The Wrath of a Shipless Pirate (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  The hold was shallow, far too low for Corin to stand up or even crouch. He rolled into the gap beneath the quarterdeck, squeezing out of sight, and lay a moment listening for some alarm, or even footsteps on the planks above. None came. All he heard was the driving rain. A hundred heartbeats later, he at last relaxed. He’d caught his ride. Now all he had to do was wait.

  In his time as a pirate, Corin had seen plenty of opportunities to play the stowaway. It always was a boring task, but it was none too difficult. The biggest challenges were staying unseen and staying hydrated. For any voyage longer than a day or two, securing rations became the most pressing challenge.

  Corin’s first thought, as he analyzed the little hold, was that rations wouldn’t be a problem this trip. For a two-man vessel, the little hold was packed with crates of food and barrels full of drinking water. Corin broached the first of each he found and stole a drink and a loaf of bread.

  But as he lay there in the claustrophobic darkness, something about the ship began to itch at him. He’d never spent much time on river ships, but still, he had an instinctive feel for the basic architecture of the things, and everything about this ship was wrong. Tired as he was, distracted by the things he’d seen, it took him longer than it should have to figure out the problem, but at last he did.

  The hold was far too shallow. The slope of the walls wasn’t sharp enough, the bottom not deep enough. As soon as Corin noticed it, he understood. He’d known it for a smuggler’s vessel from the first, but he had not considered everything that fact implied.

  This was a false hold. This was the one they’d open to taxmen and officials. But there would be another, deeper down, with some form of concealed entry. Pirates rarely wasted effort on such sorts of subterfuge, but the years he’d spent in the close quarters of all sorts of ships gave him a clue. He could tell by feel which walls were true.

  But even armed with that knowledge, he spent more than an hour searching to no avail. He began to imagine other designs, other places they might hide the entrance to the false hold, but nothing seemed more likely than some false panel, some artificial crates within this space. So he checked them all, and then he checked them all again. He had the time to spare.

  Once, while he was working in the crawlspace of the hold, he had a moment’s warning at the clomp of boots above him. He wedged himself into the very farthest corner and went still as midnight when the hold door flew up. If it had been day, the sun might have betrayed him, but not even starlight peeked past the heavy stormclouds, so Corin’s dark clothes concealed him in the shadows. He watched from perhaps a pace away as one of the two sailors stooped to draw a mug of drinking water.

  Corin didn’t breathe until the door fell closed again. Then he waited in his hiding hole another hundred heartbeats, just to be safe. But no one came back for him, and it was boredom as much as anything else that eventually drove him forward again.

  A little after midnight, by his best guess, his questing fingers found the latch. It was an uneven plank on the floor. A water barrel sat atop it, and Corin’s first attempts to budge the thing drew a heart-stopping groan from the scraping wood. Corin froze in panic, ears straining hard for some sound of alarm, but no one came.

  After that he sat and waited for another of the frequent spats between the sailors. When he heard voices rise in anger, he planted his back against the heavy barrel, shoved with his legs, and, inch by inch, he slid the thing aside. That might have taken half an hour, though it felt like days. Still, when that task was done, the rest seemed almost too easy. He crouched above the false panels, trying all the edges with his fingers, until he found the spot to press, the spot to slide, and then the whole thing fell back to show him the true cargo hold.

  It was mostly empty now, and that was no surprise. Corin couldn’t think of much worth smuggling to the Wildlands. They’d simply chosen this ship for its speed and stealth. But he also discovered he was not the first passenger to stow away down here. The lower hold was outfitted with a bunk and a bucket, a tiny table with a stub of candle, and a tinderbox. And there was a spot on the forward wall just high enough that Corin could stand straight.

  He marveled at the space, after hours crammed inside the false hold. Then he went back to secure the panel, and in the process he discovered a locking latch. Not a hold for chattel, then, but for paying passengers. He grinned at that and threw the bolt, and then he sank down on the bed.

