by Simon Archer
Mary and I watched her go, then faced each other in the dim light filtering through cracks in the stone above. “Are ye ready?” I asked.
My witch nodded and reached up to pull me down for a kiss. “Aye, my Captain,” she replied softly.
Without another word, we descended. Both of us could see in the darkness, but after a bit, out of sight of the main entrance, we came across a dim, hooded lantern.
“Someone marks their way,” Mary whispered.
“Aye. Be careful, though, there might be something amiss.” I sniffed the air. Bill and his men had passed this way, but the scent was fading. “Though if we don’t hurry, we may meet them coming back.”
She let out a soft laugh. “Ambush them, then?”
“Nay,” I said with a shake of my head. “We push on.”
The way wound ever downward, growing damper by the step. Every now and then, though, a lantern burned. After the second one, Mary paused and took a longer look at it.
“This one bears a hex sign,” she noted.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing but an early warning,” she replied, her brow furrowed. “Cerridwen knows someone comes, and this tells her how many and how soon.”
“We expected them to be ready for us,” I observed as I did a quick check of the pistols and muskets I’d acquired. Two long arms and four pistols weren’t a lot, but it would give us a bit of an opening volley once battle was joined. “So long as there’s no trap, we move on.”
“Aye,” she said pensively as we started moving again, “though I don’t like this.”
“Rather be back in our bed, aye?” I teased.
“Aye,” came the quick answer. “Ye intend to break me, my Captain?”
I just chuckled. Once this was over, I had plans for both Ligeia and Mary, and I expected they’d be quite happy with them.
From there, we went on in silence, only pausing at side passages and forks to make sure we went in the right way. Our path wound ever downward, until, at last, we made our way through cold, saltwater that rose quickly until we were fully immersed. The waterway went several paces, short enough that someone could easily hold their breath to pass through if they knew to press on in the murky darkness, then finally sloped upwards to emerge into a vast, natural cavern.
Light bloomed from the far end through a tall crack in the rock wall, and the waves against the stone gave off booming echoes that thrummed through the empty spaces. Stalactites, stalagmites, and fully formed columns created the appearance of a virtual forest of stone, dotted with tide pools and debris. Here and there, a full skeleton rested, each sporting some kind of traumatic injury. Over there, the ribcage was half staved-in, and beside it lay a skull with a round hole punched into the bone over one eye.
“Are ye certain, witch, that there only be two?” Bill’s voice echoed in the chamber.
“Aye,” Cerridwen’s quieter reply came. “Two, and they’ll be on us at any moment.”
“Is everyone ready?” the pirate king asked.
“Too late, Bill,” I called as Mary and I separated, circling around to where we thought the captain and his group was. “We’re already here.”
“Damn!” he swore, still out of sight as his voice echoed off the stones. “Ye wouldn’t be willin’ to parley, would ye, Cap’n Bardak?”
Cerridwen hissed something I couldn’t hear, and several other voices joined in to make some kind of protest. I waited a moment to listen before I answered.
“I think the time for parley’s long past, Bloody Bill. Ye have too much that I mean to take, now.”
Mary caught my eye and pointed to herself, then gestured to indicate she meant to try to flank our opponents. I gave her a nod.
Laughter filled the cavern from Bloody Bill Markland. “Ye think ye hold the advantage, ye green-skinned devil!” he roared. “I've got a dozen men or more, my witch, and plenty of cover from which to introduce yer innards to daylight. I am the pirate king, Bardak Skullsplitter, and don’t ye forget that!”
“A king that runs at the first sign o’ trouble,” I taunted back. If I could get the bastard angry enough, there might be a way to settle this. It ran a high risk, but it just might work. “Ye ran from the Commodore when he caught yer Fallen Angel, an’ ye ran from me just a few days gone. Ye be Yellow Bill Markland, methinks, an’ I mean to tell the world how ye showed yer arse an’ left yer crew to swing.”
“Damn you, orc!” he yelled. I could hear Cerridwen trying to calm him down to no avail. “Come out here and fight! I’ll show ye that Bloody Bill’s no coward!”
