by Ben White
"You're bluffing," said Miya. "I've never heard of needle lamprey."
"Oh?" The trader raised the hand Miya had stabbed through, hastily bandaged but still dripping with blood, then flicked it towards the water. A few red drops hit the surface, and then suddenly the water was a mass of small, slippery, glistening black eels. Miya's eyes widened at the sight. She'd never liked eels, not even the generally benign river eels on Clover Island.
"I don't often bluff," said the trader. "So believe me when I say ye've got me dander up something fierce. Come along now, and nice and quiet-like, or I'm gonna make meself a liar and do something bad to ye."
Miya looked at the trader, then raised her wrist to her mouth and blew, hard. The shrill, piercing sound this produced was shockingly loud, startling the trader and his thugs for a moment—but only a moment.
"Heh. Trying to scare us?" said the trader. "Some kind of royal whistle, was that? Summon the guards to save ye? You're a long way from home, Princess. No palace guards to hear that wee cry for help, loud as it was. We know you're all alone, you said as much yourself. So come on, make this easy for all of us."
Miya stood her ground, her sword held at the ready, her stance unwavering.
"C'mon, Princess—"
"I'm not just a princess," said Miya, trying to make her voice strong. "I told you before. My father is Black Boots. My grandfather is Heartless Jon and my grandmother is Scarlet Jean Black. I'm more pirate than any of you ... you thugs."
They laughed, but Miya stood firm.
"You think this blade is just for show?" she said. "I've practiced fighting every day since I could hold a sword. Do you want to know the name of my sparring partner?"
"G'wan and tell us, suppose you're gonna say it's ol' Three Blades Roger? Or Scar Gillian, she was a good'un."
"Keep guessing," said Miya.
"Enough games," snarled the trader, "just go—"
"Lars Bako," said Miya, loudly. The thugs, who had been preparing to move forward, hesitated.
"I've heard that name," said one.
"Knives Bako! Ye know Hookless? Knives be the one took his hands," said another.
"Nah ... she just heard his name somewhere, she's bluffing, she don't really know 'im," said a third.
"He favours his right hand," said Miya. "But that's a feint, of a sort. He often says that there is no such thing as an 'off hand', consequently he can fight equally well with either hand."
She tossed her sword from her right hand to her left as the thugs watched, then smiled.
"As can I."
Miya paced to the left, one foot after the other, her balance perfect, her stance impeccable.
"He's strong," she said, as she paced, "and he's quick, but his real strength is in his flexibility ... he can adapt to any attack, any technique, exploit any weakness."
"She's bluffing, grab her, just go grab her!" the trader yelled. The thugs didn't move, continued to watch Miya as she stopped, paused a moment, then started pacing right.
"But you want to know the really interesting thing about Lars Bako?"
Miya stopped pacing, stood still in the centre of the pier.
"I can beat him," she said.
"It's a lie, she's a lying little priss, JUST GO GRAB HER!"
"You go grab her," muttered one of the thugs.
"Yeah, you grab her if you think she's bluffing."
Miya stood firm, although actually her arm was starting to get just a little tired from holding her sword so straight and steady for so long.
"Yes, come and get me," she said. "Test your steel against mine. After all, I'm just one girl."
"Hardly fair, me being a wounded man and all," said the trader, his voice mocking, holding his bandaged hand up. Miya stared at him a long moment, then slowly put her right hand behind her back.
"Go on, Scrapper," said one of the thugs. "She's giving you a fighting chance."
The other thugs laughed at this, the trader—Scrapper—scowling around at them.
"Yes, come on, Scrapper," said Miya.
"You shut your mouth," Scrapper growled at her. "And you lot," addressing the thugs, "what am I paying you for? Not to stand scared of a wee girl like this with a clever mouth."
"Clever arm, too, you can see she's quick, way she changed hands."
"Quick enough to take down seven armed men afore they can get her?"
"Hey," said one of the thugs.
