by Ryan Gilbert
Era of a Red Sky
Ryan Gilbert
Copyright
Era of a Red Sky
Copyright © 2018 by Ryan Gilbert
All rights reserved in all media. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locales, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental or fictionalized.
Dedicated to Charles R. McLeigh
A Loving Grandfather
who I’m sure is dancing up in Heaven
Table of Contents
Era of a Red Sky
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Nine Years Later
The End… For Now
CHAPTER ONE
No one could have foreseen it.
All over the seas, stories were spreading. Some were erroneous. Others were lies. Most of them were fact. For years, many pirates had only thought of the stories as legends and nothing more, but now they knew.
Now, they knew the truth.
For years, people had barely had the courage to utter the name of the frightening vessel. No one had known who had captained it… who had controlled it. He was a monster, driven by a rage unmatched by any mortal man. He was relentless, seemingly unable to give up until he slaughtered everyone who stood in his way.
The Flying Dutchman was real, and with a vengeful Hades at the helm, there were few that could stop it.
Standing at the right hand of the god of death was Ororis, the very last creature that the pirates could have wished to be partnered with Hades. She always clung to the ghoulish captain, whispering sinister words into his ear, carefully manipulating him to do her bidding.
There was a war brewing on the seas… a war that neither side could afford to lose.
To the misfortune of the pirates, the odds were stacked against them.
Even when a ship would manage to elude the Dutchman, it would almost always seem to encounter a ship belonging to the English Navy. Under the leadership of Admiral Edward Carter, the Navy had become ruthless, dragging pirates to the feet of justice. For the outlaws, her scale might as well have been replaced with a noose. Carter gave his men strict orders to stop at nothing to arrest anyone who was thought to either be a pirate or be associated with a pirate.
And he did mean anyone.
In the usually quiet town of Yorktown, Virginia, the stomping of the feet of dozens of soldiers echoed in the streets. People stepped out into their doorways, watching as the soldiers stomped their way toward the Hamond mansion. No one outside of the redcoats knew what to make of the situation, but they knew that nothing good would come of it.
Without bothering to wait, the soldiers barged through the gates, making their way directly to the front doors. Preparing the papers that he carried underneath his arm, the lead soldier stepped up to the entryway and rapped loudly on the door.
Within moments, the door opened. Catherine Hamond stood there, a hopeful look on her face as she met the soldiers’ eyes. That look seemed to decay as the redcoats’ blank faces shook her.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Might I ask if my husband would happen to be with you?” Catherine asked.
Ignoring her question, the lead soldier unrolled the paper in his hands and started to read.
“Catherine Hamond, mother of the pirate Julia Hamond and wife of the traitor Matthew Hamond, you are charged with conspiring against the Crown and aiding known enemies of the Crown.”
Before he said anything more, the soldier rolled up the paper, glaring at the woman with his cold eyes.
“I would suggest you come quietly,” he said, stepping forward.
*THWACK*
He was met by the doors slamming against his face.
Grabbing his nose, he angrily motioned toward the doors, urging his fellow soldiers to force them open. After a few swift kicks, the doors swung open on their hinges, but Catherine was gone. As quickly as they could, the men searched the house, but they were unable to find her.
“No sign of her, Lieutenant,” the soldiers shouted from the top of the stairs.
“Search the grounds. Search the town even!” he exclaimed, “Find the traitor.”
With their muskets pointed straight up in the air, they hurried through the streets, searching for the wife of Commodore Hamond. Little did many of them know that they were rushing straight past her.
Hidden in the small spaces of the alleyways, Catherine Hamond tried to find a way to escape from the soldiers for good. As she tried looking around at her surroundings, she could not even take her eyes off of the entrance to the alleyway. She stared at the red coats of the soldiers as they rushed past. Just hours ago, she had been a loyal citizen of the Crown. Now, she was a criminal, much like her daughter.
As the red coats disappeared from view, she stood up from her hiding spot, slowly creeping out of the alley. She peeked her head around the corner, carefully watching the soldiers hurry down the street. Not one of them turned around to see her.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Catherine dashed across the street. After years of roaming the town, she knew it like the back of her hand. Just on the other side of the buildings was a path that led straight through the woods. If she could get there, then maybe she could find a way to get to her husband.
However, first she would have to find out where he was being kept.
As quickly as she could, she made her way into the alleyway on the opposite side of the street. The heels of her shoes clicked against the ground as she hurried through the space between the houses.
Only a few more feet until she would be free.
*click*
Catherine stopped in her tracks. She heard the click of the pistol right behind her. Slowly, she turned around, afraid to see who was standing there.
The wrinkled, grizzly face of Admiral Edward Carter stared down at Catherine. A pistol rested in his hands, ready to unload its lead shot at a moment’s notice. A cold chill ran down Catherine’s spine as she peered down the barrel of the gun. She could hear the rhythmic stomping of a squadron of soldiers blocking her escape into the woods.
