His wooden scabbard bounced lightly against his leather trousers, sitting empty at his hip. Tanga had refused to replace his blade. He wanted to remember everything. He had left his father’s Shotel buried to the hilt in the great beast’s throat, and he felt wielding another sword would somehow rob him of something. The memory perhaps, or maybe simply his revenge. He wasn’t ready to move on. And yet… In his dreams he saw her. Her great skull crushed beneath the Dwarves hammer, caved and broken, eyes comically askew with clumps of pink tissue oozing out of the long, scaled ears. He woke time and again, sweat-slick in the moonlight, and shivering with the cold, her laughter in his ears. The laughter of a dead thing. A laughter tinged with malice, and with pity.
What was left undone he wondered. When would he sleep again. He lay awake, motionless and clammy, and stared at the stars. They blinked and flickered subtly as they taunted him with their permeance, their eternal, distant indifference. He wondered what had become of the Rhode crew after they parted. He often thought of Varak, who had grown increasingly cheery in the days following their victory. It unsettled Tanga to see him so, the fighters wild eyes flashing every shade of green, like a passing forest while on horseback. To the Chultan, he seemed to grow ever taller and bolder with each day.
Tanga still remembered the red glowing embers of his oaken pipe as it emerged thoughtfully from the haze of sweet smoke.
“I need to leave I’m afraid Tanga. I have some…business to attend to”
The Tavern was noisy, a clatter of glasses, raucous laughter and rasping manic shawm. But the words echoed slowly through Tanga’s mind. He was right. It was over. They were no longer campaigners, no longer brothers in arms. They were now just friends. He looked to Guy, calming sipping his ale, breastplate gleaming in firelight and eyes burning with conviction. A trustworthy and true friend. But while they drank the same ale, they all sat with such different paths ahead. Tanga finished his drink in one long swing. He did not enjoy goodbyes. But he had been robbed twice with Casper, he would not be robbed again. He grabbed Varaks hand tightly, and leaned forward, touching his forehead gently off Varak’s scarred brow. He stood and grabbed Guy affectionately by the scruff of his golden curls, falling soft between his callused fingers.
“You know Varak… so do I”
******************
The waves lapped along the shore as Tanga walked the beach, picking his way through he driftwood and bleached shells. He wondered often about his old companions, breathing deeply as briny spray filled his nose, carried along the warm sandy breeze, thickened with the palm-baked oils and the blue eucalyptoid haze from the southern mountains.
As the water washed over his bare feet, he raised his eyes he saw the crowds of Brynshander, applauding and hooting with glee as Rhode tossed another string of oily sausages into the air, only for them to vanish seconds later into his grinning mouth. Their astounded gasp chorused around him in the evening air and gently mingled with the slow crash and roll of the ocean breaking against the dark Chultan sands. He blinked back the stinging in his eyes as saw Varak’s broad shoulders heaving in the rain, slick leather sliding under glistening chainmail as he shovelled the grey-wet clay in thick sods on the tattered form of Rhode. The dragon bones shone like silver birches in the dusk as the earth slowly covered them, each spaded grunt punctuating his heartbeats.
A shadow melted from the tree line as he moved passed. Tanga eyed the swaying palms, as he silently unslung his bow. He reached over his shoulder smoothly to draw arrow, only to meet instant resistance, the feathers unmoving as he strained quietly.
“Leave it where it is” came a calm female voice behind him. She held the arrow where it was, and her mechanical advantage was complete. Tanga sighed.
Every damn time. Perhaps he needed to start wearing his quiver on his belt he wondered.
“Those are strange looking clouds to the east” the voice mused.
Tanga relaxed his grip on the arrow, knowing Gilly had the best of him. He turned to squint at the horizon, the distant sky illuminated by the setting sun to the west, throwing great arcs of crimson and citrus red across the world like a spray of rum washed blood.
“Brethren, those are remarkably sail like, as clouds go”
He counted carefully the white squares as they chopped and broke the waves in the distance. Six ships. A well-funded venture south this time. Perhaps Amn had decided to restake her claim on the timbers of Chult. Her claim on the temple-riches and secret history of Chult. Her claim on the proud peoples of Chult. Her claim on Tanga’s People.
But Tanga was their chieftain now. He had stalked the greatest quarry, and this time he would not be the hunted. The Amnite ships may crash and break across Chult like great waves, but the people of the coast were the impassable cliffs, they were the ancient rock, stretching up to the heavens to protect this land. When the wave mist falls back to earth, he will remain, standing tall amongst the ruined and broken invader.
Although he had learned a thing or two from his old friends about warfare. And cunning.
“Gilly”
He knew the silence was listening.
“You’ve stolen a lot of things over the years Gilly, of this I am certain. But tell me this brethren…. Have you ever stolen…”
The shadows drew closer. Intent. Eager. Was just a trick of the setting sun? Or some manifestation of the dark, sinister secrets of these lands ? Or presence of the brooding and unknowable Gilly? The shadows of the jungle fronds stretched slowly across the sand and the dark palmy maws chased the waters back as they retreated into the ocean.
“Have you ever stolen a man-o-war?”