"All right, all right, six armed men and one armed woman? I don't think so."
"I don't think so either," said Miya. Scrapper eyed her a moment, his expression both wary and weary.
"I probably couldn't take down all seven of you alone," Miya continued. "But you need me alive to get that ransom, and I'd take down two ... maybe three of you before you could disarm me. My partner, who's standing behind you right now, would take care of the rest."
Scrapper eyed her a moment, then he laughed, the thugs joining in.
"Nah. Sorry, sweetheart. You had us all going there for a bit, spun a pretty little tale, but you pushed it too far. See, a lie'll only stretch so far before it snaps, ye get to know that kind of thing in the business I'm in. And that old 'me partner's standing just behind ye' gag's older than dirt. So put down that sword, Princess, it's far too big for you anyhow. In the end, ye're just a girl alone, waving a sword around like you know how to use it. C'mon lads—ladette. Rush her. Seven of us oughta be able to take one lying little girl."
"Five of you, you mean," said Miya.
"Count again, love."
"Maybe I'm not the one that needs to be counting."
Scrapper turned just in time to see the butt of Sola's spear precisely catch one of the thugs in the side of the neck, joining the two already downed in this fashion.
"YARR!" Miya yelled, as she leapt forward and slashed at the sword hand of the nearest thug, making her cry out in pain and drop her cutlass. Spinning, Miya drove the hilt of her sword into the nose of another thug with a deep crunch, catching his sword as it dropped from his hand and then kicking him in the groin as hard as she could. She turned and neatly kicked the first thug under her chin, making her mouth snap shut with a loud and somewhat disturbing 'click' and sending her staggering backwards, then stood hard on the hand of the second thug as he tried to get up. Miya glanced back at the first thug, who was nursing her jaw and didn't seem in any condition to continue fighting, then turned to gaze levelly at Scrapper, both swords pointed at him.
"Two," she said. "Maybe three."
Scrapper stared at Miya for a moment, then he turned and fled, Sola stepping aside to let him pass. Miya dropped her 'borrowed' sword onto the thug she'd taken it from, then stepped over him and the other downed thugs to join her brother. She looked up at him as he looked down at her.
Then they both turned and ran.
*
"Well," said Miya, as they sailed away from Biscuit Cove as quickly as they could. "That was a pleasant little stop."
"Was it?" Sola asked, his tone holding a note of irritation.
"I was being sarcastic," said Miya.
"Perhaps you weren't," said Sola. "Do you enjoy creating these situations?"
"What? I didn't create that situation! I was trying to buy food, I didn't ask for the guy to try to kidnap me!"
"But you did somehow reveal that you are a princess and thus worth kidnapping and ransoming," said Sola.
Miya tugged on a rope, scowling.
"Well, at least I didn't just hide on the ship," she snapped, angrily letting out a side sail. "I mean, maybe if you'd come with me—"
"If I had come with you I think the ship would have been stolen," said Sola. "That was not a good place."
Miya shivered a little.
"No," she said quietly, the anger gone from her voice. "It definitely wasn't."
"I'm glad you're safe. When I heard the shell, I feared the worst."
"Um, thanks. For coming, I mean."
"Thank you for being safe," said Sola.
"Aww, you
really care about me!"
"I was more thinking that I couldn't sail this ship without you."
Miya cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. "Was that a joke? Are you funny now?"
"Desperate situations can sometimes bring out hidden qualities in people," said Sola, smiling. Miya couldn't help but laugh.
"Well, I really am grateful that you're with me," she said. "Aside from anything, sailing this ship on my own can get kind of tiring—you know, leaping around the mast getting the sails sorted out while jumping down to adjust the wheel every minute, it gets old pretty fast. Plus, wow, you're kind of deadly with that spear of yours, right? I didn't get to watch you take out that guy you were fighting, the one you didn't just smack in the neck I mean, but he looked pretty bruised after you were finished."
"I didn't enjoy that," said Sola.
