The Maleficent Seven

by Cameron Johnston

  Maeven burst through the door from the quarterdeck, blinking away the sleep, her hair in disarray. “What’s all this shouting?”

  “Scurvy bastards have abandoned ship,” he said.

  “Lorimer?” she asked.

  “Looks like they tossed him overboard before bailing out.”

  “Throw him a rope before he sinks.” She returned below decks to find Craggan still sitting where she had left him, calmly smoking a clay pipe.

  “Something the matter?” he said.

  “Order your men to return to their stations.”

  He sniffed. “Verena’s orders are to abandon ship when faced with the likes of you lot. She will not allow enemies of power to set foot on Awildan shores.”

  “I just want to talk to the bloody woman,” Maeven snarled.

  He shrugged. “Then you should have sent a letter. In a few weeks–”

  “I don’t have weeks, and she has no time for this nonsense either! Everything you hold dear will perish unless you listen to me.”

  “Do as you will with me. I will not betray my queen.”

  “Loyalty, eh?” Tiarnach said from the doorway. “I admire that.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “The big lad though, I don’t reckon he cares.”

  Lorimer blocked the doorway, a dripping mass of fang and ferocity.

  Craggan’s composure cracked and the pipe dropped from his lips. “Do whatever you want with me,” he repeated, a little less convincingly, “but you can’t do anything without a crew.”

  Maeven smiled. “Oh, I still have a crew.” She concentrated and let her magic slip into the three corpses on the deck. They might be dead, but their flesh and muscles still remembered what to do.

  Air wheezed from useless lungs. Feet dragged as the dead rose and approached. Blood drained from the captain’s face as the boy with a missing hand and shattered face appeared behind Lorimer.

  “I am no petty sorceress, Captain. I am something far worse.” She waved the others away. “Let us go into your cabin and discuss matters in detail. I am sure you have something decent to drink in there, and torture gives me such a powerful thirst.” Her animated corpses dragged him away kicking and screaming.

  Lorimer and Tiarnach waited up on deck as shrieks rang out. The dead men returned and silently went about their tasks, manning the rudder and tweaking the rigging as best they could with body parts missing.

  The silence between the two men finally got to Tiarnach. “Maeven’s always been terrifying.”

  Lorimer glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “So were you in your prime.”

  Tiarnach smiled sadly. “I was fucking glorious, wasn’t I? Totally fearless.”

  Shrieks changed to sobs below decks. “So,” Tiarnach said. “You can’t swim, eh? I never knew that. How’d they manage to toss you overboard?”

  “If you had stayed awake you might have noticed,” Lorimer said. “I suggest you hold your tongue or I will remove it.”

  Tiarnach went to make a bad joke, then slowly closed his mouth. He offered Lorimer his small jar of whisky. The vampire took it and sipped. He nodded approval. They passed it back and forth in silence until it was finished. The screams and sobbing from below continued until dawn.

  CHAPTER 6

  On the deck of the mighty warship Scourge of Malice, the first mate of The Sly Griffin withered under Queen Verena Awildan’s imperious glare. His surviving crewmen refused to meet her gaze. The old woman only stood as tall as his shoulder and yet her dark and angular eyes could break a man, and indeed had just done so. She paced up and down before him in dainty black shoes, a coiled, viciously barbed whip rhythmically slapping into her velvet glove.

  Waves crashed against the hull, having less impact on the crew than their queen’s whip against her palm.

  Her grey hair was pinned up delicately above a warm, white slynx draped about her shoulders, the little animal acting like a living fur stole. Agitated by her ire, the rare animal opened its amber eyes and yawned, exposing needle-teeth. Irusen, she was told by scholars, was of the cat family, yet shaped much like a ferret and more elegant than both species. Verena spared a moment to rub its downy cheek with a finger, earning a soft purr of pleasure.

  She wore a red silk dining dress with delicate thread-of-gold embroidery that exposed a generous portion of tanned cleavage. It was something a younger woman might wear to seduce a king; while Verena knew she was no longer smooth-skinned or as athletic as she once was, she didn’t give a damn. Other than her own, only one person’s opinion mattered, and he had been well on his way to showing his appreciation. She displayed her scars of age and battle proudly, even the ugly puckered scar across her left forearm that had been the parting gift of an old and vicious enemy.