She was trapped.
“Mrs. Hamond, you have tried my patience,” said Carter.
His face was a blank slate, devoid of any emotion.
“I did nothing, sir. I’m innocent,” Catherine pleaded.
Ignoring her, the Admiral held up a parchment, saying, “You are being charged with association with a convicted pirate and a traitor to the Crown, conspiring to destroy the English Navy, and treason.”
Glaring at her, he asked, “How do you plead?”
Clutching her dress, Catherine cried, “You know my plea, Edward.”
The Admiral stepped forward, the air of menace around him growing. Catherine could sense the muskets pointed at her back. She had never thought this would happen.
“The only thing that I know, Mrs. Hamond, is that your husband betrayed me. You both assisted your daughter and Captain Riggs in piracy, and for that crime, you will pay.”
“I want to see Matthew,” said Catherine.
She was on the verge of tears.
Without
even a slight change of expression on his face, Admiral Carter came face to face with Catherine. He stood right in front of her, the pistol still leveled at her.
“You will see your husband again, Mrs. Hamond…” he said.
Before Catherine could even express her meager relief, Carter gave her a backhanded slap across the face, knocking her down. She crumpled up on the ground, barely able to feel her cheek. All around her, she could hear the soldiers rushing forward to restrain her before she could recover. In seconds, shackles were locked tight over her wrists, obliterating any hope for an escape.
As Carter watched the scene unfold, a small fragment of a smile appeared on his face.
“… I guarantee it.”
Out on the open seas, lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled as the HMS Crown Jewel sailed through a cloud of mist and smoke. On either side of the ship, the soldiers could see flames burning on the wrecked skeletons of other Navy vessels. To the older, grizzled veterans, seeing the worthless shells of the destroyed ships only served to invigorate them. To the younger, newer soldiers, the scene was frightening.
Two men stood at the rail, watching the fires consume the ships of the men who had been their comrades. Now they were just corpses. Jasper Allen and Morgan Salthers were two of the youngest aboard the Navy ship, and they were terrified by what they saw.
“What kind of monsters could do something like this?” asked Jasper.
“I don’t even know,” replied Morgan.
He looked down, noticing that his hands were starting to shake a tiny bit. Trying to hide his fear, he latched onto his musket harder than before, his knuckles turning white.
“Whoever did this… there’s got to be dozens of them. No one ship could cause this much damage,” said Morgan.
“One ship? You think one ship caused this?” asked an officer, hearing only the second half of Morgan’s statement.
“No, sir, I was merely saying…”
“Don’t talk back to me, soldier,” the officer ordered sternly.
Glaring at his underling, the officer barked, “Do you really think that the Navy is not up to this task?”
Both Morgan and Jasper shook their heads vigorously.
“You know damn well that we can handle anything thrown our way. We are not like those pirates who just flee and hide… the cowards,” grumbled the officer.
“I never said we were, sir,” said Morgan, trying to argue his case.
“Silence, soldier. Both of you, get back to your posts until we are free of this bothersome cloud. I can barely see in this thing.”
The commanding officer strode away from the two soldiers, his nose high in the air. With his overwhelming arrogance, it was difficult for the two to tell what he was trying to do. Was he trying to invigorate the other troops through his hard-headed approach? Or was he merely trying to mask a fear of being killed by the pirates that they pursued?
Without another word to each other, Morgan and Jasper hurriedly made their ways back to their posts. They did not want to have another mark on their record during the short time that they had already spent onboard the Crown Jewel. Holding their muskets stiffly in their arms, they weaved between their fellow soldiers, sullenly stepping back to their posts.
For minutes, they stood there, barely doing anything. The cloud of mist and smoke did not seem to move at all. The lightning still flashed and the thunder still clapped overhead. The tension just seemed to keep building with every passing moment.
As his legs started to itch, Morgan began to fidget. With the whole ship seeming to stare at him and Jasper, he could not afford to make his discomfort known. He would be seen as a weakling, someone unfit for the Navy.
He did not want that.
It would be embarrassing.
Forcing himself to straighten his back and deal with the irritation, Morgan snuck a peek to the side of the ship. In that instant, a lightning bolt flashed across the sky, illuminating the cloud.
Terror took hold of the soldier.
Right beside the HMS Crown Jewel was the outline of a ship.
A ship whose sails lit up with a red glow as the lightning shed its light through them.
Before Morgan could even make a sound, the Red Sky let loose its cannons, blasting away at the Navy ship. The sudden noise sounded deafening to the frightened soldier. He clutched his musket in his fumbling grip as the barrage crashed against the hull of the ship.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
The cannonballs tore holes in the wooden frame of the Crown Jewel. Soldiers flew across the deck, not even having a clue of what had hit them. The clunking of the cannons being loaded was cut short by another attack from the pirate ship.
