by Simon Archer
“Whatever you mean to do, bitch,” Mary snarled behind me. “Do it quick.”
“Of course,” Rhianne rasped.
A whisper of power suddenly gave me goosebumps as the dark witch began to speak. The words were much like those I’d heard during my vision quest, but there was a much different feel to them.
“Dark hunter. Ferryman. Granter of solace at the end of life. Ender of pain. Take back the stolen life that animates and give rest to those who died, yet still move and hunger. By my life and by my death, I honor thee and ask this boon!” Rhianne’s grating voice rang out with power, and the shambling dead simply dropped where they stood. The others turned and tried to flee, but some invisible force chased them and struck them down, one by one.
We all turned as one to gaze at Mary and Rhianne as they stood where they’d been fighting, near the center of the courtyard, but a bit to the side. The dark witch held her arms out in supplication with her head raised to the sky. I think we all expected her to either vanish or fall, but instead, she blinked her eyes, and the green one turned white.
“Well,” she whispered, “it seems not to be my time, after all.”
Mary scowled and then asked, “Tell me true, Rhianne Corvis. Did ye go willingly to Sebastian Arde?” Her evil eye blazed in the darkness, the light a rich, golden green, like sunlight through the leaves in the forest.
“I tell ye true, Mary Night,” the undead witch replied. “I did not.”
37
T he storm washed the streets of Insmere clean of the taint of the zombies, and what remained was burned away by Ember Spark and my dwarves.
Much of the crew had been stunned or disabled when Rhianne shrieked, for that had been her. Ligeia’s song, though, countered it almost perfectly. Those who had been closest, though, were taken out of the fight for a time, which explained their arrival after everything had been settled.
Mostly.
Rhianne stood like a statue with Mary glaring daggers at her. My witch, though, held her peace but for a few more questions after that revelation.
“How many of the Sisterhood truly serve Admiral Layne?” she asked the undead witch.
“A coven,” Rhianne answered. “Three, I believe. Marai Bloddwenn leads them, but I have not met the others.”
My witch nodded while the rest of us gathered and waited. I was curious what Mary would decide about the woman who’d fought against us, who’d betrayed my little changeling witch, then tried to kill her. It wasn’t an uncommon thing among my people for enemies to turn around and fight side by side with the clan they’d tried to kill off just a season before. We were orcs, and that was our way. We lived to fight, and we fought to live.
For many of us, it didn’t matter who we fought for, only that we got to spend our rage and sate our bloodlusts.
“The rest of the Sisters out here in the Archipelago are bound somehow?” My witch’s voice quavered with anger, and she still held her knives in a white-knuckled grip.
“They are,” Rhianne whispered. “At some point, we meet with Lack, the Admiral’s creature, and…” She paused. “I remember nothing more than a meeting of pleasantries and chatting, but that cannot be right… It cannot…”
The dead woman shook her head and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment until the trembling of her body ceased. Mary’s expression wavered between her deep rage at the other witch and something that may have been compassion.
I crossed my arms and waited.
“After that meeting, I could deny Arde and Layne nothing.” Rhianne looked down and shook her head. “He forgot to bid me to take you alive when we fought at the Straits, and I tried to kill you. Layne needs you for something, but none of us know what. I sought to deny him that, but you slew me.” A faint smile touched her lips. “I have never seen the blood dance performed so well.”
“You never fought me before, either,” Mary smiled faintly. She was a proud creature, and her statement that she was the strongest witch in the Admiralty had yet to be disproved.
“True,” Rhianne mused. “Now I have twice, and twice I’ve lost.” Her gaze dropped to her hands and studied them for a long moment. “Now, what is left of my life is yours, sister.”
“And I give it to my Captain.” Mary looked up at me, then back to the undead witch. “Bind yourself to him, and I swear on my blood and my life that you will be fairly treated.”
I drew myself up. This was definitely a surprise. All of us exchanged glances before I looked pointedly at Mary.
“Are ye daft, lass?”
