Orc Pirate: Raiding the Seven Seas

by Simon Archer

  “Ships are comin’ in fast behind, Captain!” Jimmy shouted down. “Faster than before!”

  So they put their witches to work when they noticed we had. Good. That meant we wouldn’t have to wait nearly as long once our ships were in position.

  “Mister Shrike!” I bellowed. “The helm is yours!”

  31

  The Aigon Straits were a treacherous, narrow break where what was now the island of Vingar split away from the mainland of Milnest due to some ancient catastrophe. Time and weather had worked the break larger and shaped it over thousands of years to the form it took now.

  Since The Hullbreaker was to pass through the straits and hide, out of line-of-sight, she took the lead and slipped between the sheer, jagged cliffs that rose to either side. The witches had ceased their wind-work so that we could make our way through the treacherous gap at a more sedate pace. Once they were done, I sent Nagra via Ligeia and Tiny over to Sirensong. That way Kargad would have at least a half-trained, talented witch aboard.

  Mister Shrike was at the helm, his face intent as he scanned the yawning passage ahead, and I waited with the boarding party on the deck. As we closed in on the dark strait, Cerridwen came up to me.

  “Captain Bardak,” she asked in her lilting voice, “I seek yer permission to return to Bill Markland so as to aid the fight within the pass. Worry not, I will not break our pact. My power is dear to me, and Bill would not ask me to sacrifice it in the name of betraying you.”

  “But he would betray me, given half a chance, aye?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

  The witch shrugged and gave me a crooked smile. “How would ye treat another pirate who’d wronged ye?”

  “Fair enough.” I nodded and waved dismissively. “Go then and thank ye for joining yer strength with ours.”

  She blinked and returned a respectful nod before walking away to a clear spot on deck. From one of her pouches, Cerridwen drew a pitch-black feather, swept it through some sort of complicated sign, and whispered words that seemed to twist uncomfortably right at the edge of my hearing. At last, she brought the feather to her lips and kissed it. That gesture made my eyes lose focus for a moment, and by the time I could refocus on the with, a black raven was in her place. It flapped skyward with a raucous caw before launching itself in the direction of The Witch’s Promise.

  “Show off,” Mary muttered beside me. She had slipped up while all eyes were on Bloody Bill’s witch.

  “Can ye do that?” I glanced at her sidelong.

  She just smiled and shrugged. “And more besides. I’ll show you soon enough, my Captain.”

  I grunted and watched the straits loom closer. Overhead, Jimmy Mocker called out that our pursuers hadn’t slowed. That meant the timing would be even tighter. We planned to keep the sails at full until the very last minute, which was fast approaching. Belowdecks, the rowers sat waiting and ready. The crewmen around me were all tense and silent. A fight was coming, and we were ready.

  “Shall I join you, Captain?” my witch asked brightly. She was dressed as she had been at Old Man’s Isle, blouse open to her navel, colorful pants reaching just below her knees, and a bandanna holding her thick hair back from her lovely face. Her mismatched eyes fairly glowed. At her belt rode the long knives she’d used to such effect against the Imperial marines.

  “I’d welcome ye, lass. First, though, Mister Shrike needs to get us all the way through without running us aground on rocks or smashing us against the walls,” I kept my tone light and half-teasing, though both of those particular dangers were quite, quite real.

  The fey girl just laughed. “Don’t you worry, my Captain,” she said with a broad grin. “Cerridwen is not the only witch you know that can fly.”

  I huffed softly. Once this was over, I really needed to sit down and grill Mary over what she was actually capable of. These little hints and snippets didn’t give me near enough to go on if I was going to use her to our strategic advantage properly. It was only a mild complaint, as my witch was more than happy to do everything in her considerable power to take care of me and, by extension, my crew.

  Hopefully, she’d learned her lesson about exhausting herself back at Old Man’s Isle.

  “Drop sails!” Shrike yelled from the helm. “Ready oars!”

  “Here we go,” Dogar muttered. He and his brother Daka stood nearby, weapons at hand, their heavily muscled frames shifting easily as the deck rose and fell beneath our feet.

