by Dan Abnett
“Where a captain should be,” Onofre said.
Sesto pushed past the man and walked down the mid-deck. The crew was busy with the sheets, hauling in teams. Whistles blew and orders to haul were barked in relay along the gangs.
A few men looked at him as he went past.
Guido was on the poop deck by the wheel. Kazuriband, the helmsman, was easing the heavy wheel by the king-spoke, and Curcozo, the master mate, stood at his captain’s side. They all gazed with some amusement at Sesto as he climbed into view.
“Master Sciortini,” Guido said, with a mocking half-bow. “How nice of you to join us.”
“I don’t believe, sir, I was offered any choice.”
Guido nodded. “True enough.”
“You’ve abandoned Luka,” Sesto said.
“More than abandoned,” Curcozo muttered, but did not finish the observation.
“My half-brother and I do not get on, Sesto. I thought it best that we broke our arrangements and went our separate ways.”
“You thought that once he’d given you a ship and a crew.”
Guido looked scornfully at Sesto. “Do you expect me to feel guilty? I’m a pirate. This is what we do.”
“And what exactly is it that we’re doing?” Sesto asked.
“We’re heading home.”
“To Sartosa?”
“No, Sesto. Not Sartosa. To your home. To Luccini.”
Sesto smiled and shook his head. “To claim the reward from my father.”
“Just so.”
“For a task you have not completed.”
Guido grinned. “The prince needn’t know that. Not until he’s paid us and we’re long gone.”
“I must be missing something,” said Sesto. “I know you need me to pull off this shameful deceit. But you must realise I’ll not support your story for a moment.”
“But of course. Unfortunately, by the time we reach Luccini, you will be very ill. So ill, you will not be able to talk. Your father will be relieved just to have you back alive. Onofre is very handy with philtres and poisons, as you found out last night. Your malady will be very convincing.”
“Luka will come after you,” Sesto said.
“No, I don’t believe he will.”
Sesto stared at Guido for a moment, then turned away and left the poop deck. Shaking and ill, he wandered the Demiurge’s upper decks for over an hour, contemplating his options. More than once he considered hurling himself into the breaking seas to rob the vile Guido of his winning card. But Sesto didn’t want to die. And, for all Guido had said, he was sure Luka would come. Not for him, but for revenge. Luka would want Guido dead for this.
Sesto decided to bide his time and see what fate brought. It would be a week at least before they reached the Tilean mainland. In that time, things might change. Sesto might even get his hands on a blade and slide it between Guido’s ribs.
He was standing at the mainhead rail beneath the cracking canvas of the foremast, gazing out into the grey chop and the rain, when he noticed a figure curled up miserably beside the bower anchor.
“Belissi?”
The old carpenter wriggled over and peered up at him. “Master Sesto, sir,” he said.
“Manann’s sake, Belissi,” Sesto said. “I thought you were Luka’s man. I never imagined that you’d throw your lot in with this gang of rogues.”
“Oh, you mistake me, sir,” Belissi said. “I am not a part of this. Not at all, as King Death is my witness. I was working on the hatch coamings until late last night, and laid myself down to sleep where I was, so that I could take up my tools again first thing. When I woke, I found we were at sea. Imagine my consternation. That bastard Curcozo found me, and he and Alberto Long were all for slicing my gizzard and tossing me over the rail, but Guido said not to. He said I could live if I swore to him and plied my trade. There’s still many fixings to be done to this old barque.”
“You poor fellow. We’re prisoners both, it seems.”
Belissi nodded. “Aye, sir, but not for long I fancy.”
Sesto realised the old carpenter was distressed, and not just because of his situation as an unwilling crewman in Guido Lightfinger’s company. He was fearful and despairing.
“What do you mean?” Sesto asked.
“I mean we have put to sea, young sir. Put to sea from the mainland and I have not made my customary offering. She will be angry for that, you see.”
“Who will?” Sesto asked, dreading the answer he knew he was about to hear.
“Mother mine,” said Belissi. “I have not made my offering to soothe her. She will be coming. Coming for me and all the souls of this doomed barque.”
