by Rob J. Hayes
“Careful, Stillwater,” Drake said behind flashing green eyes.
“Problem is, Drake,” Keelin continued, knowing somewhere deep down that he should stop but wanting to drive the point home and hurt someone, “everybody knows that you’re only out for yourself, that Drake Morrass never does anything that doesn’t benefit Drake Morrass.” With that Keelin turned and stormed towards the door. He heard the scrape and crash of a chair hitting the floor but ignored it, hoping he wasn’t about to get a bullet in the back from the Sarth woman in the hat. He made it outside before Drake caught up to him.
“How dare you question my motives, you pretend bloody pirate.”
They were out in the dust with the tavern and a couple of large houses nearby, the trees of the forest looming overhead, and the vista of Port Sev’relain spreading out below them. There was nobody around to witness the altercation and nobody around to stop any blood being spilled. Drake was close, staring right at Keelin, but his hands didn’t stray near the sword attached to his belt. His companion was loitering in the doorway, leaning against the frame, her hands hovering close to the pistols attached to her jerkin.
Keelin decided there was no point in backing down now. “I’ll stop questioning your motives just as soon as you tell me what they really are. You say you want my help. To do what? ’Cos it sure as shit ain’t saving folk you don’t care one drop about, Drake. What do you get out of helping these people?”
Drake looked torn between throwing a punch at Keelin and throwing two punches at him, but to the man’s credit, he kept control. “You self-righteous little shit. If I didn’t need your help I’d happily put a sword in you. Just my fucking luck, and yours as it happens, that I do need you.
“’Course my intentions ain’t wholly pure – no one’s are. Greed rules us all, mate. You think because you sail around on that ship of yours and offer – nay – urge folk to surrender so you don’t gotta fight – you think that makes you a good man? You’re a pirate. You rob people. You kill people. Or am I missing something? Do you then give all your loot away to folk more deserving and less financially acclimated?”
Drake’s accusation hit home, but Keelin wasn’t about to let that show. He kept his face stony, neutral.
“It’s all about greed, Stillwater. Whether the gain is money, power, fame, or even the freedom that being a pirate offers. Fact is, we’re all in this game because we want something for ourselves. So yeah, what I’m proposing does in fact benefit Drake fucking Morrass. Doesn’t mean I’m not also trying to save these people and the isles.”
Keelin wasn’t even sure what the man was proposing just yet, but there was something more important he needed to know first. “And just how do you benefit from your plan?”
Drake smiled, one golden tooth glinting in the fading light. “I intend…”
Boom!
Chapter 11 - The Phoenix
Yanic opened his eyes to dim afternoon sunlight and dark thunderous clouds. The world sounded muted and painful, and he was so tired. His body seemed to agree, so he closed his eyes and let sleep claim him.
Something hard hit him in the arm and he heard shouting, close and far away at the same time. He tried to roll over in his bunk, but the pain got worse so he lay back down. He coughed, and almost gagged on something bitter and metallic.
His bunk felt harder than usual, and that took some doing. A first mate might get his own cabin, but that cabin was small and his cot was packed straw, tough and lumpy. Something shook him, and the pain flashed through his body like lightning.
“Fucking shtop it,” he slurred. His voice sounded so far away, which seemed strange. With great effort he opened his eyes to see the blue sky, dim light, thunderous clouds, and the face of a pretty young man who barely looked old enough to grow hair on his stones.
It took a moment for Yanic’s mind to realise everything wasn’t right. “What’s goin’ on, Feather?” he mumbled up at the pretty young sailor.
“Ship exploded, Yan,” Feather said, his voice so distant.
“What?” Yanic sat bolt upright. The world took a turn for the worse and his vision decided it couldn’t keep up. Next thing Yanic knew, he was curled up in a ball, retching up his most recent meal, and his entire left side felt as though it were on fire.
“Yan? Yan?” Feather’s voice was starting to sound a little less muted now, but it was high pitched and urgent.
