by Simon Archer
“We need ye, lass,” I continued. “Do ye know the shore on the other side of the island where the fisherfolk go?”
The siren nodded and wiped at her mouth with an equally bloodstained hand. “Of course, Captain,” she said in that achingly beautiful voice.
My heart skipped a beat. “Good,” I said. “Mary and I need to get to our ship there. Can ye and Tiny meet us?”
She shook her head and raised her right hand, index finger extended skyward. “I can do better than that. We can take you.”
Both Mary and I froze for a moment before I asked, “On his back?” I pointed at the Dragon Turtle, who was nosing around in the shallows, impatiently waiting for his mistress.
Ligeia nodded and smiled, her lips pressed together.
Showing her teeth seemed to be a way she showed aggression, which wasn’t uncommon in some of the greenskin races either. We were like wolves, where bared fangs were a sign of fear or a willingness to fight. The close-lipped smiles of the siren were her way of showing affection or at least non-aggression.
Well, I could honestly say that I’d never ridden on the broad back of a sea monster in my career, and this seemed as good a time as any.
“Fine,” I said and rose to my feet.
Mary stood as well and stretched, drawing my eye to her well-shaped form. Desire for her crept up and knocked, but I held my peace. This was neither the time nor the place. When I looked away, I found the siren studying me, her head tilted slightly as if in appraisal.
“It has been a long time since any male has looked at me like that,” she said, then turned and padded off down the beach towards Tiny.
“Huh,” my witch said as she sidled up next to me. “I think she likes you, Captain.”
“What do ye think of her?” I asked, ignoring Mary’s pointed look.
She shrugged and smiled. “I think I like her. Did ye ever ask what it was that pirates took from her?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t because it hadn’t seemed important at the time. The siren glided over the sand ahead of us, and my eyes were drawn to the little differences between her and a mortal woman. Her skin seemed to shimmer in the light and stayed damp-looking, despite the time we’d spent in the air talking and dealing with the Imperial. She also seemed to have a little nub of a tail right at the base of her spine, just above a rather shapely rear. What would it be like to bed such a creature?
Maybe I’d find out.
“I would suspect a small treasure,” Mary murmured softly. “A testament to vanity or something like. Maybe a mirror, or a comb…”
“A comb,” Ligeia called back over her shoulder. “Carved of coral and decorated with pearls and abalone. It holds a piece of my song.”
“What does that mean?” I asked as Mary and I hurried to catch up.
The siren let out a soft hiss. “It means, Captain, that a part of my magic hides in the comb, and without it, I cannot use that song.”
“What song might that be?” Mary studied the other woman thoughtfully, and I suspected her question ran a bit deeper than casual interest.
Ligeia closed her eyes. “Even without it, I can lull men to sleep with my voice, which should be enough. Tiny can breathe out a fog that will hide us, even should the storm break first.” Then she opened her eyes and fixed me with her azure gaze. “Once I have my comb, I will be of much more use to you, Captain.”
I suspected that was the case. Stories tended to have supernatural creatures imbuing part or all of their power into innocuous items that were later stolen or used to hold sway over them.
“Could these pirates influence ye with this comb of yers, lass?” I asked with a frown.
The siren hissed softly and shook her head. “Not so long as ye deal squarely with me, Captain. We’ve sworn an oath, after all.”
“I believe the Captain more meant in a magical sense,” Mary added. “Sympathetic spells are part of any skilled witch’s repertoire, mine included, and if this item contains part of your power, then it has a direct link to your soul.”
That would complicate things a bit. A lot really would depend on which pirate captain had the siren’s comb, and whether or not they had a skilled enough witch in their service. I scowled and glanced over at Mary as Ligeia padded along the beach towards Tiny, the gentle waves washing up to caress her bare feet.
“Can ye protect her, Mary?”
“From being influenced by a piece of her own magic?” Mary mused. “I don’t know, Captain. That’s what gives sympathy its power, it’s nigh impossible to defend against.”
“See what ye can do, then.” I put a hand on her shoulder as we walked after the siren. “Ye be strong, Mary, and I have faith it ain’t arrogance.”