  He’d gone three days now without sleep, and barely any food to eat, and now he found himself with a cabin and a locking door as well as provisions. He had no way to slide the water barrel back, but even if they discovered it, he’d have some warning when they had to break the door. He’d have time to make a plan. At worst—at absolute worst—he could always step through dream.

  But in the meantime, he had a place to sleep and time to kill. He stretched out on the bunk and closed his eyes, enjoying the old, familiar pitch and roll of a ship at sea. In no time at all, he was fast asleep.

  He couldn’t easily guess how long he slept, but when he woke, it wasn’t to the shouts of discovery or a pounding on the door. Everything seemed pretty calm. Corin rose and went back to the forward nook so he could stretch his arms and back, and while he was there, he discovered another perk of the smugglers’ hold: It offered excellent acoustics. Standing in just that spot, he could hear the sailors up on the deck as though he were standing right beside them.

  The sailors called each other Ezio and Gasparo. Not pirates, then, or they’d have taken pirate names. Instead, they used good Ithalian names, which suggested these were formal attendants of the Vestossis. There seemed no clear distinction between the two in power, but Ezio clearly fancied himself the leader. Gasparo was the brute, uninterested in the little plots and schemes that Ezio got up to, but still he showed no deference. These were Ethan Blake’s errand boys, carrying messages to Taker. That was no more than Big Jack had already told him, but Corin felt some measure of comfort to find a point of confirmation.

  Alas, for all the clarity with which he could hear them, he could do nothing to steer their conversation. He would have given much to hear some gossip concerning their master, some idle speculation concerning their current task, but all they talked about was wine and women. Corin spent an hour listening, hoping, searching for some clue within their prattle, but he heard nothing useful.

  In the end, the only real advantage he could take from eavesdropping came when he abandoned it. He could wait until they were most distracted by their boasts and bickering, then steal into the upper hold to fetch more water or more food.

  Ezio asserted his assumed authority in little ways. As the first day waned toward night, Ezio took the first watch, sending Gasparo to get some rest in a pretense of generosity that Corin saw right through. By midnight, Gasparo’s turn came up, and Ezio slunk off to snore beneath the stars while Gasparo sailed on alone through the darkest part of night.

  That single fact provided a tantalizing opportunity. Corin sat in darkness and considered. He could use the glamour to impersonate one or another of the sailors. Of course, that would require the removal of the man he chose, but Corin had no compunctions against that. The only real challenge was choosing which man to replace.

  The quickest answer was Ezio because of the role he played. Corin had no doubts that he could boss around Gasparo just as easily as Ezio did. But Gasparo had bragged that he’d done the stabbing back at the smuggler’s tavern. Corin’s lips pulled back at the memory. Gasparo needed killing.

  The real decision depended entirely on information. More than he wanted either of these men dead, Corin had to find Dave Taker. Until Corin learned the rendezvous location, or at least learned which of these men held the secret, he didn’t dare move against either of them.

  So he waited. His second day yielded him nothing but frustration, and the third was even worse. Big Jack had said it was a four-day trip, so Corin tried to bide his time, but every hour trapped in that tiny room, listening to the inane yammer
ing of Gasparo and Ezio, drove him closer to madness. He did everything he could to learn their speech patterns, information that would be useful in his masquerade, but even more intently he searched for some subtle clue, some hint of where on Spinola’s coast they were heading.

  And then, late on the third day, just as Ezio was sending Gasparo off to bed, he dropped a juicy morsel. “Get some rest,” he said, his voice ringing in the hidden cabin. “Tomorrow we’ll meet Taker.”

  “You know the place?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “You ever seen this guy before?”

  “Once, I think. At a gala for the princess. He’s a dirty pirate, same as all the rest, but he has his uses.”

  “And what’s he gonna want from us?”

  “The don said to facilitate him. Whatever way he needs. But he sent you and me, so…”

  “Killing, then.”

  “Gotta be. A killing or a kidnapping, and who’s to kidnap in the Wildlands?”

  “You’re the smart one, Ezio.”

