Bones of the Empire

by Jim Galford

  My dear Leiren, I do miss you. Please come home soon! The children miss you and have begun hearing stories of your other life…this ‘Shortbeard.’ I love you dearly and will do anything to have you home. Do not make me wait too long. Love, your wife, Diness.

  Shortbeard’s gruff voice came from the doorway. “Ye shouldn’ be readin’ that.”

  Estin had not even realized the door had opened. He tried to quickly shove the letter back in the desk, but Shortbeard—Leiren—stared at him with an anger that made it clear he knew what Estin had been up to.

  “Back away from me desk and turn around.”

  Estin went to the middle of the room before turning his back on Shortbeard. Kneeling, he waited only a second before the dwarf tromped up behind him, with the sound of chains jingling. Estin closed his eyes, trying to ready himself for being manacled yet again. Instead, he jumped a little as Shortbeard put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Aye, that was what I was thinkin’ to do to ye,” he said, turning Estin around so they were face-to-face. “Stone on ye leg an’ a short walk off me deck. Would spoil th’ surprise, though. Ye need to go to yer bed. Got a present for ye. Blue-horned bastard’s offer an’ a decent-enough apology. I think ye be happy with what I worked out for ye, at least for now.”

  Estin thanked Shortbeard for his mercy and made a quick escape from the room. Once he was in the outer part of the lower deck, he ran, wanting to make sure he was out of sight before Shortbeard changed his mind. It did not take him long to reach the crew quarters. Two dwarven sailors waited at the entrance, each keeping a hand on their swords.

  “Get ye in there!” snapped one, glowering at Estin. “Ain’ a situation we get often. Ye drag this out, an’ we be takin’ the fun off yer hands, if’n ye know what I mean. Ye’re th’ first crew to have that kind o’ visit in a long time on board th’ ship.”

  Nodding despite having no idea what they were talking about, Estin went into the crew quarters. The sailors slammed the door behind him, sealing him in the dark room, unable to make out anything. Normally candles were left burning at night. Given that it was midday, there was little more than the thin beams of light from the upper deck, trickling through gaps in the boards. In that faint light, he saw movement, though he had no idea what to expect. It could have been anything from a dire wolf to a horde of Turessians in there with him.

  Sniffing the air, Estin found he could pick out almost nothing. There was someone else there, though. But his or her scent was concealed by the smell of the tar, sweat from the crew that had slept there hours earlier, and the general odor of the saltwater that permeated the boat. Behind him, he heard the sailors slide something against the door, trapping him.

  “Shortbeard sent me here,” Estin called out, hearing the creak of boards as someone moved. “Who are you?”

  “Estin?” came a very familiar voice. Then a body slammed into him, pulling him into a tight hug, digging her claws deeply into his back.

  “Feanne?” he asked in stark amazement as he hugged her back. So close, her scent was unmistakable. He could smell it without question, mixed with the scent of saltwater and something he could not put his finger on. Right up against her, he could make out the lines of her body, though the loose-fitting trousers and laced sailor’s shirt would have confused him if he did not already know it was her. “Is that really you? How are you here?”

  Moving her hands from his back to either side of his head, she dug her fingers in just behind his ears. “It’s me, Estin. I’m so sorry…I’ve tried to hurry…”

  “Sorry? For what?” he asked, barely hearing himself as he buried his nose in the fur at the base of her neck. He had never thought he would see her again, and having her in his arms was more than he ever could have asked for.

  Clawing at his neck and back as though trying to pull him closer than their hug could allow, Feanne answered softly, “Sorry for finding you like this…sorry for taking so long.”

  “You know I would wait a lifetime to be together again,” Estin said, wrapping his tail around them both. “A couple months isn’t so long…”

  “Months?” Feanne pushed him out to arm’s length. “When did you escape the mists?”

  Movement behind Feanne startled Estin, and he snapped his tail away as he readied himself for a fight. Instead of a sailor or worse, a single deer wildling stepped from the dark into a light beam. She grinned at him from under and oversized tri-corner hat similar to the one Shortbeard wore. Like Feanne, she wore brown pants, tied below the knee, a baggy white shirt laced at the wrist and loosely at the neck, and stood barefoot—an outfit matching most of the sailors.