"Why not? I had a great time!" said Miya. "Aside from the whole nearly-getting-kidnapped thing. Did you see me smash that guy in the face then catch his sword when he dropped it? That was pretty cool, even if I say so myself. And, heh, the look on that trader's face when I had him at sword's point, I think he might have had an accident."
Sola shook his head and turned away.
"What? So I'm not allowed to have a little brag after a good fight? We did really well, Sola! You and me, we're a great team!"
"We hurt some people because they would have hurt you if we hadn't," said Sola. "Don't make it romantic."
"I'm not being romantic, what's romantic about beating up a bunch of dirty goons?"
"Nothing," said Sola. "We did what we had to."
"But—"
"Don't make it more than it was," he said, his voice hard. "We fought for survival against a group of relatively unskilled thugs. I am very thankful that we were not forced to do more than that."
"Sola—"
"And I do not wish to talk any further about it."
Miya looked at Sola, confused. She started to say something, then closed her mouth, focusing on the rigging.
"We're nearly out of the cove," she said, after a minute. "Do you have our next course plotted?"
"Not yet. We sail due east for now."
"Okay. Um, can I take the wheel for a bit? I've trimmed the sails as good as they'll get, they can't get any more trimmed."
Sola stepped away from the wheel and went and leaned on the rear railing, looking up at the night sky. Miya chewed her lip a bit as she looked at him, then she took the wheel.
"One good thing came out of it at least," she said, after a couple of minutes. "I found out some information about the smuggling that's been going on around here. Dad'll be happy to hear that. Once we get back, I mean."
Sola was silent. Miya glanced back at him, then looked forward again.
"Well, I thought catching that guy's sword was cool," she muttered to herself. "Spin-smash-grab, hah!"
7
Foraging, The Pirate Way
The Black Swan was anchored beside a long reef of high, jagged rocks, around an hour's sailing from Biscuit Cove. Miya was snoring gently in her bed, Sola having offered to take the first watch.
"Miya."
"Mm?"
"It's your turn."
"What? No way."
"You've had five hours sleep."
"I have not."
Sola held up the battered pocket watch Miya kept beside her bed. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at it.
"Huh," she said.
After splashing some water on her face Miya woke properly, and as Sola retired to his cabin she began her watch. It was another clear night—weather in the archipelago was usually fairly stable, especially in the summer, although Miya could remember a couple of fierce hurricanes leading to some exciting times—battening down everything loose and sheltering inside with boards nailed over the windows. Her house had a lot of windows and a dozen people from the town had helped secure them, and she and her mother had made a huge pot of soup and roasted a couple of chickens and baked a mountain of cakes, and they'd all sat down in the big dining room and feasted and talked and laughed, shouting over the noise of the hurricane as it battered the island. After the winds had died down Miya had been the first out the door, running around the island looking at all the damage the hurricane had done—she remembered that the stable's big double doors had come clean off, and all the horses were huddling at the other end.
"That was a fun hurricane," Miya said to herself, as she paced along the length of her ship. Then she frowned, remembering that Peter Threep had been out fishing at the time the storm hit, and they'd never found a trace of either him or his boat.
"Maybe not quite that fun," she sighed, leaning on the railing as she looked out at the reef—in the moonlight it seemed almost threatening, jagged rocks stretching higher than the Swan's mast in some places.
"Like teeth," she murmured, reaching out to trace their outline in the air. "Big, giant teeth like from a monster shark."
Miya shivered a little as the thought of one of her childhood fears came unbidden—panther sharks. She'd first learnt about them when she was six years old, and it had taken almost a year of reassurance from her father before she'd accepted that they didn't come far enough south to show up anywhere near Clover Island.
