The Mercenaries - Ed Greenwood [8]
"Jolloth Burbuck."
The hairy, battle-scarred veteran lifted his teeth in a wry grin and said in his gravelly voice, "Call me Anvil. Everyone does."
"Kurthe Lornar." The tall Konigheimer nodded curtly.
"Nargin Olnblade."
The dwarf sketched a bow, his rings jingling, and corrected, "Rings, please. If ye call for 'Nargin,' ye may find me looking around for someone else."
Belmer nodded, and said, "Sharessa Stagwood." The beautiful she-pirate gave him a polite smile, and he asked, "Are you the one they call 'the Shadow"?"
Her smile broadened. "Yes," she said simply. The Konigheimer's eyes flashed once.
"You are agreed to work for me, and with me?" Belmer asked formally, meeting the eyes of each in turn. When he had the assenting nods of all, he signed the pile of writs and handed back two copies of each. "I go forthwith to the Lord to register these," he said, "and I suggest you seek out a Witness without delay; I'll expect to see you back here before this candle-" he inclined his head toward the one he'd just lit-"burns out. Anyone who comes back here with a Dagger, or uninvited companions, will die."
Shrugs were his silent reply. "I know that trust is not a thing easily won, and even less easily bought," Belmer told them softly, "but if it is to grow between us, I must warn you before we start that in my employ things may not always be what they seem." The pirates raised their eyebrows, but kept silent as they left the room in a wary group, cradling the writs as if they carried precious gold.
When he was alone, Belmer gave the candle a rueful smile, and left by another way that he'd somehow neglected to tell them about.
Chapter 3
Fire and Water
"I've not seen this ship before," Kurthe muttered in the darkness, as they clambered aboard a damp deck in the mist, dunny-sacks on their shoulders.
"And you're not seeing it now, either, Longshanks," Sharessa said tartly from behind him. "Head to the right, or youH walk straight into that-"
She winced, but a moment before a collision would have occurred, the pile of crates suddenly grew an arm and fended the burly Konigheimer off. "Watch sharp," Belmer murmured. "Companionway's just ahead."
"This'd be easier with a torch or two," Kurthe grumbled, feeling for the first descending step with his boot.
"No lights," Belmer told him, and was gone.
"How'm I supposed to find my bunk in the dark?" Kurthe demanded, reaching the end of the steps and standing uncertainly, facing featureless gloom.
There was a glassy rattle ahead and the faintest of mauve-hued glows, as someone-Rings-unhooded an Ulgarthan glowworm in ajar.
"Take any bunk on the right," the dwarf hissed. "This is the Morning Bird, a caravel from somewhere upriver in Ulgarth, by the looks of her."
"D'we have to crew?" Kurthe grunted, rolling his heavy bag of gear into a bunk.
"Nay-there's a dozen Tharkar wharf rats aboard, captained by a miserable cringing-guts who scares me white."
"Oh? Think he'll flee overboard at our first storm?" Sharessa asked. Neither of them had heard her enter the cabin; no doubt she was barefoot again, flitting about in the velvet silence that had earned the Shadow her nickname. Wordlessly Kurthe took her sack and put it with his own; she stroked his cheek with soft fingers and then stepped away.
" Twouldn't surprise me overmuch," Rings told her. "His name is Jander Turbalt, and if he's from Tharkar-port as he claims, I've never seen him before. Behner's already had to tell him to be quiet or his promised gold'll be fed into his slit-open belly coin by coin!"
The stairs creaked. "I heard that, too. Why all this secrecy, anyway?" Ingrar asked as he arrived, following Kurthe's pointing finger to a bunk.
"Our employer obviously doesn't want someone to know he's leaving town, dolt," Sharessa told him in