by neetha Napew
“Thanks, mate!” The otter shoved the body of his assailant aside and bounded to his feet. Shouts mixed with an occasional scream filtered down from above. “Let’s up an’ at ‘em.”
After a discreet survey proved the hallway to be deserted, the otter led Jon-Tom toward the stairs at the far end.
“Hurry it up, mate.”
Jon-Tom was trying to run and step into his pants at the same time. “I’m coming as fast as I can, or do you expect me to fight without any pants?”
“Why not? Would you rather be embarrassed or dead?”
Wearing only his pants, a bare-chested, barefooted Jon-Tom followed his friend up the stairway. They emerged on deck in the midst of darkness, confusion and carnage.
Another ship had fastened itself to the portside hull. The ketch was old and beat-up but evidently seaworthy enough to tackle the much larger caramaran. It was also home to an astonishing variety of cutthroats and thugs, who continued to swarm over the gunwales onto the freighter.
Their plan was as simple as their intentions were obvious: wait until dark, then slip quietly aboard and exterminate the officers and crew in their bunks. Then they could sample cargo and passengers at their leisure. Unfortunately for them the alert aye-aye had died a hero’s death while sacrificing his life to raise the alarm. This had roused not only the crew but the passengers as well, most of whom knew their way around a weapon or two. As this was not Bel-Air or Brentwood, most of the citizens carried some form of personal defense. As a consequence the pirates found themselves badly outnumbered and being forced steadily back toward their ship.
A few had managed to secure some booty in those first frantic minutes before the ship’s complement had been aroused. They hurried back toward the ketch with their arms full of stolen goods. The deck was slippery with blood. The dangerous, uncertain footing was more to the pirates’ disadvantage than that of the defenders.
Jon-Tom watched the energetic Captain Magriff lead the counterattack, his crew silently and determinedly following the badger as they plunged into the pirates’ midst. With the aid of the passengers they were slowly overwhelming the attackers.
A few unlucky brigands were cut down as they tried to make it back to their ship. The survivors tossed what they’d been able to steal over the side, followed it down the lines and cut themselves free. Those on board the catamaran sent a stream of curses and insults in their wake.
Jon-Tom and Mudge listened as the ship’s officers argued with the captain. Several were for putting on additional sail and turning to pursue their fleeing assailants. Magriff would have none of that.
“Stow that spray, gentlebeings. We nay go chasin’ after phantoms this night. Listen to your heads for a minute instead o’ yer hearts. With a strong wind at our backs we might overtake ‘em, but the breeze tonight is light and out o’ the east instead o’ the north. Not only would we have to work a change in course, but in such a light wind a smaller boat could easily outmaneuver us. And they might have friends a-waitin’ for ‘em somewhere out on the dark sea. It would not make good sense to go a-chasin’ in pursuit o’ some wounded blackguards only to find ourselves confronted by two or three vessels o’ the criminal class. Our first responsibility be to our passengers and cargo. Remember that and belay any talk o’ wild pursuits.” He stepped up onto a capstan.
“Mister Poison, check the stores and see what we have lost. See to the below decks cargo as well. I’ll want a list of damages for insurance purposes. Mister Opoltin!” A tall, sinewy marten with blood on his muzzle snapped to attention. “You and Doctor Kesswith see to any injured. Passengers first, crew second, officers last.”
“Yes sir!” The marten vanished.
Two crew men arrived with the body of the dead aye-aye. The primate who had saved the ship was barely three and a half feet tall. His long tail lay curled stiffly over his back.
“Saved the ship and surely saved us,” murmured the captain. “A hero’s burial at sea as befits a good sailor, and company damages to his survivors. I’ll see to it.” The badger turned to his third mate. “Check with the doctor and let me know who else be hurt. You,” he snapped at another officer, “get a squad up here armed with mops and brooms. Buckets and scrubs, mister Seevar. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and this deck looking shipshape. Double the watch until further notice. We nay want to chance bein’ surprised again.”
