Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Nine - Last Leg

Even with our unfortunate meeting with pirates done, we still had a couple of days of travelling left before we made it to Port Royal.

In that time, we did what we could to make sure the Beaver’s repairs held up. That meant checking on the patches at least a few times a day, which turned out to be a good move when we discovered one of them quietly leaking out some of our precious lifting gas.

The rest of the damage was easy to work around since it was mostly superficial, but it still bothered me to have the Beaver so damaged. I wasn’t the only one. Orange was quite miffed that one of her two favourite sleeping spots (the head of one of the two duck figureheads) had been blown apart in all the fighting.

The morning of the day after our big fight, I walked into the captain’s office at the back (we needed to rename the place, since we didn’t really use it as a captain’s cabin at all) and checked out the navigation charts.

We had turned westward during the chase with the pirates, and had pushed the Beaver to move as quickly as it could. Then the fight itself had us manoeuvring this way and that. Instead of charting the entire fight, Amaryllis had drawn a circle around the spot where it took place, then a fresh line below that up to where we were now.

Or where she thought we were.

We had the mountains to the west to act as landmarks, but it was kind of hard to tell how far they actually were, and the ground didn’t have that many landmarks visible from so high up to use. So our exact location wasn’t super precise.

I folded up the map, then left the cabin and walked around the outer edge of the ship’s deck, poking my head out over the side every so often while looking for something to compare our location to.

There was a big plain below, and a few encroaching bits of forest. There was a road nearer to the edge of the mountains. The biggest landmark was a long, rocky foothills of the mountainside that spilled out into the plains and that only seemed to be covered by sparse greenery. Comparing that to the map was enough to give me a decent idea of where we were.

Another day or so and we’d be seeing the mountain pass that separated Deepmarsh and the eastern part of Mattergrove away from the rest of the world. Fort Cherryhold was around there, but I didn’t think we’d stop at the fort, even if it was supposed to be a popular gateway into the region.

We didn't need to stop, so it was easier to skip past it and head straight for Port Royal.
The closer we came to Port Royal, the less we had to worry about any additional encounters with piratical sorts.

“Hey, capt’n,” Calamity said as he joined me by the ship’s figurehead (the one that still had a head). “Had a good rest?”

“It was nice,” I said. “And probably more than a little needed. I think I fell asleep the moment my head touched my pillow.”

Calamity chuckled. “Yeah. Well, to be fair, yesterday was pretty exciting, so that was probably called for. N’ya feeling better?”

“Much!” I said. “Ready for the next big pirate fight!”

Calamity shook his head. “I don’t know about that. The ship looks a little banged up.”

“Ah, that’s true. I don’t actually want to get into another fight with pirates. Or even non-pirates,” I said. And it was entirely true. Fighting wasn’t something I liked doing, even though it was undeniably very exciting. “You’ve never been to Port Royal, right?”

“Never been this far south before,” he agreed.

“Oh, you might like it! It’s a nice city. Lots of grenoil. Though it is kind of humid, I guess. It reminds me a bit of home that way, but I imagine it might be annoying for, uh...” I gestured at his fur.

“It’s not that bad,” he said with a grin. “Worst-case I look a bit fuzzier than usual, which isn’t so bad. Ladies love a fuzzy guy, especially if he’s got some toughness to back it up.”

“Well, if you say so,” I said.

Calamity huffed. “I do say so,” he said. “But n’yeah, the way you’re talking, you’ve spent some time there?”

“A little? You know that I’m not from around here, right?” He nodded, so I continued. “I showed up in this little ghost town--as in, a town full of mostly impolite ghosts--somewhere in the Darkwoods. I ended up making my way north towards Port Royal. It was the only place I could see from where I started that looked like there were people. I saw an airship!”

“You sound very excited about seeing an airship for someone standing on one.”

“I’d never stood on one back then,” I said. “We don’t really have airships where I’m from. Not the way we have them here. Instead there are planes, which are also cool, but mostly noisy and cramped. Anyway, I was very excited, and Port Royal turned out to be a lot more than I expected. There’s a village at the base of the mountains, and cable cars up to the city, and there’s lot of people from different races. Mostly it’s harpies and grenoil, since they’re both close, but there’s humans too, and because there’s so many ships coming and going, you have all sorts of people from elsewhere.”

“That does sound mighty interestin',” he said. “And we’ll be staying there for a bit, from the sounds of it.”

“Well, at least until the wedding’s done,” I allowed. “If we’re even invited. We, ah, never did get an invitation.”

