was time to let the pirate captain know he was no priest. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“Shore!” one of the longboat crew crowed from the prow. He kept his voice pitched low so that it didn’t carry far.
“Ship oars, boys,” Darrick ordered, lifting his own from the river water. Pulse beating quicker, thumping at his temples now, he stood and gazed at the stretch of mountain before them.
The oars came up at once, then the sailors placed them in the center of the longboat.
“Stern,” Darrick called as he peered at the glowing circles of light that came from lanterns or fires only a short distance ahead.
“Sir,” Fallan responded from the longboat’s stern. Now that the oars no longer rowed, the longboat didn’t cut through the river water. Instead, the boat seemed to come up from the water and settle with harsh awkwardness on the current.
“Take us to shore,” Darrick ordered, “and let’s have a look at what’s what with these damned pirates what’s taking the king’s gold. Put us off to port in a comfortable spot, if you will.”
“Aye, sir.” Fallan used the steering oar and angled the longboat toward the left riverbank.
The current pushed the craft backward in the water, but Darrick knew they’d lose only a few yards. What mattered most was finding a safe place to tie up so they could complete the mission Captain Tollifer had assigned them.
“Here,” Maldrin called out, pointing toward the left bank. Despite his age, the old first mate had some of the best eyes aboard Lonesome Star. He also saw better at night.
Darrick peered through the fog and made out the craggy riverbank. It looked bitten off, just a stubby shelf of rock sticking out from the cliffs that had been cleaved through the Hawk’s Beak Mountains as if by a gigantic ax.
“Now, there’s an inhospitable berth if ever I’ve seen one,” Darrick commented.
“Not if you’re a mountain goat,” Mat said.
“A bloody mountain goat wouldn’t like that climb none,” Darrick said, measuring the steep ascent that would be left to them.
Maldrin squinted up at the cliffs. “If we’re goin’ this way, we’re in for some climbin’.”
“Sir,” Fallan called from the stern, “what do you want me to do?”
“Put in to shore there, Fallan,” Darrick said. “We’ll take our chances with this bit of providence.” He smiled. “As hard as the way here is, you know the pirates won’t be expecting it none. I’ll take that, and add it to the chunk of luck we’re having here this night.”
With expert skill, Fallan guided the longboat to shore.
“Tomas,” Darrick said, “we’ll be having that anchor now, quick as you will.”
The sailor muscled the stone anchor up from the middle of the longboat, steadied it on the side, then heaved it toward shore. The immense weight fell short of the shore but slapped down into shallow water. Taking up the slack, he dragged the anchor along the river bottom.
“She’s stone below,” Tomas whispered as the rope jerked in his hands. “Not mud.”
“Then let’s hope that you catch onto something stout,” Darrick replied. He fidgeted in the longboat, anxious to be about the dangerous business they had ahead of them. The sooner into it, the sooner out of it and back aboard Lonesome Star.
“We’re about out of riverbank,” Maldrin commented as they drifted a few yards farther downriver.
“Could be we’ll start the night off with a nice swim, then,” Mat replied.
“A man will catch his death of cold in that water,” Maldrin grumped.
“Mayhap the pirates will do for you before you wind up abed in your dotage,” Mat said. “I’m sure they’re not going to give up their prize when we come calling.”
Darrick felt a sour twist in his stomach. The “prize” the pirates held was the biggest reason Captain Tollifer had sent Darrick and the other sailors upriver instead of bringing Lonesome Star up.
As a general rule, the pirates who had been preying on the king’s ships out of Westmarch had left no one alive. This time, they had left a silk merchant from Lut Gholein clinging to a broken spar large enough to serve as a raft. He’d been instructed to tell the king that one of the royal nephews had been taken captive. A ransom demand, Darrick knew, was sure to follow.
It would be the first contact the pirates had initiated with Westmarch. After all these months of successful raids against the king’s merchanters, still no one knew how they got their information about the gold shipments. However, they had left only the Lut Gholein man alive, suggesting that they hadn’t wanted anyone from Westmarch to escape who might identify them.
The anchor scraped across the stone riverbed, taking away the margin for success by steady inches. The water and the sound of the current muted the noise. Then the anchor stopped and the rope jerked taut in Tomas’s hands. Catching the rope in his callused palms, the sailor squeezed tight.
The longboat stopped but continued to bob on the river current.
Darrick glanced at the riverbank a little more than six feet away. “Well, we’ll make do with what we have, boys.” He glanced at Tomas. “How deep is the water?”
Tomas checked the knots tied in the rope as the longboat strained at the anchor. “She’s drawing eight and a half feet.”
Darrick eyed the shore. “The river must drop considerably from the edges of the cliffs.”
“It’s a good thing we’re not in armor,” Mat said. “Though I wish I had a good shirt of chainmail to tide me through the coming fracas.”
“You’d sink like a lightning-blasted toad if you did,” Darrick replied. “And it may not come to fighting. Mayhap we’ll nip aboard the pirate ship and rescue the youngster without rousing a ruckus.”
“Aye,” Maldrin muttered, “an’ if ye did, it would be one of the few times I’ve seen ye do that.”
Darrick grinned in spite of the worry that nibbled at the dark corners of his mind. “Why, Maldrin, I almost sense a challenge in your words.”
“Make what ye will of it,” the first mate growled. “I offer advice in the best of interests, but I see that it’s seldom taken in the same spirit in which it was give. Fer all ye know, they’re in league with dead men and suchlike here.”
The first mate’s words had a sobering effect on Darrick, reminding him that though he viewed the night’s activities as an adventure, it wasn’t a complete lark. Some pirate captains wielded magic.
“We’re here tracking pirates,” Mat said. “Just pirates. Mortal men whose flesh cuts and bleeds.”
“Aye,” Darrick said, ignoring the dry spot at the back of his throat that Maldrin’s words had summoned. “Just men.”
But still, the crew had faced a ship of dead men only months ago while on patrol. The fighting then had been brutal and frightening, and it had cost lives of shipmates before the undead sailors and their ship had been sent to the bottom of the sea.
The young commander glanced at Tomas. “We’re locked in?”
Tomas nodded, tugging on the anchor rope. “Aye. As near as I can tell.”
Darrick grinned. “I’d like to have a boat to come back to, Tomas. And Captain Tollifer can be right persnickety about crew losing his equipment. When we get to shore, make the longboat fast again, if you please.”
“Aye. It will be done.”
Grabbing his cutlass from among the weapons wrapped in the bottom of the longboat, Darrick stood with care, making sure he balanced the craft