Once the miniature vessel was finished to Shan’s satisfaction, he painstakingly tied a loop of string around the replica masts and slid the little boat through the neck of a clear glass bottle. Only then did Shan give the string the lightest tug, hoisting the sails upright, and glance up at Ramsey for the first time. “You’re thinking that it’s good, but nothing extraordinary,” he said conversationally, as if the two men had been chatting effortlessly all evening.
Ramsey merely grunted in response. Shan took a jug of water and, tilting the neck ever so slightly, filled the bottle and presented it for inspection.
The little curio floated just fine, bobbing from side to side as the bottle was poked and prodded by a succession of inquisitive pirates, but it was the final bit of showmanship that convinced Ramsey. Shan placed another ship in its own bottle alongside the newly fashioned galleon, this one flying the colors of the merchant navy. Next, he pointed out the other string dangling from his latest creation and invited Ramsey to grasp it between two of his calloused fingers and tug. Ramsey obliged.
With a series of sharp cracking sounds, the miniature pirate ship let loose a volley from its diminutive cannons, unleashing pellets with such force that they escaped their bottle and pinged their way across the tavern’s table and struck the merchant navy ship. Much to Shan’s glee, Ramsey let out an audible bark of laughter upon spotting that the stricken navy vessel was already listing, taken down by the barrage of lead shot and sinking slowly toward the bottom of its own fractured container. “Welcome aboard,” he said wryly, before going on to introduce himself and explain the nature of the proposed voyage.
Shan didn’t agreed to a fateful journey into the Shroud right away. Rather, he listened intently as Mercia’s findings—at least, the ones Ramsey was willing to share in such a crowded venue—were laid out before him. He suggested a couple of modifications to the design of the Magpie’s Wing, too, but finally he grasped Ramsey’s own paw in a wiry hand, clinked tankards, and asked when they’d be leaving.
Since then, Shan meticulously rationed the grog and what food they’d been able to squeeze into the hold. He also insisted on diving under the ship while it was moving so that he could make improvements to her rudder control, and he kept spirits up with the help of a gorgeous concertina. It was his one personal possession other than the unremarkable clothes he’d been wearing when he boarded. Watching Shan now as he tended to the roasting fowl, Ramsey felt a surge of gratitude toward Rowenna for introducing them and hoped he’d have his chance to repay her.
Mercia gave a luxurious stretch, tossing the skin of her banana into the water with a loud splash that startled several fish out of their hiding places. Standing, she began to tug at the buckles of the greatcoat she’d been wearing since the start of the voyage, removing it and spreading its soggy bulk out by the fire to dry. Her boots came next, but it was when she removed her tricorn cap and reached up for the pins that kept her long hair in place that she noticed Rathbone staring at her from across the fire. His face was a battleground torn between the twin expressions of fury and shock.
“Problem?” Mercia asked, mildly, shaking out curled tresses to settle around her shoulders. Her piercing, sapphire eyes gleamed as she faced him down. Finally, the others could see her as Ramsey had come to know her—a fair young woman with pale skin now framed by waves of blonde hair, whose stern demeanor and slender figure had served her well when seeking a life at sea.
“All this time! You’re—” Rathbone’s normally cold voice was rising in pitch with every syllable.
“Drying out,” she replied firmly, peeling heavy woolen socks away. “I’ve no desire to end up with trenched feet or a peg leg thanks to a pair of wet boots, and you’d be wise to do the same.”
“I thought women weren’t allowed on pirate ships!” Rathbone whined, looking to Shan and Ramsey for confirmation and support, and finding neither.
“Quite a lot of men do,” Mercia said shortly, sliding a small dagger from her belt and using it to neatly slice a second banana. “In the same way quite a lot of women think male pirates are a bunch of superstitious, swaggering boors who don’t pay nearly enough attention to what’s past the end of their noses unless it tastes nice. But out here . . .” The dagger glinted in the firelight as Mercia made a sweeping, dramatic gesture. “It’s a fresh start. Medicines, maybe, and monsters too. The old legends have to come from somewhere. And it’ll be waiting for anyone who’s brave enough and bold enough to step up and take their share. Superstitions be damned.” The blade stabbed downward, skewering a segment of banana, and Mercia popped it in her mouth with a fierce expression that indicated she considered the matter closed.
