Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  A squat, three-story concrete fortress with a watchtower stood uphill from the ville, and four concrete towers of similar squat design stood at intervals along the sea wall. Ryan could make out cannons far larger than the Glory’s pointed her way in the embrasures. People ashore had noticed the Glory’s sails in the strait and were rushing to the pier. Ryan noted none were armed.

  Mildred frowned. “There are no trees.”

  Miss Loral smiled as she looked through her binoculars. “Those are pretty.”

  Ryan had to admit they were. Seven wooden ships sat in concrete quays jutting into the harbor. They were barely half the size of Glory and not built to the same standard, but they were two-masted and had rakish lines. “What would you call those, Doc?”

  “Too small to be called a sloop or a brig. It would be imprecise, but they might be best described as a Bermuda rigged ketch.” Suddenly the entire crew within earshot was hanging on Doc’s every word. “A ketch was just about the smallest ship of war in the 1800s, and it was used in nearly every commercial maritime venture. Look there in the boat houses!”

  Ryan looked and saw open boats made of hide and whale bone.

  “Behold! Those are dear Shisho’s big canoes. The good people north of here, the Eskimos, call them umiaks. One of those ketches could tow numbers of them into fishing or whaling grounds and then process their catch. They are also large enough to bring in useful cargoes of timber or coal.”

  “Or slaves.”

  “Yes.” Doc’s face fell. “I fear there may be a reason that slaver caravan was headed for the coast.”

  “Commander Miles!” Oracle called out. “See the Mapuche stay belowdecks until further notice!”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  Doc finished his ketch lecture. “As you can well imagine, they are also large enough to raid up and down the Eastern Coast of the South Americas. Indeed, I suspect they are far more nimble tacking into the Westerlies than we shall be when we round the horn.”

  Ryan spotted a dozen predark pleasure boats that had seen all manner of extreme modification. He also noticed a number of motorboats that looked to be in serviceable condition. All of them had suspicious tarpaulins covering something blaster-like on their prows.

  Oracle sliced his monkey’s paw down. “Fire, Mr. J.B.! All guns!”

  J.B.’s ordered rang out below. “Fire all guns!”

  Every gun along the sides as well as the stern and bow chasers belched empty smoke with no ball. Ryan knew that to J.B. it was a terrible waste of precious powder, but the “all guns” salute of a ship coming into port was more than just a sign of respect. Given the time it took to reload a muzzle-loading cannon, it meant that the incoming ship was nonhostile, and it was putting itself at the mercy of the weapons guarding the port.

  The shore battery staid laid and ready for the Glory. The crew relaxed as small blasters up on the walls of the fortress crackled in a ragged, return string of salute. Ryan watched as people on shore waved, shouted and threw their hats in the air and surged toward the docks with excitement. He was reminded that a full rigged ship under sail was something that most ports never saw.

  Wipe sidled up to Ryan. “Mr. Ryan?”

  Ryan deliberately kept his tone neutral. “Wipe.”

  Wipe pulled what looked like a mail packet from under his jersey. “From the cap’n.”

  Ryan took it. It read in block script. TO BE READ NEXT TIME YOU ARE IN THE CAPTAIN’S CABIN. He tucked it away. “Thanks, Wipe.”

  “Welcome.”

  Ryan snapped up his longeyes as a score of armed men mounted on shaggy ponies road out of the fortress. They wore brown leather dusters, except for the man in the lead, who wore black. As they reached the ville proper, people scattered to get out of the sec men’s way. The men rode to the boat houses and ran out a umiak rather than any of their other boats or ships. Ryan took this as a goodwill gesture on their part.

  The brown-jacketed sec men began a deep-voiced chant as they paddled out the gleaming white hide and whalebone canoe. Their black-jacketed leader stood at the prow. They back-paddled and stopped neatly at the Glory’s Jacob’s ladder. The sec leader gazed up. He was very tall, a head taller than Ryan and quite gangly. The man had huge hands. Ryan stared at his blaster and suddenly realized the weapon was a Steyr AUG missing its scope and with all of its plastic furniture replaced by carved whalebone. All of his men bore a similar weapon. The leader wore a brass hilted saber at his side that looked predark. His thin, platinum-blond hair clung to his head in the wind and drizzle. Huge features jutted from a face that was seamed all over from wind and saltwater. Ryan’s first impression was the sec man was about as hard as they came. Pale gray eyes squinted upward.

