Can't Look Back (War for Dominance Book 1) (18 page)

“Now that we have made it to open water,” said Captain Meyer, “what direction do you need to go?” he asked.

“Southeast,” replied Dantes.

“Southeast?” asked a female half-orc sailor that Dantes had seen directing some of the sailors earlier. “There be no land in that direction. In fact, there be no land short of Salidar, and we not be going there.” The half-orc had a full sailor’s accent, which seemed odd coming from someone with her heritage.

“She’s got that right,” said a tall broad-shouldered man standing behind her.

“That is not entirely true,” said Dantes, “The Mountain of Frost lies in that direction. That is our destination.”

“No,” said the half-orc. “It cannot be done, and we won’t be doing it.”

“She’s got that right,” the tall man behind her added.

“And who are you to say what will and won’t be done?” asked Dantes.

“The woman’s Tanja Cilia,” replied Captain Meyer. “She’s my second mate. She used to have her own ship, and she sometimes forgets that she isn’t the one making the decisions onboard the
Dancer.
”

“I’m the first mate now, though, aye?” asked Cilia.

Captain Meyer pursed his lips in thought as he stared at the half-orc. “Aye, ‘tis true,” he said, “but don’t be getting a bigger head than you already have. If you do, I’ll throw you overboard myself.” Captain Meyer turned back to Dantes. “Tanja just got promoted to first mate. The dragon you saw in the harbor carried off our first mate and dropped him in the middle of the bay. Even if he survived the fall, he couldn’t swim, and I saw him go under. The tall man behind her with more muscles than brains is the new acting second mate, John Rowntree.”

“Okay, first mate,” said Dantes, “why can’t this ship go to the Mountain of Frost?”

“There be two reasons. Firstly, the
Pole Dancer
is too light to take out across the ocean. “She’s made for speed and maneuverability inshore to get her goods to port. She’s not made for the storms that lie out on the open seas, and it’d be extra dangerous now to try it without her main mast.”

Dantes couldn’t help himself. “And what goods are we transporting?” he asked.

“Legitimate goods,” replied the captain. “If you must know, we’ve got a full cargo of none of your damn business, comprised of equal parts of piss off, sod off and bugger off. You’re not a policeman on this ship, you’ve got nothing on us, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to make this ship seaworthy again. Keeping your nose out of our business would be a good habit to get into if you want us to even consider what you’re saying.”

Dantes nodded to the captain, acknowledging the point. “Sorry,” he said, “old habits die hard.” He looked back at the first mate. “And the second reason?” he asked.

“The second reason is that, even if the
Dancer
was whole, you wouldn’t be getting us to go there,” replied the first mate. “Those waters be haunted. No one that goes there ever returns.” Several of the sailors that were working in the area spoke up in agreement, while making signs to ward off evil.

“Still,” said Dantes, “that is where we must go.”

The captain cleared his throat. “The first rule of leadership, especially with
this
crew, is never to give an order which you know won’t be obeyed. I have a hard time believing that I will be obeyed if I tell the helmsman to steer toward the Mountain of Frost. Unless you’re hiding a big bag of coins that’s going to make it worth our while?”

“Unfortunately, no, I don’t have a bag of gold for you at this moment,” said Dantes, “but if we accomplish our quest, I’m sure there will be rewards aplenty when we return.”

“Aye, it’s always good to risk your neck for people that are likely to die, on the hope that; one, they somehow won’t actually get themselves killed; two, they will be successful in their quest; and three, they will remember to ask the king for your reward when they’re done. When I said that I would take you where you needed to go, I meant somewhere in the civilized world. I never intended to go on a trip with no return.”

“We are the only hope Tasidar has,” said Dantes. “If you don’t take us to the Mountain of Frost, there won’t be anything to stop the forces of evil from killing everything that is good in this world. What you just saw in Harbortown isn’t going to stop. The forces of Salidar are on the move, and they won’t stop at anything short of Tasidar’s complete destruction. They have been ordered to take over the world...and they intend to do it.” He lowered his voice. “We have information that there may be a way to stop them, and we are on a quest to figure out how that may be done.” He nodded to John. “This boy is the key to it although we’re not sure how yet.”