  “Alafa?” Estin asked, his fear gone. “What’re you doing here?”

  “She helped me find you,” Feanne replied while Alafa nodded vigorously. “Would not let me give up on searching either. She is a lot more stubborn than I gave her credit for. I was convinced you were dead. It was Alafa who kept prodding until I started searching for you.”

  Tilting her hat back after it fell over her eyes, Alafa added, “And she’s not as scary or mean as I thought. Neither are pirates. Oh, neither are owl-bears, giant lizards, those weird ape things, or badgers.”

  Estin turned to look at Feanne, who had her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. “What’s she talking about, Feanne?”

  “It’s been a very long search,” Feanne admitted, smiling at him. “I promise to tell you all we’ve been through once we can find a way off the boat. Blue Horn only wanted our gold, but this dwarven pirate seems less willing to let us leave with you.”

  “Gold?” Estin asked, his thoughts derailed. Gold was rare enough that few had seen more than a tiny ring made of it. Most commoners rarely even saw silver. “Where did you get gold?”

  Alafa answered excitedly. “The furless up in the cold lands said we could have anything we wanted or needed. Feanne asked what they thought she needed to find you, and they told her that money and luck were all that they could offer. We took a big bag of gold lumps and set off.”

  “Gold lumps?” Estin repeated, stunned.

  “Only twenty or thirty of the heavy little nuggets,” Feanne explained, motioning with her hands to indicate a bag larger than Estin’s head. “We gave them to anyone with information about you…or information that sounded like it might be you. Blue Horn accepted the last of them in return for finding you, no matter how long it took. A decent male, that one. He kept his crew away from us and was very polite. The villages we went through before finding him were crude, and half the males there tried to grope one or both of us. Not having to kill someone was a pleasant change.”

  “You gave him enough money to buy a city, Feanne. Of course he was polite.”

  Feanne shrugged. “What does money matter? We cannot eat it and it weighs too much. I was happy to be rid of it, and it got us here.”

  Laughing, Estin hurried to the door and banged on it with his fist. After he heard a grunt of acknowledgement from the sailors on the other side, he said, “Shortbeard told me I would be released when we made port. I want to leave with my friends.”

  “Aye, cap’n mentioned it,” replied one of the men through the door. “Ye stayin’ in there til we make land. He don’ even want ye above deck until Blue Horn is outta sight.”

  Shaking his head, Estin left the door, knowing there was little he could do there. He went to the far end of the room and searched the worn planks of the ship’s outer wall until he found the spot that had broken open two days prior. Tar and fresh planks had been put in place to seal it, but if they broke through those, he would have an easy route out of the ship, several feet above the waves.

  “My magic is still being strange after the trip through the mists,” Estin said as he tapped on the wood to be sure it would be thin enough to break through. “Feanne, can you use your magic to rip this open? We can hop out into the water and swim for shore.”

  “Magic?” Alafa asked, sounding genuinely confused, though that was not entirely surprising to E
stin.

  Feanne spoke with the same confusion. “Estin…magic? How long have you been out of the mists?”

  “About three months,” he answered, sitting down near the thin section of wood. Her tone made him worry. “No time to argue. I don’t care if you use a spell, or you make your claws big, or you shapechange. We need to go through this wall. That’s all they’ve got keeping us in the ship. I’m done waiting on other people.”

  Feanne padded across the room, knelt in front of Estin, and lifted his hands off the boards. “I have no more magic, Estin. The beast inside of me is gone forever with the passing of the Miharon. The rest of my magic is long gone. We are trapped.”

  Even with the dark preventing him from seeing much more than her eyes—gleaming white in the low light—he could see enough of her expression to know there was no point in arguing. Feanne was not the type to joke about such a thing. He would have to ask more once they were free. She clearly had come to grip with her loss, possibly far better than he had when he lost his magic. He had always assumed Feanne’s added capabilities were such a part of her that she would never have coped without them. He was either wrong or she had already moved past that.

