The guards smile and step forward.
Chester unwraps his captain’s sword from its swaddling. The guards’ smiles vanish as their hands go to their own blades.
A hush spreads among the nearby stevedores. There’s no mistaking that golden basket. The harbormaster raises a hand and stays the blades of his guards. He reaches for the golden basket hilt, stops his hand before touching it.
“It really is hers,” he says quietly. “So she’s...”
Chester nods sadly. “The boat? It’s ours to take?”
“Ha!” The harbormaster’s shrill laugh reminds Chester of the bark of some vermin-dog. “She is dead. As far as I’m concerned, the contract is voided.” A hungry smile spreads across the harbormaster’s face. He claps his hands on the backs of his guards. “Tonight, boys, tonight we get drunk. Drunk enough that even the women in this town start to look good! We shall raise our mugs to the corpse of that insufferable she-captain!”
“But...” Chester begins. “That’s not—”
The harbormaster sighs and turns to his guards. “Take the hilt. We can melt the gold. Then into the harbor with the whole pack of them.”
“Run!” Chester commands. They scatter, ducking beneath the grasping arms of the guards, bounding over crates of this and that, and are gone into the twisting alleys of Carson’s Landing.
Once they’ve found each other a few hours later, Chester leads the children on a scramble to the roof of a raucous pub on the edge of the harbor. The sound of clinking glass, riotous laughter, and belted shanties rises from open windows.
The sounds of the pub make him miss the Wrought Iron and the crew of the Horizon. Chester feels hopeless and adrift, like his whole life has gone off the rails.
There are so many of the children, and just one of him. They look at him with expectant eyes and hold hands to hunger-gnawed bellies.
Perhaps come nightfall they can pilfer scraps from the pub’s kitchen. But darkness is hours away and they are hungry now. What would the captain do? The Chief?
Chester looks down at the sword hilt still clutched in his hands. “How about I tell you a story? To pass the time. A story of a woman who saved my life by breaking Imperial law.”
As he begins his tale, an idea forms in his head. Bold, crazy, and reckless.
Right.
They wait until night falls, until the harbormaster and his strongmen are deep in their cups—Chester spotted the trio two bells past entering the very pub on which they were perched.
Chester asks the girl from before, the one who kept the others moving, her name.
“My parents called me Starlight.”
“Well, Starlight,” Chester says, “you’re my new Chief Engineer. You know anything about grades? Gears? Navigation?”
She looks ready to cry at the question.
“No matter. We’ll teach you.” Chester taps his chest. “It’s what’s in here that matters anyways, when it comes to being Chief. In any case, Chief certainly didn’t have it up top. I have a job for you, Starlight.”
“Yes?”
“Pick the child best suited to thievery. Have them pilfer a bottle of wine or brandy from the tavern. Nothing more. We will eat soon, and I don’t want any unnecessary risks. Tell our thief to meet us at the docks when they’ve done it. Got it?”
She nods and immediately pulls aside a scrawny young thing who is all legs and arms. Whispers in their ear.
Chester gathers the rest of the children in front of him and explains his plan.
Minutes later, they slip from the pub’s roof under the cover of night and make their way back to the docks. They stay low and move with the quiet grace possessed of all furtive children. A patrol of guards, with their jangling armor and too-bright lanterns, never sees them as they sidle up next to the cutter and leap over the bay and onto her deck.
The captain’s blade may be broken, but what steel that remains is sharp. Chester slices through the moorings effortlessly.
Small figures scamper fore and aft.
From the ship’s wheel, Chester relays orders to Starlight, explaining what must be done. In turn, she shouts them on to the crew. The Chief lives on.
The thief appears aside Chester so stealthily that he didn’t see them board. Chester nods thanks and takes the bottle of wine. Red, he notes.
“Join the others,” Chester says.
“Aye captain,” the thief responds. The title makes Chester feel embarrassed and mournful, but he does not correct his thief.
The sails unfurl with a whispered sigh and catch the wind. Chester feels the rest of that old nautical knowledge coming back to him.
The cutter slices through the water, leaving the docks and city lights behind.
Guards shout. There is a clamor from the shore. A pair of crossbow bolts whistle and splash well-short of the boat. Starlight looks nervous, and then cackles as Chester tells her that there is not a chance any of those bloated merchant vessels or ponderous warships will catch their lithe lady. They’ll sail west, Chester decides. He’s studied Imperial maps. He knows the trade routes. It’ll take years to raise enough capital to buy a good locomotive. But if there’s one thing Chester’s new crew has on their side, it is youth.
Chester shatters the bottle of pilfered wine against the hull of the ship as he anoints her New Horizons.
Casks of water are broached. Crates of hard bread and salted fish are cracked open.
Cannons are loaded with half powder. Once they’ve reached a safe distance, Chester instructs his crew to light the fuses. They’ll give the captain her salute. They’ll wake the damned city up. Ha! Enjoy the hangover, you rat-faced harbormaster!
Smell the sea on the wind! Feel the spray of the sea! Stockton’s Whistle! Hear those cannons thunder! The Horizon runs again!
© Copyright 2019 Alexander Stanmyer
Alexander Stanmyer - [BCS273 S02] - New Horizons (html) Page 2