by Brad C Baker
“Thank you, Mr. Drake,” was all the heavy-shouldered dwarf could muster at the retreating back of his quartermaster.
Vlados went to the aftcastle and bellowed fore, “All hale crew, to me!”
After they assembled, Vlados took count, then continued, “As we are woefully undermanned, some changes to duties will have to take place. Until we hit Carib, we’ll have to run on twelve-hour watches. We have no fit rigging rats, so the look-outs will have to double as such. Also, they will each have an apprentice rat from the deckhands. Lawrence Marley, you’ll take first watch, and have Eli Puraji with you. Show him the ropes.”
“Aye, aye.” The two men dashed off.
“Robert Marquis, you have the second watch, and Izzy Nunez will assist you. Go get some shut-eye.”
“Aye, aye,” came the parting reply.
“Jacob Mortine, since you have been piloting us for some time, you’ll finish out the first watch, then turn the helm over to Mr. Drake, who’ll pilot the second watch.”
Mr. Drake nodded approvingly, then called to Jacob, as he turned to head to his bunk. “I’ll relieve you in a few hours, mate.”
“As we only have four available deckhands left, there will be no use of the sweeps. The sculls will be made fast in the hold. The first watch will belong to Jaroll Hawthorne and Fransisco Nunez. Second watch will be yours,” Vlados nodded at Brom Corr and Lovarth Nordhome.
“Aye ser!” yelled the four men before splitting company.
Hullaboo hopped from twenty feet away to mere inches from Vlados’s nose. “What you want from me?”
Vlados sized up the massive bipedal frog. His leaping ability would be able to move him quickly about the ship, but would his size overbalance him aloft in the rigging. “Would ye feel uncomfortable up there?” Vlados pointed to the sails.
Hullaboo grinned and licked his salt parched skin, “Like tree frog?”
Vlados laughed, “Sure, sure. Like a tree frog.”
“Okay!” Hullaboo leapt up to the first brace without touching a rope, then just about scared the shit out of the lookout as he landed above him and asked what he could do.
Wanda was still chanting over the body of the Captain.
Crallick walked up, “Well Captain Ironforge, what can I do to chip in?”
Grinning from under his slowly re-growing beard, Vlados said, “Nothing. Just protect the ship.”
Crallick scoffed. “Just me? I think you may be giving me too much credit.”
“No, my friend,” Vlados stared daggers at Crallick, “I believe it is you who haven’t given yourself enough credit. Just who are you really, Cral? Who?” He shrugged. “Making vines grow from a ship but can’t get a farm to run, so you cannae be a druid. You are a noble living like a pauper. Chessintra’s blessing, Crallick who the fuck are you, really?”
Crallick scratched his head, looking balefully at Vlados. Then he growled, “I’m your friend. That should be enough. Don’t let your new post get you too full of yourself. I am who I am. Don’t think you can demand shite from me… little dwarf.” Crallick let the contempt for the perceived invasion of his privacy drip heavily from the last two words.
Not allowing the dwarf to get another word out, Crallick spun on his heels and headed to the bow of the ship.
After no less than ten hours of chanting, Wanda collapsed into a fitful sleep, her body having been ravaged by divine energy flowing through it. The next morning she awoke in a smelly medical bunk, Syllethra tending to her wounded charges. Wanda felt a painful tug when she went to slide her legs off the bed. Looking down, she noticed her thigh had sixteen tight stitches holding the cut in her leg together. There was no bandage. Syllethra noticed her up, and came over to her. “Good morning, Wanda. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve suffered a severe case of divine diarrhea,” she laughed weakly. “Thank you for my leg. Why didn’t you bind it?”
“I’m finding that the coral tipped spears left wounds that are falling to sepsis quickly if bandaged. Leaving them open is having a better effect. That and a lot of alcohol,” Syllethra smiled wanly. “The Captain lives, thanks to your ministrations. However, she still slumbers deeply. I don’t know how well, if ever, she’ll recover. Regardless, thanks for all your efforts.”
