“How can I be ready for something I don’t know?” Brehan questioned.
“Be ready for anything or nothing but always be ready to swing that heavy sword. Usually the men surrender like they did on your ship but you better stay ready. I have seen ships fake surrender to ambush later. It didn’t work because we were on guard. I didn’t know exactly how to react in that situation. It’s always just survival. You are a knight. I’m sure we will be fine. It’s a merchant vessel Bluebeard said, so it should be easy,” Kopar tried to calm Brehan’s nerves.
Darkness began to fill the sky and visibility sank proportionately. The ten minutes it took to close in on the ship seemed like an eternity to Brehan. The field of battle on land contained a set of rules and Brehan knew how to react to certain situations, but on the sea he wasn’t sure how the men acted. When the Salty Dragon slid next to the vessel, some pirateers noticed a problem.
“It’s a bloody cargo vessel alright. Doesn't ye see the flag of the Livingstone Navy?” one of the pirateers named Rando screamed at Bluebeard.
“They’re trying to bamboozle us, ye soft-bellied sea snakes. It’s a carrack filled with something good, I bet. We’re in battle now and I say we press on, so that’s what we do,” Bluebeard fired back and squashed the questioner.
The men readied for the unexpected and nobody else objected when the grappling hooks began to fly from the Salty Dragon to the Livingstone ship. The men pulled the larger, wooden sea-craft close and assembled the ladders.
Bluebeard turned to Rando, “If it were a naval ship we’d be ducking flaming arrows right now. Now let’s go raid this ship,” he shouted.
The pirateers started screaming like wild banshees and flew up the ladders. Brehan stood at the end of the lines and heard cries of agony start to ring out.
He looked at Kopar. His new friend said, “I had a bad feeling about this, that’s why I voted against it. They’re fighting back. Draw your weapon at the top of the ladder before you board or you will die upon landing.” He looked right into Brehan’s eyes with intensity, “Remember, you can’t save anyone if you’re dead.”
I can’t save anyone if I am dead. Brehan sprinted up the ladder, drew his sword, and hopped onto the larger vessel. A horrific scene met his eyes. The pirateers were being slaughtered by trained men wearing the Livingstone colors. The enemy wore boiled leather and mail but it looked like they had hastily put their protection on at the last minute. Only a few men had full protective gear and some even wore helms without breastplate protection. Multiple fire pits burned bright to aid visibility and helped Brehan to see men constantly coming from below deck in a steady stream.
He quickly traded a few blows with a large man and raked his sword across the man’s unprotected midsection, felling him. Brehan pushed his way toward a small opening to better operate Dragon-Bite. He exchanged glancing swings with one soldier and noticed that these men carried land swords much like his. He only noticed a few men with battle-axes, war hammers and billhooks. Brehan assumed this ship must be transporting soldiers on a foreign campaign. He couldn’t readily count the enemy but they must have been stuffed full to the poop deck.
A crazed, screaming soldier with red hair came after Brehan with a spiked mace. Using two hands, his enemy pulled the mace back to cave in his head. Brehan ducked at the last moment and the man buried the weapon in a wooden mast. Instead of leaving the mace and trying to find a weapon from the rapidly growing number of dead men, the man tried to pry it free. In close quarters, Brehan pulled a dagger from his belt with his right hand. He noticed his enemy’s mail hung loose as the redheaded man still struggled with the mace. Brehan saw an opening under the man’s arm and came in sideways with the blade. He found the soldier’s heart, twisted the blade, felt the man dying and laid him down in the pool of blood which had accumulated on deck. Brehan put his dagger back before doing a complete spin to survey the entire situation.
As he rocked forward from the waves, an opponent’s sword came straight at his face. Brehan dodged to the left, neatly avoiding the cold steel. He countered with a heaving overhand swing that knocked his enemy’s sword from his hands. Brehan thrust the tip of Dragon-Bite at the man’s chest and tore straight through the boiled leather, piercing the man’s heart. He struggled with the rib cage and boiled leather to get his sword back and had to use his foot on the dead man’s chest and throat for leverage. Brehan stepped over the man to attack another. The unattended boat rolled clumsily on the waves creating a salty mist that caused Brehan to squint to see through the stinging film covering his eyes. He could barely see even a few feet ahead as he used his free hand to finally rub the film away. He regained vision and pressed on.
