by Simon Archer
“Aye…?” I had a bad feeling I knew where this was going.
“The Commodore’s fleet may already be there,” she said quietly as she looked down at her hands. “I overheard him talking about it with Lord Broward. They mean to blockade all the free settlements and wait for Admiral Layne to bring the rest of the fleet and his Golden Claws.”
“Oh, shit,” Kargad muttered.
Layne was a legend in the Admiralty, the one man who worked his way up from a common sailor to the master of the greatest fleet in the Empire. Commodore Arde served as his strong right hand. As admiral of what was known as the Emperor’s Fleet, Layne also controlled the Golden Claw Division of the Imperial Marines. The Golden Claw had never lost.
We certainly had our work cut out for us.
“Right,” I grumbled and thumped the table with my clenched fist. The mouse skull bounced and settled. “I’m not going to assume that the Commodore is ahead of us, but I’m not going to assume he isn’t, either. We’ll shift course a bit and come ashore out of sight of the Jetsam harbor, then go overland to scout things out. The independents are no friend of the Admiralty, but they likely won’t pick a fight unless they’re forced to, and when they do fight, they’ll be fighting to survive. It’s going to get ugly.”
Mary and Kargad both nodded, their heads bobbing almost in synch with each other. I held back a laugh and focused on the map.
“Mary,” I said with an arched eyebrow, “what can ye do without a full set of witch’s tools?”
She paused for a moment in thought. “I can makeshift everything I need for basic hexwork and maybe more. What d’ye need done, Captain?”
I gazed down at the map and reached up to rub thoughtfully at one of my tusks. “Fog,” I growled suddenly. “Can ye make a fog to hide us getting close?”
“I could, maybe, especially with the elemental stones forming the base for the hex,” she opined as she pursed her lips. “Are you certain, captain? All the Commodore’s ships are staffed with at least one witch, and he’s got two of his own. Three, if he’s replaced me already.”
A grin crossed my features as I answered her question with one of my own, “Are ye better than them, lass?”
Her eyes darkened, and she set her mouth grimly as she nodded. “I’m the best gods-damned witch in the fleet, Captain Bardak,” she said firmly. “I’ll prove it, too, but I’ll need a few trinkets from here and there aboard ship. Ye’ll have your fog, and it’ll be thick enough to sail right up to The Indomitable if that’s what ye bloody well want.”
I nodded and glanced at Kargad with a knowing smirk. Challenge the strength of anyone strong, and you’d get their best work. Coddling was for the weak.
“Get us to Jetsam without a fight, Mary,” I pronounced, “and I’ll take ye at yer word.”
Her eyes met mine, and my heart quickened a bit. Something enticing smoldered within those sapphire and emerald orbs. Perhaps it was just the fey glamor of her heritage shining through, but this was a woman to watch and, gods willing, to keep. She took a breath as if to speak but then seemed to realize something.
“Permission to get about it, Captain?” Mary purred.
“Aye, go.” I nodded and gave her a dismissive wave. “We’re less than a day from port, and if the Commodore is there, I don’t want him to see us coming.”
She gave me a nod and a hooded, meaningful look as she said, “Thy will be done.” With that, she turned and swaggered out of the war room.
Kargad and I watched her go. My eyes drifted down to the sway of her hips and shapely backside, and I couldn’t help but smirk appreciatively.
“Confident,” he observed and looked back at the map.
“You got that, too?” I asked with a toothy grin.
“Aye,” he replied, his deep voice rumbling thoughtfully. “Could be arrogance, but I don’t think so.”
I nodded. “She’s dangerous and motivated.”
“Could be trouble,” he said.
“Not for me,” I said with a broad grin.
He laughed and shook his head. “Good luck with that.”
I chuckled and slid the crow skull that represented The Hullbreaker a few inches closer to Old Man’s Isle and Jetsam on the map. “What do you think of the human, Shrike?”
“Good worker.” Kargad sauntered over and leaned against the wall beside the war room’s door. He crossed his arms and regarded me. “Climbs better than most of the crew and damn good with the ropes. He doesn’t seem to have any issues working with a mostly orcish crew either and doesn’t complain about orders. The bastard even speaks a bit of Orgik.”