Rathbone’s mouth opened and closed a few times, causing him to resemble a gasping codfish, until he stood up swiftly and stomped away into the dim recesses of the cave, along the path that spiraled to the cliffs overhead. Only now did Ramsey approach the fire, privately glad that Mercia had ended the conversation with her words and not her fists. While he figured she had every right to knock Rathbone flat on his back for blindly parroting the foolishness of his forefathers, it was just the four of them out here. The fewer broken noses, the better.
Mercia was staring at her own reflection in the shining blade, but glanced up as Ramsey lowered his bulk to sit beside her. “Think he’ll be a problem?”
“I doubt it,” Ramsey replied, accepting a bowl of hot, greasy meat from Shan. “I’ve known Rathbone a long time, and he’s cunning enough to know a good crewmate when he sees one. He just doesn’t like being left out of the loop, that’s all. Did you mean what you said about monsters?”
Mercia shrugged. “Maybe. Why?”
“That doesn’t seem very Natural Philosophy of you, that’s all.”
She scoffed at that. “I’d be just as bad as Rathbone if I didn’t leave an open mind. If we do find a sea monster, the second thing I’m going to do is learn everything I can about it.”
“Second?” Ramsey stifled a belch. “What’s the first?”
“Slash at it with my sword until it stops trying to eat me.” Mercia fastidiously oiled her dagger before returning it to its sheath. “So now that we’ve finally made it through the Shroud, what’s next?”
Ramsey sucked the last of the hot fat from his fingers while he considered this. “We can’t stay out here forever,” he admitted. “Sooner or later we’ll need supplies that can’t be foraged and a proper layover at an outpost. Ammunition, maybe, if this place really is as wild as we think. Until then, we see everything we can. Chart and note everything we can. Take everything we can, and bury what we can’t. Then we return home to tell our tales, and become legends.”
Mercia pulled a face, but deep down each of them felt the same flicker of pride. Recounting their adventures if and when they made it home would see them plied with drink for days, no doubt. One by one, they shared their wild imaginings of what the next few weeks might have in store, talking through the night until the storm had blown itself out. Shafts of unfettered moonlight lanced through the ceiling and glittered on the water down below their camp as they spoke.
“When you’ve all finished daydreaming,” Rathbone called out, his voice distant and reedy from high overhead and filtering down into the cave through one of the gaps in the ceiling, “I think you’re going to want to come and take a look outside.”
Intrigued, the crew rose as one and followed Shan up the winding path he’d discovered earlier. They moved in single file as they ascended, pushing through damp leaves and leaving footprints in wet soil as they wound their way higher and higher. Rathbone, lantern in hand, was standing atop the island’s highest peak, outlined against a speckled night sky that was dominated by a low and yellow moon.
“New stars,” Rathbone said simply, and he was quite correct. Not one among them could spot familiar constellations or point toward Orion’s Belt. Even the North Star, brightest of all those distant lights, seemed to have different neighbors. Their compasses, at least, pointed the way as
well as ever, but the implication was at once thrilling and disturbing.
Wherever their journey had taken them, they could no longer rely on the constellations to guide the Magpie’s Wing on its voyage. From now on, they’d be sailing under unknown skies.
LARINNA
Here and now
Not even the jab of an elbow, delivered to her ribs by way of some careless reveler lurching past, was enough to wake Larinna. She was simply too stupefied for the blow to rouse her, though she’d later wonder where she got the bruise. Rather, it was the cascade of foaming drink that spilled down the back of her neck and across her tattooed shoulders that yanked her out of a blissfully dreamless sleep and back to the waking world.
