“How’s the crew?”
“Anxious,” said Morley. “We lost a lot of good people in the fighting, Captan. Got a few new members too. New ship’s boy, barely ten years old.”
Keelin glanced over to Aimi. “Congratulations.”
Aimi grinned. “No more scrubbing shit off the side of the ship for me,” she crowed. “Finally get a real share of the loot as well. Not that there is any loot right now.”
“That’d be the other issue, Captan,” Morley continued. “Crew want paying. More so after so many are dead. Barely enough to fill two shifts left, and that’s gonna make it awful hard to take any prey. We need money and people.”
“And food,” Aimi put in. “I’m getting right sick of fish.”
Morley sucked at his teeth and shook his head. “We all eat what we can. Be glad there’s plenty of fish to be ate.”
Keelin sighed. “What about the other captains?”
“All in the same boat, Captan. Everyone has lost a lot of crew. With those bastards run off though, they all think we’re finally safe. Others are looking at leaving. They ain’t running away, but we’re pirates. We should be pirating.”
Keelin nodded. “You’re right. We’ve earned ourselves a little freedom from attacks. Paid blood and lives for it. I need to speak to Drake first, but we’ll go find ourselves a ship to take.”
The door crashed open and Smithe strode into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind him with just as much force. Keelin stifled a sigh and attempted to get to his feet. His left leg, however, was not accommodating, and he promptly collapsed back to a sitting position with a pained gasp. Smithe leered at him.
“Any meeting about ship’s business I should be privy to,” Smithe said. “Especially any that the little bitch gets to sit on.”
“I don’t think you’d like to sit on some of the things this bitch sits on,” Aimi said with a giggle, not looking up from the papers on Keelin’s desk.
Smithe looked confused for a moment, and then a longer moment after. “What?”
“You weren’t missing out on anything, Smithe.” Keelin tried to draw the surly quartermaster’s attention away from Aimi. “Morley was just bringing me up to speed on what’s been happening these last two days.”
“Aye?”
Morley nodded. “Aye.”
“What would the crew say to a spot of good, honest piracy, Smithe?” Keelin said.
“Reckon some money in pockets might not be a bad thing,” Smithe replied, a suspicious look about his face. “Especially if it don’t mean fighting. Reckon some of the boys had enough killing for now.”
“Excellent,” Keelin said with a smile. “We’ll set off as soon as the town is back to some semblance of normalcy and find some poor fuckers to rob blind.”
“Might be worth searching for those bastards over the Sea of Stars,” Smithe said with a greedy grin.
Crossing the Sea of Stars to the Dragon Empire wasn’t entirely what Keelin had in mind. It would take them a fair distance from the isles, and from the young, fragile alliance that Drake had set up. It would also serve to remind Keelin that he was still so far away from his vengeance.
Smithe reached into his jacket and pulled out a large wad of treated leather. “You may have forgotten ya promise to the crew,” he said, crossing the room to Keelin and holding out the object. “I ain’t.”
Keelin had to put the mug of water down to take the piece of leather from Smithe – his right arm hurt far too much to use. It appeared to be a folded sheet of leather-backed parchment, and Keelin had some real trouble opening it out with only the one hand. All the while, Smithe stood by with a smirk on his face. Eventually Keelin placed the thing on his bed and peeled it open. It was a chart, and not one of his. After a moment he recognised the writing as Drake’s, and only a moment later he realised what the chart showed.
“How did you get this?”
“How do you think?” Smithe spat. “Broke into Morrass’ cabin and took it whiles no one was watching. Thought you might have forgotten about it, Captain.”
“You stole it from him?”
“Ain’t that what you was planning to do?” Smithe said. “You promised us riches, Captain. Right here I just delivered you the thing you claimed was stalling us. So how about we fuck off from this little war Morrass is fighting and go get ourselves nice and rich.”
Morley moved over to stand beside Smithe. There was a greedy glint in his eyes that Keelin wasn’t used to seeing. “You did promise the crew, Captan.”
For Keelin it wasn’t about the money. In the Forgotten Empire lay a way to locate Arbiter Prin, and his encounter with his brother had made the vengeance feel urgent all over again.
“I did,” he said. “We sail within the week.”
Chapter 18 - Fortune
Drake looked down at the body on the floor of his cabin and felt a cold rage building inside him. After two days of giving orders, helping to move the bodies of the dead, and regularly checking on Beck, he’d finally given in to the exhaustion. Twice he’d found himself asleep, startled as someone asked for an opinion or otherwise required his attention. He’d decided he needed rest, and there was only one place he was likely to get it undisturbed.
“Must’ve happened during the attack,” Princess said, looking very much like he wanted to be somewhere else. “Fucking soldiers boarded us and we didn’t have much in the way of resistance. Don’t reckon we’d have pushed them off the ship if not for Rag.”
The giant centipede had climbed up Drake’s leg and wrapped itself around his waist almost as soon as he set foot on his ship. Knowing full well how dangerous the beast was, Drake worried about it doing that at times, and it weighed him down – but it also bolstered his courage. Rag’s armour was as hard as steel, and with a venomous bite and razor-sharp pincers, it was a devastating predator of a pet.
“She killed a good three soldiers herself and scared the rest away,” Princess continued into his captain’s silence. “I guess one of those bastards broke in here first though.”
Drake said nothing. He tore his gaze away from Byron’s crumpled form. The image of the simpleton’s head caved in would likely stay with him until the end of his days. Byron had never held a weapon in his life; he’d never even been involved in a fight, as far as Drake knew. Whenever the Fortune and her crew took a ship he always hid below decks. It made no sense that the man had come to Drake’s cabin, and even less sense that whoever had broken in had not only killed him, but made such a mess of the lad as well.
The room was chaos. Drawers had been opened, their contents rifled through and thrown about the place. Drake’s chart cabinet had been broken open and his charts had spilled out, unrolling across the floor. The door to his alcohol cabinet had been smashed open and the bottles broken upon his desk. The window behind his desk had been smashed, no doubt so the culprit could make their escape with Byron’s substantial body blocking the door.
“At least they didn’t set fire to my bed,” he growled.
“I reckon Byron caught them trashing the place,” Princess said. “Lad probably asked them to leave. He was likely even polite about it.”
“They weren’t polite,” Drake said.
“No. Pyres are almost ready, Cap’n. Should we take his body down to them?”
Drake shook his head. “Byron died on the water. We’ll give his body to Rin. Perhaps she’ll have him spend eternity counting seashells, eh?” Drake barked out a laugh, but there was no humour behind it. They’d all lost so many people. He’d never expected to lose Byron.
“I’ll get someone to help move his body,” Princess said solemnly.