by Pedro Urvi
Suddenly the pirate’s sword was deflected to one side. Olsen was so surprised that he tripped and fell backwards.
The pirate captain looked around, but could see nothing. He was standing beside the sail, and could not understand how his sword had moved aside. He tried to kill Olsen where he lay on the deck, but an invisible force pushed the pirate away from him. He was left staring in bewilderment at the sail. It was as if it had pushed him, and yet there was no wind. What was happening?
Viggo appeared behind Olsen. “Nice sword and dagger,” he said casually. “Worthy of a nobleman from inland. Certainly not of a sea pirate.”
“What’s going on here? Magic? Was it you?”
“Me? Not at all. Magic? Yeah, it might be that.” Viggo could see that something was pushing the sail inwards. He could imagine who it was. “There are things the human eye doesn’t see, but they’re there all the same.”
The pirate captain faced up to him. “Magic or no magic, I’m going to finish you off, and the captain of this ship too.”
“I don’t think you’re going to. And as for killing the captain of the ship, it’d be a terrible loss. We need him to steer this ship.”
“I’m here to do that, and that’s what I’m going to do, just as soon as I’ve killed you all.”
“You don’t seem very reliable to me, and even less respectable. We’d do much better to keep our own captain. We trust him.” Viggo indicated Olsen, who was unable to get up.
“Wrong choice,” the pirate said, with a look of feigned disappointment. “This sword and dagger are going to put an end to your life now. You shouldn’t have interfered in a duel between captains.”
Viggo gestured at the pirate’s weapons with his own two black knives, as if this threat did not trouble him in the least. “They’re a set. Some craftsman must’ve made them for someone with a lot of gold. Where did you get them? Looting?”
The pirate smiled. “I see you appreciate quality and luxury, like me. Unfortunately for you, that’s the closest you’re going to get to these beauties.”
“I think you’re wrong there. Those weapons are going to have a new owner very soon.” Viggo smiled, sure of himself, and gave his opponent a threatening look.
“There are plenty who’ve wanted them and tried to take them from me. They all failed, as you will. These beauties are going to pierce your heart.”
Viggo tilted his head, undaunted. “I doubt it. This evening I’ll be polishing them, and you’ll be shark-food. Unless you surrender now, and we decide we don’t need this fight that you’re not going to win.”
The pirate smiled, and his eyes gleamed. “Captains, soldiers, and much better warriors than you have failed. I’m not in the least scared of you.”
“Well, you ought to be,” Viggo said, and his smile was confident. “You’ve never fought anyone like me, and you won’t ever again. Last chance. Do you surrender?”
“Of course, I don’t. I’m going to take away that arrogance of yours with one clean stroke.”
Viggo shrugged. “Let it not be said that I didn’t give you a chance. As for my heart, there are some who say I don’t have one.” He smiled ironically and attacked like lightning.
The pirate captain blocked Viggo’s knives with his sword and dagger. Viggo launched a second combined attack, aiming first at the pirate’s stomach and then at his heart, but his victim managed to avoid the first stroke and block the second. He was obviously experienced in combat, which was hardly surprising, given his profession and title. They exchanged rapid, skillful attacks and counterattacks, but both defended themselves well and managed to avoid being hit. The captain tried several feints with his sword, followed by a dagger-attack at Viggo’s neck, but he could not manage to overcome him.
Around them the boarding raid was dying out. The shouts were fading, and the silence which gradually fell was only broken by the moans of the wounded and dying. Lasgol and Gerd had their area secured by now, and those pirates who were still on their feet were yielding to them, dropping their weapons on the deck and raising their hands. Ingrid and Nilsa had cleaned their area of the last pirate. Eicewald, who was protecting a group of sailors at the stern, had finished off the last of those who had tried to reach him. They were now ice statues, their weapons raised, frozen alive in their attack.
Astrid ran to where Viggo and the pirate captain were fighting. She was about to intervene when Viggo saw her.
“No! Leave him to me!”
“Viggo … there’s no need …”
“It’s a duel, one to one, a matter of honor and all that sort of thing. You know how these things go.”
“As if you knew anything about honor and all that …” She got ready to attack.
Viggo was still defending himself from the captain’s attacks. “Come on, be a lady and don’t interfere.”
She shrugged. “As you like … it’s your life that’s at stake. But don’t take too much time over it, because the moment Lasgol arrives he’ll make us take a hand.”
Viggo nodded and speeded up his attacks. He was sliding from side to side as though the deck were an ice-rink. The captain tried to reach him with a sword-slash at his forehead, but he crouched, then instead of dodging the dagger that followed the sword, stepped forward and blocked it by crossing his own two daggers. He swiveled them sharply, and the pirate’s dagger flew out of his hand. The sword sought his heart, but he deflected it with his two daggers in parallel, then leapt on the captain like a cat. One knife stabbed his victim’s heart, the other his throat. He grunted in pain and collapsed. Viggo withdrew his two black knives and stepped back.
“You’ve …” But the pirate captain did not finish the sentence. He fell backwards, dead.
