Orc Pirate: Raiding the Seven Seas

by Simon Archer

  “Bill is on this side, though,” Shrike put in. “Though likely not for long. He’s still a few more troves to gather, especially since this one was lost.”

  “Aye.” I tapped the side of my nose. “Now, we can race around tryin’ to beat ol’ Bill to his hidey-holes which really worked so bloody well this time.”

  “You did recover my comb, dear Captain,” Ligeia chimed in. “And the strange woman’s… fetch?”

  “Shamaness, and aye, we did. Look at what it cost us, though. ‘Twas probably worth it, and I am pleased, but we’ve got to keep our eyes to the fore, especially if we mean to go against Admiral Layne.”

  I gazed into the flickering depths of the fire as I said that. A showdown with the master of The Pale Horse was coming. That dread ship would be finished before we knew it, and we needed to be ready. To do that, though, we needed gold, and ships, and crew.

  “Here’s what I think,” Mary spoke up at last. She leaned against my right side, her back against the crate and my hip as she sat on the sand, while the siren drifted as far from the fire as she could and still be a part of the conversation. “We should go back to the archipelago and make friends in the free towns, even more than you already have, Captain Bardak. Allies will serve nigh as well as gold for crew and ships, and there are many lost treasures amongst the isles if we have a mind to look.”

  “What do the rest o’ ye think?” I asked as I looked to either side at my two captains and my siren.

  “I am here to follow you,” Ligeia answered. “Where is of no consequence to me.”

  “Who expected that answer?” Shrike said as he raised a hand playfully. “For my part, what Mary says makes a lot of sense. Over here, there are no towns to resupply in or take shore leave or anythin’, not without havin’ elves tryin’ to stick us with arrows. I vote for the archipelago, Bloody Bill and his bloody treasure be damned.”

  That brought a chuckle from the group.

  “Kargad?” I asked, turning my gaze in his direction as I leaned back a bit from the heat of the bonfire.

  He shrugged. “One sea’s as good as another for me, Bardak. Ye gave me a command, and I’ll go with ye wherever the wind blows.”

  “I think I happen to agree with Shrike and Mary,” I said after a quiet moment. “There’s adventure to be had in the islands, still, ships and towns to plunder, and lost treasure to be found.”

  With those words. I reached down and picked up the mug of rum that sat by my foot and lifted it. “To the best crew a captain could want.”

  Everyone rose a vessel of some sort, and Shrike laughed and cheered, “Hear, hear!”

  Tonight, we would celebrate, tomorrow we’d set sail. Adventure waited beyond the horizon, and I meant to find it. As I looked around at my friends and crew, and my lovely women besides, I couldn’t think of a better group to share the future with.

  39

  Justin Layne

  “Thank you, Marai, that will be all,” I told the hooded witch that stood before me. “I must ponder this news.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” she replied, a hint of a smile visible on her pale lips.

  Beneath the cloak and hood, Marai Bloddwen of the Sisterhood of Witches was an albino. Her skin was milk white, her eyes red, and her hair near colorless. Aside from that, she had an interesting bone structure. Quite symmetrical, if one were to analyze such things.

  In addition to being my personal witch and adviser, Marai was a foreseer, able to glimpse the future through means that I did not care to question. Whatever her methods, they worked, and that was all that I demanded of my underlings.

  She curtsied and slipped out of my office, taking the odd smell of poppies along with her. I took a moment to sigh and lean back in my large, leather-upholstered chair.

  Marai had given me grave news. Sebastian Arde had fallen to the renegade orcish privateer, his ship was sunk, and the small fleet and the troop of marines I’d entrusted to him, including some of my personal guard and a magical artifact of known power, were lost with him.

  I should have been angry, and I was, yet I felt a small modicum of relief at the news. Arde had become something of a loose cannon under my command. I suspected it was because I had stood up for the man and his methods on far too many occasions.

  Now, perhaps, he would be more tractable. Death, supposedly, stripped away the desires of the body for food and sex and replaced them with far darker and more useful needs, like blood and vengeance. I allowed myself a small smile before I reached for a little black iron bell that rested unobtrusively upon my desk.

  I picked it up and rang it a single time. The chime was surprisingly deep for the size of the little item. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long. A faint rustling sounded behind me before a voice whispered in my ear, “What dost thou require, my master?”

