by Simon Archer
“Why not just take them in the city, sir?” I asked.
“Because they seek another prize, old friend, the means to control the siren. They must claim it, and you will take it from them, along with Mary Night and their misbegotten lives.” Layne was still grinning, his eyes feverishly bright as he stared at me. “For now, put aside your lusts and ambitions. Do this work for me, and together, we will rule the seas above and below.”
A grin crept across my features as I nodded. I could do all of this and more, but I’d need ships and men to replace those I’d lost. Perhaps I could even convince the admiral to lend me a squad of merfolk.
“I will, Admiral. You have my word.” With that, I stood and waited to be dismissed.
Admiral Layne watched me for a moment and then gave a single nod. “Call me Justin, old friend,” he said. “Go in peace, and return drenched in the blood of our enemies.”
“So be it, Justin.”
19
“Tiny was, perhaps, this big when I found him.” Ligeia held her slim hand about six inches or so apart. “He had managed to get himself stranded in a tidal pool and was fighting with an octopus.”
Mary laughed, and I chuckled. It was hard to imagine the ship-sized Dragon Turtle as a baby, but the siren had the evidence of her own eyes. Perhaps she lied to us, but as delighted as she seemed to be telling the tale, I didn’t think she was.
The three of us were in my quarters. I sat behind my desk, Mary was perched atop it, and Ligeia wandered around and inspected my trophies, one by one. It was hardly a situation I’d expected. Prior to just an hour or so ago, the siren had barely set foot on The Hullbreaker, let alone came belowdecks.
She’d gotten distracted during her most recent visit by the wind-working that Mary and Nagra had been doing, then when both the witch and I had been relieved of our watches, Ligeia followed us down to my cabin. Now, I watched her rummage through my things while Mary looked between us, a bemused expression on her face.
“We aren’t far from Tarrant, are we, Captain?” the witch finally asked.
Ligeia picked up an elven skull and studied it curiously as I replied, “We’ll be there by sundown, methinks. Ye an’ Nagra did good with the winds.”
“Of course, Captain.” Mary dipped her head and smirked slightly. “Only the best for ye and the fleet.”
Fleet. That had a definite ring to it, though I’d hardly call two undermanned ships a fleet… but that would change when we’d dug up Bloody Bill’s treasure. I grinned back.
“Ye led me to expect no less, either.”
“What… flat teeth,” Ligeia observed, still fascinated by the elven skull. “Is this human?”
“Nay, lass.” I shook my head. “The one next to it, though. That one is human.”
She picked up the second skull and held them up in the lantern light, comparing and weighing them in her hands. “What is this one, then?” she asked as she held up the elven one.
“That’s an elf,” Mary answered. “Milnian, unless I miss my guess.”
“Aye,” I added. “That was Wavelord Illirian of The Moonshadow. I bested him in single combat on the deck of his ship as it sank.”
“And yet, his skull is whole,” Mary mused.
“I cleaved it from his shoulder, not in twain,” I grunted and leaned back in my chair, the wood creaking under my bulk. Arms folded across my chest, I regarded the two women with a faint scowl.
Mary let out a soft laugh, and Ligeia cocked her head, puzzled. A moment later, she was back to her inspection of the skulls.
The Wavelord had been a memorable fight. All the skulls on my shelves had names and stories, and each had been a captain or commander that I’d slain personally in a fair fight.
That one, though, had been something else. My thoughts drifted back to the memory of it. It hadn’t been that long past, perhaps two years. I must have had a strange look on my face or something because both Mary and Ligeia stared at me with bemused expressions.
“Aye?” I asked.
“Lost in thought, Captain? Ye stopped talking and started staring off into space, rather than casting looks at my--” Mary put both hands beneath her breasts and bounced them playfully.
“Memories,” I said with a snort, eyes focusing on her cleavage for a moment.
“You find her chest attractive?” Ligeia asked suddenly.
