The Fork-Tongue Charmers

by Paul Durham

  “What about Folly and Quinn?” Rye asked.

  Harmless tightened his jaw in thought. “The doors of the Dead Fish Inn will hold,” he said. “But your friends won’t be able to get inside at the moment. I’ll bring them with us for now and get them home safe after you’re on the ship. Head that way,” he indicated, pointing a sword toward the mudflats. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “What ship?” Rye asked, but Harmless had already rushed back into the conflict on Little Water Street.

  Rye looked in the direction of the Flats. The tide was out, and Rye saw the silhouette of a tall-masted schooner bobbing offshore. In the distance, several small shapes had gathered where the waves met the sand. She started toward them, and stopped and turned expectantly when she heard the sound of steps at her back.

  It wasn’t Harmless. Instead, two men hurried toward her. They wore flowing cloaks, but their hoods hung loose. Their faces were deathly white. Sweat from their brows streaked soot down over their cheekbones like ominous, black tears. Rye noticed the tattoos covering their forearms and ending at the hilts of the swords in their fists.

  “It’s Bramble’s niece,” the taller one said, catching his breath. “We’re lucky to have found you.”

  “Yes, Snip, where’s your uncle?” the snaggle-toothed one asked.

  “There, by the ship I think,” she said, raising a finger toward the Flats, then regretting it. She suspected now that these men were Luck Uglies, but there was something particularly unsettling about them.

  “Let’s all find him together, shall we?” the taller one said.

  More footsteps pounded behind them and Rye was relieved to see that it was Harmless with Folly and Quinn in tow. Her friends looked flush, but none the worse for wear.

  “Riley,” Harmless said in an even tone, “take Folly and Quinn with you.” He gestured to the two men. “We have some cleaning up to do. Hurry now.” He flicked one sword in the direction he intended, and Quinn and Folly didn’t ask any questions. They just hurried to join Rye.

  But, to Rye’s surprise, the two men extended their arms so the tips of their blades faced Harmless. Harmless did not seem to share her surprise. He stepped forward purposefully, his short swords in each hand pointed to the ground.

  He stopped only when each of their blades was within a whisker of his throat.

  “I find myself in dark spirits today,” Harmless growled. “Choose your next move with great care.”

  The men glanced at each other, then back to Harmless. Their blades didn’t waiver.

  “So you’ve cast your lot with Slinister and the Fork-Tongue Charmers,” Harmless said without moving, shifting only his gaze from one to the other. “At least your corpse paint makes you both a little easier on the eyes.”

  Rye realized now that their faces had been intentionally masked with white ash and soot.

  “It’s been a long time, High Chieftain,” the taller Charmer snarled, ignoring Harmless’s barb. “There’s a new game afoot. And we’ve learned to bet on the player with the strongest hand.”

  “The deck is stacked against you,” the other chimed in. “You just don’t realize it yet.”

  Rye saw a look of sadness cross Harmless’s face, then his eyes glinted with a wolfish fury.

  “I’m afraid you’ve bet poorly. Now lower your arms, or the only losing hands today . . . will be your own.”

  Quicker than Rye could blink, the razor edges of Harmless’s two blades came to rest under each of the Charmers’ sword hands. He pressed them against the skin of their wrists hard enough to show it was no idle threat.

  “Care to bet on whose hands are the fastest?” Harmless asked with wry grin. “Or maybe you’ve forgotten?”

  The men glanced at each other with heated eyes, but each took a step back. Harmless eased his blades to his side and circled around the Charmers warily as he joined Rye, Folly, and Quinn.

  “We stand aside today because of who you are and what you’ve done before,” the snaggle-toothed Charmer called as Harmless gathered Rye and her friends. “But next time, we’ll consider the slate to be wiped clean.”

  “Then I suggest you spend your final days well,” Harmless replied darkly.

  The Charmers retreated into the shadows of the bridge. Harmless did not look back at them. He put his arm around Rye’s shoulder and a hand on Folly’s back, rushing them and Quinn away to the Flats.

  Rye glanced over her shoulder once. High atop the bridge, she thought she saw a solitary masked figure in black watching them go with red-rimmed eyes. But when she looked again, he was gone.

