(no subject)
Chapter Three
What a morning that turned out to be. I was awakened by the sound of bells and shouting. I was instantly awake and jumped up to all fours. I went to the still open window and poked my head out. I saw people running towards the water front, and looking in that direction, saw that the wall towers there were engulfed in flames and thick plumes of black smoke wafted into the sky.
“River pirates!” some one shouted.
That was all I needed to know. Quite forgetting myself, I squeezed through C’lin’s window and launched off the wall towards the building across the street. A few people saw me and gave the inevitable terrified screams. I met the opposite building in an instant and had already twisting in mid air to meet it. I landed deftly and sprung off again, spreading my wings and glided to the street over three or four blocks. I landed running on all fours and headed for the wharf in a sprinting gallop. People scattered before me, and I must admit that I felt an odd dark glee about that.
I got to the river front quickly and soon the first group of obvious pirates came into view. Three were in the opening maneuvers of doing what pirates do best with an unwilling woman, and others could be seen battling with the Town Guard. I gave a monstrous bellow that stopped most of the activity in the area. The pirates who saw me had one of two reactions, either abject terror, or a grimace of accepted challenge.
I met with the pirate closest to me and in a single stride was on top of him, my hands on his shoulders and my right foot on his head. Before he could quite react to my being there, I was already using him as a springboard of sorts to leap upon the pirate behind him. My foot twisted his head in a complete half turn, snapping his neck as I leapt, meanwhile tackling the other and slamming his head with my full weight into the stone street. The next one after him was aiming a cross bow at me, but by the time he’d pulled the trigger, I had my feet on the ground and lifted the dead pirate up to take the bolt. Behind the bowman was a forth pirate swinging a wicked looking mace. I swung their dead comrade like a club, slamming his body into them both, knocking them against the warehouse wall beside us. Another pirate further down the street was run at me, so I tossed the dead pirate I was still holding at him. I didn’t get a chance to see them connect, because another crossbowman had snuck up around the corner of the warehouse. He got off his shot, but I heard it coming, almost too late. I whirled to face him and dodged enough to avoid a hit in a vital organ, but the bolt plunged into my wing membrane near my ribs. I won’t say I didn’t feel it, because I was well aware of the injury, but I was unaware of any pain at that moment. If anything, it just made me mad. I took the one step needed to bring me close enough to him, and grabbed him by the chest with my foot. I tossed him blithely up into the air. By then, the one who’d had his late comrade land on him was standing up again. I pulled the bolt from my bloody wing and flung it at him like a dart. It hit him square in the chest, but I missed his heart. In any case, he was down for the count. Meanwhile, the one I’d flung was coming down. I leapt up to meet him, with my fist in his nose. As he sailed back up and cartwheeling backwards, I landed in a crouch looking for more pirates to ‘play with’, when a voice shouting orders jogged a memory and a name.
Looking in the direction of that voice I saw him, Saleetch, the half-breed ‘Kuru who’d been our brute muscle and part time thief. From the look of his out fit, and the way he was barking orders, and having them obeyed, he seemed to hold some significant rank with them. Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense, the missing horses, the rest of us left for dead, and I seemed to remember that he had never been noted for his honor. The world seemed to turn shades of red, and I leapt for him. Just as I was leaping, the first bowman was coming to, but I was able to clip him in the nose with a toe knuckle, almost nonchalantly, as he sat up, thus knocking him out again.
In just a couple of bounds, I was upon him, literally. I tackled him, well more of a pounce really, but I had him on the ground by his shoulders. His initial reation was surprise, understandably, followed quickly by fear/anger. Before he could react much further, I was shouting at him.
“Why did you abandon us Saleetch!?” I hollered, “Who did this to me?!”
To this day, I still don’t know how he knew it was me, what with my ‘new look’ and bestial diction. Yet some how, I guess on some deeper level, he just, knew. In any case, I watched realization and astonishment dawn on his face, followed by not so much rage as irritation. I felt him shift benieth me, and then pain blossomed in my nether regieons. The world went away for a while, and when I came to, there was still a burning ache there, and Saleetch was gone. I was surrounded by Guards with crossbows aimed at me and curious town folk (some of both groups with bemused expressions), and the pirates were apparently just leaving.
I heard the voice of the Guard Captain bellowing, “Make way! Make way!!”
Soon I had him and C’lin at my side, helping me stand up. C’lin handed me a small silver amulet on a white ribbon. The amulet looked at first like a lop sided hoop, but turned out to be a pair of lips, parted in speech or song.
“Go ahead, put it on,” said C’lin. This I did and he said, “There, we should all be able to understand you now.”
“Thank you,” I said. My voice was still deep, growly, and monstrous, but even I could make out quite a difference. I was actually intelligible now. Still, I heard more than a few gasps and oaths in the crowd when I spoke.
“You’re injured,” C’lin observed.
Looking down, I saw a small pool of a thick, milky, bright orange fluid on the cobble stones, more leaking out of my wing. I spread the damaged wing just a bit, and saw the place where the bolt had hit me. I hadn’t really noticed at the time of the hit, even though I’d used the bolt myself on another pirate, with out thinking. Noting the absurd color of what was obviously me blood, I merely sighed.
“It’s nothing,” I told him.
“Well,” began the Guard Captain, “while you were off getting your little nothin’, we’ve lost ten good men to fire, another five to arrows and two to the sword, and had several thousand gold worth in goods stolen and several hundred-thousand in damage done to the city! Judging by your description, I bet you were the monster who harrassed my men last night. How do we know you weren’t their plant to tell them we were ripe for attack?”
“I would never associate with such rabble,” I told him.
“Really?!” he spat, “What about the one you were talking to? You seemed to know him.”
“Saleetch is NO friend of mine!” I shot back. I was so angry at the thought of Saleetch’s apparent betrayal, for a brief moment the whole world seemed to turn red. Most of the crowd gasped, some even stepped back a bit. I didn’t care at that moment, but I would learn in time that when I literally saw red like that, my eyes would flash with a red light. Even so, the Captain didn’t back down. He didn’t even flinch.
“Well, what about the warehouse you marked?!” he demanded, “Most of the goods stolen came from the one you ripped apart the ceiling of last night!”
“Coincidence!” I shouted back.
“Both of you stop!” C’lin cut in, “Captain, don’t talk nonsense, and both of you calm down. As I told you last night, this creature is not evil in any way. In case you didn’t notice, he personally took out about half a dozen of the pirates himself while he was getting that ‘nothing’, and he has absolutely no loyalties to this county and no reason to do this city any favors in light of his reception last night.” I was suddenly glad for my fur as I could feel myself blushing. “It was right after he tackled that one pirate that their retreat was sounded,” continued C’lin. “If you hadn’t scared him off last night, perhaps he would have been in a position to stop the attack before it started. As it is, I can provide his alibi and vouch for it. He slept in my living room last night, all night. Do you honestly think I would have even let him in the city if I sensed any daemonic wickedness from him, let alone my own home?” He paused for breath, then turned to me, “By the way, you left your stuff.” He handed me my makeshift harness, saddle pouch, and loin cloth. I finally noticed I was in the buff. I let out an astonishingly high squeak, considering my speaking voice, and sat down on my haunches with my hands in front. My reaction to my nudity seemed to break the tension, as several people in the crowd chuckled. The Captain was not amused however, unsuprisingly. I felt it was speech time. Sitting as I was, I was on roughly eye level with most of the people in the crowd.
