Throughout, Captain Adira Strongheart watched people as much as the fires, so she often spotted potential disaster first. Late in the day, Jedit Ojanen labored to upend a hogshead to pour water into the first floor of a burning house. Whistledove helped by scaling a hot roof like a squirrel and spying through eye-smarting smoke with her superior vision. She jolted as Adira shouted to descend while snagging Jedit's elbow.
"Forget that! Someone's trapped on the docks!" •~ Racing past people running every which way, Adira led brownie and tiger near a warehouse that burned so furiously it distorted the overcast sky in wavy ripples. Skidding to a halt, Adira squatted and pointed below the smoke. Through squirming haze the mismatched pair saw shapes dance at the end of a distant pier.
"See 'em?" demanded Adira. "These blokes attacked the fire from the harbor end but flubbed it. Their boat's adrift, and they're trapped, and the building's an inferno. We must- Where are you bound?"
Leaving humans dizzy with his power and speed, Jedit Ojanen made three mighty bounds and arced into the harbor. A geyser blew as the tiger crashed underwater, then greasy waves churned as he swam for the pier. Firelight from the flaming warehouse glistened on his orange-black hide until he seemed some elemental composed of living flames and roiling water. Sparks and flaming chips spattered around him, hissing like vipers. Adira and Whistledove and some coasters watched, helpless and awed, as Jedit Ojanen cut the water like a shark, reached the tarry pilings, and climbed from the deep streaming water like a sea monster or sea god.
Through rippling smoke, Adira saw the tiger address the four trapped townies, three men and a woman.
Whistledove asked, "Why don't they swim?"
"Many can't," said Adira. "Probably the others won't desert him or her."
A fat man and woman obviously couldn't swim, for both protested with upraised hands, hoping for a boat rescue. Jedit Ojanen solved the problem handily. Grabbing with claw-sheathed paws, the tiger-man hoisted the tubby man and lobbed him shrieking into the harbor. He said something to the woman, and she gamely jumped after, as did the other two. Last to leap, Jedit dived and burst free of the water like a tiger shark with the spluttering fat man and woman in tow. Jedit let them lock arms around his neck. Still treading water despite their weight, Jedit beckoned the last two swimmers to latch onto the fat man, for the water was paralyzingly cold. Then, with inhuman strength and despite the deathgrips throttling him, Jedit twisted like an eel and stroked outward toward open water, away from the dire flames. Soon he reached a sturdy fishing boat. Paddling, clinging with iron claws, Jedit hung slack while the humans climbed his huge frame to get aboard. When all were safe, Jedit clambered aboard, shed gallons of water by shaking like a dog, then turned toward shore. Spotting Adira and Whistledove, the tiger saluted, grinning so white fangs shone.
Laughing, the two pirates waved back.
Adira crowed, "Love of Lustra! Had I a hundred tigerfolk in my crew, I'd usurp Johan's throne and become empress of Jamuraa myself!"
"… So, humbly, we thank you for most dire-needed aid. Know you carry the gratitude of all the good citizens of Buzzard's Bay in your bosom."
Night was full on. The dark sky loomed without stars or moons, so rings of torches illuminated the impromptu ceremony. Plenty of scrap wood lay about to be kindled. The wind off the bay was brisk, but none of the locals seemed to notice.
The speaker was a lean man in oyster-white robes with an enameled blue medallion of stars hanging on his breast. His white wreath of hair and beard accentuated his angelic appearance, an oddity in a town of burly fishermen and loggers, but one callused hand sported four crooked fingers broken long-ago in some mishap. He was Bardolph, a cleric of the Holy Nimbus, acting spokesman for Buzzard's Bay, for the sheriff was incapacitated, and their only other authority was a once-a-summer folkmoot.
"You're welcome. We were glad to help." Adira's hair and face and clothes were smudged with ashes, and she reeked like a campfire, but she was happy because her charges had fought the fire bravely and won over the townsfolk, and a daring captain loved to see a crazy scheme succeed. Her Circle of Seven attended her, some proud, some embarrassed. All chugged beer handed 'round by a tavernkeeper who'd rolled up a keg on a barrow. Throats were parched from eating smoke.
Adira slurped and said, "We never sought trouble. Rather we hunt Johan, Tyrant of Tirras, who is our enemy."
Adira let the name hang in the air. She'd thrown all her dice on this calculated gamble. Sooner or later Buzzard's Bay would learn why the pirates had come. Best get it out while half the town was assembled and grateful.
"Johan is Emperor of the Northern Realms, as you must know," announced Adira. "What you don't know is that we hail from Palmyra, the first obstacle crushed under his boot on the march into the sands of the Sukurvia. Our alliance of southerners opposed him until a sandstorm smothered them. Yet Johan crawled out of some hole and escaped, and he still sows mischief. We want to stop him. For that, we need your help."
Buzzing murmurs. Adira watched faces closely. Anger and regret glowered, but none was directed at her.
''We know Johan," said the priest. He pitched his voice high as if preaching. "He enslaves our mountain kinsmen. We saw signs of the great sandstorm. Even here the sky was dark for days. Sand rained on the Blue Mountains to the east, an event never witnessed. Though many of our cousins died, we blame not you, but Johan. He is evil incarnate. Destruction follows in his wake as death and despair trail a dragon."
"This is Johan's work." Adira nodded at the charred and ruined warehouses and ships. "Or that of his agents."
The crowd rustled at the word "agents."
Virgil muttered to the Circle, "Destruction follows in our wake, too."
Simone jabbed his ribs.
With half a town listening raptly, Adira told how Johan had escaped east and found "this child of the forest," meaning
Jedit, which drew a laugh. Laughter died as Palmyra's mayor recounted the savagery that ravaged her marketplace.
Throat raspy and seared, Adira finished, "We tracked Johan here, only to learn he killed a kindly old sage named Hebe."
"We imagine it was he," corrected Bardolph the cleric. "No one witnessed his crime. Among our kind, only a confession or two witnesses can sink a criminal."
"Johan killed her, Bardolph." A broad-chested man with a yellow-gray beard had eyes and face red from fighting fires. "We all know it, even if we can't prove it. No one else had reason. Hebe was poor as a mouse and harmless and well liked. Ofttimes she tended ailments for no pay when the fishing was poor. The murderer had to be Johan, a stranger wreaking havoc and hate. But I want to know why he killed her."
"I can't say for certain," returned Adira, "except Johan dislikes leaving witnesses alive. Most likely Johan asked Hebe some questions, since she's local, and he doesn't know the region. We don't know what the tyrant seeks or where he goes, but both must link to magic. Hebe was a spellcaster, but only a small sage, you say, so it's unlikely Johan needed sorcery. That leaves only local knowledge. What might be Johan's destination that relates to magic?"
"Which way did he go?" asked a woman in a thick, soot-stained shawl. "Someone had to see the tyrant leave town. He rode in a sedan chair, and we don't see many of them! And he had that big crowd to feed!"
Murmurs drifted through the crowd. Heads were scratched. With Bardolph moderating, people came forward to offer facts. A vintner sold Johan's scribe three casks of wine. Johan's dotty old seer bought new shoes. The barbarian bearers had purchased a peck of oysters. As hours of testimony and debate dragged, Adira Strongheart gritted her teeth and stifled the urge to scream over dreary details. She was relieved that Johan had not booked passage or bought a ship. If the cruel tyrant sailed into the sunset, he might as well visit the Mist Moon for all Adira could find him.