Orgik and Targik were the two principal languages spoken by Erdrath Orcs. They were mostly regional dialects and similar enough that anyone who spoke one could puzzle out the other if he spoke it loud enough and slow enough. The tribes most of my boys were from spoke Orgik. We were forest and hill orcs, while our mountain and cave-dwelling brothers mostly spoke Targik.
“Interesting,” I commented, watching my first mate as he lounged against the wall. When he did this, he wanted to ask me something uncomfortable but had to go through this whole ritual of hemming and hawing around until he figured out the best way to ask it without pissing me off.
He’d usually do better just asking.
“Did he say anything about where he might have learned it?” I asked to prompt my first mate’s thoughts.
“No,” Kargad grumbled as he shook his head. “That’s one pirate with tight lips. Ye’ll not have much to worry about him spilling secrets unless that’s what he means to do.”
There it was. He was suspicious of the newcomers and was reaching for a way to ask me about them that wouldn’t question my judgment. The thing was, I had picked the pair of them, Shrike and Mary, out of Lord Broward’s dungeon on a whim. It seemed like the thing to do at the time, and I didn’t care to be questioned about it, although Kargad was probably the one orc who could get away with picking my brain about stupid shit.
“I ain’t going to worry about that one,” I said and faced the other orc squarely. “Nor Mary either. I ain’t bewitched and I ain’t stupid, old friend. Shrike may have a line on Bloody Bill, and Mary’s a witch what can help us and even teach your girl, Nagra. Ye want to stick yer nose in? Then watch ‘em close without getting in their ways. Otherwise, ye’ve trusted me this long, ye old sea-wolf. Let well enough alone, and ye can challenge me if it goes bad.”
Kargad blinked at me, obviously surprised. Did he truly think that I didn’t see through his shallow ruses to interrogate me by now? Maybe I needed to start knocking him around the head and shoulders whenever he did it, instead of giving him the answers he didn’t want to hear.
“Aye, cap’n,” he said, his tone a little sullen. “I didn’t mean to question yer judgment and all, but we’re still mostly an orc crew…”
“With about twelve humans, a couple o’ dwarfs, and a changeling,” I interrupted. “Don’t lie, either, Kargad. Ye meant full well to question my judgment, and I bloody encourage ye to. Ye’re first mate, ye daft fool! ‘Tis yer damn job to keep me from takin’ this wreck to the bottom with all hands.”
Kargad blinked again as my words sank home. He was a damned fine orc, and the most loyal friend I’d ever had, but he had all the sense of a post, sometimes.
“Aye, cap’n,” he said sheepishly, shifting his gaze down to study his broad, bare feet. “Have we got any more plannin’?”
“Not now.” I shook my head. “I think I’ll go catch a few hours of sleep while the witchy woman gets ready to do her magic. You’re in charge, so try not to sink us.”
Without giving him time to answer, I pushed past and out, heading down the stairs to reach my own spacious cabin below the aft castle.
5
“Land ho!” the shout came from the crow’s nest, followed almost immediately by, “Sails ho!”
I was at the helm, one hand rested on the wheel as I held a steady course towards Old Man’s Isle and kept a weather eye on the deck c
rew as they went about their duties. It was a cool morning on the northern sea, with a steady wind from starboard that we had to tack into. A distant haze blurred the horizon.
“Heave to!” I bellowed. “Drop the sails!”
Time for Mary to prove she wasn’t just blowing smoke.
I raised a hand to shade my eyes and peered off into the distance. Aye, there it was, Old Man’s Isle. Jetsam’s harbor was on the near side to our position, and my keen eyes picked out an assortment of vessels dotting the sea between us and the island. With the distance and the haze, I couldn’t make an exact count, but there were enough for a blockade though not enough to capture a town the size of Jetsam.
With the island at her back and the resources she had, Jetsam could hold out a good long time. Luxury would suffer, but no one would go hungry or thirsty. The blockade was more a symbol and a timewaster, keeping the people intimidated and worried until the Admiral’s fleet and his bloodthirsty marines could arrive.
Then they’d wipe Jetsam off the charts, and I couldn’t let that happen.
