Authors: George Bryan Polivka
“The Navy left me with a sword. Not near enough for this work.”
“But how is this work your work? Let it be, Damrick. I thought we were done with all that.”
“I
was
done with it. Now I'm not.” He started stuffing a burlap bag full of ammunition, sacks of musket balls and scattershot, tins of powder plugs and wads and patches, just as fast as the storekeeper could get them onto the counter.
“You expect to kill the whole lot of 'em?” Lye asked. “A whole ship a' pirates?”
“I expect to bring Sharkbit Sutter to justice.”
“So you're a deputy now, or what?”
“Bounty hunting is legal in this kingdom, unless they outlawed it while we were away.”
Lye hesitated. “We could get killed,” he pointed out.
Damrick checked his sack, making mental notes. “So could he.”
Lye Mogene's eyes searched the weapons, the ammunition, his partner and friend. “How are you payin' for all that?”
The proprietor showed a sudden interest in their conversation.
Damrick turned his attention across the counter. “Put it on account. My father's store, Fellows Dry Goods. Lye, pick out a few.”
The clerk crossed his arms.
“On Halver Lane,” Damrick told him. “You know it, don't you?”
“I know it. You're Didrick's son.”
“I am.”
“Does he know what you're up to?”
“He doesn't even know I'm in port. And he won't know, until I'm dead or Sharkbit's gone.” There was a shade of warning in his voice.
The merchant sighed. “I'll have to charge you for the weapons. But take the ammo for free.”
“I can't do that.”
“Yes, you can,” the merchant insisted through tired eyes. “You get yourself killed from my goods while I bank the profits? No sir, your old man will never speak to me again and I won't blame him. Take the ammunition, no charge. That pretty much wipes out my profit.”
“I'll do it your way, if you'll let me pay when I return.”
The merchant nodded. “Deal.”
“W
E CAN
'
T SWIM IT
,” Lye whispered in the darkness.
Damrick and Lye stood in the marshes, up to their knees in cold, muddy water that had overflowed their boot tops. Peering through a curtain of reeds that towered over their heads, they saw the darkened outline of the
Savage Grace.
Her sails had been struck and her anchor dropped, and now she floated alone in a backwater lagoon two hundred yards from shore.
“We need a boat,” Damrick agreed.
“We ain't got a boat,” Lye pointed out, hoping this might end their journey. He was tired from the long walk from Mann on rutted, darkened roads while carrying heavy, awkward duffels. But his partner was, if anything, more eager than he had been all night.
“There's a watchman,” Lye told him. “Crow's nest.”
“He's asleep.”
“How can you tell?”
“It's the people on deck we need to worry about.”
Lye squinted, but could see nothing. After a moment, he said, “Well, we can't swim it.”
Damrick turned toward him, eyes flashing. “We need a boat. As I said.” And he waded quietly back through the tall marsh reeds to firmer ground. After emptying their boots of water, they started hiking again, not back the way they'd come, but further down the road toward the
notorious inn that was the only reason for any man to wander through this wilderness, the only destination in this direction other than the wide ocean beyond the bay.
Suddenly Damrick stopped, put a hand up, halting his partner.
“Whatâ”
“Listen!”
Lye heard the buzz of insects, crickets mostly, and the bleat of a bullfrog. He said as much.
“That's not a bullfrog.” Damrick pulled a small pistol from his belt.
“Then whatâ¦?” but Lye knew. It was a snore.
Damrick moved slowly through the dank water toward the sound. Parting the tall grasses with his pistol barrel, he waded out only five or ten yards before he found the rowboat. Two pirates slept off the effects of what smelled like great quantities of rum. Damrick cocked his pistol and pushed the barrel into the temple of the closest one, a haggard-looking scarecrow of a man, with more scars than whiskers. For a moment, Lye feared his partner's recent foul mood would drive him simply to pull the trigger. But the pirate was out cold, lying in three inches of murky water, his head propped against the stern planking. Damrick shook the boot of the other man, the one whose snores they had heard. He snorted once, then snored on.
Damrick pulled the boat toward shore.
“What'll you do with 'em?” Lye asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
And sure enough, Damrick climbed into the boat, found two small paddles, and when Lye had stepped uneasily over the gunwale as well, they headed out toward the dark ship, two dead-drunk pirates with them
.
“Sharkbit's not likely to be on board,” Lye pointed out. “Just a skeleton crew. It's shore leave. Don't you reckon?”
“We'll find out where he is.”
“He's at the inn, Damrick.” After a pause, “This is crazy, you know.” Then after another pause, “We gonna kill all these pirates, or what?”
“You think we shouldn't?”
It sounded like a question, but Lye got the impression it wasn't. “I'm just sayin', Damrick. We should have a plan. They're like to shoot us without askin' a load a' questions.”
“They might.”
Lye sighed, and pulled on the paddle with little enthusiasm. The
Savage Grace
had seemed small and inconsequential when they'd run up on it out at sea in the man-o'-war,
Defender.
She hadn't looked much bigger from the reeds. But now as they approached in the pale moonlight she seemed enormous, towering, forbidding. An evil king's castle, surrounded by a wide moat and protected by those who knew all about dark magic.
As they approached, a hoarse voice suddenly pierced the darkness. “Welcome, honored guests!”
It was the dark king himself.
Ham Drumbone sighed. “Well, I'm sleepy. I'm afraid that's all for tonight, lads. More tomorrow if I've a mind and you'veâ”
“No!” The voices pounced on Ham almost in unison. “The fight! We wanna hear the
fight
!”
“The fight, eh? It'll be just as good tomorrow.” Ham tapped red embers into his hard palm.
