"They know what I know," Zalan assured Six as he took a seat. His mercenaries crowded in around him. Cutter stayed standing. "But you don't right know what we know, do ya Six?" Zalan grinned, the gold colored lenses that covered his eyes.

The bartender Friedrich, came about with a round of drinks for gathered hand. The captain put in the requisite coin, and the lot grabbed up their flagons, took up their drinks.

Zalan let his stay a moment, frothy piss that it was.

"Ihlimbaz's shipwright is here in the City of Fools itself," a new card on the table. "Or, so the rumor goes," he took up the drink, gave it a pull. Face scrunched up displeased. He put the cup back down and wiped off his lip. "Really should look into investing into some proper brew," he said with a sour look on his face. Tongue out like a cat who'd smelled some awful. "Does wonders for a business, you know," he went on, and drank another pull.
 
"That's the idea Salamander. Don't want folk loitering too long, this moves 'em along real quick," explained the mercenary. He raised the tankard and immediately put it down without taking a sip. "Fried may have taken the task a bit too much to heart," conceded the Sixth.

The mercenary took a moment to digest this new information as it had caught him completely unawares. He'd not heard anything of the sort. 'Course he couldn't hold a candle to the Cabal's web. Having a finger in every pie made information easy to come by. It wasn't the sort of thing that happened overnight either. No point doubting if it was coming from the Salamanders.

"Hmmm," he mulled, "Might make things a bit tricky." It seemed like good news upfront but the Sixth knew better. There was that old saying about shitting and eating. Doing a job this big, so close to home, could have consequences. Too many people knew their faces, and not all of them were friendly.

"So what're you thinking?"
 
A low rumble of a laugh rolled from the back of Zalan's throat. "May have," he needled.

Watched the enigmatic Six work behind that curtain of hair which always hung over his eyes. Made the bastard too good at cards. If a bit shy with his luck. Just meant more time for Zalan to drink, he supposed. He took another sip of the near sour stuff. Swished it about his mouth some with some surprise. Drank it down and finished with a gasp.

"My thinking?" he grinned, and let his piss drink down. "We send in a sneak, gather some intel," he tilt the cup towards him and spied the brew. "This stuff don't go bad, do it?"

Cutter cleared his throat as the other Salamanders went on drinking and grumbling. "Hostage taking is an alternative," the big man assured.

Zalan shook his head. "Too involved, not worth the upswing," he let the cup down. Looked Six in the eyes. Or, where he thought the pretty bastard's eyes were anyway. "Have some talent I can trust, maybe they come up empty, but," Zalan shrugged. "But if they come up big, we come up big, sensible?" he smiled, too easy.

Inka raised her hand. "Um, scuse me, Mister Six, ser, big fan, heard lots about you,"

"Out with it Ink!" Zalan cut.

Inka startled. Nod. "Well, an airship, specially those of the Altalusian design, are near castles in their own right," she looked about as the other members of the Hand took long drinks. "Meaning no disrespect, Mister Six, ser,"

Zalan laughed under his breath. Took another drink.

"But, a schematic, or any sort of intel on this uh, new ship, it'd come in mighty handy,"

Zalan's smile cut sharp across his face. A bit of pissy beer on his upper lip. "Biiig upswing," he teased, and wiped his lip away.
 
"Most of my 'fans' are keen on shivving me. Nice to know not all of them are." Having a reputation in this business was a twin-sided edge. Most thought it easier to just kill the man with a name instead of doing the legwork themselves. The Sixth had to admit they weren't entirely wrong. Going after the First and Last historically hadn't ended well for others but sellswords usually weren't big on learning either. There were those on the other side of the coin too, and Dancer was glad for it in this case.

"Had something similar in mind myself but couldn't get a bead on the shipwright. They've a reputation for being tighter-lipped than those crazy Ghorman monks," explained the mercenary. Damned sect cut their disciples tongues off in some harebrained show of devotion. Dancer met one a few years back and the man swore his life couldn't be better. "I'm not against it Z, but you sure you can trust these sneaks? Not worried really 'bout them failing if they get away clean..." Ihlimbaz didn't get to where he was by being careless, or nice for that matter. He'd likely protect his investment from end to end.

He paused for a moment as he considered his next words. "Let's just say I don't wanna wake up tomorrow to a floating castle raining eight different kind of hells on our little tavern here."
 
Zalan leaned back some. TIlt his drink one way, then the other. "Trust?" he echoed. "Trust is a big word, ain't it?" as if he were trying the sound of it on his tongue, eyes still on the sour tasting swill Fried had served up.