We both turned to the siren who had her slender hands folded between her small breasts. Her casual nakedness was both enticing and easily ignored. Ligeia carried herself with inhuman confidence normally, but this time, there was something more, a moment of vulnerability or a chink in her armor.
“Aye lass, I do,” I admitted, and looked sidelong at the witch who returned my gaze with a playful smirk. “I find all o’ Mary attractive, and I find ye desirable as well.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking a few times. “I… I find you desirable, too, Captain.” Then, her eyes widened, and with no further words, she was gone, bolting from the room so quickly that the door swung freely in her wake.
“I never imagined a siren would play coy,” Mary commented with a faint smirk. “Do ye mean to go after her, Captain?”
I continued to gaze at the door as my witch draped herself against me and nuzzled one of my ears. “Nay, lass. I don’t mean to frighten her any more than she already is.”
“Ah,” Mary purred. “How do ye know she just does not want ye to chase her?” Her hands slid over my chest and along my arms.
“‘Tis no great mystery, lass,” I replied as I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. “Surprise, fear, an’ other things all have their own distinct scents.”
“That keen orc nose, aye?” she teased. “What do ye smell about me, my Captain?”
“Ye seem to need a bit o’ attention, I’d say,” I answered with a deep chuckle and ran one hand along her leg possessively before I reached between her thighs.
She gasped and pressed against me warmly. “Ye think we’ve time to play before we’re in sight of Tarrant?”
I shifted my arms and pulled the witch into my lap, “Aye, lass, an’ we don’t need to rush, either.”
A broad smile brightened Mary’s features, brightening her elfin face. Those mismatched eyes sparkled. “I like that idea.”
A few hours later, as twilight was falling over the sea, I stood at the helm and watched the island of Bargest grow on the horizon. Mary lounged against the deck rail nearby and waited for Nagra to finish her shift singing up the winds. Ligeia had dove overboard after she fled my cabin, and she and Tiny had vanished beneath the waves. I had no doubts she’d be back, though. Call it a gut instinct.
Mary had been her usual insatiable self, and her cries had likely been heard on deck and over the rush of the wind. I was slow moving and pleasantly warm, having spent myself in my witch a few times over. A thought finally drifted to me as I held The Hullbreaker steady.
“Do ye know a witch by the name o’ Cerridwen, Mary?” I asked.
“Hmmm? Oh, might be, Captain,” she answered. “Why do ye ask?” The witch, too, was thinking slowly. Fortunately, these waters were safe enough that we could afford these diversions, but these calm waters would grow less frequent once we had a better idea where Bloody Bill stashed his prizes.
“Mister Shrike named her,” I replied. “She be Bill’s witch an’ a foreseer, he said.”
Mary frowned at me. “There’s a couple of Sisters who work under the Cerridwen name, but if ye mean a witch with second sight, then it could only be Cerridwen Ash, and she’s an old acquaintance of mine.”
That could potentially create a problem for me unless my witch was more loyal to me than to her Sister. “Will this cause ye trouble?”
“She is skilled and dangerous on top of having a rare talent,” Mary either missed or ignored the implication in my words. “I might be able to muddle her sight, but even now, she will know danger’s coming, and they might flee.”
“Can ye do that an’ work the winds?” Late was better tha
n nothing, and I’d be sure to press her for an explanation of her relationship to Cerridwen Ash when the opportunity presented itself.
“Nay,” Mary shook her head. “Nagra can keep the song going long enough for me to throw this hex. ‘Tis not a long working.”
I sighed. In the few days since I’d rescued Mary Night and turned pirate, I’d seen more magic than I had in nearly all my sailing career. Hopefully, we’d be done with this, soon, and get down to good, old-fashioned, axe work, or even cannons and pistol shots.
It wasn’t that I had anything against magic or hexes. They were useful tools in very specialized hands. I just didn’t have any real talent or understanding of how it all worked, or why.
That said, I sure understood how to use every advantage I had tactically.
“Get to it, lass,” I told the witch. “Hopefully yer ‘prentice won’t fall out while ye do it, either.”
