Ebba’s eyes fell on the ray and her scalp prickled.
Doesn’t mean anything. Just a harmless manta ray.
They heaved to the shore and everyone leaped out when the bottom scraped on the shingled beach—except Barrels, who didn’t like getting his buckled shoes wet. Ebba stayed in this time, too, waiting as Locks tethered the rowboat to a large rock. She was as likely to make a fool of herself leaping out as not with injured ribs.
Cosmo took her elbow and helped her step out onto a rock.
Peg-leg snickered as Barrels jumped out and landed straight in a shallow rock pool. Ebba grinned as well, and then set her eyes upon Portum.
Rocky coastline met her searching gaze; ten paces of the shingled shore were exposed. The shallow bay was bordered by a crescent of solid rock taller than Plank, and it appeared as though the waves and saltwater had taken large chunks of the rock away over the years.
“The cave be on the far northern side,” Stubby said, voice grim. His face screwed up. Clearly, he was remembering eating the mountain apple.
Locks studied the island. “It ain’t big. I think we should split in two. One goes on land, and one goes around the shore.”
Ebba stiffened. She didn’t like that idea.
“It be this way,” Grubby said suddenly.
The crew stared at him mutely. He pointed along the shoreline—north.
Stubby and Barrels exchanged a long look.
“And how are ye knowin’ that, Grubs?” Stubby asked in a neutral voice.
Grubby stared at his booted foot. The sole was coming away at the toe and water seeped in. He shrugged. “I dunno. But it be that way.”
He pointed north again.
Peg-leg cursed under his breath. “Well, seems we’ll be followin’ Grubby’s nose.”
Barrels stared at Grubby’s foot in the water. “Or his toe.”
Cosmo drew close, whispering in her ear, “You’re seriously following him? Just like that?”
“’Course. He says he knows, then he knows,” she replied, checking her pistols were in place. Grubby could swim as fast as a dolphin. He had an affinity for water that their crew trusted implicitly, even if he wasn’t all there in other aspects. And sure, his toe had never acted as a navigational tool, and maybe he professed to speak to marine life, but she also knew it wouldn’t occur to her father to say he knew the way unless he actually did.
“But how does he know?”
Stubby laughed. “Exosian folk. Always questionin’ everythin’.”
“Some things just are,” Locks explained. “Knowin’ why doesn’t change that Grub’s toe knows where to go, does it? Why waste time when ye can’t possibly find a reason for it?”
Cosmo didn’t appear convinced. He turned to Barrels. “Doesn’t this come across as odd to you?”
The crew muffled snickers.
Barrels’ face turned pink. “Why yes, Cosmo. I certainly used to question these kinds of things. But I’ve found that the reason often turns up in time. Life at sea—” He paused as though searching for the right words. “You begin to understand not everything has a logical answer.”
“Esp’cially the things we’ve seen in the last week,” Ebba added.
Cosmo frowned. “I haven’t seen anything.”
Ebba stilled. “What about Ladon and the siren?”
“I wasn’t there for Ladon, and apparently not myself for the second. I’m sure something did happen, though—I had a lump on my head, after all. And then your crew said the wind sprites were on deck, but I was—”
“Out with the fairies,” supplied Locks.
Ebba faced Cosmo, her gaze narrowing. “Ye don’t believe any o’ it happened?”
Cosmo avoided her eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying. Just that I haven’t seen these things myself.”
She heard the lie in his voice. Blood flooded into her face. She wasn’t making the siren up! She gave him a dark scowl, but tempered her urge to whack him around the noggin’ by remembering he was ignorant about most important things. “Ye think I made up fallin’ down a waterfall and the siren? Ye don’t think we saw a lizard-beast with snakes around its neck? How did we know where to find the treasure Malice is after if Stubby didn’t eat the magic apple? And how did the bowsprit snap clean off? Ye think I did that?”
He took a step back and lowered his voice. “Ebba, I’m not saying I don’t believe you.”
“It sure be soundin’ that way,” she muttered, stalking ahead to join Grubby and his toe at the fore.
