One man's trash

"What other ones are there? Oh yes, that disastrous landing party on Shepherd's Crook! You remember the one, don't you? The surprise raid? We show up that one night, displaying more stealth and cunning than a weasel. We land the dinghy on the beach, jump out of it, take a dozen steps, and then Hooter gets bitten in the leg by that snake. He screams, the entire village wakes up and comes after us. Two arrows in my shoulder as we're retreating, one in Taker's leg, and they even managed to light part of our dinghy on fire as we rowed it back to the ship. It was an unmitigated disaster." Garrick sighed wistfully and looked up at the bit of sky that was visible through the dense jungle foliage, a contemplative smile on his face. "Yes, even that plan is going better than this one."

Garrick held up his bound wrists once again and gestured meaningfully at them.

Sander gritted his teeth, saying nothing, testing his own bonds once more. There was no point to the activity, really, but there hadn't been much else for him to do for the past hour, riding on the back of the strange camel-thing the Ka'avrat had put him on. The thing's gait was so bone-jarringly awful that he'd spent the first thirty minutes wishing he'd been forced to walk instead, and the last thirty wishing his captors would just stick him with a spear and get it over with.

"Oh hey, I just thought of another plan that went better than this one," Garrick said, his voice filled with grotesque good cheer. "You remember that time Flynn lost his eye?"

"Will you please just shut the hell up?" Sander hissed. "I'm trying to think our way out of this."

"You mean you're coming up with another plan? A better plan than this?" Garrick pretended to look astonished, making a point of looking around at the dozens of spear-wielding warriors around them. "Do you really think it's possible? I mean, this one's going so well!"

"If you can't come up with anything helpful to say, keep your mouth shut!" Sander gave Garrick an icy stare. "I don't need your gutless babbling right now."

Garrick gave him a quick sneer, but said nothing.

Grunting, Sander craned his neck around behind him to check on the third member of their luckless party, that flea-bitten trader, Will McNeely. There wasn't any change from what he could see. The balding man's head had stopped bleeding a while ago, but he was still lying in the exact same position as before, draped over the back of his own camel-thing, unconscious and unmoving.

Right now there wasn't much Sander wouldn't have given for an opportunity to gut the oily little trader, the one who had gotten them all mixed up in this mess to begin with.

The mouthy little lubber had been green around the gills for the entire trip - when he hadn't been heaving his guts all over the side of the Queen Evil, he'd been in his room noisily retching into a bucket. Two weeks of that was bad enough, but they'd made it, loaded his sorry carcass on a scow, and taken him to the beach he'd been so desperate to get to. And once that was done, what did he do? Says, "We made it," gives the two of them a weak smile, pukes on his shoes, keels over in a faint, and then brains himself on a nearby rock.

And, of course, that was the precise moment when the Ka'avrat had showed up. McNeely had been tight-lipped about the exact details of the trade he'd masterminded, and as a result neither Sander nor Garrick had any clue what to say or do when the olive-skinned warriors had arrived.

So now they were prisoners until the disagreeable little man came to his senses. If he ever came to his senses, that is. Blood coming out of the ears was never a promising sign.

To top it all off, Sander had told his crew they'd be gone for no less than a full day, so a rescue party wasn't very likely. Not that he'd trust that bunch to come and save him.