Looking at the Captain I said, “Hear me, all of you. I am well aware of my monstrous appearance. For the moment, it does not matter. I realize that merely asking for your acceptance is both pointless and futile. Respect must be earned. Thus, I will seek out these pirates, and see to it they never harass these waters again.” My little address was met with somewhat less than thunderous applause, and I wasn’t really expecting any. In fact the Captain was giving me a look that clearly told me to put my money where my mouth was. A few people though looked like they wanted to trust me, but wanted to see it to believe it. I even heard one child somewhere in the crowd ask his mother, “Is the monster gonna make the bad men go away?” and the mother gave a noncommittal answer.
I figured this was going to be as good as I’d get from these people for now and said, “All I need is a boat. I’ll settle for a simple canoe.”
Some one called out, “You got wings. Why not just fly there?”
“First of all,” I explained, “I don’t know where the pirates are, I need to find them. Second, I’ve only had these wings for a week. I don’t know how to use them very well yet. Even a baby bat must be taught some of what he knows.”
This sent a disbelieving murmur through the crowd.
Sighing, I said, “If no one wants to lend me a boat, I do have gold.”
One wealthy looking barge captain perked up at that, “I’ve got an extra dinghy I’ll let go for a single gold.”
“Done!” I said, pointing and him and grinning.
He spit on his palm and held out his hand, I followed suit and we shook on it with him saying, “I’ve done business with scarier looking blokes than you who had more honor than most, and the way I figure it, anyone willing to rid the world another band of brigands is alright by me. Besides, I personally witnessed your battle. If anyone has a chance against these vermin, it’d be you.”
I felt myself blushing again under my fur. “Right,” I said, “Where’s this boat of yours?” I noticed then, that the Town Guard still had their crossbows on me. I looked at C’lin, who seemed to understand.
He turned to the Captain asking, “Would you please tell your men to stand down?”
The captain reluctantly ordered his men to shoulder arms. An hour later I was headed down stream in my brand new, slightly used, four meter row boat. I was perched like a bird on a branch on the middle bench of five, my tail wrapped round the tiller while I rowed; left, left, right, right. I’d started my journey rather early that day of course, seeing as the pirate’s attack had come at dawn. Largely the rest of the day for me was spent rowing. Everyone in the town had agreed that the attacks all came from down stream out of the mountains. I was excited for many reasons. For one, my skirmish that morning had awakened something in me. The very thought of more battle filled me with an oddly subtle but pervasive elation. For another, I was looking forward to squaring off with Saleetch. I hoped that I’d be able to get some answers from him. And finally, I would satisfy the personal curiosity of how a river could flow into a mountain range.
The answer to the last issue came first. The first few minutes of following the river back-tracked my path of the evening before to the T-crossing that brought me to the river. The school of trout was still there, and the cliffs on either side had been climbing steadily as soon as I’d left town. Within an hour, I was well into the foothills of the mountains. I’d left the road on either side of the river far behind by then. The cliffs soared to astonishing heights around me. The river remained wide, yet wove back and forth through rugged, almost perfectly vertical cliffs that rose steadily and majesticly higher. It looked as if perhaps at one time this had been a solid continental wall, but some cataclysmic earthquake had opened this crack in the surface of the world, and then the river had felt this was as good as anyplace to try something different. What ever titanic event had happened, it must have occurred quite some time ago as various good sized trees had found niches and cracks to grow in, as well as a few groves shoreline clay deposits. There were mostly pines and willows, with the occasional oak or beech thrown in for good measure.
In the late afternoon, about an hour before dusk actually, I passed a side grotto of sorts with a fair sized waterfall at the back wall. The gulch it had carved through the mountains to reach the river was fairly impressive itself, and the thunder it made as I’d guess roughly a thousand kiloliters a second poured fifty meters down into the grotto went beyond impressive. However, I didn’t give it much of a thought beyond the majesty of Mother Nature in one of her more artistic moods. Half an hour later, I came upon a small Cliffside village, little more than an overgrown way station. On the dock was a trio of humanoid Ratmen, juveniles. All three were fishing. They eyed me with suspicion as I rowed near.
“Hey!” I called, “Has your village had issues with river pirates?”
They just sat and looked at me mutely. Sighing, I reached into my pouch and pulled out a gold coin and flipped it in their general direction. The one in the middle pocketed it.
“Yah, me Papy, an’ his bro gone up rivah. Dey be ryin’ ta getta workin’ wit dem. Me Papy an his bro no commin’ back, and de piras keepa commin’, every otha’ week or so.”
“Up river you say?”
They all nodded. I sighed, and started rowing against the current. About a half dozen strokes later, the young Rat called after me.
“Oy! Wait ‘bout a short while. De night winds a commin’. Use dem big wings a you’z an sail up.”
I craned my neck around and looked at him. He just shrugged. Sure enough, about five minutes later, a good strong breeze picked up. Chuckling to myself, I did as the young Rat had suggested. I moved to the next bench forward and stood up, feet spread to the inner hull and tail still gripping the tiller to maximize balance and stability. Cautiously, I spread my wings, and caught the wind. I waved my thanks to the lads, and soon was on my way again. The Rat boy’s suggestion soon turned out to be easier said than done, but I quickly got the hang of it. It was actually rather fun.
Before long I was passing the grotto with the water fall again, and almost passed it all together again, when something clicked into place. The pirates had attacked the town from down stream, but the Rat boy had said they came from up stream. During my entire trip from C’lin and the grouchy Guard Captain’s town to the Rat boys’ village, there had been no place a pirate could have parked one of their River Schooners, much less a row boat like mine, without being seen accept this apparently empty grotto.
I folded my wings, sat back on the center bench, and moored myself to a weeping willow with my tail conveniently across the river from the grotto. I regarded the waterfall for a moment as night fell. There was not more light that night as the night before, and thus it got quite dark in the grotto. Soon my keen night vision was picking up a vague glow from behind the waterfall. I grinned, and moored the boat properly to the tree, well hidden among the long drooping foliage. After a moments consideration, I untied the saddle pouch from my harness and stowed it under the center bench, then dove into the water.
