Strange company, indeed

Previously: Esmiralda and her companions have discovered that the shattered ship--found upside-down and in the middle of a forest—was once captained by Harfirgorn the Merciless, a pirate of some repute that had long ago vanished. They find an old log book in the captain's quarters and decide to take it into the light, where they hope to discover more clues to his final resting place—and the treasure that he is most likely buried with...


Soon, the fire was doused and we set off to the north, toward the gray misted peaks of Gyst and the hidden dangers that awaited us there. It was a mild day, and the land was still fresh from the previous night's rain. The sky itself had been cleansed free of clouds and songbirds rustled in the leaves above and called out their musical warnings across the canopy.




Merrick took the lead, humming a vaguely familiar tune as he planted a thick branch in the earth in time with every other step. I stayed close behind him, my stomach still churning from my spider-limb breakfast. I smelled Seymuhr directly behind me. Broo Fang, silent as the forest creatures themselves, took up the rear.


The forest was silent, but my mind raced. Imagine: the lost resting place of Harfirgorn the Merciless! It was every Falcuhn's dream to make such a discovery, to record it for all time, to plug a hole in the history of the land or, more importantly, to close the tomb door and lock away a particularly dread evil. It was hard for me to believe that, mere days before, I had been down to my last coin, peddling maps for money to buy bread and ale. Now I was on a quest that could bring fame and, if my life-long luck changed, fortune.


"Do you...think that...this is a vain qu...est?" Broo Fang had appeared beside me so silently that I nearly yelped in surprise. I looked down at his wide, inquisitive eyes and disguised the stutter in my step as a trip over a root.


"I do not know," I answered. "I am hopeful, but it seems odd that someone so careful, plotting and devious as Harfirgorn is reputed to be would leave such a map behind. And his witch? Adalane...?"


He nodded. "I a....gree. Yet it is poss....ib...le that they did not know of....it." His speech was so slow that I was tempted to finish his sentences for him. "Their evil made them arrogant enough to...o...verlook the chance for de....feat."


"True." Then it hit me. I suddenly understood why the monk was such a trained fighter and why I had rarely seen anything but a smile on his face. "You're an Optimist!" I exclaimed.


He bowed slightly, his eyes half closed and his smile growing. He never broke stride.


Indeed, that would explain it, the philosophy and the training went hand in hand. In these troubled times, anyone who traveled the world trying to spread good cheer and sunshine had better be able to defend themselves.


"I had no idea," I murmured. Indeed, I had never seen one. Optimist Monks were as rare in these lands as were the agents of the Ministry of Human Preservation that Merrick belonged to. He had, indeed, put together a strange company. Again, I wondered at the forces that brought me to them.


Was there some higher purpose at work? If so, should I follow, or leave as soon as I was able?


"I know of no....other way," Tane said quietly.


"How did you come to, er, take up the robe?" I wasn't sure how to ask the question.


"It is the only 'robe' I've known," he said. "I was aban...doned as a small child. The priests at the Temple of...the...Sun told me they found me one day, squealing and red....faced with fistfuls of my mo....ther's hair. That...is...all."


I was silent. I could envision the scene and the thought behind it. A harried young woman, unable to deal with an enraged infant. I guessed that the monks at the Sun Temple saw something in that yowling babe that his own mother could not. Whatever the reason, it was understandable that Broo Fang Tane would cling to their doctrine of hope despite daily evidence to the contrary.


"Well," I said, a bit awkward. "I am glad they brought you in."


He smiled again, pressed his palms together and bowed. We walked on.

The Wet God's Directive

Previously: Esmiralda and her companions have discovered that the shattered ship--found upside-down and in the middle of a forest—was once captained by Harfirgorn the Merciless, a pirate of some repute that had long ago vanished. They find an old log book in the captain's quarters and decide to take it into the light, where they hope to discover more clues to his final resting place—and the treasure that he is most likely buried with...


I tried to focus on the book spread across the large rock in front of me. Seymurh continued to be a distraction, tearing into the roasted spiders with a childish abandon. I cringed at every pop of scorched flesh, slurp of leaking juices and belch of intestinal protest.


Merrick leaned in, a curled spider limb protruding from the corner of his mouth like a pipe. He chewed on it noisily.


"'North to the hills' is a vague direction," he said. He wiped a smear of gray ichor from the side of his mouth and licked the spider juice off his fingers. My stomach protested. I was hungry and disgusted at the same time.


"True. And any path they may have followed has long since been swallowed by the forest," I said.


