Where Loyalties Lie (Best Laid Plans Book 1)

by Rob J. Hayes

  Morley stayed behind as some pirates jumped to their duties and others showed townsfolk to the hold. “Drake Morrass?” he said.

  “Temporary arrangement,” Keelin assured him. “Yanic’s dead.”

  “What?” Morley’s expression was caught between anger and sorrow. “How?”

  “You saw that ship explode? He was a little too close when it went up. That makes you first mate now, Morley.”

  “Aye.”

  “We gonna need a new quartermaster,” Smithe said, still lingering nearby.

  Keelin shot the man a glare. “Aye. It can wait though. Right now we need to get ready to leave. Sev’relain doesn’t have long left and I don’t want to be here when Sarth sails round from the other side of the island.”

  There were people in the water, boats in the water, hastily rigged-together rafts in the water, and all were heading towards The Phoenix or the Fortune. Keelin couldn’t tell if Drake had made it back to his ship, but they appeared to be taking on townsfolk all the same. Much of Sev’relain was on fire now. As the afternoon light waned it became more and more apparent that the invaders intended to torch the whole town. Ash and smoke drifted into the sky, and the sounds of fighting were all but lost among the sounds of people dying.

  The second longboat bumped against the hull, and Keelin’s crew set about helping people up onto the deck. Some of those in the water, the stronger swimmers, were arriving too. Before long the ship would be full of those who had no home and no use aboard a pirate boat.

  Keelin was just about to order the first dinghy back to pick up more townsfolk when soldiers appeared on the docks. There was little in the way of resistance, and they showed no mercy, sparing neither man, woman, nor child. Keelin was more than acquainted with the sight of death, but he felt a little sick to his stomach as he watched the massacre unfold on the beach and piers.

  A few enterprising soldiers pulled out bows and began arcing arrows out onto the water. They were too far away to pose any threat to The Phoenix, but the men found their range and one of the boats heading Keelin’s way took a couple of shafts. Fresh screams drifted out over the water.

  “Poor bastards are little more than target practice,” Keelin said, more to himself than anyone within earshot.

  “I can help there,” Kebble Salt said from nearby. The man unshouldered his rifle and pointed it towards the beach. There was a flash of light and a noise like thunder, and one of the soldiers was thrown to the ground. He lay there, writhing.

  “Wind is coming in from the east,” Kebble said as he brought his rifle down and started reloading. “Only winged him.”

  Keelin plucked his monoscope from his belt and looked down towards the three soldiers with their bows. One was on the sand, struggling to crawl away, but the other two were still loosing arrows into the water. Keelin heard another bang from Kebble’s rifle and another of the soldiers dropped, but this one didn’t move after he hit the sand. The third soldier took note of his two fallen comrades and fled.

  “Impressive,” Keelin said.

  “Thank you.” Kebble was already reloading his rifle.

  “Keep an eye on the beach. Cover those poor bastards as best you can.”

  “Aye.”

  Another boat bumped against the hull of the ship; more and more people were arriving. Keelin’s crew were doing their best to get as many of them up on deck as possible. There were still some folk jumping into the water from the piers back in Sev’relain, but the Sarth soldiers were busy murdering by the hundreds and no more boats would make it off the beach.

  Only The Phoenix and the Fortune were left in the bay. The other ships – and Keelin remembered there had been a few – hadn’t bothered to take on refugees; they’d fled at the first sign of trouble. Keelin hated to admit it, but he would have joined them if not for Drake’s insistence on helping the folk of Sev’relain. It would, however, take more than one good deed for him to rethink his low opinion of the captain.

  Something caught Keelin’s eye, a woman being plucked from the bay and dragged up onto the deck of The Phoenix. She was soaked to her skin from the swim and looked caught between terror and misery, but she was still beautiful to his eyes. It was the serving girl from the tavern, and Keelin found himself staring at her and smiling. He quickly wiped the smile from his face, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Feather moved over to her, no doubt to steer her down into the hold where they would be keeping the refugees. She started to follow the young pirate, keeping her arms held tightly across her chest. Keelin had a brief internal war with his better judgement – he won.

