The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER THREE

29 Kythorn, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

The Marigold, the Coast of Chult

Harp crossed the gangplank alone and stood on the deck of the Marigold. Looking at the thick grime coating the deck, the yellow mold growing up the walls of the main cabin, and the barrels leaking white slime, the seeds between the Crane’s planks seemed like a minor sin.

Harp looked back at the deck of his ship, at his crew busy with their chores. While Kitto secured the knots on the mast ropes, Llewellyn sewed a small tear in the bottom of a golden sail. The ship’s tailor, Llewellyn was a quick-witted man in his fifties who wrote fiery philosophical treatises by candlelight and left copies at the various ports where they set anchor. Most of Llewellyn’s ideas exhausted Harp, but Kitto seemed to enjoy them. He was listening intently to Llewellyn as they worked side by side, a small knowing smile on the boy’s impish face.

On the other side of the deck Verran held a spare board steady while Cenhar sawed it in half. The loose plank had splintered when it smacked Bootman in the face and needed to be replaced. Without being asked, Cenhar was showing Verran how to fix it so the boy would know what was expected of him if he wanted to find a place among the close-knit crew.

Harp’s family.

Perched on the top of the railing, Kitto spotted Harp and raised his hand in a silent offer of help. Harp shook his head slightly, and Kitto nodded. The boy turned and walked along the narrow railing as the rhythm of the choppy waves rocked the ship up and down. His arms hung loosely at his sides while his body effortlessly adjusted to the motion of the Crane. Harp had known Kitto since he was small and scrawny, indentured on the Marderward. Even then, the boy had had an uncanny sense of balance and coordination that amazed Harp.

Kitto had been with him the night they’d fled the Marderward with Liel, an elf who was being held prisoner by the brutal captain. It was Kitto and Liel who had rowed the little skiff away from the burning ship. Delirious from pain, Harp curled up on the bottom of the boat with a broken hand and a split face watching the showers of hot cinders spark across the night sky. Kitto had been with him during the halcyon months hiding on the Moonshae Isles when the three of them-Kitto, Harp, and Liel-had lived in a safe haven and formed the closest thing to a family that Harp had even known. Then he’d lost both Kitto and Liel.

It was several years before he saw Kitto again, when the boy miraculously showed up in the derelict port town where he and Boult had found lodging in the months after they were released from the Vankila Slab. The sight of Kitto’s small, dirty face on his doorstep made Harp weep. Finding the boy was the first thing he’d planned to do, just as soon as he had enough coin to buy a ship. Harp never got the full story on how Kitto managed it: an eleven-year-old kid walking barefoot from Tethyr with just Harp’s name scrawled on a piece of paper.

Kitto gave his last coin to the beggar on the corner who pointed him in the direction of Harp’s decrepit hovel, just one of many in a street of hovels. He’d been so quiet that it had taken Harp and Boult a tenday just to get him to talk about the weather, or the gruel, or anything at all. Those were the days when a strong wind could split Harp’s scars open, and he wondered if he’d ever stop feeling like a walking dead man.

At least they had a plan: to buy the Crane. The ship had given them a singularity of purpose, probably the last time in Harp’s life that was true. Every night after smashing rocks or killing rats or whatever petty job they took instead, they counted their gold and went to sleep hungry under a roof that provided only slightly more shelter than sleeping rough under the stars. They might have lived out their days in the waterfront district, never earning enough to get out-the plight of most of the denizens that shared the refuse-slick streets with them.

But the day Harp showed up at the dingy tradeshop with his latest payment on the ship, the owner of the Crane met him at the door. The man must have been the last honest person at the port, because he refused Harp’s coin and gave him the writ of sale, saying a mysterious benefactor had paid the debt. He wouldn’t say who had done them such a favor, not even when Boult, suspicious of the good deed, returned to the shop and offered him a reward for the information.

They sailed away from the port on the Crane that very day, with Boult, who had never been on a ship before, heaving into a bucket. Harp leaned on the railing beside Kitto, who was actually smiling at the sight of the wretched city disappearing in the distance. The scars on Harp’s arms had split that morning, and there he stood, leaking blood onto the boards. As long as he never saw the inside of another prison or had anything remind him of a copper-haired elf named Liel, maybe everything would be all right.

But it hadn’t been, of course. Boult and Kitto had hauled him out of more than one cell where’d he’d been tossed after a night in the wrong pub or the wrong bed or the wrong whatever he couldn’t remember. And Liel was the first thing he thought of when he woke up in the morning and, unless he was drunk enough, she was the thing he couldn’t put out of his head at night.

