Chapter 8
Eight
The mule pulling the cart crunched along the snow-packed road, as Cali sat next to Bonnie One-Eye on the buckboard.
Seraphina sat on the pirate’s other side, and Thrain sprawled out in the back.
His pack was his pillow, and he’d curled his arms around the profusion of bakery bags, the sugar whitening his dark beard proof that he’d already enjoyed two of the five morning meals before falling asleep.
The dwarf’s rumbling snores mingled with the rhythmic slap of hooves and the creak of the cart’s wheels.
Cali kept her eyes on the tree-shadowed road, her senses tuned to the snow-hush of the wooded area, the muffled birdsong, the dampened scent of pine beneath ice.
As expected, the day was quiet, and the road was all but deserted.
They’d clopped past Grayhelm Castle, the memories of her foolishness prompting a frown, and she’d been glad when the crumbling castle was behind them.
“We won’t be sneaking up on anyone,” Bonnie said, after Thrain’s breath had hitched loudly before he’d resumed rattling the cart with his snoring.
Cali grinned. “Stealth isn’t one of Thrain’s strengths.”
The pirate captain laughed. “Lucky for him, pirates rarely require stealth, although my crew isn’t like most.”
Seraphina hissed a laugh at this but didn’t glance over. The nagine apparently didn’t feel the need to fill the silence or join the bursts of conversation.
Cali kept her eyes on the road, even though Bonnie held the reins. “Any reason you crew with only females?”
“Have you ever met male pirates?” The woman glanced at her. “You want the full list of reasons?”
Cali couldn’t stifle her laugh. “So why let Thrain aboard?”
“Aside from him assuring me you need a bodyguard?”
Cali groaned. So much for impressing the notorious pirate.
“Don’t worry,” Bonnie said. “I didn’t believe him. But I sensed the same need in him that I did in you.”
This startled Cali, and she twisted to face the woman. “Need?”
“If there’s one thing that years of pirating have taught me, it’s how to sense the truth in people.”
Cali shifted on the hard plank. Had she been so obvious?
The road widened as the trees thinned, and an open field stretched out on both sides, the crop-stripped ground splotched with patches of snow.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Bonnie said. “I doubt anyone else picked up on it the way I did.”
“I did not,” Seraphina added without being asked. “I also do not care as much about people. Unless they are attacking me.”
Cali wasn’t sure if this was meant as a joke, but the nagine didn’t smile. The pantheri shifted on the buckboard, uncomfortable with the idea that a stranger sensed something in her she didn’t even want to admit to herself.
“I wouldn’t call it a need,” Cali mumbled.
“No?”
“No.” Even to her own ears, Cali’s tone sounded petulant. Oh good. Now she was whiny and needy. Exactly the impression she wanted the woman to have of her. Time to change the direction of the conversation.
“What kind of need did you sense in Thrain that convinced you to let him join you?”
Bonnie bobbled her head from one side to the other. “Despite his gruff demeanor, I sense that he’s a bit lost. Not such a surprise considering how far he is from the Ice Lands.”
Cali thought about Thrain traveling from his home under the mountains to find Sass.
He’d left all the family he’d known and undertaken an arduous journey to help his childhood friend.
Now that she thought about it more, it had been brave of him, especially since he’d never traveled the Known Lands like she had.
But a life of adventuring did not mean you couldn’t still be lost, as she well knew.
Cali found she wanted to know what Bonnie thought of her. “And me?”
The mule shook its head, its mane flapping, and the pirate kept her eyes forward. “The archer who’s spent her life on one quest after another? You need somewhere to aim your bow.”
Cali frowned and flicked her claws through her hair. What did that mean?
“As charming as that little village is, you won’t be content there without some way to keep yourself occupied. Not after you’ve been searching for so long.”
The tip of Cali’s tail twitched. The pirate couldn’t know what she was searching for, could she? Not even her former crew mates knew she looked for signs of her lost love in every village and along each road.
“Did you talk to Rog?” she asked.
“The gnome whose wife makes the brandy?” Bonnie sounded both amused and confused. “No.”
“Vaskel?” Maybe Rog had told the hellkin, even though he assured her he would let her tell their crew.
“Not about you,” Bonnie said. “But it’s as clear as the stripes on your face that you’re looking for something you’ve yet to find. Fair warning, though, there’s no treasure map for finding yourself.”
Cali sat in silence as the cart ambled along, passing more fields and approaching a farmhouse set back from the road.
Maybe this had been a bad idea. Even if they caught Marina and Cali made up for her foolishness in a small way, she doubted it would soothe her restlessness.
The odds of finding Adelaide on a pirate ship seemed improbable, so this quest would bring Cali no closer to her.
At the end, she’d be right where she’d been--deciding between leaving Wayside and returning to crewing or staying in the village with her friends as the relentless drumbeat pressed her to keep moving, keep looking, keep going.
Cali reached one hand over her shoulder and feathered a claw over the flocking of her arrows. “Does this mean you have a ship full of women who’re lost or looking for what’s missing in their lives?”
Bonnie took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Not a shipful, but there are some of us.”
Cali swung her head to the pirate, curious if she’d meant to include herself. But before she could ask the woman, Thrain bolted upright in the back of the cart. The paper bags filled with baked goods rolled off him as he swiveled his head, his eyes wild.
“Where’m I?”
“On the road to Eldu,” Cali reminded him, twisting to pat a paw on his back. “We’re going to join the pirate ship, remember?”
“Pirates?” the dwarf muttered. “Always wanted to meet a pirate.”
Then he fell back onto his pack and rolled over to one side, crushing one of the paper bags. Cali winced, hoping Thrain wouldn’t be covered with oozing berry filling by the time they arrived.
She snagged one of the other bags and opened it, glad to see that the teacakes were still intact. She pulled one out and offered it to the woman next to her. “Lemon blueberry teacake?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Bonnie took the fruit-studded treat with one hand and held the reins with the other. “Our cook on the ship is good, but she doesn’t do pastry.”
Cali replaced the bag and reached for another, hoping to rescue some of the hand pies from being flattened by Thrain. When her hand landed on something furry, she froze.
Thrain’s beard was wiry, not fluffy. She turned slowly, her jaw dropping when she saw the masked face poking from the top of the largest bakery bag.
“When did you stow aboard?” she asked Bramble.