by Rob J. Hayes
“Need a rest?” Drake said, attempting to sound smug and failing utterly as he stumbled over yet another hidden root. The tree it belonged to mocked him by looming up high to his left and disappearing into the dense canopy above.
“No.” Drake could hear the strain in Beck’s voice. “Do you?”
Drake attempted to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “I can go all day, Arbiter.”
“Wonderful. I can go for two.”
The jungle seemed to close in on Drake, moving both further away and closer all at once. He closed his eyes to avoid the wave of vertigo, but it was no use, and he felt his balance go. Remembering something his old captain had once said, long before Drake became master of his own ship, he let his knees buckle rather than take the full fall on his face. He didn’t even feel the impact.
When Drake opened his eyes the forest was dimmer and the air felt cooler. He didn’t remember lying down, but he was definitely on his side now, staring ahead into the darkening jungle. It seemed to stretch on forever. With a groan that sounded loud in the silence, Drake pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around for Beck. He found her splayed out on the forest floor, not moving.
It took a monumental feat of effort for Drake to attain his feet, yet he managed it. There was a strange sense of stillness in the air, and breaking that stillness by moving felt wrong, almost as if the only correct action would be to lie back down and sleep forever. He stumbled over to where Beck had fallen. It took only a moment to confirm she was still alive; he could see her lips were just slightly apart, and her chest rose and fell with each shallow breath.
A line of ants, the only things still moving as far as Drake could see, had made a path over her right hand and were busy collecting leaf debris. Beck’s hat had fallen away, and her hair spilled out around her head, creating a golden halo – even if it was playing host to all manner of dirt and dead leaves. She looked so peaceful and serene that Drake didn’t want to disturb her; in fact, all he really wanted was to lie down next to her and join her in oblivion. Before he knew what he was doing, he was down on his knees and getting ready to do just that.
A thought occurred to Drake then. If he was going to lie down and drift away into nothing with this woman, he at least wanted to taste her first. With a gentleness the pirate captain had never known he possessed, he bent down over Beck’s face and placed his own lips to hers. A moment later she kissed him back.
Slowly Beck’s eyes fluttered open, and her icy blues locked gazes with Drake’s emerald greens. It was at that moment that he realised he was poking her in the leg, just as something equally as hard, but ultimately more dangerous, poked him in the stomach.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Beck murmured drowsily as she detached her lips from his. He felt her compulsion wash over him, and even though his will escaped hers as it always did, the fact that she was holding him at gunpoint compelled him to answer truthfully.
“Kissing you.” He smiled.
“Why am I on the ground?” Beck said, as if she’d only just noticed that she was horizontal. She shoved Drake away and sat up quickly; a moment later her eyes went vacant and she collapsed backwards.
“What did you do to me?” Her voice sounded far away, dreamy.
“Ain’t me. There’s something in the forest. Magic, I reckon.” Drake was finding it hard to concentrate. The only reason he wasn’t lying right next to Beck was that he wanted to be lying on top of her, and even with his head feeling as fuzzy as it did, he didn’t think she’d let him without her pistol going off.
“Mhm.” The soft noise escaped Beck’s lips even as her eyes closed again and her hand dropped, the pistol spilling from her grasp. “Magic.” Even though his head felt as if it were full of sea foam, Drake saw his chance and seized it. He swung one leg over Beck’s body and pulled his other one close, straddling her.
There were more ants now; the forest floor almost seemed alive with them. They were running over Beck’s arms and hands and leaving little red footprints there. As Drake bent in closer to look, he realised it was blood. Her blood. The little ants were slowly eating her alive as she lay in a stupor. It should have been horrifying, Drake knew, but he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to care. All he really wanted to do was lie down, and it all just seemed as if it were happening to someone else.
With the last remnants of consciousness, Drake raised his one good arm and brought it swinging down, slapping Beck hard across the face just before his eyes closed again and he embraced the darkness.
Chapter 24 - The Phoenix
“Should we keep going or stop?” said the bare-chested pirate, one of Drake’s men.
Keelin thought about it, and came up with no good answer. With Drake and his Arbiter dog missing – it had been hours and more since they’d walked into the jungle, and neither of them had been seen since – it appeared that everybody accepted Keelin as in charge of the entire colonisation. Unfortunately, there were decisions to be made, and Keelin had no idea what the correct choices were.
The light, or the rapidly approaching lack of it, was the problem. They’d so far combed significantly less than half of the beach in an attempt to wipe out the monsters, and that left a whole lot more sand for them to hide beneath. If they kept going in the waning light, the teams would need torches to see, and even with those the task would be more dangerous. However, if they stopped now, there was no guaranteeing the creatures wouldn’t move around beneath the surface during the night, and then the pirates would have to start the task all over again.
Keelin mulled over the choice while those close by waited for him to make the decision. That nobody else offered an opinion only served to further indicate how impossible a choice it really was.
“Pull the teams back,” he said. “We’ll set up a camp just above the high tide line and surround it with torches. Send half the teams back to the ships for the night; no need to keep everyone here.”
