Expedition Open The Urk Expedition: A Sendoff For Sailors

[Silvertongue Songfox]

Silvertongue nodded, and he went over to the closet, pulling out both the uniform and the wheelchair. Going back over to the bed, he started to get Talinn dressed and ready, with all the gentleness, grace and care that he could give, until Talinn was fully dressed. Then, he helped the Duke get into his new wheelchair. "There we are, Sir. You're looking as dashing as you've ever been."

 

[Talinn Ryalor]

Giving a grateful nod to Silvertongue, he then gestured to Gyles.

“Mate Stowett, if you would, assemble the crew and prepare the bodies for a burial at sea. It is too unsanitary in these conditions to keep them aboard, perhaps if we had managed to pack some ice, but…” he shook his head “I will come up with the necessary suitable remarks.”

@Silvertongue Songfox @Gyles F. Stowett

 

[Gyles Stowett]

But Gyles had already gone.

Drums rolled across the Sea of Calamities, slow and morose, one beat falling to the next. The First Lieutenant of the Golden Hide stood on the quarterdeck, paws clasped behind his back and head staring directly ahead as the deck between his boots rose and fell with the roll of the sea. Grim affair. Fitting, still. They were to the last of them sons and daughters of the sea, every bundle of sailcloth lined up together on the main deck timbers. Right that they returned to it.

The whole of the company had been marshaled to the main deck and now stood shoulder to shoulder, some clasping paws, some resting paws on backs in comfort. So many who had left their shipmates, friends, loves in the sand to be washed away by the sea, lucky if they'd been taken aboard the Hide in the chaos of the boats shoving off under shrew spear and bowshot.

"Dash it, Doctor," he said under his breath to Barrett. "Never gets easy, this stuff." Not meant to be. That was the whole idea of sendoffs, wasn't it. Finality was never easy. Barrett could relate, at least.

The stoat's heart swelled in his chest as he saw Lieutenant Tultow carried out between Brull and another marine and he broke from the gathered officers to meet them. He extended a paw of support as the seasoned marine made his way up the aft stair. Honeytail. The battle. The fearsome wounds. Fought like a dozen lessers, took a drubbing would've done for the half of us here today. Still nervy enough to report to quarters when called, by the claw.

"Stubborn as bootleather, ain't you," he muttered, grinning wryly. "Welcome on deck, Lieutenant."
The last straggling crew milled about still, taking their spots between the bits of debris and wreckage still remaining from the battle in various stages of repair, enough to fill the space and then some, some standing tip-pawed, none wanting to miss what was to come. Some hung from the ratlines, others sat crosspawed on the spars above as easy as might crows on a clothesline. It was, in other words, a full company, despite how many they'd lost. It felt close, familial, intimate in their shared grief. Not a jack of them hadn't lost somebeast who meant something.

Now they all looked to the cabin door, whence any moment Talinn Ryalor and Mr. Songfox would emerge on the shambled stage.

@Arthur Barrett @Darragh Harper @Dusk Rainblade @FinnianBrightfur @Kaii Nashirou @Morgan Liu @Silvertongue Songfox @SwifttailTheFox @Talinn Ryalor @Vihmastaja

 

[Silvertongue Songfox]

The cabin door swung open, and truly it was a sight to behold. The Captain, once a beast who stood proud and stoic, confined to such a contraption as a ‘wheelchair’. Despite his initial struggles with the device, Silvertongue had managed to wheel it out without too much issue. And Silvertongue. A beast the crew knew well enough. He always wore a smile on his muzzle, his eyes bright and kind. That smile was gone now, a somber expression replacing it. Gone, too, was his outfit of ocean spray blues and sunrise purples. Instead he wore a drab black and gray jacket with silver buttons, along with a black belt with a golden buckle, black pantaloons and gray boots, and a black hat with a gray feather stuck in it. It was as if someone had taken his normal outfit and drained all the color out of it.

He wheeled Talinn along silently, positioning him so that he was facing the assembled crew members, before stepping back respectfully.

 

[SwifttailTheFox]

The drums rolled low across the deck, each beat sinking into the boards underpaw like a slow heartbeat. Swifttail stood among the gathered ranks beside Kaii, his tail still and his splinted paw held close to his chest. The scent of salt and tar clung thick in the air, and the morning light turned the canvas-shrouded forms into pale, uneven shapes against the deck.