She shook her head. “When you killed him,” Mary gestured at the corpse of Sebastian Arde, where it hung impaled against the stone wall, “it broke whatever hold he had on Rhianne.” She shrugged and made a wry face. “But I fear I’d judge yon bitch more harshly than she deserves. You, my Captain, would be more neutral.”
“I ain’t so sure about this,” Tabitha said as she came up beside me to gave the undead woman an appraising look.
“None of us are,” Kargad observed, arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Oy!” Jimmy called down from the battlements. “The townsfolk are starting to come out, so ye might want to speed things along.”
I let out a low growl, then looked down at my right palm for a moment before I gave Rhianne a sharp look. “Will ye accept bond with me as yer Captain, Rhianne Corvis, and join my crew under my command, an’ that of anyone I place ye under?”
The undead witch didn’t hesitate a moment. “Aye, Captain Skullsplitter,” she replied. “I would bond with you in the name of my power. I suspect you mean to end the scourge of Layne and Lack, now that you’ve done for Commodore Arde.”
“Potts too,” I said and held up the gun-axe. “I ain’t sure who be left at Layne’s beck and call, now.”
“I liked Potts,” Rhianne observed. “He was not a cruel man, like Arde, nor a cold one like Layne.” She looked up at the sky for a moment, the water from the rain washing over her pale, blue-tinged face. “It is strange how the tides turn.”
“We’ll deal with the bond once we finish this,” I said with a look to Mary. “Will ye guide it an’ witness?”
“I will,” my witch replied.
“Pirates!” somebody yelled.
“Pirates in the keep!”
“Bloody hell,” Tabitha swore as we all turned towards the gate. A small crowd of people stood there, all unarmed and soaking wet. Thunder boomed suddenly in the wake of a flash of lightning.
The townies all flinched back as I focused my gaze on them. “Aye, lads an’ lasses,” I said to the curious folk. “Ye might know me from the last time I was here when Lord Broward tried to kill me. My name is Bardak Skullsplitter.”
A few of them nodded and murmured as others gathered. The storm started to die off after that last big clap of thunder, so Insmere folk were emerging from hiding after witnessing the horror of the undead and the ghost ship of Commodore Arde’s. Never mind the fact that I was responsible for luring him here.
“Ye now be out from under the thumb o’ the Admiralty,” I pronounced. “Consider Insmere a free town, an’ under my protection. We’ve got yer former lord down in the dungeon, so I’d know if ye speak for or against him.”
Silence fell for a moment, and my crew shuffled their feet a bit but held their tongues. This was a new situation for all of us, but why not? Sturmgar had Jetsam. Bloody Bill effectively ruled behind the scenes in Tarrant. I’d take Insmere right out from under Layne’s nose, and I’d bloody well hold it, too.
“He’s a bastard,” someone called out from the back.
“A bloody thug,” another person said.
Then the floodgates opened, and the torrent of resentment and bile that the common folk of Insmere poured upon their current lord, Tobias Abrams, was impressive even by orcish standards. Even some of my hardened crew were taken aback.
Apparently, after I’d killed Broward and left, the Admiralty placed a captain of the navy into what was traditionally a noble’s
position. The reason given was that someone needed to hold the position as regent while a governor was sent for.
In the meantime, Abrams had taken to running the place like a ship, with all the people his crew. He instituted extreme shipboard punishments, like public flogging and worse to a relatively pleasant people, and quickly alienated them. The guards he’d recruited were brutal, and not above thievery, so all in all, the townsfolk figured that pirates couldn’t actually be worse.
Surprisingly, they might not have been wrong.
An idea crossed my mind, and I looked aside to Tabitha.
“Cap’n Binx, if ye would be so kind as to roust the rats below? Take whom ye need to get the job done.”
She grinned and flashed me a salute unlike either the orcish one I preferred or the snappy one used by the Admiralty. Instead, the Ailur tapped two fingers to her forehead and winked at me before pointing and yelling at Ember, Jenny, and, a bit to my surprise, Daka and Dogar.