  “Feather,” Keelin shouted even as he realised that what he was about to do was a bad idea. “Put that one in my cabin.”

  “Um… aye, Cap’n,” the lad said, and changed direction.

  The woman looked no more or less alarmed than before; she didn’t even appear to notice she was being taken to the cabin of the captain of a pirate ship. Keelin had seen shock lock people down before; sometimes they became little more than living dolls, but most seemed to snap out of it given enough time. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to consider the woman’s mental health right now, what with a town burning to ash just a short distance away and plenty more survivors wanting rescuing.

  Keelin saw the Fortune turn across the bay and her sails billow with the wind. Drake – assuming he had made it to his ship – was leaving even though there were people still in the water. The Phoenix was filling up fast, and if they took on many more mouths they simply wouldn’t have the supplies to save any of them.

  “Haul anchor!” Keelin shouted over the noise of the people on his deck. “Get some sail on and put us after the Fortune.” Pirates jumped to his orders in an instant, leaving the refugees on deck unsure of where to go.

  Morley took up the orders and began putting the ship and her crew in motion while Keelin moved aft to watch Port Sev’relain’s death throes. There were still people in the water, dozens of them, screaming for help even as The Phoenix picked up speed and left them behind. Some might make it back to the island, hide from the soldiers and survive until it was over, but most would either drown or swim back to shore only to be murdered on the beach.

  Once, long ago, Keelin had fancied himself a champion of the people. He would have done anything, sacrificed his ship and crew, in order to save those people. But that was long ago, and things were different now. He turned away from the burning spectacle of Port Sev’relain and focused instead on the ship and captain he was now following.

  Chapter 12 - Fortune

  Drake was furious. He’d spent years practising the art of schooling his appearance so that his true emotions didn’t show, so that the world only saw the man he wanted them to see, but that didn’t stop him from feeling – and right now he was feeling furious.

  Losing Sev’relain had most definitely not been part of the plan. It was supposed to be the beginning of his rise, the centre of his empire, the heart of the Pirate Isles. Now it was nothing more than ash and ghosts, and the isles already had more than its fair share of the latter.

  The men mourned, some of them for a town that had been good to them and better over the years, and some for the few who hadn’t made it back to the Fortune, either lost amidst the chaos or in the brief and ill-fated resistance the pirates had given the soldiers of Sarth.

  Drake had known Black Sands would fall long before the Sarth Man of War even set sail from its home in the Holy Empire. The Oracle had told him it needed to happen, so Drake had arranged it. But the loss of Sev’relain was more than a shock.

  “There’s a boat being lowered from The Phoenix, Cap’n,” said Princess. “Reckon that ponce, Stillwater, means to come aboard.”

  “Stow it, Princess,” Drake said quietly.

  “Your words, Cap’n.”

  “Stillwater saved a lot of lives back there,” Drake continued. “Most other captains fled. The man has earned some respect at least.”

  “Aye. Well, him and his respectable ars
e are headed over here, by the looks.”

  “Show him to my cabin.”

  Drake turned, ignoring any further response, and leapt down to the foredeck, crossing the space to his cabin quickly and sparing barely a glance for the refugees from Sev’relain littering his ship’s deck.

  It was early morning, with a brilliant sun just starting to peek over the horizon, and both ships were floating in languid waters just a stone’s throw from each other. Stillwater would no doubt want to know what happens next, and where they should take the refugees. The truth was that Drake didn’t have so much as an inkling, and that angered him even more than the loss of Sev’relain.

  Beck was waiting for Drake in his cabin. Despite his fury over the burning of his town and the murder of his people, Drake found himself aroused by the sight of the woman. Unfortunately, as he knew full well, women like the Arbiter couldn’t be confronted directly. He would need to be very careful in his approach, and she was definitely the type who needed to feel as though it were her choice.

