Greatshadow (21 page)

“Or we could just kill Stallion and his crew,” said Menagerie. “We’ll be glad to do it for no charge, as long as we don’t have to split the bounty for his head with you.”

While Tower pondered this offer, I drifted back down toward the cave. The
Seahorse
was moving toward the entrance at a speed that no sane sailor would risk. But then, Captain Stallion wasn’t known for being timid. I passed Infidel and Aurora on the way down. They were climbing the cliffs, lugging large bales of gear from ledge to ledge. Relic was nowhere to be seen. I slipped back into the cave just as the
Seahorse
reached the mouth. Numinous, Ivory Blade, and the Whisper were still inside. The
Seahorse
carried at least fifty men, battle-hardened cut-throats who would give even the Goons a run for their money. Whatever Tower decided, I hope he decided it fast.

Within the cave, Ivory Blade stood on the shore, watching the pirates set anchor in the cove. Numinous came out of the sole tent remaining in the camp. A handful of glorystone lanterns were still scattered about the place. It took the pirates all of ten seconds to notice the precious rocks. The
Seahorse
leaned starboard as the entire crew rushed to the rails to look at the glowing gems.

Captain Stallion leapt from the deck, his pirate hat flying off as he sailed across the water to land in the shallows, splashing onto the shore with a few more jumps. He had a saber drawn as he eyed Ivory Blade.

“Well, well, well!” Stallion shouted. “Look who we have here! Mister Ivory Blade! The deal-breaking, cowardly dog who I swore would walk the plank if ever we met again!”

“Didn’t know you were the type to hold a grudge, Stallion,” said Blade.

A dozen men jumped from the ship, swimming ashore quickly, blades in their teeth, to stand beside their captain. Stallion said, “A grudge?” as he pranced closer to the albino. His donkey body left him a little taller. While Blade was a figure of composure, every hair in place, Stallion looked as if he’d gone feral. His long hair was tangled and matted around his sunburnt face. His clothing was half rotten on his back. “A grudge is a small thing, Mr. Blade. A grudge is like weak beer. My feelings for you have been distilled ten times into a brew of pure 200-proof hatred. Whatever happens from this day forward, I’ll die a happy man to have finally learned if your entrails are the same spook-white as the rest of your unholy flesh.”

“Don’t make any hasty decisions until you hear what I have to say,” said Blade.

“I’ll not be listening to your lying tongue ever again!” cried Stallion. He turned to his men, and cried, “Kill him!”

And in the blink of an eye, the dozen men that surrounded him fell to the ground, grasping their slit throats, as the silhouetted form of the Whisper danced silently through their midst. She ended her dance by slicing up with her sword and chopping Stallion’s blade in twain four inches above the hilt. The impact made no sound; what was her sword made of?

Stallion frowned as he looked at his abbreviated weapon. He glanced around at the dying men surrounding him. Then, he grinned broadly. “Blade! Old friend! Can’t you recognize a little joke?”

“Only when dead pirates are the punchline,” said Blade, still with his arms crossed. “Shall we discuss business now?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I would like to hire you as a shuttle service. We have a boy here who is far from home. You can return him to the Silver City.”

“Ah,” said Stallion. “That could be a problem. A man such as yourself has perhaps heard of the small matter that your own king has placed a sizable price on my head?”

“Among other body parts,” said Blade. “Which is why, as payment for your services, King Brightmoon himself shall grant a pardon for your crimes. I can give you a letter of safe passage that all members of his navy will respect.”

“His pardon would carry no weight with the Wanderers. Or the Stormguard, for that matter.”

“No. But it will open an entire archipelago of ports where you could legally dock. Any number of towns where you could trot the streets a free man. And, the king recently lost several ships. Perhaps he’d find a position for you and the
Seahorse
in his navy.”

“I seem to recall similar promises being made five years ago, when I handled the small matter of bringing you the Book of the Abyss.”

“If it had been the genuine article, and not a blatant forgery, all promises would have been kept.”