Mudge was staring out across the ocean. His face was alive, his eyes shining. “That weren’t such a bad evenin’s entertainment, now were it?” The otter loved a good fight, provided the numbers were on his side. He looked back at his taller companion and frowned.
“Hey now, mate, you’ve been cut.”
Jon-Tom touched his left side. The small trickle of red was already drying up. “Just a scratch.”
The otter nevertheless inspected the shallow gash closely. “So it ‘tis.” He grinned up at the tall human. “Remember when our good friend Clothahump first brought you into this world and dumped you on top o’ me?”
“Sure, I remember. You tried to run me through, but you were too scared to strike a hard blow.”
“Wot, me scared o’ a bald scarecrow like you? I just saw no reason to kill when I could strike a warnin’ blow first.” The otter peered past him at the crowd still milling about on deck. Everyone was too excited to go back to sleep. “Wonder where Weegee is? Surely she wouldn’t ‘ave missed a good knockabout like this.”
“Maybe she slept through it.” He leaned on his staff, suddenly exhausted. The sleep he hadn’t enjoyed was starting to catch up with him. From the position of the moon it had to be around three or four in the morning. Nocturnal fights weren’t to his liking.
“She’ll be damned upset if she did.” Mudge darted down the nearest gangway, leaving Jon-Tom alone on deck as the passengers began to return to their cabins and the crew to bed or duty stations.
Except for the unlucky aye-aye who’d sounded the alarm, there were no fatalities among the ship’s complement. There were wounded, however, and dead pirates to be unceremoniously dumped overboard.
He started back toward his own bed only to find an anxious Mudge confronting him at the top of the stairs. “She ain’t in ‘er cabin, mate. I don’t suppose... ?”
Jon-Tom shook his head. “I haven’t seen her. She probably came up through the other hull. Don’t worry, Mudge. She’s on board. She has to be. Maybe she’s down in the galley having something to eat, or maybe she’s helping with the wounded.”
“That’d be like ‘er.” The otter pleaded gently. “Could you ‘elp me ‘ave a look-see, mate?-I’d be obliged. Wouldn’t be able to sleep until we found ‘er.”
“Of course.”
But Weegee wasn’t in the dining area, or was she helping to bind up the injuries the crew had suffered. Word was passed to the captain, who ordered an immediate search to ascertain passenger Weegee’s location. As time passed and one crew member after another reported negatively to the bridge, Mudge grew progressively more frantic.
Enlightenment came not from one of the searching sailors but from a passenger who happened to overhear their concern. She was immediately escorted to the bridge to tell her tale to Jon-Tom, Mudge, the captain and his first officers. The jerboa belle was still clad in a lacy pink nightdress which had been torn in several places. As she spoke she nervously preened the black tuft at the tip of her tail. Her eyelashes were nearly as big as her feet, Jon-Tom noted.
“The otter you speak of was near me. We shared cabins by the place where the pirates first came on board. She went out on deck with her knife.”
Mudge nudged his friend in the ribs. “Told you Weegee weren’t the one to pass up a good fight.” He raised his voice slightly. “Bet she’s restin’ in somebody else’s cabin right now, wot?”
“I’m afraid she may not be,” said the jerboa sadly. “I am sure now that I saw her go over the side in the arms of an agouti.”
Jon-Tom swallowed. “You mean you think she’s on the pirate ship?”
“That’s Weegee for sure,” Mudge muttered. “You’re sure now, lass, that this agouti took her onto the boat and that they didn’t just land in the water?
“As sure as I can be, for I listened and there was no splash.” She put her narrow bewhiskered face in her hands and began to sob. “It would have been so much better had she died on board here. A nasty business, nasty.”
“You didn’t see them kill her?” Jon-Tom asked the question because he knew Mudge couldn’t.
