It hardly mattered if Jagger had other thoughts, in her opinion—he was their hostage. Ebba fidgeted with impatience. “Let’s go. There be treasure ahead.”
She moved to the head of the line, Jagger’s eyes following her as she did so.
“Back here with me, lassie,” Stubby called. “We’ll protect the rear. And then our guide’s eyes won’t stray to places they don’t belong.”
She spun and flushed, encountering Jagger’s silver gaze as it rose to her face. She returned to the back, surprised to see Stubby had removed his dagger and stood smiling at the guide.
Ebba glanced from the impassive Jagger to her father. “Ye all right, Stubby?”
He slid the dagger back into his sash, saying calmly, “Never better.”
The village where they usually steal-traded sat at the east end of the island. Ebba had entered the village on occasion, but never the rainforest. From her father’s comments and those of Swindles and Riot, she gathered the rainforest wasn’t the kind of place most people went, if they had a choice. Ebba peered into the trees, her heart racing. She wondered if they’d see a real, live tribesperson here. The tribes on most of the islands valued their privacy and did not welcome strangers. Her fathers said they were very protective of their lands, and no one stood a chance against them on their home ground. King Montcroix had beaten pirates in the sea, but he’d tried to clear the islands of tribespeople and lost.
A centipede scuttled across the ground as they stooped and wove through the knitted tree vines and thick canopy. The trees were as tall as Felicity’s mast, maybe bigger. In years gone by, it seemed dead trees had tried to fall, but only achieved an angled lean due to the thick growth surrounding them. It was as though water seeped into every pore and recess of the trees and undergrowth. The dirt was a step away from mud, the plant leaves were so bloated that one touch might pop them, and the tree trunks had grown gigantic in size from the constant heat and moisture. Vibrant blue butterflies fluttered from leaf to leaf. Lizards froze in place on exposed rocks as she passed by. Chattering animals whistled through the towering, dark-green canopy high above.
She inhaled deeply; the forest combined so many new scents, discerning one was impossible. Ebba smelled only dampness and the deep scent of tree bark, punctured by the occasional sweet aroma of exotic flowers.
Unfortunately, the novelty of the forest could only hold her attention for so long before she began to notice how slow their progress was. From the shore, the path to the mountain seemed obvious, but as they wound further through the rainforest, Ebba began to grudgingly appreciate Jagger’s sure step through the dense labyrinth of vines and leafy debris.
Her eyes widened at the sight of a huge black-and-green snake readjusting its death grip around a thick tree trunk. Shite, wouldn’t want to meet that one on a dark night.
A curious roaring filled her ears and Ebba sent Stubby a frantic look, but he just swung his tricorn hat atop his gray, curling hair and winked at her.
Seconds later, buckets of rain poured down through the trees so thick she could only see Grubby before her.
Ebba blinked through the torrent of the tropical storm, holding a hand over her mouth so she didn’t choke on the wall of water. The others had the foresight to bring hats. Why hadn’t Plank brought her a hat, too? He’d remembered the damn boots. Ebba watched as Jagger tore off a large flat leaf and held it over his head. Too bad she’d lose face copying a Malice pirate.
By the end of the downpour, Ebba was as wet as she’d been after her ocean swim, but a whole lot less refreshed.
She slugged through the now muddy ground and squeezed extra moisture from her dreads.
“My compass be tellin’ me we’re headin’ northeast, not northwest, guide,” growled Locks. “I hope ye’re not leadin’ us astray.”
“To the river,” came Jagger’s low reply. “It will lead us to the mountain.”
True to Jagger’s untrustworthy word, arrive at the river they did. The tepid water did little to refresh Ebba, but she ripped off her bandana and dipped it in the rushing surge, her fathers seeking the same relief on the bank next to her.
“Don’t linger at the river edge,” Jagger said to them. “Crocodiles have been known to come inland this far.”
What? Ebba quickly backed away from the water.
Up the river a ways, Jagger took off his black tunic, slinging it over his back and tying the sleeves loosely around his neck. He stood in profile to her, and his muscles were defined as she’d initially suspected. He obviously knew how to work. Her cheeks warmed as she took in the way his torso tapered to narrow hips.
