The Man-Butcher Prize

by Charles X Cross

  ‘You’re causing him pain.’ The slave grasped Lamebrain’s wrist and pulled the knife out from beneath the flap of skin. ‘He’ll be too frightened to cudgel now, his juices will be all aboil. The best thing to do…’

  The slave turned to the rack, retrieved a cleaver and raised it over William’s throat. ‘Is to give him a quick and painless death.’

  William writhed and yelled and kicked, but was powerless to protect himself. There was a piercing scream and the emaciated slave staggered backwards, the handle of Lamebrain’s scaling knife protruding from between his ribs.

  ‘My fith! My scraps. My fiss,’ Lamebrain hissed and pulled another knife from the rack, this one larger and brutally sharp. He leapt for the starved slave.

  William rolled off the table and thumped to the boards below, wriggling like a worm through an earth of entrails.

  There was an almighty clap and a ball of hot lead seared a path through draping curtains. Blood sprayed from Lamebrain’s fist. Two of his fingers and the large blade dropped to the floor, the aforementioned tip sticking in the sodden wood beside William’s head. While the halfwit stumbled back, screaming and cradling his hand, the other slave raised his arms into the air – wincing against the pain in his side, and struggling to breathe.

  Paralysed with terror, William lay still.

  Boots approached, and from the purposeful rhythm they struck, anyone in hearing could tell they were polished. A flintlock poked through the gap in the curtains first – silver barrelled and etched with wild flowers – then moved to peel them aside for the first mate that followed. He was a tall man, but slender, and had a pale face aside from the brown blotch of a mole on his left cheek. Black wiry hairs bristled from it, as full up with indignation as their liveried owner.

  ‘What’s going on? You’re here to gut fish, not each other.’ The first-mate trained his pistol on the starved slave, planting his polished footwear firmly amongst the discarded offal. His eyes followed the slave’s guilt-ridden gaze to William, huddled on the floor.

  ‘The boy,’ the slave uttered softly. ‘This dolt tried to gut him.’

  ‘Came in wivv da fisss.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The first mate pulled aside the frogging of his jacket and slid the flintlock into a leather holster – affixed with a silver belt buckle. ‘Then, do you know what we have here?’

  The first mate knelt beside William and brushed the hair from his eyes.

  ‘A stowaway?’ the emaciated slave suggested.

  ‘A mermaid.’ The first mate smiled and flicked his tongue across his lips. There was a slight twitch in his eye, which might have been a wink given more jovial circumstances. With a grunt, he pushed himself back to his feet, pulling the large knife from its groove in the floor as he did so. ‘Do you know what a mermaid is, boys?’

  Lamebrain kept his mouth shut, softly whimpering for his lost fingers. The other slave shook his head.

  ‘An ocean beast. It lures ships to the rocks by appearing as whatever is most desirable.’ The first mate pointed to William with the tip of his knife. ‘This one appeared to you as a little boy. What do you think that says about the state of your mind, eh?’

  ‘It was Lamebrain who found him.’ The gaunt slave tried to deflect the first mate’s attention.

  ‘Don’t point to him; he couldn’t conjure a thought if he had two weeks preparation time.’ The first mate lunged, adding the second knife to the growing collection in the slave’s ribs. His other hand clamped around the gasping mouth to prevent any noise, releasing only when all fight had been bled from his victim. He let the slave crumple.

  ‘Lamebrain.’ The first mate pulled his tailored jacket straight and stepped over the body. ‘You did a good job finding the beast. You’ll get extra rations, I’ll see to that. Now get back to your tasks, and on the double, you’ve got this sorry sop’s fish to do as well now.’

  Lamebrain hurried from the space, dragging his chains in his wake. If his missing fingers still troubled him, the distant and shambling giggle did well to disguise it.

  ‘Come on then.’ The first mate gathered William tenderly in his arms. ‘Don’t you fret about those fools, they won’t hurt you now.’

