The Princess Beard

by Kevin Hearne

  “Arrrre ye okay, lass?” Luc asked, his claws clicking against her woody shoulder.

  “I’m not dead,” Tempest said, her voice creaking like an old tree in a wind.

  “That ain’t what I asked.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said, her voice as mournful as willows soughing in the wind. “This shouldn’t happen…until I’m old…unless I use my powers…”

  “Listen up,” Luc squawked in her ear. “It’s not time. You’rrrre Tempest, a nice lass who swabs a mean deck. You like law books, you’ve a fine mind, and you’rrrre kind to yourrrr frrrriends and always stand up for yourrrrself. You’rrrre brrrrave but soft, so just rrrrememberrrr what that feels like: being soft. Think of little grrrreen leaves in sprrrring, aye? Soft bunnies and wee ducklings.”

  “But I’m so hungry,” Tempest moaned, envisioning branches snapping up tender little birds and tucking them into her trunk.

  “Then we’ll get ye some nice harrrrdtack, or maybe some fish.”

  “I’m a vegetarian. But I also just really want to eat people.”

  “Then you’d be as bad as Hannabelle and herrrr Clan Nabi,” Luc argued.

  Tempest’s leaves shook as her branch tendrils reached out for Mort, who was frozen in place, white as the toga he was dressed in.

  “Trees are beyond good and bad,” Tempest said, her mind half lawyer and half monster.

  “Look, you don’t want to eat Mort,” a new voice broke in. It was Al, standing just out of reach. “Think how terrible he’d taste. A Mort torte? Abort, abort! Nobody wants that.”

  Laughter burbled up through Tempest’s trunk, making her branches quiver. “Mort torte. With a glass of port!” she wheezed.

  “You wouldn’t want to eat Milly Dread either,” Al went on. “Unless you like leather. Probably break a branch on her hide. No Milly Dread bread.”

  “Or smirky jerky,” Tempest giggled, her tendrils backing away from Mort as she considered Milly’s edibility.

  “And Captain Luc—”

  “Leave me out o’ this, you!” the bird squawked.

  “I bet when you pluck him, he’s about the size of a winged rat. And his first name is Filthy. You’d probably get flukes.”

  “Luc…flukes…”

  “Would make you puke,” Al added.

  Morgan ventured up, tentative and quiet, and put a hand on Tempest’s shoulder. “C’mon, Tempest. You’re the nicest person I know. Come back to yourself and let’s go save Vic.”

  Surrounded by her friends, looking into their eyes instead of at their meaty buttocks, Tempest took a deep breath and focused inward, feeling the rough ticktock of her heart in its woody cage. She thought of soft things, of sweet things, of friendship and tea and the sea, and she let the anger drain out of her system. Sap pooled around her ankles, and leaves fell from her hair, and bark crumbled away like an especially bad sunburn, and her warm brown skin was soon skin again. Luc fluttered up from her shoulder as she shook off the last of the treeish trappings.

  Only her arm showed any change: The scaly parts had grown together, creating a patch of woody bark about the size of a shoe, something that could not be easily overlooked again. She’d been so careful not to use her healing powers that she’d forgotten that rage could end her just as quickly as mercy. Rubbing at the bark, she reminded herself that she’d saved dozens of lives. That it was worth it.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered. “I forgot. They’re still going after Vic and Qobayne!”

  “Aye, lass, that they arrrre. Ye done good. But we must now get to The Puffy Peach and see what’s become o’ the grrrand dame.”

  He was worried about his people too, Tempest realized, even if he couldn’t say it outright.

  Armed with pokers, forks, machetes, spatulas, and a wayward pineapple corer, the strangely dressed pirates ran out the door that the last batch of Nabi had used. The stone road led back into the city, where dozens of people wearing bibs and carrying silverware cried out in dismay as they passed. The defenseless guard at the gate couldn’t stop them, and soon they were barreling through the jungle, well-moisturized and smelling of garlic and oregano but furious at nearly being eaten. Right when the paving ended and the jungle truly became jungle again, a giant hippopotamus burst into their path, grabbed Mort with its curving ivory teeth, and dragged the screaming man away into the heart of the thick green foliage, leaving only splattered plops to mark the trail.

