by Rose Francis
The song grew louder in Lucia’s blood.
Conwynne stepped back, beckoning Lucia forward. There on the canvas lay a wide sword, the hilt was wood wrapped in leather, four handspans long. The surface was decorated with a mottled pattern that seemed to live and shift just under the silvered skin. The blade ended prematurely though, in a jagged crack, blackened and melted and ugly. The remaining foot of blade, its stump a match for the sword’s cragged end, lay in the parcel.
“It’s broken,” Conwynne said, a warning in his tone.
“It’s beautiful.” Lucia couldn’t take her eyes off the image buried in the metal, it swam in her vision, always threatening to resolve into words, into a shape, like a child’s puzzle. “Who did it belong to?”
“Your mother, actually. She fought with it like a terror.”
“It has a name?”
“I’ve forgotten the name,” the general muttered, looking away.
“How did it break?”
“The dark one broke it. The Suzerain’s assassin herself, Azra Moreno, the Witch of the Wastes.” The old shifter’s face darkened with anger. “She gave her life for yours, you know.”
Lucia lifted the glaive. Gave it a few practice swings. “It’s so light. I thought it’d be heavy. Those glaives the merchants sold weighed a ton.” It felt like nothing at all in her grip.
“Fakes and forgeries, my lady.”
“I never understood how the old warriors could have fought with such outlandishly large and heavy swords. But now I get it.” An energy flowed from the sword into her, a strength.
“You’ll need practice before you fight with that,” Conwynne said. “We shall pack training swords as well, I think. Come let us go. We need to find a pirate.”
Chapter 4
Never Kiss a Pirate
If you want a pirate, you have to go where the pirates are.
Lucia Brightwolf piloted her dive bike across the wastes, guided by Conwynne is his dire wolf form. She wanted to study him, to get a proper look at the runes burning in his flesh. But the shifter was too swift. He was an ashen blur on the gray sands, his runes leaving a blue afterimage hanging in the air.
Were they tribal markings? Some Council of Alphas business? An indication of rank? Lucia lacked the runecraft to decipher them, Triptongue was too busy clutching the bike with his entire body to question, and Foxtail had fallen asleep, lashed to the rear of the bike like a snoring suitcase.
Lucia didn’t think much of the pirate plan. “Why can’t we just take the bike to Sierren? I’m a good pilot. I can handle anything the desert throws at me, especially with you at my side.”
Conwynne had packed all of his most precious belongings into a pair of leather saddlebags. Then he’d secured his home with alarms, herbs sprinkled on the floor, and a blackened rune scratched into the door. “I’d like to see those spiders get through here,” he chuckled.
“The more people we tell about where we’re going, the greater the chance one of them will sell the information to my uncle for coin and a pat on the head.”
“That myriad. A fierce creature, is he not? It’s difficult to imagine a more perfect predator. He sneaks on a million legs past all defenses. He assembles himself into that colossal monster to frighten and destroy, then shifts into his man form when subduing his prey. Did you know, when the myriad feeds it’s as his smallest form? He cocoons the prey as a giant spider, then changes again to devour his food with a million hungry mouths. Less waste that way, I expect.”
“But you scared him off. We don’t have to worry about him.”
Conwynne’s eyes sparkled darkly. “If it came to a fight, that spider would best me. And he is the least of our worries between here and Sierren.” He pointed a finger in Lucia’s face. “Assuming we followed your plan, where would we sleep? The distance to Sierren is—what?—three weeks? Two if the wind favors us?”
The fox shifters were studiously quiet as Conwynne’s friendly conversation tipped over into bullying lecture.
“And food? Do you plan to carry three weeks of food on your bike, along with the three of you? And water?”
“We can hunt on the wastes. Find water as we need it.” Lucia huffed. “My uncle took me on an expedition once, showed me the trick of—”
“Your uncle is not a role model!” Conwynne shouted, veins throbbing on his forehead. “He is a gangster, a murderer, and at best your jailer.”
