Upon a Pale Horse- Raiding the Seven Seas Read online

  Layne had kept one boot on the townspeople's’ throats while throwing them just enough scraps to keep them from rising up in mutiny.

  How many of the Imperial towns out here were like that? I didn’t expect that the Emperor of Eldrath knew how things were on the frontier. Blackburn wasn’t the kind of man to starve his subjects. His coup was based on the neglectful villainy of old Emperor Corso, and though Eldrath had dove headlong into war with Milnest afterward, the citizens of the Empire were provided for.

  “There was a tension in the air,” I observed with a shake of my head, then lifted my gaze and stared off into the dark and dusty corner of the bar, up in the rafters and over the door. “People went about their lives, but none of them were certain of their next meal or even whether or not the Admiralty will send the next shipment of needed supplies. One word from Layne, and Insmere would be dead inside of a month or two, without outside help.”

  “Yet, the spirit of the folk burns strong, does it not?” Adra said, her dark eyes intent on me.

  I nodded, then took the last drink of my mug, draining the last of the throat-burning liquor. It settled warmly in my belly, and I let out a belch that would have rattled the windows.

  “We need to get back to sea,” I said suddenly. “Every day that we wait means that The Pale Horse is another day closer to sailing.”

  “Hah!” Adra exclaimed. “You are Captain. Why do we still wait?”

  “Partly because of all the repairs we needed, but I also felt the crews needed a rest,” I said, scratching my beard. Something about the shamaness always made me want to explain myself to her. “Hell, Adra, I felt like I needed a rest.”

  That last was hard to admit, but I’d been burning my torch at both ends and probably the middle as well.

  She just nodded and said, “Of course, Splitter of Skulls.”

  “It’s time, now, isn’t it?” I asked after a moment of silence.

  “Only you can answer that question, Captain,” came the reply.

  I took a deep breath and heaved a sigh. It was time to go. I’d been putting it off and enjoying the feeling of having a town of my own, even if part of me didn’t want to believe it. I fished a couple of coins out of my belt pouch and dropped them on the table, then rose and offered a hand to the shamaness before I really thought about it.

  Much to my surprise, she took it, and I helped her to her feet.

  “Good,” Adra said. “I am restless.”

  Repairs on The Hullbreaker had been completed by my own crew of carpenters and refitters, led by Bord the Cannonmaster. He hadn’t had a chance to refit all the guns, yet, but we truly didn’t have the time.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled out across the deck to my first mate, Jimmy Mocker, a foppish dandy of a human pirate who’d been in my crew for several years and proved himself many times over. He hadn’t actually wanted the position, but I’d insisted, and he’d lost that fight.

  “Aye!” The man popped his head over the edge of the Crow’s Nest, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a head of pale blonde hair behind his bare shoulder.

  “At yer convenience, I need the expeditionary crew recalled,” I shouted. “We be sailin’ on the evenin’ tide!”

  “Time, then, is it?” Jimmy asked rhetorically. “I’ll be on it shortly, Cap’n!”

  “See that ye are!” I called back, then added. “I’ll be makin’ an inspection, too, so we better be shipshape!”

  “Bugger ye,” grumbled another voice before my first mate could answer, and Bord came stomping down from the forecastle. The dwarf had gathered his long, thick, white beard into two braids and then tucked it into the broad belt at his waist. His bald head shone in the sunlight. Otherwise, he was wearing a practical outfit of leather and cotton, with his feet tucked into heavy boots. “Ship be in better feckin’ shape than ever, save I’ve not yet got the new cannon I were promised.”

  I waved a hand out at Insmere. “Did ye see a forge capable o’ castin’ all the six-inchers ye asked for?” I groused back. “Ye’ll have yer damned cannon, Bord, soon as we have the time to wait for ‘em.”

  Bord snorted and flashed me a rare grin. “Or ye get me a shoreside forge o’ me own an’ I can make the damned things the way I bloody well want them.”

  “Tell you what, ye ol’ bastard,” I said. “Once we find that ironclad and if ye get her sailin’, I’ll give ye the Admiral’s own workshops once his ass is sittin’ at the bottom o’ the sea.”

