Orc Pirate: Raiding the Seven Seas Read online

  Orc Pirate

  Raiding the Seven Seas

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  3. Mary

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  15. Ligeia

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  18. Sebastian Arde

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  25. Bloody Bill

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  39. Justin Layne

  A Note from the Author

  1

  As I stomped down the gangplank of The Hullbreaker and stepped onto the dock, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Admiralty called me in to Erdrath so early in the damned North Sea campaign? After all, we’d already sunk four of Milnest’s barques and captured a pair of merchantmen. We even handed the crews over to the regular navy for ransom and given them most of the loot we’d taken. Pretty damned honest for a privateer, I was.

  Still, orders were orders, after all.

  My passage turned heads as I made my way to land along the slightly tilted, wooden dock. The air was filled with a thick briny smell that reeked of dead fish and the unmistakable stench of humans. Of course, that’s what most of the Empire was made up of, humans. Damn things bred almost as fast as us orcs and lived longer to boot.

  Bloody unfair if you asked me.

  More stares and muttering followed me as I headed up towards Lord Broward’s keep. I knew these lubbers recognized me. There was no mistaking the only orcish captain in the Imperial Navy. Of course, my rank wasn’t really official, but to hells with anyone that argued it. I’d add their bashed-in heads to the collection strung along The Hullbreaker’s rails. Unless they were really special, of course. Then their skulls would decorate trapdoors for the ship’s twenty-six below-deck cannons, or perhaps even one of the six smaller guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle that I’d had installed so she could fire fore and aft as well as on the broadside.

  “Thank you for coming, Captain Bardak Skullsplitter,” one of the guards said as he gave me a once over. The look on his face was one I’d come to expect from the Imperials. A thin veneer of pleasantry over a mixture of fear and disgust.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied as I mounted the stairs to the drawbridge of the keep. “I trust there won’t be any problems?”

  The pair of guards nodded in response, which was fortunate for them. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was deal with some dumbass who thought he might test my orcish might. It never ended well for them, especially because walking through these damned human towns always put me in a sour mood.

  It wasn’t the glares and the smell of fear, though. It was the looks of disdain as if I was just a piece of shit on their boots to be cleaned off. Despite everything that orcs had given to build up the Empire during Asmond Blackburn’s wars of conquest, at best we barely rated second-class citizens, assuming, of course, we weren’t thrown right into slavery.

  My scowl deepened as I noted a gang of orcish thralls building a scaffold beneath a guard tower under the watchful eyes of a pair of human taskmasters. Like me, the thralls were dark-eyed and green-skinned. They were about the same size as their foremen, but close to twice as broad and much more heavily muscled. All of them were a bit shorter than I was, but then, I wasn’t a slave. I took a deep breath to hold in my anger and focused on finishing my march to the raised portcullis. Here, I was challenged.

  “State your business,” the guardsman, a human in an ornate helmet and breastplate addressed me.

  “Captain Bardak Skullsplitter of the privateer Hullbreaker,” I said in a deep, no-nonsense voice.

  The guard’s eyes widened. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with eloquent orcs.

  I smiled around my tusks and continued, “The Admiralty sent me word that I was to report to Lord Broward’s keep as soon as possible.”

  The two guards exchanged glances. “I’ll go fetch the sergeant,” the one who hadn’t spoken yet offered.

  “No need,” a man in the uniform of a house servant joined us. “If the… captain… will come with me?” I took an instant dislike to the man.

  “And who might you be?” I wanted to know.

  “I am Vail,” he replied as he met my examination of him with a dead-eyed gaze. Damn me, but I’d seen more life in the eyes of a shark. “Now, if there are no other questions, please follow me.”

  He turned and walked off at speed, and I followed, keeping pace with him easily. I hadn’t missed the pause as Vail said my rank, and not for the last time, I wished I could have brought my axe and pistols to these meetings. They hadn’t searched me, perhaps trusting my reputation for following orders. Of course, I was armed, but the blades tucked into my boots would hardly be enough to tickle some of the larger guardsmen I’d seen.

  Vail led me into the keep proper through a side door after we crossed the yard. We followed a short passage, then descended a flight of stairs and through another door. Dungeon, of course. It wasn’t like you could have a meeting with an orc in broad daylight in a café, not for someone like this.

  The dim light of the underground halls didn’t hold any secrets for me. Broward had a few captives, and most of them barely noticed our passage, but one, a young woman in a barred cell all her own caught my eye. She was gagged, and her hands were in witch-bindings. Ah, that explained the solo cell.

  Then we were past, and Vail opened an iron-bound wooden door and ushered me in. At a desk opposite the door sat a thin, ramrod straight human male with salt and pepper hair, a thick, well-waxed mustache, and a fine outfit of brocaded silk in black and silver, the Imperial colors.

  Imperial business, then, rather than house business. My mood soured a bit more, but I bowed politely, nonetheless.