He had never seen so many laid to rest at once. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known loss before... Iskatyut would forever hold that place, but he’d never stood in witness to it. Never been allowed to say a proper goodbye. This was the first time he could truly see it, feel it in the weight of the air and the silence between the drumbeats.

The sea stretched endless and gray before them. Around him, the crew stood in lines, shoulders brushing, quiet and unmoving. It felt right that they should all stand together like this. One crew. One ship. Carrying the grief like one large family.

Swifttail’s throat ached as he looked down the long row of shrouds. His voice barely rose above a whisper.
"None of ’em should’ve had t’ fall like this," he murmured. "May the sea be gentle with ’em."

Then he fell silent once more, eyes fixed ahead, waiting for the Captain’s voice to break the hush.

 

[Vilde Isdatter]

Out of place among this mourning crew, the strange wildcat they had brought back with them from Urk stood both out of the way and yet close enough to offer her respects. She eyed the crew and the shrouded deceased with curious solemnity, absorbing the way they honoured their dead, wondering how differently they would handle the departed from her own culture. Her throat still felt a little sore where the huge shrew had tried to choke her, but it was nothing to her or compared to what most of these beasts had suffered.

The fox called Silvertongue appeared, wheeling in another fox in a contraption she had never seen before. They seemed important, and so she watched and waited.​

 

[Darragh Harper]

It wasn’t raining.

There was something impertinent about that, Darragh thought. He stood straight, footpaws shoulder-width apart, paws clasped behind his back. He was in his best shirt, the one he’d sewn new buttons on. It still didn’t fit right - cut for a fox’s torso, as was typical of surplus shirts. A borrowed pair of breeches with no holes nor patches. A proper belt of fishscale leather. Tail brushed right to the bristly black tip. Darragh was at the most formal the Imperial Navy could provide for its lowliest deckswabs.

It would be a colder voyage back home. There would be more empty hammocks. More pulling double-duty to stand in place for a missing messmate. There would be fewer mugs of hot cough-ee poured, fewer bowls of hot stew, fewer smoking clay pipes. All the pieces of standard-issue Navy equipment would be cleaned up and stored in the hold, ready for the next voyage, with the hope their new owners would be luckier than the last. Anything consumable the dead had brought or bartered - dried meat, tins of biscuits and so on - would be distributed to their messmates. Letters, a favourite bit of jewelry, a father’s second-paw skinning knife, anything identifiably personal, would ideally be kept for the family to retrieve.

Ideally. It was inevitable that the Navy’s open recruitment attracted certain unscrupulous jackdaws that stole from the seachests of the dead. It was also inevitable that corpse-robbers attracted a certain stoat’s bloody knuckles directly into their faces. Greed and cowardice seemed to go paw-in-paw in such beasts, so the below-decks drama of the poet giving out free orthodontic consultations had gone unreported, and unnoticed by most officers. That is, except those officers sharp enough to notice a few swollen muzzles and black eyes among members of the crew known to have light paws.

Darragh’s grim mental pot-stirring was interrupted at last by the appearance of Silvertongue in his most funereal outfit, pushing along the crumpled figure of Captain Ryalor. Darragh swallowed reflexively as he watched the old fox being rolled out in that awful, rickety wheelchair. He was more intimately familiar with the extent of the Captain’s decline than most on the crew - having been excruciatingly present for the dangerous surgical procedure they had undertaken to save Talinn’s life. It was no coincidence that Darragh was stood next to Finny, or that his formal paws-behind-back stance had subtly slipped to wrapping a comforting arm around the skinny shoulders of the young fox beside him, the moment that they had caught sight of the Captain.

 

[Arthur Barrett]

Arthur took a breath, and let it out slowly. "No, sir... it doesn't..."

With his collar pulled up to block the cold, Arthur stood bundled up in his dress coat, surveying the crew as they prepared for the burial at sea. Fortunately, he'd had enough time to wash, eat, and rest before the burial ceremony -- and though he was dressed well for the ceremony, his worn clothing blended in well with the crew. He'd checked, and double checked the list of deceased, and made sure the list was fully recorded in the ship's log. All there was left to do now was to complete the burial at sea.

Though Tultow had requested that Honeytail be burried in Bully -- it simply was impossible with the current situation. In a perfect world, every beast who gave their life for the imperium would be given a funeral with honors in Bully... but practicality had cruel demands. Their bodies would decay far before they made it home, spreading disease among the crew. Arthur still had Honeytail's personal affects stowed securely away in his chest, and would deliver them to Tultow when time permitted. Until then, he'd at least made sure the good Lieutenant was made aware, and had time to say his goodbyes.

