Chapter the Eleventh

Iraella stormed through the town. That selfish boy! He would make her stowaway on a boat! Iraella shook her head vigorously. She passed the peddlers and fruit sellers, only stopping once to ask a baker exactly where the boats were. “Continue going straight, love,” the woman had said.
And so she did.
Finally, Iraella reached the dock where she saw boats being loaded with fish. The men were gruff looking, their faces scarred and their beards overgrown. One even had the stereotypical pirate eye patch over his left eye. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of old, dead fish, wondering why the fish would be caught on a lake instead of an ocean. When a fat, frightening looking man who appeared to be the captain turned his head in Iraella’s direction, she couldn’t do anything but gasp and hide behind the two barrels beside her.
Iraella daringly peeked to the side of one of the rotten wooden barrels and saw that the captain had gone off to help load the ship. She sighed with relief and rose. “They all seem to be busy, this is most likely my chance,” Iraella thought.
After checking that she had all of her belongings, Iraella darted out onto the dock, and while the men weren’t looking she headed to a rotting wooden ladder. She stepped delicately but quickly, suddenly thankful for all of the tree climbing that she and Baeddan had done.
Just as she hopped over the small barrier, the man with an eye patch looked at her, his seeing eye creepily rolling around to view his surroundings. Iraella couldn’t help but shudder when she ducked down and crawled quickly to a door. The door was cracked and she heard voices inside. “Aye, Relofe,” a man’s voice said. His voice was raspy, as if he had swallowed too much seawater in his lifetime. “Shouldn’t be too awful long. Just headed north,” said the same voice. Iraella growled quietly. She needed to go west. “I suppose I have no choice now,” she thought, crawling to the other side of the deck hurriedly.
Just as she made it to another door, the man with the eye patch was standing over her. “Where are you going, lady?” he asked.
Iraella leapt up and found that her head only reached the middle of his chest. She flinched and started to reach for her bag. Her dagger was in there, in case she might need it. The pirate chuckled. “No, no. No need for weapons, my darling.” He caught her hand and Iraella tried to slip away, but his grip was strong.
Iraella had never been so scared in her life. She pulled and wriggled, but the man just held her as if she weighed nothing. Iraella stopped, breathing heavily. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, flinching already before he answered.
“Why, normally we’re very civilized when we’re on deck. But we took to the lake during you’re little scandal,” he gave Iraella a sick smile. “So I a-reckon that we’d best throw you overboard.”
Iraella’s eyes grew wider by the second, until she thought they might pop out. “Please, please don’t!” she begged. He chuckled, apparently amused by her fearful begging.
“Myzon! We have a stowaway,” he called out to the captain. Myzon, the captain, laughed. His whole belly shook and he walked over. Within seconds, he was bent over and inches away from Iraella’s face. “We don’t like stowaways, little girl,” he said. Iraella’s nose wrinkled. His breath smelled of rotten fish and cigar smoke. She tried to pull away again, but the two men laughed.
“Crew!” Myzon bellowed. “Come to the front deck, we have ourselves a stowaway!”
Iraella heard cheers and probably twenty greasy, cheering men coming towards here. “Good eye, Lakker,” Myzon said to the man holding Iraella.
Iraella squirmed more, her wrist starting to hurt. “I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry,” Iraella kept repeating over and over in her head. She would not cry.