Fog climbed past the sun and erased the white height of Mount Spinimoi from the horizon. With nothing to reckon on, the posse drew close to the rising coast and rowed in slow silence.
Soon, they could scarcely see the shore. Beyond the beach, the dunes were crested with patches of sour-figs that sprawled in the shadow of storm-broken canes.
Sters worked his oar and schemed in the space between each stroke. Beneath his stony surface, Sters was forever figuring. The others thought him simple; he was happy to let them continue. He’d lived an uncommonly long life for a Tinkertonite.
Some was strength, much was luck, but mostly it was a matter of hard-learned habits. Foremost among them, plan for failure. When this fool’s errand inevitably fell apart, Sters intended to escape intact.
Fatigue set in. Mist blurred the land’s edge, and the stretches of sand all seemed the same. Loudmouth Revel wondered aloud if perhaps they’d gotten turned around toward town. El Sha La whispered some slithery words and insisted they were still westbound.
Sters the Hook suspected the sorceress only guessed. He kept his trap shut, lest he trigger the others into talk. Since they burned Kermit with the bunk gold, the conversation on the canoe had sputtered to nothing.
The sullen silence suited Sters just fine, for the bickering, blather, and ceaseless chatter wore on him more than scudding his oar. Now that the shants had finally shut up, Sters could focus his attention on the strange noises from the shore. Noises he’d never heard before.
By a trick of the mist, the sounds of the swamp seemed to bound all around them. Sters could mark the fiddle of canehoppers, the croak of low toads, the high cries of osprey. The farther they got from Lhaz, the more he heard, a grand confusion of grunting, rooting, screeching, and hooting.
Spellbound, Sters squinted at the mist and wished he could see those beasts. He’d have liked nothing better than to spend the day wading through that bog and putting names to the strange menagerie. The fog only thickened. Sters’ regret grew, stroke by stroke.
The posse was now some twenty leagues past everyone and everything he knew. Born on the boards, Sters had spent his entire life in Tinkerton and never wanted more. The other delinquents despaired of the fish-reeking streets, of the backstabbing, bloodshed, debt, and despair that defined the docks.
When they came of age, they tripped over each other in their hast to oaths and sign rosters, anything to escape the stinking slums.
Not Sters. The Hook remained in Tinkerton, to wait and see what became of the adventurous ones. As the years rolled on, word came back. Such-and-such was swallowed by a storm, whereabouts unknown. So-and-so was slain fighting over some godforsaken stretch of soil at the behest of some so-called sovereign.
A few managed to return, but they were always worse than before. Poxed skin, missing limbs, eyes filmed with sights they could never unsee. The home-comers fell back on old habits. One by one, the city swallowed them.
As his peers piddled away chasing pipe dreams, Sters got stronger. With considerable brawn and uncommon viciousness, he carved himself a hook-shaped nook into the underbelly of Lhaz. Sters never stole enough to gain the notice of those above, nor lost enough to seem worth it to the wretches below. He never wanted for wine, nor women.
Allies and accomplices were always close at hand, for Sters the Hook was known. There was a long trail of broken men to attest to his efficacy. After all that, he’d somehow fallen into the same trap.
What was he here? Sters squinted into the distance, sure this was no place for him. Those twisted trees were unmoved by his dark deeds, the swamp birds could care less for his prowess. His name had no weight here. The shants didn’t know, and Hat was too caned to explain.
Worse, Sters was only half-sure he could take on nobleman hand to hand. He took Revel’s measure as they rowed. Though the noble was half-a-head shorter, Revel was nearly as strong as Sters. Fish had always said his pupil wasn’t worth a peasant’s piss, but Revel had won the barfight handily. There was a twinge in Sters’ shoulder as he remembered how he’d bitten on the bluff. Have to watch that.
The real danger was Arath’s daughter. El Sha La was just as canny as the duke’s son was daft. She was smart enough to split the watch and careful to keep the cane on her person. The witch expected betrayal. Surely, she had something up her sleeve for Sters.
Sweat dripped from his brow as he mulled it over. By the time they stopped rowing, he’d be too spent for any sort of skullduggery. To have any hope, he’d have to get the drop on both. That meant he needed Yellowhat on his side. But the bard was bent on his bloody cane.
Already, he peppered El Sha La with requests for an early puff. She knew better than to give it to him. Each smoke would speed the need for the next. She intended to hold out until they stopped for the night. Hat was already half-frantic. If Sters waited until he was full-on fiend, he’d be so much more amenable to a little bit of mutiny.
What if I win?
Two dead nobles were only the start to his troubles. Too many men had seen Sters and Yellowhat in El Sha La’s company. Giddy Jay and his dockhands knew better than to inform on Sters. Kermit was crazy. Who know what he might say? Sters would have to silence him, but it was terrible luck to murder a madman.
