Black Guild

by J. P. Ashman

  ***

  Spyde gazed up at the oak beams and various sizes, shapes and coloured bells hanging there. He marvelled at the designs, never imagining bells could come in such variety. The war galley had a small bell, but nothing like these, although there were plenty lining the walls akin to the one on the ship. The bells Spyde studied above were huge. He swore there was one as large as the weaver chamber he grew up in, larger even. His thoughts were broken by a clawed jab to the ribs.

  ‘Pay attention,’ Charlzberg said. A willowy figure of a woman glided down the centre of the bell foundry, all smiles and waves. Charlzberg returned the smiles tenfold.

  ‘My dear, my dear,’ Charlzberg said, moving to take the woman’s hand. ‘You grace us with your presence.’

  ‘It is you, Admiral, that graces me,’ she said, bowing and kissing the stained wig Charlzberg revealed by removing his ridiculous hat.

  ‘It’s been too long,’ Charlzberg said, whilst the woman guided him to a desk supported by two silvery bells. Spyde followed a pace behind.

  ‘What can I do for you, Admiral?’ the woman purred. Spyde cringed.

  ‘My fleet is at a stage where we require a second cannon,’ Charlzberg announced, much to the surprise of Spyde, who gaped at the words.

  And where will it go? Spyde thought, eyes flicking between the human and goblin before him. And why? We’ve never fired the first one, for Squall’s sake.

  The woman’s nose twitched as she sat back in the lavish chair she’d dropped into.

  Charlzberg took the seat opposite.

  ‘And here I was, Admiral, thinking you were here to finish paying for the first one?’ she said, lips retreating to a thin line after the words.

  A pouch of coins landed heavily on the desk before her. The thin line on her face curled up at one side, her nose twitching once again.

  ‘Excellent,’ she said, and the purse was gone before the two goblins saw her move.

  ‘It’s all there,’ Charlzberg ensured, ‘plus more, as a down payment for the second cannon.’

  ‘I am sure it is.’ The woman leaned forward. ‘And again, I am pleased you came to us and not the island’s new cannon foundry. Too many people forget us after the creation of that place.’

  ‘Of course,’ Charlzberg agreed, coming forward to meet the woman’s hands at the centre of the desk, standing on the chair to do so. ‘But I remember. I remember when you created them before the market demanded it and before they were tried and trusted by humans and the like,’ he went on. ‘Before the dwarves muscled in with their ancient plans and wares.’

  She smiled, nose twitching repeatedly, evidence of the tension regarding the latter.

  They’re not tried and trusted though, are they? Spyde thought, exasperated. We’ve not yet tested our first and there are hardly any others on the seas. The Three may line their tower walls with them, and a small number of their personal ships, but other than that, who uses them apart from the seldom-seen dwarves? Altoln and Sirreta certainly don’t, nor does Eatri or Orismar. We don’t yet know the risks of these explosive horizontal bells we’re to drag about behind us. At least the dwarves have made and used them for centuries. The only consolation is that this foundry uses dwarven plans, likely stolen, as far as I’ve heard.

  ‘Would it be the same cannon as before, that you desire?’ the woman asked, squeezing the admiral’s hands. Charlzberg hesitated at that, chewed his bottom lip.

  ‘The cost?’ she asked, nose twitching again. He nodded. ‘Do not worry, Admiral, I think I have something that might interest you. And if you like it, I am confident you will be back for more. It is, perhaps, more suited to the ship you command…’

  Charlzberg’s face darkened. ‘Ships. I command ships.’

  ‘Of course you do, Admiral, but your flagship, the galley… well, the cannon I talk of will suit it much better than a replication of your first purchase.’

  Charlzberg was nodding before she finished.

  ‘Tell me of it?’ He leaned in all the more, rising to the tips of his boots.

  Spyde actually liked what she went on to describe, not to mention the affordability of it.

  That was, until Charlzberg ordered two.

  Chapter 23 – Compact fists

  Skirting around the crowd, for fear of being trampled, Spyde led Charlzberg on a roundabout route back to the ship; the route avoided where Spyde knew the children to be, children who’d barged into Charlzberg hours before.

