The Hero (Navarre Book 3), page 11
“That shipwright better not repair this new ship before he fixes my son’s yacht,” Lady Elizabeth grumbled.
Navarre thought that there was every chance that Leander would prioritize the Sea Hawk over the noble family’s Terrence Pride, but he did not say that. He had noticed that even though Baronet Reginald had acted with extraordinary valor during their recent rescue of the merchant ship, his mother, her friend, and the friend’s son continued to treat him as if he were a youth who could not do anything right. He decided to repay the bravery the young man had shown by attempting to give him some relief from the constant criticisms.
“I think,” Navarre announced, “that I would like to see this damage up close. Baronet, I have noticed that you have an acute understanding of ships, perhaps you would like to accompany me?”
Reginald looked surprised, but whether by the invitation or the compliment, Navarre could not tell. “I’d be happy to, sheriff, although I’m sure that the men in the shipyard know much more than I do about repairing a vessel like that.”
Navarre smiled at the man’s genuine humility—so unlike that of his companions. “Then we shall learn something together, shall we not?”
“I’ll go with you, Regie,” Gabrielle, the attractive half-elven illusionist who’d been a passenger on the ship that the baronet had helped to rescue spoke up. Navarre, and every other living soul on the island except Reginald, had noticed she’d taken a shine to the young man.
Her offer brought a double frown to Lady Elizabeth’s face—a truly unpleasant expression. “His name is Baronet Reginald,” she corrected her before adding, “and I think I will accompany you to give that shipwright a piece of my mind again.”
Eyes rolled all around her, but the noblewoman didn’t appear to notice.
“Are you quite certain you wish to do that, Lady Elizabeth?” Navarre intervened. “I only asked because I have noticed that—unlike so many here in Hidden Harbor—you are a lady of considerable refinement and a walk through the edge of the jungle such as we will be making can be quite unpleasant. Not only is it more than a mile to the shipwright’s facilities, but the air is so humid and the bugs will be biting ferociously.”
Lady Elizabeth seemed utterly surprised that someone on the island had remembered her high station in life. “Thank you for reminding me of the many discomforts such a walk would bring,” she told Navarre. “I think you are correct. I will remain behind.”
“I’ll go,” Reginald’s friend Neville volunteered as he tried unsuccessfully to step between the baronet and the illusionist. Perhaps the sheriff would benefit from the perspective of a fighting man like me. I’m a lieutenant in the Colonial Guard of Star, you know.”
Everyone except Neville’s fellow nobles burst into laughter at his suggestion.
Chapter Twenty: Thorne Speaks
As they reached the shipwright’s facilities, the Sea Hawk was just coming into dock, with ropes being dropped over the edge of the ship so that Leander’s crew could fasten it securely to the pylons. Later, when they were ready to repair her. Leander would work his magics and lift the ship up onto the shore where they could more easily get at the damaged areas, but for now everyone was content to gather on the dock and gape at the patched hole in the frigate’s side.
“That is more severe than I expected,” Reginald confided in a low voice. “That captain and crew must be something very special to have brought this vessel into port.”
“She is special,” Navarre assured him even as Captain Meredith Braddock appeared at the bow of the ship and called down to them. “Ahoy, Leander, we ran into some trouble again. Can you help us?”
“Can you pay?” Leander called back.
“You know I can,” Braddock laughed.
“Then, yes,” the shipwright assured her. “I can fix anything.”
Braddock laughed again before nimbly taking hold of one of the ropes securing her boat to the dock and using it to quickly slide down among them. A moment later, a red-haired man followed her.
“Hello again, sheriff,” Braddock greeted Navarre as she strode over and the two clasped hands. “It’s good to see you again. I hope your life has been boring since we last parted.”
Navarre shrugged. “Something is always happening in Hidden Harbor, but I have nothing all that unusual to report.”
Neville coughed in surprise, but recovered himself.
“You, on the other hand,” the little sheriff gestured toward the damaged ship, “must have an extraordinary tale to tell.”
Braddock laughed again. “It’s a good one, and one your visitors need to hear about.”
“Then you must share the story,” Navarre told her. “But first, if I may, I’d like to introduce two new friends of mine. The first is Baronet Reginald Spenser, who volunteered his damaged boat to ferry Grog, Sister Agnes, and I to the aid of a merchant vessel a few miles off our coast. I expected him to drop us off and flee, but I underestimated him. He stood his deck and killed two orcs by himself, and helped Sister Agnes kill two others.”
“Good for you!” Braddock offered Reginald her hand.
“Regie, you’re blushing,” Gabrielle teased him.
“The sheriff is making what I did sound more heroic than it was,” the young baronet tried to explain.
“And this young half elf is Illusionist Gabrielle Laurent,” Navarre continued, “who cannily used her powers to disguise the true location of the ship the orcs were pursuing.”
“That is clever,” Braddock exclaimed. “Were you able to make them miss with that harpoon?”
“Twice,” Gabrielle confirmed. “But the third time, when they were closer, I saw the harpoon literally curve in its course to strike us.”
“Yes,” Braddock nodded, “the orcs use foul magics to enhance their range and accuracy. Still, you made them miss twice. That is really something.”
