Chapter Thirty-Four

Eusari stared out over the vast open water, scanning the horizon for ships and relying upon Marita to scan farther. That woman used a different method than her captain, an aspect of the craft she had perfected in youth. While most Autumn Emotants bonded birds for extended sight, the heiress experienced extended viewing upon the air itself.

She did so now, resting comfortably on a chair brought up from the captain’s quarters. With eyes tightly shut, her mind wandered along the breeze as many tendrils reached out to find She Wolf. To the crew, however, the sailing master appeared only to be asleep on the job while they toiled. The grumblings had reached Eusari, but she saw no reason to address or put them straight. This would not be her crew for long—as soon as she found her boys she would return home and live out her remaining days there.

Nonetheless, Reprisal had wasted weeks sailing in circles, even pulling into the massive harbor of Middleton, only to double back and search open water once more. The entire affair felt wrong, as if her captain chased a ghost. That pushed Eusari’s crew even further away from her trust and closer to mutiny. She was certain the pack of wolves laying at her feet were the only deterrent to that end. That, and the presence of Marita.

“Are you certain Devil Jacque headed south, dearie?” Peter Longshanks finally asked his captain, stepping over the animals on the deck.

“No, not any longer. But where else would he take them? Middleton made most sense if he sought plunder, but he must have pressed on to The Cove without delay.”

The first mate gestured to the crew. “You’ve got a problem brewing, as I’m certain you’re aware. Even if you don’t find She Wolf, they only see weakness in our lack of action. They want loot, doesn’t matter where they find it. That’s the price for hiring pirates to do your hunting.”

“How hot is their ire?”

“Downright seditious—calling this voyage a waste of their talents. Mutiny won’t be far behind their list of demands, which I soon expect.”

“They’ll be compensated whether there’s loot or not.”

“Aye, but it’s high time we find some.”

Eusari shook her head. “Our good constable would never agree to taking a ship for sport. She’d arrest the lot of us.”

“She could disappear over the side,” Peter suggested jokingly. “A good keelhauling would cure the crew’s grumblings and provide ample entertainment for the rest of us.”

“As tempting as that sounds, we need her onboard. Besides, any ship we take must be part of the Pirate’s Guild.”

Marita spoke dreamily without opening her eyes. “I think I found one. There’s a ship just east and beyond eyesight. It’s keeping outside the shipping lanes, Eusari.”

“But it’s not She Wolf?” Eusari asked, the frustration in her voice.

“No, not her. This one appears to be a Fjorik hybrid. It reminds me of Ice Prince, actually, not a longboat but not a frigate neither. It may be one of the constructs Sippen built before Malfeasance.”

“You’re certain it’s not a transport?” Peter asked. “There’re plenty of Fjorik immigrants flooding to every port. This one may be headed for Soston.”

“No, this one’s acting funny,” Marita explained, “like it’s going out of its way not to be seen by ships in the main channel.”

“So it’s either a pirate or a smuggler, either way that would befit our hunting license,” Eusari decided. “I’ll take it. Summon Constable Goody Two Shoes and let her know.”

“There’s no need,” a woman’s voice said from behind, “I’m here, heard it all, and won’t sanction any attack except on She Wolf.”

Eusari turned to face her niece. “The men are restless. They came for pirate hunting and crave some action.”

“Look around,” Anne said with an I-told-you-so smile. “There’re no pirates around to hunt.”

“There,” Eusari handed over a spyglass and pointed. “Marita found a ship on the eastern horizon, between us and the shipping lanes.”

Anne made a show of straining to see, then gave up in an exaggerated huff. “I see a ship, not a pirate. You’ve no evidence a crime is committed and no authority to randomly search vessels.”

“You see, dear constable,” Eusari said with the same air as her niece, also making a show but of a different sort, “this is where it takes a pirate to find a pirate. You see a ship but outside of the shipping lanes, avoiding commercial routes, and you don’t ask yourself why?”

Anne raised the glass and looked again. “I still see a ship, and not yet a pirate. I don’t care what your gut tells you, unless it runs a black flag up its mast, I will only see a ship.”

“The men will mutiny if we don’t investigate. I’m coming about,” Eusari decided.

“If you attack or board that ship without cause, I’ll deputize your crew and lead the mutiny myself.”

A low rumble caused Anne to look down, finding herself staring at several snarling wolves.

