Survivors of Arcadia

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  It wasn’t hard to find The Drake. Unlike her, he wasn’t hiding—he didn’t need to. Standing in the open, surrounded and lit by firelight from her disaster, searching for someone to punish… Esmeralda’s lip curled. Bereft of jewelry, finery, and his trademark dueling blade, he almost looked like a normal man.

  But she knew better.

  She’d seen more than her share of monsters before, after all.

  This was just one she couldn’t slay. Not right now.

  “But who knows,” she muttered as she ducked back behind the wall, pushing through pain as she reloaded her pistol. “Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  As if he’d somehow heard the words himself, shots rang out again from The Drake’s location...but still not in her direction. Grinning, Esmeralda stepped out, gun at the ready—

  —Only to find him already aiming down his sights at her.

  Both guns belched steam in unison. The pirate winced away and gasped as a ball of lead pierced her armored corset and bounced off a rib on its way back out. He knows where I am. She scrambled away, bleeding, rushing headlong into the fire, cinder, and ash to lose her relentless pursuer.

  It worked. Moments later, she crouched behind a pile of rubble, stuffing rum-soaked cloth into her still-healing wounds. To her side, the streets of the Queen’s Highway were filled with shouts and cries, soldiers and laborers rushing about in the chaos. But one building away, she could still hear iron-heeled boots crushing coals as the most dangerous man alive hunted her down.

  “Where are you, Thresh?” Drake’s voice, slightly rough from pain, drifted through the breeze and blaze as if he knew she was nearby, and listening. “Stop hiding. No one likes a drawn-out execution.”

  A shot rang out from his position, then a woman’s scream. Esmeralda winced. He must have spotted one of mine, the damn fools. She used the noise to slip further away, then paused and hid again as the cry cut abruptly off, silenced by the echo of another steamlock shot.

  “She got what she deserved, Blackblade,” his voice chased her through the smoking ruins. Esmeralda repressed a snarl. “Don’t worry. I made it quick, right through her skull. Far more mercy than any of you are entitled to.”

  Esmeralda ground her teeth. Samantha had always scolded her on her temper, and her mentor hadn’t been wrong. But for once, the pirate stifled her rage and remained silent. There were people who needed her.

  People she wanted to see again, even more than she wanted to kill Sir Francis Drake.

  “Surrender, terrorist,” he called out. Through the corner of a ruined window, she could see him, speaking as he searched, the smoke and fire curling out of his way with each breath. “How dare you kill my men?” She smirked; his face was still healing, streaked with blood from where her steamlock shot had shattered his cheekbone. At least she was the better shot—not that it mattered. “You and yours—your time is over. Those honest men…each one of their lives was worth a dozen of you contemptible pirates. When will you understand? You lot are nothing but a fluke of history; a mistake. If not for you, this shattered world would have had peace half a century ago—”

  She ambushed him again with a wordless cry, rattling off shots from a pair of Bellamy’s quad-barrel steamlocks, doing her best to fill the man with lead. The Butcher of Arcadia staggered, spasmed as eight balls of lead formed a tight pattern in the center of his slender chest.

  “Finished?” His breath wheezed in and out as he sneered at her, lead falling from his ruptured skin like a slow patter of rain, stormy eyes heavy with hatred and pain.

  Esmeralda tossed him an oversized grenade.

  He snatched it out of the air with inhuman reflexes, his eyes a study in disappointment.

  She put a ball of lead through it as he tried to toss it back.

  The grenade exploded in his face, showering the Queen’s Hand with shrapnel.

  Esmeralda turned and ran.

  But within seconds, her ears caught the sound of nail-heeled boots echoing her steps—and catching up quickly.

  Cursing, she dove through a destroyed door, vaulted a broken wall, leaped from the second story of a ruined home. Her side and shoulder protested all of it, slowing her down. She’d escaped the pirate hunter before, on several occasions, but Morgan had been right—she’d never outfought the man, even in the prime of her life.

  But as stone shattered and fires parted behind her, she knew she was going to have to try it one more time.