"It's not in this kind of situation that you have to be careful of them, anyway," she said, the urge to hear a voice—even her own—suddenly strong. Miya shook herself, then went and fetched her rocks, which she squeezed while sitting with her back against the mast. After around quarter of an hour of this exercise she put down the rocks and stood up, checking around with her spyglass, but she didn't see anything out of place in the surrounding waters. Instead of picking up her rocks again Miya drew her sword, duelling imaginary opponents up and down the main deck for another quarter of an hour before stopping to check the area with her spyglass again. After seeing nothing, she sat against the mast and picked up her rocks once more.
So Miya's watch went, until the sky began to lighten and Sola emerged from his cabin.
"Did you see anything?" he asked.
"There were a couple of ships in the last hour or so," said Miya, as she and Sola began preparing the ship to sail. "All of them small and fast, smugglers I figure. They were all heading out of the archipelago. No sign of Grace or any trouble, though."
Sola nodded, untying a rope as Miya busily checked the rigging.
"I spent some time this morning studying the chart," he said, "and I may have a plan."
"Oh?"
"There is a reasonably large island to the south, marked on the chart as being uninhabited. 'Paradise Island'. I think you mentioned it once before. It's around half a day's clear sailing away. After that last disaster—"
"Adventure!"
"—I think we should gather food and water ourselves. We can anchor at Paradise Island and spend the rest of the day preparing—hunting, fishing, gathering fruit, filling our water barrels if there is a water source there. We can make a fire and smoke the meat and fish."
"That sounds kind of fun, but it ALSO sounds like it'd take more than half a day," Miya said, as she finished tying a knot. "Pull up the anchor, would you kindly?"
"Yes, it's possible that we'll need to spend some time tomorrow there also," said Sola, as he pulled on the rope attached to the anchor. "It's difficult to predict without knowing what the island holds."
"Seems kind of dicey," said Miya. She jumped down from the rigging. "And more delays aren't what we need right now. I have another plan."
"What's that?"
"Piracy!"
Sola looked at Miya.
"Well, I AM a pirate," she said. "And I was thinking, if we steal supplies from ANOTHER pirate, or a smuggler even, it's kind of fair. Right? They probably stole the stuff in the first place, or used ill-gotten gains to buy it ... and I bet smugglers wouldn't put up much of a fight."
"I think foraging for supplies may be less dangerous."
"Less fun, you mean," Miya pouted, unlocking the wheel. "Here, take the helm."<
br />
Sola did so as Miya climbed back up into the rigging and unfurled the main sail. It caught the wind and they began moving, sailing away from the jagged, teeth-like rocks.
"I still think we should head for Paradise Island," Sola called out. "Perhaps if we see a pirate ship or smuggler on the way then we can reconsider—"
"There's one!"
Miya, still in the rigging, had her spyglass out and was looking to the north, to the other side of the reef they'd anchored behind for the night.
"What?" said Sola.
"There's one right here! Really close! It's on the other side of the reef, maybe it was there the whole time! It's a cute little corvette, I think it's anchored. They must be asleep!"
"How do you know it's a pirate ship?" Sola asked.
"They're flying a black flag."
"Aren't we also flying a black flag?"
"No! Ours has a big green clover in the middle of it, it's completely different! Their flag's just black. That means they'll give quarter if the ship they're attacking surrenders. It's like saying 'we're gonna attack ya but don't worry, we just want your stuff'. Therefore, pirates!"
Sola frowned. "May I have the spyglass?"
Miya jumped down and handed it to him.
"There's no one on board," he said, looking through it. "It seems odd that they wouldn't post a night watch."
"Maybe they're lazy. Or stupid! That's even better."
"Why would they be flying a black flag while the ship is anchored?"
"Probably they forgot to take it down after their last round of plundering," said Miya. "After all, we've already established that they're lazy and stupid. It fits the profile."
"Wait, I see someone on the deck."
"Really? May I?"
Miya took the spyglass from Sola and looked through it. "Oh yeah. Hey, he's waving to us! Huh."
"I think this all seems suspicious," said Sola. "I think that we should ignore that ship and sail for Paradise Island."