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A sailor's life is never an easy one. Karn Gebbenbech, second mate of the Clarion Adamant -- fleeing south from her pursuers -- doesn't mind. There are always things to do -- and besides, like all sailors, he's very good with knots...

A sequel to "Storm warnings", also set aboard the steam barque Clarion Adamant_. Now underway, it seems that there's more to crew and cargo alike than was first let on. What will happen to them? Who is after them, and why? A few hints; also, it appears I've gone a few too many stories without getting anyone tied, so, I'm gonna go ahead and fix that. Yeah. _Let me know what you think! As always, share and enjoy, and please chime in with criticism and feedback! If you like the story, that makes me happy. If you don't like it, the only way I can get better is if you tell me.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"A grew dawn breaking" by Rob Baird

---

Karn Gebbenbech, second mate, was in a remarkably good mood. Partly this was because the sea was being kindly: the Clarion Adamant had required only minor trimming, and their course had not been given much cause to change.

Partly this was because it was the best part of the cruise: two days in, the men were back in the naval mindset, with the bars and the brothels of Harradon behind them. Nor had they been aboard long enough to become exhausted, and bored, and irritable with the declining quality of the food.

And partly it was because his shift was nearly over, and he had befriended one of the pilgrims they were hauling up to the Meteor Islands. He had never been to those cold northern shores, and neither had she, but he had regaled the ermine with tales of life on the high seas so thrilling that she had needed to seek the reassuring warmth of the wolf's chest, and the comfort of his arms. He had allowed that he had a private cabin -- a luxury on a ship like the Clarion Adamant -- and her eyes had widened in suitable appreciation.

Karn didn't know how what she was expecting -- but the invitation had been extended, and accepted, and he thought that the odds he was going to be called back out were rather slim. The wind was steady, if it blew beneath a greying sky. He grinned, and his practiced eyes slid over the ship's sails, and the men on deck.

"Halvas!" he called to the figure shuffling along the portside railing.

Rettari Halvas, the ship's thaumaturgist, looked up with tired eyes. The panther was a dark man, given to melancholy; he mounted the stairs to the poop slowly. "Karn?"

"How does it go, Saman Halvas?"

"As always," he sighed. "I recharged the sheets and the mizzen braces. The blocks will need work, but... I don't have the strength right now..."

Halvas worked with the ship's carpenter and, on occasion, the chief engineer. Like most in the Iron Kingdom, although Gethet Issich and his crew were skeptical of magic they had to admit that it had its uses. Halvas reinforced the ship's boilers, and threaded spells through the ship's cables to reduce their wear and keep them from fraying -- but the Clarion Adamant had nearly five miles of rigging, and there was only so much he could manage in a day without exhausting himself.

Karn himself knew no magic, although he had engaged Halvas on occasion for minor spells -- curing a hangover, for example, or sharpening the edge of his blade. For this, as for all his work, Saman Halvas was paid handsomely -- Karn paid in tobacco, which would be as precious as gold by the end of their journey.

Still, it would not have been proper to leave things to chance. "Shall we?" Karn gestured back down to the deck, and Rettari Halvas followed, his black tail curled tightly around his right leg. Some of the longer-tailed crew had bobbed theirs already -- mostly on purpose. It was the mark of a seaman, someone who could not run the risk of having the appendage caught up at an inopportune time. Halvas, though, was a professional.

And his work was superlative. Karn bent to examine a block. The cabling had been reeved through carefully, and seemed to repel the block's wheel -- but so slightly that it was hard to tell at first. Just enough charge so that the cable would glide without fouling or friction.

He completed his inspection with the panther early, leaving twenty minutes to spare before his shift ended. Now he needed to decide what to do with the remainder. Captain Issich had told him to hold the ship on a course to follow the wind, but things were not quite so simple. Clarion Adamant sailed on a broad reach -- not directly before the wind, but just to the side, so that all of her sails stayed filled. The longer they did this, however, the further they deviated from their course.

It would be easy to leave the correction for his relief. Instead the wolf grinned, and raised his voice to the clear, megaphone-loud call all mates shared. "Stand by to wear ship!" Then, on second thought: "brail up the spanker!"

The squaresails Clarion Adamant carried on her first two masts were relatively docile, particularly in the steady wind now behind them. On the other hand, Karn Gebbenbech had always believed that the spanker -- the fore-and-aft sail that flew from her final mast -- was too large. When their stern turned across the wind -- 'wearing ship' -- the wind would shift direction across the sail, pulling it sharply from one side of the barque to the other. He would keep the sail furled through the maneuver, rather than taking any chances.

