group struggled to keep up with her as they cut through the back of a shellfish stall, where elves were shucking oysters with sharp forks. Other patrons of the Dirty Vagabond were fleeing the chaos of the tent as well, and Wily found himself elbowing his way among throngs of filthy ruffians.

  Pushing aside the black-and-white curtains, Wily found himself back out in the torch-lit carriage grounds surrounding the tent. At first he was disoriented, having emerged from a different door than the one through which he had entered. The hobgoblets and squatlings swarming past him, eager to get as far away from the ravaging spiders as possible, didn’t help him get his bearings either. He was on the backside of the tent, farthest from the road. He turned to see Righteous guarding the unoccupied snagglecart. Wily knew that there were hundreds of mounts there. His father could steal any one of them.

  “Over there,” Roveeka said as she tugged on Wily’s sleeve.

  Roveeka was pointing to a group of horses near the side of the road. The hooded figure that Wily was certain was his father was mounting one. Wily took off at once, hurrying through the glowing torches, riding snakes, and horses to the road.

  “Odette! Moshul!” Wily shouted. “Over here!”

  Moving closer, Wily watched as a second figure mounted a horse next to his father’s. A pair of bony hands stretched out from the sleeves of its cloak. The skin on each was so translucent you could see the blood pulsing through the veins beneath it. Wily knew at once who this was: Stalag.

  The cavern mage pointed his fingertips toward Wily, firing off arrows of crackling darkness. Wily dropped to the dirt as the magical bolts zipped overhead. Roveeka dove to Wily’s side as more of Stalag’s bolts struck the ropes and chains holding a group of horses in place. Other arrows hit the animals’ flanks, sending them into a wild panic.

  Horses charged in every direction as Wily rolled out of the way of the pounding hooves. He looked over to see Roveeka burying her face in the dirt. A carriage pulled by two giant stallions was rolling right for her. She had no idea she was about to be trampled.

  “Roveeka,” Wily shouted. “You’ve got to move!”

  With only a moment to spare, Odette performed a front handspring, grabbing Roveeka in her arms and tugging her out of danger. Wily quickly turned his attention back to Kestrel and Stalag, who were preparing to ride off.

  “Don’t let them get away,” Wily shouted to Moshul, who was stepping over gwarves and horses that were running past.

  Wily could see Stalag start to mutter as he pointed to one of the loose riding snakes slithering through the crowd. The cavern mage’s magic spell struck its target. He watched as the snake began to rapidly grow. The horses that had been frightened by the magical bolts were doubly terrified by the snake that was now roughly the size of a full-grown crab dragon.

  Moshul came to a stop as the giant reptile blocked his path to Wily’s evil fathers. Pryvyd and Righteous tried to run around the snake, but the giant creature lifted its head and showed its fangs.

  “Easy, big guy,” Pryvyd said, trying to calm the snake. “We just want to get around you.”

  In response, the snake snapped at Pryvyd, leaving a pair of fang-shaped dents in his bronze armor.

  “Maybe you should let Wily handle the beast quelling,” Odette called out from
nearby.

  Wily could see that beyond the hissing beast, Stalag and Kestrel were galloping off. He jumped to his feet and approached the snake cautiously.

  “I know you’re frightened,” Wily said in Gargle tongue, “but I promise the spell will wear off soon.”

  “I don’t like this,” the snake replied. “I feel a great hunger in my belly.”

  “That’s going to pass as soon as you shrink down,” Wily said in his most soothing tone. Stalag and Kestrel were getting farther away. “Just curl up and wait for your rider to return.”

  “So hungry,” the snake said as he began to circle Wily. “I will eat you.”

  “Hold your breath,” Odette shouted.

  Before Wily had a chance to react, a yellow mushroom landed at his feet. It exploded into a plume of smoke. Wily inhaled the vapor and everything went dark.

  * * *

  WILY WAS JOSTLED awake. Odette had both her hands on his shoulders and was shaking him vigorously. He looked over to see that the giant snake was dozing nearby. Its tail and neck had been restrained in case it woke up before it shrank. Pryvyd and Righteous, who had collected their horses while Wily was asleep, stood nearby.

  “Did they get away?” Wily asked his friends, who were watching over him.

  “Yes,” Roveeka said. “But you’re not in a snake’s belly, so that’s good.”

  “They were heading off to the west,” Pryvyd said. “And we think we know where they are going.”

  “Ratgull Harbor,” Odette said.

  “What makes you guess that?” Wily asked as he sat up.

  “Look what we found in the snagglecart,” Odette replied.

  She handed him a small leather book. He opened it up. It was filled with his father’s handwriting. Each page was either a journal entry, blueprint, or map. Odette flipped to the last page with writing on it. On the top it read: “The Riddle of Drakesmith Island.”

  “Drakesmith Island?” Wily said, recalling the name. “That’s where the Eversteel Forge is rumored to be. I was gifted a crown made of unbreakable metal that came from the island.”