"Path?" Seymurh approached, another curled spider leg in his grimy hand. "If you ask me, all of this is a waste of time. There's no way of knowing how long this wreck has been here. This is a legend now, not a danger."


"It could be," Merrick acknowledged. "But it has been my experience that evil does not fade on its own."


Seymuhr belched and snorted.


I turned away, looking to the north and the mountains that rose above the treetops. Their peaks were shrouded in mist, their slopes scattered with brush. It would take a lifetime to search them--even if we knew what we were looking for. Still, Merrick's words rang true. I envisioned some ancient, hateful thing growing beneath the surface of those majestic peaks and shuddered.


"There are towns up that way," I suggested. "We may find some clues along the way. A library or temple, perhaps, that would hold some record of their passing."


"Are you...sure you are not hun...gry?" Broo Fang held up a twisted spider the size of a small dog. The fire had not burned all of the fuzz from its legs and he absently plucked the hairs with his other hand. "We have pl...enty, and can always get.....................more."


"I ate some leaves earlier. I'm not really hungry."


He shrugged. "The taste is not so bad, a bit like pick......led beets."


"Thank you for the insight, but not right now."


"They are....bet....ter when they're warm," he added, wiggling the dead thing slightly.


"I can only imagine."


He shrugged and buried his face in the belly of the thing and I turned away from the dreadful crunch of charred, breaking skin.


"We should strike north then," Merrick said. He held up a hairless spider leg and I took it, reluctant but grateful. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad with the spines removed. "I have a feeling that we working toward a higher purpose here. Perhaps Sluth, in his rage, tossed this vessel too far from his own domain to exact his own vengeance. He had to wait for someone to carry it out."


I was skeptical. I looked at Broo Fang, slight and quiet, Seymuhr prodigious in strength, no doubt, but of questionable mind. Merrick seemed the only one with a proper head on his shoulders, but he was no fighter. If the Wet God Sluth was waiting for the likes of us the world was in greater peril than anyone thought.

Chickens of the web

Previously: Mira and her companions have stumbled on a shipwreck in the middle of a forest and discovered that it once belonged to the infamous pirate Harfigorn the Merciless and his pet ship witch Athelane. They are intent on finding the final resting place of the old marauder but first, they want a little breakfast...

Broo Fang Tane wore a pleased expression that I certainly did not share.

"We won't have to tra...vel on empty...stomachs," he said, embracing a wriggling hairy mass--or masses.

"Perhaps you won't," I responded. My gut clenched at the site of the fuzzy things straining in his embrace. Spiders. Big ones, too, with long, jointed limbs that pressed against Tane's chest in an attempt to dislodge them from his grasp. Curved teeth snapped together as they strained toward his flesh.

"There are plenty more where these...came from," he said.* He tossed them on the ground near Seymuhr's feet. One of them was dazed and didn't move right away. The other quickly righted itself and reared back on four of its legs. Two front digits curled and the thing tensed, ready to pounce. It was the size of a large cat or small dog, the limbs nearly as thick as Tane's slender arms. Seymuhr grasped one of them, pulled it toward him, and clouted it between its many eyes. Meanwhile, Tane had kicked the other and set about spearing it lengthwise with a sharp stick. Gray fluid oozed around the branch as the spider squealed in its death agony.

"I'll stoke up the fire," Seymurh said, licking his lips and rubbing his palms together rapidly.

"I think two will be sufficient," I said. I leaned against a tree, trying to keep my stomach from betraying me. "I'm not overly hungry."

"I don't believe you," Seymuhr said. "You look like you've never missed a meal in your life."

"There is always a first time then, eh?" I shot back.

Soon, the fire was crackling with the juices that seeped from the shrinking spider carcasses that Tane rotated above it. Seymuhr was enjoying my discomfort. He leaned in and broke off a spider leg--evoking a fresh hiss of steam and another foul odor--and bit into the end. The skin crackled hideously and the gray juice leaked down the corner of his mouth.

"Not quite ready," he said with a grin. "Too bad we don't have any salt..."

"Or anything different to eat," I mumbled. Then, I turned to Tane: "Are you sure you couldn't find a rabbit or a squirrel or anything?"

He merely shook his head and shrugged with his palms facing up.

"Well, we might as well have a look at this while we wait," Merrick said. He sat on a stump and opened the tome we had found in Harfigorn's chambers. "We shouldn't tarry here over long. The smell of roasting meat is liable to bring some curious predators this way."

"I wouldn't worry about that," I said, then sat down beside him...

Next: Into the hills

*Indeed, there was no need to worry about that. Spiders were so prevalent in Teg that those with the stomach for them never had reason to fear going hungry. They were, in the many places in our land where poverty was the norm, referred to as 'chickens of the web.'