“Are ye challenging me, Bill?” I let a hint of laughter creep into my voice. “All yer folk an’ my witch as witnesses?”
“Yes, yes!” he practically screamed. “A thousand times, yes!”
His witch swore soundly. “Damn it, Bill Markland! Are ye daft?”
“I’ll bloody well show this gods-damned orc,” his growl echoed.
There it was. The rite of challenge was something almost as sacred to pirates as the rite of parley. Well, as sacred as anything was to us. With confidence as to my immediate safety, I shouldered my axe and walked forward through the stone forest to stand in an area that had obviously been cleared.
Bill hadn’t exaggerated. A dozen of his bully boys stood spread out to either side of him, while Cerridwen was to his right and a little in front. Behind them was the last trove of the pirate king. Several chests were stacked neatly, about, along with a few sea chests, and piles of gold and silver ingots. Loose jewels were scattered on the floor, spilling from one of the chests with a broken lid, and the whole seemed to glow in the cavern’s dim light.
“Single combat it is,” I said with a decisive nod. “My terms be this: If I win, I take everything. If ye win, ye get my ships, my men, and my witch.”
“Not like ye’ll keep me,” Mary called from somewhere out in the cavern. She appeared around one of the columns and sauntered up to stand beside me. “I think I shall call this challenge witnessed.”
“I hope ye know what yer doing, Bill,” Cerridwen said as she drew herself up. “Witnessed.”
All the crewmen took a shuffling step back and bowed their heads. The Captain’s Challenge was an old ritual of the pirates and privateers, usually used to settle disputes between ships or over loot. Ships captains squared off in a no-holds-barred fight until one of them steps away the victor. Much of the time, these fights only ended at first blood or surrender.
Bill, though, would be trying to kill me.
The pair of us faced off as everyone else cleared out. They wanted no part of this.
“It’s not too late to run, Bill Markland,” I taunted as we faced off.
His face reddened. “I’ll show ye, Skullsplitter. Ye’ll be the one whose blood is spillin’ this day.”
Mary and Cerridwen called out in clear voices that echoed through the cavern, “Begin!”
Bloody Bill went immediately for his flintlocks, and so did I. He drew two and fired while I only shot one, both of us moving to dodge as the pistols spoke.
Neither of us missed, we just didn’t manage to hit what we aimed at. One pistol ball hit me in my right shoulder, and the other got my left thigh. I staggered and dropped the pistol, spun, and came around with my axe at the ready.
Bill faced me, blood streaming down the left side of his face from where my shot creased the side of his head. He grinned madly and tossed aside his pistols before he drew his paired cutlasses.
Our injuries looked bad, but they weren’t likely to slow us down, though I didn’t relish the thought of Mary having to dig out two more pistol balls. Without a moment’s hesitation, I ignored the blood and pain to let out a roar as I charged the man, my axe lifted to cleave him from crown to crotch.
He shouted in return and rushed to meet me, his blades flashing as he spun aside to slip past my swing. I dodged one blade, but the other drew a line of blood across my belly. The axe struck sparks from the stone, but I recovered quickly and swun
g a wide strike at Bill’s legs. He just barely managed to leap over the swing, and with a shout, he danced forward, his twin blades whirling madly as he came at me.
I let momentum carry me around and brought the axe up, reversed my grip, and dropped it down. My swift move knocked Bill’s cutlasses aside, and before he could press forward, I threw him back on the defensive with a hard chop. Metal clanged on metal as I kept swinging, each blow driving him back step-by-step.
Bill wasn’t going to stand for that. He feinted a step forward, then dove aside as I struck. The axe-head whistled by, just missing the man he rolled past me and came up in a crouch with a wide grin on his face.
“I haven’t enjoyed a fight like this for many a year, Captain,” he cried. His stance shifted a bit, then he lunged at me with both blades aimed at my middle.
I swept them aside with the haft of my axe but took a nick to my arm doing so. He had overextended himself with that move, and before he could recover, I released the axe with my right hand and walloped on the side of the head with my fist. Bill staggered away with a cry, his forehead busted open by my blow, and I came at him again relentlessly.
