By the Great Winged One! Rôg muttered silently, flapping his wings against the falling snow.
It must have been some great . . . no, strike that . . . make it cruel joke of the Elder King to make birds for this most inhospitable of lands. “May his fair winds keep us aloft!” he quickly whispered under his breath, casting a quick nod westward, to allay the harshness of his thoughts.
The same winds that aided his own flight, swirled the snow as it fell. From perch to perch his powerful wings beat steadily moving him silently toward his objective. ‘And what might that objective be?’ he wondered to himself and his great head swept from side to side, yellow eyes taking in the details of the frozen land below and the Lossoth community huddled upon it. ‘See what you can see,’ Luindal had told him. ‘Something to give us an inkling of what the Corsairs are doing.’
Leave it to an Elf to be vague . . . the
snowy owl thought, snapping his beak in irritation.
He’d flown near the Corsair ship, noting only that it seemed busy much in the same way the Elven ship was busy. Too many crewmen were on board, even at this time of night . . . not safe to go snooping there now . . . passing over the top mast that held the identifying pennant, the owl answered a call of nature, leaving a large white splotch against the Southron flag’s dark background that wouldn’t be appreciated until the sun rose.
The Lossoth settlement seemed more promising. Most were in their homes, snug against the darkness and the weather for the time being. 'Now there is something promising,' he thought, noting a large building on the bayward perimeter of the settlement, not too far from the empty marketplace. What few small windows there were along its sides were all shuttered tightly, but here and there some soft light from within flickered. Curious, the owl glided down silently to the roof’s eaves, sidling along the beam they rested on until he found a small hole giving access to the high rafters. He peeked his head through the opening, then squeezed his shoulders and wings through, mashing his feathers close to his body. As his tail cleared the entryway, he sidestepped across the rafter until he had a good view of the room. Other birds had used the hole and beam previously he noted, their droppings frozen to the rough wood.
Rog hunkered down in the shadows of the high ceiling; the light from the brazier did not reach up here . . . nor did any heat, the bird noted sadly, fluffing his layers of feathers about him. Now to wait and see if anything of interest might unfold . . .
~*~
Later that night:
Odd goings on in the warehouse . . .
Curious, he thought, that two of the Lossoth should be here in a warehouse when others of their kind had closeted themselves snugly in their homes to wait out the snowy night. Rôg swiveled his head about taking the good neatly sorted along the warehouse walls. Coils of rope, he noted, length of wood, canvas . . . now wasn’t that interesting. These were the items he recalled Luindal had ordered stashed in the ship’s hold when they’d first left. One of his crew, the Quarter Master, he thought, had raised his brows at the meager quantity, but the Captain had assured him that additional supplies could be gotten from the people living round the bay. Now it made sense, the Lossoth would be seeing to the delivery of the goods sometime soon, and were going over the inventory. Yes, that would be it . . . there along the far wall were the large barrels in which much of the delivery would be crated.
One of the men pulled the cork from a small cask. He dipped his finger through the hole, tasting the liquid within. Rôg wondered if the two were going to warm themselves with the spirits, but the man replaced the cork and said something odd to his companion. ‘Here,” he said, handing the flask to Nilak with a knowing wink. “If this is any good you might like some. Drink it or sell it.’ Why would these men want to steal from themselves, Rôg thought. They looked as if they already had a proprietary interest in the goods.
Curiouser still, a young man came in. One of the men, laughing, suggested to the other that the lad should start taking the goods out, while the barrels were prepared. Prepared for what? They must intend to deliver the barrels as planned, but what was going into them? The young man listened carefully to the older and shook his head in understanding. One of the men pointed to a small cart parked just inside the warehouse front door. With a nod, the lad fetched it and began loading the wine and onto it, exiting through the back door when the cart was full. The rope came next, then the boxes of tools and knife blades.One of the Lossoth men, Rôg noted, had stayed the young man’s hand when he’d gotten to the canvas. A few words passed between the two, which Rôg could not catch. But the other man had chuckled as the boy went out with another load saying something about ‘ . . . wouldn’t want to lose our packing material, would we? Make a bumpy ride for ‘em!’
The back door to the warehouse opened once again; Rôg looked down to see what now the boy would choose to take out. But it was someone else who entered. A man – lean and lanky, with a long dark beard. Hints of dark red pants flashed out from his brown cloak as he strode purposefully into the warehouse and toward the two men. The newcomer’s gaze flashed back and forth at the contents of the warehouse. And in one of his passes, Rôg caught a brief glance of his face. The Corsair Captain! What was he doing here? Despite his acute sense of hearing, Rôg could not catch in full what the three men discussed. ‘Barrels’ he caught; gestures toward the canvas; soft laughter at some shared jest. ‘Elven ship’.
Rôg shook his feathers softly at these suspicious goings on, then sidled back toward the hole. Adjusting his eyes to the darkness outside the warehouse, the owl recovered his bearings as to where the Elven ship lay at anchor. On silent wings he sped back toward it. There was treachery afoot of some sort, of that he was now certain. Luindal would want to know of the odd meeting in the warehouse. What he would make of it, Rôg was not sure . . .