  This was the calmest William had felt since he tumbled from the bridge, huddled close to the man’s chest for warmth and comfort. Now that he was safe, he was certain to be taken back home and reunited with worried parents. Every step towards the sunshine above strengthened his belief. As they made the deck, he smiled weakly; safe.

  ‘What’s going on down there?’ It was the well-to-do voice from before, the one who had barked commands from the top deck. Perhaps the captain.

  William didn’t wriggle in his saviour’s grip. His small hand fiddled with an embossed silver button, distracted by the flash it made in the sun.

  ‘Nothing much, Captain,’ the first mate replied nonchalantly. ‘The slaves found a stowaway, they were fighting over him, might have actually eaten the poor bugger if I hadn’t found out. I’m going to get him back to my cabin, get him cleaned up. Once his arm’s better he might be some use on board; or in the galley.’

  ‘Yes, yes, get him cleaned up, good plan,’ the captain echoed.

  The first mate’s steps were softer now that they had been dampened with fish innards. His breathing was comforting, though slightly elevated, and his hand stroked William’s head to calm him. He crossed the vast deck, then down a set of stairs, through a tight corridor, and into his modest cabin.

  William was set gently onto a narrow bed. His mother would have scolded him for making such a mess on clean sheets, but his saviour seemed not to notice. He said nothing.

  The first mate closed the door, then paced the cabin to retrieve a bottle from a dark wooden cabinet. William assumed it gin, from its oily nature and the pained wince as the first mate took a healthy sniff. A glass-bellied lamp was lit and placed on the cot-side table.

  A little frantically, the first mate threw his soiled jacket off, leaving it in a heap on the floor. He almost lost his balance as he removed his boots. His hand trembled as it ran through his messy dark hair.

  ‘I can’t believe they managed to dredge you up.’ The first mate took another lungful of the acrid liquor. ‘I thought creatures like you to be more elusive than that.’

  William didn’t understand the man enough to follow what he was talking about, but did know that the atmosphere had soured. There was something unwholesome about this man, something untrustworthy. He shuffled towards the headboard to increase the distance between them.

  ‘To think, a mermaid on our very own ship.’ The first mate rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to show a tattoo of a fish-tailed woman sat atop a rock. ‘I was told all about your sort as a child, I never dreamed you’d be real. It’s just a shame that slave chose this as your current visage.’

  The bottle sloshed as it was set beside the bed. It had a few symbols painted on the side that suggested the contents to be something a little more medicinal than plain old gin. It made sense, as the first mate had done nothing but smell the foul brew and his eyes had gone wide and unfocused.

  He looped a hand around his silver belt buckle.

  ‘Let’s see if we can make a woman of you yet.’

  The first thing heard by the crew was the man’s cry as the lantern smashed against the side of his head; the second was the protracted shriek as oil spilled across his flesh, spreading its flame. Shortly after; a flintlock clapped.

  The men came running, but it was already too late. The blaze had spread from the mattress to the floor, the walls and the drapes. The first mate lay unconscious at the edge of the blaze, while the boy stumbled and coughed through the cabin door. There seemed to be more fuel than just lantern oil, but smoke hung heavy and black, and nobody had time to investigate. One sailor braved the fumes to haul the first mate from within and cloak the flames with his jacket.

  ‘What happened, boy?’ Another crewmen shook William violently, but he didn’t have the right words to reply
. He was heaved up in the man’s arms and carried to the deck.

  As soon as the firefight had started, it was abandoned. The flames spread relentlessly, consuming anything and everything in their expansion. Calls for the lifeboats came from all around. Men fought each other, any companionship temporarily forgotten in the panic. Smoke poured from the lower windows and cannon ports, choking the salt wind.

  William was tossed on a rowboat, joining three crewmen, the captain, and the smouldering body of the first mate, somehow, still alive.

  ‘Give Bennet and the boy the last of it.’ The captain turned away from the offered flask, chivalrous to the last. ‘They need it more than I.’

  Obediently, the sailor, too honourable, dehydrated, or stupid to realise he was nailing his own coffin, gave the last of the water to William. In a few greedy gulps, it was almost empty.