Then, Sters realized Revel had talked with Red Rondie. Rondie ran at the mouth incessantly, and Revel never shut up. There was a sizable chance he’d mentioned Sters. Worse, there was zero chance the mendacious merchant could resist bragging about swindling the duke’s stupid son with that make-believe map. By now, the tale was all over the docks.
He could never go home again.
Sters swallowed and spat over the side. Disgraced or not, a dead duke’s son would raise a hell of a stink. He’d have to ride out his years in Wyrth or Tck’Hurr, someplace where the Ramos name was hated. Bounty hunters would come, though Sters could handle those. But Revel wasn’t even half the problem. Where the hell could he hide from an archmage?
Nowhere upon the Arc.
He’d have to make their deaths look like an accident, somehow, or rig it so their remains were never found. Better a dozen deaths at the hands of the duke’s assassins than to cross Arath the Unraveller.
As his worries mounted, the land rose with them. The dunes rolled into high hills that stretched into white walls of lake-eaten lime. This was the Coast of Groans. Waves gurgled and gulped from the mouth of a thousand littoral caves.
Sters set aside his schemes and shook himself alert. The coast was a perfect place for an ambush. If Fish figured on being followed and staked out some high place with a bow, someone would surely die. A metallic taste rose in Sters’ mouth at the thought. He resolved to heave himself overboard the moment he heard a bowstring twang. Better a swim than a shot.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Sters peered over the side to plot his escape and reeled with vertigo. The water was clear as the air, and he could all the way to the bottom. His oar shook in his hands. Sters hated heights.
It felt like the boat might break through like a sheet of glass and crash on the rocks below. Tall strands of emerald wove under the canoe, schools of gold-flecked nibblers swimming between the fronds. There was a silver flash, and a three-yard barracuda lanced forward and swallowed a dozen in a single gulp.
So much for swimming.
Despite his fear, Sters was still fascinated by the strange forest below. He wanted to call for a stop, to spend a few minutes gazing at the weedy menagerie. Revel cleared his throat to remind Sters to row.
Sters grunted in agreement, surprised at himself. He was like a condemned man, drinking every sight as they dragged him to the gallows. It wasn’t his way to be so wishful, so wistful, so weak. It must be the dust. Dusting made men dissatisfied. Those who survived the shrieking silver were forever wont to wander.
Twice before, Sters had felt the pull after a dusting, an insistent urge to slip away into the night with no goodbyes. He’d drowned it with drink. Men who succumbed never came back. Perhaps the third time was the charm. Why else had he agreed to this fool’s errand?
A bank of vermillion and lavender anemone caught his eye. The barbed tendrils were as thick as his wrist. His rowing slowed and, again, Revel harrumphed. Sters tapped his ear as if he’d heard something. As the other oars fell still, he realized he had. There was a low rumble, a long way in the distance.
“What is that?” Revel broke the silence.
“The Mouth of Madness,” Yellowhat pronounced as if they were on a stage instead of in a skiff. Sters clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Hush up, Hat. Fish might lay await in some cave,” Sters cautioned. Hat blenched and slunk low in the boat.
“The orb isn’t near. I’d feel it.” El shook her head.
“Hope you do. He’ll shoot you first,” Sters warned.
El Sha La fanned out her emerald cape for Hat and Sters to see. The velvet lining was scaled with tight spirals of embroidered silver sigils. The fabric swam with an almost imperceptible motion that made it impossible to focus.
“It would be his last mistake,” El Sha La promised.
Sters and Hat nodded in appreciation. The threat was meant for them as well. Hat’s mouth went flat, aware the all-important vial of cane was surrounded by those spirals. Sters hefted his oar and recalculated. The ward would thwart him. He’d have to find another approach.
The canoe slid into the mist, and the rumble built into a roar. The water beneath their boat tinged rusty red and grew darker. Soon, they could not see the bottom. The maw of the Rakkar yawned ahead. Cliffs of white lime streaked with guano rose high on either side of and faded into a great gout of fog that blew down the canyon throat.
The Rakkar died in a frenzy of waterfalls and whitewater, as if the river ran rabid. It was easy to imagine they were rowing into the mouth of some immense serpent. No one had words.
Sters broke the silence.
“Here’s where all the tales of dragons began. Some drunken savage spied that, pissed himself, and skedaddled back to rattle a pack of fables across the Arc.”
“Dragons are real.” Revel sniffed.
Sters raised an eyebrow at the backtalk and throttled an urge to swing his oar round and crack apart the shant’s soft-boiled skull. The sorceress was amidships between them. Sters the Skeptic might laugh at legends and scoff at the gods, but his doubt did not extend to sorcerers. He’d seen firsthand what they were capable of. He’d have to clobber the shant another way.
“Are they? Who here has seen a dragon? Sober?” Sters added. Hat lowered his hand. “There you have it. They hain’t real, High Ones neither. Just a pack of lies, recited by a bunch of dunces who wandered where they oughten’t.”