She blushed in the darkness and opened her mouth to speak, but Tiny decided to interrupt, letting out a loud bellow to greet his mistress before turning his head down and offering his nose to a gentle stroke of her hand. The great beast’s affection for the slender siren was plain. I thought at first that Ligeia might have been using magic or something to control the creature, but that wasn’t it.
Tiny simply loved her.
When Mary and I drew close, the Dragon Turtle curled his neck, the air of its vast breath pulling at our clothes and hair as he scented us. Then he cocked his head and inspected us with one massive eye before turning his attention back to Ligeia.
She let out a series of clicks and chirps, followed by a long moan that Tiny answered with a deep grunt. Ligeia laughed and turned to us.
“He likes you,” she said, “and will be happy to carry us and hunt with us, provided he continues to enjoy such treats as we enjoyed this eve.”
I nodded and grinned. “Tell him thank ye, then, and let’s be off. That storm isn’t getting any further away.”
The siren nodded and patted the leathery scales of Tiny’s neck. He grunted again and slid sideways into the lagoon until his great body was partially immersed with one clawed flipper stretched out onto the beach. She went first, walking up the Dragon Turtle’s arm as if it was a gangplank, and once she reached the edge of his shell, she clambered up as easily as scaling a rope ladder.
Mary cast a doubtful eye after the siren, then looked to me.
“Go ahead,” I told her. “I’ll catch ye if ye fall.”
She smiled crookedly. “I hope ye remember that in the future, Captain.” Then she turned and padded carefully along Tiny’s flipper, arms outstretched for balance.
What did she mean by that? My brow furrowed. Was my witch not telling me something? I followed her a few steps back, alert to the shifts in the muscles of the creature. With how still Tiny kept, it really was no worse than walking the decks on calm seas.
Mary began a careful ascent up the steeper slope of the monster’s shell, using the ridges and crevasses as toe- and fingerholds as she climbed. Once she was a good orc-height above me, I started up as well. The Dragon Turtle’s shell was rough, with barnacles, large ridges, and grooves where the plates grew together. It was easy climbing, too, at least for one accustomed to making their way through rigging.
The witch moved quickly, keeping ahead of me and actually forcing me to work to keep up. I had expected her to move slowly, but when she discovered the path was easier than expected, she’d mostly thrown caution to the wind to reach Tiny’s broad back quickly.
Once I crested the top of the Dragon Turtle’s shell, I had a better idea of the sheer scale of the thing. Tiny was as long as The Hullbreaker, and as wide as three of her side-by-side. In sheer tonnage, Tiny probably massed more than five or six frigates too. Ligeia, seated in a place where pieces of the shell created a sort of natural chair or throne at the fore end of the central ridge, waved to us, and we made our way to her as quickly as the questionable footing allowed.
“You should be able to tuck in with me,” the siren said as she patted the shell to either side of her resting place.
I grunted and settled in to her right, while Mary took the left. Ligeia slipped her arms around eac
h of us and leaned forward, tilted her head back, and began to sing.
Tiny answered with a long moan and began to lurch slowly towards the deeper part of the lagoon. Once he was no longer effectively beached, he stroked for the pass out of Blackwater Lagoon, surged through it, and carried us into open water at an almost frightening speed.
Water sprayed and frothed around the swimming Dragon Turtle, wetting us rather thoroughly as we held on to the siren and to the closest ridges of his shell. If anything, Tiny moved faster the deeper the water grew. He turned after a while to follow the shore of Old Man’s Isle around in the direction of my ship.
It wouldn’t be long before we got back, and Mary and I would make quite an entrance.
13
At Tiny’s speed, we quickly rounded the northern tip of Old Man’s Isle and turned south, still following the contours of the island as the Dragon Turtle stroked smoothly through the water. We were moving faster than The Hullbreaker moved under full sail and oar, with the wind fully at her back. I couldn’t help but grin into the wind.
“Is this as fast as he can go?” I bellowed.
Both Ligeia’s and Mary’s hair billowed back as the wind caressed it. The siren looked at me and grinned fiercely. “He’s faster underwater,” she called back. “We could show you sometime if you’d like.”
