Heroes of Time Legends: Murdoch's Choice

by Wayne D. Kramer

  Fulgar confounded his foes with the blazing white light of the novidian anelace, but his counterattacks became more than mere dueling. Zale did a double-take as Fulgar pointed his dagger toward the sky. With a flare of white energy, he drew several of the enemy weapons into his own like a magnet and cast them overboard. He turned another grimkin’s weapon against it, jabbing it through the chest with only subtle movements of his own.

  Shrew and her oarsmen had taken up swords. Evette grunted and yelled with each strike. She was strong, deft, and surefooted, indeed one of the more capable fighters Zale had ever crewed. Even Wigglebelly was caught in the action, swinging a heavy bludgeon with the sort of proficiency only a master of the rolling pin could muster.

  Zale laid into one assailant with swift, powerful blows. Rather than fancy footwork, Zale was known for the proficiency and strength of his saber handling. He backed his opponent into the larboard rail, eventually whacking away the grimkin’s sword. He lunged forward and pushed into the grimkin with all his girth, sending it to the depths with a panicked screech.

  “Captain!” Fulgar dragged Murdoch back by the arm.

  Somewhere just behind, Beep reeled a captive grimkin over the quarterdeck balcony with a grappling hook, preparing to heave it overboard like a bad catch.

  “I’ll have these curs mounted for decoration!” Zale spat in a fervor. He shook Fulgar off. “Every one of their vile heads on a pike!”

  “Captain, you must get out of sight!” Fulgar shouted.

  “Are you mad? I won’t leave my crew in a fight!”

  “Sir, it might be you they’re after. The ancestor of Macpherson…the key to the Grimstone!”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Zale growled.

  Fulgar pointed his dagger toward a fallen grimkin’s sword and guided it through the air straight into another enemy down-ship. “Then we shall do everything to protect you.”

  “There’s more of ’em!” Dippy shouted.

  More grimkins were now visible aboard the deck of Seadread’s ship, a fresh swarm making for the ropes before the ship passed out of range.

  “Get on those crossbows!” Zale ordered. “Beep! For Eloh’s sake, full speed ahead!”

  Rosh’s hand was already on one of the four larboard crossbow triggers. He took aim with his one arm, pulled, and launched the bolt straight into a grimkin on the other ship. He snatched up another bolt from the deck, loaded, aimed, and fired, felling another foe. It was a fluid motion, the sort of moment he was born for.

  “Damn near a form of art, him at that,” said Fump, a grim-kin feather stuck in his fiery hair.

  “Hookknee!” Rosh called to one of his mates. “Hands on the aft ballista! We’ll send ’em a final sting after they pass by!”

  Even though all four crossbows were now in use, and feathery carcasses were filling the sea between them, there were too many grimkins that remained. They flung themselves to the ropes, at least ten per group.

  Zale shambled to the nearest crossbow, took aim, and speared one of the grimkins midair. Still, by his best guess, at least seven landed successfully.

  All of them turned toward Murdoch. They sprinted his direction with earsplitting squawks. Several from his crew tried to intercept them, successfully taking down one here and another there. Most of his men, however, were still dealing with other grimkins already aboard the ship.

  Zale stamped the deck defiantly and stood his ground. “Challenge me, will you! Aaaahhhh!”

  He lashed out with the fury of many men, parrying and dodging their blades. It seemed they were taking some care in their strikes.

  Fulgar might be right, he realized. They don’t want to damage their quarry.

  One swung low, thumping against his graphenite leg ineffectually. That one Zale kicked in the head with concussive force.

  Three of the grimkins managed to grapple him from behind. He struggled against them, his hat falling to the deck. They forced away his saber and dragged him toward the rail.

  “Unhand me, you quill-headed twits!”

  Two more grimkins landed from Seadread’s ship and gave their ropes to Zale’s captors.

  “Captain!” shouted Fump.

  “No!” cried Rosh.

  “The birds, man! The birds!” squealed Wigglebelly.

  It was the last thing Zale heard before the grimkins leapt and swung him from his ship.

