He folded his arms over his chest.
“What do you want, Ensign Renn?”
I sagged against a wall, swallowed the tightening of my throat.
“I don’t know, Doc,” I said. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Did you ever?”
Recriminations from a faun.
“I used to.” I shrugged. “No, maybe never.”
He sighed.
“The captain is putting you off at Flogger’s Bay. We should be there shortly.”
“Why?” I asked. “I was helpful, wasn’t I? I helped.”
“He said you have mutiny in your bones.”
Was it mutiny to hate the enemy? It’s what I had learned all my life once I left home. My mother had yearned forRhi’Ahrmagik and had joined their worship of the Sister Moons in a land given over to Forge. So, in an act of early rebellion, I had set myself against them both. That small seed of hate grew like a weed once I traded my little island home for a world at war. It had grown nettles in the woolback farm, then thorns while choking down rations at the docks. When I arrived at the naval academy of Berryburn Yard, that hate had sharpened to a spike, and I was promoted early because of it. Hate was good magik, it seemed. We all needed someone to blame.
The three-toned pips sounded, and I glanced up.
“Hmm. It appears we’re there now.” He sighed again. “I’m sorry, Ensign. You were warned.”
“I don’t take well to warnings,” I mumbled.
Wayward girl spit up on shore. If only I were a wyrmaid. I’d swim away and never return. If I were a bird, I’d fly.
“Come on, then,” he said, and he moved past me, ducking through the flap that was his door.
Sunsrise at Flogger’s Bay was gray. Gray skies, gray sea, gray fog. Forge was a pinprick, Ember unseen. There was a stiff wind from the south, and the cold drizzle bit my cheeks. I shivered, despite the peacoat, and I clutched a rucksack to my chest. I had nothing but pride to my name, and now, not even that.
There were eight tall ships moored off the coast, and the docks were crowded with jolly boats and prams. Fahr and Smoke joined me in a longboat, but neither said a word. Helmed by Buck, a crew rowed the distance from theTouchstoneto the dock, and the smell of woodsmoke, limons, and salt fish carried heavy on the air.
Smoke stood as the longboat neared the wharf, tossed the rope to a swab on deck. The boat bumped against wet timbers, and soon, we were landside, my sea legs unsteady on the planks. I’d never been to Flogger’s Bay, never even heard of it. It seemed a busy port, not large but thriving, and Buck’s crew stayed behind to register with the magister and take provisions.
Fahr, Smoke, and I made our way across the sandy market, and I marveled at the numbers of fauns, minotaurs, harpiar, cyclopes, and other races that moved through the crowds. The Spits were not like that. Nothing other than homani like Fahr and me lived on the Spits.
Not true. I remember a bear that came to our cabin when I was very young. He walked like a man, and he could talk like one, too. My mother supplied him with beetroot ointment for digestive issues, and he always paid her in pinesap and honeycomb. I used to pretend he wanted to take me to the forest to live with him as a cub.
Odd, the things I remembered, and when.
We paused at the doors of a tavern, and Fahr glanced up.
“The Whiskee Drum,” he muttered.
“Sounds promising,” said Smoke.
Fahr squared himself.
“We’ll buy you one drink,” he said to me. “But we have business, so you’ll be off.”
“Story of my life,” I said and stepped in.
The tavern smelled of pipes. It was small, crowded, and dark like most, but still, we managed to find a table in an alcove beneath a dirty window. Fahr and I sat in silence as Smoke fetched the drink, the mate staring at his hands, me staring at nothing at all.