  Drake entered a wrecked kitchen close behind her, and she spun and threw him one of her last grenades. To her disappointment, he didn’t reflexively catch this one; instead he swatted it aside, sending it flying away.

  She shot this one out of the air too, filling his side of the room with a burst of flame.

  Flame that disappeared an instant later as he drew it into his lungs.

  The winking embers glimmering in the ruined building died en masse. The air grew chill around her, then frigid. Her instincts screamed at her, and she turned to flee.

  A frozen gale erupted from the Drake’s lungs, crashed into her back like dragon’s breath. The wall in front of her rushed to meet her, cracked stone breaking apart as she smashed face-first into it.

  Esmeralda tumbled and rolled, reeling, feeling the sharp edges of debris poking through her torn leathers and damaged corset. She could hear Drake speaking, but her world spun and she couldn’t figure out where he was, where she was.

  Cold crept in around her, stealing her breath, making it harder to think, to act.

  “I’d say that you did well, Thresh...but I dislike lying.” Boots displaced rubble nearby. “Both of your friends, your lovers, gave me a run for my money at one time or another, but you? You’re always a disappointment.”

  He means Jone. And Sam. The pirate growled, tried to force her spinning, bleeding head to stop and focus. Her grasp tightened around a chunk of broken cobblestone; she concentrated on it, feeling the rough, warm texture beneath her fingers.

  “Yes, that’s right, I know about you and Jonelise.” Feet paced past her and paused. “Far too good for the likes of you. Truly a pity I had to kill her—and for the second time, at that.”

  Too sluggishly, her spinning head slowed. She felt weak, drained, cold. And angry. Through force of will, the blurry stone resolved in her vision, a chunk of jagged gray, edges almost sharp enough to break her skin. She pushed herself up on hands and knees, only to feel a heavy boot on her back.

  “Unfortunately, the reason for your relationship was also her one flaw—Jonelise was too naïve.” Above her head, a steamlock cocked. “If not for that, I can only assume she would have pushed you away long ago, like everyone else in your miserable life.”

  Esmeralda stared up into the dark barrel of a gilded, dragon’s-maw pistol. “Go...fuck...a housefire.”

  Drake shrugged. “At least poor Jonelise won’t have to watch you die.” He smiled a thin, satisfied smile.

  She threw the stone at his head and missed by a mile.

  Morgan stepped out of the shadows of a broken doorway and shot him in the back with a blunderbuss.

  The weapon roared in the former pirate’s hands, belching lead like a hammer blow into the small of The Drake’s back. The Queen’s Hand flew headlong over Esmeralda and rolled to a stop facedown in rubble.

  “Changed my mind,” the tavernkeep bent quickly and held out a hand. “Decided to save your sorry ass after all.”

  “Next time…” she pushed herself back to her knees and reached for his hand, “change it sooner.”

  A gust of hot, flame-tinged wind burst from Drake’s body as he exhaled, knocking her flat, stripping the blunderbuss from Morgan’s hands. Both pirates braced themselves against the exhalation as The Drake rose, stiffly, the odor of blood and flame thick on the air.

  “Henry Morgan!” The words wound through the gale, held them helpless as The Old Dragon casually approached. “I thought you were dead.” The Drake casually kicked Esmeralda as he passed, the sound of cracking ribs audible over th
e rush of wind. Gasping, she rolled to a stop against a shattered stairwell, fighting her body’s instinct to curl into a ball at the pain.

  The wind rushed to a halt as Sir Francis Drake picked Morgan up effortlessly by his throat. “Never too late to correct an oversight, I suppose.”

  One of Morgan’s hands rushed to the fingers crushing his windpipe. The other drew a derringer and thrust it at Drake’s face—too slow. With his free hand, the pirate hunter pushed the weapon aside as it belched hot lead and steam into the air once, then took it away from the pirate before it could fire again.

  He emptied the second shot into Morgan’s leg, point blank, then tossed it aside.

  The middle-aged former pirate couldn’t even draw enough breath to cry out.