Sesto went and found Handsome Onofre, and demanded a jug of rum. Onofre, faintly amused and assuming Sesto wished to drown his sorrows, produced one from the stores. Sesto returned to the mainrail head and plied the one-legged carpenter with the sweet liquor to calm his nerves.
“Can you not fashion another leg of wood now and make your offering?”
Belissi shook his head. “Too late now, sir, too late. Mother mine is quick to anger.”
They sat for an hour or so, passing the jug back and forth, though Sesto took only the smallest sips. Belissi became quite drunk, but at least he seemed to relax.
The wind took up more furiously, and the Demiurge lurched and juddered massively as she scaled the heaving waves. Sesto heard a cry.
It came from the foretop castle. The lookout there was singing loudly. “Sail! Sail at the close reach!”
There was activity on the poop deck, and orders shouted that Sesto could not hear above the buffet of the wind. He got up and looked out, but could resolve nothing in the spray and the chop. The distance was a boiling grey torrent, masked in haze.
“Here,” Belissi said, pulling himself upright and offering Sesto a small brass spyglass from his tool sack. Sesto extended the instrument and stared out into the murk.
And there it was, just above the line of the horizon. A massive black ship.
XXIII
Night settled uneasily about Aguilas town. A full day had passed since the Safire’s nocturnal departure. Putting all concerns about Luka, Guido and their bloody chase into destiny out of his mind—for he knew it was now far beyond his power to influence—Roque had settled to furious industry. Three hours of the morning he had spent in a meeting with the master shipwrights, Captain Hernan, and officers of the marquis’ court, negotiating the urgent repairs to the Rumour. The marquis declined to involve himself personally, but Hernan was not backwards in conveying his excellency’s displeasure.
“Pirates cheating pirates, back-stabbing one another. This is exactly what we expect from ungoverned scum like you,” Hernan announced. “You fight and feud, and betray each other, and behave like sewer rats. The marquis believes he should not have become involved with you, despite your letters and seals. Aguilas has provided labour and material in good faith, and now that effort is overturned. It is an offence.”
Roque had been tempted to ask the captain if he thought Luka a good swordsman, but he bit his tongue. Silvaro bested you, he wanted to say, and I am a much finer fencer than he. Shall we duel to settle this?
He forced himself to act with the diplomacy he knew Luka would have expected from him. He apologised and apologised again, reaffirming the Reivers’ single-minded intention to seek out and destroy the Butcher Ship. Eventually, Hernan was assuaged, possibly because Luka had been smart enough to leave a true-blooded, articulate Estalian like Roque behind to seek appeasement. By noon, the work to lift, pump and repair the Rumour had begun.
At dusk, Roque left the harbour. The work was to continue around the clock, the dock gangs labouring by lamplight. Roque left Benuto in charge, and walked up through the old town with Tende.
“Where are we going?” the Ebonian asked.
“For a quiet drink,” Roque replied.
They stopped at a dining house in the high old town, and shared a dish of rice and shrimp and a bottle of musket
. Around them, along the quiet narrow streets, stood the whitewashed haciendas and walled gardens of the grandees. Orange trees hung heavy with fruit and filled the air with their scent.
“I’m cursed,” Roque said after a long silence. “Reyno’s daemon touch… it is in me and won’t let me go.”
“I know,” said Tende. “I expected as much. Do you want me to kill you? I know several painless ways.”
Roque shook his head. “No, no, old friend. But I thank you for the offer. Listen to me now. The curse of the Butcher Ship is in me, irrevocably. In my blood, my dreams, my soul. I am damned. Sooner or later, it will come out and consume me.”
Tende nodded. “King Death will have a place for you at his high table, Roque.”
“Yes, I think he might,” Roque smiled. “But before that great day dawns, I yet have a connection. A daemon-link to the Butcher Ship we seek.”
Tende shrugged his massive black shoulders and sank a cup of musket. “You do, you do.”
