“I must admit, I had fun,” I nodded.
“Well, don’t you start making a habit of having fun,” she joked, shaking a finger at me.
I retrieved a stool from the cabin and carried it up to the platform to sit on, but Lorena sat on it instead. “Thank you, darling,” she said, taking her hat off for a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow. “Piper,” she called for her first mate to bring her a drink and to take the steering oar.
The red-haired woman who sang and danced with me brought water and took the oar.
“So, how much longer will we be out here?” I asked Lorena, sitting on a corner of her crate.
She laughed. “Sweetie, we’re going to be out here a week.”
“A wink?” Looking around, I asked, “Then where’s land?”
“A week!” she corrected harshly.
“A week!” I repeated, shocked that it would take so long.
“Yes. Meaning seven days. Did you want my help getting home or not?”
“I do need your help,” I answered. “And I am grateful for all you’re doing. Without a dragon to ride, I wouldn’t have gotten very far on my own.”
The entire crew suddenly became nervous and scanned the surroundings, searching the sky and over the side of the boat.
Lorena shook her head. “Don’t say that word,” she whispered. “The ocean may appear safe, but you can’t let your guard down. My father told me that, long ago, giants ruled these waters. None have been seen for many a year, but we still hear tales of terrible serpents destroying entire fleets from beneath the waves.”
“Have you never seen one?”
“No.” Leaning in close, she whispered, “But I’d like to . . . just not at sea.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” I warned. “They are vile, scheming creatures, and no doubt just as dangerous at sea as they are on land.”
“And you have ridden one?” she asked in disbelief.
“A dead one,” I boasted with a laugh.
She was speechless.
My laughter quickly faded as I remembered what the dead dragon took from me in life.
“Walk with me to the bow,” she said, taking my hand.
The warm sun felt wonderful against my skin. Memories of running hand in hand with Jinxie on bright summer days came back to me.
Lorena breathed in deeply and stretched in the afternoon sun. “Have you ever seen a more peaceful view?” she asked, staring out at the ocean meeting the sky.
“I have, but this is nice, too.”
Turning to me, she asked, “Tell me about where you’re from.”
“Well, I was born in the Dark Elf city of Ashwood. It was built within a volcano under a roof of obsidian. Combining magic with what little sunlight filtered in from above and the heat that emanated from below made it possible for us to grow plants and trees. After Pop’s death, I left Ashwood to live with the Light Elves of Lylandria. It was a vast garden that was always in bloom. I spent many days lying under fruit trees with Jinxie watching the sun rise and set.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“Were you close to your family?” I asked.
“I was close to my mother. All I learned from my father was how not to be. But enough about that,” she said, slapping her thighs. “I believe I’ve had a long enough break.”
I followed her to the stern where she took over steering. Piper, Lorena’s first mate, joined the rest of the crew in preparing the evening meal. They had a tripod where two pots hung. The bottom pot was the largest and held wood that they ignited. It heated the pot of stew that hung above it.
After the sun sank into the sea and darkness fell upon the ship, everyone but Lorena sat around the tripod to eat dinner. She made sure the ship stayed on course. Her first mate would take over later to let Lorena eat and get a few hours of sleep.
Piper dipped out a bowl of stew for me. Stirring to allow it to cool before taking a bite, I saw that it had bits of seafood and vegetables in it.
Being the odd one among the crew, I was asked to share my story, and what a story I told. Everyone was captivated by my tale and wondered what I planned to do once I reached Ashwood.
“I want to create life,” I answered.
“Only the gods have that power,” one of the men told me. I knew he was young, but he had clearly lived a hard life out there on the sea; they all had. All of Lorena’s men were strong, swarthy, and calloused.
Believing the Sun to be both our god and paradise, I asked, “And what do your gods do exactly?”
“They keep everything in balance,” another sailor explained. He held his hands out like a set of scales but struggled to maintain balance. He gave examples, “Like good and evil, light and dark, life and death.”
“Drunk and sober,” another man added, holding his drink up but spilling some on the man sitting next to him.
“Dry and wet,” he complained, wiping the mead from his arm.
“Beauty and the beast,” Piper added, pointing from herself to the drunken sailor.
The man looked shocked. “Hey! Last night, you said I was the beauty and you were the beast.”
“Well, Sal, that’s because you were wearing my clothes,” she revealed, striking a provocative pose, which brought laughs and whistles from everyone.
Even Sal laughed, remembering the previous night. “It was fun, Pipes. You were definitely a beast,” he said, biting at her.
She grabbed his jaw and pulled him close for a kiss. The rest of the crew cheered. She then strolled to the stern to relieve Lorena.
The captain joined us around the fire, but at that late hour, the crew was ready to lie down for the evening. They unrolled mats on the deck and slept under the stars.
The next day played out the same; the crew sang and danced, drank mead, and told tales. That night, though, my eyes opened suddenly, for uneasiness crept over me. Vibrations of light footsteps passed through the ship, and the ocean air carried the scent of death. I reached over to shake Lorena awake and saw a strange man pull the curtain of the captain’s quarters back. He slipped inside with a dagger in hand. I unsheathed one of my swords, and sliced him across the wrist, causing him to drop his blade before he could kill Lorena. The man screamed and ran out of the room, waking the crew from their sleep.
