Heart of the Kraken (Tales from Darjee) (2 page)

He caressed the brass switch in the middle of his gauntlet. The device cost him dearly. Not just in gold, but the time he spent on land among the ore-mancers while they grafted the wires to his nerves. Those men made his skin crawl. At least he went to them as a paying client and by contract they had to meet his expectations. He would loathe to ever be sick or injured and sold to their laboratories like a piece of broken furniture.

Two decades ago, the Edge snuck up the Darjee channel with Regulators noticing and sheltered in Duo Uisage, the coastal region of Darjee. During his time with the ore-mancers, Reis noticed the boy. Spindly and unsteady on his feet, he looked like a landlubber with a bad case of sea sickness. When the ore-mancers told him how they augmented the child before he was born, it piqued his interest. They took him to a windowless laboratory and showed him what the boy could do, and he knew he had to have the lad on his crew.

He lined the wizards' pockets with gold and during a surgical procedure, they added the switch to his gauntlet. It took him two weeks for his body to acclimate to the device merged with his arm. In just two days, he mastered control of boy and beast. Then, he added Fenton to the Razor's Edge family. He flicked the ornate switch now. A tingle of bio-kinetic electricity radiated through his body as the device issued an unseen command.

A crack of thunder ripped across their bow and the crew gave a collective shudder for this noise erupted upward from the depths of the ocean. A shadow marred the azure blue with white frosting as a shape detached itself from the hull of the Razor's Edge, and raced at the other vessel. Reis lost sight of his creature as it closed in on the unaware merchant. Then the smaller boat gave a shudder and lost its forward momentum. Men raced to the railing and looked overboard to identify the reason for their loss of speed. Others noticed the pirate ship bearing down and pointed. Chaos erupted as events overtook the ill-fated men.

The ship lurched backward as enormous black tentacles slithered up the sides of the steel grey hull. Suckers attached to the metal as the beast held the boat in its grip, hugging it around the middle like a child with a stuffed toy, trapping it within its grasp. Another pair of barbed tentacles reached for the propeller at the stern. It grabbed one of the spinning discs and metal screamed as they twisted and locked together. The kraken's elongated head burst through the surface of the ocean. Water dripped and turned its hide mirror-liked, broken only by the black void of its eyes. A sharp beak, half as long as a man, opened and it bellowed as steel sliced through a limb and black blood fouled the water.

As the Razor's Edge closed the distance, they heard the cries and shouts from aboard. Crew ran back and forth, scrabbling to find a weapon, something, anything, to repel the dual assault. Reis flicked the switch on his gauntlet and the electric pulse shot through his body. He shuddered from the pleasurable rush over his nerve endings. The kraken cried and let go of its toy to drop back beneath the water. The pirate ship pulled alongside accompanied by a high pitched screech as steel scratched along steel. His crew fired anchoring lines into their prey's deck and waited. Eyes bright they held the ropes, waiting for their order.

"Let's meet our new friends, men!" he shouted and grabbed a line. The pirates swung over, grinning and jeering as they launched into the fight.

Chapter Two

Fenton had no heart for the fight; he parried but only to turn a blow from striking him. The other men around him hacked and slashed at the limbs of men poorly armed and no match for the hardened pirates. The crew of the little ship offered token resistance, the men were not proven fighters given the variety of objects they tried to defend themselves with. One fenced with a mop, another tried to use a coil of rope as a whip. Soon, only three remained standing and with the blood lust slackened, Reis yelled the order to stand down. The wounded littered the deck and the tang of metal in the air came from blood seeping into porous timbers. Seagulls cried and nested along the cabin's ridge, like ocean going vultures they watched and waited for their chance to peck at the fallen.

Fenton assessed the prone men, none looked mortally wounded although most would need stitches. The pirates escaped with barely a scratch. He bore the worse slice among their crew and he removed his scarf from around his neck to tighten around his upper arm and stem the bleeding.

