As Felicity’s crew left the beach behind and started down the track into the center of Neos village, more villagers appeared. The same old man rocked in his chair outside the shack on the village outskirts, just like always.
Ebba waved at him, per their usual greeting. He turned away without returning the gesture and she lowered her arm. “Stubby, what’s wrong with the villagers?”
He looked away from where he muttered to her other fathers and shook his head, brows raised. “I ain’t rightly sure. But sumpin’ be amiss. Best walk on tiptoes here, lass. Ye too, Cosmo,” he said over his shoulder.
Cosmo cast a worried look Ebba’s way.
They stuck in a tight bunch all the way to the small marketplace. The knot inside her loosened a smidgen at the increased volume in the center of the village. Still, maybe a third of the usual crowd was here and only half of the stalls.
“Sumpin’ be fishy, all right,” Peg-leg muttered to Locks. “Our usual man be here, though. I say we make the trade smart-like and get back on the water.”
“Aye,” Ebba echoed with the others.
She tilted her head for Cosmo to follow and began to walk around the market stalls.
“I take it there’s something amiss?” he whispered in her ear.
“It be a whole heap quieter than normal.”
“They seem scared,” he noted.
A fish fell off a stall onto the ground. The villager hurried to pick the fish up, dusting it off and placing the fish back with the others on the table. Cosmo’s face screwed up.
“Aye,” she said, biting back a smile at his obvious disgust. “They do.” Did Neos Mountain and the fearsome creature on top of it have something to do with their subdued behavior?
“This is the first island village I’ve been to,” Cosmo said. She cast a glance at him and saw his amber eyes hardly knew where to rest.
“Ye didn’t make it to the one in Maltu?” she asked.
“No, we went straight from the navy ship to Governor Da Ville’s mansion.” He scanned the vicinity. “So each villager collects something to trade for other things they need, is that correct?”
“Aye,” she grunted, wondering if a villager would talk to her. Sometimes they offered her a smile and a couple of words.
“Then what about the tribes here? How do they factor into it?”
“What?” Ebba focused back on the young man with difficulty. “The tribes be stickin’ to themselves within the rainforest. They hardly ever trade with the villagers. More likely to raid them if they’re short on supplies.”
He adjusted his tricorn over his russet curls. “Seems odd to raid.”
She hummed. “Just their way, I be guessin’. Their nature. Kind of like most pirates in that way. Why pay for things when ye can have them free?”
“But your crew isn’t like that.”
“True,” she conceded, the pirate truth sliding easily from her lips. Cosmo didn’t have to know their crew wasn’t above stealing to fill up their hold if winning the goods honestly didn’t get enough produce to trade. “But we be di’ferent pirates to most.”
He ran out of questions for the time being, and Ebba turned her attention back on the villagers. Four children sat underneath a stall table. One of them reared up, snarling, and the other children squealed in fright. The villager minding the stall scolded them in a hushed voice and sent them scattering.
Ebba’s eyes narrowed. Was it just her, or were the villagers looking in the direction of the mountain an awful lot?
“How are these people so content?” Cosmo asked. “How do they live in these conditions and survive? Doesn’t the simplicity of their life bother them? Don’t they want to explore and see more of Exosia than this island? Are they not bothered by the limitations of spending their years in this way?”
In Ebba’s opinion, Cosmo should be a heap more worried about the bad juju here than asking questions about village life. “Sounds more like those things bother ye, prince slave. Save yer questions for Barrels.”
“But I’d like your answer, Ebba,” Cosmo said.
His soft tone caught her off-guard. Curious, she stopped and peered up into his warm amber eyes. Were they usually that warm?
He lifted a shoulder, breaking the sudden tension. “I find you insightful on these matters.”
“Ye insultin’ me?”
He rushed to explain. “I mean you see clearly on these things.”
Probably because she had a golden hoop in her ear. “Aye, well, if ye be askin’ me, I’d say the villagers be content because they have their families with them. Why would ye ever want to leave yer family?”
