by Greg Weisman
“I was angry. I didn’t mean it.” He coughed.
“Bad magic,” said Cackle.
Choking on the bit of half-chewed jerky, Aram woke from his dream, coughing. He hacked up the wad of smoked meat and spit it out onto the floor. He could hardly believe he’d fallen asleep. With the ship on the verge of attack, he’d fallen asleep!
It was only then he heard it, or only then he became aware of it. Up on the deck. Shouting. The clash of swords. And light, light from above. Torches—or something—was burning, despite Greydon’s orders.
The ship wasn’t on the verge of attack. It was under attack.
Give the boy credit; he could have remained hidden below. But Aramar rushed topside just in time to witness the death of Cassius Meeks. A huge creature—eight feet tall, at least, and wielding a mace where his right hand should be—had, with one blow, ended Meeks’s life. The deckhand’s body collapsed at Aram’s feet. Aram stared, first at poor Cassius and then up at the creature. Though Aram had never seen one in person before, he instantly realized it was an ogre—all bulk and muscle with huge rounded ears, ruddy skin, two tusk-like lower incisors, and a horn in the center of his forehead. The ogre could have taken a single step to his right and turned on Aram next, but instead he stepped to his left, swinging his mace-hand at Desamir Ferrar, who barely dodged the blow.
Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.
Aram’s eyes could hardly have been open any wider, but his wits had all but fled his body, presumably in search of safer climes. He stumbled back a few steps away from Meeks’s last ghastly staring smile. Then his eyes swept the deck. He saw One-God, a cutlass in one hand and an iron crow in the other, crashing like a wave through the mostly human pirates besieging Wavestrider. Mostly human. A female troll—six feet tall, with long hair, long pointed ears, orange-gold skin, and her own small tusks—wore strange undulating armor. She raised twin crossbows and peppered Thom Frakes with a bolt from each. He was slammed back against the half-open door to the officers’ cabin. It gave way, and he fell backward through it and out of sight—as if departing the battle to take a little nap in an officer’s bunk.
Frakes’s “departure” chilled Aram to the bone. But there was little time to dwell on any single gruesome image. All the sights before Aram were quite as grim—but not all quite as unwelcome. Mary Brown ran a brigand through with her cutlass. The two O’Donagal brothers both did the same. The gnome Burnwick swung two short-handled axes, wounding one screaming pirate, who doubled over, allowing the gnome to end the noise with a second strike.
Then there was Silent Joe. Aramar had known Joe was a worgen, but knowing and seeing were two entirely different things. He witnessed Wavestrider’s third mate transform before his eyes. Fur covered Joe’s body, and his face extended into a toothy snout, as he increased in mass to become a terrifying wolf-like beast that tore through the enemy with claw and fang.
Wavestrider’s second mate was no less destructive. Makasa slashed with her cutlass, threw her harpoon—pinning a squirming enemy to the foremast until he slumped and was still—and with her now free hand unleashed the length of iron chain against two more invaders. A pirate rushed her from the left. Aram wanted to shout a warning, but—as usual in moments of crisis—no sound came forth. Makasa turned, exposing her back to the pirate. Aram watched in paralyzed horror as the villain’s sword came down—only to see it blocked by a shrug of the shield she wore on her back. Then the length of chain swung around and shattered the man’s stunned expression. He dropped.
Aram watched Makasa slide her cutlass through her belt to free her hand. He watched her stride forward two paces, yank her harpoon from the dead man on the foremast, and slash the weapon toward another foe.
And then Aram’s eyes found his father. Greydon Thorne was on the forecastle, taking down any and all invaders within reach. Wavestrider’s captain was an artist with his cutlass and seemed nearly as strong as the worgen Joe. Not one pirate he faced could stand against him. Aram had once seen his father triumph in a tavern brawl, but that had been child’s play next to this. Greydon Thorne was unstoppable, and Aram suddenly realized just how much his father had held back during their training sessions. Aram couldn’t help feeling impressed—even proud—of his father. Though their eyes never even met, Greydon’s agency somehow awoke the boy’s own. Suddenly, his cutlass was up, his wits had—more or less—returned, and he rushed forward to meet the enemy.
His timing could not have been worse.
