The hero navarre book 3, p.2
The Hero (Navarre Book 3), page 2
He blew a smoke ring from his pipe as he considered the situation.
“That’s just not possible,” Douglas insisted. “There must have been someone else here from Forestria or even the Immortal Empire.”
“That’s a very dangerous assumption, lieutenant,” Whitlock warned. “You’re encouraging the captain to underestimate the inhabitants of this port.”
He turned to Grant. “I advise you to proceed with utmost caution, captain.”
“My orders are clear,” Grant reminded him. “We’re to protect the ports of our colonies and our allies from all dangers. We’ve been hunting the location of Hidden Harbor for nearly two years. No matter how they killed those orcs, this is just another pirate community and that’s exactly how we’re going to treat it.”
“I wonder if that’s what the orcs thought,” the wizard mused, “before whatever power is living on this island started killing them.”
Chapter Two: An Impromptu Town Council
“Thank you for gathering so quickly,” Navarre greeted the leaders of Hidden Harbor. As they usually did, they had gathered in Bonnie’s Tavern to discuss the situation and Navarre addressed them now standing on a table so that he could be seen. “It appears that we have new and potentially difficult visitors coming to our fair town and I would like to prepare myself before I meet with them.”
“You’re talking about Forestria,” Ebeneezer the Gnome Trader complained. “Difficult isn’t the half of it. In many ways, they’re worse than the orcs.”
“Stupid gnomes,” Thorne, Patron of Humans, grumbled in the halfling’s head. “Forestria is a great power. There is much nobility there.”
“They aren’t all that noble.” Furaidh, Patron of Dwarfs, reminded him in his deep brogue. “They’re human, aren’t they?”
“You know I hate to agree with my brother,” Ebneezium, the other gnome trader, ventured in the world outside of the halfling’s head. “But in this case, he’s correct.”
“How so?” Navarre pressed them. “Will they attack straight away? Will they not talk?”
“Oh, they’ll probably talk,” Bonnie the Dwarf answered. Like the god in Navarre’s head, she spoke in a rich brogue which sometimes made her a little bit difficult to understand. “But they’ll talk in much the way you do. You know what I mean. Think about how you go down to the water to meet the boats coming in and give them the three rules. These ships from Forestria are going to be the same, talking just enough to try and lay down the law for us.”
For the first time, Navarre frowned. “I do not think that is going to work for me. What kinds of laws are they talking about?”
A bird squawked and Mervyn, the half elven druid stroked its feathers. “Forestria,” he told Navarre, “wants to be the Immortal Empire for humans.”
“As they should be,” Thorne agreed in Navarre’s head.
“Like hell!” Tyran, Patron of Elves, objected.
“You are already confusing me,” the sheriff admitted. “The Immortal Empire, that’s the elven one, right? The one that died?”
Leander the Shipwright cleared his voice. “As the only elf present, perhaps I should be the one to give the history lesson. The Immortal Empire ruled an alliance of—”
Just about everyone present without any elven blood in them snorted in protest, leaving it to Bonnie to put their complaint into words. “Alliance? The emperor was a dictator who crushed any opinion that didn’t start in his own brain.”
“He was keeping our lands strong against the filth from the Great Defile,” Leander protested. “He was the only surviving champion.”
Bonnie didn’t accept the correction. “He was a blood thirsty dictator who turned on his allies and ground them under his heel.”
Navarre slammed one powerful palm down onto a table, making everyone look over at him. “The third rule is no politics, remember? So let me sum up. The Immortal Emperor dominated the lands of his allies until he died unexpectedly.”
“The whole capital city of Lumière was destroyed in one stroke,” Leander expanded. “Many elves wish to believe that it was our allies that did this, but let’s be honest, none of them had the power to do such a thing. For our purposes, it doesn’t matter. The emperor and all of his immediate family and most of his relatives and their immediate families, and the elites of the realm were wiped out. The empire has broken into pieces and is fighting each other. Forestria was one of those allies whose king had become a vassal of the emperor. They used the confusion to break away. They will be brought back in line at some point, but for now they are enjoying the delusion that they should be the Immortal Empire for all of the human kingdoms.”
“So, they wish to incorporate us?” Navarre asked, still not really understanding the situation.
“Oh, I doubt that,” Leander said. “We’re much too small to be incorporated.”
“You can show them differently, boy,” Thorne urged the halfling.
“They are a bloodthirsty lot,” Bonnie growled, “a scourge on the waves.”
“They are tough,” Thorne agreed. “They’re my people, after all.”
For the first time, Glass, the third gnome living in Hidden Harbor, voiced an opinion. He was a very powerful wizard, but not, as he constantly told people, one trained for combat. “They justify their depredations by pretending they stand for law and order, but in the same way that the Immortal Empire did. They are just as much a gang of pirates as everyone else who comes to trade here.”
Navarre felt more confused than ever. “So, they are privateers?”
“Oh, no,” his friend, Meredith Braddock, Captain of the Sea Hawk, and privateer for the Kingdom of Anundal, interjected. “The Forestrian navy hates privateers. They consider privateers to be the same as pirates and execute those they claim to catch in the act or show evidence of pirate activity.”
