by Kevin Hearne
Qobayne joined the fray once he realized that there was no going back when you’d put a hole through a man’s chest, kicking surprised sailors over the railing and making a few more eels very happy. Unfortunately, the POPO ship also wanted a piece of the action. The first cannon boomed and the ordnance crashed right through the cabin of Captain Luc and out the other side of the ship, plopping onto the beach on the port side of the fo’c’sle.
Mingo the flamingo and Otto the otter had been sunning themselves on the deck above Luc’s cabin with no thought for the POPO’s cannonballs or the ridiculousness of their own names. With a honk of outrage, Mingo rose in an ungainly heap and flew away into the island’s welcoming jungle, refusing to submit to such shenanigans as artillery fire on a nice day. Otto hopped up with a petrified squeak and ran to Qobayne, quickly scaling his frame, wrapping himself about the boatswain’s neck, and squeezing his tiny eyes shut.
“We gotta get off the ship,” Qobayne said, retrieving his bag of gold from the body of Captain Kronch. “Unless ye can do something to stop their cannons? I mean, Luc said you were some kind of wizard, but I got no idea what the Pell you just did there.”
Vic’s fingers twitched as he realized he couldn’t hide his magic from the boatswain any longer. “I Bundted them,” he confessed. “Except the first guy, who got sconed. I don’t know about cannons, though. Maybe? I mean, I would need to think of something, because—” Another shot fired and plowed through their second level, and it must have hit a barrel of gunpowder, which ignited and exploded, rocking the ship under their feet and hooves, respectively.
“Never mind!” Qobayne said. “It’s over. Now we really gotta get off the ship.”
“How?”
The boatswain pointed to the front of The Puffy Peach, which was now burning amidships. “Your best bet is a jump into the water. Land on the sand, and you’ll snap a leg. Use your Sn’orkel if you must, but I swear the old fishwives’ tales say centaurs can swim as well as any horse. Run along the beach. I’ll meet you there with the rowboat.”
“Then what?”
“Then you think of something to do to those cannons with yer fancy breadstuffs or we’re dead meat.”
Vic had absolutely no idea what he could do. Centaur swoleboys weren’t supposed to be fighting naval battles. It was impossible to punch or kick something a hundred yards away across the water.
“Wait, I mean, how am I—”
But Qobayne was already descending the ladder to the rowboat. “Just do it!” he shouted.
Vic went, hooves clopping on wood, coughing through the cloud of smoke billowing amidships, and hoping the deck boards weren’t weakened so much that he would plunge through.
He didn’t want to do this. His entire frame shook with warring desires. He didn’t want to jump into deep water and drown while being eaten by eels, nor did he want to jump into shallow water and risk breaking his legs, because broken legs on a horse were essentially a death sentence. But he also didn’t want to burn alive in the inferno rapidly spreading along the gun deck. There were honestly no good options.
The deck of The Puffy Peach rapidly disappeared underneath his hooves, and he whispered a precautionary thank-you to his dam for bearing him, in case he didn’t make it. And then his haunches gathered and he leapt, nothing but air between him and the churning blue water.
Splash!
It was immediately chaos as he held his breath, his legs thrashing and his arms pinwheeling. With a soft thud, his back legs struck sand and sank in, then his front legs followed. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was bubbling blue and white. And a sinuous purple body. An eel! Without thinking, Vic punched and felt the give of a slippery body, tiny bones crunching like dry spaghetti within.
He had to get to the beach. Which meant he had to see what was above water—before he drowned or met a bigger eel. Bunching his hindquarters, he leapt up until his head broke the surface. He didn’t have long to scout for the beach, but he saw it and twisted his body in that direction, taking a huge breath right as his weight plunged him back down. His hooves hit sand again, but at least he was pointed the right way, and he knew what to do, athletically leaping again.
“Whoa,” he said as he surfaced, realizing that the combination of weight and buoyancy meant he couldn’t swim…but he could do a gentle sort of underwater bounding.