  His accent was kind of like Atlast’s. “Permission to come aboard.”

  Oracle nodded. “Permission granted.”

  The leader handed his longblaster to the man behind him and came up the ladder with agility, drawing himself up to full height. He ran his gaze around the Glory and grinned. “Bloody, blue blazes, you’re back!” The sec man was missing his two front teeth, and it made his sudden smile strangely childlike and disarming. “Oh, I was just a little lad the last time this ship weighed anchor in Stanley. Now here you are and here I am standing on her deck. And they say the days of wonder are past!”

  The crew murmured appreciative noises at the man’s respect.

  The sec man reached out a worshipful hand and squeezed a bit of rigging like he couldn’t believe it was real. “She was the Starsailor when I was a boy. What’s her name now?”

  “The Hand of Glory, sir,” Oracle replied. “I am Captain Oracle. May I present my officers, Commander Miles, Miss Loral and Mr. Ryan?” Ryan was surprised to learn he had made officer without knowing it, but he kept it off his face. Oracle extended his hideous ape prosthesis. “May I present Koa Kanaka, Prince of Molokai?”

  Ryan hadn’t seen Koa behind him. The Hawaiian was naked except for his multicolored cape, a loincloth and his crested helmet. The Hawaiian held the most horrible war club Ryan had ever beheld. It appeared to be a short, incredibly heavy paddle lined with giant, serrated mutant shark’s teeth around the blade. Koa was stone-faced and grunted once. “Mahalo.”

  The sec man gaped.

  Oracle gestured at the barrel. “And may I present Baron Squid, subaqueous ambassador of the Caribbean Sea depths and warlord of the littoral waters.”

  The sec man goggled as Mr. Squid bubbled up out of his barrel to his full eight feet. The Kelper jumped as Squid spoke. “I bid you greetings, sir.”

  “Wonders...” the man whispered. The sec man suddenly snapped to attention. “Except for the gov’nor, we don’t stand on title here. My friends call me Big Ian. So do my enemies.”

  “Big Ian, would you join me and Commander Miles in my cabin for a glass in friendship? And would you allow me to invite your men aboard to take a tot of hot grog against the chill?”

  “A kindness well received, Captain. I would be honored.” Big Ian followed the captain and Miles below. Ryan rolled his eye at Koa. “Prince of Molokai?”

  “And what are you, brah? Officer Fourth Mate? Surprised the captain didn’t announce you as cabin boy Bellywarmer. Me?” Koa grinned smugly at his newfound title. “I’m a prince! Show some respect, haole, and stay in character until we’re off this barren rock. Seems even Squid can do that.”

  One corner of Ryan’s mouth twitched upward. “You know, I’m going to make officer on this ship long before you do.”

  Koa lifted his chin imperiously. “Make me a sandwich, primitive Deathlands scum.”

  Ryan was torn between laughing out loud or letting his fist coincide with the Hawaiian’s jaw and see which one broke first. He spoke quietly as the sec men came up the ladder and wondered at the Glory’s main deck. “You know you’re chilled.”

  Koa nodded at the main hatch. “Wait for it...”

  Sweet Marie came up and genuinely curtsied to Koa. “The captain respectfully requests Prince Koa and Ba
ron Squid join him in his cabin.”

  Mr. Squid oozed out of his barrel and did his scuttle walk thing to the hatch. Koa flung a careless hand. “Tell the captain I shall join him anon.”

  Sweet Marie blinked. “Anon?”

  “I read it in a book.”

  “You can read?” Ryan asked.

  “And get Mr. Ryan flogged next time he does not show me proper obeisance.” Koa strutted to the hatch.

  Sweet Marie muttered, “What’s obeisance?”

  “What’s the first part of the word?” Ryan prompted.

  Sweet Marie suddenly smiled. “Obey!”

  “Yeah.”

  Sweet Marie frowned at the hatch. “Koa knows some big words.”

  Ryan frowned too. “Yeah.”

