by Geoff Rodkey
I saw the eyes of the pirates behind him narrow as one, their faces darkening.
The pistol stopped moving, its barrel pointed just short of the cook.
Healy extended his thumb over the cocked hammer.
It hovered there for an endless second.
Finally, he eased the hammer back and gently guided it down to rest against the pan. He dropped his arm.
“Top deck. Five minutes. All crew—”
He looked me in the eye.
“—and passengers.”
Then he was gone, striding into the gloom of the lower deck.
CHAPTER 3
Free Speech
THE FOUR OF US stood in the warm light of the setting sun, our backs against the wall beside the poop deck ladder. We looked out over the two hundred pirates who were crowded onto the deck’s waist, waiting for Healy to appear.
Kira had picked the spot. “It’s next to the captain’s cabin,” she pointed out. “And away from the rail. If they try to throw us overboard, we will see them coming. And there will be time for Healy to hear our screams.”
She was clever that way.
And now she was praying, turned away from us as she whispered to the sunset. It was a ritual she performed every morning and night, offering her devotion to the sun god, Ka. I didn’t know what the Okalu words meant, but I hoped she was asking for help.
We needed it. The one thing every man on that crew had in common—other than the small flame tattoo on the side of the neck that marked them as Healy men—was a simmering hatred of the four of us.
They were a motley bunch. Better than half were Rovian, but the rest were a mix of Mandars, Ildians, Gualos, a handful of tiny-eared Cartagers, and even some native Fingu. No two men wore the same clothes, just about everybody had at least one prominent scar, and quite a few were missing bits and pieces—rarely anything as major as an arm or a leg, but there were plenty of empty spaces where eyes, ears, and fingers should have been.
Many of their wounds were recent—wrapped in bandages stained copper brown with blood, and reminders of their part in the invasion of Pella Nonna that put Roger Pembroke in the palace where Li Homaya had once ruled.
They stood in silence, showing their usual cold-eyed seriousness. Growing up on Deadweather, I’d seen a lot of pirates. And if you stuffed any other group of a couple hundred of them into close quarters like this, there’d be chaos—laughter, yelling, fistfights, the occasional knife getting pulled . . .
Not Healy’s men. They were quiet as undertakers. Watching them, motionless even as they continued to shoot us murderous looks, it was clear that the only things keeping us alive were the Code and the captain who enforced it.
Which had Adonis even more terrified than the rest of us. He was sixteen, three years older than me and big enough to be a member of the crew in his own right. If the Code only protected children, and the cook was right that Adonis didn’t count as a child, he was in real trouble.
He whispered in my ear, his voice slurry from the punch he’d taken. It seemed to have rearranged some things in his mouth.
“What’s gonna happen? Healy gonna tell ’em to lay off?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen this before.”
The door to the captain’s cabin was to our right. As I answered Adonis, it opened.
Two hundred heads turned to watch Burn Healy step onto the deck, trailed by his hawklike first mate, Spiggs.
He took a few strides into the mass of men, which almost magically ebbed away from him in a perfect half circle.
Then he held up a small hourglass.
“Free speech, brothers,” he called out. “Five minutes.” He flipped over the hourglass and tucked it into his chest pocket.
A roar of angry voices broke over us as those killer stares turned into words, hurled in our direction with such force that I felt like I was being shoved back against the wall.
Kira was to my left. As the curses washed over us, her hand found mine and squeezed it tightly. I squeezed hers back. Guts was holding her other hand, his head bent down against the storm of words.
It’ll be okay. They follow a Code. He won’t let them hurt us.
I told myself that. But my body didn’t believe it. My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it in my ears.
Then, in an instant, the abuse stopped.
I looked up.
Healy had his hand in the air. “Specific complaints, brothers,” he said. “One at a time.”
He pointed to one of the pirates closest to him.
“Cost me my money!”
Then another. “Where’s our gold?!”
And another. “Left us broke!”
It was even worse than I’d thought. I had no idea we’d cost them money.
“What else besides the money?” Healy asked.
“Pulled our leave! ’Fore it even started!”
“Why’s them under the Code? Code’s fer captives! This bunch waltzed on like they’d bought a ticket! Get what they ask for, I say!”
“An’ this one”—a giant bear of a man jabbed at me with his finger—“prances round like ’e’s first mate!”
My cheeks burned hot. I’d never pranced in my life, as far as I knew.
Still pointing at me, the bear turned to Healy.
“Due respect, Cap—I been crewin’ this ship five years, never once spoke to ye without leave. This one here trots up an’ chats with ye like ye’s drinkin’ buddies in a pub!”
My legs were turning to jelly. And the rumbling fury was building again, so much so that Healy had to raise his hand a second time for quiet.
He pointed at a pirate in the middle of the crowd, a tall Mandar whose head was wrapped in a ragged bloodstained bandage.
“Ather,” Healy said. “Speak your piece.”