  Zale stumbled backwards to the dark timbers of Seadread’s deck after a rough landing with his grimkin captors. All around him grimkins shuffled about and chittered in their strange native language. “What happened here? Did you animals overtake Captain Rummy’s crew?”

  A door slammed. He turned toward the captain’s cabin and saw none other than Garrick Rummy himself. The pockmarked, pale-faced captain approached with long, unhurried steps, his churchwarden’s pipe hanging loosely from his lips. He fitted a black, shabby hat upon the black hair of his head and stroked at his white, scraggly beard.

  “You!” Zale shouted. “You treacherous ratbag! You’ll have much to answer for after attacking a fellow vessel of Tuscawny.”

  “Zale…always the one for honor and decorum. Where’s the honor in defeat, hmm?”

  “Fool! My crew will stop at nothing to retrieve me.”

  Seadread shrugged, maintaining a smug grin. “Oh, your crew will be dead. An unfortunate hazard of the job, I’m afraid.” He nodded to one of the grimkins. “Time for lights out.”

  The grimkin raised its arm with a series of squawking sounds, and easily a dozen of the creatures lined up against the larboard rail. They made strange motions with their hands, something Zale counted as faintly familiar. Purple flames appeared in the air before them. Once kindled, the grimkins shot the death-cold fireballs straight for the Queenie.

  “Darkfire!” Zale roared.

  He pushed his way toward the attacking grimkins but was immediately clotheslined by another one standing nearby. The hard fall knocked the air from his lungs.

  He sat back up, gasping, and heard the anguished cries from his ship. The gap between them had widened, such that no one could swing across, and Seadread’s grapnels had been cut loose. He felt some brief solace when two grimkins fell to crossbow fire. Then a particularly long bolt, unmistakably from their aft ballista, speared three grimkins at once. They fell overboard, a feathery skewer for the sharks. He faintly saw the light of Fulgar’s dagger as he scrambled to deal with the darkfire attacks.

  “Now, Zale,” spoke Rummy, “I think ye know what we’re needin’ ye for. Retrieve us the Grimstone, and we’ll give ye quarter. That is, we’ll spare your life. All the bounty goes to me.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?” Zale shot back. “I’m not helping you with anything!”

  Seadread scowled deeply. “Don’t be meddlin’ with me, Murdoch. You’re the most convenient solution, to be sure, but you’re plenty expendable. All we really need is your bloodline.”

  Zale’s widened eyes betrayed him, his worst fear confirmed. Somehow, Seadread knew that all he needed was the bloodline of Macpherson. Fulgar had been right.

  “Yes, we know,” Seadread said.

  “Stop the attack on my crew, and swear to spare them.”

  Seadread reared back his head. “I really don’t think so.”

  “Listen to me! I don’t know where the Grimstone is located. I never knew about any of this until recently. But we might have just discovered how to map it, and that information is still onboard my ship.”

  “What am I to do, Zale? Just swing ye back to your deck all friendly like, hopin’ we’re all in this together now?”

  “You’ll have to get us within shouting range under colors of ceasefire,” Zale said. “I’ll order my men to stand down. You’ll do the same. Send one of your minions over to retrieve the map, and I’ll order my ship to put Gukhan to its rudder, no looking back. Once we’ve won you the Grimstone, Rummy, you’ll deliver me safely back to Warvonia.”

  Seadread stared back at Zale for long moments. Finally
, he called out, “Belay your fire!” He stomped hard upon the deck, and a man down below opened a hatch. “Moorland, raise the white and bring us back around.”

  Zale was relieved to see the grimkins forego their onslaught, although he was distraught to see large purple flames still licking up the side of his ship. He could only hope Fulgar and his mates would be able to deal with it as they had after leaving Warvonia’s harbor, before it was too late.

  Men—his actual human crew, slovenly as they were—ascended from the deck below to follow Seadread’s orders. As they worked the sailyards and wheel to turn the ship, Zale chewed his lip nervously. He had bought them some time, but Rummy still had the upper hand, and the survival of everyone, including his daughter, now hung in an extremely delicate balance.

  Suddenly the ship lurched from starboard.

  “What is that?” Seadread demanded.