His face tightened, and Ebba flushed, remembering Cosmo wasn’t with his family now. “I only speak for myself, beggin’ yer pardon.”
He forced a smile. “Yes, of course. Though they could always come back to Neos after exploring, don’t you think?”
“Aye, but they don’t care what lay outside this place. This village and Neos is what they know and love. I’d never dream o’ leavin’ Felicity and my fathers to live on an island.”
Cosmo shifted his sash higher on his shoulder. “I guess. It just seems . . . restricted to me. I can’t quite understand how you would want to stay in one place your whole life.”
The low murmur of the marketplace filled the lull in their conversation, and Ebba turned to see Peg-leg shaking hands with the normal stall holder.
Her eyes came to rest on the little boy who’d scared the other children under the table. She began to edge in his direction. Maybe she could get her answers there.
Cosmo trailed in her wake.
“Ahoy.” She crouched down next to the boy. His eyes widened, and he dropped his gaze to where he drew in the dirt with a stick. “I saw ye tellin’ a story to the other kids over there.” She pointed back to the stall.
He didn’t reply.
“I was wonderin’ what yer story be about,” she said carefully. “Could ye tell it to me?”
The village boy shifted closer to her, still drawing in the dirt. He was pale for a villager, far paler than her fathers, and they were usually the lightest people here. Maybe he was a sickly lad, or mayhap both of the boys’ parents were really pale, too. Ebba’s mouth dried as something clicked into place in her mind about Cosmo’s weird behavior days prior. She glanced down at the dark-brown skin of her arm and blood pounded in her ears.
She made to stand when the boy answered in a whisper. “Mama says I can’t tell that story no more.”
“Be it about a monster?” Ebba pushed aside the shocked buzzing in her head and crouched again. “One on the mountain?”
A middle-aged woman approached and snatched up the young boy, carting him off with an angry glare at Ebba.
Cosmo helped Ebba up with a hand under her elbow, and she gave him a nonplussed look until he took his hand away.
“What was that about?” he asked.
She closed her eyes, doing her best to shove aside the startling revelation she’d just had. Swallowing, Ebba faced the center of Neos. “I’m thinkin’ Ladon has been troublin’ the villagers.”
“The lizard creature you encountered on the mountain?”
“Aye.”
They began walking back to her fathers. “You said he couldn’t shift off the spot.”
Ebba frowned. “He couldn’t. He was too weak . . . back then. But ye remember what the selkies said.”
“The wall will keep crumbling and letting more magic into the realm.” Cosmo finished with a grim set to his mouth.
Plank hurried over. “The ship is bein’ loaded now. We shouldn’t tarry here.”
“Why?” Ebba asked, rushing in his wake. “What have ye heard? Do ye think it be Ladon?”
“I ain’t sure what he’s been doin’, but sumpin’ has the villagers spooked. What ye said the other day, little nymph, about the magic growin’ stronger because Grubby can hear the selkies from further away. . . I worry ye may be right.”
“So Ladon can move off th
e mountain?” Cosmo panted behind them.
Plank didn’t answer, and she shared a wide-eyed look with the prince slave.
They regrouped with the rest of the crew down on the beach. Grubby and Peg-leg were rowing to the ship with loads of fresh produce and bringing back jars of preserves. Ebba hoped Sal hadn’t been into too many of the mangoes. Peg-leg would notice if too many jars went missing and there wasn’t enough for the trade.
The villager they’d traded with had enlisted the help of several of the young men who had dragged their flat rafts out to help shift the fresh produce. A few loads more, and the trade would be over.
Ebba glanced back at the mountain, remembering the barren clifftop and how Ladon had stamped and screeched. The screech had drawn blood from her ears the first time. The memory of the creature’s screeching roar echoed in her mind and she shuddered violently.
