She wound up her arm and socked Plank in the gut. He contorted in the water, coughing up a few goblets full of salt water. Stubby and Grubby held the pale-faced pirate up between them.
“That solves one mystery,” Barrels said, rubbing the space under his ribs.
Ebba folded her arms, and shrugged, saying, “It works.”
Hands on his knees, Peg-leg panted, “Come on. We’ve got to be goin’.”
Their spluttering crew waded back around the cove in a line, with Cosmo at the fore. Upon reaching the jutting tip of the current cove, Cosmo turned back and gasped. His amber eyes were frozen on something in the distance. His usual regal bearing was something much different, vulnerable and unsure.
“What?” Locks asked.
Cosmo lifted an arm and pointed, swallowing hard. “Malice.”
Breath quickening, Ebba searched the sea north of Portum and inhaled sharply. He was right. She’d recognize the crimson sails of the triple masted ship anywhere.
Peg-leg cursed under his breath.
“It’s several hours off, yet,” Stubby said tersely. “We have a faster ship. We can—”
Ebba squinted. “What’re they doin’? It looks like they’re furlin’ their sails.”
Locks gave a heavy sigh. “They’ll be anchorin’ at the soddin’ bottleneck out of the cove to block the way, lass. Pockmark knows Felicity has him for speed.”
“He ain’t that smart,” said Stubby. “It’s that Jagger son o’ a bastard.”
“He ain’t goin’ to race us—he’s goin’ to tear us apart with his cannons,” Locks continued.
Cosmo said, “We can go back through Syraness. We’d have go northeast, closer to Malice, but not past them.”
Ebba’s eyes rounded as her heart set off at seventeen knots an hour. “I’m not goin’ back through there again.”
“Didn’t ye say there was a waterfall?” Locks screwed up his face. “Not sure how much luck we’d have goin’ up that.”
They hadn’t entered through the top of the cove, near Kentro, but now it was the only way out. Shite.
Plank straightened, shaking off Stubby and Grubby. “Well, this much be true. We need to get back to Felicity afore this tide comes in any higher.”
“And then what?” asked Ebba. They had the treasure; they couldn’t let the dynami fall into Malice’s hands, especially when that meant they’d all be dead.
Plank paused. “And then, little nymph, we see if there be any way to get out o’ this mess with our lives.”
“This trip has been one misfortune after the next,” Stubby muttered as they rowed back to Felicity. Pillage had finally left the hold and now yowled to them from the starboard bulwark, no doubt hastening Barrels’ return.
“I don’t know,” Barrels said quietly. “Grubby found where he came from. That was a great bit of fortune.”
Grubby’s face turned a rosy pink. He shook his head, brows raised in bafflement.
“Ye have a family of seal-men, Grubs,” Ebba said, nudging him.
A frown appeared. No doubt finding out he was part seal was a lot to take in.
“I’m going to swim back to the ship,” he declared. With that, he dove into the depths and disappeared.
“Grubby with selkie blood in him. Never saw that comin’.” Plank rubbed at his light stubble, taking up an oar.
Ebba hummed in agreement with the others. “I ain’t sure my skull knows what to do with that inform’tion after the last two weeks.”
“Aye, lass,” Peg-leg muttered. “Mine either.”
They were quiet as they rowed back to Felicity which was bobbing in the waters just as they left her. What if their crew had decided to wait until the next tide to enter the cave? Malice could have captured them already. Ebba shivered in her wet clothes, despite the warm temperature.
Stubby and Barrels’ whispered conversation caught her attention.
“Aye,” Stubby was saying, “but there’s nothin’ here for us to eat. Ye can see it. All sparse woodland and salt. Nothin’ edible be on that island.”
“I’m at a loss then, my friend,” Barrels said wearily. “Syraness and the whirlpool forms a wall to the east. Rocks lay to the west and south. The only way out is north, out of the cove to Kentro. Malice will simply wait at the bottleneck into the cove until we starve if we remain on Portum.”
The rowboat bumped gently against Felicity’s side. Ebba latched onto the rope ladder and hauled herself up and over the bulwark.