The crew of his shift knew their places; they were already hauling on the brails -- the lines that would pull the spanker up against the mast, rolling it up against itself so the wind could no longer have its way. On the other hand, they were not doing so quickly. Karn leaned over to watch their progress. "I said haul away, damn you, not stare at the fucking thing and jack off! Now move your bloomin' arses -- and mind the lee brail!"

The Aernian sounded odd in the wolf's accent, but he didn't mind and the crew obeyed just the same. It was a practiced, cultivated streak. Karn was twenty-six years old, and he had been sailing for more than a decade, first on the ungainly lateen-rigged boats that worked the river from his home in Issenrik up to Aldimarek, and then on the big schooners that hauled iron down from Karpasberg.

He had taken an instant liking to Gethet Issich when they'd met in an Issenrikan bar -- the Clarion Adamant was docked alongside his own schooner, which looked puny and frail in comparison. And Issich was running ever-more south; he needed someone who knew the waters off the Issenrik coast. A logical match.

In his twelve years Karn had gained a sixth sense for the ways of sailing ships, and their peculiar idiosyncrasies. He knew the Clarion Adamant as well as he knew his own body. Now he judged that she was in a good position: "helm up!" he called; the helmsman turned the wheel slowly to starboard. "Brace yards to starboard!" The yards, the horizontal spars that carried the sails, would need to be turned slowly about the masts so that the wind stayed behind them.

Though he cursed and swore at and on occasion beat them for their faults the crew was sharp, too. As the ship's stern came about and the direction of the wind shifted to their port side, they swung the yards over to match, keeping the sails square to the wind. It was a careful maneuver, executed with nothing but brute strength.

"Helm amidships," he told the young helmsman, and raised his voice with a hint of pride for his men. "Well all yards!" On their new course, they could now set about belaying the cables to hold them in place, and to unfurl the spanker once again.

He had just finished marking the course correction on their charts when he became aware of another figure entering -- Sheshki Anariska, the Tiuriskan jackal who served as third mate. "All's well?" she asked.

"Aye. I make us at a steady twelve knots. You should sight Hanek's Rock in..." He glanced down at the chart, doing some quick figuring in his head. "Two hours, perhaps a few minutes more."

"Hm. Not bad, kachka," she grinned. It was a word in her own language, which she had told him referred to a mouse common in the Tiurishkan deserts. It was her way of implying that he did not belong at sea.

When Sheshki had first come aboard, Karn had been standing watch. He was skeptical, as sailors often are, of female crew -- and had asked, with a sneer, if she was the captain's mistress. Her reply, with a feral growl, had been quick and sharp: "I asked -- but he said he could never give you up."

There had followed a brisk exchange of words, and then he had swung at her, and she had flipped him deftly onto his back, throwing him into the deck hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. Through a haze of pain he could hear her shouting orders for the loading crew to get back to work, and so far as he was concerned that settled it.

That had been the first time she had called him kachka, but he had long since adopted the epithet fondly -- they had, in fact, become friends while he was still being mended by the ship's doctor and a grumbling Rettari Halvas. They shared an outlook on the world. He was not, of course, so chaste that he did not on occasion envision what she might look like bent over the table in the captain's ready room -- broad jackal ears splayed, tail hiked, begging for his --

"Smoke ho! Ships on the horizon!"

Sheshki and Karn exchanged a glance, and then he cupped his paws around his muzzle, shouting to the lookout. "How many?" Issich had told them to be alert for ships, though he gave no reason. Their cargo was not particularly valuable, so far as Karn was concerned, and there were few pirates in the tradelanes they intended to follow. Until they were far enough south to catch the easterlies -- off the coast of the wild jungle -- there was no reason to feel threatened.

"Four, maybe five!"

"I'll get the captain," Karn said, but Sheshki shook her head with a glare. One of them had to go aloft, and neither wanted the job. "Fine. Flip for it?" He pulled a coin from his wallet, arcing it into the air. "Call it."

"Heads."

The coin landed showing the face of the current Lodestone Sovereign, Chatherral IV. "Bitch," Karn muttered -- but went forward to the mainmast. He muttered it again as he climbed the ropes up towards the crow's nest: nobody particularly liked the spot, and high up the ship's rolling was exaggerated. Though he would never admit it, he found himself particularly susceptible to seasickness at those times. Fortunately it was a calm day.

