by Simon Archer
“Ye ain’t Imperial, are ye?” I asked.
“I surrender,” she said flatly as she shook her head. Then, she put her hands up and showed them to me, palms open. She knew the words to say, but unfortunately for her, she wasn’t enough of a student of pirate laws to realize that I had the option of accepting the surrender or not.
You see, if I accepted her surrender, I’d be honor-bound to treat her well and not interrogate her. I wanted to know why in the hell these people kept attacking me, especially when they were obviously not Imperials. So, I just slashed one hand through the air, to everyone’s surprise.
“No surrender,” I grunted. “Unless ye tell me what I want to know.”
The woman’s eyes went wide, and I returned her gaze with a flat stare. My companions exchanged glances while I continued. “Someone be payin’ ye to stand in my way. This be the third time that hired swords have attacked us, an’ I want to know why.” I shifted my grip on the axe and stepped forward.
“I could sing it out of her,” Ligeia suggested softly, and the woman’s head snapped around to stare fearfully at the siren.
“Or I could hex her,” Mary opined. “Bind her will and set her to obey you, Captain.”
“No,” the captive gasped.
We were still in the middle of one of Tarrant’s cobblestone streets, bodies and blood tossed around in the wake of our fight. Nervous eyes peeked from windows and doorways. One of the mercenary guard companies would investigate soon enough, but for now, we had time. Tabitha held her flintlock on the cloaked woman, her ears pinned back and her tail poofed out to nearly three times its normal diameter.
Ember drifted among the corpses, quickly rifling through their pockets and pouches like the pirate-witch she was. Mary and Ligeia loomed around the captive as well, knives, claws, and teeth bared.
“Then tell me what ye be after,” I growled.
“The treasure of The Golden Bull!” the woman exclaimed. “The Black Mirror, the Skull of Kurle, and anything else you have. You have no right to these things and no will to use them. The master would have them along with your head.”
I spat. “So ye come at me with nothing capable of challenging me and hoped that providence allowed ye to prevail? Ye cannot even wield magic, lass.”
Her eyes lifted, and she grinned at me as the whites of her eyes began to fill with blood. “How do you know that this was anything more than a distraction?” With that pronouncement, she simply keeled over, blood running from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. A hacking gasp was her last breath.
If this was the distraction, then…
“To the ship!” I snapped as I lit into a run.
Mary and Ligeia followed immediately, with Tabitha Binx and her witch Ember close on our heels. With me in the lead, we pounded through the streets, shoved through citizens, and bowled over a surprised unit of guardsmen as we raced to The Hullbreaker. Ahead, at the docks, smoke rose over the tops of the warehouses and the forest of masts, and gunshots rang out.
The pier at which my ship was docked looked like a war zone. Jimmy and Jenny, along with the remaining crew, held the ship against an organized assault by at least one and possibly more of the mercenary troops that served as guardsmen for Tarrant. The gangplank was up, and fading fires burned on the deck.
Fortunately, most of the dead seemed to be our enemy, and they had taken cover behind crates and barrels scattered along the length of the dock. Rather than immediately charging, I crouched behind cover of my own, and the girls joined me without question.
“Adra be helping,” I told them quietly. I’d noticed a barrier of wind between the ship and the shore, and the fire on the deck was nearly suffocated. Additionally, another robed figure was sprawled among the dead on the pier.
Surprisingly, the mercenaries continued the assault, though it was down to sporadic exchanges of musket and pistol shots. I closed my eyes for a moment. We needed to get underway. Tarrant’s harbor was deep and didn’t require a favorable tide for shipping. Where was Bord, though?
“Damn it all,” I grumbled. The dwarf and his crew would be right in the thick of things, which meant either they were in trouble or the old cannonmaster had gotten distracted at the forges. My coin was on the latter.
“Tabitha, would ye an’ Ember go fetch our cannonmaster from the forges whilst Mary an’ Ligeia help me clear the way to my ship?” I asked.
“O’ course, Cap’n,” Tabitha purred. “With pleasure.” She motioned to her witch, and the pair of them faded back and vanished into the alleys.