Yanic opened his eyes again to see a puddle of vomit and blood on the wooden decking. Something about that seemed more than a little worrying, but he didn’t have time to sort it out. “The Phoenix?”
“Still floating,” Feather said. “But Cold Rain is gone. Just… gone.”
Now the world was coming back into focus, Yanic could hear voices crying and shouting in panic. Boots thumping along decking. Something that sounded a lot like fire. He looked down at his left arm to find it covered in red and, by the feel of things, most of it was his.
“Bollocks. That don’t look too good.” He rolled onto his arse and realised for the first time that the thunderous black clouds were actually thunderous black smoke.
“What do we do, Yan?” Feather said, shaking him by the shoulders.
Yanic felt his eyelids growing heavy and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Get everyone back on board. Find the captain.”
“Aye,” Feather agreed, sounding a little more confidant now he had orders. “Aye. Will do. What about you?”
Yanic lowered himself down onto his back, ignoring the searing pain in his left side. “Reckon I might just have a little nap.”
A deafening thunderclap rolled over them, cutting Drake off and stunning them all. Keelin shook his head in an attempt to clear the ringing in his ears, but to no avail. Drake looked similarly bemused by the sudden noise.
“Look,” the Sarth woman in the hat said, pointing down towards the town of Sev’relain. “The bay.”
A great plume of black smoke had appeared off the shore, and it looked like there was burning debris on the water. The distant sound of a scream echoed up out of the town.
“Was that a ship?” Keelin asked, not really expecting anyone to answer.
“Magic?” Drake said.
“Worse,” she replied. “That is a black powder explosion.”
“How can you tell?” Keelin was struggling to contain the creeping sense of panic descending upon him. “And how is that worse? And how much black powder does it take to do that?” He pointed at the plume of black smoke out in the bay.
The woman didn’t appear to be listening to him. Her head was cocked towards the nearby forest, and she was muttering something to herself.
“What in the Hells is she doing now?” Keelin demanded of Drake.
There were people emerging from the nearby houses, staring towards the bay, including some of the armed guards from Loke’s personal estate. Most were wearing expressions tending towards the panic Keelin was suppressing.
“There are men moving through the forest,” the woman said eventually. “By the sound of it they’re wearing armour.”
“Sarth?” Drake said in a harsh voice little more than a whisper.
The woman shrugged. “They’re close.”
Keelin decided sometimes it was best to give in to the panic. “I have to get back to my ship.”
“Aye,” Drake agreed as he backed away from the trees. “Folk’ll be occupied with the explosion, and nobody comes into town armed anyways. This’ll be another massacre.”
One of the guards from Loke’s estate, a bald man with a perfectly groomed moustache, trotted over to them. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Sarth is attacking.” If Drake was at all surprised by events he certainly wasn't showing it.
“Shit.”
“Fair sums it up. Stillwater, you with us?”
Keelin felt someone grab hold of his arm, and he was turned to face Drake. “I need to get back to my ship,” he said.
“How’s your hold, Captain Stillwater?” Drake sai
d. “Is it empty.”
“Bits and pieces,” Keelin said, coming round a little. “Barely worth selling.”
“Dump it. Get to your ship, and take on board as many of the townsfolk as you can.”
“What?”
A man emerged from the tree line. He was wearing the blue-black uniform of a Sarth soldier with a shiny cuirass over the top, and he was carrying a shield and a longsword. He shouted something behind him when he saw the four people staring his way.
There was a loud bang, and the soldier staggered backwards and collapsed. Drake’s companion holstered one pistol and drew another.
“Get back to your ship, Stillwater,” Drake shouted. “And take as many folk as you can with you. Anyone left on this island is going to die!” With that, Drake gave Keelin a hard shove in the direction of Sev’relain. Keelin took the hint and broke into a run just as he heard more shouts from behind. He didn’t bother turning to see if anyone was following him.
