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The day disappeared as it did countless times before. Somewhere in the dark sky, the moon lingered, but it was hard to tell where. The suffocating fog from earlier still clung to the waters and the clouds above matched in thickness, obscuring the white orb. Only a soft glow that lit the surrounding mists showed any sign of where the moon hid. It was a surreal environment. As if the ship floated in nothingness.
Kazuaki laid in his bed, a hammock of his own design. It was simple and efficient, the way he liked it. His hands laid across his stomach as he stared at the ceiling. Iani was dead. He lost members of his crew before, to death, old age, retirement. He’d even killed a few himself if they were insolent enough.
None left a crater in him like Iani Platts.
In the beginning, the deaths of those around him burdened him. Exposure to loss in volume numbed him as the years passed. Death became a commonplace thing, like eating, drinking, and breathing. Iani’s death was the first one that came back to haunt him in a long, long time.
Perhaps Bermuda was right. Maybe he was going soft.
Kazuaki frowned at the thought. If that was the case, it was all that damnable Nicholai Addihein’s fault. He was as cutthroat as ever before the newbie showed up on his ship’s deck. Despite his best efforts, a small smirk crept onto the captain’s face. Never in his life did Kazuaki think he’d take to a Time Father, but Nicholai and his unwavering morals bore into him without warning. Though the two men were cut from different cloths, Kazuaki respected Nicholai’s resistance to be anything other than who he was: a man who made mistakes but only wished to help those who couldn’t help themselves.
The Southeastern Time Father was an idealist stressed by a boundless heart. Kazuaki suspected Darjal’s death, and being confronted with the frozen people of Southeastern, damaged the man’s psyche more than he let on. He held his demons down and locked inside as not to burden anyone else. That, too, earned Kazuaki’s respect.
Rennington had the first watch on the main deck. This knowledge allowed the captain’s eye to close. The luxury of potential sleep did not last long. A loud boom sounded, bellowing in its power. His eye shot open. Kazuaki became accustomed to a similar sound on Panagea’s soil. The natural disasters resonated with comparable intensity. But this was no quake. Kazuaki was familiar with this sound though he hadn’t heard it in several hundred years.
Cannon fire.
He didn’t need to crawl out of his bed to know Darjal’s ship was upon them. He did not blame Rennington for failing to sound an alarm; it was likely the mist obscured their arrival. As he stared up at the ceiling, his small smirk from before spread until it consumed his face. Those fools. Domesticated dogs came to the woods to battle the wolf, but he had the home team advantage. They abandoned the sea long ago. It belonged to Kazuaki Hidataka now.
The captain sat up from his hammock. His boots landed on the wooden floor with a thump. He reached over, grabbed a bottle of manufactured booze and lifted it to his lips. A long, slow drink followed before he returned it to the table and exhaled. The burn in his throat fueled him. Broad arms grabbed his long jacket and threw it over his body. A quick check insured his weapons were ready. Both guns and steel lived on his hip.
The sounds of a scuffle outside his door pierced his ears. They were boarded.
With one swift kick, he blew his door open and engaged. His knife found flesh straightaway. Bermuda was not far. Bullets and blades shredded the air from both captain and quartermaster. The two fought with synchronicity. With precision.
Rennington, Brack, and Elowyn were also on deck. The firefight commanded them.
Revi prepared a cannon for fire. The instrument roared like thunder but did minimal damage as it connected with the enemy ship. A large, metal monster in the ocean, Darjal’s ironclad was a magnificent homage to the madman’s wrath.
Revi cursed and ducked before a falchion found his head. His dagger found the soft skin of his attacker’s jaw. He kicked the body into the unforgiving sea where waves swallowed it whole.
Nicholai burst up to the main deck. His eyes absorbed the battle. All footmen, bearing Southern’s insignia—it was like they traveled back in time to Avadon. His nerves charged as he avoided an oncoming attack.
Rennington appeared beside Nicholai. A man possessed, he grabbed the opponent’s arm on another long swing. Weapons made most men weak. They relied too much on the instrument to rely on skill. With his other hand, he raised his machete to sever the footman’s hand at the wrist. The falchion clattered to the floor. As fast as Rennington appeared, he vanished, off to paint the deck red.