It felt strange to be assisting with the burial. During the Winter War, the deceased were handled by other beasts. Arthur never knew who they were, and never had to meet their friends. But aboard the Hide? They were all shipmates. Pragmatic as he was, Gyles was right. It never got easier.

 

[FinnianBrightfur]

Finn felt colder than usual. The winds bit harder, the chill ran deeper -- and it felt like a block of searing cold ice was bandaged to the inside of his elbow.

In some ways, his oversized Navy uniform made him feel bigger, older. The heavy fabric carried a weight of responsibility that he was proud to bear. And yet, at the same time, he felt smaller inside it. He knew he couldn't bear the weight of his duties alone.

The sight of Tultow and the captain emerging from below decks lifted his spirits -- they were still alive, and there was some solace in knowing he'd played some small part in their recovery. But they weren't the same beasts he knew. They were battered, bruised, and broken. Seeing such strong men reduced to invalids was more than his soul could bear, and tears quietly spilled down his cheeks.

But something told Finn that the shame wasn't in the tears. The shame was in wiping them away. Finn swallowed firmly, and nestled weakly against Darragh's side.

 

[Talinn Ryalor]

As Talinn was wheeled up to the quarterdeck at the back of the ship where he would address the crew, he surveyed the crowd. The mood was on the return journey was much different and more somber than when they had set out. It was, unfortunately, a reality of military life on the high seas. He had done his best to reduce the casualties due to scurvy and disease on his way to the island by ensuring they were properly stocked, as any proper officer should, but it was not uncommon for a fair amount of the crew to die on any given mission. Still, so many dying from land combat alone was a rarity-Urk had truly been hellish from both what he had fought and reading the reports of the aftermath of just how many shrews they had faced and for how long. Somebeast in MAUL was going to suffer for the misinformation provided to him, if Dusk had not already handled them.​

Especially the losses among the marines. We have what, maybe ten percent of those we started out with? We will have to basically reconstitute them from scratch or pull them from another branch.

As he reached the railing overlooking the lined up bodies and the solemn crew, he looked at Silvertongue and nodded.

“Help me up, Silvertongue. No, I don’t want to hear any excuses about how I am not ready. I will endure the pain-the beasts I am honoring today endured far worse.”

@Silvertongue Songfox
​

 

[Shorris]

Shorris shuffled her footpaws awkward-like on the deck. Much as escape had been the object of her desperation since she'd been took, so strange it was to be free. Or forgotten, she didn't know which.

Ain't much difference between free and forgotten.

Didn't taste half as sweet as she thought it would, and that nibbled at her. She didn't even much feel like leaving now, after all that. They'd not exactly as broke bread, but they'd broke bones and skulls together on that shore, and that changed the way things were between beasts, that was a known fact.

She looked up to her right and watched the waves dance and throw mischievous spindrifts where they lapped together and that felt like free. She looked to her left and, well, she couldn't see aught. Blotted out by a big furry mass of ... animal. She was so big it was hard to get the whole cut of her at once this close, and Shorris felt herself step back without thinking to. The wildcat from the battle, the one roaring battlecries and making mess of the shrews left and right, as like she were but the claw of some Northern god o' war playing havoc on the sand. Most of the others, by instinct more than likely, were already giving her a wide enough berth.

She thought to say something, but looking up at all that muscle, all that power in one place, well, it just didn't come. Instead she just stared a bit, slack-jawed and looking somethin' stupid.

Talinn was looking out across the gathered crew now and Shorris lowered herself quick then, like a sockpuppet in one of those traveling shows you paid too much for in Alton Bay, exit stage down. Wasn't too hard what with the great cat standing there, just needed to keep this one 'twixt her and the officers. Ain't as like they'd said such, but a beast tends to be careful when they're tortured, starved for as many moons and then half-fed to a direwotsit and somehow lives to tell the tale. Can't be too careful in that case, no matter if her once-captors forgot her for now. Winds changed easy.

Something else nibbled at her, thinking about Alton Bay like that. They'd failed, Billy and her, as much was evident with Talinn still walking free. Maybe only as free as her, an illusionist's act kind of free, but still. The Whistler wasn't about to let bygones be what bygones was.

She had to get to Valtemer first if she was going to handle how this all played out. Or Valtemer was going to get to her, sure as sunset.