“Hey, I’m not done yet,” Wanda smiled. “You have a lot of work here. I can help.”
A weak smile punctuated Syllethra’s response. “I will gladly accept all the help I can get.”
The next tenday and a half proved uneventful. There was mounting fatigue from the overworked men. They were doing the tasks of two men each and working half again as long as they were used to. Nevertheless, the trim of the ship was kept well, and they still managed close to nine knots an hour.
Clouds scudded swiftly along the trade winds as the Flamerunner flew towards Port Fairaway. The lookout, Mr. Marley, squinted to the south. Then there, just on the lip of his vision, was the crowning of a new tooth in the ocean. The triangular cusp of a sloop’s sail rose out of the waves.
“Sail ahead! Sail ahead! Sail ahead!” he cried out.
“What is she, Mr. Marley?” called up Vlados.
“Dunno yet, ser! She’s about a league out, but closing,” Marley returned. About an hour and a half later he called again. “She’s a sloop, ser!”
Crallick walked up to Vlados. “Trouble?”
“Buggered if I know, mate,” Vlados confessed. “This is my first time doing this shite.”
“So then, tell me, what does your gut tell you?” Crallick prompted.
“Well, we’re heading to the pirate islands, so my bet is that if we don’t play our cards right, yeah, there’s a might chance of trouble,” Vlados confessed.
Crallick grinned. “All right then. This could be a break in the monotony at last.”
Crallick had been either working out, or brooding sourly at the bow of the ship. He had spurned all attempts to see if he was all right, even from Wanda. Soon enough everyone, Vlados included, had decided to leave him to his own melancholy. That is not to say that Crallick’s friends weren’t concerned, but more a measure of the impasse that they found themselves in front of.
Later that afternoon, the sloop began to drop her sails to slow her tacks towards the Flamerunner, who still had the season’s prevailing wind mostly behind her. As the sloop closed, the lookout called down, “Ser! She’s running off! There are at least twenty souls crouched down on deck. I figger she’s pirate or slavers. She’s got ballistae!”
Too late, Vlados gave the order to make full sail away from the sloop; shuddering thunks shivered the hull, just under the main deck. Following that was the groan of thick hempen ropes, pulling taut between the two ships. There was a black banner that ran up the mainmast of the sloop, unfurling in the warm breeze. It revealed an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a ship.
“Ahoy mate!” called a voice across the water aboard the sloop. “Don’t ye be running off now just as we made yer’ acquaintance!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” growled Vlados under his breath. Then aloud. “Why’n did you have to go shoving pointy things into me hull?”
“Just a minor bit o’ patching is all! She’ll be fine!” called the voice.
“Who’s going to be doin’ the patching? You?” Vlados countered.
“Well, mate, depending on how we get along, maybe!” laughed the voice, along with an accompanying chorus of others joining in the mirth.
Crallick then added his two pennies to the discussion. “You got any rum over there? We’re running a touch dry! It might be cordial of you to invite us to a sociable event!”
Vlados strode across the deck while the sloop continued to draw closer. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.
“Being polite and conversational,” Crallick grinned malignly.
“Well mate, that’s an awfully imposing thing to put to a mate at sea. While of course we got stores of rum, as should you, one doesn’t usually make sociable demands on a first en
counter. It’s not polite. One should wait to be offered, not ask.” The voice tisked its disapproval.
“Well, as I am not accustomed to sea travel, and the idea of someone shooting at me sours my etiquette, and I’m not sure how polite piracy is in any event, and it is my intent to make landfall at Port Fairaway, a known pirate port, I figure slaking my thirst is the least of my concerns,” Crallick said.
The far voice began to bluster, “Now wait just one Flowwe-be-damned minute here! Who be in charge there? Your rudeness is surely putting a sour note on the day, mate! Firstly demanding drink from fellow seafarers, then accusing them of piracy, then taking offence to grappling on to safely make parlay! Those are fighting words indeed!”
“I’m sorry, my good man,” Crallick’s predatory grin broadened. “You mistake my meaning. I was not accusing you of piracy, I was simply telling you of my intention to partake of it myself.”
