Coyle moved silently forward through the icy cold and murky waters, taking care not to make any more sound than necessary. The marshes of Haafingar were neither solid land nor seashore, in spite of technically being both. He had taken care to cross from islet to islet, only wading across the shallowest spots. Sounds carried easily through fog this thick and he hoped to avoid alerting the Blackbloods to his presence if he could.
Ahead of him, and to his left as he made for the banks at the eastern edge of the marsh, he could barely make out the shapes of tall masts with furled sails. That would be the Icerunner.
Unless some other poor sod’s gotten lost and crashed up against the rocks. I hope that’s not it. I’d feel really bad about it.
It meant for a still longer run, but he intended to circle all the way around the swamp and approach the ship from the eastern shoreline, near the rocks on which she’d run aground. The boulders and trees there would provide a bit of cover. Even though he wore dark armor, more likely to blend into the gray stones, deep waters and thick fog, Coyle knew better than to assume he’d be camouflaged well enough to escape the sharp eyes of bandits used to watching for threats.
Finally he reached the point at which he could turn to face the ship. Beyond it, and across the relatively narrow stretch of water leading into the harbor, he could see the Blue Palace perched on the great stone arch. The lighthouse hadn’t been tended to quite yet, in spite of the length of time it had taken him to get here.
Coyle climbed the largest of the rocky prominences next to the Icerunner and settled, waiting and listening, watching to learn whether he’d been spotted. He even took time to eat a small snack, knowing that any noise he might have made crossing the swamp would be taken for nothing more than an animal’s passage – a fox, perhaps even a chaurus, but not a man and definitely not a threat.
After what felt like a suitably long time, he slowly and quietly drew his saber with his right hand and prepared one of the few spells he knew in his left. He wasn’t much of a magic-user, but he had practiced the fury spell long and hard, for many years. It was hard to argue with something that would confuse the enemy or, even better, set them against each other. He hopped down to the shore and moved ahead to the boulders nearest the Icerunner, climbing slowly up them until he had a decent view of the ship’s main deck. There were a few people pacing the deck. Someone had placed a ladder across from the ship to the shoreline here, just below Coyle, and stationed a person in robes at this end of the ladder. He couldn’t tell what was immediately below him on the shore, but he did notice a number of floating barrels and a pair of skiffs pulled up onto the mud just to his right. The Icerunner must have scraped open a hole beneath the waterline but it wasn’t split in two like many of the other shipwrecks he’d seen.
Maybe she’s just beached, not broken, and the Blackbloods were already organized to “rescue” her goods. That makes as much sense as anything else, knowing what I do about these assholes. I’ll bet Jaree-Ra didn’t expect his patsy to have prior knowledge.
Alright. I don’t trust myself to be able to take out this mage without alerting the entire coast. So let’s see if I can draw him back across the ladder and up onto deck.
Coyle aimed at the man in the middle of the deck, assuming that the other bandit he saw pacing back and forth on the starboard side would attack. He was wrong – or at least partially wrong. His aim was fine; the spell blossomed around the bandit as he’d hoped. Additionally, the starboard-side pirate drew a bow and began firing at his shipmate. But instead of turning to face the archer Coyle’s target crossed the ladder to shore and attacked the mage, who countered with a nasty-looking frost spell.
Glad that mage is working on his buddy and not on me.
Coyle tsk’d and fired another spell, this time striking the archer who obligingly snarled at his fellow Blackblood Marauder and continued firing as fast as he could draw. Coyle drew his own bow and prepared an arrow, stepping to his right to get a better look at the action. To his dismay, the first man he’d caught with the fury spell was right there in front of him, but fortunately engaged in an insult contest with the archer still on deck. Coyle released the arrow, striking the nearer man with a solid thunk but not ending him. Then he hissed as an arrow from the man on deck grazed his cheek. He scrambled backward and down, out of the archer’s line of sight, and swapped his bow for one of his sabers.
Spell on him wore off. Just great. Time to go with my strength instead.
He heard a loud groan from the deck, followed by a thud. Apparently his man on the shore was a decent archer as well. Coyle frowned. He was going to have to be quick and accurate with his sabers.