Lucia stood her ground before the man, but her blood wanted to fight. She wanted to argue the point until Conwynne agreed that her plan would work. There was a stubbornness in her like the roots of a mountain. Being near the general was doing something to her. She’d heard that alphas had an intensifying effect on those near them, and it was true, as far as she could tell. She felt faster and stronger, for sure, but also her mind moved quicker, her eyes saw more sharply. She was becoming more herself.
The shadows deepened on the doorway. They had to leave soon or spend another night holed up in the old man’s keep.
Lucia forced herself to calm down. Conwynne was right. Taking the dive bike across the wastes might work, but she had no experience that far away from civilization. If the bike broke down, if she was injured, it could jeopardize the entire plan.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s get going. I know where the pirates spend their evenings.”
Conwynne cocked an eyebrow at her and Lucia blushed furiously.
“Not like that. Gross.” She busied herself readying the bike for transit. “Their camp is just outside the walls, between the baron’s estate and town. I used to watch them at night from my little hill.”
She didn’t turn to see Conwynne’s face. She didn’t have to. She knew he’d be smirking.
As if she’d ever kiss a pirate.
The return trip was faster. Conwynne knew the best paths. On the way out she’d followed Foxtail’s tracks, which while direct on a map, led through difficult, slow terrain. Sometimes the fastest way to your destination is the longer route.
After half a day on the bike, Lucia’s thighs and back were sore. Her shoulders ached from gripping the control stick, following the wolf’s lead across the dunes. He was an excellent guide, though—she had to admit that. They crashed into no hidden rocks, stumbled into no ambushes. The closest they came was speeding past a fresh kill—a herd of cattle and their herdsman, bloody and half-eaten by some vicious beast. As they rocketed past, lizards and carnivorous rodents exploded from the carcass in a terrified cloud. Scavengers, not the architects of the kill. Lucia wanted to stop, to lay the herdsman to rest in a proper burial, but there was no time. Conwynne didn’t slow, so she couldn’t either without losing him. She may as well have been a kite on a string.
When they neared Los Robles, Lucia’s skin crawled. The baron’s men would be after her. She’d never slipped away for a whole night before. He would be furious—apoplectic with rage. Would he shift? Would her uncle fall into a spiral of bestial anger, never to return? Maybe it was he that ambushed the shepherd and the cattle, his mind broken, turned feral like so many before him that couldn’t stop themselves from embracing the beast.
She whistled sharply at Conwynne to get his attention. “We shouldn’t go in there. Or at least I shouldn’t. Neither should the foxes. He’ll have men looking for us.” A thought occurred to her. “He’ll blame the ratlings. He suspects their hand in all his misfortunes. I went missing the day Trip and Tail arrived. He’ll take them for kidnappers.”
Conwynne shifted then, his flesh blurring in the setting sunlight. A smell like sweat and blood filled the air: shift scent. Lucia had heard stories of it, beautiful, poetic descriptions of the alluring scent. The reality was somewhat more unpleasant, rankling Lucia’s nose with its pungency. “If I go in alone, asking a pirate to meet me out in the desert, they’ll never come. No matter how much I promise, a trap is a trap.” He stretched, his limbs popping and creaking. His robes appeared around him, coalescing as if from smoke. Lucia had never heard of such a trick. “I could m
ake one transport us. Few shifters can resist the alpha’s pull. But that is a poor way to begin a relationship.”
“Perhaps,” Triptongue interrupted, “we do not need to enter the town?” He pointed past the city, to where the great sandships were moored.
“No one will be there, Trip, except for guards angry at you for disturbing their naps. The crew go into the city the moment the ships arrive and they don’t leave until the ships are set to depart.” Lucia was surprised to find she was an expert at the comings and goings of the pirates.
Conwynne agreed. “It is close quarters on a sandship. It’s rare to find a crew that wants to linger belowdecks longer than they absolutely must.”
“It’s just that, my lady and sir, there seems to be a crew aboard the nearest ship having some sort of argument.”
