The two Henchmen spoke at the same time. “Nay, Captain.”
Each man had a sword strapped to his back. Around their waists were assortments of pouches, purses, small daggers, and knives. The looked like homeless soldiers. Suddenly, Abraham recalled both of their names: Apollo and Prospero. The noble names fit the soggy, bearded faces like lipstick on a pig. He shook his head and walked to the back row.
A wave crashed over the starboard side of the craft, soaking every boot above the toes. The Red Tunics and pirates stood firm.
Abraham marched by each and every one of them. They were a motley group, tall and short, long haired, short haired, men and women. They wore swords and hatchets fit for a hero of a hermit’s village. The best thing they had going on for themselves were the red tunics they wore like a badge of honor. He looked a young woman dead in the eye. Her unkempt hair hung over her pie-shaped freckled face. She had big dimples in her cheeks.
“Do you know why your tunic’s red?” he shouted above the winds.
“Aye, Captain. To hide my blood from my enemies!” she brazenly shouted back.
“No.” He touched her chest. “It’s to make you easier to see than me!”
The row of Henchmen chuckled in the wind.
“Stop laughing,” he ordered. “One of you… One of us, perhaps two, is a traitor. I aim to find out who it is and make an example of them.” He studied the face of every man and woman in the ranks, hoping he’d pick up on something.
The hardened company didn’t bat an eye. His efforts were looking like a waste of time. In front of the group, as time passed, he started to feel silly. He needed to make an impression on them. He needed to shake them up. He drew his sword. “I know who it is. With my sword, I’ll kill who it is unless I get a confession.”
Heads turned side to side. Some daring looks were cast toward Abraham.
He walked behind the retainers and, one by one, laid his sword on their shoulders. “Duck. Duck. Duck. Duck.” At that moment in time, Abraham couldn’t explain himself. He was caught up in it. Like a superhero whose identity transformed the moment he donned a costume or screamed “Thundercats” or “Shazam,” he was in it. “Duck. Duck. Duck.”
It’s not real. It’s a game. Or a figment of my imagination. Just kill one of them. See what happens. After all, you are a pirate.
He stood behind Apollo with his sword pressed against the man’s back. “Tell me, Apollo, did you free the frights?”
“No, Captain,” the man said fearlessly.
“Do you know who did?”
“No, Captain.”
“You know what, Apollo? I think you are lying. And what’s the penalty for lying?”
“Dying, Captain,” Apollo replied.
With a dark glimmer in his eye, Abraham said, “That’s right. Apollo never lies to the Captain.”
“Gurk!”
Abraham twisted around. One of the Red Tunics standing behind him had the front end of a harpoon sticking out of his chest. A sinister shriek-cackle from the depths of hell erupted from behind the dying man.
The retainer crumpled onto the deck. Behind him, a thin-lipped, red-eyed witch had a wooden smile on her face. “Ship sail. Ship wreck. Ship burn above the deck,” she said.
Abraham buried his sword hilt-deep in the witch’s chest.
Her eyelids fluttered, and she repeated the same words again: “Ship sail. Ship wreck. Ship burn above the deck!” Her pink-red eyes locked on Abraham’s. In a dying gesture, she reached for his face and said, “Kingsland is doomed, otherworlder. You cannot save it! The king is d—”
Crack! Bearclaw split the witch’s head with his axe. Ripping it out of her skull, he said, “You can’t let them talk so much.” He pointed upward.
The rain stopped. The wind stopped blowing.
Abraham lifted his gaze. The top of the ship’s center mast was burning like a torch.
28
Like a giant’s match, the main mast burned. The flickering flames jumped onto the sails. The fire wasn’t normal, as men would know it. The flames were a mix of blue, green, and red that crackled and hissed with a life of their own.
“There, Captain!” Bearclaw pointed at the mast.
Halfway up, the last of the frights clung to the wood. Vinelike tendrils jutted out of her body, making for additional appendages. Her hands and feet became sharp wooden claws. The flames in her eyes were the same as the burning mast’s.
“Get the crossbows!” Bearclaw yelled.
