The Dungeons Due (2/2)
Finally Anne nodded. “If it be not far to engine number four, we'll stick it out. Worst comes to worst I can go in there meself.”
“I am curious,” Threadbare asked. “Do you usually find that many rabbit beastkin at random settlements?”
“Nay, we settle for other crew when we has to. But this be a bunnykin ship, so either they can't keep up and die, or collect their wages and move on when we get to bigger ports,” Anne said, distracted. “Or swing back to one of me hideaways for some proper breedin'.”
“Excuse me?” Threadbare tilted his head.
“Well, the cornerstone of the Pirate job be banditry, aye? And one of the key skills for Bandits be the Band o' Bastards. Turns out it's a lot more effective if ye use actual bastards.”
Threadbare thought through the implications of that. “They're all your children?” he asked, horrified.
“Not all. Some are bastards from elsewhere. Or grandkids, or great-grandkids.” Anne grimaced. Then she stopped, and stared a foot above Threadbare's head. “Have I gone and offended yer sensibilities, princess? Perhaps ye need some pearls to clutch?”
“You are putting your children in harm's way,” he said, feeling shaken to the very bottom of his padded feet. “And threatening to kill them over very small things. Why?”
Anne considered him for a moment, then folded the map. “Because they chose this life. They chose to be like me, Lady Cecelia. Because at any port, they could up and walk away. But they don't.” Anne smiled, and there was no mirth in her golden grin. “Because they want to be greater than me. And they know that the only path to that lies with me. Lies in survivin' both this here cruel world, and whatever hardship I can throw their way.” Then the smile dropped. “Mind you, given how many enemies I'm havin' back home, the ones that don't ship with me usually end up dead from random malice anyways. Been a real problem these last few years. I warrant I'll have to do some bloody vengeance once I get back from this trip, and have what I need to—” Anne snapped her mouth shut. “Ah, ye got me monologuing. Clever.”
“That really wasn't my intent,” Threadbare murmured.
“Aye. Well, we've got business to tend to, and I've got another run to organize. For now just accept that we come from two different worlds, Lady.”
“I suppose I'll have to,” Threadbare said, glancing over to Renny. “Oh. Oh dear, you can stop now.”
Renny had obviously been distracted, for Midian's jaws were nearly distended around the four crackers of hardtack shoved in her face. She “Mmmfff'd” a few times, then spat them out as Anne shook her head and left.
Threadbare went to the tent flap, gazed out for a second to make sure Anne was good and busy haranguing her crew, then drew the flaps shut before he turned to Midian again.
“They're generally pretty good to their guests,” he said. “Sorry about your things. They took everything they could.”
“Items are replaceable. We're all replaceable. Dreamstuff bodies or displaced souls? Unknown. Did we murder to achieve the transit? Gruesome thought. But the dragons wouldn't care,” Midian said, eyes fixed on the tent floor, crumbs spilling from her lips.
Renny used the opportunity to sidle closer to Threadbare. “I got a look at the map,” he whispered. “Not a very clear one, but it looks like she was staring at someplace northeast of Cylvania.”
“Belltollia is northeast of Cylvania,” Threadbare said. “And most of its people are rabbit beastkin.”
“Are they? I've never heard of it.”
“It was discovered before you went missing, I think,” Threadbare glanced back toward the tent flap. The noise outside was dying down. “Did you make out any details?”
“There were three or four dots in the northeast. I think they were settlements of some sort,” Renny said, hugging his tail to him. “And a lot of forest. And something like a dragon.”
“Dragons!” Midian yelled. “It's all about dragons! This is their world! We're playing their game, and we didn't even know it. Didn't... even... know. It.”
The two golems froze, but Midian's head drooped, and after a moment, she started snoring. Anne peered in the tent a moment later, but left after Threadbare shrugged and spread his arms.
The next few hours passed quietly, as the curtain of night fell and the stars rose high in the black curtain of the northern sky. Thrice more, the crew returned from the dungeon with engine parts, sporting new injuries, shaking from sanity loss, and with eyes that grew more and more haunted with every trip. The deeper they went, the more the old ones gnawed at their minds.
And on the third trip, someone was missing.
“Where's Plumbarista?” Threadbare asked. And when no one would meet his eyes, the unspoken answer hung in the air like a cold spot in a haunted room.
Threadbare finished the count and noted everything down.
Then he went out and found Anne. She was sitting by the fire, holding a purple bandanna in her hand.
“Be that enough?” Anne asked, studying the bandanna that up until recently, had been on Plumbarista's head. It was bloodstained, Threadbare noted. Fresh stains that spread onto Anne's fingers as she turned it over and over.
“I think so,” Threadbare said. “We have enough for four engines with some parts left over. Quite a lot left over, it's just that many of them are the same.”
“They learn, ye know. Dungeons. Farm them for too long and they get stroppy. Get to the point where they want blood. And they finds a way to get it.” Anne said, and Threadbare couldn't tell if it was sorrow in her voice or exhaustion.
And then she stood, and threw the bandanna into the fire. “A pirate's life for me, and a pirate never regrets,” she said, and that cocky grin was back. “We're done here, me hearties! Get packing, and let's quit this place!”
But Threadbare stood by the fire for a moment longer, and watched the bandanna burn away until no trace of the tall, somewhat-awkward crewbunny was left in this world.