by Simon Archer
When our visitor finally emerged from behind some trees, both of us were at least decent, if not completely dressed. It paused in the long shadows and studied us with glimmering green eyes that shone brightly in the night.
“That was the most interesting call I’ve felt in years.” The voice that came from the figure was female, pitched low and sensual. Her tone conveyed a promise that sent a shiver down my spine and set my manhood to stirring despite my recent activity with Mary. “Is all this mine?” She waved a casual hand in the direction of the fallen.
Suddenly it clicked. This was the siren. Had Mary and I unwittingly gotten her attention with our amorous, post-battle lovemaking? Before the witch opened her mouth, I gave a nod.
“Aye, all but one, if he still lives,” I said as I pointed with my axe to where the one man I’d meant to capture had fallen. With the jog I’d given him, he’d likely awaken tomorrow or not at all.
At my words, the siren slipped out into the open. She was nude and slender built, nearly as tall as I was, with hair of a deep turquoise that fell wetly over her shoulders and ended in the middle of her back. Her skin was a much paler shade, a tea green that glistened wetly in the wan moonlight. She was hairless aside from the locks on her head and smooth save for the slits of gills that pulsed on her ribs. Aside from these fishy nods and a sprinkle of shimmery scales, the woman was only slightly different from an elf in shape, including oversized, sharply pointed ears. Her breasts were small and firm, tipped with dark areola and nipples of emerald green, and the cleft visible between her thighs was of similar color.
If she noticed my gaze, the siren made no comment as she padded closer, her bare feet whispering over the leaf-strewn ground. Her eyes drifted over us then back to the corpses. Finally, she turned her bright blue eyes on the two of us again and gave us a close-lipped smile.
“I accept your offering,” she said at last. “What do you want of me?”
I motioned to Mary, who stepped forward and bowed her head in greeting.
“I am Mary Night of the Sisterhood,” she said politely and inclined her head. “This is Captain Bardak Skullsplitter of The Hullbreaker. We are here to petition your aid, cousin.”
The siren narrowed her eyes, and she leaned in to sniff the air near Mary, who stood stock-still. I tightened my grip a bit but kept my gaze steady. If there were trouble, I’d try to end it quickly.
“Hmph,” the siren snorted. “You are bold, changeling girl, as is your captain.” The sea-woman’s eyes roamed over me, and I couldn’t help feeling I was being appraised as a meal. After a moment, she slid past me and looked over the fallen Imperials. “I am Ligeia,” she said by way of introduction. “Come with me, and we will discuss your petition.”
With that, she bent down, grasped two of the corpses by their shirts, and began dragging them off back the way she’d come. “Be good guests and bring along the rest!”
Mary and I exchanged glances before I shrugged, slung my axe, and gathered up two more of the fallen. I set off after the siren, and the witch picked up my boots and followed.
Our trek through the remaining woods was short, and we emerged into dim moonlight on the lagoon’s beach. Blackwater Lagoon was an oddly deep coastal body of water, with a partial ring of sharp coral and rocks that formed the barrier between the lagoon and the sea. It was odd in the respect that coastal lagoons normally just slope gently downwards and rarely get deep enough for the water to go as black as it did here. The water was choppy, with little whitecaps dancing over its surface along with the sparkling reflection of the dim light above.
An enormous shape loomed on the waterline about a hundred or so feet from where we stepped from leafy ground to sand. In the wan light, I could see the thing clearly and knew it immediately from the legends all sailors knew.
“A Dragon Turtle,” I said, unable to keep a hint of wonder from my voice.
Mary gasped. “I knew they were real, but I’ve never seen one.”
Ligeia glanced over her shoulder, and I saw the laughter in her eyes before she turned back to make her way carefully in the creature’s direction. It let out a low groan that felt like a question, and the siren answered with a soft, tonal song.
The Dragon Turtle was easily the size of a sloop-of-war and more massive, its armored shell almost as wide as the creature was long. In build, it was much like a sea turtle, having flippers instead of land-going feet fore and aft. Unlike a turtle, though, the monster’s head was longer, crested and finned with a massive snout horn, and another set of horns rose from above its brow like those of a bull. Yellow, large-pupiled eyes glared at us as we approached, and it let out a hiss that pulled at our clothes and filled the air around us with the stink of rotten fish.
