Cursing, Adira tugged her crew by sleeves, belts, and collars. Murdoch and Heath had to drag Virgil off the floor, for he'd been hammered from behind. Wilemina bit a man who'd slid his hand down the bodice of her leather vest. Jasmine broke a stoneware mug on his skull. Lagging and lurching like a batch of balky children, the Robaran Mercenaries blundered after the tiger's broad back and swinging tail.
Fourteen paces in blinding fog spilled them through a doorway into open air. Gasping, tugging clothes and tackle aright, mopping off blood and sweat and beer, the pirates blinked about, for even an overcast morning seemed eye-squintingly bright.
Adira cursed. Outside would prove as dangerous as inside. Dozens of bay folk had spilled outdoors to see the fracas. Bewitchments notwithstanding, their friends had been thumped by Adira's crew. Already some coasters pointed at the disheveled pirates.
"Have we a plan?" lisped Simone around a split lip.
"Aye!" blurted Adira. "Run like nine devils!"
"What in Stangg's benighted name happened back there?"
Murdoch puffed as he and Heath lugged Virgil, whose toes trailed furrows in mud. Jedit, still wearing Whistledove on his shoulders, picked up Virgil like a kitten. Trotting, they made better time as the crowd behind shouted.
"It was deuced strange!" chirped Wilemina. "One minute everyone's talking polite as you please, and the next we're all shouting and fighting!"
In a pack, Adira's crew jogged into narrow alleys between warehouses and boathouses. The high buildings gave them momentary cover, but Jasmine fretted, "We'll be trapped against the water!"
"That's what we want!" said Simone but shivered in the keen wind, for she was doused to the skin with beer.
Bangles at her booted ankles jangling, Adira Strongheart chivvied her underlings with a hard hand. Fortunately, only Virgil was knocked groggy, and they all had weapons.
"Hush, all! Let me think!" Adira blocked a mucky alley, cutlass at the ready. At the far end, fishermen and laborers pointed her way. She panted. "The room was hexed. Johan must've left agents behind to muddy waters against us. If we don't get a chance to talk, we might be lynched first and questioned later. These locals share more than a drop of berserker blood. Sheer aport!"
Past the warehouses they ran out of street. A corduroy wharf of pine slabs on mud gave way to ramshackle docks and piers in a ring. At midday, the fishing fleet was out, all the nearby slips bare. Farther out were moored deep-water vessels: south-sea luggers, carracks, and caravels like upturned shoes. A few nets lay idle, for fishermen repairing them had wandered up the street to see the fuss.
"Give me Palmyra," rasped Adira, "where citizens mind their own business! We need a boat, damn it!"
"There!" Sharp-eyed Heath pointed along the line of warehouses.
Adira ducked and glimpsed a rudder past big open doors. "That'll do! Get it! Fight if need be, but for love of Lustra don't kill anybody! I'm hoping we can talk our way off this lee shore!"
The tall buildings were of unpainted wood silvered by seasons of salt and rain. Adira's crew veered into the fourth. Larger than its neighbors, the combined warehouse and boat-house sported tall doors on the street but also a rear entrance that jutted over the water. The pirates clattered for it. Shouts behind gave them wings. Chestnut hair flying, cutlass flashing, Adira charged first.
The echoing space smelt of salt, fish, tar, hemp, and seaweed. A fishing smack with a lateen sail furled was dogged to bollards. One old sailor guarded a cargo of wall-eyed cod.
He goggled like the fish as the pirates stampeded toward him.
Adira hooked a callused thumb.
"Git."
He got, and Adira barred the streetside door.
The pirate queen's cutlass pointed around her Circle of Seven. "Heath, Murdoch, brace the door. Simone, Wil, cast off this pig-boat. Peregrine, Jasmine, pitch the cod overside."
Jedit still wore Whistledove on his shoulders while Virgil hung in his big paws like a dead skunk.
"Jedit, wrap Virg in a tarp to keep him warm, then hang back as reserves. Whistledove, watch Virgil. Weigh anchor!"
People scurried to posts.
•"Wait! I'm sick of being jerked in circles like a cow!" Pausing for a moment, Wilemina whipped a knife from her belt, tugged her flaxen braids out straight, hacked them off just above her ears, then tossed them in the greasy water. Belatedly she chirped, "How do I look?"
"Your head looks like a dog's hind end!" called Murdoch from the door.
The archer clapped both hands to her ragged scalp. "Call of Caleria, that bad?"
"I'll cut off your head!" Adira booted the skinny archer onto a heap of slimy cod. "Fish or chop bait!"
Simone whacked lines short with her cutlass rather than untie them. Beside her, Peregrine grimaced and chucked fish overboard with her bare hands.
The desert soldier asked, "What use is such a small boat?"
"It gains us the harbor!" snapped Simone.
"And then?" insisted Peregrine.
"We steal a ship! We're pirates, remember?" Adira hopped into the boat and popped an aft hatch. Needing light, she stroked one hand and barked, "Ai-siisc!" Her skin glowed with cold light like a firefly's. She stuck her head into the stinking bilge to see if the craft needed pumping.
Hollowly, she called, "Out there we'll have our pick of the fleet. I can sail anything with a keel below and rags aloft."
"What about our horses?" asked Jasmine. "Our blankets and saddlebags are still at the tavern!"
"If this town doesn't crucify us," Adira clapped shut the hatch, "I'll buy you new ones!"
"Ram!" Murdoch backpedaled from the door, sword in hand.
"Ram?" asked half a dozen voices.
BOOM.' The building rocked as the big wooden doors creaked inward. Coasters had fetched a timber log for a ram. At another bash, the pirates saw daylight peek through. The shouting of townies rose higher.
"You'd think folk could find other entertainment in a port this size." Simone the Siren slotted the rudder into its greased iron socket. "Why don't they take up dancing?"
"I can't cast half my spells without my potions and oddments!" Jasmine complained as she caught cod by their red gaping gills. "And druids don't go to sea!"
Adira dropped her cutlass and picked up an oar to lever against the dock. The smack eased from the dock, black water gapping. "First thing you learn in the Robars is to keep anything precious in your pockets. I've lost ten fortunes ten times from having to cut and run. Up gangplank!"
"Wait for me!" As the ram smashed the doors and the bar tore loose from its brackets, Murdoch jumped the intervening five feet and crashed atop Simone. Frantically pirates grabbed oars to paddle out of the boathouse into open water.
"Adira!" Whistledove again perched on Jedit's shoulders. The brownie pointed at the harbor. "Boats are coming our way!"
"What?" In two lithe bounds Adira leaped atop the furled yards, balanced as a tern. Just past two docks sculled two long whaleboats, rapid as water beetles. Evidently the fishermen had been signaled from shore by the crowd to block the outer passage.
Too busy to curse, Adira thought aloud. "And us back- asswards as a beached whale. Better afloat than marooned ashore. We'll ram and cut free with cutlasses. Make way! Out oars!"
"Adira." Useless on a boat, Jedit Ojanen stood in the bow out of the way. He crinkled his muzzle of orange, black, and white stripes, exposing long lethal fangs. Sniffing the air, he called, "You should know-"