by Warhammer
'Should never have been a bloody sailor,' he muttered to himself, as he hauled himself up hand over hand. 'Should've been a baker. No stupid heights, being a baker. No climbing up a tree trunk in a gale if you're a baker. Should've sent Lucas to have a look. Prideful Leerdamme, that's what they'll call me when I fall off this mast and make a bloody mess on the deck. Butcher Captain, not likely. Look like something fit for the butcher's dog more likely. Please Manaan, don't have a fit now and start tossing me about. Better bloody well shut up, you damn fool.'
The sailor was sitting easily on the cross trees of the topgallant yard, his legs hooked under the beam, both arms free.
'Where's this bloody smoke then?' Leerdamme asked, keeping his gaze level. He could see the darker smudge of the coastline to the south, and then followed the hand's pointing finger further east. There was a darkness about the sky, and he pulled the eyeglass from his belt with his free hand.
'Shift, give me somewhere to steady myself,' he snapped at the sailor, who quickly rose up and walked a little further out on the yard, steadying himself on the guide rope with one hand. Leerdamme occupied the vacated position, clamping his legs around the yardarm, his stubbled chin resting against the masthead itself. Wrapping his right arm around the girth of the mast, he pulled the telescope up to his left eye and closed the other. Adjusting the focus with his right hand, he scanned across the clifftops and beaches, trying to locate the smoke again.
He growled to himself when he found it, bringing it into view with a twist of his hand. He could make out three or four plumes of smoke rising from a group of buildings clustered around a shallow headland.
Snapping the eyeglass shut, he shoved it back into his belt and began the long clamber down, accompanied by a similar soliloquy of cursing and self-condemnation. Feeling the solid planking of the deck beneath his feet, he gave a small sigh, whispered a thanks to Manaan and turned to Verhoen.
'Smoke alright,' he said to the master. 'Beat to quarters, Lucas and bear us towards the coast, about six miles on. Don't heave off the boats just yet, have the balinger and longboat readied for shore duty just in case.'
'Aye, captain,' Lucas said with a nod. Turning, he bellowed an order to the bosun, who in turn yelled down into the decks below. A few seconds later, the ship's two cabin boys appeared, hefting their drums with them. With a glance at each other, they began to rap out a staccato beat and soon the hands were swarming up from below, chattering to each other.
'Herr Verhoen,' Leerdamme said. 'If the crew don't bloody stop gabbling like whores at a royal wedding, I'm going to have one in five of them up on the bowsprit. Is that clear?'
'Cease your chatter!' said Verhoen, striding to the front rail. 'Bosun, have your mates take their rods to the back of any man who speaks out of turn!'
The Graf Suiden coasted slowly and quietly east, the lapping sound of the waves accompanied by the occasional squeak of a rope in a block, and Master Verhoen's short commands to the sailors at the wheel. Leerdamme looked down from the quarterdeck at his crew, silently pleased with the discipline they had shown. For many, this was the first time the drums had been beaten in earnest and the drill of the last few weeks was paying off. The gun crews idled next to their cannons, occasionally blowing on a glowing fuse, or peering out of the gunports.
Glancing over the gunwhale to starboard, the captain spied an out-thrust of the cliffs half a mile ahead, the Sea of Claws foaming white and ferocious at its feet. Taking stock of the wind, which was carrying steadily over the port quarter, he turned to Verhoen.
'Shorten sail, Lucas, take in the t'gallants, we're making too much leeway at the moment,' he told the ship's master quietly. 'The chart shows there's rocks quite far out round these parts, so let's not founder and make fools of ourselves.'
'Aye, captain,' Verhoen replied before turning and bellowing orders down to the decks below.
With practiced efficiency, the hands raced up the rigging to the topmost yard, while others formed teams at the braces. As Verhoen barked out orders in succession, they hauled up the white and black striped canvas, the hands at the mastheads furling it neatly along the spar. Leerdamme could feel the ship slowing as it lost leeway, and nodded in satisfaction to Lucas.