I’m getting too old for this shit.
He circled to the left around to the front of the boulder, nearly stumbling over the mage. One of the others had taken him down. The last man standing was next to the set of skiffs; when he spied Coyle he drew another arrow. Coyle waited until he’d drawn the bowstring back as far as he could and then rolled forward under the arrow as the man released it, coming up with his saber under the man’s ribcage and into his heart. The pirate slumped to the ground; Coyle pulled his weapon loose and shook the blood off it.
That’s why you don’t try to fight right after you’ve been hit with frost. Slows you down for awhile.
He took a few moments to examine the skiffs and help himself to the coin pouches left behind. It looked almost like a campsite. There were weapons leaning up against some surprisingly dry barrels and sacks. From this vantage point it was easy to see that he’d been right: the Icerunner was beached but not terribly damaged. The Marauders had calculated where the blinded vessel would run aground and had been ready to board her by force, weapons close at hand and placed so as to be easily grabbed. Coyle shook his head and made his way across the ladder to the deck, where he relieved the bandits of their best armor and readied himself to move along.
It’s not as though Jaree-Ra didn’t give himself away anyhow but seeing it just sticks in my craw. Time to find his sister.
In one of the pouches he wore Coyle had packed the necessary doses of skooma to keep him going for a few days. He’d also brewed up a few invisibility potions and brought those along as well; as soon as he’d opened the door to the ship’s cabin he downed one. He crept down into the hold, slipping past the open door to a compartment where another man in mage’s robes was engrossed in reading. Deeja was supposed to be here on the ship, and that meant, most likely, the back of the hold. He’d deal with the mage later.
A frown took his face and deepened as he made his way through the vessel. There was nobody here, he found as he made his way down the corridor. Nobody in any of the cabins, nobody standing guard. He shook his head. He’d expected some sort of obstacle here in the ship, but there was none; only the Blackbloods stationed aboveboard were guarding the Icerunner – at least until he’d helped them end each other.
Finally, in one of the side rooms, he found a dead sailor. This one appeared to have been killed by a falling timber, at least on a cursory glance. There was certainly enough blood on the end of the timber. But the blood was on the upper side of the wood, not against the body. And the sailor certainly hadn’t died from a timber to the knee, which is where it had landed.
They killed him in his sleep and staged it to look like the ship collapsed on him. But the ship is fine everywhere else, as far as I can tell. No tears in the side, no damage to the deck, nothing. Not even the slop bucket tipped over.
But the chest is certainly empty.
He checked in the other cabins he’d passed and, indeed, the footlockers had all been cleaned out. Anything left in this vessel was cheap, easily replaceable, or something that would spoil quickly in the water. It was further evidence in his mind that this had been a carefully planned heist, and that he’d been set up to take the fall for it. Jaree-Ra had told him the loot would be shared, but he hadn’t mentioned that it wouldn’t be at the ship. He’d also said the sailors would “wash up safe,” and Coyle assumed that officials from Morthal or Dawnstar, or even Solitude, would be finding the rest of them floating nearby within the next few days. The Blackbloods had taken out the crew and then moved fast to clean everything out and get the loot unloaded and taken away.
I’ll bet I know where it is, too, and who has it under his nose. Damn. I was so sure someone took care of them a long time ago. I guess he must have slipped that particular noose.
He turned back from the dead sailor and crossed to the door opposite, pulling out his second saber before opening the door. He had just enough time to take in the fact that another sailor lay dead on the planks before a Blackblood – so-called because they wore distinctive tattoos resembling prominent, dark veins – came rushing out from behind a partition.
“What was that?” the man yelled while pulling his battleaxe into attack position.
Someone else might have been intimidated by the exquisitely sharpened dual-headed blade coming down at him. But Coyle had wrangled with pirates for most of his life and knew how to dodge a battleaxe, especially one being wielded in a clumsy, out-of-control power swing. He took one step to the side, avoiding the man’s blade. It sank into the floorboards, and Coyle’s swift and light sabers sliced the man to ribbons.
