by Simon Archer
Upon a Pale Horse
Orc Pirate Book 3
Simon Archer
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
10. Adra Notch-Ear
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
17. Tabitha
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
30. Admiral Layne
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
33. Ligeia
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
A Note from the Author
1
Tabitha Binx, feline Captain of The Black Cat, slipped into the brig section of The Hullbreaker’s hold and leaned against the wall opposite Drammond Screed’s cell.
“Pirate King,” she purred to me by way of greeting.
I folded my arms and arched an eyebrow in response. Sure, I was Bardak Skullsplitter, the one and only Orc Pirate of the Archipelago, but was I truly at the point where I could claim old Bloody Bill Markland’s title? I had a fleet, and now I had a fortified town, so maybe I could.
It was only a day or so after the fight in the town of Insmere with Commodore Sebastian Arde and his ghost ship. Most of my crew were relaxing or seeing to repairs, especially as cooperative as the townies had been since we freed them from their Admiralty tyrant.
Tabitha had asked after Drammond Screed, and I’d explained what happened, how he’d reacted when he’d unlocked the first lock on the case holding the magical, evil Black Mirror. She had then asked to see him. With no reason to deny her request, I had taken it on myself to escort her down to the pirate’s cell.
Drammond raised his head to look at both of us with empty eyes. Whatever had happened in the hold of The Golden Bull, it had a profound effect on the man. Since we’d taken him away, he’d said nothing, but he had eaten, drunk, and taken care of other necessaries, just never when anyone was watching.
It was strangely eerie.
For Tabitha’s part, she just stared at him for a few minutes, then huffed a sigh and motioned to me as she left. I followed her all the way back out and up to the deck. Once we were in the sunlight, she turned to me and stepped in for a tight hug. I returned it. What was going on in her head, I wondered.
“I think we should leave him here,” Tabitha said softly. “‘Til we can speak with him. ‘Til he comes back. We may not have been good together, and in truth, I hated him a bit, but no man deserves that. Be there nothing we can do?”
“Adra believe he’ll get better once his spirit heals,” I replied.
“What happened when we went down to The Golden Bull, Cap’n?” she asked. “I wanted something, then I was being carried for the surface by Ligeia and Mary. I meant to ask that night we spent together but…” A smile crept over Tabitha’s lips. “It slipped my mind.”
“I meant to speak with ye about somethin’, too,” I said. “It has to do with what happened.”
“Aye?”
“Among the crates in that locked room, we found one that held the scrimshawed and bejeweled skull o’ one o’ yer folk,” I explained. “‘Twas old, and it seemed to house a sleeping spirit. That was the crate ye were ready to fight Mary over.”
Tabitha closed her eyes and let out another huff of a sigh. “That be how my folk remember the dead. We remove the head, dispose of the body, then remove the hide and flesh from the skull: eyes, brain, everything. After that, a master carver engraves the bone with stories we tell of that person’s life. Gems are mounted in the skull to show rank.” She looked sidelong at me. “Ye say I tried to hurt Mary to get to it?”
“Aye, but ye didn’t seem yerself, so ye shouldn’t worry, lass,” I told her.
Her ears went back, and her tail drooped. “If ye be sure, Cap’n.”
“Aye, Tabitha Binx,” I said with a smile. “Ye an’ Mary be fine.”
She let out another sigh and leaned against me, a slow, quiet purr starting. I was honestly surprised that she didn’t want to see the skull, but perhaps that was for the best.
As if in answer to my unspoken question, Tabitha softly said, “I am not yet ready.”
Whatever that meant. She would tell me in her own time, I reckoned, but for now, I wouldn’t press. Grunting an affirmative, I caught her by surprise and pulled the small, black-furred Ailur woman into a kiss that left her breathless and smiling.
“Don’t ye forget we be clan, now,” I told her with a grin. “Yer troubles be my troubles.”
“Aye, aye,” she said with a laugh, broken out of her slipping mood. “I do promise to tell ye, Bardak. I do.” Tabitha drew an ‘X’ between her breasts. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“No dyin’ on my watch,” I grumbled. “We’ve enough dark business ahead of us.” Of course, I referred to the looming confrontation with Admiral Justin Layne, the undisputed master of the Admiralty in the Archipelago, and his enormous city-ship, The Pale Horse. Everything I’d done since that time in Insmere almost a year gone when the Admiralty had attempted to kill me had been building up to a final battle with Layne himself.
So far, I’d faced Commodore Arde, the Admiral’s right hand, twice, once as a living man and once as an undead abomination with an army of the drowned. I’d also worked both with and against Bloody Bill Markland, the self-proclaimed Pirate King of the Archipelago, and recovered The Golden Bull, a lost Imperial treasure ship from the bottom of a sea’s eye blue hole after defeating its guardians: a shark-headed octopus beast the size of a fabled kraken and hordes of the fish-folk known as sahagin.