I scowled, and Mary gagged, but we stayed in the siren’s wake. If the thing attacked us, our best bet would be to make for the treeline. It would be slow and awkward on land and likely wouldn’t pursue further. I doubted my axe and pistols would penetrate its hide, but I might be able to take an eye, as large as they were.
Ligeia dropped off the bodies and retreated, motioning for me to offload the pair I carried with the ones she had. Once I’d given over the corpses, I rejoined Mary and Ligeia a short distance back along the shore and watched as the Dragon Turtle stretched its neck out and snuffled at the bodies before rather delicately picking up one in its jaws and swallowing it down whole.
The creature let out a rumble, and the siren chuckled, something that sent interesting jiggles through her anatomy. “Tiny wants me to thank you. He likes man-flesh almost as much as whale blubber.”
Tiny? I groaned inwardly, then paused. Maybe the creature was small for its kind, and the description was an apt one.
“What do you want?” Ligeia asked in that musical, almost hypnotic voice of hers.
“We be lookin’ for aid against an Imperial blocked o’ Jetsam,” I replied as I focused on her. She was quite attractive, and I had to push past that to concentrate on the business at hand.
She smiled faintly, looked to Mary, then back at me. “What do you need for us to do?”
Us? My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Ye and Tiny?”
“Aye,” she answered smoothly. “You have a ship, I assume?”
It was my turn to nod. “Privateer.”
“Good, good,” she said, then turned her head and spat a stream of liquid that sizzled for a moment on the sand. “A pirate, William Markland, stole something from me, and I want your help to get it back.”
“What about the bodies and the… other offering?” Mary asked, speaking up.
Ligeia laughed, a beautiful sound with a slight hint of madness. “Oh, dear cousin,” she purred. “That got my attention. You’ll have to do a good bit more to keep it.”
William Markland was a name I knew. He wasn’t just any pirate, though, but a self-professed pirate king: Blood Bill Markland formerly of The Fallen Angel. The man was a legend, and also the former captain of my crewman, Shrike. I growled deep in my throat, and the siren’s eyes snapped to me.
“Something, Captain?” she demanded.
An idea occurred to me. It was bold, but we had nothing to lose and much to gain. “I’ll aid ye, lass, if ye join my crew. I know the pirate of which ye speak, and we just might have a way to find him.”
Mary’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. No words came, which was probably good, and I continued.
“Ye and Tiny would be a great boon to me plans, ye see.” I pointed out at the sea beyond the exit to the Blackwater Lagoon. “Out there, the Imperial Admiralty rules the seas.” There was an unspoken ‘for now’ in my tone. “I mean to contest that, an’ the two o’ ye would be the perfect recruits. I’ll help ye recover whatever was stolen, and ye can stay on until ye get tired of our company.”
She glanced back at the Dragon Turtle who’d finished his meal and was nosing around in the sand for more. “Two shares,” she demanded, “plus a pick of the dead.”
Oh, right. Sirens ate man-flesh as well. Th
at little fact had slipped my mind, but the thing was that most of us were orcs and that sort of thing didn’t phase us.
“Sounds fair to me,” I mused, “but ye be under my command if ye can accept that.”
Ligeia’s eyes met mine, and I held her gaze. Slowly, the corners of her mouth crept up in a sincere, delighted smile. She clapped her hands together, a sound that startled Mary and elicited a snort from Tiny.
“Done, Captain!” she exclaimed, then froze for a moment and looked down at her right hand. After a moment of staring, her fine brow furrowed, she spat onto her palm and held her hand out to me. This time, the spittle didn’t hiss or spatter.
I grinned broadly, did the same, then clasped hands with her. She had smooth, cool skin, and her touch awakened urges within me, much like Mary’s had. After we shook, the siren turned to Mary and repeated the gesture with less hesitation, and the witch replied in kind with a broad smile.