As I swam, I discovered yet another feature of my body. I was very buoyant. Even with a soaked fur coat, I still floated with a good third of my mass out of the water. If I wanted to stay submerged, especially with full lungs, I had to fight to stay under. This was going to be tricky. I needed to be deep enough that when I got to the waterfall, it wouldn’t pound me to death. As I got closer, I not only had to fight my buoyancy but also the current. After a few failed attempts, I got the brilliant idea to swim to the cliff wall where it entered the water, as close to the falls as possible, and simple climb down. It was slow going, and I just about ran out of air, but it worked. When I was far enough in that the current was definitely coming from behind me, and not directly above, I just let go of the rock face and let my buoyancy carry me to the surface. I let out my breath explosively and gasped in a fresh one. I found myself in a natural cavern. I don’t know how deep it was to the floor, I’d not found it during my underwater climb, but the ceiling looked to be just under twenty meters high, and the passage was roughly twelve meters wide. Loud as my breath had been, I was fortunate that the waterfall was so much louder. Directly above me, about two thirds of the way up the walls from the water to the roof of the cavern was a catwalk on either side. A manned guard post was at the end of each. The glow I had seen came from kerosene lamps. Hanging from the ceiling between the catwalks, was a giant steel A-frame wedge on rails. A pair of five meter across water wheels turned swiftly in the falling water. One drove chains that ran back further into the caverns, the other while apparently in neutral seemed to be there to drive gears that would move the wedge into or out of the waterfall. I was also fortunate that it was quite dark down where I was. I silently bit my thumb at the two guards, who were looking a little drunk and quite lazy, and swam further in.
About a hundred meters in, the tunnel widened out into a true cavern. The ceiling was at least thirty meters high, and the chamber was huge. One of the chains from the waterwheels turned a humongous fan. Another led to a heavy looking fly wheel that was in turn hooked up to a number of large power tools in a dry-dock work shop area off to the right as I came in. The whole space was well lit by large kerosene lamps all over the place. Off to my left was the actual dock carved out of the natural rock of the cavern floor. There were five slips, three full. The other two boats were in the dry-dock. Beyond the wharf area a number of stairways and tunnels lead off to other areas. A series of catwalks lead to the dry-dock and the two walks to the guard posts. On shore were maybe a dozen Ratmen in chains, and in the water also in chains were four crocodiles. Other than them, there was no one else in the area. In spite of some water in my ears, I could hear raucous singing not too far off.
One of the crocs spied me. “Hey boys,” it said, “Lunch just showed up.”
“Who you callin’ ‘boy’, boy?” retorted another.
I could somehow tell they were not speaking any human tongue at all, where as the Rat boy had been. I blinked, dumbfounded. I could understand crocks? Sure why not, I told myself, if I can understand wolves.
“Sorry sister,” apologized the first, “Let’s just eat.”
“Uh,” I said to them, “You wouldn’t want to eat me. I’m… all fuzzy.”
The female laughed, “Like we ain’ heard that one befo’e.”
“I like fuzzy,” claimed the third one, “Eet teeckles my tongue.”
“Why don’cha swim a li’l closer?” suggested the first.
I smiled, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” asked the forth, “We ain’t bad folks.”
“I don’t doubt that you are,” I replied, “On full stomachs. Right now however, you all seem a little too hungry to be seriously friendly.” We regarded each other for a moment as I thought about my options. I considered their chains and noticed how deep their collars dug into their necks. I suddenly had an idea. “How long’s it been since ya’ll last saw the suns?” Ick, now I’m starting to really sound like them.
“Ooooh, dee suns,” sighed the third, “Eet has been far too long.”
“Please,” grunted the forth, “Just thinkin’ about ‘em just makes me wanna sing.”
“Oh do not get him started,” snapped the female, “If he sings then they all gonna sing, an’ I’ll get all randy, an’ this is not where I wanna be raisin’ no kids!”
“That and the pink meats on the shore’ll throw rocks at us,” complained the first croc, “or worse.”
I smiled wide, “How ‘bout this. You let me pass, an I’ll toss you some pink meats. Then when you are so full you can’t eat no more, I’ll come back and unlock your chains. Just don’t eat any of the other fuzzies up there. I’m setting them free too.”
They all exchanged an amazed glance.
“DONE!” they said as one.
Thus I passed them without worry. I swam into one of the empty slips. Above me, a Ratman was on his knees scrubbing the deck of the wharf, a collar on his neck hooked to a chain that was bolted to the deck near a straw pallet a few meters away. I kept out of sight in the shadows, but I called up to him, whispering, doing my best to mimic the Ratman dialect.
“Pst! You come from down rivah? You gotta li’l bro, or a son? Dey like to fish onna dock inna eve?
He kept scrubbing, but I saw him glance about with just his eyes. Then he subtly nodded.
“Ok,” I whispered, “Keep it quite, but spread de word, I gonna get ya’ll free.”
We both perked up our ears as we heard the shuffling step of a very drunk pirate.
“Do he got de keys?” I whispered to the Rat at a level I was certain he could hear but the human would not, even if he were sober. The Rat shook his head ‘no’ subtly.
By then, the drunkard was upon us. He couldn’t see me, but when he spied the Ratman, he got a sadistic grin on his face. The Rat looked up at him defiantly as he drew a small dagger. The pirate took the one step closer that I needed. I crept up the stone side of the boat slip, got a good grip on the rock just below the lip, went into a handstand and grabbed him with my toe claws by his ribs. He was so drunk he didn’t even notice, but paused for a moment wondering why he couldn’t move forward. Before he had much more time to think about it I’d yanked him off his feet, swinging him up and over and head first into the stone wall of the slip. A sound like an over ripe coconut being struck with a club was heard. The pirate stopped breathing. I pulled myself up onto the wharf, pulling the dead pirate up with me. The Rat looked up at me a little fearfully. I noticed the pirate was still holding his dagger. Grinning, I pulled it from his dead grip and handed it to the Rat handle first saying, “I really don’t think he’ll need this any more.”
He grinned himself and accepted the knife. I then tossed the pirate into the harbor where the crocs could reach him.
“Hey boys, lunch!” crowed the first croc.
With a laugh, the female shot back, “Who you callin’ ‘boy’!?”
“What a guy,” chuckled the forth, “He even marinated it for us.”
“Ooh, yummy,” said the third.
I won’t bore you with a long tedious blow-by-blow of every pirate I took out. I mean there were around two or three dozen wandering their ant’s nest of a maze. It was fun though. While yes there was a dark little voice deep in the back of my mind disapproving of my taking lives, I had to admit that popping out of shadows, striking from above while clinging to the ceiling, hearing one coming up to a corner and timing it to be there to take them down, all filled me with a dark glee that I could not explain. Mostly I was able to soothe my conscience by telling my self that these were ‘nasty filthy’ pirates who had done much worse to others in the name of fun and profits than what I was doing to them now. The first few I tossed to the crocs, as promised.
Actually, I will sort of tell about the very next one. He must have been the twin brother of that first drunken one. I was headed for the first available passage into their rat’s warren of a home, away from the wharf area, when he came striding out. I did a double take, glanced back in the water, and seeing their different garb realized the truth, just as he saw me.
“Hey!” he shouted, “you’re that bastard beastie from Therym!”
I smiled wide saying, “Yup!” and easy as picking a grapefruit grabbed his head and twisted it 225 degrees around. His neck made a sound not unlike knuckles popping though louder and deeper timber, and his head then flopped down backwards. Although quite dead, somehow he remained standing, so I left him there. A quick search revealed keys. I asked the Rat if these would open his collar. He shrugged, so we tried it, and it worked, so I gave him the key and went my merry way. About ten minutes into my silent rampage, I heard a Gods awful cacophony coming from the mess hall where all the raucous merry making was. I had been pointedly avoiding the area, but a morbid curiosity made me go look. The Ratmen were attacking the drunken men. A few had disarmed some pirates and were using swords or knives, the rest used their own claws and teeth. They out numbered the pirates two to one, and soon had them subdued in a blood bath. I moved on with my own methods.