Nicholai scooped up the weapon, more for a shield than anything else. Adrenaline attacked his bones. Surrounded by the ocean, there was nowhere to run.
He watched as Revi fired another cannonball. It struck an unlucky footman but did minimal damage to the vessel. It was too powerful. Nicholai found the captain in the chaos. “Kazuaki! You must take out the ship from the inside!”
Kazuaki was engaged in the slaughter. Those bold enough to set foot on his ship stood no chance. Kazuaki was the lightning, Bermuda the thunder. Together their storm ravaged any soul who got in their way. The footmen were easy. The ironclad was not.
Cannon fire from the enemy ship met his vessel’s exterior. Splinters of wood and shrapnel gutted the sky. The captain cursed. Their experience at sea would not matter if the footmen landed enough lucky hits. Darjal’s ship was a war machine.
But a war machine was still a machine. Nicholai knew his way around their inner workings. Kazuaki hurled a handmade grenade. The explosion sent footmen on the metal ship’s deck through the air. The captain growled. “Nico, you’re coming with me!”
Before the Time Father protested, the captain fired the last rounds in his gun and tossed the empty weapon aside. He seized grappling hooks from beneath a tarp and shoved one into Nicholai’s hands.
“Cover me!” Favorable winds and skill helped Kazuaki’s hook soar through the air. It caught the metal ship’s ledge in a single effort. Kazuaki jumped.
The crew flooded to the edge, providing Kazuaki with cover fire. Any footmen who tried to cut the captain’s rope received an unforgiving bullet.
Penn burst his head up to the main deck from below, a look of obliviousness on his face. “I leave you all alone with the ship for a few hours! Feckin’ shit!”
Nicholai stared at the grappling hook in his hands. “The feck am I supposed to do with this?” He stared at everyone.
Bermuda scowled at the click, click, click of her empty gun. Enraged, she tossed it aside and gripped another hidden on her person. “Get over there and disable the ship! Kazuaki will cover you!”
Revi forced the grappling out of Nicholai’s hands, hurled it with the same accuracy as the captain, and shoved the rope back into the Time Father’s grasp. “Hold on tight.” Without warning, he pushed Nicholai over the edge.
Instinct kicked in and Nicholai gripped the rope as he fell. Strong winds whipped at his face as he thudded into the side of the enemy ship. Despite trying to absorb most of the impact with his legs, his unskilled landing left his bones vibrating. With relief, the panicked chemicals spilling out of his brain dulled the pain.
Kazuaki left a pile of bodies by the time Nicholai clawed his way to the ironclad’s main deck. The captain suffered many wounds but the rips and tears in his clothing and body did not stop him from ravaging his opponents.
An oncoming soldier approached Nicholai. He borrowed a falchion from a fallen soldier. His oncoming attacker met his blade. He didn’t need to defend himself long. Kazuaki ran the footman through. The Time Father stared at the body with regret but returned his eyes to the captain. “We have to get to the boiler room. If we disable the engine, they’ll be dead in the water.”
Kazuaki scowled as a soldier’s bullet found his stomach. He peered through the gun smoke to identify his target. A well-thrown dagger sank into the soldier’s eye socket. “Hurry and find it, Nico. The ship can’
t take much more of this!”
“I don’t know the layout!” Nicholai ducked, using his falchion to ward off further attacks. “It could be anywhere!”
The captain scowled and seized an injured footman who tried to crawl away. He threw him back down to the floorboards, the only part of the ship that wasn’t wrapped in iron. He pressed his boot onto his chest, his blade to his cheek. “Tell us where the engine room is.”
The soldier tried to spit at Kazuaki, but all that came out was blood. The captain carved what would later become a deep scar into his face for the show of disrespect. “I’ll ask again, where is the engine room?”
Kazuaki felt the man’s hysterical breathing under his boot. He was a multi-tasker. He fired at those who approached and bodies fell around him. It wasn’t until the footman saw the dead eyes of his comrade collapse next to his face that he relented. “It’s through the hull ... at the ship’s bow.”
Kazuaki withdrew his weapon and motioned to Nicholai. “Move on then.”