Peg-leg stood in front of her. She stared down to where her nose almost touched his sweat-soaked tunic.
“Ye doin’ okay, Peg-leg?” she whispered, referring to his wooden leg.
He lifted the leg back and knocked at her ankles.
“Hey.” She laughed.
His belly pushed out with his answering laughter. “I be just fine, lass. Don’t worry yer head.”
In comparison to the dense vines and trees, the river rocks allowed a pace three times faster, and only a couple of hours later the ground began to slope upward.
“Ye know,” stated Plank from the front, “they say the tree of knowledge fruits once every hundred years, and that the tree itself is guarded by Ladon, a huge serpent-ridden lizard.”
Ebba grinned as the others let out a heartfelt groan. According to them, Plank’s stories took forever, and she had to agree that he always spoke them in an ominous, posh voice that made it hard to focus on what he was actually saying. But Ebba had always loved his tales.
“Legend has it—”
“Stop, stop!” interrupted Stubby. “We’re in air so thick I can scarce breathe, and we’re clamberin’ over rocks like young folk. One o’ yer stories will just suck up what’s left o’ the breathin’ air.”
Plank’s expression turned flinty and he faced the front. Ebba was probably the only one left disappointed. She loved hearing about the time when magic apparently ruled the realm, according to her father’s tales anyway. She’d never witnessed magic firsthand, yet sometimes when she looked out from the crow’s nest, a trick of the light in the water or the sky had her questioning if such a thing existed. Odd things happened at sea.
“Legend has it,” Plank started again in his ominous and posh story voice, overriding her fathers’ groans this time, “that ten thousand years ago, when mythical creatures weren’t myth, and magic ruled the realm, a lizard-like beast ex’sted. His name was Ladon, and for each soul he devoured, he gained a new serpent around his neck.”
“Pleasant pastime.” Stubby fell silent under Plank’s quelling glare.
“Ladon was a powerful being of great compa’sion, but on the darkest night—”
Peg-leg snorted. “How could they be knowin’ that? Ye can’t see dark.”
“Maybe they could see less that night than usual and that’s how they knew,” Locks offered.
“—On the darkest night of the coldest winter,” Plank half-shouted, scowling at them, “a hooded witch stole into Ladon’s crevice abode and drained his soul of all light and goodness, leavin’ only black evil—the same inky shade as that very night—or so sources say—”
Stubby rolled his eyes.
“—The soul-thief left Ladon for dead and emptied the goodness of his soul into the core of a tree atop the highest mountain. The witch was desp’rate to eat the fruit the tree would produce, you see, to learn how she’d bring her infant child back from death. But she hadn’t expected Ladon to survive the ordeal and become a creature of horror. He ate the witch whole and gained the first of the serpents around his neck. Yet eatin’ her did not satisfy him because now his evil half-soul screamed always for its light. With the passing of each century, Ladon now waits for the tree of knowledge, which encases his light, to bear fruit. That the fruit has never, upon eatin’ it, filled the void inside him only serves to fuel his ire. And to this very day, Ladon continues to eat i
t, driven by his thirst for what he had. His light. That is why he’ll never wil’ingly allow anyone to eat from the tree of knowledge and why he devours any soul that crosses his path. Always searchin’ for his stolen light. The cruel irony being that he can only devour a soul that has black in it, too, ensuring he’ll never again find the goodness the witch stole.”
His voice rang out over the river water and had hardly dispersed before. . . .
“That be an utter load of fish guts,” Peg-leg whooped loudly.
The rest of her fathers snorted and hooted along with him, but Ebba didn’t join in, feeling unaccountably sad for the lizard-beast who’d spent eons searching for his light.
Plank, used to such treatment from her fathers, sighed and ignored them.
Despite the derisive reaction, the tale itself, or perhaps the general cloying feel of the rainforest, pushed their group into silence as they wandered on and on. Their crew trudged up the rocky slope after Jagger, and Ebba’s shoulders tightened in a similar way to when she climbed the riggings all day. The tension affected the others, too—even Jagger, who sunk into predatory, stalking quiet.