  ‘Leave a little for the first mate.’ The sailor tried to retrieve it, but William tipped his head back. By the time the sailor had snatched the canteen away, the last drop had been supped. ‘Damn it boy, can’t you listen?’

  ‘Oh leave him.’ The captain waved his crewman back lazily, his eyes slow to focus. ‘Can’t you see there’s something not right with him? He hasn’t spoken since we found him. I don’t think Bennet will mind all that much; dying of thirst before he wakes will be a more comfortable passing. Gods know why the rest of us have to suffer.’

  The captain lolled against the edge of the boat and looked up at the night sky. He began to mutter about the North Star, and how he could have gotten them home if they hadn’t lost the other rowboats and one oar in “that damned storm”. He had reloaded the first mate’s flintlock and held it close for when all hope evaporated, perhaps to spare his own suffering, or at least give the child a quick death. It was forgotten in his exhaustion, and before long, he succumbed to sleep.

  One by one, the others followed their captain, leaving William awake, hungry, and alone. Surrounded by the becalmed inky sea, and the cloudless black sky pierced with stars, there was nothing to suggest where the land lay. A slim crescent moon reclined against the night, watching the boy in the little boat with languid curiosity.

  For a while, William tried to paddle with the solitary oar. The haft was too thick for him to properly grip, but in both hands he gained enough purchase to heave backwards, the way he had seen the sailors do. The oar scudded out of the water, almost overbalancing him. With the second pull, he kept the haft high and drew it towards his chin. Star-brushed ripples pushed away as the little boat began to move; maybe a hand span, maybe a stride. The distance was hard to gauge.

  By the fifth stroke, he glanced up to find the moon on his other side, impassive. He had only managed to turn the boat a half circle. His arms trembled, strained by the weight of saltwater and the futility of his efforts. He let the oar go and it slipped free of the crooked rest. There was nothing to do but watch as it bobbed away over the ocean swell, until its slightly darker shape was lost.

  A weak groan rattled from the first mate. Still alive. William huddled away from him and into the crook of the captain’s armpit for shelter. At least he had been kind, even if it was too little and too late.

  ‘Thompson, Captain,’ the first mate wheezed, somehow regaining his consciousness after such a protracted time. ‘The boy, Thompson, he’s a beast… from the depths.’

  William took the flintlock from the captain’s chest. He had never held one before, but he had seen his father use one to smash empty bottles from twenty paces. Pistols were dangerous. They could rob a man of his life with the pull of a trigger. He held it in both hands, arms still shaking.

  ‘He’s come to sink us all…’ The first mate’s eye rolled in its socket, spinning over the grotesque wire-sprouting mole. That side of his face was practically beautiful compared to the other; his flesh had melted like wax, seamlessly blending his weeping eye with red flesh that faltered at the whittled exposure of charred wooden teeth. He fought to prop himself upright, then saw the unconscious crew and the little boy toting a flintlock.

  In later years, William had often thought that was the exact moment he should have put the poor deranged sod from his misery. But young William was still coming to terms with the darkness of the world, and had not yet been inducted as a murderer.

  ‘Don’t shoot…’ The first mate fell back into his state of unconsciousness, and at some point between that, and the passing of a merchant vessel, died.

  1682

  William still hadn’t found his sponsor. In Garland, he hadn’t spent too much time looking, too concerned with distancing himself from his crimes. In Lex, he had started his search, but it seemed that there weren’t many willing. Given his soured reputation, anyone he asked thought becoming his sponsor was tantamount to suicide. He had garnered a few cracked ribs and a black eye for merely proposing the idea. Things had been different in Galmany, he even managed to convince a man to join him. Unfortunately, that man’s self-destructive tendencies couldn’t wait, and William found him face down in a dawdling river one bright and breezy morning.