Captain Meyer could tell that many of the members of his crew were listening even though they were pretending not to be; one of the sailors had been swabbing the same patch of deck for five minutes now. Those crewmembers that weren’t actively listening would probably be told about it within a couple of minutes of the conversation ending. He knew he’d have to be careful with how he handled it. “Even if I believed you, which I’m not saying I do,” he said, “we certainly wouldn’t want to help save the world, only to find ourselves penniless in it. I, for one, could use a new mast for my ship. While masts may come from trees, they don’t grow on trees, if you take my meaning.”

“I’ll pay you 1,000 gold crowns if you take them to wherever it was that they wanted to go, prior to dropping us off,” said a new voice. Dantes turned to find a man standing in the doorway of the captain’s cabin. Two little girls could be seen standing behind him, hiding behind his legs.

Captain Meyer sighed. “I’d like you to meet our cargo, the merchant Gary Mathison and his daughters Samantha and Shelby. We had just taken them aboard when the dragon attacked the port.”

“I heard about what happened in Norlon and knew Harbortown would be next. I decided it was time for my daughters and me to leave.” said Mathison. “I had contracted with Captain Meyer to take us to Evenfar to avoid the Salidarian hordes. If what you say is true, though, they won’t stop with just Norlon. They’ll keep coming until they have killed us all. There’s no place that we can run that will be safe.”

“Unfortunately, that is true, Merchant Mathison,” said Dantes. “If we are unsuccessful in our quest, there is nothing that will keep them from taking over the entire world.”

“Then it is worth what money I have left to aid you in your quest,” said Mathison. “I can always make more money. What is the value of money, though, if you aren’t around to spend it?”

“Hey, Fitzber,” said John, “can you show me how to use all of this?” He had opened the parcel that Fitzber had given him to find a chain mail top to go along with the sword and dagger. Asking Fitzber for assistance made sense; not only had the unassuming gnome given the gifts to him, but he was even shorter than John and less intimidating than some of the others in the group. All of the others in the group, actually, if the truth were known.

“Aye, sure’n I can,” replied Fitzber. “It wouldn’t be much o’ a gift if’n I didn’t show you how to use it now, would it?” He took the armload of things from John and laid them out on the deck. “This goes on first,” he said, handing John a thick padded shirt with long sleeves.

“I need a shirt under the mail?” asked John. “Can’t I just wear the chain mail over what I have on?”

“I guess you could,” replied the gnome, “But that wouldn’t be the brightest thing to do. What do you know about mail?”

“Not a whole lot, actually,” said John, struggling into the shirt. “In my world, we don’t have anything like it. No one wears armor anymore.”

 “How do they stop a sword thrust then?”

“No one carries swords. We now have these things called guns. They are kind of like bows in that they launch a projectile, but it goes a lot faster than an arrow and can be shot a lot further. They are also a lot more powerful and go through armor like it is nothing.” John decided that he didn’t want to try to explain the kevlar armor that soldiers wore. “There isn’t a need for armor anymore.”

“Well, it’s needed here, and that’s the truth,” said Fitzber, handing him the mail shirt. “Okay, this goes on top o’ the padded shirt, and you’ll see the necessity for the shirt in a moment.”

John slid the mail shirt on. The mail came down to about his elbows and to mid-thigh.

“If you look at the mail,” said Fitzber, handing him a sword belt to go around his waist, “you can see that it’s made with lots o’ wee interlocking circles o’ steel, so it’s going to be good at stoppin’ sword or knife cuts. This mail is well made, so it will be difficult to penetrate, and it will stop most thrusting or piercing weapons. If a blow doesn’t hit perpendicular to the mail, it will usually just glance off. Even with a well-placed strike, the mail ringlets will absorb the blow by bending rather than breaking. You get a lot o’ defense, even though the mail doesn’t weigh a whole lot. That’s the good part.”