  “Don’t forget it. Get some sleep. I’ll take first watch again.”

  “Wake me when it’s mine.” Then Gasparo plopped down in his place on the deck and set to snoring like a man at work.

  Corin sank down on his bunk, grinning so hard it almost hurt his cheeks. Ezio knew the rendezvous location. Two hours until the watch changed, and then Gasparo would be up for four. Plenty of time to put his plan in motion. Corin closed his eyes and waited.

  An hour into Gasparo’s watch, Corin slid aside the panel and crept out of his hidden cabin. He eased himself into the upper hold and lay a moment on his belly, motionless, surveying the open deck.

  Ezio was curled under a thin blanket off to starboard, fast asleep. A strong wind blew dragging at the sails and making masts and rigging creak, making waves slap pap pap against the hull below. That would be more than enough noise to cover Corin’s actions.

  Gasparo stood at strict attention in the bow, staring out across the waves, alert for any hidden rocks. Corin slipped out of his hiding place and stole across the deck, silent as a stalking cat. Two paces from his target, Corin grabbed a corner of his cloak and balled it in his left hand while he drew his dagger with the right.

  He slipped up behind Gasparo and jammed the makeshift gag over the sailor’s mouth, dragging his head backward. “This is for Big Jack Brown,” he whispered in Gasparo’s ear. “You’re not the only one who knows his way around a dagger.”

  Gasparo struggled, his arms scrabbling frantically, but Corin squeezed tighter with his left arm, then slipped the right past a flailing elbow and, with a short, sharp gesture, inserted his dagger just below the sailor’s sternum. One thrust did the job. Gasparo fell limp against him, and Corin eased him to the deck.

  He threw a glance back at Ezio, but the self-appointed captain of this little ship was still sound asleep. Corin took a moment to consider the corpse, paying special attention to his face; then he closed his eyes and repeated the same process he had used outside the smuggler’s tavern. He borrowed Gasparo’s appearance for his own, and when he opened his eyes, he felt the same strange gray mist hanging in his vision once again.

  Then he moved fast. He heaved the true Gasparo overboard and scrubbed the tiller and deck for any sign of blood. It was an easy task by starlight, quickly done, and through it all, the other sailor never stirred. The whole ordeal took no more than half an hour, and Corin realized with some surprise that he’d secured himself a sailing job. Two hours still remained of second watch, and Corin fell into his old routines, adjusting trim and tack and watching hard for little signs of danger. The Spinola coast was brutal, but no one on the Medgerrad could navigate it quite like Corin Hugh.

  He corrected Gasparo’s course to a safer angle from the shore then went below to clean up any signs of his time within the hold. He secured the hidden plank again, shoved the water barrel back in place, and went back to the bow to man the tiller.

  It had been a hard three days hiding in the lower hold, and now he stretched his arms and legs and bent his back to honest work. Wind in his hair, salt breeze in his lungs, he rode the waves, alive and free, as the distant sun began to rise.

  Then from behind came a sour curse, and Ezio cried out in fury, “You stinking blackguard! What have you done?”

  Corin spun around, panic scraping at the back of his breastbone, but the thin gray haze still hung over his vision. The glamour held. Still, he watched Ezio stalk across the deck toward him with accusation and murder in his eyes. Corin shifted, trying to find the best stance to meet his opponent. Behind his back, Corin gripped the threaded hilt of his dagger and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

  Before he had the chance to decide, the other man burst forward. Ezio didn’t strike, though. He shouldered Corin roughly aside and dove upon the tiller.

  “You senseless dog. You stupid oaf. I knew you for a fool, but I never thought—” He cut himself off, fighting the sluggish tiller as he tried to force the ship to shallow waters. “Even you…”

  Corin frowned, bouncing on his toes. For all his bluster, the other man seemed genuinely concerned with the situation, and that lit a fire in Corin’s belly. He’d seen too much of shipwrecks, the worst of them in these very waters. He pressed forward and asked, “What? What do you need from me?”