  “Mort!” Feng lunged after the hippo, taking a few steps after the fleeing betonkus and waving his spatula.

  “It’s too late to save him!” Luc shouted to his perch. “We can’t fight the beast! We have no rrrreal weapons! On to the ship!”

  But Tempest saw Feng trembling under Luc’s claws, his face shattering as the last of his three close friends disappeared. First Frij and Queefqueg, and now Mort. Poor Feng. There was no time to comfort the man, however, no time to remind him that perhaps the deaths of his friends could usher in a new era of personal meaning and growth and help him become the man he was meant to be. No time to tell him that loss and tragedy were what shaped a life and gave a person meaning, that such loss might very well spur him to become the hero of his own story.

  No, they had to run on, back to the ship, to save what could be saved.

  But as they emerged from the forest, they saw the worst thing they could imagine coming from The Puffy Peach’s stretch of beach: a plume of smoke.

  Vic pranced in nervous agitation on the deck. It was just him and Qobayne against a POPO ship with its cannons pointed right at them. Thus far his relationship with the boatswain had consisted of Qobayne shouting orders at Vic and Vic failing to do much of anything correctly. His most successful duties had been swabbing the deck and saving people from the sirens by punching them in the face. Qobayne hadn’t been particularly impressed by either feat.

  The boatswain had a nose one might consider beakish, or a beak that looked noseish. Bold eyebrows forever drawn down made him look like he was scowling even when he wasn’t, though Vic was pretty sure he was actually scowling at the moment. He was growling and muttering at the POPO ship as someone on the deck waved flags at them. Vic knew this was supposed to be a way to communicate across the water, but he had no idea what the flashes of color meant. Qobayne could read them, however, and said the flags were semaphores. Which Vic briefly confused with spermatophores, grossing himself out.

  “Won’t that be messy?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t be. Just says they’re sending over a boarding party for inspection,” Qobayne replied. “We’re to allow it or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else we get cannonballs through the hull. You can bet the crew they have manning the guns are experienced too.”

  “What will they do when they get here and realize we have no cargo?”

  Qobayne shrugged. “Probably rob us of anything that ain’t nailed down. But the captain is aware of that danger. We’ll be all right as long as we can make it to one of the Toe ports. We only need to keep the ship in one piece.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “We let them board and rob us.”

  Vic’s hooves began to tap. “Will they kill us?”

  Qobayne walked to the rail and spat over the side onto the white sand. “I’m hoping not. It would ruin my day.” Vic grunted a half laugh and Qobayne gave him a dry grin. “Har harr,” he said. “But with that on the table, are ye ready to fight?”

  Vic joined him at the rail. “Absolutely! I can fight. I mean, I’ve never actually been in a real fight when I wasn’t drugged by kidney thieves or punching people in the face for their own safety. But, Boatswain, I have a question.”

  “What is it?”

  “If we fight the boarding party, won’t they fire their cannons at us?”

  “Aye. And we don’t plan to fight them. But
they might fire on us anyway.”

  “Why would they do that? The ship is useless to them if it’s full of holes.”

  Qobayne scratched his cheeks. “Because they’re going to want to enter the captain’s cabin. And if they do, they probably won’t come out alive. He’s got it trapped nine ways to Nancy.”

  “Who’s Nancy?”

  “Never mind that. It’s just an old Qul saying. Anyway. That cabin’s gonna be a bone of contention. We have to try to talk them out of goin’ in. If things get bad, they’ll destroy the ship and we’ll be stranded. Or dead.”

  Vic peered over at the POPO ship. “Is that ship better than The Puffy Peach?”

