Chronicles of the Dragon Pirate

by David Talon

  Pepper was shaking her head. “But why would the White Lady care?”

  Hob pointed at me. “Your beloved is Long-Mu’s trueborn son. The captain wanted it kept a secret from the crew, so he ordered Tomas not to tell anyone, especially you.” Pepper got an indignant look on her face and Hob grinned. “Now that you know, Sally will know you know something and get it out of you...which means the entire crew will know, since Sally wouldn’t know a secret if it bit her on the nose.” Pepper winced as if Hob’s comment had hit the mark and the goblin raised his hands in an elaborate shrug.

  Master Khan spoke in a voice cold as deep water. “Once again you play your tricks to make life more interesting for you, yes?”

  Hob merely gave me a wicked smile. “Tomas is the one for whom things are going to get interesting ...and speaking of our fine young Dragon; Khan, look in the pocket of your old vest,” his voice growing mocking, “Son of Tengri.”

  Master Khan gave the goblin a suspicious look before re-opening the chest and pulling out a leather vest. It cracked as if it was extremely old, with colored beads sown into the front and faded blue dye in a strange pattern on the back which I saw but a brief moment as Master Khan reached into a pocket. He pulled out an object and gave it to the goblin before putting his vest back. Hob held it up for us to see. It was a ring of white bone with red letters carved into the band, and I stared at the ring in fascination. “What is it?”

  “Your betrothal gift from Long-Mu,” Hob replied. “She gave it to me when she came aboard, and I’ve held it in trust ever since. Pepper gets armor...and you get a magic ring.”

  “There is no such thing as magic,” the captain’s voice growled. I whirled in alarm. He was standing in the doorway with Jeremiah right behind him, my friend giving me an apologetic shrug as Captain Hawkins fixed me with a dark look. “You answer to me, first and foremost, and when I send word for you to attend me you will make haste. Am I clear?”

  “Yes sir,” I said quickly. “It’s just that Master Khan...”

  He raised his hand and I shut my mouth at once. “You’re still learning the rules, so you won’t be punished...this time.” I felt a rush of relief as the captain fixed his steely gaze on Hob. “Now what’s this bilge water about magic rings?”

  “Magic is a word the ignorant use for arts they can’t comprehend,” Hob said, “so we’ll call it magic and leave it at that. The ring is Long-Mu’s gift to her son, and before you punish Tomas let me say I was the one who told Pepper what Long-Mu is to your apprentice.” Captain Hawkins’s expression turned darker still, but Hob merely cackled. “The knowledge will be all over the ship before you reach Tortuga, even if you left now, so you’d best plan accordingly.”

  Captain Hawkins placed a hand on the leather bound hilt of his sword. “Goblin, one of these days you shall press me too far...”

  “And I will be gone before your white sword leaves its scabbard, bequeathing you a crumbling ship and a...very...vengeful ghost.” The captain’s hand left his sword hilt and Hob gave him a wicked smile. “I cannot change my nature, even if I wished to, but despite my tricks I’m still your ally. I’ll prove it.” Hob turned and threw the ring at me.

  I instinctively raised my hands to catch it, the white bone ring striking my left palm as my fingers closed around it. Somehow my middle finger slipped into the band...and it was like the ring was greased. It slid down my middle finger to the knuckle and stayed there. At once I began to try and get it off. “Sir...it’s stuck.” The ring freely moved in a circle but refused to go past my knuckle as I pulled on it hard.

  “Bide, Tomas,” Pepper said as she grasped my hands, stopping my efforts, “You’re just going to bruise your fingers.” She pulled her hands away as she asked, “Hob, what does it do?”

  The goblin put his grey, spindly chin in his bony hand, as if he were being thoughtful. “Hmm, what did you say to Tomas about how you wish to be treated? Oh, yes” and Hob grinned. “He will figure it out.”

  Pepper winced as Captain Hawkins said in a tightly controlled voice, “Hob, are you finished?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Then let’s be on our way. I want our deal concluded before the sun makes the air too warm to think.” Captain Hawkins turned and strode out, Jeremiah letting him pass before falling in behind him. I began to follow but Pepper put her hand in mine, grasping it with a firm grip. We smiled at each other and I pulled her along as we strode out the door.