The wet god's bastard

Previously: Esmiralda and her companions (the brutish Seymuhr, the quiet and slow speaking Broo Fang Tane and the intellectual Merrick) have stumbled upon a decaying shipwreck in the heart of a forest far from any major source of water. After investigating the shattered hull, they believe they have discovered the identity of its captain: Harfigorn the Merciless, a pirate who terrorized the seas in a near-forgotten age….

 

“The name means something to you?” Merrick asked.

“Aye, it does.” I was surprised it did not strike any chords with him. Harfigorn was no simple fisherman or petty plunderer. He was a savage who, at the height of his reign over the low seas, commanded a bounty that would have bought a kingdom. “You are unfamiliar with his tale?”

Merrick’s silence answered that question for me. Seymuhr was still poking around in the debris so I spoke loud enough for both to hear. My heart was tingling with excitement. Harfigorn’s misfortune might well lead to my own good fortune: Queen Phedera would pay any falcuhn his or her weight in gold to learn the final chapter in that vicious bastard’s tale. There was the possibility of other treasure involved, too, for the pirate had been a successful and wealthy one.

“It is not surprising,” I said to ease his discomfort. “He lived at a time before even your own grandfather was born and his exploits—though vast and legendary—were hardly the type that would come to the attention of your…agency.” Merrick was a member of the Ministry of Human Preservation, charged with stamping out threats and evils brought about by the otherworldly forces that continually sought to reclaim control of the world.

“His real name was Harvey and little is known of his origins. Some said he was a northman who tired of the plow and soil and sought adventure and riches. Others said he hailed from a land beyond even the Middle Seas. A few thought he was a demon, loosed—or birthed—by the Wet God Sluth to wreak vengeance on the little men who dared tickle his waters.

“He and his crew terrorized the Low Seas for decades, killing all who crossed their path and stealing everything they could. Navies sought him and kings and duke alike hired mercenary after mercenary to track him down and bring them his head. None were successful; I always thought those who were recruited to find him found more in common with Harfigorn than their benefactors and merely stayed on with his ship. There was also rumors, of course, that he was protected by black magic. There might have been truth to that. Accounts from those who encountered him are few, but those that exist agree that he held among his companions a witch of sorts, a vile thing named Athelane whose beauty and knowledge of the dark arts were enough to make even the most powerful of the Maedrum tremble.”

“Harvey?” Seymuhr interrupted. He was sucking on the old coins he had discovered, apparently trying to determine what they were made of.

“Indeed.”

“Is there no guess as to what became of him?” Merrick wanted to know.

“Not until now,” I said. “It was always thought that he had grown tired of the waves and simply gone off somewhere to enjoy his wealth—or he returned to the lands on the far side of the Middle Sea. It was not uncommon then, nor is it now, for a pirate to simply turn over his vessel, or sink it on his own.”

Merrick looked at the gathered parchment in my hands and nodded, a hand stroking his beard. “Athelane,” he mused. “A witch? Not a member of the Maedrum?”

I shrugged. “A ship witch, at the least.”

“Do you think this log was written by this Harfigorn, himself?”

I shook my head. “It is possible, I guess, but unlikely. I would think he employed a mate, or a bard of some type to record his thoughts. Perhaps even this Athelane performed that task. She must have been educated.”

“This deserves more study,” Merrick said. “Come, let us leave this dank chamber and look through this document in the full light of day. I would feel the sun on my shoulders if I have to read about these dark deeds. But, if this contains even a hint of his final destination…”

I nodded in agreement. “…we should take up the trail and follow it to its end, or as near to it as we can.”

Next: In the footsteps of the marauder

The last port of the forgotten pirate

Previously: Freelance Historian Esmeralda and her companions have stumbled upon a shipwreck in the middle of a forest--far from any large body of water. While investigating it, Seymurh--called Skullsquasher by some--acted as a human battering ram to access the captain's long-sealed chambers...

"Like I said: crude but effective," said Merrick when he joined me in the chamber.

"Indeed." My voice was muffled by my sleeve. The chamber was rank with the smell of decay and our entrance had stirred up the dust of untold years. It felt like I had sand in my nose and throat. It was black as pitch--no light penetrated anywhere--and my eyes could not adjust to the inky darkness. Merrick's soft voice was to my right and immediately behind me and I heard Seymurh's rasp somewhere across what I assumed to be a relatively small chamber. "I think it would be safe to light a torch. Do you have one?"

"I can see well enough," Seymurh answered.