The brothers looked to me, and I nodded and made a ‘shoo’ gesture. They grinned and fell in behind Binx and her crewmates as the five headed off back into the manor. They’d have no problem with Abrams and whatever guard he’d managed to drag along with him to that hidey-hole, although there was a chance that he’d used some hidden escape route we didn’t know about.
Since we controlled the town and the harbor, I’d set Ligeia to watching the seas around the island with creatures under her command. Even if the now-former new lord of Insmere did manage to quit the dungeons, he wouldn’t get off the island.
One of the townsmen, a rather burly, bearded fellow in a rain-soaked tunic and workman's smock, sidled up to me as I turned. He was about half a head shorter than I was, which easily made him one of the bigger humans that I’d seen in the town.
“Captain,” he said politely. “My name is Gideon Cooper, of the Laborer’s Guild of Insmere. Before there are too many rumors begun, I would ask you what your intent is for our town.”
Originally, my thought had been just to take the town to piss off Arde and Layne, then pull back to Jetsam, but these folk had been mistreated under their former masters, and I sensed an advantage that I could easily put to use. The town had been a trading hub, with a repair yard and the facilities for woodwork, as well as an extensive forge and manufactory. Her biggest limit was her need to import all of the raw materials and foodstuffs that she needed, aside from what a small fishing fleet provided.
“I’d see ye brought into the free towns,” I replied after a moment. “An’ ye may want to start looking at developin’ yer own stores and materials from the rest of the island.”
Gideon nodded. “Aye, we understand that. The lords always forbade us from taking advantage of the island’s resources and kept us dependent upon the Empire.”
“We bloody hated it!” someone else in the crowd kibitzed. The townsfolk hadn’t dispersed and were, for the most part, treating us with the awe and companionship reserved for liberating heroes.
I really wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Although it was rather gratifying, I hadn’t intended for things to work out this way. Perhaps fortune smiled upon me, or perhaps I was cursed to live in interesting times.
Whatever the truth, I had certainly taken another step towards breaking the power of the Admiralty in the Archipelago. What would be next, I wondered as I looked around. All of my people, as well as the gathered representatives of the Insmere townsfolk, were looking expectantly at me.
Hell, I was a leader. I knew how to listen to the needs of my crews, and I knew how to get things done.
One of the keys to that was delegating.
“Alright, Gideon,” I addressed the townsman. “As of now, ye be the go-between for Insmere an’ me. Ye folk be my crew, now, but I’ll not mistreat ye as yer old masters did. Most problems, ye can sort yerselves, but ye bring the big things to me, savvy?”
Nods and other exclamations of assent rose from the gathered people.
“Have you laws or anything?” Gideon asked.
“What did ye use for laws aside from answerin’ to the whims o’ the governor?” I shot back.
He nodded slowly. “Aye, we have a town code, but…”
“Unless pirates be wronging ye, strike those specifics. If it’s my pirates, I’ll deal with them or maybe just hand them over to ye for justice. If it ain’t my pirates, I’ll still deal with ‘em.” I grinned broadly at the man. “Bring me a copy o’ this code, though, an’ I’ll have a look.”
“Yes, Captain,” he replied. “Is there anything else you need?”
“I know ye import all yer food and raw materials and that ye chafe under the dominance of Avion, so we need to figure out how to break that, now they ye don’t have to follow their orders,” A sly smile spread over my features. “Ye have a manufactory that is the envy o’ the free towns aside from Tarrant. Now I be thinkin’ we should start by puttin’ ye in contact with Jetsam. They be closest, an’ they’ve connections with Caber for wood an’ Tarrant for metal. Plus, they’ve got livestock an’ a fishing fleet that’s about three times the size o’ yers.”
“Bastards in the Admiralty throttled us, Captain,” Gideon admitted. “And we depended on them for everything. This will be a new page in the history of our town and island.”
“Aye, my friend,” I said as I clapped him heavily on the shoulder. “This be a new chapter for all of us.”
We were interrupted at that point by a scuffle and cursing as Tabitha and her crew stomped out of the manor dragging several battered men. Most of them were guards, but Jenny pulled along a young, blonde-haired man in the uniform of an Admiralty Captain.