“Red Tunics! Get the lifeboat in the water before this ship turns to a pillar of fire!” Abraham ordered.
The lifeboat sat in the middle of the main deck. The retainers scrambled into action.
“Where’s my crossbow?” Abraham shouted.
“Coming!” Sticks said. She darted away and disappeared belowdecks.
Above, with a radiant pink glowing in her eyes, the fright chanted. The fires spread. The rain-soaked ship sails began to smoke. The flames ate the fabric.
Flatfooted, Abraham gaped at the bizarre occurrence. The bony witch had created a catastrophe. Sticks reappeared and put his crossbow in his hands. He took aim at the hag on the center mast and fired.
The bolt zipped through the air right on target. The hag slipped around the mast like a scurrying insect, and the bolt buried itself in the large post.
“Bring her down! I want her alive!”
Bearclaw and Tark shot bolts from their crossbows. Both of them missed and started reloading.
“She is quick!” Bearclaw said.
The flames consumed everything they touched.
The Red Tunics started to lower the lifeboat into the water.
Abraham loaded another bolt into his crossbow. Eyeing the hag, he moved underneath her and aimed. He squeezed the trigger, and the bolt launched straight and true. The hag slipped around the post again, and the bolt hit the wood with another thunk.
“Stand still, you freaky cockroach!”
Bearclaw and Tark shot again and missed. They reloaded. So did Abraham.
Apollo and Prospero climbed up the ratlines toward the fright. Three retainers followed them up the ropes, making a line that trailed behind them. The passed spears up to the surly Henchmen. Prospero stabbed the witch in the leg, and she howled like a banshee.
“She bleeds! She’ll die!” Prospero roared. Off-balance and clinging to the ropes, he poked at the hag, who nestled on the other side of the post. She had nowhere to go with the flames roaring several feet above her head and working their way down.
“Bearclaw! Tark! I’ll shoot first, forcing her left or right. You have to nail her after that,” Abraham said.
They nodded.
He locked his eyes on the hag latched to the center mast. She might dodge one bolt, but she couldn’t avoid three of them. They created a half circle around the mast. Abraham stood in the middle, took aim, and fired. The fright scuttled left.
Bearclaw fired, and the bolt sailed true, hitting her right through the chest. She flung her arms outward. Tark slid around the pole and fired. His dead-on shot ripped through her skull, passing through one side and out of the other. She cackled maniacally. In a single bound, the witch woman leapt like a spider from the main mast back to the mizzenmast.
Abraham rushed toward the mizzen and bounded up the steps. By the time he got there, Sticks, Dominga, and Cudgel had climbed the mast using pairs of heavy gloves. They engaged the fright. The witch’s tendrils coiled around their arms and legs. Sticks had a vinelike tendril around her neck. With one hand, the fierce woman clung to the witch’s hair. With her other hand, she stabbed with a dagger.
With Sticks, Dominga, and Cudgel collapsing in on her, she could not withstand the brutal assault. The Henchmen, using small knives and daggers, chopped the hag away from the mast. The witch tumbled through the air and hit the planks, unmoving. The bold Henchmen climbed down with clawed animal skins on their hands, covering their fingers.
“Nice gloves,” Abraham said.
The
Henchmen huddled over the dead witch. The magic flames extinguished, but the damage was done. The tops of the masts were gone. All the sails on the main mast had been either chewed up by the flames or fully consumed.
Sticks cleaned her dagger off on the dead witch’s clothing. She sheathed it and said, “The king won’t like this. He wanted them alive.”
“At least we have the bodies,” Abraham said.
“They’ll rot before we make it to Kingsland. No one will recognize what is left. The frights soil the earth from where they came,” she replied.
“Toss them overboard, then,” he said.
“We’ll handle it, Captain,” Cudgel said. He and Dominga hauled the body down the stairs and tossed it into the sea.
Abraham found himself alone on the sterncastle deck with Sticks. “Seeing you climb up that pole and taking it to the witch was incredible. This is one brave crew.”