"Not exactly," Merrick said. "Although I can be of some assistance." He mumbled a few words that sent a queer shiver across my back, like someone had tickled it with a feather. I heard a soft pop and a low hiss and gradually, the room came into focus, lit by a dim, steady globe that rolled around on the top of his staff.

I nearly gaped at him. Was he a member of the Maedrum? He hadn't mentioned it yet--not that we had had a whole lot of time to share our stories. Evidently, he thought sharing the fact that he served on the Ministry of Human Preservation to be a safer secret to share than his knowledge of the Wild Arts. Interesting.

"Well, that helps." I let the other questions go unasked, for now. I was familiar with the existence of the Maedrum but had never met any that counted themselves among that group (although several claimed falsely to be). Magic was not as prevalent now as it had once been, but there were still some who practiced it and uncounted powerful trinkets left behind by their sect. I was in possession of one, a Traveling Stone, but was loathe to use it because I did not know how long its energy would last. I didn't want to find an inert piece of red rock around my neck when I needed it most. Merrick's staff could have been something of the like; the energy could have been contained in it and not his mind. Still, it was worth investigating later.

Now, I turned my attention to the chamber, such as it was. The violence that had wrested the ship from its native environment and deposited it in this forest left its mark inside it, as well. Nothing stood recognizable as any type of furniture--wood was scatter about splintered and formless. There were a full dull metal cups and rotting debris left indistinguishable by age. Tubes of thick wax lay against one wall where remnants of some type of work station still existed. A desk, perhaps. It was near that that Seymurh stood, probing the bones of man. Nearby was a fractured wooden heap that might have once been a chest of some sort. The dead captain's personal effects? Certainly possible.

"Pretty," Seymurh said, pulling a jewel-encrusted saber from the human wreckage. The blade looked sharp still, although flecked with the passage of time. Seymurh held the jeweled hilt close to his eyes and poked at the red and green stones with a thick finger. "But not very heavy. An artisan's blade, but practical enough if he knew how to fight with it."

Merrick was going through the scrolls that had somehow survived, holding his wavering light up to the mildewed parchment and mouthing what word he recognized. I turned my attention to the trunk, for that's what that heap of wood turned out to be. It's solid construction allowed it to survive the bizarre journey better than anything else we had seen so far, although the brass hinges were torn and bent. I pulled away the soft wood and disturbed a colony of wriggling insects longer than my finger, nearly as thick as a branch and with more legs than I cared to count. A small hill of brownish coins caught the flickering light and I bent to pick up a medallion that was square in shape with an empty round indentation at its center. Touching it made the tips of my fingers pulse with a not entirely unpleasant sensation.

"Here's a name," Merrick said. "I think." He bent in closer, rubbing his eyes. "Hangore? Hanford? No, that's not quite it. Harfigorn. It looks like Harfigorn. Does that mean anything to you?"

The medallion was immediately forgotten. I ignored Seymurh, who was busy sifting through the coins. "Harfigorn? Are you sure?" I crossed the chamber and peered at the parchment. The ink was faded in spots and distorted by moisture in others but I had to agree with Merrick's translation.

"Bones of Barnok," I breathed. Suddenly, the chamber did not seem so stifling. It seemed cold and damp, indeed, and I felt a sense of dread grow in my belly. "Have we found the final resting place of Harfigorn, the Merciless?"

Up next: Yes. Yes they have.

Beyond the deeper shadow

Previously: Mira and her companions have found an ancient shipwreck in the middle of a forest and are looking for clues about its crew, destination and cargo...


Once again, I stepped into the gloom. This time, my heart buzzed not in fear and fatigue, but in anticipation of untold wonders, a mystery to be unraveled and, I hoped, a pouch full of coins. I was already crafting the history of this vessel in my head, trying to call up images of the bizarre events that brought it to this forsaken place.

Now that we knew it was a ship, it was a wonder that we had mistaken it for anything else. What we had taken for a roof was actually the deck, splintered in places but with a single rectangle near its center. What I had assumed was a hanging piece of broken beam was, in fact, the door. A deepening shadow above it was mostly likely the hold, or perhaps a narrow passageway that led to the crew's quarters.

Merrick had made the same observation and probed the ceiling/deck cautiously with the tip of his sword. I cringed at first, for if the wood was indeed rotten and anything remained in the hold, it would not take much pressure to cause it to come crashing down on us. What a sad, sorry end that would be--to escape a pair of rampaging giants only to fall victim to some lost pirate's effects. But the wood sounded solid and, indeed, it held up.

