A small digit pierced its way out of the ground, followed by three more until a fully formed hand—or was it a paw—came forth. It clawed at the topsoil, pulling itself further out so that its arm and torso followed. The skull came next, sliding out sideways, but it wasn’t the skull of a person. It was oblong, with large eye sockets and a nasal structure that looked like it belonged more on a dinosaur than a person.
It was at that point Ethan realized the thing was the size of a housecat at best. “What the hell is that?”
Katryna squatted, resting her elbows on her knees as she leaned in closer. “I think…no, is it?”
Zoey laughed. “It is,” she said with a quiet laugh. “It’s a giant skeletal hamster.”
The minion sprang to life a moment later, shaking its back end like a dog ready to play before hopping a couple of times and ultimately dropping its hind end next to Marcus.
The necromancer knelt briefly, scratching the top of its pale skull. “It’s not just a skeletal hamster,” he said. “It’s proof the staff bends to my will, that I can weave energy through it like thread on a loom.”
Ethan sighed, not sharing the minotaur’s optimism. Even if under other circumstances he would’ve found the homemade hamster to be quite the accomplishment, it was a tad on the macabre side. “Our plan needs more than an army of undead rodents.”
“A practice run, nothing more,” Marcus said, gently picking up his creation and placing it on his shoulder. He stood and shook his arms loose. “Trust me. All those buried here will walk once more.”
Marcus resumed his work. The intensity of his words jumped tenfold as he whipped the staff overhead in a rapid circle. The skull atop the magical instrument glowed with a sickly green light, and from its mouth, dark tendrils of smoke stretched across the graveyard, writhing as they cut through the air before eventually diving beneath the soil. Spots of brown and black formed on the weeds, and the plant life curled in on itself.
The sweet scent of decay filled the air, and in dozens upon dozens of spots, the ground rumbled and heaved. A bony hand broke through the soil, and three more followed suit. One of the men next to Jean Bayard broke ranks, fleeing into the darkness. No one chased after or said a word. Marcus, however, laughed, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and the muscles in his forearms bulging as he gripped the staff harder yet.
“Yes! Yes!” he bellowed. “Answer your master’s call! Answer and let us take back all that is rightfully ours! Our lands! Our lives! Our pride!”
Zoey slipped an arm around Ethan’s and squeezed. “I’m not sure I like how this is making him,” she whispered.
“I don’t think I like it all,” he whispered back.
The skeleton of a man draped in rotted leathers stumbled to its feet. It stood awkwardly at first, slumped forward with one shoulder dropped, and moved in a jerky fashion like it was slave to a drunk puppeteer. But within seconds, it snapped upright with a clattering of bones and marched forward. Its lifeless eye sockets stared out to infinity as it came, and its jaw clacked together with every step.
When it reached Marcus, the minion stepped to the side and waited. Four more joined it seconds later, and within a few minutes, Ethan found himself looking at a total of forty-two skeletons that seemed deadly enough and were definitely not of the hamster variety.
“That’s impressive,” Ethan said, thinking he needed to say something.
“That’s a start,” Marcus replied with a nod. “I need rest, and the staff needs to recharge. But in an hour, we shall have thrice what you see here.”
* * *
A hundred and twelve. Oh, and a half. Ethan corrected himself on that last bit when he made the final count of their skeletal mini army. The last one raised by Marcus ended up being nothing more than feet, legs, and a pelvis. Ethan failed to suppress a grin at its creation, which then turned into a laugh when Marcus shot him a glare, but thoughts of the comedic creation lasted only a moment. Ethan’s gnawing stomach ensured that.
The group went about equipping their undead cohorts with an array of weapons looted from the town, or rather, impromptu weapons. Clubs fashioned from table legs or broken handles formed the bulk of what they had, but a quick raid of the town’s blacksmith yielded a number of hammers as well as a half dozen swords in various completed states. They even managed to find a few sickles. Despite the paltry arms in use, fashioning the bombs ended up being both easy and, as far as Ethan could tell, effective.