Tobias Abrams staggered forward and dropped to his knees as the first mate of The Black Cat shoved her captive toward me. “Present for ye, Cap’n Bardak,” she said with a broad grin.
I looked from Gideon down to Tobias and squared my shoulders. “What would ye have done with this one, then, goodman Cooper?” I asked.
“You can’t ignore me, greenskin,” the Admiralty captain shouted. “I’ll have you and everyone in this godsforsaken town chained for slaves and sold! You can’t do--”
I drew a flintlock and leveled it at the man’s head. “Shut up, ye bastard.”
Tobias’ teeth clicked together as he froze, blue eyes wide and staring up at me.
“Let him live,” the townsman said, “but let him sit down in that dungeon a while, ‘til his pride withers.”
Several of the Insmere folk stepped forward and caught their former governor’s arms to haul him to his feet. I slowly put my pistol away and nodded to Gideon. I didn’t think Tobias was deserving of mercy, but I’d given the choice to the people he’d wronged, and that was the one they made.
On their heads be it.
38
W ord traveled fast in the Archipelago. A ship from Jetsam sailed into the harbor within a few days of our conquest of Insmere. Since I thought it was best to start this off on the right foot, I met the representatives at the docks myself.
Wonder of wonders, the ship from Jetsam, still a bit battered, was an Imperial man-o-war, now flying the colors of that particular free town and bearing Sturmgar Ironhand, of all people. With him, looking a bit healthier than at our last meeting, was Captain Edison Sloan, and the ship they disembarked from was The Fearless.
I grinned as the man and the orc descended the gangplank, then clasped hands with each of them in turn. “Welcome to Insmere,” I said, proudly.
The harbor and town had been tidied up from our battle with Arde’s ghost ship. There was no booty to be had aboard her, and she’d sunk and begun to decay already. All we could do was dispose of her before her moldering rot infected the town itself.
Ligeia had gotten Tiny to drag the hulk out into the sea and edge of the shelf leading to deep water, and my entire fleet and pounded it into ruin with our cannons and set it aflame. Still burning, it sank down into the sea and vanished, and Arde’s body sank with it. We’d placed his corpse aboard the ship after all of
our magical types, including me, made sure the bastard wouldn’t rise again.
It had been a solemn occasion for all of a moment, as we remembered our own friends who had fallen to the monster and his zombie crew, but that had quickly turned into a celebration of their lives and ours. The citizens of Insmere had even turned out and joined in, happy at long last to be free of the Admiralty.
Drammond Screed still languished in the brig of The Hullbreaker . I wasn’t sure what to do with him yet, even as Rhianne Corvis walked free, witchbonded to me so that she would lose her powers if she acted against me or mine.
I wasn’t entirely certain what to do with her either, although Mary started spending a great deal of time speaking with the undead witch. Ember Spark and Nagra joined in some of these meetings, and later, Adra did too. Ligeia, as usual, spent her time either with me or in the water. She preferred the sea to land, and I felt no need to begrudge her that. I preferred shipboard life to walking on land myself.
It was Tabitha, though, that proved most helpful with restoring the town. She stayed by my side and actually seemed to know more about administration and handling people than I expected. This was extremely useful when I started to get frustrated with the mundane questions and demands of the people. It was a lot different than handling a crew at sea.
Strangely, the feisty little feline captain of The Black Cat proved to be the most skilled at handling this landlubber shit. Once again, I was glad that we’d met.
So I stood on the pier and welcomed the former Admiralty captain and my old mentor to my town, something that I never expected I’d do. We turned and started towards the keep, while I pointed out where the ghost ship’s cannons had damaged the gun emplacements and other buildings.
We eventually made it back to the makeshift office I’d had assembled in the main hall and took seats.
“Well, ye certainly seem to have done well for yerself, Skullsplitter,” Sturmgar boomed. “I never expected ye to wish for landholding, though.”
“This was…” I gestured expansively as I thought about my next word, “... unplanned.”