About an hour later, I found a tunnel that was better lit than the rest and actually guarded. This seemed important. I was clinging to the ceiling, which was high in that tunnel. The side passage was lower, wider, and was a T off the main corridor. Two burly pirates stood to either side of the entrance. I suddenly wished I had a coin or pebble. I’d already taken out a few from above, but they had always been alone. I figured if I had something to toss down the main hall, they’d both look that way and I could come from the other side and take them both out. They were too far apart for me to take out at once. Even though my sword gave me a greater reach, and my reach was already impressive, they were still too far apart. If I had to get them one at a time, the unattacked one would have a chance to make noise. I could hear muttering voices clearly echoing up that passage. If these mooks made so much as an alarmed peep, I’d be found out. I had one idea to go find a long heavy piece of wood, but that would make noise too, and I’d already found out a little earlier that I could not carry too much over my own weight without loosing my gripping ability. The main corridor was too long in either direction from this side passage to make a fast and quick charge.
Finally, I got an idea. It was a little sadistic, and rather risky, but no riskier than any other plan I’d thought of and rejected. I handed my sword to my tail, and crept as silently as I could down the wall, until I was in a crouch right at the edge. I cleared my throat, and they both looked up at me startled, exposing their throats nicely. One swipe of the tail, and they were both gurgling as they went down. Then disaster, my tail lost grip on the sword, and it went clanging to the tunnel floor. In the silence and absence of voices from p the passage, I froze.
“You messin’ around with your stupid sword juggling again Maarach?!” called a voice I did not recognize.
My heart pounding, I attempted a falsetto, hoping that doing so with my unnaturally deep voice would sound human, “Yeah, sorry!”
“Well, knock it off! You’re s’posed to be guarding. I thought you were gonna take care of that cold.”
I almost choked on relieved laughter, and managed to merely grunt out a reply. I waited another few minutes, then dropped to the floor and retrieved my bloody sword. I wiped it on the shirt of one of the dead pirates, and went up the passage. I had to go on all fours in there, the ceiling was too low. It was also nearly pitch black in there with no lamps. After a few meters in, and a bit of consideration, I climbed onto the ceiling and continued on all fours there. I was about half way up the low corridor, when I recognized one of the voices, Saleetch.
Still on the ceiling, I snuck to the end which turned sharply to the right. Well, left if I’d been on the floor. Barely a meter past the turn, the corridor ended in a closed wodden door. Light pour from the cracks between planks of the door and from around the frame.
As I came round the corner, I heard Saleetch saying, “No, I know it’s him. And we’re fresh fewmets if he finds us.”
“How do you know for sure?” asked the voice I’d heard before. “You say your old companion was Human, but we all saw some freakish Anthrofur.”
“Oh it’s him all right. First, he knew my name. Second, when I left him, he was dead and yet growing grey fur.”
The other voice made a sound of disbelief, “How can something be dead and grow fur? Fur that isn’t mold.”
“Magick more than likely,” replied Saleetch, “Skoarge knows we pissed off a few Magi in our time together. Since it is him, whatever his form, we are sitting ducks. He has this over developed sense of honor and a conceited ego. He’ll probably think he lost face in my method of getting him off of me, and he seems to think I abandoned him. I was gonna leave the group soon anyway, cause I couldn’t stand him anymore and the money was lousy.”
“From the way you talk of him, you probably would have left him there to die anyway, after the fight you describe.”
“You got that right.”
I’d heard enough. I dropped to the floor in a crouch , and politely knocked on the door.
“Yes!” called the unknown voice.
“I have a message for you sir,” I said, adopting my quasi falsetto.
“I’m busy.”
“It’s, uh, from the men in the mess hall,” I said, thinking fast, “They say it’s urgent.”
The man swore and sighed, “I knew this day was coming sooner or later.”
“Well, I’ll cover your arse,” I heard Saleetch say. For some unfathomable reason, that surprised me.
The door was opened by the owner of t he unknown voice, and the Captain of the pirates from the look of his attire and the look of command in his eye.
He gaped at me for a moment of shock, and I ran him through before he could react saying, “The message is, ‘they’re all dead’.”
I stepped into the room, the pirate captain still skewered but not yet dead, and shut the door behind me. The livid-yet-astonished look on Saleetch’s face was priceless.
Remembering my ruined paladin garb on the forest floor where I first woke up, I gestured at Saleetch with his dieing-captain-on-a-stick and said, “So you abandoned your fallen comrades to pursue a life of crime huh?”
The captain-kabob’s last living act was to give me an annoyed glare.
The half ‘Kuru spat at me, “Don’t give me any of your haughty speeches. You only ever half believed what you spouted half the time anyway. I knew better.”
I harrumphed at him, “Be that as it may, I am making sure that you and your kind never prowl these waters or harm the innocents living on them again. But first…” I knocked him firmly between the eyes with the heel of my palm. He fell like a sack of grain.
Ten minutes later, I had him under my arm and was walking back out to the under ground harbor. Bodies and parts of bodies floated in the water. The Rats were making the boats ready to sail. I found the first one I’d freed. He still had the keys and gladly gave them to me. I told them to watch over Saleetch while I freed the happily bloated crocs. They swam off giving me the warmest thanks, and that done, I fetched Saleetch and rode with the Rats out of the caves. They had already moved the giant wedge in place, which was neatly parting the waterfall to allow the boats through. I bid farewell to the Rats, and launched myself up with my cargo in hand.
It took a bit of doing, but I managed to flap my way up, up, up to the top of the cliffs forming the grotto. I stood on the edge, and dangled Saleetch at arm’s length by his ankles. I’d stripped him naked, and bound his wrists behind his back with one of his own boot cords. He soon after came around, and soon after noticed where he was. He didn’t look to happy.
“Saleetch,” I said, “I’m going to ask you two questions. First, who did this to me?”
Saleetch sighed, “I have no idea. Of all the Magi we got mad at us, I cannot think of a single one who might have the power to even imagine, whatever you’ve become.”
“Alright, I guess I’ll believe you for now. Second, what is my name?”
He gave me an irritated sneer, “Why do you want to know?”
I snarled, and let my grip on his ankles slip a little, “Just answer the question. Please.”
He snickered, “Fine, you name was kh-!”
I would never know if he was saying the first letter of my name or just making a noise, because the next thing I knew, a crossbow bolt had plunged up out of his neck. I lifted him up, and found the other end of the bolt sticking out of the top of his head. I looked down to see the end of a whip-like tail slipping into the solid cliff face about a sixth of the way down and a crossbow tumbling end over end to the water below. I semi-absently let go of Saleetch, and stood with my fists on my hips, perplexed and annoyed. I knew it was dim that night, with dark Ibiloax only slightly more full than last night, and similarly crescented xxx and xxx only just rising, but I knew there could have been no trick of the light. That tail had slipped into the solid rock.
What do you all think of it so far. Chapter Four is in the rough draft stages now.