  She turned to face Craggan’s men. “You interrupted my dinner to spout these lies?”

  The sailor shuddered and sweat beaded his forehead. “It went just as we said, My Crown. The captain, ’e said the tattooed woman killed Fat Tom and Eck with sorcery, and another one of them weren’t right at all – downright unnatural ’e was.” Some of his men mumbled agreement. “Craggan always said to abandon ship and captain if we was boarded by magickers. Them as thought to retake the ship were slaughtered. We left them floating helpless with not a sailor among them.”

  She leaned in close and stared at him, searching for any hint of a lie. There was none, just honest panic. “On your feet and ready your steel. We will set sail to recover The Sly Griffin.”

  Dozens of pirates thumped fists against their chests and hurried to their stations. The lookout called down from the crow’s nest, “Ship-ho! Sail to starboard.”

  Verena cursed and ran to the captain’s quarters. Her husband stood up from the dinner table, his shirt half-unbuttoned. She paused to admire him for a moment. “No time for that, Henry. Keep the grandchildren below deck.” She set down Irusen, carefully took off and folded her dress, and instead pulled on leather boots and armour.

  Henry held out her sword belt and she buckled it on, sliding the sword around to rest comfortably at her hip. The slynx leapt back onto her shoulder and curled around her neck.

  Her husband kissed her hard. “Stay safe out there, dear heart. I will take care of the little ones.”

  She kissed him back, laden with the promise of resuming where they had left off. “Let us hope it is a wallowing cog with a fat belly of gold and wine.” In truth, a bad feeling was brewing in her guts.

  She barked orders as she ascended the quarterdeck for a better view of the approaching ship. Her personal guards, armoured with heavy chain, helmets and shields, emerged from below decks to surround her with a wall of muscle and steel. Some strung war bows and laid out arrows the length of her arm, with heads wrapped in cloth and pitch, ready to set fire. One of them lit an enclosed charcoal brazier and made ready for battle. Her first mate Gormley, a huge and hairy beast of a man, joined her.

  He handed over her spyglass and she peered through the sea haze. After some time, the sleek curves of a familiar caravel emerged, battling through the waves towards them.

  “The Sly Griffin on approach!” she shouted.

  Gormley drew his sword and tested its edge against his calloused thumb. A thin line of blood welled up and he grunted in satisfaction.

  On deck, Craggan’s ex-crew huddled together. “I thought you said there was not one sailor left alive among them?” she asked.

  They looked at each other in confusion, then to their first mate.

  She slammed a fist down on the wooden rail. “Speak up, sea-rats, or I’ll have your tongues.”

  The Sly Griffin’s first mate swallowed and wiped sweat from his brow with a dirty sleeve. “My Crown, I… there wasn’t none, save Craggan who stayed behind. We all swear they was dirt-huggers, don’t we mates?” His crew found their toes mutely fascinating.

  She pointed to the sail in the distance. “Well, somebody is sailing that ship. You’d best hope there is a good explanation.”

  He swallowed
and nodded.

  “Draw your knives, you salty dogs!” she shouted. “If they board us, they will need to go through you first.”

  They blanched and shuffled their feet but did as they were told. As scared as these men were of whatever horrors were aboard The Sly Griffin, they knew Verena would flay them alive if they voiced any objection.

  The Scourge of Malice’s crew fell silent as The Sly Griffin drew closer. The displaced crew of that ship lined up and steeled themselves to face their shame. Their first mate stiffened, staring out across the water at the distant figures manning the ship. His jaw dropped and blood drained from his face. He clutched a sea glass talisman of the Goddess of Storms tied around his neck and muttered prayers meant to ward off evil spirits.

  “What do you see?” Verena demanded.

  He turned to look up at her, his eyes wide and confused. “A ship crewed by dead men.”