When everyone was on deck and the rowboat raised and tucked into its usual spot, Felicity’s crew gathered in a circle, a white-faced Cosmo huddled between Peg-leg and Locks.
Ebba licked her lips. “So, what do we do?”
From what she’d overheard, they were trapped here. That they’d come so far for Malice to swoop in and take the treasure after all didn’t seem fair. And Pockmark wouldn’t just stop at taking the dynami. Not after searching for it for so long.
Blimey. She passed a hand over her face. This adventure had turned into an absolute mess. When she’d convinced her fathers to go after the treasure instead of Malice, she’d never intended for this to happen. Maybe her intentions had been mostly centered around protecting her crew, but a part of her had yearned for an adventure. Deep down, she’d wanted to show Malice who they were messing with. Those urges for reputation, glory, and excitement were the cause of the heavy guilt smoldering in her chest. A single slip of the tongue and now all their lives were at risk. Such was her guilt that Ebba was now uncertain if the slip had been a slip at all.
The only way out of the mess was to get past Malice.
. . . Malice, with cannons and top guns, and a crew of one hundred.
Before, she’d been envious of Malice. Presently, she was just afraid of what the sleek ship and its cruel crew could do to her crew and Cosmo. Ebba stared around the circle of her fathers. Which one would she lose? Or would it be two, or three? Would all of them perish?
How could Ebba possibly live with herself if that happened? A lump rose in her throat. She couldn’t bear to be parted from any of them. Never had been able to, and never would be.
Stubby sighed. “I have a plan, my hearties.” He stared over Felicity’s deck out to sea, to the east, and then turned back to the crew. “I want to go through Charybdis.”
Twenty-One
“Ye . . .what?” Ebba stared at Stubby.
They all did.
It was completely nuts. It would never work. It. . . .
“I want to go through the whirlpool. If we can’t go through the cliffs, and Malice be blockin’ the entrance to the cove, the whirlpool be the only other way. We use the very outside ring to circle around to the o’posite side. We’ll come out a day’s sail from Zol.”
Plank stood abruptly. “There be much wrong with that plan.”
Even Stubby seemed unsure and it was his idea. “Ye know as well as I do, Felicity can close-haul better than any other. We stick to the outside o’ the whirlpool. Close enough to take its power, but not be sucked into oblivion.”
Her fathers fell silent.
Ebba gazed around the circle. Were they serious?
Her fathers were good sailors. They knew their stuff when it came to the business. But this? In all Ebba’s life, aside from the last two weeks, they’d never done anything bordering on dangerous. They were thinking like pirates half their age and, well . . . pirates who were actually real, adventurous pirates who didn’t steal-trade fruits and vegetables for a living. She chewed on her lip.
“It’ll take all of us to get her bow pointed out once we’re in,” Plank mused.
Peg-leg nodded. “And no small amount of luck.” His eyes fell on her. “What about Ebba? It’ll be right risky.”
“Better to risk the whirlpool than let Pockmark get ahold o’ her,” Stubby said. “Ye saw what he did to her for nothin’ more than being in the alley. What d’ye think he’ll do to her now?”
The six glanced between each other.
�
�If this be our best chance, then we’re doin’ it,” Ebba said, folding her arms. “Ye can’t be worryin’ about me.”
Barrels surveyed her and nodded quickly. “We know, my dear. But we’ll always worry about your safety.”
“I know, Barrels.” She tilted her chin. “But I ain’t a child anymore. Ye know I can do whatever needs doin’.”
All six of her fathers studied her.
Stubby gripped her shoulder. “Aye, we do at that.”
“It’s settled, then,” Locks said with a sigh.
Ebba jerked as her fathers disbanded, each hustling away without another word. She watched as Peg-leg began to lash down loose objects on the main deck. Plank unfurled the mainsail. Grubby scuttled up the rigging to scout ahead. Barrels and Stubby weighed anchor, and Locks checked the sheets and winches for strength.
“They mean to take us around this Charybdis, I gather,” Cosmo said from behind her.
They hadn’t spoken enough about the actual plan. Ebba stared around the deck of her busy fathers, still in some state of shock over what they intended to do. “Aye. . . .”
