#zhellik malache

It was slow and unpleasant work, sorting through the dead. They gathered up their own, lining them up along the beach with all the rest, and left the Alliance fallen where they lay, food for the crabs and seagulls. The wounded were another matter entirely, and after some discussion and fretting, it was realized they would have to go on The Queen Bitch as well, as that was the only ship properly equipped to handle them. Not exactly the best arrangement, but it was the best they could do.

The rest of the work was left up to more qualified others (implying that he was qualified at all, Seilir thought with some amusement). The Reaver had arrived at last, bringing with her carpenters and shipwrights to get The Kingly Dispute seaworthy again, and now that her cargo of workmen had been delivered, she would be towing the point of this entire bloody venture, the captured ship, back to port at Dead Sun Harbor. Privately Seilir wondered how that was going to go over. The port's proprietors were so unfriendly... He couldn't imagine they'd be pleased with Intoxication trying to effectively set up shop in their territory.

Nor, he remembered, was Intoxication going to be pleased with the way the Dead Sun people had immediately turned tail and retreated the moment things had started to get rough. The blue grimaced and cringed internally just imagining how that was going to go once they were all back at the harbor. He was going to make sure he and Zhell were far out of the firing line for that little confrontation.

...Speaking of Zhellik, Seilir paused in his directions for some of the wounded to make themselves as comfortable as they could on Flaxin's ship, looking around for the young man. He wasn't hard to spot, and as soon as he could, the blue made a beeline for him, guessing that the blacksmith needed all the help he could get right now.

They all did.

All that work -- months of contacts and connections and carefully forged lines of communication -- gone. Fucking gone in two minutes with only a half dozen careless words. And on top of that, five more of their number had now been outed as members of the company within spitting distance of Silvermoon. He should have known better than to let them go that close to the city, at least not without a handler. But he had trusted them, and now Vipers' Cove was ruined. They were ruined.

The only bright side in all of it -- and he had to struggle hard to find something even resembling one -- was Zhellik's conduct throughout the whole thing. The boy hadn't said a word and had even tried to turn the situation into something salvageable. He was learning. Too bad it had to be in the midst of a crisis that might very well cripple them.

He slumped in a chair and buried his head in his hands.