“Why should they kill her?” The jerboa looked up at them, wiping at her tears. “A live prisoner is worth infinitely more than a dead one, especially a brave attractive one. I think I saw the pirate captain order the poor thing taken below decks to keep her from escaping.” She shuddered. “He was a frightening looking fellow. I think he must have been the captain because he was standing atop the center cabin giving orders. A leopard, big, nearly as big as you.” She nodded toward Jon-Tom. “Almost handsome he was, but there was nothing attractive in his demeanor.” A finger went to her lips as she continued playing with her tail.
“You know something—I didn’t think of it at the time, but his tail didn’t look quite right.”
“A strange thing to say,” commented Magriff. “How do you mean, madame?”
“Well, it looked as if the last half of it was stiff and frozen. It didn’t twitch once, didn’t move at all. Almost as though it was artificial, yes, that was it. Artificial.” She looked pleased at finally puzzling it out. “I am sure that at some time that leopard’s tail had been cut off and that a false end has been substituted for the missing piece.”
Jon-Tom listened in disbelief. He and Mudge had once made the acquaintance of a leopard with half a tail. It was not an acquaintance either of them wished to renew.
“Mudge?”
“Anythin’s possible in the world, mate,” said the otter grimly. “Old Corroboc’s dead, but we watched ‘is bastard crew go sailin’ off in another direction on this very same ocean not that many months ago.”
Jon-Tom remembered their narrow escape from the blood-thirsty pirate parrot Corroboc. His first mate had been a muscular, sadistic leapord named Sasheem. Sasheem of the prosthetic tail. There could not be two of them, not even on an ocean as big as the Glittergeist.
“I wonder how many others of the original crew are with him?”
“Don’t matter, mate. Sasheem’s who matters. That cat would remember us for sure. Get ‘is claws into us and ‘e’d disembowel us as slowly as possible, lookin’ into our eyes all the while. Not out o’ any misplaced sense o’ loss over ‘is late unlamented captain but to satisfy ‘is own sense o’ revenge. Made a fool of ‘im, we did, and a cat like that don’t forget.”
“We’ll just have to deal with him as best we can. If our fuel holds out I think we can catch them in the zodiac.”
“Now wait a minim, mate. Wot about wot I just said about Sasheem, and that murderin’ lot? You know wot’ll ‘appen to us if they get their paws on us?”
Jon-Tom hesitated. “All right. This is your decision to make, Mudge.” He nodded toward the dark water. “That’s your lady out there, not mine.”
The otter stared blankly back at him, then turned and stumbled over to the railing. “Weegee!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “You ‘ear me, Weegee? Damn you for gettin’ me into this. Damn you from your whiskers to your bloody beautiful tail, an’ double-damn you for makin’ me fall in love with you!”
Jon-Tom put a comforting hand gently on the otter’s shoulder. “You really mean that, Mudge? Or is it just another term of convenience for you?”
“ ‘Ow the ‘ell should I know, mate? I ain’t never felt like this before. ‘Ow the ‘ell do you tellT’
Jon-Tom stared down into the otter’s eyes. “There’s one simple way. Is she worth dying for?”
“Dyin* for.” The otter looked past him. The captain and officers remained discreetly behind on the bridge. It was lonely on deck now, lonely and quiet enough to hear the sound of the waves slapping against the catamaran’s hulls.
“I never thought a lady were worth gettin’ excited over, much less dyin’ for—but this one, Weegee. I dunno.”
“How do you feel, inside?”
“Angry. ‘Urt, upset. ‘Urt outside too, far as that goes. Shit. This is a ridiculous position to be in.”
“Another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Stanley?”
“Wot? Wot’s that ?”
“Forget it.” He waited another minute, then turned toward the nearest gangway. “I’m going back to sleep. It’s still a ways to Orangel and I’m flat worn out.”
A furry paw grabbed him by the belt. “Now ‘old on a minim there, mate. You ain’t goin’ nowheres.”
“Oh?” Jon-Tom was glad he was facing the other way so that Mudge couldn’t see the grin spreading across his face. “We going someplace else then?”
“You bet your bald arse we are. We’re goin’ after me true luv, that’s where we’re goin’.”
Jon-Tom looked back and down. “ ‘True love’? Am I hearing these words from that mouth or am I imagining them?”