  The door at the far end of the room creaked and a lantern’s light blinded Estin momentarily. When he could see again, he found Shortbeard stood in the open door. Alafa was near the door, studying him with her oversized eyes. Shortbeard glared up at her before shaking his head and looking at Estin again, as though giving up on trying to intimidate the deer.

  “I keep me promises,” Shortbeard said, though he remained in the doorway with two sailors standing guard behind him. “Blue Horn an’ me been huntin’ th’ same treasure th’ last few years. No reward if’n either brings back one part an’ no th’ other. Cost me a small fortune, but I got ye both here now. Ye goin’ to shore soon enough as I promised, but ye ain’ gonna like it. Got a bounty on both yer heads, an’—”

  “A bounty on my head?” Alafa asked, her eyes going wide as she put a hand to her neck. “Just my head or…?”

  “This’n isn’ all there, is she?” Shortbeard muttered, glowering at Alafa. When she did not blink, he finally said, “No bounty on yer head, sweetie. Ye be safe. If’n ye wanna go, ye can. Th’ others is who we wantin’. I’m sure th’ boys would be happy to let ye stay onboard. They can be real friendly.”

  Alafa’s visible excitement over finding out she was not being hunted slowly faded as she seemed to reason her way through the rest of the implications.

  While she thought on it, Shortbeard set down the lantern and marched out of the room. The door slammed as soon as he was out.

  “They need us alive for someone,” Estin thought aloud, rubbing at his temples. “We’re safe for now.” He looked over at Feanne when she did not respond and he very nearly yelped. In the dim lantern light, he got his first good look at her, and it was not what he had expected. White fur covered much of her muzzle near her whiskers, where the fur had been black or red when he had last seen her. Even her whiskers were greying, as was some of the fur on her hands and paws. As an afterthought, he looked down at his own hands, remembering the bits of white fur that had showed itself when he had woken after leaving the mists.

  “How long has it been?” he asked, clenching his hands. Suddenly the aches and pains in his joints were making a lot more sense.

  “Over four years. Well over, I believe,” Feanne answered, taking his hands in hers. “I’ve searched a good portion of the world for you, Estin. It has been a long road. Turess told me if you lived, the mists would have stolen years of your life after so long in them. Judging by your appearance, I doubt you’ve aged much more than I have. Without the Miharon’s blessing, I feel my age. I don’t heal the way I used to.”

  Estin leaned back against the hull of the ship in dismay. “No magic. Years gone. What else do I need to know, Feanne?”

  Sliding down to sit beside him, Feanne thought for a moment while watching Alafa wander around the room. Finally, Feanne answered. “The mists went out of control when Raeln took Kharali’s place in the rift. They collapsed into the rift but took most of the world’s magic away with them. At least that is what Turess tells me. We still see them from time to time, though each year we see them less. Chasing the mists has been the only lead I had in finding you.”

  “Raeln is gone?”

  “Raeln is…” Feanne winced as she seemed to search for words. “Raeln is beyond our reach. He traded his life for Kharali’s so that she and Turess could finally spend the remainder of their lives together. He sacrificed himself for others.”

  “I’m surprised you let him do that,” Estin said, chuckling sadly.

  Feanne scowled at the floor, rubbing a deep scar near her left eye. “As am I. He was convincing. I believe Turess will spend the rest of his life trying to find a way to free him. Until then, Turess, Kharali, Yoska, and Ceran are in hiding. Turess wants to live out his life with his love, not ruling a people who do not even know him. Yoska…I believe he wants to live out his life in debauchery, or as much of it as Ceran will allow him.”

  “Allow him? I thought gypsies were male-dominant.”

  “Not hardly,” Feanne said, smirking. “They all talk as though they were the leader of a nation. When he and Ceran married, she was most certainly in charge.”

  “Married?”

  “It has been a long time,” she reminded him sadly. “There are more stories than I can share today. We check in with the others every few weeks, when we can find couriers for our messages or they track us down. The last message I received told of Ceran finding another mate, though I believe she intends to take the new woman as her spouse without leaving Yoska.”

  “Oh!” Alafa exclaimed, running over to them and bouncing. “Tell him about the pirates at the wharf!”

  Feanne’s eyes widened and she clenched her jaw. “No, Alafa. That is not a story for today. Besides, that is not exactly my story. I believe it is entirely yours.”