Who could one trust in the city of Fools? Loyalties only as good as the coin in your purse. And that was only as fat as your last score.

Cutter shook his head. "We can assure that if any burn occurs, it will be contained,"

Zalan nod. "Real professional like," the Captain said through straight teeth. "Sides," he went on. "Wouldn't bring the talent up, if I didn't think them up for the job," he fanned with three fingers, while thumb and pointer held his drink. "Save us the aerial bombardment," dark humor creeping in. He took one last swig. Breath harsh as he let if fall. "I'll send word to them, assuming we have time to prep for the job?"

Inka looked between captain and Storied. "Sabotage job, could go real smooth if we set up with the right equipment,"

Lucky for them all, the Salamanders were well connected in the tinkering circles. And Tool was one hell of a baker. "How long's the fuse to this armonium keg?" Zalan asked, fingers fishing through the inside of his jacket.
 
"Said it was your show, big words and all. Just wanting to know who I need to gut should I find myself in the next life is all," replied the Sixth with a dangerous glint in his eye. The same old promises. Man knew his business in any case, would've been sleeping with the worms long ago otherwise. There's a reason Dancer didn't go to the 'Splitters down the 'Row.

The mercenary shifted in his seat as he took a final glance at the map. "Run like this without proper prep? Might as well throw myself 'neath Tapan's hammer. I only dice with odds that shit. No, we've got until Kephren's Day." That gave them just under five days to put everything together. Wasn't exactly an age but it was more than you usually got in this business.

Dancer raised his mug of unwanted piss in toast. "So, to big upswings?"
 
A laugh. All smoke and sure heat. "Low chance they'll be there, things go so sour," he looked down the walls of his empty mug. Listening on to Six as he told the score.

"Decent amount of time that," the Salamander croaked.

Cutter gave a nod, Inka's was a more serious thing. Bheni just watched from atop his long neck, and through his narrow eyes.

So, to big upswings?

Zalan snatched up Bhenis drink. Tall and skinny just huffed, and turned away. Zalan smoothed back his hair and grinned from behind his armonium glass lenses. Clacked mugs to seal the deal. "To big upswings," drank the fucker down.

------
A pelican class skimmer hung feet off the hills, just north of Saex's walls. Crew loaded up, kits wrapped and stored in the hide away holds built into false walls in the thing's hull. Loaded up as she was, the old lady's chassis sagged closer to the earth beneath the swell of its lift balloon. Tall stalks of grassed tickled the planks of her keel. The illegally modified shroud engine quiet as her crew eyed their mark.

Zalan pulled down the spy glass, and offered it over to six. Pointed out one line they could approach as the 'Can swayed gentle in the summer breeze. "They've increased their guard along the shipyard," clicked his teeth.

Silk had nearly been made, but she'd gotten out clean. The mess being left for their hand to clean up.

Cutter mulled things over in silence. Almost too big to fit between the balloon and the deck of their skiff.

Inka looked back at Bheni, who just leaned against the pilot's wheel. Back to the job at hand. "We don't have enough paint to cloak the 'Can entire,"

Zalan sucked at the point of a canine to click. "Could dawn some armonium cloaks," finger pointed the beech line. "We've practice wearing em like lilypads," grumbled as he let his hand fall. "Makes for real damn slow movement though,"

"More dangerous in these waters" Bheni cut.

Zalan made some sound of agreement.

The old oaks that half covered their anchor point groaned with the wind.

"Could paint the nose of the 'Can," Cutter added. "Come on from the open water, under moons light,"

Zalan raised a brow. Looked to where he knew Tool's special bread was stowed away. "Could do that,"

Bheni nod. "We got some dragon charges for the engine," grinned.

The split of lips caught Zalan who looked to Six, too ugly with excitement. "Any professional opinions, Six?"
 
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"My professional opinion is I don't understand a fucking lick of what you sappers are on about," he replied handing the glass back to the salamander. "But that's why you're here isn't it." The mercenary was uncharacteristically on edge. There was just something about not having his feet on solid ground. Strange coming from a Miradi but he'd never taken to the skies, or seas for that matter. Business was best dealt on the rolling dunes or hardened clay. The buck and yaw was for sailors and mappers.

He did his best to casually grasp railing as the ship rocked to port. Words and thoughts were difficult to come by in uncomfortable moments.

"No mistaking their guards' near twice as heavy last I saw." The Sixth had done his own scouting as he'd explained before. "This is why I was saying we should take her somewhere down river. That slimy bastard isn't fronting the cost for that much muscle the whole distance."