“See?” he said, wincing as another hunger pang shot through his side. “Another reason to love rum. Solves all sorts of problems.”
Zoey grinned as she cinched tight the rope that held the last remaining powder-packed cask to a skeleton’s chest. “Creates them, too. I’d hate to be in the same room when this guy goes off.”
“You and me both,” he said. Another pang. Though Ethan managed to stop the grimace, he could feel his eyes water.
“Something the matter, Captain?” Jean Bayard asked, slapping him hard on the shoulder from behind. “Or did you get a good whiff of our dead friend here?”
“Just a little hungry,” Ethan said without thinking.
Jean Bayard laughed in disbelief. “Hungry? By the eleven seas, you must be quite the butcher if you can think about having a meal alongside these walking cadavers.”
“You have no idea,” Ethan replied, shutting his eyes for the moment and drawing a deep breath. Yes, the stench of death felt unbearable, but it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of overpowering the growing pit in his stomach. Ethan knew he’d have to find a way to eat soon, because if he didn’t, there was no telling what would happen or who’d suffer because of it.
Zoey snapped her fingers in front of his face several times to grab his attention. Ethan jerked his head up, and in the moment, everything faded away until there was nothing left except the two of them. It didn’t feel like the effects of being charmed, not like before, at least. No, this was something else. Like they had their own little world they could dip into. Before he could give it any more thought, she spoke, her voice both concerned and commanding. “Ethan,” she said. “Tell me you can wait.”
“I can wait,” he said. He took in a deep breath and exhaled forcefully, pushing through the pangs and tension they created to repeat his words. “I can wait.”
Zoey smiled and then smiled even more when he took her hand in his and squeezed. “Glad to hear,” she went on. “Now, let’s go take a fort.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
Ethan nodded. “We’re missing something.”
Zoey tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“This.” He stepped forward and slid his hands across the small of her back before his lips found hers. As he pressed into her, as her fingertips traveled up his spine and toyed with his hair, he could feel his heartbeat in total sync with hers, and then a moment later, the two seemed to merge into one distinct sensation.
“Would’ve been bad luck,” he explained after they parted a minute later.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to risk any of that,” she whispered. “Luck’s been a staple for us, after all.”
“Exactly.”
They shared another moment or twenty in silence, eyes locked on one another until the world reappeared around them. They still stood hand in hand, though now they had acquired a few onlookers surrounding them. In the back of his mind, Ethan realized the encounter was a little strange, both in terms of timing and the sudden urge, but he didn’t care. Hell, the fact that this was one oddity he’d experienced in this world that wasn’t deadly was cause for celebration, and on that note, he almost initiated round two.
But Jean Bayard cleared his throat and ruined the mood.
“If the lovebirds are done, we can go,” he said, raising his hands with a shrug. “Oui?”
Zoey gave a longing sigh and peeled away, much to Ethan’s disappointment. “Oui. We can go.”
And with that, they did.
Chapter Eight
The Fort
Mist Zoey, the affectionate pet name Ethan gave her right before she dissolved into a fine spray of white, broke free of the tree line and drifted up the hill where the fort sat overlooking the small bay to its east and the wide Gold Monkey Sea to the north. To her right, the ground dropped sharply for a few yards before disappearing over a rocky cliff. Though she couldn’t see where it ended, she could hear the crash of waves against the rocky shore.
A ship could never lay anchor there, hence the reason this side of the fort wasn’t watched as much as the others, but the edge of the cliff was almost completely obscured from those in the fort. Only those in the northeast tower—a simple rectangular three-story structure that reminded her of the fire lookout towers back home—had a view of the cliff. True, the southeast tower also looked out over the area, but it couldn’t see the dip in the topography, and it was certainly too far away to make anyone out at night. Thus, Zoey had only to deal with a few of the night watch at the most.