“A demon sails with them!” the man cried. “There’s a demon in the darkness!” he yelled at one of his fellow assassins before taking the man overboard with him.
Hooks were thrown into our ship, and men on another ship pulled the two together.
“Kill those pirates!” I heard the captain of the other ship order his crew.
Looking at Lorena, I said, “But I thought they were the pirates.”
“Um, they are,” she answered hesitantly. “Kill them! It’s us or them.”
Four members of her crew didn’t stir from their slumber, so I knew right away that they had been killed in their sleep. We needed all the help we could get, so I gave them life again. By sending a thought to their dead mind, I ignited a spark to get them moving again and follow my command.
“These men killed you while you slept,” I informed them. “Now they mean to kill your friends. Send them to the bottom of the ocean.”
The four zombies unsheathed their daggers and charged toward their nearest adversary. After dying from a simple knife wound to the chest, they looked to be healthy sailors, so the pirates they fought were surprised to see them unharmed by their attacks.
After one zombie was slashed across the throat, it sliced the pirate’s belly and kicked him overboard.
“That-a-boy!” I congratulated. I remained close to Lorena to help protect her from the pirates. Every man we killed, I brought back to help us. It wasn’t long before our crew outnumbered the other, and being at sea, they had nowhere to run.
The captain of the other ship fought his way over to our ship with a sword and spear. He was a hulk of a man wearing mismatched pieces of brightly painted armor. His skin was dark from life in the sun, and the
brown hair on his head grew sparsely around horrible scars.
The man battled his way to us. “Hello, bitch!” the muscular man greeted Lorena, his bare arms covered in the blood of her crew. “I guess if you want a ship captain dead, you have to kill them yourself.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” I responded as I sliced off the head of his spear when he lunged at Lorena.
“Outta my way, you lil’ shit,” the big man said before cracking me across the face with what was left of his spear and kicking me over a wooden crate.
“I should’ve killed you while you slept, Maddox,” I heard Lorena tell him as I struggled to regain my balance.
“And I should have sank your treacherous ass in the ocean for stealing my ship, you pirate wench.”
Lorena stumbled backwards to avoid the man’s powerful attacks, and I hurried to intervene. I swung at him, but he used his sword to deflect mine. He swung the shaft of his spear, but I cut it even shorter. While I had his attention, Lorena climbed over a crate that she was using to keep distance between them and stabbed him in the neck with her dagger.
With the bronze dagger embedded at the base of his neck, Maddox backhanded Lorena away and slowly collapsed to the deck of the ship. “I’ll hunt for you in the next life,” he sputtered, struggling to look up at Lorena.
“What, you going to try killing me again?” she asked him, retrieving her dagger from his neck. Blood poured from the wound, and the man said no more.
I’d seen and studied death my entire life, but as I stood there, staring down at this now lifeless man, I wondered why the world couldn’t be perfect and peaceful. Why did Lorena feel she needed to lie to me about how she acquired the ship we sailed on? What kind of life did Maddox live to think killing Lorena and her crew was the only way to retrieve his stolen ship?
After the chaos, we took a headcount of who survived. Half of Lorena’s crew had been killed. I looked around at the zombies I had created. They were alive just moments earlier. There would be no reason for war if everyone were immortal.
“Where’s Pipes?” I heard Sal ask while he searched the ship. “She was at the helm!” he reminded himself and pushed passed the standing dead to the stern. “PIPES! NO!”
Lorena and I rushed to the stern to find Sal hugging Piper’s dead body.
“Oh, Piper,” Lorena cried.
“Will you heal her, elf?” Sal asked me.
“I’m sorry. If I bring her back, she will be mindless. She will be undead.”
“Don’t bring her back,” Lorena shook her head, heartbroken. “I’m sorry, Sal. I loved her, too.” She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Sal pulled his dead love close and sobbed. Piper’s throat had been cut. No doubt, she was the first to be killed by the pirates when they quietly climbed aboard.
The living crew members all gathered around to bury Piper at sea. I drew a magical shroud from an unseen realm for them to wrap her in, and they placed her into the dark ocean waters where she sank out of sight.
Lorena removed her hat before beginning her eulogy. “We lost a lot tonight. We didn’t just lose our crewmates, we lost our friends, but they’ve sailed on to a better place. We miss them now, but we will see them again,” her voice took on a more hopeful tone as she looked up to the night sky.
The remaining crewmembers stood silent for a moment until Sal asked his captain what their orders were.
Lorena put her hat back on while staring down at the wooden planks of the ship. “It will be difficult, but we must sail on.”
“Excuse me, Captain,” I interjected. “My men can help sail this vessel.”
She looked around at all the dead I had brought back, and a smile cracked across her face. “Then I want both ships!” she announced. “Sal, I’m promoting you to Captain. Take the crew to sail our new ship.”
He stared off knowing that Piper would have been the one promoted had she lived.
“Captain Salvatore!” she stressed, bringing him to attention. “I want to know the cargo we’ve acquired before we detach.”
“Yes, Captain Lorena,” he finally answered. He then motioned to the sailors to join him.
