“You take us there and we’ll tell you,” the man said, hope and desperation giving his eyes a strange, feral light.
“Deal,” Elaina said without thinking. She didn’t care about the terms. If Keelin was alive, she wanted to see him. Needed to see him. He at least would understand her pain over Corin’s fate.
“Cap,” Alfer said from behind her. “There’s a good fifty folk here, an’ we ain’t exactly flush on supplies.”
“Then ration them, quartermaster.”
Elaina turned back to the group of Lillingburn refugees. “Ya know who I am?” She waited for their nods of assent. “Ya best not be lying ta me over this, or I swear I’ll find the nearest sea beastie and feed all of ya to him.”
Chapter 35 - The Phoenix
“You’re mad,” Aimi said with conviction. Keelin considered arguing with her, but in truth he wasn’t entirely certain she was wrong.
“The bigger they are…” Keelin said, though it sounded far more like a damning statement than a consolidatory one.
“He’s stronger than he looks.”
“He can’t be.”
“In old Sev’relain I once saw him hit a man with another man.”
“What?”
“Picked him up and used him as a club.”
Keelin glanced down at her. She was grinning up at him. “For a minute there I thought you were serious.”
Aimi laughed, a pleasant noise that made Keelin want to hear it more often. “I was,” she said, and Keelin found himself once again facing imminent death and once again wishing he’d never laid eyes on the woman.
“Well, good luck, Captain,” Aimi said after another awkward silence.
“Call me Keelin,” he replied as he loosened his cutlasses. After a moment he realised Aimi was quiet, and he glanced over to see her scuffing the dirt with a foot.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” she said eventually.
She was right, of course. It was in fact contrary to the terms of the deal, but Keelin had been wishing for a while now that he’d never made the deal. “Just a name,” Keelin lied.
“No, it ain’t. I’ve seen the way you look at me, Captain. I’ve seen the way you avoid your own ship since I come aboard.”
It wasn’t really a conversation Keelin wanted to have, and certainly not given the situation he was about to find himself in. If he was really lucky, the giant he was about to fight would kill him and he’d never have to have that conversation.
“Just wish me luck.”
Aimi looked from Keelin to his opponent and back again. “Good luck.”
He had to give the folk of New Sev’relain one thing, if nothing else: they were quick builders. In just two days they’d managed to build an arena in the centre of the little town. Stands rose on two sides of the dust bowl that had been decreed the combatants’ colosseum, and both were full of people, young and old, male and female, pirate and townsfolk. Bets were busy being taken, and those industrious enough to declare themselves bookies were greedily rubbing their hands at the imminent prospect of financial gain at the cost of blood.
For two days Keelin had been dreading this fight, and they hadn’t been the most pleasant of days. The first had been the worst, and mostly because the hangover he’d been suffering had been the most painful of his life. One month of solid drinking, without the prospect of sobriety, had taken its toll. On that first day Keelin had been a shaking wreck barely able to hold a sword, let alone swing one.
The second day had been almost as bad. He’d stood on the deck of The Phoenix with two blunted cutlasses in hand and given an open challenge to every member of his crew. Some no doubt found it therapeutic to be handed a weapon and told to swing it at their captain. Keelin had still been sore, aching, shaking, and sweating from the alcohol in his system. He was sporting the cuts and bruises to prove that he was in no shape to be taking on a battle-ready behemoth.
Morley and Daimen Poole were waiting for Keelin near the little arena. Khan stood just a short distance from the two, looking frustratingly relaxed.
“This is foolish, Captan,” Morley said as Keelin drew close. “I hear the man once wrestled an elephant.”
“Aye?” Poole asked. “An’ exactly how the fuck would one go about wrestlin’ an elephant?”
“Regardless,” Morley continued undeterred, “the rumours say he did, and he won.”
“Sounds like a mighty tale it was too,” Poole said. “But it don’t matter a drop. There’s too much ridin’ on this fight, an’ ya can’t be affordin’ ta back out now. Ya gotta get in there an’ teach that big bastard just why your name is known across the isles as the best swordsman dares to step foot on a boat.”
Keelin let out a groan and stepped away from the two, approaching his opponent. Captain T’ruck Khan watched him all the way, his dark eyes betraying nothing.
“Are you ready, Captain Stillwater?” Khan rumbled.
Keelin let out a sigh. “Why are you doing this?”
Khan nodded. “You are an easterner.” It was a statement.
Keelin considered lying. It was a fact he’d been hiding most of his life, and it was one he wanted to hide doubly so these days. The fewer people that knew he’d been born and raised in the Five Kingdoms, the better, and if they found out he’d been born into nobility he would lose all respect any of them had for him.
“As long as I’m alive, that’s a fact I’d like you to keep to yourself,” Keelin said eventually. “Though if you do kill me, feel free to shout it to the world.”
“I would not,” Khan said. “Your secret is safe with me. I come from the clans beyond the World’s Edge mountains. You should know we follow strength, not weakness. If you want me to follow you, then show me you are stronger.”
Keelin snorted out a laugh. “Ain’t me I’m asking you to follow – it’s Drake Morrass.”
The giant shrugged. “You follow him, so he must be stronger than you. If you fail to best me, perhaps I shall seek out and challenge him instead.”
The crowd were starting to get restless. They’d come to see blood, and so far not a drop had been spilled. It never ceased to amaze Keelin that normal men and women could get so worked up over the prospect of witnessing death.
In the Five Kingdoms most towns and cities sported an arena, and pit fighting was an everyday occurrence. He remembered going to see a fight between two champions long ago. His father had taken Keelin and his older brother, Derran, to Land’s End to see how the family business worked. Afterwards they’d gone to the arena and watched one man slaughter another. At the time it had seemed heroic, and Keelin had cheered with the rest of them. Derran had watched quietly, counting the mistakes each of the warriors made. Later that day, after returning home, they’d recreated the fight, and Derran had shown Keelin each mistake in meticulous, painful detail. They had both always been gifted with a sword, but Derran was an unbeatable terror.
“Should we set some rules then?” Keelin said. “To stop either one of us dying for no good reason.”
Khan laughed and started towards the arena. “I will be trying to kill you, Captain Stillwater. If you want to survive, I suggest you not let me.”
The crowd let out a cheer, happy to see the fight about to get under way. It didn’t lift Keelin’s spirits at all to see that he knew every face and every name of the people in the crowd. Over the last few months he’d saved most of their lives at least once, he’d helped build them a town, helped secure them a future, and now here they all were, cheering on a man who was going to kill him. “Ungrateful” only began to cover the bastards. He’d given so much to all of them, and now they wanted his life as well. Then he saw Smithe’s face in the crowd, cheering along with the rest of them and watching Keelin with greedy eyes. Keelin spat into the dust and swore that even should Khan kill him in the arena, he would rise from the grave and take Smithe down to the watery Hells with him before allowing the bastard to captain The Phoenix.