Jagger staggered forward to Locks and Plank.
“Yer daughter will die if ye don’t name him,” he shouted over the roaring and crashing of rocks.
His words seemed to rouse Locks and Stubby somewhat. Plank’s eyes remained empty, nearly lifeless. Pockmark’s grandfather slaughtered his wife? Ebba felt numb with disbelief.
Locks whispered, and yet the soft sound echoed to Ebba on the ground. “We made a solemn vow never to speak his name on the day we locked up the people we’d become. The day we decided to be the people we needed for our child.”
Peg-leg stared at Ebba, who struggled to her feet again.
“Yer daughter,” Jagger repeated, “Ebba-Viva will be slaughtered, if ye don’t recover yer wits.”
Ebba wondered if he chose the word ‘slaughter’ on purpose. Plank’s eyes faltered, before searching for her.
“He is the name you swore to never say. He is history, but he is with you always,” recited Stubby. The five men shared a look so expressive of shattered hearts that Ebba felt tears slide down her cheeks. She knew nothing of what they’d gone through to break so badly. How had they hidden this from her?
They hadn’t sheltered her from others, they’d sheltered her from themselves.
Jagger gripped her shoulders and shook her roughly. “Do ye see what ye’re doin’ to her? Ye can stop her tears. Ye can save her now. Speak the name.”
Ebba pushed his hands off her arms and stepped away, too shocked to do more.
Jagger’s pewter eyes were burning. “Stop Ladon now,” he thundered.
With a soul-weary groan, Peg-leg looked at Ladon, and spoke.
Ten
“Mutinous Cannon.”
The whispered name seemed to bounce against the rock faces surrounding them, repeating over and over again like some cruel joke.
Beside her, Jagger repeated Peg-leg’s words, “Mutinous Cannon.” His eyes widened. “That be Pockmark’s grandfather?”
The golden bands disappeared from their necks in wisps of golden smoke.
Ladon began to laugh manically as the flickering of his outline intensified. Though he’d lost their game, his cackle held more glee than at the start. Ladon and his snakes blinked out of existence and didn’t return after a full minute. He was gone. At least for now.
But Ebba stared at her five fathers, mouth dry, and wondered if the lizard had won after all.
“Who’s Mutinous Cannon?” she asked Jagger in undertones.
He raised his brows. “The most notorious captain to ever live. His crew were merc’less, feared through the seas. He was the last pirate left standin’ during the Battle for the Seas against Montcroix.”
Ebba threw a worried glance at her fathers, but they weren’t listening. Each of them appeared lost in his own world, drowning in memories of this pirate. Had this man been their captain once? She knew they’d all sailed together. That’s how her fathers had all met, so he had to have been their captain. The timing matched as well. The Battle for the Seas ended around two years after she was born.
“How did ye not know that was Mercer’s grandfather?” she asked.
“Why do people gen’rally not know stuff?” Jagger asked darkly.
“Because they ain’t told, or they don’t ask, I guess.” Should she have asked her fathers more questions?
Jagger didn’t respond. Whatever his deep thoughts, he didn’t share them.
“What happened to Mutinous Cannon in the end?” she asked him, hating that she knew less than him about matters pertaining to her fathers.
Jagger’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “King Forge Montcroix did what he does so well. He killed him and ended the war. Cannon’s entire crew were hung in the gibbet cages.”
That confirmed her theory. If her fathers were part of his crew, they left before the end of the war to care for her. They’d then stowed away their pasts under lock and key. For a couple of years now, Ebba had seen the difference between herself and other people her age. She hadn’t needed Sherry to tell her as much. She also hadn’t cared one jot about that difference. After the alley with Pockmark, her confidence was shaken. Bad things could happen to her. And when her fathers were taken to the gaol, she’d seen how easily they could be torn from her side. She was unprepared for life without their guidance. Her fathers had protected her from a lot of things—maybe concealed was a better word, but Ebba had encouraged the way they spoiled her, content to remain in her youth. If they’d stowed away their pasts, she’d enabled them to do so. Ebba had thought she knew everything about her parents.
Not only that, magic existed.
