The Treasured One

‘I was sort of wondering just what you had up your sleeve,’ Cousin Sorgan said. ‘Let’s have it, Torl.’

‘Not until you give me your word that the bets have been cancelled, cousin. If my crew gets skinned alive when we lose all of our bets, they’ll throw me overboard as soon as we’re out of sight of land.’

‘All right, I promise that I’ll let everybody in the fleet know that your bets are cancelled. Now, what do we use to set fire to all the Trog ships in a single day?’

‘Bows, arrows, and tar,’ Torl replied glumly.

‘Tar?’ Skell demanded. ‘How do you set fire to tar?’

‘We’ve had a fair amount of success putting a torch to it, big brother. If you stick twenty or thirty burning arrows into the side of a Trog ship, it will burn - even on a rainy day.’

‘I don’t know if I’ve got that many men on board the Shark who know very much about bows and arrows,’ Skell admitted.

‘Go back to using torches then. That’s up to you. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ll go burn Trog ships - just for fun, unfortunately. I think “profit” just got away from me.’

3

Torl took a certain amount of satisfaction in the business of setting fire to the Trogite ships anchored near the small villages along the south coast of Veltan’s Domain. There was a rather arrogant quality about most Trogites that he’d always found offensive. Then too, the crew of the Lark had spent a good deal of time preparing for this mission, and, although they were obviously not nearly as skilled as Longbow, they did manage to plant their burning arrows in the sides of the oversized scows along the beach. The results even surprised Torl just a bit. A ship that has just been showered with several dozen flaming arrows will inevitably burst into flame in a fair imitation of Torl’s own description of ‘floating bonfires’. The panicky abandonment of the flaming ships by the crews was entertaining, but Torl still felt that he and his crew had been cheated out of their rightful winnings.

‘Iron-Fist,’ he called out to his first mate.

‘Aye, Cap’n?’

‘I think we can pick up the speed just a bit. I don’t see very many of our arrows going into the water, so we seem to be doing this right. Our bets have been pushed aside, but I’d still like to rub cousin Sorgan’s nose in the fact that we’re the best ship-burners in the whole wide world.’

‘We’ll shorely do ‘er, Cap’n,’ Iron-First chortled.

The Lark leaped ahead and raced out in front of the other longships in Sorgan’s fleet. The men on the other ships weren’t very skilled with bows, and many of their burning arrows went into the water, and that made it necessary for the ships to slow down and fall farther and farther behind the Lark. It seemed to Torl that he could almost hear Sorgan’s teeth grinding together as he watched the Lark racing on ahead to set fire to every single Trog ship in the entire bay.

When they reached the mouth of that first bay, Torl ordered his crew to pull in their oars and drop anchor.

The Seagull pulled in closer a while later. ‘What are you doing. Torl?’ Sorgan shouted. ‘There’s more bays and more Trogite ships ahead. Why are you stopping?’

‘I think I’ve earned my keep today, cousin, and I certainly wouldn’t want to cheat you and the other ship captains out of all the fun. Now that I’ve shown you how it’s supposed to be done, I’m sure you’ll be able to take care of the rest of the Trog ships without any help from me.’

‘Very funny, Torl,’ Sorgan growled. ‘And just how did you plan to spend the rest of your day?’

‘I thought I might find out if the fish are biting today.’ Torl turned and walked along the deck of the Lark toward his cabin. ‘You have a nice day now, cousin,’ he called, ‘and when you finish up, swing on by and I’ll tell you what kind of bait works best in these waters.’

Cousin, Sorgan was inventing new swear words as the Seagull moved away.

Torl had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on just exactly what it was. He paced up and down the deck of the Lark staring at the beach.

‘It looks t’ me like we scared all them Trogs real bad, Cap’n,’ Iron-Fist said. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen more’n about three or four of ‘em on that beach all day. Ain’t they supposed t’ have a great big ormy down here?’

Torl blinked. That was what was wrong! The beach should be covered with crowds of Trogs watching in horror as the only way they could ever return home went up in flames.

‘I think I’d better go ashore and find out what’s going on,’ he said bleakly.

‘Not all by yerself, Cap’n,’ Iron-Fist said very firmly. ‘Me an’ the crew ain’t about t’ take no chances of a-losin’ you. You ain’t a hard-nose like most ship-captains, an’ yer about five times smarter’n any Cap’n I’ve ever seen. Good Cap’ns is real hard t’ come by.’

‘I’m touched, Iron-Fist,’ Torl said with a certain surprise.

‘Don’t git all gushy, Cap’n,’ Iron-Fist said in a grouchy tone.

‘All right, then. If I take a dozen men with me when I go ashore, will that make you feel better?’

‘If n y’ let me pick the men, it will, Cap’n.’

The beach was deserted when Torl and his men went ashore, so they carefully went on up to the nearby village. They didn’t encounter any Trogs, but the villagers all seemed quite happy to see them.

‘Was there something you wanted?’ a round-faced villager asked Torl.

‘A few answers is about all,’ Torl replied. ‘What happened to all the Trogs? We’ve heard that there were thousands of them down here in the southern part of Veltan’s Domain, but aside from the crews on those ships out in the bay, we haven’t seen a single one.’

‘They all ran off a while back,’ the villager replied. ‘I don’t think we’ll miss them very much. They weren’t really very nice to us when they first came here. They came dashing up the beach waving weapons, and then herded us all into a pen that I wouldn’t even have used for pigs. After a while, though, they got all excited about something that didn’t seem to make any sense, and then, they all ran off toward the north.’

‘Strange,’ Torl said.

‘If they decide to come back, I don’t think they’re going to like you very much. Why did you set fire to all their boats the way you did?’