More pirates had been attempting to board the Wavestrider from the tar-ship lashed to its side. Those two mighty oaks, ship’s carpenter Anselm Yewtree and ship’s blacksmith Mordis Ironwood, were successfully stemming the tide. Then Yewtree reared back silently—a black shale dagger stuck in his throat—and the Whisper-Man boarded, wearing bone-spike shoulder armor over his familiar dark cloak. He relieved the carpenter of the dagger before the man could drop. Ironwood turned, swinging a crushing blow with his hammer that took the Whisper-Man’s left arm clean off. (There wasn’t even any blood!) But the Whisper-Man ignored the injury and ended the smith’s life with a single elegant swing of the black broadsword in the pirate’s remaining hand. Then, after sheathing his sword, the Whisper-Man calmly picked up his severed arm, which still clutched the shale dagger, and reattached it at the shoulder—before turning to face the oncoming Aramar Thorne.
Aram had already known that the Whisper-Man was an undead thing, one of the Forsaken. He had never heard of one who could instantly reattach a severed limb like this, but he tried to drive the thought of what he was facing from his horrified mind. In fact, Aram made a conscious effort not to hesitate against this strange spectral foe. He stabbed with his sword, which pierced the Whisper-Man—just below his sternum—sinking in a good inch and a half. In response, Aram’s foe grabbed hold of the blade and pulled it free of Aram’s hand by thrusting it deeper into the Whisper-Man’s own chest so that the tip of the blade popped out of his back. Then his hooded face leaned in close to the unarmed, terrified boy and cheerfully whispered with cold, fetid breath, overly scented with jasmine, “Apologies, young squire, for what I’m about to do. But I’m told you might still be of some use.”
He backslapped Aram hard.
Darkness.
Darkness, then suddenly …
The Light. The Light was so bright. The Voice of the Light called out to the heart of the boy, to the locus of sympathy in the center of Aramar’s chest: “Aram, Aram, it is you who must save me …” But Aramar Thorne turned away from the Light.
Darkness.
Darkness, then gradually …
Cacophony: screams and the sound of fire, the clash of metal on metal, the horrible squish of steel through flesh. Dim light. The taste of blood and iron. Screams.
Dazed and bleeding from a cut lip, Aram blinked his way back to consciousness. The Whisper-Man’s single blow had caused him to black out briefly and slide across the deck.
He struggled to get to his feet but couldn’t immediately communicate this instruction to his legs. Nor was he able to quite focus his eyes. He thought he saw the Whisper-Man turn back toward the tar-ship, yank the cutlass out of his chest, and signal with it. He thought he saw a tall, powerful man—almost as big and broad as a worgen—come aboard. He thought that maybe the Whisper-Man bowed slightly to this man, acknowledging him as his leader.
But that couldn’t be. The Whisper-Man in service to another? What man could command that monster?
Aram’s head finally cleared as a result of this new player turning from the Whisper-Man to pull someone else aboard with him. He shoved Old Cobb forward and shouted at him to earn his keep. Cobb’s white head bobbed abjectly. “Aye, aye, Captain,” the traitor said, before disappearing into the melee, allowing Aram to truly focus with clear eyes on the pirates’ leader. Though Aram had never seen the man before, there was nevertheless something familiar about him. Something in the determined expression, in the bushy black eyebrows and the muscular gait. This pirate c
aptain wasn’t simply tall and broad—he was … commanding. He instantly took possession of the battlefield, killing Colin and Ainsley O’Donagal with one swing of his massive broadsword. Aram wanted to mourn the brothers but there didn’t seem to be enough time. The pirate captain’s presence was already turning the tide—even before he shouted at the ogre in a loud baritone, “Throgg! Stop wasting your time on these saltbeards and take the mast!”
That command certainly got the ogre’s attention. He responded with a deep but chastened, “Yes, Captain!”
But the ogre wasn’t the only one to take note. Up on the forecastle, Greydon Thorne heard the voice of his opposite number and turned to confirm with his eyes what his ears had already revealed. Aram saw recognition in his father’s face. Recognition and … fear. Actual, genuine fear of the pirate captain—which did more to sink Aram’s spirits than the presence of the Whisper-Man, or the deaths of Cassius, Thom, and the rest, or the blow that had knocked him silly.