As the ship slowed to a rocking, drifting halt, Mary and Nagra stepped out onto the deck.
“Time, is it?” the changeling witch called up to me.
“Aye,” I said with a nod. “Stir things up so we can slide in past the Commodore and his ships and put to shore out of view. I figure we’ll only get one good chance at this, and I don’t want to be trapped in the harbor if the Admiral gets here sooner. We go overland to the town, maybe we can leave Arde confused as to what happened.”
“Then we hit him when an’ where he least expects it,” Kargad added as he joined me at the helm.
“I’d like nothin’ better,” she called up. It might have been a trick of the light, but Mary’s features took on a predatory cast at my first mate’s words, and she grinned fiercely.
I nodded and gestured to the deck. All the crew had made room and were watching.
“Show us what ye can do, lass,” I said, my voice booming out over the gently rocking ship.
Nagra ducked back belowdecks and returned quickly with a shield and a makeshift wooden frame of some sort. She set it up while Mary watched. When the she-orc was done and had stood back, the witch moved toward the makeshift shallow cauldron and placed the two elemental stones within it, the blue one in the center and the red one a few inches away.
She motioned Nagra in close, whispered to her for a moment, then nodded. Wide-eyed, the young orc reached out and, with a couple of words, activated the two stones. At once, water seeped from the blue while the red glowed with heat. The water hissed and started to boil where it touched the fire stone.
Mary took over then. As steam began to rise and dissipate from the interaction of the two stones, she began to whisper to it, waving her hands and drawing the thickening mist into a rough sphere. The crew that had been whispering amongst themselves fell silent at that. We’d all seen magic before, chants and dances, elixirs and rattles, rituals that took hours to prepare and execute, but this was something more.
Was this the witch’s fey heritage coming out? Or was this what a real witch from the Sisterhood could do, given the right motivation? Either way, I was impressed. She continued to gather the steam, her voice rising until she was singing softly in a language that reminded me of wind in the sails and the lapping of water. It touched on an old memory of storms and darkness.
Mary swayed and sang on until the solid white mass of mist between her hands was the circumference of the shield in which the water and fire stones sat. Then she drew in a deep breath and spread out her hands as she puffed her cheeks and blew all the air from her lungs, right into the heart of the misty ball.
Our world suddenly went white as the fog roiled outward, thicker than the proverbial pea soup and smelling of brine and something else I couldn’t identify. Shadows moved as the crew broke their reverie, and quiet voices and exclamations, muffled in the dim, pale world, reached up to me like the touch of ghosts.
“I’ll be damned,” Kargad muttered in disbelief.
I let out a deep chuckle. “Well, I’m guessing that the Admiral and maybe the whole island will be as blind as we are shortly. Get some men on the oars, Kargad, and start a slow stroke forward.”
“Aye, captain,” my mate said as he strode off into the swirling fog.
Moments later, Mary and Nagra joined me at the helm. “I trust this is satisfactory, Captain?” the witch asked.
“It’s a good start,” I replied. “How long have we got ‘til it burns off?”
“Long enough to get to the island,” Mary replied, her brow furrowed in thought. “It’s not exact, and there’s always a chance that the Commodore’s witches will set their skills against mine, and they’re better equipped than I.”
I studied her for a moment. Despite the chill in the air, her skin was damp with sweat, and her fine hair fell limply around her shoulders. Her working had obviously taken a lot out of her. Maybe the tools and trappings she spoke of were more necessary and less theatrical than I thought.
A quiet drumbeat began to sound below decks as oars extended and dipped into the sea. The ship began to move, slowly and ponderously, forward. I kept the wheel straight as I gave Mary a respectful nod.
“Go below and get some rest,” I said. “Ye’ll be coming with us to Jetsam, to pick out your kit.”
A brief flicker of relief crossed her lovely features. Sure, she didn’t have tusks or a strong jaw with high, heavy cheekbones, but the witch was an attractive woman, nonetheless, even by orcish standards. What’s more, she had a certain force of personality around her, a sense of being larger than life, and that I appreciated more than anything else.
“Thank you, Captain,” she dipped her head in a respectful bow, then turned and slipped off.