  ‘Why don’t I go and hunt next time, Admiral?’ Spyde offered for the umpteenth time, whilst looking over his shoulder. ‘It’d free Bosun up, you know, to be your bodyguard.’

  ‘Ha!’ Charlzberg scratched under his hat and wig, flat teeth bared in what could only be described as amusement.

  ‘What?’ Spyde said, a little too quickly. ‘Was it something I said, Admiral?’

  A ginger cat walked out into the road, sat, and proceeded to clean between its legs. Charlzberg hissed and changed direction. Spyde followed, doing his best to overtake the overly dressed goblin before they ended up in the wrong part of town.

  All we need now is to run into Hillside gangers, Spyde thought, a shiver running through him.

  ‘You don’t have the skills to hunt, Spyde, we’ve been through this before.’

  Green brow creased. ‘I catch half the food whilst at sea?’

  ‘Yes, in your web, but that’s different. Where would you, would we, be if I hadn’t constructed that web for you, eh?’

  Pretty sure I made the net, after you insisted I did so and decided the sail was of no use. ‘Of course, Admiral. We’d all be dead in the water for sure.’

  ‘Well then.’ Charlzberg grinned all the more and headed off again in a random direction, Spyde following. ‘It takes a certain kind of hunter to track and kill our prey, Spyde.’

  Cats? You mean enticing them with the offer of a scratch behind the ear before wringing their necks? ‘I suppose it does, Admiral, aye.’

  Charlzberg halted and Spyde collided with him. ‘Where are we?’ he said, looking up the white walls either side, to the blue tiles above. ‘It all looks the same.’

  Spyde silently agreed and looked for a landmark. ‘I don’t recognise where we’ve ended up.’

  ‘My point exactly, Spyde…’ Charlzberg’s voice trailed off into the low keening that Spyde knew would build into a full-blown tantrum.

  Squall drown me… ‘You led us down here, Admiral,’ Spyde dared point out. The keening grew. ‘But as your navigator, I’m sure I can retrace our steps and get us back to the galley before dark.’ The keening dropped away.

  ‘Lead on,’ Charlzberg ordered, removing his hat, turning it and placing it back on the right way around. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have followed this hat’s northern peak, never leads me right. If I saw the swindler who sold me this, I’d beat him with my knife.’

  Spyde set off with Charlzberg close behind.

  ‘You’re not mistaking the hat for a compass are you, Admiral?’

  A pause.

  ‘Admiral?’ Spyde said, turning about. He groaned and rubbed at his face when he saw what Charlzberg was doing; the hat sank rather than span in the barrel of water at the side of the street.

  The tantrum that followed was of a scale Spyde had never before witnessed.

  Amazed they made it through the night, whilst hunkered down beneath a cart, Spyde breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the netted mast of the war galley ahead. Gulls laughing all about them, Spyde turned to see Charlzberg waving his cutlass at the birds, hissing and spitting all the while.

  ‘They mock us, Spyde!’ Charlzberg shrieked, jumping in the fresh morning air in an impossible attempt to slash a flying herring gull. The large bird looked down at the ridiculous sight and laughed all the more; the resulting splatter sent a white-faced Charlzberg into yet another screeching tantrum. Iron clattered across cobbles and Charlzberg dropped to the floor, folded his arms and legs and panted through his rage.

  Somebody slay me, Spyde thou
ght, picking up the cutlass before walking to Charlzberg and sitting down beside him. He sheathed the weapon at Charlzberg’s side, pulled out a rotten rag and wiped the bird muck from Charlzberg’s face, like a mother would a child.

  ‘The ship’s only over there, Admiral. Shall we not move on?’

  ‘I want a flintlock pistol. Like the dwarves have. I could shoot the squawking shits. Bam! Bam! Bam bam bam! They’d be feathers and fluff which is all good stuff.’

  ‘Not sure you’d lift one,’ Spyde said before realising it. Charlzberg spun on him.

  ‘And why not?’ Charlzberg unfolded his arms and kissed his sleeved biceps, despite their unimpressive girth.

  ‘Oh, pistol?’ Spyde widened his eyes in mock surprise. ‘Apologies, Admiral, I thought you meant a dwarven musket. Of course you’d lift a pistol.’

  Charlzberg frowned and leaned in, uncomfortably close. ‘What’s a musket?’