  “All this destruction, all of these lives lost.” The Drake shook his head sadly as he choked the life from his victim. From somewhere far away, a tremor reverberated through the ground. Slowly, Esmeralda pushed herself to a sitting position and grasped the broken stairs with trembling fingers. “All to try to kill me? You both should have stayed in hiding. Even rats know when it’s not safe to come out.”

  Esmeralda dragged herself to her feet. The sharp, stabbing pain in her side wouldn’t let her stand tall; she came the closest she could and drew her otherworldly obsidian blade from the sheath strapped tight to the small of her back.

  Crumbled stone danced as the tremor picked up, reached a crescendo.

  She started laughing even though it hurt.

  The Drake raised an eyebrow.

  “What makes you think…” the pirate leveled her deadly blade at her nemesis, “we came here for you?”

  The Drake’s eyes narrowed, then shot wide with realization.

  On the distant docks, the second—and far, far larger—explosion of the night rocked the port city. Rocks leaped from the ground, defying gravity as the shockwave tore through the earth. The shrieks of spirits filled the night air, rending at the ears of mortal men, causing every living human to cringe away from the unearthly sound.

  Everyone except Esmeralda, who had been waiting for it.

  As the detonation shook the shattered building and stumbled Drake, she leaped forward. Her blade sliced in, razor edge aimed at his arm.

  The Drake dropped Morgan and leaped away, stumbling as the floor shook beneath him. The ultra-keen edge of her Blackblade cut halfway through his forearm instead of cutting it off.

  Morgan gasped at the air and grasped at his throat in relief.

  Esmeralda stepped between him and The Drake, sword ready, body barely upright.

  The Drake faced her, stormcloud eyes flashing with angry lightning, clutching the deep wound in his arm that would be too slow to heal.

  “Run...along,” the pirate grinned through bloody teeth as the aftershock of the spirit-powered explosion gradually faded away. Rocks still danced oddly along the ground, and strange energy tingled in the air. “Believe me...if you don’t do something now...this night’s going to get a lot worse.”

  The Queen’s Hand stared her down, took a deep breath.

  Esmeralda tensed. At her heels, Morgan went still.

  Without another word, The Drake turned and left.

  As he strode quickly away, she clutched her ribs and laughed at his back.

  The moment he was out of sight, Esmeralda hauled her friend to his feet, the pair leaning on each other for support. “You okay?”

  “No,” the battered barkeep snapped. He lowered his voice as she threw an arm around his shoulders, taking a bit of weight off of her side and letting him support his bleeding leg. “And what did you mean, worse? That was the last of our explosives—”

  “Shhhh,” they staggered quickly toward the nearest exit; both knew it wouldn’t be long before the place was swarming with an endless number of Elizabethian soldiers. “He didn’t know that.” The toes of her boot hit something jutting from the rubble, and she paused.

  Morgan chuckled in her ear, then hissed in pain and nearly fell when she suddenly abandoned him. “What are you—”

  “Hold on.” With difficulty and agony, Esmeralda bent and worked something free from between the rubble that trapped it. She smiled. “Just collecting a souvenir.”

  Morgan recognized the golden, dragon-headed steamlock in her hand, and chuckled anew.

  - - -

  Hours later, a quartet of heavily armed, heavily laden ships steamed through the early dawn. A cluster of escort vessels matched their speed and course, though most would peel off soon and go their separate ways, long before they reached the hidden, steam-shrouded island that was their destination.

  “I can’t believe we stole the entire treasure fleet,” Morgan shook his head, leaning heavily on the ship’s railing. “This was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I almost died. Twice.”

  “Told you my plan would work.” Pain still traced Esmeralda’s voice, but it just made pulling off the whole scheme even more fulfilling.

  He grunted. “Slip our people into the workforce. Distract everyone with a fake attack on Drake and the docks. Meanwhile, they’ve been getting into position so that when the army responds to the disaster, we can take control.”

  “And don’t forget, loading those spirit reactor things onto the new dreadnaught—and sticking a whole bunch of explosives to them.” She had no idea whether destroying the containers had freed the spirits, or killed them. But either way, she figured they'd be better off.

  And she hoped, when she finally saw Jone again, the woman would approve.

