Keelin’s shoulders slumped, and even from behind he looked weary. Elaina swaggered up beside him and gave him a friendly nudge with her shoulder, hoping the girl was watching from above.
“Anything I can do?” she said.
“You’ve done enough.”
Elaina snorted. “All I did was walk aboard.”
“I know.” Keelin looked like he was about to say more, but he shook his head. “Don’t go giving any orders aboard my ship, Elaina.”
She grinned mischievously. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Part 3 – X Marks the Spot
The war will awaken old enemies said the Oracle
Got plenty of those to go around said Drake
She will come for you said the Oracle
Chapter 30 - Fortune
The ship drifted on its anchorage. Clouds covered the sky, and the moon was little more than a sliver, providing almost no light. Drake ordered every lantern on the ship doused. It wasn’t the first time the crew of the Fortune had worked in near complete darkness, and they were brutally efficient in such circumstances.
The ship creaked and the waves lapped against her hull. Drake caught a whisper on the breeze as one of his crew relayed orders to another, but there was little other sound. Silence, or as near to it as possible, was as important as dousing the lanterns. Sound had an odd way of travelling across water, and Drake didn’t want any hint of their presence reaching land.
He strained his eyes, but all he could make out of the islands was a dark blur. They were just around the headland of the bay, and the other ship was anchored close to the beach to obscure their presence. The Drurr didn’t want anyone to know they were there. But Drake knew. He’d sent ships all over the isles, scouring his kingdom for their presence, and now he’d found them on Churnon.
New Sev’relain was once again under the protection of Captain Khan. Drake had wanted to bring the giant pirate along for the slaughter, but Khan’s ship was a leviathan, larger than any other that had ever been built. It didn’t lend itself to subtlety and stealth. Besides, Drake needed to leave someone of authority in charge, and there was no one in the isles more feared and respected these days than T’ruck Khan. The good folk of the isles, along with the pirates, had branded the captain a hero for his exploits.
Beck stood beside Drake at the railing, silent as the rest of the crew. Drake felt her presence keenly. Since their night in her cabin, which now seemed so long ago, she’d been refusing to let it happen again, and Drake couldn’t figure out why. The Arbiter was mostly healed from her brush with death back at the battle for New Sev’relain. Her right hand still trembled a little, but apart from that she seemed healthy enough.
He glanced at her. With her hair cut short after the fire and squashed down under a tricorn hat, her plain brown trousers and bleached-bone blouse, and the leather jerkin holding six of her pistols, Beck looked more pirate than witch hunter. Drake felt himself stir, and had to look away lest he make an unwanted advance. The situation was even more maddening now she’d given him a taste. He wanted more, and he was fairly damned certain she did too, but the woman was holding back and he couldn’t fathom why.
“Lower the boats.” Drake’s voice was a quiet growl. Princess scurried away to relay his orders, and the Fortune’s dingies were lowered into the water silently.
“Is this wise?” Beck whispered. “We don’t even know why they’re on this island.”
“I know,” Drake said. He wondered how many men he would lose to the monsters.
“As much as I enjoy your cryptic crap, Drake, would you mind filling me in?”
Drake ground his teeth together and let out a sigh. If he told his crew what they were likely to come up against, they’d be far less likely to follow his orders to go ashore, but if they didn’t know how to deal with it, they would all likely die fighting it.
“When we sailed past the bay earlier, did you use one of your blessings to catch a glimpse of the ship there?” he said.
“Yes,” Beck said. “I couldn’t see it well though.”
“Did you happen to spot the two big wheels on either side of the ship?”
Drake saw Beck’s hat move up and down next to him in the darkness.
“Water wheels,” he said. “The Drurr fit them to their corsairs. They use them sort of like oars when they need to chase ships down. Those wheels are lowered into the water and then turned real fast, and it speeds up the corsair a little.”
“How do they turn the wheels?”
Drake sighed. “With trolls.”
The silence from Beck was telling. Drake doubted anyone else on board had ever even seen a troll, let alone fought one. There was no way his crew of pirates with their cheap swords and short bows could ever kill one of the monsters.
“You have a plan?” Beck said.
“I always have a plan, Arbiter.”
The Drurr camp was set up in a rocky clearing just beyond the beach. They had a fire good and going, and Drake could smell the faint odour of roasted shrooms in the air. It brought back a mess of memories that he’d rather have forgotten, and he forced them away, concentrating instead on the task at hand.
There were tents arranged around the rocky clearing, and many of the Drurr would be inside them. Most of the bastards couldn’t abide the sight of the sky when they were trying to sleep. Their race had spent so long underground that there were generations born, grown old, and died without ever seeing the sun, moon, or stars.
Drake sent ten men into the water under the command of Ying. They would paddle quietly up to the corsair and wait for Drake’s signal, then climb aboard and murder the crew left there as quietly as possible. Drake hoped the troll wasn’t there, or those ten men were already lost. He was almost certain the monster would be on the island somewhere; it was most likely why the Drurr had stopped on Churnon. There was only so long a troll would remain cooped up aboard a ship without snapping and instigating a rampage. Every few weeks Drurr corsairs would stop at an island and let their trolls roam free for a few days to sate their natural desire for destruction.
The rest of the crew crept slowly along the treeline, keeping as low and silent as possible. Drurr vision excelled in the darkness, but if they weren’t expecting an attack, they wouldn’t think to look for one. The pirates moved closer, and Drake heard voices on the wind.
Thirty men had accompanied Drake and Arbiter Beck on the island assault, and he wagered the numbers would be more or less even. He hoped the element of surprise would count for another thirty.
The smell of roasting shrooms was stronger now, taking Drake back to the great caverns full of the rubbery fungus beneath Darkhold. He shuddered, and a moment later found Beck’s hand on his shoulder. She gave him a reassuring nod – and he did feel reassured with an Arbiter by his side.
From what he could tell, there were few Drurr on watch. No doubt some were out foraging while others were asleep, and more still were sitting around a fire sharing stories, jokes, and songs. The Drurr were very similar to humans in that regard and, Drake had to admit, in many others too.
He nodded to Beck, and the Arbiter took a small chip of wood from her pocket and snapped it between her thumb and forefinger. Out in the bay, Ying was holding a similar chip, and that piece would respond by snapping in half to signal the attack.
Drake’s group waited. It would take some time for the pirates in the water to scale the side of the Drurr corsair and start murdering any and all folk they found aboard. They waited some more. He didn’t bother keeping track of time; it would only make the wait more nerve-wracking.