“Defeated you,” Viggo said, finishing the sentence for him. He put his own weapons away and picked up the captain’s sword and dagger, which he examined critically.
“What d’you want them for?” Astrid asked. “We fight with knives.”
Viggo smiled as he stared at the weapons. “For no reason. But you must admit, they’re really beautiful.”
Astrid laughed out loud. “Yes, they certainly are. They’ll look very nice in the armory of the nobleman’s chambers in that castle of yours.”
Viggo smiled from ear to ear. “One day I’ll have that armory.”
“And the castle as well, I suppose.”
“Of course.”
Eicewald meanwhile was finishing casting one last spell on the second pirate ship. He conjured Icy Waves, using his Ice Magic. The pirate ship was going down in the midst of the winter storm the Mage had created, and the captain was shouting to those of his men who were trying to reach the merchant ship to board it to find refuge from the storm. But his crew were either freezing to death or being thrown into the sea by the tremendous force of the wind and the huge waves that lashed the ship. The Mage’s second spell seemed to have stirred the icy sea around the pirate ship into fury.
The vessel, covered in frost and lashed by brutal waves and winds, was beginning to break in half. There came a terrible, chilling crack and it split down the middle. It took the storm only a moment for it to sink, taking with it the few pirates who were still alive on it and with the captain shouting curses at Eicewald from the bow. It vanished under the waves, leaving only the storm over the space where it had been only a moment before.
The rest of the team joined Viggo and Astrid at a run. Lasgol, worried, checked to see if any of them were wounded. “Everybody all right?” he asked.
“Looks that way,” Ingrid said.
Viggo brushed the dust of the fight from his shoulders, as if it had all been child’s play for him. “Not a scratch.”
“Don’t be a smartass!” Ingrid snapped.
“Were you worried about me?” he asked her, looking saintly.
“About the trouble you were going to get us in, not about you.”
“If that’s what you want to pretend …”
“I’m not pretending!”
&nb
sp; Gerd waved at the deck. “You’d better keep the quarrel for later. We’ve got piles of wounded and some prisoners to worry about.”
“Let’s get down to it, then!” Nilsa said, and ran to help.
“I’ll deal with the prisoners,” Ingrid said, and Astrid joined her.
Lasgol went over to Captain Olsen. “How are you, Captain?”
“Wounded, but it’s not too serious. I was saved by a miracle. He had me, and then something deflected the sword … and shoved him … like a divine force … In all my years at sea I’ve never seen anything like it. Could it have been an intervention by the sea-goddess?”
“It must’ve been Eicewald and his magic,” Lasgol suggested.
No Eicewald. Me, Camu transmitted proudly.
It was you?
I save captain.
Very well done!
No captain, no reach islands.
Very true. Besides, he’s a good person, and we ought to save him if we can, because we don’t let anybody hurt good human beings.
Yes.
Lasgol was not altogether convinced by this laconic reply but he had to look after the Captain’s wounds and suture them, so he got down to work.
The other pirate ship, enveloped in flames, was still managing to stay afloat, although the whole deck was burning, from bow to stern. The mast broke and fell into the sea, consumed by the flames. While the team restored order on board and helped the wounded, the enemy ship was completely swallowed up by the fire. It sank amid a black cloud of smoke and a crackling of burning wood. It broke up before being swallowed by the sea.
They worked without stopping well into the night, looking after the wounds of all those who needed them. Unfortunately, there were some who would not see the dawn. It was a hard night, because comforting the dying is difficult for anyone. Lasgol and his friends concentrated on saving those who still had a chance. Rangers had knowledge of healing and were equipped to deal with nearly every kind of wound. Eicewald’s knowledge also helped, even though he was no Healer and there was little he could do with serious wounds. In some cases, he used his ice magic to freeze wounds so that they did not hurt, or to prevent the suffering of the dying by numbing much of their body, which they were grateful for.
Viggo and Astrid were in charge of keeping watch on the prisoners, whom they had tied up to avoid unpleasant surprises. They seemed to have learned their lesson, but it was better not to trust people who had spent their whole lives attacking ships, pillaging and killing. The problem was what to do with them.
“I think the best solution would be if they were to fall into the sea accidentally,” Viggo proposed the next morning.
“Accidentally?” Gerd said, looking puzzled.
“Yeah sure. With an accidental push.”
“Viggo!” Ingrid exclaimed.
“Eh? You’re thinking exactly the same thing, and you know it.”
“It might have crossed my mind, but we can’t do that.”
“I don’t see why not,” Viggo insisted. “They’re pirates, they’ve killed a whole lot of people.”
“Because we’re not like them.” Ingrid said.
“He’s right, you know,” Astrid reasoned. “If we leave them alive, they could turn against us and we might get a nasty surprise.”
“You too?”
Astrid shrugged. “Having them on board is a risk for all of us. That’s all I’m saying.”
“See?” Viggo said, glad of the support.
“We can’t kill them.” Lasgol put in. “That would make us into cold-blooded murderers, just like them.”
“I don’t think it would be right to kill them either,” said Gerd.
