Captain Black Shadow

by Janina Franck

  After their little tour, the librarian left Griffin to his own devices while he sorted through some documents on a table. Griffin walked slowly past all the shelves, looking over the titles to see if he recognized any. There were several: some technical books, some novels, some legends and fairy tales, some scientific theses. Only one surprised him. It was a book on the tactics of the Marine. It talked about the different strategies fleets should use when facing enemies, going into detail for different scenarios and fleet sizes. Griffin had seen it on his father’s shelf at home and flipped through the pages. Frowning, he pulled it out. In a way, it made sense for them to have it. After all, the military really did use those tactics, meaning that if they studied the Marine’s way of fighting, they could more easily develop counter tactics in advance. However, the book looked like it had barely ever been touched. The pages only opened unwillingly. Perhaps they hadn’t thought of the possibility yet. Had this book been waiting on this shelf for someone to have this idea? Should he mention it to Balthasar or make it disappear? He contemplated the book critically, trying to determine the best course of action, when he finally noticed the author’s name.

  With an odd and unsettling feeling in his stomach, Griffin approached the librarian, the book still in hand. It couldn’t be, could it?

  “Balthasar,” he said. The man looked up at him, his mind still distracted by what he had been doing. “What’s your full name?”

  “Why’d ye wanna know that, eh? It ain’t gonna mean anythin’ to ye. But it’s Balthasar Renol, if ye gotta know.”

  Griffin looked back at the cover of the book in his hand. Balthasar Renol. The man who had devised the strategies and tactics the Marine was using. Griffin had heard of him. He was one of Jianlah’s great academics, an advisor to the government and emperor, or he had been at least. Now he was also their enemy. The boy suddenly felt dizzy. Quickly, he grabbed a chair and sat down. He couldn’t wrap his head around this.

  His father always spoke of Mr. Renol as a genius, a visionary who only had the best for the world in mind. But if this man was also a pirate, maybe the world really wasn’t as just as Griffin had thought. Who was in the wrong? Balthasar or the Marine?

  Confused and uncertain, Griffin decided to leave for the moment. He returned to deck to catch some fresh air and see what was going on.

  Maco was at the helm and Ryo and Skip sat around joking, but otherwise, nobody was to be seen. Ryo waved Griffin over, but he ignored him and walked to the railing. He leaned over to see into the water. Disregarding some of the sketchier circumstances, he was doing what he’d always dreamed of, but… There was always a “but.”

  A dolphin jumped out of the sea. Startled, Griffin stepped back as it chattered happily. At the height of the next jump, the dolphin changed into a seagull. Zero was enjoying impressing Griffin. The boy followed Zero’s flight with his eyes and noticed the emerald dragon, Ayalon, as he circled over the ship. Evidently, it was his turn as the lookout.

  Again, Griffin turned to the sea. How vast it was. Griffin couldn’t even see the Veil of which he’d heard so many stories. He remembered that there had been a rumor about the Bat already having been through the Veil and back, but he didn’t dare ask.

  Sighing, Griffin turned toward the galley since dinnertime was approaching.

  He was in the middle of preparations when Selene came back. Suddenly, she was standing in the door, but she quickly closed it behind her, as if to keep curious eyes and ears from intruding. Her green eyes were watching Griffin closely. Self-conscious of his work and actions, Griffin barely dared to meet her gaze.

  “Er… Are you hungry? Dinner will be ready soon,” he explained stupidly. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Steadily, he stirred the stew, wishing for her to speak. Eventually, she answered his silent prayer.

  “Do you want to become a pirate?” she asked, getting right to the point. “Or would you rather we bring you to the next port?”

  Her voice sounded raspy.

  Griffin wondered if it was a trick question. This was only his second day on the ship and he was far from being able to tell how these people thought yet. He’d only started to scratch the surface, if anything. He had to be careful in how he answered. After all, this could be a chance for freedom. But if he answered incorrectly, she might just stab him and leave him to bleed. Why was she dangling this beacon of hope in front of him? Was this an attempt at torture? Griffin wasn’t sure what to say. He thought about his decision the previous night. Maybe these people weren’t so bad. So far, they had been nothing but nice to him. Perhaps being mostly honest was the best way to go.