"Who is your captain?" Captain Reis asked.

One of the remaining vertical men stepped forward. Rectangular in appearance, he had close cropped grey hair and wore the same dark blue seaman's clothing as the rest of his scattered crew. He sported a gash down the side of his face, and he wiped it away with a blue handkerchief with yellow daffodils. "I am James Wyman, Captain of the Endeavour. We are a peaceable scientific vessel and have nothing of value, except the knowledge we have learned on our voyage. The Regulators will hear of this unprovoked attack."

Reis sneered at mention of the lawmen. "The Regulators are busy men, who knows when they might next patrol this stretch of ocean? In the interim, we shall avail ourselves of your hospitality."

A snigger rolled through the pirates. Their version of hospitality was to simply take whatever took their eye. A captured ship was just a market waiting to be picked over. Reis tucked his sabre into its scabbard. "These are lonely seas, a good week or two from shore. What interests a scientific vessel out here?"

"We are specialist marine scholars, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to search for unusual fish, coral and shells." The defeated captain fidgeted as he shoved the blood-stained cloth back in his jacket pocket.

"You're all the way out here, with no defences, collecting pretty shells?" Reis frowned, his right hand resting on his sword hilt.

"We are unarmed because we are peaceable men. We never expected to be attacked." Wyman stood a little taller but still looked like a stout building block. "We intend to summarise our findings in a journal when we return to Darjee. It will be of great interest to the academic community."

Reis tapped a fingernail against his teeth while he stared at his opposite. The rap rap audible over the soft groans of injured men.

Fenton sympathised with the fallen captain. No one liked to be pinned by Reis, one of the most vicious pirates roaming the oceans. Certainly not a man with a secret, and Wyman had the look of someone with one trying to gnaw its way out of his gut. His story didn't make sense. Whoever heard of men spending months at sea just to collect a few bits of coral, a couple of dead fish and shells?

The man swallowed and stared at his feet for a long moment before answering. "The Lady Alise closed our university and directed us to find curiosities to amuse her. She thought it a better use of her scholars."

Fenton swallowed a snort. The Lady Alise, the hand that ruled the Darjee Empire for over a hundred years, was known for her childlike fits and needs. Only she would send an unarmed vessel full of bookworms out to treacherous oceans to find her a pretty bauble.

Reis gave a lazy smile; the one that encouraged a confidence that he could then sharpen and use to eviscerate you. "Ah. I understand now. My sympathies Captain Wyman, you were tasked with a difficult mission by an uncompromising mistress. Were you successful at all?"

Wyman shrugged. "We found some underwater flowers of rare beauty and tiny krill that glow in a rainbow of colours. They will make fabulous lights in Lady Alise's throne room."

A soft chuckle left Reis' chest. "Fit amusements for a child, indeed. We can only hope she is placated."

"We can continue on our way, then?" A bead of sweat rolled down the side of the man's face. A slight tremor shook the corner of his mouth and he pursed his lips to still the movement.

"Not quite yet. I would like to see these curiosities. Perhaps my men and I might learn something. Lead on, Captain Wyman." He took off his hat and waved it at the opening below.

The fool
, Fenton thought as he dropped in line behind his captain. The smallest sliver of curiosity crept into his soul as he wondered what they would find in the hold. What was Wyman trying to hide from the pirates? No glowing krill or flower was worth the wrath of Reis.

Reis, Fenton and two others followed Wyman below. Boots rang out on the metal steps as they dropped into the darkness. A luminescent green strip at waist height illuminated their way. The men scanned and assessed everything, looking for items of value to carry back to the Razor's Edge. Beneath the deck, the hold was partitioned in two, the large aft area housed their engines and coal supply. In the forward section, a dozen men shared cramped space for six months, their hammocks hung three high in four neat rows. Small port holes in metal frames gave natural light and when opened, let fresh air circulate.

