Geran set down his yoked buckets with care before answering. “Aram.”
“I heard that you and your friends cut up a couple of Robidar’s lads back at the Keep. Is that right?”
“That’s what happened.”
Skamang smiled without humor. “Six of them, they say. You, the seasick sellsword with the mustache, and the little fellow. I find that hard to believe. The three of you must be some fighters.”
Geran shrugged. “Ask Sorsil if you don’t believe me. She watched the whole thing.” He picked up his yoke and continued on his way. He could hope that Skamang would decide that he and his friends were likely more trouble than they were worth, but somehow he doubted they’d be that lucky. He didn’t need Tao Zhe’s warning to sense that the tattooed Northman intended trouble for them sooner or later.
The rest of the day passed peacefully enough, and the night as well. Late in the afternoon of their second day out, Moonshark came in sight of a group of black, jagged rocks jutting up out of the Moonsea. Geran recognized them; they were spearlike towers of changeland known as Umberlee’s Talons, and they served as a useful landmark to ships navigating in the western reaches of the Moonsea. Most ships gave them a wide berth. Not only did the jagged rocks offer plenty of chances to rip out a ship’s bottom, but the place had an evil reputation-they were haunted, or cursed, or concealed the lair of a mighty sea monster, or some combination of the three, depending on which tavern tale one favored. Narsk steered a course straight toward the menacing islets, and none of the other deckhands seemed very concerned when he did so.
Sarth stood by the rail next to Geran, gazing at the sinister rocks; Hamil was below, sleeping after staying up most of the night on watch. Some of the rocks rose well over two hundred feet out of the water, but no seabirds hovered around them or roosted on their steep sides. “Is this the secret Black Moon refuge?” the tiefling asked in a low voice.
“I doubt it,” Geran answered. “The Talons are well known in these waters. If there was anything here but empty rocks, I think the story would have got out.”
“Could there be some hidden anchorage here? Something hiding in plain sight?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” The swordmage shrugged. He peered more closely at the Talons as Moonshark drew near. If there was some sort of stronghold or secret harbor hidden in their midst, he couldn’t see it. Soon enough Sorsil ordered the sails to be taken in and called the crew to the ship’s oars. She prowled the narrow walkway between the oar benches, truncheon in hand, while Narsk carefully piloted the ship between the looming rocks to a reach of clear water he liked. They dropped anchor and settled in to wait.
At sunset the wind shifted to the east and strengthened. Moonshark rocked at her anchor, and the breeze moaned eerily as it blew though the sharp edges of the rocks looming overhead. Sarth and Geran exchanged looks; there was some subtle sorcery in the air, a breath of the supernatural, and both the sorcerer and the swordmage could taste it on the wind. “Something is approaching,” Sarth said.
“The High Captain’s on his way,” said a dwarf sitting on the capstan nearby. His name was Murkelmor, and he smoked a simple clay pipe. He’d struck Geran as the sort to keep to himself in the few brief hours he’d been around the fellow. “This is where we meet him. The wind always seems t’ turn when he’s near.”
Sarth looked at the dwarf. “Why here? Is there some harbor nearby?”
Murkelmor shook his head. “None t’ speak of. No, as I’ve heard it told, there’s a black isle that only the High Captain knows how to find. This easterly wind is the wind he needs t’ put to sea.”
“A black island?” Geran asked. Clearly, the Black Moon ships had some way of staying out of sight when they wanted to; he was fairly sure he would have found something other than a single half galley lurking in the ruins of Zhentil Keep if the Black Moon kept to the known harbors of the Moonsea. But he’d never heard of anything like a black island in the Moonsea.
The dwarf shrugged. “I’ve no’ seen it myself, mind ye. But that’s the tale that’s told.”
“Ship abeam to starboard!” called the lookout by the bow.
Geran turned to look over the starboard rail, expecting to see a distant glimmer of sail on the horizon. Instead he blinked as the long black hull of a half galley slid through the Talons, not more than four hundred yards distant. “Now where in the world did she come from?” he muttered to himself. He’d been looking in that direction only a few moments ago, and he would have sworn that no ship could have slipped so close to Moonshark without his noticing. Its approach might have been screened by one of the larger Talons, but somehow he didn’t think so.
“It’s Kraken Queen!” the lookout called again. “I can make out her figurehead!”
Murkelmor smiled and tapped the ashes out of his pipe. “See? The High Captain, as I told ye.”
Geran leaned over the rail, staring into the gloaming. Sure enough, the mermaidlike device with the twining tentacles in place of its fishy tail glimmered in the light of the rising moon. “This is an interesting development,” he murmured to Sarth. “Now we know what Narsk was waiting for.”
The gnoll climbed up from his cabin to the quarterdeck. “Put the longboat in water, Sorsil,” he snarled. He turned to pace the quarterdeck, eyes narrowed as he stared at Kraken Queen lying amid the Talons.
“Aye, Captain,” Sorsil answered. She turned and snarled at every hand who happened to be on deck at the moment. “You heard the captain, you miserable dogs! Quickly now, or I’ll peel the hide off the lot of you!”
Geran moved over to the ship’s boat stowed across her mid-section on a raised deck. He wasn’t particularly worried about Sorsil’s threats, but if Narsk wanted to go over to Kraken Queen, he wanted to go too. There was a chance that someone from the other pirate ship might recognize him from the skirmish on the beach, but the last time they’d seen him it was by firelight, and he hadn’t been dressed like a common seaman with a thickly stubbled chin. And he sincerely doubted that any of the deckhands on the other ship would be expecting to see him again in the crew of another Black Moon ship. Several other crewmen joined him by the boat, and together they lifted it from its frame, turned it right-side up, and maneuvered it to the rail to fix hoisting lines at its bow and stern. They lowered the boat to the water under Sorsil’s watchful eye.
“All right, I need oarsmen,” the mate said. Geran made sure he was standing in plain sight, and a moment later Sorsil singled him out. “You there!”
The swordmage feigned a grimace of annoyance, but swung his leg over the rail and dropped down the shallow rungs bolted to the ship’s side to take up one of the oars. More of his shipmates followed. He glanced up at the rail, now rocking over his head, and caught Hamil looking at him. Good thinking, Geran, the halfling told him. But pull down your hood, you look like you’re up to something.
Geran reluctantly pulled his hood back down to his shoulders and waited by his oar. A moment later Narsk clambered down the ladder and took the steersman’s seat himself. He was wearing a heavy black coat and a large, wide-brimmed hat that seemed oddly out of place atop his bestial features. “Push off and let’s go,” the gnoll ordered. The boat crew cast off the lines, pushed away from Moonshark, then fell into a strong rowing rhythm as Narsk steered them toward the other ship. The Talons seemed to catch the light chop of the surrounding waters and reflect them in confused eddies; Geran decided that he wouldn’t want to bring a ship too close to the towering rocks.
They reached Kraken Queen and caught a line tossed down from the rail; the crew of the other ship crowded around the rail, calling down offers to trade or good-natured jibes at Moonshark’s expense. As they bumped alongside the larger ship’s hull, Narsk growled, “Wait for me,” and scrambled up the side.