When he pulled himself into the flimsy structure the lookout handed him his spyglass without a word, pointing very nearly dead astern. Karn rested the scope along the side of his muzzle to steady it -- in any case it was better to be looking at the horizon than at the deck, a hundred and fifty feet below.

It took a second, but then he could see it too -- four black dots far away on the horizon, blurry with the distance. Ships, traveling under steam and close together. Squinting, he could almost make out a fifth. There was no way to tell anything more about them -- but merchant ships did not travel in fleets like that, and they did not make nearly so much smoke.

On the deck again, with the planking feeling remarkably solid beneath his feet, Karn jogged back to find the captain and Sheshki in conference -- as well as one of the pilgrims, a gaunt fox that Karn dimly recalled as the leader of the party.

"Gebbenbech?"

"Five ships, captain. Making dead for us, or as near to it as makes no difference. They're just below the horizon now, traveling together."

Issich looked at him with keen, piercing eyes. For several seconds he said nothing; then the tiger shook his head. "Fuck. Fuck. Pærtha, this wasn't part of the deal."

The hooded fox let out a sigh. "I know. I know it wasn't..."

"Perhaps it's nothing, captain," Sheshki suggested. "Perhaps they're on exercises."

"This far south?" the tiger snapped; he was uncharacteristically edgy. "Perhaps it's a godsdamned fishing fleet trying to offer us the freshest catch. We left port early because Pærtha said they meant to impound the ship. If they're after us now..." He did not have to finish. If the steam frigates of the Royal Navy were after them, they had angered someone mightily. "I shouldn't have taken you aboard."

"You don't mean that, captain," Pærtha said quietly.

Issich shot him a look. Then he leaned over to the speaking-tube, unstoppering it and blowing into the tube angrily to sound the whistle on the other end. "Engineering. Feather the paddles and douse the engines."

"Aye, sir," a muffled reply came back.

Gethet Issich closed the tube again. "We can't afford to be making smoke," he explained. "No sense giving away our position. Where's Halvas? Halvas!"

Rettari Halvas joined them on the poop with a nod. "Captain?"

"We need to mask our trail. Can you call up an illusion? Anything like that?"

"I've not been trained in those arts, sir. And my... my energies are... quite low."

Pærtha looked up. "Perhaps we can help. Our thaumaturgist was trained in less... seafaring arts. Shall I fetch him?" Issich nodded, and two minutes later the fox returned with a young badger in tow, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "This is Irim Kurma, licensed Saman, Sixth Rank. Saman Kurma, we need to escape from some pursuers. Can you hide us?"

Karn had developed his friendship with Rettari Halvas over a period of many years, because Halvas had started out as a seaman and only later discovered his talents. The wolf did not like thaumaturgists in general; they bothered him, with their curious distance and the far look in their sunken eyes.

This one, Irim Kurma, was no different. The badger seemed almost drugged; his voice was slow. "Of course. We could make the ship invisible if you desire... but then... I would not do that... it creates... perturbations, in the... the essence of the world, to bend reality like so... they will find them if they have even the most weakly trained saman."

"What, then?"

"A..." Kurma rolled his head around. "A wall of fog, perhaps. The weather is right for it. If it was dense enough, they could... mm... yes, they could not see you. You could perhaps escape that way..."

Rettari Halvas shook his own head sharply. "I can't cast that," he said, though the tone of his voice implied also that he would not want to. "Bending the weather -- gods, captain, it's --"

"A good option, if he can do it." Issich seemed to share Karn's skepticism: the tiger's eyes were fixed on the badger's lolling head. "Can you?"

"The energy requirements," Halvas muttered. "They're --"

"Trivial," Kurma said -- suddenly snapping his gaze to meet the panther's. "If you desire it, honored captain..." He pulled something from his pocket -- an obsidian figurine the size of a plum whose form was of a monstrous feral wolf, the body distorted into obscene, unearthly curves.

Karn could make nothing of it, but Rettari Halvas stepped back, making a sudden gesture of religious protection across his chest. "Kire yanakkatari," he swore; his eyes were wider than Karn had ever seen them.

"What is it?" Issich barked.

"A wailing stone," Sheshki answered first; Halvas was still frozen. "My people forbid them centuries ago."

"It's called a wailing stone, yes," Kurma continued; he was turning it over in his paws. "Or the warped alembic, although truthfully the alembic is only part of a stone. This one's name is 'Sanai' -- they forged it in the crucibles of Izkadi. It's a way of transmuting the fundamental essence of the world into raw thaumaturgic energy, and storing it for later use."

