Raid on Pyandonea, Book Six

Dreadmund's fleet set out at dawn. The Snow Whale's crew was as it had been at the beginning of this story, with the exception of Flame-Grin Sorga, Jhunmor, and Thaduga, who had all stayed behind at Smallwall, Raving Savage the Welwa, Tang Mo the Monkey-Thing, and Jahnson Whose-Name-Stays-in-its-Cradle, who had all died in agony of the poisons of local foods and creatures, and the Snow Elf and Sea Elf elf-slave translators, for the Bird Elf, the cunning linguist that it was, had by now learned enough Atmoran and Sea-Elvish to become the only translator Dreadmund needed.

Their target was a small fishing village off of one of the northwestern islands, whose villagers brought in all kinds of sea life: fish with translucent skin, sharks, fish with orange and white stripes, eels, underwater birds with spearlike tails, really long fish that looked like eels or sea serpents but really weren't, and fish that, when looked upon head-on, look like the faces of screaming men. The fisher-elves even caught the occasional Haus, which were creatures with the front half of a cow and the back half of a serpent and which were said to be the cattle of either the octopus elves or the people of a Republic called Hahd. The dwellings of the village were made of coral, like those of the Slugs of Thras, and the town was completely defenseless. The town had next to nothing worth the taking. Nothing besides the fish. The Atmorans certainly weren't going to go fishing for themselves, especially when they didn't know which fish would kill them and which wouldn't.

"Captain, shall we sail through the gap between the islands, or sail around?"

"Cut through the islands. We don't have all day."

"Yes, Captain."

The Snow Whale pushed ahead, and the cliffs of each island loomed in until only one ship could pass at a time. The space was dark; the only light was that which trickled between gaps in the overhanging foliage that crowned each island. The rest of the fleet followed, entering the crevice one at a time. The cramped, dark, musty space made the Atmorans somber, and all was silent but for the lapping of trapped water on the bare cliffs and on the ships. The silence whispered into their ears and pulled at the edges of the splashes and the creaks of the waves and the ships, threatening to devour even those sounds.

A ship appeared ahead of the Snow Whale, cutting out of the vague murk and into the filtered sunlight. It was of a clear amalgamation of elven styles: its elegantly curving wooden hull and deck, patterned with shards of crystal, depictions of Sun-Birds and ancestors engraved throughout, screamed of High-Elven design. The traces green-tinted wood which broke the perfect swirls and even coloring marked local repairs to the ship. A perfectly shaped leaf, alive and green, served as the sail as its stem served as the mast, like the living sails of the Wood Elves in those ships that they grow. Faded text played across the ship's side. Dreadmund turned to his Bird Elf, which, nervous, preened its feathers and rearranged its magic beads.

"What's that text on the ship's side say?"

The Bird Elf squawked. "It reads, ‘the Pasquiniel.'"

The Pasquiniel sliced through the stagnant waters, spurting green-flecked froth, and the crew of the Snow Whale stood transfixed by it. A lone Pyandonean trumpet called, tones rising and falling, just as sharp and shrill and keening as every such trumpet the Atmorans had heard during their time in Pyandonea.

The Bird Elf, who had also learned to read the messages hidden in the alternating tones of Pyandonean trumpets, declared, "They would like to speak to you, and negotiate something."

Dreadmund grunted. "It's probably a trap, but we can't avoid it. Move forward."