 

[Morgan Liu]

Morgan had demanded, probably a little more rudely than necessary, to be present for the send-off, until at last two of the crew has been wrangled to carry her up to the deck. It was a grim sight, all the bodies wrapped and ready for their final rest beneath the waves. Carried up on her stretcher, Morgan felt like she was one of those bodies herself, only the beating of her heart separating her from the ones who would be sent down into those dark waters. She felt a chill as she recalled those waters, the feeling of the icy cold crashing into her lungs. There was nothing gentle or merciful in those depths.

She craned her neck to see where Tultow and that other marine, what was her name, Piper, that's it, had also been brought on board. Piper had been in bad shape, but Tultow was worse. Morgan didn't know what exactly had happened to him, but she'd overheard enough to know that, in the doctor's opinion, walking on his own, even with the assistance of a cane, would be considered a good outcome. Morgan wasn't familiar with the fitness requirements for the marines, but she was sure that they demanded more than that. Once they got back to the Harbor, he'd probably never return to active duty.

She overheard a weak wheeze as the Lieutenant clasped paws with Gyles, the pair exchanging familiar banter like old friends. "You'd have to nail me to the surgery table to keep me away," Tultow remarked, the thinness of his voice and breath speaking to the toothlessness of that claim. Morgan let the corner of her mouth twitch, probably the closest she'd come to a smile herself that day. They were alive, she was alive, which was a hollow comfort to those lying still and cold.

 

[Kaii Nashirou]

Kaii stood next to Swifttail upon the deck upright and stiff as if sculpted from marble. The reasons behind it were many. He still was weak after the combat and needed a lot of willpower to just stand here without showing any pain of tiredness. He also was still mentally exhausted with the trials of the recent night he had spent at the lower deck with Darragh, it taken a toll on him to work his mind out so much and with so weak body.

But ultimately, it was still the scene that he was a part of now that he had to steel his mind for. Death of so many beasts was something that was tragic, but Kaii wasn't one who was easily touched by such tragedies. Not because he was heartless, but because he knew that despair would not change anything. He preferred to honour the dead by remembering them and continuing their work, not by crying over them...

He knew after all that crying did exactly nothing to help him. Not once his sister died, not when his parents were killed, not when his ward and second mother was assassinated.

So he stood there, like a pillar, stern, emotionless and listening to the drum. Swifttail however, who stood next to him, with expression that showed utter hoplesness, spoke a few words that made Kaii at least for a second peak out from his mental prison, reinforced with steel. Earnestly, he had added. "No beast deserves to die. Let us not forget them"

 

[Silvertongue Songfox]

Silvertongue had tried to protest, but the Captain wasn’t having any of it. So, he proffered his arm to the older fox, and then, when he had taken hold of it, nodded.

“Alright, sir, on the count of three. One, two, and-.” Placing his other paw on Talinn’s back, he began to lift, helping the fox to his feet.

“Can some beast go and fetch a cane, please?!” Silvertongue shouted to the gathered crew.

 

[Vihmastaja]

Vihma wasn't quite the same beast that'd gone ashore on Urk. Though her eyes flicked to Morgan in her stretcher, looking better for the care she'd recieved - she kept nearer to the marines - what few of them remained. Her sword paw tightened as her thoughts dwelled on the damage done to them, to the beasts she cared about. Morgan, Greeneye, now Tultow and Piper - even Silvie had been hurt in the fighting. The knuckles of her paw grew white under her fur, the pain in her wounded back and the small cuts along her fur fading with anger. She'd even lost her bow ashore, somewhere buried in the bloodied snow.

All for what? Some special rock, some something kept under guard below. It could be magic for all she knew, for all she cared. If it wasn't enough to bring the beasts they'd lost back, to heal the wounds suffered in its pursuit, it would never be enough.

Silvie's shout - the shout of an officer, she reminded herself - freed her from her thoughts. A cane. Well, she had nothing like that. Her cutlass was long for a blade of its type, but even in its scabbard it'd hardly serve the role. Nearer to her, by the side of the ship, remnant of the battle that had nearly killed Greeneye and Morgan, there was a spear the shrews had thrown at them, embedded in the hull. Short for a spear, she thought it to be the closest thing to a cane within her reach.

Splitting the head of the embedded weapon from its shaft with her sword, the weasel walked over, silent and suitably solemn, quick as the shallow slash to her back would allow her, to offer it to Talinn. She didn't look the beast in his eyes, but didn't give off any other emotion, any trace of the thoughts that had swirled through her head. Navy beast, marine, whatever she was or would be, it was just a collection of tasks to be fulfilled. Simple, and better for that simplicity.