  “The fuck are you doing in here?” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Preparing,” the Arbiter said casually, tilting her head just for a moment to look at Drake from underneath her hat. “When I accepted this assignment I believed you would be the target of an assassination attempt by heretical forces. I now believe that may not be the case, and I find myself unprepared for the task. Also, I can’t get the smell of peppermint out of Princess’ cabin.”

  “Aye. He uses it to wash his hair. Don’t tell the rest of the crew though, eh. We got company coming, so how about you fuck off for a bit.”

  “The captain of the other ship.”

  “Aye.”

  “I killed for you, Captain Morrass,” the Arbiter said. She was using Drake’s ink, pen, and paper to draw an intricate design Drake didn’t recognise, though he guessed it to be a magical rune. “Four men of Sarth died at my hands back in that shit hole you called a town, and you still don’t trust me?” Her compulsion failed to take hold of Drake’s will yet again.

  “If all you had to do to earn my trust was end a couple of lives, the list would be very long and I would be very dead, Arbiter. Stay if you fancy. You might not like what you hear.”

  The Arbiter said nothing, nor did she show any sign of moving. Drake refused to show his frustration and instead decided to pour himself a drink. By the time the door to his cabin opened he was staring out of the window at the fathomless blue. Even in the roughest of waters, Drake found that the sight of the deep sea beneath him calmed him enough to let him collect his thoughts – and at that moment they truly needed collecting.

  “Good to see you survived, Drake,” Stillwater said as Drake turned to greet his fellow captain. Two men from Stillwater’s ship flanked him, and one of them looked suspiciously like one of Loke’s guards.

  “Just a day ago I reckon you’d have been just as happy to see I hadn’t,” Drake replied with a grin. He was starting to feel a little more like himself again, now he had a deck beneath him and a drink in hand.

  “Just a day ago I hadn’t watched Sev’relain burn to the ground.” Stillwater’s voice sounded so heavy with grief Drake wondered who the man had lost in the massacre. “We got a problem.” Stillwater seated himself in the single remaining chair.

  “Who are they?” Drake waved a hand at the two men behind the other captain.

  “Morley is my first mate, Kebble is my new shadow. You got another cup of that?”

  Drake took a mug from the cupboard and placed it on the desk along with the bottle of rum.

  “Is she trustworthy?” Stillwater said as he poured himself a drink.

  Drake glanced at Beck, who appeared to be paying the whole conversation little to no attention. “More than less.”

  “Well, we brought sixty-seven refugees on board, Drake.”

  “Eighty-two,” Drake said with a grimace.

  “Our supplies can’t support that many,” Stillwater continued. “We didn’t exactly have time to take any on in Sev’relain, and my crew have to eat first.”

  “We’re gonna be stretched a little thin our own selves.”

  “There’s only one port close enough so that me and mine won’t starve.”

  “Fango ain’t an option,” Drake said through gritted teeth.

  “It is for me.”

  An oppressive silence settled upon the room and all eyes turned towards Drake. He felt a burning anger in the pit of his stomach, and it took all the self control he could muster not to round the desk and put a dagger in the ungrateful bastard of a captain’s eye.

  “You siding with Tanner, Stillwater?”

  “I ain’t siding with anyone,” Stillwater objected. “Didn’t even realise it had come down to choosing. Fango is the only settlement near enough that our supplies won’t run dry, and it’s damn near unassailable. Those bastards from Sarth wouldn’t stand a chance against the jungle. You really want to save those people we plucked out of that massacre, then Fango is the only real option.”

  Drake considered his options carefully. It wasn’t that he agreed with his fellow captain, but more that the Oracle had told him he needed Stillwater on his side – and this sure as all the Hells felt like a moment he could lose the man. After all the trouble Drake had been through arranging Stillwater’s beating and subsequent saving just so he’d believe he owed him a favour, losing him now wasn’t an option.

  “Back there, before the attack, you asked me what I was getting out of helping the folk of the isles. I intend to be exactly what we all need to save us from those bastards who want to wipe us out. I intend to be king.”