  She studied the approaching ship through the spyglass, her eyes not being what they once were. An aging lunatic with flaming hair and bulging gut stood at the prow, stripped to the waist and waving a sword at them, but with the sea haze it was difficult to make out more detail. The wind whipped through his hair and beard and he was grinning as if eager for a fight. From the mass of scars covering his body, she had no doubt he had seen many. He seemed oddly familiar, a vague spark of recognition.

  Lashed to the mast was a bigger man with dark skin, who would prove a more serious threat. Here was the unnatural creature that The Sly Griffin’s first mate had mentioned. His skin was covered in barbs and spines, and his fingers tipped with wicked claws. At a guess, Verena thought he might be a shapeshifter of some sort. Rare and dangerous as a wild beast, but nothing to be overly concerned about – an arrow through the skull could deal with those vicious creatures. She prayed he was nothing worse.

  As she scanned across the oncoming ship and its handful of crew, something caught her eye, a hint of wrongness. She tracked back and stared at the two bloodied men tying lines to cleats and the boy with one hand and a smashed jaw manning the helm. Bone glinted through ragged wounds, and a black cloud of flies buzzed around them.

  Verena lifted the glass from her eye, rubbed it, then took another look. “Tits on a fish!” It was no mistake: the ship was crewed by dead men.

  A hooded woman emerged from Craggan’s cabin. She bore a strange tattoo with black tentacles across one side of her face that reminded Verena of her ruined dinner – it had to be that murdering sorceress The Sly Griffin’s crew had mentioned. A thrill of fear rippled up her spine as the woman turned and looked directly towards her.

  Shit. Maeven. That explained the corpses crewing her ship.

  It had been forty years since she last laid eyes on the cold-hearted necromancer, and she found it not nearly long enough. The old wound on her arm itched. Verena had been the commander of Black Herran’s fleet, which thankfully limited her contact with the other land-bound captains. Sadly, that had mostly meant dealing with Black Herran’s hand, Maeven.

  Verena continued to watch them. The necromancer exchanged words with the shapeshifter, angry ones by their expressions. Then the red-haired warrior joined them and began running up a white flag of truce.

  “My Crown?” Gormley said, nodding to her guards and their bows. “Want us to feather them?”

  She pursed her lips, tapping the spyglass with her nails. It was tempting. So very tempting. But what would possess that wicked woman to approach her at sea, and why now? “Not just yet. I want to hear what they have to say first.”

  “And the sorceress?” he said, shifting his feet and clutching the amulet beneath his shirt. “I don’t relish facing black witchery.”

  Verena scowled and rubbed Irusen’s cheek. “Oh, we can deal with her sorcery well enough, can’t we, my sweet little princess?” The slynx opened one eye and flicked a dismissive ear in The Sly Griffin’s direction before returning to sleep.

  In the prow, Tiarnach leapt atop the weathered griffin figurehead, at ease with the lurching movements of the ship beneath him. For a moment he admired the inlaid bronze beak, eyes and claws, then peered through the sea spray. “Bloody big ship ahead, eh?” he shouted over the crash of waves and the wind. “I’ve never seen the like.”

  “Your tribe were savage hillfolk,” Lorimer shouted back. “I doubt you have ever been on anything bigger than a log-boat.” He was safely lashed to the mast, growling as the dead sailors shambled to and fro around him.

  “A pox on what you think!” Tiarnach yelled. “You think yourself so old and experienced. You’re a bloody stripling compared to me. I was taking the heads of your ancestors way before your da squirted you out.”

  “Please stop comparing the size of your manhoods,” Maeven said, her voice cold as death. “Controlling these corpses is taxing enough without being distracted by your prattle.”

  She tried to block out their bickering as she focused inwards on her magic. There was something ominous ahead, a nothingness where her power could not enter. She had never encountered such a thing.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, deep in thought as they drew closer to Verena’s ship with every passing second. She had no idea what their reception would be, given that the last time she had seen the Awildan queen she had tried to rot the woman’s arm off with magic. Unfortunate, but there was no escaping this now even if she wanted to.

  “Fetch Craggan,” she ordered. “It’s time.”

