The wild behavior of the ship’s crew calmed as the leader of the pirates strode forward to face Damon and Malon. The moment had a tense, expectant feel to it, as though a new keg had suddenly arrived in a tavern’s tap room and the drunks were queuing for a taste.
“She told us there were more of you out there,” said the leader of the pirates. “But to find two? On one island? I suppose I’ve always been the lucky sort.”
“Luck is one of those things best defined after the fact,” said Damon.
Malon gave his hand a small warning squeeze. The pirate chuckled and made a show of sweeping his hat off and falling into a bow.
“Where are my manners?” he bellowed. “Such fine company as yourselves deserves to know who they’re dealing with. My name is Lord Kellen Kale, King of the Endless Ocean.”
He flashed a smile that revealed two golden teeth. Not the ones Damon would have expected, rather, an uneven mismatch of a molar and a canine. He wore gold loops through his ears, as well, so many that the cartilage sagged and stretched visibly under the weight.
Despite his poor taste in fine metal, Kellen Kale was still relatively intimidating to behold. He was comparatively young, no more than a decade older than Damon, with heavily muscled arms and a tall build. He wore a sword at his waist with a metal handle guard so dinged and nicked that Damon wouldn’t have questioned him if he’d claimed to have carried it into a hundred battles.
“My name is—”
“Anders Rosewood,” interrupted Malon. “I am Leah Rosewood, and the girl you have tied up is my daughter.”
“Aesta!” shouted Vel. “Ria is—”
“Silence,” snapped the Endless King.
“Still on The Reunion !” Vel finished, ignoring him. “She’ll find us if we…”
Another pirate came up behind her and clamped his hand over Vel’s mouth. Damon gritted his teeth, but his rage was undone by the drawn knife he saw on the man behind Vel. He couldn’t use his magic without risking her life, and neither could Malon.
“The ocean is a dangerous place,” said the Endless King. “The storm a few days back was a real deck-scrubber. I see how those inexperienced to the ways of the water might end up in precarious straits. It is lucky for you and your family to have been rescued by a reasonable man such as myself.”
His last remark drew laughter from the men. Damon chewed his lip, trying to think through the situation. He let go of Malon’s hand, knowing she might soon need freedom of motion depending on what direction the conversation went in, and slowly nodded.
“We are most grateful,” he said.
“To the tune of how much, exactly?” asked the Endless King. “Your sister seems keen on the fact that you’ve got a ship out there somewhere. If you were planning on a certain destination, or could divine whereabouts it is for us, we could certainly bring you back there for a fair price.”
The veneer of civility Lord Kellen Kale had donned was completely offset by Vel, eyes red rimmed from crying, a black bruise visible along her neck and shoulder. Damon could also see the way the self-proclaimed King was looking at Malon, eyeing her up and down like a prepaid courtesan.
“Why have you tied up my sister?” asked Damon, suddenly finding it hard to keep the anger from his voice.
“She was unkind to myself and my crew,” said the Endless King. “Thought we’d let her sweat a bit in the cargo hold until she calmed down and, well, made herself useful .”
Damon clenched his fingers into a fist, released them, and felt his mouth going cold as he began to focus his will. Malon grabbed his forearm, digging her fingers in.
“Not yet,” she whispered, voice covered by the hiss of the ocean. “Stall. Split their attention. I’ll get Vel.”
He gave a small shake of his head, too angry to think straight. Malon leaned in close, ignoring the eyes on them, and cupped a hand to his ear.
“You’re a gladiator, solas,” she whispered. “Give them a show.”
And there it was. It was a good plan more by virtue of how easily Damon knew he could play his part, rather than whether it stood a clean chance of success.
“She’s probably telling you right now that it’s better to be on the ship and make yourself useful than it is to get stabbed,” said the Endless King. “She’s right about that, for sure. Smart woman! I think I’d like to get her advice on a few things, myself.”
“What she said to me is of no concern of yours!” shouted Damon, puffing his anger. “Where I come from, men have honor. Men settle things like men, instead of pissing around like wild dogs.”