The ship was freshly painted. Swirls of dun and ash coloring made it almost invisible against the dunes. She was triangular and wide, with two fins gracing the rear wings. Three blades protruded from the bottom in elegant swoops. When she unfurled her sails, the ship would sing along on those blades, if they touched the ground at all. The ship was two stories tall—designed for cargo hauling—but the paint and the lack of identifying flags or titles suggested one thing: a smuggler.
The captain of the ship stood on top of the upper canopy, an armed guard at his side. Below, on the ground, a gaggle of men roared with anger.
“Look, you’ll get your money,” the captain said with a smirking drawl. “At the other end of the run, there’s a fortune waiting for us.”
“You said that last time, Farid!” a bear shifter bellowed. Twin cutlasses were strapped to his back. He was the largest man Lucia had ever seen.
“And the time before that!” a weasel-faced woman shouted, throwing a stone at the captain’s handsome face.
The rest of the crew joined in, shouting and hurling whatever was at hand.
“I know this guy,” Lucia said. “He’s the pirate that brought Trip and Tail and the ratlings to the baron’s estate.”
“An unpleasant man,” Triptongue added. “We would do well to find more appropriate conveyance within the city.”
“Have you seen the gates, Triptongue?” Conwynne asked. “There are guards on watch. Suzerainty guards.”
Lucia turned to look, but Conwynne seized her hand.
“Don’t look. Don’t draw attention to yourself. It may be just coincidence that they are all the way out here.”
“They want us,” Foxtail said.
“We’re doomed!” Triptongue wailed.
Lucia pretended to adjust her boots and glanced at the distant gates. Sure enough, a dozen men in the blood-red armor of the Suzerainty formed a wall before the gates. A handful of travelers awaited entry, standing still as the guards searched them one by one.
“They’re searching everyone who enters. Looking for the amulet Foxtail stole?”
The fox shifter sniffed at the implication.
“I mean, obtained?”
Conwynne nodded. “But what do you think they’d do if they uncovered our glaives? They are not the easiest weapon to hide.”
One of the angry pirates got lucky with a throw and landed a rock directly into the smirking captain’s face. The man stumbled backwards, slipped on a rope and plummeted off the ship, falling all the way to the ground. He hit the dunes with a gasping thud. The crew rushed over to extract payment from his prone form.
“Look, guys, I can explain. I was going to pay you. It’s just—,” one of the crew interrupted his explanation with a kick to the belly. The captain doubled over in pain, squirming on the ground.
Some kicked him. Some hit him. Others used the fracas as a chance to search his loose-fitting trousers.
“Well look at this!” the giant bear shifter shouted. The man didn’t seem to be able to speak in anything less than a bone-shaking boom. He held aloft a pouch, heavy with coin. “He’s been holding out on us!”
“That’s not my money!” Captain Farid hollered, even while his men kicked him. “It’s the baron’s!”
Lucia risked a glance back at the gate. The Suzerainty promised peace and protection for all, but they didn’t budge from their doorstop duty to help the flailing captain.
There was a loud thud and the captain’s guard landed hard on the ground, his hands bound behind his back. He’d been thrown from the ship by a second contingent of unpaid pirates.
“I was wondering where the mutt was.” The bear shifter drew one of his nasty cutlasses from the sheath on his back. “Boys,” he boomed, looking around at the motley pirates, “I believe we have ourselves a mutiny.”
The pirates roared their approval.
“You can’t do that,” Farid muttered, his face a mask of blood and sand. “I built this ship.”
“So build another one,” the bear laughed. “Now it belongs to captain . . .” The bear thought for a moment, while the crew silently watched him. “Captain? Captain Starclaw!” He roared the name he’d just given himself, expecting an answering roar from the jilted pirates. When none came he looked around. No one would meet his eyes.
“Starclaw? What do you think? Isn’t that a good one?”
“Bit silly, isn’t it?” offered a man with a wicked scar bisecting his ear.
“How’d you earn that name, is what I’d wonder,” said a woman, her hair a stiff orange mohawk like a feathered crest.
“Like, they call me Half-ear. I’ve earned that name. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“And me, they call me Mops, as my first job was mopping out Admiral Pigbelly’s cabin.”
