Summoning Miasma

The sun shone red as it sank behind Craddoch Island when the Reavers surrounded their canoe. Reaching over the side of their longship, they roughly grabbed each of the company with strong arms, hoisting them out of their little boat and dumping them onto the slatted deck at the stern of their horned-prowed ship. They then tied the canoe to drift out behind them. Men returned to their oars and swept swiftly out to sea. Shellah thought she saw five other boats in their fleet before she was beaten down to the deck.

“What do we have here?” A fur-clad Reaver with a tattooed, blood-smeared face paced in front of them. Small bones clacked where they were loosely sewn across his garments. A shaman, Shellah recalled with a twinge of fear. They had a reputation for cannibalism. Slavers, raiders, berserkers and cannibals. “Bind them!” the shaman shouted. “But put the woman in the bow. I want her later. For myself.”

One of the Reavers pulled Shellah to her feet, a gray haired, gray bearded, fur clad giant.

“No! Not that one,” the shaman hollered. “The pretty younger one! Gah!” The giant roughly pushed her back down to the deck. One of the other Reavers more gently ushered Nessah to the bow after binding her hands, placing her on a fat coil of rope to sit, not wanting to damage his boss’s prize. Nessah cast her a fleeting wink. Shellah wondered what she had planned. She counted maybe eight or ten Reavers in the ship, and the other ships were not far away. Not great odds. “Also, leave their gear undisturbed,” the shaman shouted to his crew. “I will search all of them, then sort through their loot myself in the morning. Now, to the sea!”

“To the sea!” all the Reavers responded, and Shellah heard that call echo from the other boats. The coastline soon disappeared in the twilight.

“I remember you,” the old Reaver said to Shellah as he and another tied her and Jonas to the mast. “Hellcat from the Shielings. You’re older and fatter and slower now, though!”

“I’d say I’d remember you, but there’s nothing particularly… oh, wait!” Shellah responded, remembering a bad, foggy spring night from long ago and a craggy, broken-nosed face. She sensed she needed to buy some time. “You’re the coward who ran back to his crappy little boat, fleeing a little girl wielding a stick. Huh. Did everybody hear that?” she shouted out. “Your buddy here ran away from a little dog and a skinny thirteen year old girl with a stick!”

The Reaver crew roared with laughter. The old Reaver struck Shellah heavily across the mouth. The warm metallic taste of blood bloomed where a tooth cut the inside of her cheek.

“Shut up, you raddled old bitch! Nobody’s running anywhere now!”

“Silence!” shouted the shaman, his necklace of human teeth dancing on his chest as he pulled the old Reaver away from Shellah. “You fool. She’s trying to cause a distraction.” He turned to look Jonas and Lloel each in the face. “Now one of these weaklings has what I want, what I can sense… see from inside my mind…”

Suddenly, the sea and wind slackened. A mist started to rise up from the water, obscuring their view of the other Reaver vessels. The Reavers started to focus their attention on Lloel. Nessah was alone in the bow, tied up as a pretty prize for their leader, her face frozen in concentration from what Shellah could see in the shadows. She could feel Jonas’s hand tied next to hers against the mast.

“Psst, Jonas! When you feel some heat on your hand, start pulling!” whispered Shellah. She hoped Jonas could hear her over poor Lloel’s shrieks at his tormentors as the shaman started to search him for what she presumed was the rune. She tried to rearrange herself to prepare for a cantrip without drawing notice, though the rope bound her tightly. The mysterious fog around the boat grew thicker, greenish, and had a foul, swampy smell.

“Great Goddess, flicker of flame to my fingertips,” Shellah muttered. Her fingertip started to warm, and she tried to twist that finger toward the rope that bound her and Jonas. She hoped the rope wasn’t too damp. She heard a little yelp as Jonas tried to stifle his surprise. She caught a faint whiff of smoking tar. “Pull!” she hissed.

The rope gave with a sharp snap. Shellah quickly rolled and grabbed an oar from an oarlock nearby. She knocked a Reaver overboard before he could shout. The splash, however, alerted the others. Jonas picked up the flaming rope and whipped at a Reaver. He knocked one down and began wrestling for control of a dagger after flicking the rope overside. The waters steamed. The miasma thickened about the shaman as vaporous tentacles pulled him screaming into the water.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“What is this sorcery!” the old Reaver shouted as he shook Lloel. Shellah clubbed the Reaver from behind with an oar and kicked him overboard to join his friends floundering in the roiling waters.