I glanced at my witch and my siren. “No special plan, aye. We just hit them from behind an’ scatter them. Ready?”
Mary just nodded, but Ligeia asked, “Why should I not just sing to them?”
I reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Because we’ve no way to warn the ship as yet, an’ I’d rather not have to wake them.”
“Oh,” she said and nodded. “I understand. I am ready.”
I pulled out the helmet I’d picked up at the blacksmith’s and slipped it over my head. A grin pulled at my lips.
“What the hell is that?” Mary asked suddenly.
“A helmet,” I replied.
“I can bloody well see that. It is... something.” She eyed me up and down. “Fierce, but I rather like seeing your face.”
Well, at least she mostly liked it.
Mary gave me a playful wink, drew her knives, and the three of us charged the rear of the assembled mercenaries.
We hit them like a thunderbolt. I swept two men aside and sent them, broken and bleeding, to tumble off the dock and splash into the oily water. Mary darted past me and dropped another fellow, opening his throat and damn near removing his head with a scissoring blow of her knives.
Ligeia moved up on the witch’s flank, swept her claws across a man’s chest, lifted him from his feet, and hurled him down the dock to crash amongst his comrades, taking several of them from their feet.
One of the men shouted, “Ware the rear!” and half the mercenaries turned to meet us. At the speed of our rush, they had no time to bring their firearms to bear, and we were quickly locked in more close combat.
A fellow came at me with a cutlass, but I slid aside, the blade scraping along my new mail before I knocked his head clean off with my axe. Once again, the design of the axe proved its worth. The blade held a sharper edge, too.
I had no complaints.
Another man attacked me with a boarding axe, followed by two of his comrades charged in as well, only for all of them to fall under my axe. Once more, when I took down one set of assailants, Mary and Ligeia advanced past to take down the next set. Slowly, we made our bloody advance down the pier towards my ship.
More gunshots from the ship downed a couple of the attackers, then an older, wiry man with a short beard stood up with his hands in the air.
“Truce, Captain,” he called out. “We surrender.”
“Fine,” I growled. “Take yer livin’ an’ yer dead an’ get off this dock. Once my crew is back, we sail. If ye give us any more trouble, I’ll make bloody sure that I revisit it upon ye ‘til I grow bored o’ the screamin’. Ye savvy?”
“Aye, captain,” the man replied. “I savvy very well.”
“Good.”
The three of us stood aside and watched as the mercenaries gathered their survivors and their casualties and retreated from the dock, leaving a crowd of bystanders and gawkers gathered a healthy distance away. Daka and Dogar slid out the gangplank, and Jimmy Mocker was there to meet us when we boarded.
“Welcome back, Cap’n. Seems we had a bit of an excitin’ time while ye were gone,” he said with a broad grin.
“So it seems,” I grumbled.
Someone wanted the artifacts from The Golden Bull, and I wasn’t about to let them go. We’d sail as soon as Bord and his crew, Tabitha, and Ember returned, and I’d keep watch until then.
9
A day out of Tarrant, with The Hullbreaker fully resupplied, we
rode a witchwind northward, and I took the opportunity to corner Tabitha Binx with a question that had burned in my mind since the confession of the strange cloaked woman. There was only one skull among the artifacts.
“What do ye know of the Skull of Kurle, lass?” I asked quietly.
“‘Tis a name I’ve heard,” she prevaricated, ears saddled.
I lifted one eyebrow and waited.
“Ye ain’t going to let me out o’ this, are ye?” She asked after a long silence.
“Nay, lass,” I replied. “Ye promised to tell me true why ye fell under the spell o’ that thing down in The Golden Bull’s hold.”
Tabitha let out a soft hiss and drifted over to lean on my desk. I walked around to have a seat in my heavy, oversized chair. She kept her back to me, arms crossed, tail and head down.
“Kurle was an ancestor o’ mine,” she said at last. “Somethin’ like a great-grandfather a dozen times over an’ a legend among the Ailur. He wasn’t anythin’ like a king or nothing, just a scholar. He pioneered one o’ our traditions o’ magic, an’ taught us the Airipur Ma’irr.”