As her eyes snapped open, Larinna had just enough time to deliver a lingering, vindictive glare at the pirate who’d splashed her before the first waves of recollection and nausea hit her in tandem. Her cheek, she realized with dismay, was stuck to the surface of the pockmarked bench by whatever puddle she’d collapsed into face-first the night before. It smelled like grog. She really hoped it was.
Carefully separating her head from the coarse wood that had served as her pillow for the night, Larinna began to run down the familiar mental checklist she used after any particularly heavy bout of celebrating. It had been a celebration, she was sure of that much, even though the details swam at the edges of her memory like silvery, slippery minnows refusing to be hooked.
Arms and legs? All present and correct, which was good. Larinna didn’t consider herself the slightest bit vain, but she was particularly fond of the ink on her right forearm, so losing that would be a shame. Her brown leather clothes were likewise intact, if unpleasantly soggy. Still, they’d dry. What about her purse?
That, she discovered almost immediately, was now little more than a sad tatter of cloth at her side, the lower seam slashed expertly and its contents doubtlessly drunk or gambled by now. While annoying, this was hardly unexpected given the disreputable company all around her: all of them pirates, men and women alike, a heady mix of different tongues filling the air as they took in beer for breakfast.
Curling her toes, Larinna felt around until she located the reassuring weight of her last gold piece, the one she kept in her left boot for emergencies. It could stay where it was for now, she decided, at least while there was still the chance of a free meal somewhere out there. Bracing herself to stand, she cast a disapproving look around the tavern. That was when she remembered the map.
It was stuck to the bench in front of her with a knife she’d borrowed from a passing pirate’s belt the night before, though its importance was another detail that had been washed away by the events of the evening. Removing the dagger, she turned the parchment over in her fingertips, eager for any clue that might remind her why she’d been so intent on keeping it close at hand. It was then she realized there were words on the back, though drink had smudged the writing and she could only make out three words with any certainty:
Seek Athena’s Fortune.
Not helpful, Larinna decided. Infuriatingly vague as secret messages went, in fact, not to mention irrelevant as all she intended to seek right now was something to fill the grumbling hole in her belly. Crumpling up the map and pitching it expertly into the embers of the large fireplace behind her, she stood at last, stretching her arms above her head to excise the knots from her back as she yawned loudly.
A smaller woman lingering in the doorway wisely made way as she approached, for Larinna was an imposing figure, even when she didn’t mean to be. Tall and wiry, with olive skin and chestnut hair set into a tight ponytail, Larinna moved with the continual tension of a coiled spring. She had long ago learned to make good use of her height and ferocity when dealing with those around her, and if that wasn’t enough . . . well, the spring could be made to uncoil with a swiftness that few pirates forgot in a hurry.
Striding into the sunlight, Larinna basked in the salty air for a moment before her head moved in a slow arc, drinking in the unfamiliar surroundings. There was patchy grass the color of fresh limes beneath the soles of her boots, though it gave way to a spider web of dirt paths that ran between ramshackle buildings: the tavern, a few storage sheds, and what seemed to be small shops that Larinna decided she’d investigate later.
The largest pathway zigzagged down the hillside toward a network of wooden boards that extended out into the water on stout poles. These boardwalks comprised a busy dock that bustled with crews and traders, shipwrights and swabbies rubbing shoulders as they went about their business.
A clucking chicken pecked hopefully around her as she stood watching two burly pirates. They staggered down a sun-bleached staircase and off toward the dock, arm in arm, still singing. She shook her head, bemused. It was almost funny how closely this place resembled old tales about the Sea of . . .
That was why she’d been celebrating. She’d made it to the Sea of Thieves.
Realizing she was grinning like an idiot, Larinna took a deep breath and outwardly composed herself, though her heart was still pounding. Every pirate capable of weighing anchor had heard about the Sea of Thieves, but few were bold enough to consider the crossing, let alone actually attempt it. But she’d made it through, against all odds. Even better, her traveling companions had never suspected a thing.