“Why keep anyone here?” Smithe asked with a sneer.
“Because Drake might come back tonight, and if he does I want somewhere on the beach he can aim towards.”
“Aye,” agreed the bare-chested pirate. “Cap’n could come back.” It was almost a dare for Smithe to disagree, and Keelin truly hoped his quartermaster would. There was no easy way for Keelin to rid himself of the antagonistic fool, but one of Drake’s crew stabbing him seemed a decent solution.
“Well done, Smithe.” Keelin smiled. “You’ve just volunteered to sit first watch. You two will sit it with him.” He pointed at the bare-chested pirate and another of Drake’s crew.
“Anything I can do to help?” Drake’s first mate said from his position by the cook fire.
“I want twenty men here on the beach, a mixture from both crews, and the rest sent back for the night. No rum for anyone staying and weapons close to hand all night. A line of torches leading up to the edge of the jungle wouldn’t go amiss either, placed in a line that’s already been combed. If Drake does make it back tonight I want him to be walking a safe path.”
“Done,” the man said as he stood up, the firelight gleaming off his milky white eye. “You’ll be staying yourself, I imagine.”
“Aye.”
“Good. I’ll be heading back to the Fortune. You be sure to signal if Drake does turn up during the night.”
“You don’t seem too worried about your missing captain,” Keelin said as the man made to walk away.
Drake’s first mate laughed. “Don’t reckon there’s enough deaths even here on Cinto Cena to keep Drake Morrass in the grave.”
Chapter 25 - Fortune
Drake’s eyes snapped open to reveal the concerned face of Arbiter Beck staring down at him. It was dark, the sort of dark one gets in a cage locked deep underground. The memory was more than a little disturbing, so Drake shook it away and focused on the woman watching him. There was rock behind her and the rhythmic sound of dripping water; it didn’t take long for Drake to realise they were in a cave.
&nbs
p; Opening his mouth to speak, Drake found his throat as dry as sun-baked sand and ended up coughing instead. A water skin appeared in front of him, and he reached for it instinctively. Beck moved away, leaving Drake staring at dark rock.
As he sipped at the water, Drake scoured his memory for how they could have ended up in a cave. The last thing he remembered was… ants. Ants and the thought of Beck naked. It seemed a strange combination of memories.
“Thank you,” Beck said from somewhere in the darkness.
“Eh?” Drake barely managed to mumble between swallows of water.
“You saved us both.”
Drake struggled into a sitting position and took note of all the aches and pains the movement caused; it seemed there wasn’t much of his body not currently bruised or battered. He could just about see a small figure sitting alone in the darkness, and he guessed it was Beck.
“Don’t remember saving anyone,” he protested, though a part of him disagreed and claimed that it must be true despite how unlikely it seemed. Drake Morrass never passed up credit for any feat.
“You managed to bring me out of my slumber long enough to realise it was magic causing us to sleep.” She sounded subdued. “Luckily the Inquisition teaches us counters to all sorts of things.” She waved her wrist in the darkness, and Drake thought he saw a bandage wrapped around it. He looked down at his own wrist and saw a similar strip of cloth. He held it up for closer inspection.
“As long as you’re wearing that you won’t be able to sleep,” Beck said. “I would not advise taking it off; I don’t have any others right now, and I’ve no way to fashion any more until we get back to the boat.”
Beck fell silent for a while. “I should have noticed it sooner. Too damned distracted. I…” She trailed off.
“What’s your name?” Drake asked the woman sitting in the darkness.
There was a significant silence before the answer came. “Beck.”
“Oh, I got that. Arbiter Beck, to use your full title, I’m sure. But that’s only one name. Strikes me I should know the other one.”
“I don’t have another name,” Beck said quickly. “I used to, I think, but I don’t remember it. Did you know the potential is passed down family lines, from parent to child? Though not all children are guaranteed to inherit it.”
“Aye,” Drake said, remembering his own mother. “I happen to know a little about that myself.” There was a moment of silence before Beck spoke again. Drake thanked Rin his little slip hadn’t piqued her curiosity.
“Well, it appears the potential can also show up in families who have no history of it. I started showing signs at maybe five years old. I don’t remember much from back then, but I know my parents were happy about it.”
“Happy about sending off one of their children to be a witch hunter? Feared and despised the world over? Seems unlikely.”
Beck let out a bitter laugh and leaned forwards. Drake could just about see the outline of her face in the darkness of the cave. Her eyes looked like dark voids.
“Careful, pirate,” she spat. “What we do in the service of Vol… our god is righteous. He knows the best course for this world, and we carry out his will. We are his eyes, ears, and left hand, and…”
“Spare me the zeal, Arbiter. I’d rather not get into another bout of ‘my god’s better than your god’. I ain’t saying I don’t believe in him, just that I don’t trust him.”
“Well, anyway. You might not believe it, but it’s a great honour for a noble family of Sarth to provide children to be trained as Arbiters. The Beck family is one of the oldest and noblest. Before me they had never had the chance to give a child to the Inquisition. When I was given, the instructors called me Beck, and the name stuck. I honestly cannot remember what my full name was before.
