by Simon Archer
Likely we’d been shorted each and every time, as the Imperials didn’t care much for privateers, and especially not greenskins.
They’d learn the error of their ways soon enough, but first, we needed to reach Jetsam and secure supplies, especially for our new witch. We needed powder and cannonballs, too, as well as food and water for a long voyage. Hells, it might even be a good idea to take on a few more able-bodied crew.
I took a deep breath of the damp, chilly air. It was almost time for my mate to give the command.
As if on cue, the quiet drumbeat belowdecks suddenly stopped. Oars splashed quietly and scraped against the hull as they withdrew into the ship. We continued drifting forward, propelled by our own momentum and the gentle current.
“Drop anchor!” I called out as I opened my eyes.
Moments later, a rattle of chains and a heavy splash answered my command. The Hullbreaker drifted a bit further, then rotated slightly and came to a halt with a creak of chains and timbers. I released the wheel and descended to the main deck to wait for Kargad to assemble the shore crew.
All the crew went about their duties quietly. They all knew the score from other sneaky raids we’d pulled. Shrike was on deck, working with a team of orcs to secure the lines holding one of the mainsails. Like them, he worked in silence and answered hand-signs appropriately.
I’d served on Admiralty ships before taking my own command and learned the hand-signs all the crew used in situations where they had to keep silent. Most pirates had their own system of signs, too, sometimes modeled on the Imperial one, but my crew used the standard. Either Shrike had been a sailor in the navy before joining with Bloody Bill, or Bill trained his crew to use the common signs.
Kargad showed up shortly, striding over to where I leaned against a barrel while I cleaned my fingernails with a long dagger. “Soon as I roust Shrike, the crew’ll be prepared. Already set some boys to making a dinghy ready.”
“Good work,” I said and nodded to where the man was working. “Shrike’s over there with the rope crew.”
My mate nodded and walked off to tap the human on the shoulder. The lanky sailor gave Kargad a curious look, then nodded when the orc pointed in my direction. I waved for them to follow and headed off to meet up with the others who were going to accompany me.
Adventure called!
6
Old Man’s Isle loomed out of the fog. Not too far from us, a short beach rose to the edge of the thick, dark forest that blanketed most of the island. We weren’t far from shore when the dinghy’s keel scraped on sand, and Daka and Dogar, orcish brothers and two of my best fighters, shipped the oars. Without any hesitation, I slipped over the boat’s edge into water barely over my knees, grabbed the prow line, and dragged the whole mess, passengers and all, further up on the shore with a mighty heave.
Daka joined me first, followed by his brother, then Shrike and Jimmy Mocker, one of the four humans now in my crew. Mary followed us all, her bare feet not sinking beneath the waves or leaving tracks in the sand as we went ashore. Was she showing off for my benefit? If so, it was a fairly subtle trick and useful to boot.
All three of us orcs were kitted out similarly, shirtless with pantaloons of various shades, thick belts, and knee-high boots. I had my great axe, Daka had a war-pick, and Dogar had a pair of heavy, short-hafted axes. All three of us carried a brace of pistols each.
After everyone grabbed their kits from the damp bottom of the dinghy, the other two orcs hauled it out of the water and shouldered it. I took the lead, and we moved through the fog towards the treeline. We’d stash the boat there and camouflage it before making our way to Jetsam.
Mary’s fog began to thin out as we moved forward, and I gave her a sidelong look.
“Commodore’s bitches are unweaving my work,” she replied to my unasked question. “If ye want me to fight it, I will, but then they’ll know something’s amiss.”
“Let it go,” I grunted. “Ain’t worth them knowin’ we’re here. Maybe they’ll blame a hag or Mother Sea if ye don’t give them somethin’ to latch on to.”
“Of course,” she said with a nod. The witch was dressed like any other sailor, save her white blouse was open almost to her navel, laces hanging loose, and my eyes dropped a bit, following the enticing path of her cleavage before I forced my gaze away. She wore loose, blue pantaloons and her feet were bare. An assortment of knives was tucked here and there on her person, and a crossbow with a case of bolts rode on her back. She’d picked it out instead of a flintlock for some witch-reason, I supposed.
