by Rob J. Hayes
Keelin shuffled sideways to look around the man and squinted towards his ship. There were skiffs going to and fro and cargo being unloaded even as they spoke.
“I remember,” Keelin said as his memory agreed to function. He waved a finger at the big man. “You were captaining a little sloop last time. Congratulations on trading up.”
Captain Khan didn’t look impressed.
“Ya used ta pilot a sloop, ya say?” Poole said, stepping between them. Khan looked at Poole as if noticing him for the first time. He gave a curt nod.
“An’ ya took that ship” – Poole pointed at the four-masted galleon – “with a sloop?”
Again the giant nodded.
“Do ya mind if I have a quiet word with me fellow captain here?” Poole put an arm around Keelin’s shoulders and steered him away. If Keelin had been a little less drunk he might have found it insulting.
After they’d walked far enough up the beach to be out of earshot, Poole stopped. “Ya got any idea what ship that is, mate?” He nodded behind them.
Keelin looked over his shoulder and squinted towards Khan’s new vessel. “Can’t really make it out from here,” he slurred.
“Oh, well let me be ya eyes for a moment. Her name is the North Gale. Not terribly awe inspirin’, I know.”
“Never heard of it,” Keelin said after a moment.
“An’ ne’er should ya have, mate. A new name is a new name, but it’s a fair bit harder to hide a ship’s scars, an’ those scars tell ya more about the ship’s history than the fuckin’ log books do.”
Keelin was barely listening. He wanted nothing more than to slop back down into his chair at the tavern and nap the heat of the day away. A large part of him rebelled at the very idea of such sloth, but that voice was getting quieter and quieter with each passing day.
“I know that ship better than most, because I’ve been chased by it enough times. That there is the Victorious.”
The name instantly gave Keelin a measure of sobriety, and he took a second squinting look at the ship. There weren’t many pirates in the isles who could say they hadn’t been chased by the Victorious, and even fewer could say they hadn’t heard of her. She was the pride and flagship of the Five Kingdoms navy.
“Aye,” Poole continued, “captained by Bartimus Peel, the most decorated an’ most feared captain our enemy has at their command. Bastard has brought over twenty captains, our fuckin’ brethren, ta his own personal brand of bloody justice. He’s been the scourge of the isles since before I learned ta tie a knot, an’ that there is his ship.”
“And Captain Khan took it with a little sloop.”
Poole nodded. “Reckon that might be one bastard we want on the team, an’ I reckon Drake’d agree.”
Keelin let out a weary sigh. He wasn’t built for this sort of work. His brand of leadership came with people following him because he was their captain, not because he was courting their favour. He sorely wished Drake had stayed behind and sent The Phoenix out instead.
“What should I do?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Poole hissed. “Drake left you in charge for some reason, so get down there an’ do whatever it takes ta get that big, glorious bastard on board.”
With Poole at his back, Keelin staggered back down the beach, the giant Captain Khan watching him. He tried desperately to think of something to say to convince the man to fight with them. It was hard not to notice Khan’s scars, mainly because he had so many of them. He wore no shirt, and the only thing covering his torso was the leather strap that fixed his sword to his back. His skin was so bronzed it was almost brown, and his scars stood out, criss-crossing both his belly and chest. Keelin also couldn’t help but notice the man appeared to be missing his left nipple.
“So…” Keelin began, fully intending to launch into a grand tour of the town, complete with a stop at the tavern.
“Fight me, Captain Stillwater,” the giant said without a hint of humour.
“I’d really rather not.” Keelin laughed. “Look, we need folk like you, Captain. Drake is…”
“Drake?” Khan narrowed his already beady eyes. “Morrass is here?”
“Not right now, no. See, he and I built this town.”
“I hear he destroyed Sev’relain.”
Keelin shook his head and immediately regretted it, as his hangover chose that exact moment to make his brain feel too large for his skull.