They moved deeper into wilderness and the animal sounds lessened with each step.
“Walk on tiptoes here, Ebba-Viva,” whispered Locks.
She nodded and softened her tread.
Jagger stopped, and they closed around him. It was the first time she’d seen his front. Ebba frowned at the markings on his chest.
Tattoos.
They covered the top of his chest from the tip of each shoulder, up to his collarbone and halfway down his breastbone. They looked . . . tribal. The tattoos were made up of swirls and semi-circles, of masked faces and daggers and animals. Some of the shapes were filled solid black while others were lightly shaded. In some, his golden skin shone through. Someone had spent a lot of time on intertwining the patterns into an endless weave, into a story.
. . . They were beautiful. Awe spread through her chest as she studied them.
Back in the alley, Swindles and Riot had said Jagger was from Neos. Upon first seeing him, Ebba assumed he was from the village. If not for his tattoos, she’d still be inclined to think him a villager. Many fishermen turned to the pirate life when times got tough, or when greed turned them toward plundering for a living. But the villagers didn’t have tattoos. Not like his. Maybe the fishermen had a mermaid, or turtle—or their wife’s name on their butts, but one glance at Jagger’s chest and Ebba could tell his markings were meaningful in a cultural way and had taken months, if not years to complete.
“We be enterin’ tribal grounds; stay silent if ye wish to live,” Jagger said.
Ebba ripped her eyes away from his bare torso, clearing her throat and ignoring the heated look the Malice pirate aimed at her. He opened his mouth as if about to add something, but then resolutely pressed his lips together.
An icy shiver ran down her spine, and she glanced at the rainforest, which ran thick on either side. If someone, or several someones, hid there, their crew might never realize it until they were attacked.
Jagger jerked his head. “Come on. We still have a few hours to the top.”
Ebba peered down over the mountain edge.
Locks pulled her back by her belt. “Yer givin’ me a damn heart attack, Ebba-Viva. Will ye stop that?”
They’d climbed for the last two hours, using a winding path that circled the mountain in large rings. The sun beat down upon their backs relentlessly, the shelter of the canopy long gone. None of her fathers had stopped to rest, though Stubby’s and Peg-leg’s pace had slowed. Plank and Grubby, the fittest of the crew after her, poured with sweat, breathing hard.
Ebba’s calves burned something fierce, but she pushed on, refusing to let Jagger see weakness. If anyone found him marooned on an island after all this, she wanted him to tell stories of how Felicity’s crew never stopped. In fact, she took savage pleasure in the surprise on his face each time he turned back and saw that her fathers still trooped up the grassy mountain behind him.
Lost in her focus to push on, Ebba passed the others until she trailed directly in Jagger’s wake. Her breath moved in and out in a steady rhythm. She concentrated on the steep ground under her feet, and as the minutes whittled away, the grass and plant life became patchier. Steamy tendrils began to rise from the now bare rocky ground—the moisture escaping into the sky, powerless to resist the sun’s heat.
The ascending rings around the mountain drew tighter as the top coned into a peak, the paths flattening and narrowing.
She glanced over her shoulder. Plank was just behind her, then Grubby—Locks rounding the bend. Hopefully the other two followed close after.
“Two more rings.”
Ebba faced forward at Jagger’s low words.
Two more rings? She craned her neck. He was right; the top was in sight. Swindles and Riot were right, Jagger really had been here before.
Another glance over her shoulder told her Plank and Grubby had fallen farther behind. One of them needed to be there to make sure Jagger didn’t get to the magic fruit first. She picked up her pace to match his long stride.
Last ring.
With silent hands, Ebba drew one of her pistols from her sash. She’d blast him to Exosia if he made the wrong move. As if sensing a change in the air, he glanced back, searching her with his silver eyes until they landed on the weapon in her hand. Her defiant look faded when he simply shrugged and turned back.