The Sixth looked to the shipyard and back to the horizon. "Think Cutter has the right of it. We'll give them a day's start, put some distance between them and any friends. Hit them quiet n' clean, or at least get out fast n' dirty." The mercenary nearly shuddered at the thought of using dragon charges but that was the hand dealt.

Dancer decided to trust these crazy bastards and the only thing he hated more than sailing was admitting he was wrong.
 
A quirk of brow, and a smile that was all teeth. "Suppose it is, Six, suppose it is," the Captain of the Salamanders crackled, watching the Storied tense about the easy rock of the 'Can. Smoldered as he waited.

Eyes on the prize. He looked out to their target. Pulled roll from his jacket. Sparked fire from his fingers. The roll crackled. Plummed smoke snaked about scraggly beard and nose in thin trails until bright cherry popped. Gold and red and white. It hissed. He pulled it from his lips, and let out a plume of purple haze.

A nod. "This is why you get the big contracts, Six," Zalan said. Took another puff of the roll. Coughed some with a laugh. Pound hand against chest, and huffed the curtain of smoke out. Offered him the roll. "You think about the whole picture,"

Cutter laughed with a shake of his head. "We prep the 'Can, and catch them down river,"

Ink agreed.

Bheni grinned like a fucking mad man. "Dragon charges," he grumbled with delight.

"Phaging fucking charges," Zalan said, wild eyed and mad mouthed.
 
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"Phaging fucking charges," echoed the Sixth quietly, fervor abandoned. He knew the 'Manders were the best but sappers were cunting sappers, they'd a spoke loose at least. Setting shit to pyre wasn't the domain of the sane. Kitahka curse him but Dancer hired the best. She'd forgive him otherwise the Miradi-born would just run farther north. Grain of sand probably meant fuck all in some Lapvonan hearth.

The day was still ahead of them and the others went to work. Scholars like to wax poetic about desert dunes and the sea, but that was that and this was this. A skirtskiff like this always ran low, and that's where his knowledge ended. Z and the others were at work now.

Winds went and passed, but the Karak II finally set sail come the morn.

"Just like your little rats said." Dancer gave an appreciate nod a half-day later as the 'Can remained tucked away beyond an obscured ridge. A single 'reme accompanied the main ship but nothing more.

"Call it."
 

Zalan smiled sharp. Roll there between his lips. He snapped his fingers. Set the thing to blaze. Pulled deep. Huffed a wave out in a wash. Goggles on. The sweet skunk of the smoking weed helped cover up the other shit.

The stink of armonium paint was a choking cloud about the 'Can. Eggshell tempera mixed with sooty black armonium powder. Had a habit of bending the light around it. Messed with a weaver's eyes, all the more for it. Messed with his eyes right now, sitting in the stink of it.

Like looking through smudged lenses. Only what smudged them greyed the world about it, in ways where you could see the color being drained there at the edge of it all.

Another rip of the roll. Another puff of the purple smoke.

A hand raised, three fingers splayed in languid roll. Cutter and Inka pulled up the anchor. Faster. Pulled it out of the water and set it onto the deck. Drop. "Hit it," Zalan easy in his seat by the aft rail.

Bheni wore shark teeth for a smile as he cranked the engine. The magi-tech machine rumbled and sputtered and hissed. Fired to life with a jet of purple flame, and a hard rip of the prop blades. Cutter hunkered low, and Inka stared grimly at the Karak II, fat and slow on the horizon.

Out sailed the 'Can. Low to the water, fast to pick up its speed.

"They'll have trouble spotting us this far out," Bheni called out.

"Make sure we avoid that 'reme!" Inka called out over the whip of the wind and the building power behind the engine.

"Like a mouse avoids a foot!" Behni cried out.

The world began to zip away around them. The 'Can's lift wings deployed from its sides with the unhitching of hooks and loosing of ropes. Fanned out like wide and spiny fins, sailcloth cot the wind and the 'Can surged up higher off the water with a shift.

"Thirty to the charges!"

"Come in on its starboard side!"

"We'll be clear as day in ten!"

Zalan threw back his head in a wild laugh through his teeth. Smoking roll billowing like a chimney from his lips just before the wind ripped it from him.

"Get the charges ready!" He barked out.
 
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The Sixth was learned of sand and steel which currently made him entirely fucking useless. Fish out of water, if only.

He'd checked his blades twice over should it come down to it. They'd need to board the Karak II to settle business but most were like to throw down arms. Most weren't keen on getting sent over the railing for some slimy bastard that didn't give half-a-shit about them. 'Course you never could tell in this business so the Sixth would be ready all the same.

Dancer didn't know much about ships but could tell things were going smooth.

