Ed Greenwood: The Mercenaries

The Doegan Dogs were pirates-freebooters sponsored and chartered by the self-styled Emperor of Doegan to hunt down the ships of Ulgarth, Parsanic, Konigheim, and anyone else who came within reach

… while the Emperor's Imperial Fleet kept busy in the south, fighting the pirates of the fabled Golden Lands (and, some said, other lands for Doegan to conquer). The Dogs made sailing dangerous anywhere south of the Free Cities, but then, they kept all the kingdoms from rising in enough strength to wipe out the folk of Tharkar and other "honest" pirates, too.

"Kurthe swore some Dogs burned his ship," Belgin told them.

"What, in Port Halovar? Likely enough," Anvil grunted. "What made you think of that?"

Belgin frowned. "Your mention of the Dogs, of course," he said slowly. "I didn't mean to let it slip out, though."

Sharessa matched his frown. Why were they all spilling old secrets?

"So why are the Five Kingdoms 'the way they are,' as you put it?" Ingrar asked Rings. "I've always wondered."

Anvil laughed cynically, but the dwarf held up a hand for silence, scratched his chin, and said solemnly, "It's a secret."

"What?" Ingrar asked, eyes shining in eagerness. "Tell me!"

"Ah, lad," the dwarf said, a sudden answering twinkle in his eyes, "if I knew just why the gods make everyone who climbs on a throne crazy, I'd be Emperor of the Five Kingdoms, and not trading words on the deck of this hulk now, with ye!"

"That was well said," Belgin said grudgingly.

"Well put, indeed," Anvil agreed.

"Hmm," Rings pondered thoughtfully, emptying his pan, "I wonder if good Master Belmer has put a little something extra into this soup?"

"Of course I have," a calm voice spoke out of the rigging overhead, stunning them all into gaping silence. "Not to learn your secrets, but to keep you awake. Anyone still yawning?"

The Sharkers looked at him, blinked, thought about it, and said in ragged unison, "No."

The dwarf squinted up at the dark bulk that shouldn't have been able to get to where it was, so close above them, without at least one of them noticing, and asked flatly, "Why?"

"That black ship is still hunting for us," their employer told them. "I've seen it twice. That's why I turned nor'west a little while back-but they've found us again. They seem to be able to feel about-but not quite-where we are out here."

"Magic?" Sharessa asked, raising an eyebrow.

Belmer gave her a thoughtful look. "Only if someone aboard is working it," he told her, in a voice that was soft and yet had edges as hard as ice.

Belgin Dree was dipping a finger in the soup and sucking it appraisingly. "That lemon taste," he said slowly. "Your 'little something extra' wouldn't have been a purple powder, would it? From Chult?"

Belmer inclined his head and did not quite smile.

Sharessa stared up at him, fear stirring in her like a cold sea breeze. "You've poisoned us?"

The fat man shook his head. "Kept you alive," he replied. "I had the same soup you did. Yulchass powder, made from a berry found deep in the jungles of Chult, keeps folk awake and alert a day or so longer than usual- and they don't go under from the stolen sleep, after."

Belgin nodded. "And the price is loose-tongued honesty."

Rings stared at him, and then turned his bald head slowly to give their employer a sour look. "That's a trick I'd as soon ye didn't play on us again, Master Belmer, if ye take my meaning," the dwarf said slowly. "There're certain things as're not done on the Utter Coast… poisoning, for instance."

"Oh?" their employer asked, and turned his head to match gazes with the sharper. "Is that true, Belgin?"

"Ahh…" The older man coughed, smiled a little weakly, and said, "What one doesn't know, it's been said, is often a comfort."

Rings directed an even darker look at his comrade. "No," he said slowly, "I don't want to know… I really don't want to know."

"What I do want to know," Brindra said suddenly, startling them all with the break from her accustomed silence, "is who's after us-and why. Any ideas, sir?"

Her question was flung like a blade up at where Belmer hung in the shrouds above, but the little man only tightened his mouth and said, "I have my suspicions-but that's all they are. Spreading rumors that turn out to be false can be worse, by far, than keeping silent."

Rings grinned. "So, care to share your suspicions with us? Or, since we're wide awake again, a little more about this mission we've signed on for?"

Belmer did smile this time. "Not yet," was all he said. Before anyone could say anything further, a soup bowl spun down into the dwarf's hands-Rings caught it without thinking, spoon and all-and the shape in the shrouds above turned and was gone, flitting from line to line like a restless shadow, making no more noise than the whispering waves on the other side of the rail.

The Sharkers exchanged glances, and Rings broke the silence to ask them all softly, "So who d'you think our Master is, anyway?"

"A renegade royal-blood from Doegan?" Brindra asked, eyes bright at this romantic thought.

"An agent of Ulgarth, sent to stir things up in proud and increasingly dangerous Doegan?" Sharessa countered.

"No," Belgin and Anvil said together.

"He's from somewhere far from here," Belgin added.

"I can't be sure where-he's traveled some, and been in several courts or cities for some years at a time- but his accent says 'north' to me. Way north, beyond Raurin; mayhap a long way beyond." "

"That means he can't be a slaver out of Konigheim, raiding up and down the Coast," Brindra put in. "They don't hire outlanders for suchlike."

"Maybe he's one of the agents the Emperor-Mages of Doegan use," Ingrar ventured, "to keep folk from seeing their webs and gills and fish-skin."

Brindra made a rude sound. "You listen to too many tavern-tales, lad," she said, and pulled down her ragged shirt to lay bare one muscled shoulder. A few scales shone there, and in the armpit beneath was a shadow that might have been a thin, spiny span of blue, webbed flesh. The youth gaped at her, blushing scarlet, as she stared challengingly at him and slowly drew her clothing together again. "You think someone high and mighty needs to hide a few gills?" she growled at him. "From whom?"

"He's killed people," Anvil put in, "lots of them, I'd say. And he's gotten very good at it."

Rings lifted a finger from the bowl in his hands and put it to his lips. "He didn't have the same soup as the rest of us, mind," he said grimly, "whatever he told us."

"Maybe he was part of Redbeard's crew," the deep voice of Kurthe said, out of the darkness along the rail. His eyes glowed like two red flames; Ingrar stared at him, wondering why he'd never noticed that before.

The others shifted aside to let the big Konigheimer into their circle. Ingrar glanced around quickly; they weren't acting as if anything about the big man was odd.

"He fled mighty fast from Tharkar," Kurthe continued, hooking two thick thumbs into his belt, "and with pains to keep quiet, too. And he seemed to know a ship'd be following us. It could be he did his captain out of some of Ralingor's loot-a treasure map, say, or a logbook-and made a run for it, hiring us to swing swords for him and die, if Redbeard ever catches up with him."

"But Blackfingers never-" Sharessa protested, and then fell silent, as Kurthe's familiar arm went around her hip. His fingers lingered, as they always did, on the little ridge there, that marked the top of the old sword-scar that ran down across her belly like a restless white snake.

What had they really known of Ralingor's wealth? He was always laughing and drinking cellars-full of good wine, and spending coins by the fistful… but where had he kept it hidden, and how much could any man have left, after pouring it away by night and day the way Blackfingers had?