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Melody ignores him. She comes to a stop beside the captain and closes her small hand over his while bestowing him a sweet smile. “Do they make such jackets in fairy size? I should very much like to become a pirate, too.”
The captain throws his head back and roars with laughter.
Orc generals, warlords, and captains-cum-pirates: none of them can resist a fairy’s charms.
Around us, more orcs are embarking, disappearing down a narrow set of steps into the underbelly of the ship. The second ship is likewise loading up.
“Peter!” The captain calls out to a young human lad, who hastens over. “Show our guests to their quarters.”
Peter is a brown-skinned lad only a few years older than Melody. He is dressed in shorn-off pants, a billowing shirt with a worn leather jerkin over it. From beneath a riot of corkscrew hair, he bestows a broad smile on us.
Melody abandons the pirate/captain and gives the lad a deeply admiring look, as if sensing a kindred spirit and the possibility of mischief ahead.
Doug emits a deep huffing sound. When I turn, I find my orc mate laughing.
“It will be a miracle if we can keep her from the mast,” Bard says tiredly, as we follow Peter through a round wooden door. Melody skips along at the lad’s side, demanding to know if he has ever seen a shark and how often he climbs the mast.
Our allocated room is at the end of the corridor and is small and cramped, with a tiny portal window through which I can see only the wooden slats of the wharf. I will share the tiny bunk room with Melody and Bard, with a nook outside for Doug.
“Yippee!” Melody announces, nimbly clambering up onto the top bunk.
“Why don’t we stow our things and watch the ship set sail,” Bard suggests.
“I’ll show ye where ye can stand so as nah t’ get in the crew’s way,” Peter says.
We are shown back onto the deck, where the gangplanks are being stowed and sailors hasten to their duties, while we are taken to the prow where we can stand out of the way.
I get my first look at the open sea.
My breath catches.
Melody whoops.
“It is so vast,” I say, unnerved by the rippling gray body of water that stretches out into the distance to where it meets the billowing clouds.
Around us we hear bellowed orders, the creak of the ship and rigging, and a great rattling sound that Bard informs us is the anchor being raised. The ship rolls in the water, and a great flapping noise comes from behind. I turn to see the first of the three great sails unfurl. It whips in the wind, and I feel the pull as we are taken out to sea. Behind, the wharf diminishes, growing smaller and smaller. I move over to the side so I can watch the land fade into the distance, my belly full of butterflies.
It is terrifying.
It is also exhilarating to see the great city of Krug sprawling out against the coastline, in a way that few people do.
More sails are raised, and the crew members are kept busy until we are soon powering along with the coastline on our portside, as Bard calls it.
The rain holds off, although the dark clouds suggest more is to come. The air is cold and sharp, yet I want to remain on the deck lest I miss a single thing.
I soon learn that being above deck is better than being below, because even though it is cold outside, at least my stomach does not roil. Melody barely notices, too excited by it all.
One day turns into two, and two into three. Doug turns the greenest shade of white orc and is miserable the whole trip.
On the morning of the fourth day, our destination comes into view.
Bleakness is a cheerless-looking port city built entirely from stone in variations of black and dark grey. Plumes of smoke rise from the jumble of dark slate roofs, dusted with snow.
Snow.How that reminds me of the outpost where I first began my time as a prisoner of the orcs.
Even Melody, who is usually excited by everything, watches the city loom closer with quiet, pensive regard.
I remember what I learned while at the outpost at Delwood: that this is where they bring the prisoners.