  “I’ll remember that.” The dwarf kept right on grinning, and I suddenly knew I was in trouble. He took that as a promise, and the old cannonmaster was a stickler for a word given. Hell, so was I. I’d put him in charge of the workshops and shipyards once we sank The Pale Horse and took Avion, and he’d probably die happy.

  I wiped away my own grin and asked, “All the refits done an’ the witches, too?”

  “Aye.” Bord nodded. “We transferred Drammond to the infirmary in town, too, an’ cleaned up the brig. The dead wench has her own quarters, too, but ye have to share yer cabin with three.” The dwarf let out a chuckle. “I don’t envy ye that, Cap’n.”

  “Ye should,” I said with a smirk but refused to elaborate.

  Overhead, the mast swayed a bit. Jimmy wasn’t on his way down quite yet, but then, if he were up there with Jenny Nettles, Tabitha’s first mate, the way I thought, he’d be a little while, and I wouldn’t make too much trouble for him.

  “Who all be aboard ship?” I asked the dwarf. Adra had slipped off without me noticing, probably to ready herself.

  “The dead one, yer witch, those two up in the nest, an’ full half the crew. All the rest be out there, someplace,” Bord replied as he waggled a hand off towards the town proper. “Now ye probably should know that all the witches an’ the tuskless one have all been workin’ on The Hullbreaker near as much as I have. She bloody well may be able to bounce cannonball off her hull by now, least for a while.”

  I nodded slowly. I’d given them all permission to do everything they could to boost our survivability on this expedition. We’d just have the one ship, and if she sank, we were kind of fucked. Same as if we became stuck in the ice. “Once Mocker extricates himself an’ starts collectin’ folks, let me know. I need to call Ligeia back so that she’ll have some time to say her goodbyes to Tiny.”

  Bord nodded. “Aye, lad. Off with ye.”

  I walked off to the aft and leaned on the rail to gaze down at the glittering waves. The siren could hear the elementals, and with my shamanic abilities, I could send her simple messages. This one was three words, “We are ready.”

  After that, I went below. Mary was in her lab with Rhianne Corvis, the undead witch that we’d liberated from Commodore Arde and Admiral Layne. They’d spent quite a bit of time together over the week, which meant that they’d hopefully work together peaceably during this expedition.

  The older witch had been under some sort of magical compulsion and claimed that she hadn’t betrayed Mary of her own will. I wasn’t so sure, but I think that my beloved little changeling wanted to believe it, despite her bitterness towards Rhianne. If she were hurt by this, though, I’d find a way to permanently send the undead witch back to hell, likely by way of The Huntsman’s Spear.

  They needed to know it was time to prepare, so I tapped on the door of the lab. A moment later, the door swung open on Mary. Rhianne sat on a stool near my witch’s workbench, and they had papers and other materials strewn across almost the entire tabletop.

  A smile lit up Mary’s face, and she pushed her hair back from her mismatched blue and green eyes. “Hello, my Bardak,” she said. “Is it time?”

  “Aye,” I replied with a nod. “On the night tide.”

  “Wonderful!” she exclaimed and clapped her hands together excitedly. “Rhianne and I are ready. We’ve some idea of her limitations and abilities, too. I’ll explain them to you once we are underway.”

  “Good,” I said, then nodded to Rhianna. Her body still bore the death wounds dealt to her by Mary.
Since her emancipation, we had worked the ritual of bonding to tie Rhianne Corvis to me in an oath that would strip her powers if she went against me. That had eased my mind quite a bit.

  “Captain,” Rhianne inclined her head back to me. “I look forward to working with you.”

  “Aye, Rhianne, same,” I said, then met Mary’s eyes with mine. I didn’t miss that the undead witch hadn’t mentioned serving or working for, only working with. What exactly did that mean?

  Mary reached up and pulled me down for a kiss. “‘Twill be good to be back at sea, I think.”

  “Aye,” I told her and nodded off in the direction of my quarters. “I’ll be there for a bit. Ligeia should be back soon, then we’ll make ready.”

  “And sail with the tide,” my witch finished. “Good.”

  3

  I had several maps spread out on my desk when Mary slipped into my quarters without knocking. Well, technically, it was our quarters, with spaces set aside for my witch, Tabitha, and a small nook for Ligeia if she so chose. Mary shared her lab space with Rhianne, and since the undead woman didn’t sleep, she passed the time with reading and other work.