The limitations of the small world she’d known had been shattered. Broken. Gone.
She stared past her fathers to the golden fruit. The reason they’d all come up here. The reason her world had just shattered. Unable to resist scanning the circular plateau for Ladon one last time, Ebba pushed away the tumult in her mind and jogged across the uneven stone plates to the opposite side.
The twisting tree extended over the cliff edge, and the golden fruit dangled off the tip of the farthest branch. Sink her. She couldn’t reach it from the ground.
Swiping a dagger from her sash, she placed it between her teeth and shimmied halfway up the tree.
“Ebba-Viva!”
She ignored her fathers’ cries as they woke up enough to realize what she intended to do.
“Get down,” bellowed Locks. “Right now.”
No, she wasn’t going to do that. Ebba worked her way around the trunk and stood atop a limb twice the width of her foot. This is no different than walking along the spar, she told herself silently.
. . . The bushy treetops that appeared to be the size of copper coins from up here said otherwise.
Perhaps she wouldn’t walk out. Ebba carefully crouched and lay atop the tree branch. The rivets of the bark scratched her stomach as she shuffled out to the end of the limb. She clutched on for dear life as a breeze caught the tree and swayed the branch side to side.
Swallowing hard, knowing that one peek down would snap the last of her tenuous courage, she inched forward until the limb narrowed and began to bend.
Her stomach lurched with the branch. There was no choice now but to look down, the blasted fruit sparkled below. Just out of reach. Ebba’s head spun as her eyes moved past the fruit to the tiny trees far, far beneath her.
Breathing fast, she squeezed her eyes shut. “Ye’re on the riggin’. This be a boom. Nothing ye ain’t done afore.”
Opening her eyes, she gripped the limb with both legs and swung underneath, entirely focused on the fruit. Ebba removed one hand and took hold of the dagger between her teeth.
The golden fruit glinted an arm’s length away.
Releasing a shaking breath, Ebba removed her other hand, legs clamped around the branch. She took hold of the fruit in one hand, sawing through the stem with the dagger in her other hand.
“Come free, ye bastard,” she growled.
With a final saw, the stem was broken. Gripping the golden apple tight, she placed the dagger back between her teeth, and crunched up to right herself atop the branch. She shuffled all the way back to the trunk, not trusting herself to stand with such precious cargo.
She half slid back down to the ground and sat against the trunk, shaking with relief.
Locks dragged her to her feet. “Ye shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” she challenged. “I climb the shroud to the crow’s nest every day.”
A gratifying silence fell over her fathers.
Ebba held up the sparkling fruit.
“If ever a fruit be able to give ye knowledge, methinks it’d be this one,” whispered Plank.
The mountain apple was shaped like any normal apple, but there the normalcy stopped. It was entirely golden in hue, yet its surface swirled as she gazed upon it. A pearly iridescence sat just beneath the golden skin.
Peg-leg broke the quiet. “I’m not thinkin’ it wise to take this fruit for a long walk
.”
“More chance for it to be taken.” Locks agreed in a rumbling voice.
Ebba pursed her lips. “Who’s gonna eat it? Stubby is most smart after Barrels, and Barrels ain’t here.”
Peg-leg’s mouth clicked shut, and he glowered at the smirking Stubby.
“Now, now,” Grubby said kindly. “Ye’re both as smart as each other.”
“Aye, Stubby should do it,” Locks spoke over Grubby.
She passed Stubby the fruit. Wasting no time, he bit into it. She’d been right about the pearly substance underneath. Liquid pearls dribbled over his scratchy, white-and-gray stubble to disappear into his dirt-streaked tunic.
His eyes widened briefly, and he stared at the crew in panic.
“Ye want to know where the treasure that Malice’s captain seeks be hidden,” Plank reminded him drily.
Stubby’s eyes lit with relief.
He swallowed the fruit, and asked, “What be the location of the treasure that Malice’s captain seeks?”
His gray-blue eyes rolled back in his head. The crew gasped, and Ebba shifted to his side, clutching his arm to support him. The fruit tumbled from his fingers, rotting and blackening before it hit the ground at their feet.
Stubby jerked forward, clutching his stomach for several long seconds.