Ather’s voice was quieter than the others’. But he was no less angry.
“All I want’s what’s fair,” he said. “Lost an ear and half my scalp takin’ Pella. Buried three o’ me mates in the sand off that lagoon. We all fought willin’—’cause you an’ that Pembroke promised us two weeks’ leave and a fat sack of gold when the job was done. Well, I did my job—an’ what I got to show for it? No money. No leave. Out here in a sinkin’ ship waitin’ to be picked off by Short-Ear scum not fit to wipe me boots.”
He nodded in my direction, his voice dripping with disgust. “All ’cause this one needed savin’. What’s he to me? Code says I give up my life for this crew. An’ I would. But he ain’t crew. None of ’em are. Like to slit the whole lot of ’em open. Spill their guts on the deck. Ain’t gonna make it square—but I’d sure get a smile out of seein’ ’em die.”
The words were all the more terrifying for the matter-of-fact way in which he spoke them.
And the truth behind them was devastating.
If I were one of the crew, I’d want to kill me, too.
Healy nodded. “You’re an honorable man, Ather. And your point is fair.”
I waited for the second part of his reply—the one where he told this Ather why he was wrong, and we deserved to live.
But it didn’t come.
“Is that it, brothers?” Healy called out. “Any complaints not yet voiced?”
No one spoke.
“Very well.” Healy checked the hourglass, then closed his fist around it. His voice boomed out across the deck.
“Free speech is over. I’ve heard your complaints. Here is my answer. Firstly—these four passengers, children or not, are under my protection. As long as I lead this crew, and my Code is in force, no one touches so much as a hair on their heads.”
I felt my muscles begin to unclench. Healy would keep us safe.
“Secondly—I resign as your captain, effective at sunset.”
I must have heard that wrong, because it didn
’t make any sense.
Healy glanced at the red sun, hovering just over the horizon.
“You have twenty minutes to elect a new captain. Choose quickly—and well. The future of this brotherhood is in your hands.”
He turned and strode back inside his cabin, shutting the door behind him as a buzz of excitement broke out among the men.
My head was swimming.
If what I thought had just happened . . . had actually happened . . . we had twenty minutes to live.
CHAPTER 4
Shamed
I HADN’T MISUNDERSTOOD anything. Burn Healy had resigned.
The crew splintered into dozens of urgent conversations about who was going to replace him. Judging by the poisonous look we caught whenever a pirate glanced our way, it was a safe bet that whoever got the job would make killing us their first order of business.
Which was why we were in the middle of our own urgent conversation, about how to get off the Grift alive.
“I say we swim for it,” said Adonis.
I looked at the horizon. To the west, where the mainland should have been, there was nothing but ocean.
I shook my head. “We’re half a day’s sail from land. We’d never make it.”
“We need a boat,” Kira said.
There were six big lifeboats—three on each side of the deck, covered in canvas and tied end to end along the rails.
“Can’t just pinch one,” said Guts. “Need help puttin’ her on the davits.”
“Stuff! We’ll shove it over the side!” growled Adonis.
Looking at the size of the boats and the way they were secured, it was clear to me that Guts was right. We couldn’t get a boat in the water without help, especially since we’d likely get jumped by the crew as soon as we tried.
“It’s impossible,” I said.
“Unless we can get Healy to give the order,” said Kira.
She turned to me. “Go ask him.”
Something told me I shouldn’t ask Healy for a boat—but my head was so addled I couldn’t figure out why, let alone put it into words.
“I don’t . . . think . . .”
“Don’t pudda think!” yelped Guts. “Just go!”
“Why me?”
“Yer the one he likes!”
Adonis looked offended. “Likes me just fine! He’s my uncle, too!”
“Don’t mean he likes ye,” snarled Guts.
“Stuff it, you!”
Kira stepped between the two of them to break up the argument before it could really get going. Then she reached out and pushed me toward the captain’s cabin.
“Go ask him, Egg!”
“Can’t we all go?” I pleaded.
Kira shook her head. “Better just you. It will be easier to beg if you’re alone.”
That wasn’t comforting.
“Just go! We’re wasting time!”
The door to Healy’s cabin was only a few steps away. As I walked over to it, my muddled head finally managed to cough up an argument for why I shouldn’t ask.
“He’s very clever—what if he’s got a plan of his own?”
“For what?”
“Not getting us killed. I mean, the whole reason we’re in this mess is ’cause he saved my life. After all that, he’s not going to let his crew slit our—”
Kira interrupted me. “If he has a plan, asking for a boat won’t spoil it. Just ask!”
I raised my fist in front of the door. But I couldn’t bring myself to knock.
“Get it over with!” barked Guts.
Kira let out an annoyed sigh, marched over to me, and rapped on the door.
“Enter,” came the response.
She stepped away, leaving me alone. I took a deep breath and went inside.
Healy’s cabin was tidy and spare. He was sitting at his desk, a leather-bound journal open in front of him and a quill pen in his hand. The pen was poised, motionless, over a scrap of parchment.