Something seemed to pass between the two of them. Both changelings and sirens had fae blood, so maybe that was it. Kinship or rapport or some kind of family understanding, I supposed.
“Let’s go get our captive, and bring the rest of the food to Tiny,” I offered.
The Dragon Turtle raised its head and hooted insistently before letting out a gurgling roar.
“He would like that very much,” Ligeia translated.
I nodded and, without another word, turned to stalk back to the battleground. With one deal, I’d improved our chances of surviving an attack on the blockade significantly. Of course, there was the other side of our deal. What had pirates stolen from her, and when? Hells, who had stolen it?
As the siren and I gathered more bodies, Mary checked on the unconscious man. “He’s alive, Captain,” she reported. “I’m not sure when he’ll be awake or how much time we’ve got before the storm hits.”
Both of us turned our gaze to the dark, back-lit clouds above. Lightning had begun to flicker in their depths as the Commodore’s witches continued to stir the pot.
“What are they tryin’ to raise, Mary?” I asked.
She shook her head, her mussed, dark hair bouncing. “Thunderstorms, I think, but they might be calling a hurricane, and we’re just starting to see the outer edges coming in.”
“I’m thinking we should expect the worst,” I observed.
It was a philosophy that had served me well in the past. Expect and prepare for the worst, that way you won’t be caught unawares or unready, and if you were wrong, the battle was just that much easier. I tended to over-prepare for an orc, but I’d learned a lot about the sea from humans and dwarves, too, and she was a harsh, demanding mistress to us all.
“That is probably a good idea,” she agreed and continued to look up at the ghostly sky, her hands rubbing together. “I could try to counter it, but that would keep me from making a fog.”
I managed to get my hands on the captive as well as two corpses, and we started dragging them back to the beach. “If the storm hits, there’ll be too much wind for fog and for sailing.”
“Aye.” Mary sighed and shook her head. “Hope he hasn’t replaced me, then, Captain.”
“Tiny can make fog,” Ligeia offered as I dropped off the survivor. As we dragged four more bodies down to the water for the Dragon Turtle, I gazed up at the massive creature.
“He can, can he?” I thought aloud. He could probably founder or capsize any ship out there right now, but how resistant was he to cannons?
The siren nodded, and while Mary and I backed off as the creature bent down to swallow another Imperial, Ligeia squatted down and snapped off a corpse’s arm with a single bite. The witch winced, and I stared. How had she gotten it into her mouth enough to do that?
The three of us retreated and settled down around the unconscious Imperial while Tiny had his meal. I watched Ligeia eat while Mary, rather pointedly, did not. I’d have to remember that she had at least a small squeamish streak, though I supposed it was a bit unnerving to watch a beautiful, naked woman daintily nibbling the flesh from a man’s arm with shark-like teeth.
That was when our captive stirred and let out a low groan. Maybe I hadn’t hit him as hard as I thought, or else he was tougher than he looked.
12
I reached over and rolled the soldier onto his back while Ligeia, still chewing on the severed arm, leaned over to inspect him. The scream he let out was a satisfying one, and I was certain the shock of seeing the blood-splashed siren, holding one of his comrade’s arms had brought the fellow fully around.
He squirmed in the sand, taking a moment to realize that he’d been rather well-restrained by bits of his own uniform. Mary certainly knew her knots.
“So, ye still be among the livin’, Imperial shit,” I said, looking down at him with my elbows resting on my knees where I squatted. “I know ye’ve heard o’ me, and ye’ve been on the business end o’ what I’m capable of, so ye get one chance. Answer me questions, and I’ll let ye live. Otherwise, I hand ye to yon siren and her associate.”
From further down the beach, out of the man’s sight, Tiny let out another of his hissing bellows. The man shuddered and looked from me to Ligeia, who just smiled sweetly and snapped off a finger in her shark-like teeth, then swallowed it whole.
She was frightening. Were I a lesser man, I’d be pissing myself in her presence. A second later, the pungent fear-stink of urine rose from the man, and I swore soundly.
“Dammit, man!” I bellowed. “Have ye no dignity?”
Mary giggled… or maybe cackled eerily was a better description of what came out of her mouth. Our captive whined and tried to squirm to see her, but she was well hidden in shadow, only her shining eyes and her outline visible.