As her form glided silently along, she caught glimpses of light from inside the fort peeking through the gaps in the palisade. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from but guessed the source had to be the oil lamps carried by the roaming patrols. One had to be near, which was both wanted and dangerous. Wanted because it meant once they left, she’d have the maximum amount of time to work, and dangerous because she could feel the strain on her will, the draw of her body trying to reform. She wouldn’t be able to stay a mist for much longer, which meant she didn’t have much time to find a place to enter and hide.
Zoey waited, hoping the patrol would move on, but when they didn’t, and the light persisted, she knew she had to move, regardless. She pushed through a dark section of the perimeter, only a few yards away from the watchtower. She’d barely made it inside when Mist Zoey reformed into just plain Zoey despite every attempt to stay in the form a little longer. That said, she did manage to cloak herself in the inky black shadows smothering the area before anyone noticed.
Sadly, she hardly felt safe. Looking around, it became painfully clear that the light she’d seen wasn’t coming from the night patrol’s oil lamps but rather oil lamps that had been hung and lit all across the grounds. Worse, she could count at least a half dozen groups of men walking the grounds in sets of three and four, all armed and visibly on edge. They hadn’t found the bodies of the men who’d attacked her and Ethan. Zoey had checked on that a few minutes prior to Marcus raising the dead. But they had to have realized they were missing said men, and since there weren’t a lot of places for deserters to go on such a small island…
Zoey’s thoughts froze as one of the patrols stopped several yards away. One man in the group happened to look her way, but only for a moment. Her Sneak skill, she knew, was more than enough to keep her hidden. Once they moved on, she considered aborting the attack, returning to the others, and encouraging them to leave while they could. In the end, she didn’t. She knew it was a panicked reaction to the unexpected, no doubt some lingering anxieties about how disastrous her last party had gone when the unexpected—Lord Belmont—claimed them all.
Zoey sucked in a breath and studied the patrols, and after a minute or so, she relaxed. Yes, there were more. Yes, they were on edge, but there were still wide gaps in their routes they could exploit. All they needed to do was sneak a few bombs into the barracks, which she felt had to be exponentially easier than taking down a lich.
With that in mind, Zoey slipped out of her hiding spot, and using her Sneak, she darted up the winding stairs of the watch tower quieter than a gentle breeze. The stairs took her to the very top without incident. There she found three guards, with two looking out to the east and into the dark where Ethan and the others lay hidden, and one staring straight at her.
Zoey’s eyes darkened, and pressure followed by a deep heat built behind them and spread through her skull. The guard straightened, his hand dropping to draw his sword as fast as his mouth opened to sound the alarm. He did neither. Narrator filled in what she already knew.
Corsair Charmed!
Zoey curled her lips and placed a finger delicately on them. “Shh,” she whispered, her voice barely audible even to her own thoughts.
The corsair nodded and did nothing but stand there, staring blankly through her. Knowing her effect would only last a minute at best, she slipped to the side so he wouldn’t see her, as any hostile action she’d take would have a good chance of breaking the effect. When she was clear of his line of sight, she drew her dagger and promptly slit the throat of the nearest guard. Again, Narrator chimed in.
Back stab successful!
Critical hit!
Corsair killed!
The body hit the ground, and for a brief second, Zoey wished Ethan had been there to see the kill, to see what she was capable of. The sound the corpse made, however, as it thudded to the floor, snapped her out of those thoughts. She spun to square off with the other man right as he turned. Zoey reacted first, but only by a fleeting instant. She lunged forward and attacked, dumping every bit of Luck she had into the attack. She didn’t have nearly as much as Ethan, but the ten points she committed to the exchange would hopefully win the fight before the man could raise the alarm.
Thankfully, it did.
The tip of her blade caught the man square in the heart. It sank fully to the hilt. The corsair wheezed and clutched feebly at the weapon before his legs gave out. Zoey quickly scooped him under the arms as best she could to ease the man down. After that, she dispatched the third guard with ease and gave Ethan the signal that she was in by stripping one of the guards of his coat and hanging it outside the tower.