Brehan made quick work of five other Livingstone men who weren’t very skilled. Blood covered his face and body, but luckily it was the blood of the enemy. He ducked a wild swing from a fat soldier and used the momentum to bring his sword down and across the deck. Brehan took half the man’s foot off and he fell, screaming in pain. As the fallen man concentrated on the pain in his foot, Brehan separated his head from the rest of the body with a swift sword strike that hummed through the misty air. Someone bumped into him from behind and he spun around with a cross stroke which struck an opponent’s thigh and removed the entire leg. He put the soldier out of his misery and moved on. The fighting quarters became cramped and Brehan shoved a Livingstone soldier into one of his own men. The other soldier hastily turned around and killed his hapless ally. Brehan seized the shock of the moment and took a mighty two-handed side stroke that split the man’s midsection, creating two pieces of his body. Dragon-Bite cut through grown men as easily as a person chews soft food.
Complete chaos reigned on that tiny part of the Sea of Green which could be heard as far as the heavens with the sounds of battle and death resonating off the water. The lighter swords had a softer clang to them than Brehan was used to hearing in battle. The enemy kept appearing from below but the newest soldiers were unarmed. They tried to grab weapons from the dead but most were mowed down before they could obtain proper protection.
Brehan pulled back and swung his sword but the boat shifted violently and he fell to his knees. A Livingstone soldier lunged at Brehan and struck him in the left shoulder. Waves of pain rippled through Brehan’s entire arm as he screamed in agony. The former knight of Mattingly looked up to see the man raise his weapon to deliver the ultimate defeat.
Brehan didn’t expect this to be the face of death. The man was small and scrawny with a pale face and graying hair. Brehan knew he would have destroyed this man if they had fought on land. Brehan had always convinced himself he didn’t fear death but now that it seemed imminent, dread crept in.
Brehan jumped back in shock as a skinny, bloody blade tip emerged from the front of the man’s unprotected chest. The foe’s eyes rolled back in his head, he dropped his sword and crumpled to the ground. Kopar smiled at Brehan for a heartbeat, pulled his sword from the dead man’s back and both men jumped back into the fray.
A huge splash of sea water washed away the enemy’s blood that covered Brehan’s face. However, his shoulder still bled like a sieve and collected on his wet shirt and undershirt. He licked a salty mixture of blood and sea water from his lips and spat it on a fallen body. The throbbing pain demanded Brehan’s body slow down or quit but his courage remained sky high and he pressed on. He had been injured a few times before, but nothing this severe. He normally used two hands on his sword at most times, but now he operated it solely with his right. Brehan’s right thumb and finger pressed firmly against the cross-guard to give him the most control of the heavy weapon.
The giant waves also put out a few fires and made for an even stranger battle area. The mighty moon tried to poke through the scattered clouds but didn’t really help Brehan’s vision. Dead bodies and pieces of men littered most of the deck and the boat continuously moved back and forth creating an insane atmosphere for fighting. Brehan had never fought under these conditions and he tried to size up the sit
uation. He could only see about a half dozen live pirateers and at least twenty opposing soldiers.
Despite the throbbing pain, he rushed over and quickly dispatched two more Livingstone soldiers. Dragon-Bite could break through the Livingstone men’s boiled leather or mail, rendering the protection useless. Dragon Steel was the strongest metal he had ever used and Brehan would never trade it for a sea sword. Now the searing pain started to mix with exhaustion. Most people don’t understand how taxing even a five-minute battle can be, especially after being stabbed. His arms and legs felt like they were falling limp and threatened to quit on him. Swinging a huge sword like his for one full minute would tire even the fittest of men, but he had to keep fighting in order to survive. He saw Bluebeard and a shorter soldier tied in close combat before his captain shoved a small knife into the soldier’s eye. His peripheral vision caught a huge, fat man charging at him. The madman who was probably double Brehan’s weight, swung his sword wildly but Brehan blocked all his advances. He had to use both hands to fight off his adversary. The blows he took from his enemy put a serious strain on his injured shoulder that now felt numb and his arm ran cold. The saltwater drenched his shirts and started to sting the cut but then it went numb again. The wild man screamed throughout the fight but seemed to finally tire out and Brehan went on the offensive. He slapped away all of Brehan’s attempts as they sparred back and forth until Brehan almost ran out of strength. He had noticed the longer the battle lasted, the skills of his subsequent opponents increased. The remaining combatants were supremely skilled with the sword and Brehan knew he was in trouble with his injury.