  Anything to distract her from her state, I reckoned.

  “Jimmy told me to let you know that Ligeia and Tiny have returned and are in the harbor,” Mary reported. “Likely, she’ll join us soon.”

  “Aye, likely,” I muttered without looking up. There was scarce little information about the frozen sea of the far north aside from some unreliable maps and roughly recorded guesses at the currents and depths. Much of this was going to be guesswork, based on the dimly recalled reckoning that Sturmgar passed on to me. The old orc had even admitted that he didn’t precisely remember the latitude and longitude of the island.

  She padded over on bare feet and leaned on the desk with a soft rustle of cloth. “I’ve not known you to plot a course, my Captain. What possesses you to do so now?”

  “Lack of familiarity,” I said with an amused snort. “I know the northlands of Erdrath, but the frozen seas? No, I’ve never been there.”

  Mary nodded and scratched her head, then reached out and trailed her fingers over one of the maps. Her evil eye glimmered faintly as she whispered a hex.

  “This one... was scribed by a madman.” She reached over and touched the other. “This one, though. This one was drawn by an explorer with an eye for detail.”

  “So, it is useless, then?” I said with a smirk.

  She laughed softly. “They both get some things right. A coastline, currents, fields of ice... but neither is complete in what it depicts.”

  “Should I combine them, then?” I asked with a scowl. If both maps were accurate to some degree, could I even do that?

  “Nay.” Mary shook her head and smiled at me, her thick, dark hair falling to hide her evil eye. Red highlights popped out in the reflected light for a moment before she looked down. “I believe you know what you must do.”

  I drew away from the maps and leaned back in my chair. For just a moment, I had doubted my abilities, and my witch, my beautiful, terrible Mary Night, set me straight. With the information Sturmgar Ironhand provided me, I should have no trouble following my intuition straight to the hidden ironclad.

  “Well, lass, I am right glad I have ye to remind me that I do not need to depend upon maps an’ charts like a common Cap’n,” I said with a grin of my own.

  My witch let out a laugh. “You will never be a common Captain, dear Bardak.” Both of us looked up as the door to my cabin creaked open.

  “Plans bein’ made an’ I ain’t even here, aye?” Tabitha Binx asked as she slipped in. “Did ye know the siren an’ her pet are swimmin’ circles in the harbor’s middle?”

  Mary and I exchanged glances. “I did not know that,” I admitted.

  The Ailur woman shrugged and flopped backward onto my bed. “I know not the reason, but it almost seems they be havin’ a disagreement.”

  I closed my eyes. That Tiny was an intelligent monster, I had no doubt. Perhaps he didn’t like the plan to leave him behind, but Ligeia would sort him out. I had faith in her.

  “Probably best not to intervene,” Mary gave voice to my thoughts. While I’d come out on top of my fight with a lascu, I didn’t want to follow it up by scrapping with Tiny. He was a friend of a sort and had done right by us for as long as his mistress had followed us.

  “Aye,” I agreed. “Is the crew aboard?”

  “Mostly,” Tabitha replied. “Some few stragglers be heading back, an’ I doubt all of ‘em be quite sober.”

  “They’ll be feelin’ it come mornin’. I’ll put ‘em on a salted ham an’ grog ration to settle their guts an’ heads,” I grumbled then pushed myself heavily up out of the chair. “I’m headin’ up to the wheel. ‘Tis close enough to time, I think.”

  “Methinks I’ll catch a nap,” the Ailur in my bed purred. “Do ye need anyone else to spell ye at the helm?”

  “We could shorten our watches a bit if ye want to rotate in,” I told her. “With ye, Jimmy, an’ Jenny along with me, we can swap to six bell turns.”

  “Good for me,” she said and squirmed onto her side before curling up into a little ball, her tail fluffing around her.

  Mary straightened and followed me out as we left Tabitha to doze away. Outside, the setting sun painted the perpetual clouds in shades of rose, gold, and blue. A good omen, I thought. Glancing over towards my witch, I saw her gazing up at the sky with a faint smile and got the distinct impression that she agreed with me.