Stallion ran a hand along his tangled mane. “Aye, it was a piss-poor forgery. I knew you’d discover it sooner or later.”

“It was sooner,” said Blade.

Stallion chuckled. “This boy must be precious to you, that he’d bring a king’s pardon.”

“Indeed. And if a person of a mercenary nature were to try to hold the boy against his will and seek a ransom, I can give you my solemn vow that his corpse would be rendered into glue.”

“I’m sure you would. Fortunately, I can’t imagine a person of a mercenary nature wanting a treasure greater than the king’s pardon... especially if these glorystones are thrown into the agreement.”

Blade shrugged. “Why not? We were leaving them behind anyway.”

“Very well, sir. We have a deal.”

The albino and the pseudo-centaur sealed their verbal contract with a handshake.

Blade said, “I was certain you were still a reasonable man, despite the haircut.”

“Aye,” said Stallion. “It’s been many years since I’ve been able to dock in a port with a barber I’d trust with a razor.”

“A shave and a haircut will make you feel like a new man,” said Blade. He glanced back over his shoulder and shouted, “Numinous.”

Numinous was already standing behind him.

“I’ve heard every word of this transaction,” he said. “I approve. The thought of waiting endless weeks in this cave in solitude held little appeal to me.”

“He’s got a busted arm,” said Stallion, studying Numinous. “Is there a bonus for being a floating hospital?”

“The bonus is that if you stop trying to haggle on an already closed deal, I won’t sever your testicles and hang them from your earrings.”

“That is an excellent bonus,” said Stallion, nodding.

Later, after the letter of safe passage had been written, Blade left the pirate cave, following the same path that Aurora and Infidel had taken. Tower met him at the first ledge.

“I was waiting in the shaft the whole time, listening,” said the knight, carrying them skyward. “It seemed as if you had the situation in hand. But, are you certain you can trust him with Numinous?”

“Stallion wants that pardon. He wanted it five years ago. Other pirates can slip into towns in disguise from time to time to spend their ill-gotten gains. Stallion doesn’t have that option. He’s got to be the most recognizable pirate in the world. Just as I’m probably the most recognizable secret agent in the world. We understand each other.”

The reached the top of the cliff. Blade sat down on a rock and the Whisper slipped behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Tower hadn’t carried her up. Could she fly? Or was she just as fast at climbing as she was at cutting throats?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE IMAGINED IS TRUE

T
OWER HADN’T BEEN
joking about using the War Doll as a mule. After the gear was all brought up from the camp, they began to test how much weight she could carry, piling more and more tents, rations, and tools upon her shoulders until the mound was almost comical. Infidel bore it all with mechanical stoicism. After a certain point, the roped-together pile on her shoulders was so large it risked getting tangled by branches as they walked, so they gave the rest of the gear to Aurora before reaching the limits of the War Doll’s strength. I wasn’t surprised. Infidel was probably strong enough to carry all the gear and the rest of the party as well, along with an actual mule if we’d had one.

Of course, pack animals were out of the question. The part of Greatshadow that was still a big hungry lizard had a taste for livestock. Paintings and sculpture from the Vanished Kingdom showed that cows, horses, and oxen had once had a home here. After Greatshadow rose to power, he stripped the land of any mammals larger than pygmies. It’s rumored that the pygmies’ bitter dyes protect them; more likely, Greatshadow doesn’t hunt pygmies for the same reason that men don’t hunt mice. The meat you get isn’t worth the effort.

I floated next to Relic as we set off into the jungle. I said, “The Black Swan was a bit off. She said a dozen adventurers would join the hunt for Greatshadow. With Numinous down, there’s only eleven.”

Perhaps she’s counting you,
said Relic.

“Was she? She can see me?”

Relic shrugged.
I could read her thoughts before she became undead. Now, her thoughts are lost to me.

“Eleven against Greatshadow doesn’t seem like good odds,” I said.

