Drake nodded, glancing back once more at the simpleton before turning his attention to his cabin. He knew he’d get no sleep while his room was in such disarray, and especially not with the window broken. He doubted they had the glass to fix it here on Cinto Cena, so he resigned himself to boarding it up until they could find someone to repair it properly.
Drake couldn’t help but feel the weight of Rag around his waist as an oppressive burden. He was already exhausted, and the creature was weighing him down. With a tap on its head, Drake ordered Rag to climb down and the beast obeyed, if a little lethargically. Once on the floor it wound its way towards Byron’s corpse.
“Don’t you dare,” Drake hissed, fully willing to drag the beast away if he had to.
Rag paused.
“Away!”
After another moment the giant centipede turned and made for Drake’s bed, crawling underneath and curling up to sleep. Drake envied the beast for that.
The door opened again and Princess walked in with a couple of the crew.
“By her teeth,” Goran cursed, refusing to use Rin’s name even over water. “Poor Byron. Get his shoulders, Collo. I’ll get his legs.”
Collo looked down at the dead pirate and paled. “You get his shoulders.”
“Just bloody do as ya told.”
Drake cleared his throat loudly and sent both pirates a scathing glare. They quickly decided it didn’t matter who picked up which end of Byron’s corpse. After a bit of struggling and a few more curses, they dragged the body from Drake’s cabin.
“Reckon they’re about ready to light the pyres,” Princess said after Goran and Collo had gone. “Might be good for you to attend. Maybe even light them yaself.”
Drake picked up one of the charts spread across the floor. One of Beck’s pistols was lying beneath it. The Arbiter was still unconscious; Drake had made every doctor and every fool that called himself a healer look at her, and they all said the same thing. Her immediate injuries had been treated, but sometimes folk just didn’t pull through. He tucked the little pistol into his belt and put the last of the charts into the cabinet, shutting what was left of the door and waiting to see if it stayed shut.
“Cap’n?”
“I’m coming, Princess,” Drake said. “I hear Stillwater is awake. Send someone to fetch him for me. I’ll meet him down on the beach.”
Chapter 19 - North Storm
Fires were dancing on the shores of Cinto Cena, and the sight made T’ruck’s spirits sink, something he hadn’t thought possible any more. He’d known the soldiers of the Five Kingdoms were planning to attack New Sev’relain, and he’d known he was a good few days or more behind them. He’d hoped to somehow arrive in time to help with the defence. Not that he and his seven crew would have been able to do much.
Sailing a galleon with only seven sailors would have been exhausting, and the North Storm was certainly no galleon. She was one of the biggest ships ever built, and every member of the crew, including Lady Tsokei, had been operating on only a couple of hours’ sleep a day. And each one had performed above and beyond anything T’ruck could ever have expected from them. The surviving men and women had gone from a tight crew to a much tighter family.
When T’ruck awoke after the battle he had found the bloody corpse of Yu’truda lying across him and the witch unconscious by his side. He’d been covered in Yu’s blood; he could feel and smell it on his skin and he could taste it in his mouth. At first he’d been furious at Lady Tsokei. The crew explained she’d given Yu’truda’s life to him, and he very nearly stamped the life out of the unconscious witch, but he was beyond tired and his crew pulled him away and convinced him that it had been Yu’truda’s choice.
T’ruck fancied he could feel Yu’truda inside him. Every now and then he felt a twinge of emotion that didn’t belong. When he consulted with the witch about it, she merely shrugged and pointed out that he was no longer living his life, but Yu’truda’s. T’ruck wasn’t about to begin to claim he understood what she meant. Yet he would be damned if he wasted the gift given to him by the last member of his old clan. He was alone now. The Five Kingdoms had taken everything from him. Every member of his clan, his family, his friends. All that was left was T’ruck and his new family. His ship and his crew.
“We could make a run for Fango,” suggested Pocket. The young man had proven himself both in battle and in the sailing of the ship, and T’ruck had been proud to name him first mate of North Storm. There was still a haunted look about the lad, though. Pocket had seen too much death for his short life, and had been the cause of much of it besides.
T’ruck took in a deep breath, then sighed it out with a shake of his head. “Tanner knows we have sided with Drake. He would take the ship from us and we do not have the crew to stop him.”
“We have Nerine,” Pocket said.
The lad had become quite close with the witch since they’d taken North Storm. T’ruck didn’t know the extent of the relationship, but the more ties the woman had to the ship and crew, the more T’ruck trusted her.
He shook his head again. “That would serve no one, lad. If I am to waste our lives, I would do it crushing the skulls of Five Kingdoms pigs, not fighting our own. Besides, we need help clearing the bodies from the ship before the rats mutiny.”
They’d been sailing ever since taking North Storm, and were lucky they hadn’t run across another ship or foul weather in that time. The crew had had very little opportunity to clear the dead from the bowels of the ship, and while the smell had been rancid for some time, the risk of disease was becoming a real danger. T’ruck had one thing to say for the bodies that littered his new ship, though – they were keeping the rats away from the food stores. Why chew into a barrel when there was dead flesh aplenty, just lying around?
“Those are big fires,” Pocket said. “Looks like the whole town is burning.”
“The choice has been made,” T’ruck rumbled. “If we are to die today, we will make it glorious.”
“Aye, Captain.”
As the ship sailed closer, the pirate taking a turn in the nest, a woman by the name of Coral, scuttled down the rigging at a dangerous pace and ran across the deck towards T’ruck. He glanced at her before turning his attention back to hauling in the front sail.
“I see four big fires and a fuck load of ships, Cap’n,” Coral said, her voice whistling through a gap in her teeth.
“Ours or theirs?”
“Hard to say,” Coral said easily. “It’s a bit dark, Cap’n. Don’t look like the fires have touched the town though. They’re all on the beach.”
It wasn’t long before T’ruck could make out the faint shapes of ships in the bay. Between the fires and the moonlight they were well lit, and he recognised the hulls of both The Phoenix and the Fortune.
They sailed North Storm right into the south bay of Cinto Cena. He’d never realised how large the bay was until it swallowed up his giant of a ship. They’d been spotted, there was no mistake about that; T’ruck could see hundreds of folk scrambling about on the beach.
They lowered the anchor and then a dinghy into the water, and T’ruck ordered everyone aboard it. He would leave nobody behind for now. He set a brisk pace, rowing with the help of Pocket and Durance, and made Coral stand at the front of the dinghy and wave a white square of cloth in the air.
As the little boat drifted up alongside one of the free piers, T’ruck found a small host of bows and spears pointed towards him – but they were held by pirates, not soldiers of the Five Kingdoms. It didn’t take long for the weapons to be put away as T’ruck and the few surviving members of his crew were recognised.