  I slipped up there, Spyde thought before answering.

  ‘It’s like a pistol, apparently, only longer, like a windlass crossbow or some such dwarven thing. I’ve never actually seen one, truth be told.’

  Black eyes widened.

  Oh shit, what have I done…?

  ‘I want one,’ Charlzberg said, brown teeth bared in a wide smile.

  ‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘I want one and if I don’t get one I’m going to raze this island to the ground!’

  Can you raze an island to the ground… when it is the ground? Spyde prodded his cracked lips as he thought about it.

  ‘I’m pretty sure, Admiral,’ he said eventually, ‘that The Three will have something to say about you destroying their island.’ Hopefully that will put you off whatever ridiculous idea you’re poorly plotting.

  ‘The Three with The Three!’

  Spyde screwed his face up at that. Eh? he thought, before shaking his head and resigning himself to the fact that it was Charlzberg he was talking to and little would make sense.

  ‘I want what I want, Spyde, and the whole of Brisance won’t stop me from gaining my trophies!’

  Spyde pressed his face into his grubby hands and sighed hard, despite the likely consequences. Trophies? What the gods is he on about now? ‘Absolutely, Admiral,’ Spyde said through his hands. Gulls laughed, but no response came from Charlzberg. Looking through widening fingers, Spyde saw nothing but cobbles besides him. ‘Admiral?’

  ‘Come, Spyde, we haven’t all day,’ Charlzberg said from a way off. Spyde looked up and saw the gaudily dressed goblin approach a group of children, all pointing and laughing at the ridiculous sight.

  ‘Why do I bother,’ Spyde muttered. He spat on the ground, climbed to his feet and ran for the group of laughing kids, who’d created a circle around Charlzberg; something within the circle started to yap like a lapdog.

  Here we go again… ‘Admiral, no!’ They’re too much for you, you fool.

  The yapping transformed into a keening screech before Spyde could reach the group.

  Compact fists came in hard and fast, connecting painfully with skin covered bone and linen covered flesh. Feet followed, both leather shod and bare, the former leaving lasting throbs that caused the victim to suck in one lungful of salt tinged air after another.

  A familiar voice shouted and cursed, drawing closer at first, before fading in a different direction. Other sounds filled the void the retreating voice left. It all came so vividly, as did the ear-rushing thump of his pulse; cart wheels on cobbles, a mule laughing, gulls laughing… children laughing. Every bastard was laughing.

  Charlzberg screeched, again, before gnashing his teeth; several left his mouth for good in a numbing blow that came from one of the leather shod feet.

  Wrapping aching arms around his bald head, he rolled around, trying to avoid the blows that continued to fall upon his pain wracked head, face and body. He tried to block out the sound of laughter, the flashes of his own wig and hat upon children’s heads – a hat he’d had to dunk Spyde to retrieve the night before. His tongue found new holes, poked at them as the tangy taste of blood assaulted the slug-like muscle. Another thump, to the back of the head, and one of the new sharp edges in Charlzberg’s mouth sliced through his dehydrated tongue. Fresh blood. Fresh pain. A full-on scream that the attacking children surely envied.

  More screams and shouts followed, but not from Charlzberg. Children’s screams and nearby adults’ outrage. Curses and grunts, barks of anger and yelps of pain. Leather and skin on cobbles, scuffing, shuffling and scuffling away from Charlzberg’s sensitive, torn ears.

  The flickering light between his clawless fingers darkened to near black. Those fingers parted, tentatively, revealing a hard-faced man staring back.

  Charlzberg kicked his painful legs and propelled himself backwards across the cobbles, his stone scraping heels bereft of the boots he’d thought he still wore.

  Blood left cracked green lips and spattered the cobbles to Charlzberg’s side, decorating the grey with a red that verged on black. Looking up to the broad-chested man stood over him, Charlzberg bared broken teeth and hissed, before holding out a bloody hand so the man could pull him to his grazed feet.

  I thought I was to die, Charlzberg thought, jumping despite himself as a gull laughed from overhead. His vision spun as he looked about the quayside, at the faces staring back; some angry, most amused. Charlzberg hissed some more, spat blood and phlegm some more and stomped towards his ship, Bosun in tow. The stomping turned to a tender walk and a barked decline of offered help.