  Zale chanced a peek over the edge. A black longship filled with oarsmen had rammed them from below. There were easily three dozen men in the boat, uniformed all in black with conical hats.

  “We are Gukhan!” boomed a voice from below, amplified as though through a large megastone funnel. “You will surrender or be destroyed!”

  If the Gukhanians boarded the ship, Zale would likely be treated the same as Seadread’s crew, despite being their prisoner. To the Gukhanians, they were all outsiders, and outsiders were not welcome. Still, Zale wondered if he could take advantage of the distraction.

  Seadread snarled at the intrusion. “Sink that ship and send ’em all to the fathoms, or they might alert the mainland! Set the oil to boiling! Ready pitch and torches!”

  The orders were brutal and largely faithful to Seadread’s present course of aggression. Zale had much preferred the approach of stealth, rather than waging battle in hostile, foreign waters.

  Seadread’s deck became a flurry of men and grimkins as they moved to deal swiftly with this new threat. Zale suspected the Gukhanians would not be so easy to subdue as Seadread hoped. Glancing toward the Queenie, it seemed the darkfire was being contained. As far as he could tell, there were no other ships of Gukhan about.

  His chance was now or never.

  He made for the larboard beam and practically threw himself into one of the rowboats. He landed awkwardly between the benches, his girth nearly crushing his arm. Ignoring the pain, he moved as fast as he could to pulley the boat downward. As soon as he hit the water, he set to the oars and heaved toward his ship, pushing through heavily belabored breaths and the sweat of exertion.

  Leaving Seadread’s ship undetected, in one of the captain’s own boats no less, had been nothing short of a miracle. He relished this with a smile as he motivated his loath, stubborn body to push toward the goal. He dared to believe he just might make it.

  A black longship crossed in front of his rowboat, as though materializing out of the shadows, and turned him aside. Without so much as a grunt, the sailors of Gukhan pulled him into the boat and opened a small wooden box right before his nose.

  A thick steam puffed into his face, sparking a hint of recognition—narcotic mist-stones—before his body wavered into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 9

  CHILL OF NIGHT

  8/8/3203

  Jensen, along with so many others, had nearly flung themselves over the port beam at what they’d just witnessed. “They took the captain!”

  Shouts of anguish echoed all about the ship.

  The black longship of Gukhan sailed away. The distraction that had allowed him to escape was the very thing that ultimately brought his capture. It wasn’t long before the ship was gone from view, lost to the fog and maze of tiny islands.

  “Demons, man!” Wigglebelly shouted. “They’re like giant sea serpents, all sneaky and black. I’m telling you, man, it’s not right!”

  Jensen had finally ventured to the main deck once the sounds of battle seemed to have subsided. He had followed the captain’s orders and remained with Starlina below. No words were spoken between them. They merely listened to the cacophony above, wondering with every dull thud if someone had fallen, friend or foe.

  “Stay here. I’m checking above,” Jensen finally said, which of course Starlina completely ignored, following him anyway.

  Now she stood with the crew upon the deck, silent and pallid, her father’s coat draped over her arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jensen said. “We will retrieve your father.”

  Three seamen had also been slain in the battle: Tate and deckhands Elihu and Redvers. Their bodies were carefully wrapped in their hammocks by fellow deckhands Jonas, Clement, and Bert.

  Jensen saw Murdoch’s saber lying upon the deck and stooped to pick it up. A boot stomped down in front of him. “No,” said Yancy. “Nobody but the captain touches that blade, as soon as he’s back among us.”

  Jensen nodded and backed away. “Aye, and haste the moment that he is.”

  Starlina stepped between them and grabbed the saber. Yancy and Jensen stared at her with mouths agape. “You sailors and your codes,” she said. The scowls of the surrounding crew deepened. She groaned loudly. “You really mean to leave my father’s sword lying upon the deck, where it may be trampled upon or allowed to slide off the ship? I shall stow it safely in his cabin.”

  After a long silence Yancy shrugged. “That was my backup plan.”

  “Milady,” Jensen said with a light bow, “you might yet make a fine captain yourself one day.”

  “Shut it, Jensen,” she said. She entered the cabin, slamming the door behind her.