  “Thank you, Vail,” the lord said. He was flanked by a pair of men that looked more like sellswords than guards, and my hands itched for my axe. This already stank of a setup, but I was more than balls-deep at this point.

  “Reporting as ordered, Lord Broward,” I said flatly.

  Vail was behind me and still stood in front of the doors. I sighed inwardly. If this mess weren’t an ambush, I’d keelhaul myself. The lord steepled his hands, which showed his callused, scarred knuckles. He was a swordsman, I could tell.

  “I bid you welcome, Captain Bardak, to Insmere, currently the westernmost city of the Empire,” Lord Broward said in at least a surface show of manners.

  I knew all this already but nodded politely. “I’m curious what this is about, milord,” I said. “The message caught me in pursuit of a Milnest ship, the Blood Gale.”

  “Sounds like an orcish name. Have the Milns hired one of the clans then?” he demanded as he leaned forward over his desk.

  “No, sir,” I answered with a grunt. “Dark elf’s my guess. We hadn’t caught up enough to engage.”

  “Ah, well.” The lord nodded and settled back in his chair. “‘Tis a pity you didn’t sink them.” He laughed clumsily, then coughed. “Down to business then. I am afraid
, captain, that the services of you and yours are no longer required. The Empire is abandoning the use of privateers and has no more use for free orcs.” He lifted a hand in a dismissive wave. “Kill him.”

  I heaved a sigh as Vail and the two mercenaries started moving to attack me. I had been right about the whole thing, so I guess I wouldn’t have to keelhaul myself. Too bad for them they’d locked themselves in a room with me.

  I sidestepped Vail’s initial lunge and planted a big, green elbow in his face, then caught him by his waistcoat as he started to fall. Did these people really expect that I’d be so slow?

  At this point, the other two were halfway around the desk, swords in their hands, but I had Vail, a superior weapon in my eyes. Lord Broward had started to slide his chair back to stand as I flipped the man in my grip around. Now I had him by the ankles, and in my eyes, a human could make a pretty good flail, and a six-foot weapon had decent reach.

  I grinned, then let out a bellow that was half-roar and half war-cry as I swung my possibly-still-alive weapon at the closer of the two mercenaries. Maybe it was surprise that kept him from parrying with his sword, and I was pretty sure that’s what kept him from ducking as he caught Vail to the face. There was a satisfying crunch, and blood sprayed everywhere as the mercenary flew backward over the desk and tumbled into Broward. Both of them went down, and the sellsword didn’t move again.

  The second mercenary came at me from the side with a thrust of his sword. I was almost disappointed at the quality of assassins that Broward had hired. They were slower than some of our cabin-orcs. I shifted to one side and heaved Vail’s body around to parry the thrust with him. I couldn’t help but smirk a bit as the tip of the blade tented the back of his coat. With a twist and a pivot, I used the flopping corpse to bind the blade and disarm my opponent.

  Broward was screaming bloody murder, which it was really as I proceeded to beat the second merc flat with what remained of the lord’s manservant, or guild assassin, or whatever he’d been. A deep laugh escaped my gullet as I swung the body a couple more times, then left it lying on top of the ruined corpse of the lord’s other man.

  “D’ya really think anyone’s goin’ to hear ya?” I slipped easily into pirate speak as I kicked the lord’s desk out of the way. He had gotten out from under the first mercenary and now scrabbled backward across the floor like a funny-looking crab as he started casting about for an escape.

  “Murderer!” Broward spat at me. “Even now, my men are storming your ship to capture it! You can’t escape!”

  “Bold words comin’ from a man who won’t get up off the floor.” I grinned a toothy grin at him. “I ain’t worried ‘bout my ship, but yer boys might be in for a surprise.” My eyes slid right and left to look around for a weapon, but there was nothing in sight aside from the mercenaries’ crap swords. They’d probably break the first time I hit armor with them. None of the men seemed to have flintlocks, either.

  Shame. Guns would have given them a bit more of a chance.

  He must have thought me distracted because the lord tried to rise as he drew a knife from his boot. I almost laughed at the idea of a nobleman using a rogue’s trick before I lunged forward and punched him in the face. He flipped over completely with the force of my blow and ended up face down in a growing pool of blood.

  Hopefully, I hadn’t hit him too hard. He’d make a good hostage, at least to get me to my ship, assuming he was still alive, of course. He let out a gasping breath, and I smiled to myself. Good, I hadn’t killed him.

  A moment’s short work disarmed the lord and added a goodly sum of coin to my own purse, along with a ring of keys. It was time to go. After I hefted Broward easily over one of my broad shoulders, I went to the door, kicked it bodily from its hinges, and stalked out into the dungeon.

  “Oy!” I bellowed. “Who wants his freedom?”