'That should do it,' he said, clasping his hands behind his back. Strolling forward, he stood at the rail and peered up towards the sky. There was perhaps a watch more left of daylight, and clouds were gathering quickly overhead. He felt the breeze becoming brisker against his cheek and knew from experience that stronger winds were coming.
Time passed, and Leerdamme strolled casually back and forth along the leeside of the quarterdeck watching the cliffs. Great birds circled out from the shore, dipping in and out of the ship's wake in search of fish, their screeching cries whipped away by the strengthening wind.
They passed the first headland, and by now the smoke could clearly be seen by all aboard the ship. A thick black smudge curled away from the shore before being lost to view against the clouds to the southeast.
'The smoke's thinning quickly now.' said Verhoen. 'That's not a blaze that was lit this day.'
'No.' said Leerdamme. They had probably passed the border from the Wasteland into the Nordland coast, and the thought made the captain uncomfortable. He was in a better position than most seamen would be; his refusal to turn in his Marienburg Letter of Marque for a full naval commission meant that, officially at least, he was not a paid member of Marienburg's armed forces.
Theoretically, the Wasteland and Nordland were allies at the moment, but Leerdamme knew from the small time he spent at court in Marienburg that the count had been making gestures of friendship to Middenland, currently fighting a sporadic war with the armies of Nordland around the Middle Mountains. A ship flying the colours of Marienburg might be welcomed by shot from a fort along this coast if word of the count's political dealings became more widely known.
In fact, it occurred to him, the smoke might be the result of some border skirmish between militia or patrols that had become over-eager, in which case he would happily continue his patrol along the Sea of Claws and leave them to it. However, Leerdamme suspected that it was something more serious, and that a deadly enemy was probably close at hand.
The tension on the ship grew as they glided around the next headland. It was sheer-sided and towered above the masthead, giving no sight of the cove that lay beyond. At the top of the cliff could be seen the square silhouette of a fort, thin trails of smoke lifting into the air from the casemates. Leerdamme had reduced the ship down to topsails only as they ghosted along, and gave the order for the soldiers to stand ready by the boats to heave them down to the water and out of harm's way. Their clumping boots drowned out the patter of the mariners' bare feet as they swarmed across the deck trimming the sails to pull the Graf Suiden into the bay beyond. They were tight in against the cliffs, only a few hundred yards, Leerdamme hoping that if an enemy did lurk beyond the advantage of surprise would be his. Unfortunately, that meant that he also had no idea if there was anything waiting for them. He ran through possible encounters in his head, mentally preparing the orders he would need if they were to run into a vessel coming the other way or, more preferably, if they found a foe at anchor.
The captain stood at the centre of the quarterdeck resisting the urge to go forward and stand at the prow so that he might sooner see what lay beyond the outcrop. Just in front and to the captain's left, Verhoen fiddled at the seams of his breeches in agitation, and a few worried murmurs could be heard here and there amongst the crew. Leerdamme watched the crew at the bowchasers - their reaction would tell him what awaited the ship sooner than he would see himself.
Muttering started at the prow and slowly worked its way aftwards as the Graf Suiden cleared the headland.
Leerdamme relaxed - if there had been an enemy, he would have expected shouts rather than whispers. Then he could see for himself. A deep bay, perhaps a mile wide and half a mile deep, stretched away to his right, a long beach of sand along the
shore. It was clear except for the floating wreckage of a handful of fishing vessels, the hull of one pointing nearly straight up out of the shallows, masts and sails flung along the beach by the rising tide.
At the centre of the bay was a solitary island, a tall pinnacle of bare rock, perhaps a third of a mile away. Leerdamme could see movement at its peak, fluttering flocks of gulls and other seabirds. Not far back from the shore were the remains of a village, blackened and gutted by fire, a few blazes still evident in the tall steeple of its Sigmarite temple. Pulling out his eyeglass, he scanned along the shore for signs of the inhabitants, but could see nothing except circling ravens and a pack of scrawny dogs roaming between the burnt-out buildings.
'Ready for anchor!' he bellowed, and the crew rushed to their places at the lanyards and masts. 'Anchor aweigh!'
With the thunder of the heavy cable through the hawser, the anchor plunged down and into the sea with a splash.
