“Daimen Poole, I assure you I am Jackt Veritean…”
“Best keep ya royal distance then, mate. You’re in a cell with a dangerous pirate, don’t ya know?”
“I assure you, I am quite safe from any sort of attack you might be able to muster,” the king said with an air of confidence. Daimen looked from the sword at the man’s hip to the big knight with the spear, who looked unconcerned by the whole situation. “Believe it or not, I am trying to save your miserable life.”
Daimen laughed again. “Thought ya said ya were king. Don’t take much ta save my life, mate. Just don’t kill me.”
“If only things were so simple.” The king smiled. “You’re a pirate. Self-confessed and guilty of a number of crimes. I must admit, when the list was relayed to me I stopped listening after the tenth or so. Suffice to say, by Five Kingdoms law you should be hanged until you are dead.”
“Best get on with it before the rats decide to steal ya chance. They keep coming back for a nibble no matter how many times I chase ’em off.” It wasn’t even a lie; Daimen had a number of little bites from the pests, and it was likely because he smelled like ten-day-old carrion.
The king sighed. “I’m told you sailed your ship right into mine. My captains tell me it was a suicidal manoeuvre to stop them going after Drake Morrass and the others. You sacrificed your life, your ship, and your crew, all for Captain Morrass?”
“Amazing, the sort of shit a man will do and sacrifice for his king, eh?” Daimen couldn’t keep the bitter edge out.
Jackt Veritean nodded, smiling. “As are the things a king will do for his kingdom. Do you believe in Drake Morrass?”
Daimen met his eyes. “Aye, I do.” It was only half a lie. Daimen had believed in Drake. He’d believed Drake was the only man the isles could unite behind. And he’d believed Drake would sail in and save him, his ship, and his crew. Instead the bastard had turned tail and left Daimen and all his men to die.
“Would it shake your belief to know that this war we are all currently fighting was by his design?”
“Eh?”
“He came to me, your king, with a plan to rid myself of you and all the other pirates. It was true my merchants had been requesting aid against your brethren for some time. However, I had no way to deal with you, no way to find you. Drake changed that. He came to me with charts, and upon those charts were the locations of a number of your little towns.”
“Ya full of shit, mate.”
“I offered him lands and a title in return for the deaths of all the pirates inhabiting your Pirate Isles, and he agreed. He told me to start with a town called Black Sands before moving on to any of the others, claiming it was some sort of lookout town. An early warning for the rest, unless it was promptly burned to the ground. My allies in Sarth jumped upon the chance.
“Of course, Drake disappeared, and I have since learned that a number of the other locations he’d noted on his chart were false. Why do you think he would do that, Captain Poole?”
Daimen bit his tongue to stop himself cursing.
“I believe Drake Morrass wanted me and my allies in Sarth to attack Black Sands. I think he wanted us to attack the Pirate Isles. I think he wanted all you pirates terrified and running to him for salvation.”
“Yer a fucking liar,” Daimen said, with less conviction than he would have liked.
“I don’t think you believe that, Captain Poole,” the king said, pacing around the cell. “If you were willing to sacrifice yourself for Drake Morrass, then you must know him fairly well. Tell me, what would he be willing to sacrifice to convince you people that he should be wearing a crown?”
Daimen thought about it. There was no way anyone should have found Black Sands unless they knew it was there; it was hidden from all directions but one, and that one was well away from any sort of safe trade route. The Five Kingdoms and Sarth ships were sailing the isles like they knew them, instead of gutting themselves on rocks or crashing into hidden sandbanks. There was little that could explain it quite like a well-maintained chart.
“He betrayed you all,” the king of the Five Kingdoms continued. “You trusted him, and he betrayed you and left you for dead. You sit here rotting in a cell while he claims himself a king of the very people he plotted to murder.”
“That ain’t…” Daimen started. “Ya got any proof?”
King Jackt stopped pacing and shook his head. “I don’t think I need any, Captain Poole. If you need to ask for proof, then I think we both already know how much you truly trust Drake Morrass. You know he’s capable of the crimes I’m laying at his feet, and more than just capable – you know he committed them.”
Daimen hated it, but the bastard was right. Drake was more than capable of sacrificing an entire town to his machinations, and he’d been at Black Sands just after the massacre took place. He was the first to bring news back to Old Sev’relain, and he was the first to jump on the tragedy and start gathering folk to his flag. As soon as Black Sands was destroyed, there were some folk who suspected Drake had had a hand in it, but he managed to not only allay suspicions but use them to his advantage. It turned out they should all have kept on suspecting.
“Why are ya telling me this, mate?” Daimen said. “Ya want me to repent my allegiance just before ya hang me?”
The king shook his head. “I don’t want to kill you at all, Captain Poole. I want to offer you the same thing I offered to Drake. Lands and a title. I offer you legitimacy in return for helping me crush Morrass and the rest of the pirates.”
“Ya want me ta help ya murder all the folk of the isles?” Damien said, caught between disgust and rage.
“Not at all. I couldn’t care less about the backwards towns that infest the Pirate Isles. I have been targeting them only because I had no other course of action. If the decimation of you pirates can be achieved with minimal bloodshed of those not involved, then that would be my preferred method. Which is where you come in.”
The king paused. “You know the isles, and you know the captains. I would have you help me hunt them.”
“Turn on my fellow captains to save my life?”
“Save your life. Save yourself the pain of weeks of torture. Secure yourself a future, Captain Poole.” The king’s voice was stern. “And all you have to do is help me catch those who abandoned you. I’ll give you a day to think on it.”
“What happens if I say no?”
“The penalty for piracy is death by hanging, Captain Poole, and you are most certainly guilty.”
Chapter 21 - Starry Dawn
Larkos wasn’t just a free city; it was more like a small kingdom ruled by thirteen different sets of laws depending on which region you visited. It sat on the eastern edge of the largest, most powerful empire in the known world, and it resisted all attempts by that empire to engulf it. Elaina loved the idea of Larkos as much as she loved the look, smell, and feel of the place.
Ships nestled in the harbour like gulls fighting over a floating carcass, and Elaina spotted a fair few she recognised as belonging to known pirates. She looked out over the bay, but soon stopped counting the number of masts – there were simply too many. One of the joys of the free cities was that they didn’t care whether goods were obtained illegally; the merchants of Larkos were far more interested in how cheaply they could buy the loot than where it came from.
The weather was chilly so far north, and Elaina had chosen a heavy black jacket to wear over her blouse and britches. The jacket reached almost to the deck and gave her a distinctly menacing air that she’d helped along with a touch of dark powder around her eyes and a charcoal bandana to hold her hair in place. She would walk into the city as the proud daughter of Tanner Black, looking like a true pirate lord, and demand the assistance they needed from the guilds that ran the place.