“Best leave her for now. Her temper is quick, but quickly forgotten,” Barrels said behind her.
“I didn’t mean—”
Peg-leg interrupted. “Aye, lad, ye did. But, like we said, some folk can’t believe until they be seein’. And ye be one o’ them.”
They trudged around three small coves until, rounding a fourth jutting point, they spotted a rocky outcrop extending straight north. The tip slowly tapered off into the ocean.
“That be the northern end o’ Portum, lads,” Stubby announced.
“Aye,” Ebba echoed with the others.
Cosmo came up beside her, searching her face.
She knew his comment had only affected her so much because she hadn’t fully gotten her head around Syraness yet. But someone doubting what she’d gone through had set off her temper.
Ebba let out a breath and flashed a small smile at him.
He smiled back, squeezing her hand briefly. She frowned at the tingling in her fingers afterward.
Grubby kept walking, head down and one foot in the ocean at all times.
They trailed after him, and watched in bafflement as he marched another fifty yards and turned abruptly to face inland. From there he strode with huge steps across the broken shell and pebbled shore to the rock wall outlining the cove.
Ebba jogged in his wake, craning to peer ahead. She frowned; only solid rock sat ahead. That is, it seemed to be solid rock, before Grubby dug at the base of the rocky cliff and revealed a small hole.
“Grubs,” she breathed. “Ye found it.”
Ebba fell to her knees to help him dig, ignoring the ache in her side.
“What is it?” Cosmo said behind her.
“Grubby found the hidden cave . . . with his toe,” Barrels echoed in a faint voice.
“’Course he did,” Plank said. “Never doubted him.”
Locks snorted.
The eight of them made quick work digging a hole at the base of the cliff. Soon the hole was large enough for a person to descend into the tunnel. Though sand concealed the entrance, none of the granules actually fell into the cave itself—a fact that had Barrels muttering to himself about the lack of science and Plank muttering about the presence of magic.
The muscles in her legs coiled as she prepared to slide down the steep sandy incline into the black rock cave.
“Wait,” Plank called, catching her arm.
She stopped, glancing back.
“The tide,” he nodded toward the sea. “It’ll be high in an hour.”
“If we don’t go now, we’ll have another half a day to wait until we can enter again,” Barrels said.
Stubby said, “We may still be a day ahead o’ Malice if the wind was weak on the Kentro coast, but we can’t count on that. We ain’t got time to wait around. We need to be in and out of the cave, smart-like.”
“Nothin’ could possibly go wrong with that,” Locks muttered, reaching up to adjust his eye patch.
Stubby nudged Ebba aside and bent to sit on the sand, sliding down into the cave ahead of her.
She slithered down after, blinking into the dark as her eyes adjusted.
A match flared behind her, illuminating Barrels’ face. He lit a lantern and passed it to Stubby, and then passed another to Locks, keeping a third for himself.
Stubby held his lantern high and the soft light of the flames within bounced off the cave walls in all directions. Quartz sparkled in the solid gray stone and a seam of rusty-colored stone trav
eled directly through the middle of the ceiling, pointing ahead.
“One hour,” Peg-leg reminded them.
They set off.
Whatever Ebba’s sentiments before entering the cave, she was relieved to find excitement flooding through her again as they hurried along the tunnel. Navigating a hidden cave with her fathers in search of a coveted treasure? This was the quest she’d longed for, but it struck her that maybe adventure went hand-in-hand with trial too. If it was all sunshine and mangoes, everyone would go embark on these kinds of quests, and then brave deeds and stories recited in the light of the full moon wouldn’t hold the same weight.
“Ye’re kickin’ sand in my boots.” Stubby scowled at her.
She straightened and slowed her pace.
The stalagmites grew thicker and longer as they moved farther into the cave’s depths. Drips of water trickled from their tips, forming puddles on the rocky ground. Felicity’s crew squeezed between narrow spaces in the tight path.
“Hold on, mateys,” called Peg-leg from near the back. He was wedged between two stalactites.
Barrels sighed. “You need to lay off the mangoes, dear fellow. Cosmo? If you push him, I’ll pull.”