  Only a couple of the handful of prisoners surged to the bars. Most of them looked like the typical trash you’d find in a dungeon, but one lean human carried the look of the sea around him and bore a scar that left the left side of his mouth in a perpetual sneer. In her lone cell, the witch girl struggled to her knees in a rattle of chains. She’d be a bit more work to free, but I wasn’t too worried about my ship, so I could take a minute. Besides, if she could wind-work, that’d give me the advantage I needed, especially if she was grateful for the rescue.

  With that, I started unlocking doors.

  “Want to join a new crew?” I asked the scar-faced man.

  “Aye, cap’n,” he said with the proper cant of a sea dog born and bred. “Bloody Bill left me an’ the rest to rot when The Indomitable caught up with us in the Aigon Straits. Got his witch to fly him off.”

  “Good enough, mate,” I growled. “Give me a name now and tell me the rest when we’re out of here.”

  “I’m Shrike,” the man said. He was human, but I wouldn’t hold that against him.

  Next was the witch. Shrike helped me unlock her door and find the keys to her chains. Magic crackled a small electric arc over her fingers when the witch-bindings fell away. Unlike the typical copper and cotton, these were some kind of wrought iron. Odd.

  “Thank you, captain,” she said in a light, musical voice. She rose to her full five-foot-and-change height and gazed up at me through mismatched blue and green eyes. So, she was a changeling, then; a kind of half-human fey creature, usually with a dark, murderous nature, but not always. That explained the iron. It would disrupt both the flow of magic, like copper, and her fey glamours.

  She could be a useful member of my crew, but she could also be dangerous. I weighed my options quickly and came to a decision. My eyes narrowed a bit, and I nodded to her as I asked, “Care to join a crew?”

  “Anything that will leave this accursed place behind.” She stretched and winced. “I’ll need tools before I’m much use, but I’ll give you a name-bond.”

  That sort of bond would actually force her to keep her word to me. Of course, it would keep me from lying to her, too, but I had a feeling it would be worth the cost. Trust a fey-witch to make it formal.

  “Captain Bardak Skullsplitter,” I told her by way of introduction. “I offer you a place in my crew as my witch.”

  “Mary Night and I’ll join your crew under your command,” she countered as she reached up and pushed her dirty black hair back from her pointed ears. “Now let’s get the bloody hell out of here.” I gave her an appraising look over. By any standards, she was a good-looking woman, just a bit small, but with all the right curves, even under her modest prison smock. She smirked a bit as my eyes lingered and I grinned back.

  “Let’s go,” I told my new crew. With the still-unconscious lord over my shoulder and Mary and Shrike at my back, we made good time up and out of the dungeon. Not many people seemed to know about it, and the other cutthroats I’d freed had made good in beating feet for the exit. They weren’t the worst distraction, either.

  Cannons thundered in the distance, and fire bloomed in the town as we rushed through the streets. Looked like my first mate was coming to find me. The crew would have been quite happy to take out the frustrations of being attacked on the Imperial outpost, and we were more than capable of laying waste to the place.

  The three of us raced towards the gate of the keep, focused on the guards barring our way. I one-armed Lord Barlow up and held him. He was starting to stir, which made what came next even better.

  “Open the gate before I break it down with your lord!” I bellowed as I dangled him like a toy.

  Neither Shrike nor Mary was armed, but the sight of an enraged orc holding their lord aloft must have triggered something in the guardsmen. They let out a lot of shrieks and worrisome cries as they rushed to the cranks and opened the gate.

  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I led the way as we rushed on through into the town. The streets were chaos with people running hither and yon in panic as another volley of cannon fire rang out from the harbor. Bricks and wood shattered in nearby buildi
ngs, and a heavy ball crashed on the cobblestones and rolled past us towards the keep.

  “Cap’n!” a familiar voice roared as my first mate, Kargad Toothbreaker, came barreling out of a burning building, along with three other burly orcs, armed to the teeth with axes and flintlocks. “We’ve got ‘em surprised, an’ Bord is givin’ ‘em what for with half the cannon!”

  “Good work, lads!” I called with a grin as my mate pulled a massive axe from his back sling and held it out to me.

  Broward was awake now and struggled on my shoulder as I took my namesake weapon from my comrade. Like the now-useless sack of shit he was, I dropped the lord hard to the cobblestones.

  “Well, Lord Broward,” I said with a grin, “looks like we don’t be needin’ you after all.”

  He actually had defiance in his eyes as he gazed up at me. “You won’t get away with this, orc!” the lord spat angrily. “We’ll find you and end you.”

  “Strong words from a man at the captain’s mercy,” Mary said, her voice carrying clearly. “Perhaps begging is in order.”

  I gave her a sidelong look as Lord Broward stared at her. His mouth worked, but nothing came out for a moment. Then he looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes.

  “You don’t know what you do, captain,” he whispered. “Spare me, kill her, and I’ll make sure you go free.” Looked like I made a good choice freeing Mary.

  “Don’t think so,” I growled before taking Lord Broward’s head from his shoulders with a backhanded slash of my axe.