The Overflow quickly grew smaller as the Black Marlin rode the currents away from the island. The weather was overcast, and the waves choppy, but the cutter rode them comfortably. Katrina didn’t know much about ships, but at a cursory look, the Black Marlin looked well kept. The deck was freshly tarred, and there didn’t appear to be so much as a stray rope out of place. Save for a lookout sitting on the prow, the Marlin’s crew seemed relaxed enough, not shy to stare at their guest as they leaned against the gunwales. Feeling self-conscious, Katrina spied Elouise standing behind the wheel on the quarterdeck and walked over to join her.
“No one’s allowed on the quarterdeck without the captain’s permission, girly,” Elouise barked without taking her eyes off the sea.
Katrina froze with a foot hovering over the first step of five steps. “Are we leaving for the Maelstrom now?”
The tall, broad shouldered woman threw her head back and laughed. “Goodness no. Before we make for the Maelstrom, I need to discuss your offer with the crew. But first things first, take your boots off. Don’t want you slipping about on a wet deck now.”
Katrina frowned and did as she was told. The sensation of wood against her bare feet was strange to her, but she didn’t let it occupy her for long. The Karru were after her. They were intelligent, resourceful, and relentless. Only when they were through the Gap would she be out of their reach. Perhaps not even then. “Time is pressing.”
“Be that as it may, I need to tell my crew about our next job before we set off,” Elouise pointed out. She then sniffed the air. “Besides, there’s a storm brewing. One I don’t want to be caught by in open sea if it can be helped. Why don’t you find somewhere to relax until I find us an anchorage?”
The sea grew choppier as the wind picked up. The cutter dropped suddenly as it crested a tall wave, knocking Katrina off her feet, which drew laughter from the surefooted crew. Red faced, she decided to sit against a gunwale and watched with fascination as the crew busied themselves making the cutter ready for open water.
After what felt like an eternity, but was in reality just over three hours, Elousie announced that they were approaching their anchorage, and the six crewmen burst into action. They cursed one another good naturedly as they bustled around the deck with purpose and efficiency.
“Spines ahead, captain!” a distant voice called from overhead.
“I see it,” Elouise called back.
Katrina decided she had enough of sitting and pulled herself onto her feet, holding onto the gunwale to steady herself. She scanned the sea ahead to catch a glimpse of the Spines. Her first clue that something was amiss was a thread of foam that appeared in the sickly green water ahead. Then, she saw them, slick black rocks that scarcely broached the water’s surface. As they drew nearer, she could see that they were part of a larger outcropping that was part of Damaris’ Spine, the treacherous barrier of shoals and reefs that lay off the Continent’s southern coast.
Expertly, the master of the Black Marlin guided the cutter through a gap between the rocks that Katrina was sure was too narrow. There was a faint scraping sound as the side of the ship rubbed against the sunken reef, but none of the crew seemed particularly concerned. The waves were gentler on the other side of the reef, and using only momentum, Elouise expertly swung the cutter around.
On her command, the bow anchor was dropped. Its chains rattled against the hawsers until the anchor struck the rocks below. The captain barked another command and four sailors put their backs into the winch that sat in the middle of the deck. Another sailor ran the length of the cutter, and at Elouise’s command, released the smaller stern anchor. When this too was winched in, the ship was secure, and the crew stood easy.
“Well done,” Elouise declared from the quarterdeck and held up one of the bottles of rum Katrina purchased. “Everyone gets a tot, courtesy of our guest!”
The crew cheered and grinned at Katrina, who smiled back sheepishly, unsure how to react to the sudden attention.
“Say, captain,” a scrawny sailor remarked as he held out a wooden cup to the quarterdeck. Well into his fifties, he was the oldest member of his crew by a good margin. His skin was leathery, and scurvy had taken most of his teeth. “What did you do to piss the Karru off, eh?”
“Does this mean that even the Overflow is off limits for us now?” another sailor fretted. “How will we make our living? There’s nowhere else for us to dock at Solitaire.”
“The Karru weren’t after me,” Elouise beamed. Her crew looked up at her curiously and she paused to take a swig from the half empty bottle of rum. “They were after our guest.”
The crew’s curious eyes were now on Katrina, who took an involuntary step back.
“Speaking of our pursuers, aren’t we exposed out here?” Katrina asked as she looked around nervously.
The Continent’s southern shores were visible in the distance to the north, and the masts of a ship peeped up over the horizon to the west.
The old sailor broke into a broad, toothless smile. “Ain’t no one foolish enough to come out here cept our captain.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“If you don’t have an eye for the currents and a nimble ship, you’d be dashed against the rocks and sunk in a heartbeat,” another added.
“She has a job for us,” Elouise continued, her eyes twinkling. “One that if successful, will mean that we can dock proudly at the Grand Harbour.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” the old sailor scoffed.
“What’s the job, then?” someone else asked.
“And more importantly, what’s it pay?”
Elouise raised her hands for silence as she stood on the quarterdeck like a priest addressing his flock at mass. When her crew quietened down, she cleared her throat. “Our guest seeks passage through the Gap of Eternity.”
The crew scoffed and a few cast incredulous glances Katrina’s way. “She’d be better off trying to swim there. At least she’d only get herself killed.”
“Well Croocq,” Elouise said sweetly, addressing the old man who had spoken. “She’s paying four thousand sovereigns for our trouble.”