What a morning that turned out to be. I was awakened by the sound of bells and shouting. I was instantly awake and jumped up to all fours. I went to the still open window and poked my head out. I saw people running towards the water front, and looking in that direction, saw that the wall towers there were engulfed in flames and thick plumes of black smoke wafted into the sky.
“River pirates!” some one shouted.
That was all I needed to know. Quite forgetting myself, I squeezed through C’lin’s window and launched off the wall towards the building across the street. A few people saw me and gave the inevitable terrified screams. I met the opposite building in an instant and had already twisting in mid air to meet it. I landed deftly and sprung off again, spreading my wings and glided to the street over three or four blocks. I landed running on all fours and headed for the wharf in a sprinting gallop. People scattered before me, and I must admit that I felt an odd dark glee about that.
I got to the river front quickly and soon the first group of obvious pirates came into view. Three were in the opening maneuvers of doing what pirates do best with an unwilling woman, and others could be seen battling with the Town Guard. I gave a monstrous bellow that stopped most of the activity in the area. The pirates who saw me had one of two reactions, either abject terror, or a grimace of accepted challenge.
I met with the pirate closest to me and in a single stride was on top of him, my hands on his shoulders and my right foot on his head. Before he could quite react to my being there, I was already using him as a springboard of sorts to leap upon the pirate behind him. My foot twisted his head in a complete half turn, snapping his neck as I leapt, meanwhile tackling the other and slamming his head with my full weight into the stone street. The next one after him was aiming a cross bow at me, but by the time he’d pulled the trigger, I had my feet on the ground and lifted the dead pirate up to take the bolt. Behind the bowman was a forth pirate swinging a wicked looking mace. I swung their dead comrade like a club, slamming his body into them both, knocking them against the warehouse wall beside us. Another pirate further down the street was run at me, so I tossed the dead pirate I was still holding at him. I didn’t get a chance to see them connect, because another crossbowman had snuck up around the corner of the warehouse. He got off his shot, but I heard it coming, almost too late. I whirled to face him and dodged enough to avoid a hit in a vital organ, but the bolt plunged into my wing membrane near my ribs. I won’t say I didn’t feel it, because I was well aware of the injury, but I was unaware of any pain at that moment. If anything, it just made me mad. I took the one step needed to bring me close enough to him, and grabbed him by the chest with my foot. I tossed him blithely up into the air. By then, the one who’d had his late comrade land on him was standing up again. I pulled the bolt from my bloody wing and flung it at him like a dart. It hit him square in the chest, but I missed his heart. In any case, he was down for the count. Meanwhile, the one I’d flung was coming down. I leapt up to meet him, with my fist in his nose. As he sailed back up and cartwheeling backwards, I landed in a crouch looking for more pirates to ‘play with’, when a voice shouting orders jogged a memory and a name.
Looking in the direction of that voice I saw him, Saleetch, the half-breed ‘Kuru who’d been our brute muscle and part time thief. From the look of his out fit, and the way he was barking orders, and having them obeyed, he seemed to hold some significant rank with them. Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense, the missing horses, the rest of us left for dead, and I seemed to remember that he had never been noted for his honor. The world seemed to turn shades of red, and I leapt for him. Just as I was leaping, the first bowman was coming to, but I was able to clip him in the nose with a toe knuckle, almost nonchalantly, as he sat up, thus knocking him out again.
In just a couple of bounds, I was upon him, literally. I tackled him, well more of a pounce really, but I had him on the ground by his shoulders. His initial reation was surprise, understandably, followed quickly by fear/anger. Before he could react much further, I was shouting at him.
“Why did you abandon us Saleetch!?” I hollered, “Who did this to me?!”
To this day, I still don’t know how he knew it was me, what with my ‘new look’ and bestial diction. Yet some how, I guess on some deeper level, he just, knew. In any case, I watched realization and astonishment dawn on his face, followed by not so much rage as irritation. I felt him shift benieth me, and then pain blossomed in my nether regieons. The world went away for a while, and when I came to, there was still a burning ache there, and Saleetch was gone. I was surrounded by Guards with crossbows aimed at me and curious town folk (some of both groups with bemused expressions), and the pirates were apparently just leaving.
I heard the voice of the Guard Captain bellowing, “Make way! Make way!!”
Soon I had him and C’lin at my side, helping me stand up. C’lin handed me a small silver amulet on a white ribbon. The amulet looked at first like a lop sided hoop, but turned out to be a pair of lips, parted in speech or song.
“Go ahead, put it on,” said C’lin. This I did and he said, “There, we should all be able to understand you now.”
“Thank you,” I said. My voice was still deep, growly, and monstrous, but even I could make out quite a difference. I was actually intelligible now. Still, I heard more than a few gasps and oaths in the crowd when I spoke.
“You’re injured,” C’lin observed.
Looking down, I saw a small pool of a thick, milky, bright orange fluid on the cobble stones, more leaking out of my wing. I spread the damaged wing just a bit, and saw the place where the bolt had hit me. I hadn’t really noticed at the time of the hit, even though I’d used the bolt myself on another pirate, with out thinking. Noting the absurd color of what was obviously me blood, I merely sighed.
“It’s nothing,” I told him.
“Well,” began the Guard Captain, “while you were off getting your little nothin’, we’ve lost ten good men to fire, another five to arrows and two to the sword, and had several thousand gold worth in goods stolen and several hundred-thousand in damage done to the city! Judging by your description, I bet you were the monster who harrassed my men last night. How do we know you weren’t their plant to tell them we were ripe for attack?”
“I would never associate with such rabble,” I told him.
“Really?!” he spat, “What about the one you were talking to? You seemed to know him.”
“Saleetch is NO friend of mine!” I shot back. I was so angry at the thought of Saleetch’s apparent betrayal, for a brief moment the whole world seemed to turn red. Most of the crowd gasped, some even stepped back a bit. I didn’t care at that moment, but I would learn in time that when I literally saw red like that, my eyes would flash with a red light. Even so, the Captain didn’t back down. He didn’t even flinch.
“Well, what about the warehouse you marked?!” he demanded, “Most of the goods stolen came from the one you ripped apart the ceiling of last night!”
“Coincidence!” I shouted back.
“Both of you stop!” C’lin cut in, “Captain, don’t talk nonsense, and both of you calm down. As I told you last night, this creature is not evil in any way. In case you didn’t notice, he personally took out about half a dozen of the pirates himself while he was getting that ‘nothing’, and he has absolutely no loyalties to this county and no reason to do this city any favors in light of his reception last night.” I was suddenly glad for my fur as I could feel myself blushing. “It was right after he tackled that one pirate that their retreat was sounded,” continued C’lin. “If you hadn’t scared him off last night, perhaps he would have been in a position to stop the attack before it started. As it is, I can provide his alibi and vouch for it. He slept in my living room last night, all night. Do you honestly think I would have even let him in the city if I sensed any daemonic wickedness from him, let alone my own home?” He paused for breath, then turned to me, “By the way, you left your stuff.” He handed me my makeshift harness, saddle pouch, and loin cloth. I finally noticed I was in the buff. I let out an astonishingly high squeak, considering my speaking voice, and sat down on my haunches with my hands in front. My reaction to my nudity seemed to break the tension, as several people in the crowd chuckled. The Captain was not amused however, unsuprisingly. I felt it was speech time. Sitting as I was, I was on roughly eye level with most of the people in the crowd.