The king has chosen quality over quantity. As to whether the king has chosen well, we shall see.

Progress up the slopes was frustratingly slow. The terrain was steep and rugged, dotted with boulders as big as houses all tangled with tenacious vines. No-Face was armed with a machete and turned loose on the foliage, but we still barely covered a mile by mid-day. Despite the thick canopy above us, the sun directly overhead soon raised the temperature from sweltering to unbearable. As we paused for No-Face to chop away a particularly nasty tangle, Father Ver leaned wearily against a tree, looking pale. His heavy clerical robes were better suited to a chilly mountain monastery than the tropics. Aurora, taking pity, approached him. She cupped her oversize hands and, within seconds, crafted a bowl of ice, filled to the rim with cool water drawn from the soggy air.

“Have a drink,” she said.

Father Ver wrinkled his nose at the offering. “I must decline,” he said. “I’m certain you mean well, but it would be a sin to drink water created by your pagan magic.”

“I didn’t create the water. I just gathered it. But, suit yourself.” She turned around, only to find Reeker standing just behind her. He took the cup from her hands without asking and gulped it, rivulets running down his chest.

I didn’t notice if Aurora took offense at this because from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the Whisper giving a canteen to Ivory Blade. As Blade drank the water, the Whisper unbuttoned the top few clasps of his armor and folded back a flap of white leather to expose the skin around his collarbones. Then, in a move that probably warmed him rather than cooled him, she leaned her invisible face to his chest and began to lick at his sweat. I looked around, feeling squeamish about witnessing such an intimate act.

After a few more hours of hacking, we eventually made it through the worst of the vines into the denser jungle beyond. It’s counterintuitive, but the deeper you go into a jungle, the easier the going becomes. The canopy above is so thick with plants growing on other plants that most of the available sunlight gets captured long before it reaches the ground, creating a semi-permanent twilight in which only a few hardy, broad-leafed plants grow. You might expect the ground to be covered by fallen leaves and branches, but the soil is constantly scoured by ants and beetles that make short work of anything that hits the jungle floor.

With most of the machete work behind us, Menagerie took the lead, scouting ahead of the party as a panther. Ivory Blade and the Whisper followed, then Lord Tower, Father Ver, and No-Face. No-Face, when not on machete duty, was assigned as Father Ver’s bodyguard. Despite his deformity, No-Face wasn’t a half-seed, nor did he openly dabble in blood magic. Apparently, this made him acceptable to walk within an arm’s length of the holy man.

Reeker and Zetetic were next. Reeker was the Deceiver’s bodyguard, or perhaps just his guard, period, since he had orders from Lord Tower to give the Deceiver a snoot full of skunk juice at the first sign of anything suspicious. I had to wonder why the Deceiver was part of this team, if he couldn’t be trusted.

Relic took my private musings and turned them into a prompt for a telepathic exposition.

The Deceiver is immensely powerful. He is the master of falsehoods, and the things that are false in this world far outnumber the things that are true. Zetetic may be the greatest threat Greatshadow faces, assuming he can find the courage to stand up to the dragon. He’s definitely not undertaking this quest out of choice.

“How can you know that?” I asked. “I thought you couldn’t read his mind.”

His mind is labyrinth of hallucination that protects his innermost thoughts, but I am slowly navigating that
labyrinth. I’ve learned that he blames his presence here on the Black Swan. She paid a substantial fee to persuade King Brightmoon of the importance of including him.

I scratched my ghostly scalp as I contemplated this. It was difficult to wrap my head around the idea that the Black Swan had already witnessed the next twenty years. I wondered what else she’d changed on this mission, beside including Zetetic and Aurora? I glanced back at the ogress, who was bringing up the rear along with Infidel. One thing conspicuously absent from the mountains of gear upon their backs was a harpoon. From the way Aurora had described it, the shaft of the harpoon was over fifteen feet long. It plainly wasn’t with the gear, and Tower wasn’t carrying it either. Could it have been broken down into something smaller?