“All right,” Cosmo said in a strangled voice.
Ebba grinned at a nudge from Stubby, whose own face was red from the effort not to laugh.
Peg-leg slid free and his tight voice echoed up to them, “Not one peep from any o’ ye or I’ll serve charcoal for a month.”
Heeding his warning, the crew resumed their hike without comment.
“It’s beautiful,” whispered Ebba, admiring the way the light from their lanterns caught at the shiny pieces in the gray walls.
The temperature dropped as they moved deeper, and tiny straws hung from the ceiling—the first sign of the rock growing downward into spikes.
Stubby swung his lantern. “Sumpin’ up ahead,” he mumbled. With his other hand, he drew a pistol, leaving it uncocked.
Ebba kept both hands on her pistols in readiness. After lizard-snakey-beast and bird-woman, who knew what waited for them in the depths of this cave. She peered over Stubby’s shoulder, but couldn’t see past the lantern light.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The cavern opens up. Looks like there be light.”
She inhaled sharply and tightened the grip on her pistol butts.
No one behind her—not even Cosmo— made a peep.
The cold tightened until Ebba could see her breath fogging in front of her. The high ceiling of the narrow passage slowly widened and the rocky floor smoothed and flattened.
Stubby jerked to a halt in front of her and she barely avoided colliding with him. She crept beside him.
The circular cavern was bare, but for a sole stone pedestal sitting upon a raised platform at its center. A thin beam of light illuminated the pedestal from above.
Stubby scratched his chin.
“What?” Ebba asked him.
He ignored her. “Ye ever seen a treasure arranged all nice and easy like this, lads?” he asked.
There were riches up there? The beam of light shining through the hole in the ceiling created a golden aura Ebba couldn’t see through.
“Nay.” Locks came to stand on his other side. “I reckon treasure norma’ly be buried six-foot-deep and surrounded by booby traps.”
Ebba swung her head to look at him. “Ye’ve searched for plunder afore?”
Locks let out a breath he’d held. “Aye, lass. Just once, or twice.”
She narrowed her eyes. He met her gaze with an innocent expression.
Stubby glared at the pedestal as though it held a secret. “Barrels,” he said. “What do ye think?”
Barrels cleared his throat from behind them. “It seems very . . . pleasantly situated. However, we must take into account the entrance to the cave was hidden. Maybe the pirates who hid this believed the treasure to be safe, tucked away in Portum as it is. Portum is a place surrounded by dangers, known of by few, and explored by fewer.”
Ebba glanced at the blaring gold aura again, and then back at her fathers as she took a step forward. “It’s just there,” she said. “Why don’t we grab it?” She very much wanted to know what it was after all the trouble.
Peg-leg hauled her back and shoved Cosmo forward with his other arm. “Send this one.”
Cosmo’s amber irises widened and he squeaked.
Ebba and the others watched him.
“Y-you can’t be serious?” he said, looking around the group for a speck of mercy.
Locks hummed to himself and Cosmo took a step away from the pirate.
He did appear menacing with his eye patch. The light from the lantern made the splinters of emerald in his sole eye swim like fish.
The pirates closed in on the prince’s servant, sealing the gaps between them.
“Ebba?” Cosmo choked. He backed away, leaping when Grubby reached out to grab him.
The pirates stopped.
Cosmo whirled around in their trap, hands raised.
Ebba caught Peg-leg’s eye and couldn’t hold it anymore. With a wheeze, she leaned over and slapped her hand on her thigh, gasping with laughter. Her fathers joined in, while Cosmo stood there, obviously unsure of his fate.
Barrels wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and spoke, “You know, we don’t really have time to dally.”
Peg-leg gave a last throaty chuckle. “Don’t ye be gripin’. Ye were in on it, too.”
Barrels erupted in hoots again.
“Are you sure this is the treasure?” a voice called.
Felicity’s crew froze and spun to face the pedestal as one.
Cosmo stood on the raised stone circle in front of the pedestal, his brows arched in challenge. He held a cylinder in the air. The device was the color of tarnished silver. And . . . small.
That’s it? Where was the chest of ancient coins and priceless gems?
