Marin, Book 1 (The Xortha Chronicles)

Chapter 11: At the Docks

Marin

Chapter 11: At the Docks

    After classes, Marin caught up to Abby "Are you ready?"

    "Sure, let's go." said Abby, and they both went to city hall.

    As soon as the clerk saw Marin he turned to her and said, "I am so glad you came into day. Are you looking for some work?" Then he noticed Abby, "Oh, hello, are you Marin's little sister?"

    "No, sir," Abby said dejectedly, "My name is Abby Sadira, Marin's classmate, and I'm here with Marin to look for some work."

    "Oh my, sorry," said the clerk somewhat embarassed, "very sorry but you look rather young." He turned to Marin, "Anywho, after your work with...uh, that one problem, I thought maybe you would be interested in this job."

    "What do you have?" asked Marin.

    "The dock master has been complaining of crocodon's swimming around the dock," said the clerk, "I need someone to go over there and dispose of them before someone falls in the river and gets eaten." Abby gasped.

    Marin pursed her lips and though. She looked at Abby a moment then back to the clerk and asked, "How much does this job pay?"

    "Fifty falcons for every pair of crocodon eyes you bring me." said the clerk. Abby put her hand to her mouth. Marin hoped she wouldn't get sick.

    "Alright, we'll take it," said Marin. The clerk gave her a letter to pass on to the dock master that simply introduced Marin and told of what she was doing at the docks.

    Abby looked queezy, "Are you sure we can do this?" she asked.

    "We'll be fine," said Marin, trying to reassure Abby.

    The pair walked over to the docks and handed the letter to the dock master.

    "I have a serious problem here and Clerk Malor sends me two little girls," said the dock master with a heavy sigh. He looked Marin and Abby for a minute, "Alright, go ahead, but I don't want to be fishing your remains out of the river so BE CAREFULL!"

    "Don't worry," said Marin with a smirk, "We'll be fine." then she and Abby left.

    Marin went over to the edge of the dock and jumped into the river, "C'mon Abby! You'll be fine, I promise."

    Abby looked at Marin, "I won't get paid if we don't do this." Then Abby jumped in too.

    Sailors and dock workers came over murmuring about them getting eaten by the crocodons, but the girls just kept swimming. Marin took in a deep breath and went under trying to search for the beasts and was rewarded with two of them setting on the bottom about 10 paces away. She surfaced and told Abby what she saw. "I'm going to try and draw them to the surface and when they come up, I need you to hit them with Lightning Bolt. Got it?"

    "I'll try," Abby didn't sound too convincing.

    Marin drew in a breath and went under. She pulled out her dagger and swam toward the crocs and soon they both noticed Marin and swam straight at her. Marin surfaced and looked for Abby, "NOW!" shouted Marin.

    Abby began casting and a lightning bolt zoomed straight at one crocodon. It began rolling over and over, writhing in pain. The second one got real close to Marin, "Look out!" shouted Abby.

    Marin turned and cast a Lightning Bolt of her own and struck the second beast. It began rolling like the other.

    Shouts were coming from the dock, "Look behind you!"

    Marin turned to see three more crocodons swimming towards them from down stream. She wasn't sure if the river water would affect Fireblast since it was the explosion that did the work and not the actual fire, so she swam toward the crocodons and cast Fireblast and a fiery sphere flew toward the three crocs and exploded.  After a second, the people on the dock began to cheer as they held up pieces of two dead crocodons.

The third croc swam back down stream while the first two recovered from the lightning bolts.

    "Swim to the bank,"said Marin as she headed there herself. Abby swam so hard she passed Marin.

    The two crocodons followed and was joined by one that was hiding under the dock.

    Marin cast Chain Lightning and it struck all three crocodons. They all turned belly up and started to sink. Marin jumped back into the river and swam down to retrieve the beasts eyes. Then got the eyes from the remains of the two she blew up. Five sets in all.

Marin and Abi took their trophies to the clerk. "All done," said Marin. Abby seemed pleased with herself.

    "Excellent work, ladies!" said Mr. Malor. "Now, here is your pay." He counted out twenty five platinum eagles and handed them to Marin.

    Marin and Abby thanked the clerk and went back to their dorm room to change into dry clothes, then they split the coin evenly. Abby had a smile on her face that wouldn't go away.

"I can't believe we did that!" said Abby, "We actually fought crocodons and survived! AND we got paid for it!"

    "You definitely look in better shape now than when we started out." said Marin, patting Abby on the shoulder.

    Two hours after Marin and Abby came in, Narla and Tami showed up.

"What a day," said Tami. "I can't believe some of the things those men were saying to me today! The nerve!"

Narla took her shoes off and rubbed her feet. "With what little I'm getting paid I'll have to take a second job." Then she remembered Marin and Abby were going to city hall looking for work. "How did you two do; any luck?"

Marin and Abby looked at each other and smiled. "A little."

Abby giggled.