The spokeswoman husked, "A red man with black stripes who wields deadly magics?"
"That's he," said Adira.
"He wrought havoc on our scouting party. Please be our guests."
"We thank you," said Adira. "Lead on. I want to get off my fins."
With a collective sigh, the pirates stripped the black bodies of ropes and swords and, luckily for Adira, a new pair of shiny black boots. In diplomatic silence, the natives fell in front of and behind the newcomers. Walking no path, but simply between trees.
Murdoch asked low, "That's it? No fight?"
"No," said Adira Strongheart. "We've got a new pack leader. Jedit Silver-Tongue Ojanen, Harbinger of Peace and Master of the Soothing Balm. Who'd have thought such a fearsome warrior would prove an artist at diplomacy?"
Clearly chagrined by backhanded praise, the tiger quirked his muzzle, so one fang shone. Everyone laughed.
"Where is your camp?" asked Adira.
"Here," husked Magfire, the warchief. "And nowhere."
Adira blinked at a patch of pine forest like any other. Jedit further piqued her by purring, "Clever."
Heath stepped to one side and reached out a hand. Seeming to grope at thin air, the part-elf caught a film light as spider web. Adira saw some near-invisible cloth or webbing was strung between three trees to cover a bedroll, woven packbaskets, and some cordwood. Adira caught the gossamer. Even held against the dusky sky, the fabric took on the mixed-gray tone of overcast.
"Don't bother to ask," whispered Magfire. "We shan't share its secret."
Heath positively bubbled, a strange sight to his crewmates. "Anything! I'll give anything for a swatch of that fabric! Just enough to cover myself in full!"
"Anything?" The tall chief smiled as might a black widow spider, thought Adira. Magfire's whisper exuded sex. "To promise anything is rash, my friend. You might live to regret it."
Puzzled, Heath wrinkled his brow while his shipmates laughed. Jedit Ojanen had meanwhile moved on. The forest seemed untouched, as if humans had never existed, yet he stopped at a shallow depression littered with pine needles and tipped up another nigh-invisible cloak that covered a blackened firepit.
Magfire whisked off the gossamer, rolled it into a ball, and tucked it in her belt. "Without our camouflage cloaks we'd be extinct."
"How do these soldiers snare your crew?" asked Jasmine. "Black leather is ill-fitted for a forest, while your people are born to the trees."
"They have traps and magics that deceive." Magfire gathered charcoal and tinder and struck a flint on her steel knife. "By the time we learn one peril and counter it, the legionnaires spring another."
"It's true." Heath was still sheepish about being gulled. "I detected no sign, smelt nor heard nothing. Just a blow upon the head."
"Verily," said Magfire. "Legionnaires have no smell. It's masked magically. They can see in the dark too. Detect strangers behind them, or above in trees, or screened by brush. They know each other's whereabouts at all times, so to assault one brings many running. They nab our hunters and pickets. Sometimes even trailblazers and trackers."
"What's the difference?" asked Heath. Everything this tribe did intrigued him.
"Trailblazers explore and trackers hunt. But their ranks mean more than that." Magfire fed a crackling pyre. "Either requires senses more animal than human that are honed by years of study under a master. Such blessings cannot be learned but are bestowed by the gods, born in the bone, then refined."
The Robaran Mercenaries marveled as-as if popping from the ground like mushrooms-more people of the pines filtered from the lowering dusk. Clad in leather and furs, with many cowled by the heads of animals, the gathering seemed like herds of ghost animals. The eerie picture was compounded because the woods dwellers trod silently and conversed in whispers. The pirates had to lean close whenever a pinesman spoke. Up close they exhaled a blend of pine sap, tannin, sweat, and juniper. Low voices and earthy spice gave an air of intimacy that was dizzying.
Over fifty natives and guests congregating made the gloomy woods almost homey. Hunters had fetched three deer on poles, as well as a bundle of grouse, fat raccoons, and opossums. Others brought beechnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, and other scomber. A cheery fire crackled in the firepit as night settled, though the flames were kept low.
"Won't Shauku's soldiers spot your fire by night?"
"Legionnaires never venture out by night. They're not that good. And we move camp often," explained Magfire.
"Good idea," said Adira. "I saw them fight Jedit. They're top-notch soldiers, all right. Practiced killers. They'd cut us to pieces going toe-to-toe."
"Something we avoid," admitted Magfire.
Warchief and pirate captain sat side by side on cloaks to eat. The pirates devoured anything handed to them. Afterward the natives passed around some fiery liquor in gourds. Even Sergeant Murdoch and Adira Strongheart lost their breath at a long pull. Yet no one got rowdy, for the natives never spoke above a whisper, even tipsy, and shushed any pirate noise.
"Where are you from?" asked Adira.
"The heights of the southern forest." Magfire accepted a gourd and sucked down a draught that made her wheeze. "This was our land decades ago. But a great disaster drove us out. Too, a monster haunted the forest."
"Monster?" Adira jolted, unsure she'd heard right. "What sort of monster?"
"What?" Magfire lost the topic and found another. "Then an old man in our village in the south began to speak. He'd been mute and senile for years. Now he talked incessantly about reclaiming our heritage, our lost homeland. The time of prophecy neared, the time of None, One, and Two."
"Song of the Sea King!" Adira swayed on the cloak and almost tipped over. "Not that again! Hazezon uncorked that bottle! It's mackerel tripe! I don't know why I married him!.."
"We swore an oath upon the war post in our village." Mag-fire slurred on. "Painted it red with our own blood! But when we got here, we found Shauku infested the ruins. That's where the disaster sprang from, you see. Long ago… Curse them all! No legionnaires will push us from our land! We will drive her and them out, on my honor!"
Both blabbed, drinking steadily. Then a voice by Adira's elbow asked, "So you venture farther afield than just Buzzard's Bay?"
"Uh, beg your pardon?" Muzzy, Adira turned toward the new speaker, who'd sat for hours without saying a word. He had a lean face and neat brown beard, and wore a homespun tan shirt, leather kilt and leggings, a hood and cowl thrown back, and on his chest, a neatly stitched wolf's head.
"My brother, Taurion," slurred Magfire. "He finds our forest confining, though it stretches a thousand leagues."
Taurion waited quietly for an answer. Addled by liquor, Adira babbled to the brother, "Uh, yes, we sail the Sea of Serenity and beyond. Past the Onyx Bridge thrice, south of Albatross Alley, and uh, elsewhere. Anywhere water will run under our keel! Why do you-"
A distraction intruded. A flash of white caught Adira's eye. Squinting across rippling firelight, she realized it was Murdoch's bare belly. A woodswoman tossed his shirt to the night, then flopped on his chest to smother him with kisses. Simone the Siren laughed amid a circle of admiring men and one woman who stroked her limbs. Jasmine Boreal whispered in Heath's ear, or else chewed on it, while a pine-dwelling woman slid her hands under his shirt. Whistledove Kithkin rode a man's shoulders, giggling. Murdoch hoisted over his head a laughing lithe woman and bellowed like a bull, but was hushed by passionate kisses. Even Jedit Ojanen received affection, lying alongside the fire while four woman rubbed his belly. Many woodsfolk had slipped away in pairs.
"But we just met." The thought struck Adira funny. She giggled and couldn't stop. Suddenly a black shape eclipsed the campfire. Under her butchered blonde mop, Sister Wilemina was white-faced and sweating. The archer had borrowed a bow, though her right arm was still cradled in a sling.