  The lush, earthy smell of vegetation wrestled for mastery over the salty scent of the sea as I stood on the beach with Jeremiah and Redbeard, looking above the tree line at the enormous hill that gave Big Bluff island its name. It rose far into the air, the side off to our left a steep drop into the sea while the side off to our right had a gentler slope, marching out of our sight as it curved around. I shook my head as I tried to grasp the enormity of it. “That’s not a hill: it’s a small mountain.”

  “Aye and I be as skinny as you,” Redbeard said. Once he saw Pepper was coming he’d decided to come too, wading ashore with me and Jeremiah while Captain Hawkins and Pepper arranged themselves in the dugout canoe the headman of Haven had provided, along with a pair of native rowers. The headman himself, a portly African with a bald head, was waiting for everyone farther down the beach along with several other Africans, a sunburnt European with short brown hair wearing tradesman’s clothes, and a stout African woman in a green dress covering her like a linen sheet. She was the shaman, Pepper had explained, who was a healer though not a Dragon, and even though Pepper had wanted to wade ashore with us the shaman had accorded Pepper some kind of special status. So now she was sitting behind the captain, looking annoyed as the dugout pulled away from the ship and headed toward the beach. “Back in Scotland,” Redbeard went on, “we be having hills twice that size, aye, and proper mountains, too.”

  “Andre claims its hollow inside,” Jeremiah said, “and that if you know its passages you can walk up to the top from the inside.

  I gave my friend a disbelieving look as Redbeard snorted. “That be a fanciful tale even for me. Why did you be spending any time with a Buccan in the first place?”

  “He sought me out, more to gain knowledge about Tomas than any interest in me.” Jeremiah gave me a sly look. “I think he’s in love with you.”

  I made a face. “Pray tell me you’re having a jest.”

  “I’m not,” Jeremiah said with a smile, though his face remained serious. “But if he is then I set him straight about you. The strangest thing though was Lucky Luc, who listened to us the entire time. The more Andre became disappointed, the more he looked satisfied.” I decided to keep what I’d heard in French to myself as Jeremiah motioned towards the dugout, which had almost reached the shore where the people of the village waited. “The captain’s going to want you beside him, so let’s go.”

  We walked along the packed sand to the spot where the dugout had made land, the two native rowers jumping out to push the canoe farther up then stepping back. Captain Hawkins stood up and gave a hand to Pepper as she stepped out of the boat. The captain was fully dressed in his blue captain’s coat, blue trousers and ruffled shirt, the white sword in its scabbard at his side while Pepper was dressed as I was, both of us in fancy, white shirts and light trousers with our feet bare.

  The headman, wearing the somewhat shabby clothes of a rich man’s servant along with one of the woven hats to keep the sun off his head, walked over to them and opened his arms. “Harry Hawkins, it’s been too long.”

  “Likewise, Isaac,” the captain accepting the headman’s embrace then stepping back. “I understand your days of peace may be coming to an end.”

  “Same old Harry,” the headman said with a great sigh, “The man with all the time in the world wastes none of it.” The captain raised his eyebrows and Isaac sighed again. “I hope not, but I’ve lived too long to trust in anything but God and Artifact weaponry.” He turned towards the sunburnt man
beside him. “Harry Hawkins, our wood-crafter, Edward Long.”

  The man bobbed his head nervously, making as if to extend his hand but pulling it back when the captain folded his arms over his chest. “Where are my cannons?”

  The man’s head bobbed again like a duck’s as he turned and started down the beach. “I’ve got them drying in the sun, sir...if you’d follow me?”

  The captain started after him and the rest of us followed except for the large woman, who wore shells around her neck, wrists, and ankles. She called after us, “Isaac, you build all de toys you want, but it ain’t gonna help you. Storm’s coming, Isaac, bad storm, and ain’t no stone house gonna save you. Dey gonna leave you to face the storm alone and ain’t no shiny toys gonna help you then!”