The roar of laughter erupted from the sloop. Twenty to thirty souls rose up, no longer interested in surprise at this outlandish fool.
Crallick joined in their merriment.
Vlados, pale now, rushed about getting those below decks up and armed.
“You!” called the voice. “You seem to have a light crew for engaging in piracy, mate. And how, pray tell, do you plan on carrying out this ploy of yours?”
Again Crallick laughed, “You again mistake my meaning. I do not mean to implicate my crew, as they aren’t mine to command. I simply mean me. Just my need. My intent. My act. Alone. Give me half your stores of rum and I’ll let you all live. Fail to comply and I’ll kill you all.”
The mirth left the voice that answered Crallick. “There are thirty of us, mate. You sure ye be liking them odds?”
“Yeah, I am,” growled Crallick. “There’s only one ship, all sealed up with pitch and tar. Wood and men burn pretty well together. Ignia lanca.” Extending his hand, Crallick launched a bolt of magical fire just yards from the bow of the sloop.
“Shite!” came the now panicked voice. “Are you bloody insane!?”
“No.” Crallick grinned. “But, my friend didn’t believe me when I said I’d kill for a drink. He really should have listened.”
“Yer bat shite crazy! Yer daft! You know how much pitch and tar make up the waterproofing of that there tub of yours? One errant spark and ye go up just as swiftly as we!” Fear tinged the words with an uncertain weight.
Crallick practically beamed in twisted delight. “Well now, we wouldn’t want that now, would we? By now, you’ve figured out you can’t cut free, turn around and get out of range before I’ve had time to light you up like an Asha day bonfire. So I strongly urge you to get two casks of rum and throw them into a cargo net that you’ll sling between the two lines with a draw rope tied to it. Then you’ll throw the draw rope to my colleague here.” Crallick gestured to an incredulous Mr. Drake. “Who’ll proceed to pull my rum over here to me. Only then will I allow you to safely cut free. Any questions?”
“Aye, one. And what if we test yer resolve and decide to come to blows here and now?”
“Then, I fire the ships and we find out how long you can tread water?” Crallick smiled. He cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers, “So tell me, you feeling lucky?”
A pause was only punctuated by leather on wood, rope on rope, and grumbles from the would-be pirate vessel. With a begrudging thud, the draw rope was thrown to Mr. Drake. He then began to pull the two casks over to the Flamerunner.
“Thank you, my good gentlemen.” Crallick waved, and smiled at the opposite crew. “I’ll toast your health!” He then swung his greatsword, cleaving the ropes free of the ship. “Happy sailing, I hope your future ventures are more profitable, and safer than this one!”
Amidst the grumbling of discontent, and the creaking of ropes and timbers as the sloop began it’s frantic turn away, Crallick’s fine Vitani hearing picked up the cries of ‘Can we sail with you?’ Bolstered by this, he called out one last time, “Any who can make it to this ship may sail with me!”
As soon as the words cleared his throat, a full eight crewmen dove from the sloop and began swimming furiously for the brigantine. Crallick never bothered to watch their progress. However, as he helped himself to the rum, he heard the gathered crew watching and laying bets on the projected outcomes of what was to happen with the desperate swimmers.
Vlados walked over to his friend, “Crallick, I’m worried about you.”
“Why?” Crallick sipped from a cup of rum.
“Well, for starters, ye drink like a dwarf,” Vlados began.
“Why, thank you,” Crallick interrupted and toasted his friend.
Shaking his mohawked head, Vlados corrected, “Not meant as a compliment, mate. Secondly, you risked everyone’s life for what, a couple of shitty barrels of rum?”
Realization dawned in Crallick’s rum-softened mind. “Ah, I see. You actually think this display was about the rum.” At Vlados’s nod, Crallick continued, “No, my friend. It just happened to be a seemingly insignificant thing that I was sure no one would willingly want to die over. But something I’m sure they would be in possession of. It was a bluff, a ruse, a hoax, tomfoolery at its finest.” Crallick drank again from his cup before refilling it. “The loot was a perk.”