“Six minutes,” she whispered to herself.
That’s the timer everyone agreed on once she’d set the impromptu flag. Six minutes to sneak into the prison and free everyone there. For a normal thief, it would prove to be a difficult, if not an impossible task, but Zoey was anything but normal. Being a queen of the undead certainly had its perks, as she’d just demonstrated, even if she did have to feed on a blood doll or hapless stranger from time to time.
Speaking of, her stomach rumbled, and she winced as a cramp shot up her side. Zoey furrowed her brow, trying to understand why. It hadn’t been that long since she and Ethan had dined on rabbit, and on the way to the fort, Katryna had even let her have a brief snack from her wrist when the pair casually lagged behind the group for a few minutes. She shouldn’t be hungry. Peckish, maybe, but not hungry. Ethan sported the Fast Metabolism trait, not her. Unless…
Zoey shook her head, snapping herself out of all the speculation. She’d have to deal with whatever this was later. She stole the pistols from her victims, thinking they might come in handy, and slipped down the stairs.
Once back on the ground, she darted into the shadows and made her way as fast as she could to a large square building near the center of the fort made from heavy, rough-cut logs. Lanterns hung on iron poles staked at the corners, providing ample illumination, while a pair of guards stood at a single door barred with a heavy piece of timber. Not a single window could be seen, and she doubted there’d be any on the other sides either. After all, it’s not as if prisons were known for the luxurious views afforded to their guests.
But she didn’t need a window. Or an open door, for that matter. The gaps between the logs would be enough, and she could still turn to mist two more times this day. Once to get in and free everyone. Once to get out and unlock the door, provided they didn’t run into surprises.
The vampire shut her eyes and relaxed, letting her body dissolve back into a thin, white mist. She floated onward, grazing the light when she reached the jail, but not a soul took notice. Within seconds, she reformed in the building, where she spent a half moment shaking her right leg free of tingles. A common, mildly annoying side effect when she repeatedly tapped into her shapeshifting ability over a short period of time. When her leg felt tolerable, she surveyed the room.
&
nbsp; The prisoners, fifty-two in total, slept in a line on a wood floor. Heavy irons bound their wrists and ankles together, which were then locked and anchored around two of the thick wood columns that ran up to a pitched roof.
Zoey quietly padded across the room and knelt by the first prisoner. She didn’t recognize the dark, wiry man before her, but that didn’t mean much. Zoey only knew a handful of the people at Lenada.
Zoey gently placed her hand on the man’s shoulder to stir him awake. The moment she made contact, the man’s eyes shot open, and he jumped against the chains. The links rattled loudly, and the vampire quickly pressed her finger against her lips.
“Shh,” the vampire said. “I’m here to free you.”
The man nodded with a toothy grin, his movement barely perceptible as if he risked summoning the entire corsair camp by doing anything more. Despite his near statuesque state, when he replied, his tone was both cutting and vengeful. “We better not be running,” he whispered in a gravelly voice. “I have a score to settle.”
“We’re not,” Zoey reassured. “We’re going to attack from here once the raid comes.”
“When’s that?”
“Soon as the barracks blow, which will be any minute now.”
The man’s eyes shined bright with anticipation, and Zoey drew back the corners of her mouth, loving the fiery spirit that still burned bright in his soul. The vampire then directed her attention back to his leg irons. The lock was far from useless, but it was hardly the craft of a master artisan, either. Ten seconds after she started, she popped it open with a soft click.
The man eased out of the cuff around his ankle and, once freed, quietly gathered the chain, wrapping one end around his fist. As he did that, Zoey moved on to the next man in chains who had woken up already. When Zoey’s eyes met his, she made a quick check of the slave pen and realized that all of the prisoners lay awake and watched her every move.
The Crew (Captains & Cannons Book 2) Page 7