"Storm comin’," Sters grunted. That should have been all. Sters the Hook wasn't a man who wasted words. Others listened when he spoke, if they knew what was good for them.

“Nonsense! It’s a fine day,” Revel argued, far too chipper for a man who woke with a trout in his bed.

Sters inhaled sharply through his nose. A jackass was bound to bray. He shrugged it off and kept rowing.

It was, indeed, a fine day. The morning haze had blown away, and the four adventurers rowed beneath an azure sky, past riverbanks abloom with fragrant hydrangea. The air had a dewy feeling of anticipation, like harvest morn. Sters knew it would all end in tears. The premonitions of his busted knuckles were never wrong.

"There's not a cloud in the sky," Revel went on.

Sters stared back and counted to ten. Every impertinent quip and churlish smirk stoked the fire in his gut. Revel was so smug with his white teeth and castle steel. The shant had no clue what Sters could do to him. He would find out, soon enough.

Revel took his silence for surrender and turned back with a superior smirk. Sters clenched his oar and counted to ten once more. The hook knew how to wait on a hate, but this one was especially hard. More than anything, he wanted to ram his fist into Revel’s upturned nose.

Then what?

A brawl on a boat was always a bad idea. Sters clenched the oar and took ten deep breaths. His eye twitched. If only the bitch wasn't Arath's daughter! The next stupid thing Revel said would end with the deck hook through his eye. Sters would shove his knife through her slender throat before she could squeak out half a hex. They would be free.

Then what?

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Freedom upon the Rakkar was no freedom at all. Sters had seen huge shadows moving in the brush and the night rang with cries he could not name. Something was bound to eat Sters and Hat if they tried to escape overland.

They could steal the boat, but two men could not row a four-man canoe upriver. Going backward was no good, either. Too many people had seen Sters and Yellowhat embark with the duke's son and the archmage's daughter. Sters could take interrogation, but Yellowhat would spill everything for a single puff.

So, Sters was stuck. Even if he could make it to another city, it was only a different kind of doom. On the planks of Tinkerton, everyone knew what Sters the Hook was about. His name was built on a solid foundation of dark deeds and dead men.

If he ran off to Khaz or Aran, he would be just Sters. One more graying brute. Sters had nothing to offer that couldn’t be done by someone younger and dumber. The uncles would track him down, friendless and penniless in some alley. Bad way to go.

Sters shook his head and rowed on. Thoughts were worthless, whirls in the eddy of an oar. His time would come.

By mid-morning, the party could see the peaks of the Old Gods rising above the treetops in the West. By noon, they could see all seven spires of the Zeivechi Range. Grandest was the Inaltazei, High Mountain. The Rapaxoris.

Sters knew the word mountain, though he had never truly seen one before. Mount Spinimoi was a stunted hill before those monsters on the horizon. The seven spires grew grander with every stroke. Sters’ guts churned with disquiet each time he looked up at the Rapaxoris. Nothing should be so big.

“Up ahead!” Hat hissed, breaking through Sters’ dread.

“What is it?” Sters implored, straining his eyes upriver.

“It’s them!” Yellowhat whispered back.

“I see them!” Revel agreed.

No matter how he squinted, Sters couldn’t. His eyes were meant for the cramped alleys of Tinkerton, and he was nearly as nearsighted as El Sha La. He took them at their word and poured strength into the oars.

Mid-afternoon, Sters caught his first glimpse of their quarry. The other canoe was only a speck that vanished around a bend. Still, they could all feel it. It was Rigel and Fish.

The four pursuers threw their backs into their task, feeling victory close at hand. To the north, they heard the low rumble of distant thunder.

Sters’ knuckles never lied.