Cosmo’s hand clamped down on her arm. “Did you hear that?” he asked, eyes wide.
Her chest tightened. “That was real? I thought I was rememberin’ things.”
She glanced down the beach at the others and saw they’d stopped their work and had turned to the mountain in silence. A second roar bounced down the mountain, flowing in a wave to where they all stood. The villagers erupted into chaos, diving from their rafts and into the water.
Ebba blinked as they sprinted up the shore, back to the village.
The man they’d traded with was the only one to stay; he threw the remaining vegetables onto his raft and set off for Felicity double-time. Peg-leg returned, sweating profusely in the humid heat.
Ebba and Cosmo rushed to join the others.
“Was that Ladon?” Peg-leg panted.
“Aye,” Plank said. “I’ll not be forgettin’ that sound in a hurry. That be him, all right.”
“We need to leave,” Stubby said.
Her fathers began to unload the last of the preserves onto the beach at once, Barrels striding into the ocean in his buckled shoes to help.
It was as if a pistol was half-cocked and could go off at any second. The air was so heavy with tension it threatened to choke them. She couldn’t hear a single sound emanating from the village though the other villagers had sprinted off so quickly upon hearing the second roar.
Ebba squinted into the distance and saw the man was tossing his load of produce to Grubby up on the main deck of their ship.
Screams from the direction of the village cut through the air. Ebba stilled, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. Shouts of pure terror followed. And didn’t stop. Her fathers began to work frantically until Locks threw the last of the jars down on the beach.
“Everybody in,” Locks ordered.
They clambered into the boat, and Locks and Plank began to heave for the ship. The screams and pained shouts didn’t stop, and Ebba’s insides twisted at the thought of what was happening back in the village.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Cosmo asked.
“They be havin’ weapons and warriors enough amongst them, lad,” Stubby said. “If an entire village can’t be beatin’ the cause o’ those screams, we won’t be helpin’ any by returnin’, except to put our lives in danger.”
Cosmo’s eyes rested on Ebba, and he gave a curt nod.
“What do ye s’pose is happenin’?” Ebba shivered and leaned into Barrels.
They rowed alongside the man on the raft.
“Come back to the ship with ye,” Stubby called to him. “Wait there until the danger be passed.”
The man shook his head and shouted back, “My wife.” He renewed the long strokes of his pole atop his raft.
“Fool,” muttered Locks. “He’ll be no help to her dead.”
“Maybe he’d rather be dead than to be without her,” Plank answered.
A foreign leaping motion drew Ebba’s eye to the top of the sandy beach. “Hey, Stubs,” she said slowly—he had the sharpest eyes after her and Grubby, and Grubby was still on the ship. “What be that movement on the beach?”
They all spun around to see.
Sand flew up in a cloud down the beach as a rolling mass made its way to the edge of the shore. Terror choked her as a piece of the rolling mass arced high in the air.
“Snakes,” Stubby whispered, having the same realization. “Thousands o’ them.”
They slithered over each other in their desperation to get down the beach, and the result was almost like a wave in the ocean. One made of scaly bodies, fangs, and venom.
“Move it!” Barrels thumped Locks and Plank.
They heaved.
“Oi,” Stubby hollered to the village man. “Come back, man. Ye can’t go into shore.”
The man seemed to see he couldn’t either and dug his pole into the sandy bottom of the ocean floor to arrest his movement. But he’d entered the break. The waves now crashed atop his raft, pushing him toward the shore despite his frantic attempts to reverse his direction.
“No,” Ebba gasped.
The man fought to turn the raft. When that failed, he yelled, spinning away from the shore to face the ocean, digging his pole in afresh. The snakes—a multitude of bright colors—reached the shore and in an eerie synchronized movement, raised the front half of their bodies to watch the villager struggle.
“We’ve got to help him!” Ebba said, watching as the man struggled to balance and nearly tumbled into the water. He lost hold of the pole, and it floated away as he drifted closer to the beach.
