Tides of Mutiny

by Rebecca Rode

  Barrie, standing on my father’s other side, kept his hands raised as a pirate fumbled around at his pockets. His pistol was gone.

  Then a hush stilled the air. The only sound was the flapping of our traitorous white banner.

  Captain Belza had stepped onto the deck.

  Rumors about Belza’s size weren’t exaggerated. If anything, they were insufficient. He stood a full head taller than Paval and wider than two men, though his skin was as pale as Paval’s was dark. His blond beard hung low and tied neatly in two braids. His shirt lay open to expose identically thick, light hair on his chest.

  What chilled me, though, were his eyes. They were as light as Kemp’s except clearer, and they pierced through the smoke like a sword, sweeping over each of us in turn. The longest cutlass I’d ever seen hung at his belt along with a collection of pistols. This man had been born for battle.

  “Honors from a fellow Messaun,” Kemp said, coming forward with his hand outstretched. “Welcome aboard the Majesty, Cap’n. I’ve captured the ship for you as agreed. If you’ll proceed to my cabin, we can make the exchange—”

  Belza swiped a pistol from his belt and pulled the trigger. There was an explosion of sound. Kemp jerked, then toppled over. He lay on his back, gray smoke rising from his chest, wearing a permanent expression of shock.

  I covered a gasp. Dennis snapped to attention so quickly, I wondered if he’d strained something. My father just shook his head.

  Kemp had made a fatal mistake in trusting pirates. They dealt in deceit. They would never share when they could simply take.

  Belza handed his pistol to a man at his side, who quickly went to work reloading it. Then Belza shoved his hand into Kemp’s pocket and yanked out the bag of gold. “Perfect.”

  Kemp’s men swayed, stricken at the sight of their fallen leader. Barrie trembled violently.

  The pirate captain pocketed the bag, taking in the state of the deck and the pile of bodies. Then he approached the line of prisoners with searching eyes. His strides were firm and sure, the steps of a man accustomed to winning.

  To my surprise, Aden moved to cut him off. “Captain Belza.”

  The larger man’s throat gurgled in an odd way. A delighted cry of surprise, perhaps. “Young Prince Cedrick. Now this is unexpected.”

  I stared at Aden. What was he doing? Was this a distraction so my father and I could escape? I glanced to the pirates on either side, weapons trained on us. Running now would be unwise. My fingers itched for my axes.

  “I was a child when we last met,” Aden said. “You were bound for prison.”

  “How delightful to have the situation reversed, young prince.”

  The captain motioned for the men to surround Aden. They shoved me aside and hurried to bind him. My chest felt tied in a bowline knot. Panic raced through my veins. I’d insisted on escaping with my father, but I hadn’t considered that Belza would want Aden just as much.

  He had known Belza would recognize him, yet he’d stayed with me instead of escaping.

  You’re unlike any girl I’ve ever known. I just want you to know that, in case I don’t get the chance to tell you again.

  Aden ignored the men holding him in place. “I heard you’re a Messaun admiral now. Interesting that you’re attacking Hughen merchant ships in peacetime.”

  “Peacetime,” Belza repeated. “Young prince, this is far from peacetime, and you know it.”

  “Perhaps you’d content yourself with a royal prisoner instead. There will always be other opportunities to chase old enemies.”

  “Perhaps. But why capture one whale when you can have two?”

  Aden barely had time to turn before a pirate rammed the butt of a musket into his head. I cried out as the prince dropped where he stood, collapsing to the deck.

  As the men scooped him up by the arms and dragged him toward the rail, his head slumped forward, and Belza came over to examine me. I straightened, hoping my bindings still held. I didn’t dare fold my arms to hide the shape of my chest, not now when any movement could provoke an attack.

  “You look familiar.”

  It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say just now, and I couldn’t decipher his meaning. Not while Aden was being dragged away. I watched the men toss him into their boat, flinching at their roughness. Lands. Belza had won more than a ship today. He now had a very valuable captive. One I hadn’t thought to protect.