“Relight that thing, ye big oaf, and on with the story!” a sailor insisted.
“You have a rather ungainly method of persuasion, Mr. Garvey,” Ham said as he crushed out the embers with a calloused thumb. “Generally, a man with a request refrains from insulting the one of whom he's requesting.”
“Aye, well, sorry.” Then a burst of irritation, “But blame it all, ye do it to us ever' time! How'm I gettin' to sleep with that hangin' over me?”
“A true point,” Ham admitted. “But if I go on with the tale, how are you getting any sleep then?”
Blue pondered. “Well, I guess I won't,” he admitted. “But at least I'll hear the tale!”
“Hmm. Very true. All right, then,” Ham acquiesced. “If the other boys agree.”
They did.
“What business do you have here, two wayfaring strangers?” Sharkbit asked, leaning over the rail. “Or is it four?” His harsh voice was cold and casual.
“Just two, and we come to join up!” Lye blurted.
Damrick turned to look at him. Lye ignored his friend, fearing that anything but a highly believable lie would get them killed instantly. He
kept his neck cricked and his eyes upward, watching the hooded figure who hovered above them, dark as death.
“You have in the boat there the evidence of where such a life will lead. Why would two such robust young men in the prime of their lives desire the spiritual poverty of piracy?”
“Um. The money?” Lye managed.
“Temporal riches, then. You'll trade your mortal souls for filthy mammon?”
Lye was silent, sensing some trick behind the question. He shrugged, finding none. “Sure.”
“Is that a trade you demand of all your sailors?” Damrick asked. “That they sacrifice their souls to you?”
“Your tone is a bit harsh for one who seeks but to serve,” Sharkbit replied.
“I'm a bit harsh,” Damrick told him through clenched teeth.
“Then you'll do. Come aboard.”
Suddenly two sailors appeared, one on either side of Sharkbit, and a knotted rope was thrown down. In what seemed to Lye like an unnatural hurry, Damrick put an arm through the loop of his duffel, threw it over his shoulder, and climbed. The weapons within clinked and rattled. Lye watched the pirates above as Damrick used a hole left by the
Defender
's cannon for footing. Then Lye took a deep breath and followed, grunting aloud and swearing silently.
As soon as his two feet were firmly aboard, before his partner had even cleared the rail, Damrick had a large pistol in each hand, the muzzle of the left one hovering three inches from Sharkbit's forehead. The other was aimed at the nearest pirate, to his right. “You're under arrest, Sharkbit. Please, resist.”
Sharkbit showed his teeth. “I recognize you. Your aim was not so good this morning.”
“It'll be plenty good now.”
Lye fairly fell over the rail, trying to get his pistol from his belt as he scrambled aboard, his heavy pack falling on top of him. He came up with the weapon in his hand, aimed it at the other sailor, the one to Damrick's left. To his dismay, however, he realized that both the pirates had pistols in their hands as well. It was a standoff.
Then shadows started drifting up from below decks. As the bounty hunters stood, ready to take their prisoner, they were gradually being surrounded.
“Lord, why aren't all your men at the inn having some fun?” Lye muttered irritably.
“Lord, indeed,” Sharkbit answered. “They serve me and do as they're told. Despite my statements at our earlier meeting today, which were made to maintain my reputation as a madman, my standards are actually quite high.”
“Yeah? Then who are those drunks in the boat?” Lye asked.
“Applicants. Supplicants. Rejects. Drinking off their disappointment, I presume.”
“Get in the boat, Sharkbit,” Damrick ordered without emotion.
The captain of the
Savage Grace
shook his head. “Dear man. You have misjudged much. Do you believe yourself so superior that you could climb aboard an enemy ship and take its captain ashore with a pistol andâ¦a poor opinion?”
“You about through talking?” Damrick asked.
“You do have some courage,” Sharkbit acknowledged. “No. No, I don't think I am through talking. Why don't you come to my parlor, little fly, where we can talk further. I begin to think you might make a very good spider yourself.”
“You want me to join up with you?”
“It does occur to me. You have the cold heart and the steady hands required. You could become great. You could become very rich.”
“I'd never follow you.”
“Because you're a leader. That's what I like about you.”
“I'd take everything you have.”
“You can have all I own.”
For the first time, Damrick paused. “Why?”
“Because I want a lot more than I currently own, and I have the means to get it. I'll have greater means yet, with you captaining a ship for me.”
“You sail under Conch Imbry, is what I hear.”
“You hear right.”
“Why?”
“Power. Wealth. Protection.”
A trace of a glint from Damrick's eye caught Sharkbit's eye. Sharkbit grinned. “It's a powerful temptation for any man. But you, you carry the fire of destiny within you.”
Damrick lowered his pistol.
Lye Mogene gripped his more tightly, swung the barrel around to aim
it at Sharkbit. Then he stared holes into Damrick. “You're not seriously⦔ He trailed off. Damrick ignored him.
“Come,” Sharkbit said. “Let's have ourselves a drink.”
“Lead on.”
Sharkbit nodded, then glanced at his men, who lowered their weapons as well.
“I'll be tarred and feathered,” Lye said aloud, but mostly to himself. He was the only one now with pistol raised.
But as soon as the dark captain turned his back, Damrick swung his pistol butt, a straight right that caught Sharkbit at the base of the skull and crumpled him to the ground. A fraction of a second later, two blinding cracks of fire dropped the two pirates closest to Damrick. Their heads snapped backward and their bodies thudded to the deck. Lye, recovering himself, took one step backward as he aimed and fired. He killed a third pirate before the rail caught the back of his thigh and he tumbled over it, somersaulting backward into the lagoon with a thudding splash.