Recent content by Jack Thacker

Whether it was the lack of sleep, the ale from the night before, or the aches and pains from rowing for days on end, it took a moment before Jack registered the red-head…the one he’d seen in the Gudgeon the previous night, now splayed before he and Vaezhasar in some strange spluttering half plea...

“Wot can I say, the smell o’ wet horse shit’s tough to go to sleep to,” Thacker quipped dryly, rubbing his toothy jaw. This morning it was sore with decay. “Never ye mind about ol’ Whistler, I’d be more concerned ‘bout this river, ay mate? Looks aboot ready to spill over.” The lanky vagabond...

Jack almost immediately spied the shock of red hair on the wizard’s apprentice, stirring from its haphazard pillow of Shepard’s pie. And for a moment, the two locked eyes. But suddenly and abruptly, a wheezy concertina started up in song, accompanied by a violin. The din of the tavern had...

Oi, what ‘ave we here? A woman. Jack hadn’t had the company of a woman since before he’d fled Alliria. Those were the days, he lamented sourly. He’d lost count of how long he’d spent on the Leapin’ Lizard…what had felt like a month alongside other smelly, rough, leather-skinned men of the sea...

Try as he might to hide his shock, Thacker couldn’t. An entire tavern of suddenly slumbering denizens would’ve been enough to send a man with less resolve screaming out the heavy wooden front door of the Gudgeon. While Jack certainly did not do that, the alarm etched in his travel-weary face was...

The name drop was the message, the punchline, the finale. And Thacker knew that. For an instance there was a glimmer of violence in one of his baggy eyes. But the sorcerer didn’t want a conflict; he didn’t need one. Sorcerers were powerful and meddlesome and often had their schemes…and this...

“Integrity fer me arteries;” Thacker repeated, chuckling and shaking his ugly head. Veiled threats he thought to himself bitterly. Ye’ve gone and stepped in it now, Jack. Outside, the rain showed no sign of letting up. The tavern was standing room only, and everybody was trying to huddle as...

A bowl of hot porridge suddenly rattled in front of Thacker, dropped off by the heavy-set server woman before Jack could even ask for a spoon. The would-be sailor eyed the white paste hungrily but made no motion for it–not until Vaezhasar made his peaceful intentions clear. With the air...

“Me friends call me Whistler;” Jack lied, taking another swig. He didn’t have any friends to speak of and nobody in Alliria had called him anything other than Thacker. But Vaezhasar didn’t have to know that. The dirty fugitive’s dark eyes observed his benefactor coolly. The man, if there was a...

The serving woman muttered and grumbled to herself, in a low enough murmur to be seen not heard. She slapped Jack’s tankard on the bench table in front of him alongside a basket of hard bread, then marched over to where the conspicuous sorcerer sat–swiping his currency from his paw and swiftly...

Bum. Bum. Bum. Bumm. The beat of the leather skin drum kept the oarsmen on The Leapin’ Lizard on rhythm and in tandem, though Jack Thacker had grown weary of it in recent weeks. He heard it in his sleep; at his meals; even on deck. The thumping echoed in Jack’s head like a permanent headache...