  The former barkeep chuckled deep in his throat, then washed it down with another long draught. “Blew even that hulking monster of a warship straight to Gravekeeper Jones’ Abyss.” He saluted her with the near-empty bottle. “And, like you said, we gave that Drake a bloody big black eye. Or two.” He paused, took another drink. “This was all still really stupid. Suicidally stupid. And I lost my bar. Can’t go back to Lisboa now.”

  She laughed. It stung. She didn’t care. “But you had fun. And now you’re filthy, filthy rich.”

  He shook his head, voice a bit somber. “For all the good it’ll do us. We’re still going to lose this fight. He’ll catch up to us eventually, especially after this. Doubt we’ll even get to spend through it all.”

  “That depends on how quickly we spend it.” Esmeralda clasped him on the shoulder as she straightened and walked past. “Besides, I have to disagree. I didn’t do this intending to go down to Drake. Things are going to change. He and Elizabeth...they’re not going to win. I’m sure of it.”

  Morgan eyed her. “I guess you know something I don’t.” After a moment, he grunted and nodded. “You mean Bellamy? Or...you’re talking about that girl. Jonelise. But Drake and everyone else keeps saying she’s dead. How do you know something different?”

  “I don’t,” the pirate captain shrugged. Then smiled. “But I have faith.” She tossed her empty bottle over the railing as she sauntered away. “I know there’s two people out there, two people way better than me, who can turn this thing around.” She paused. “Abyss, maybe even three. And I’m going to see this through right alongside them.”

  And, as always, I’ll do the dirty work no one else wants to. Because someone has to. And because, even as far back as I can remember...I never was afraid to get my hands dirty for the people I care about.

  - - -

  Back on her private island, Esmeralda divvied out the final spoils.

  The coin and other treasure, she hid or sent off with the various treasure ships and escorts.

  She kept most of it herself.

  There was still plenty to go around. Not even Morgan really complained.

  The bank notes and trade agreements, though...those, she burned.

  Ultimately, they were trackable, and therefore useless to the pirates—so she’d make sure they were useless to everyone.

  “Does that feel good?” Morgan eyed the flames as they rose high into the steamy sky. “Burning down her structure? Taking an axe to cultu
re and civilization?”

  The flames warmed her face, and Esmeralda grinned. “Yeah. You should try it sometime.”

  4

  Sanguine

  Sweaty and urgent, bodies pressed against each other in the dark. Hot and hungry, mouths sought each other, a kiss passing from the lips of woman to woman amongst the group.

  Other mouths sought other places as well: nipping ears, trailing necks, tracing stomachs and thighs—and more.

  Scarlett Carlyle raked her nails down the spine of one girl, fingers tangled in another’s long locks. Someone pressed their face down hard between her legs, and she wrapped her own thighs around their upper back. To her side, another pair of girls moaned as they satisfied one another, and she grinned to herself in the darkness.

  Two women pressed close against her, soft bodies warm and damp to either side, breathing hard. Slowly, the climax built, peaked, and pushed her over the edge, leaving her trembling and sweating. On her arm, a sleepy Sophia moaned quietly as Scarlett ran fingertips hard against the curves of her flesh down the length of her body.

  Above her head, someone shifted, bringing wet lips down to meet her own. After a long, lingering moment, they shifted again, sliding their legs down around Scarlett’s face, and the Elizabethian Overseer gave as good as she’d gotten.

  Exhaustion came, and with it sleep and release.

  Tonight, even the nightmares weren’t so bad.

  Cold and chill crept in, slowly stealing away her serenity.

  Simone stole my blankets again. Or Anastasia.

  But that wasn't it. Instincts drilled into her long ago pried her awake, and wouldn’t allow her to shrug it off.

  Something...something else woke me up.

  She slid from the bed into the cool night air and managed to untangle from her lovers without waking any of them up. Once naked in the filtered light trickling through her bedroom, she paused a moment, listening, and glanced back at her massive, four-pillar bed.

  The five young women there slumbered on, blissfully unaware. One snored softly. But for now, they were safe.