Chapter 2 – Part 10

The sky overhead was mostly clouds, but in a few places blue showed, and the sun’s light peeked through. All around was a cold sea, calm for now, but brooding with promise.

The Crimson Ship was heading due west, almost alone on the cold ocean. Its sails were full, and its wheel and rudder fixed, even if its master was not currently attending to the wheel – not physically anyway.

The Captain stood at the port railing, in discussion with a woman who hovered next to the ship. She maintained her speed with the ship, although she stayed next to it, not dare hovering over it (or worse, landing on it) without the Captain’s consent.

She was not beautiful by the standards of the common races across Eberron. In fact, she was hideous. Her skin was the deep blue and violet of a bruise. Pustules, blisters, and open sores decorated her skin. Her hair was scraggly black wire, barely covering upswept horns. Her clothes were the finest linen, but covered in bloodstains and interwoven with bones from various bodies. Her eyes radiated a reddish light, although she kept them downcast as she spoke to the Captain. Her mouth, full of needlelike teeth, was kept in a respectful shape as she addressed him.

“You know that they see themselves as your brethren,” she began. “These are not strangers trying to unjustly meddle in your affairs.”

“Putting aside that I am a wholly different genus that those who sent you, I took my own path apart from those who battled the dragons millennia ago,” the Captain noted wryly. “Your attempts at appealing to racial loyalty are clumsy and beneath a diplomat of your caliber.”

“I only meant to remind you of the respect that they have for you as brethren,” the night hag told him.

“They respect naught but power,” the Captain responded. “And if their respect was true and not desperate, they would have sent Kyrale.”

“Kyrale was not your lover once,” the hag said with a breath, daring to look up into his glowing eyes.

“Do not presume that the sensual experiences of my youth give you any advantage with me,” the Captain told her with a tone that fit the weather. “I listened to you out of recognition of who sent you, true, but I am not to be drawn into the plans and battles of the Lords of Dust. Nor any other group on this planet. I serve Eberron and Eberron alone, and this is known to rajahs.”

“The dragons pointed you towards our beach,” she said. The words were accusing, but the tone was deferential, and she had dropped her eyes again.

“Is it ‘our’ beach then?” he asked her. “You stand proud on your role as a negotiator, but you claim proprietary interest?”

“The mortal races ought not intrude!” she said, unable to keep the heat out of her voice.

“Tell that to the Carrion Tribes,” the Captain retorted. “Tell it to the orc paladins that defeat the agents of the rajahs time and time again. Tell it to the criminals, the prospectors, the riff-raff, and the deranged that come to the shores of that land.” He shook his head. “My passengers may have trespassed and angered –”

“And stolen,” she interjected.

“And stolen,” he agreed. “But I care naught. They are my passengers, and you may exert your claim on them after they disembark. That you interrupt my journey is an affront. You and your masters –”

“Clients,” she interjected again.

“Clients then,” he agreed, although this time with less patience. “You know my rules, the laws that I govern and that govern me. Track them down after they make landfall.”

She did not dare ask him his destination, but instead she played the card that she had been paid to play. “You let the Argonnessen Wyrms direct you,” she accused. “Your own rules have been violated. You were not headed to our beach, not initially.”

He smirked. “For so many years of planning and study you know so little. The Wyrms directed your forces so that when my passengers would choose to flee based on the opposition’s weakest lines, they would flee to my next area of travel. After that I was called by the nature of the beach.”

“No one's blood hit the water!” she objected. “The last battle fought with them –”

The ship shuddered, and the Captain had to catch himself on the railing to keep from falling. His elongated head swiveled towards the ship's wheel, which was now turning to port.

“You need to leave,” he told the hag with gritted teeth.

“I had nothing to do with this,” she sputtered. “I respect your sanctum and your –”

“LEAVE!” he barked, a black ray of negative energy flashing from an upraised hand to pass within inches of her head.

He had missed on purpose and she knew it. She turned and flew westward, wanting to be our of is earshot before she sent her report via a sending spell.