  “Get overboard and push! That’s all I’d trust you with. Or, here, lean hard on this!” He ceded his place at the wheel, and Corin took it, fighting current to drive the ship in closer to the shore.

  Corin swallowed hard. “Are you sure? I saw some rocks—”

  “Of course there’s rocks! That’s why we brought the river boat. But you drove us out to sea! This ship ain’t meant for that. One good wave could kill us!”

  He watched a moment until he was confident that Corin would hold to the new course. Then he sprang away to trim the sails. “I swear to Ephitel,” he called back while he worked, “if this stunt gets us killed, I’ll curse your mother’s house.”

  Corin nearly missed his chance, but he’d heard enough of their bickering to find the right response. “Hah. You try it. She’d serve you up for stew.”

  “Still your tongue and steer the ship,” Ezio called back. Then from his place in the rigging, “Rocks! Rocks, you fool! Hard a-post!”

  Corin saw them, but the ship felt dumb and sluggish compared to the ones he knew. He fought the tiller as hard as he could, but still had to shout, “Brace yourself!” Two heartbeats later, the lower hull ground up against a knot of submerged boulders. A seagoing vessel with a deeper keel might have broken through the formation, but it’d just as likely have smashed to pieces. This one scudded over the top.

  It was no easy ride. Timber groaned and screamed, and the whole ship set to bucking like a wounded horse. The whole ship speared upward, driven by the wind and waves, and then dropped away beneath Corin’s feet. While he was still falling to meet it, the deck kicked up again and smashed the wind from his lungs. He skidded across the main deck, ricocheted off the railing, and barely caught a grip on a trailing line before he skipped up and over the edge. The line snapped taut above him, stripping flesh from his palm and nearly jerking his arm from its socket, but Corin didn’t dare let go.

  He smashed hard against the outer hull, and then the ship rocked down again and plunged Corin up to his shoulders in churning seawater. His feet struck stone, and Corin kicked up hard. He heaved against the rope at the same time, and the two moves helped him spring high enough to catch the railing with his free hand. He went up and over onto the deck again, then sat a moment, fighting breathless lungs and a hammering pulse.

  Then he heard a cry from the riggings. Corin looked up just in time to see Ezio lose his grip. A wave crushed over the edge, driving hard past Corin, and slammed into Ezio just as he hit the deck. The man went over.

  The only man who knew where to find Dave Taker.

  “Oh, gods’ blood!” Corin shouted. He sprang up and pounded across the deck, drawing his
dagger as he went. He skidded up against the port railing, hauled out several loops of rope from the tacking there, and tied the end fast around his dagger’s hilt. He spun in place, and heaved with all his might, flinging the rope toward the last spot he’d seen Ezio go under.

  The dagger’s weight dragged the line out straight. Corin watched for several heartbeats as the line stretched out behind the ship, and then the dagger and the rope’s own weight began to drag it downward. Corin cursed again and raised one boot to the railing, ready to dive for the sunken sailor. But then the rope jerked. It twitched once, which might have been anything, but then a weight heaved hard against it.

  Corin dropped back to the deck and caught the rope in both his hands. He pulled it in, arm over arm. While he was busy fighting that, the ship finally cleared the beds of rocks. It kicked once more, just as Corin dragged a spluttering Ezio to safety, and then settled back into a low, smooth wallow among the shallow breakers.

  Ezio reached up and clasped both hands behind Corin’s neck. His arms were shaking. His face was pale, and there was a fever in his eyes. “I never would’ve guessed it, Gasparo. That was fast thinking. You saved my life. Now get back on the blasted tiller, or you’ll have to do it again!”

  Corin lowered the other man gently to the deck and then did as directed. It was not so urgent a matter as Ezio had guessed. Corin bent the ship’s course back west, still sticking to the shallower waters. He spent a moment watching the rise and fall of distant breakers, then shifted ever so slightly to port. But now that he understood the sailors’ plan, he saw its advantages. He’d never have chosen a river ship for the open sea, but the shallow draft allowed it to cruise inside the most dangerous parts of the reef.