We had also discovered numerous baby lusca during that expedition, and Ligeia, my siren, took them under her proverbial wing. What she intended to do with the dangerous wee beasties I had no idea, but if it would help against the Admiral, I wasn’t about to stop her.
Tabitha grinned at me, hooked one of her small hands in the crook of my arm, and we walked up out of the depths of my ship that way. From the brig, we passed through the lowest deck, where the rowers would crouch on their benches and throw their heavy, orcish backs into propelling The Hullbreaker if she was ever becalmed or needed that extra power and maneuverability in combat. Up the stairs from there was the cannon deck, where Bord the Cannonmaster watched over the rows of guns. In addition to storage, both this deck and the lower deck sported the sleeping berths for the crew, as did parts of the forecastle and aftcastle.
My ship was heavily modified to suit the needs of a mostly orcish crew, and while we enjoyed our carousing, we didn’t really have many amenities that we actually needed.
It was almost time for the meeting to discuss how we needed to proceed, and the two of us met Mary, my own witch, and Jimmy Mocker, my first mate, shortly after emerging into the light of the setting sun. We exchanged greetings and headed for the dock. Since we’d taken the town, the manor of Insmere inside the fortified keep was mine for the taking, and I meant to meet with my people in comfort, rather than the cramped confines of The Hullbreaker’s War Room.
It wasn’t long until captains, witches, and first mates gathered in
the manor of Insmere keep for a quiet celebration. Sturmgar had worked a trade deal with Gideon Cooper and the tradesmen for manufactured goods in return for food and raw materials. Everyone seemed decidedly pleased with the outcome, and life in the town slowly returned to a semblance of normal.
“All right, me hearties,” I boomed out over the gathering once we were well along our way to being stuffed with fried fish, cheese, potatoes, and parsnips. There was wine from Winemaker’s Run, as well, and rum to boot. “Listen up.”
Silence eventually fell, and everyone focused their attention on me.
“Ye all know we stand against the Admiralty an’ Admiral Layne, which means that sooner or later, we’ll be facing The Pale Horse.”
Nods and muttering followed that statement. We all knew the path we followed and where it led, but I felt the need to speak.
“I’ve seen her,” I said. “She ain’t just the largest ship ever built, but there be magic at work.”
“Like what the witches did with our ships?” Shrike asked. “Be that what ye mean?”
“Aye,” I replied. “Likely more, since he be having sorcerers and witches and gods know what else at his beck and call. There also be merfolk an’ deep divers, but different than I’ve ever seen.”
“Like dwarves would ever bloody stop tryin’ to innovate,” Bord grumbled. “Just ‘cause ye ain’t seen it…”
“Ye’ll like this next bit, Bord,” I interrupted with a grin. “Ye ever heard of a Sea Hammer?”
“Bloody legend an’ rumor,” he replied. “We used ‘em during the war, but they were all sunk or dismantled after. Dwarves ain’t likely to take to the sea anymore, either.”
“What if I told ye I had a map to where one rests, an’ it ain’t the bottom o’ the sea?” I asked.
“I’d curse ye for lyin’, ye daft orc,” he snapped.
Everyone else watched our exchange in wonder. It occurred to me, then, that only a few of the folks gathered here had ever seen Bord and me go at it like this.
Better late than never.
“No lie,” I told him. “Sturmgar Ironhand saw the damned thing with his own eyes on a salvage run in the frozen seas. I mean to see it with my own eyes an’ recover it, if we can.”
The old dwarf’s eyes lit up with an almost manic glow as he stood and faced me. “If this be true, Bardak Skullsplitter, then ye have my loyalty ‘til I turn to stone myself.”
I blinked. Legend held that dwarves didn’t die of old age but traveled deep beneath the earth and became stone themselves. Was this actual confirmation of that tale from a dwarf?
“If ye can fix the damned thing, then I’ll be happy to keep ye around for that long,” I replied.
Bord snorted a laugh. “Fine, ye green bastard. When do we sail?”
“That be up to all o’ us,” I replied, and looked around to the others. “Methinks we need to decide how to do this. The frozen sea ain’t a place for every kind o’ ship, and we ain’t got an icebreaker.”
“The Hullbreaker,” Kargad, old friend and captain of Sirensong, said. “She’s the closest thing we be having.”
I had that thought, but I didn’t want to force the issue, not with my comrades-in-arms. Many of them were quite attached to their ships.
“I have no problem with that sort of cold,” Ligeia mused. “I will go and help to find the weak spots in the ice.”
“Can more than one ship go?” Tabitha asked. “I’d rather not leave my Black Cat so far away, but I’m damned if I don’t want to come along.”
“You’ll likely need me,” Ember Spark, Tabitha’s own witch, threw in.
“All of those with gifts and talents of magic should accompany the Captain,” Adra Notch-Ear said suddenly. “As should those who share his bed. The rest can come along, or stay, as they will.” The tuskless orc shamaness’s eyes clouded as she stared off into the middle distance. The back of my neck prickled as my hackles raised.