“What’s the bad?”

“The bad part is that mail isn’t very effective at stoppin’ impacts,” said Fitzber, adjusting the sword so that it sat correctly. “In order to help save you from the force o’ the sword attack, or to help ward off blows from weapons like maces, you wear the padded shirt underneath it. That will protect you, at least somewhat, from hits that would kill an unarmored man.” He gave a couple of tugs. “There you go; that is how it should all be put on.”

“Thanks a lot,” said John. “I’m not sure how I’ll be able to pay you back for all of this. In fact, I don’t even know what you use for money. How much did all of this cost?”

“Don’t say anything to Lady Ellyn, but it was extremely cheap today; we’ll just call it a ‘going out of business’ sale that I took advantage o’, even if the owner didn’t know he was having it. Right now, I doubt he’ll be missing it.” He looked John over with a critical eye and then adjusted where the dagger sheath sat on John’s right side. “Okay, so you’ve got a sword and a dagger o’ your own now. Do you know how to use them?”

“I’ve never even held a sword before, much less tried to do anything with one. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about them.”

“Well, sure’n I better teach you a few things, or you’re going to be more o’ a danger to yourself and the rest o’ us than you will be to the enemy. Let’s see you draw the sword.”

John tried to pull the sword out of its scabbard, but it wouldn’t come out. “It’s stuck,” he finally said, giving up. He heard a choking noise from Fitzber and looked over to see the gnome doing his best not to laugh. “What?”

“Well, laddie, if’n you want to pull the sword out of its wee scabbard, you need to pull it straight out, rather than trying to bend it 90 degrees. You can use your left had to hold the scabbard if you need to.”

John tried it again while holding the scabbard with his left hand and was able to pull the sword out.

“You’ve never done this before?” asked Fitzber. “Ever?”

“No, I’ve never done this before. Why?”

“Oh, nothing laddie, nothing to worry your wee little head about. I expect you’ll be sore tomorrow, though...”

Fitzber had been wrong, thought John. He wasn’t going to be sore tomorrow; he was already sore
right now
. His sword-fighting injuries woke him up in the middle of the night, and they were preventing him from going back to sleep. He wished he had a handful of aspirins he could take, but they were on another world…somewhere else.

He struggled out of the hammock he had been given in the hold of the ship. Because of his height, or mostly because of his lack thereof, he had been given the bottom hammock. Father Telenor was snoring loudly above him in the upper hammock. John thought that he could still probably have gotten back to sleep...if every part of his body didn’t hurt so much.

John now understood the need for the padded shirt; if anything, he wished it was heavier. Even though Fitzber had pulled his strikes to keep from hitting John as hard as he could have, getting slapped with a sword, even at half speed, was still enough to hurt. A lot. Dantes said that a few bruises in training were better than cuts in combat, but John was no longer so sure; if you were dead, they wouldn’t hurt as much. As he started moving, he realized that all of his muscles hurt even more than the places he had been hit and bruised. As much as it hurt to lie in his hammock, moving around hurt even more.

John went topside to get a breath of fresh air and to see if anyone had something that would dull his pain. Seeing a couple of shapes at the back rail of the ship, he went to join them. As he walked aft, he recognized Dantes’ distinctive shape (the horns were a giveaway) and then that of the ship’s captain.

“How much longer do you think it will take us to get there?” Dantes was asking as John came within hearing distance. “Even without the main mast, it doesn’t seem like we are making very good time toward the island. Am I wrong?”

“No, you are not mistaken,” said Captain Meyer, looking into the darkness behind the ship, a troubled look on his face. “There is something wrong with the weather. When we left Harbortown, the winds were lighter than they should have been for this time of year. About the time that night fell, the winds fell off to almost nothing.”

“Any idea why?” asked Dantes. “Is there a storm approaching?”