Looking at the Captain I said, “Hear me, all of you. I am well aware of my monstrous appearance. For the moment, it does not matter. I realize that merely asking for your acceptance is both pointless and futile. Respect must be earned. Thus, I will seek out these pirates, and see to it they never harass these waters again.” My little address was met with somewhat less than thunderous applause, and I wasn’t really expecting any. In fact the Captain was giving me a look that clearly told me to put my money where my mouth was. A few people though looked like they wanted to trust me, but wanted to see it to believe it. I even heard one child somewhere in the crowd ask his mother, “Is the monster gonna make the bad men go away?” and the mother gave a noncommittal answer.
I figured this was going to be as good as I’d get from these people for now and said, “All I need is a boat. I’ll settle for a simple canoe.”
Some one called out, “You got wings. Why not just fly there?”
“First of all,” I explained, “I don’t know where the pirates are, I need to find them. Second, I’ve only had these wings for a week. I don’t know how to use them very well yet. Even a baby bat must be taught some of what he knows.”
This sent a disbelieving murmur through the crowd.
Sighing, I said, “If no one wants to lend me a boat, I do have gold.”
One wealthy looking barge captain perked up at that, “I’ve got an extra dinghy I’ll let go for a single gold.”
“Done!” I said, pointing and him and grinning.
He spit on his palm and held out his hand, I followed suit and we shook on it with him saying, “I’ve done business with scarier looking blokes than you who had more honor than most, and the way I figure it, anyone willing to rid the world another band of brigands is alright by me. Besides, I personally witnessed your battle. If anyone has a chance against these vermin, it’d be you.”
I felt myself blushing again under my fur. “Right,” I said, “Where’s this boat of yours?” I noticed then, that the Town Guard still had their crossbows on me. I looked at C’lin, who seemed to understand.
He turned to the Captain asking, “Would you please tell your men to stand down?”
The captain reluctantly ordered his men to shoulder arms. An hour later I was headed down stream in my brand new, slightly used, four meter row boat. I was perched like a bird on a branch on the middle bench of five, my tail wrapped round the tiller while I rowed; left, left, right, right. I’d started my journey rather early that day of course, seeing as the pirate’s attack had come at dawn. Largely the rest of the day for me was spent rowing. Everyone in the town had agreed that the attacks all came from down stream out of the mountains. I was excited for many reasons. For one, my skirmish that morning had awakened something in me. The very thought of more battle filled me with an oddly subtle but pervasive elation. For another, I was looking forward to squaring off with Saleetch. I hoped that I’d be able to get some answers from him. And finally, I would satisfy the personal curiosity of how a river could flow into a mountain range.
The answer to the last issue came first. The first few minutes of following the river back-tracked my path of the evening before to the T-crossing that brought me to the river. The school of trout was still there, and the cliffs on either side had been climbing steadily as soon as I’d left town. Within an hour, I was well into the foothills of the mountains. I’d left the road on either side of the river far behind by then. The cliffs soared to astonishing heights around me. The river remained wide, yet wove back and forth through rugged, almost perfectly vertical cliffs that rose steadily and majesticly higher. It looked as if perhaps at one time this had been a solid continental wall, but some cataclysmic earthquake had opened this crack in the surface of the world, and then the river had felt this was as good as anyplace to try something different. What ever titanic event had happened, it must have occurred quite some time ago as various good sized trees had found niches and cracks to grow in, as well as a few groves shoreline clay deposits. There were mostly pines and willows, with the occasional oak or beech thrown in for good measure.
In the late afternoon, about an hour before dusk actually, I passed a side grotto of sorts with a fair sized waterfall at the back wall. The gulch it had carved through the mountains to reach the river was fairly impressive itself, and the thunder it made as I’d guess roughly a thousand kiloliters a second poured fifty meters down into the grotto went beyond impressive. However, I didn’t give it much of a thought beyond the majesty of Mother Nature in one of her more artistic moods. Half an hour later, I came upon a small Cliffside village, little more than an overgrown way station. On the dock was a trio of humanoid Ratmen, juveniles. All three were fishing. They eyed me with suspicion as I rowed near.
“Hey!” I called, “Has your village had issues with river pirates?”
They just sat and looked at me mutely. Sighing, I reached into my pouch and pulled out a gold coin and flipped it in their general direction. The one in the middle pocketed it.
“Yah, me Papy, an’ his bro gone up rivah. Dey be ryin’ ta getta workin’ wit dem. Me Papy an his bro no commin’ back, and de piras keepa commin’, every otha’ week or so.”
“Up river you say?”
They all nodded. I sighed, and started rowing against the current. About a half dozen strokes later, the young Rat called after me.
“Oy! Wait ‘bout a short while. De night winds a commin’. Use dem big wings a you’z an sail up.”
I craned my neck around and looked at him. He just shrugged. Sure enough, about five minutes later, a good strong breeze picked up. Chuckling to myself, I did as the young Rat had suggested. I moved to the next bench forward and stood up, feet spread to the inner hull and tail still gripping the tiller to maximize balance and stability. Cautiously, I spread my wings, and caught the wind. I waved my thanks to the lads, and soon was on my way again. The Rat boy’s suggestion soon turned out to be easier said than done, but I quickly got the hang of it. It was actually rather fun.
Before long I was passing the grotto with the water fall again, and almost passed it all together again, when something clicked into place. The pirates had attacked the town from down stream, but the Rat boy had said they came from up stream. During my entire trip from C’lin and the grouchy Guard Captain’s town to the Rat boys’ village, there had been no place a pirate could have parked one of their River Schooners, much less a row boat like mine, without being seen accept this apparently empty grotto.
I folded my wings, sat back on the center bench, and moored myself to a weeping willow with my tail conveniently across the river from the grotto. I regarded the waterfall for a moment as night fell. There was not more light that night as the night before, and thus it got quite dark in the grotto. Soon my keen night vision was picking up a vague glow from behind the waterfall. I grinned, and moored the boat properly to the tree, well hidden among the long drooping foliage. After a moments consideration, I untied the saddle pouch from my harness and stowed it under the center bench, then dove into the water.
