Thrain accepted this without appearing to hear it entirely. He walked in a faltering line toward the stairs leading below deck, muttering something about pots that needed scrubbing. Then he stopped. Cali followed his gaze across the deck and beyond the ship’s railing. She felt her own breath stall.
Rising from the sea ahead of them, draped in green from peak to shore, lush and improbable against the bleached sky, was an island unlike anything she'd imagined. Waterfalls caught the last of the afternoon light, the peaks vanished into low cloud, and bamboo roofs huddled along the waterline.
She wasn't sure what she had expected from Claw Island. Something battered and grim, she supposed. Something that matched its name. Not this. Not something that looked, from a distance, like paradise.
Twenty-Six
As they glided closerto the port, Cali walked to the railing to get a better view. This was the notorious outlaw island? It looked not unlike other port towns she’d visited, although with perhaps more armed inhabitants than was typical.
Ships of all sizes crowded the dock, painted every color and no color at all, bristling with masts and rigging that tangled against the sky like a leafless winter forest, ragged skull and crossbones flags sagging. On the docks, crews busied themselves loading and unloading, mending rope, and arguing over manifests. Taverns backed directly onto the waterfront, their doors gaping open to unleash lamplight and the aroma of ale into the late afternoon. Salt and tar mingled with the scent of charred meat, wood smoke, and the potent tang of rum.
Cali spotted orcs and gnomes, a clutch of what appeared to be goblins examining something behind gnarled shoulders, and a very tall elf who should have looked out of place but somehow didn’t. There were daggers worn openly, the way you’d wear a belt, and all degrees of armor.
Voices bargained and laughed and argued in some languages Cali recognized and several she didn’t. Wooden hulls knocked against pylons. A barrel cracked while being breached. Laughter bounced off the water, and muffled cheers echoed from somewhere deep in the port town.
Tris pressed forward into the harbor with an eagerness that Cali felt through the soles of her boots, the ship quickening as if the island were a welcome haven. When the pirates looped ropes around the dock cleats and yanked them tight, the ship let out a long, low breath from somewhere deep in her timbers that was so plainly relief that Cali pressed a hand briefly to the painted rail.
“We made it,” she whispered, and felt the wood quiver under her palm. “You got us here, Tris.”
“She always does.”
Cali turned to find Bonnie standing behind her, but the captain’s eye was not on the ship, nor on the bustling dock. She was scanning the harbor, her brow pulled into a tight line.
“You’d think,” Cali teased, “that surviving a storm, sirens, and mermaids might produce a slightly happier expression.”
“I don’t see Jolli,” Bonnie said.
Cali looked at the harbor. She had not, she admitted to herself with a dose of shame, been looking for the jolly boat. The harbor held a considerable number of vessels in various states of repair and disrepair, and a small rowing boat could be anywhere. It could be pulled up on a beach, tied behind a larger ship, or tucked into any of several inlets she could see cutting into the base of the cliffs. “Could they have hidden her somewhere?”
Bonnie’s frown eased slightly. “A jolly boat isn’t hard to hide.”
“Then she might be here even if we can’t see her.”
“True.” The captain didn’t sound entirely convinced, but she turned from the water and put two fingers in her mouth and produced a whistle that knifed through the din of the crew.
“We’re here to find Jolli and the hellkins,” she said once everyone was looking at her. “Have a bit of fun while you’re at it. I won’t object to information gathered over rum. But don’t get into so much trouble that I’m forced to add you to our search.” Her gaze lingered briefly on a pair of gnomes in the back. “Got it?”
The crew rumbled their understanding before they hurried from the ship and dissolved into the port like sand into water.
“I’ll question the harbormaster,” Gert said as she headed for the gangway, “then I’ll ask the other pirates if they’ve seen some hellkins in our Jolli.”
Pinkie was close on her heels. “I’ll put the word out through the gnome network.” She winked at Cali. “It’s never failed me yet.”
Seraphina, however, did not move. She stood at the top of the gangway with her arms folded and her cloak writhing around her ankles in the breeze. “I’ll remain with the ship.”
Bonnie nodded once, apparently having expected nothing else. “I won’t be gone long.”
From the stairs leading below deck came Thrain’s fading voice. “I’m going below, and I’m not coming back up. I’ve had enough of adventure, thank you very much.”
Bonnie caught Cali’s worried look. “He’ll be fine here. Marvella won’t let anything happen to him.”
Cali was about to follow his example and retreat somewhere quiet and dry when she felt the captain’s gaze on her.
“Are you coming?” Bonnie hiked a thumb over one shoulder. “The least I can do after everything is show you the best place to eat on the island. And you’ve earned a meal that isn’t stew.”
Cali looked at the gangway and then at the port, and then at Bonnie. “Is anywhere on an outlaw island safe to eat?”
“Safer than you’d think. Honor among thieves and all.”