Cerridwen shouted a warning and started forward only to be intercepted by Mary, and as the witches started yelling at each other, I slammed my axe down on one of Bill’s swords, snapping it in two. For now, I had to ignore everything but the man in front of me.
Bloody Bill was dangerous, and it wasn’t like he wielded some kind of magical spear either. The man was just that good. He’d be quite an ally if I could ever turn him to my side, but that wasn’t too damn likely, especially now.
Bill rolled away, leaving his ruined sword behind, and came up still looking dazed from my punch. He kept the blade of his remaining cutlass between the two of us, though, as I circled him. My bullet wounds ached from the exertion, and it would have been easy to let my rage overtake my reason and just pound the man into a quivering mass of bloody meat and broken bones, but I didn’t want to kill him.
Maybe that wasn’t the safest decision, but I needed the pirate king to live. We were all against the Empire, after all. What did it matter if we had our disagreements as long as, in the end, Bill did more damage to our enemies than to me?
He feinted left and struck right, but my blow to the head had scrambled his wits a bit so that he telegraphed the move quite badly. I just retreated a step and let him push me back, but suddenly, Bill’s gaze sharpened and he smiled at me. The bastard had been faking!
He struck at my hands holding the axe, nicked one of my knuckles as I pulled back, then danced forward with a cross-slash and thrust. My guard was open, damn it all, so I did the only thing I could.
I took it. The slashes cut an ‘X’ in the flesh of my belly, and I turned into the thrust to let it slide along my ribs before I brought my left arm, axe in hand, down and trapped it, then twisted to rip the blade out of Bill’s grasp.
The pirate’s eyes grew wide as saucers as he realized his mistake, but I had him. I reached out like lightning to grab the front of his coat with my right hand, yanked him in close, and drove my heavy-browed forehead into his face.
William Markland’s eyes rolled back into his head as blood sprayed from his broken nose, and he dropped in his tracks. With the cutlass still stuck through me, I stood over my fallen enemy and let out a roar that shook the cavern. Then I raised my axe for the killing blow and stared pointedly at the Danaan witch.
“Give me Baz,” I commanded.
Both Cerridwen and Mary stared at me in shock, as did the dozen crewmen. Unlike the two witches, though, these stolid men of arms began to back away from me.
I roared again and shifted my grip to prepare to bring the axe down. That snapped the spell. Bill’s witch produced a pouch on a leather thong and held it out to me in a trembling hand. I lowered my axe lowered as I took it.
“All of ye be gone,” I told her. “We are done here.”
“Aye,” Cerridwen knelt down to see to her man. “That we are.”
A subdued party of pirates gathered their fallen captain, and probably a few pockets full of loose treasure, and made their way back towards the winding ascent.
38
“Are you alright, my Captain?” Ligeia called out through the crack leading to the sea. “Do you need aid?”
I chuckled and then winced. Mary was gingerly inspecting the injuries Bill had inflicted on me. They were painful and bloody but got nothing vital, and the fact that I was sitting on a chest full of booty was plenty of consolation. The pistol balls, though, still needed to come out.
“We’re fine,” my witch called out. “You missed all the fun.”
The siren gasped as she slipped into view from the water flooded at the base of the crack and rushed over to join Mary in doting over my wounds. I sighed, then winced and resolved not to move too much until the wounds were treated.
Mary shared a quick rundown of the challenge and subsequent fight with Ligeia as she probed my injuries with gentle fingers.
“I've got an idea,” the siren suggested. “I could sing our Captain to sleep, that you may treat him with more ease.”
Before Mary could answer, I spoke up. “The Captain is quite fond of this idea. Carry it out, my loves.”
They both laughed, and Mary reached up and stuck her fingers in her ears as Ligeia knelt at my feet. She reached out to place her hands on my thighs and then began to sing.
The siren’s voice was painfully beautiful, and it made my heart ache to hear it. She sang of love and loss, of beauty and terror, and this song was for me and me alone. It was all I could do to listen as the power of her voice drew me in, wrapped me up, then pulled me down to drown in the cool, peaceful darkness.
