“And the staff?”
“Even a man of the gods has to be able to defend himself.”
“I suspect you can do more than just defend.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a sly smile. “But only to a point. We all have our limitations. I am not meant to be a great fighter. I am meant to look good and seduce women.”
She laughed at him when he winked at her. “And seducing women is not contrary to your duties as a cleric?” she asked.
“Not at all. It is merely another form of healing. I make the woman I am with feel good—sometimes that is a form of healing in itself. All women need to feel beautiful and worthy. I try to bring that to them, even if it’s only for a little while.”
“I see,” Airi said, still smiling at the roguish man.
“You know, you could always stay here in Docking Bay,” he said suddenly. “Where we are going is very dangerous.”
“I know it is. But you keep telling me that the rewards are worth putting my trust in Maxum’s hands.”
“Not your trust. Never your trust,” Doisy said seriously. “Maxum has an agenda. Something is driving him. It isn’t just power and glory for him. I think that, given a choice, Maxum would sacrifice anyone who got in the way of his goals. We’re just along for the ride, plain and simple.”
Doisy turned back to his horse, cinching his saddle, leaving Airianne to absorb that perspective for a minute.
She had to stop equivocating, she decided sternly. She had to make a choice and stick to her choice for all she was worth. Doubt wouldn’t do her any good. But did she trust Maxum to know what he was doing?
She was pretty sure she did. Maxum was determined to get to Thiss. There was something there that he wanted, something he thought would only take him a day to retrieve. And she was pretty certain he would go after whatever it was alone if he had to. If anything, he needed his men to help protect him from himself. She could be a part of that. The question was, did she want to?
Well…yes. She had nowhere else to go, no obligations to anyone but herself. She had been alone in the world since she was eleven. She could and did take care of herself. And she didn’t know why, but she was up for the idea of taking care of someone else for a while. Someone needed to look out for Maxum, and for some reason she felt it should be her.
Strange.
Maybe it was just because he’d been sort of nice to her, buying her something new to wear, putting a roof over her head.
Sure, he’d also been an ass, but it hadn’t been anything she couldn’t handle. No, this was the right thing to do, the right place for her to be. She was going to put herself into this venture with both feet and keep her eyes wide open.
Besides, everyone was kind of growing on her…
“Finally you are dressing the part.”
There was no mistaking that nasty sneer of contempt. But Kilon’s attempt to insult her had the opposite effect than he desired. She put back her shoulders and said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“I meant the part of a whore,” he said coldly. “Proud of that are you, slink?”
“I could be the cheapest whore in town…the hungriest…the neediest…and I still wouldn’t fuck you if it meant saving my life or starving in the streets.”
“Oh ho!” Doisy chortled.
She heard Dru chuckling back behind his horse somewhere. Kilon’s face went hard, his eyes cold with anger as he went toe to toe with her, his unpleasant breath flowing with sour warmth over her face.
“When we get in trouble out there—and I can assure you that there’s going to be trouble and plenty of it—when that happens and something is coming after you and the only thing between you and certain death is one of my arrows…I am going to fuck you. Be sure of it.”
“Enough, Kilon,” came the barking command from over Kilon’s shoulder. “Where have you been?”
“Out,” he said shortly.
“I said to wait here. So we wouldn’t be held up waiting for you.”
“I’m here now. No sense complaining about it when no one was inconvenienced.”
“This time,” Maxum said. “I won’t let there be a next time. I’ll leave your surly ass behind.”
Kilon didn’t say anything else. He just turned and walked over to his horse and began to saddle it. Maxum walked up to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Everything all right?”
“It’s fine,” she said breezily. “Let’s get going. I have a feeling I’m going to get to see my first weredragon.”
“The idea is to avoid seeing one at all costs,” he said. “One thing you don’t want to do is to get in the way of a weredragon.”
“I kind of figured that part out.”
“All right, men. Let’s go,” Maxum said. “We push off just after juquil’s hour, but I want us all packed aboard as soon as possible. Just in case the captain thinks about changing his mind.”
They traveled back to the docks in relative silence and boarded the boat without any problems. It was a huge ship really, with two cabins set aside for their needs. One had two bunks in it and the other had only one. Airi sighed. It looked like she was going to be sharing a bunk with someone again tonight. She had a sneaking suspicion who that someone would be. If she were a paranoid person, she’d begin to think he was planning things like this.
Still she could always bed down with Doisy or Dru. Maybe if she worked it out early enough…
“So who’s sleeping with whom?”
“Usually Kyno and Kilon bunk in together, leaving me and Dru. But Dru will gladly sleep in Maxum’s bed if it means gracing me with your lovely self,” Doisy said, suddenly seeming far too interested. More interested than he had been previously.
It must be the corset, she thought with a sigh.
“I could always bed with Dru and you could sleep with Maxum,” she said hopefully.
“Poor Dru wouldn’t get a wink of sleep if you did that to him,” Doisy said with a laugh.