“That’s only forty years too late, you bastard, “ she said. More foul tentacles swarmed the bow to grab at the remaining Reavers. “Cover your faces!” she shouted to the others. “And get them off this boat!” She swept the oar towards another Reaver, who jumped overboard to take his chances in the sea and started swimming as fast as he could. The few who remained followed. The other Reaver boats nearby would soon turn towards the noise to investigate, if they hadn’t already. Sucker-covered tentacles churned after them.

Jonas helped Lloel to his feet, then freed Nessah from her bonds. Shellah returned the oar to the oarlock, motioned Jonas to grab its peer, and started to row.

“Jonas!” she shouted. “We need to get out of here!” He quickly joined her on the bench and started paddling. She kicked the tiller with her feet to steer them away from the other rapidly approaching boats and the water monster. The ship turned effortlessly. “Nessah, can you control that fog?”

“No,” she said, rubbing her wrists. “We best be away. It’ll probably dissipate on its own soon. I can’t imagine the Reavers will long be distracted by rescuing their men, that’s if they even care about them.” Nessah yawned. She collapsed in a heap in the big rope coiled in the bow.

Lloel also took a seat at the oars and started rowing, if feebly. “Don’t have strength for much at the moment,” he admitted. “But maybe if I can get a few breaths and a regular rhythm going...”

“Shhh. Stop rowing,” Shellah whispered. They heard the oars of another boat swoosh by in the uncanny mist, rushing towards the shouts of Reavers splashing in the waves as they screamed at the water monster. It sped past their bow before they could be seen. Shellah motioned Jonas and Lloel to continue as she adjusted the tiller. “Forward, slowly. We need to sneak out of here without getting rammed. Stealth is our only option. They will row us down if they see us.”

They rowed in silence until they drew clear of the mist and any sound of the other boats or signs of the tentacled monster. Eventually stars twinkled in clear skies above. A small breeze rose. Shellah dropped her oar to raise the square black sail. Jonas stood to draw their canoe up alongside them. He bent over to peer into its contents below in the dark.

“Looks like all our gear is still here.” He sighed in relief. “Guess we’ll know for sure in the morning.”

“We should check under these benches to see what the Reavers had stowed for supplies. We’ll need to toss any of their food, though. Can’t trust it.” Shellah looked out towards the horizon in the night. No shore was to be seen. She guessed they were at least a half day out from anywhere now. “We can sail for a while, looks like. Get some more distance between us and the Reavers.” Shellah peered up at the bow where Nessah slept soundly. “Lloel?” she asked. The old man nodded at his oar. “Question for you. Do you remember where we were headed next?”

“We were headed back to Dun Darlow, to get a bigger ship?” Lloel responded.

“Looks like we have a bigger ship now,” Shellah said.

Lloel yawned and looked confused. He adjusted the tam atop his head, and stared out over the black, calm seas.

Jonas perhaps caught some idea of what was bothering Lloel before Shellah could. “Mr. Hoarfast, we can head back to Dun Darlow if you like. Nobody signed up for this. This is beyond all of our contracts. Terrifying ancient runes. Grave robbing. Reavers. Sea monsters. We’re happy to sail back to Dun Darlow to return you home. Shel and I are old adventurers with business needs to carry this mission out for Nessah. You, however, are a gentle librarian. You don’t have to do this.”

Lloel sat up a little straighter, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve spent my entire life reading about and studying the big magic, pouring over musty, ancient books and wondering about the sorcerers and sages of old Larin. The wonders they conjured, especially compared to the dwindling powers and skills we have currently. And now, I get to experience the big magic at the end of my days. No, I’m not going home, though it’s snug, safe and comfortable there.”

“As far as we know, there are another eleven of these runes to collect,” said Shellah. “That could be a lot of big magic peril.”

“Our next stop,” said Lloel, “Should be on the coast, somewhere east of here. Boraeia. We should sail into the dawn.”

“Better get some sleep then,” said Jonas. “Shel and I will take turns tending the sail.”