  Qobayne took his time considering before he gave an answer. The POPO were lowering a rowboat into the water, and armed men were climbing into it. To Vic’s eye they didn’t seem any different from pirates. They wore no real uniforms, but there were lots of kerchiefs tied on heads and wide hats with feathers stuck in their bands.

  “Well, their ship is longer, has more guns and more sails,” Qobayne said, “so it’s faster and deadlier. But it has less cargo room. Whether it’s better or not would depend on your priorities.”

  Someone from the POPO boarding party shouted from the rowboat and pointed at the water off the port side. When the rest of the party looked, there were shouts of dismay and alarm.

  “What’s the matter?” Vic asked. “Is there something in the water?”

  “There’s always something in the water,” Qobayne replied. “This time it looks like…yes, see it writhing?”

  Vic squinted and saw a churn of slender shapes barely breaking the surface. “What is it? Are they making that noise?” There were strange glub-glub noises bubbling up from the area around the rowboat.

  “They are. Those are gargling eels, lad.”

  “Why do they gargle? Is it halitosis?”

  “It’s part of their filter feeding system. But that’s not their preference, ye see—they only filter when they have no other options. They prefer fresh meat, and that rowboat is full of it.”

  Vic grimaced. “So…sharp teeth, then?”

  “They’ll go through you like a rapier through yogurt.”

  “Why would anyone stab yogurt? Oh. That’s probably another Qul saying.”

  “You’re catching on.”

  Vic hoped the gargling eels would take care of the boarding party for them, but the eels disappointingly remained in the water while the sailors remained in the boat. Said sailors were from many earldoms, a palette of skin tones from a light beige to dark brown. There were eight of them in the boat, and they rowed up to the starboard side of The Puffy Peach, right by the stern in the shallow water, and demanded that a rope ladder be lowered down. Their ship was anchored in the strait and had eight cannons trained on the Peach. Qobayne obeyed.

  One by one, the POPO climbed aboard to crowd the aft deck, the leader of them last. He was a dour man with light-brown skin and a dark mustache that was twisted and waxed at the ends in a style that Vic associated with villainy. He wore a purple jacket embroidered with gold thread, which didn’t quite fit him because his chest was so broad and muscled. His eyes fell on Vic first, perhaps wondering who was more swole. Vic felt the urge to challenge him to an arm-wrestling match but squashed it. Qobayne said they needed to talk their way out of this without violence, and Vic doubted he had the skills for that, so it would be best to let Qobayne do the talking. Swoleness would not save them this time.

  Swoleness, Vic was starting to realize, never saved anything.

  “Where’s the captain?” Villain Mustache asked.

  “Not aboard. Out with the crew, seeking provisions. Hoping there’s a spring here,” Qobayne answered.

  The man grinned smugly. “Oh, aye, there’s fresh water here. But I doubt your captain and crew will be back. People who walk around the interior of this island tend not to be seen again.”

  That sounded rather alarming to Vic, but Qobayne seemed undisturbed by it. He was the coolest of Qul people, so Vic did his best to join in the lack of looking worried. They were going to be chill like, uh…snow? Vic realized at that very moment that centaurs didn’t have any cultural sayings about being calm.

  “Our captain is resourceful. How can we help ye, sir? We have no cargo.”

  “No cargo, eh? You won’t mind if we confirm that?”

  Qobayne shrugged. “Be my guest. Hatch is open. I wouldn’t enter the captain’s cabin, though. He traps it whenever he’s away.”

  “We can always send you in first.”

  “There’s nothing I want in there, and then you’d have to deal with oodles of guts exploded all over the place. Sounds like a lot of paperwork.”

  Villain Mustache grunted. “What’s the name of this ship?”

  “This be The Shot Oyster,” Qobayne lied.

  “The Shat Oyster?”

  “Not quite. When one visits a fine seafood establishment, the oyster shot becomes the shot oyster and eventually, it is true, the shat oyster, but our ship is named after the middle stage, when the oyster has entered the belly but not yet exited.”

