The Wives' Guild

Kannad opened the door to release Bromm but also to admit another sailor, who went straight to Isenna and mounted her. Bromm dressed and went to sleep as quickly as he could, all the while trying to avoid thinking of Isenna and her plight.

In the afternoon of the next day, the cry from the crow's nest told of land to the west. Crowding to the gunwale, they saw the distant shores of the Haunted Isle loom over the horizon. The island was yet many miles distant, but Bromm was sure he saw great winged shapes circling in the distance.

"We have never sailed so close before," Lukodo muttered behind Bromm. When the other man saw him looking, Lukodo went on. "We have always stayed over the horizon, out of sight. A man need not set foot on the island's shores to feel its curse."

The helmsman made no course changes, and the island hung over the western horizon throughout the rest of the day. Bromm tried to put it from his mind, but he felt the tension of the previous day returning. Murderous looks were exchanged between the partisans into the night. He won again at gambling in the evening and went below to see Isenna, hoping against his own mind that she would not beg for freedom.

Kannad sat at his usual place on the stool, idly playing with a handful of coins. But Bromm's gaze went past him to Isenna, who was on all fours in the middle of the cage, being roughly fucked from behind by Guldrin. The old sea rat had his fingers in her mouth while he grasped at her little breasts with his other hand. Neither of them noticed Bromm approach, lost in their impassioned rutting.

"Back again?" Kannad asked as Bromm came to a stop in front of the door. "I reckon you should spend a few more days collecting wages before you spend them all on a woman."

Bromm clutched his full coin pouch but said nothing. Guldrin noticed his presence and looked up to give him a sly wink. The old man's gray hair hung down in back in a short braid that slapped against his skin with each thrust and he smiled, showing yellow and rotting teeth. Bromm was filled with revulsion and just a hint of jealousy. Isenna opened her eyes and met Bromm's gaze. Her expression did not change, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees as the filthy man fucked her. His fingers explored her mouth, clutching and pulling at her cheeks. Isenna hid her revulsion well, but Bromm could tell she wanted nothing more from Guldrin than a sympathetic ear that might set her free. And that's all she wants from me, too, he told himself sourly. Bromm only realized that he was scowling when Isenna gave him a slight shrug of apology.

Turning on his heel, Bromm strode away to his hammock without a word.

Despite his ill luck in the next night's dice game, Bromm returned for Isenna all the same. He seated himself on a barrel while she mounted the cock in his lap and rode him. She was quiet at first but as he buried his face between her beautiful white breasts she lowered her head to whisper in his ear.

"Master would help me? I would be his wife, his servant, whatever he wants. Please save me from a dwarf wife."

Bromm stopped his lustily nuzzling to look into her eyes. She was staring plaintively into his eyes once again. Why do I keep coming back for her when she pleads like this? Bromm wondered. He tightened his grip on her hips and continued to bounce her on his cock. Her chain clanked with each rise and fall on his cock.

"Master, please," she whispered. "Save me."

Bromm shook his head. "There is nothing I can do."

Tears welled up in her eyes even as she continued to ride him.

"You abandon me?" she whimpered, "I will be a dwarf's wife while you sail a ship?"

"I am sorry," Bromm said again, "It is the will of the gods."

Isenna began to cry and Bromm pulled her close, both to comfort her and so that he could not see her face. She shook with each bounce on her cock but also with her own sobs, her warm tears falling onto his bare shoulders. He clutched her to his chest until he was close to finishing, at which point he pulled out and came on her back. She made no response, and only continued to cry into his shoulder. Bromm gently lifted her off him and set her down against the hull.

Isenna looked up at him as he turned away.

"Go away then," she cried, "leave me behind. You are a black-hearted rogue! I curse you!"

She lowered her head to cry onto her chest and Bromm could only stand there. He felt ridiculous. He was naked, with his limp cock hanging spent in front of him while a pretty girl cried because of his uselessness. Glumly, he turned and left the cage. As he dressed, Kannad opened the cage to admit another sailor, one of Urgan's partisans, who went right to Isenna and made her suck his cock.