Still unable to find his footing, Aram did manage to roll over onto his hands and knees. His eyes found the ogre Throgg, who was in the process of unscrewing the mace from his wrist with slow and studied determination. He then placed it in an enormous quiver on his back. From the same receptacle, he pulled an axe, which he began screwing onto his stump with no apparent urgency whatsoever.
Greydon Thorne shouted, “Save the mast!”
The pirate captain turned at the sound of Greydon’s voice, and Aram saw a now familiar expression of recognition on the invader’s face as well. Recognition and … what was that smile? Delight? Aram shuddered involuntarily.
From various ends of the ship, Wavestrider’s captain and its three mates began fighting their way toward its center. The pirate captain moved to intercept Greydon Thorne, cutting his way through Schuyler Li and Black Max as if they were paper barriers, until Mary Brown and the worgen Silent Joe presented him with more of an obstacle—at least temporarily. The big man shouted past them, “I’ll get you yet, you mad fool! Your quest ends tonight!” Aram saw his father flinch slightly, but Greydon made no acknowledgment, returned no insult. Captain Thorne just kept fighting his way toward the ogre and the mast.
Aram looked around for a new weapon. For good or ill, one wasn’t hard to find. The swords of dead friends and pirates were scattered everywhere. He pried the closest cutlass from the tight fist of a slain raider and finally managed to stand, as the pirate captain shouted, “Don’t let anyone throw anything overboard, or I swear I’ll have your heads, you rogues!”
He heard and then saw the thunking toil of the ogre Throgg, who had finished attaching his axe-hand and was now using it to chop diligently away at the mainmast. Mose Canton sprang forward to stop him, but the Whisper-Man put his black sword through the quartermaster’s back.
Greydon Thorne also heard the sound of axe on wood, and—cut off from the ogre by a trio of pirates—shouted, “Blast it! Save the mast!”
But the pirate captain, the Whisper-Man, and the troll created a perimeter around the ogre, and none was able to get past them to preserve Wavestrider’s spine.
Aram heard familiar cursing. It was Keelhaul Watt unleashing a torrent of expletives against his favorite target: Old Cobb. The cook was chasing Keely in circles round the mizzenmast. Both were armed with cutlasses, but Keely seemed to be attempting to kill Cobb either via vitriol or exhaustion.
In that moment, Aram was more furious than afraid. All this carnage, all this death—it was all the old man’s fault. He had betrayed his ship, his crew, his captain! Jonas Cobb had betrayed Greydon Thorne, a man who made it a point of pride to find the good in everyone and everything. And Cobb had basically stabbed Aram’s father in the back.
Aram attacked, but Old Cobb easily parried Aram’s first strike and went on the offensive, apparently pleased to be facing a young adversary who wasn’t running him ragged. The old man was surprisingly strong and nimble. It was all Aram could do to prevent the white-haired saltbeard from taking his head or running him through. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that if Cobb was giving Aram this much trouble, then his father must have truly been going easy on him during all their daily lessons.
Keely rushed to Aram’s aid, but the cook’s assistant made the mistake of alerting his former master with a loud stream of invective. Cobb wheeled about and met Keely’s advance with the point of his sword. Keely cursed Cobb one last time before falling to his knees and then onto his face, where he lay unmoving and silent.
A furious Aram redoubled his attack, hacking and slashing at the old man, and actually succeeded in driving him back a step or two. But Cobb recovered quickly, and Aram shortly found himself with nowhere to go, his back against the portside rail. He parried strike after strike, but each time Cobb seemed that much more likely to land a blow.
As something of a last resort, to throw Old Cobb off his fairly impressive game, Aram shouted, “Why?! Why did you do it?!”
But Cobb didn’t seem bothered by the question. He growled, not unhappily, “Brainless boy, ’twas gonna be done whether I helped or no! Had t’pick a side, ’n I picked the one t’would save me skin!” The old man’s cutlass caught the edge of Aram’s weapon. Cobb whipped his sword in a tight circle and before Aram could blink, his found cutlass was lost—torn from his grip.