The screams from the village continued, unabated.
Ebba desperately wanted to close her eyes, but shock kept them wide open as the man gave a final panicked shout before his cry turned to pain-filled shrieks. The snakes wrapped around him like a cocoon, biting in sharp, vicious stabs of their fangs. With only his head visible in the writhing mass, the man continued to scream in agony as a portion of the snakes broke away from the rest and retreated up the shore with him.
The rest of the colorful snakes remained where they were, looking out.
“Are the snakes takin’ him to Ladon?” Stubby asked.
“He’s their master, so I’d guess aye,” Plank answered, panting as he rowed.
“How are there so many more snakes now?” Ebba’s voice cracked. “And they used to stay around his neck.”
They fell into a grim silence. Ladon was stronger, that was why. Was he not strong enough to leave the mountain himself yet? Was that why he sent the snakes in his stead?
Cosmo’s eyes were still glued to the shore. “Tell me I’m crazy, but are the other snakes watching us?”
“What is Grubby wavin’ and shoutin’ about?” Peg-leg asked.
Ebba whirled. Her youngest father stood at the bulwark, waving wildly and pointing at the beach.
“Snnnaaake,” came the thin shout.
Locks snorted. “Some warnin’. Better late than never, I s’pose.”
Her gut twisted in warning. “I’m goin’ to stand and look,” Ebba alerted the others, not liking what she saw on Grubby’s face.
Careful not to rock the boat, she stood with bent knees and peered at the shoreline. The rows of snakes watching them appeared to be thinning, but oddly, Ebba couldn’t see any more leaving the beach for the rainforest.
A cold weight swept through her, and though the sun beat downward, ice filled her very boots. “Hey, Barrels?” she said. “How much do ye know about snakes?”
“Not a terrible amount, I’m afraid. Other than to avoid them.”
“Do ye know if they can swim?”
Five
The only sound was that of the waves gently lapping against the side of the boat. Even Plank and Locks stopped rowing to study the body of water between the boat and shore.
The water rippled with a growing number of white tips. Usually, Ebba would say a school of fish followed in their wake. But this was no school of fish.
Hundreds of snakes slithered across the water’s surface toward them.
“Row,” Barrels bellowed. “Row!”
Plank and Locks threw
their backs into moving the boat. Grubby was now standing on the bulwark of Felicity bobbing sixty feet away.
“Ebba-Viva, ye need to swim as fast as ye can for the ship,” Barrels instructed, gripping her elbow to help her stand.
“I ain’t leavin’ ye,” she snarled and ripped her elbow free. Never again. Not even to save her life.
“I can see them,” Cosmo said urgently.
Ebba peered over his shoulder and blanched at the throng of snakes slithering on top of the water. They were already past the break of the waves.
“Row,” urged Stubby.
Sweat poured down the faces of Locks and Plank as they heaved on the two oars, rowing as fast as they could. Felicity sat a stone’s throw away, but one look at the distance and the tumultuous pace of the snakes behind told Ebba they wouldn’t make it.
Plank had come to the same conclusion. “They nearly be upon us, lads. We ain’t makin’ it to Felicity without a fight. What’s the plan?”
No one had time to answer before the first of the snakes launched from the water. Locks lifted his oar and batted it away with a startled yell.
“Pistols,” Peg-leg ordered.
Ebba drew both her pistols alongside the others. Cosmo freed his cutlass, but he wouldn’t be able to swing the weapon without capsizing the boat. They each had two pistols with one bullet apiece. Twelve bullets against what looked like hundreds of slithering vipers.
Snakes leaped out of the water, some missing the boat completely and sailing overhead. Locks and Plank did their best to swat the snakes away. Water sprayed to Ebba’s right, and she cocked her pistol, taking aim and firing.
To her surprise, the snake’s head exploded in a bloody mess. A furious screech tumbled down the mountain toward them.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2) Page 6