"We'll be clear as day in ten!"

As the 'Can sped up for the final approach the mercenary sensed an accumulation of shroud.

"Incoming!" He shouted back towards the helm.

A jagged lance of flames sprung from the trireme and raked across the 'Can's starboard bow.
 
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The roll flew on the wind, all flutter and fly until it fell into the water to fizzle and die.

Head hanging off the aft of the 'Can, whole world upside down as he felt the rhythms and whirs of the magitech engine. How it pulled all the shroud out of the air, and spat it out all purple flame and angry roar, like breath pushed through a horn. Presses of pistons and steady chop of prop blade as the wind cut across the smooth hull of their gambit.

Incoming!

A turn of the wheel, a press of a peddle, and the 'Can craned, all sneak and ease off its arrowed course.

Flame, hot pointed and angry as a bad piss, scorched by in a blaze. Splashed down in a plume of steam and boiling water spray.

Wind still flying through Zalan's hair, he raised up. All stiff spined as his limbs stirred from lounging.

"Second heater, coming off the 'reme!"

A push onto boots. Steps to the keel. The next bolt of fire shined in his eye as he filled up his lungs, flung out his hands with a wide stanced stomp. Fingers grabbed it. Felt the heat curl up inside him. Burn something good as smoke poured from between his teeth. A twist step. A whirl of limbs and a snap of hips. Foot over foot.

A growl turned to shout as he flung that fucking thing back at them. Damn near side winded around the 'Can, all golden trace of threat, and splashed into the heavier ship's top deck with a smash of red and a wash of burnt orange licked to gold.

Cutter. "Boarding hooks, ready!"

Inka. "Dragon charges, ready!"

Bheni. "Six seconds, till we come up to hooks!"

Zalan, hands trailed with wisps of white steam as he stepped onto the gunwale, red cactus leather grip came hiss against the hemp rope, and he hung off the side of the blurring 'Can from the ratlines."Archers!" he called over the whir and whoosh of wind, water, and shroudfire. "They'll aim for the lift balloon if they have any sense," mad grin on his face as an arrow zipped by. Another plinked off the hard nose plate of the balloon.

A grunt. He pulled himself up, and climbed up unto the lift rigging.
 
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The mercenary could only brace himself for the inferno that was to come and yet it never did. Dancer wasn't exactly sure what happened but he wasn't burning and that's all that bloody mattered.

"Fiery fucking hells Z!" he called out. "A name well-earned." Salamanders, fire-spitters and then some.

A call for boarding as they closed in on the target, now this was business he could get behind. The Sixth figured he'd be first to the ropes but the lizards were eager on the upswing. Guess he should've known better than to try and beat a dealer at their game.

Six. Grip firm.

Five. Shouts clear.

Four. Hands steady.

Three. Target sighted.

Two. Heat cooled.

O- "Fuck this," The Sixth slammed the switch moments before the boarding hooks fired. He rocketed upwards as a volley near tickles his toes. Hitting the apex he was jolted forward into open air with all of Khurun ready to greet him. Instead he landed in a hard roll on the deck of the Karak II coming to his feet with blade drawn.

One charged thinking Dancer was shaken but was quickly cut down. The mercenary surveyed the deck and realized the flamethrowing 'reme was not the only surprise that bastard Ihlimbaz had cooked up.
 
Up the balloon, a trick of the flame whipped a volley of arrows just enough from their course. Steel heads still slagged and tumbled through the brilliant lash. Pinged off heavy bladder, reinforced with palgris hide toward bow of the 'Can. Hissed by keeled cheek, and scrapped off striker bracers.


Six!

Five! A laugh. Eyes wide.

Four! A hook shot thrown up the side.

Three! Snatched.

Two! Aimed

O- "YO SIX WHAT IN THE GASH ARE YOU DOING?!" Zalan laughed over the roar of the wind and the shift and rumble beneath his feet. Pulled the switch.

Cutter's Followed. Inka's next.

Blazed another slag of arrows. Flipped the switch. Felt the line handle bight. Zip toward the anchor.

Came falling down with curved blade come chopping across a man's chest.

Cutter's axe turned steel tempest. Ripped through three of em. Inka just slunk on by.

Zalan yanked the sword out of the dead man's chest. "Fucking Balo's Breakers?" he laughed.

Balo's cousin. Jagan, didn't find it too funny to lose four men off the bat. "Fucking get them!" fired off his stone fist gauntlet at Zalan already dashed and zipped in with a tracing rise cut that whipped a lash of flame out before it. A stomp kick down from Jagan saw the deck crash upward. Flame smashed all angry wave against it.
 
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