As I swam, I discovered yet another feature of my body. I was very buoyant. Even with a soaked fur coat, I still floated with a good third of my mass out of the water. If I wanted to stay submerged, especially with full lungs, I had to fight to stay under. This was going to be tricky. I needed to be deep enough that when I got to the waterfall, it wouldn’t pound me to death. As I got closer, I not only had to fight my buoyancy but also the current. After a few failed attempts, I got the brilliant idea to swim to the cliff wall where it entered the water, as close to the falls as possible, and simple climb down. It was slow going, and I just about ran out of air, but it worked. When I was far enough in that the current was definitely coming from behind me, and not directly above, I just let go of the rock face and let my buoyancy carry me to the surface. I let out my breath explosively and gasped in a fresh one. I found myself in a natural cavern. I don’t know how deep it was to the floor, I’d not found it during my underwater climb, but the ceiling looked to be just under twenty meters high, and the passage was roughly twelve meters wide. Loud as my breath had been, I was fortunate that the waterfall was so much louder. Directly above me, about two thirds of the way up the walls from the water to the roof of the cavern was a catwalk on either side. A manned guard post was at the end of each. The glow I had seen came from kerosene lamps. Hanging from the ceiling between the catwalks, was a giant steel A-frame wedge on rails. A pair of five meter across water wheels turned swiftly in the falling water. One drove chains that ran back further into the caverns, the other while apparently in neutral seemed to be there to drive gears that would move the wedge into or out of the waterfall. I was also fortunate that it was quite dark down where I was. I silently bit my thumb at the two guards, who were looking a little drunk and quite lazy, and swam further in.
About a hundred meters in, the tunnel widened out into a true cavern. The ceiling was at least thirty meters high, and the chamber was huge. One of the chains from the waterwheels turned a humongous fan. Another led to a heavy looking fly wheel that was in turn hooked up to a number of large power tools in a dry-dock work shop area off to the right as I came in. The whole space was well lit by large kerosene lamps all over the place. Off to my left was the actual dock carved out of the natural rock of the cavern floor. There were five slips, three full. The other two boats were in the dry-dock. Beyond the wharf area a number of stairways and tunnels lead off to other areas. A series of catwalks lead to the dry-dock and the two walks to the guard posts. On shore were maybe a dozen Ratmen in chains, and in the water also in chains were four crocodiles. Other than them, there was no one else in the area. In spite of some water in my ears, I could hear raucous singing not too far off.
One of the crocs spied me. “Hey boys,” it said, “Lunch just showed up.”
“Who you callin’ ‘boy’, boy?” retorted another.
I could somehow tell they were not speaking any human tongue at all, where as the Rat boy had been. I blinked, dumbfounded. I could understand crocks? Sure why not, I told myself, if I can understand wolves.
“Sorry sister,” apologized the first, “Let’s just eat.”
“Uh,” I said to them, “You wouldn’t want to eat me. I’m… all fuzzy.”
The female laughed, “Like we ain’ heard that one befo’e.”
“I like fuzzy,” claimed the third one, “Eet teeckles my tongue.”
“Why don’cha swim a li’l closer?” suggested the first.
I smiled, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” asked the forth, “We ain’t bad folks.”
“I don’t doubt that you are,” I replied, “On full stomachs. Right now however, you all seem a little too hungry to be seriously friendly.” We regarded each other for a moment as I thought about my options. I considered their chains and noticed how deep their collars dug into their necks. I suddenly had an idea. “How long’s it been since ya’ll last saw the suns?” Ick, now I’m starting to really sound like them.
“Ooooh, dee suns,” sighed the third, “Eet has been far too long.”
“Please,” grunted the forth, “Just thinkin’ about ‘em just makes me wanna sing.”
“Oh do not get him started,” snapped the female, “If he sings then they all gonna sing, an’ I’ll get all randy, an’ this is not where I wanna be raisin’ no kids!”
“That and the pink meats on the shore’ll throw rocks at us,” complained the first croc, “or worse.”
I smiled wide, “How ‘bout this. You let me pass, an I’ll toss you some pink meats. Then when you are so full you can’t eat no more, I’ll come back and unlock your chains. Just don’t eat any of the other fuzzies up there. I’m setting them free too.”
They all exchanged an amazed glance.
“DONE!” they said as one.
Thus I passed them without worry. I swam into one of the empty slips. Above me, a Ratman was on his knees scrubbing the deck of the wharf, a collar on his neck hooked to a chain that was bolted to the deck near a straw pallet a few meters away. I kept out of sight in the shadows, but I called up to him, whispering, doing my best to mimic the Ratman dialect.
“Pst! You come from down rivah? You gotta li’l bro, or a son? Dey like to fish onna dock inna eve?
He kept scrubbing, but I saw him glance about with just his eyes. Then he subtly nodded.
“Ok,” I whispered, “Keep it quite, but spread de word, I gonna get ya’ll free.”
We both perked up our ears as we heard the shuffling step of a very drunk pirate.
“Do he got de keys?” I whispered to the Rat at a level I was certain he could hear but the human would not, even if he were sober. The Rat shook his head ‘no’ subtly.
By then, the drunkard was upon us. He couldn’t see me, but when he spied the Ratman, he got a sadistic grin on his face. The Rat looked up at him defiantly as he drew a small dagger. The pirate took the one step closer that I needed. I crept up the stone side of the boat slip, got a good grip on the rock just below the lip, went into a handstand and grabbed him with my toe claws by his ribs. He was so drunk he didn’t even notice, but paused for a moment wondering why he couldn’t move forward. Before he had much more time to think about it I’d yanked him off his feet, swinging him up and over and head first into the stone wall of the slip. A sound like an over ripe coconut being struck with a club was heard. The pirate stopped breathing. I pulled myself up onto the wharf, pulling the dead pirate up with me. The Rat looked up at me a little fearfully. I noticed the pirate was still holding his dagger. Grinning, I pulled it from his dead grip and handed it to the Rat handle first saying, “I really don’t think he’ll need this any more.”
He grinned himself and accepted the knife. I then tossed the pirate into the harbor where the crocs could reach him.
“Hey boys, lunch!” crowed the first croc.
With a laugh, the female shot back, “Who you callin’ ‘boy’!?”
“What a guy,” chuckled the forth, “He even marinated it for us.”
“Ooh, yummy,” said the third.
I won’t bore you with a long tedious blow-by-blow of every pirate I took out. I mean there were around two or three dozen wandering their ant’s nest of a maze. It was fun though. While yes there was a dark little voice deep in the back of my mind disapproving of my taking lives, I had to admit that popping out of shadows, striking from above while clinging to the ceiling, hearing one coming up to a corner and timing it to be there to take them down, all filled me with a dark glee that I could not explain. Mostly I was able to soothe my conscience by telling my self that these were ‘nasty filthy’ pirates who had done much worse to others in the name of fun and profits than what I was doing to them now. The first few I tossed to the crocs, as promised.
Actually, I will sort of tell about the very next one. He must have been the twin brother of that first drunken one. I was headed for the first available passage into their rat’s warren of a home, away from the wharf area, when he came striding out. I did a double take, glanced back in the water, and seeing their different garb realized the truth, just as he saw me.
“Hey!” he shouted, “you’re that bastard beastie from Therym!”
I smiled wide saying, “Yup!” and easy as picking a grapefruit grabbed his head and twisted it 225 degrees around. His neck made a sound not unlike knuckles popping though louder and deeper timber, and his head then flopped down backwards. Although quite dead, somehow he remained standing, so I left him there. A quick search revealed keys. I asked the Rat if these would open his collar. He shrugged, so we tried it, and it worked, so I gave him the key and went my merry way. About ten minutes into my silent rampage, I heard a Gods awful cacophony coming from the mess hall where all the raucous merry making was. I had been pointedly avoiding the area, but a morbid curiosity made me go look. The Ratmen were attacking the drunken men. A few had disarmed some pirates and were using swords or knives, the rest used their own claws and teeth. They out numbered the pirates two to one, and soon had them subdued in a blood bath. I moved on with my own methods.