  Captain Hawkins gave the headman a curious glance, and Isaac made a motion as if throwing something away. “Fool woman wants me to pack everyone up and find another home. I keep telling her this flap will blow over with the natives, but she claims they’re working some kind of bad magic and we’re all going to die.”

  “Everyone dies sooner or later,” Captain Hawkins remarked, “but if you try moving everyone to another island it’s going to be sooner. You’ve got it good here.”

  Isaac made an exasperated sound. “I keep telling her that but she won’t listen.”

  The shell woman began yelling as we continued moving away from her. “Pepper,” several of us glancing back at the shaman, “you leave dem fools and come with me; you hear me, child? My cousin lives on Triangula, an she got a strapping boy I fix you up with.”

  Pepper held onto my shoulder as she began walking backwards. “I’ve got the only boy I want, but I thank you for your kindness. Tell me what herbs you need, and Sally and I will...”

  “I ain’t needing herbs,” she shouted, “I trying to save your life. Dis storm gonna blow you all away, and dat boy’s at the heart of it!” I got a chill as she stabbed a finger directly at me.

  “We’ll weather it together, me and Tomas,” Pepper called back. The large woman yelled something in a language I didn’t understand, turned and walked away. Evidently Pepper didn’t either, for she asked, “Does anyone have any idea what that just meant?”

  “It was a warning to Tomas,” Jade’s voice said. “She said she will make him pay dearly before the storm carries her away, if she can.”

  I was beyond exasperation. “Now I’m making people angry I’ve never seen before in my life, just by being here.”

  Pepper gave me an apologetic shrug as we all turned back around, Jeremiah making a motion like a fool at a fair would make. Redbeard chuckled. “Aye, she’s always been daft as a drunken Irishman, but now I be thinking it’s worse than ever before. Be keeping a weather eye out for her though.”

  I sighed and Jeremiah clapped me on the shoulder as Pepper clasped my hand, the three of us walking together as we followed the others down the beach, Isaac commenting to the captain as we caught up. “The shaman of the natives sent word he’s coming down himself to pick up the captive that Maccabee turned over to us.”

  “News travels fast, I see,” the captain remarked.

  “The Black Goat watches the entire island from the top of Big Bluff.”

  I blurted out, “The Black Goat?”

  “You’ll see,” the headman said cryptically. Then he looked back at us as he pointed forward. “There is Haven...our home.” I looked to where he was pointing. The village of Haven sat on a high, level spot a stone’s throw from the ocean, its buildings made of white stone blocks with roofs made of thatch. “The buildings were here when we arrived,” Isaac said to me, motioning for me to join him. Pepper let go of my hand and I quickened my pace until I was walking on his other side from the captain. “I used to be the slave of a Jamaican plantation owner, before Harry here caught my former master when he was travelling, dropping off all of the slaves and telling us we were free men again. We found the buildings, which the jungle had taken over, and rebuilt on the original design.”

  “Who built them in the first place?” I asked.

  Isaac shrugged. “I don’t know, but they weren’t savages. Each house has its own privy, though some of the pipes are too clogged to use, and we have a...Harry, what was the word you used to describe how we get our water?”

  “Aqueduct,” Captain Hawkins replied. “Haven has an aqueduct system of grey-stone that brings fresh water to their central well from somewhere inside Big Bluff hill. Grey-stone is goblin transmuted like the wood on our ship: vegetation and animal life shun it, and it still stands intact even after thousands of years. I asked Hob about it once, and while he confirmed my suspicions, he refused to say anything else...which is typical.”

  “Aye,” Redbeard said with a chuckle, “isn’t it just.”

  As we got closer I began noticing details about the houses. All of them were decorated in some manner, either with long strands of polished stones and shells hanging down in place of curtains or a door, while others used brightly colored woven fabric. Conch shells lined the walkways while tall, bamboo poles held unlit torches at various places. We crested a rise and I saw on the beach before us a fire burning in a long trench lined with blocks of white stone, with wooden racks above the smoky fire from which were hung whole fish of various shapes and sizes.