  Deck crew scurried to bring down the sails, and the drummer below sounded the ready. We drew closer to the straits. At this end, three ships could maybe sail through side-by-side, but the two outside ones would scrape the walls, and the middle one would be pressed tightly in between.

  I was briefly glad that I wasn’t the one at the helm for this. Like any good captain, I could handle any position on my ship though, for obvious reasons, I preferred the wheel. Here, Shrike had the experience of having navigated the rough passage many times, as my own preference had been crossing into Milnian territory about a week further south through open water.

  “Oars in the water,” Shrike called out. “Slow stroke ahead!”

  The drummer started a beat, one-two-one-two, like a ponderous heartbeat. The Hullbreaker slowed, then lurched forward as the oars caught water and the rowers put their broad backs into it.

  “Lookout on point!” my first mate yelled.

  Gol was the lookout at the prow, watching for obvious dangers that the helmsman might not be aware of. The straits did tend to change on occasion. With her orcish ability to see in the darkness, the job would be a good bit easier for her. It was getting on towards evening already, and with the sun so low, the passage would be almost completely dark but for whatever light shone down from overhead and in front of us.

  Slowly, my ship eased its way into the shadowy confines of the narrow strait. It grew dark and cold very rapidly, and as we entered fully, the entire crew on deck let out a collective sigh, as if everyone had been holding their breaths. Everything echoed in here: the creak of timbers, the splash of oars, and the occasional cough.

  Bill let us get several ship lengths ahead, then The Witch’s Promise slid in on our tail. I glanced back at the dim light of his ship’s lantern and the silhouette of the ship’s rigging against the opening of the strait. Looking up, the cliff walls extended perhaps three hundred feet on one side, and only a little less on the other, and the stone looked fractured as if a mighty blow had been struck to separate mainland and island.

  We rowed on.

  The elven map had shown some nooks and crannies in the cliff side that I wanted to use for our ambush. It would be nigh impossible for a ship to turn around in here, and Ligeia’s sharks would harry the merfolk to keep them from performing their scouting.

  It was risky, but I was an orc. Life was risky.

  The strait was almost unnaturally quiet, and the crew subdued. Stroke after stroke we sailed deeper in, the walls growing narrower for a bit, then spreading apart. We passed the first ambush point, a sort of grotto in the cliff side that was almost invisible to ships coming from our direction, and which would afford Kargad a chance to launch a broadside or two into the hindmost of the Commodore’s ships before grappling her.

  The cannon’s roar was our signal to strike. If the lead vessel hadn’t emerged on the Milnian side of the strait, then The Hullbreaker would dive back in, hopefully to take The Indomitable head-on.

  Bill and I pushed onward.

  We reached the second ambush point, where The Witch’s Promise would hide. A bell dinged softly, and the lamplight from the prow receded. Kargad should already be in position. By now, the lead ship of our pursuers should be entering the Aiden Straits, and all that remained was for us to get into position.

  At last, Shrike navigated us through a gentle bend in the passage, a point where the cliffs narrowed down to limit passage to only a single ship. We threaded that needle, turned sharply, and emerged into open water with a clear, night sky above.


  Like any good plan, this was the point where everything went wrong.

  Cannonfire echoed in the distance behind us, the staccato booming of a broadside, followed soon after by another. How fast had the Commodore been pushing his ships through the straits, and how in the hells had they managed not to smash against the walls?

  Worse, perhaps, was the ship riding at anchor about a half-mile from the opening of the passage, a long, low thing of pale wood, with five masts and a sleek, racing profile. She was slimmer than any Erdrathian ship, and I recognized the design.

  Elves.

  “Ship ho!” Mocker called from the crow’s nest, rather unnecessarily.

  “Damn it all,” I swore. “Shrike! Get us aimed for the opening. The elves will take a bit to get underway, especially if they think we be turnin’ around.”

  “Aye, Cap’n!” he began calling out orders for relay to the oarsmen while I caught Mary’s arm and half-carried her to the forecastle.

  Once there, I pointed at the Milnian ship. “Ye remember my story of the Wavelord?”