“I was there, and honestly there was no man who did more to save Sev’relain than Drake Morrass. We took the survivors and brought them here. We took the damned ship that burned Sev’relain, and…”
“That ship?” Khan pointed towards the bones of the Man of War. Much of the warship had been scavenged and picked over, but it was still just about possible to see how big the beast had been.
“Aye.”
“An impressive catch.” Khan glanced back at his own ship. “I would have kept her.”
Keelin laughed. “Why? Is your own ship not big enough?”
Khan’s head snapped back around so fast his beard took a moment to catch up. His eyes were dark and angry. “Are you again mocking the size of my ship, Stillwater?”
Poole stepped between the two of them, with plenty of open, calming hand gestures. “I think what Stillwater here meant was that ya new ship is pretty fuckin’ big, eh?”
“Pretty much,” Keelin said, squinting against the light and wishing his headache and the huge captain in front of him would both sail back out to sea and never come back.
“Fight me, Stillwater,” Khan repeated.
Keelin let out a frustrated sigh. “What the fuck is it with you and challenging me to duels? Is it just me, or do you challenge everybody you meet?”
“Just you.” Khan grinned. “They say you’re the best.”
It wasn’t exactly something Keelin liked to admit, but he was secretly quite proud of his reputation as the best swordsman in the isles. “And if I accept, will you side with Drake against Sarth?”
Poole shook his head. “Hang on a fuckin’ minute…”
“Aye,” Khan said with a grin that showed teeth even through his beard.
“If that’s what it takes, then.” Keelin struggled to disentangle himself from his jacket.
“Now hang the fuck on,” Poole shouted, his glare taking in the crowd that had quickly started to gather around the scene. “An’ before either of you piss poor excuses for deck scrubbers thinks ta ignore me again, how’s about ya realise I got far more of me boys down here on the beach than either of you.”
A rare silence drifted across the beach, and all eyes turned to Captain Poole.
“Out-fucking-standin’. Now, in case either of ya haven’t noticed, Stillwater, here, is past the point o’ pickled…”
“I am not!”
“Ya can’t even get out of ya bloody coat, mate.”
Keelin thought about arguing further, but he was still struggling to remove his right arm from the damned thing.
“Now you wanna challenge the best, right?” Poole said to Captain Khan. “He ain’t really the best when he’s like this, now, is he? Fairly certain a crab could take him.”
Khan rumbled an agreement.
“Two days,” Poole said. “We’ll sober this bastard up, an’ in two days ya can have ya fight, an’ when ya lose, everyone will watch ya swear ya allegiance to Drake Morrass. Good?”
Khan smirked through his beard and nodded.
“Good.” Poole grinned, and before anybody else could say a word, he turned, grabbed Keelin by the shoulder, and pulled him away towards one of the dinghies.
“I had that under control,” Keelin protested, knowing full well the situation was anything but under control.
“You’re a disgrace, mate,” Poole spat. “Ya meant ta be in charge ’round here, an’ everyone just saw ya toasted as Admiral Tatters an’ ready ta get cut in half. Now you get back ta ya ship, ya sober up, an’ ya get ready ta fight that fuckin’ giant.”
Keelin put on an arr
ogant grin that he really didn’t feel. “Easy.”
“Oh, really?” Poole asked as they arrived at the skiff. “Because his arms are as big as my legs, an’ here’s the real kicker, mate. Ya can’t just win. Ya gotta survive, an’ make fuckin’ certain he does too.”
Chapter 34 - Starry Dawn
Elaina had never seen the remains of a town burned to ash and bones. It was a devastating sight, and no mistake. She’d taken ships, slaughtered crews, and seen dead bodies piled high on decks awash with blood, but this was something else. Men, women, and children all cut down in the streets, in their homes, in the taverns and brothels, on the beach, and in the surf. Lillingburn would never have claimed to be the biggest of the pirate settlements, but by the number of dead littering its carcass, it couldn’t have been far off.
“Don’t like it here, Cap,” said Pollick, and Elaina couldn’t help but agree.
“There’s nothing left to fear, Pol.” Elaina said with a sorrowful sigh. “They’re all dead.”