  Drake would have liked Stillwater to be shocked at the idea, or at least angry. At that point Drake would have settled for an indication that his fellow captain had even heard him, but Stillwater remained still and stony.

  “Wish I could say I was surprised, Drake,” he said eventually with a shake of his head. “Last time pirates had themselves a king it caused the exact thing you’re wanting to stop – a purge. Do you really think what we need now is to give you a crown and piss off Sarth even more? We need to run. Hide. Lay low until they get bored of burning towns, and then come back and resettle.”

  “You’re a fucking coward, Stillwater,” Drake said with more scorn than he intended. He was starting to wonder why the Oracle had insisted he needed such a spineless cur. “Your plan is to run away and hide? Let Sarth murder thousands of people, most of whom never done a day’s pirating in their lives.

  “They’re after us, not the folk of Black Sands or Sev’relain. Just, the easiest way to get to us is through them. It’s because of us Sarth is out here, and it’s because of us the folk of Sev’relain are dead. I ain’t about to run away from a fight we started.”

  “Are you trying to save the folk of the isles because they deserve to be saved or because you can’t be king of a sea of corpses?” Keelin said.

  “What does it matter? As long as they get saved.”

  Stillwater stood slowly, holding Drake’s gaze all the while. “I’m no coward, Morrass. I just know a fight I can’t win, whether I helped to start it or not. We’re pirates, not soldiers. We can’t beat Sarth.”

  “Aye, we’re pirates and sailors. Maybe we couldn’t beat them on the land, but we sure as Rin’s wrath can beat them here on the sea. The Pirate Isles has the largest navy in the known world, Stillwater; they just don’t know that’s what they are yet. We pull all the captains together into one force, ally them under me, and crush the bastards looking to murder us all.”

  “Then what?” Stillwater said, still staring right at Drake. “You said yourself, they’re killing us because there’s too many of us. So we unite under your flag and beat them back and keep pirating, and how long till they stop sailing ships through our waters?”

  Drake picked up the bottle of rum and refilled his glass. “Why did you turn pirate, Stillwater? Fancy bastard like you weren’t born in the isles. Reckon you were Acanthian, maybe? Me
rchant’s son or some such? Fell in love with the romance of piracy and joined up on a crew?”

  “Tanner Black’s crew,” Stillwater said through clenched teeth.

  “Aye, bet the romance wore pretty thin pretty quick under that bastard, though fucking that daughter of his probably helped. But you kept on with it, stole yourself your own ship and set yourself up as captain. So why are you still a pirate? Romance has worn off, so… what? You enjoy chasing folk down and killing them for what’s theirs?”

  “No! I ain’t Tanner Black.”

  “No. I reckon you enjoy the freedom. Sailing the waters to your own schedule and course. Not relying on anyone not on your ship. Every captain is a king of their own vessel, eh? Freedom.”

  “What’s your point, Drake?”

  “We beat back Sarth and the Five Kingdoms and any other fucker wants to have a go at us, and then we change the way we pirate them all.”

  “Huh?”

  “Taxes, Stillwater. We let folk travel our waters unmolested, but in return they pay us for the privilege of that protection. Anyone doesn’t pay gets robbed blind. Works out best for us all. Unless you’re in it for the killing?”

  “Tanner is. He’ll never agree to it.”

  “Tanner will be dealt with in time. Right now, Stillwater, I want to know if you’re in.”

  Stillwater opened his mouth, then slowly shut it again.

  “Still get to be free, Captain,” Drake continued. “Still get to sail where you will, just without the danger of the fight to take the ships. Still answer to yourself.”

  “And to you. To your rule.”

  Drake snorted out a laugh. “My rule ain’t shit. King in name only, for the most at least. Truth of it is, pirates rule themselves. Remember, every captain is king of his own ship.”

  A loud banging on the door interrupted Stillwater even as he opened his mouth to retort. Before Drake could speak, the door burst open and one of his men, an old pirate by the name of Link, pointed towards the window.