Bromm went up on deck and into the forecastle where the ship's showers were. Once undressed again, he pulled the strong to command whoever was running the pumps and soon, cold seawater flowed from the pipes onto his head. He scrubbed himself vigorously, as if to wash away his own shame. Even under the cold stream of water, he felt her hot touch, her breath in his ear, and her tears dripping onto his shoulder.

The water flow cut off suddenly, leaving Bromm naked, cold, and alone in the forecastle. Standing in silence for a moment, he could hear nothing but the wind and sea. He pulled the string again, but the water flow did not resume. After a frigid moment of waiting, he dried and dressed himself and went belowdecks again.

He passed the cage on his way down the steps and looked in. Isenna was riding the other sailor with his hands on her breasts. As Bromm watched, she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Bromm could know make out her words, but from her manner he knew them to be the same pleas she had whispered to him.

So, she has other dice in her cup, Bromm thought to himself. She only needs one of them to come up in her favor, but who here can afford to buy a slave girl earmarked as a dwarf wife?

Still without answers for himself, he fell into a fitful sleep.

At dawn on their fifth day, they sighted land again and by midday they were in the Deeping Gulf. Tall pine trees lined the western shore while the eastern shore lay out of sight over the horizon. White Shepherd crawled slowly up the gulf toward the rocky mountains at its northern end. The gulf's waters were restless, with whitecaps churning all day that slowed the brig's progress north and made the slave girls seasick.

Sitting in the crow's nest with Imre, Bromm peered through a spyglass at the shore. Every few miles, he spotted a small fishing village clinging to the shores and all throughout the bay were small boats at work. In the late afternoon, they spotted a convoy of six fluyts heading south, all under the flag of the Cassine Family Coaster out of Sostrum. An hour after passing the convoy, with the light in the west dying slowly, they passed another pair of lumbering galleons, bristling with cannon and under full sail as they cut their way through the waves toward the south.

Bromm did not go to the cage that night, instead lying awake in his hammock to stare at the timbers above him. Isenna's words rang inside his head. What could I do? He wondered. This is out of my control, it is up to the gods to intervene, he told himself, not for the first time. But he was still not sure he believed himself.

Bromm awoke to the sound of much activity above him, the heavy footsteps of eager sailors reverberating through the deckbeams above him. Swinging himself from his hammock, he hurried up to the deck.

The whole crew was assembled on deck, looking to their north as Deephold came into view at last. Before them loomed a massive mountain that came all the way up to the sea's edge, snow-capped even in midsummer. Towering cliffs of gray granite rose like the walls of a god's castle, pierced here and there by turrets and balconies. And where the mountain met the water there was a yawning mouth into which the white sails of a large fluyt were vanishing.

White Shepherd cut a swift path through the waves as she neared the mountain's opening and Bromm was ordered into the rigging to man the sails. The mouth of the cavern loomed before them, tall enough to accommodate even a great galleon's masts and wide enough to swallow five at a time with room to spare. Beyond it, in the gloom of the cavern, Bromm could make out many ships drawn up against the wharf. Behind them were the illuminated streets of a small town, sloping upward into the mountain until they reached a wall of rock at the cavern's rear. As the Shepherd neared, Bromm and his fellow sailhands reefed the sails, letting the brig coast in on the force of the tide alone.

They passed beneath the lip of the cavern, into shadow, and Bromm looked up toward the roof. There he saw grim faces looking down at him through murder holes, steel-clad dwarven sentries clutching arbalests and arquebuses. Though he was level with the Shepherd's topsail, the sentries were still a hundred feet or more above him and the feeling made him dizzy.

On the cavern's tide, the Shepherd drifted lazily toward the wharf before executing a sharp turn to starboard. Dwarven longshoremen caught the mooring lines and pulled the brig in to harbor. They tied the hawsers before checking and rechecking them before one of the Shepherd's sailors leaped ashore to inspect them himself. As Bromm climbed down from the rigging, the ship was secured, and a party of dwarves climbed aboard. Karnote and Dawhy descended from the quarterdeck to meet them, and money was exchanged.

Bromm paused on the ratlines, with Lukodo beneath him, and watched.

"That's the harbormaster," Lukodo said, "He knows Karnote from a hundred prior voyages, but it's always the same. He wants to know if Karnote is here to trade for silversteel, which requires a special license. Slaves require a license as well, but the captain is here to trade wives, which requires no license."