By the time Keelin reached the docks it felt like half the folk of Sev’relain were at his back. He and the bald guard from Loke’s estate hadn’t been quiet about the issue of the attack, and while many folk had dismissed the crazed men running through the streets shouting bloody murder, just as many others had heeded the warning. Word of the massacre at Black Sands had left everybody on edge, and some folk, it appeared, had already packed their belongings ready for flight. Those same folk would meet a rude awakening if they tried to take any of their crap with them on Keelin’s ship.
He had, at some point during his mad run to the docks, decided Drake was right about one thing, if nothing else. The people of Sev’relain would be murdered to every man, woman, and child if they didn’t escape the island. There was simply no way any of them could stand up to a determined force of soldiers from Sarth.
As Keelin’s boots hit the wood of the pier he stopped to take in the chaos that was unfolding before him. One ship was a mess of burning debris out in the bay, and by the looks of things it had taken a pier with it. Bloodied bodies had been dragged up out of the surf and now lay upon the beach, draining red back into the lapping waves. Some looked still alive, but just as many looked just as dead. One corpse was missing both legs and an arm; the sight made him sick to his stomach.
Folk were crowding the remaining piers and shouting at the pirates manning the dinghies. Some of those shouts were pleas, some threats, some bribes, and some were simply people begging for their lives. It was hard for even the stoniest of pirate hearts not to be moved by a woman with three young daughters begging for men to ferry them to safety.
Keelin spotted a couple of dinghies in the custody of his own crew, and they didn’t appear to be letting anyone on board. They were moored dangerously close to the smouldering wreckage that had, until very recently, been a ship.
“Cap’n?” Keelin spotted the owner of the voice, and pushed through a few people to find Feather looking paler than the ghost fish that haunted the shores of Brie Isle at night. The lad was barely more than a boy, but in that moment he was looking all his years and a dozen more besides.
“Yanic sent me ta find you, Cap’n,” Feather shouted over the crowd.
“What do we do?” cried one of the folk who had followed Keelin from Sev’relain.
“We need to get on a ship,” shouted another.
“Quiet!” Keelin roared in his best captain’s voice. There were times when a bit of stern discipline was needed, and this seemed like one of them. Blind panic would likely get them nowhere but drinking seawater at this point. Some of the folk moved off to find other boats, though most stayed behind and let Keelin speak. “Where’s Yanic?”
Feather pointed towards one of the piers, but Keelin couldn’t see through the crowd of people. “He’s hurt bad, Cap’n.”
“Shit. Get to the boats, Feather. Tell the boys to start letting folk on but not so many it’ll sink ’em, and nobody that’s causing a panic. We’re taking people on board The Phoenix.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Feather shouted, and darted away. The lad always seemed to be calmer with orders.
“Captain Stillwater,” the bald guard from Loke’s estate said calmly. He was red in the cheeks from his run through Sev’relain but seemed no worse for it. “I think I can be of use to you.”
Keelin appraised the man quickly. He was tall and wiry and looked like he knew his way around a fight, but kept himself well groomed. “What’s your name?”
“Kebble Salt.”
“You know how to sail?”
“I’m a quick learner.”
“You know how to use that thing?” Keelin gestured at the rifle slung over Kebble’s shoulder.
“Better than any man alive.”
“We’ll see. Follow me and you’ll get a seat.” That prompted a chorus of similar claims from the folk surrounding them. Keelin ignored them all. He started pushing through the crowd towards his crew and his longboats.
Halfway along the pier Keelin found his first mate. Yanic left a bloody mess of a body, trampled and kicked and pushed to the side of the decking. His corpse had got tangled with one of the support posts and he lay half in the water. Keelin stopped and stared down at the thing that had been his oldest and closest friend. Yanic’s left side was riddled with wooden splinters and deep cuts, and he looked as though he was wearing more blood on the outside than in. His face had obviously been kicked by folk trying to get along the pier, and white skull was showing through the skin in more than one place.