Halvas was less dispassionate. "They convert energy, and life -- they can sap the electricity of a thunderstorm, or still a running brook into stinking miasma. But their strongest source is emotion -- strong emotion. They call them wailing stones because the perceptive can still hear the cries of the tortured victims that went into filling it. The Hakasi use them," the panther said darkly. "No one else."

Karn had heard of the Hakasi, and their city of Angbasa, hundreds of leagues into the desert of the continent's interior. They were the ultimate magic-users, the stories went; they rejected all technology. They wore no clothes, even -- only cloaks of condensation drawn tight by magic around their bodies. And, Karn had heard, they could drain the energy of any living being, and turn it to their own, dark ends.

The Hakasi were immortal, went the rumors, beautiful beyond compare, living in a city that floated silently above the desert wastes. It was said that they had been chased out of the civilized world centuries before, pursued into the desert to die -- and that it was the greatest regret of all that the throat of every last one of them had not been cut. All Karn knew was that they raided the outland towns sometimes, stealing the inhabitants away, and that nobody ever heard from them again.

"That's not quite true," Kurma said. "A few outside the Dead City have preserved the knowledge, my guild among them."

"Where did this energy come from?" Issich asked. Now that it had been explained, he seemed to have a hard time looking at the totem. Karn didn't blame him. "Torture?"

"I'd rather not say." Kurma replaced the totem in his pocket. "But I can use it to summon your fog, if you want to escape. Or you can wait, and they will run you down. They mean to sink this ship, and leave no survivors."

Karn did not envy the choices his captain faced, and he was grateful that he had not been the one to make it when the tiger shook his head and sighed. "Please, Saman Kurma, if would be so kind."

"Captain..."

"I know, Halvas. I don't like it -- and maybe that thing is evil. But Kurma is prescient. If he says they're out for our blood, they're out for it. I don't see we have a choice. But you don't have to help. Unless you're willing."

"I cannot," the panther whispered softly. "The risk... a warped alembic can provide a spellcaster with so much power... my guild swore never to touch them. The temptation is..." He swallowed. "I like to think that I would do only good, but..." Suddenly the look he gave Kurma seemed one less of fear and more of pity.

The badger dipped his head, and stepped back from the group. A moment later Karn could hear the sound of keening song, the alien warble of a master thaumaturgist. He did not enjoy hearing it -- the simple spells that Halvas used took no such thing, only the panther's practiced touch.

"We'll sail into the fog," Issich said. "Hold our course a few miles, and then come up on a beam reach westward. With any luck, by the time they can dissipate it or see us again we'll be upwind of them and can pull away. And you --" he looked to Pærtha. "We'll discuss why you have a Nakarian in your employ later."

Pærtha didn't protest; the fox nodded gently. "You can outrun a frigate?"

"The Royal Navy's iron frigates are like your mother," Karn said. "Heavy, slow to move, and never as good as they promised when they were paid for."

"Charming," Pærtha muttered, and then looked away. Before them, the sea was starting to become hazy -- a wall of thick, grey fog was building, obscuring the fuzzy boundary between sea and sky.

"Get all crew on deck," Issich ordered. The ship's bell had already rung in the new shift; Karn's men were below or in the fo'c's'le. The wolf nodded, and went forward to round them back up again.

When he emerged, he could barely see the poop deck; the fog was thick and clammy around them. Joining the captain, he found Saman Kurma collapsed in a heap, panting with the exertion of the spell. Beyond this he could determine nothing -- just the sound of the creaking rigging, and the rushing water to either side of the ship's sharply pointed prow.

The men on deck milled around, looking confused -- none knew where the fog had come from. Karn had no answer that he trusted -- so instead he watched Gethet Issich, who had one paw on the railing of the poop deck, and the other clasped around his pocketwatch. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then twenty.

"Stand by to wear ship! Pass it forward," Issich barked sternly. "Reef the spanker."

He heard Sheshki echo the order; a check behind told him they were already carrying it out. He went forward, finding his men at the mainmast. "We'll need to brace the yards hard to port and get the stays'ls up -- quickly-like. You understand?" Nods greeted him.

"Helm, hard to port!" Issich was not a hundred feet away, but his voice sounded muffled and indistinct. Karn reached out to brace himself. The Clarion Adamant leaned into the turn. "Jibe ho!" They could feel the wind shifting across the stern of the barque; then Issich ordered the spanker unfurled again, so that it caught the wind, quickening the turn. "Brace all yards to port and hoist all staysails!"