“Good luck with that,” Eusari told her niece. “Peter, set a course and bring us close.”

“Right away, mum,” the first mate said with a salute. “I’ll also get a line ready in case you decide to floss the keel after all,” he added with a wink.

The ship in question, it turned out, was indeed one built under Sippen’s direction. A three master, the hybrid enjoyed a shallow draft providing both speed and easy egress into shallow waters. Whoever captained it upon Reprisal’s approach, however, seemed unaware or uncaring of its advantages. They kept to deep water, unable to flee due to a heavily ladened hold. Whatever they carried was heavier than Sippen designed it to carry.

“It cuh… could be Perdition,” he stammered, “or muh… maybe Elysium. It’s huh…. hard to tell.”

Marita and Parumba stood nearby with Charleigh. The younger woman was placing bandoliers over their heads and affixing several of her gadgets. This boarding seemed the best opportunity to test them out.

“The guns are ready, Captain!” Krill called from the forecastle.

“We’ve got the wind,” Longshanks called out, “and the approach!”

“Raise our colors!” Eusari commanded. The official flag of Eston hoisted swiftly to the top of the mast while another, with a black background emblazoned with a red wolf, unfurled from the jackstaff. “Now fire a warning shot across her bow,” she added.

Krill gave the signal and a deafening retort cracked the howling wind powering the sails. It sailed true, directly over the other vessel, low enough to buzz the crew but true enough to miss canvas, wood, and flesh.

Abruptly, a white flag raised to the top of the other vessel.

“They struck their colors, Captain!” Longshanks announced.

“Definitely not Pirate’s Guild, then,” Anne warned. It was common knowledge all members of the guild refused to strike colors on principle, mutually regarding the practice as cowardly.

“Or it’s a trap,” Eusari snapped back at her niece. “Approach with caution!”

“No movement on deck,” Longshanks said from behind his spyglass.

As Reprisal neared her quarry, Marita scanned the ship with her tendrils of air. “Something’s off, Eusari. The crew’s all gone below decks.” She commanded the air to caress the wooden deck, feeling it out and listening for conversation within. Neither whisper nor warning was uttered.

She then felt along the planked timbers making up the hull. The soft vibration of water pounding alongside relaxed her further, a sound she’d loved since her first voyage as a young girl. Both her adopted father and Amash Horslei had been along on that journey, and she smiled at the memory of the now king puking his guts over the rail. She ran the tendrils upward, toward the rail of this vessel, passing by the row of twelve pound cannons. Each protruded from the darkness, still and ready though eerily quiet.

A pair of eyes behind each cannon stared out toward Reprisal.

“Guns are manned!” Marita shouted, eyes snapping open just before a deafening boom roared out over the water.

“Hard port!” Eusari screamed, hoping to turn the ship under the broadside.

Everything topside seemed to move in slow motion, as ten projectiles raced above the water. Crewmen shouted, and over these Marita heard the voice of Krill.

“Lash yourselves, laddies!” he cried, “or we’ll be fishing you out later!”

Marita shoved Parumba and Charleigh down hard on the deck, lashing them to the deck with tendrils of air. She threw out as many of these as she could to secure any crew member too far from the rails or masts and unable to do so on their own. Then she tried to shift the winds, intent on blowing the cannonballs off course but failing to manage even a breeze in time. The impact proved horrific and, despite her efforts, several of Reprisal’s crew flew over the side.

“My turn,” Marita shouted at the enemy vessel, enraged by the cowardly afront. She ran across the deck, screaming obscenities like a true pirate, and leaped over the side.

“Give her cover!” Eusari’s voice cried from Reprisal.

Just before splashing into the sea, Marita created a cushion of air between her and the water, landing hard with one hand and a knee seemingly hovering just above the waves. She lifted her head, trained her eyes on the vessel ahead, and took off running, moving the cushion to stay beneath her feet.

With a part of her mind still focused on the cannoneers, she watched as they loaded. One of them noticed her sprinting toward them and shouted, alerting his shipmates to the emotant. Five rifle barrels poked out beside the cannon. Marita plugged each one with a wad of air and waited, smiling as she ran. Each rifle breeched one after another, taking a portion of each shooter’s face in the explosions. It took another round of dead sharpshooters for the crew to realize the crazed woman running across the water had caused their deaths.