“I don’t know,” replied Meyer, “and that’s what bothers me. The winds always blow from the north at this time of the year. Always. They should be pushing us toward Salidar. But not since we left Tasidar. It’s almost like something is holding them back. They’re there, but they have nowhere near the force that they normally do. It’s not natural.”

Dantes sensed a presence next to him and turned. “How’s our newest swordsman?” he asked.

“I hurt all over,” said John. “I don’t know which hurts worse, the bruises from getting hit or the muscles from overexertion.”

“The muscles will get better as you move around,” said Dantes. “The bruises will get better, too...in time. Better a few bruises in training...”

“...than cuts in combat. Yeah, I know. Blah, blah, blah. That doesn’t make it hurt any less. Do you guys have anything for pain relief? An aspirin or two?”

“I don’t know what aspirins are, but you could see the second...I mean, the first mate,” said the captain. “Usually she has a tub of some sort of cream for things like that.”

John woke up in the morning, feeling a little better.  After talking with the captain, he had found Tanja Cilia and her tub of cream. He didn’t know if the ointment was magical or not, but it did the trick; he was much less sore as he went up onto the deck. Seeing most of the members of his party clustered around the aft rail with the ship’s captain and first mate, he went to join them.

“What’s going on?” John asked.

“That,” said Dantes, pointing to a dark spot on the horizon off the starboard quarter.

“What’s that? A storm?”

“Aye,” said the captain. “It’s a storm, but there’s also a ship that it’s pushing.”

“I can’t see it,” said John.

“It’s there,” said Ghorza. “I used a far-seeing spell to look. We’re being chased by a warship.”

“A warship? Do you suppose someone sent us an escort?’

“That’s unlikely,” said Dantes, “since no one knows where we are or where we’re going.”

“So that’s the enemy?”

“Aye,” said the captain. “Based on the description, it’s probably an orc marauder. It’s got the black sails of the Reaver clan.”

“Can’t we avoid them somehow?” asked John.

“No,” said Captain Meyer. “Without our mast, their ship is faster than ours, and they have more of the wind helping them to intercept us. We can make it take longer for them to catch us, but catch us they surely will.” He turned to nod in their direction of travel. “’Tis too bad. We almost made it.” John turned to look and could see the top of a large mountain on the horizon. The mountain’s snowcapped peak glowed brightly in the early morning sunshine although most of its base was shrouded in clouds.

“The Mountain of Frost,” said Dantes. “You don’t think we can beat them to it?”

“If our mast was whole, we could sail rings around that pig of a ship,” replied Captain Meyer. “As it is, no. We will be close, but they will overtake us ‘ere we get there.”

John looked at the mass of black clouds behind the enemy vessel. “What about that storm? Do you think that we can stay away from them long enough for the storm to catch up with us? Maybe we could lose them in it.”

“If only it were that easy,” replied Meyer. “I’m pretty sure there’s someone on that ship controlling the storm. It has stayed in the same position behind them ever since we first saw it.”

“Growing up, I heard tales of shamans who were capable of manipulating the weather a little to help the crops,” said Ghorza, “but I never saw any that were ever actually able to do it. I always thought they were just that...tales. The power required to manipulate the weather is beyond anything I have ever seen before. The only shaman I ever saw that could do anything close was Ragula, who could sometimes coax a rain from a cloudy sky, but nothing like this. And besides, he was thought to have died a long time ago.”

“Did you see his body?” asked Lady Ellyn.

“No, I did not,” Ghorza replied. “He went missing just before my father fled with me. I never heard what happened to him.”

“What do you have to defend the ship?” asked Lady Ellyn, changing the subject to one she was more familiar with. “Beside us, that is.”

“Sadly, not much,” said Meyer. “We have some cutlasses and clubs, and a few crossbows, but nothing big enough to keep them off of us. If you can’t do anything to stop them from getting next to us, you’ll have to kill them as they come aboard. Based on the size of their ship, there are going to be more of them than there are of us when they come over the rails.”

“Even though there aren’t many of us, we will make them pay dearly for every foot that touches the deck of this ship,” promised Lady Ellyn. “Very dearly.”