"I'm not ready yet," Dar said, pulling the robe she had made for him over his head. He looked like a smaller version of Azakar in that robe.
"Well, step on it, cousin," Azakar chided. "We can't keep Mistress Dolanna waiting."
"Zak, you look like a butterfly," Tarrin noted.
"Please. I've already been called a fluffy dandersnap by Faalken. That was right before I threw him overboard."
"You didn't!" Dar gasped.
"Some insults can't be left unchallenged," Azakar said bluntly. "He should be glad he wasn't in his armor yet. His armor would have sent him straight to the bottom."
Dar gave Azakar a strangled look, then burst out laughing.
"Azakar," Tarrin said as he started closing the door.
"What?"
"Don't even think of trying to throw me over the rail."
"I'm not that stupid, Tarrin," he said waspishly as he closed the door. That only made Dar laugh harder.
On deck, they were all there. Faalken's hair was still damp, and the sight of it mad Dar explode into laughter yet again. That drew a nasty look from the Knight, but it did nothing to make the young Arkisian stop. Everyone was in costume, he saw. Azakar and Dar wore flowing, voluminous robes of very bright reds and yellows. Dolanna wore a simple silk robe of white with a veil over her face, which marked her as a married woman in Arakite society, and Allia wore a robe of green, which denoted her as a servant. She too was veiled, allowing one to only see her dark skin and lustrous blue eyes. Blue eyes were uncommon among Arakites, but not among halfbreeds. And since halfbred Arakites were held in contempt, it was logical for one to be a servant. Faalken wore his Knight's armor, which was good enough because only the surcoat held any heraldry that marked him as a Knight of Karas. He wore a very plain wool surcoat now, dyed blue, with only a white sunburst design for decoration. Keritanima and Miranda wore similar dresses of a very lustrous satin, a common material and cut for well-to-do Wikuni merchants, but Keritanima had changed her hairstyle from the flowing, curly way she usually wore it to a severe bun behind her head. The move altered her appearance in a startling manner. She looked much more mature, stern, august, almost a little severe. Because the fact that her dress had no neckline, only a stiff collar that begun just under her chin, matched a very stiff-backed posture and appearance, it made her look like a completely different person. The dress itself was just as severe as Keritanima's appearance. It was gray, a gloomy, drab gray, and it covered everything but her head and her hands. There was a bit of lace at the cuffs, and a bit more on the dress's high neck, with just a hint of lace running along the many little pearl buttons that went up the front of the bodice. It was something a spinster would wear, and it made her look totally different. Miranda's dress was the complete opposite. Her neckline could almost be called a waistline, ending just above her belt. A single band of cloth crossed over her breasts between the two sides of her neckline to make sure her dress didn't slip and expose anything best left unseen. The dress's cream color blended in an odd way with her white fur, making it hard to find where the dress ended and the fur began. It was an illusion of showing everything while only showing about half of everything. The beaten gold belt and a ruby pendant necklace broke up that expanse of white. What surprised him was that Miranda had dyed her hair and her tail both. Where he expected that silky blond, he found instead a dark mahogany.
"Wow," Dar said as he looked at the pair.
"Impressive, isn't it?" Keritanima said with a wink, which dropped the stern expression and allowed a hint of the old Keritanima to peek out. "Meet Kaylin, Mistress Merchant of House Eram, and her new partner, Allison, Mistress Merchant of House Alagon."
"What do you think, Tarrin?" Miranda asked, turning around for him.
"I think I'm talking to strangers," he replied.
"That's the idea, silly," Keritanima chided.
"Where are the Wikuni pirates?" Dar asked curiously. Tarrin looked towards the amidships, and they were indeed gone.
"Kern moved them into the hold while we were changing," Faalken answered, ruffing his hair with a hand, then shaking the water off of it. His dark, curly locks were plastered to his face, and that made Dar giggle like a little girl.
"We did not want them to see us in our disguises, so I asked Kern to put them out of sight. Sheba could cause us trouble if she managed to make her Highness' location well known. There is a reward out for her capture."
"You look damp, Faalken. Did you take a bath before changing?" Tarrin asked in a calm voice. Faalken glared at him a moment, and that made Dar explode into helpless gales of laughter.
"I see this mutinous dog stopped by your cabin," Faalken said darkly, pointing at Azakar. "I hope we do get attacked. I'm going to let them carve a few slices off your backside, Zak."
"They can try," Azakar shrugged, but there was a slight smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. "I'm not so sure you could protect me anyway. It's a good thing I'm here. Old Knights like you should stay on the training field and leave the real fighting to us."
"Here we go," Dolanna said in a low voice to Tarrin as Faalken and Azakar began exchanging barbs. "Azakar has declared war. Faalken will be unable to resist retaliating. There will be a war of pranks."
"At least we'll be entertained, Dolanna," Tarrin said sagely.
"So long as they do not bring down the inn around us," she sighed.
The group settled more and more into their disguises as the ship approached the city. They passed the outer fringes of the anchored ships, ships anchored outside the city for one reason or another, probably to avoid paying a berthing charge. It was about that time that a sleek Wikuni frigate, one of their purely military vessels, came into sight from behind another galleon. It was a larger frigate, polished, clean, and immaculate, and it moved on the breeze directly in front of them. Then it dropped its anchors and opened its gunports.
"This is not good," Keritanima said suddenly, peering at the ship. "It's military, but it's flying the flag of the House Zalan."
"What does that mean?" Tarrin asked calmly, staring at the ship.
"That means that it's acting directly under orders from Arthas Zalan," she replied soberly. "Arthas Zalan is Sheba 's father."
"Do you think he knows we have her?" Dar asked a bit uncertainly.
"I don't see how he could possibly find out, but he wouldn't be stopping us for no reason. Especially when we're not in open water. If he fires on us, he'll have hell to pay for it from the Dayisan Council. And that doesn't even come close to what my father will do to him for tarnishing the Wikuni reputation."
"I think that now would be a very good time to return below decks," Dolanna said urgently. "We cannot let them see us in our disguises any more than we can Sheba."
"I think you have a point, Dolanna," Keritanima said seriously, looking at the bristling warship.
The others turned to go back to the cabins, but Tarrin didn't go with them. He instead shapeshifted into his cat form, then padded along the busy sailors up onto the steering deck, to sit sedately next to Kern by the makeshift helm. Kern was bellowing orders to lower sails and drop anchor, but he wasn't ordering them to prepare for combat. Kern obviously felt that the Wikuni wouldn't dare shoot at them when they were sitting in the middle of a flotilla of civilian vessels.
Tarrin watched as Kern's sailors expertly brought the ship to a stop not twenty spans from the frigate's broadside. Easily within shouting range. The wind blew the galleon to the side, and it rotated on its anchor chain to turn its side to the frigate. Kern had them do that on purpose, so he could look right at the Wikuni ship's commander without having to leave the helm.