If he chose to remain with her, to learn the skills of the blade, and perhaps thievery too, his life would change forever. She was cold to him more often than not, but he couldn’t forget the way she’d stayed behind to fight the mercenaries, urging him to run away. In the short time since they’d met, Anna had saved his life more than once, and he liked to believe he’d saved hers too, even if he’d been the one to endanger her to begin with. He liked to think it made them friends, though he knew Anna was likely never to admit it.
Still, life with her would at least be interesting, and he’d be his own man for once, indebted to no one.
“Well?” Anna questioned, scraping the last remnants of food from her plate. “Have you made up your mind?”
He took a deep breath. This one decision would likely decide his fate for years to come.
Slowly, a smile crept across his face. “When do we leave? I’d rather like to get started on my new life of adventure.”
She grinned, and he found he enjoyed the expression far more than her scowl. “First thing in the morning, but…are you sure? You’ll have to get your hands dirty from time to time, and I won’t have you looking down on me.”
He nodded as the reality of his choice sank in, realizing that he never could have truly considered the alternative. He'd had a taste of adventure. There was no going back. “Well,” he began with a wry grin, “someone has to keep you from killing everyone.”
She snorted, then lifted her hand to call the barmaid over to refill her mug of tea. They finished their meals and relaxed for the rest of the day like nothing had happened, but Kai didn’t miss the way Anna smiled whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, and he was quite sure she didn’t miss him doing the same.
Sarah C. Roethie
Sara C. Roethle is a Fantasy author and part-time unicorn. She enjoys writing character driven stories in various fantasy realms with elements of Celtic and Norse myth, humor, and metaphysical ponderings.
Website: saracroethle.com
Facebook: SaraCRoethleAuthor
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BLACKHEART
by David Von Allmen
4,300 words
I STOOD AT the prow of the Carrion Crow, where moonlit fog swallowed every noise save the creak of our rigging and the slap of waves against our hull. Years of planning would fall into place this night, and I found myself gripping the rail in anticipation. My efforts to spot Lord Buckworth’s merchant fleet were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of someone trying to tiptoe up behind me on a peg leg.
“Blackheart,” whispered a voice, rough as a flogging scar. My given name is Archibald, but I don’t suppose a shipload of cutthroats would respect me if I copped to a foppish name like that, do you?
I turned to see Dead Arm Joe, a wild-haired bear of a man. He stood with three more of the crew, each brandishing an axe or machete and nervously looking about in a different direction. It took quite a bit of head swiveling for them to survey the entire ship as they only had six remaining eyeballs between the four of them.
“It’s time to relieve Captain Cross of his duty. Permanently,” Dead Arm said.
“I reckon the captain knows what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s been stealing the magic out from under noble houses since you and me were small lads.”
“The raid’s too dangerous,” said Isabelle the Scarless. “This is the one that’ll get us all caught or killed, you mark me.”
Aboard any reputable sea vessel, a mangled body part was sure to result in a nickname. But the crew of the Carrion Crow had seen enough hostile swordplay that it was the bits that were still attached that stood out as odd. This is how the Portuguese lass standing beside Dead Arm came to be called Isabelle the Scarless, the Irish bloke next to her became known as Thirty Tooth Thomas, and with them, the new recruit out of Morocco who’d been somewhat jealously nicknamed Two Ears.
Over Dead Arm Joe’s shoulder, I made out the shape of the Flower of the Indus, the flagship in Lord Buckworth’s fleet. She was double our length, armed to the gizzard, and most of her four hundred crewmen still had all their body parts. We’d smeared just enough white paint across the top rail of our man-of-war to pass as one of the merchant fleet, so long as the fog held up. And we kept a healthy distance. And the Flower’s night-watch crew were a bit drunk.
“The storm magic that’s locked away in the vault of the Flower will make us the most fearsome ship on all the seas,” I said. “Right now, while she’s rounding the cape, that’s our only chance to get her.”
“This one’s suicide, I tell you,” Thomas said, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the Flower of the Indus. Or rather, tried to, before remembering he no longer had a thumb on that hand. “Captain said himself it’s all or nothing—once they’re onto us, our only means of escape is to bring storms down on them other ships. We don’t make it into the Flower’s vault and snatch Lord Buckworth’s magic, we’re good as caught—it’ll be prison for the lot of us. Those that’s still alive, that is.”
“The time for mutiny is now, while he’s distracted,” Dead Arm said.
Cross would eventually get us killed, true enough, and there’d be no better time than now to catch him off his guard. But I had to ensure this mutiny’s failure. I could no longer suffer my family name laying in tattered ruins, and its restoration depended on tonight’s plan succeeding.
“Right,” I said. “He’s in the armory, aye? Can’t risk his guards sneaking up behind us till we know which side they’ll choose.”
Dead Arm nodded. “We approach from both directions.”
“It’ll only take two to clear the back stairs.” I looked at Dead Arm with all the earnestness I could muster. “Be an honor if you’d let me do it with you, my new captain.”
A smirk broke out across Dead Arm’s face. Without another word we dashed on quiet feet—and pegs—to the rear stairs as Isabelle led the other two down the front. The guards hardly had time to look up before I clubbed the first on the crown of his head. Dead Arm could have used the blunt end of his axe, but chose instead to put his blade in the other guard’s chest.
Dead Arm started to run off, but I stopped him with a cry of “Oh no!”
He raised an eyebrow at me.
“You killed Crusty Pete,” I said.
“Did I?”
“Yeah. All the lads loved him.”
“Did they? Well, too bad for Pete, he was in my way.”
“You’re going to have a hard time getting the crew’s loyalty if they know you killed Crusty Pete. Better dump his body overboard.”
Dead Arm hesitated, looking back and forth between Pete and the direction of the armory.
“Quickly,” I said. “Don’t want them to start the mutiny without us, do you? Here, let me hold your axe.”
Dead Arm dragged Pete’s body up the stairs by its armpits and hefted him onto the gunwale. With one hard shove, Pete’s body went overboard. And with one firm push of my boot against his backside, Dead Arm went with him. The two splashed into the waves below, soon followed by a furious cry of “Blackheart!”
I leaned over the side to watch Dead Arm float away behind us. “Actually, my name is Archibald,” I called out in a stage whisper.
“You son of a—!”