Keelin felt the world recede around him. He stood still and silent in the chaos as people jostled against his back to get past.
Drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a slow sigh, Keelin closed his eyes. He drew in another breath.
“Anyone still between me and my boats when I turn around gets to die!” It wasn’t the most poetic of threats, but he delivered it with enough volume to drive his point home.
When he opened his eyes and turned around, he found the people on the pier had crowded to the sides to create a narrow channel down the middle of the already cramped walkway. Some folk had suffered for the threat and were now taking a dip in the warm waters of the bay. A few stragglers still loitered in the newly created path, so Kebble Salt moved along in front of Keelin to shove them out of the way. Keelin, his face a grim mask of anger, stormed along the pier to his crew and his boats.
The members of Keelin’s crew manning the nearest boat waited quietly while he leapt down from the pier. Even Smithe seemed to think better than to comment. Kebble Salt followed Keelin into the boat, bringing the complement up to sixteen. The boats could hold twenty at a squeeze, and eight of those were required on the oars. They would ferry as many of the townsfolk as they could out to The Phoenix, but there simply wasn’t enough space to save them all.
“Twenty people per boat,” Keelin said loudly to the waiting crowd. He looked back towards the town. Much of it was now on fire, and the screams of the dying made it an eerie picture. “Anyone pushing gets left behind. Anyone refusing to dump their belongings gets left behind. Anyone so much as argues with a member of my crew, they get left behind. We’ll send back as many boats as we can, but we ain’t got time to ferry you all – so any can swim, I suggest you jump in and start paddling.” He pointed towards The Phoenix. “That there is my boat and your salvation. It ain’t big enough for you all, but we’ll take on as many as we can.”
“Is it Sarth?” a woman shouted from the crowd. “Drake said they’d be coming.”
“Aye.” Keelin nodded. “It’s Sarth.” He turned to his crew in the longboat. “Push off and put your backs to it.”
As the boat pushed away from the pier, Keelin witnessed many of those gathered surge forwards towards The Phoenix’s second boat. Some of the rest took his suggestion to heart and dove into the water to swim to his ship.
“Can’t save them all. Can’t feed them all,” Smithe said as he and the other seven pirates started rowing. Keelin hated to admit it, but the man was right about that. The Phoe
nix had limited supplies, and taking on a bunch of refugees was going to drain them quickly. They’d need to find another port soon, and he doubted he’d receive a warm welcome back at Fango.
“What the fuck is happenin’, Captan?” Morley said before Keelin’s boots had even hit the deck.
Keelin leapt over the port side railing and stepped away for the others to follow him up. “Sarth is attacking…”
“Did they attack your face?” Morley interrupted.
“No. This was… uh… something else. We’re taking on people, as many as can make it. As many as we can fit. Anything not edible or sharp enough to kill a man goes over the side.”
“You want us to dump the loot?” asked one of the nearby pirates. Keelin found himself with quite an audience, and it was growing every moment as more of his crew came to find out what was happening.
“Yes. To make room for those coming aboard.”
There was a grumble from a few of those gathered, but it was Smithe who spoke up as he finished the climb. “That there’s our earnings,” the man all but spat. “Ain’t right to throw it overboard. Ain’t your choice neither.”
Keelin rounded on the man, lamenting the fact that Smithe was a couple of inches taller than him. “Long as this is my ship, it is my choice, and I just made it. Good?”
Smithe stared back, and Keelin could see true anger in the man’s eyes. “No.”
The boat below had emptied now, and pirates and townsfolk alike stood on deck watching the confrontation.
“Then it’s a good job your opinion doesn’t mean shit, Smithe,” Keelin replied in a voice as dark and dangerous as a thundercloud. “The captain of this ship just gave an order. If you don’t like it, you can always head back to Sev’relain and find yourself another boat. I don’t have time for your shit right now.”
Keelin turned to his gathered crew. “Get the ship ready to sail. Soon as the Fortune leaves, we’re following her.”