He made a show of jutting his chin up in that arrogant sort of way, aware of how it must look. He was wearing clothes that, despite their current disheveled state, had once been expensive. His body still lacked muscle from his time in the ice. He wasn’t wearing his sword belt, probably the most telling thing of all to a crowd of men who’d struggle to swim for all the iron they had on them.
The Endless King grinned, turning to look at his men as though he’d just gotten a hard pull on his fishing switch. “I’m a man of the ocean, myself. Color me intrigued! This way of settling things you speak of… did you have a particular means in mind?”
“I challenge you to a duel.” Damon swallowed hard, selling every inch of his posture. “If… one of you might lend me a sword, I would happily fight to the death!”
Malon joined in, setting a hand on his shoulder as though to pull him back. He shrugged it off and shot a weak glare at Lord Kellen, who seemed to be working to contain his own amusement with far less diligence.
“I think that is the best idea I’ve heard all day,” said the Endless King. “All week, even! How about this? If you win, we’ll take you and your family to the nearest port straightaway! Unharmed, untouched, unruffled. But if I win… Well, I suppose if I win, what I really would want most of all is for a brave man like you to join my crew. The girls too, of course.”
“Of course,” said Damon. “Though, you won’t be winning. I’m more than a match for any scoundrel here!”
Someone tossed him a cutlass. Damon made a show of trying to catch it before letting it clatter to the deck. He felt so in his element that it really was hard to keep from smiling and enjoying himself. Memories of Austine and the Gleaming Scythe came back to him in waves, the shows they’d put on, the crowds they’d drawn in. He’d had worse crowds than this lot, that was a fact.
“Excellent!” called the Endless King. “Well, I suppose we’ll be needing a circle. You’ll need to step back, kind miss. We’ll have you seated right over here next to your beloved daughter.”
Damon moved to the center of the deck. The pirates were quick to fill in around him, creating a wide dueling ring on deck of which he and the Endless King stood in the center. He couldn’t get too carried away.
The swaying of the ship was distracting, and it wasn’t as though the other pirates might not get the idea to slam a knife in his back if the fight began to shift in Damon’s favor. Or even just because they felt like it. No telling with men like these.
There was no discussion of rules or yielding, which was a telling sign of what the Endless King truly intended. A duel to the death was an easy and a seemingly fair way to rid a ship of a needless body. It was also pure entertainment for the rest of the crew, many of whom were already shouting and cheering and placing bets with ridiculous odds that would likely go unfulfilled.
“Here we are!” shouted Lord Kellen. “Won’t you regale us with your story before we well and truly get underway, Mister Anders? Bedazzle us with your rich history! My men are here to be enthralled, as it goes.”
“Oh, I don’t think we need worry much about that.” Damon did let himself smile then, though he pulled it in at the edges. He needed to drag the duel out until Malon got a chance to act, which meant continuing the charade and letting the other man feel as if he was winning.
He swung his cutlass in the most predictable way he could, a slow, but moderately powerful overhead slash. The Endless King blocked and pushed, and Damon let himself stumble back.
“Such strength!” called Lord Kellen mockingly. “You must have been a lumberjack back in the time before.”
“I’ll have you know that I was an innkeeper,” said Damon, forcing an edge of fussy arrogance into his voice.
The crew cackled with laughter. The Endless King turned one hand palm up, like a polite dinner guest absolving the table of an awkward answer to an easy question.
He suddenly surged forward, feinting at Damon with an exaggerated stomp. Damon stiffened and scrambled as though trying to block and not quite knowing how, but no attack came.
“An innkeeper,” said Lord Kellen. “My men laugh, but they wouldn’t know the value of a respectable career if they lived a dozen lives. Though I’m curious… did your mother and sister also work at this inn?”
A chorus of chuckles and oohing came from the other pirates. Damon gave a tight-lipped frown, genuinely hoping that the other man wouldn’t say something that compelled him to kill him sooner than he needed to.
“We all worked there,” said Damon.
“I’m sure they must have been… rather popular. Tell me, did they work in the kitchens, or perhaps in serving, or just maybe—”
Damon attacked, as he felt his character would have in such a situation. It took a force of will to make it an obvious strike in place of one that would render the other man a cripple, but he somehow managed it.