“What in the hell be that?” I asked.
“The business with our skulls that ye’ve heard about,” she said as she twisted around to look at me. “In most cases, ‘tis no more than a celebration of the person’s life, a memorial, but sometimes, it is more.”
I looked up at the black-furred Ailur and waited expectantly. There was only so much more it could be, and I had my guess about the truth. Adra and I had both sensed a sleeping spirit in the scrimshawed skull, after all.
Tabitha sighed and closed her eyes. “Sometimes, it can be used to trap and hold the soul of the dead, but in Kurle’s case, it was willing. According to the tales, he remained after he died, serving as an advisor to our kings and their sorcerers. His skull disappeared before my parents were even born.”
“Reckon it ended up in Imperial hands,” I observed. “At least, ‘til we found it.”
“Aye.” She reached up and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “An’ I can’t be close to it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“He wants me, Cap’n,” she replied. “I’ve his blood, an’ he can live again through me.”
“So, we throw it into the deeps and be done with it,” I growled. “I’m of a mind to do the same with that damned mirror, too. Too many people want those things for me to be happy about keepin’ them on my ship.”
“Nay, Cap’n,” Tabitha purred softly. “This thing be of value, an’ if ye can settle ‘em, they’ll serve.”
I scowled and steepled my fingers as I studied her. “Ye know a bit more than ye’ve let on, do ye?”
She held up her right hand, thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “A little, Cap’n, but only legends an’ stories.”
“Artifacts an’ hoodoo items ain’t exactly somethin’ I studied up much,” I confessed to her, “an’ tales o’ such things never really reached me ‘til recently. Tell me what ye know, lass.”
“Ha.” She laughed and shook her head. “Tales an’ stories are stock in trade for many o’ my folk, an’ I ain’t so different.”
With that, she took a deep breath and continued, “Long ago, when the elves first learned their old magics and set to exploring the world beyond their lands, they came across evidence o’ somethin’ older even than them. Ruins an’ artifacts were tucked into dark, out o’ the way places, guarded by strange creatures an’ fearsome traps. But these early explorers, they pushed on, finally reachin’ a temple or vault or some-such. This thing, though, was still bein’ used by somebody.”
Tabitha pushed off from leaning on my desk and started to pace back and forth in front of me. “Not human, not elf, an’ maybe not even alive, the denizens o’ this place fought tooth an’ nail against the elves, but ye know how the Milnians be when they set their minds to somethin’. They killed every last bloody one o’ the ghouls… or maybe they didn’t, since the corpse eaters still haunt us in the dark places.”
She met my gaze and flashed me a weak grin before continuing. “Now, the tale goes on to say that the elves went to the top o’ the temple and, in a shuttered chamber, found a sheet o’ volcanic glass, obsidian, that had been shaped and polished into a great mirror. It was magic, too. The first one that touched it vanished without a trace. After that, though, they managed to talk to it.”
I nodded slowly. The thing had talked to me, and I’d felt the power in it. “The elves took it, didn’t they?”
“Not accordin’ to this tale, Cap’n.” Tabitha shook her head. “They left it there, sealed the temple, an’ withdrew back to their own lands, leavin’ it be.”
“Somethin’ that not even elves wanted to deal with.” I scratched my beard. “Where’d ye hear this tale, lass?”
“My grandma,” she replied. “She loved to tell us kittens tales o’ her travels an’ such. Ghost stories to send us mewing off to hide, too. Though her plan might’ve backfired with me. I wanted to see all the things that she had.”
“Yer gran’ma was a pirate, aye?” I said.
“An explorer,” Tabith answered with a broad grin. “So, ye want a tale o’ the skull, now?”
“Ye ain’t right convinced me to keep the mirror, ye know,” I grumbled. “Bloody thing sounds unsafe, even for me. These artifacts are too old an’ too damned weird. Give me a good axe an’ a flintlock or three.”
“An’ the wind and water?” she asked pointedly.
I sighed. “Aye. Spirits I can understand. Dark magic, sorcery, an’ demons not so much.”