  “I don’t want to be a pirate,” he began slowly. Selene still didn’t meet his eyes. “Who kills people. But I do want to stick around for now. To help on the ship. But killing, that’s something I won’t do. I won’t help with that.”

  Selene lifted her head to look at him. “Are you serious about that? You might die. You can never return to your old life if you stay. A pirate’s life is dangerous. Are you sure you want that risk?”

  Griffin thought for a moment, but his decision was already made. He nodded resolutely. He could always escape at a later point if he needed to. As long as he was one of them, they surely wouldn’t harm him, and she appeared to accept his condition, much to his relief. Without another word, Selene left. Once again, Griffin remained with nothing but confusion. Why had she asked that? Why was she so against him? He just didn’t get her! Secretly, he wondered if Selene had been sent by Captain Black Shadow to gather information about him. He wondered if she was his daughter. If Selene was the daughter of the captain, it would explain a lot. He shuddered. What would Selene tell her father? Perhaps he wasn’t safe yet. The ultimate decision was up to the captain and if he wanted him dead based on what his daughter told him, then things looked bad for Griffin.

  The boy sighed. There was no point in worrying a hole in his head. For the moment, he should probably just spend some time with the stew. Continuing to be useful was the best way to stay alive that he could think of.

  “Guys, listen!” Selene shouted over the talking and slurping at dinner. Instantly, it was quiet enough to hear the tick of a clock. Griffin was surprised by how much authority Selene had on the ship. But on the other hand… It was no wonder with her being Black Shadow’s daughter.

  “Tomorrow at noon, we’re attacking again,” the girl announced. “It’s a Marine trading ship.”

  An excited whisper swept over the room. Griffin felt sick. His intestines were contracting into an ever-tighter knot. An attack on a military ship… That could not be good. Death, certainly for the soldiers, possibly for them, perhaps even him. He bit his lip and stared at his hands. He couldn’t bear the excited faces around him. Of course, it made sense that they needed to attack ships. They needed provisions. As pirates, they couldn’t easily get them anywhere else after all.

  Selene held up her hand and the whispering stopped.

  “Also, I should tell you about the decision regarding the newbie.”

  All gazes turned to Griffin. He gulped. What would Selene say? That he’d be put on an island somewhere? That he’d stay with the pirates? That he’d be one of them? Or that he’d work on the ship as a slave or even be executed? At the end of the day… They were all pirates. With a reputation for being the most cruel and dangerous on the ocean at that.

  His heart pounded as though it was going to burst. He felt hot and cold at the same time. He’d been so foolish. Why in the world had he thought it would be a good idea to stay on a ship with dangerous and bloodthirsty pirates? He should have escaped the first night. They were the enemies of the nation – they’d caused the deaths of so many people, of heroes even. And yet, all Griffin cared about was Selene’s next words.

  “From today onward, he’s one of us. A part of the crew.”

  With those words Selene got up and left the room. Griffin barely noticed since everyone around him cheered and hung around him to welcome him
properly. For the rest of the evening, he never found himself with an empty glass.

  CHAPTER 3

  Griffin awoke with a pounding headache. He slowly opened his eyes. Though the room was dimly lit, it burned like he was staring directly into the sun. He was lying on the floor of the galley. How had he even gotten here? He couldn’t remember. Thinking hard, he could just barely recall Selene announcing that he now belonged with the pirates. After that, everything was blank.

  Thinking hurt too much, so he focused his energy on pulling himself upright. With great effort, he got to his knees before his stomach started complaining, and he figured it was time for a breather.

  “I… don’t feel well…” he stammered. There was no particular reason for him to say it out loud. He just hoped that it would somehow magically change the fact.