Roque sat back and folded his arms. “Well, I could just wait for my doom to overcome me…”
“Or?”
“Or… use that link. Use my curse. If I am connected to the Butcher Ship through its infectious magick, surely I should be able to employ that fact to our benefit?”
“How do you mean?” Tende asked, guardedly.
“We need to find it. Hunt it down. When Luka returns… and I have no doubt he will return… we will have just scant weeks to locate our quarry before the season ends and the winter sets in. I want to turn the curse that is in me back on itself. I want to divine where the Butcher Ship is.”
Tende breathed out and shook his head. “You’re talking about powerful voution, the very worst black magicks. I can’t do that for you, Roque. I know that’s why you asked me here, but I simply can’t.”
“You managed it well enough on Isla Verde.”
Tende poured himself another drink. “Aye, that I did. Against my better judgement. And see how it sapped me.”
There was no mistaking the fact that Tende was now conspicuously smaller than he had been when he first beached at Isla Verde.
“I know that,” Roque said. “You mistake me. I would not ask that of you, friend. I brought you here because… I just thought… you might know a place.”
The witch dwelt in a mouldering townhouse at the west end of the bay. Her garden yard was lit by hundreds of candles, and Roque noticed the odd marks and sigils scribed onto the stones of the gate.
Glass chimes and strings of mirror beads hung from the yard’s trees, tinkling in the night air.
“Wait here,” Tende said, and wandered inside.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Roque stood by the gate and fingered the pommel of his sabre. Moths darted around the candle lights. A fox, its fur as white as arctic snow, crossed the road and glanced at Roque with mirrored eyes, before vanishing into the cricket-haunted thickets.
“She’ll see you,” Tende said. He had appeared out of nowhere.
The Ebonian led Roque into the house. The hall was lined with shelves on which animal skulls gazed blindly into the gloom. Herbs hung from the ceiling, and there was a smell of spice, unguents and incense.
Two girls, astonishingly tall and astonishingly voluptuous, stood at the end of the hallway. Both were so nearly naked that the wisps of lace that dressed them seemed like an afterthought. They both kissed Roque on the mouth and drew back the silk screen.
Tingling, his heart racing, Roque walked into the circular room beyond. The witch was waiting for him. She was surprisingly young, dark-skinned, and wore her hair gathered up in a silk scarf. She laughed as she saw Roque, and beckoned for him to sit down. Her small card table was covered in a purple cloth of silk, upon which the signs of the zodiac had been embroidered in silver thread.
Roque sat, trying to ignore the fact that the beautiful witch’s hands were old and wizened.
“Many troubles,” she said. “Ouch. So many. Dark things flow in your soul, sir. I hear them calling to me. Oh. Such evil things.”
Roque smiled, humouring her. “I don’t need the patter, dam,” he said. “Save that for the common punters who like a show.” He took a felt purse from his belt, teased out the strings and shook twenty gold doubloons onto her table.
“I’m paying well enough. Just do your craft.”
“Oh,” said the beautiful witch. “Right then, if that’s the way you like it.”
“It is. None of this atmospheric rubbish. Just plain business.”
“Show me your hand.”
Roque held out his left hand. She took it and examined it, and Roque forced himself not to flinch from the touch of her wrinkled fingers.
“What your friend told me is true. You are cursed. Gods! I feel ill just touching you. What is it you want to find?”
“The Butcher Ship. I wish to know where it is.”
“Wait, wait… ah, yes… close to here. Just up the coast, northwards. Such darkness. Such woe. I smell flowers.”
Roque started. He smelled flowers too now, the perfume invading the little room. The candle flames fluttered as if a presence was entering the chamber with them.
“Ohh,” the witch said. Then “Mhhhm,” and “Ahhhh.”
“I see him!” she said abruptly. “He has plant boxes! The names are writ on the lids in Tilean!”
“Plant boxes?” Roque asked.
“Yes, yes! Mhhh! I see a name. Salvatore… Salvadore… something like that. He is looking for something. Oh, so bright! So vivid! An orchid. The Flame of Estal! Ohhh, so bright! So—”
She took her hands away from his. “Well, I hope that helped.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes,” the witch said. “A very clean reading.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all the spirits showed me.”