“Don’t mean it ain’t rightly creepy, Cap.”
For months Elaina and her crew had been sailing the seas around the isles, attempting to find some prey. When they’d finally caught a little cog, with barely enough plunder worth taking and all of it perishable, she’d taken Starry Dawn straight to the nearest port, only to find the nearest port was no longer there.
“This reminds me of me old soldiering days,” said Alfer Boharn, the ship’s new quartermaster.
Elaina poked at the lifeless body of a child with her boot. She liked Alfer, and he made for an excellent, fair quartermaster, but the loss of Corin had left a hole in Elaina’s chest. It made it worse that she knew what sort of Hell her friend was being put through day after day. After three months, Elaina wondered if there was even anything of her friend left. Lucy had a way of destroying a person’s mind, and her father had a way of destroying a person’s body.
“Why’s that?” Elaina stared at a grisly picture of a woman and two young boys still hand in hand, lying dead on a bed of red sand.
“Notice how all the bodies have been decapitated?” Alfer said.
“Creepiest fucking thing about it all,” Pollick said, taking off his eye glasses.
“Five Kingdoms folk did this,” Alfer said confidently. “Bastards always chop off the heads of the dead to make certain they don’t come back.”
“This ain’t makin’ it any less creepy, Alf.” Pollick spat into the sand and backed away from the nearest body, as though it might reach up and grab him if he didn’t.
“This?” Alfer pointed at one of the bodies and took a step towards Pollick. “This ain’t nothing, lad. You wanna see creepy, you go visiting the Land of the Dead. I been there.” He took another step. “Seen an army, must be a thousand strong, all dead and rotting. Some of ’em little more than bones, but they marched on all the same.”
Pollick was holding his ground, staring at Alfer through watery eyes. Elaina found the scene funny despite the carnage all around them. It was doing wonders to cheer up her dark mood.
“The walking bones ya think would be the worst, what with the lurching steps, chattering teeth, and the lack of any flesh holding ’em together. But no. Worst is the recently dead children, lad. Toddlers, some looking only just off their mother’s tits.” Alfer was just a few steps away from Pollick now, and his face had taken on a long, drawn, colourless aspect. “They travel in packs, only as high as ya knees, and they let out little person-like cries, as if they just want to find their parents. But they’re strong, ya see, stronger than they ought’a be. And once they got hold, they bring ya down, little mouths biting, eating at ya flesh.”
“Fuck, Alfer, stop,” Pollick wailed, turning and staggering away to empty his stomach of its most recent meal.
They were joined by the three pirates Elaina had sent deeper into the small town. “Find anything?” she said.
Ed shook his head solemnly. “Nothing but corpses. Seems whoever did this…”
“Five Kingdoms,” Alfer interrupted.
“Fair enough,” Ed said. “Seems they killed everyone. Pinched anything worth having, and burned everything not.”
“Third town they’ve done this to,” Alfer said, and Elaina glared at him. The last thing they all needed to be reminded of right then was how they were being hunted down. “Just saying what we’re all knowing,” Alfer muttered.
Pollick let out a strangled scream and stumbled backwards, tripping over the body of a dead man and landing face down in the breasts of a nearby dead woman. They all turned to stare at the spectacle, Ed pointing and laughing. Ignoring the mockery, Pollick scrambled away from the bodies and pointed towards his friends. “The fucking dead. They’re walking. Just like ya said, Alf!”
As one, all the pirates looked about at the bodies littered around the town square. Elaina saw plenty of corpses, some dead in the street, others little more than charred hands poking out of the ashen bones of a burnt-out building, but none of them appeared to be moving.
“Uh, Cap.” Ed’s voice was unusually high. “He ain’t wrong this time.”
Elaina followed her navigator’s shaking hand and finally saw what Pollick was talking about. People were coming towards them from the island side of the town; they looked dirty and gaunt, and some of them were definitely injured.
“They dead?” Elaina asked Alfer, who appeared to have some experience with walking corpses.
“Fucked if I know, Cap. Why don’t ya ask ’em?” Alfer whispered, apparently finding some courage as he stood behind his captain.