Karn did not have to repeat the command. His men seized the braces, pulling on them to haul the yards around. Issich wanted them on a beam reach, with the wind hitting the ship directly from the side, so Karn had the yards pulled hard to port -- as far as they could go. Then he set to work with the halyards that would raise the staysails that ran along the ship's centerline.

There were not enough men to do everything at once; he grabbed a halyard himself and heaved on it, putting his back into hauling the cable. It was good exertion, and clean work. "Ease on the downhaul," he snapped -- he was pulling faster than the sailor controlling his counterpart rope was paying out slack. Above him, he could hear the sails starting to flutter, catching the wind. A quick upward glance told him the yards were as hard over as they were going to get. "Belay the lee braces and get your sorry asses on the stays'ls!"

It took perhaps fifteen minutes, though it felt like far shorter. Karn's muscles burned, but he helped belay the cables, wrapping them tight around the pins so that they would not move. The mainmast disappeared quickly into the fog -- but he could hear the wind in the sails, and that was good enough.

Captain Issich was engaged in a fierce argument when he approached, shouting into the speaker tube. He caught only the tail end of it. "-- A hundred and twenty percent, and if she blows I'll have your skull for a replacement!" The engine telegraph had been pushed all the way forward, and the Clarion Adamant's funnels were starting to spill thick black smoke.

Within a few minutes Sheshki and Cedda Fletchersson had joined Karn and the captain. The first mate shook his paws a few times, flexing feeling back into his fingers, and Karn grinned -- so, Cedda had been pulling at the lines too.

"We'll run west until the fog clears," Issich told them. "They'll know what we've planned, but... with any luck, we don't have to have confused them by all that much to make a clean break for it."

"And then?" Fletchersson asked. "What happens when we go back home?"

"If you want to predict the future, ask a scryer. We have a job to do now, that's all I know. But we're all on duty until the fog's gone, alright?"

Karn was slowly becoming aware of his tiredness; he had worked a full shift, after all, and now this excitement. Climbing up to the crow's nest was exertion enough; hoisting the sails had just about drained him. But he didn't protest; instead he nodded softly to the captain.

He didn't know what was going on. Normally the Clarion Adamant hauled iron ore, or grain, or cattle from the farms down in Maddarai. They had taken passengers, once or twice, but never very far -- and never ones that the government chased them for.

Pærtha didn't seem to be a bad man -- devoted to his charges, yes, but that was no crime. And it was certainly true that the Lodestone Sovereign was not always a kindly king. The merchants in Harradon had stayed in his good graces, because they paid heavy taxes, but the same could not be said of everyone. Just two years before the King had raised an army to put down a rebellion in Marrahurst, and much of that city was said to have been leveled.

Karn didn't care much about Aernian politics. The Iron Kingdom's intrigues were generally not of his concern -- and in any case his native Issenrik had its own share of squabbling. Not for nothing was the city surrounded by iron walls.

One hour wore into two... then three. The fog had given no sign of abating. Karn was almost ready to beg the captain's permission to fetch some coffee when Irim Kurma, who had been huddled up against the wheelhouse, stiffened and let out a piercing cry.

The first word that Issich managed was an unprintable oath; then he narrowed his eyes. "What was that about?"

Kurma twitched, his head jerking. "They search. They --" The badger put his paws to his temples and shut his eyes, panting. "They search! They're looking for you."

"What do you mean?"

The badger's muzzle opened to answer; then his eyes rolled back and he slumped against the wall, his breathing shallow. Issich kneeled next to him, feeling for the pulse at his wrist -- before a sound caught their attention, and they turned to find Rettari Halvas stumbling up the stairs in his haste. "Captain! They're --"

"Searching, I know," Issich growled. "How?"

Halvas glanced down at Kurma's crumpled body, and then frowned. "Ah. It's... it's a newer technique. They send out a pulse, a powerful thought -- and they listen for echoes of it. The King's Own Militia invented it to hunt down the natives in the desert."

"Echoes..."

"Unoccupied minds are susceptible to... to having thoughts implanted. Not enough to control what you do, but enough of a suggestion that they can listen for it. It's very sophisticated."

The tiger bunched his paws into fists, frustrated, and stood up again. "How do we beat it?"

"Occupy your minds," Kurma mumbled, his voice slurring. "Sing songs... do mathematical problems... recite... recite poems... tell each other..." He groaned, and went limp once more.

