"Harboured Feelings"

Our unholy lord be praised that the streets below the keep weren't teeming with guards. It would seem this blasted wizard that the seer paired me with thinks that a stealth exit is one involving two quarts of lantern oil and a ring of magical fire.
If it weren't for the well-advertised lack of hygiene of the people of Brinehaven, I fear I would've lost my beard to the fire. As it is, I instead found what can only be described as a piss-soaked midden to soften the fall and the flames.

My luck, if it can be called that, ends there. The market streets between us and the docks are crawling with people. So, bluff, and bluster? Or slink through the shadows. I don't fancy my chances if they call the guards, and I'm not sure if Tinjen here even knows what "quiet" means.

I can barely have a thought before some prisoners reach through the bars by my feet. Tugging at our ankles and begging for their freedom. They beseech us louder and louder and I can see some folks starting to look this way.

I try to wrench my boot away but I can already hear the arcane sparks in Tinjen's hands. A wicked smile across his elvish face.

The sparks coalesce into a spike of pure force and it careens down into the gutter. The acrid smell of arcane magic and the screaming beneath our feet vanish at the same time.

The wizards antics have attracted an eye, a young guard, younger than any of my kids, probably. Scrawny, and his clearly inherited boots and tabard only serve to make him seem even more so.

"Everything... er... alright over here? What was that... erm... noise?", his voice so uncertain it almost trips on the cobblestones between us.

The wizards slips in front of me before I can open my jaw, likely for the best. He's an evil bastard, but he has a lot more jabber than me.

"Just some of your towns ne'er-do-wells, ne'er do welling. We've done you a favour really." He gestures to the silent prison cell behind the gutter window. Tinjen's demeanour is frankly terrifying, but the boy looks to have found some courage in there somewhere. He shifts his pike in his grip, plants his back foot.

Poor kid, wrong time, wrong place. I can at least give him a chance.

"Right now, kid," I say, laying the dwarvish brogue on thick, "it's either you or us. I've so much blood on me hands this day, yours would hardly be seen. But then, ah now, I'd nay want to leave your poor mum in a state, crying over her wee boy... or what little ah him is left anyhow."

The kid begins to shake in his now rapidly dampening boots. It's the least I can do to give him a story for the tavern later. I reach inside for Memnon's dire blessing and settle my hand on the haft of my hammer. A flicker of the lord's chaos flame burns for a second in my eyes as I mutter the incantation. His eyes dart between mine and the hammer.

The spell flops embarrassingly, our lord clearly not entertained. But I ride the tide of fear coursing down the boy's trousers and roar the final words. He doesn't stop to think. All he will remember before sprinting down the alley was a screaming dwarf with burning eyes and a hammer still wet with blood.

I guess we should be on our way...

"A little out of character for you, Murtos", the slimy voice of the elf grates, "both the mercy and the stunt."

I just grunt and gesture towards the docks ahead of us. Only a few other guards between us and a potential escape.

My eyes settle on a banged up old fishing sloop, doesn't look much, but that sail is clean and tight. It would be perfect, but she isn't empty. Guess we'll solve that when we get over there.

Today is not my lucky day. With the guards' backs to us, I thought we had a straight shot to the boat. But then we hear the shouting back up the street. The kid must've found the nerve the raise the barracks. Dumb. I peer over my shoulder to see the angled visage of the wizard creased with glee.

"A couple guard's lives in exchange for a boat? A good deal, don't you think?", he laughs as he ducks behind a mooring bollard, incantations already dripping from his blackened cracked lips.

I manage to bury my hammer into the head of the guard in front when I hear the zing and sickening crunch of magical force meeting bone behind me. Tinjen put the second guard in the dirt before I could extricate my hammer from the skull of the first.

"Get a move on", I roar back at the elf as I take a couple huge steps and leap into the sloop. My shock appearance seemingly enough to knock the first of the boat's inhabitants into the harbour waters. I slip my bloody hammer back on its hook and hold out my empty hand to the remaining sailor.

"If you don't mind, sir", I say as he hands me the halyard and steps sideways on to the jetty, scared to turn his back. I see Tinjen running towards me, and the gaggle of watchmen running towards him. I kick off from the wooden mooring, forcing the wizard to make the leap, anger cut across his face.

"By Gede's balls, you dwarven piece of shit, you cou..."

"Shut up and take this line, no slack", I cut him off. "Hard starboard, those fuckers are loading crossbows."

The guards make it to the edge of the water before we are more than a couple dozen feet out. I hear Tin prepare another magical dart, but with a whistle and a thud I feel the magic fizzle out. I look back and see the crossbow bolt deep in his chest and the blood pooling in the boat.

I turn to help him, but the second thud lands right between my ribs, still breathing, barely. The sails catch, thank our miserable lord, and the gust takes us out into the bay. I drop to the deck. I tell myself it's to avoid anymore bolts, but the truth is I can hardly stand.

With my face half marred by his blood, I slap my hand on the nasty git's chest and start my prayers.

The lord's energies see fit to help us out this time and the bolt rises and falls from the elf's chest as the flesh begins to knit itself back together. The wizard grabs the gunwale and hoists himself back to his feet. A new expression on his face when he turns to look back down on me—surprise.

"Just keep the fucking thing going south", my last sputtered out words before I cough my own blood on the deck and pass out.