 

[Vilde Isdatter]

As she watched the sombre affair, Vilde caught a mustelid beside her staring up at her. She must have looked quite the sight, she imagined. The wildcat gave a gentle smile, though it might have been too late offered for Shorris's attention moved toward the leaders of the ceremony. Curiously it was as if she seemed to be staying out of sight. Perhaps she didn't want to be called forward to speak about the dead? Whatever the reasons, Vilde wasn't going to cause any fuss about it. Everyone here had clearly been through enough.​

 

[Talinn Ryalor]

Talinn, visibly grimacing as he accepted the cane and forced himself to stand even though the fire in his legs screeched no, managed to make it to his feet through sheer determination, and managed to stagger over to the railings, where he steadied himself. Every breath was agony, but he still had breath-something the beasts who had died on Urk no longer had, and which he only had through luck, fate, and sacrifice. Standing upright, he remained silent for a full thirty seconds as the crew settled down without him having to say anything, before he began his speech.

“Ratings, Warrants, and Officers of the Golden Hide!” Talinn’s voice boomed across the air as strongly as a cannon shot, though it drained all the strength out of him, as it to draw the entirety of the ship to full attention. “It is no exaggeration to say that I-we-stand here today in our uniforms because of the beasts who fell on the cursed island of Urk. How does one take measure of such beasts who lived truly remarkable lives? Who roamed the seas as if it they were their own backyard, warriors who defended their country in times of war and in times of peace? It is a dauntless challenge!”

He paused, letting the words settle in, as he looked at the seemingly countless amounts of beasts draped in extra sailcloth and rope, weighted down by small cannonballs so that when they were slid overboard, they would sink to the watery depths.

“Nonetheless, I will try in their honor. Today, with celebrate the lives of our mates, beasts who loved peace as only those who lived lives surrounded by war and chaos can. Beasts who had countless friends aboard, beasts whose greatest treasures are the families and loved ones that they left behind to serve in the hardest and most storied wing of the military, our Navy, and gave everything they had to until their last dying breath in their quest to safeguard the lives, security, and prosperity of them and every single beast and kit in the Imperium, whether they knew them or not! A wise beast once told me that not all of us can be heroes, that some of us must stand to the side and salute as they go by. So we all do!”

His voice rang out once more as he raised a pained, crippled arm in a formal salute to the fallen, the crew of the Hide following in his example as he did so.

“It matters not how a beast dies, but how they live. I can say with the utmost certainty that every single one of our fallen comrades, for that is what they are, beasts who have braved the same battles and trials as us, lived theirs to the fullest! That their sacrifice shall not be in vain, that we have accomplished our mission! Thanks to them, we may one day have a solution to the crippling and biting cold that costs so many lives during the winter! Thanks to them we may never again suffer in the darkness of night as a new form of power may light up the home of every beast in the Imperium, no matter how lowly! And most importantly of all, thanks to them, we may return to our own families and loved ones, battered, but alive!”

He paused once more, his voice growing a bit more tired and pained, the adrenaline and pain beginning to win over his resolution-he was still only mortal after all, but he could finish his final words.

“We will be forever indebted to them. We will never forget them. And we already miss them. Captain Stowett! Fire the salute!”

As Gyles gave the order and the thunderous guns of the Hide roared like a mythical lion to give a proper sendoff to their comrades, Talinn barely held on, and when it ended, nodded at Gyles to begin the rest of the ceremony as he did not think he could manage more than a whisper, mainly sliding their comrades into the watery grave. He had to lean heavily against the wooden railings of the deck to stand now, but he would maintain his vigil until every last of their fallen heroes went into their watery grave.

 

[Gyles Stowett]

Honeytail. Ragg. Wrayle. Aberkine. All the rest. They all went over the side in their turn, in their time. No matter who went first. They all of 'em had the patience of the dead.

Brull, Piper, and the other marines had put together a bundle in lieu of the unrecovered body of their stern motherly sergeant, Macallish, and those of their other missing comrades: earrings and nose piercing Macallish used to wear outside of battle, another marine's favorite well-worn bowl, another's frayed blanket, a dog-eared book of poems, another's scrimshaw on a piece of sharkbone. The number of items seemed endless.

So many.

This they had wrapped up securely with a cannonball, and before Lieutenant Tultow's approving eyes, they dropped it over the side with the others, some twoscore bundles of sailcloth well-weighted.