The Endless King blocked, quickly spinning into an unexpected counter slash. Damon caught it on the side of his blade and automatically retaliated, his sword coming within an inch of opening Lord Kellen’s neck as it hissed through the air.
The Endless King blinked, surprised and stunned. They’d circled each other to the point where Damon could see Malon in the back of the crowd ahead, still next to Vel, both still under close watch. She gave him a significant look and tilted her head slightly back, as though gesturing to the horizon.
Damon wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but he thought he could see a splotch of copper there. The Reunion , possibly, with Ria and Lilian on their way. Interesting.
“You have some good reflexes for a humble innkeeper,” snarled Lord Kellen.
The pirate king attacked again, keen on ironing out the wrinkle Damon’s nearly fight-ending attack had put into his pride and reputation. Damon drew from the depths of his gladiatorial training, dodging the strike by pretending to stumble over the uneven planking, and falling into a desperate roll to avoid the second.
The ship’s crew was going absolutely wild, shouting and stomping their feet. Damon wanted every single set of eyes on him, not on Malon and Vel, not on the horizon and the ship without a sail approaching at top speed.
He let it seem as if the Endless King was putting him on the ropes, even taking the risk of falling back against the men around the circle at one point. They laughed and pushed him forward, and this time Damon had to deflect the Endless King’s thrust. He spun by, whipping his sword into a flourish, pulling back the veil to offer them a peek of his true skill.
He was enjoying himself, perhaps a little too much.
“I’m genuinely curious as to just who the fuck I’m actually dealing with,” said the Endless King, breathing heavy. “What were you before you poured ale? A soldier? Mercenary?”
This was The Moment , as Len, his bastard of a former troupe leader, would have said. There had to be one in every bout, a turning point in which people started to hold their breath and got that interesting feeling in their heart and guts.
Damon took his time, running one finger along the flat of his blade as though he was at the smith’s and considering a new purchase. The ship was deadly silent, but he projected his voice anyway. Vocal training and all that.
“An outlaw,” he said, flashing a wild grin. He threw his head back and let out an equally mad cackle, sword hanging limp in one hand.
“I don’t think I believe that,” said the Endless King.
“You don’t have to believe it. It’s still the truth.” He tossed the sword down, the edge leaving a groove in a plank as it clattered flat. “I had a bounty of one hundred and fifty gold on my head. Is your ship even worth that much?”
The Endless King spat at him, fury edging into his eyes. “Pick your fucking sword up. I never said the duel was over!”
“Neither did I.” Damon risked a glance at Malon and saw her hurriedly undoing Vel’s bindings, forgotten in the drama. “See, I don’t need a sword to do what I’m about to do. It would get in the way.”
Lord Kellen, King of the Endless Ocean, seemed momentarily at a loss. He shrugged after a few seconds and took a step forward. “Well then, boys. Shall we see if it’s too late to collect the bounty on this stupid fucker’s head?”
Damon waited, letting the pirate take one step, two, and the third… which put him directly into the wet spot on the deck from the dinghy crew’s sodden boots and leggings. He slapped his hand down with a flourish, exhaling twin tails of cold smoke out of his nose like a hissing dragon.
The ice came up and encased the Endless King mid-step. He didn’t even lose his momentum, careening forward like a tipped statue. Damon had made the ice thick enough that it didn’t shatter when he hit the deck, still posed in his charge, sword held high for a slash that would never arrive.
“Now,” he said, speaking into the stunned silence as Malon and Vel hurried over to stand next to him. “I’m not interested in undue bloodshed. Your King is dead, there’s no getting him out of that ice quickly enough to keep him from suffocating. Would whoever is second in command step forward so we can resolve this peacefully?”
A huge man shouldered his way out from the crowd. “I’m Lord Kellen’s second, and you’re a fucking dead man!”
He charged forward… with similar results. This time, Damon made the ice thick enough to be unwieldy, preserving the pirate in a chunk so heavy that he doubted the others would be able to do much about it other than let it melt on its own. Hopefully, it would serve as a reminder to them of what would happen if they gave pursuit.
“Is there such a thing as third in command?” he asked.