THE tattoo burned like a bastard. It stung him from neck to arse crack, red-hot pain like someone was cutting through his flesh, but there was nothing to take your mind off a new tattoo like being sick ten times a day.
It hadn’t taken Josten long to realise why he’d never wanted to be a man of the sea. The boat churned up and down on the waves, and not even big waves. The rest of the mariners had laughed at him at first, taking some sadistic pleasure in the way he’d been throwing his guts up over the side of the ship. After two days even they weren’t seeing the funny side anymore.
Days of walking through the desert had already left him feeling weak, and he needed to eat, get some water in him, but every time he tried to keep something down the buffeting of the ship would see it come right back up again. All he wanted to do was find a dark quiet corner and lie down, but that hadn’t been an option. Josten knew he had to pull his weight. Had to earn his stripes aboard the ship or he’d most likely be thrown overboard after his own puke like so much flotsam.
Just keep going, and all this will pass. At least that’s what he’d told himself. And eventually, after three days of hell, he was right. The sting in his back relented and he managed to keep some food down. On the fourth day he was like a new man. And a new man was exactly what it was going to take for him to survive this.
Whatever he’d expected the pirate life to be like, it wasn’t this. The tales he’d been told about savages of the seas turned out to be so much horseshit. The crew were disciplined and focused, every man had a job and knew it well. Despite the look of them, they kept the ship in fine condition, and Josten’s first job was scrubbing the deck. He kept a shirt on while he went about it, the flesh of his back already tender enough without letting the sun burn it to a crisp, and for those first few days all he knew was the sound of the wire brush scrubbing the wood in between the occasional cry of a seabird and the laughter of the men. It was hard work, honest work Josten had spent years trying to avoid, but it beat dying in the desert or drowning in the sea, so he took to it with all the vigour he could muster.
Not long after there was a promotion of sorts, and Josten was trusted to learn how to adjust rigging and hoist sail. There were new words to learn like halyard and braces and vangs, and new pain to endure as his hands blistered with every new pull of a rope. Still he didn’t complain, determined to prove his worth, determined to survive long enough to reach home.
It wasn’t long before Josten was climbing the rigging like he was born to it. Within a month he would often find himself looking out and seeing nothing but open water on every horizon, feeling the salt breeze on his face and regretting he hadn’t sought out a ship’s company as a younger man.
Their carrack was called the Storm Cow. Josten thought it odd that nobody else found that funny, and at first he thought maybe it was misspelled. The Storm Crow seemed a much more fitting name for a ship full of reavers. Still, it wasn’t really his place to question it. Not since he was one of them now.
The pain from his tattoo had long since relented. Josten couldn’t see exactly what it depicted but he hoped it was something akin to the other crewmen. Every one of them bore a tattoo depicting a huge sea beast, tentacles winding across shoulders and down arms. He could see the tentacles on his own tattoo all right, winding down his arm to the wrist. Hopefully Kento had done a decent job on his back – he hadn’t suffered so much pain for it to look shit.
That wasn’t all that had changed. His hair was growing out, the cropped look he favoured now swapped for an unkempt mop that he tied back with a leather band. His usually clean-shaven jaw was covered in stubble and he was enjoying the prospect of a beard for the first time ever. Before, he had cursed the brightness of the desert sun, but now the salt sea air soothed his sunburned skin and he welcomed its touch.
Josten had also got to know the crew. To his surprise they weren’t the fearsome bunch he had expected. In the mercenary companies Josten had mixed with more cutthroats and murderers than he could care to remember. By comparison this band of mariners were almost civilised. The one with the shark’s teeth who he had first been intimidated by was quite an amiable chap. Predictably they called him ‘Shark Teeth’, but his real name was Dolan. After their first conversation, Josten learned his new shipmate had an encyclopaedic knowledge of history, and took great pleasure in relating tales from the Age of Penitence.
The young lad who had suggested he take food before having his tattoo was known as Lonik the Fidget, since the lad couldn’t keep still for a second. In fact most of the crew had names that described their looks and habits. The most apt was a man they called ‘The Crapper’. Josten still shivered when he remembered the day he’d found out why they called him that.
Every man on board worshipped a god they called the Kraken, which explained the tattoos. Paying homage to the Kraken was not to be shirked or questioned, that much had been made clear to Josten from day one. He made a show of it, there was no point being stubborn, but Josten had seen real gods. He knew this Kraken wasn’t real and was nothing to be feared. The real gods were more terrifying than any deified sea creature.
For days the crew went about their business like ordinary mariners and Josten learned his new trade; climbing rigging, hoisting sail, scrubbing deck. He began to wonder when any actual pirating would occur, but he needn’t have worried.
It was on one clear night that land finally came into view. A city shone on the horizon, and even in the twilight, Josten could see it was beautiful.
‘Tallis,’ said Lonik, tapping his thumb against the gunwale as he stared out at the sight. ‘Always gets me right here.’ He jabbed a finger to his chest.
