The Janus War

[Warpath]

There was an invisible threshold on the water - a line that the mid-afternoon sun would not follow them past. They left it behind.

The little boat approached and was dwarfed by a tremendous cliff face, its deeply shadowed crags overgrown with flowering moss. Storm clouds gathered above the mountain, darkening from steel-grey to black in short order. One could smell rain on the frequent gusts of wind. Rain and smoke.

The sea was in agreement with the sky, blackening and roiling, and a sudden swell tipped the boat to one side. Sailors clung and stumbled around him, but Flint Skovik may as well have been glued to the deck. He stood unperturbed, legs spaced wide, gripping his belt in both hands. After a moment he reached up to wipe sea spray from his beard as he considered what lay before him.

"Is the cove near?" the brute said without taking his eyes off of the cliff.

"I don't know," Mowlund admitted, wrapping a sodden rope around one of his meaty palms.

Flint cocked one eyebrow and turned to look at the smuggler, now. "Is that not why you are here?"

Mowlund smiled pleasantly behind a heavy grey beard, and tipped his little fisherman's hat. "The way I see it," the smuggler said, "I'm more of an intermediary. I hate the sea, as it happens. Never understood her."

Flint frowned. "An intermediary between whom?"

"You an' them, of course." Mowlund was inching toward the side of the boat now, tugging on his rope experimentally to be sure there wasn't enough slack to let him go over.

Flint was prepared to start growling when the smuggler began to shout over the side of the boat. "Hoi, you soggy trollops! I see you!"

The brute crossed the deck with the intent to pull Mowlund back and inevitably resist the urge to throttle some sense into him, but as he neared he saw something rising from the depths. The swell burst and a pale hand caught the edge of the boat, followed by another.

A woman hoisted herself half up onto the boat and rested her stomach across the rail, and then she slid her hands apart to hold herself upright. She was naked, insofar as Flint could see, with long and vibrantly orange hair that clung to the skin of her bare shoulders and chest. It did nothing to make her decent, and when she was sure the crew had noticed she arched her back and pushed her breasts out. Her lips curled into a sly smile.

Her eyes were intensely pink. At first Flint thought her an albino, but as he drew nearer he decided she could not be human. Her skin was flawlessly smooth and slick, perhaps rubbery, and aside from the orange locks and eyebrows, and long eyelashes, she was utterly hairless.

"Oh, don't start that now, you tease," Mowlund groused.

The woman pouted and deftly drew her hands even closer together on the railing, until her upper arms pushed her breasts together. "Whatever do you mean?" she said breathily, almost whispering.

"Ha!" Mowlund slapped his knee. "What are you after, eh? You know I'd fuck you stupid, had you legs to get between. Hell, if I were younger and dumber I might try to figure it out anyways."

"Oh," she chided coyly. "I thought you were clever, Mowlund. Not all our parts are incompatible."

The smuggler let out a fierce bark of laughter. "The hell they ain't! I seen those teeth, girl, you've got nothing but water 'tween those pretty ears if you think I'm trusting my pride and joy to that pit of needles."

Flint glanced from the smuggler to the girl. Now that he'd mentioned it, she was making an effort not to smile too big.

"What happened to living dangerously? Nevermind, who is this? He's big. You're not afraid of me, are you, Legs?"

"That's Flint. You leave him be now, Kaikoura."

"Hi Flint," Kaikoura said coyly. She flexed her shoulders and leaned forward a bit, and looked up at him sidelong. "Care to wet your..."

"Argh, tart! He's not interested in your boggy wares! Knock it off now, we got business."

"Oh yes he is," she sighed, giving the brute a wink. She soon turned back to Mowlund, though, and lost her smile. "You're about to dash yourselves on the cliff, as usual. Toss some leashes over and we'll tow you in. Have everybody hold on tight, though. We've got Hemi with us."

"Ha! Then what're you doing giving us the business, with that monster fifteen feet from your nethers, eh?"

Kaikoura shrugged and gave Flint another smile. "Sometimes you like a little variety."

He stared at her impassively, which was usually enough to crack a facade, but Kaikoura was not impressed. She blew him a kiss before letting herself drop away from the ship again, and the brute caught a glimpse of a large white tail with huge, brightly colored fins before it disappeared beneath the waves.

The crew began winding a rope through the ship, beneath the supports and seats, around the mast, between the struts and the hull, and then they looped the ends and tossed them overboard. A moment passed, and then the rope went taut and the ship lurched against the pull of the waves and turned sharply to the left until it came to run alongside the cliff face. Whatever towed them was not deterred by the tide.

Mowlund began to wave his arms in signal, and Flint turned to watch him. Beyond the smuggler, framed by the low-hanging sun, dozens of other boats dotted the churning sea. They were all tossing lines overboard.

"Welcome to Valoril, Mister Flint," Mowlund said. "Here's hoping it's not your grave."