She sniffed once, then twice. A tantalizing aroma had wrapped itself around her as she stood in thought, and now her nose temporarily took control of her legs so that it could lead her to the source. It was the unmistakable scent of bacon, and it was coming from the private quarters at the rear of the tavern, suggesting the bacon currently belonged to somebody. But that wouldn’t be a problem for long.
Poking her head into the tiny kitchen, Larinna spotted the tavern’s barkeeper: a whiskered, red-nosed mountain of a man. His name was lost in the haze of last night’s carousing, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the contents of his frying pan, which was sizzling plump sausages and fatty rashers of pork. He whistled cheerily as he worked on the beguiling breakfast, and it was only as he turned to dispose of two large eggshells that he spotted Larinna’s shadow cast across the floor and bade her hello by way of a hearty wink. “Well now, I’m glad to see you’re awake. Your snoring was disturbing the spiders.”
“I don’t—” Larinna began, hotly, and then remembered the bacon. “Er, that is, I don’t suppose food comes included at your very fine establishment?”
“Bed and breakfast, aye, for them’s what remembers to pay for a bed,” the barkeeper replied agreeably. Larinna opened her mouth to protest this inequitable treatment but her stomach got there first, emitting a protesting growl that echoed embarrassingly around the room and drew a hearty chuckle from the ruddy-cheeked man. “We’ve got some eggs that needs eating up today, though, and only empty rooms upstairs.” He paused and looked Larinna up and down, curiosity twinkling in his eyes as he assessed her. “It’s rare to find a new arrival who doesn’t have a crew to call her own. You’ve got to be very brave or very lucky to make it here by yourself.”
Larinna arched an eyebrow. Was this a negotiation? “That’s a long and very interesting tale,” she replied, cautiously, inviting herself fully into the kitchen to take a seat upon a slightly wobbly stool. “The sort that would amuse your customers for months, I’m sure. Unfortunately I’m so hungry I’ll probably keel over halfway through telling it.”
The barkeeper scratched his bristled cheek for a moment, then nodded. “Fair is fair. A good meal in exchange for a good story.” He bustled through the cupboards momentarily until he located a second plate, chipped and rather faded, and while Larinna’s eyes roved eagerly over the contents of the sizzling pan, she began to weave her tale for the barkeep.
Her first memory was the sting of a smacked bottom after she returned from the woods that wrapped around her hometown like a highwayman’s cloak. The forest was a dark, tangled, stinging, bramble-filled labyrinth that her mother had repeatedly forbidden her to enter. Naturally, this made it the most entic
ing place in the world.
As she’d grown older, the thrills she felt from stepping into the unknown had only become stronger. If there was a beaten path, Larinna would stray from it. When she was presented with a map, she’d immediately head for the edge because there was nothing more boring than following someone else’s footsteps. How would anything new get done if everyone was just walking in circles?
It was a life of fierce independence, and it had taught Larinna many things: how to wield a homemade bow firstly, then later a rusty sword that she spotted while diving for crabs one day. She learned how to fasten a splint, how to sleep in a tree, which mushrooms were safe to eat, and how to run very quickly away from wild boar tracks when she saw them.
She signed on as a deckhand because she’d finally exhausted every nook and cranny of the island she called home—not that it felt like much of a home anymore, with Mum in the ground and Dad in the tavern more often than not. She worked hard and listened even harder, and soon she knew as much as anyone about a life at sea. She could furl a sail, swing from a rope, and use a pistol when necessary.
She scrimped and saved to buy a tiny sloop of her own because while she understood the usefulness of a crew she quickly tired of sailing only where the captain’s orders dictated they go. Traveling from port to port was fine while you were learning the basics, but there were no adventures to be had at those sorts of places save for an occasional giggling rendezvous. These were almost always followed by flight ahead of the morning sun. Fun enough, but never a reason to stay.
Despite her misdemeanors, Larinna had never given much thought to piracy, but she’d been branded one just the same. A brief exploration into some caves she presumed were unoccupied had brought her into the heart of a smuggling operation being conducted by the local governor, who wasted no time in bringing her likeness to the attention of the authorities.
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