  “Tell me where you’re taking him,” I snapped.

  Belza’s men paused in their work and turned, watching me with dark expressions. The captain raised an eyebrow. This was not a man accustomed to demands.

  My father stepped forward, shoving me behind him. “You’ve done well for yourself, Belza.”

  The pirate’s frown vanished. “There you are. I assumed you’d be the first body stacked in that pile over there, Naamon. Seems your crew didn’t take well to the threat.”

  “They found being rid of me more difficult than expected.” His voice hitched on the last word, the only indication of his pain.

  The pirate noticed it too, because he smirked at the injured arm. “How thoughtful of you to survive so I could be the one to kill you.”

  “Captain,” a scout said from the stairs. “There be a leak on the gun deck, crudely repaired, and their powder is unusable, sir. The cargo’s stones piled heavy in barrels. Barely any drinking water left. Lost their minds, I say.”

  Belza glowered at my father. “I always said you’d make a terrible captain.”

  “The Majesty has another fifty years left in her,” my father said. A trickle of sweat dripped down his jaw. “As do the men, if you’ll spare them.”

  “Spare them?” The pirate got right up in my father’s face. “You know that’s not how we do things, Naamon.”

  “Then make an exception for my crew. As for the Majesty, she is mine, legally bound.”

  “We have our own laws, most of which you broke the day you stole my ship.” Belza raised his voice. “That’s right, Master Garrow’s crew. Your beloved captain was a pirate. Has he not told you? A shame, really, that he should have wasted his life pretending to be something he was not.”

  Our crew gazed upon my father now. Their expressions ranged from surprise to utter disgust. I hoped that when they looked at him, they only saw themselves and the atrocities they’d committed. More interesting, however, was how Belza’s crew suddenly looked at Father. There was a collective expression that could only be described with one word: respect.

  Men had lost their lives trying to steal women or jewelry or even food from Belza. My father had stolen his ship. And while Belza had rotted in prison, my father had escaped the law altogether. As fearsome as Belza was, my father was the ultimate pirate.

  It was then that I realized something. My fascination with Elena and Belza and everything pirate—it wasn’t rebellion. It was my heritage.

  “I’ve made mistakes,” my father said. “Terrible ones. But my life now is far better than the one you chose.”

  “An estranged love?” Belza asked. “The loss of a ship and a crew who turned on you at a moment’s notice? Your career will end where mine began, Naamon. You always thought yourself better than I.”

  “We both had the opportunity to choose who we would become. I chose to change. It’s not too late for anyone. Anyone.” Father eyed what remained of our crew. The men ducked their heads.

  “Fine words, though bloated as a king’s belly.”

  “If you’re determined to kill me, let us duel. Winner gets ship and crew once again.”

  Belza eyed Father’s arm and grinned. “I already have both. Why challenge you now? Nay, your demise will be as cowardly as how you spent your life. ’Tis more fitting that you perish with the worthless ship you stole and the crew you couldn’t save.” He turned away.

  A pistol appeared in my father’s hand. Barrie’s pistol.

  He aimed at the captain’s back before the pirates could cry out a warning.

  And fired.

&nbs
p; Belza roared. The shot had caught him in the wrong side of his chest, and too high besides.

  My father stumbled, grunting at the effort of lifting his injured arm. The pirate guards closed in on him, but they were an eternity too late. Belza whirled, his face contorted in rage. Then he gave his shoulders a shake and stalked over to where my father stood, hunched over. Belza drew the massive cutlass from his belt as he walked. Father straightened to meet him.

  I grabbed for my axes. They weren’t there.

  Belza stopped before Father. The two men stared at each other, their eyes full of hatred. The deck fell silent as both crews watched. My lungs ached, but I didn’t dare draw breath. Two pirates and one ship, same as before.

  Something stirred deep inside me. What I witnessed now would change history. Would Belza change his mind and challenge Father to a duel? Would he—

  Belza plunged the blade through my father’s chest in one swift movement.