Bromm looked around the harbor. There were more than fifty other ships moored in the cavern's depths.

"Are these all slavers?" he asked. Lukodo shook his head.

"No, many of them have come to trade grain, meats, and other essentials the dwarves can get nowhere else." He saw Bromm's expression and laughed. "They live under a mountain, they have few places to grow grain. They graze goats and sheep on the slopes, but the kingdom counts over a hundred thousand dwarves within its borders. They cannot all live on mutton and goat's meat."

"What do the dwarves have besides metal?"

Lukodo shrugged. "Metal is good enough. They have gems and stone, but metal is what brings ships here to trade. The dwarves make the finest steel in all the world, and cannons the envy of emperors. But gold is precious to them, and they will only give it up in exchange for the finest goods."

"Or women."

"Women are goods for them," Lukodo said with a shrug as the harbormaster began to leave. "Come, let us take a walk around the market."

Bromm climbed down from the ratlines and joined Lukodo on the deck. Before they could reach the wharf, they were joined by Pyet and Tahavi. As they walked along the harbor's edge, Lukodo pointed up the slope of the town to the great wall at the back.

"Up there is the entrance to the dwarves' halls. Passage is restricted to those with special licenses or friends inside. But out here, anyone can wander and trade."

They passed buildings made of stone and brick until they reached an open square where many small stalls had been set up. The market was lit by a massive chandelier than hung suspended from the roof, many hundreds of feet above them, and blazed with the light of a miniature sun.

"What a magnificent creation," Tahavi gawked as they first beheld it.

"A dwarf once explained to me how they keep it lit," Lukodo supplied, "A clever system of pumps keeps whale oil flowing down to the candles from above through a tube woven into the chain."

"I have long heard of dwarven expertise, but to see it firsthand is a wondrous experience," Bromm murmured. They wandered among the stalls where dwarves sold expertly forged weapons, armor, and other metalwares. Each stall was fitted with the crest of its owner, his clan, and the guild he worked for, as Lukodo explained. While there was a distinction between the dwarves' best and worst, even the poorest smith here would be a valued artisan in most other cities of the world.

Bromm bought himself a dagger of tempered steel, then a flintlock pistol engraved with dwarven runes. Combined with his nightly visits to Isenna, he had almost run himself out of money and so could not help but look forward to collecting his share from the sale of the wives.

Pyet bought himself a saber, but Tahavi kept his silver close. When they had spent enough time browsing the wares, Lukodo led them out of the market another way. Everywhere they went, the streets were lit by lanterns and streetlamps, for the meager sunlight filtering through the cavern entrance left its depths nearly pitch black otherwise.

Lukodo showed them the sights, including his favorite drinking hole, which Bromm had to concede served an excellent beer. Most impressive was that the dwarves served their beers cold, chilled by ice delivered from the mountain's snowy peaks in cunningly devised chests that could keep ice frozen on voyages to ports as far away as Torvuls and the Imperial City. The tavern-keeper boasted that he bought his ice from the same dwarf who chilled the Auric Emperor's wine.

But the greatest marvel Bromm saw was on their way back along the wharf. Looking out across the harbor, he saw a great stone fortress set against the cavern's outer wall. Its towers climbed the walls like vines until they connected with the roof, and great stone bastions studded with cannons protruded into the harbor. And before all of this sat a massive, turtle-backed ship of iron. Along its flanks where two great waterwheels and a tall metal tower jutted from its back like the waterspout of a breaching whale. Gunports in its bow and flanks were open, giving Bromm a view of huge, large-bore cannons behind them.

"What is that?" Bromm wondered aloud and the others stopped to stare.

"That is the Beast of Deephold, the Black Colossus," Lukodo said, "it is a dwarven monstrosity powered by some infernal fire in its belly. Its iron shell is a hand thick and invulnerable to cannonfire. Only sorcery or a brave boarding party could bring that thing down."

"Woe to the boarding party that tries to close with those guns," Bromm muttered. "How heavy is their shot?"

"No one has ever given me the numbers, but they must at least match the firepower of a threedecker's thirty-two pounders."

"A broadside from that would shred a little thing like White Shepherd," Tahavi mused. "But how fast can it move?"