Slowly, he straightened—panting. His mouth bobbed ajar for a time. “There be an island. Portum.”
“Never heard o’ it.” Locks screwed up his face.
“I have,” Grubby said. “I used to go to the western point o’ Kentro sometimes. Portum be on other side o’ Syraness. In Selkie’s Cove.”
“The cliffs beside Charybdis?” Ebba asked. Charybdis was a huge whirlpool that would suck ships down into the darkness of oblivion. No seaman or pirate entered the whirlpool or the cliffs beside it. When her crew sailed Felicity to Kentro, they took a wide berth east around both.
“Big whirlpool and razor rocks,” Plank said in a wooden voice.
“Nay,” Peg-leg said. “If we pursue the plunder, we’d be better to go round the coastline of Kentro and enter through the top of Selkie’s Cove. It’ll smack on four days, but be safer by far than goin’ through the cliff passage.”
If they pursued the treasure? That her fathers might not want to hadn’t occurred to Ebba.
“What else did the apple tell ye?” she asked Stubby, brows furrowed.
Stubby took a breath. “The voices were clamorin’, Ebba. Ain’t ever heard anythin’ like it—as though a thousand voices spoke at once.” He shuddered. “There be a cave on Portum, at the northern side of the island. The treasure is there.”
“What is the plunder?” Locks asked. “Did it tell ye that?”
Peg-leg hobbled forward. “Does anythin’ guard it?”
Stubby shook his head, shuddering again. “Nay, nothin’ else. Just the location. And I’ll no be eatin’ any more o’ it. That stuff ain’t natural-like.”
They stared at the shriveled apple, now black and covered with green mold.
“Don’t blame ye,” Ebba said. “That’s a stomach-ache, if I ever saw one.”
Turning from the rotten fruit, their group walked back to the archway, the way clear since Ladon’s cackling departure.
She sighed. “I guess we’ll be findin’ out the rest when we get to the cave.”
“Continue to the treasure? Out o’ the question,” Stubby interjected as they passed through the rocky arch. “It’s only brought us harm.”
They all turned at the click of a pistol hammer being drawn back.
Plank had his weapon aimed at Jagger’s head. The guide was yet to pass through the arch. She’d forgotten he was there at all, he’d stood so quietly during their discussion.
Jagger was staring across the island of Neos, but turned to face Plank, strands of flaxen hair falling forward in a wave either side of his high-boned face.
“Ye led us into danger, guide,” Plank snarled.
Jagger met his gaze with a level one of his own. “I led ye to the mountaintop, as promised.”
Peg-leg rounded on him, too. “We told ye what we’d do if ye betrayed us.”
Jagger shrugged. “I’ve been here at least ten times in my life. To this very spot. Ladon has never been here. And the tree has never born fruit. In my lifetime.”
Plank’s eyes narrowed. “Then why did Ladon show?”
Ebba blinked as the unbelievable events that just occurred hit her again: a mythical creature with . . . with snakes on it. Snakes that whispered riddles in his ears.
Her heart pounded.
A trap door slammed shut as her mind threatened to become overwhelmed with the possibilities of a whole other world to the one she knew. The idea of magic had long drawn her imagination, but the reality, if all magic was like the evil Ladon, was much different to the magic in her head.
“Maybe Ladon were here because the fruit were here,” Stubby mused. “Ye said yerself the mountain apple only fruits every one hundred years.”
Stubby could be right, yet that still didn’t give Ebba an explanation for the mythical creature existing in the first place.
“There be time for wonderings and musings later, my hearties. We be needin’ to get back to the ship and away afore Malice catches up,” Peg-leg said.
They began to file back down the mountain, Plank tucking his pistol away and gesturing Jagger to go ahead of him.
“And if we be lucky,” Peg-leg continued. “They’ll hike up here lookin’ for the fruit and Ladon will come back and eat the lot o’ them.”
They trekked in a weary line across the river rocks, still hours from Felicity as the sun began to sink in the sky.
Ebba stumbled and scrubbed both hands over her face in an attempt to brush away her weariness. Her legs ached. Even the tips of her toes were raw, telling her to stop, to rest.