The crew fell silent, and the old man eyed her up and down through his thick spectacles before scowling. “You’re many things, captain, but gullible isn’t one of them. Or have your wits been dulled by her pretty face?”
“Begging your pardon, but he’s right, captain,” a burly sailor added as Katrina felt the blood rush to her face. “Unless I missed the chest in her luggage when the two of you came aboard.”
“You lot lack creativity,” Elouise beamed as she produced the letter she had taken from Katrina with a triumphant flourish and held it aloft for all to see.
“What’s it say?” Croocq asked as he squinted up at the paper. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
Elouise smirked before handing it to the burly man. “Read it for the uneducated, will you, Nismond?”
The burly, dark skinned sailor took it and read it carefully The others huddled around him even though most of them couldn’t read. “It says that she has ten thousand sovereigns under her name.”
“I could write a scrap of paper that said that,” a surly face youth remarked. He was a slight boy who was similar in height and build to Katrina and looked almost like a child as he stood next to Nismond’s hulking form.
“That is if you could write, Kerran,” Nismond laughed.
“Don’t you idiots know that is?” Croocq gasped, pointing at a pair of circular red wax imprints at the bottom of the document. The one on the left had the imprint of a domed building, and the letters ‘MGB’ were repeated four times along its circumference. While the one on the right bore a stalk of wheat crossed with a sickle. “The one on the left is the Guild Bank’s, and the one on the right belongs to the Guild Master himself!”
“So?” Kerran, the boy, asked, looking confused.
“It means that the girly here can walk into any Guild Bank on the Four Continents and withdraw ten thousand sovereigns,” Elouise said with a laugh. “What did I tell you, boys? We’re rich!”
“It’s only taken you four years,” Nismond said with a crooked smile.
“Hang on!” Croocq cried. “She wants us to go through the poxy Gap of Eternity! All the money in the world won’t do us any good if we’re dead!”
“Lord Argan made it through and back!” Katrina pointed out.
“At the cost of almost all his men!” Croocq sniffed. “I knew one of the men who made it back and let me tell you, the stories he told are very different from the ones the Lord Admiral tells the courts.”
“Say,” a man remarked. He was in his mid-twenties and would have been handsome were it not for the ugly scar that ran across his face, and the fact that he was missing the tip of his nose. “We have the letter, why don’t we just take it and cash it in? That way, we get ten thousand sovereigns, and we won’t have to lift a finger.”
The other sailors murmured their approval and Katrina felt her blood run cold. Then, Croocq, the old man snapped, “That’s not how it works, Logrin!”
The younger man scowled. “It’s not?”
“She needs to provide a second document to the bank to prove her identity,” Elouise said as she levelled her gaze on Katrina. “And I don’t think our guest was stupid enough to bring it with her.”
“No,” she said forcefully, silently blessing Vanham, who had made all the arrangements for her. Where would she be without him? Imprisoned in the capital, no doubt. “That letter is safe somewhere in Endrose, and we will not be able to retrieve it unless I return from Eternal Shore safely.”
“Perhaps it’s time you told us more about this little adventure of yours, girly,” Elouise said. Her good humour had vanished, and her eyes were as hard as steel.
“Parts of Malcith have been overrun,” Katrina began, choosing her words carefully. Her forearm began to throb under her binding, and she did her best to ignore it. “I seek help from the elves of the Eternal Shores to help turn the tide in the kingdom’s favour.”
“That doesn’t explain much,” Croocq mused as he stroked the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. “But your backs must really be up against the wall, eh?”
“So are you a princess or something?” Logrin ventured. “You have to be if you can throw ten thousand sovereigns around like that.”
“One question at a time, lads,” Elouise insisted before turning to the younger woman. “We’ve heard no news of war. Who is attacking your kingdom and why is your first thought to turn to the Eternal Ones for help?”
“What does it matter to you?” Katrina demanded. “Take me through the Gap and back, and you will be paid.”
Elouise frowned. “I suppose you have a point.”
“Captain, how do we know she’ll pay us if we survive the trip?” Katrina was surprised to hear another woman’s voice and turned to see a petite figure climbing down the mast.
As she walked past, Kerran handed her a cup of rum, and she nodded her appreciation. Katrina had initially thought the lookout was a boy like Kerran, but now up close, she noted her delicate features and saw that she had her copper red hair tucked under a knitted sailor’s cap.
Elouise’s smile turned warm as she regarded the new arrival and gestured to the parchment that was still in Nismond’s giant paw. “She will need both documents to withdraw her money, Stolya, and we’ll keep this half until the job is done. If she reneges, she will be out more money than we are.”
“I don’t like it,” Logrin scowled. “She’s not telling us the whole story, like why she has Karru after her.”
“What does it matter?” Katrina asked again. “They’re on Solitaire and we’re unlikely to see them again.”
“We’ll have to provision, captain,” Logrin pointed out, ignoring Katrina completely. “If we can’t go back to Solitaire, there’s only Damroth which is two weeks in the wrong direction.”
“We can provision with Gamlin,” Elouise pointed out.
Logrin’s face fell, and Croocq gasped. “That old crook? He’ll charge a man dying of thirst forty sovereigns for a sip of water if he could get away with it.”
“It’s a good thing we have a generous benefactor with us, isn’t it?”
There was a pause as the wind picked up, whipping a sprinkling of rain at the eight people huddled around the Black Marlin’s quarterdeck. The sailors looked around for signs of danger and when they saw none, broke into a loud cheer.