BOOM
BOOM
“Return fire! Return fi…”
A side of the commanding officer’s head blew outwards, a spray of blood carpeting the wheel. With no one to lead, the soldiers fell into disarray. They tried their hardest to defend the ship, but it was no use.
The pirates of the Red Sky had caught them by surprise.
As quickly as they could, Morgan and Jasper abandoned their posts, trying to find somewhere to hide from the attack. They still clutched their muskets, but the weapons did nothing to aid them. The tiny lead balls could do nothing to stop the assault of the pirates’ cannons.
The two rushed toward the stairs to the lower decks. Hopefully, they could find shelter down there.
Alas, they could not.
Another cannon blast obliterated the stairs, sending a cloud of smoke and wood chips flying into the air. They could hear the screams of the soldiers trapped down below as they backed away from the hole in the deck.
“What’re we going to do?” asked a panicking Jasper.
A section of the deck right next to them collapsed, sending a crowd of soldiers tumbling down into the darkness of the lower levels. As the men fell, their bayonets pierced through skin, coating the deck in red. Jasper and Morgan just barely avoided getting stabbed as they crawled away from the gaping mouth of the wreckage.
“Just try to stay alive!” shrieked Morgan.
All around them, plumes of smoke and sawdust arose from the deck of the Crown Jewel, signaling an amount of destruction the Navy men had never imagined they would experience. Just when the two thought the pirates could not attack any more, the cannons stopped. The only sounds that they heard were the moans of pain from below the wooden boards.
Just as Morgan and Jasper were getting to their feet, they heard the sound of wood scraping against wood. Jerking their heads toward the pirate ship, they saw a gangplank being lowered onto the deck of the Crown Jewel. Coming off of the black hull of the Red Sky, the gangplank looked like it was a path straight into darkness itself.
Holding their muskets close, they ducked behind a fallen stack of barrels, trying to gather their courage. They knew what was coming, but they could barely believe it. Behind them, they could hear the sound of footsteps making their way down the gangplank. If they were going to make a final stand, they had to do it now.
With a pathetic battle cry, Morgan and Jasper sprang up from their hiding spot, aiming their muskets at the first pirate that they saw. Their fingers pulled down on the triggers, ready to take as many pirates with them as they could.
BANG
BANG
A shot struck Jasper in the shoulder, and another hit the barrel of Morgan’s musket, sending it flying out of his hands. Both men fell to the ground in shock as a large, Jamaican pirate holstered his pistols. The very sight of the man was intimidating.
“Thanks for watchin’ me back, Ripper,” said a scraggly-haired pirate, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
“My pleasure, Captain,” said Ripper, keeping his eyes locked on the two soldiers.
The Captain stood in front of the two men, not even bothering to look at them. He scanned the entire deck, looking to see if anyone else had survived the attack. Very few had. Those who were still living were fa
r too injured to even present a threat.
A black coat hung from his body, some bits of the cloth merely stitched together to keep it in one piece. Covering his chest was a maroon shirt stained with dirt and grime. His face was dotted with scruff, giving him a rugged look.
“Jack, Valera… where’s the rest o’ these Navy blokes?” the Captain asked.
Coral Jack appeared from behind his captain with Valera following close behind. She stuck close to him, even to the point that Morgan and Jasper could tell that the mermaid had an attachment to the pirate. They could also see the massive scar running up the side of the boatswain’s face.
Adjusting his eye patch, Jack said, “The deck’s clear. They’re all stuck down below.”
“Excellent,” replied the Captain, “Do ye think they’ll do?”
Valera took one look down into the hole in the deck and shook her head. A disappointed look appeared on the Captain’s face, like he had been expecting something different.
Morgan and Jasper could not take it any more.
“Who are you?” asked Jasper, holding tightly to his wound.
Once they spoke directly to him, the Captain turned his attention to the two soldiers. As they sat defenseless in front of him, he knelt down in front of them, pulling out his pistol as he did. With the weapon in his hand, he stared straight at them, meeting each of their eyes.
“I’m Captain Riggs of the Red Sky, mate,” he said with a grin.
As Riggs spoke, Morgan and Jasper’s eyes never left the loaded pistol in the pirate’s hand. Every time that it swung in their direction, a chill shot down their spines.
“What do you want, Captain Riggs?” Jasper asked, hazarding another question.
Riggs cocked his head to the side like he was trying to read the soldiers’ expressions.
“What do I want? You see, that’s a good question. I want riches. I want power. I want notoriety.”
Pointing his pistol directly at Morgan, he asked, “Can ye help me get all o’ those?”
The soldier froze, unable to move.