He harrumphed while catching his breath and looking around the room. I’m getting too damn old for this, but I still know a staged death when I see one. The former crew hand he’d spotted while entering the room had a barrel tipped over onto him. Again the prop wasn’t where it could have caused a lethal injury. Again, the blood spattered across this end of the room said that the man had been killed while upright, and then placed to look like an accidental death. He shook his head. It was unnecessary and insulting and he intended to make sure the Argonian siblings who had planned it got the rewards they had earned.
Coyle moved to the end of the space and was poking through some of the crates and bags there when a voice called out from below.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
Coyle froze in place and breathed as shallowly as possible, until he finally heard the man mutter that he must have been hearing things. Then he crept down the short set of stairs to the cargo hold. Here, there were indeed some signs of damage to the ship, but surely not devastating damage. Some water had pooled above the keel and more bubbled in through the bottom; this was shallow water, though, and Coyle was fairly sure that the ship could be repaired.
Of more immediate importance was the Blackblood Marauder standing on one of the side cargo decks. The man looked around nervously, his hand twitching back and forth toward his bow as if to reassure himself that it was still there and ready to be fired. Coyle grinned. He’d done enough nervous twitching himself over the years to know that this man was going to be completely startled – and therefore uncoordinated – when attacked. Coyle crept forward in the lower hold, a breath at a time, his sabers ready. Just as he reached the bandit’s position, the man jumped.
“Huh?”
As Coyle had expected, the man’s arm jerked back reflexively, leaving his entire right side open and unprotected. Coyle smirked, reaching up with his left saber to halve the man’s tendons at the ankles, and with his right to stab up under the man’s ribs, where his own unsupported weight did the rest, bringing his body down onto the weapon and stabbing himself through the heart. Coyle helped the body down onto the floor quietly, retrieved his weapons, and headed toward the stern. He was certain he would find Deeja there, unless Jaree-Ra had flat-out lied to him.
That’s certainly possible. I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I could toss him, even if I swung him by his tail first.
He kept his sabers up while moving slowly toward the last partition in the hold. Peering into the darkness he spotted, as he had expected, the figure of a female Argonian, one hand on a hip and the other holding a note.
Well, now. I could play dumb and just approach her. Ask her what’s up.
And I could die. I’m not as fast as I used to be.
Naah. Let’s just take her out. After the way they’ve treated the crew here, she’s earned it.
He gathered his breath and sprinted across the room, closing the gap between them and scoring a deep slash across Deeja’s abdomen. She had enough time to yell “Hey!” and attempt to slash back at him with her claws – razor-sharp and coated with poison, he had no doubt – but he dodged and once more allowed his victim’s momentum to do the rest. She’d been whirling to use those talons on him but found herself impaled on his saber instead. He brought the left weapon up to finish her with a quick slash across the neck, and then stood panting, trying to catch his breath.
Finally he laughed aloud. “Phew! That was some workout you gave me, lady. And not the kind they write about in the books, either.” He cleaned his blades and sheathed them, chuckling, before searching the area she’d been in.
Deeja had dropped the note she’d been reading but fortunately for him it had landed atop a relatively dry crate; an Imperial shield leaning up against the crate had kept it from flying off into the water. He reached over the corpse and picked up the note.
“All right then. Let’s see what your slimy brother has to say.” Coyle flipped open the paper and started chuckling again.
Sister, once you have picked up the packages send them on to me at Broken Oar Grotto. The fool who did our work at the lighthouse should arrive shortly thereafter; make sure he’s taken care of.
Coyle snorted. “Thought so. So our Queen hit ‘em hard way back then but she didn’t take you out, did she, Hargar? You old whore. I guess I’ll come see you and your buddy the Argonian next.”
“Are you afraid to fight me?” a man called out from above Coyle’s head.
Oh damn. I forgot about the mage.
He downed a small invisibility potion. It wouldn’t hide him long, but it would get him to within reach of the man – and as long as he could get within arm’s reach of a mage wearing only robes, he could take them down. This one was no exception. The mage apparently was on edge, for he fired a weak shock spell out the door of the room he was in – randomly, as he couldn’t see Coyle to target him. Just as the invisibility wore off, so did the shock spell. Coyle popped around the open door with his swords raised.