He found his rhythm, gained momentum, and was soon leaping out of the waves and onto the sodden sand.
“Ha?” he ventured, uncertain that he’d really made it. “Ha ha!” he added, and then, letting loose his bladder on the beach, he shouted, “Ha haaaaaa! I am literally Pissing Victorious!”
He spotted Qobayne on the starboard side, rowing into the shallows as promised while the POPO continued to fire on The Puffy Peach.
“I hope you’ve thought of something!” the boatswain called. “They’re going to get lucky and hit us if we give them enough time!”
Vic hadn’t thought of anything. He’d been too busy trying to survive and performing his underwater ballet. He took a few steps into the surf as Qobayne drew near.
“Well, how do cannons work?” he asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I never learned, because I couldn’t get down to the gun deck. And I know the dwarves had their tampoon cannons on deck, but when I helped out, I did more tamping than pooning.”
Qobayne sighed but made it quick. “Ye pack the barrel with powder, wadding, and shot, then you light a fuse—really just a vent filled with more powder—and it ignites the powder in the barrel and the shot is propelled—”
“Tell me more about the fuse. Where is that?”
“On top, near the back.”
“How do they light it?”
“With a match held at the end of a stick between pincers.”
“Okay, let me try something.” Vic picked the rearmost cannon, which looked like it was zeroing in on them. He reached out with one hand and then curled his fingers in as he rotated his forearm. “Glehhh!” he said, and Qobayne blinked once before turning around to see what effect this ejaculation had. “Glehhh!” Vic said again, repeating the gesture at the next cannon in line. Neither of them fired, but the next one did. The ball splashed down only a few feet from them, drenching them both and nearly upending the dinghy in the shallows.
“Whatever you’re doing, hurry it up!” Qobayne said.
“Glehhh!” Vic shouted. “Glehhh! Glehhh! Glehhh!” Twice more he glehhhed, and the eight cannons remained silent. There were distant shouts of anger and dismay from the POPO ship, though.
“Well done, I suppose,” Qobayne said, one side of his mouth curling up into a cautious smile. “What did you do?”
“I filled those fuse-vent-hole thingies with a sugar glaze, like a really thin frosting, you know? Wet and sticky. Can’t ignite the gunpowder that way.”
Qobayne stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “Well, it saved our buttered biscuits, so that was great. Good job, lad. Now get in.”
“You want me in that tiny boat?”
Otto squeaked on Qobayne’s shoulder, as incredulous at the prospect as Vic was.
“Yes. Get in and then fold your legs underneath you.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to go out and take that ship.”
Vic hadn’t been this confused since the Oatmeal Incident. “What? How? There’s only two of us, and I’ll never be able to get out of the rowboat!”
“I’m making this up as I go. But we need a ship, Vic. Witness The Puffy Peach, currently on fire. Now witness the POPO ship, currently not on fire. One of these will get us off the island, and one will not.”
“We can’t get off the island if we’re dead!”
“Let’s not die, then. That’s worked out pretty well so far. Get in.”
The dinghy was pulled up int
o the sand, and Vic splashed into the water, grateful that the incoming waves hid his dancing hooves. He couldn’t humiliate himself like that time at the gym. But the boat was so tiny compared to The Puffy Peach. And those gargling eels were still out there. But maybe, Vic reasoned, they were getting full on the POPO men.
The boat tipped and wobbled precariously as he boarded, but it settled down once he’d awkwardly splayed himself in the bottom of it. And why not? It was meant to ferry heavy cargo, after all.
“Oh, shiver me limpets. The ship—it’s leaving!” Qobayne said. He gave Vic the sort of look one might give a hero. “Can you stop ’em?”
Vic watched the ship as the sailors pulled in the anchor.
“How? Anything I do would destroy the parts of the ship we need!”
Qobayne’s lips twitched. “But sugar melts in time, lad. All we need is somethin’ to keep the anchor down right now.”