'Bring her into the wind,' he ordered the steersmen, before calling out once again to the crew. 'Bring in all sail! Lower the boats!'
He turned to Verhoen. The master was staring at the shoreline, still suspecting some lurking danger, his fingers fidgeting at the edges of his doublet pockets.
'Lucas.' the captain addressed him, and he snapped out of his reverie, turning towards Leerdamme. 'Take a party to that island, twelve seamen and half the soldiers. I'll lead the shore party.'
'Aye, captain.' Verhoen nodded and snapped around on his heel, bellowing for sergeant Kulnenkeist.
The triangular lateen sail of the longboat flapped noisily in the eddying wind that came around the twin headlands of the bay, and Leerdamme snarled wordlessly at the bosun's mate at the tiller. Flinching, the sailor pulled harder on the rudder to keep the balinger at the best angle to the fluctuating wind.
They were a couple of hundred yards from the shore and Leerdamme was convinced that no one was alive in the village. Anybody on the shore would have had ample time to signal the ship, as it swayed at its anchor quite plainly in view out in the bay. That didn't mean they were all dead, he consoled himself weakly. The settlement had been completely sacked, and it was likely that any inhabitants would have fled the attack, and, having seen the devastation wrought, made their way to a neighbouring village.
The silence from the fort, on the other hand, worried Leerdamme considerably. Without thinking, he patted the heavy pistol at his belt to reassure himself, and loosened his cutlass in its scabbard.
The crew leapt over the sides to drag the boat further up the shore as the seabed rapidly shoaled up to the beach. Leerdamme stayed where he was, seated in the sternsheets, while a small party of soldiers, half with halberds, the others with crossbows, made their way over the sand to the edge of the village. Sergeant Kulnenkeist signalled that it was safe with a wave of his hand and Leerdamme stood up, straightening his frock coat and stepping confidently into the sea that washed up the beach. His hands clasped at the small of his back, he strode up the sandy shore, his eyes taking in every detail they could.
Two small jetties jutted out several dozen yards into the sea, just to his right, littered with nets, fraying tackle, crab baskets and barrels. To his left, the stretch of sand was littered with flotsam from the wrecked fishing boats - tangles of more netting, snapped spars and masts, torn and burned sailcloth scattered by the waves and wind. Ahead of him was a squat stone building, its slate roof scorched but still intact, soot marks around the windows. Beyond that lay the bulk of the village, or what was left of it. A few of the larger timbers lay in piles of charred earth, and piles of cracked bricks denoted where sturdier walls had once stood.
Leerdamme walked between the shattered skeletons of houses and taverns, past the ruins of a water mill, parts of its smashed wheel strewn along a small brook that emptied into the bay. He choked on the ash and smoke that hung in the air, and it clung to his clothes, covering his blue coat and white breeches in a thin layer of soot.
The only things he couldn't see were any corpses...
He heard an angry grunt behind him and turned. Kieter van der Stree, his bosun for the last six years, was picking through the scorched remnants of what appeared to have been a storehouse. The air was still hot and sweat prickled on his bald, bullet head. Kieter shouldered aside a smouldering beam with his squat frame and bent down to pick something up. He held it up for Leerdamme to see - a splintered haft topped by the shattered remnants of a long axe blade.
'Norse.' spat the bosun, tossing the broken weapon back into the ruins.
'Who did you think it was?' roared Leerdamme, finally giving vent to the tension and anger that had been building since he had first seen the smoke. 'Elves? Dwarfs? Bretonnians? Of course it was the bloody Norse!'
Kieter's heavily scarred face screwed up in dismay, and Leerdamme immediately regretted his outburst. The bosun had fought beside him in many battles, and he had seemed impervious to it all, but Leerdamme realised that Kieter was just as sickened by what they had found as the captain was.
'Have you seen any dead?' Leerdamme asked, looking from the bosun to the soldiers and sailors that trailed in their wake. 'Any of you?'
They all shook their heads in answer, some shrugging, others casting their eyes down or making protective signs.