  A hard-scrabble group of men paced irritably on the sand where they’d beached three wooden longboats. One of the men turned and ran toward them, his pale blue eyes ablaze.

  “What happened back there?” Bramble demanded.

  “Two of our brothers showed their hands,” Harmless said curtly.

  Abby rushed forward and joined them, dragging Lottie close behind her. Rye’s sister had somehow managed to retrieve Newtie’s empty cage from the wharf. She held it sullenly with Mona Monster.

  Abby threw her arms around Rye and looked to Harmless for answers. “What now?” she asked, casting her eyes to the boats.

  “I was able to make some hasty arrangements for your safe passage on the Slumgullion.”

  He gestured toward the schooner anchored in deeper waters.

  “Passage where?” Abby said, her thin black eyebrows sinking low over her eyes.

  Harmless hesitated.

  “Where, Gray?”

  “Pest.”

  “Pest!” Abby exclaimed, her eyes flaring. “Without asking me?”

  Rye tried to make sense out of her parents’ hurried words. She knew the Isle of Pest was where her mother and Bramble were raised, but they almost never spoke of it. Abby had not returned to Pest since leaving well before Rye was born. For all Rye knew, it might have been on the other side of the world.

  “Perhaps if you hadn’t buried an arrow in the Constable’s hat I would have had time to explore other options,” Harmless was saying to Abby.

  “Yes, you’ll have to forgive me,” Abby retorted. “Impulsiveness is normally your domain. But you may have noticed your youngest daughter was about to learn a painful lesson about lawmen and their egos.”

  Harmless rubbed his chin. “She does seem to display a rather aggressive disdain for authority figures.”

  “I wonder where that might come from,” Abby said, without a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  “We’re leaving Drowning?” Rye asked urgently.

  If her parents heard her at all, they didn’t bother to reply.

  “Yes, I wonder too,” Harmless responded hotly. “What are you doing carrying your crossbow openly?”

  “Surely you’ve heard,” Abby said, throwing her arms in the air. “I’m a wanted criminal now. I thought I should dress the part.”

  “Why are we leaving Drowning?” Rye yelled, stepping between them.

  Harmless and Abby broke off from their jabs. Her father’s face softened.

  “It can be no coincidence that the Earl’s soldiers marched into the Shambles on the very day we were set to ride on Longchance Keep. This is no ordinary constable. He has no fear of the Luck Uglies. And after months of licking his wounded pride, it seems Longchance has grown similarly emboldened.”

  “But why must we flee? Can’t we go—” Rye caught herself, and was careful not to say Grabstone. “Somewhere else?”

  “If the Shambles is no longer safe, then nowhere in the Shale is. I already know that two of our kind have betrayed their brothers. For now, it’s best that you go somewhere even Luck Uglies no longer tread.” His eyes narrowed. “Until I know which Luck Uglies I can trust, we cannot trust any of them.”

  Although Rye’s mother’s face was hard, she offered no objection to what Harmless was saying.

  “Except one,” Harmless added, looking over to Abby. “You know where to find him,” he told her quietly.
r />   “No offense taken by the way,” Bramble muttered out the side of his mouth.

  “And Slinister?” Rye asked. “I saw him again last night—at Thorn Quill’s. He was with the Constable’s squire,” she added quickly, before her mother could erupt at her disclosure.

  Harmless looked surprised, then even more resolved.

  “Whatever Slinister’s intentions may be,” Harmless said after a long pause, “he’s the last person who would align himself with the Earl and his Constable. Beyond that, his intentions remain murky, which is all the more reason to get you to Pest. I’ll be better able to address both the Earl and the Fork-Tongue Charmers knowing that there’s an ocean between you.”

  “He says you have something—” Rye began, but was interrupted.

  “Gray!” a voice called from the shoreline. “It’s now or never. I’m not waiting for a kiss good-bye from the Earl’s men.”

  Rye recognized the voice as belonging to a man from the Dead Fish Inn. It was the one-eyed freebooter she’d seen the day before.