“How do I know ye say true?” the man asked shakily, his voice barely audible over Tiny’s mumbles and snuffling.
I shrugged. “Ye don’t, but would ye rather take a chance with the siren, or maybe the witch?”
At that, Mary cackled again, and Ligeia finally revealed how she’d managed to bite a man’s arm completely off. Her skin stretched and peeled back, revealing a cavernous maw filled with serrated, triangular teeth. That caught even me by surprise, then her jaw snapped shut, and she went back to nibbling on the remaining bits of flesh on the arm she held.
The Imperial shook his head wildly. “Anything… I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just… just don’t hand me over to them!”
“Awww,” Mary protested. “I want to play!”
Ligeia pouted. “And I’m still hungry!”
“Shush, ladies,” I commanded as I raised a hand for quiet. Both of them obediently fell silent, their eyes focusing on me.
The human’s eyes were locked on me too as he trembled. From the sudden stink, he may even have shat himself.
“Gods damn it, man!” I roared suddenly. “If ye be the best the Admiralty has to offer, then how in the hells did ye come to rule the seas?”
“I’m just a marine private, sir,” the man whimpered, cringing away from all three of us as best he could. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”
I slashed my hand through the air and growled suddenly. “Lies! Ye were advisin’ the sergeant, and ye almost had me with yer pathetic act. Ye’re a corporal or a specialist, maybe more, and I suspect ye have a bit o’ history before takin’ on with the navy.”
He dropped his head back onto the sand. “You’re smarter than I expected, greenskin,” he said with a chuckle.
“I fought ye. Ye’re about as far from bein’ a marine private as I am from bein’ an elf.” I shook my head. “Thing is, ye ain’t savin’ yerself by bein’ clever. Ye’re just makin’ all three of us angry.”
“Very angry,” Mary chimed in.
Ligeia hissed like a snake and snapped another finger off her meal, eyes focused on the mystery man as she chewed.
“Just kill me,” the man said, eyes closed. “Soon enough, all of this will be wiped clean anyway.” That said, he started to laugh.
I turned m
y head to look at Mary, then Ligeia. “What does that bloody shit mean?” I demanded as I reached down and clamped my hand around the man’s broken knee.
His eyes snapped open, and he let out a high-pitched shriek of pain.
“Ye’ll answer, dog,” I snarled, “else both o’ these women will have their wicked way with ye, piece by bloody piece.”
“Fine! Fine! Damn you and your kind!” the Imperial cried. Guess he really wasn’t made of sterner stuff after all. “The Admiral means to settle the problem of the free towns once and for all, and there’s nothing any of you can do about it!” He opened his eyes and gazed at the heavens as lightning flashed and thunder rolled in the distance. “The storm comes!”
Mary bounded to her feet as crazy laughter poured from our captive. “Captain, we have to get back to The Hullbreaker. I’ve got to start working on a counter-hex before this grows too big!”
“Who says that it isn’t al--” The man’s voice cut off with a choked gurgle as the siren, tired of his babbling, lunged for him and tore out his throat with a snap of her teeth. Instead of pulling back, she pressed in as blood fountained around her and took another bite, severing the Imperial’s head.
I gave an appreciative nod as Ligeia continued to take vicious bites out of her victim, hissing with rage. “I was tired o’ that shit, too,” I said, then turned to the witch as I rose to my feet. “Aye, lass. Soon as Ligeia be finished, we’ll set out.”
Mary was plainly distraught, fidgeting and wringing her hands while she looked between me and the distant clouds. “They mean to set winds protecting their ships, then call up a hurricane to scour the archipelago. The Imperial towns will all be battened down, but the free towns will be devastated.”
“How do ye know this, lass?” I asked, reaching out to grip her shoulders, offering her my own steady strength.
“Because, my Captain,” she replied. “It’s how I would do it… how the Sisterhood would do it, given the command.”
That was enough for me. “Ligeia!” I snapped, and the siren lifted her head, blood covered her from her eyes down, darkening her pale skin to an almost black hue of crimson.