Nothing happened. The druid strained her eyes and wracked her brain, wondering how she'd flubbed the incantation. Then, slowly, the wooden ceiling was obscured. A cloud grew, mushrooming across the ceiling, then billowing downward. Jasmine grinned when the first wetness kissed her face. Already she couldn't see the tavern door. A few coasters noticed too. One shrieked in fright. Some raced out the mist-filled doorway.
Adira Strongheart wondered if she'd been thumped and rendered half-blind. Fog clung about her head. Even her own crew seemed ghostly just a few feet off. Cool air soothed her fiery brow and flushed away the last of the prejudice-invoking charm. The pirate queen could think clearly. Funny, though, that a fog should roll in at mid-morning.
A pair of beefy coasters still pressed Adira, one fencing with a long knife and the other plying a stool. Tired of fighting, Adira feared she must kill the coasters to stop them. Feigning a stumble, she lured the stool wielder close, then flicked her blade past the wood to pink his arm. As he yelped and dropped the stool, Adira caught and reversed it just in time to block the other's dagger. As the point thun-ked in wood, Adira twisted and plucked the weapon away. Two quick thumps with the stool laid the coasters at her feet.
Fog blanketed the room from end to end. Adira's breath frosted, and the clammy touch chilled her heated bosom. Only a dozen people were even in sight.
Huffing, dappled with dew, Adira called, "What a pea soup! Robars! Make ready to break free!"
"How?" called someone.
"Follow me," came a growl.
An orange-black nightmare loomed from the fog like a sea serpent. Jedit Ojanen laid gentle paws on two brawny coasters and heaved them a dozen feet to clatter amid spilled stools and benches. Between fog and fights sparked just among coasters, the pirates enjoyed a tiny respite.
"Follow you?" Adira's bosom heaved as anger surged anew. "Who in blazes elected you captain?"
"I only seek to help," rumbled the tiger. "Is that wrong?"
"Damn right it is!" rapped the pirate queen. "I give the orders, you numb furball! Step on my toes, and I'll carve out your liver! Robars, brace up! Jedit, grab a table and clear a path to the door!"
"Very well." Looking up, Jedit put out a paw and caught someone lurking in the dense fog. Whistledove Kithkin had skipped along ceiling beams to retrieve her rapier and find the pirates. Tucking the brownie on one shoulder, the tiger-man hefted a scarred table big as a coffin and marched for the door. Caught in swirling fog, Buzzard's Baymen and women were bowled aside like tenpins as the tiger bore down like a barge.
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.