"I'm not certain," Lukodo replied with another of his characteristic shrugs, "But they don't call it the turtle for nothing. Come on, let's get back to the Shepherd."

They continued on down the wharf until they reached the brig, where a small crowd had gathered both on the wharf and on deck. Summitting the gangplank, Bromm soon learned why. All the slave girls had been brought up from the hold and sat naked on the deck. Kannad was carefully painting their faces as if they were Torvuls courtesans. While the girls waited obediently, the sailors of White Shepherd and ships nearby hooted and hollered in excitement. Men hung from the ratlines and stood on the gunwales for better views, and Kannad had posted guards to keep any of them from coming too close.

Bromm looked for Isenna, but could not see her until the door to the forecastle opened and she stepped out, still wet from her shower and chained by her wrists. The big orc who had guarded the gangplank pushed her along to her seat where she awaited Kannad. Bromm quietly inserted himself into the crowd of gawking sailors. Kannad took his time with all the patience of an artist, and when he was done Bromm could see that he had summoned up the most beautiful form of each woman. Even Isenna looked more desirable, though her beauty was dimmed by the morose expression on her face.

Kannad stepped back to admire his work and nodded. With a clap of his hands, he waved the sailors back to work. Few obeyed. Karnote emerged from his cabin, followed by Dawhy and three men carrying chests on poles. Kannad summoned his guards and they began chaining the slave girls together at the wrists. Lukodo stepped forward to join them, and Bromm reached out to catch his shoulder.

"Let me accompany you," Bromm said quickly, surprising even himself. "I want to see the interior halls of this place."

Lukodo considered a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. Bring your weapons, follow the captain's lead, and don't start anything once when inside. Dwarf justice is harsher than the captain's own."

Bromm nodded. He and Lukodo waited while the girls were shackled and the gangplank cleared of gawkers. When at last the crowd on the wharf had been pushed back, Dawhy hefted a riding crop and slapped it across the lead girl's bare bottom. With a squeal and a start, the column began to move. Bromm fell in behind Lukodo as they ushered the procession of naked girls down the gangplank to the cheers of the onlookers.

With Karnote at the head and Dawhy at the rear, the gaggle of sailors and slave girls wound its way through the streets. Every block, passersby stopped to gawk and leer, hollering and making ribald gestures or suggestions. They leaned out of windows and over rooftops to watch the procession go by. Bromm was amazed by the spectacle of it all. Even in Torvuls', where the Slavers' Walk was a daily attraction, a procession of naked slave girls did not cause such a stir. Dwarves made up most of the crowd, but humans joined in with as much excitement. Bromm even spied a few vislings and elven-blooded men in the crowds.

The girls for their part walked with bowed heads, their eyes fixed on the cobblestones they walked on. Bromm tried to catch Isenna's attention, but she ignored him as well as she ignored the jeers and taunts of the gawkers.

Walking became harder as the slope increased and soon they came to the great gate at the rear wall of the cavern. Four dwarves in thick plate armor stood guard, watched over by unseen sentries behind loopholes in the barbican above. Karnote presented a calligraphed pass to the lead sentry, who nodded and waved to someone in the murder holes above the gate. There was a brief pause, and then the gates began to swing inward. There was no rattling of chains or squealing of rusted gears, Bromm noted. Dwarven expertise did not stop at weapons and armor.

The gate opened and the party passed beneath it to stand before another gate. The first gate swung closed behind them and only then did the next gate begin to open. There were sentries here as well, but they were alert and spared no more than a passing glance at the naked women who shuffled past them.

Once the second gate was open, Karnote set off and Dawhy whipped the girls into motion again. they made their way into a wide hallway now, leaving the open expanse of the cavern behind. The roof was lower here, for this was clearly no natural cavern. The dwarves had hewn and carved all four sides of these halls, and Bromm had the same sensation as walking down one of Torvuls' main streets, except that there was no sky above him. The tunnels sloped upwards into the depths of the mountain and the going was slow for the girls had spent many days chained up in the hold.

Thrice, they stopped to catch their breath and were urged onward by Dawhy's whip. Bromm stole a look at Isenna and saw that her face was streaked by tears that ran black with her eyeliner. He touched what he hoped was a comforting hand to her shoulder.