Keelin considered asking after Drake Morrass specifically, but decided his purse had suffered more than enough for one day.
“Two boats, Morley,” Keelin ordered without turning to look at his quartermaster. “Prioritise men that didn’t get ashore at Fango.”
“The cargo?”
“Can wait. I’ve got crew with bits burning holes in their pockets. Let the men have some fun first. Business can come later for once.” His declaration was greeted by a cheer from the men that had accompanied him.
“And you, Captan?”
Keelin gave his quartermaster a brief grin. “I’ve got things to do.”
She wasn’t beautiful – Keelin knew – but there was something about her that drew him in like a fish on a line. He’d always been that way, and couldn’t explain why. Things caught his attention, things most people would dismiss in an instant, but with Keelin he couldn’t help but think about them.
Once, long ago, Keelin’s brother, Derran, had noticed that their father’s old cutlass had caught him in just such a way. Keelin was only six at the time, and Derran nine and much bigger, already allowed to train with swords. Together they broke into their father’s armoury and Derran had taught Keelin the basics of fighting with a sword. They both caught the beating of a lifetime when their father found out. Beatings had been a staple of Keelin’s childhood.
This woman wasn’t the first to catch Keelin’s attention. Long ago Elaina Black had been the object of his obsession. That particular infatuation had died the moment the cursed woman had revealed herself to be very much her father’s daughter. Keelin suppressed a shudder as he remembered Elaina covered in red as if she’d bathed in blood, her eyes wide and a manic grin on her face.
A man with ruddy cheeks, from both drink and the obvious exertion of simply staying upright under such intoxication, bumped into Keelin’s table. The man and his two friends laughed and made some joke about the table coming out of nowhere. Keelin did his best to ignore them and continued staring at the not-quite-beautiful woman.
“Now this here,” said the drunk to his companions “is jus’ the fuckin’ thing we’re… uh… we need.”
Keelin glanced at him and then away.
“The table,” said one of the drunken friends. “Seems yer all alone an’ this table is better suited to three fine fellows like ourselves.”
Paying the men a little more attention, Keelin decided they were most definitely pirates, but he couldn’t name either their captain or their ship. “I’m impressed you can count so high,” he said with a smile. “Reckon there’s plenty of other tables in this little tavern. I suggest you find one.”
“I found this one,” the man said, placing both fists on the table and glaring at Keelin across the round stretch of wood.
This was the problem with pirates, Keelin had to admit; all they ever wanted to do was drink, fight, and fuck. And if they were deprived of drinking and fucking for any period of time, they tended to resort to the fighting. It dawned on Keelin that perhaps it would be a good idea to give his own crew a fight every now and then regardless of the inherent danger. At the thought of his crew, he looked around the tavern for backup. Of course, there was none. He’d gone ahead of all of his men precisely to be able to spy, in relative privacy, on the woman. In fact, looking around, he realised he knew no one currently drinking in the tavern, and that meant no one would be likely to come to his aid. He had only two options: stand his ground alone, or run away. Running away had never really been an option for Keelin.
Fixing a nasty grin to his face and slowly pushing to his feet, Keelin made a show of resting his hands on his twin cutlasses despite the fact that using them in a simple bar brawl would be something largely considered against the rules.
“I reckon you might have picked a fight with the wrong person,” he said. The tavern seemed to go quiet, as though everyone inside sensed what was coming. “Keelin Stillwater.” He finished by fixing the drunken man still leaning on the table with a stern stare.
“Never heard of ya,” the man said with a shake of his head.
“Captain Keelin Stillwater,” Keelin clarified, “of The Phoenix.”
“Nope.”
“Widely regarded as the best swordsman the Pirate Isles has to offer.”
“Really?”
Keelin nodded slowly. “Really.”
“Well, I don’t know much about sword fighting,” the drunk said, standing up to his full height and suddenly seeming a lot less drunk. “But I don’t reckon you’ll be drawin’ those fancy stickers o’ yours. ’Less ya want ta end up on the end of a rope.” As he spoke, his two friends moved to flank him.
The thing about a setup, Keelin admitted to himself right there and then, was that they rarely felt like a setup until after the fact. And the thing about a fist fight, he knew from past experience, was that they were usually won by the man who struck first.
In one lightning-fast motion Keelin kicked the table towards the first man and, not waiting to see the result, launched himself at the man to his left, landing a punch squarely between his eyes. A howl of pain and a fair bit of blood later, and Keelin was fairly certain he’d just broken a nose. He spun around and ran at the third man who, it had to be said, was looking a little shocked by the sudden and unexpected outburst of violence. They connected and Keelin pushed the bald pirate backwards a few steps until they collided with a table and both went careening over the top of it, spilling cups everywhere and no doubt kicking a few bystanders on the way. The bald pirate hit the floor, and Keelin hit the bald pirate. Before either of them could recover, Keelin started raining punches down onto the man’s unprotected face.
Strong hands grabbed hold of Keelin under his arms and pulled him back and off the bald pirate, and Keelin found himself flailing at nothing. A punch to the kidney later and he was gasping in pain and wishing very much that he could swap places with the bleeding man on the floor.
Shoving an elbow backwards, Keelin was rewarded with solid contact and a grunt. He shoved free of the hands holding him and spun around to confront his new assailants, almost tripping over the prone form of the bald pirate, who was now very much curled into a ball in an attempt to protect his vulnerables from a man and a woman who had decided to get in a good kicking.
Keelin saw the haymaker coming a moment too late and, despite his rushed attempt at a block, caught at least half the fast-travelling fist with his cheek. Despite the impressive force of the punch, Keelin took it well and recovered quickly enough to give his assailant the most violent kick to the shins he’d ever delivered. He followed it up with a thunderous punch to the face, which put the other man down. He was just about to congratulate himself and look for an escape route when a body slammed into him and Keelin found his world turned upside down.
Lying face down on the tavern floor with the solid weight of a body on top of him, Keelin looked around to see the unmistakeable random violence of a bar brawl in full swing. Multiple small skirmishes were taking place with odds that ranged from uneven to dire. The woman who had been Keelin’s sole reason for ever coming into the tavern was well and truly gone.
He watched a giant of a man with Riverlands tattoos trading punches with another man who had arms hairier than most monkeys. A small woman wearing a red bandana picked up a chair and turned it to kindling across the giant’s back. The giant turned and, with speed that belied his size, grabbed hold of the woman’s neck with one hand. Keelin decided he might just lie there and play dead until it was all over; rejoining the brawl would likely be detrimental to his health. It was just as he reached that decision that his head was pushed forwards, connecting violently with the wooden floor.