“What about the unnecessary hardships you’re putting those other sailors through?” Vlados gestured to the seven men in the water. Wait, hadn’t there been eight?
“Again, spoils of war. Anyone who on a whim can turncoat will never be trustworthy. Anyone who’ll risk their life has invested in you completely and therefore will be more trustworthy. You see?” Crallick took another pull on his mug.
“You are a cold man, Mr. Oakentree.” Vlados watched as the first of the water bedraggled sailors pulled themselves aboard the main deck to both cheers and curses.
All in all, five men bolstered the crew of the Flamerunner by the end of the morning. Initially there was some confusion over exactly who was in charge. No, it wasn’t the psychotic elf mage-who wasn’t a mage. No, it wasn’t the former captain, who was in her sickbed. Yes, it was the dwarf. Really, truly, it was the dwarf.
There was a slender human rigging rat who went by the name of Marc. Another rigging rat, Nespyran, was vitani. They allowed Vlados to place them on alternate watches. This doubled the number of actual rigging rats up in the sails for each watch. There were two more deckhands, a lizardman, and humans Menshirre Orram and Ronald Noble, who looked anything but, respectively. They were also separated to alternate watches.
The fifth crewman was Wallace Pallan. He had been an officer. The first mate of the other ship, in fact. This rankled Vlados. He was very unsure of what to do with this one.
“How can I trust him?” he asked Crallick and Drake.
Wallace took it upon himself to answer, “For starters, I could have just not told you my position on the ship. I was honest with you.”
“Says you,” Vlados quipped.
“Aye, says me,” Wallace replied.
“How do I know you aren’t lying about that too? Maybe yer just a glorified cabin boy? Maybe you’re just looking for more pay?” Vlados mused aloud.
“No, that doesn’t make sense,” mused Crallick.
“He wouldn’t lie about that,” confirmed Drake.
Laughing, “Damn straight, I wouldn’t. First, if ye half a brain in yer head, I’d just imagine, you’d confirm it with the others. Second, it’d be a lot easier for me to not be an officer in this position. Savvy?” Wallace scoffed.
“All right, so why did you jump ship… Mr. Pallam, is it?” Vlados asked.
“Pallan ser. And easy ser. Captain Ernstman has not been faring well and to get taken as he was just drove in the final nail for me. I’d had it. Getting taken by a mark? That was the last straw. Even two full shares aren’t worth a damn when there’s nothing to share. So when your lad here held out the auditions, I figured I’d try my hand. And here I am.” Wallace paused. “I’m good at navigation, and I’ll take a se
cond mate’s or third mate’s role. I’ll be trustworthy.”
“We’ll see about that. Mr. Pallan.” Vlados made sure he got the name right that time.
Fair weather followed them for the rest of the day. In the evening, they could make out the lights of Port Fairaway before they could make the distinction between land and sky. Underneath the deep blue mantle of night, the ship slipped into the sheltered harbor with only the slightest moans and creaks.
Chapter Eight
“The seaside Knights of the plume were found not to fly
The water drake plied the coast with peals of thunder
Bannathyr soldiers fell to the surf to die.
The savage cliffs the drake completely did sunder.”
Verse 9: Ballad of Ser Crallick Carnage-born
The lapping waves sloshed more noisily as the brigantine, Flamerunner, slid up to the outermost berth. She was small enough to barely make use of the berth, unlike some of the other frigates and galleons anchored out in the harbor. Evening cast a dark pall over the sea. Port Fairaway turned into a violent stab against that pall. Lights from candles, lanterns, and bonfires mixed with laughter, mirth, clinks of crockery, moans and shrieks of pleasure, and some of pain. All leant to the symphony of delights that was Carib Island.
“Welcome! And what’s your business?” called a portly fellow from the dock with a friendly wave.
If it had not been for the man’s beaming grin acting as his own personal lantern, Vlados doubted he’d have even seen the man, so dark was his complexion. “We’re in hard from Port Marahaven! We’re looking to take on supplies and crew!”