“Explain all the ones who perished upon the Rakkar, then,” Revel charged.
“Ate by bears or picked off by bandits, most like. Might be some tribe of outcasts from Lhaz living up there. Bet they slay everyone who comes their way to keep the taxman at bay,” Sters extemporized.
“How would a dock rat know about bears? I doubt you’ve ever seen one.” Revel sneered.
Sters returned an incredulous look and nodded at Yellowhat. He lifted the brim of his shapeless hat and leaned in.
“How wrong you are, young Ramos. When there’s no knees in need of capping, Ser Sters trains wild beasts for the pits. He’s seen his share of bears, and then some,” Hat chimed in with an eager grin. For two long days, Revel had rubbed them both the wrong way.
“Ayup. Bears aplenty. Lions, wolves, bulls, crocs, wild boar, even an Ibexian river elephant once. Not one dragon. They’re made up, just like the gods, the High Ones, goblins, ghosts, and every sort of spook. It’s all pigshit for lackwits.”
Revel turned to El Sha La for support. The sorceress ignored their bickering entirely, eyes lifted to the impassable maw.
“Let’s get closer,” El Sha La suggested. Her voice held little hope.
They paddled closer to the cascade and skirted the plunge pool, searching for some way up. There was no secret way behind the waterfall, just endless mist. They emerged soaked to the skin. Around them were breakers cemented in centuries of guano. Lakebirds roosted in the upper cliffs in countless thousands.
A cry of alarm rang out; they’d drawn too close. At once, a hundred others joined. A great shrieking confusion of cries and chatter rose above the roar of the Rakkar. A furious swarm issued from the cliff face and cast them into a sudden darkness.
“Turn back!” El ordered, and they backpaddled. A high scream whistled above. Sters glanced up and saw a blue bolt streak down. He ducked to the hull, and a deep BOOM sounded overhead. All was confusion. Hat cowered at the stern, El Sha La and Revel shouted at each other, and each rowed in a different direction. More missiles shrieked down, flashed, and then boomed. The rowers cringed low from the barrage. It was Sters who figured it out.
“It’s just birds!” Sters shouted. “Row right, you idiots!”
He took up his oar and tried not to flinch as droves of blarbers dive-bombed the boat. The birds shot down, swift as arrows. The moment before impact, they’d fan their oil-slick wings wide and catch the sun in a prismatic flash. Then, their crimson throats would puff out and bellow a low boom, loud as lions.
Sters got the canoe under control. They fled at full clip, and the blarbers hooted after them in triumph. Everything was tufted with feather fluff and spattered in shit, but they were otherwise unhurt.
“Some welcome.” Sters shook his head. He leaned over the gunwale to wash the droppings off his dome. Like most Tinkertonites, Sters kept his hair close-cropped; the docks were rife with lice. Hat and Revel washed off as well, but not El Sha La. Her robe was spotless. The ward was real.
“All right, how do we get up there?” Revel addressed them once his curly locks were pristine again.
Sters pressed the hams of his thumbs together and flapped his hands like wings. Hat laughed, the sorceress snickered, and Revel scowled back. Sters picked up his oar and rowed. Two out of three were good enough for him.
“Where are you rowing?” Revel demanded.
“Back.”
The nobleman’s face screwed up, forever vexed. Hat dipped his oar and paddled along, happy to go against Revel. Sters could already see, the noble idiot was the key to turning Yellowhat against the sorceress.
“We can’t go back!” Revel protest, though the canoe was doing just that.
“Fish must have gone ashore well before. He’ll have carried his canoe up the rise,” Hat surmised.
“That’s an hour back. There might be another way up farther west,” Revel argued.
“Sounds like something a map mighta told us,” Sters jabbed. Revel glared back. He wasn’t afraid of Sters, though he ought to be. He looked to the sorceress for support. El Sha La let out a long, exasperated breath and rowed. She looked utterly disgusted at the setback. Revel leaned back in affront but fell in line.
As they got underway, Yellowhat winked at Sters. Sters caught his yellow eyes and held them. Hat’s smile melted into a shrug. He turned back to the bow. Sters scowled at his threadbare back. Was Yellowhat too craven to revolt, or too caned to catch his drift? If only they’d met up on the docks to plot before this whole rotten jaunt began. For now, he had no choice but to row on.
Dire as it seemed, Sters never despaired. An opportunity was bound to present itself, and when it came, Sters would knife the sorceress in the back and throttle that smug Ramos. He’d feed their bodies to some beast, scatter some scraps of his clothes around the lair, maybe some bits of his own to sell the idea he’d been eaten as well.
Might as well throw Yellowhat in, too, for what fiend could keep a secret? It pained him to consider, but it must be done. Above all else, Sters the Hook was a survivor.