The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper by Mel Odom

There’s only you.”
    â€œ Me? ” Wick couldn’t believe it. “You’re going to plunk me down on an island and expect me to survive? And find a mystical battle-axe no one has seen in a thousand years in an island group that was disrupted by volcanoes?”
    Craugh looked at him. “No one said this was going to be easy.” He was silent for a moment. “But there is an added attraction.”
    To getting killed and eaten by goblinkin? To being put to death by suspicious dwarves who don’t take to strangers? To getting burned to a crisp by a sudden volcanic eruption ? Wick couldn’t wait to hear how the wizard was going to attempt to entice him. If he wasn’t sure they’d put him ashore anyway, he’d have argued and demanded, maybe even begged and—
    â€œMaster Blacksmith Oskarr believed in the power of books,” Craugh said. “The rumor goes that he kept a few personal favorites—and his journals—with him even after he sent everything else he had with Unity ships.”
    Wick knew they had him then. No one else aboard One-Eyed Peggie would lay his life on the line for books. Not the way he would.
    He sighed. “All right. But I’m not going to like it.”

4
    Marooned in the Cinder Clouds Islands
    O ne-Eyed Peggie sailed slowly through the islands, most of her sails furled and crew lining the railing with weighted lines to call out the depths as they went forward. There were hundreds of islands scattered over the Rusting Sea, which got its name—Wick discovered—from the tiny flecks of oxidized iron ore that fluttered through the depths. As a result, the sea looked dark orange and murky. He doubted anything could live in those waters, but every now and again he saw something huge and monstrous slide through the sea.
    Or maybe it was only the churning of the sea, caused by underwater volcanic vents.
    The islands came in all sizes. Some of them were no bigger than a foot or two across, looking like a flagstone footpath that had been scattered across the sea. But they were attached to spires of rock firmly attached to the ocean bottom that could rip out an unwary ship’s hull. Several others were scarcely large enough for a hut.
    Then there were some that soared three and four hundred feet straight up, broken and craggy things devoid of vegetation except for a few gnarly trees and ugly brush that had peculiar reddish-gold blossoms Wick had never before seen.
    â€œWhat are those blossoms?” Diligently, Wick captured the shape and relative size of the blossoms in his journal. He mixed the color with the pigments he brought with him, but only put a dab of the color on the page to extend his supply. Although, with the ore seemingly in goodly supply on the islands, it was possible he could make more paint by mixing ore in powder
form with animal fat. He’d been working quickly, blocking out first impressions of the Cinder Clouds Islands.
    Hallekk stood only a short distance away. He looked alert and ready, but he was uneasy about sailing into waters that were unknown to them. Especially a sea that presented such dangers to ships’ crews new to the area.
    â€œThem are goldengreed weeds,” the big dwarf answered. “Ye’ll want to stay away from ’em.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œâ€™ Cause they bite.”
    â€œâ€˜Bite’? Like with teeth?” Wick had seen flesh-eating plants before, but they didn’t bite. They usually had a tendency to swallow prey whole, asphyxiate it or poison it, then digest it at their leisure. Brandt had once cut him out of a cresthearted gulper they’d found in a wizard’s enchanted greenhouse up in the Thundering Hills while looking for a treasure.
    â€œThey bite,” Hallekk said, “but not with teeth. Don’t know how they do it, an’ I’ve no wish to find out. They got a workin’ relationship with a uniquely loathsome weevil what