“Nobody think it fishy we ain’t seen no tribespeople?” Peg-leg asked.
“Oi, guide,” Stubby said, turning to Jagger. “Where be all the tribespeople? I was o’ the understandin’ they ruled the heart o’ this island.”
Ebba watched Jagger stiffen. She wished she could see his face through the growing shadows of the rainforest.
“They do,” he replied. “Or at least they did. I suspect Ladon’s presence be havin’ somethin’ to do with their . . . absence.”
“They’re prob’ly all dead,” she said in a ghostly voice. “Ladon likely ate their bones.” Jagger blanched at her words, and the action tickled her memory. She turned to Plank. “Do ye really think there be ash in my soul now?”
Plank bumped her shoulder and tugged on a strand of her beads. “Nay, little nymph. That ain’t true for a second.”
“Ye heard Ladon, though,” said Jagger in a harsh tone. “Intent to kill is as ash in yer soul. Ye be tainted with evil now.”
The words stung. He’d been nearly okay up on the mountain. “I’d rather be tainted than have black in my soul. Ye couldn’t have gotten out right from the start.”
A faint red crept up his jaw. “Aye, and neither could the rest of yer crew.”
Ebba turned forward, anger giving her new energy. “Ladon was wrong about my fathers. They have souls as golden and beautiful as that fruit.”
“The fruit that turned to black and rot?”
Her blood boiled.
“I’ve seen a lot o’ impos’ible things in my time. But I ain’t never seen magic,” Peg-leg interrupted, his voice a low whisper.
A chorus of ‘ayes’ met his words.
“Plank,” Ebba started, throwing a last glare at Jagger. “Where did that beast come from?”
They reached the part of the river where they’d exited from the rainforest. Stubby led them back into the thick canopy as darkness began to settle in. Ebba swallowed, remembering the massive snake they’d passed on the way in.
“Old magic ruled the realm afore the Age o’ Prosperity, Ebba. Which was five hundred years afore the Reign o’ Kings,” he replied.
“Aye, but we ain
’t seen nothin’ like that afore,” she countered. “Why is it showin’ up now? Or did we never venture into the right places?”
He shook his head. “I have no answer to that, little nymph. Accordin’ to the stories, magic left sudden-like more than seven hundred and fifty years ago.”
Ebba remembered the flickering Ladon. “Maybe it never left. Maybe it were just weak.” She turned back in time to catch Plank’s serious expression.
“Mayhaps ye’re right. And that’s why we need to keep goin’,” he said. “To find out why.”
Finding out why. That had never occurred to her. Finding out why didn’t seem like their business.
“Nay, matey. I say that findin’ out why be breakin’ both our ship laws,” Locks said. “We don’t need to know why, and we surely can’t put the crew in harm’s way.”
Ebba stopped in her tracks, glancing around. “Where’s Jagger?” He wasn’t in front of them, and neither was he behind Plank—the last in their single-file line.
Plank whirled. “He was here when we turned out from the river.”
The ruckus attracted the others’ attention.
“What’s wrong?” Grubby asked anxiously.
“The guide ran off. I didn’t hear him leave,” Plank said.
Stubby groaned. “Ye were s’posed to be watchin’ him!”
Ebba stared between them. “Why does it matter? We don’t need him anymore.”
Locks answered grimly, “He knows Felicity’s crew be poachin’ Pockmark’s plunder, lass. If he runs back to Malice, that doesn’t bode well for us.”
She gasped. That was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid in the first place. “We’ve got to find him.”
Her fathers were several steps ahead of her, already split into two groups.
“He’ll make for the eastern beach to board Malice. That be the only place the ship could’ve dropped anchor,” Stubby blurted. “Grubby and Peg-leg, get back to the ship and ready her. The rest o’ us will try to corner Jagger afore the damage be done.”
Peg-leg shook his head. “Ebba ain’t goin’.”
“Ye’ve seen the size o’ him.” Stubby disagreed. “If he gets hold o’ a weapon, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with. And there’s sumpin’ not quite right with him. Sumpin’ dark. I don’t trust him as far as I can spit.”
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 11