“Well howdy!” he called out cheerfully as the mage snarled, starting to resume his shock spell with one hand. Coyle used one saber to slice that hand off, and the other to carve a deep slit in the mage’s throat, preventing him from screaming. The pirate fell like a stone, and Coyle heaved a sigh. He’d use one of the skiffs to row across to the Haafingar peninsula and make his way to Broken Oar Grotto.
And if I’m lucky I’ll get some more information on what all these scumbags are up to. It’s something, for certain. Someone’s preparing for another war.
It had been years – decades, even – since Coyle had been to Broken Oar Grotto, and he was startled as he approached it, guided to its entrance by a small fire burning outside. He pulled his skiff up onto shore and looked around in astonishment. Once upon a time this had been a safe haven for shipping, much as the East Empire Company’s huge cavern was, with deep water leading through a precariously narrow entrance to a protected, covered inlet where ships could dock out of the way of prying eyes. It had gotten its name from the irritatingly large number of times some idiot or other hadn’t drawn in the oars before attempting to navigate the entrance.
Now, though, he was startled to see the rotting forepart of a longboat jutting out into the water, crushed by heavy stones that looked as though they’d always been there. Coyle scouted the area for a few moments. Judging by the plants clinging to the shore, it was in fact quite an old landslide that had nearly sealed the entrance. Only a narrow gap in the rocks led into the grotto he remembered.
The dark, narrow passage opened up into a more familiar setting. The dim lighting revealed a large wooden structure, with scaffolding and ramps leading to dirt and stone pathways around the edges of what was still a huge and perfectly-situated harbor. Peeking left around the corner of the opening Coyle saw the aft portion of the ship he’d spied outside, illuminated by the few shafts of filtered sunlight streaming in through gaps in the rock fall above it. Coyle shook his head.
Still here after all these years, but now you have to hump the goods in and out of this entrance on your backs. Poor sods.
Ahead of him, on the scaffolding, Coyle heard voices and could just barely make out motion. There were two men talking, as far as he could tell. He snuck through the shadows until he was close enough to listen in.
“You’ve been here for a while, right? What was it like back when we could still make runs out to the coast?”
“Well, before that cave-in sealed our ships in here we could loot any size ship we wanted.”
“Ok, so where did you keep all that loot? I’ve been here almost a year and haven’t seen any of it.”
“And you won’t, either. The Captain has it locked away in that drowned ship by his quarters. He says it’s to “keep it safe” but I know he’s just keeping it for himself.”
“If we could just get our hands on that treasure we could get out of here and never look back.”
That’s a nice thought, but I don’t think he’s keeping it for himself. I think Jaree-Ra and Deeja were helping with whatever Rolvar’s doing. And I’d be willing to bet neither of them knows about the other. This all smells like something being directed from higher up and farther away.
He was reasonably sure that there would be a lot of Blackbloods in here. The Queen might have inflicted some major damage but it had been sixteen or seventeen years since then, long enough for the gang to build itself back up. So, once more, he decided to let them thin out their own ranks. He took careful aim at one of the bandits he’d been listening to, tossed a fury spell in his direction, and dropped back out of sight. For a moment he thought he’d missed the man but then the sounds of weapons clashing told him all was going as expected. He drew his bow then, and lobbed a lucky shot at the remaining pirate, who fell soundlessly.
It was easy to see that Jaree-Ra had been stockpiling supplies here. There were rich animal pelts nearly everywhere and food piled high, as well as large quantities of everything else a large contingent of raiders – or soldiers – might need. He worked his way up the stone ramp and along the cavern’s edge, dispatching the one marauder between him and the jetty that afforded the best view down the long cavern. As he had remembered, there was another large structure at the far end, with docks for various sized vessels and a dwelling of sorts atop it.
That’ll be where Jaree-Ra and Hargar are, and a lot more between me and them. Well, it’s the lazy man’s way out but I’m a lazy man, and I didn’t learn this spell for no reason at all. I know Hargar’s a tough old piece of jerky and I’m going to guess Jaree-Ra is at least as slippery as his sister. Especially with all the water in here.