“And Captain?”
Sal turned back to her with a tear trickling down his cheek, his lips pressed tightly to keep them from quivering.
“We sail on for Piper,” Lorena announced, nearly breaking again under their loss.
Wiping the tear from his face, he nodded and stepped over to the other ship.
“All right, line up!” I commanded my zombie soldiers, and they all scuffled over to stand in semi- straight lines. There were a lot, probably as many as fifty. I divided them between the two ships to man the oars, and after Captain Salvatore returned with a cargo manifest, we unhooked the ropes that bound our ships together and continued our journey.
Once I felt comfortable commanding zombie pirates to do the jobs they did in life, I had them begin stamping out the rhythm to the song we sang just after setting sail to try lightening the mood. I stood on a wooden crate, and, as if conducting an orchestra, I waved my arms about, keeping the zombies of both ships synchronized in work and song. Of course, only I could interpret the grunts and groans that they spat, but the bizarre show entertained the living as I had hoped.
With all the zombies working closely with Lorena and her crewmen, I was careful not to fall asleep. Of course, she didn’t sleep at all with a crew of decomposing sailors aboard her ship, so we helped each other stay awake by asking questions and telling stories.
After several more days at sea, we reached a bustling city built between the ocean and mountains. It was a sunny afternoon with clear skies and sparkling blue waters.
Removing her smoking pipe to speak, Lorena announced, “The port city of Genua.” She navigated the Crimson Spear through the busy waters with Sal’s ship following closely. Ships of all sizes inhabited the harbor where we slowly sailed in to dock.
To avoid a zombie outbreak, like the one that happened at the World Council Palace, I felt it best to go ahead and retrieve the spark of life from the zombie sailors. One at a time, they stepped over the edge of the ship to sink to the bottom of the bay.
Lorena removed her hat, followed by the rest of her crew, and said a few words in honor of the fallen. “You were all brave sailors. We couldn’t have asked for better crewmates or better drinking buddies. I’m sure Piper captains a mighty vessel off the golden shores of Valhalla,” she announced with a proud smile, her blonde curls blowing in the wind. “Now she has the finest crew to sail those magnificent waters. We miss you, but we’ll sail together again someday.”
A wide plank was placed to bridge the boat to the pier, and the crew unloaded six heavy crates from the Crimson Spear to carry into the city. They used long wooden poles to distribute the weight evenly between the two men it took to carry one.
“What’s with all the crates?” I asked sleepily.
“Before we trek out into the wilderness, we’ll need a few supplies,” Lorena said to me. “Most will go back with us to the restaurant. You and I will carry what we need north to your homeland.”
While the crew worked, Lorena and I took a much-needed nap before leaving the ship. I pulled at the collar of my black tunic. The material formed a hood to help hide my elvish features.
The crew followed us across the pier and along the harbor through the crowd of people to a shop with an adjacent horse stable. Wooden cages filled with chickens were stacked on both sides of the entrance. A dark-skinned man with a neatly trimmed beard leaning in the entryway smiled at the sight of us.
“Capitan Lorena,” he greeted with a delightful accent, his arms outstretched to hug her. “It is so wonderful to see you again, my dear.”
“How’ve you been, Enzo?” she asked him, clearly glad to see him, as well.
“Fantastico! Fantastico!” He then took notice of me, and saw that I wasn’t human beneath my dark hood.
“He’s good,” Lorena assured him, answering hi
s unasked question. “He’s with me.”
He accepted her answer and continued. “Now, what is it that Enzo can do for the lovely Lorena?”
Turning to the six crates that her men carried with them, she told the gentleman, “I brought the cargo you requested.”
“Very good. Bring them around back, and we’ll have a look, shall we?”
Lorena signaled to her crew to carry the crates between the buildings to the back of the shop while we followed Enzo inside.
The thick, clay walls of the building kept it cool inside regardless of how hot it became outside, which was good for keeping the variety of fruits and vegetables that he had for sale from spoiling too quickly. A young boy was busy rotating stock.
“Watch the store for a moment,” Enzo said to the boy, patting him on the shoulder as he passed.
Lorena grabbed a couple of peaches from a basket and tossed me one while we followed Enzo through his shop.
We stepped out the back door where several other crates were stacked. Lorena’s men had already opened the shipment for Enzo to inspect the contents. The back wall of another building gave us privacy from the street.
Looking into the crates, I saw they were full of shields, swords, and short spears. Enzo lifted a shield to examine the thickness of the wood it was made from. He felt the sharpness of a sword and the durability of a spear before approving the shipment. “I will have your payment and cargo packed up and ready to go tomorrow evening.”
“Good,” Lorena smiled. “I’ll have my men pick it up.” Rubbing the man’s beard, she added, “And I could use a couple horses, if you have any to spare.”
“Of course, my dear, but I only have one.”
“It will do. You’re a good man, Enzo. Thank you.” She embraced the courteous man before we headed back to the ship for the evening.
CHAPTER VI
THE JOURNEY HOME
The following morning, Lorena said her goodbyes to her crew.
“If I’m not back in three weeks, head home without me,” she ordered Captain Salvatore.
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