“We could prepare a poison,” Viggo suggested. “They wouldn’t even know what had hit them …”
“No way!” Ingrid said.
“I’m sort of half-way between,” said Nilsa. “I think killing them is wrong. But I see the risk of leaving them alive. What if one of them escapes and kills the crew, or one of us?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ingrid said.
“It’s probably not going to happen,” Astrid corrected her.
“We’re not going to kill them. It’s wrong, and you all know that,” Lasgol said. He was looking at Astrid so that she would stop. She sighed.
“All right. We’re not going to kill them.”
“Don’t let your boyfriend persuade you,” Viggo said.
She shrugged. “He’s not persuading me … he’s right.”
“We’d better not kill them,” Nilsa said after a while. “We’d feel terrible afterwards.”
“You’re a bunch of softies,” Viggo objected. “You just wait and see if something happens. And don’t come weeping to me afterwards.”
“I have a solution for that problem,” said Captain Olsen, who had been listening to the conversation from where he lay against the mast.
“Go ahead, Captain,” Ingrid said.
“We chain them to the rowing benches and let them work for their living. That’s something quite normal at sea among pirates. They won’t be surprised.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Ingrid admitted.
“Me too,” said Lasgol. “It’ll be a good thing to have new oarsmen. We’ve lost some very good sailors.”
“Yeah, me too,” Gerd agreed. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“Then that’s decided,” Ingrid said, bringing the argument to an end.
“My idea was better,” Viggo grumbled under his breath.
Ingrid’s gesture warned him to leave it at that. Astrid winked at Lasgol to show that she too was in favor of the idea.
Three days later, recovered by now from the pirate attack, they were once again setting their course to the southwest, away from the coast, avoiding islands where they knew pirates had bases. Lasgol was watching the endless sea and its unfathomable blue beauty, with Ona at his side and Camu settled on the dragon’s head, when Astrid came to his side.
“Pure beauty,” he commented.
“The sea? Yes, it is. Infinite and beautiful.”
He smiled. “No, I meant you.”
She smiled back. The compliment had touched her heart, and she kissed him lovingly. “Don’t ever change.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Promise me that whatever happens, whatever we have to face, you won’t let anything change you. Because we’re going to be up against a great evil, not only now, but later on in our lives as Rangers, and it might affect us, change us. I don’t want you ever to change. Your heart is pure and good, and I want it always to stay like that.”
“It won’t change, I promise,” Lasgol said.
Astrid smiled at him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
They went on looking out at the horizon, and Lasgol had the feeling that Astrid’s worry would soon come true.
Chapter 22
They continued their journey to the Turquoise Queen’s archipelago. The mission had to go on, despite the attack, or anything else that might happen on the way. Eicewald took over command of the ship while they waited for Captain Olsen to take up his functions again. He was recovering little by little as the days went by, and would soon be able to resume his duties. The pirates were not giving any trouble once they had been chained to the rowing benches, as Olsen had anticipated. They knew what was expected of them, and also the ominous alternative. Viggo, who did not trust them, watched them out of the corner of his eye. The rest of the group took up their usual activities on the ship once the wounded sailors had begun to recover.
The days went by peacefully and the journey turned quiet, though a little monotonous, except when they saw sea-creatures. Then it was all excitement, particularly for Camu, who had never seen animals like this.
They leap over the waves!
They’re dolphins, Lasgol explained. They’re beautiful animals, and they’re said to be very clever.
I clever too.
Yes, you’re clever too, nobody’s saying any different
, but they say that out of all animals, dolphins are among the most intelligent.
So… not hunt?
Exactly. You should never hunt dolphins.
Can have one?
No.
Ona gave a mournful moan. She too wanted to have a dolphin.
Lasgol could not believe it. He slapped his forehead and shook his head emphatically.
We can’t have a dolphin. It’s not an animal anyone can have. They have to be free, roaming the seas, with other dolphins.
I want a dolphin.
Ona joined in the request with another moan.
You two are hopeless.
Days later they saw an enormous whale, and excitement returned to the ship. The sailors talked about hunting it, but luckily Olsen refused. They had no time to waste and they had to reach their destination.
Whale monster? Camu asked watching the great mammal.
Because it’s big?
Yes, very big.
Suddenly the whale leapt out of the water, and they were able to see it in all its splendor.
A magnificent animal. D’you still think it’s a monster?
No. Not monster.
That’s right. It’s a beautiful, peaceful animal. It communicates with other whales by whistles that they can hear under the water …
I want wha—
You can’t have a whale, Lasgol interrupted him. He glared at Ona, who was about to moan, but seeing Lasgol’s look she was silent.
What a hopeless pair you are.
A thousand and one questions and comments followed his refusals either to adopt sea mammals as part of their company or to add to the family.
The days began to turn never-ending, since there was nothing but league upon league of water around the ship and no sign of land in any direction. Puzzlement and exhaustion were beginning to affect everybody, and they were rather more irritable than usual.
Lasgol went to see Olsen and Eicewald at the stern, hoping to get some information.
“Hi there, Lasgol,” the Captain greeted him.