For good measure, she stuffed each of the ship’s port cannons in the same fashion. Surely they wouldn’t be stupid enough to fire those. Much to her surprised amusement they were. The portside hull ripped open with a deafening roar, splintering the sea and opening the vessel like a half opened can of tuna.

A can of tuna sounds nice after the fight, she mused, that and a cocktail. Maybe a mimosa? With a mighty leap she jumped onto the first exposed level of the ruined ship. Only the top portion was missing, it would hold out the water and not sink before Eusari’s men could plunder its hold.

Marita drew her swords and settled into the first of her stances, Calm the Waters, hoping there was a skilled swordsman onboard who could put her through a good workout. The first men to charge certainly were not and fell simultaneously to her dance.

“Hi, boys!” she said, flowing in and out of the gunners, some raising either cutlass or knife while others stood armed but with dumfounded expressions. The former felled as easily as the latter, and she worked her way through the crew.

Occasionally a rifle or pistol would point her direction and she’d giggle, wadding air into its muzzle and dancing through her attackers, making her way toward the main deck. Up a ladder she climbed, running through two men at once who dared race downward while she desired to move up. Soon she stood on what remained of the deck, facing down seven men—each dazed and confused by the blood covered woman standing before them. By now her laughter bordered on hysterical.

Behind her, Reprisal had come alongside and grapples pulled the ships together. With a shrug she sheathed her swords just as Eusari and her wolves leapt aboard, deciding at last to leave some killing for the others. Marita hopped on an intact barrel and sat cross-legged while the two captains squared off.

Eusari landed on the splintered deck. Most of it had ripped away during the explosion, exposing several levels of carnage wrought by Marita. Every bulkhead was splattered, sprayed, or pooling with blood as dying or dead men stared up at the sky or at each other. The young woman, it seemed, had only grown more efficient at her craft when it called for killing.

Only seven men remained on the entire crew. These held their swords with arms extended, terrified by the emotant now resting casually on a barrel and cleaning her nails. None of them approached or charged, imprisoned by their fear. Eusari, angered by the false flag of peace, reached out to her bonded beasts and sent them forward to free six crewmen of their lives. The captain watched as wolves ripped out the throats of his men. Alone, and without looking at Eusari, he addressed her.

“If I’d known you had an emotant onboard, I wouldn’t have fired the broadside.”

“But you still wouldn’t have honored the stricken colors?”

“Of course not, Captain Eusari.”

The sound of her name caused her pause, examining his face more closely. He and she were close in age, so he may have been around The Cove around the same time as her and Braen. “You know me?”

“Who doesn’t know either the flag on your jackstaff or the woman standing before me. Why do you think I lured you in to fire upon? As soon as I saw that wolf I realized you’d left retirement.”

“I don’t know you,” she admitted.

“I am Captain Tiberius Schott, a lifetime guilded member and resident of Pirate’s Cove. I was away when you overthrew the legitimate Pirate King and returned right after your northern lover attacked the island. You may have forgotten me, Eusari, but I’ll never forget the she-bitch who destroyed The Cove from within, broke our codes, changed our government, and then left us all to deal with the return of your lackey, Devil Jacque.” He reared back and spit, sending a lump of wet mucus on her cheek.

Eusari’s knife was in her hand in a flash, ready to arc toward his throat when a woman’s voice screamed, “Stay your hand, Eusari!” She missed just barely and spun to find Constable Thorinson standing on deck.

“Stay my hand?” Eusari asked. “How about you stay the hell out of this!”

“The fight is over and, while I can look the other way from the death of the crew as self-defense, killing this captain would be an act of murder.”

“Well, crap!” Marita exclaimed, drawing every eye on board. “I broke a damn nail!” She stood, crossed over to Eusari and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And I just had them done!” She leaned in close and said loud enough so all could hear, “If the fluffed up do-goody doesn’t want you to kill him, then don’t.” After a wink she spun around, drawing both blades and crossing them against Captain Schott’s throat. “Ever sailed down a river, Captain?” she spat in his eye then drew both blades across his neck in a single motion.

Captain Schott dropped to his knees then toppled over, sent down the crimson river by a master blades-woman.

“That’s murder!” Constable Thorinson accused.

“I’m an ambassador from Cargia with a broken nail. I’ve got diplomatic immunity, bitch.” As she walked away, returning to Reprisal, Marita held up the broken middle fingernail to prove her point to the constable.