She smiled happily before playfully punching Reginald on the arm. “I got to fight from a distance. Regie here actually jumped into the water to kill two of them and well, I know from the stories they tell here that you already know how insane the sheriff and Grog act when they leap into battle.”
Everyone laughed, except Neville who was clearly insulted that he had not been included in the introductions. He started opening his mouth, but Navarre cut him off. “And who is this imposing gentleman with the red hair?”
“He’s no gentleman,” Braddock chortled. “He’s Randal, my new druid. Good for working with the birds to scout the water around us, and he has a wicked flaming sword he uses in battle. But the real reason I hired him is this man can take an acorn and grow it into a full oak tree in less than a minute.”
“Like we’re ever going to do that at sea,” Randal said with a comical roll of his eyes. Then he stepped forward and offered Navarre his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sheriff. As you can imagine, I have heard stories.”
“So, what caused all of this damage?” Navarre wanted to know.
“Tritons,” Braddock reported with a sudden loss of mirth.
“Tritons!” Neville scoffed, pushing his way past Reginald to enter the conversation. “All of you pirates seem to believe in a lot of myths and fairytales.”
Someone tossed a large body off the deck of the Sea Hawk and Navarre moved quickly to guide Reginald and Gabrielle out of its path. Neville did not move and as a result was almost flattened by the carcass.
“Careful,” someone shouted from the Sea Hawk, “or that fairytale will crush you.”
“I say!” Neville complained. “You can’t—” He shut up when he caught sight of the monster that had just landed on the dock beside him.
“Would you look at that?” Reginald stepped forward and knelt beside the dead creature. “From the waist up, it almost looks human—especially the face. But from the bottom…what kind of shark does that remind you of, Gabi?”
The illusionist crouched beside him and looked up at Captain Braddock. “Thresher?”
“That’s what we think,” the captain agreed.
“Tritons, like merfolk, come in different breeds. They are all dangerous, but the threshers are particularly nasty,” Laut informed Navarre in his head.
He did not immediately share the observation.
“That face, if it was all you could see in the water, you’d think this was a human man in danger of drowning,” Reginald continued examining the body, clearly amazed by what he was looking at. “It even has a little beard.”
“But those horns,” Gabrielle pointed out, “if you could see them, are a dead giveaway.”
“The horns actually grew in size after they got on the deck,” the druid informed them. “I didn’t notice them at all until they started fighting.”
“Where are the gills?” Reginald wanted to know.
“Are these them in the chest?” Gabi poked at the body.
“Take a look in the mouth,” Captain Braddock suggested as the people on the dock pressed closer to see this new threat.
Reginald pulled the mouth open without any apparent discomfort from touching the corpse. “Yikes, those are some serious teeth,” he noted.
“And they have vicious claws,” Braddock pointed out.
“So, what happened?” Navarre asked.
“They opened the attack with a whale,” she explained. “We didn’t even know there were tritons nearby. Just, all of a sudden, this whale surfaced and rammed the side of the ship.
“We had to get harpoons and frankly, we probably wouldn’t have had time to kill it if Randal here hadn’t been able to strengthen the wood of the hull with his magic.”
“That was very smart,” Leander the Shipwright observed. “There was enough life left in the wood for you to affect it?”
“Trees are hardy, as I’m sure you know,” the druid answered the elf. “It’s a rare piece of wood that doesn’t have something in it that I can still work with at least a little.”
“We killed the whale,” Braddock picked up her story, “and then the tritons appeared. I guess they felt like they had to come personally since the whale had failed. Anyway, they leapt onto the deck and the battle was on again. You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but they can move on deck very easily, almost like a snake with that shark’s tail of theirs.”
Tritons are much fiercer than the average merman,” Leander informed them. “Even though the two races look a lot alike. Mermen will generally leave you alone.”
“Mermen are my children,” Laut spike in the sheriff’s head. “They generally take no interest in the affairs of land folk.”
“That is because mermen are a goodly race, Leander,” Navarre shared his new knowledge. “They have no desire to harm their brothers and sisters on the land.”
Everyone gaped at him.
“Navarre,” Braddock protested. “They live under the water.”
“And worship Laut,” Navarre reminded them. “They are members of the Accord.”
“They do?” Leander sounded astonished, which truly was amazing as they had learned he was an elf who had lived for centuries. “They are?”
“How can you not know this?” Navarre demanded, while Laut muttered darkly inside his head.
Navarre wanted to placate her. “Please tell me that you sailors still make the libations to Laut at the start of each journey.”
“Libation?” Braddock asked in obvious confusion. “What libation?”
“The gift of drink poured off the bow of the ship before you start your voyage,” the sheriff prompted her. “Tell them, Reginald.”
Reginald looked uncomfortable at becoming the center of attention again. “It’s a racing tradition, actually. We ask Laut to speed our vessels. I didn’t know it was a real prayer.”
“I’ve heard my grandfather talk about that,” Leander admitted. “Everyone used to do it.”
“But we worship Thorne, not Laut,” Braddock protested.
