Apparently, sex had taken prescedence over navigation for Julian,
as he was moving in nearly the opposite direction as his enemies.
But then, who could blame him? It'd been so long since he'd gotten
any, he would probably have gone for the dead goat, had he not been so
repulsed by the blood.
Bazil was slightly more sane at the moment, if not
overconfident because of his mistake about the death of Julian. He
was moving closer to his most deadly foe, but his path was headed several
degrees to the east compared to Bal's.
Balanthalus, unaware that his enemies were both
several days hard ride behind him, quickened his pace as he approached
the small and dingy port town. Unfortunately, it was also deserted.
The town seemed to be mostly very old driftwood. It seemed as if
the whole mess could collapse at any moment. There were about half
a dozen decrepit boats scattered about the
docks, but none of them looked like they could support the slim halfelf's
weight without sinking. "Great," thought the bard, "and this is the
only port town on the lake. What should I do? Carry a boat
from somewhere else?" He decided to hang around the area a bit to
search for clarity and answers. True, it would give the others time
to shorten the distance between them, but they would only be hastening
their own destruction, and besides, they were still probably heading in
the wrong direction. One thing
was for sure. Bal wasn't going to take the chance that either
of them were champion boat builders and could repair any of these barges.
He found some old torches, and proceeded to set the ghost town alight.
As the dry wood quickly burst into a great confligration, Balanthalus found
himself unable to move from the center of the blaze. He felt the
flames were trying to
tell him something. Perhaps by sheer coincidence, a wind picked
up. The flames began to point toward the water, and Balanthalus understood
. . .