“What about you – is your real name Drake Morrass?”
Drake felt her compulsion wash over him; it was almost becoming comforting now. “Aye.”
“Really?”
“Aye. My ma named me. Said a special man needed a special name.”
Beck snorted in the darkness. “She called you a special man?”
“Of course she did. She had a gift, my ma. She could…” Drake stopped. It was common knowledge in the Inquisition that Hironous Vance’s mother had been a witch possessed of the sight. It was not, however, common knowledge that Drake’s mother was the very same witch, and it was something both he and Hironous wanted no one else to know.
“What type of gift?”
Drake had long ago learned that the best way to hide a lie was within the truth. Actually, his first lesson had been that the best way to hide a lie was with silence, but he had a feeling that if he fell silent, so would Beck, and he was enjoying listening to her.
“She could talk to Rin,” Drake said. “Actually, she was the one taught me to do it. Don’t know where she learned it from, but then there’s plenty most folk don’t know about their parents. When I popped out between her legs she used her own fluids to contact Rin, and asked her what my name should be.”
Beck laughed. “You’re really trying to sell me the story that you were named by a sea goddess?”
“Certainly seems that way, doesn’t it.” Drake laughed along with her, deciding some truths were too hard to swallow. He wondered if the woman would believe him if he told her that he and Hironous were brothers.
“I never realised you pirates were so religious.”
“Most pirates ain’t. There’s a big difference between religious and superstitious, Arbiter. Most pirates wouldn’t know a protective sign” – Drake held his right hand in the hook of Rin and crossed it from the left side of his chest to the right – “from a useless waving of the hand.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to make those signs on land,” Beck said, her voice a challenge.
“Well…” Drake shrugged. “I can get away with all sorts. Besides, we’re surrounded by rock on all sides here. She can’t see us. Can’t help us.”
“So she presides over all water?” The question sounded genuine enough, but Drake couldn’t forget the woman was loyal to Volmar, and he very much doubted Rin would be happy if he gave away all her secrets.
“Not all water. Her powers stretch to most large bodies, at least those connected to the sea in some way, but they’re strongest here around the isles. This is her domain. Her portion of the world.”
“And it just so happens that this is where you pirates built a home for yourselves. Also happens to be pretty close to the main trade routes running from Sarth to the Five Kingdoms. Not to mention, any ships from the Dragon Empire have to come close too, or trade only with Acanthia.”
“You think that’s a coincidence?” Drake snorted. “Your god does like to keep you in the dark. They’re only as powerful as the people worshipping them. Rin came to the isles because there have always been people here, living off the sea. Maybe once they weren’t even pirates, just fishers and traders. She made them believe, made them worship her. Now there ain’t a seaman worth his salt around the isles that don’t make regular tributes in her name to keep himself safe in her waters.”
“Your god would punish you for not giving her tributes? She sounds…”
“Harsh? Vengeful? Capricious?” Drake let out a laugh. “Aye, she is all of those things. Not quite your benevolent, forgiving god, eh? Though Rin never ordered her worshippers to wipe out an entire race, or enslave another, or burn folk alive.”
“Careful, Drake.”
“Just making a point.” Drake held up his hand to placate the angry Arbiter. After a few moments of silence he decided it was best to change the subject.
“So what are we doing hiding in this cave?”
“Waiting for you to wake up. After a while I wasn’t sure if you would, so I put a sleepless charm on you. The magic out there is… old, and strong. I couldn’t see the source of it. I don’t think it came from the ants; they were just capitalising on its effect.”
“Is it natural magic?”
“Not in your world, Arbiter. Your Inquisition spent most of its early years removing it. But here, out in the places where folk don’t usually tread, all sorts of old magic and beasties can be found.”
Beck was silent for a long time. “I think we should wait here until morning. It’s dark out there, and we could easily get lost or split up.”
Drake lay back down on the rock. It was uncomfortable at best, but he’d rested on far worse in his time. The Drurr did not treat their prisoners kindly.
“Didn’t think to bring any food, did you?” he asked without much hope.
“No.”
“Guess we’re gonna have a hungry night then.”
Chapter 26 - The Phoenix
The boats were already in the water by the time Keelin woke to find the first rays of daylight forcing themselves upon him. He’d personally sat two watches during the night – his and Smithe’s, for lack of trust in the man. Inadequate sleep, along with the anticipation of the day ahead, had the unfortunate effect of putting him in a mood which could only be described as grumpy. A boatload of folk were being shipped over from the Fortune and, just a few strokes behind them, another from The Phoenix. The Man of War floated in its anchorage, dwarfing both the other ships and making the bay look more than a little crowded. Keelin was still staring out towards the Sarth vessel, taking a much needed piss into the sea, when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Lost a man durin’ the night,” one of Drake’s pirates said. “Nilly stepped out fer a piss, just like ya doin’ now, an’ didn’t come back.”