Wooden lockers anchored to the floor contained personal belongings. The captain flipped open a locker and pointed to Yusuf. The pirate knelt down and pulled out the contents. He found only four changes of clothing, three books, a worn portrait of a smiling woman with a chubby child and a carved wooden duck.

"We are men of science, not commerce," Wyman said. He winced as Yusuf dumped the items back into the locker but palmed the duck into his pocket. "We only brought items of sentimental value, not financial."

Reis grunted and kicked the lid shut with one boot. His gaze scanned the room and alighted on the door behind Wyman. "Let's look behind there."

The slight tremble in the man's hands became a visible shake as he slid the door to one side on its track. Beyond lay their storage room. Electric lights in metal cages hung from the ceiling and cast their glow downward. Shelves with netting fronts, lined the walls. Bottles, boxes and vials were crammed on the shelves. The floor was bare, except against one wall sat a large metal crate. Seven feet long, three feet wide and three feet high. A padlock held the lid closed.

Reis zoomed in on the unusual sight. "What's in there?"

"It is a temperature controlled coffin." Another swallow sent his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "It contains a crew member who died on the journey. We are taking him home for his widow. The metal stops the body from smelling."

"Taking him home?" The captain looked around at his men. Yusuf and Dinger laughed on cue. Fenton held his silence. "A strange practice. Why did you not consign him to the sea?"

The other captain spread his hands, words not coming to his lips. Or perhaps more correctly, no lie sprang to his paralysed mind.

"Open it," Reis said.

"I really don't think we should disturb the deceased—"

A pistol materialised and pressed itself to Wyman's nose. From a cross eyed gaze, he followed the barrel to the hand and along an arm to an unhappy Captain Reis.

"Open the coffin or I open your skull," Reis said.

Wyman's hands trembled as he shoved them into his pockets, one withdrew an iron key and shaking fingers held it aloft. The pistol waved toward the strange crate. Wyman unlocked the padlock and it dropped with a clang. Yusuf and Dinger stood at either end and lifted the heavy lid. A soft gasp came from within and all the men stood back, expecting a corpse to arise.

Pale fingers wrapped around the edge and the body sat upright. Water streamed from long black hair and plastered it around head, shoulders and chest. Wide eyes of azure blue glanced at each man while lungs drew deep breaths of warm, stuffy air.

Reis arched a black eyebrow and gestured with his pistol. "It seems your dead man has turned into a rather alive woman or is it something else?"

Fenton moved closer and stared in the crate. Why would they trap a woman in water and what did Reis mean by her being something else? Dark water swirled in the metal container and the woman's naked skin glinted through the half-light. A splash at the foot end and flashes of green caught his attention.

"What the—" he took a step back and glanced at the captain.

Wyman let out a deep sigh of defeat as the pirates surrounded the crate. The woman tried to shy away but had nowhere to go. She pressed her torso into the wall side of her cage and held her hands up before her face as though expecting a downward blow. Beneath the water, hues of green swirled from the scales encasing the lower half of her body. She had no legs or feet but a tapered shape that ended in two wide separated fins.

"You captured a mermaid and you weren't going to share that little titbit of information with your guests? Shame on you." Reis dropped his pistol back into its holster. "Did Lady Alise send you out here to find her one?"

"Yes." The man's shoulders slumped. With his secret exposed, there was no point in further denials. "There have been rumours for decades and occasional sightings. Many years ago, a desiccated corpse sold for an enormous amount of gold, although many think it simply a fine example of taxidermy fakery. It took us five months of scouring the outer reaches to find and trap it."

Fenton frowned as his gaze remained fixed on the exotic woman. "It? You speak of her as though she were another specimen when she is obviously a woman." His hands curled at his side. To see another imprisoned roused him from his ennui. To hold a creature of the ocean in such a small container must be a torture to her. Not to mention what she must endure when they dropped the lid and locked her inside.

"I can see her boobies," Dinger said and sniggered. Yusuf elbowed him and the smaller pirate fell silent.