“You must lead a hell of a life.”
“You have no idea.”
“You’ve got a sprained ankle,” Daneh said, as she finished her wrappings. “Not bad, but you’re going to need to stay off of it as much as possible for the next day or so.”
The dragons had been recovered, as well as the riders, and they were preparing to take off to go try to find the mer. As soon as Herzer’s ankle got taped up.
“Not much chance of that,” Edmund said, coming up behind her and holding out something to Herzer. “Souvenir.”
Herzer turned the shark tooth over and over in his hand and shook his head.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“Off the bottom of your fin,” the duke said. “It was jammed in a crevice. There were score marks on the fins, though. Pretty good considering that it was memory graphite.”
“You were nearly killed, you know,” Daneh said.
“I know, ma’am,” Herzer said with a faint smile. “I was there.”
“Are you capable of flying?” Edmund asked.
“If I can get a boot over this,” Herzer replied, gesturing at his foot.
“We’ll figure something out,” Talbot replied, nodding. “I want to get going as soon as—”
“Boat broad on the starboard bow!” the mast-head lookout called.
“Boat?” Edmund said quizzically, looking off to the west. Somewhere over there was distant Flora but it was on the other side of the Stream. And the lookout had distinctly said “boat” not “ship” which they had all learned, quite pointedly, meant a little boat. Nobody in their right minds crossed the Stream in a small boat.
“What do you make of it?” the skipper called up. He had binoculars to his eyes but for the time being the boat was below the horizon.
“Looks like a small canoe of some sort, sir, maybe a kayak,” the lookout called down. “One person in it. Coming up from the southwest.”
Half the crew crowded the side of the ship, trying to get a look at the suicidal person who appeared to have crossed the Stream in what the lookout noted was, indeed, a canoe, not a sea-kayak. As it approached his descriptions got clearer.
“The crew’s a female,” he called down. “Dark hair… wearing… a bathing suit?”
Herzer suddenly groaned and sat down on a coiled pile of rope, holding his head.
“That’s no bathing suit,” he muttered. “Five gets you ten it’s a leather bikini. Which means it’s no human.”
“No.” Edmund sighed, turning away from the rail. “It’s an elf.”
“Bast?” Daneh gasped. “How did she? I mean…”
“Bast?” Rachel asked, having just appeared from below. She shaded her eyes and looked to port where the canoe was now faintly visible. “Are you sure?”
“Who else would cross the Stream in a dugout canoe?” Herzer asked.
“And there’s a rabbit in the bow!” the lookout yelled down.
“Well, that’s one of life’s little rhetorical questions answered,” Duke Edmund said with a chuckle. “The answer being ‘that damned bunny.’ ”
“Bast,” Herzer said, giving her a hug as she swarmed up the side. She kept right on swarming until she had her legs wrapped around his waist and her lips planted on his.
The female he was referring to was no more than a meter and a quarter tall; she barely came to his waist. Her eyes were green with vertically split pupils and her ears were delicately pointed. She had high, small breasts and was wearing a green bikini of soft, washed leather. She carried a bow and quiver over her back and a light saber with a jewel-encrusted hilt belted to her side by a jeweled and tooled leather belt. On her left shoulder was a pauldron, a curved piece of armor to protect the shoulder, on her right shin was a greave, another piece of armor, on her left leg was a fur leg warmer and on both arms she wore leather bracers. Other than that she was naked. It was the most impractical getup imaginable, but that was pure Bast.
“Hiya, lover,” she said when she’d finally drawn back. She leaned over and winked at Rachel. “I’m not stealing him, yet, am I?”
“No,” Rachel replied with a grin. “As a matter of fact, you can feel free to use my bunk. He snores.”
“Especially when he’s all worn out,” Bast admitted, dropping to the deck as the rabbit scrabbled up the side. It shouldn’t have been able to but its claws bit the wood like talons.
“Bast…” Edmund said, pausing. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but…”
“But you’re on this important secret diplomatic mission,” Bast said, as Herzer delicately prized her off and set her on the deck, “and you don’t want two spirits of chaos ruining it.”
“That’s probably how I’d put it,” Edmund admitted with a chuckle. “At least mentally. Why are you here?”
“Well, you took lover-boy with you,” she said, grabbing Herzer’s arm and wrapping herself around it. This apparently was too unfamiliar so she swarmed back up him, this time on his left side, and wrapped her legs around his waist, leaning out for all the world like a koala on her favorite tree. “I couldn’t leave him to be all alone in the dangerous Southern Isles!”
“Okay, so what’s with the bunny?” Edmund said, sighing.
The rabbit in question was a brown-and-white, flop-eared mini-lop who looked for all the world like the world’s cutest, albeit dumbest, pet. That is if you ignored the black leather harness loaded with knives and a pistol crossbow. And the mad, red eyes.
“Hey! Island vacation!” the rabbit snapped. “Big-titted blondes, warm beaches, sun, surf, sand and, most importantly, alfalfa margaritas!”
“There’s no tequila on board,” Edmund sighed. “And certainly no alfalfa.”
“What?!” the rabbit gasped in a high, tenor voice. “No tequila? In the islands?”
“Tequila comes from Chiara,” Edmund explained. “The guava plant grows there. Rum comes from the islands.”
“Well, that’s a point. Navy ships always have a tot of rum once a day. I’ll take rum. Rum is good.”
“Unfortunately, UFS ships are dry,” Daneh said, dryly. “As in, not wet. As in, no alcohol.”
“DRY?!” the rabbit shrieked. He whipped out a switchblade and hopped up on Herzer’s shoulder, waving the knife at Bast. “You said there’d be booze! A pleasure cruise to the islands you said! All the booze I could drink! Maybe even telemarketers! I’m going to turn you into elf cutlets!”
“You can try, black-heart,” Bast snapped, launching off of Herzer in what was a quite improbable back flip and landing on the deck with her saber drawn. “Any time, you flop-eared monstrosity!”
“Bast, why did you inveigle this… this…” Edmund waved his hand at the rabbit. “This insanely programmed AI onto this ship?”
“Well, I couldn’t leave him in Raven’s Mill with both of us gone, could I?” Bast shrugged, putting away her saber. “And I’m sure we can find enough rum somewhere in these islands to keep him happy.”
“Bast…” Edmund said, then paused as she raised a finger at him.
“Ah, ah,” she said, cocking her head to the side.
“Bast…” he said, a wheedling note in his voice this time.
“Ah!”
“Oh, damn,” Edmund sighed. “We’re just getting ready to leave and we need all the weight we can spare for the dragons, spare food for them and our gear.”
“I’m light,” Bast said. “I’ll ride Joanna.”
“I give up,” Edmund said. “What about the bunny?”
“You’re going to visit the mer, right?” the rabbit asked. “That means swimming, right? I don’t swim.”