"The highly trained are... particularly vulnerable," Halvas explained. "He should be taken someplace dark and cool."

Issich was focused on other problems: "I can't have everyone doing mathematics -- no guarantee they even know how..."

"Songs, though," Pærtha pointed out. "A good shanty, for example. Something my pilgrims could learn easily, on short notice."

"Meet a fine girl in a harbor town," Karn began, and Issich shot him a look. The closest thing Clarion Adamant had to an official song was a rousing ditty called "The whores of Issenrik," which sang the dubious praises of the women of Karn Gebbenbech's home.

Gethet tightened his jacket against the cold of the fog that was drawing in all around them. His jaw was set with the expression of a man who knew that he was out of his depth, and also knew that he could not admit it. "But he's right, Karn. Get all hands on deck."

"The engineers, too?" Karn asked.

"The engineers' minds are busy enough."

The pilgrims seemed to understand the urgency of the situation; they gathered up on the deck, bunched tightly together. Issich ordered the crew to spread out, so that there would be enough of them to teach the passengers, and Karn discovered that this gave him ample reason to track down his white-furred companion. She looked at him with wide eyes, and he smiled to allay her concerns. "Just need to keep your mind occupied a moment..."

Captain Issich came to the foremost part of the poop, hands on the railing. They had explained the situation, as clearly and quickly as possible -- the next voice was the captain's, clear and ringing through the ship: "Twelve thousand tons and a hundred yard beam, the finest ship under sail or steam --"

They had heard this, "The ballad of the Cadaralian," a thousand times -- maybe more, hauling the yards up. The crew answered, mostly in one voice, and their voices carried in sharp defiance to the oppressive fog. "'Round the Cape in twenty-one days, an' there's ne'er been another like her!"

They went through the verses one at a time -- Issich called a line, then they echoed it, until they had worked through one verse and could sing the whole thing. The Cadaralian was a mythical ship -- each verse reminded the listener than there had never been another like her built. The pilgrims got into the spirit of this easily enough.

Karn turned, to find that the ermine -- Rala? Pella? It ended in something like that, anyway, some 'la' sound -- was not singing. Her ears were back, and she appeared to be listening keenly.

"Hey -- c'mon, pipe up."

"What?" she muttered, shaking her head and glancing to him.

"You need to be singing," he said, and nudged her shoulder. "Like everybody else."

The ermine looked at him with a moment of brief tension, and then glanced away. "My voice is... my voice isn't good..."

"Neither's mine," he pointed out. "Come on," he said more firmly, and cocked his ear to listen to what verse they were singing. "Gods called her east on a special run; asked her to carry the rising sun: the dawn came early up that day --" Here he nudged her more firmly, and narrowed his eyes in a teasing glare that dared her to answer.

"And there's ne'er been another one like her!" she finally echoed, as the shout ran through the crowd. Karn grinned. And many of the pilgrims, now that he looked around to see them, were stout enough -- they could haul a rope. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a terrible voyage after all... and there was the spirit of his adventure to be spoken for.

They worked through all forty verses he knew of to the song, and twenty more beyond that. Then they made their way through "My homeland's shores" and "Helm a-lee, helm a-lee," and a few shanties Karn hadn't heard since his boyhood. His voice was starting to break when Issich finally called a halt.

"Saman Kurma and Saman Halvas agree that we're safe," Issich said; he didn't seem entirely convinced, but his own voice sounded strained and raw, and dusk was suffusing the fog with a heavy gloom. It seemed unlikely that anyone could find them. "Their... their psychic shouting grew too soft to hear twenty minutes ago."

"We'll hold this course, then?" Cedda Fletchersson, the first mate, did not seem to have done any better at keeping his voice.

"Until we lose the wind," Issich nodded. "I'm going to back off the engines a bit -- the chief engineer nearly had my head when I told him to push it twenty percent over rated power. Cedda, if Halvas is conscious again by the midwatch, have him inspect the boilers."

"Yes, sir."

"Finish up your shift, Sheshki. The rest of you are dismissed. Thank you."

Karn grinned. He had hit a second wind -- something about the excitement of working the braces, and the energy of the crowd as they'd beat the fog back with their singing. He made his way to the stern and leaned over the side -- spray from the paddles pelted his muzzle, and they churned the water into phosphorescence that faded into the fog.