He could barely lift the heavy sword anymore and felt the tide of this fight shifting back to his enemy. The big man wound up for a killer blow and Brehan couldn’t raise his sword to defend himself. Suddenly from the side, Bluebeard’s thin blade spiked entirely through one side of the man’s neck and out the other. His opponent’s sword dropped in mid-swing and landed on a dead body. The man crashed down on another one of his fallen brothers as bodies were being stacked around the deck. Brehan tried to get over to Kopar and Bluebeard but tripped over an arm or severed head and fell. He couldn’t tell exactly which body part it was but he became extremely vulnerable. The enemy could put a sword in his back with ease. Someone grabbed Brehan and he slapped the hands away and jumped to his feet ready to attack.
His weary eyes saw the end of the battle. He looked at Kopar, Bluebeard, Rando and three other pirateers. There must have been a hundred bodies hacked to pieces all over the deck. Most had landed on another person after the initial slaughter and different body parts were scattered everywhere. There were only a few open areas left. Almost all men defecated when they died and the putrid smell filled the deck and overwhelmed his nose. Brehan looked around at utter human destruction and realized he had been responsible for about twelve bodies.
“Let’s get our dead men into the water, a proper pirateer burial,” Rando instructed. The pirateers sorted through the bodies and tossed crew members into the sea with the last of their fleeting strength. The palpable tension between Rando and Bluebeard could be felt without the men even exchanging words. The men heaved the last two pirateers overboard on the port side and headed back to the Salty Dragon. By this point the men didn’t even have the energy to steal any goods, being satisfied to escape with their lives. Brehan had fought in near dark conditions before but coupling that with a shifting ship and no honor among the men involved made for a wild battleground and he felt lucky to be alive. He realized that Kopar and Bluebeard had just saved his life. They unhooked the Salty Dragon from the adjoining vessel and floated away from the mass carnage on the death ship. Bluebeard picked up an instrument and held it in the air.
“No, no, no,” objected Rando, “You are relieved of your duties, captain.” Rando took the object and handed it to Kopar. “Get us home.”
Brehan expected Bluebeard to object with something, anything. Instead the man who was rarely quiet, shut up and sat idly by.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Rando said to Brehan, “He cost sixteen men their lives because his hatred for Livingstone trumped our articles. He wasn’t bamboozled. Don’t be believin’ that bunk for a moment.”
Kopar held the device up by a metal ring at the top. A brass circle with a dial in the middle hung from the ring. The hollow ring with markings looked foreign to Brehan. Kopar looked through a hole in the contraption as he held it up to the stars.
“What is that?” Brehan asked.
“Mariners call it an astrolabe. Do you know about the Southern Star?” Kopar asked back.
“All I know is they say it points south,” Brehan stated.
“Exactly. If you line this hole with the Southern Star, the swinging dial will finally stop and tell you exactly what direction we are going. Then we have to look at our map or know the seas well enough to navigate. So if we need to go southwest to get to Shant Island, we go in that direction. The astrolabe shows us the exact southwest direction to head. Not all pirateers are stupid,” Kopar pointed on the map. His new friend adjusted the wheel to guide the bloodied men home.
“I have little idea of any this, but if you get us to Shant Island, I shall be impressed,” Brehan told him.
“I’ll teach you at a slower pace when the time is more prudent. Do you remember when you asked what could get a captain voted out?”
Brehan nodded, “Aye.”