If that was the deck and hold, it stood to reason that the back wall was not a wall at all, but the exterior of the captain's quarters. There should be some other kind of door, there, and perhaps a short ladder that led to an observation platform that had somehow been jammed so savagely against the earth it must have shattered or split the ground. The wall was buckled and a few quick taps proved that it was hollow. How quickly my assumptions melted away!

Merrick was beside me now, sweat gleaming on his skin and a wild look in his eyes. He ran his hands over the uneven surface, cursing and sucking on a finger when it pulled up a splinter. I pushed against the wood and although it was bent and buckled it was solid enough. There was no opening large enough to squeeze through and only a few cracks to press an eye to. It was too dark to see anything inside, so I guess that chamber had not been exposed to sunlight in the long years since it was tossed to this final resting place.

"Move aside." Seymuhr's rough voice was in my ear, his rank breath in my nostrils. I waved both away.

"Mind your manners, you smelly brute," I snapped.

He ignored me. Seymurh wiggled his fingers into one of the crevices, then squeezed in his other hand so that one was on top of the other in that narrow opening. He lowered himself slightly, set his knees and pulled with a single grunt. The wood snapped and came free, revealing a whole the size of a large melon. He put a hand on either side and broke more wood off, as easily as if he were stripping dry bark from a dead tree, got a shoulder through and then pushed his way into the darkness.

"Like a battering ram," Merrick said, an admiring smile on his face.

"But not as smart," I added, then called: "Be careful, you oaf! We don't know how stable that is."

We waited, but heard no alarming sound of rending wood or straining beam. The ship, smashed as it was, seemed stable enough. I looked at Merrick and he at me. We nodded simultaneously and, one after the other, stepped inside the chamber.

NEXT: The last port of Harfigore the Merciless

An errant course

Previously: Esmiralda, a freelance historian, has recently been recruited to the Ministry of Human Preservation. She and her new companions have stumbled upon a new mystery...

A ship decaying in the middle of the forest with no bodies nearby and no recognizable insignia to point toward its port of origin. I considered this.

"If they had met some misfortune, there would still be signs nearby," I said. "Bones, weapons, something of the like. I think we can assume that whoever helmed this craft survived this bizarre landing and wandered off—or perhaps they had some destination in mind and fell short."

"They could have been abducted by the giants," Merrick guessed, referencing our recent encounter.

"I don't think so. This ship has been here for some years. We can assume that that evil plot did not have that much history."

"Course," Seymuhr grunted. "Because you would have known of it."

I glared at him, but nodded. I feared he would pounce on every occasion to attack my knowledge of the land and its history—knowledge forged by walking throughout the countries for decades and reading about their histories for just as long.

"Is there a task that you might find more productive than goading me into a shouting match?" I asked him. "If so, you don't need my permission to start it."

He chuckled, probing the space between his teeth with his tongue. "I'm going to find something to eat."

"Perfect."

Merrick had approached me. He hiked his trousers up around his thick middle and watched Seymuhr's broad form disappear into the forest. "Don't worry. He can take care of himself."

"Oh. I'm not worried."

"If this craft indeed belongs to the Free Sailors, might you know any tales of ships they lost?"

Free Sailors. An interesting word choice. It meant Merrick was mostly like from Gole, a southern land that had coined the phrase because their duke, Surval Gruddun, had flat out denied that there was a problem with pirates raiding the shores of his land. He was an idiot, of course, like many rulers, and preferred to keep his treasuries filled with trinkets rather than empty it on a navy.

"The word is 'pirates'," I reminded him, "and yes we agree on that. There are many tales of pirates lost at sea—tis the nature of the life they choose—but few of them are recorded. Pirates aren't known for their written histories. Those that I have seen are difficult to read."

"Why is...that?" Broo Fang Tane had been listening to the conversation.

"Too many 'Arrrrs'," I answered, smiling at my own joke.

Merrick didn't even smile. "Perhaps. It would be unlikely to find one that referenced this vessel in particular, anyway. It is doubtful that any of its crew—or prisoners, I would add—would return to a Temple of Knowledge to record the voyage. Still, would the captain not keep a log for his own reference? Or, perhaps some other document, like a..."

"...a map," I finished with him. It was entirely possible. We all, in some form or another, wanted to be remembered. Pirate captains were as prideful as they were merciless and historians—or bards, or whatever label you put on someone who liked to tell stories—were always in need of coin. A map would not only provide detail to some of the voyages, but could also lead the way to a lair, where the spoils of their victories could be hidden. I was suddenly certain of it. "Indeed, it is likely. Let's take a closer look."