  Griffin half-crawled, half-stumbled to a water barrel. His mouth was dry; he needed water.

  Opening his eyes as little as possible, he found a clean cup. Or at least, he found a cup. His hands shook as he plunged the cup into the water and greedily threw the wonderfully cold liquid into his mouth. More got on his clothes than in his mouth, so he tried again, more cautiously this time. Now was not the time to waste this wonderful life-elixir.

  Having drunk as much as he could stomach and exhausted from the mighty effort of this quest for water, Griffin slumped back down to the ground, his back leaning against the barrel. He felt like dying. The water had been the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, but it hadn’t put out the fire in his brain. He waited for the cold, welcoming embrace of death to take away the pain.

  It didn’t come. Instead, a single word began to take shape in his mind, hazy at first, but slowly getting clearer: Breakfast. He had to make breakfast. But even the thought of food made him feel ill. He was about to throw up, but he pulled himself together. The others needed breakfast.

  He heaved himself to his feet, suppressed the urge to vomit and set about looking for the ingredients for pancakes. What are pancakes made of again? Eggs seemed important, so he made his way to where he remembered the eggs were stored. Three dropped eggs later, he was sure he had enough to make pancakes.

  There was a crash, and the door opened to let in a grinning Ryo. One look at Griffin’s pale face and the grin grew wider. A glance at the mess on the floor and the grin transformed into a roaring laugh. He patted Griffin’s back in a way that was probably meant to be comforting, but which Griffin thought was going to make his stomach explode.

  “Aren’t used to drinking, heh? You’re as white as the spume on the waves!”

  Griffin nodded weakly. Aside from fraternizing with Skip on the Crow, he’d only had alcohol once before and that had been a glass of wine in his parents’ house.

  “Can … help… breakfast…” Griffin mumbled. Alone, he was barely able to stand up straight, so certainly making breakfast for ten people was out of the question.

  Ryo just nodded, with a smirk firmly plastered to his face, and pushed the boy to the side. With quick hands, the colossus worked. Griffin watched him and noticed that Ryo added too much milk as well as enough salt to preserve a ham, but his headache told him it wasn’t worth speaking up. He was simply thankful that Ryo had shown him mercy.

  After a short while, the smell of food became unbearable, so Griffin had to go on deck and breathe in the fresh ocean air, so he wouldn’t get sick. He sucked it in, gulping down lungfuls of air like he had never truly breathed before. It seemed to make things better. The constant pounding behind his eyes felt more like a dull throb now, and his stomach was beginning to settle down.

  A few minutes later, he was feeling well enough to be able to return to Ryo, and they brought the food to the mess. There, the hungry sailors were already waiting and greeted Griffin good humoredly.

  His pale face did not escape notice.

  “Look who rose from the dead!” Skip yelled upon his arrival.

  “The last one’s always bad, innit?” Balthasar grinned.

  “One may assume you are not quite used to intoxication, my dearest boy,” Joe added with a gentle smile.

  “Should’ve seen him on the Crow,” Skip began, chuckling at the memory. “Threw two back and passed out right then and there!”

  The cheerful teasing went on over breakfast, until Selene stepped in through the doorway.

  “Everyone, we’re approaching. Get ready and wait on deck.”

  Griffin began to feel better now that he had eaten a little, but his world was still stuck in a haze. He began setting the dishes together to bring them back to the kitchen, but Ryo stopped him.

  “Mate, you’re not gonna be any use in your state. Just go lie down, alright?’”

  Ryo placed his hand on Griffin’s shoulder and with gentle force steered him out of the mess. All Griffin could do was thank Ryo exhaustedly before returning to his cabin. He threw himself into the hammock and entered the world of dreams almost immediately. Everything happening there was garbled and Griffin could only remember one thing: the smell of fresh blood.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t change when he awoke. Griffin stumbled half-asleep to deck, but what he found there was not at all to his liking. There was a Marine Corps ship adjacent, and its crew lay scattered across it. Obviously, the attack had happened while Griffin had been asleep. The deck of the other ship was red with blood. How in the world had he slept through that? How could the screams and sounds of fighting not have woken him?