There was a steep and precarious stone-and-earth bridge across the far end of the cavern that had, once upon a time, been used as a perch for guards to watch nearly all parts of the cavern. To Coyle’s satisfaction, when he had made it about halfway down the inside edge of the grotto he spotted a bandit pacing along the bridge’s steepest portion. If he could hit that man with the fury spell it would draw a number of others out and the fight would be on. He waited until his target had settled, then fired his spell and scuttled backward, out of eyeshot. The disadvantage to that, of course, was that he couldn’t see who might be fighting but what he was certain of was that nobody was following him.
It was a long slog through the place. He used the same approach all the way: cast fury at the easiest target to reach, wait for the others to attack that target and fire again with his spell, keeping everyone agitated until there was only one man left standing. Then it was reasonably safe to move in with his sabers. After what felt like a year, he was left climbing the ramps up from the docked, trapped vessels. Jaree-Ra found him first.
“First you murder my sister, then you massacre my men?” the Argonian hissed.
Coyle snorted. “Word travels fast, apparently. And what did you expect me to do, stand and let them slice me open? You set me up, you bastard, and your sister took out that whole crew. I’m just taking care of business and returning the favor.”
Jaree-Ra hissed. Coyle knew that some Argonians, particularly the older and stronger ones, had the ability to spit poison as well as deliver it on their claws, and he was having none of that. First he rushed up the stairs, catching Jaree-Ra by surprise and slipping past without giving the Argonian a chance to attack. Captain Hargar, wielding a battleaxe, emerged from the smithing area that was tucked in against the cavern wall. Coyle looked up at him and grinned.
“Remember me, you mangy piece of pit-bait?”
Hargar snarled and headed down the ramps toward Coyle. “You ready to die today, eh?”
“Not so much, no. Are you?” Coyle dashed forward and landed several decent blows on Hargar before taking a huge gamble and leaping down into the water. Unfortunately, as soon as he surfaced he heard another splash and knew it was Jaree-Ra diving in to follow. That was a confrontation that he couldn’t allow to happen in the water. He made for the nearest place to plant his feet and drew his bow, firing first at Hargar and then at the Argonian, over and over again. Then, right after landing a solid strike on Jaree-Ra, he swam for the nearest ladder up out of the water and made for cover, where he found the best of his invisibility potions and used it, sliding back into the water.
The “drowned ship” he’d heard the two bandits near the entrance mention was just beside and below Hargar’s quarters, its structure basically torn in half, with the bow rising up from the murky water. He clambered onto it at its lowest point and moved to the highest, where he had an excellent angle on the lowest dock. And as he had expected that’s where his two adversaries had gone, looking around wildly to try to find him. He waited until Hargar, the weaker of the two, was in the open and finished him off with a single elven arrow that sent the man flying backward into the water. Jaree-Ra was harder to kill, as fast a swimmer as he was; but by changing his position frequently and firing whenever he had an opening, Coyle eventually took care of the Argonian.
He then made a careful sweep of the grotto, looking for valuables. He opened the sunken chest and was amused to find coins and a few sales worthy weapons, but nothing like the huge stash the men at the cavern mouth suggested. Yes, there were chests with gold inside, but not enough that he would have thought it worth the lengths to which Jaree-Ra and Deeja had gone in order to ground the Ice Runner. It didn’t make sense.
He found Hargar’s journal on the stand beside his bed and scanned it. Hargar had never been the very brightest of men, just smart enough to keep his crew entertained and occupied, and strong enough to make sure his orders got followed. But the Argonians had been smarter. All Hargar had known was that they had something big in mind and that they’d wanted an inventory of the loot already in the cave.
He was smart enough not to tell them about his personal funds down there underwater, but it’s not a lot of money. It doesn’t add up, though. None of it does. If the Ice Runner was full of loot, where did it go? It’s sure not here. The setup was supposed to end me there on the ship, not send me here. Deeja was supposed to come here, not stay with the Icerunner, so it’s not like she had it stashed nearby. Something about this stinks bad and I’m sure it’s related to Rolvar and the Barnacle. And maybe the Ocean Saber, too.
He broke into a slow grin. He’d almost forgotten about seeing the Ocean Saber. It was time to go see a man about a ship.