“You’re sleeping with me,” Maxum said in a no-nonsense bark that put an end to the topic instantly. Doisy gave her an amused look that said he knew that was going to happen all along.
She sighed and threw her saddle bags under the single bunk.
She’d never been on a ship before. Had never been out in the open water. She had traveled all over the Black Continent, but she’d never crossed the bays or oceans.
She’d always wanted to. She’d dreamed of going to the Green Continent, with all its lush green lands and beautiful beaches at its southern tip…or at least that’s what she’d heard it was like. That’s the way it was described in bardsong. But she had always figured she would probably never make it there. It was a vast ocean away. The Red Continent was very close to the Black Continent, so it was far more likely she would travel there…if ever she was of a mind to go. But she had never been to Calandria either or Thiss and this was more than enough adventure for now.
She was nervous about going to Thiss. An island populated by weredragons. What was a place like that even like? All she knew was that it promised to be very dangerous. The idea of that kind of danger made her nervous…and excited. She felt amazingly alive all of a sudden. She couldn’t explain it. All she knew was that fortune waited for her and she was on her way to greet it. Maybe, if this was really as lucrative as Doisy was anticipating, maybe she could retire somewhere, give up thieving. For her thieving was only a means to an end. It was all about survival. She took only from those who could afford to lose and she took only enough to keep herself and Hero alive and moderately comfortable—if you could call camping out under the stars living in comfort. Which she did. She liked living out in the open. Except when the cold came. And when it came on the Black Continent, it came hard.
Maxum was out on deck, looking toward the blue sun as it crept lower in the sky. She watched him for a while, wondering why he had chosen to set sail an hour past juquil’s hour. It seemed a strange time. But she imagined he wouldn’t take to being questioned about that a
ny more than he took to being questioned about anything else. She just had to resign herself to being kept half in the dark.
Or at least she had to try to resign herself to it. She wasn’t sure how much success she was going to have with it.
They all went ashore for something to eat, but then Maxum sent them back to the ship without him. The sun set while they waited for him…and waited…and waited. The men seemed completely unconcerned, leading her to believe they didn’t find his behavior strange at all. Apparently he was prone to disappearing for hours at a time without any explanation. All she could do was hope he would be in better shape when he showed up this time.
One odd thing she had taken note of outside of his behavior was his bruising. The marks had been there that morning, although not as vivid as she had expected, but he had healed remarkably from them by the mid afternoon. To the point where she could hardly see a sign of them.
Doisy. Doisy must have healed him, she realized. That impressed her. She didn’t know clerics could heal so completely. The mems she had known who were healers had always been able to aid in the more rapid healing of an injury, keeping it from getting infected and the like, but not healing to the point of near perfection. It made her realize what a powerful asset the cleric was to a group of men bent on danger.
She could only hope she would not be needing to avail herself of his services any time soon.
But she was glad he was there all the same.
Maxum rode Killu, his russet stallion, to a secluded place well outside the city walls as the sun set in earnest. He walked a safe distance away from his horse and quickly stripped down to his skin. He had picked this spot the night before because there was a stream running not too far away from it, allowing him a place to wash up when it was all said and done.
But tonight would be different, he thought firmly. He looked down at the talisman in his hand. He’d had a chain attached to it just a little while ago and now he dropped it over his head. Had he had the opportunity to attach the chain sooner, he would have tried this the night before. But as it stood…
He didn’t know what was going to happen. The talisman was supposed to make the wearer invulnerable. Was it true? Would it work? And if it did work, would it negate any of the curse he suffered?
He was about to find out.
It started as a rumble, then became a quaking of the ground beneath him. The ground beneath his feet rocked and began to churn and froth up until it covered his ankles. Then, the ground split open, yawning beneath him until there was no way he could remain on his feet. Every night he tried to resign himself to the inevitable, tried to tell himself that fighting was useless. And yet, like every night before, he struggled to maintain a grasp on solid ground. But that solid ground gave way and then he was falling into the gaping maw of soil and rock.
Almost immediately the ground closed around him, crushing him from all sides, pushing into his nose and gritting up his eyes.
But tonight something was different. Oh, he was suffocating just as he did every night, the pressure nearly unbearable, but tonight his bones did not crack under the force of it, his skeleton was not pulverized and his skin was not bruised.
The talisman was working! It didn’t change the meat of the curse, but at least now he could not be physically damaged by it. It made his heart soar with hope in spite of the driving pain and crushing suffocation he still suffered. This told him that not only did the talisman protect him from harm, but it had the power to alter the will of a god. And if this were possible with one item, then there had to be others—things that could thwart the power of a god.
It meant that gods were not the all-powerful beings men mistook them for. It meant they were vulnerable.
He had suspected this already because on the day he and his brothers had gained their immortality the gods had said they did not have the power to take their immortality away from them, but they could make them rue ever having wanted it in the first place. They had been true to their word. However, if they were gods then why couldn’t they take the immortality away just as easily as it was given? It told him they were not all-powerful, that not everything was within their reach and ability.