The bear man looked flustered. “But it’s a good name, yeah? Strong?”
“Oh yeah,” Half-ear said, “very strong. But you can’t just give yourself your own name like that. It’s not proper.”
Captain Farid wobbled to his feet. “I’ve got one, how about Mutinous Idiot?” He grinned, blood staining his teeth red. The man did not know how to give up.
“I’ve got a name for myself,” the bear growled. “Captain Killer.”
“Now see,” Half-Ear interrupted, “that’d just be all confusing-like. Would you be like first name Captain and last name Killer, or more like a man who happened to have killed a captain? A name like that just invites questions.”
The bear lifted his cutlass, the point of it pressing into the hollow of Farid’s throat. “I am about to answer that question, Half-Ear. Irrevocably.”
That was when Lucia stepped forward, walking amidst the pirates like she owned the place. “This man is in my employ. No harm shall come to him.” She tried to recall how her uncle sounded when he bossed around his men. “You there,” she pointed at a familiar-looking woman with the floppy ears of a dog shifter. “You know me?”
The dog woman nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell these men who I am so that we have no further misunderstandings.” Lucia gestured haughtily, lifting her nose in the air like a mockery of a fairy tale princess ordering about her slaves.
“You’re the daughter of the baron. The Lady Lawson.” Brightwolf, Lucia corrected silently, my name is Brightwolf. I am nothing like that odious man.
At the baron’s name, a tremble of fear took the men. The bear dropped his cutlass.
“Lady, your worship,” the giant bear man bowed his head, “we didn’t mean anything by it. No disrespect to the baron, like. We’ve always been appreciative of his protection, of what he does for us.”
“Then you will release this pirate scum at once,” she sneered. Conwynne tensed behind her. Was she overplaying the role?
The pirates eyed each other. The only thing worse than a mutiny was a mutiny begun and never finished.
“He owes my uncle a significant sum.” She pitched her voice deep and threatening. “Will you see the baron cheated? Do each of you wish to take on this man’s debt?” A growl rumbled out of her chest, unlike anything she’d ever felt. The men around her shrank, backing away.
“Take the pouch of coin,” she said, in
dicating the bag still in the bear’s grip. “And call yourselves lucky I was here to stop you from making such a grave mistake.” She wanted to roar at them, to turn the growl into something bigger, to send them yelping and tumbling across the sands. But she held back, pushed the growl down deep into her belly. The Suzerainty guards were still close, could still choose to take an interest in her misfit party.
The bear examined the pouch, hefting it in his meaty hand. He looked back at his crew, his intentions plain on his face. There was no need to share. He had the money now. The rest of the mutineers realized a second too late what was about to happen, as Captain Starclaw bolted, running across the sands to the city gates as fast as his legs could carry him. The rest of the mutineers followed, screaming and taunting.
Lucia watched them leave, then turned and thrust out a hand to the bloodied sand captain. “I am Lucia Brightwolf, ward of Baron Lawson, and I would like to hire you.”
“Look, kid. I’m grateful for what you pulled back there, but I have two rules that I never break: I get paid upfront and I don’t smuggle slaves.” The pirate wiped the blood from his face with a damp cloth. His guard, the mutt, busied himself elsewhere in the ship. He left the negotiating to Farid.
The inside of the ship was a cramped and messy maze. As clean and aerodynamic as the outside was, the inside was a jumble of boxes, tools, undelivered supplies and makeshift sleeping quarters. The ceiling was so low Triptongue had to stoop as he made his way around. Rope nets covered the mounds of goods, securing them to the walls. As Lucia moved through the ship she found herself instinctively grabbing the nets as she moved, pulling herself forward as much as walking.
“We can pay you,” Conwynne soothed. “A thousand up front and ten thousand more on arrival in Sierren.”
Lucia bit her tongue to stop herself from shouting at the old man. They could buy the fastest ship in Los Robles for eleven thousand credits. This pretty pirate wasn’t worth a third of that sum.