“Bravery won’t do us any good now,” she said. “Our mission has failed, and we drift further out to sea.”
29
The Sea Talon dropped anchor. At least for the time being, they weren’t going anywhere. Abraham shouldn’t have any sea monsters to worry about, either. He looked over the bow. The Red Tunics had the lifeboat in the water, ready to go. The shoreline was so far away he could barely see it. The sudden storm had taken them farther out than they were. He had decisions to make.
What in the heck do I know about sailing, anyway?
The center mast was toast. The sails on the other two masts were burned.
“What do you think, Horace?” he asked the meaty brute standing to his left.
Sticks stood to his right, watching the retainers climb back onto the main deck.
“The lifeboat will get us back to shore in a couple of trips. But the sails will function once we sew them up and catch wind again. It will be slower going, but it will do.”
“Great. We’re sitting ducks in the meantime.”
“Pardon, sir?” Horace said.
“Nothing.” Abraham changed course. “Is Vern still secured?”
“Aye, and whining like a hound. Permission to gag him.”
“No. Whiny or not, I’m not so sure that he is to blame for all of this. But someone is, and they are still on this ship, aside from the Red Tunics that died. Take a head count. I want to make sure we aren’t missing anyone else. Including me.”
“Aye.” Horace lumbered away.
With her elbows resting on the rails of the bow and her eyes cast toward the sea, Sticks asked, “Were you going to kill Apollo?”
“I don’t know. I felt that was what my old self would have done. Am I right?”
“You’ve killed Henchmen and retainers before, so it was a good acting job. I was convinced you would go through with it.”
“Well, don’t expect mercy from me all of the time. I have a feeling I’ll do things that are unpredictable.”
“You’re doing a fine job keeping the men on their toes. That’s what matters most. Keep taking command. You have a knack for it.”
That was easy for her to say. As for him, he didn’t have a clue if what he was doing was right or wrong. He just made the best decision he could think of at the time. With no one else taking charge, he didn’t have a choice. His fingers drummed on the ship’s railing. He had a half smile on his face, remembering when he’d played Dungeons & Dragons. He and his friends confronted a hill giant. They all had different ideas on how to kill it. They emptied the toolbox, trying to bring the ten-foot brute down. Joe wanted to keep the giant alive so he could enslave it. Troy’s goal was to decapitate it and mount the head on his war wagon. Tiffany ended up levitating the giant while Arley shot lightning bolts at it.
While all of that was going on, Alvin and Laid sneaked into the giant’s lair and stole the treasure and hid it from the other party members. They were all so mad at one another that no one spoke or played again for months. In a way, what was going on now wasn’t much different. Abraham made the best decisions he could, given the situation. He couldn’t have cared less about treasure. He only wanted to wake up in his bed or truck cab again.
The black brothers, Tark and Cudgel, approached. With sweat dripping down his bald head, Cudgel said, “Captain, I think we have enough material to make sails. The boat might move at a crawl, but it will move.”
“How long?” he asked.
“At least a day, maybe sooner.”
“Make it so,” he said. Oh great, now who am I? Captain Picard? His thoughts drifted to the other task at hand. Who let the frights free? Who are the traitors among us? All the Henchmen fought their guts out against the sea frights. They risked their necks to save the ship. He felt guilty for considering killing Apollo. Of course, the man couldn’t be a real person anyway. It wasn’t possible, so it didn’t make any difference. But the old warrior had proved that his salt was as worthy as any. He fought without fear and with fire in his eyes.
Horace came back. “Ten Henchmen. One captain. Seventeen retainers. Twenty-eight. We started with thirty-one. Three retainers slain since we took the ship.”
Abraham’s past knowledge blossomed. He remembered traveling with a much larger group, as Sticks had suggested earlier in their travels. They’d had twenty Henchmen, forty retainers, and himself. Sixty was a large group. Now, they were less than half of that.
I can’t believe we’ve lost so many. No wonder they don’t care for me. I’m getting them all killed.
“That will be all, Horace. See to it that all our efforts are on the sails. I want to be sailing in the morning.”
Horace departed.