“Damn!” Thorne cursed even as Furaidh and Tyran laughed inside Navarre’s head. “Even the good ones are really dumb.”
The sheriff tried to fix the situation. “So, you think that Thorne wants you to disrespect his sister goddess? You are entering her domain. Don’t you think it makes sense to be respectful?”
“I’ve honestly never heard of this before.,” Braddock confessed as she turned to Leander. “The elves don’t do this either, do they?”
The shipwright shook his head. “Not anymore, but my grandfather used to talk about it. I think the practice stopped a few centuries after the Accord was formed. Something about reminding the lesser folk that Tyran was the top god.”
Navarre felt the urge to scream with frustration. “Why is everyone so foolish? You elves have been intentionally showing disrespect to a goddess with great influence over the seas so that other people wouldn’t think you honored her more than Tyran? Do you have any idea how utterly crazy that sounds?”
As Leander frowned at the sheriff’s disrespectful tone, Captain Braddock tried to redirect their attention. “So, baronet, you do what? Pour a bottle of wine over the side of the boat before the start of the journey?”
“No, they don’t just dump some wine over the bow,” Laut fumed.
“We pour a cup over the side,” Reginald explained. “And we say the words: May the wind be at our backs and the current in our favor.”
“They’re supposed to take a sip first and mention my name,” Laut pouted.
“It is very good that you remember that much of the ceremony, my friend,” Navarre told him. “But have you never heard that you are supposed to taste the wine first? And then say something like: The rest is for you, mighty Laut. May you keep the wind at our backs and the current in our favor.”
“That’s close,” Leander confirmed as he struggled to remember a long-ago conversation. “That may even be exactly what my grandfather told me. It’s been a long time. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a lot of work to do. Captain Braddock, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get to your ship for quite a—”
“Wait!”
The shipwright, and everyone else, turned around at the sound of the shouted command and saw the priestess, Lily, Daughter of Iris, running as fast as she could up the path.
Navarre immediately stepped forward “What’s wrong?
Lily collapsed into his strong arms, her face red with exertion, her lungs struggling to provide enough air to speak.
“Thorne has come to me,” she wheezed. “You understand? Thorne has come to me and he says—”
Her voice radically changed deepening, but not to the throaty bass that identified Thorne in Navarre’s head, but into the whispery tenor that came from Himel, God of Visions and Patron of the Aerie. “Fix the Sea Hawk first and Terrence’s Pride second. Do it fast! There isn’t much time.”
The woman started panting again, completely exhausted by her experience. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what Terrence’s Pride is.”
Just as confused as the priestess, Reginald volunteered, “That’s the name of my boat.”
“Then prepare yourself, baronet,” Lily warned him. “Because it sounds to me as if Thorne has a use for you.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Return to Hidden Harbor
“Am I making a mistake, Alfred?” Captain Edith Grant, Knight of the Order of the Crimson Sword, and commanding officer of the Steadfast and its flotilla asked in a voice little louder than a whisper. She and her longtime advisor were standing in the prow of her cruiser looking at the narrow entrance to the protected waters of Hidden Harbor. “I mean, how am I going to explain this? I get word that the orcs are sailing against Queenstown and instead of racing after them, I am returning to a pirate community to ask the help of a halfling.”
Master Wizard Alfred Whitelock, Knight of the Order of the Magical Fire, didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he took a long pull on his pipe and blew smoke rings out over the water while he suppressed his knee jerk reaction and gave the question the consideration it deserved. Finally, he said, “There have been no major incursion of orcs into the territory of Forestria in the last thirty years and none into the Western Sea for seventy. We are a primarily human kingdom. That means that for all practical purposes, almost no one in the army and certainly no human in the navy has any experience fighting orcs. The only place we know of that has fought orcs and won in all that time is Hidden Harbor. And led by a little halfling, that collection of pirates and other misfits not only survived their encounter with humanity’s age-old foe, they crushed it. So, no, I do not think that any honest man or woman who gives the matter even half the attention it is due will question your decision to come here and ask for help.”
“I hope you’re right,” Grant prayed. The Steadfast had reached the mouth of the harbor and she lifted her glass to see what was waiting for them.
“There are a lot of ships,” she noted. “Maybe I shouldn’t have instructed my escorts to remain out of the harbor.”
“Don’t second guess yourself now,” Alfred advised. “If you had brought this cruiser, a schooner, and four frigates into the harbor, everyone would think you were trying to coerce their help, not asking them to freely offer it.”
“Maybe I—”
“Don’t even pretend,” Alfred told her. “We’d have to fight to force those ships in line, whittling down our strength to do so, and even then, we couldn’t trust them not to mutiny and run when the orcs actually came into sight. Now, who do you see out there?”
“There’s the Sea Hawk,” Grant identified the frigate-sized vessel without any enthusiasm.
“Good!” Alfred responded. “We need her. Not only did Captain Braddock participate in the defense of Hidden Harbor, but she has a pretty good reputation as a privateer.”
Grant worried frown deepened into one of disapproval.
Alfred sighed. “Edith,” he said, purposely choosing to use her given name for the first time in their long relationship. “It’s time to get the stick out of your ass and see the people of this community as they really are.”
