"We need passage. Away from this island. Now," the man said to the captain.
The captain looked at them for a moment. Then past them, up the path they had come down, at the dark treeline and the shapes of the buildings further in.
He couldn't see anything of note, but even though his eye couldn't see anything, his gut told him something was wrong.
More wrong than being stared down by two man-eating monsters.
"Just you two?" he asked.
There was a sound from beyond the treeline, and the captain could have sworn that he felt the earth shake for a moment.
Did those two know that he knew?
The captain wondered what the situation was on the ship.
How frightened the people on board must have been, or have they found some solace, wherever it might be?
There was another quake in the air, and he could see something land nearby.
A horrible sight that he instantly recognized and feared.
It was large and had large featherless wings, though with some fur on them.
He recognized the shape of him from the cell.
No matter how much he feared them, he'd still stand as high as he could.
He looked back at the man and the woman.
"Passage to where?"
The man and the woman exchanged a look between them that lasted less than a second and contained something the captain couldn't read.
"Away," the man said. "Direction is negotiable."
"Direction is negotiable?" the captain repeated.
"Yes."
The captain looked at them, and the other man-eater, whose appearance didn't scare the workers of the dock, but his own men were frozen with fear.
And then there was another tremor.
Not the ground exactly. More like the air, like there was something big happening at a distance.
The captain had felt it twice before tonight, and each time he had made the decision not to think too hard about what it was.
He made that decision again now.
"I have people on that ship," he said. "They're not cargo. They're not yours."
"We know what they are," the woman said. Her voice was even. "We're not interested in them."
"You'll forgive me if I want something more binding than that."
"We're not interested in what you think or feel. We are leaving this island. You are not in a position to negotiate terms or make threats or do anything of the like. We want a ship and you have one, so we want it. Would you feel better if we paid you?"
That made the captain pause.
"Pay? In what?"
The man reached into his coat and produced something small that caught the torchlight with the particular warmth of gold. He held it out. The captain looked at it without taking it.
It was more than the voyage was worth. Considerably more. But that didn't make it better.
The likelihood that they would murder and then eat him was almost a guarantee, but what other choice did he have?