Reeko's knife sailed through the air, turning end over end in a whirl calculated to plant the blade in its target. The knife had a hard task ahead of it: to, in the dark and blown by the sea spray, hit a moving figure at exactly the right angle to penetrate cloth and flesh. If you looked at the feat by the numbers, it was almost impossible.
Occasionally, a million to one chance will work.
Most often, though, it won't.
The knife danced through the night air, reflecting fragments of torchlight with each spin, and came to a crashing halt against the fleeing man's shoulder, where it sprang away like a salmon and rattled across the wood of the dock, then across the cobblestones of the street, coming to a halt just in time to trip a drunken sailor. The masked man misplaced a step but managed to compensate in time to avoid a nasty fall, and continued running.
Back on the ship, Raven was swearing in as many languages as he knew. "
Jukkete!" he spat, glaring at the barbed shaft that had been meant for his head. "Another assassin from the shadows? Will it ever end?"
The wizard wasted no time in jumping for cover behind the ill stacked crates. The enemy had the terrain advantage for this encounter; being perched high on the crow's nest he had to have a commanding view of the activities below. Raven, however, was not going to make it easy for the assassin. He reached out and pulled darkness around him like a cloak until all that could be seen was one shadow among many.
The element of surprise would be vital, as would using the right spell. A fire bolt to the crow's nest might get him instant results, but flame on a ship made of wood was perhaps not such a good idea. A strong wind might knock the target off his perch, but could also tear the ship from its moorings or knock the mast askew. A lightning bolt might work, but lightning tends to go where it is easiest and not where you might want it to. And, again, the risk of fire...
He needed something that might bring the assassin down to him, without risking the ship or its crew. He wanted this assassin alive: when someone shoots at you, the more thoughtful sort of person wants to know why.
No fire. The ship is made of wood. So.
Raven had a plan. It was an ancient spell, something that he hadn't cast for a very long time, or at least something he hadn't cast on a ship before. It would work, though.
Barely a minute had passed. Raven stood from cover, confident that his enchantment would render him invisible to prying eyes. He made his way to the main mast that housed the crow's nest and placed both hands on its wooden surface.
He uttered a word, two words then three, his mind focusing with each phrase until his thoughts spun like razors and stars, and bent the wood to his will.
The wood creaked to life, responding to the ancient call of sap and growth, moving into the position dictated by the mage with a low, vegetable groan. Raven heard a surprised shout from the crow's nest and smiled grimly. There was no escape here. The fist of wood tightened and closed...
A series of thuds, growing steadily louder, made him look up. His eyes widened. There, running down the mast like it was flat ground, was a shadowed figure holding a loaded crossbow in one hand. A wooden claw snatched at the figure, closing on air and a few fragmentary threads, and his eyes registered his shock as he saw who it was. It was the sniper, no doubt about that, a girl in a loose shirt and trousers, eyes narrowed as she focused on controlling her wild flight from the crow's nest.
He must have let his cloak of shadows slip in his surprise, for when she looked down she saw his face.
"By all the damned gods and angels," she screamed, "you again!"
She planted one foot on top of his head and leapt away, landing with a clatter behind a stack of crates.
Down below, on the deck hosting the Expedition's rooms, a scene that should be familiar by now played itself out once again, this time in the Doctor's cabin. Jemalkin Nexaddo, like so many others on the ship, was startled from sleep by a gunshot and thundering footsteps racing through the hall outside his door. He lurched out of bed, snatched his hunting knife from the top of an animal trap, and slung a pouch over his shoulder. The knife would be of little use if anything horrible happened, but it was better than being barehanded.
He opened the door and peered out. To his left, three doors down, he saw a one-armed man standing before a barred cabin with a dwarf shouting through the door. The man was watching the hall like a hawk, eyes darting back and forth, his face appearing both resolute and oddly frightening. To the doctor's right was a man in full armor struggling up the ladder; from above came the brief shouts and strange magical sounds of the battle occurring on the top deck.
The knight heaved his way onto the top deck with a resounding clash of metal plate. Whatever was going on up there was not Jemalkin's problem: fighting, as he had told Deslock, was not his forte. The gnome turned to the man standing before Keil's cabin and asked the question that everyone had been asking everyone else: "Sir! What is going on?"
Up on deck, Raven turned towards where the sniper had fled, lightning crackling in both hands.
Over on the dock, Reeko's headlong run slowed as he realized that he could no longer discern the masked man in the drunken crowds and the deep shadows.
Slightly beneath the dock, the man that had been knocked off the edge by the masked man's flight held on to the planks with one hand and the strap of his case with the other. "Hello?" he said as he heard Reeko run past. "Could I get a little help here, please?"
___________________________
And in a tavern near the waterfront, Grummond squinted at Deslock over another pint.
"Do you think we ought to check up on the ship?" he asked. "My crew will be tearing up the city, but yours were going to sleep on board, weren't they?"
Deslock hushed the captain with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure they'll be fine," he said vaguely. "Now shut up, the band's starting to play again."