  A scream tore from my very soul.

  I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hear anything else.

  My father sank to his knees, then fell to the ground.

  The pirates around me faded. All that registered was that blade extending from the rib cage—vibrating slightly, ending at a large curved handle. Father’s expression, frozen in shock. Someone’s gasping breaths in the distance. Maybe mine.

  Belza yanked his sword free. “Down the ship.” Then he stalked away as several pirates moved to follow. They were an insignificant blur in the background.

  I fell to the deck beside my father. His chest shuddered, and his eyes stared at the sky in horror. He coughed. The spaces between his teeth were red.

  Something warm and sticky clung to my leg. Blood was pooling beneath him. His blood. His life, draining away like rainwater. The red blossoming on his chest was a harsh brushstroke against his once-white shirt.

  He shuddered again, his face twisting in a kind of pain I’d never seen. It was that sight—the utter agony he wore so blatantly, so honestly—that made me turn away, my eyes squeezed shut against the truth. A single word stabbed through my mind sure as a dagger, and I struggled to fight it off.

  Death.

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t acknowledge, couldn’t even dream that this could happen. If he would just get better—if he would just live—I would do anything. I’d be the perfect son he’d always insisted on. I would even meet my mum, just to see what she was like. I wanted him to be the one to introduce us. If it made my father happy, I would do it.

  For a single moment in time, we’d be a family.

  A family. The very idea was like grasping at air. No matter how far I reached or how strong my grip, the air dissipated between my fingers. Nay. This man was my family. He’d fought for me, let himself be cornered and manipulated and stabbed and… and…

  I hadn’t seen it. He had tried so hard to protect me, and I’d fought him every step of the way.

  “My Laney.” His voice was little more than a whisper.

  I opened my eyes. They were blurry and warm. “I’m here.”

  I’ve always been here. I never would have left you.

  “There were so many lies. You still don’t know the truth.…”

  “Father, please don’t fret yourself.”

  His hand fumbled until he found mine. His grip was a tight one, as if I tethered him to life. “The ship, my position. I’d have given it all up if—if it meant your happiness.”

  “Neither of us would have stood for that.” My voice broke, scattered like a thousand insects before the wind. I steeled my nerves and focused on here, now. “I was always content to stay with you.”

  I meant the words, but they didn’t feel complete. It wasn’t just that I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to be him—to experience adventure yet choose peace, to be adept at lying but prefer the truth. To be seen as what I was and not what some distant king decided I was allowed to be. To be called by the name my father had given me and a title he willingly bestowed. Captain Laney Garrow, daughter of the great pirate captain Naamon Garrow and defender of the innocent.

  But it all felt so foolish now. None of that would have meant anything without my father here to see it. Nothing would ever mean anything again.

  Another hacking cough left him drained. His next words were even weaker. “I told you to hide, to run, to keep quiet. To—to be what I wanted, then what the world wanted. But a life of lies is a terrible way to live.” He grunted softly, his face contorting in pain. “Go now. Stop pretending and be the strong woman you are.”

  The woman I was? I hadn’t the slightest guess what that meant, other than a prisoner condemned to die at the hands of pirates.

  “Go,” my father said. It was barely a burst of air from his bloody lips.

  I threw myself around him instead. Warm blood seeped into my shirt, but I barely noticed. There were only his familiar arms, though limp, and the usual tooth-powder scent of his breath. His normally clean-shaven face held a bit of stubble today from our hours in the brig. It felt like his own rebellion.

  He turned his head to rest it against mine, and I let myself feel him—to register the musky scent of his shirt that I knew so well, the brush of his eyelashes against my cheek when he blinked, how his shoulder held firm against my embrace. He placed his hand against my back and patted it.

  In a second, I was taken back to those desperate moments after a nightmare, an injury, an unkind word. Those hundreds of moments he had offered me, moments like this that I’d brushed aside long ago. Weakness, I’d thought. Girly foolishness. I’d never considered that it would be those moments I clung to now.