“What exactly is it? Charybdis?”
“The whirlpool I was tellin’ ye about,” she said, glancing back in surprise. “The one we avoided on the way here. It has a current so powerful I’ve heard it can shake ships apart.”
Cosmo paled. “Yer fathers know what they’re doin’, though?”
Ebba frowned. He was speaking pirate again. “We’ve never done anythin’ like it afore.”
Cosmo took a deep breath and touched her hand. “Okay, then I shall have to put faith in you. You got us through Syraness, away from the siren—”
“Ye believe in the siren now?” Ebba asked tightly.
Cosmo’s eyes lost focus. “I’ll believe anything after seeing seals turn into men.”
Ebba chuckled, the tension between them dissipating. “Aye, that was somethin’, weren’t it?”
“My friends back home would think me mad if I told them.”
“Why would they think that, if they trusted ye and knew ye to be honest?”
Cosmo shrugged and pulled at his yellowed tunic. His smooth skin had begun to tan in places as he slowly toughened up. Maybe he wouldn’t be soft forever.
“Things are just different where I come from,” he said heavily. “As one of your fathers said, we are people who cannot believe without seeing. To give fancy to your imagination is seen as childish.”
“I be thinkin’ a lot of things in this realm are seen as childish,” Ebba said sadly.
They fell silent, watching the six pirates rushing about the deck as Felicity lurched to life.
Ebba stared with unseeing eyes, not voicing her doubts to the nervous Cosmo beside her. But she didn’t know if her fathers could pull this off.
And she didn’t know if they’d make it out of Charybdis alive.
They sailed Felicity east—as if heading back into Syraness. But soon, they would alter their course to sail toward what sat immediately south of it—Charybdis.
In the distance, the crimson sails of Malice had been hoisted, and the schooner was lurching closer, into wider waters. Pockmark would want to cut them off from re-entering the cliff passage. Little did he know that wasn’t their plan at all.
Plank blew a breath out. “I hope Felicity holds true.”
Stubby replied, “We just need her to keep it together until we be out of Charybdis. Zol ain’t far after that.”
“Aye,” Plank said.
Felicity was pulled forward, making the crew hush. The tug was palpable, and it didn’t let up; it began to grow.
“The whirlpool’s current,” Ebba gasped.
Peg-leg strode to her. “Ebba, we’ll be tiltin’ something fierce. Show Cosmo what to do, smart-like.”
He bent down to scoop up Pillage who swiped at him, hissing. Her father bellowed, jerking his finger back. He scowled at the feline and then inspected his finger. “Ye drew blood, ye shitey furball. Barrels!” he yelled. “Get yer cat below deck before I chuck him in the whirlpool myself.”
Insides twisting, she turned to Cosmo. “We’ve sailed pretty flat for the most part, so far. Ye recall our tiltin’ in Syraness? Afore your eyes went black, and I pushed ye down the ladder by accident?”
He reached for his forehead. “You did what?”
“It’ll be worse than that bobbin’. Ye’ll need to hold on to the ship’s side here, the bulwark, or ye’ll slide over the deck and be lost to Davy Jones.”
His eyes popped. “It will be that bad?”
Ebba met his amber eyes. “I have no idea how bad. More tilt than even I’ve been on.” Her eyes fell on his hands. He held the treasure. Dynami, the selkie had called it.
Holding out her hand for it, she said, “Give me that—ye’ll need both hands and both legs.”
“Should I—I don’t know. Tie myself to the ship?”
“Nope. That’s no good if ye’ve got to scramble across to the other side when the tilt changes. I’ll let ye know if ye need to do that. Listen out for me.”
Cosmo passed over the dynami and Ebba tucked it into her belt, tightening the belt another few notches. No way was she losing the blasted treasure now. Ebba glanced out over the port side at Malice. They’d realized where Felicity was going. They were lowering their crimson sails again, coming deeper into the cove than before, but there was no way the black ship would get close to the whirlpool.
Pockmark would just be waiting to ensure they perished to the oblivion.
Felicity lurched forward again with a terrible creak.