  “Spare me the melodrama, Lack,” I answered coldly. “I have need of your particular talents in a matter of some urgency.”

  “A matter of life or death?” Lack asked, a faint hint of amusement lurking in his whispering voice.

  “Death and unlife,” I replied, steepling my fingers before me on the desk. “Commodore Sebastian Arde has fallen to the sea-orc, and The Indomitable has become his grave.” I turned my head a bit to study the silver-masked silhouette standing robed in black at my shoulder. “We are not yet done with him.”

  I knew very little about the man or demon that answered to the name of Lack. What I did know was that he was an effective and powerful ally, skilled in the arts of life and death. He asked for little and contributed much, though I refused to allow myself to become dependent upon him.

  “Is he to be bound, or is he to be free?” Lack asked softly.

  What an interesting question. I had one of my own. “Can you lay him to rest either way, should he prove troublesome?”

  “He is already troublesome, master,” the creature hissed, “but yes, I can consign him twice to death.”

  “Let him be free, then,” I decided. “Let him hunt who he wills and spread terror amongst the isles. I will speak with him in time and assure his obedience, but until then, I would like to see what he is capable of.”

  “So you say.” Lack released a dark, liquid chuckle that made my skin crawl.

  “Go,” I commanded. “Seek your task at the mouth of the Aiden Straits on the Milnest side.”

  “So be it,” the creature replied, and with a rustle of robes, he was gone.

  I stared down at the ink blotter that topped my desk for a long moment. Marai and Lack were only two of the powerful allies I had at my disposal, but the Emperor had frowned on the use of such things. The old emperor Dormand had been much less demanding than this usurper. I remembered the old bastard well, right before Blackburn’s uprising.

  When Asmond took the throne, I had been one of the more powerful individuals to acclaim him emperor, and he had rewarded me for my loyalty. I served well, and as time wore on, I ended up with nowhere left to rise. My power was the Admiralty, and the Emperor wielded it through me. But he was growing soft; making peace with our traditional enemies and stripping away our coffers for some unknown purpose. I had never shied from using non-traditional methods to gain and hold power, especially out here in the wildness of the archipelago.

  I hadn’t had a choice.

  Now, the gods-damned emperor Asmond Blackburn wanted me to hobble myself?

  I had just smiled and agreed when he issued the command to cease all use of necromancy and demonology within the bounds of Imperial service in favor of more wholesome and less efficient ways.

  Now, his eye was elsewhere, and his attention wandered away from the western reaches. I had spent a great deal of my influence upon my assignment making sure that all the Emperor’s commands to the Admiralty came through me, and in short order, everyone thought of me as Blackburn’s mouthpiece.

  After that, it was only a small effort to change the words that were given to me to be what I wanted them to be.

  Once the free towns rose
up in open revolt, I could crush them with the blessing of the Emperor, annex their resources, and effectively claim the whole of the archipelago as my personal fiefdom, and there was nothing that Asmond Blackburn, sitting on his throne in the capital city of Donofar, could do about it.

  Soon enough, I could gloat openly about my plans and their fruition, but for now, I had to confine the practice to my own offices and speak with only my most trusted associates. This was nothing more than open rebellion against the throne, and I was quite happy with my head where it was.

  Still, I needed to deal with Bardak Skullsplitter sooner rather than later. He had thrice escaped from my minions’ attempts to kill him and cost my effort rather significantly in time and resources. How could an orc, of all things, be able to defy me so? How could he have stood up against Sebastian and his witches, especially when the commodore held the Huntsman’s Spear?

  Likely, the orc wielded it now, too, and that was a cause for concern. I needed him dead, no matter the cost. That was why I had summoned Lack. Perhaps Sebastian could succeed in unlife where he had failed in life.

  A thin smile touched my lips. If he failed, I would certainly enjoy taking a personal part in the final death of the orc pirate. There was just one problem. Until The Pale Horse was complete, I would be unable to do anything to stop the orc directly, and I didn't want to lose more ships to him.

  Of course, if need be, I could focus the might of the Admiralty down upon him, but it likely wouldn’t be enough. No. The best to hope for was to buy some time to complete my ship.

  Then, when I joined the hunt myself, I would spare nothing and no one, and I would send the orc pirate and his memory to the bottom of the deepest sea.

  And, hopefully, that would be enough to avoid the vision Marai had shown me.

  A Note from the Author

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