Nagra looked after her and then at me, a question in her eyes. I hadn’t dismissed her, yet, but she felt loyal to Mary, her new teacher. I was silent for a moment, waiting to see how the young she-orc would act.
“Permission to follow, sir?” she asked after steeling herself.
“Aye, lass. Off with ye,” I said with a chuckle. Nagra was a respectful girl and understood the ship’s power structure. Sure, I tested her on occasion, but that was because her father asked me to. He wanted his daughter to be the best sailor she could be, and now, it looked like she was a witch as well or at least a witch-apprentice.
Nagra bowed her head to me in the same way Mary had and danced off down the stairs, her bare feet almost silent on the deck. With that done, I took a deep breath of the damp air and stared off into the almost blinding white of the fog, listening and letting my memories of approaching Old Man’s Isle guide me.
Fog at sea was a strange, almost disconcerting thing if you weren’t used to it. Noises that are close by could seem almost impossibly distant, while distant sounds could startle you with their apparent closeness. Shapes moved in the swirling white, creating ghostly images that might be seamen or might actually be spirits given momentary form.
I closed my eyes. It was all an illusion, after all. In fact, my crew and I had plenty of experience with fog. We hadn’t become the best raiders and privateers in the Eldrath fleet by being unable or unwilling to use every advantage open to us.
All it took was the proper skill, memory, and seafaring knowledge, which I had. The Hullbreaker glided forward with each oar stroke, moving a familiar distance to each beat of the drum belowdecks. Lift, sweep, stroke. Lift, sweep, stroke. Slowly the ship gained momentum, and I added that to my mental calculations.
After a few long minutes, I adjusted the course a bit, bearing to port. That would angle us away from the harbor towards the western shore of Old Man’s Isle. There, The Hullbreaker would be out of view of the Commodore’s fleet by the time the fog faded. From there, we could take one of the ship’s boats and make an overland trek into Jetsam from the land-side.
In and out, with the Admiralty none the wiser.
I twitched an ear as Kargad rejoined me at the helm
. He kept silent, as this wasn’t the first time most of the crew had worked with me under these sorts of circumstances, and he knew what I was doing.
Early in my career, when I was just a sailor, I’d discovered a talent for navigating blind and by memory. The ship, the sea, and the wind would whisper to me, guiding my way in fog and darkness.
Perhaps this was my own particular magical talent.
As we drifted on through the fog, there came distant shouts of alarm, followed, a few minutes later, by cannon-fire. Iron balls splashed into the sea unseen and far to the aft. I chuckled quietly. That was panic fire. Apparently, the Commodore’s men were a bit edgy and probably saw shapes moving in the fog as it rolled in. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long for the captains to regain control of their crews and settle them down. They’d stay on high alert until the air cleared, but since we’d be nowhere near them, it hardly mattered.
“Humans,” Kargad snorted derisively. “Panicky little things.”
I just nodded and turned the wheel a bit more to port, counting time in my head before returning our course to true. “Half a bell at this pace and you need to tell the rowers to ship the oars. Gather me a crew to go ashore while ye wait. Five should do, but one needs to be the witch and another, Shrike. I want to see how he handles himself on a mission like this.” I spared him a look and grin, “Ye’ll have command ‘til I get back.”
“As ye will, Captain.” He nodded and brought his clenched right fist to his chest in a salute.
“Try not to sink my ship,” I said and chuckled again before closing my eyes to focus on our course. There were no ships near us, the cannons and shouts had stopped, but every now and then, there came the faint ring of a bell. They had likely detected our ruse and were holding position, waiting for an attempt to run the blockade.
Wouldn’t they be surprised when the fog cleared on an empty sea? I could almost imagine the indignation and disbelief on Arde’s features.
I’d had the displeasure to meet the Commodore on more than a few occasions. We’d handed off captured ships and crew to him often enough, along with treasure that should have been ours by right. However, our Letter of Marque, our license to piracy in the name of the Empire, stated that we had to deliver two-thirds of our take to the Admiralty, and in return, we could use Imperial ports and shipyards and resupply our cannonballs and powder at Imperial expense.