Gert made another questionable sound, but she stepped aside so Cali could join the captain on the raised section of the stern. From there, she had a good view of the rest of the ship and all the pirates working to raise the sails.
Bonnie walked back to stand at the wheel, and Cali followed, carefully placing her feet as the ship swayed. Despite her natural agility and balance, the pantheri braced her legs wide to keep herself steady.
The pirate captain gripped the wheel, each of the spokes a different color, as she steered them deeper into open water. “Your hellkin friend said you’d spent a lot of time with the woman who escaped and took our jolly boat.”
“I did.” Cali rested her paws on the wooden railing, observing the pirate crew move about the deck as the quartermaster directed them. The Cruel Mistress was no small ship, but the crew of dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, part-goblins, humans, and fey seemed to have no problem with the heavy ropes or the swinging booms. Not that she’d expected anything less.
“Can you tell me where you think she might flee?”
Cali glanced at the woman whose dark hair was ruffling in the breeze. “You really want your jolly boat back.”
Bonnie met her gaze without amusement. “I really do.”
Okay then. The pirate wasn’t playing around.
Cali thought back to her conversations with the hellkin. Most of them had centered on all the adventures they’d have if Cali joined her crew, and the pantheri flinched when she remembered how close she’d come to falling for it. But part of Marina’s ploy had been to tell Cali about many of her past adventures, which meant she knew some of the hellkin’s patterns. “Marina’s been wandering The Known Lands for decades, but she never mentioned ships or sailing to me. I suppose that’s because you can’t pull a con on a ship and escape so easily.”
“Unless you steal a boat,” Bonnie grumbled.
The pirate made a fair point. “If I were to guess about her whereabouts, I’d say she’s heading for someplace to land. I don’t know if she or her crew know anything about sailing. My gut says that she’d want to reach some place where she could lie low.”
Bonnie shifted the wheel, keeping her eyes on the horizon. “I sent scouts to the nearest harbors, but there’s been no sign of a jolly boat.”
Cali could tell you the distance between most towns in the Known Lands, but her extensive knowledge ended at the water’s edge. She’d never been to Lananore and only journeyed to the Skittering Islands once.
“Where could she go if not back to shore? Is it possible she and her crew have wrecked or drowned?”
Bonnie shook her head. “Doubtful. If they had, the jolly boat would have washed up on shore somewhere, and if it didn’t return to us, we would have found it.”
Cali had never heard of a jolly boat that could find its way back to its ship, but she also knew little about ships in general. She scanned the blue-hazed edge of the horizon. “You mentioned outlaw islands, but is it possible to reach those in a jolly boat?”
“In my jolly boat, yes.”
Cali wanted to ask the pirate what made this jolly boat so special, aside from its apparent ability to route itself, but Bonnie seemed hesitant to explain why it was so crucial to retrieve a rowboat.
Bonnie readjusted her grip on the wheel so that her right hand was on a green spoke and her left hand on an orange. “My fear is that she’s headed to Claw Island.”
Cali cocked her head at the captain. “Never heard of it.”
The pirate’s lips twitched at one corner. “That’s the point. It’s an island known only to pirates and outlaws. It’s a place where there are no laws and no rules.”
“Marina would fit right in.”
“Precisely.” Bonnie tipped her head to Cali. “If she’s found out about it and managed to get the location from someone, she could be headed there.”
Cali suspected a hellkin gang who’d stolen a pirate’s jolly boat wouldn’t be the most popular visitors, especially if other outlaws knew Bonnie, but she couldn’t underestimate Marina’s talent for manipulation. If the hellkin believed the island was a place she could hide out or even find more outlaws to join her crew, she’d take the chance. That much she knew.
“Then we should go there,” Cali said.
The wheel jerked in Bonnie’s hands, and the pirate frowned, shifting her stance as her quartermaster joined them on the quarterdeck. “It’s not as easy as that.”
“Claw Island?” Gert asked, flicking her gaze to Cali and away again.
Bonnie nodded, and the orc groaned.
Cali looked between the two women. She was definitely missing something. “What?”
“Part of what makes Claw Island a place that only pirates and outlaws dare visit is the difficulty in getting there,” Bonnie said.