The Time Father followed Kazuaki and at the footman’s instruction, disappeared below deck toward the engine room. Their hurried footsteps echoed off the metal walls. “You didn’t kill him.”
Kazuaki shot another man, an easy target in the narrow hallway. He pushed his way toward the engine room and scowled. “Not yet.”
Back on the wooden deck, Brack slipped in the pool of blood. Landing on his back, he took advantage of his position, driving a blade through a boot and into the tendon of a looming soldier. Revi slid by, using the blood as a lubricant to glide on until he stopped before Brack and helped him to his feet. The ship deteriorated. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up.”
“Keep firing!” Bermuda’s machete ate through another man as if it were starving. Their experience in battle carried them far. But as an explosion broke out at the stern and a fire erupted, she knew they ran on borrowed time. ‘Come on, Kazuaki’, she thought as she locked steel with a soldier. ‘Hurry your ass up.’
“There it is.” The engine room door. Nicholai climbed over the bodies Kazuaki left in his wake. His fingers never reached the handle. A bullet pierced the back of the Time Father’s leg and he collapsed.
Nicholai’s panicked fingers wrapped around the injury to apply pressure. The captain spun around to confront the familiar face of the man who dropped his comrade.
“Well, well,” Kazuaki growled and raised his gun at Jernal. “Look who bribed the reaper.” He escaped death in the catacombs, but he would not be lucky today. The captain squeezed the trigger. Click.
Jernal glanced at the captain’s empty gun and aimed his own. “For Southern.” He fired.
The captain lunged forward to put himself between the bullets and his mortal companion. He tossed flint, steel, and a grenade Nicholai’s way. The Time Father caught it in his bloody hands. Kazuaki winced at the bullets that found his flesh as he advanced toward Jernal. The pain was getting to him. He took countless bullets. But he powered through. “I hate to kill a man who fights in the name of Bartholomew Gray.” He hurled a dagger at Jernal, comfortable using it as a long-range weapon when consequences were dire.
Jernal lifted his arm, and that was where the dagger struck. He winced as he ripped it out. Jernal was a stoic man, but his alarm was ruining him. He riddled the captain’s body with many bullets. It seemed the rumors were true. Death did not come to Captain Kazuaki Hidataka. Still, he found his courage. “I stand for Darjal Wessex.”
“Then you stand for a dead man.” Kazuaki leaped at Jernal and pinned him against the wall. “Send him my regards.”
Nicholai dragged himself to the engine room and opened the door. He struggled, his blood-soaked hands made it hard to grip the flint.
Jernal stared at Kazuaki, looking his reaper in the eye. He received Nordjan’s letter from the mainlands. It dictated the need for a hasty return but detailed nothing of Darjal’s fall. “Spew your lies, demon, I will not listen.”
Kazuaki smirked. Nicholai lit the grenade. He tossed it into the room and forced himself to a stand. The captain leaned forward, his face inches from Jernal’s. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
“Leave him. We have to go.” Nicholai limped back to the captain, forcing weight onto his injured leg.
Kazuaki’s eye flicked to the engine room. Nicholai was right. Though it went against every instinct the captain possessed, he released Jernal. Kazuaki threw Nicholai’s arm over his shoulder to expedite his mobility while Jernal looked on with confusion. The soldier glanced into the engine room. He spotted the grenade.
“Shit.”
The engine room contained most of the explosion. The shell of iron that surrounded it absorbed the blast. Kazuaki spotted his ship as he emerged from the hull, finding the back quarter in flames. “Gods-damn it all!” He hurled Nicholai and himself into the first auxiliary boat he found that wasn’t damaged by his crew’s cannon fire. The captain’s blade cut the ropes to free the ship from the side of the ironclad and the two men plunged into the sea.
Nicholai grunted at the harsh landing. He gripped his leg injury again to still the blood loss. Kazuaki abandoned the small vessel and dove into the violent ocean. He surfaced at his ship’s edge, climbing the sides with dual daggers as his assistants. Plunging the blades into the wood, he scaled the vertical obstacle and landed on the deck. Smoke swirled around him as he found Revi in the chaos. “Get to the engine room! Full power!”