“Blimey, boy. Get yerself down from there. We were only jokin’,” Plank scolded him, searching the ceiling for movement.
Cosmo remained where he was.
Ebba grinned—Cosmo wasn’t used to having the micky taken out of him. She heaved herself up to join him, the others close behind her. They gathered around Cosmo and stared at the object in his hand.
An odd barking sound came out of Grubby’s mouth.
Ebba cast him a look. “Grubs . . . have ye been eatin’ garlic cloves again? Ye know they always come back up.”
Grubby shook his head, meeting her eyes fearfully.
He made the barking sound again. Ebba frowned—weirdest belch she’d ever heard. “We should get that checked out.”
Locks grabbed her arm. “Did ye hear that?”
Ebba nodded. “Aye, Grubby’s—”
“Not Grubby,” he hissed. “Listen.”
Ebba closed her eyes and strained her ears.
A slapping sound, like a wet shirt hit on the side of a ship, was coming from the tunnel. The noise was drawing closer!
“Malice has found us, mateys,” Stubby breathed. “Quick. Hide!”
Ebba spun around but before she could voice her discovery, Plank beat her to it.
“There be nowhere to hide in here,” he said. “They’re comin’ from the only way out.” Plank paced around the pedestal, eyes peering in every direction.
The slapping sound grew louder and quicker, overlapping as though a hundred wet shirts slapped the ground.
What is that?
Locks shook his head; despair weighed his voice. “Nothin’ for it, lads. Too many o’ us to hide behind this platform. We keep the high ground to fight.” He drew both pistols and cocked them, aiming both barrels at the tunnel.
Grubby barked again and Plank shushed him impatiently.
Peg-leg grabbed her. “Ye need to hide, Ebba-Viva. Just down there. Take Cosmo with ye,” he said. “Ye can both make fer Felicity. She’ll be hard to manage, but . . . well.” He smiled. “Nothin’ ye ain’t done before, is it?”
Ebba’s eyes narrowed. “Nay, Peg-leg. I ain’t goin’ without the rest of ye. I ain’t doin’ it.” She didn’t want to be alone again. Not on Maltu. Not in Syraness. Not ever.
Peg-leg glared at Cosmo. “Take her down there,” he said. “Keep her quiet.”
Enraged, she drew her cutlass and dodged out of Cosmo’s grip. “Ye don’t think Pockmark will think to look for me when he sees the rest o’ ye here? Ye big clout! Cosmo be the only one who can hide.”
That seemed to stump Peg-leg.
Grubby barked again and shoved both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide.
The slapping grew louder.
Louder.
And the crew of Malice burst into the circular cavern.
Nineteen
Ebba’s eyes threatened to pop out of her head.
It wasn’t Malice.
It was. . . .
“Seals?” said Barrels, incredulous.
Not just a couple of seals. The whiskered mammals poured into the cavern in the hundreds, slapping at the ground with their flippers. The noise was overpowering, the smell even more so. Ebba was used to the smell of fish, but hundreds of seals in one place?
Next to her, Cosmo gagged.
“I ain’t never seen seals act like this,” Peg-leg said beside her. “What in Davy Jones’ is goin’ on?”
The seals were arranging themselves in formation, and Ebba had to agree that really, really wasn’t normal behavior. They formed four rings around the raised platform. When the last gray seal had wiggled into position in the front row, a barking sound came from the entrance.
A huge black seal stood with its chest pushed out in the tunnel entrance. The black seal barked again and the gray seals blocking his way to the platform rocked out of his way as he slowly undulated toward them.
“Did that seal just give them an order?” Stubby asked, mouth ajar.
Sure seemed that way. “Do seals norm’ly have a leader?” she asked Barrels.
He shook his head slowly, eyes fixed on the scene before him.
Locks muttered, “Shite. I’ve seen everythin’ now.”
The black seal morphed into a naked man.
Locks inhaled sharply. “Now I have, for sure.”
Ebba gaped at the nude man, who used to be a seal. Just before. On the same spot. “Ye just turned into a man,” she told him.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 18