Ah, but was it not the life? As a young boy he'd watched the boats coming in to the harbor in Issenrik. It was expected that he would work at a smithy, or join the town guard, or travel north to the mines at Karpasberg. The loosely affiliated city-states, founded by coastal immigrants from the inland Ellagdran Confederacy, sat on veins that held most of the continent's iron.

Instead he had fallen in love with sailing, and the feeling of crisp wind in his fur. When he closed his eyes, and thought about when he was happiest, the image came to him of his black paws clasped around a heavy rope, scudding down on the winds that carried their dhows from Karpasberg.

And now! Now was a proper good time. What would his brothers think, when he told them of how they had escaped the finest ships of the Iron Kingdom's navy? He would, he decided, have to find some souvenir of the Meteor Islands to bring back to them -- the furthest west any man of the Gebbenbech clan had ever ventured. Maybe the furthest west anyone on the continent had traveled.

They were strange people, the pilgrims. But friendly... he licked his muzzle, thinking about the ermine again. On the deck she'd leaned against him, and snuggled closer when he put an arm around her to steady her against the rocking waves. Her fur was preternaturally soft -- a life of comfort, no doubt. But when they'd stopped singing, and the captain called him and Sheshki forward, she'd pulled herself up to his ear and whispered to him that she would be waiting...

He stopped by the galley to grab a roll -- fresh, soft bread; the pilgrims had been lending a hand with the preparation. He devoured it, with some salt pork, and then made his way forward to his cabin in the fo'c's'le.

The ermine was indeed waiting for him, her legs crossed as she sat on the bed, reading. She glanced up when he entered, and then smiled. "Hi..." She was, so far as he could tell from the flickering candlelight, wearing nothing but a sky-blue camisole -- and it was a very good look for her. "I hope you don't mind I kind of... made myself at home..."

"Well, I offered, didn't I?"

She smiled -- she had very sharp, very clean teeth, white as her fur. "You did," she nodded, and set the book aside. Reclining back in his bunk, she uncrossed her legs and propped herself up on a shoulder to watch him. "Are you tired?"

Well, not yet. "A bit, perhaps. Ready for bed." He leaned over and snuffed the candle; the room fell into pitch blackness. It was moonless outside, and the stars were hidden by the fog. Karn untied his boots -- he had laced them down tightly, but as a sailor he could also manage knots under any circumstances. His shirt and breeches followed swiftly thereafter -- this early in the trip, they were still relatively clean. For a time, he would savor that; then he would be mildly put off by the smell, and by halfway through the voyage he would no longer even notice the filth. Such was the life.

For now, he pulled himself into the bunk -- there was a warm spot, where the ermine had been lying; she had rolled further to the side. His paw felt for her, finding her side in the darkness. Bare fur. The camisole had disappeared while he was busy. He twisted onto his side. His weight tugged the bunk down, so that she fell against him with a soft laugh.

"Is this more comfortable than your hammock down below?"

"Of course," she said. Her paw was ticklish and warm at his side. "With better company..."

That was true for both of them; in any case the ermine made for better company than his paw. His paw, which was now engaged in exploring the downy fur of her back -- then in pulling her slender body to his by the hip. He craned his muzzle, which rather fortuitously found the ermine's rounded ear; he nipped it, growling softly.

She squirmed, which fetched for her another nip, another growl. Her lithe, slim frame pressed close, and the silky warmth of her fur melted into his own rough pelt in remarkably complementary fashion. He squeezed her rump, and felt her short tail flicking reflexively. "Hey!" she managed, through a hitching giggle. "What are you doing?"

"Exploring," he growled. "Uncharted territories and all that."

"Oh..." Her tail flicked again when he groped her firmly, and then he felt warmth folding around his dark-furred sheath, rubbing at him slowly. "Like this, then?"

"Like that," he agreed; he pressed his hips into her paw, grinding softly so that his stiffening shaft worked its way through her fingers. She was turning out to be roughly all that he had imagined. "Stroke me a bit. Y'don't gotta be so gentle."

The ermine obliged, squeezing him in her fingers, starting to pump gently. His growl deepened, and her soft snicker filled his ears. "Promise something?" Karn grunted, and her paw stopped -- the thumb pressing right against his tip, where he was most sensitive, circling gently to smear the slippery precum over his slick flesh. "Don't tell anyone about this... if Pærtha found out..."

"He doesn't like you making friends?"

She snickered again, and resumed stroking -- he was all the way erect now, throbbing against her palm. "He has certain... ideas... about how we should behave..." For some reason, Karn suspected, ending one's second night at sea with a paw wrapped around a strange wolf's cock did not rate highly on the scale of propriety.