“Truth be told,” I said. “I’d be happy if all o’ ye came. There’s no harder group o’ buccaneers I’d rather have at my side in a voyage like this.” I looked around at my comrades, one and all, and caught more than a few smiles, particularly from Mary.
“What about Rhianne?” my witch asked. She spoke about Arde’s undead witch who we had freed and spared when I killed the bastard the second time.
“She should come along, methinks,” I said after a moment. “‘Tis easier to watch her, and besides, the more magic we take with us, the better.”
“But,” Kargad mused, “if we all go, then who defends Insmere?”
“Tiny is not so good with the cold,” Ligeia interjected. “It will slow him, so he needs best remain. I can set him to guard and to work with anyone else who wishes to stay.”
Kargad raised a hand. “I’ll be stayin’, I think. Ice an’ dwarven warships don’t interest me so much as makin’ sure our home be safe.”
“I ain’t built for the cold,” Shrike threw in. “I’ll stay an’ help.”
Nagra looked between her father Kargad and me, then rubbed her hands together nervously. “Would it hurt, Captain, if I stayed? There should at least be some magic here.”
I looked to Adra and said, “The lass should stay if she wants.”
The shamaness turned her eyes on me and gave me a queer look. “Since you mean to take the dead girl, that should suffice.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Be at ease, Nagra.”
“Thank ye, Cap’n.” She visibly relaxed at my words.
This went on for a while until we settled on a plan for who would go and who would stay. The only ship we’d be taking was The Hullbreaker under my command. With me would be Tabitha Binx, Jenny Nettles, Ember Spark, Adra Notch-Ear, Jimmy Mocker, Mary Night, Rhianne Corvis, and most of my regular crew.
I looked forward to setting out, since I’d been on land too long already. “Alright, then, me hearties,” I said. “We’ll need to strike for Tarrant first to resupply some o’ the rarer goods we be needing. Much as I’d like to set out immediately, I ain’t daft enough to think we don’t deserve a bit o’ rest. I say we take a week whilst the good people o’ the shipyard make repairs on our vessels, then we head out.”
“Any objections?” I paused for effect as I swept my steely gaze over the gathered pirates.
There were none.
2
It took time to repair our ships after the climactic battles that led to Insmere, and we could not even consider the dangerous voyage to the north with anything out of place. Things were nearing completion after a week, and the fact it was going so smoothly bothered me. We were only three days from Avion and the monster ship that was The Pale Horse, and yet, the loyal Imperial citizens here turned so easily. Had the Empire fallen so far so fast?
As we neared final preparations, I found myself in a dark little tavern that sat off the beaten path not far from the Insmere docks. It was a quiet, smoke-filled little dive of a place, lit by oil lamps and a broad fireplace. Several dockworkers and sailors sat around drinking, even though it was fairly early in the day.
Something had drawn me here. Maybe it was a premonition, or the call of the spirits, or just some strange captain’s intuition. I took a deep drink from the large mug of rum before me, tasting the faint sweetness of the strong drink’s cane sugar base. The other patrons were quiet, barely even exchanging monosyllables as they nursed their own choices of poison.
None of them seemed to care that an orc sat at a table against the back wall, with one booted foot resting in the chair opposite him.
Time passed, along with another full mug, until a voice broke me out of my brooding reverie. It spoke Orgik, one of the orcish languages.
“A strange place to find you, Splitter of Skulls,” Adra Notch-Ear, the tuskless shamaness, pushed my foot from the chair and sat down. She reached over and took my third cup, swigged from it, and passed it back to me. “What bothers you?”
I took the cup and swallowed down about half of its contents. “This place s
eems almost too good to be true.” Something about her presence finally allowed me to articulate what had been bothering me for the past few days.
“Sometimes the spirits give,” she observed sagely, “and sometimes they take away. In your case, they seem most inclined to give.”
“Why is that, I wonder?” I asked.
“You would have to ask them,” Adra replied, then leaned forward to place her elbows on the table. She rested her chin on her hands as she regarded me. “You also could have asked the people of this place.”
“I don’t trust anything that seems so easy,” I said with a shrug. “I feel like I should, but these people seem almost overly happy to see us. I didn’t expect to come in like a liberator, but it seems like that is the position I am now in.”
She cackled and reached out to pat my hand. “You are that and more, Splitter of Skulls. Others recognize this in you. Why can you not recognize it in yourself?”
“We’re orcs,” I answered. “What more answer do you need?”
Adra waved a hand dismissively. “Look around. What suffering do you see here?”
I scowled and thought about it. When I’d been to Insmere before, there had been a sense of tension in the air that I attributed simply to what and who I was. Lord Broward had been the governor assigned by the Admiralty to the town, which was almost entirely dependent upon trade with other Imperial towns for survival. The people had food, shelter, and clothing, but they were never far from starvation. Even now, most stores were tight though I had quickly opened up the rest of the island, the nobles’ retreat, to farming and hunting. Captain Sloan and Sturmgar Ironhand sailed quickly after negotiations finished, with promises to send traders with needed goods.