Cobb grinned as he leveled his weapon at Aram’s throat, saying, “Course, Captain Malus’s promise of a triple share didn’t hurt, neither!” Malus, Aram thought. The pirate captain’s name was Malus. It suited him a little too well for Aram’s taste, particularly since it was likely the last name Aram would ever hear.
Cobb raised his sword to strike … when both opponents heard a final thunk of Throgg’s axe and one loud crack. In grim unison, both turned to look up. The mainmast was timbering down right on top of them. Aram dove aside. But Cobb just managed to squeak out one of Keely Watt’s favorite words before the thick spar smashed through the old cook’s bones.
The whole boat shook. A pirate dropped a torch. Aram, back on hands and knees, was once again prying a cutlass from a dead man’s hand. He looked up in time to see Throgg the ogre grinning at his achievement while the battle raged on all around him.
Malus, the pirate captain, had brought Mary Brown low but was still fighting the worgen Joe and now another of Wavestrider’s deckhands—thin, tall, and heavily freckled Crispus Trent. Glancing around, Malus shouted, “Where’s their captain? I’ve lost sight of that madman!” No one answered, certainly not the “madman” himself, who was busy carving up another brace of pirates.
Furious, Malus took his anger out on the ogre: “Don’t look so blasted proud of yourself. There are still men to kill.” And as if to prove his point, he ran his sword through Crispus Trent.
The ogre looked disappointed, like a child whose father didn’t appreciate his son’s mud pie. The troll crossed in front of him while reloading a crossbow. She said, “If you be waitin’ on praise from dat one, you gonna wait ’til doomsday. Might as well be gettin’ ta work.”
Grunting his acknowledgment of these basic facts, Throgg nodded once and swung his axe at Greydon Thorne, who had only just achieved the mast—too late to do it any service. Thorne ducked under the ogre’s swing, put his back to the mast’s stump, and kicked out with both feet. The ogre was caught off-balance and stumbled back a few paces, giving One-God the chance to smash his crowbar across the brute’s neck. The blow seemed to anger more than injure the creature; he roared and attacked. One-God parried the ogre’s axe-hand and shouted to Greydon, “Go! I’ve got this!”
So Greydon Thorne rushed toward his true target: his son, Aramar Thorne.
Captain Thorne grabbed the front of Aram’s sweater and pulled him portside and aft. He glanced over his shoulder. The immense Throgg was driving the diminutive One-God farther away. The worgen Joe—now with the aid of Burnwick the gnome—was still attempting to keep Malus busy, but Makasa was advancing, slicing her way through one pirate after another. Greydon called, “Flintwill!”
She glanced his way, nodded curtly, and continued her advance.
Greydon pulled Aram over to the ship’s dinghy. Then he looked his son in the eye and said, “Without the mast, the battle’s lost.” Aram didn’t hear even a hint of defeat in his father’s voice—just the cold, hard truth.
Still Aram felt the need to offer reassurance: “We can still fight. Beat them. Limp to shore. We’ve got two masts left.”
Greydon didn’t even bother shaking his head. He quickly shed his old worn leather coat and placed it over his son’s shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Aram demanded.
His father’s only reply was to pull the gold chain and compass out from beneath his shirt. He lifted them over his head and then placed them around Aram’s neck. “Protect this compass at all costs,” he said.
“The compass? I—I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t have time to explain. I’m sorry. So sorry. For everything. But know that this will lead you where you need to go!”
Aram glanced around. There seemed to be so few of them left. It felt as if all he could make out clearly were the Whisper-Man’s shale dagger, the axe-hand of Throgg, the troll’s crossbows, and Malus’s sword.
Makasa, bloody from head to toe—and not a drop of it hers—materialized at Greydon’s side. “Captain?”
He turned to look Makasa in the eye. “Protect my son at all costs. Now, both of you, into the dinghy.”
Makasa took a second to register what he was saying, then immediately balked. “Captain, no! You need me here!” Gaining no purchase, she changed tack. “If someone has to go with the boy, let it be you. One-God and I will recover the ship and find you!”
“I can’t go, Makasa, or these so-called pirates would follow.” He looked from her to Aram and back. “There’s more at stake than either of you realize. Now get in the blasted boat! That’s an order, Makasa! That’s your life debt!”