He spoke without looking up.
“How are you at figures?”
“Sorry?” He was facing away from the door, so I couldn’t figure out how he knew it was me. Or maybe he would’ve asked the same question of anyone who’d walked in just then.
“Figures. Math. Specifically . . .” He lifted the quill, using the feathered end to scratch his head. “Breaking a very large number into a lot of small ones. Are you good at that sort of thing?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Pity. Shut the door on your way out.”
I just stood there like an idiot, trying to get up my nerve to ask about the boat.
He looked over his shoulder and locked eyes with me for the first time.
“What?”
His stare had its usual effect. My brain threatened to shut down completely.
“I’m more than a little busy, son. State your business.”
“We . . . ah . . . wondered . . . boat” was all I could manage.
The look in his eye turned to ice, and in an instant I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.
“You want a lifeboat? To flee the ship?”
His voice was as cold and hard as his eyes.
I shook my head, trying to undo the mistake. “N-n-no . . .”
He saw right through the lie. He stood up and walked toward me.
I started to tremble under his stare.
“You really aren’t good at math. I have six lifeboats and two hundred men, on a ship in danger of sinking.”
He was right in front of me now, so close that his broad chest nearly filled my sight.
“If this ship goes down, six boats are just enough to save my crew. If I launch one with the four of you in it . . . and we sink . . . thirty men will die for your selfishness.”
I didn’t realize I’d been backing away from him until I hit the wall behind me.
I wanted to run and hide, but there was nowhere to go.
He stared down at me from his six-plus feet of height. Those terrible cold eyes drilled right through me.
“I’m going to assume your friends put you up to this, and that the boy I troubled myself to save from hanging is not a coward who thinks only of himself in a crisis.”
He took a step to one side and opened his cabin door. Somehow, I managed to stumble out of it onto the deck.
I heard the door click shut behind me as my friends approached.
“What happened?” Kira’s eyes were wide with concern. “You look like a ghost.”
“I don’t feel so good,” I said, just before everything went black.
KIRA AND GUTS were floating over me, looking anxious. Adonis was just behind them, his face more confused than worried.
“Are you all right?” asked Kira.
“What happened?” I was lying on the deck of a ship, but for a moment I didn’t know what ship, or how I’d gotten there.
“Fainted,” said Guts. “Dead away.”
Then everything came back to me, and I felt sick with shame. Not for the fainting, although ordinarily that would’ve been plenty embarrassing, but for what Healy had said about my being a selfish coward.
I’d been in awe of Burn Healy for a long time, and his disgust with me would have been hard enough to take if he’d been just a pirate captain. But now he was my uncle, and somehow that made it much, much worse.
Once I told the others what had happened, Kira tried to comfort me. “It’s okay. We made you go in there. And I’m sure what you said before is right—he has a plan.”
“Don’t worry it,” Guts said. “Be fine.” But his face was twitching hard, and lately it only did that when he was upset.
I’d let them down. I knew it was a bad idea, and I’d gone and done it anyway.
And now Burn Healy thought I was a selfish coward.
&
nbsp; Maybe I was.
“I’ve got to do something,” I said.
“There’s nothing to do but wait,” said Kira.
I looked out at the sea of pirates, waiting to elect a new leader and put us to death.
“I’m going to give a speech,” I said.
“What?” My friends looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“I’ll tell the crew this was all my fault—and they can kill me for it, but they should spare the rest of you, because you’re innocent.”
“You can’t do that!” said Kira, gripping my arm with so much emotion that I felt my eyes start to well up.
“I have to. It’s my fault—”
“You have the map. If you die, it’s all over.”
I’d forgotten all about the map in my head.
It showed the way, or so we’d thought, to the lost treasure of the Fire King, and the mystical Fist of Ka that was its centerpiece. The Fist was a sacred object to Kira’s Okalu tribe, driven from their homeland and struggling to survive somewhere in the Cat’s Teeth mountains.
Kira believed that if she could find the Fist of Ka, it would save her people.
Roger Pembroke had wanted it too, and badly, because he believed it would help him rule the tribes of the New Lands. But once he’d tortured the map out of me and gotten it translated, he’d blown up in a rage—from which I’d gathered the whole legend was a myth, and our desperate efforts to keep the Fist from him were a tragic, stupid waste of time.
But Kira still believed. The look in her eyes told me it was life and death to her.
It didn’t matter if she was right or not. She’d stuck with me through a whole lot of trouble, and I owed it to her to make sure the map didn’t die with me.
“Listen carefully,” I said. “The first hieroglyph is a feather. With a dash and a dot—”
“There’s no time, Egg! The election is any minute now!”
She was right. It had taken me hours on end to memorize that map. She wasn’t going to get it in her head in five minutes without so much as seeing a copy.
But Healy had a pen and parchment.
Before I knew it, I was knocking on his door again.