About an hour later, I found a tunnel that was better lit than the rest and actually guarded. This seemed important. I was clinging to the ceiling, which was high in that tunnel. The side passage was lower, wider, and was a T off the main corridor. Two burly pirates stood to either side of the entrance. I suddenly wished I had a coin or pebble. I’d already taken out a few from above, but they had always been alone. I figured if I had something to toss down the main hall, they’d both look that way and I could come from the other side and take them both out. They were too far apart for me to take out at once. Even though my sword gave me a greater reach, and my reach was already impressive, they were still too far apart. If I had to get them one at a time, the unattacked one would have a chance to make noise. I could hear muttering voices clearly echoing up that passage. If these mooks made so much as an alarmed peep, I’d be found out. I had one idea to go find a long heavy piece of wood, but that would make noise too, and I’d already found out a little earlier that I could not carry too much over my own weight without loosing my gripping ability. The main corridor was too long in either direction from this side passage to make a fast and quick charge.
Finally, I got an idea. It was a little sadistic, and rather risky, but no riskier than any other plan I’d thought of and rejected. I handed my sword to my tail, and crept as silently as I could down the wall, until I was in a crouch right at the edge. I cleared my throat, and they both looked up at me startled, exposing their throats nicely. One swipe of the tail, and they were both gurgling as they went down. Then disaster, my tail lost grip on the sword, and it went clanging to the tunnel floor. In the silence and absence of voices from p the passage, I froze.
“You messin’ around with your stupid sword juggling again Maarach?!” called a voice I did not recognize.
My heart pounding, I attempted a falsetto, hoping that doing so with my unnaturally deep voice would sound human, “Yeah, sorry!”
“Well, knock it off! You’re s’posed to be guarding. I thought you were gonna take care of that cold.”
I almost choked on relieved laughter, and managed to merely grunt out a reply. I waited another few minutes, then dropped to the floor and retrieved my bloody sword. I wiped it on the shirt of one of the dead pirates, and went up the passage. I had to go on all fours in there, the ceiling was too low. It was also nearly pitch black in there with no lamps. After a few meters in, and a bit of consideration, I climbed onto the ceiling and continued on all fours there. I was about half way up the low corridor, when I recognized one of the voices, Saleetch.
Still on the ceiling, I snuck to the end which turned sharply to the right. Well, left if I’d been on the floor. Barely a meter past the turn, the corridor ended in a closed wodden door. Light pour from the cracks between planks of the door and from around the frame.
As I came round the corner, I heard Saleetch saying, “No, I know it’s him. And we’re fresh fewmets if he finds us.”
“How do you know for sure?” asked the voice I’d heard before. “You say your old companion was Human, but we all saw some freakish Anthrofur.”
“Oh it’s him all right. First, he knew my name. Second, when I left him, he was dead and yet growing grey fur.”
The other voice made a sound of disbelief, “How can something be dead and grow fur? Fur that isn’t mold.”
“Magick more than likely,” replied Saleetch, “Skoarge knows we pissed off a few Magi in our time together. Since it is him, whatever his form, we are sitting ducks. He has this over developed sense of honor and a conceited ego. He’ll probably think he lost face in my method of getting him off of me, and he seems to think I abandoned him. I was gonna leave the group soon anyway, cause I couldn’t stand him anymore and the money was lousy.”
“From the way you talk of him, you probably would have left him there to die anyway, after the fight you describe.”
“You got that right.”
I’d heard enough. I dropped to the floor in a crouch , and politely knocked on the door.
“Yes!” called the unknown voice.
“I have a message for you sir,” I said, adopting my quasi falsetto.
“I’m busy.”
“It’s, uh, from the men in the mess hall,” I said, thinking fast, “They say it’s urgent.”
The man swore and sighed, “I knew this day was coming sooner or later.”
“Well, I’ll cover your arse,” I heard Saleetch say. For some unfathomable reason, that surprised me.
The door was opened by the owner of t he unknown voice, and the Captain of the pirates from the look of his attire and the look of command in his eye.
He gaped at me for a moment of shock, and I ran him through before he could react saying, “The message is, ‘they’re all dead’.”
I stepped into the room, the pirate captain still skewered but not yet dead, and shut the door behind me. The livid-yet-astonished look on Saleetch’s face was priceless.
Remembering my ruined paladin garb on the forest floor where I first woke up, I gestured at Saleetch with his dieing-captain-on-a-stick and said, “So you abandoned your fallen comrades to pursue a life of crime huh?”
The captain-kabob’s last living act was to give me an annoyed glare.
The half ‘Kuru spat at me, “Don’t give me any of your haughty speeches. You only ever half believed what you spouted half the time anyway. I knew better.”
I harrumphed at him, “Be that as it may, I am making sure that you and your kind never prowl these waters or harm the innocents living on them again. But first…” I knocked him firmly between the eyes with the heel of my palm. He fell like a sack of grain.
Ten minutes later, I had him under my arm and was walking back out to the under ground harbor. Bodies and parts of bodies floated in the water. The Rats were making the boats ready to sail. I found the first one I’d freed. He still had the keys and gladly gave them to me. I told them to watch over Saleetch while I freed the happily bloated crocs. They swam off giving me the warmest thanks, and that done, I fetched Saleetch and rode with the Rats out of the caves. They had already moved the giant wedge in place, which was neatly parting the waterfall to allow the boats through. I bid farewell to the Rats, and launched myself up with my cargo in hand.
It took a bit of doing, but I managed to flap my way up, up, up to the top of the cliffs forming the grotto. I stood on the edge, and dangled Saleetch at arm’s length by his ankles. I’d stripped him naked, and bound his wrists behind his back with one of his own boot cords. He soon after came around, and soon after noticed where he was. He didn’t look to happy.
“Saleetch,” I said, “I’m going to ask you two questions. First, who did this to me?”
Saleetch sighed, “I have no idea. Of all the Magi we got mad at us, I cannot think of a single one who might have the power to even imagine, whatever you’ve become.”
“Alright, I guess I’ll believe you for now. Second, what is my name?”
He gave me an irritated sneer, “Why do you want to know?”
I snarled, and let my grip on his ankles slip a little, “Just answer the question. Please.”
He snickered, “Fine, you name was kh-!”
I would never know if he was saying the first letter of my name or just making a noise, because the next thing I knew, a crossbow bolt had plunged up out of his neck. I lifted him up, and found the other end of the bolt sticking out of the top of his head. I looked down to see the end of a whip-like tail slipping into the solid cliff face about a sixth of the way down and a crossbow tumbling end over end to the water below. I semi-absently let go of Saleetch, and stood with my fists on my hips, perplexed and annoyed. I knew it was dim that night, with dark Ibiloax only slightly more full than last night, and similarly crescented xxx and xxx only just rising, but I knew there could have been no trick of the light. That tail had slipped into the solid rock.
What do you all think of it so far. Chapter Four is in the rough draft stages now.