  “What now, Dippy?” asked Miles. “Er, First Mate Daubernoun…Doyle…sir!”

  “Make full the sail and get us underway,” ordered Dauber-noun, now in command. “We’ve still got tailwind. It’s high time we used it. Those devils will be headed for their berth in Gukhan, and we’ll be behind them.”

  “Aye,” Yancy agreed. “Make our exit while Rummy’s crew is still preoccupied.”

  “Keep a sharp eye all around us and men to the weapons,” Rosh said. “We’re not out in the clear yet.”

  Taking stock of their increasingly dire situation, Jensen felt within himself a swelling sense of duty. “Sir,” he said, “as we’re down a boatswain’s mate, I should very much like to navigate us through these islets.”

  Hookknee gave a deep grunt. “Why, so we can turn up on the south side of Holbrook?”

  “I can pull us through here,” Jensen said.

  “Kasper, your call,” Daubernoun replied.

  “Could be useful, sir,” Kasper said. “With us this close to land all around, it’ll help for me to have eyes over both sides of the ship.”

  Yancy turned to Jensen. “Looks like you’re a boatswain’s mate now. My only request: if you’re gonna muck it up, just go ahead and warn us.”

  “I won’t muck it up,” Jensen said. It was the most certain he’d felt of anything since leaving Warvonia.

  “We’ll also keep watch from below,” said Evette, “and we’ll have two oars at the ready, one at each side, to help with any quick maneuvers.”

  Daubernoun nodded. “Very good, crew. Now, everyone, on the move! Captain Murdoch is depending on us!”

  Much valuable time had passed when the last of the interfering Gukhanian scum finally screamed his last. To Garrick Rummy, defending his ship was not unlike protecting a castle. Try scaling his outer walls, and you might find yourself scalded to death by boiling oil, or water, or fire-hot sand. He was called “Seadread” for good reason.

  He’d lost many of his commissioned grimkin army in the process. He’d be sure compensation for that got figured into his final price…or perhaps he’d find a way to wring it from Murdoch…or perhaps both.

  The soldiers of Gukhan proved very proficient with their bows and arrows. It was not enough, however, for the flaming, pitch-dipped spears and arrows Seadread’s crew used to return fire. Despite their fierce reputation, the Gukhanians clearly had not expected this merchant ship to be so heavily militarized. They died
just as well as any other man, screaming all the way.

  Garrick spat over the side toward their incinerated enemy. As he turned, he was sorely vexed to find that the Queenie had managed to set sail and disappear into the fog. After a moment, he chuckled to himself. “Craven maggots! They’ve sailed off without their captain!” He looked about the deck, frowning. “Bring me Murdoch! It’s time we be on our way.”

  The men of his standard crew scurried around, looking clueless.

  “Well, ye stumblin’, grog-soaked cockroaches, where is he?!”

  His eyes snapped to larboard, where there should’ve been stowed one of their rowboats. He ran to the side, looking to the water. All was calm and empty.

  He spun around, apoplectic with rage. “You useless, mangy swabs! Murdoch’s escaped!”

  He turned back to the water, squinting into the fog. In spite of himself, he marveled at the possibility that fat old Murdoch had managed to row himself all the way back to his ship without being detected.

  “Let out the reefs, square the yards, and bring us about!” he ordered his crew.

  Loving a good chase, he smiled to himself, the fury already wearing off.

  This might end up even better than I’d expected, he thought, feeling quite satisfied indeed.

  Something poked delicately at Zale’s face. A finger? A claw? A talon? He wasn’t sure at first if it was real or imaginary. Groaning, cognizance seemed to return like a fog slowly lifting.

  Another poke at his cheek, like something inquisitive. His body ached in a dozen places, begging his mind not to make it move.

  His eyes fluttered open and he gasped, sitting up. Something to his right scurried away into the shadows. He realized that he was in a barred cell, not so unlike the brig of his ship, except that this was made of dark-gray stone. Even the surface upon which he’d been laid was just an upraised slab of rock. Whatever had been prodding at his face through the bars had gone into the neighboring cell, now out of sight.