Mary’s head snapped around to study the siren, then she looked back to me. “A siren’s kiss may drown or save,” she said, her voice barely audible over the wind and water.
That was it. The sea stories always held that the kiss of a siren could either fill a man’s lungs with water, drowning him on dry land, or they could give him the ability to breathe beneath the waves. From my standpoint, there could be many, many uses for that, especially since orcs, for all their strength and toughness, found it hard to swim. Our bones were heavy and strong, and our muscles were dense and powerful. We didn’t tend to carry much body fat, either, which meant that we didn’t float very well at all. Dwarves were the only race that swam worse than orcs.
Of course, we can overcome this obstacle with practice. I could swim, and so could every greenskin on my crew.
“Ye can magic me so that I can breathe underwater? Her too?” I asked the siren.
“I can,” Ligeia nodded, “and before you ask, Captain, the gift is permanent, unless I take it away.” She flashed a grin of her shark-like teeth. “You can walk in the air, like me, and breath water as well.”
I nodded slowly.
“That would be amazing,” Mary said breathlessly.
“We’ll discuss this further, Ligeia,” I said. The Hullbreaker was in sight already and bustled with activity. They’d seen us and were preparing to defend themselves. Kargad wouldn’t take any risks with my ship. “Tell Tiny to slow down. I’d rather we not draw cannon fire before I can talk to me crew.”
“Aye!” she shouted and lifted her head to let out a deep, moaning howl. The Dragon Turtle answered with a low growl and a huff of air, and we slowed, just outside of the furthest range of my ship’s cannons.
I rose and waved both my arms over my head as faint shouts from my men echoed across the water. After a moment, a burly figure came to the railing on the side of our approach and copied my gesture, then brought both arms down and waited. We could only barely see each other, but that would be enough to communicate. I dropped my left arm but kept my right raised before clenching that hand into a fist and bringing it down to thump my chest.
“Always with the thumping,” Mary muttered, a smile on her lips.
“It’s a sign of respect, witch,” I grumbled.
She twisted a bit, looked up at me, and lightly tapped her fist between her breasts. From the look she gave me, she wasn’t mocking the gesture, so I just nodded and focused on The Hullbreaker in the distance.
Tiny slowed a bit more as we got closer. At the siren’s urging, the Dragon Turtle turned in the water and drifted sideways until his shell lightly bumped the hull.
“Slide us a gangplank!” I bellowed up at the gawking faces of my crew gathered at the rail to watch the Dragon Turtle and completely forget their bloody captain.
Kargad broke out of the spell of the siren and the enormous sea creature and started knocking heads to get the crew in order. It wasn’t long after that that a plank was lowered. Tiny’s back was almost level with the ship’s deck when he was floating free, so it was an easy walk for Mary and me. Ligeia, though, lingered behind and warily watched my men as they gawped and muttered.
“Right, ye dogs! Get yer eyes back into yer damned skulls, close yer pie-holes, and listen up!” I roared loud enough to startle the seagulls that had perched in the rigging above. They took flight with a raucous complaint while I waited for the crew to give me their attention.
It didn’t take long. As fascinated as the crew was by the siren, they were disciplined and knew enough to attend their captain when he yelled for order. I looked out at the faces of my men, loyal and hearty, human and orc and dwarf alike. Shrike, Daka, Dogar, and Jimmy Mocker all stood among the gathered crew, so they’d made it back well and good and hopefully with our supplies.
“The lass on the back o’ the Dragon Turtle there is Ligeia! She’s a siren an’ a new member o’ the crew, so ye treat her as such, or I’ll let her have her way with ye.” I grinned toothily as the silence went from respectful to shocked, and several nervous looks passed back and forth among my crew. “Her big friend is Tiny, and he can probably send any ship in the Admiral’s fleet straight to bottom without even puttin’ much muscle into it. The thing ye want to remember, though, is that they be on our side.”
I shoved some of my crew aside as I walked back to the railing and called over to the siren, “Ye’re welcome to come aboard, Ligeia.”