Understanding bloomed, and Vic nodded and smiled. He aimed his fingers at the anchor chain. “Blorgh!” he cried, realizing that nonsense words really helped focus his energy.
The anchor dropped back into the water with a gargantuan fruitcake packed densely around it, and all the sailors grunted and shouted in despair. Fish would nibble the fruitcake off soon enough, but for now the anchor had to weigh nearly twice as much, and even if the POPO could get it up to the deck, it would be far too awkward and gummy to wrangle the thing on board.
Vic’s chest puffed out a little. “Aye aye, Boatswain.”
Qobayne grinned and considered him as he rowed. “I’ve been sailing a long time, ye know that, right?”
“I do.”
“I’ve been around. I have seen some shite.”
“I have no doubt, Boatswain.”
“But I have never seen one sailor take out six others with baked goods. Or silence cannons with frosting. Or weigh down an anchor with fruitcake. Nor have I ever rowed in a boat with a centaur. Hey, wait. You’ve got huge arms. You row.”
“I…don’t think I can move around enough to do that.” Rowing in dramatic fashion was exactly the sort of activity that Vic had always imagined would make his buff arms look fantastic, so he regretted denying his boatswain. It felt good, being useful. And Qobayne hadn’t said a single negative thing about his magic.
“The point is, lad,” Qobayne continued as he took up the oars again, “I want to tell people what I’ve seen today, and I don’t even care if they believe me. I just want to tell the story, y’understand? So we are not going to die. We are going to win. Ye hear me?”
“I do!”
“Good. Now, there’s going to be a first mate on that ship acting as captain, and he’s not going to be an idiot. He’s realized by now that one of us is a wizard. So he’s going to be shooting at us soon. You need to look out for guys with muskets on the rails and figure out how to either stop them from shooting or make them miss.”
“Got it.”
“Then we have to board.”
“Yes, about that…”
“What is it?”
Vic took a deep breath. He could shoot cake all day, but when it came to admitting his shortcomings, he felt like a colt on his first legs. “There’s no way I can pull myself up a rope or climb a ladder. I know I’m swole and I would be great at hefting casks all day, but climbing is not a thing that centaurs can do. I’m going to need he—” The word died in his throat, and he swallowed a few times.
“Heh?” Qobayne asked.
Vic tried again. “Hel—”
“You’re gonna need hell? I don’t know what that is. Some sort of invigorating cream?”
Vic cleared his throat, looked up, and said the one word he’d sworn he’d never say.
“I’m going to need help.”
Qobayne nodded like he already knew that and wasn’t at all surprised or disappointed. “That’s fine, that’s fine; we’ll get to that once I’ve secured the deck. Now. What can you do to make sure I can take that ship?”
Vic saw a glint of sunlight on metal up ahead. He wiggled his fingers at it and muttered, “Gaooolllph.” A gush of hot tea fell on the spot, and someone screamed.
“What was that ye said?”
“I dropped some hot tea on someone’s head. They were aiming at us.”
“Oh. Right—you take care of that, then. I’ll row.”
Vic squinted at the POPO ship, considering. “All right, there have to be people manning the cannons, so that’s, what, sixteen people minimum there?”
“No. Five people per cannon, so that’s forty people at least on the gun deck. The captain probably has another forty on board somewhere, if not more.”
“So we’re two against eighty? Gaooolllph!” Vic tea-splashed another sniper.
“You’re framing it wrong. We’re not just two normal lads. We’re a wizard and a boatswain. Together we fight crime. And the POPO.”
Vic’s head spun with a skirling wave of dizziness, and he slumped to the left before lurching back upright.
“Whoa! What was that?” Qobayne said.
“Nothing. I mean, it wasn’t me almost fainting! But casting all these spells, it takes energy. I ate a well-balanced breakfast, but I kinda burned through all those calories, and now I’m casting on fumes here. Ah! Gaooolllph!”
Vic’s vision swam after he tea-splashed yet another POPO sailor taking aim at them, and he might have blacked out as well, because they were about halfway to the boat and then they were suddenly right next to it and Qobayne was pinching him awake.