“Well you just bore witness first hand. I have to set a few sails and then I’ll clean out that nasty scrape on your shoulder, you lucky lubber. Told you, you needed a quicker sword,” Kopar stated with an exhausted smile.
RUSSELL
“What’s your name?” Russell asked her again. “Slave,” the girl responded. Russell had been asking her the same question for days, hoping for a different answer.
“It looks as if the demon only called her ‘slave’. Should we give her a name?” the Imp Wizard asked.
“Well, we’re not going to call her ‘slave’,” Russell said in a dejected tone. Dragon-Eyes asked, “Alright, how about Isabelle?
“Too pretty, she’s tougher than an Isabelle. What of Klainy?” Russell posed.
“Lizeria,” the girl spoke up. Russell assumed she was only putting sounds together but he enjoyed the ring of her new name. She hadn’t spoken many two-syllable words, let alone a name with four.
“I like Lizeria,” the Imp turned a wide smile onto the child. “Do you remember when the mean old lady took you?”
“When first ‘member, she has me slave,” Lizeria said. She spoke in a broken common tongue because she only knew the few words the demon lady had spoken to her. Russell felt empathy for the girl in being a fellow bastard.
He looked at a skinny girl with greasy black hair, a beaten body and naïve amber eyes indicating a tortured innocence. She had already experienced a life rougher than most, hardly leaving her master’s small property of land. She could speak well enough to get her point across and seemed to understand Russell and the Imp, but it stopped there.
Russell felt good about rescuing Lizeria just as the Imp had rescued him. His heart was still fractured from his love for Gamelda. He couldn’t believe the enchantress had stayed back. He tried to cast these thoughts aside and focus on the future but couldn’t stop seeing and smelling memories of her. The sun-drenched emerald waters sparkled like a jewel as the little boat conquered another sizable wave. Most would expect someone from Waters Edge to be accustomed to maritime travel but Russell had never taken to the water. He had gotten sick his first couple of trips and refused every opportunity after that.
“How much longer?” Russell asked. “Day and a half, perhaps, depending on the winds of Cleon,” the Imp replied. “Would it be Cleon?” Russell wondered. “What do you mean?” Dragon-Eyes asked back. “Well, does Cleon control the winds? I learned that wind came from the clouds and in that case, Radial would control the winds.” “Wind doesn’t come from the clouds, I am sorry to inform you.” Dragon-Eyes confidently
stated. “How do you know for certain?” Russell wanted to know. “Give me your hand,” the wizard requested. Dragon-Eyes grabbed his hand and forcibly blew on the back of his hand. “See, there is wind, albeit a small gust, it is wind nonetheless. And we are not in the clouds, Russell,” the wizard said.
“Have you ever been married?” he bluntly asked his friend to change the subject. The wizard paused and pulled a water beetle from his long beard before saying, “Look at me. Women run from me, not to me. I thought I loved a woman or two only to realize it could never be. There is not a woman in this world that would have me,” he flicked the insect back into the Sea of Green.
“You could always pay a woman,” Russell said softly so Lizeria wouldn’t overhear. “Never,” Dragon-Eyes forcefully returned. “Pay a woman to force herself to commit an act she doesn’t want to? No, thank you. I resigned myself long ago to live a life of solitude. I am a virgin. Always have been, always will be.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. But I’ve been told for every man, there’s his female counterpart. Perhaps you haven’t found her yet. It is better than giving your love to a woman only to have her cold-heartedly dismiss you,” Russell consoled his downtrodden friend.
“Experience is the essence of life and I have enjoyed many experiences, but love will never be one of them,” the dwarf dejectedly uttered with a sigh.
“Where were you born?” Russell asked, realizing he didn’t know much about the Imp Wizard. He had heard the stories around the Etburn Castle about Dragon-Eyes but most of them turned out to be false. Some of the stories had given the half-man wings of a dragon and the heart of a lion. He had come to find out the Imp Wizard was much more like a normal man than the flying, fighting dragon warrior from the stories.
Fractured Families (The Pearl of Wisdom Saga Book 2) Page 4
