Dandra watched Geth shift as he charged-his hair bristling and growing thicker, his body becoming subtly tougher, even the features of his face turning coarser and more beastlike. As he closed with Ashi, the hunter snapped a leg around in a fast kick that smashed into his side. Geth shrugged it off.
He responded with hammering punches of his own. Ashi stumbled backward under the flurry, barely able to block the shifter’s fists. When she managed to react with punches and kicks herself, Geth swung his right arm to defend himself with blocks that just as often turned into heavy blows. Dandra could see why Geth’s weapon of choice was the massive great-gauntlet-it was a extension of his own natural fighting style. Spinning and darting around Ashi, he took all of the punishment that she served out and returned it in equal measure.
But the Bonetree hunter had the advantage of height and the beams in the ceiling of the hold ran only a couple of feet above her head. Ashi caught Geth with a solid, double-fisted blow that seemed to rattle even the tough shifter, then as he shook off the strike, jumped up and wrapped her hands around the top of one beam. Hanging from it, she snapped her body forward, putting her entire weight behind a stomping kick with both feet square to Geth’s chest. The shifter made a wheezing noise and flailed back away from her.
Ashi dropped to the ground in a crouch. Across the hold, her eyes met Dandra’s. The kalashtar froze. Geth was down. The burly sailors had their hands full keeping back Natrac’s struggling brawlers. Singe stood in front of her protectively, but he was unarmed-and his fiery spells were as useless on a wooden ship as most of her own powers. Most, though not all. She reached desperately for the vayhatana she had used to move the stone in the Bull Hole. If she was fast, she could use it hold Ashi back. Tetkashtai, I need your help!
The only response from the presence was another wail of despair.
To one side of the hold, though, Vennet turned from bashing a man’s head against a barrel. Dandra saw his eyes narrow as he took in the hunter’s menacing stance. He shoved the man he had been struggling with away and turned to face Ashi. Even as her crouch turned into an outstretched leap for Dandra, concentration flickered across the half-elf’s features. The dragonmark that patterned the back of his neck shimmered.
The roaring of a gale filled the hold. Dandra felt it only as a strong breeze, but in a path in front of Vennet, loose objects and abandoned clothing flapped and tumbled, blown up into the air. The worst of the windstorm, however, was focused directly on Ashi. Its unseen force snatched the leaping hunter out of the air and slammed her back into a stack of crates. Her impact scattered them and left her sprawled on the floor, struggling to climb back to her feet in the face of the howling wind. She grabbed at a big, heavy barrel and clung to it.
Now, Tetkashtai, urged Dandra. She reached into herself and forced an image of what they needed to do onto Tetkashtai. The frightened presence finally responded, entwining her skill with Dandra’s raw power.
A ripple of force passed through the air as invisible vayhatana wrapped around Ashi’s taut body-and around the barrel she clung to. With all of her will, Dandra held the two together. Trapped even as Vennet’s wind died away, Ashi spat and struggled, but the best she could do was rock the barrel from side to side.
Out of the corner of her eye, Dandra could see Vennet staring at her. All of Natrac’s other “clients” were staring, too-at her, Vennet, and a slowly rising Geth. The brawlers were silent, shifting uncomfortably.
Natrac peered down from above. “Is it over?” he asked.
Vennet’s angry gaze shifted to the half-orc and rage fell over his face. Natrac flinched and slowly slipped back through the hatch.
The mood around the captain’s table a short time later was far grimmer than it had been earlier in the evening. Vennet sat at the table’s head, Natrac and Geth to one side, Dandra and Singe to the other. In the aft hold, Ashi had been placed in shackles and chained to bolts driven into the wood of the ship. Lightning on Water had no brig. Chains had been the best solution Vennet could come up with. For the remainder of their voyage, the rest of the men and women who had taken Natrac’s offer of passage would sleep on the ship’s deck, their good behavior guaranteed by a promise from the captain that if they stepped out of line they would have to deal with him and Geth directly.
A few swift questions had already uncovered the instigator of the brawclass="underline" an ugly man who was still unconscious after Ashi had slammed the back of his head against the floor of the hold three or four times in quick succession. It was generally acknowledged that she had been defending herself against the man and two of his cronies-at least initially. Once the fighting had started, everyone had joined in, most siding with the ugly man. Ashi, it seemed, had not made herself popular among Natrac’s clients.
Natrac also held the key to how the Bonetree hunter had come to be aboard the ship in the first place. “It happened at the last moment,” the half-orc said, shrinking back from the combined gazes of the others at the table. “I was loading my clients on the pier at Yrlag when she came running up and demanded a place onboard. When I explained that there was no more room, she turned to the biggest man in line and hit him so hard that she broke his jaw with a single blow.” He spread his hands. “How was I supposed to pass over someone who fights like that?”
“Grandfather Rat,” cursed Geth. Dandra watched as he glowered at Singe. “I knew I saw her in Yrlag. She must have run ahead of the other hunters and guessed where we were heading-on her own, she could have slipped past us. The Yrlag Bridge is the only way across the Grithic from the north. All she had to do was wait for us there, then follow us through the town.”
“And when she found out we were taking passage on Lightning on Water, decided to get on, too,” Dandra added. She shivered. “She could have crept out and killed us at any time. We should be lucky that she was the only one.”
Vennet glared at all of them. “So she’s on my ship because of you three,” he said angrily. “Whatever’s going on here, I’d like to know about it now!”
Dandra hesitated, unsure of what to tell the dragonmarked half-elf. Singe came to her rescue. “Her name is Ashi, Vennet. She’s part of a Shadow March clan called the Bonetree. They’re a cult of the Dragon Below.”
“Sovereign Host protect us,” said Natrac.
Vennet’s face settled into a mask of intensity. “Tell me what this is about,” he said tightly. His eyes grew hard and bright as Singe recounted Dandra’s flight from the Bonetree, the attack on Bull Hollow, the trio’s escape to Yrlag, and their determination to see an end to Dah’mir’s power. The wizard made no mention of Tetkashtai, Medalashana, Virikhad or the cult leader’s terrible experiments, instead implying only that Dandra had been abducted as a potential sacrifice to the dark powers that the cult worshipped.
When he was finished, Vennet sat back, his expression blank. Natrac, on the other hand, was pale. The half-orc stood slowly. “Vennet,” he said, “if there’s nothing else you need from me, I’d like the return to my cabin and barricade myself inside until we reach Zarash’ak.” He made a sign of protection against evil. “If you do the sensible thing and drop that cultist over the side, let me know.”
“I’m not going to drop anyone over the side, Natrac,” Vennet growled. “House Lyrandar has rules against that. She’s chained up well enough. If you want to shut yourself in your cabin for two days, you’re welcome to. Keep what you know to yourself. I don’t want a panic onboard.”
Natrac nodded tightly. “I’ll be in my cabin as long as she’s alive.” He turned to go, but laid one heavy hand on Dandra’s shoulder on the way out. “You’re lucky to have escaped,” he said. “I had a cousin who was taken by a cult in Zarash’ak itself. We kept finding pieces of him in the canals for a week. And they say the cults in the marshes are even worse.”