Some days, he burned with anger at Liel for letting Kitto set out on the road by himself, although there was little she could have done to stop the boy if he had his mind set on it. But she had promised to take care of Kitto even after she married Declan Cardew. Hatred didn’t come naturally to Harp. He’d give a man more chances than he deserved. But the power-hungry, ambitious Cardew had been a thorn in Harp’s foot for years. No, that was too gentle a comparison for the role he’d played in Harp’s life. Cardew was poison in an already mortal wound.

“What a dump!” Boult’s voice came from behind him.

“Nine Hells!” Harp swore. Engrossed in thought, Harp had wandered down to the lower deck, moving aimlessly between crates and barrels as if answers would be waiting for him in plain sight. He was so distracted that he hadn’t heard Boult come down the ladder into the hold. “Who knew dwarves could sneak like cats?” Harp said.

“I could’ve cut your throat, and you wouldn’t have seen me coming,” Boult said. “Lingering in the past like a pig rolling in slop. You get that look in your eye, you’re thinking about a certain ambitious, underhanded elf named Liel. When are you going to start using your head?”

“I’ve made it forty-two years so far,” Harp replied. “No use starting now.”

“Did you find anything?” Boult asked, lifting the lid of one of the crates and closing it quickly when the smell of rotting meat drifted into the air. “Bitch Queen, spare us. They must have been waiting here a long time.”

Grates in the low ceiling allowed light into the stuffy space, and they could hear rodents scurrying in the dark spaces along the edge of the hull. Harp brushed aside a coil of thick rope hanging from the ceiling. There was a door at the far end of the hold. Covered in gilt-leaf, the door was surprisingly ornate compared to the rest of the ship and glowed faintly in the dusty light. “That must be the captain’s quarters,” Harp said.

“My, the captain must have been a man of fine taste,” Boult said, jabbing his finger at the gaudy decoration.

“Nothing says high class like shiny foil,” Harp agreed as he gingerly pushed the door open. Glass lanterns hung from the ceiling, and their low flames cast swaying shadows in the dingy, sour-smelling room. There was a cot bolted into the floor, a large chest against one side of the room, and a table with papers and brass navigational scopes. It looked very much like Harp’s quarters back on the Crane. Only bigger.

“Laws of pillage say she’s ours now,” Harp said as he moved into the room to check the maps tacked to the wall.

“We sail her to Nyanzaru and sell her, chances are we make more coin than doing the job we came to do,” Boult said.

Harp looked over his shoulder at Boult. “We can finish the job and still sell her at the port. I committed to Avalor.”

“And what exactly did you commit to?”

“You’re not going to let it go, are you?” Harp asked. “It might not even matter.”

“We’re here because of Liel, and that doesn’t fill me with joy and hope,” Boult said.

“You’re wrong about Liel,” Harp told him, pulling the maps off the wall. He rolled them up neatly and laid them on the cot. In his early days of pirating, Harp learned that if you could only take one thing from an enemy vessel, you should take the maps. “And it’s not like you to even think about reneging on a job.”

“And it’s not like you to lie,” Boult said. “Especially not to me.”

“Since when?” Harp asked. “Our friendship would be so much less interesting if we only told the truth. I’m pretty sure you lie to me all the time.”

“Have to do something to keep you conscious.”

Harp knelt down in front of the heavy wooden chest and stared at its brass lock. It didn’t look too complicated-or trapped-but Kitto was the true lock expert. Harp sat back on his heels and thought about fetching Kitto, who could open the chest much quicker than he could. But Harp wanted to get off the Marigold and onto shore as quickly as possible.

“The captain was Alon Merritt,” Boult said, reading from the log on the table. He ran his finger down the page.

“Sure,” Harp replied, his full attention on the chest.

“Not much in the way of personal information about Captain Merritt, just weather records and land sightings,” Boult continued. When Harp didn’t respond, he glowered down at Harp who was prone on the floor with his eye looking under the chest for springs or other traps.

“Did you hear me?” Boult said.

Harp grunted as he pulled his picks out of his pocket and peered into the keyhole for a better look at the locking mechanism. But the hole was too small to see the components, so he just stuck two hook picks inside and hoped for the best.

“I bet a mage could open that,” Boult said grumpily. “We need a spellcaster. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

“We had a spellcaster. Remember Andia?”