'Split up and search properly, there could be someone trapped, or wounded.' he ordered the group. Max 'Sorely' Villisson, Leerdamme's chief officer who would have qualified as a lieutenant had he ever been inclined to take a commission, organised them into groups of threes and fours and directed them to different parts of the settlement. Watching them go, the officer turned to Leerdamme, a distant look on his face. 'Should we go up to the fort?' he asked.
Leerdamme was momentarily taken aback by the question, as Villisson was generally work-shy and not known for his initiative. His a habit of being someplace else whenever there was work to be done that had earned him the nickname 'Sorely', short for 'sorely missed'. However, the wiry Middenlander was a keen swordsman and had a good eye for the weather, which was unusual for someone with such a landlocked birthplace, so Leerdamme was happy to keep him around.
'We'll wait for Lucas and the others, just in case,' Leerdamme replied after a moment's thought. He wasn't quite sure what he expected to find at the fort, but he was damn sure he was going to have as many men around him as possible when he found it.
'Do you think they all ran away when they sighted the longship?' ventured Sorely, obviously still thinking, in his slow way, about the lack of bodies.
'They might have done, but if they did they would have fled to the shorefort,' said Leerdamme, pointing up to the headland. The smoke that continued to drift upwards from the small castle illustrated what he thought would have happened afterwards.
The answer to the mystery was more gruesome than Leerdamme would ever have considered. After they had quartered and searched the village, Leerdamme sent two small parties into the surrounding countryside to look for survivors or even just tracks to indicate someone had managed to get away. Leerdamme could see Villisson leading his group back across a muddy field, and Kieter had just returned with his men, with nothing to report, when splashing from the shore drew his attention.
He had been on the steps that led up to the chapel of Morr, god of the dead. The gardens surrounding the temple had been desecrated, graves dug up, though there was no sign of the bodies that had lain within, only empty shrouds and coffins. The captain had not plucked up the stomach to venture inside to look at the crypts that lay beneath.
Verhoen came walking slowly across the square, a ragtag trail of soldiers and sailors behind him. There was a strange look in his eye and many of the rest of the party were ashen-faced. Some had stains on their clothes that betrayed the fact that they had vomited, while others had faces streaked with tears.
'What?' was all the question Leerdamme could muster when confronted by the panicked stare of the ship's master.
'The island...' Lucas replied, mumbling almost to himself. 'The island,
we found something there. We found the villagers.'
Leerdamme's stomach lurched at the thought. He was about to ask if they had found any alive, but stopped before saying anything. It was obvious from the men's expressions that the answer was no. He didn't speak, allowing Verhoen to muster his own thoughts first.
'I've never seen...' the master began, but choked on the words before he could finish. He drooped his head, coughed a couple of times and then purposefully stood bolt upright. He straightened his doublet and smoothed out the creases in his necktie, collecting his senses.
'Take your time Lucas,' Leerdamme assured him. The other men in his party were now talking to the rest of the crew, and there were shouts of anger and cries of dismay. Amongst them was Lader, the ship's surgeon. He sat on the ground, holding his head in his hands, his shoulders trembling.
'We found the villagers on the island,' Verhoen said, choosing his words with care. 'The raiders appear to have taken them all there, upwards of a hundred of them, some dead, some wounded. There were many other bodies there as well.'
Leerdamme pointedly looked over his shoulder towards the ransacked gardens of Morr, and Lucas nodded in realisation. Verhoen closed his eyes, wiped his face and pinched his nose, shuddering at the memory.
'The live ones had been staked and tied down,' he continued, looking his captain straight in the eye, his stare unwavering. Leerdamme could see despair turning to anger in his expression, and Lucas's manner became more heated. 'They had been staked down, tied to a body and smeared with blood and guts. They were left there for the carrion eaters.'
'All dead?' the captain finally asked, and Lucas's anger was replaced by the haunted look he had shown earlier.
'Some were alive, perhaps two dozen, I didn't count exactly,' Verhoen said with a sad shake of his head. 'But there was no saving them, Lader did what he could. They were too eaten up, or almost dead of thirst. We had to search the whole mess, the whole mess, to make sure we didn't miss any! They're with Morr now.'