  “Aye,” she replied with a nod as she gazed off at the near distant ship.

  “Can ye do anything to slow or foul them?”

  A slow, sly smile spread across her face. “Oh, aye, my Captain, but I’ll not be able to join your fight until later.”

  “We don’t need elves interruptin’,” I said firmly. “They might decide t’ join in, or they might sit it out an’ pick off the survivors. I’d prefer not to fight them an’ the Commodore at the same bloody time.”

  “Then let me get to work,” she said brightly as she cracked her knuckles and stalked over to the rail to get a better view.

  The Hullbreaker began to turn ponderously, she was a big girl after all, but Mister Shrike had the wheel locked, the port rowers heaving forward and the starboard ones backing water. The whole maneuver practically spun my ship in place, and we were firmly in position as the prow of a great man o’ war emerged from the darkness of the straits.

  The Indomitable.

  “All ahead!” I bellowed. “Ramming speed!”

  As my ship lurched forward, I risked a look over at the elven vessel. Lights were springing up over it, dancing around and through the rigging. Where they touched the rope, small fires sprang up. Mary was turned to face them, her pale blue eye glowing as she wove her hands like a conductor at an opera.

  Yes, I’d been to one, but that was a different story. Needless to say, I’d actually enjoyed it. Loud music, singing, fighting, and drama. What wasn’t to like?

  We were angled to strike Arde’s flagship right amidships but really wouldn’t have the speed to damage her, and that was a bloody shame.

  Then I paused. We were nose-to-broadside on Commodore Arde’s ship. Maybe not the best attack I’d ever planned, but it was a necessary risk. The witch’s enchantment was about to face its first true test.

  “Get down!” I roared as I grabbed Mary and put myself between her and what I knew was coming.

  In a surreal coincidence, cannonfire echoed from the strait The Indomitable emerged from moments before its own cannons erupted in echoing thunder. The blasts blew parts of my ship’s forecastle into flying shards of wood. The beakhead and the bowsprit blew apart, the line attaching the latter to the foremast snapped free and sprang for the heavens, arcing over the deck. As for the foremast, one of the yards took a solid hit and was blown clean free of the mast while the mast itself took a glancing blow that cracked it about midway up.

  Splinters and shards of wood stung my back as I was thrown from my feet, still covering my witch with my body. Screams and yells of surprised and wounded seamen filled the air.

  Through it all, Mister Shrike and the enchantment held through. The Hullbreaker swept through the cloud of smoke from The Indomitable’s broadside, and her spiked ram crashed into her amidships, momentum and mass rolling the larger ship to starboard. More screams and cries of command, this time from our enemy, rang out.

  I pushed myself up and dragged Mary to her feet. She shook her head to clear her ringing ears and then drew her knives, gazing intently along with me at the ship ahead.

  We’d taken damage, true, but nowhere near as bad as a two-deck broadside to the nose should have been. My witch and I exchanged a smile. The enchantment worked!

  The two vessels were bound together for the moment, mine’s prow was up as the tremendous impact had forced the Commodore’s flagship to sit with her deck tilted about thirty degrees or so to one side. Her weight would slowly carry her back to true, so we would have to act fast to take advantage of the disarray.

  Sparing a glance around at the recovering crew on my deck, I shouted, “Grapple and board!” Then, recklessly, I drew my axe in one hand and a flintlock in the other as I charged up the deck to leap onto the enemy ship. Mary, screaming all sorts of curses, bounded after me, and the surviving members of my boarding party followed.

  “Forward, me hearties!” I roared as I leaped the rail onto the canted deck of The Indomitable. “Blood and glory!”

  32

  Dozens of screaming orcs, a handful of humans, three dwarves, and a changeling witch charged madly across the brief connection between The Hullbreaker and The Indomitable with me in the lead. Grapples from my ship flew past and caught the rails, the deck, and the rigging. Until those were gone, our ships would hold fast together, which made us both an easy target for the elven warship, unless, of course, Mary had managed to slow their preparations sufficiently.