“So, what’s the plan, Captain?” Jimmy asked as he sauntered up to me. He was a tall, thin man, but not so tall as or thin as the birdlike Mister Shrike. Usually, he dressed in a garish red blouse and blue breeches, but like the rest of us, he was wearing clothes of a bit more nondescript nature. In this case, a black leather vest and loose, undyed cotton trousers tucked into low, black, fold-top boots. A cutlass and dagger rode at his belt, along with a brace of flintlock pistols. Slung over his shoulder was a sturdy but well-worn musket, one of the few long arms we had aboard The Hullbreaker.
Jimmy happened to be a marksman, a former marine gone rogue.
I slung my axe onto my thick shoulder. “We head into the forest and stay together. Follow my lead, path or no, and I’ll get us to town. I know this ain’t our usual approach to Jetsam, but I’ve been this way before.”
“I as well,” Shrike spoke up. “Bill liked to use the paths over the port most times.”
“Good.” I nodded at the man. He was all in black, loose clothes and knee-boots, with only a single pistol and a pair of long knives. “Let’s go.” I turned and started away from the beach, and my crew fell in behind me.
A good bit of fog still remained, winding amongst the trees. It grew warmer as we made our way deeper into the forest. All the northern islands like this one had forests, mostly evergreens and oaks, with thick undergrowth. Old Man’s Isle was a little odd, though. It had a thicker canopy and less ground cover, creating a maze of dark paths beneath the sheltering trees. We had a good two-hours walk to the landside outskirts of Jetsam, and I expected to encounter guards, at least within the last quarter-mile or so.
“Alright, you lubbers, listen up,” I said in a low growl. “This way should be safe enough, but there might be folks from Jetsam manning the watchtowers and walking patrols. It shouldn’t be a problem since half of us are orcs and the rest don’t look like Imperials. Even still, ye need to stay sharp, quiet, and close to me.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” the orc brothers said together, followed by similar acknowledgments from the other three.
I turned and stalked off, and they followed, staying close in single file behind me as I slipped through the trees and bushes. There had to be a game trail or something nearby, the spot we’d put in at was fairly prime for shore fishing. It was close but not so close as to dissuade fishermen who might want a bit of time away from the bustle of Jetsam.
Ah, there it was! I led us toward the rough trail, and we emerged onto a narrow path leading roughly southeasterly, the direction we needed to go. I picked up the pace a little to test my newer crew members.
They did well. Shrike and Mary Night both seemed to have endurance to spare and the ability to stay quiet. A witch with woodcraft made a kind of sense, and there were many places Shrike could have picked it up. I wondered where.
About fifteen minutes or so from where I expected the town to be, a familiar tang hit my nose. I paused and gave the air a good sniff.
“Is that blood?” Mary whispered as if she could read my mind.
“Aye,” Dogar answered. “Cap’n?”
“I smell it,” I replied. “All o’ ye fan out, but not too far. Pair up, one orc, one human. Mary, yer with me.”
“Really now?” she murmured, smiling faintly.
At my command, everyone broke up into their pairs, Shrike with Daka, Jimmy with Dogar, and Mary slipping quietly along next to me. We left the path and did a quick s
earch of the nearby foliage. The coppery scent of blood guided us swiftly to a pair of hastily concealed corpses wearing the badges of Jetsam guard. Both were orcs. One had a puncture wound to the left eye from an arrow or crossbow bolt, punching clean through his thick skull, and the other had a second grin in place beneath his chin.
The other groups converged back on me as we paused to inspect our findings further. They gathered around to keep watch. My men knew their work, and the newcomer followed along. Questions would come later, but since Mary and I were already checking the corpses, there was no immediate need to speak.
“Not enough blood for them to have been killed here,” Mary observed unnecessarily as she squatted down to inspect the corpses. “Ye want me to look in their eyes, Captain?”