This was the hope that held him through the endless suffering and suffocation that was his curse. This was what led him to believe his goal was not an unattainable one. For if a god could be vulnerable, then a god could be killed by a man. His years as a mercenary had taught him this. All enemies could be defeated; it was a matter of finding their weakest point and applying pressure to it.
This was a beginning. The beginning that he needed.
The beginning of the end of Sabo.
—
The captain was readying to set sail and Maxum was not yet on board.
“You have to wait!” Airi implored him.
“He said an hour past juquil’s hour and it’s that and more. I’ll not tarry another minute. There are people waiting for this cargo and I’ve delayed long enough for your boss.”
“If you want to get paid you’ll wait,” Doisy said mildly.
“I’ve already been paid for the first leg. If you don’t want to find yourselves stranded on Thiss you’ll pay me then for the second leg. Don’t make no difference to me if your boss is here or not.”
“It’s two gold per head to take us off Thiss. You’ll be out two gold,” Airi pointed out.
This made the captain hesitate.
“He’s got ten minutes more. No longer.”
“No need. There he is, Airi!” Doisy said pointing down to the dock.
Sure enough there was Maxum, swinging down out of his saddle and leading his horse to the gangplank. He walked the animal aboard and, without a word to anyone, led the horse down belowdecks into the cargo hold. He came up shortly after.
“Ready to go, Captain?”
“We was just waiting on you,” the captain said a bit churlishly. Then he began shouting orders down to his men on the docks, pulling up lines and preparing the sails to get under way.
Airi turned to Maxum with an inquisitive brow.
“You almost found yourself left behind,” she pointed out.
“Almost,” he said. “But not quite. Would you have missed me?”
“Of course! I didn’t relish the idea of finding myself stranded on Thiss since you have all the gold!”
“Doisy has plenty enough gold. He wouldn’t have let you get stranded.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is the point?”
“Where were you?”
“I don’t have to answer that. I do not answer to any man…or woman. If I wanted to answer to a woman I’d get myself a wife.”
Frustration boiled up inside of her. “Would it kill you to answer a question?”
“It might,” he said mildly. “So best not to answer just in case.”
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” she said with a huff. Then she turned and walked away from him, her back burning because she knew—just knew—he was staring at her backside as she walked away.
Fine. Let him be a jerk. But she wouldn’t stop questioning him just because he thought she should just shut up and obey. She’d been taking care of herself too long to let a man like Maxum walk all over her.
She spent the next hour on the top deck, her face in the wind, the smell of the ocean in her nose. The ship rolled softly beneath her feet, making her roll with it. She was tired and should really go down below and get some sleep, but she wasn’t looking forward to getting into bed with Maxum again. It was far too risky a proposition. She knew very well that there was a sexual undertone in their dealings with one another. There had been from the very instant she had laid eyes on him and sat in his lap. He had kissed her then with a great deal of heat and need and it had been honest and stark. And her response, while she’d liked to think it had been an act to get him to drop his guard so she could pick his pocket, had been just as stark. The man knew how to kiss, there was no denying that. It was a dan
gerous set of circumstances. It would be better if she felt no attraction toward him.
She could control this, she told herself sternly. She wasn’t the sort to let her desires rule her head. There was too much danger of ramifications. She could barely take care of herself and Hero…she didn’t need to add a potential baby to the mix. For that reason she’d only had one lover in her life. It had been when she’d been young and foolish and she’d been damn lucky nothing had come of it. Well, she was neither young nor foolish any longer.
She could control this situation. She could.
She turned her back on the darkness of the ocean and made her way belowdecks. She staggered down the gangway, her legs not used to functioning aboard a ship. She reached the door to their cabin and opened it just as the ship rolled hard. She was flung off her feet and into the bunk with a slam, her body hitting a wall of solid muscle, an answering grunt in her ear.
“No need to throw yourself at me,” a rich voice rumbled in her ear, “I’m more than happy to oblige you at any time.”
She squirmed around in his hold, meeting his eyes in the near complete darkness, the only light a small candle melting on the ledge nearby.
“I’d rather drown,” she oozed out acidly.
“Really?” He regarded her for a long moment, his hands coming to rest on her back, their fronts still mashed together. She tried to leverage some space between them but the bunk was small and he wasn’t budging on his own. In fact it was quite the opposite. He was holding her very tightly. So tightly she could feel the presence of something solid beneath his shirt, hanging around his neck. Unless she missed her guess by the shape and size of it, it was the talisman she had stolen. He’d had a chain made for it? What was so damn special about that talisman? It was actually quite ugly for all its gems. And he hadn’t struck her as the sort to wear jewelry anyway.
“I seem to recall waking up with you in my bed not once but twice in as many days.”
“You stole my pants the first night! And you were drunk the second! Anyway in both cases I had nowhere else to go.” She frowned. “Will you let me go?”
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