“Really?”
Walking back down to the harbourside in the night air, Roque glanced across at Tende.
“You realise that cost me twenty doubloons? Twenty doubloons?”
“Money well spent.”
“Manann’s tears, that’s the last time I ask you for a favour.”
“Sail ho!” the crow yelled down.
The Safire, two days out from Aguilas now, was thumping through the heavy chop, racing like a greyhound.
“Do you see it?” Silvaro asked Silke, who was fumbling with his spyglass.
“I see a dark ship…” Silke began.
Silvaro pulled the glass out of his hands and trained it against his own eye.
“There it is. Run out the guns. Put the crew to quarters.”
“Aye, sir,” Silke said.
“Name of a god, but she’s coming on strong,” Silvaro said, still gazing. “Such a big bastard, and heading right for us.”
“The Demiurge?” Casaudor asked.
“No, not her,” Silvaro focused the glass again. “Holy saints! In the name of King Death and all who follow him, it’s the Lightning Tree.”
XXIV
In the midst of that wild, open sea, Luka Silvaro came face to face with Jeremiah Tusk for the first time in five years.
Sporting their pirate marks, the two ships—the dainty Safire and the massive brig Lightning Tree—dropped all sheets and drifted around each other as Luka went across in a longboat with Casaudor and Ymgrawl. Rowing was hard work, but the sea was too lively for the ships to come to close quarters. A Jacob’s ladder dropped to them and they clambered up the dark green hull of the Lightning Tree.
“Luka!” a voice creaked out against the wind. It was dry and reedy, but carried with great force. Tusk’s crew, savage, shabby men all, stood back and made an avenue for Luka and his companions to approach the binnacle box where Tusk himself stood.
Jeremiah Tusk was, in Luka Silvaro’s opinion, the last of the legends, a throwback to the old days of high adventure. By far the oldest pirate master still operating, Tusk had begun his career in the days when the likes of Ezra Banehand and Metto Matez were still scourging
the sea, and he seemed somehow to carry that old, bloody tradition with him. He was a pirate lord in the old sense of the phrase, and so much more than that. A traveller, and an explorer too, he had in his time been to all points of the compass, and on occasions served as a privateer for Tilean lords, Estalian marquises and even, it was said, Arabyan despots. He had opened trade routes, found new passages, and been the first man of the Old World to set foot on some alien shores.
He was also Luka’s friend. Well, perhaps friend was too strong a word. But they were bonded in blood, and had worked together many times, as comrades in arms.
“Let me look at you,” Tusk said. “Ah, the grey shows in your hair now, Luka. You’re getting long in the tooth like me. Truth is, I heard you were dead.”
“I heard much the same about you, Jeremiah. Word is, you are another mark on the tally of the Butcher Ship.”
Tusk spat on the deck to avert ill-luck. “No,” he said, “I’ve been away.”
Tusk had always seemed old to Silvaro. By his own admission, he was a good thirty years older than Luka, which made him remarkably long-lived, not just for a man pursuing such a risk-heavy career, but for any man, full stop. Facing him now, Luka realised that Tusk was at last showing the cares of his long years. A tall, slender man, he now had the hint of a stoop to his frame, and the lines of his face were deep. He wore, as ever, a long black coat, calico trousers and a shirt of white lace, and these garments seemed loose upon him, as if age was eroding him away. His long hair, back-swept, was white as snow, and fluttered in the wind. He walked with the aid of a narwhale’s spike as a cane. Where his right hand had once been there was a hefty hook of bone, the gently-curved tooth of a walrus. Many were the times Luka had seen that blunt device crack skulls in open combat. Jeremiah Tusk’s eyes were as dark and hard as anthracite, and seemed to be the only part of him that had not aged a day.
“Away?” Luka smiled. “Did you make your trip at last?”
Tusk nodded. “All the way south, around the Horn of Araby. Just as I said I would, one day.”
