Eggsaberroar:
A Long Epic about Short People
Chapter
2: In which Ty's expectations are defied.
Two days
at sea, smooth calm waters and gusting winds. The journey of every sailor’s
dreams, and apparently Tideberries' nightmares. Everything was running so
smoothly, the sailors had absolutely nothing for Ty or his brother to do. Rusty
could at least be endlessly entertained climbing and swinging through the
ship's rigging. Steve, the human man that sat in the Mayfly’s crow’s nest, had
warned Ty at first of his brother’s activities, but quickly realized how adept
the younger halfling boy was at climbing.
Ty
wasn’t afraid of the rigging’s heights, he just found the small ship to be
entirely too contained, and sitting perched on a small bobbing beam didn't help much.
Instead he roamed in circles around the deck of the ship, looking for any
wildlife in the skies or under the water. Searching for any signs of land, weather patterns,
unidentified levitating objects, anything. Ty also spent a good amount of time
getting to know the other passengers on board.
Blinkweaver the gnome was older than
Ty had imagined, thirty seven years old, though apparently this gave him about
the same status in gnome society as Rusty, an eighteen year old halfling had in
their own; two young men going to prove themselves in the world. The gnome, as
Ty had imagined, was a magician. A wizard to be exact, looking for a place to
learn the great secrets of the age. At least that was how Blink described it,
among other bigger gnomish words that Ty couldn't quite make out.
The gnome used most of the daylight reading what looked like the same chapter of his large ratty book over and over
again. Rusty had spent a good two hours the first morning begging Blink to show
off his spells. The gnome had tried to explain something about the
metal-for-sickle limits of a magician’s strength, not to mention the dire
casual cons and queen of needles tampering with reality, but Rusty had deftly
countered this gnomish gibberish with "c'mon."
Finally, Blink had grinned in such a
way that Ty would have already been diving for cover. One second Rusty was
bouncing the balls of his feet, leaning in to see, and then suddenly the halfling
child was covered head to toe in a splash of many colors. He giggled like a sot
and stumbled around the deck for nearly ten minutes minutes rubbing at his
eyes, before finally coming to his senses with his clothes still dyed all the
colors of the rainbow. Rusty had started looking for other crew members to
bother after that.
The only people Rusty and Ty both seemed
to avoid were the four mercenary guardsmen. Ty had learned that they did not work for
Captain Kobashard, but instead had been hired to protect a precious cargo being
brought from one of the dwarven islands. Every time the halfling seemed to turn
his back on them Ty would feel an uneasy prickling on his shoulders and hear
mean-hearted snickering. They spent far too much time sharpening their cheap
swords. A good warrior would know such a blade would grow soft, and fold in
real combat.
The rest
of the crew seemed to be made of the usual sort of sell swords, ruffians, and
good natured louts found on such transport ships. The only true warrior onboard
appeared to be the human man Colbert. As a worshipper of Fidela, goddess of the
sky, Ty quickly recognized Cobert as another man of faith, and soon
after striking up a conversation learned the man was a cleric of Odum, the god
of light and the sun.
Among
the halflings there were few clerics. They prayed sitting down too often in Ty's opinion. Most of the small folk worshipped True-Hearth,
god of the earth, but he was not typically a quest or crusade kind of deity.
The followers of True-Hearth preferred to offer their Lord glory in working the
soil, and helping things grow. The halflings who chose Fidela were drawn to
the borderless sky, so different from the tiny islands of Terra Legusta. They usually
became Druids or Rangers, and some even left the islands to explore the world.
Ty had seen
only a few followers of Odum in his first quest into the outside world. From
what his uncle had taught him, humans had strange ideas about strength, size, and
virtue. He had said the Odums in particular considered Halflings and Gnomes naturally wicked, and Dwarves
greedy and brutish. Halflings journeying to the ancestral mountains tried to
avoid the golden sun visage whenever they had spotted it.
Colbert
was a different story. The young man was apparently the third son of a minor
noble family, the youngest of five in total. His parents had decided that this
would leave little in the way of his inheritance and turned him over to the
priesthood of Odum at a young age. Colbert had been a bit of a rambunctious child, full
of energy and always talking, though he grew to love the more encouraging stories and parables
of Odum. The priests had decided Colbert's special talent for shouting hymns while running might serve well in the
army and had assigned him as the chaplain to a regiment when he had come of
age.
The
second civil war was a complete stalemate, over thirty years had passed since
the last major battle, and the waste of resources and manpower had distressed Colbert,
and the bureaucracy of the military disgusted him. During the three years he spent
in the military, Colbert had met thousands of soldiers, most born in the decades
since the fighting had ceased. A year ago he had asked for a transfer from the
army, and had been given a position as a wandering cleric. Only a month ago
Colbert had taken this job, ministering to travelers on the Mayfly.
Ty had
never met a human who spoke about people, all peace-desiring people, the way
that Colbert did. If his Uncle had been here he would have been amazed. If
Uncle would take the time to even bother speaking to Colbert. Ty wasn’t like
that, he enjoyed trying new things, even when the results weren’t what he
expected, especially then. Ty had eaten those spicy chilies he and uncle found in the
northern desert, and he had jumped off the barn when his cousin Clayobotray had
dared him. She had screamed at the sight of his broken leg, and Rusty had
started crying, he was so little then. Ty had only been fascinated by the brief weightless feeling. Part of that might have been the shock.