  Tiarnach sauntered down below decks and returned dragging the ship’s captain, sobbing and broken. There wasn’t a mark on him, but he desperately clung to the warrior’s arm and shied away from the necromancer’s gaze.

  Tiarnach raised an eyebrow and pondered asking Maeven for the details. For once though, he thought it wise to keep his mouth shut. Atrocity in the heat of battle when your blood was up was one thing, but this was cold and calculated torture, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He pried the man off his arm and dumped the quivering wretch in a heap at Maeven’s feet.

  She helped Craggan to stand. “Take command, Captain. We need your deft touch to bring us close to your queen. Corpses don’t have the dexterity or judgement they had when they were alive. Once I have met with your queen, you are free to do whatever you wish. Take your place and relay your orders, Captain.”

  That seemed to bolster his spirits. He gripped the wheel white-knuckled and stared ahead at the Scourge of Malice with fevered longing. The corsair captain seemed to regain a measure of his old bravado as he barked orders and cursed the men, as if refusing to believe his current crew were animated corpses. Maeven relayed his orders to her minions, and their salt-scoured dead flesh remembered the correct physical responses. Where missing or shredded limbs and decaying minds proved inadequate – stumps and clumsy fingers pawed futilely at knots – Tiarnach had to step in.

  Their course converged with the larger ship, its black bulk looming ever larger. The deck opposite and above them was packed by uneasy pirates bristling with bows and steel, staring down in horror at the living-dead crew. A few frightened and familiar faces filled out the front line.

  Lorimer’s mouth sprouted longer fangs. He growled at the sight of those who had pushed him overboard and rose to full hulking height, a monster of spite, spike and claw. He tore free of the bonds securing him to the mast.

  Maeven placed a warning hand on the vampire’s shoulder, stilling him for now. She kept her hood up and her face low in an attempt to hide it from the crowned queen of pirates until they were close enough to talk. As powerful as Maeven was, a flight of arrows might still kill her.

  Craggan ordered the crew to strike sail and they coasted closer until they were near enough for the Scourge of Malice to throw grappling ropes and secure their vessels.

  “This was your stupid plan, Maeven,” Lorimer said. “Try not to get us killed.”

  Verena was high up on the quarterdeck, but the former crew of The Sly Griffin cringed as she lifted her voice, a trembling line wavering between life and death, their lives slav
e to their queen’s word. “Ho, The Sly Griffin!” she shouted. “Who is in charge? Which fool dared commandeer one of my ships, and kill my crew?”

  “That,” Maeven said, pulling back her hood, “would be me. It has been a long time, Verena.”

  The pirate queen’s expression did not change. She looked to her archers.

  Maeven hastily continued, “If you have no greeting for me then perhaps you do for Lorimer? No? Or perhaps Tiarnach – you two always did get along well.”

  Verena paused, hand half-raised to order the archers to fire. She stared down at the hulking mass of the vampire and the grizzled warrior. Trying to kill Maeven was one thing, and perhaps achievable, but an enraged Lorimer in a confined space? It was likely every human aboard would be torn to shreds.

  “Tiarnach, you say?” Verena said, squinting down suspiciously at the grizzled, pot-bellied man that had once been a strapping eternal youth. There were indeed similarities there. She licked her lips. “Very well, necromancer, explain your actions or you die here and now.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Aboard The Sly Griffin, Maeven bowed the precise depth as befitted meeting a queen. “Your Highness,” she yelled over the creak of wood and slosh of waves. “We bring you tidings of urgent import and unfortunately your men offered only rape and violence instead of safe passage.”

  Verena was having none of it. “To Hellrath with you! You are a vile creature with death and disaster clinging to you like shit on a sheep.”

  Maeven rose from the bow to meet Verena’s gaze. “We did not have time to play with cretins, not when your life and those of your children hang in the balance.” Thanks to her interrogation of Craggan she knew a threat to Verena’s family was the only way to safely get her attention. For a time. Trying to rot somebody’s arm off was not the sort of thing people tended to forget or forgive.

  The pirate queen ground her teeth and brandished her barbed whip. “Let us discuss your actions in depth.” She turned to her sailors, who were uneasily eyeing the ship crewed by dead men.