“Hey. Vic, wake up. I need one more thing from you.”
“Whaaa? Wuzzappinin?”
“I can climb up this anchor chain to get to the deck, but there are plenty of lads up there right now waiting to cut me down. I need you to clear it somehow.”
Vic looked up and saw leering faces peering down at them and brandishing swords. “Clear it? You mean…knock them overboard?”
Qobayne shrugged. “Or knock them out, kill them, whatever. Then I can probably keep the gun deck contained, as long as their first mate is out o’ commission.”
“So I take them down and then what? Fritter away my time hanging out with the eels?”
“Look, I promise to get you aboard as soon as possible.”
Vic shook his head and steeled himself. “No, listen. I know what to do. I just…hope I can.”
The boatswain grinned. “Okay, do it. Do it now, before they pour some oil down on us or something.”
Vic craned his head back to look at the sky and shot his hands up, fixing his gaze upon a spot above the crow’s nest before half-spitting, half-grunting, a major conjuration: “Thurppf! Appfth! Huuunngh!”
Qobayne looked up, expectant, but nothing happened except that the POPO laughed at them. Nothing kept happening, and Vic attributed his shivering innards and swimming consciousness to a lack of strength. To failure. He muttered an apology. “So tired. Woozy. I’m sorry, Qobayne, I guess I just don’t have enough juice.”
The boatswain pointed up. “What’s that, though?”
A rapidly growing dark spot appeared in the sky above the crow’s nest. It kept growing and, as it grew nearer, looked to be a boat-shaped silhouette.
“Ha ha! They’re coming,” Vic said. “I called them and they’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Fritters. Apple fritters. Heavy slabs of fried dough traveling at high velocity. I’m gonna bury the POPO in donuts.”
The POPO had not been looking up, so there was no cry of warning. There were plenty of cries, however, once the fritters started landing. Men were indeed knocked out, for even dough can damage a noggin when traveling at sufficient speed. Some staggered and fell overboard. Most were buried, either conscious or unconscious, in the unrelenting rain of an arcane donut shower.
Qobayne chuckled as he snatched a
fritter out of the air after it bounced on the rail and fell toward them at a much more sedate pace. More were plopping into the ocean after similar rebounds. “You’re a bloody genius, Vic. But, whoa, eat this. Maybe eat ten. Ye don’t look so good.”
Vic tried to take the fritter but completely missed. His vision and his muscles didn’t appear to work together anymore. And then nothing appeared at all as a cold flutter spiraled through his bulk and he slipped into a hypoglycemic swoon.
Travel, Al had learned, was the great bestower of perspective. When he’d stood at the railing of the Proudwood Lighthouse and stared out at the sea, he’d dreamt of settling down with the Sn’archivist to become best friends and writing companions, forever ensconced in impressive robes daubed with ink and mustard. Once that dream had been dashed to bits, he’d hoped for a pleasant life at sea, swabbing things and climbing nets and eating hardtack spread with mayonnaise while dangling his feet from the crow’s nest. But then adventure had struck. Repeatedly. He’d never expected to be nearly boiled alive by royalty with a penchant for barbecue, and only when running back toward the beach had he realized how much The Puffy Peach had become home. And now that home was burning like a badly made s’more, and he didn’t have a new dream yet.
His current dream, as it was, was going up in smoke faster than a marshmallow. And there wasn’t even the consolation of chocolate and graham crackers to soften the blow.
“What do we do?” Al asked, along with everyone else. He looked to Captain Luc first, but seeing the bird gone nearly feral with fear and rage, he next looked to Morgan. She was levelheaded and brave; something about her went cold and calculating whenever danger rang the old doorbell. Just now she was shielding her eyes, staring out at their ship, which was very much on fire and, truth be told, more full of holes than King Thorndwall’s favorite moose cheese.
Al knew then that there was no saving The Puffy Peach. She would be reduced to ashes, and then spread in the sea like graham cracker crumbs.