A handful of marines to conquer an imperial capital? ‘Adjunct-’
‘Enough. You will command for this night, Captain, as my representative. We march at dawn.’ She turned. ‘I must return to the Froth Wolf.’
‘Adjunct?’
Tavore grimaced. ‘Another argument with a certain weaponsmith and his belligerent wife.’ Then she paused, ‘Oh, when or if Sergeant Balm returns, I would hear his report.’
‘Of course,’ Lostara Yil replied. If?
She watched the Adjunct walk away, down towards the shore.
Aboard the Froth Wolf, Shurq Elalle leaned against the mainmast, her arms crossed, watching the three black, hairless, winged ape-like demons fighting over a shortsword. The scrap, a tumbling flurry of biting, scratching and countless inadvertent cuts and slices from the weapon itself, had migrated from the stern end of the mid-deck and was now climbing up onto the foredeck.
Sailors stood here and there, keeping well clear, and trading wagers on which demon would win out-an issue of some dispute since it was hard to tell the three beasts apart.
‘-with the cut across the nose-wait, Mael’s salty slick! Now another one’s got the same cut! Okay, the one without-’
‘-which one just lost that ear? Cut nose and missing ear, then!’
Close beside Shurq Elalle, a voice said*, ‘None of it’s real, you know.’
She turned. ‘Thought she had you chained below.’
‘Who, the Adjunct? Why-’
‘No. Your wife, Withal.’
The man frowned. ‘That’s how it looks, is it?’
‘Only of late,’ Shurq replied. ‘She’s frightened for you, I think.’
To that he made no response.
‘A launch is returning,’ Shurq observed, then straightened. ‘I hope it’s the Adjunct-I’m ready to leave your blessed company. No offence, Withal, but I’m nervous about my first mate and what he might be doing with the Undying Gratitude.’
The Meckros weaponsmith turned to squint out into the darkness of the main channel. ‘Last I saw, he’d yet to drop anchor and was just sailing back and forth.’
‘Yes,’ Shurq said. ‘Sane people pace in their cabin. Skorgen paces with the whole damned ship.’