  Villain Mustache sniffed and shook his head once as if to indicate he had no taste for clever wordplay. “Search the ship, lads.”

  “The cabin too?” one of them asked.

  “Aye. Two of you go through the cabin.”

  Qobayne raised a finger. “Good sir, please note that I warned ye and do not hold us responsible for any injuries, explosions, or deaths that may occur.”

  The man’s mustache twitched as he contemplated the ramifications of exploding two of his men and ruining part of the ship he might yet commandeer. “Well, then, did your captain leave you any instructions regarding such a boarding? Some courteous gesture for us, a token of his goodwill?”

  “Aye, that he did.” Qobayne dropped a hand to his belt and the stuffed bag hanging there—a rather full purse. He worked it loose and tossed it to the Villain Mustache. “I think you’ll find him very courteous indeed.”

  The POPO lackeys paused while the corrupt officer checked the contents of the pouch and grinned. “Belay that last order, lads. No need to search the captain’s cabin or the hold.”

  “Excellent. That’s very kind,” Qobayne said. “So, if there’s nothing else—”

  “There is.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Villain Mustache pointed straight at Vic. “We’ve heard about him.”

  “You have?”

  “Aye. This here ship ain’t The Shot Oyster. It’s The Puffy Peach, captained by the Clean Pirate Luc, wanted by the Royal Navy. I know because that centaur is wanted for murderin’ people in Bustardo. We got a message by flamingo to be on the lookout.”

  Qobayne snorted. “That’s just silly, sir. What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Captain Kronch.”

  “Fine. Captain Kronch, how do you know that centaur is the one you’re after?”

  “The description said he’s a muscle-bound Clydesdale. How many other muscle-bound Clydesdales do ye suppose are sailing these waters right now? How many centaurs of any kind are sailing on pirate ships?”

  “I wouldn’t know since I don’t keep records o’ such things. But I can assure ye that all Clydesdales have a lot of muscle, so that’s not a very good description. And our Vic there hasn’t committed any murders.”

  “Maybe so. But we must take him back to Bustardo just to make sure. There are people there who can identify him.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone!” Vic shouted. “They drugged me and tried to steal one of my kidneys with a knife! I have the right to defend myself!”

  “Aha!” Captain Kronch grinned in triumph, white teeth flashing under his waxed mustache. “So you are the centaur we’re looking for!”

  Vic’s equine cheeks puckered as he realized his
mistake. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “That’s for a judge to decide.”

  Vic planted his hooves. “I’m not going to see any judge. You all have prejudices against centaurs.”

  Captain Kronch drew his sword. His sailors also drew their weapons. “Prejudice don’t enter into it, lad. This here is a matter of finance. We get a bounty for your head whether you’re guilty or not, so you’re coming with us. Or at least your head is. And your kidneys.”

  Vic realized that when someone threatened to take his head or organs, the time for talk was over.

  “Gyyaaaaugh!” he shouted, and a high-velocity death scone punched through Captain Kronch’s chest. His mustache twitched and his eyes flew wide in surprise and then he fell over backward with a squelchy thump. In the shocked silence that followed, Vic pointed at the other sailors one at a time and spat, “Bundt! Bundt! Bundt!” causing a dense and very heavy Bundt cake to materialize on the sword arm of each. It did not harm them but it did weigh down their arms, freak them out, and make them forget that they were supposed to be subduing Vic.

  Maybe they thought—after seeing what happened to their leader—that the Bundt cakes would explode and sever their arms. Or maybe they thought such delightfully aromatic confections should not be possible without an expert pastry chef and hours in a professional kitchen. Or perhaps they were simply befuddled that the cakes had apparently been baked around their arms and they could not remember inserting their limbs through a cake mold. Regardless, they were staring at their arms in surprise and thus were unprepared to be kicked over the stern by the powerful back legs of a desperate centaur. They fell shrieking into the shallows, which were still just deep enough for the gargling eels to feast upon their flesh and have cake for dessert.