  I shot the first Imperial to look my way, gripped my axe tightly in both hands, and waded in with a roar of challenge. Likely as not, the Commodore wouldn’t deign to face me in honorable combat. He didn’t even stand on the aft castle at the helm.

  Fights broke out across the deck as Arde’s men and mine engaged. Swords and axes clashed, the air filled with the cacophony of battle. The deck shifted, throwing a few of both sides from their feet as the ship finally righted itself. Then it rocked again as the prow of The Hullbreaker crashed into the broadside of Arde’s flagship for the second time.

  Mary stuck with me as I crashed like a tidal wave into a bunched-up knot of sailors. Not a few skulls were split, guts were spilled, and hacked off limbs went flying. I rode the edge of a battle rage, roaring, fighting, and killing.

  The witch guarded my back with deadly grace. Her knives slashed and stabbed, and her evil eye flashed, immobilizing any of the opposing fighters who tried to get the drop on us. Somehow, we stayed together through the swirling chaos as I stomped yard after hard-fought yard towards the doors leading belowdecks.

  We had to disable the cannons before the Commodore’s cannonmaster could ready a second barrage and blow The Hullbreaker apart at point-blank range despite the enchantment. This was where it got tricky as four men in distinctly different uniforms from the rest of the crew guarded the doors leading below.

  They each wore flintlocks and carried sabers rather than the typical cutlass and dirk issued to regular crew. On the forearm of each was a bracer-style buckler, and they wore light metal armor plates over black coats and trousers, the latter tucked into knee-high boots. Marines, yes, I recognized from the uniforms. These were Layne’s men, probably on loan to waste their lives protecting the Commodore.

  All four drew and fired as we closed in. Mary dropped and rolled forward, going under the pistol shots, while I simply sidestepped and charged. Where she avoided them all, I took but a single shot in the bicep of my left arm. It only stung a bit, but the impact jerked my axe swing off true, which probably saved the man who did it. My axe crashed into the deck, but I recovered and thrust my weapon’s heavy head at my shooter. The blow caught him in the chest and caused him to stumble backward.

  The witch, though, came up right in front of one of the soldiers. Her evil eye flashed, and he froze in place long enough for her to open his throat with a slash of her knives. She casually pushed him aside as blood spurted madly from the severed artery.

  I grimaced as my two dance partne
rs readied their sabers and bucklers to face off against me. The one left on Mary’s side of the fight was holding his own while fighting half-blind to avoid catching her deadly, immobilizing gaze.

  Rather than draw this fight out, I mixed things up a bit. Throwing a feint at the marines before me, I let go of my axe with my right hand so that I could draw and fire my second pistol at my witch’s opponent. This caught everyone by surprise, and the man took the pistol ball in the hip, spun around with a spray of blood, and fell hard to the deck. Mary took immediate advantage, pouncing on him to drive both knives into his chest before he could recover.

  But I wasn’t done. I simply dropped the spent pistol and kept swinging, attacking the two men with my axe like a lumberjack felling trees. One discovered the uselessness of bucklers against great axes as I crashed into him. The small shield might have saved him from a severed hand, but I broke his arm all the same. As he fell back in pain, I used that moment’s distraction to kick his mate in the belly, then spun around to bring the blade of my axe crashing down on his head before he could recover from the pain.

  His head was split in twain, and that left one.

  “Oy! Whoreson!” Mary shouted as she circled around the marine to get his attention, but he was wise to the ways of witches now. He raised his buckler to block his view of her face as he lunged at me, the point of his saber dancing wildly.

  I wasn’t sure if he meant to cut or thrust, but what he did was some combination of both. Whatever it was, it was crude and left me an opening that I took. A powerful swing drove the blade of my axe into the man’s lower back, shattered his spine, and spilled his guts over the deck in a wash of blood. A blow to the face shattered his skull and silenced the screams. Our opposition dead, I simply stepped forward and kicked the doors into the lower levels of the ship open with a single blow.

  “You’re bleeding,” Mary said as we checked for other attackers before heading inside. There was still time before the next volley of cannonfire, the big guns could only be loaded and prepped so fast.