“Did you feel that?” Cosmo breathed.
“Aye.”
The waves slapped at Felicity’s sides. There was another pitching pull under the ship. Spray careening over the deck, water rolled across the wood by the sudden gale rising out of nowhere.
Ebba tugged Cosmo to the corner of the bilge and demonstrated. “Ye hold on here. Quick now.” She held his gaze. “Ye hold on for yer life, do ye promise? Don’t take a hand off. Not for a moment, even if it seems calm.”
He wedged a foot against the bilge wall and laid one arm over the bulwark, with the other underneath as she’d just showed him. He gazed across at her. “Don’t worry about me, just worry about yourself. Please.”
She smiled grimly and hurried to join Plank. They checked the sheets, and Ebba’s legs adjusted as the ship tilted violently.
“Ye ready?” Plank asked with a grin.
“Aye?” she said, in some confusion at his expression. What was he grinning about? A quick glance around her fathers showed Ebba he wasn’t the only one grinning. They appeared almost savage as the wind churned, whacking at their shirts and sending their hair in all directions. If she had to venture a guess, she’d say they were enjoying this. . . .
They appeared the epitome of pirates as Felicity careened closer to the whirlpool. And Ebba knew that if others could see her fathers right now, they’d be forced to agree.
She shook her head, smiling, and quickly tied her dreads back.
The tow underneath doubled, nearly sending Ebba flying. Plank grabbed her. “Ye’ll be needin’ those sea-legs to help me with these sails, little nymph.”
Ebba planted her feet and nodded.
“Hoist the sail,” he said.
She heaved alongside him with all her might. The wind caught at the sail and Felicity pitched to the starboard side, tilting to the water.
She held her position against the bulwark—just—and adjusted her grip on the rope, lips pressed together.
“We be goin’ ‘round the outer ring of the whirlpool now, lads!” yelled Stubby across deck from the helm. “We want to exit at this exact point on the opposite side.”
That would see them out of Selkie’s Cove and on the other side, close to Zol.
If this worked.
Stubby, Barrels, and Grubby stood to one side of the helm, both hands gripped around a spoke each, leaning back and using their entire weight to hold Felicity against th
e sucking current. Locks clutched to the mast with Peg-leg.
“Hold the sails there,” Plank puffed to her, holding on to the same rope, farther up.
She held the rope tight with both hands, her feet wide, left leg wedged against the ship’s side.
Felicity moved in a wide arc of doom, thrown forward by the current and wind until she flew through the pulling waters. They continued around the outer ring of Charybdis, and Ebba glimpsed the black ocean beneath, so extreme was their tilt to the starboard side.
She gasped at the dark maelstrom of the whirlpool in the distance. Looking across, the hole at the center seemed to extend as far as she could see, and the force of it tore their ship through the water faster than Ebba had ever experienced.
The gust cut at her eyes, making water stream from them in a steady torrent. Waves splashed against Felicity’s hull, crashing over the side and into her face. The only sound making any sense was that of the mast straining. The urge to look over her shoulder and check on Cosmo was nearly overwhelming, but she wasn’t entirely sure she could without sacrificing her position jammed against the bulwark. She’d have to trust he could keep himself alive.
Her three fathers strained at the slipping wheel.
“We’re comin’ up on the Zol side, lads. Quickly!” Stubby yelled, peering over the helm. “We’re goin’ to set Felicity’s bow across wind.”
“Keep a way-on to maintain speed!” Plank shouted back. Then to her, he instructed, “Get ready to run.”
“Get ready to run to the other side, Cosmo,” she yelled in the servant’s direction. “As fast as ye can.” She heard his call of ‘yes’ with no small amount of relief.
Each of them looked up, tense, waiting for the moment the mainsail would catch the incoming squall. The second it did, the boom would careen across deck and Felicity would tilt from starboard to port. They’d need to sprint across deck as the tilt reversed, or perish to the black waters.
“The current’s too strong to point us away from the eye,” Barrels bellowed. “We’re not going to make it.”
Even with his, Grubby’s, and Stubby’s combined strength, they hadn’t managed to budge the ship’s nose to point outwards.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 20