  “You must be off,” Harmless said to Abby. “Captain Dent hoists the colors of a freebooter. He swears no allegiance to the Earl, nor to me, but we share—shall we say—common interests.”

  “You’re putting us in the hands of pirates?” Abby whispered incredulously, as they all hurried to the longboats.

  “Smugglers,” Harmless clarified.

  “Smugglers!” Abby said, stopping short.

  “Abigail,” Harmless whispered, nodding toward Rye and Lottie. “Given the cargo, don’t you want to be in the hands of someone who knows what he’s doing?”

  Harmless noticed Rye’s nervous glance at Captain Dent. The one-eyed smuggler barked orders as his men readied the longboats for launch.

  “Not to worry, Riley,” Harmless said, watching the freebooters loosen the moorings. “Daggett Dent has captained four sunken ships and three wrecks—swam away from each without a scratch. Yes, there’s the matter of his eye, but that was courtesy of an unusually fearsome pelican. My point is—luck travels with him on every voyage.”

  Rye frowned. Apparently, luck was in the eye of the beholder.

  The longboats were ready. Rye hesitated before approaching them. She smiled sadly at her friends. Folly chewed her lip. Quinn shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.

  Harmless took a knee in the sand and placed a reassuring hand on Rye’s shoulder. “Something tells me you’ll like the Isle of Pest. Really.”

  “It’s not terrible—for a barren pile of sea stacks,” Bramble added from over his shoulder. Harmless ignored him.

  “You won’t come?” Rye asked, although she already knew the answer.

  “They wouldn’t be so glad to see me again,” he said. “I’m afraid my head would fetch a hefty price on High Isle.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be glad to see you?”

  Harmless gave her a wry smile and looked like he might answer, but a shout from the bridge drew him to his feet. A dozen men in Longchance tartan spilled over the embankment under the archway, weapons drawn.

  Harmless pressed a hand to Rye’s chest and steered her toward a freebooter.

  “Get the children in the boats!” he called to Captain Dent, pointing at Lottie.

  Harmless’s eyes caught Rye’s and seemed to bid her farewell, then he drew his swords from his back and charged in the direction of the advancing soldiers.

  Rough hands grabbed Rye before she could protest, and she felt herself lifted off the sand and deposited into the leaky hull of a longboat. Abby and Lottie appeared next to her, and the heavy bodies of several freebooters crowded in alongside them. She struggled to spot Folly and Quinn—to be sure they were safe and at least wave good-bye—but the thick shoulders of the sailors blocked her view.

  Captain Dent was soon in the boat himself, barking orders to the men who were still onshore. They pushed the longboat through the surf line, waves crashing against its bow and bathing Rye with salt spray as the freebooters heaved the oars. Looking back at the Flats, Rye lost sight of Harmless, Bramble, and her friends.

  “They’ll be fine,” Abby said reassuringly, and handed Rye a wooden bucket.

  “Is this if I get sick?” Rye asked.

  “No, it’s so we don’t sink.” Abby pointed to the pool of water at their feet. “Bail.”

  Shivering, wet, and miserable, Rye tried to empty the bottom of the longboat as quickly as possible. Lottie did the same, but only managed to deposit buckets of frigid water into Rye’s boots. Squinting at the beach, Rye saw that one of the other longboats had left the shore and was close behind them, and the remaining freebooters were just pushing the last boat into the surf. The Slumgullion loomed closer now, rocking in the turbulent sea as they rowed toward it. Its sails sagged and its hull was pockmarked. It seemed to Rye that the ship had seen better days.

  Rye looked down the coastline, where Drowning’s jagged silhouette rose like thorny branches. Plumes of black smoke rose from the Shambles, growing ever more distant. What would become of it? The village was prickly—but it was still her home. She wondered when, if ever, she might see it again.

  Her spirits only darkened when she realized she hadn’t even gotten a chance to say a proper good-bye to Folly and Quinn. She hoped Harmless and Bramble would see them home safely. She could still hear the echoes of her best friends’ voices.

  “Rye! Rye!”

  Rye shook her head, as if bees were buzzing in her ears.

  “Rye!”

  But it wasn’t a memory, it was Folly’s actual voice.

  “Rye! Over here!”