Sister Agnes, Priestess of Thorne and former privateer for the kingdom of Devon offered her own perspective. “Their standard of evidence for identifying pirates counts as hearsay in most courts.”
“I am not trying to be political,” Navarre insisted. “I just want to understand. You captain, are from Anundal, and you, priestess, from Devon. How do your peoples feel about Forestria?”
“We hate Forestria!” Sister Agnes announced.
“What she said!” Braddock agreed. “Forestria preys upon our commerce pretending that our ships are illegally trading with Bosforth and Somerset who they are currently at war with.”
“I think all of you humans are mad,” Navarre sighed. “But that is a problem for a different day. Today I must decide how to keep from having to go to war with this new fleet.”
“All of those orcs carcasses we staked along the coast have to be giving them pause,” Sister Agnes predicted, “but I don’t know how they will react to them. Will they come in cautiously? Or will they come in with everything they have?”
“You have to keep them off balance,” Winston, the man who actually did most of the managing of Bonnie’s bar informed them.
Surprised that the normally taciturn man had entered the conversation, everyone turned to look at him.
Winston did not shy away from their gazes. “They have probably been looking for Hidden Harbor for a long time. It is everything they detest—a stronghold of freedom that refuses to be bound by their rules and customs. It’s also an excellent port for them to use to launch offensives in this area.
Everyone continued to stare at him.
“But they could not possibly have expected to see those orc carcasses,” the older man continued. “And there is no way they can expect to find anyone like Sheriff Navarre.”
“I don’t understand what you are telling me,” Navarre admitted.
“I’m telling you to continue spoiling their expectations and never show fear,” Winston urged him.
“The last will be easy,” Navarre assured him. “For I am not even slightly afraid of them.”
“You are the sheriff of Hidden Harbor,” Winston reminded him. “The title, sheriff, means something in Forestria. You can use that.”
“How so?” Navarre still didn’t understand what was being suggested.
“Do not wait for the captain of that ship to choose when he will come to shore,” Winston suggested. “Start by sending him an invitation to lunch.”
“The captain is actually a woman,” Mervyn the Druid informed them.
Winston rolled his eyes. “You have a remarkable chef here in Hidden Harbor, sheriff. Set up a table, get the traders to make proper place settings with wine and silverware. Put on your best clothes. Meet her with grace and manners.”
“The old man is right,” Thorne announced in his deep voice. “Give my people something they do not expect and you’ll set them back on their heels and make them reconsider.”
“The old man has experience in these affairs,” Himel added in his whispery voice. “I see deep roots within him—he and his family have served the highest of Forestrian nobility.”
“I embrace your idea, Winston,” Navarre announced. “You all can begin to determine who will join me in dining with this captain while I go find a fishing vessel to bring her my invitation to lunch.”
He hesitated as he donned his hat. “And pass the word, please, that there is now a fourth rule in Hidden Harbor. No one tells the crews from Forestria anything about how we killed the orcs. I will decide what they learn. The rest of you will tell them nothing at all.”
Chapter Three: An Unexpected Invitation
Father Thomas Crane knelt in his cabin onboard the Steadfast seeking answers to the mystery confronting them. Candles burned throughout the room and incense added its sickly-sweet scent. He had done this many times since he was first initiated into the service of Thorne and always the effort brought him peace, slowed his heart, gave him the calm with which he preferred to face the world.
This time, he felt no such relief. Who or what sank the battle barge? Who or what killed the orcs? Why did the denizens of this island choose to display them as they did? Surely, they must know that such a thing would be talked about. Surely, they must know that their warning—or was it intended as a monument? Surely, they must know that staking more than a hundred orc carcasses on the shore would attract more attention than a place like Hidden Harbor could afford?
Try as he might, he could find neither answers nor peace. The level of brutality inherent in that display of corpses disturbed him. Yes, pirates were known to be brutal, but this? Was it intended as a warning to orcs or as a threat to other humans?
And why were the orcs returning now? he asked his god. Why now, thirty years after the Immortal Empire fell? The perfect time for an invasion would have been in the days and weeks after the catastrophe, not now when the world had regained its balance and begun to grow strong again.
“Navarre,” the word whispered in his consciousness startling him out of his trance as if he were a rank novice in his first meditation.
“Navarre?” he repeated out loud. “What does that mean, Thorne? Who or what is Navarre?”
The door behind him opened without the entrant knocking and Captain Grant stepped inside.
“Thomas? I would have knocked, but you called out.”
Father Crane turned to face her. “What did you say, captain?”
“I asked,” Grant said, skipping over a repeat of the pleasantries, “did you learn anything?”
The priest shook his head. “Not much, Thorne is...”
He let his voice trail off. He was not going to say anything that could be construed as negative regarding his god. And yet, the truth was, he didn’t know if he had actually reached that deep into the celestial realm. The ether was murky and roiled with currents. A priest of his years and power should have expected a clear answer to his question. Instead, he had one word.
“Thomas?” Grant asked again, a touch of impatience sounding in her voice.