For the rest of the day, the Henchmen and retainers went about their business as though they’d sailed a thousand times before. Abraham followed along with just about everything that everyone did. The sun set. A fog rolled in, and the sea vanished underneath the floating cloud.
He slept a lonely, restless sleep, tossing and turning between the dusk and the dawn. Sticks didn’t stay with him. He wanted her there but didn’t. Perhaps that was what made him so restless—either that or the horror he’d experienced the last few days: pirates, witches, and blood. The gruesome scenes appeared in his dreams, twisting them into nightmares. He wrestled internally with the events that he’d never seen or experienced before, things he’d done with the body that was not his own. Who was the man in Ruger Slade’s body before him? He had a corrupted mind and dangerous intellect. That was one cruel, self-serving bastard. I don’t want to become that guy. I’ve got to be me.
Abraham crawled out of bed and swung his feet to the floor. He rubbed his puffy eyes and yawned. He looked out the back window. The fog had lifted, and the sun shone on the sea. It shone on the sea and something else—ships full of stalwart, sullen-eyed, bare-chested men.
30
Abraham jumped into his gear. He headed topside and met up with Horace, Bearclaw, and Sticks on the top deck. Two small galleys were there, with long oars in the water and no sails, at the fore and aft of the ship.
Buckling on his sword belt, he asked, “Who are they?”
“Buccaneers,” Horace said.
“Well, if they are Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they shouldn’t be a problem.” He smiled.
No one else did. The rest of the company crowded the fore and aft of the ship from the lower decks.
“I take it that these buccaneers aren’t here to help?”
“No, those oarsmen are the same as the vicious looters in Flamebeard’s gang but worse,” Horace said.
Abraham made his way to the back rail. The galley there had thirty strapping men sitting at the oars. Their skin was bronzed by long hours in the sun. They had red-and-white war paint all over their bodies and not a friendly face among them. At the fore of the ship, only one man stood. He had a long red-and-black braided ponytail that started on the top of his head and ran down the length of his back. The rest of his head was bald. He wasn’t a big man but was built more like a middleweight boxer, and he carried a cutlass on his hip. No war paint
was on him.
Abraham put his hands on the rail and asked, “Can I help you?”
“I am Totem, chosen leader of the Sea Savages,” said the man with the ponytail. He gestured at the Sea Talon with his hand and spoke slowly, like an Indian from poorly done cowboy movies. “You sail a fine ship. It is a gift to us, from the Elders. We will take this gift. You will be our prisoners. You will be our feast.” His smile showed a mouth full of teeth filed down to a point. He clapped his hands, and all the men behind the oars bared their teeth. “Give yourself up. We are hungry.”
Abraham lifted a finger. “Uh, could you hold on a second, eh, Totem? Oh, and by the way, I am… Ruger. I’ll be right back.” He turned to his company. “Are they buccaneers or sea savages?”
“The same. We call them buccaneers, and they call themselves sea savages,” Horace said. “They aren’t very big. We can take them.”
“No, but there are sixty of them, and I don’t want to lose any more men,” he said.
With a wary look, Bearclaw said, “That never stopped you before, Captain.”
Whereas the Henchmen hadn’t said much of anything at all before, now they’d become bolder—either that, or they loosened up.
Not sure which, Abraham said, “Sounds like that tongue of yours has a mind of its own. I’d hate to think that with your own mind, you questioned your captain.”
Bearclaw’s chin sank into his neck. “No, sir.”
“Go to my quarters and fetch me one of Flamebeard’s chests.”
“Aye, Captain.” Horace hustled away. He returned in a minute with a heavy wooden chest.
“Follow me,” Abraham said. He moved to the back of the boat, looked down at the buccaneer, and said, “Totem, I think you have it all wrong. You see, I’ve spoken with the Elders, and they told me that you are supposed to pick up your gift.” He looked at Horace. “Open the chest and show it to him.”
“But Captain—”
Abraham gave him a hard look.
“Aye.” Horace showed Totem the chest.
The King's Henchmen: The Henchmen Chronicles - Book 1 Page 11