  Rye looked to the other longboat, where a soggy mop of white-blond hair dripped over Folly’s smiling face. Folly waved frantically from the bow. Quinn was there too, looking more green than pleased.

  “Dent!” Abby yelled. “What are you doing with them?”

  “Gray said to get the children,” the Captain called back, incredulously.

  “Not all of them!”

  “Well, next time he should be a little more specific,” he huffed.

  That put a smile on Rye’s face for the first time all day.

  14

  The Slumgullion

  “My father’s going to be furious,” Quinn said with a grimace, then hugged the side of the ship and deposited what was left of his breakfast into the churning sea.

  “Quinn,” Folly scolded, peering over the bow. “You almost got sick on that sea turtle.”

  “Gray will get word to Angus,” Abby reassured. “Your parents too, Folly.”

  Folly shrugged. “It will probably be days before they even notice I’m gone.”

  “How long will we be gone?” Rye asked.

  Abby glanced over at Folly and Quinn, then gave Rye a slight shake of her head. That meant she didn’t know either.

  Rye stared up at the patched canvas sails as the Slumgullion now bobbed and lurched over open water. The freebooter flag snapped in the breeze—emerald green with three soaring white gulls silhouetted in the corner. She examined the deck’s worm-riddled timbers.

  “Don’t let her looks fool you,” Captain Dent said, joining them at the rails. “The Slumgullion may look like a barn-dwelling nag, but she’s swift as a filly when she needs to be.”

  The Captain fumbled through his breast pocket and retrieved several walnuts. He placed two side by side in his hand, closed it into a fist, and punched it into his other palm. When he unclenched his fist the shells were cracked, exposing the nuts inside. He handed them to Quinn.

  “You look a little green around the gills, lad. These will help.”

  Quinn carefully nibbled them with his front teeth.

  “If that doesn’t work, we’ll try dipping you in the drink. Cold water does wonders for greenies like you.”

  Quinn handed the rest of the nuts back to Dent and rushed for the ship’s rails again.

  Dent shrugged, took an unshelled walnut and wiggled it into the vacant hollow of his missing eye socket. He flashed a jagged smile
that made him look like the carved-pumpkin head of a Wirry Scare.

  Folly giggled. Rye cringed. Dent leaned forward, slapped the back of his own head, and the walnut fell out into his awaiting hand.

  “You can eat that one,” Rye said.

  “You should wear a patch over that,” Abby said dryly. “You’ll scare the women and children.”

  “Eye patches? You’ve read too many fairy tales, Mrs. O’Chanter,” Dent protested. “There’s no place for vanity at sea.”

  Rye would have liked to hear more about the Captain, but he became noticeably alarmed at the sight of a large brown pelican perched on a boom overhead.

  “Be gone!” he yelled and shook a fist. “I’ll deliver you to the cook, you floppy-necked devil!”

  Abby just shook her head. “Smugglers,” she muttered.

  Rye watched the Captain chase the large bird around the deck. She only hoped this voyage wouldn’t fall victim to the special brand of luck Harmless had told her about.

  It didn’t take Rye long to discover that men at sea were an unusually supersitious lot. Women and children were considered bad luck on a ship, but fortunately the crew seemed to warm to them quickly. They told stories of mermaids and leviathans, although Rye never spotted anything more interesting than a distant dolphin. Lottie was still smarting over the loss of Newtie and, at one point, a crewman let her climb the rigging to boost her spirits. Abby put an end to that before Rye got a turn. She tried to help out on deck, but found that a sailor’s work involved a remarkable amount of rope to trip over or become tangled in. Eventually, the Captain put her to work chopping potatoes in the galley.

  Time spent belowdecks was dark and noisy with the groans of the sea. It stunk of the unwashed hammocks of the Slumgullion’s crew, but Dent had set Abby and the children up in private quarters. On their second day it rained, and Rye, Folly, and Quinn found themselves alone in the cramped space for the first time.

  Rye removed one of her oversize boots to replace the damp straw with new padding. The stitching on the boots had become loose, and strips of leather flapped when she walked. She wiggled her toes, examining the black, crusty skin between them.