  He was dazed. He hadn’t expected a massacre like this. He had already suppressed most of the memories from the incident on the Crow, so it came as a new shock. But the similarity was uncanny and all the old images flooded back into his mind, mixing with these new impressions. He almost got sick again. Even the railing of the Bat was sticky when he touched it. His mind went in circles and dizziness merged with his hangover and terror. He staggered to the galley, barely realizing what he was doing. He needed some water in order to clear his head. What had he done? Why had he joined these people? He was doomed. He said a small prayer to himself, wishing the dead would easily find the path to cloudland.

  Griffin pushed the door open and almost fell over something tiny, hairy and wet. Searching his mind for recognition for a moment, he suspected the creature to be a kitten.

  It meowed heartbreakingly and looked at him with big green eyes. Its fur was matted and red with blood. Griffin supposed it had come from the Marine ship.

  Someone stepped out of the back part of the galley.

  “She doesn’t like me. She didn’t even like Zero when he changed into a cat,” Selene stated. Her clothes were covered in blood as well, and her blonde hair… wasn’t really blonde anymore. She also bore a fresh scratch on her cheek, which looked like it may have been caused by the cat.

  Griffin knelt in front of it and carefully picked it up. The small animal didn’t object in the least. On the contrary, it closed its eyes blissfully.

  “I had Skip throw the rubbish on the other ship,” said Selene. “We locked the rest of the soldiers up and left them with some provisions. They should be found in a few days. We’ve taken what we needed. They had better stuff.” She gestured toward a pile in a corner, partially composed of bags of food, as well as pots and other things. The rubbish bags had indeed disappeared, and Griffin thought he heard a sheep bleat in the back of the room, along with the flapping of wings. “Take note of our current stock and look after the livestock. It’ll be useful.”

  Griffin nodded. So they hadn’t killed everyone. It soothed him a little, even though it still felt awful. He remembered the stories of Black Shadow, how he let the most innocent live because he could see the purity of their souls.

  He walked over to Selene and nodded to the kitten.

  “Pet her now. She won’t do anything. Trust me.”

  Carefully, Selene touched the cat’s head and proceeded to its back. Almost immediately, it began to purr. Startled, Selene pulled her hand back.

  Griffin
laughed, which made the kitten jump from his arms.

  Selene looked at him, imploring, but he shook his head, grinning. After a moment of helplessness, Selene’s expression became as unreadable as before.

  “Take care of her,” she ordered as she left.

  Shaking his head, Griffin stared after her. He’d never get her. On one hand, she could look so vulnerable, but most of the time she was completely inaccessible. He just couldn’t understand.

  His state of mind had rapidly changed, and he felt a lot better, so he began to wash the drying blood off the kitten. Being in this room alone with this tiny creature helped him to ignore what he had just seen outside, and the fact that his new friends were ruthless killers. He immediately felt that he and this cat would be friends and allies in this strange, scary world of pirates. Maybe it would make it less terrible.

  Meanwhile, the other men were raiding the Marine ship, bringing everything useful on board to be put away and sorted through later. Griffin tried to ignore them whenever they deposited something in the galley and looked over curiously. He continued to clean the kitten, paying no attention.

  Finally, Griffin was finished, and dried the cat’s fur with a towel. It was a radiant carnelian red. If it weren’t for the matting, the blood wouldn’t have been very noticeable at all.

  Purring, the kitten rubbed against his legs. An involuntary smile coming to his face, he picked her up.

  “You need a name,” he muttered. The kitten licked his face. He laughed.

  “Kitty?”

  The cat looked at him unimpressed, almost disappointedly.

  “Mow,” she said.

  “Carnelius?”

  The kitten wiggled her nose and turned her head away.

  “Mow.”

  “Captain Whiskers?”

  The cat bit into his finger and made a light growling sound.