“I need to stay with Tiny, for now.” She shook her head, then gave the crew and me a close-lipped smile, “but thank you all for your welcome. We both look forward to joining your fight.” Her eyes met mine with an unspoken reminder of our deal.
“As ye will, lass. We’ll be gettin’ underway, as dawn’s not far off, and we want to hit the Commodore before the storm gets truly underway.
“So we’re hittin’ ‘em, Captain?” Kargad interjected.
I nodded. “Arde’s got his witches stirring up a storm that’ll scour the free towns and sink every pirate on the open sea. We’re going to put a stop to it before it happens and before the bloody admiral shows his face.”
A fierce grin spread across his face. “Aye, Captain. We’re ready for anything, so just give the word.”
“Weigh anchor and drop oars!” I bellowed. “Bord! Ready the cannons! Mary! Get yer counter-hexes ready! Ligeia! You and Tiny are gonna start this with a fog an’ a song. Do ye know the sound of a war horn?”
“I do!” the siren called back.
“Once ye’ve set things up, pull back and wait for the horn,” I explained. “Then ye both go in and do as much damage as ye can. We’re going to try to capture one of the ships before sinking the rest.”
“I really like this plan,” Kargad said from my side with a grin.
Mary hurried off while I was talking to the siren and the rest of the crew, sweeping Nagra along in her wake. Bord stumped off too, and the oarsmen followed, heading for their positions. All about the deck, the remaining crew went about preparing The Hullbreaker to sail.
Ligeia let out an eerie howl and then called out, “Have the crew plug their ears! I’d hate to lull them to sleep along with the enemy!”
Tiny dropped away from the ship and sank almost silently into the depths, carrying the siren with him. My ship rocked as he swam beneath it and headed in the direction of the harbor entrance.
I turned and made my way to the helm, Kargad at my side. It would be good to be back in action.
“Did the supplies make it?” I asked.
My first mate nodded. “Aye, Captain. We’re geared up, but I hate to think of the state of our coffers.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Not so bad
as ye’d think, but we’ve a job to do. Jetsam’s mayor helped supply us on me promise to break the blockade, and he’s promised us gold, to boot, when we succeed.”
“Let’s be done, then.” My first mate nodded. “We all could use a fight, methinks.”
“Aye,” I said, then yelled, “Weigh anchor!”
Crewman scrambled to take a place at the windlass and began cranking up the anchor. After a minute or so, the ship drifted free with the current and started a slow spin before The Hullbreaker began to get underway. Below decks, the ship’s heartbeat, the slow beat of the rowers’ drum, picked up. Sails raised and billowed as they caught the breeze. With a grin on my face, I spun the wheel to starboard, angling us along the shore so as to keep to the shallows.
“Break out the wax,” I told Kargad. “We’ll want to plug our ears as soon as we see the fog, so long as Ligeia keeps her end of the deal.”
“Aye, Cap’n. Seems like we’re playin’ the same trick twice though.” He chuckled. “Think they’ll fall for it?”
“Long as fortune favors us, aye.” It was still a dark night, despite the moon shining behind the clouds above. That would be a big advantage for us, especially if the Admiralty were removing orcs from service. What in the hells possessed them to do such a thing? Humans and elves had always held a prejudice against my kind, and we’d warred with both along with dwarves, until the current Warlord of all the Tribes, Argrad Ironfist, negotiated a truce with them.
The tenuous peace of the last few years between some of the orc tribes and the humans seemed to be falling apart. But why? Was this the emperor’s doing? He had been the one to enlist our aid as mercenaries in his war of usurpation, then brought the orcs into the empire, despite the protestations of his advisors.
Emperor Blackburn was a cagey man. I’d seen him a couple of times throughout my career, and he’d done right by us orcs, despite the prejudice of his underlings. Something wasn’t right.
Kargad left me at the helm and went below, yelling for the officer of the watch as he did. He was going to take personal responsibility for ensuring that every one of us was properly protected against the siren’s call. I was curious to hear it, but there’d be time enough for that, later. Right now, we had a ship to capture and a blockade to break.