Revi abandoned his efforts to subdue the flames and vanished into the ship’s hull. Rennington, Brack, Bermuda, Elowyn, and Penn tried their best to quell the damage but did little with the constant threat of footmen at their forefront. Kazuaki ran to the bow of the ship and gripped the wheel. With the enemy’s engine destroyed, the ship created a distance between its opponent. The smoldering ironclad floated in the sea, powerless to catch up to the burning wreckage that was Kazuaki’s ship.
Fewer and fewer footmen littered the deck as the influx from the warship ceased. Though riddled with injuries, the crew showed no mercy. Soldiers who did not wish to die jumped into the sea by their own doing. The threat of death by falchion was eliminated. The crew shifted their efforts toward the fire.
Kazuaki looked over his shoulder. The flames grew in size, feeding on the wooden masts and canvas. Despite its condition, the ship parted from the ironclad with efficiency, but the captain knew it wouldn’t last. She would soon fall, the biggest casualty of his entire crew. It took a moment for him to make the call. Denial tried to infiltrate his thoughts; he loved his ship. She was a piece of the Kazuaki Hidataka legend. But it was the ship, or the ship and the crew.
His eyes flicked to Nicholai in the waters below. The man struggled to row the lifeboat in the power of the waves alone. Coupled with his injury, Kazuaki showed surprise he kept a close pace. Survival instinct played a strong role in keeping a man alive. The captain tightened his lips together, his hand gripped around the wheel’s handle. It hurt to let go. But he did.
Kazuaki marched forward, looking passed the bodies that besieged his deck. He found his crew in the back, fighting the flames. Though it ripped his heart in half and gutted his heavy soul, he raised his hands to his mouth to help carry his voice. “She belongs to the sea, mates! Abandon ship!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The beloved ship drifted, stationary in the unforgiving waters. It was far off, but they still saw it. Though the haze remained over the swelling waves, the orange glow of the dying vessel burned like a lighthouse in the distance. They fled to Nicholai’s lifeboat, their own cockboat far too damaged in the battle to be of use anymore. It was one last affront to the captain. Not only did he have to part with his precious ship, but he couldn’t even claim the small boat she carried with her.
Kazuaki rowed with persistence. The sting of the bullets in his body mocked him with every stroke. He remembered the day he bought the vessel. He purchased her for almost nothing several hundred years ago when it became clear the art of seafaring was dying. Men a
nd women no longer found their fortunes in the briny waters; the advancements made on land afforded them all the luxuries they needed. The wanderlust died. Maritime adventures died with it.
Once again, the ocean belonged to no one.
Elowyn stitched a knife wound in her abdomen, biting hard on a bullet between her teeth with each thread the needle made into her skin. She reached into the emergency pack of medical supplies she grabbed before their hasty abandonment. When her hands found the antiseptic, she used care to pour it into her gash. The medic needed to conserve as much as she could. There were many wounds to go around.
Brack dug into his arm with a pair of Elowyn’s forceps, trying to fish out a bullet. Blood oozed from the hole as he sunk the metal pliers in farther, rummaging them around until they found the foreign object hiding inside. He tried to stifle his howl when he ripped it out. He was only somewhat successful.
Anguish lived in the small boat. With the adrenaline from the fight long gone from their bodies, all that remained was the crippling fatigue. Bermuda sanitized the forceps as best as she could when Brack finished with them and sat beside the captain. “Want me to get those?” She motioned to the dozens of tiny holes.
“Tend the rest,” Kazuaki murmured, knowing full well Rennington, Revi, and Nicholai still held shrapnel under their skin. “I’ll live.”
Bermuda nodded and went to assist the others. Penn, who endured several cuts from falchions, but avoided any flying bullets, picked up a set of oars after he stitched and cleansed his injuries. He rowed in silence with the captain, figuring the man knew which direction they needed to go.
Revi groaned as he pulled out another bullet. He huffed and hurled the metal chunk into the sea. After a few deep breaths, he slid the only cask of water they loaded into the lifeboat over toward him and took a much-needed drink. The cool liquid eased the fire inside him. He wiped beads of trailing liquid from his jaw. “How far do you think we’ll get before we run out of supplies?”
The Panagea Tales Box Set Page 40