Skilled witches could do many fearsome things. They could change the weather to call storms and wind, hex a man with pox or ill fortune, brew up potions that could harm, heal, or alter one’s consciousness. All of these things I’d seen in action. Of course, I’d heard witches and shamans who claimed to speak with the dead, and even that they could raise them.
Old tales say that a dead person’s eyes retain the last thing they saw and that this knowledge is jealously hoarded by the gods of war, who sent out ravens to collect these last visions of the dead. Other whispered tales said that witches and necromancers both could look into the unseeing eyes and pull that image from them, stealing it before the gods could claim it.
I was learning a lot more about witches, and mine in particular, just from the casual comments and questions she made. “How long will it take ye?” I asked.
“Fresh as this pair is? Not long at all.”
“Can she really do that?” Jimmy whispered aside to Dogar.
He grunted and shrugged, but kept a close eye on the goings-on. Only Shrike didn’t seem curious.
“Go ahead, Mary,” I said with a nod. “I have my suspicions, an’ ye can confirm them or not.”
“Aye,” she said and shifted to a kneeling position, leaning over the throat-cut orc. His eyes were wide open, his face frozen in an expression of surprise and disbelief. Both of her hands ended up on the ground to either side of the corpse’s head as the witch gazed down into the dead eyes.
The rest of us exchanged looks, then I focused on her. I had a deep-seated fascination with magic, though I didn’t have the gift myself.
Mary whispered something that I couldn’t make out, even with my particularly keen ears, and it seemed for a moment that the dim light in the surrounding forest went even darker. When she raised her head, her eyes were completely black, and my heartbeat started to pound. Then she blinked and looked up at me with a grave smile and those compelling mismatched eyes.
“Four men, masked, but they looked like humans to me,” she said. “No insignias or uniforms, but their weapons were of fine quality.”
“I’ll be damned,” Shrike muttered. “Dead men do tell tales.”
Daka chuckled while I stepped forward and offered Mary a hand up. She took it, her hand small in my massive paw and chill to the touch.
“He’s not been long dead,” she warned.
“They’re likely headed for Jetsam,” I said as I voiced my suspicions. “Spies or saboteurs, most likely. Let’s pick up the pace and at least give warning, or, luck willing, overtake ‘em.”
Without waiting for an answer, I turned and started jogging through the woods towards the path we’d followed. My ears told me that the rest of my crew fell in behind me as they loosened their weapons in their sheathes.
We were almost within sight of Jetsam’s walls when we burst from the trees onto a gory scene. Six men in dark clothes, masked, stood over the bodies of about four orcish guards. Past them, six more figures emerged from the shadows beneath the trees, and more shadows moved. But for a few slight differences, they all appeared as Mary had described.
We announced our presence with a volley of pistol shots. Three or four of the dark-clad saboteurs were thrown backward by the heavy, lead balls. One kept kicking, but the others lay still. Mary didn’t even unsling her crossbow, she smiled fiercely and shut her green eye. The other one flared with blue light. What in the hells had she done?
There were maybe ten or twelve of them left. All of our opponents drew their own pistols, raised them, and almost as one, their flintlocks fell. I tensed, ready for the rain of lead that never came. Every single pistol was a flash-in-the-pan.
Mary let out a laugh that sent shivers down my spine. “They’re all yours, Captain!”
Damn, it was good to have a witch on our side. I raised my axe and roared, “Hullbreaker!”
The Imperials all froze, eyes wide as I charged, axe swinging in a great arc. The rest of the shore crew, save for the witch, followed after, all of us letting loose with our favorite war cries.
I crashed against their line, driving three of the men back with sweeps of my great axe. The brothers came in flanked by Shrike and Jimmy and laid into the enemy with an utter lack of reserve. Daka and Dogar weren’t quite berserkers, but they fought with a wild abandon that was inspiring to watch. Meanwhile, the two humans lunged and spun, parried and struck, marking some of their opponents.