“We’re wastin’ time. With just the pair of us in a small open boat you’ll ‘ave all the opportunities you want to snigger at me an’ make jokes.”
“What do you mean ‘the pair of us’?”
“You’re comin’ with me. Remember? Friends to the end, you watch my backside, I watch yours?”
“Let me see now.” Jon-Tom struck an exaggerated pose. “Am I listening to the same otter who’s always having a fit because he’s stuck tramping all over the place with me? Who can’t stop cursing his ill luck at being my companion on similar journeys? Who is constantly bemoaning the fact that fate has made me his friend?”
“There’s only one Mudge ‘ereabouts, an’ it ‘appens to be the selfsame one you’re foamin’ at the mouth about, only maybe just a titch changed. Even an otter can change, you know. Let’s not babble on about past disagreements. You owe me, this time. I’ve pulled your arse out o’ the fire often enough, an’ I’ve the singe marks to prove it. You really think this boat o’ yours will run out of fuel somewheres in the middle o’ the sea?”
All business now, Jon-Tom considered. “I don’t know. I wish I’d paid more attention to Clothahump’s hydrocarbon spells. I’d take a shot at it with the duar, but with this suar I’d probably just gum up the engine.”
“Then we’ll need us a sail. As for dealin’ with me luv’s abductors, I don’t need no magic. I’ll rely on me other old friend.” Fingers flipped the short sword into the air. It did a triple twist and he caught it neatly in one paw. “Sword and longbow and don’t sing me no lullabies, pater, because it ain’t firewood I’m off to cut.” He glanced back at Jon-Tom. “Sasheem’U be onto us the moment we put in our appearance.”
“I know that,” Jon-Tom replied solemnly.
“Wish we ‘ad your striped sassyface Roseroar with us. She’d like to meet up with Sasheem ‘erself.”
“And I’d like for her to also, but she’d sink the boat.” He looked over the side. The zodiac trailed alongside the catamaran like a puppy on a tether. “I’m sure we can rig a brace for a small mast. With luck we won’t need it. How are you at tracking on water?”
“I’m an otter, mate. Not a fish.”
“Then we’ll have to try and raise some porpoises because we’ve no idea which way the pirates went.” He waved vaguely at the night. “East isn’t much of a heading to go on. We need something more specific.”
Mudge came up close and put both paws on the human’s waist. “I’ll never forget this, mate.”
“Damn right you won’t.”
Even as they were helping to outfit the zodiac with a flexible mast and sail, the ships’ crew tried to discoura
ge them from setting out on what they perceived to be a futile and possibly fatal excursion. The first mate stared out into the night.
“You’ll never find them. Too much ocean out. there.”
“We’re not going completely blind. They won’t be expecting any pursuit, so they’re likely to head for the nearest landfall. Captain Magriff s already told us there are no islands between here and the coast, so we’ll be able to track them after they make land if not before.”
“Aye,” said another sailor, “but which landfall are you talking about? That’s a lot of coastline to be searching.”
“I think they’ll head due east, give or take a few degrees. They’ll need a place where their wounded can recover. The sooner they’re put on land, the better they’ll do.”
“Perhaps your magical oar will let you overtake them and allow you to sneak up on their stern at night.” The sailor sounded dubious. “You’re both crazier than a couple of loons.”
“That’s wot luv does to you,” Mudge told him.
“Not to me.” The nimble-fingered vervet secured a package of supplies to the inside of the boat.
In an hour they were done. In addition to receiving the mast, the zodiac had been stocked to overflowing with provisions. Jon-Tom brought out his purse and turned to pay the first mate. The sloth raised both massive paws.
“The captain says that the company will absorb the difference.” He nodded toward the zodiac, winked through sleepy-lidded eyes that were nevertheless quite alert. “He’s putting it in the manifest as part of the cargo that was taken by the brigands. If you should find them and rescue the otter’s lady and by chance manage to cut a few throats in the process, he says to tell you that will be repayment enough.”