Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Cali took the stairs two at a time, her boots slapping every other step, and caught up to Bonnie at the first landing where the bamboo swayed at their impact.
She was half a step behind the captain when they burst through the door and into the shadow-soaked interior.
She moved so fast her feet barely stuck to the floor, although she couldn’t avoid cringing at the rancid smell of oil-soaked fish.
Several of the hunched figures looked up, but Bonnie didn’t slow.
Pinkie perched on a stool at the bar with another gnome beside her, this one with hair the color of moss and a tankard halfway to her lips. Pinkie read Bonnie’s face in the half-second it took the captain to pass her. She was off the stool before her tankard hit the bar.
“What’s happening?”
“Trouble on The Cruel Mistress,” Bonnie called back, already through the outer door and into the night.
Cali glanced back long enough to see Pinkie and the green-haired gnome fall into step behind her, the green-haired one still clutching her tankard, foam sloshing over the side. Then she turned and ran.
Claw Island’s streets were poorly lit and bunched with people shuffling along or propped in doorways.
Bonnie took the alleys instead, cutting through gaps between buildings that Cali wouldn’t have clocked as passages at all.
They emerged into a wider lane, banked hard left, threaded between an empty fish stall and a tavern that stank of rum.
More pirates from The Cruel Mistress detached themselves from doorways as they passed, some with cards still in their hands and one with her boots unlaced.
Gert materialized from a doorway draped with a beaded curtain, and Cali nearly ran into the quartermaster before she registered who it was.
Something dark and sticky plastered the orc’s face from jaw to hairline, and two pale circles of cucumber clung to her eye sockets at slightly different angles, one beginning a slow slide toward her chin.
Cali had perhaps three seconds to absorb the fact that the quartermaster was the type to spend her free evening getting a mud facial before the orc shot her a grim nod of acknowledgment.
“Trouble at the ship?” Gert said.
“Hellkins,” Bonnie called over her shoulder.
Gert plucked the cucumber slices from her face and tossed them behind her without breaking stride. “Son of a goblin’s spawn.”
The docks came into view at the end of the lane, the smell of saltwater sharpening as they pushed through a cluster of people who scattered quickly.
The Cruel Mistress towered over the pier, her painted hull throwing color across the dark water and her sails murmuring in the night breeze.
There were no shouts on board, no sounds of struggle, and no clang of blades.
The quiet was unsettling, and it sent a shiver down the length of Cali’s tail.
Bonnie hit the gangway at a sprint and landed on deck a second later. Cali was right behind her, dropping into a crouch as her boots met the painted planks, already pulling an arrow from her quiver and notching it in one motion.
The deck was empty, which was all wrong. Seraphina should be patrolling the ship’s railing with her cloak whispering in her wake. Cali lowered the bow a fraction and swept her gaze from bow to stern. The master-at-arms was nowhere to be seen. Then Cali’s ears pricked.
A voice rumbled low from below deck, a voice that was unmistakable even muffled by wood and distance. Thrain.
“Downstairs,” she murmured to Bonnie, and moved for the stairs before she’d finished speaking.
Bonnie was a beat behind her as Cali took the painted steps in a single leap. Over her shoulder, she heard the captain tell Gert to check the deck for hellkins, and Gert’s affirmative grunt, and then they were below and moving down the corridor.
The kitchen door was shut, but light peeked under it, and Thrain’s voice was clearer now, even though she couldn’t make out words. Cali raised her bow, glanced at Bonnie with her saber drawn, and kicked open the door with one foot.
Both women rushed inside with weapons drawn and then skidded to a stop.
A hellkin sat tied to a ladderback chair with what appeared to be the strings of a few aprons.
An oven mitt was stuffed into his mouth.
In front of him, standing very upright on the edge of the worktable, was Bramble.
The raccoon had a whisk gripped in both black paws and pointed it at the hellkin with his dark eyes narrowed.
Across the kitchen, Thrain stood with his arms folded and his back to the stove, deep in conversation with Marvella, who was leaning against the counter with her own arms crossed and a wooden spoon tucked into her apron like a weapon being rested, and Seraphina, who towered over both of them.
Then he saw Cali and Bonnie in the doorway, and he spread his arms wide.
“There you are.” He looked genuinely delighted and not at all concerned. “You missed all the excitement.”