Mary waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, she’ll be fine, Captain. She’s nearly got my stamina, and we both know how long I can last.”
“Not long enough,” I smirked and said. It was only fair to tease her. Vengeance was an orcish virtue, after all.
My witch snorted and shook her head, laughing as she padded off. I watched her go, my eyes settled on her swaying backside. The tales of temptress witches and brazen seductresses all seemed to come to a measured head in Mary Night. I certainly couldn’t complain, though, not since she’d decided I was worth giving herself to.
Neither of us was disappointed, of that, I was certain.
I walked over and leaned on the rail on the starboard side, gazing out at the dark form of Tiny, with his mistress nestled in the little throne shaped in his shell at the base of his massive neck.
What did I think of the siren, Ligeia? She was fey, like Mary, but her aquatic, carnivorous nature made her even more alien than the little witch. Rather obviously, though, she was interested in affection and understood desire and physical appeal.
I wouldn’t turn her down, either. Men didn’t drown in the arms of a siren purely because of their songs.
The ship shook suddenly, and I was immediately alert. What in the hells was that?
There was another thud as something hit the hull, then another. Shrike called out from the helm, “Sailors on watch!”
That was a call to alert that signified possible danger. The watch officer and the deck crew immediately armed themselves and made ready. Of course, my great axe was in my cabin, but there were alternatives. I swept up a belaying pin and a hand-axe from their nearby berths and stalked the deck as more of the things struck the hull.
Off to starboard, Tiny let out a hissing bellow and then sank beneath the waves. Something was afoot. This wasn’t any particular uncharted region, nor were we near anything I knew of as merfolk territory.
What in the hells was down there?
Curiosity got the better of me, and I moved back to the railing and peered overboard. Glowing shapes darted beneath the waves, keeping pace with the ship. Every now and then, one would veer off, then turn back and slam into the side of her, at which point it would cling on.
Someone shouted behind me, and I turned to see a swarm of things, half-fish and half-man, scrambling aboard the ship. The sound of scratching claws on the rails behind me alerted me to the presence of more of the damned things, and we were suddenly in a fight for our lives.
Nagra was stuck holding the hex that kept us speeding along, and Shrike manned the helm which left it up to the rest of the crew and me to keep them safe. Hopefully, Mary would hear the ruckus and come assist as well.
I faced off with the first ones over the rail on my side, since most of the crew had gone to fight the ones to port. As the first one let out a gurgling roar and leaped at me, I met it with a strike of the hand-axe between the thing’s large, fishy eyes. Blood spurted around the blade as the creature fell, and I kicked it back over the rail as two more swarmed me.
Whatever these things were, they showed some signs of intelligence. My two were definitely trying to keep me pinned down while more of the things swarmed over the rail and charged for the rearmost of the crew fighting with the fishmen on the port side.
I bellowed out a warning at about the same time as a musket shot rang out from the forecastle. One of the fishmen attacking the crew pitched over as one of its large, glassy eyes exploded in a shower of gore. Jimmy Mocker had joined the fray.
Heartened, I laid into the two creatures on me, battering them with the belaying pin until I found an opening for my axe. They didn’t last long in the face of that. One fled over the rail in fear of its life, and the second made the mistake of getting too close. It swung at me, but I let the belaying pin fall, caught the clawed arm at the wrist, and used the leverage to drive the axe into the thing’s chest three times before hurling it into another one of the creatures. Both went down, and I pounced after, cleaving the skull of the next one.
More shots rang out, and fish-men dropped. The ship rose and fell, then rolled a bit to starboard before it settled back to true. Something was going on beneath us, and only something big could have caused that sort of motion. No doubt Tiny and Ligeia were fighting more of the things below us.
As the Hullbreaker rocked with another wave, Bord and his dwarves came stomping up above decks, followed moments later by Mary. Her evil eye blazed in its socket, and while she wasn’t even wielding her knives, she had my great axe in her hands.
“Captain!” she yelled and sent it sliding across the deck to me.