I picked up a fourth combatant as he jumped up from retrieving his knife from a fallen Jetsam guard. This one made the mistake of getting within my axe’s reach, though. He lunged, and I made an aggressive parry that tore off his arm at the elbow. He fell back with a shriek, blood spurting from his stump.
His companions didn’t let me finish him off, though, as they came in to try to capitalize on my possible distraction. One took the butt of my axe to the face for his troubles, another barely dodged a strike that would have removed his head, and the third just backpedaled quickly as he fished around at his belt for something or other.
Mary danced by, gliding past the swinging blades and shouting fighters with unearthly grace. She glanced at my opponent with her glowing eye, and then was gone, moving on as she drew a long knife from her belt and closed in on one of the men engaged with Jimmy.
He had done little more than dance around and embarrass his opponents with shallow cuts from his cutlass and dirk. One day I’d get him to stop playing around, but it didn’t seem like today would be that day.
Meanwhile, my own dance partner seemed frozen in the act of reaching for his pouch, and I scowled a bit. I didn’t need the witch’s help, but I wasn’t going to complain about her making it easy to kill these men. With a casual backhand swipe of my great axe, I sent the man’s decapitated head flying thirty feet into the undergrowth before dodging a lunge from his compatriot.
Mary froze one of Jimmy’s opponents with her Evil Eye over the shoulder of his compatriot, then nicked the other man’s wrist with her knife. His body jerked, and he lunged, missing Jimmy and burying the point of his sword in his comrade’s chest. Jimmy swiftly cut the other man’s throat with a slash of his cutlass.
We’d taken down about a third of the remaining assassins at this point, and they were off-balance and trying to recover. I watched Shrike slip around one of the masked men and damn near remove his head with a scissoring cut with both knives to the fellow’s throat. More blood spilled.
That was an impressive move, but I could do better.
With another bellow, I swung my axe in an arc above my head, then quickly reversed it and brought it down on my nearest opponent. He tried to parry, a reflex, I supposed, but there isn’t much that can stop an orc-swung great axe when it’s coming for you. My swing plowed through his guard and down into the man for a killing blow.
It killed him all right, split his body from crown to belt in a shower of gore and meaty bits. My gaze turned to the last of my dance partners, and I grinned broadly.
“No quarter, lads!” I roared and charged, whirling my axe in much the same way a desert dervish whirled his swords.
The man froze in place, not like the way Mary had ensorcelled some of the other Imperials, but like a man with no idea what to do. I had no patience f
or weakness, especially not in my opponents. If I was going to throw my all into a battle, then by damn, they should return the courtesy!
I whirled to look for another target or three and was almost disappointed to see a last masked Imperial fall beneath a mighty blow of Daka’s war pick. With that triumph, we took a brief moment to unleash a cheering roar of celebration before checking for survivors and information.
Our enemy had definitely been Imperial troops, but what in the hells had they been doing here?
While I pondered that, Mary looked up from checking on the guards and called out, “This one’s alive, Captain. Pretty sure I can keep him that way, too.”
Once again, I thought, “Damn, it was nice to have a witch.” Still, though, I’d have to get her to stop interfering in other people’s fights, impressive as she was with her hexes and Evil Eye.
“Good work, Mary. See what ye can do. Everyone else, great fight! Maybe we’ll have more fun with the next batch o’ these dogs!”
7
The noise of our battle brought us company mere moments later, but this time, they weren’t enemies. More guards rushed up from the direction of Jetsam, weapons out. They were orcs or half-orcs, in mismatched but sturdy gambesons, with spears and axes, and the mark of the Jetsam guard, a small, barnacle-encrusted bit of driftwood, pinned over each man’s left breast.
“Stand down!” I called out to my crew as I turned to face the newcomers.
It was hard not to continue fighting. That’s what my instincts told me to do. I should smash these people, take their heads. Every part of me screamed for more blood… but these were, if not friends, then potential allies.