“Of course I remember her. And the one before that. What was her name?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Harp told him.

“Etienne. You chased her away too.”

“She left of her own accord,” Harp protested.

“In tears,” Boult pointed out.

“Well, love hurts.”

“Only when you love a bastard.”

Harp twisted the picks harder than he would have thought necessary. Kitto coaxed a lock open with feather touches while Harp always relied on brute strength. However, he heard a satisfying pop, and the box sprang open. Inside the chest was a bundle of papers sealed with red wax.

“What’s on that seal?” Harp held the papers up to the light to try and decipher the waxy imprint. It was a circular mark with something lean curled around a hexagon shape that might have been a cut gemstone. But heat had smeared the wax and left it too damaged to decipher. Harp showed the seal to Boult.

“An otter?” Boult suggested. “Or a serpent?”

“Whoever Bootman got his orders from, they used the stamp to verify them.” Harp broke the seal and opened the bundle, but the pages were blank.

“Enchanted,” Boult said smugly, as if he had known they would be all along. “Promise me that you’ll keep your hands off the next spellcaster we run across.”

“I promise no such thing,” Harp said automatically.

Harp ran his fingertips along the bottom of the chest, pushing gently on the seams of the planks until he felt one bend under the pressure. Using his dagger, he pried up the wood, revealing a tiny piece of rolled parchment tied with a ribbon.

“Laghessi Cove. Second Ride, Summertide. D. Cardew.”

As Harp registered the name Cardew, the blood flowed to his head in a rush of anger. Of course it was Cardew who had sent the mercenaries after them. As Harp stood up and brushed off his knees, his anger turned to bitter amusement. Harp handed the parchment to Boult, who unrolled it.

With an uneasy chuckle, Harp began packing up the maps. But Boult crumbled the parchment violently in his fist and glared at Harp with a deadly look in his eyes. Harp had seen that look on Boult’s face a few times, but it had never been directed at him. At people trying to kill them, yes, but never at him.

“Easy, Boult,” Harp said, puzzled by the intensity and anger coming from his friend. “What’s wrong?”

“What in the Nine Hells is this?” Boult said, throwing the ball of paper at Harp.

“What do you mean?”

“Those are orders from Cardew,” Boult said, answering his own question.

“He must have hired Bootman and told him where to find us,” Harp agreed.

“It’s from Cardew,” Boult repeated again.

“Yes,” Harp replied slowly, resisting the urge to make a jest. Harp wasn’t the best at social interactions, but even he could tell that making light of the situation might be dangerous to his health.

“When you said that Avalor wanted us to come to Chult, I assumed it was to find Liel and her husband, Cardew,” Boult said with barely contained fury. “If Cardew is lost in the jungle with Liel, how is he sending mercenaries to kill us?”

“Because he isn’t lost in the jungle.”

“Well, where is the bastard?”

“The Hero Cardew is alive and well,” Harp continued. “He showed up at the Court of the Crimson Leaf-the only survivor of an unnatural attack in Chult, at least so he says. And that’s when Avalor contacted me.”

“Custard-swilling, dog-kissing, demon-loving, boil-on-a-halfling’s ass,” Boult muttered.

“I’m going to assume that’s directed at the illustrious Hero of the Realm and not me,” Harp said when Boult had finished his tirade. He considered Boult. “This isn’t about my … relationship with Cardew, is it?”

Boult snorted. “Relationship? Like you two strolled through a field of violets holding hands?”

“You know what Cardew did to me,” Harp said. “And while it makes my heart feel all tingly that his name brings out such violence in you-”

“It isn’t about you!”

“Gee, Boult, even with the intellectual capacity of a loaf of bread, I managed to work that out,” Harp said pointedly. “Normally I’d have no interest in prying in your past. But it seems like I’m not the only one in the room keeping secrets, and at the heart of the matter is a man named Cardew. You’re right. I owe you an explanation. But I think you owe me one too.”

“You should be put in a catapult and launched over a cliff,” Boult told him.

“It’s your turn to confess, Boult,” Harp said quietly.

“I hate the day you came caterwauling into the world.”

“Yes, yes, you despise me,” Harp said. “Now talk.”

“I was happier when I thought that son of a barghest was probably dead,” Boult said. He sat down on the edge of the cot and glared at the crumpled missive on the floor. “Have you ever heard of Amhar, Scourge of Tethyr?”

“Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“Who hasn’t?” he repeated sadly. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”