Calamity blinked, then laughed. “That’s right, we didn’t! No offence, Broccoli, but I’ll laugh the loudest if n’ya get to the gates and they turn ya around after all this trouble.”

“I’m sure Booksie wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Amaryllis, Awen and I were kind of the ones to help her find Rhawrexdee, you know!

“I’m sure she’ll let you attend,” he said with a pat on my shoulder.

I didn’t want to be mean, but I would probably be a little bit upset if we couldn’t at least sit in the crowd to watch. I’d never been to a wedding before, but they sounded magical and very romantic!

I left Calamity with his watch and returned the map to the captain’s office, happy that I’d confirmed our location, more or less. I glanced up a moment before Amaryllis opened the door into the room, then smiled and explained what I’d been up to. My new Captaining skill was nice, if a little weird. I’d told the others about it, of course.

It was only creepy if people didn’t know that I knew where they were. Or at least, I hope that’s how it worked out. The Scallywags were a little annoyed, but I suspected it was because they tended to be up to mischief when I wasn’t looking.

In any case, the day went on to be pretty normal. By the end of the day, I was no longer searching for pirate ships coming around every cloud in sight.

The Shady Lady came closer that evening, and we moored the two ships together with some long ropes and shut the Lady’s engines off for the night. Raynold and Abraham joined us for a big dinner, and he shared stories, including his own version of the pirate fight which included a lot more action and swashbuckling and had maybe more dragons in it than I remembered seeing.

The laughter and camaraderie that night was the salve we all needed after the previous day’s chaos. The night sky above us was a vivid tapestry of stars, and the cool evening breeze felt like a gentle caress as we sat on the Beaver's deck, trading stories and enjoying good food.

As the evening went on, Awen pulled out a small flute and blew a few notes, then Abraham launched into a very bawdy song about the open skies and the freedom it promised and all the scantily clad ladies that could be found in port cities. It wasn't long before others joined in, their voices rising and falling in harmony.

Raynold, who turned out to have a surprisingly good voice, sang a sombre tune about lost love and windswept shores.

By the time the moon peaked in the sky, the shared joy of the evening had driven away the shadows of the previous day entirely.

“Alright, enough singing for one night!” Abraham chuckled, rubbing his stomach contentedly. “We've got a big day ahead. We're nearly at Fort Cherryhold, and then it's just a quick hop to Port Royal! Haha! I have friends to meet! They'll be surprised to see that I'm still alive, haha!”

True enough, the next morning, as dawn painted the sky with shades of pink and gold, we found ourselves gliding towards an impressive fort.

Cherryhold was a sight to behold. Built into the heart of the mountain pass that nestled between the Harpy mountains to the east and the imposing Seven Peaks to the west. The walls of the fort weren’t all that high, but they made up for that by bridging across the entire kilometres-wide valley, with frequent towers rising up from the wall.

A couple of small villages were built along the length of the wall, close to a single large hold atop a spot where the wall rose along with a big hill.

Fort Cherryhold, for all its impressive structure, was just a fleeting glance as we continued our flight eastward towards Port Royal.

As we flew, the terrain below shifted from sparse woodlands to a much thicker forest with a canopy that was impossible to see through from above and ancient trees that had been rooted in place for centuries. The edge of the Darkwoods, the natural barrier between Mattergrove and Deepmarsh.

The sun began its descent, casting a warm, golden hue over everything by the time Calamity shouted and pointing ahead. “City in sight!”

In the distance, nestled against the side of a mountain, was Port Royal.

Port Royal was built in layers, the houses closer to the passive dockyards were a maze of narrow alleys and bustling markets, while the upper levels of the city had more room between larger homes. Wide avenues marked paths across the city, and there were several parks in the upper sections. All walled off from the lower parts of the city, of course.

“We’ll be docking soon,” Amaryllis informed everyone. “Remember, Port Royal's docks can be a bit rough, but the city watch keeps things mostly in line. Just stay sharp.”

“I remember,” I murmured. Last time we’d come here we’d ridden a dragon, so I wasn’t entirely sure about the docking procedures for arriving in Port Royal, but I figured it couldn’t be all that different from some of the other places we’d been to.

The Beaver slowly descended towards one of the free docking spots after communicating with a tower via flashing lightball spells. I think they recognized the Shady Lady at some point, because the berth we were told to go to changed at some point. Instead of one of the normal commercial berths, we were redirected to one of the nicer ones a little higher up.

“Alright everyone! Best behaviour now!” I said. “We’re going to be guests. We’re here to attend a wedding, meet some old friends, and... oh, right, there’s an assassination to foil too!”

I’d almost forgotten about that!

***