They walked through a triangular space between two leaning slabs of bulky gray rock. Paintings and markings occupied every inch of the inside of the tunnel—stick figures of humans and animals. Jagger slowed, hovering his fingers over the tribal markings without actually touching them. Reverent, as if afraid to damage the paintings in any way.
Ebba squeezed past him, fresh energy in her legs.
She ran out the other side of the tunnel onto a rocky clearing, chest tight with excitement.
The mountaintop was circular and had no barriers to prevent her from falling over the side to her death. The ground was uneven, made of huge stone plates that had risen and sunk against each other over the years. Nothing grew over the rocks to add a splash of color; the gray stone itself was only given a brown tinge by a collection of dust, debris, and dirt.
The only bit of life on the plateau was a knotted and twisted tree on the opposite side, extending out over the cliff edge.
. . . From the tree, glistening in the beating sunlight, hung a single golden fruit.
“The mountain apple,” she said on an exhale, her skin crawling at the sight. “It’s real.”
She turned back to shout to her fathers just as an inhuman screech split the air.
Nine
Ebba’s body was beyond her control—immobilized by terror’s iron grasp. The hairs on the back of her arms stood on end. Her mouth felt like she’d spent three days at sea without water. Her mind accepted a tree of knowledge with a golden fruit might exist. But it could not process this. . . .
. . . beast.
Serpents knotted around the reptilian creature’s neck in a writhing mass. Distinguishing where one began and ended was impossible. The beast’s face was a snake’s features pulled taut over a flattened skull. The powerful, muscled body of a lizard extended five paces behind it.
“Don’t move,” Jagger whispered from behind, low in her ear.
If taking her gaze from the serpent-like creature were an option, she’d consider telling him she could look after herself. As it was, she just shut her mouth and took his advice.
“What is it?” she mumbled, already knowing the answer, even if her mind was also chanting that none of this was possible. Ladon.
Jagger’s reply was barely above a whisper. “I have . . . no idea.”
Seemed like Jagger was in denial, too, and he’d heard Plank’s story just as clearly.
Red slits formed the creature’s eyes. And the red eyes were fixed on her and Jagger as the beast’s pet snakes continued to slither and rub
against each other.
Footsteps pounded behind her, the tap, tap, tap of Peg-leg’s wooden pin hitting the ground in rapid staccato. Ebba cursed under her breath, hearing Jagger do the same as the five men erupted from the passage behind them, shouting at the top of their lungs.
One by one, her fathers gasped in shock. . . .
Except Plank.
“Ladon,” he said grimly.
She had to do something. This beast wouldn’t let them get to the mountain apple without a fight, and she didn’t want her fathers to be hurt. Ebba cocked her pistol and the creature spoke.
“The puny pebbles shot from your weapons will see you killed sooner rather than later, mortal,” the beast hissed, his forked tongue flicking out to taste the air.
She jerked. The lizard-snakey-man talked. She was out of her depth. Ebba lowered her pistol, uncocking the weapon as she did so.
The beast’s forked tongue lashed again, the slits of his eyes on her. “Wise choice.”
The creature was making tiny, disjointed movements as though shivering. It made his outline appear blurry. Ebba blinked and looked again, trying to focus on the beast before her.
No. . . Not disjointed movements. She squinted. The beast flickered—so fast her eyes could barely see. He was disappearing and reappearing on the same spot nearly faster than her sight could register. Invisible one moment, here the next, but so fast it looked as though he was trembling.
The lizard reared on hind legs. “You mean to steal my mountain apple. Mortals, ever seeking more than they have. In ten millennia, my fruit has been stolen but once, and from those much more powerful than yourself. You are fools to try, and fools you shall die.” He roared.
Ebba screamed from the force of his bellow. It echoed in her ear. In her mind. In a deep place she knew had to be her soul.
A hand dragged her back, and arms clutched her tight.
Gasping for air as the roaring receded, she lowered her hands and stared at them. Blood stained her palms. Her ears had bled? Numbly, she glanced up at Plank, who held her, then at the others. None seemed to be affected.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 9