  I am an Admiral. I can walk on my shitting own. I am not a kid and I am not a kid’s toy, any bloody more!

  Men and women parted as Bosun snarled at the lot. Even a couple of indentured goblins sniggered and moved at the last minute as the balled, bruised and largely naked admiral walked past them. His eyes lowered now, his gaze fixed on the shifting pattern of stones underfoot. Humans and gulls laughing at him was one thing, but his own kind?

  I suffered enough at the hands of bastard men and boys to know their like, to know their strengths and tortures. But my own kind? My own bastard kind are no better than me. Less than me, all of them, for they weren’t raised in the noble houses of men, in the keep of a lord…

  ‘I bloody was!’ Charlzberg shouted, turning on the chained goblins, now behind him. His fists were clenched so tight his claws would have dug into his palms had they not been removed by his former master’s farrier.

  ‘Come on, Admiral,’ Bosun said, encouraging Charlzberg to move on. ‘They’re not worth it.’

  Head back down, largely to hide the glistening of his black eyes, Charlzberg linked the fingers of his hands behind his neck, pulled his skinless elbows together in front of him and stomped once more, ignoring, for the first time in his awful life, the pain that came with it.

  I am a sailor now, a commander, an Admiral of a bloody fleet. I lead goblins, hobyahs and men. Men! I am fearsome; no longer a child’s pet; no longer a noble boy’s toy. I will take no more…

  Walking up the gangplank to his flagship, Charlzberg noticed the lack of eye contact he received from his crew. Even the hobyahs looked anywhere but, which was saying something, since they usually gazed at him hungrily. Stopping to look about his ship, Charlzberg’s head raised, as did his pride.

  My ship, he thought. My fleet and my crew.

  Pain forgotten for the moment, he bared his broken teeth once more. He dropped his arms to his sides and he turned to look back at the men and women and children of the quayside, all of whom were back to their tasks and chores.

  ‘The gulls can laugh,’ he said, quietly. ‘That damned mule, too. I care not now. I know what I want. I know what I need and I know who I need to emulate to do it.’

  Bosun pulled up the gangplank, stowed it away and stood beside the bleeding goblin.

  ‘Orders, Admiral?’ he said, looking down on the sorry state.

  ‘Mannino.’ Charlzberg’s single whispered word was lost on all but Bosun, before he crossed to and crawled under his aw
ning.

  ‘What did he say?’ Spyde asked, coming over from the main mast where he’d been hiding.

  ‘Didn’t hear him,’ Bosun surely lied.

  ‘Looked like you did,’ Spyde stared up at the man, ‘judging by the look that flashed across your flat face.’

  Bosun grunted at that and ruffled the black cap on Spyde’s head, much to Spyde’s annoyance.

  Turning to walk away, Bosun mumbled something under his breath, something that made him smile, briefly; something Spyde could have sworn sounded like the name of a renowned captain he and Charlzberg had seen only yesterday.

  Chapter 24 – Special Delivery

  ‘Where’s Bosun?’ Spyde asked from the centre of his web, high above the deck of the galley.

  The Ptarmigan twins shrugged and continued to roll their dice.

  ‘I saw him leave in the night,’ Tull said. ‘He was wearing his hood.’

  Spyde frowned and picked his left ear. ‘What hood?’

  ‘The black one,’ Tull said, the early morning breeze catching him and turning him on the rope. ‘A thin thing. Don’t see the point of it really. Ain’t gonna keep the night’s chill off his ears. He were wearing a cloak, too.’

  Spyde pursed his lips and looked out onto the quayside. The first of the traders were setting up stalls, the last of the sailors returning, staggering or swaying to their ships.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ Spyde asked, eyes on the dull, pre-dawn scene before him.

  ‘He didn’t say,’ Tull said. ‘And I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Fat lot of use you are.’

  ‘How about I quit wriggling when needed and we’ll see how quickly the hobyahs break chains and climb that net of yours for a snack, eh?’

  Spyde looked to the oar benches below. Several hungry eyes looked back up.

  ‘I’d feel better if Bosun were back on board,’ Spyde admitted. He was quiet all day yesterday, after the incident with the children. There’s something up with him, I know that much, and I’d rather him here where I can keep an eye on him.