Crane cleared his throat. “My divination reveals that Navarre is responsible for the destruction of the orcs. I do not know who, or what, Navarre is.”
Grant frowned. “It sounds elvish, does it not?”
“Yes, it does,” the priest agreed. “And that might actually be a good thing. I don’t know how or why a powerful elf would come to live out here far beyond the edge of civilization, but if it was an elf, we would be justified in turning our backs and sailing away after sharing a few polite words with the creature.”
“I am not leaving this port under pirate control,” Grant told him in no uncertain terms.
Crane looked up at her and asked the question she clearly didn’t want to consider. “Do you think an elf capable of destroying a battle barge is really going to care what you desire?”
Grant started to object but Crane cut her off.
“Or just as important,” he insisted. “Don’t you think that our superiors would rather know that an elf of such power has taken residence out here then have you risk losing the squadron confronting him? And maybe they would also like to know how he destroyed so many orcs and if he is expecting more of them.”
“Those are both worthwhile points,” the captain conceded.
“Here’s something else to consider,” Crane suggested. “Part of the reason that we decided to finally put an end to Hidden Harbor is that we thought that pirates were to blame for the sudden downturn in shipping we have seen over the past eighteen months. Now we know there is another, more probable, explanation.”
“The orcs,” Grant acknowledged. “I wasn’t really thinking about the broader implications of their presence here. I haven’t looked beyond what those carcasses might mean for my mission.”
“Then I suggest you start looking,” the priest said. “Because it seems highly unlikely that the orcs came here to Hidden Harbor, and only here.”
Lieutenant Douglas appeared in the doorway. “Captain, there’s a skiff approaching—a small fishing boat. But they say they are carrying an invitation to you from a Sheriff Navarre.”
Crane and Grant both turned to stare at each other at the mention of the official’s name.
***
Grant, Crane, and Whitelock gathered at the railing to watch the fishing boat sail away after delivering its message—a simple note written with a strong hand on clean white paper. It read: The sheriff of Hidden Harbor requests your attendance at a luncheon to be given in your honor at one of the clock this afternoon. The signature was a lavish letter N.
“Well,” Crane observed, “whatever he is, Navarre is not an elf.”
“What?” the wizard asked.
“The captain and I were speculating,” the priest explained, “that it might be an elf on the island who had led the defense against the orcs. But no elf would use the title sheriff. That’s a Forestrian office. The Immortal Empire has never used it.”
“That’s true,” Whitelock confirmed the other man’s reasoning, “but it doesn’t mean you were wrong. There could still be a powerful elf on the island—someone with enough power to sink a battle barge while it’s far out in the harbor.”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” Crane told him.
“May I ask why not?” Whitelock pressed.
“Because Thomas cast a divination which tells him that Navarre is responsible for the death of the orcs,” Grant interrupted the conversation.
“I see,” the wizard thoughtfully puffed on his pipe. “The same Navarre who has invited us for luncheon this afternoon, I assume.”
“That’s what we think,” Grant conceded.
“That does complicate things,” the wizard admitted. “Are you planning to accept the invitation of decline it?”
“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” Lieutenant Douglas complained. “Pirates don’t invite the captains of Forestrian cruisers to lunch.”
“I agree that they have balls,” Grant conceded, “especially this Sheriff Navarre, whoever he might prove to be. But I am not lunching with pirates.”
“Captain, I hope you will reconsider that decision,” Whitelock urged.
His request clearly surprised the captain. “What? Why?”
The wizard took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed the stem at the little town which they could now see across the harbor and the attached lagoon. “Because we don’t understand what happened here yet, and lunch is a peaceful way to begin obtaining that information.”
“I don’t have to be peaceful!” Grant snapped. “I have a cruiser, a schooner, and five frigates. And what do they have?”
“We have identified four corsairs, and a ship that is probably a small frigate,” Lieutenant Douglas told her. “All five ships are on our list of suspected or confirmed pirate vessels. The only one that is confusing is the frigate. It’s called the Sea Hawk, but our information says the Sea Hawk is a privateer corsair out of Anundal. There may be two vessels with the same name.”
“Where is this Sea Hawk?” Grant asked.
“In a dry dock at the far end of the harbor,” Douglas explained. “It doesn’t look like it’s making any effort to get back in the water.”
“The town?” Grant pressed.
“Our initial surveillance was cut off when birds attacked our seagulls,” Douglas informed her.
The captain looked to the wizard who shrugged. “That probably means that they have someone on the island who sees through the eyes of birds just like we do. It shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s a common talent.”
“So, we don’t know how big the town is?” Grant concluded.
“Not precisely,” Whitelock admitted, “but I doubt there are more than two or three thousand people in port right now.”
“And I have three hundred marines, plus wizards and priests to back them up,” Grant reminded everyone.
“If you want to skip the preliminaries and launch an immediate attack,” Whitelock told her, “we will, of course, do as you command. You are, after all, the captain. But I would like to point out that there were probably four or even five hundred orcs on that battle barge. And we now know that there are at least two hundred orcs set on pikes along the coastline. Are you certain that your pride can’t handle a preliminary discussion with these people before you risk the destruction of your entire squadron?”