  * * *

  Governor Laird’s Hall

  SEAWEED WINE TASTED like the heady mix of iodine, tide pool leavings and fishermen’s feet Ryan had expected. In counterpoint, the seaweed, oatmeal and oyster stout beer was bitter, black as a redoubt with the lights off and so thick a man might be forgiven for mistakenly trying to chew it. The Kelpers, man and woman alike packing the smokey, peaty hall, drained horn after horn and cup after cup of both. Ryan realized they lived on a windswept rock and had to make do with brewing what they had, but he would have done anything for a glass of grog or ship’s small beer. He figured asking for a glass of water would not exactly cover him or his shipmates with glory in this company. Ryan noticed Doc putting a good pinch of salt in his horn and smacking his lips with relish as he drank. The one-eyed man took a chance and followed suit. Ryan smiled. The salt cut the bitterness and turned the black beer into a mildly pleasurable drink to sip by a warm fireplace to good music.

  Strawmaker was earning his keep. He played his Takamine 400S with passion and sang out in a clear tenor. No Kelper in living memory had heard a real guitar. The islands’ whalebone flautists, bagpipers and lap harpists sat leaning forward and as still as statues as they hung on Strawmaker’s every note. He sang in Spanish and pushed his emotions out so boldly the entire hall was moved. Women wept openly. Hard men wiped their eyes and swallowed with difficulty.

  Ryan took in their host. Governor Laird wasn’t large, and he was getting on in years. Most of his hair had moved backward across his head. What he had left was a grizzled salt and pepper and clipped short. Laird had a strong jaw shaved clean, and he had a positively wolfish cant to his eyes. They called him Gov, but there was no mistaking that he was a baron, a very powerful one by Deathlands’ standards, and he was utterly feared by his people.

  It had been a hard day of negotiations. Gold had been making a comeback as currency in recent years. Oracle had a substantial amount of it, and he had to give nearly all of it to Laird, as well as one of the gasoline generators, and far more blasters than they could spare. In return they had gotten rope made on the island and timber from the Amazon, and wherever Laird got sailcloth from, he wasn’t telling.

  Ryan ate. He had no complaints about the food, much less the portions. A pig had been roasted for the occasion in the main hearth. While the feasters waited, they gorged on plates of raw oysters, steamed mussels, snow crab in drawn butter, pickled anchovies, fried sardines, cow and goat cheese and laver bread and oatcakes. Ryan took an immediate liking to cold roast penguin. He tucked into his seaweed stew with particular will.

  Governor Laird watched Ryan shrewdly and leaned toward Oracle. “Your people have been without fruit or fresh greens for some time?”

  Oracle sipped the black beer. “We took on maté on the continent to compensate.”

  “That’ll get a man through, but it loses its potency fairly quickly. It has a tendency to get buggy. Shall I send a caldron of sea sass for your people aboard ship tonight? They’ll be the better for it.”

  “That would be a kindness, Governor.”

  Laird snapped his fingers at a servant. Nearly all of them seemed to be from the continent. “Tell Cookie to simmer our largest feast kettle with sass and row it out for the Glory, and tell him not to be stingy with his blubber.” The servant scampered for the kitchens.

  “Well now, Captain. I was but a tot when your ship last put in.”

  “Aye, she was the Starsailor then, under Captain Buckley. I believe he presented the governor of the Isles, your father, with a gift of friendship. May I continue the tradition?”

  Laird smiled. “Who am I to deny a guest?”

  Oracle nodded. “Miss Loral?”

  The First Mate took a black predark, nylon pistol rug from her satchel. Oracle passed it on. Laird unzipped it to reveal a beauty of a U.S. military-issue Beretta M9 handgun. If it hadn’t been matte black, the blaster would have sparkled. Ryan knew J.B. had gone to town on the weapon to turn it into an oil-on-glass slick tack driver. The case also contained a 50-round box of ammo and a spare mag.

  Laird smiled openly. “Oh, now, Captain, that is fine. Big Ian, let us show Captain Oracle our appreciation.”

  Big Ian rose from the great U-shape of tables in the hall and brought Oracle a bulging leather bag. He shook it and it clinked and rattled. He grinned to show his happy, gap-toothed smile. “They’re not so fancy as that, Captain, but with your permission?”

  “You humble me, Big Ian.”

  The man emptied the bag before Oracle.

  Six sets of well-worn handcuffs clattered to the table. Strawmaker hit a bad note and stopped playing. Big Ian’s grin went from happy to hideous. “Try one on for size, Captain. Then order your crew to do the same.” Ryan watched as the smoky galleries above filled with a dozen brown-jacketed sec man armed with the ghostly-looking whalebone stocked assault longblasters. The feasting Kelper dignitaries stared about in fear.