I woke up in the captain’s cabin of The Wasp with a rather wrung-out witch perched in a chair beside my bed. Nothing hurt. My wounds were all cleanly bandaged with neat wrappings that smelled like clove and cinnamon and some other, more earthy scents. Mary’s eyes were closed, but they blinked open the moment I stirred and shifted in the bed.
“How did ye get me back here?” was the first question out of my mouth. I’d spent little time in the sloop’s cabin during our pursuit of Bloody Bill, so it was quite unfamiliar. The furniture was all nicely made from some dark-stained wood, but the walls sported no personalization. I could make it home if I needed to, but first, I’d need to replace the too-short bed I lay on. There was a slight twinge in my shoulder and side as I squirmed to a sitting position.
Mary helped as best she could before she replied. “We’ll start with the point where Ligeia had Tiny break down the wall so we could row a dinghy in to fetch you.”
I closed my eyes. Of course, the siren had the Dragon Turtle break his way into the cavern. It was a lot easier than carting me all the way up to the surface through the caves and whatever traps or ambushes Cerridwen might have laid for us. It pleased me to no end to hear that Ligeia had done this.
“The pouch I got from Cerridwen?”
“Back in Adra’s hands,” Mary said. “She was quite pleased, joined the crew on the spot, then worked with me to get these poultices and bandages on your gigantic arse. Also, before you ask, the hold is loaded with all the booty we pulled out of that cave.”
“We’re off to a good godsdamned start, then,” I said as a smile crossed my lips. “What about Ligeia?”
“Off with Tiny. She wanted to make sure the way was clear back to the rest of the ships.” A smirk teased at her lips. “It’s just you and me, my Captain.”
With my injuries treated and the sleep I’d gotten with Ligeia’s aid, I was feeling much, much better. I took Mary’s teasing smirk as an invitation, and she didn’t protest. We weren’t as vigorous this time as we had been before, but I felt like there was a little something more. Even if we hadn’t confessed any stronger feelings, our actions reflected a new depth.
Not that I wouldn’t be happy to make the little witch scream.
Later, we emerged from my cabin into a cool, clear night w
ith the stars sparkling in the sky above. The moon itself was nothing but a sliver that shone a pale light down on us.
Shrike was on watch at the helm and threw me a salute without calling too much attention to the fact that I was out and about. I returned it gratefully. Tonight was for resting, and we’d be off with the dawn. I’d prefer we saved any celebration until we were reunited with the rest of the ships.
I took my place at the helm a bit past first light, and The Wasp set off. The trip back to where The Hullbreaker and Sirensong were holed up for repairs took a little less than two days at a much less breakneck pace than when we’d set off after Bloody Bill. Of The Witch’s Promise and the elven warship, we saw no sign. In fact, we might as well had been alone at sea, save for the dark line of Milnest off to the north.
Once back with the rest of the crew, we were hailed as conquering heroes. The lion’s share of the treasure was loaded aboard my flagship. I’d have to get used to thinking in those terms since I was off to the start of a small fleet.
The repairs had been completed far faster than Bord anticipated, owing to Mary’s enchantment on the hull and his own skill. The first order of business was to have my witches and the odd shaman work that same magic on all the ships. I had no issue with spirits and hexes, nor, truly, with necromancy, so long as it was on my side and not my enemy’s.
A couple of nights after our return, we had all gone ashore on the island with a few kegs of rum and a handful of wild pigs to roast. Bonfires roared away on the beach, and I sat on a creaking crate not far back from one of them. With me was Mary, Shrike, Kargad, and Ligeia. Adra was off telling fortunes or something, while Tiny wallowed in the shallows and grunted at anyone who drew near.
“So, Cap’n,” Kargad broached the subject on everyone’s minds, “what do we do now?”
“Way I see it,” I replied, “we’ve got options. We can roam these seas for a bit an’ waylay an elven trader or three to fill our coffers, we can go back through the straits, or maybe we could even sail south past the tip o’ this island and seek our fortunes in the archipelago.”