  His hand went heavy against my back. His shoulder sank into the deck, and his rough chin fell away.

  The life left him in one last rattling breath against my ear, long and slow. It extended to the horizon and beyond, past a thousand painted sunsets.

  He was still.

  I must have pulled away, warm and sticky blood coating my shirt. I must have heard Paval’s last desperate order to fight. And the crew must have responded, because the silence filled with the shouts of men fighting for their lives, rushing the remaining pirates and swiping weapons off the ground. Somewhere it registered that my father was right, that they had changed in the end, and that Captain Belza was preparing to row away with Aden’s slumped, unconscious form at his feet.

  But none of that mattered now. What mattered was how my father’s eyes stared unseeing at the sky, as if a curtain had been drawn between us. Even in death, my father had defied Belza. He would never see the demise of his ship and crew.

  I pressed his eyes closed and crossed his arms over his chest as a sailor deserved. He had no hammock, and I had no time to stitch one closed around him anyway, let alone give him the service he deserved. I hoped he would forgive me. There was so much to ask his pardon for, so much that I hadn’t said. I couldn’t have voiced it all if I’d had a hundred years.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. The words felt strangled in my throat. He didn’t answer.

  He would never answer again.

  Go.

  I tore away, scrambling for my storage chest in the cabin. It still lay open. I fumbled through the contents, still uncertain what I searched for. The only thing of worth was the comb. I stuffed it into my pocket and felt along the bottom of the chest. The knot lay near the back corner. I lifted the false bottom and went still. The seashell buttons were still there, but so was a small coin sack.

  Father. He’d hidden them here for me. There had to be at least ten gold coins inside, enough for several nights’ lodging and food. The warmth in my eyes turned hot, the grief so heavy now I felt I would collapse beneath its weight. Instead, I blinked back the hot tears, scooped the buttons into the bag with shaking fingers, and tied it to my belt. Then I gave the room one last glance.

  Go.

  I rose, scooped up my axes near the broken door, and sprinted after Belza.

  The pirate captain sat tall in his rowboat as his men lowered it to the w
aves, a king surrounded by chaos. Men fought on deck with pistols, muskets, swords, even knives. Paval’s cat cracked over a pirate near the bowsprit, the inhuman shriek that followed evidence of a direct hit. Even more bodies were strewn about. One had a scar across his forehead. Dennis.

  I launched myself toward the rail, but Belza was beyond my reach. I swore. A few seconds earlier and I could have caught him. My death would have meant something.

  “May your life be short, Captain Belza!” I shouted.

  The man looked up in surprise, then amusement.

  My yell brought the attention of two other pirates to me. They downed a man—Marley by the sight of his bony arms—and approached, taking in my bloodied shirt and full pockets with cutlasses raised.

  I lifted my axes just as the first man arrived. His blow came hard and fast, sending the handles vibrating under my hands. I grunted from the force of it, but my block didn’t break.

  I want to fight pirates. One of the things I’d told my father a lifetime ago. I wanted to recall the words, to scream into the sky that I hadn’t meant it. I just wanted him back.

  Another strike, another block. It was just as I’d practiced, except today my opponent wasn’t Paval delivering a series of careful blows. This was a pirate, a man who had made murdering and stealing his life’s work. And I stood in his way.

  Unfortunately for him, he was also in mine.

  As he lifted his sword for another strike, I threw one axe upward to intercept it while the other axe swiped at his chest. He leaped backward to avoid it and redirected his sword, coming at my side. It was a move I’d seen Kemp attempt with Aden, and it would have worked, had I only one weapon. I threw an axe sideways, slamming the blade aside as my other arm crossed my body in one massive strike.

  It nearly decapitated the man. There was a sickening crunch as my axe slid through flesh. He didn’t scream—simply dropped his cutlass and sank with a dumbfounded expression. I didn’t have time to gape. The next pirate was only a step behind him, followed closely by another.

  My grief gave way to anger like I’d never felt before. It wasn’t enough that Belza had taken my father from me. He wanted everything.