Each
morning Ty and Colbert had both arisen early, before the dawn, and prayed
quietly on the ship’s bow. For Ty the canvas painted by the sun breaking the flat ocean
horizon was a thing of glory. This morning the sky was a bright red, turning
orange where the night retreated. There was a grey veil all about them in the
air and the ship’s wood was damp and slick in places. Ty was delighted at this
break from the harsh salt air, but Colbert frowned as he stared to the east.
“What is
it?” Ty asked, still a bit sleepy.
“There
will be rain today, it might be a storm.” The cleric closed his eyes and
breathed deeply. “The wind will remain in our favor, but it will reduce our
visibility.”
They
were still three days from harbor, Ty’s still waking brain didn’t see why this should
be a problem on the open ocean. “Why is that bad?”
“There
are people who sail these waters that might take advantage of such a storm.”
Colbert was
speaking about pirates; unscrupulous mercenaries that preyed on the frequent
travelers between the southwestern islands. “There are pirates on this route?” Ty asked. Only five years ago this had been a well traveled path between the Red Island and southern ports of Ranier.
“There
are pirates on every route these days.” Colbert opened his eyes again and
looked back into the ship’s glowing wake. “This ship was attacked over a month
ago, their cleric died. That’s why they needed to hire me. The civil war ended thirty years ago, but really the lords never stopped fighting. It even looks like their children are growing
into warriors. They spend so much time preparing to battle each other one day that they
have stopped spending the resources to keep the pirates at bay.”
Somewhere
off in the distance thunder rumbled, but neither of them saw the flash.
***
Ty spent
the rest of the day below deck near a porthole looking at his maps. It had been
an age since the halfling ancestors had been chased away from the
mountains, and scores of generations had made the trip. Ty wanted to make sure
that he had every step of the journey memorized; every single important
landmark, instructive note, or quaint recollection ever recorded by all of his
halfling forefathers. Ty didn’t know where Rusty was right now, but at least he
hadn’t heard any crashes or shouts.
Blink
had come by earlier muttering something about prejudged juice, yet another big
sounding thing the halflings didn’t have a word for in their language. He had
said the light was better in the aft of the ship and that he would finish his reading down there.
Ty
didn’t quite know how long ago that had been, but the circles from the port
holes were starting to creep back up the wall. Thunder cracked loud and rattled
the unlit lanterns, shaking Ty out of his studies.
He
hadn’t noticed when it started but there was a steady drip of rain from the hatch
leading to the deck and he heard shouts from the crewmen pulling at the
rigging. Ty decided to head back outside to see if there was anything he could
help with.
From the raised back of the ship Tyra shouted orders at the men. Ty hadn’t even begun to try to
figure her out. The wind wasn’t violent, but the mist had closed in and their
heading had to be adjusted to get out of the storm’s path. Captain Kobashard stood
at the wheel, pulling hard at carefully thought out intervals, then letting it
spin back. Every now and then Steve shouted back reports of all clear from the
crow’s nest, though visibility had to be close to nothing, even up there.
Tim, one
of the deck hands shouted at Ty to stay back. There was another large crack of
thunder, and Ty saw the fog flash a bright white to the starboard side of the
ship, but was not able to see the stripe of lightning. Ty saw two of the traveling
guards standing on the deck by a railing, not in any hurry to offer their help,
or keep track their precious dwarven artifact.
The Dorkins, the family of
humans, were standing behind the captain, their young son laughing happily and
splashing in the rain. Ty had spent most of yesterday talking with Kyle Dorkin, apparently the owner of a tavern in Midport, and another good natured fellow. He and his family had celebrated their good fortune with a short trip to Isla Azra. Ty had never heard of a torn-wrist resort, but it sounded exciting. Ty had seen Rusty playing some hiding game with the little boy earlier, but the child was by himself now.
Finally
Ty spotted Rusty. His brother was inside the crow’s nest with Steve, his tiny
form barely visible over the edge of the basket. The fool. Ty could only imagine how mad Dad would be if
Rusty got struck by lightning before they even reached the mainland.
Then
before Ty was able to begin to shout there was another crack of thunder and
strange muffled flash of light. A shriek from the deck grabbed Ty’s attention to the lone traveling guard at the deck railing. His companion was gone and he
appeared to be looking up into the air instead of out into the storm. He was shouting something but it wasn't the word overboard. Ty looked
back to the nest in time to see a long rope attached to a large net, tipped in heavy metal balls, reaching into the basket.
The rope
pulled taught as Ty began another warning yell. His brother had already seen
the danger and was beginning to turn, and then with a twist and a blur Rusty was gone, yanked starboard into the fog. Ty heard other cries adding to his own and looked behind him in
time to see a net wrap around the mother of the Dorkin family, her husband and
child nowhere to be seen.
Springing
from somewhere in the dense mist leaped a dark shadow, blurry even as it landed
upon the deck with an inhuman snarl. Ty had never smelled such an odor before,
like a rabid dog left dead in the rain for a few days. What he had mistaken for
a ragged outline, Ty quickly realized was thick fur protruding from poorly
constructed cloth rags pretending to be clothing. His Ranger training clicked
into place as a hated name boiled to the surface.
Gnolls.