  Instead of going straight to the wheel, I went to the aftcastle deck’s railing and leaned on it to gaze out into the harbor. Tiny lurked in about the dead center, his shell above the water like a small, rocky island. Ligeia sat atop his head, and from here, I could hear the faint strains of her lovely voice as she sang to her immense friend.

  In truth, I hated that we had to leave the Dragon Turtle behind. Not only had his sheer presence turned the tide for us in several of our fights, but he was, for lack of a better term, a friend. According to Ligeia, though, the cold of the frozen sea would sap and slow him, making the great creature more of a liability than a help.

  Besides, with him and the ships that I was leaving behind to guard Insmere, the Admiralty would shy off likely, even if Layne let them off his leash. Three more ships would be joining the fortification, too, once Captain Sloan returned from Jetsam with the rest of his little flotilla. My little fleet was growing, but it would take everything we could muster to go against Admiral Layne, the Admiralty, and The Pale Horse.

  I watched Ligeia finish her song, bend down, then slip into the water and disappear. Tiny himself let out a soft bellow and sank beneath the dark surface of the harbor as well. It wasn’t much later that Ligeia clambered up over the rail and padded, naked and dripping, up to the helm where Mary and I were there to meet her.

  “He is unhappy, but he understands,” she announced.

  “Methinks we all are unhappy,” I told her. “Are ye good to sail with us?”

  Ligeia nodded after a long moment’s thought. “I believe so, Captain. If I need to swim, then I can keep up with your ship.” A close-lipped smile crept over her face. She did that because of her mouthful of rows of shark-like teeth.

  “Good,” I said with a nod and a broad grin of my own. All my women, my dear mates, would be on this journey with me. With them and my loyal crew, there was no way I could fail.

  As I turned away to make my way back to the helm, First Mate Jimmy Mocker sauntered up and favored me with an orcish salute. I grinned back at the man and returned it.

  “All the crew is aboard, Cap’n,” he reported. “We be as ready as we can be, methinks.”

  I looked up at the darkening sky and closed my eyes for a moment. The tide was rising, the open sea was calling, and I was ready.

  “Raise the gangplank and cast her off,” I said after a moment. “Mary, do ye want to do the honors?”

  “You aren’t having the oarsmen do it?” she asked, surprised
.

  “I want to try somethin’ a bit different. Can ye do fine control o’ yer winds?”

  “Oh, aye,” Mary answered with a smirk. Instead of settling down in the mizzenmast’s shadow, she leaned her back against it and regarded me as she started to sing softly.

  Jimmy hurried off and yelled at the crew. Sails went up, orcs and human crewmen pulled in and stowed the gangplank, and other men undid the lines that held The Hullbreaker against the pier. A soft wind gathered, whispering through the ropes and teasing through the hair of everyone on deck. Elementals murmured in my ears, and I grinned as I reached out to rest a hand on the ship’s wheel.

  My ship slowly drifted free of the dock and began to back out into the harbor. I took a deep breath and reached out with my own powers, but while Mary sang to the spirits of the air, I muttered to the elementals of water. They didn’t disappoint me. Under my murmured commands, the lesser water spirits joined their efforts with those of the air.

  Our passage smoothed out, and The Hullbreaker broke into a pivoting turn to starboard. The deck went quiet but for Mary’s song and my low chanting as slowly, my heavy frigate reached the center of the harbor and spun in place so that her prow pointed out to the egress.

  “Raise sails!” I broke my chant and roared. “The open sea awaits!”

  A great “Hurrah!” went up from the crew, and they set about their duties with an excited fervor.

  As the sailors hauled the lines and filled the masts with cloth, Mary’s voice rose in its wordless song and then, a moment later, Ligeia’s joined it. Cloth snapped taut, and the rigging hummed along with them. I grinned, and The Hullbreaker surged forward, her reinforced timbers creaking under the strain of the witchwind.

  “Batten down the hatches, lads,” I yelled out with a laugh. “We be racing with the wind itself, now!”

  The last gleam of the sun’s light shone above the horizon as we burst out past the barrier lands that protected Insmere’s harbor into the choppy open sea. Overhead, the stars sparkled through the ever-present clouds, and the moon, a waxing crescent, glowed with a pale and sickly light.