  The wind shifted and my stomach gave a rumble as the delicious scent of smoking fish wafted over us. From behind me, Pepper said in mock-horror, “Pray tell me you aren’t hungry again?”

  “I’m just regaining my strength,” I said with as much seriousness as I could muster. Pepper only giggled, while Captain Hawkins gave me a look that made me bade my stomach to settle itself down.

  I began noticing sounds as we approached: the shriek of children chasing each other, weaving around the men calling to each other or to Isaac as they brought up nets full of fish from their dugout canoes, or to the circle of women laughing as they danced, Africans all, dancing to the rhythm of the men beating on wooden drums. I heard a pipe and saw one of the crew among the drummers, brown haired and lean with a gold hoop in his ear flashing in the sun, weaving out a tune on a flute-like instrument in time to the beat set by the drummers. Several of the women saw Pepper and waved, calling for her to come join them. Pepper turned to me with a torn expression. “I’ll stay with you if you wish.”

  Glancing at the women, who’d all stopped their dancing to call to her, I shook my head. “We’ll meet back up later.”

  Pepper pulled my head down to whisper in my ear, “We shall do our own dancing soon enough.” Then she kissed me. Our tongues touched with the taste of mint and wild orange in my mouth...and then she was gone, pelting up the beach to join the women who’d begun dancing again. She joined their circle, her pale skin and man’s fancy shirt with her blue trousers ending just below the knee in sharp contrast to their colorful dresses and dark skin like sun kissed chocolate. But she matched their moves in perfect harmony like she’d danced their way a hundred times before, their arms swinging together in time as their feet pounded the sand in a complex rhythm, white teeth laughing as Pepper’s red-haired braid bounced in time behind her. I lost the thread of something Isaac was saying as I drank in the sight of her, like parched ground in a gentle rain.

  Jeremiah snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. I gave a start, looking at my friend in confusion as he shook his head. “Pray forgive Tomas, for I fear the sun’s gone and addled his wits.”

  “Leave the boyo alone,” Redbeard said with a chuckle. “I be thinking it’s endearing.”

  Jeremiah gave him a snort as Isaac grinned. “First time in love?” I gave him an embarrassed shrug and he slapped me on the shoulder with a meaty hand. “I remember my first girl. She had hips wide enough to hold onto and a bosom I could bury my face in.” He looked at the captain. “Who was your first, Harry?”

  Captain Hawkins arched his eyebrows. “My cannons, Isaac?” The headman heaved another great sigh and led us onward.<
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  Beyond the fire pit I saw where blocks of white stone had been set in the sand with carved, wooden cannons placed upon them, each cannon set several feet apart from the ones next to it. Edward the woodworker had gone on ahead and was now fussing over the guns while Claude and Mr. Smith watched. The two noticed us and walked over, Mr. Smith saying in his deep rumble, “All’s in readiness.”

  Captain Hawkins asked, “Which are mine and which are Haven’s?”

  “The five on ze left belong to us,” Claude answered, “as do two of those on ze right...if you agree to a change of plans.”

  Captain Hawkins raised his eyebrows, but only said, “I’m listening.”

  Mr. Smith’s deep voice rumbled, “We take the two and transmute them at our leisure while Jade takes her remaining strength and transmutes the Artifact weapons Edward has started on, and will have finished in a few days.”

  Captain Hawkins growled, “The longer we sit here the easier it is for our enemies to hunt us down.”

  “We need the edge those weapons will give us,” Mr. Smith argued. “Isaac wants our old weapons as a defense in case the natives attack and the French sharpshooters would give their eyeteeth for new muskets. We also need to run gun drills, since the crew’s out of practice and needs to be retrained.” He glanced at the Frenchman then back at Captain Hawkins. “This morning Claude and I had a frank discussion and he’s with us...at least as long as you remain captain.”

  “I want what my cousin Jean wants,” Claude said quietly, “but not his way. There is a road back to our place in ze court of ze duke of Anjou, but I would not take it at ze expense of ze man who gave us shelter.”