Inside the dead bird Gedresial flew ahead of Mandy and Rusk. While they gathered supplies from the forest as they went, the way they had done so many times together as children after they’d become friends and before the monster took its way with Mandy, Gedresial reminisced about his time inside her. It had been a good home for a time, fluctuating between her consciousness and the everlasting deadness that forced black on all the senses if you let it. Monsters only craved the life they’d been denied if they died a natural death. All other entities reentered the reincarnation cycle naturally, but a monster arose when a death was traumatizing, and imposed that trauma on those who were still alive. The cycle continued, but with this one act of defiance against the necromancer, that cycle could change forever. Rusk and Mandy probably didn’t know this, but defeating the necromancer and those others who used the forbidden magic like him could reestablish the balance of the natural elements. Gedresial had his own personal agenda in this usurping, just like all the others. So he flew, and he made himself useful by flying so far ahead he eventually reached the edge of a water port, and there he found Captain Arrolg’s crew.

They milled about in port, readying their vessel and replenishing supplies. Gedresial flew right down to the captain himself and squawked at the live parrot on Captain Arrolg’s shoulder, which immediately went into hysterics. An amusing flap-winged battle midair ensued until Captain Arrolg whistled at his parrot to return to his shoulder and then crossed his arms to give Gedresial a glare.

“What’s this then? I’ve done what you asked, ‘mancer. I got rid of the Heroes. Our agreement is invalid from this point forward. And I’ll have you know I didn’t much appreciate leaving that youngin over on the island either.”

“I am not under employ of the necromancer,” said Gedresial. “I come by request of Rusk the Hero, and he says you can aid us in overthrowing the King.”

“Get to the point real quick, don’tcha.”

“Will you help us or not?”

“No. My crew has enough to deal with without getting involved in some useless rebellion. What’s in it for me if I help you personally?”

“You would help but forbid your crew from doing the same?”

“I’m a captain. I got my priorities. Crew’s lives come first. Even before the ship.”

Gedresial considered this.

“As it happens, I got another offer not too long ago that amounted to the same sort of thing. Nonsense of course, because nobody trusts a Sneak. Except for maybe my granddaughter.”

“Your granddaughter.” Gedresial thought this over, preening as he did even though he was only a skeleton with no feathers. “Rusk mentioned an Elena. Is this your granddaughter?”

“You know your stuff, little fowl.”

“I am no fowl. Merely using one for my current agenda.”

“Right. Well. Yeah, Elena is my granddaughter, but unfortunately she was already swallowed by that portal following her around. So I can’t help you if she’s who you’re looking for.”

“You are lying,” said Gedresial.

Captain Arrolg scratched his chin in thought. Contemplating, but what Gedresial didn’t know. Eventually he nodded behind him toward someone of his crew. And that crew member brought forward an unconscious Iraiah. Her feet dragged along the ground and her entire body was slack.

She groaned, coming to.

Gedresial studied her. Being Mandy’s monster for so long meant that he knew Iraiah, and knew that he was given up to the necromancer as payment for her.

When she was fully aware of her surroundings and stared up at the dead bird, her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

Mandy sacrificing him had been worth it. In that one stare Iraiah conveyed so much information. Namely that Captain Arrolg couldn’t be trusted. Not with anything. Fly off. Fly off and leave me. That’s what that expression said.

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So of course Gedresial couldn’t do it. It would make Mandy’s previous sacrifice of him moot. He flew at the crew member’s face and cawed and flapped his skeleton wings and pecked and pecked and pecked until the guy gave up his grip, and Iraiah dropped into a fluid crouch, swiftly stealing a sword off a nearby pirate’s belt, which she brought into a quick draw and headed straight for Captain Arrolg.

His bird, the live one, flew off his shoulder in three quick flaps. And he drew his poison sword.

They clashed.

But though Captain Arrolg was stronger, Iraiah was scrappy. She twisted her blade just so and dropped it out of hand, then tackled Captain Arrolg when his stance failed, bringing them both to the ground by the sea. With a swivel of her hips she brought up his arm and started choking him between her legs, clenching her teeth with the effort.