I hurled the hand axe into the head of a fish-man, swept up my great axe, and began harvesting these things like wheat. Mary cried out some strange words, and with each one she spoke, her eye flashed, and a creature froze or fell, stricken. Blood covered the deck as we sliced our way through them, only to be replaced by more of the creatures as they swarmed over the rails every passing minute.
Suddenly, Tiny burst from beneath the water beside us and let out a roar. His fog-like breath washed over the ship, and the creatures fled with gurgling roars. Death by our hands might have been something they were willing to risk, but the Dragon Turtle was too much for their spirits, it seemed.
The steamy breath of the Dragon Turtle cleared quickly, and I rushed to check on Sirensong. “Ahoy, Sirensong! Are ye alright!?”
“Aye!” Kargad bellowed back as he hurled a broken body over the railings of his ship. “Gods-damned fish-men!”
I found myself laughing as I nodded. The sea was a strange mistress, and this was simply one of the many dangers of courting her.
20
Our journey onward after that was uneventful, and at the speed we sailed, it wasn’t long before the isle of Bargest loomed close. The gibbous moon lit the wide sea with a pale light that sparkled and danced among the waves. I turned the ship’s wheel to adjust our course a bit, and The Hullbreaker slowly came about. Lights shone in the distance, rising from sea level all the way up to the top of a tall cliff, and the bright beam of a lighthouse’s lantern swept out to guide ships into the Tarrant docks.
The free town of Tarrant was unique in the isles. First, it was almost a city, home to several thousand lost souls. Second, it was built at the top and bottom of a three-hundred or so foot tall sea cliff. The docks and warehouses were situated at the bottom, and dwellings and businesses were built into and onto the rising cliff before the rest of the city spread out along the top and reached into the mountainous and forested interior of the vast island.
Tarrant never slept, either. Shipments of metals, woods, and stranger things arrived at the top of the cliff, were processed, and then sent down to the bottom as exports, while goods arrived daily by ship to be disbursed upwards through the network of stairs and lifts that connected upper and lower Tarrant.
“Ye can slow us, lass,” I called to Mary, who sat cross-legged in her spot beneath the mizzenmast. To the crew, I bellowed, “Drop sails and man the oars, we’re almost to Tarrant!”
The witch’s song began to fade and slow, and the
winds dropped noticeably. I cast out over the moon-sparkling sea, searching for any sign of Ligeia. Where had the girl gotten herself to? She’d vanished with Tiny shortly after the fight with the fish creatures, calling out that she’d meet us near our destination.
Beside us, Sirensong adjusted her sails and course to continue to parallel ours. “Ye want us to put in, Captain?” Kargad yelled over, “Or hold watch?”
If we didn’t have pursuers, the crew certainly deserved a round of shore leave, and Tarrant was quite a place to have a bit of fun after weeks or months at sea.
“Hold watch!” I bellowed back. “We’ll come by for shore leave once we’ve more breathin’ room!”
“Aye, Captain!” he shouted back, then turned and began calling out orders to his crew. At his command, Sirensong slowed and angled off a bit.
While Tarrant didn’t have any sort of protected harbor, it did have extensive docks. We were in sight of them and within range of the cliff mounted cannons when Ligeia slipped out of the water and over the rail. Her eyes met mine, and she beelined for the helm, water dripping from her glittering skin. Mary rose to her feet and watched unmoving from the shadow of the mizzenmast as sailors dropped that sail.
The siren paused near me and fidgeted for a moment before she said, “I should have stayed after the fight, Captain. I am sorry.”
I gave her a crooked smile around my tusks and shrugged. “Ye helped with the fish-things, and ye came to meet us. That be what matters to me.”
She looked down at her feet for a moment and fidgeted shyly. “I gave my heart to a man once, and he betrayed me. Now, I find myself falling for thee, Captain, and I am frightened.”
“I’ll not knowingly hurt ye, lass.” I looked away and took a deep breath of the salty air. “On that, I give ye my word.”