“Maybe ye should talk to Rhianne, Cap’n,” Tabitha suggested. “She might know a bit more o’ that mirror an’ maybe some o’ the other treasure. For my part, I’ll tell ye all I know o’ the skull, an’ maybe ye might want to wake it an’ have a chat. Ol’ Kurle might be able to help ye.”
“Without trying to steal yer body?” I asked.
She smirked faintly. “Ye already own me, body an’ soul, Cap’n, an’ I’d not change that. I’ll keep my distance from that particular relic, at least ‘til ye say it be safe.”
“Probably best,” I observed and leaned back in my chair, the wood creaking under my weight. “I feel like I’m wasting space on things that ain’t going to help me take this fight to Layne, an’ that is just goin’ to bring more trouble down on my head.”
“Look on the bright side, Cap’n,” Tabitha said. “Ye ain’t going to be spoilin’ for a fight anytime soon.”
I sighed. She was right, of course. As long as these mysterious groups wanted to fight over the magical items in my hold, I could certainly keep my violent tendencies satisfied.
Someone tapped on the door, and I yelled, “Enter!”
“This a private palaver,” Mary asked, poking her head in, “or can anyone join?”
Tabitha laughed and looked at me as I just waved my hand to beckon my witch in. She sauntered in, hips swaying, with a playful look in her eyes.
“So, what are the pair of you talking about that’s kept your clothes on, I wonder?”
“Ye just have the one thing on yer mind, don’t ye, Mary Night?” I asked with a laugh.
She shrugged and sat down on the foot of my bed. Our bed, really. “I need some time away from Rhianne and the lab,” Mary said, reaching up and massaging her temples. “It’s gotten bloody crowded with her, Ember, and Adra all needing space for their own preparations.”
“If ye need yer space, I can arrange it.” I rested my hands on the desk and drummed my fingers on the cluttered top.
Mary shook her head. “Not really, my Captain,” she told me. “I just need to get used to the tight quarters for a time.”
“It won’t be forever,” Tabitha tossed in. “Only ‘til this quest be done.”
“That is why I can be patient.” My witch looked up and around the room. “So, what were the two of you discussing?”
“The mirror,” I answered, “and the skull.”
“Rhianne told me something of the mir
ror,” Mary mused, then reached up and scratched her head, ruffling her thick mane of dark hair.
“I figured she might know a bit,” Tabitha observed, crossing her arms under her breasts as she leaned against my desk.
“What did she tell ye?” I asked.
“Layne’s witches know that it does,” she replied. “What it is. ‘Twas Lack who told the Admiral and set him on the course to retrieve it. That dark man is who gave told him how to empower The Pale Horse, too.”
“What do ye mean by that?” I demanded. As much as I’d seen of the sorcerer Lack, it was probably something horrible, even by orcish standards.
“Through sacrifice and other rituals, Layne means to bring his ship to life,” Mary said.
We were silent for a long moment, then Tabitha exclaimed, “He can fuckin’ do that!?”
“Aye,” Mary replied with a nod. “Though she told me that he needs the mirror for it. Something to do with turning it into the ship’s heart.”
The sheer spiritual and magical power required by such a monumental undertaking boggled the mind. I’d seen the power that Adra could command, and what I could do wasn’t far behind. The witches were nothing to sneeze at, either, and all of them had only grown stronger while I’d known them.
“Without the mirror, then, that damned ship can’t sail?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Mary answered with a shrug. “It could be that the Admiral has a backup plan, should this effort fail. Rhianne didn’t know.”
“Did she say why he needed ye?” I focused my gaze on her, as did Tabitha.
Mary looked down at her hands. “Aye,” she said simply.
“Do we need to drag it out o’ ye, lass?” Tabitha echoed my own thought a moment before I could say it.
I just nodded and kept my eyes on my witch as she sniffed, wiped a sleeve across her face, and looked up at the both of us. “As a sacrifice to the mirror. My death would bridge the worlds and allow the power within the Black Mirror to enter this world, under Layne’s control, and animate The Pale Horse.”
“Ye do know that I won’t be lettin’ him do that, aye?” I said firmly as I stood and walked over to the bed to sit down beside her.