"And if I don't tell him, what's in it for me?"

The paw left his stiff erection, and it sprung up a little as she leaned away from him. He felt shuffling in the darkness... a paw on his shoulder, guiding him to lie back... then warmth to either side of his hips, as she straddled him. She lowered herself; the tapered tip of his shaft dragged through her silky fur until it found wetness -- soft, yielding, heat. "This, for one..."

Karn took her hips in his strong, calloused paws, squeezing them affectionately. "You have my word," he growled. He felt her muscles tense, and then she dropped her hips -- forcing him up and into the slick, moist grip of her sex. She was so tight he nearly lost it immediately; his claws dug into her rear as he fought to steady himself.

The ermine, for her part, shivered, filling the room with a sudden hot gasp. "Oh -- you're huge," she whispered -- he felt pressure on his shoulders as she leaned forward to brace herself. "I thought you might be..." He was not poorly endowed, he knew; as for anything beyond that he had no intention of fighting the compliment.

She gave herself a few moments' rest and then lifted her hips. His shaft tugged free with a wet, slick sound, gliding from her until only an inch or so remained buried within. Then the ermine rocked her hips down once more, beginning to ride him slowly, bucking in firm strokes.

If he focused on it, he nearly went over the edge each time -- even though his knot had yet to swell. She was talented, squeezing down around him when she lifted away as though her insides were trying to keep him sheathed in her wet depths. He tried to let his mind wander -- but all he could see was a very clear picture in his head: he, the black wolf on his back, and the undulating white of the ermine above him, her spine flexing as her slim frame arched and she drove herself onto his cock, over and over.

He tried to move with her, matching her pace. Spurts of canine preseed pulsed into her, easing their movements. His hips lifted, pushing himself deep inside her, her soft walls opening up around him as his thick shaft slid into the slippery, silky caress of the ermine's tight cunny.

Then -- faster movements. The air filled with her soft growls and chitters. Sharp claws squeezed his shoulder. Hard -- then harder, sharp enough that he thought she'd drawn blood. Ragged panting -- hers and his both. Fevered grunts from the wolf's parted muzzle as he tried to stave off his peak. A rising tide of pleasure. Wet squelching as the two met -- a mix of his copious pre and the juices of her arousal, the thick musky scent pervading the cabin.

His knot pulsed larger and larger, and her lips began to strain around it as she worked herself down against the swollen bulb. It slipped in and out of her with a lewd pop and the wolf couldn't help his groan. "I'm gonna tie with you," he warned; she ground against him emphatically and he lifted his hips up to meet her, forcing his cock deep. "Mmf -- good... that's it," he growled. "Good little bitch."

The movement had kept them coupled for too long: when she tried to lift away the ermine could only tug futilely at the knot. She rolled her hips, bucking feverishly. Karn shuddered; hitching, driving against her until he lost all control. He needed the release -- to spill his fertile seed deep inside the ermine girl's womb -- to claim her utterly as his own. To --

The wolf snarled, teeth drawn back -- then stiffened up in pleasure. Stock-still beneath her, his shaft twitched once, and he heard a distant gasping from the ermine as a spurt of burning hot wolf cum jetted into her. He grabbed her hips in his broad paws and squeezed down, holding her in place -- though she could not have escaped anyway. He pumped urgently, grunting as his essence filled her, and he heard the gasps break into a muffled wail. The pressure was gone from his right shoulder -- she was biting down on her paw to stifle the cry that tore itself from her.

Finally he was done -- spent -- slumping back heavily. The ermine tumbled forward and atop him, her short muzzle open and panting right next to his ear. His paws loosened their grip -- and then, thinking better of it, he squeezed her again, more gently. His muscles were still trembling.

Though he had kept quiet. Mostly. He was not about to tell the ermine, but he'd asked Halvas to soundproof his cabin two cruises before. To keep out the sound of the others, more than anything else -- but it meant he was not terribly worried that anyone had heard.

Instead a deep lassitude was gripping him, spreading through his veins like warm syrup. He hugged the ermine around her lower back, and she shudder before nosing weakly into his ear. Drifting... he was drifting off. She whispered something to him and he couldn't manage a reply... mumbled, squeezed her again.

"Worn out puppy," the ermine purred into his ear. She was as pliant as he, warm and yielding as she sprawled over the big wolf. She crooned softly -- wordless, soothing, drawing him to slumber. He drifted off before the slightest hint of her wry, pleased smile could reach him.