When it was over and the last of them had gone home to the seabed, Gyles turned away and assisted their battered captain to his makeshift wheelchair again with Silvertongue. He turned to the young aide-de-camp before addressing the crew. "Young Silvertongue was with you on that beach. It was his words that brought you together when y' needed it most, wasn't it?"

He heard his voice. It sounded wearier than expected, ancient beyond his years, aged decades in days, but heartened. Resolute. More of that strong stuff than expected. For once in many years, he didn't think to reach for the flask before something momentous. Sober as a stone.

Captain Stowett? Deuce of a thing. Deuce of a thing indeed. Wanted it, didn't I? But... It felt like he'd been just wrapped in sailcloth, bound with chain, weighted with a cannonball with all the rest. That was heavier than expected, too. Didn't feel like anything special, just weight. Duty to this crew.

He swallowed. Just another crewbeast come out the other side of Hellgates. "The same Silvertongue Songfox will sing us a song, bring us together again now. The stage is yours, sir."

 

[Silvertongue Songfox]

Silvertongue blanched. He had been expecting this, but at the same time it caught him off guard. He hastily stepped forward, sweating a bit and seeing the gathered crowd. "Before, I begin..." He started. "This- This hymn... I could not have come up with it on my own. I had the assistance of our very own Mr. Harper." Silvertongue motioned to Darragh in the crowd. "Mr. Harper, I believe you should have the honor of joining me up here, as we honor our fallen crewmates."

@Darragh Harper

 

[Darragh Harper]

Darragh watched each body splash down to their deep ocean grave. Too many. They sank quickly, weighed down by the cannonball at their footpaws, never to return to a friendly shore. Yet that was sentimentality on Darragh’s part, he knew - wherever they were now, the dead were surely unbothered by where they lay. It was up to the living to make meaning of their final resting place. For the young poet, it was easy for metaphors to leap from his imagination, and to picture his deceased companions resting in the arms of the ocean herself.

He had thought he would avoid attention for the part he’d played in preparing for this ceremony. Yet, to obscure the authorship of the words they were going to sing to the memory of their crewmates wouldn't have felt right either. After all, it was important to show that this hymn came from the hearts of those who had intimately suffered with the dead and mourned their loss. That didn’t make it easier for the smaller stoat to patter his way to the quarterdeck, saluting as he did so to obey Navy decorum. He felt the eyes of officers and crew upon him, the so-called ship’s poet, put to a real test of that title at last.

And here he was, before Silvertongue in his sombre black suit, First Officer- no, Captain Gyles Stowett as he was to be, and Talinn Ryalor. Though he had stood side-by-side with Gyles in the infirmary and clawed with Death Himself over Talinn’s soul, Darragh once again felt that gap of mystery widen between himself and the older, experienced beasts. The rumours and stories about Talinn Ryalor had been making the rounds from mess to mess while the old fox had convalesced. Some of it had just been the usual stuff about him and Empress Amelie, but Darragh had heard things new to him as well - what Talinn had been like as a young fox. The things he had done in the Winter War. The lives taken for the House of Ryalor to survive, and thrive.

Here we are yet again, the dissident voices had whispered belowdecks. More blood paid for Talinn Ryalor to advance himself. He deserves that chair. He deserves to die.

Darragh would never know the full story of the life of Talinn Ryalor, only that he had helped to forestall its end. Perhaps when Darragh and Kaii visited the library as the marble fox had promised him, he might look up the history of the Ryalors, and uncover some small part of the enigma that was the Hide’s temporary commander. No matter what he found out though, Darragh doubted he could ever feel regret for saving a life. As for who deserved to live and who deserved to die… Darragh watched the last of the bodies slip beneath the waves.

Who could say?

Darragh stood alongside Silvertongue, and looked out at the crew. Some faces he easily spotted, like his fellow Foskateers - others were new to him, like the wildcat warrior who had joined them in the thick of battle. He even caught a glimpse of Shorris, the convict who had earned her freedom retrieving the Idol. Of everybeast involved in the discovery of that mysterious, foreboding artifact, Darragh had to guess she was the one least likely to want her name remembered for it in the history books.

The poet’s gaze shifted back to Silvertongue, and he nodded, though the paws he held behind his back shook slightly. “Aye, sir. I’m ready as I can be. Let’s give them a proper goodbye. Strong voices, together. Let them hear it all the way into Dark Forest.”