‘I can see what you mean,’ Josten replied. And he could.
He’d heard of Tallis – the jewel of the Cordral. It was said for all the cities that had lost their splendour after the Fall, only Tallis had managed to increase it. If Kantor was the Cordral’s beating heart, then Tallis was its bejewelled head.
‘What business do we have here?’ Josten asked.
Lonik just shrugged. ‘Ask Vek if you dare. None of us have any clue what that mad bastard’s up to, but he hasn’t led us wrong yet, so we ain’t about to argue.’
Josten wasn’t about to argue either. Vek had saved his life. If he owed him anything it was to keep his mouth shut and follow. At least until they got back to Canbria, then he’d go his own way no matter what he owed.
The Storm Cow slid into the harbour of Tallis like a robber, the crew going about their business in silence. They flew some colours Josten didn’t recognise, but he guessed it was to mark them as traders rather than pirates. As they began to moor up, Vek appeared, looking almost respectable. He’d put on clothes of some finery, his beard neat and oiled.
‘Right, Lonik, Dolan, with me. Rest of you, stay out of trouble.’ Then, before he moved to the gangplank, ‘And you.’ He pointed at Josten. ‘Let’s see if you’re worth more than scrubbing decks.’
Josten wasn’t about to protest and he followed Vek ashore.
His legs felt like jelly as he stepped onto the hard stone of the harbour. Another new sensation to add to the rest. Vek and the others didn’t seem bothered as they made their way towards the city. Josten did his best to walk in a straight line, none too ready to look like an idiot but all too aware he was walking like a man who’d been riding hard for a week.
Vek led them up to the city, nodding at the harbourmaster who returned the gesture as he walked by. When they reached the midst of the port, Josten was hit by all the sensations he’d missed while at sea.
The smell of hot spicy food wafted down the narrow street. People chattered in funny northern accents. Two dogs barked at one another in the distance, as though relaying messages above the hum of the city.
There wasn’t much time to appreciate the beauty of Tallis; its rising minarets were little more than silhouettes against the night sky. The men and women they passed were dressed in loose-fitting robes, hair worn long as was the fashion. Josten had known a few men from the Cordral in his time, men who’d fought for coin in the mercenary companies. For the most part they’d been good talkers, but they couldn’t fight worth a shit.
Vek led them through the labyrinthine streets until they reached a busy alleyway. Stalls jutted from every dwelling, covered with multi-coloured awnings. Vendors touted exotic textiles and trinkets in between glowing braziers cooking a multitude of spiced meat and fish. Vek ignored them as he made his way to an open doorway. A thick-set bouncer pulled aside a heavy curtain, allowing Vek to enter. It seemed the pirate knew Tallis well, and it knew him right back.
Josten followed as they walked down a set of well-worn stairs and into a vibrant chamber. A band were playing a collection of strange-looking instruments in one corner, making a right racket to boot, but the patrons seemed to love it. Men and women danced, though to Josten’s eye they were more writhing around one another like coiled snakes. Drink flowed and pipe smoke filled the small space, but these pirates were all about the business, ignoring the many temptations on offer.
Vek spied his contact in the corner, leading the three of them to a secluded booth. A man sat puffing on some contraption that filtered weed through a jug to a pipe stem. It bubbled as he drew in the smoke.
‘Erral,’ Vek said, spreading his arms as though inviting the man for a hug.
‘Vek, my old friend.’
Erral slapped the rump of a girl sitting on his knee, and she slid out of the booth, smiling at the pirates as she did so. Lonik smiled back, unable to take his eyes off her. Josten could understand the allure, but there’d be time for that later. For now, they were here on other matters.
They crowded into the booth as Erral set the bubbling pipe aside. ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ the man said. Josten recognised his accent was from the Suderfeld, though he couldn’t place exactly where.
‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else,’ Vek replied.
‘Then I take it you’re in the market for work?’
‘Aren’t I always?’ Vek smiled, but Josten detected a hint of impatience about him.
‘Very well,’ said Erral. ‘Then to business. A cargo ship is coming out of Canbria laden with grain. As usual the job will be simple: ransack the ship, take the cargo, and return it to Canbria intact. There, its original owner will take it back and sell the cargo on again.’
It was a treacherous move. Josten admired the simplicity of it. ‘And you’d be the original owner, I take it,’ Josten said without thinking.
All eyes turned to him, and he realised he’d spoken out of turn.
‘New crewman?’ Erral asked.
Vek was looking at Josten as though he’d let off a deathly stink.
‘Still breaking this one in,’ he replied, clapping a hand on Josten’s shoulder and squeezing it a little too tight.
‘Well,’ said Erral with a smile, ‘let’s hope he’s as quick with a blade as he is with his tongue.’
Josten wanted to tell this fucker that he was quicker than most, but he thought maybe he’d said enough.
‘He’ll get his chance to prove it soon enough,’ said Vek.
Oh I’ll prove it all right, Josten thought. Just you give me the chance.