Captain Arrolg wouldn’t go out so easily. He switched the grip on his sword and stabbed her right in the leg.

Iraiah cried out, releasing her grip on him to crawl away. But it was worthless. He was stronger and bigger and he had a weapon where she didn’t. He caught her by the injured leg and even while the poison was spreading prepared to bring down the blade once more.

Gedresial flew at his face and distracted him long enough by pecking at his eyes to allow Iraiah to pull a move and slip free. She flopped to the ground, took a moment too long panting there before she flipped over, and then army crawled toward the sea. Where she plunged herself far under the waves and clung to the dock on the underside in the hopes she’d be assumed to have been drowned. Not a bad conclusion the crew could come to, after that exchange. She hoped she were right. Hoped her Sneak ways would aid her. She prayed to the sea, to the slums, to Mandy’s monster. She prayed for herself and the kingdom and all the kid’s in the slums back home who would be screwed if Rusk and the others didn’t pull this off. She clung. And she wished.

And the sea answered her.

The sea serpent turned Captain Arrolg’s ship right over, upending it easily as a log, and flooded the shore, all but the spot where Iraiah clung to the dock, with churning waves that ate up the sand and pounded the sturdy brick of the seaside buildings of Porttegat.

“Give me your life,” said the sea serpent to Iraiah. “And I will aid your cause. I grow tired of endless battles with my sibling the sky serpent, and this human captain is too arrogant to wield the poison dragon’s fang.”

“My life,” said Iraiah defiantly. “Is only mine. Never yours. I will not.”

“You assume you have the power to do this on your own?”

“It’s a human problem. Humans should solve it.”

The sea serpent stared her down and saw not an ounce of real fear in her. “You remind me of a Hero I once met. Her name was Tarfell. Tell me, young human, are you two related?”

“You killed her,” said Iraiah. “I heard. You killed my mother.”

“Ah. A daughter then.”

“So we’ll figure this out on our own. Thanks for not drowning me.” Iraiah climbed up on the dock and wrung out her clothes until they were dry. “Consider us even, I guess. No revenge mission from me for killing my mom. I never knew her anyway. But I do have one question.”

“And what question is that?”

“Where’s Elena? And for that matter, Floumeré?”

The sea serpent chuckled, and its chuckle pulled back the waves. On the shore Elena and Flow were beached. Unconscious but alive. And the remnants of Captain Arrolg’s ship and all his crew were gone. Leaving only his pet bird flying rapidly above, wheeling frantically everywhere, until Gedresial chomped it between his beak with a snap, killing the poor creature instantaneously. It wouldn’t have known what to do without its owner anyway.

Captain Arrolg’s poisonous sword became swallowed in the depths and was never seen again.

Iraiah looked to her unconscious charges, put her hands on her hips, took a shaky breath, and then got them to their feet. She told them what they had to do, and Gedresial after seeing everyone was alive flew back to inform Mandy and Rusk that no, Captain Arrolg couldn’t help them.

They’d have to usurp the King and his necromancer all on their own.

Rusk ordered a rendezvous and told Gedresial to find Loretta and hopefully Felix if he were still alive. Then he and Mandy awaited Iraiah and Flow and, surprisingly, Elena, who had that dead portal still following her.

But hey, thought Rusk when he sensed it coming, when he sensed the Elva within her and the portal feeding off of her life force. Maybe they could use that to their advantage.

Maybe the portal could lead them right to the necromancer. A one way ticket into the realm of the dead where he could shoot the Dragons Knock and end all this for good.

But they’d have to find Felix and Loretta first. He couldn’t go through with this plan without letting them know, nor could he disappear in some battle and not let them choose whether or not to aid him. Even if they were stuck in the King’s dungeon, which something told him they weren’t, he still had to know whether or not they wanted in on the plan.

And with the first thing that happened right during this entire mission, when Gedresial returned he brought news of Felix and Loretta escaping the King’s clutches. They’d been scheduled for public execution just as Rusk had, but had used the commotion and gathered crowd to escape unharmed. For the most part.

And they were in. They just needed to be told what to do.

That responsibility lied with Rusk.