The Treasured One

‘That’s an awfully good idea, Skell.’

‘Naturally,’ Skell replied with a broad smirk. ‘My ideas are always the best. I’ll be able to give you a few men, but you’ll have to hire more to fill out your crew. Don’t start throwing your money away, though, because you’ll be paying me a fifth of everything your ship brings in.’

‘A fifth?’ Torl protested.

‘You get to help me support Papa. We wouldn’t want him to starve, now would we?’

‘That’s not fair at all, Skell!’

‘Fair doesn’t have anything to do with it, baby brother. If you don’t agree, you don’t get a ship - and don’t start waving “mutiny” in my face again - not unless you’re ready to give up grog and ale. If you won’t agree to help support Papa, I’ll sail off and leave you behind the first time you get drunk. Then what are you going to do?’

‘You’re a cruel and hard man, Skell.’

‘Naturally. I’m the Captain of the Shark. I’m supposed to be cruel and hard. Are we agreed, then?’

‘What choice do I have?’

‘None, little brother. I never give people choices.’

And so it was that the Shark sailed unobserved into the harbor of Gaiso in the middle of one dark, gloomy night, and Torl selected a ship that suited him. The Shark eased up beside that ship, and Torl led the boarding party that threw the few crewmen who’d remained on board over the side. Then Torl and his men hauled anchor and sailed along behind the Shark out of the harbor.

The brothers then pulled into a secluded cove and put the crew of the Shark to work modifying her until she no longer bore any outward resemblance to her former identity. For some reason, Torl decided to call his ship the Lark. Skell couldn’t for the life of him understand exactly why. Maag ships usually had very threatening names, and ‘Lark’ didn’t seem to fit. Torl had a peculiar sense of humor sometimes.

After a bit of fairly difficult consideration, Skell decided that the grim-faced and somewhat older seaman Grock might be the best man to serve as the Shark’s first mate. Grock was one of those ‘serious’ men who seldom smiled, but he’d been a crewman on the Shark for more than ten years, so he was very familiar with her quirks and peculiarities. He was also a very good judge of character, and it was at his suggestion that Skell chose Baldar Club-Foot as second mate. ‘He’s a good sailor, Cap’n,’ Grock said. ‘That bad foot of his makes him sorta gimpy, but he don’t put up with no nonsense. Younger sailors are a bit silly sometimes, but Club-Foot knows how to jerk ‘em up short when they need it.’

‘He’s our man, then,’ Skell agreed. ‘Now, then, I think we’d better sail on up the coast to Kormo. My brother’s going to need a crew for the Lark, and I want my men back here on board the Shark before we go hunting Trogs again. The way things stand right now, we’re both short-handed, and even those scows the Trogs call ships could probably outrun us.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Grock agreed.

Once the two ships were fully manned, the brothers went back to work, robbing every Trog that came their way - just to keep Papa happy, of course.

Captain Jodan began to expand his simple seaside home as the seasons marched by, and before very long it more closely resembled a castle than the modest residence of a retired sailor.

Business was very good for the next several years, but then some disgustingly clever Trog came up with the idea of the ‘ram’, a thick pole firmly in place at the waterline at the bow of every Trog ship that passed the coast of Maag. Skell learned about that the hard way, and he’d only barely managed to get the Shark to the port at Kormo before she’d gone to the bottom.

His imitation grouchiness became very real for a while after that near disaster.

Skell heard some very interesting rumors in Kormo while the Shark was being repaired in the shipyard, and as soon as she was fit to sail again, he went on down the coast to see if he could catch up with the Seagull. If the rumors he’d picked up in the taverns of Kormo even came close to the truth, cousin Sorgan had just struck gold, and Skell thought it might be the polite thing to help his kinsman with the counting.

The fleet Sorgan had been gathering was in the harbor at Kweta when the Shark sailed into the bay, and Sorgan seemed quite happy to see his cousin. When he showed Skell all the gold blocks that were stacked up in the Seagull’s hold, Skell became very enthusiastic.

There were a few disturbing things involved, however. Their employer was a woman, and that bothered Skell just a bit, and he was even more disturbed when he met her. Lady Zelana was quite probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but just below the surface of that stunning beauty she was harder than a rock. Then there was the native called Longbow, who was evidently her bodyguard. Longbow was the sort of man that anybody with half a brain would go way out of his way to avoid irritating. There was a bleakness about Longbow that sent chills up and down Skell’s back. There was another native in Lady Zelana’s party as well, and he was called Red-Beard. Red-Beard came very close to destroying the pose that Skell had spent years establishing. Every time Red-Beard opened his mouth, Skell had to steel himself to avoid laughing out loud.

After Skell and Sorgan discussed the matter at some length, they decided that Skell should lead an advance fleet to a place called Lattash on the west coast of the Land of Dhrall to protect Lady Zelana’s Domain until such time as Sorgan arrived with the main fleet, and Torl would remain on the coast of Maag to gather up any latecomers. Skell wasn’t too enthusiastic about the prospect of a land war, but the pay promised to be good, and that was all that really mattered.

The voyage from Kweta to the Land of Dhrall took quite a bit longer than Skell had thought it might. Evidently the sea spreading out from the east coast of the Land of Maag was much larger than Skell had ever imagined. The humorous native Red-Beard assured him that the Land of Dhrall was actually there - ‘unless the gods got bored with it and made it vanish.’ Red-Beard seemed to think that remark was very funny, but Skell wasn’t in a laughing mood just then. They’d been two weeks at sea, and he was feeling very edgy.

In time, however, they made landfall and eventually sailed into the bay of Lattash. As soon as they landed, though, Skell began to have problems. The various ship captains had all piously promised Sorgan that they’d behave themselves when they reached the Land of Dhrall, but they’d lied through their teeth. The assumption that the primitives in the village of Lattash were weak and helpless and therefore prime targets for Maag freebooters turned out to be seriously flawed. Maag sailors in search of gold or entertainment began sprouting arrows, and Skell was obliged to come down on the offenders - hard. It took several floggings to get his point across, but it still seemed to him that getting the sailors out of the village would be his best course of action.