  “Right,” Alafa muttered, blinking a few times. “I’ll tell it the short way. We beat up a group of pirates at a bar near a wharf. One of them hit me when I wouldn’t hold something for him in his room, and then we ran away after their captain showed up. Blue Horn saved us, and we’ve been hunting for you with him ever since.”

  “She beat up three pirates,” Feanne corrected quietly. “I showed up in time to save her before the other ten attacked her. I believe the one she started the fight with was trying to convince her to be his mate. It has been a very long journey here, Estin. If I hated cities before all of this, I certainly am done with them now.”

  Estin pulled Feanne into a tight hug that she did not resist. They might be trapped yet again, but it was still good to have her—and even Alafa—back. He had never found anything they could not beat together. A handful of pirates certainly could not be any worse, even without magic to aid them.

  Minutes later, with Alafa staring wide-eyed at the hammocks, Estin heard the splash of the ship’s anchor hitting the water and the telltale shifting as it slowed to a stop. At the sound, everyone’s ears shot up.

  “Do we wager on who has been willing to pay to keep us alive?” Feanne asked, leaning her head against Estin’s chest. “We have more than enough enemies that this may be a difficult guess. I doubt Dorralt is in any shape to have paid anything for us.”

  Without taking her eyes off the hammock she tapped with her fingertip, Alafa replied, “I say it’s that clan of orc mercenaries from Riefall again. They did say they’d chase us down if it took the rest of their lives.”

  “Mercenaries?” Estin asked, but Feanne shook her head.

  Before they could discuss further, the door to the crew quarters was unlocked and a half-dozen dwarves rushed into the room. Estin thought to fight at first, but Feanne rolled to her knees and put her hands behind her back, as did Alafa. Clearly they had been through similar situations more than once. The sailors did not even struggle with them, though they threw Estin to the floor and knel
t on his back to keep him from resisting when he did not immediately comply. Once ropes were tied around his wrists, someone pulled a heavy black bag over Estin’s head and tied it snugly around his neck. He was blind and helpless.

  “Lemme be clear about what happens next,” Shortbeard said, his heavy footfalls coming into the room and stopping near Estin’s head. “Ye goin’ to shore…like I promised. From there, we’re goin’ upriver to a tradin’ post, where we’re gonna meet wit’ th’ buyers. They can’t pay, an’ I sell all three o’ ye to whoever can pay th’ most. We clear on this? Ye fight back, an’ I have th’ deer turned into a fine stew for me crew once they get bored doin’ whatever they wantin’ with ’er.”

  Alafa’s squeak let Estin know exactly where she was, even if he could not see her. Feanne was still close enough that he could feel the heat from her. Once they got moving, he wanted to know precisely where they both were, so he could plan their escape the moment his paws hit solid ground. Now was not the time, but soon it would be.

  The sailors roughly yanked Estin to his feet. They kept hands on the rope around his wrists and solid grips on his arms. One more sailor in front of him, who mostly guided Estin by occasionally grunting warnings about things like the steps to the upper deck. Before he had reached the deck, he had already lost track of Feanne and Alafa. He could not see through the bag, and it reeked of fish, rendering his nose useless. He was entirely alone again.

  Shuffling his way across the deck, Estin realized they were headed to the opposite side from the small rowboat they normally used to disembark. That meant they were at a dock, where the ship’s narrow plank could be used to walk off the ship. It also meant Estin would be under less guard, as the plank was not wide enough for two people. If he could ensure the females were close enough, he could pull all three of them off the plank before they reached the dock and possibly escape. A short fall into the waters near shore would be easy to handle without more than bruises.

  “Oh, I nearly forgettin’,” Shortbeard said, directly in front of Estin. The sailors holding Estin forced him to kneel, and a rope was put around his neck. It nearly dragged him to the deck with its weight. He could barely stand again when they prodded him, and in doing so, a stone fell against his chest, held by the rope. “Ye all got one o’ those on ye. Don’ try nothin’ stupid or ye gonna drown. If’n ye manage to run, I push th’ lil ladies off into th’ water. We understandin’ one another, Estin?”