  Big Ian drew his saber and pointed it in Ryan’s face. “The Deathlander prick has a knife in his boot, then.”

  Governor Laird shrugged. “One would expect nothing less.”

  The blade gleamed in Ryan’s face. His one eye met Big Ian’s two, and they both knew they were most likely the two most dangerous men in the room. The sword tip hovered.

  “Shall I stab out his other eye?”

  Ryan’s fingers itched for the blasters he wasn’t carrying. He turned an arctic blue eye on Laird. “Governor, this is piracy.”

  Laird happily loaded his new Beretta and racked the action. “Oh, I’m not the pirate here, Mr. Ryan. Your captain is. Oracle is the one who attacked Jefe Spada’s men while they were trying to apprehend a wanted man, and ’tis it not Oracle who sent you forth to attack the trade caravan of Jefe Dirazar and steal all of his goods and slaves? Both times killing each of their gauchos to the last man.”

  He arched a knowing eyebrow. “Unless Oracle has pressed some into service? Do you deny this?”

  Ryan knew pigeons had flown and the Westerlies had pushed them faster than the Glory.

  Laird shrugged. “You see? You’re the raiders. You’re the cold-hearted looters. You, Mr. Ryan, are the pirates.”

  “No ship will ever land here again,” Loral snarled. “And our crew will defend the ship to the death. They will burn Glory to the water line before they let you have it.”

  “That is the case exactly, Miss Loral. I’m not taking the Glory. I’m just taking your captain for his crimes. You will keep all timber, cordage and supplies you bargained for in good faith. You will attempt the horn and I wish you well of it, but you will sail on, or be sunk, without your captain. That is my final word.”

  “War!” Koa declared. “War with my ohana! War with every island!”

  Laird nodded. “Stories of the kanakas reach even here, Prince Koa, but we have two oceans and a continent between us. Still, you’ll have the Westerlies at your back. Paddle your war canoes around the Horn if you can. I’ll meet you fleet for fleet, man for man, land or sea any time.”

  Koa stared bloody murder at Laird.

  “Miss Loral,” Oracle finally spoke. “Mr. Miles is now acting captain. You are commander. Mr. Ryan is First Mate. Take what we have bargained for and go. Sail the
Horn, and take Glory to warm, safe harbors.” Oracle snapped the manacle around his monkey’s paw and with difficulty got it around his other wrist. “I order you to put them on.”

  Big Ian flipped a set of cuffs to each of the shore party with his saber. Doc surged to his feet. It was a miracle he wasn’t shot. “Oh Captain, my Captain!”

  Ryan knew Doc was a heartbeat away from drawing his concealed sword, and there was nothing they could do in this hall except die.

  “Doc!” Ryan snarled. “Put them on.”

  Doc wept as he put on the manacles. Ryan and the rest followed suit. The governor nodded. “Big Ian, take them back to their boat. See them rowed to their ship. If they take any action, slaughter them. Know if the Glory fires on you, they shall be blasted to splinters in vengeance.”

  “Thankee, Gov.” Big Ian looked at Miss Loral. “But this one follows orders.” He looked at Doc. “This one’s feeb.” He shook his head at Koa. “If this one is a prince, then I’m the queen of England, and the guitar player won’t do shite.”

  Big Ian ripped his right hand around and punched Ryan in the eye with the brass basket of his sword. Ryan’s head snapped back as he deliberately took the shot. His world narrowed to a dark tunnel surrounded by purple pinpricks. He instantly felt his face inflating like a balloon and his eye closing. Big Ian laughed. “And this one won’t do shite if he can’t see.” Ryan heard the sword sheathed. “Now move, you lot!”

  Ryan rose and the room spun. Koa put a hand on his shoulder.

  Governor Laird happily aimed his new Beretta at the pig turning in the fire. “I don’t know if this will be of any comfort to you, but I am not going to give your captain to Spada or Dirazar. No ñandú will snap off his cock.”

  Ryan fought nausea and wondered if he had a concussion. “No?”

  “No, I am going to give Oracle to Captain Dorian. He’s on his way.” Governor Laird’s smile was sickening. “I suggest you sail for your lives.”