“Right bloody brave, the lot of ya,” Elaina said, summoning every ounce of bravado she could muster.
“Are you all dead?” she shouted out to the approaching figures as loudly as she could.
There was some dissension among the ranks as a few of the townsfolk turned to the others, as if they were debating the answer to the question. Elaina had never met any living dead, so had no idea how cunning they could be, but if they could pass themselves off as living it could present a real problem.
“Um, no.” The answer was shouted by a man at the front of the group, which was around fifty strong. “Are you?”
“Do we fucking look dead?” Elaina yelled back.
“Do we?”
She sighed. “This ain’t getting us nowhere. Pol, go up there and see if they’re dead.”
“Bugger off.”
Elaina laughed, and after a moment her crew joined in. “Don’t know much about the dead, Pol, but I’m fairly sure they don’t talk.” She looked at Alfer, but the man only shrugged back at her.
Elaina started forwards, striding up the corpse-littered street towards the survivors and trying not to look at all the bodies that lay in her way. At one point her boot caught on something, and she glanced down to see a little girl’s head, her eyes blank and lifeless, rolling away. Refusing to dwell on the horror, Elaina kept walking.
As she got within talking distance, a young woman, dishevelled and looking barely old enough to bleed, rushed forwards despite a nearby man’s attempt to catch her and pull her back.
“You’re Captain Black, aren’t you?” the girl said in a rush as the man caught up with her.
“Aye,” Elaina said warily, her hand resting on the hilt of the short sword buckled at her hip.
“I knew it. Get off me, Da. She’s come to save us.”
Some fifty sets of eyes turned Elaina’s way, and most of them had that pleading look about them that she’d often seen on the dying. She had no idea how she was supposed to go about saving them; she couldn’t exactly magic a town back into existence or bring the corpses back to life. Whatever they wanted from her was far beyond her ken or her ability.
Elaina raised her voice. “We just stopped by to sell some loot. Saw the place… well, like this. Figured we should see if we could fathom what happened.” She stopped to clear her throat and found it a little dry. “We ain’t come to save any of ya.”
Murmuring erupted through the crowd. T
he young woman didn’t seem deterred; she wrenched away from her father and ran up to Elaina. There was the sound of old, battered metal clearing a scabbard behind Elaina, and she held up her hand to stay her crew. Whatever the woman was about, Elaina would put money on it not being threatening.
“But that’s how she works,” the girl said. “She gave you the reason to come here just when we needed it most.”
“She?”
“Rin.”
Elaina laughed. “I ain’t exactly a priest of the sea bitch or owt, but far as I’ve seen it, she ain’t really that cunning. She wants ya somewhere, she don’t dangle a carrot on a stick, just beats ya with the stick ’til ya bloody well go.”
The young woman stared on in silence, her big brown eyes pleading and hopeful.
“So what happened here?” Elaina raised her voice in the hope that anybody else might respond. If there was one thing she couldn’t abide, it was zealots who believed everything that happened was the will of some god or another. “How did all of ya survive?”
“Sally saw the sails on the horizon a few days ago,” the woman said, still staring up at Elaina as if she were her own personal saviour. “We thought it was one of ours, or possibly one of Django’s traders come to pick up from the warehouse.”
A young man with a pretty face took up the story. “It wasn’t until she launched her dinghies full of soldiers that we realised she was flying a Five Kingdoms flag. By then it was already too late. Even if we’d had the men and the weapons, there was no way we were fighting them off in those numbers.”
“We hid in the caves,” the woman chimed in, directing a baleful glare at the young man, “while they were swarming the beach and murdering everyone. Lilling is a desolate little island, but we got caves that are hard to find if you don’t know they’re there. Those of us could make it took what we could and hurried there.”
“We didn’t have time to gather supplies though,” interrupted the young man, “so we’ve been starving ever since. The soldiers took everything they could and burned the rest. There’s no food left on the island. When Lille here spotted your sails, she said she knew it was you, and you’d come to save us.”