  Once in Grod, with his injuries long healed, his tactics changed. Asking didn’t work; anyone foolish enough to accept had already been snapped up by more punctual assassins. Abduction became the more viable option. The balance of plotting and travel, however, was harder to keep than anticipated. Finding a man well suited to sponsorship, whilst also trying to get to the competition in time, proved difficult. It didn’t help that his funds were perilously low, that all but one bullet had been spent, and that his old mare had yielded to its many years and died. When kidnapping, it was better to be cautious than caught and lynched.

  He tramped to a halt, exhausted from the relentless travel. His back was stiff; he pressed fists into the base of his spine to quell the ache. It felt as though he had walked almost fifteen miles since the last coach had impolitely dropped him at the side of the road – the driver had been too well armed to challenge. Since then, a few more travellers had passed, but a stranger headed to Blackbile was not a welcomed passenger. Some politely declined, others whipped their reins and fled, most sneered at his lack of coin, but all of them had denied him one way or another.

  A horse whinnied some way back down the road and he turned to look. Squinting against a persistent late-summer sun, he tried to gauge the likelihood of begging a lift on the shabby looking farm cart. Probably no greater than any of his previous attempts, but no worse either. As it was still a considerable distance away, he opted to rest on the grass verge and wait.

  Sitting down was a task in itself, and once the weight of his pack was transferred from his feet to his arse, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He shuffled the straps from his shoulders and reclined onto his belongings, wishing they were anything other than lumpen and hard. Though it was a considerable improvement to trudging.

  He swilled a mouthful of stale water and spat to clear the residual grit and road dust. As he stretched out his legs, the soles of his feet began to ache. It was a wonder that the true pain of travel never started until one attempted a rest. He choked down another measure from his flask and idly rubbed at his feet through worn boot leather. If he was turned down again, he didn’t know what he would do. Languish on the verge until he was scraped up and mulched for fertiliser, perhaps.

  As the steady rumble of the cart approached, William dragged himself up off the floor, feeling all the heavier for his rest. He moved into the roadway. That way, if the driver wasn’t of a mind to stop, he would have to swerve into the verge and risk a rut damaging his wheel. The old farmer could choose to run William down of course, but it was quicker to fire a flintlock than encourage a lazy horse to gallop – especially with the weight of a laden cart behind it.

  ‘Hello there!’ William set his pack at his feet and waved amicably. ‘Any chance of a ride?’

  Fortunately for the farmer driving the shabby cart, he chose to stop. Even at a few yards his smell of sweat and manure carried strongly. Looking William up and dow
n, he drawled, ‘where are you headed then?’

  ‘I’m going to…’ William hesitated. The truth would ensure a long walk; he chose to lie. ‘I’m due in Starakow.’

  His heat-hazed geographical recollections told him the arm-pit town of Starakow was a day or so beyond Blackbile, and considerably safer.

  ‘Are you now?’ The farmer plucked a strand of barley from the wide pocket of his filthy dungarees and popped the stalk in the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, I can only take you so far, and I’m not one for giving free rides, especially not at a time like this. You’d be taking up the seat of one of my customers.’

  In the back of the tumble down cart was a collection of the seediest sort William had ever seen: a portly woman covered in boils, a wall-eyed boy with wide cheekbones and upturned pig-nose, and a tall slender man, crumpled up like a swatted spider to keep from touching any of his fellow passengers. He could hear one more grumbling in the back, but they were obscured by the others.

  ‘I’m transporting spectators and contestants alike up to Blackbile,’ said the farmer, chewing like a cow on cud. ‘And that don’t come without a modicum of risk to myself, so I’m forced to charge. It’s a fair sum mind.’

  William blinked dumbly, worried for a moment that his fatigue had gotten the better of him. Another cursory glance over the passengers reaffirmed the farmer’s destination.

  ‘That’s a relief.’ He grinned. ‘In truth, that’s where I’m headed.’

  ‘Great news.’ The farmer wrung his hands greedily and pulled a coin purse from between his thighs. ‘That’ll be five silver bits, and I expect any firearms aboard to be unloaded and blades sheathed. Save for mine that is.’

  ‘Ah, well… I don’t actually have any money.’ The prospect of walking the remaining miles to Blackbile was a poor one, so William was getting a little desperate.