Chapter 4 – Part 5

Delegado hesitated.

Half-orcs were instinctual creatures, but Bartemain had always taught his son to think ahead. Intelligence was a valued asset to Bartemain, and his children, wholly human or only partially, were taught to think.

Bartemain was dead, his body a bag of skin barely held together by dust, wrapped up tenderly in a saddlebag below decks. By Delegado carried his father’s wisdom with him.

There was a limit to the fiend’s hypnosis, and Delegado should be safely beyond it, at the other end of the ship, taking advantage of range. Further, the fiend had his eyes closed, and was looking down at the deck. Finally, he knew that he had hit the thing, and then right afterwards reality had dropped away.

He might need this thing to get back to – to get away from wherever they were.

“Keep your head down!” barked the half-orc, slowly walking towards the Captain. “You pick your head up or open your eyes then more arrows get into you!” Time was still dancing, for a moment he felt it run backwards, and listened to the reverse sounds go back into his mouth, but then it went normal again. Things were still bad, he could not look at the nothing outside the ship, but they were somewhat better.

“I’m not your enemy!” gasped the fiend. “I am trying to get the ship back!”

“Back to the Demon Wastes?” The half-orc was close now, the arrow sighted at the fiend’s head.

“Back to TIME,” the Captain insisted. “One of your friends below is trying to manipulate the ship’s magic, but it got away from him! We are close to ceasing existence completely!”

Delegado held his arrow tight, wondering if he could believe the fiend.