Bones of the Empire (87 page)

“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 Estin.

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 knelt 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?”

“I understand,” Estin said hopelessly.

“Start walkin’.”

Struggling with the weight around his neck, Estin followed the guidance of the sailors. Several let go of him, leaving only one in front and behind. A gentle creak from in front let him know that they were about to step onto the plank. When he did, the wood bent under his paws, tilting dangerously and nearly toppling all three. He soon managed to correct his balance and continued on, carefully putting one paw in front of the other. He made his way down until his toes felt rough old wood that did no bow or shift.