After finishing throwing up and wiping her mouth with her hand, Aimi continued on to the carrack. She found the whole scene sickening, but she’d be damned before she ran away and hid from it all. Looking down onto the ship’s deck, there seemed no safe place to step; it was awash with blood as it mingled with the water from the sea. Though her determination to join her crew on the carrack drove her to the ship of death, she was not yet ready to wash her bare feet in the blood of their victims, so she leapt onto the nearby rigging and scurried up a few feet before slotting her legs through a couple of loops where she could watch the scene on the deck below. By force of will she managed to stop counting the bodies and focusing on those still writhing in pain as The Phoenix’s crew finished off any unlikely to survive.
Captain Stillwater presided over the brutal scene, standing on the sterncastle deck while he cleaned his twin swords on a strip of cloth. Of all the pirates swarming across the decks, only the captain retained his usual demeanour. His hair was tousled and his jacket was speckled with blood, but his suit remained neat and his attitude calm. Aimi had to admit he cut quite the handsome figure, even amidst the carnage.
She saw one pirate emerge from the hatch that led below decks and run towards the captain, while Feather, sword in hand and a wild grin on his face, burst out of the navigation cabin with a couple of prisoners in tow. Neither the man nor the woman Feather had found looked like they had any fight in them. Both were short and leaning towards overly fed, and the woman was clearly heavily pregnant.
Feather led them towards the rest of the prisoners. Aimi had spoken to the boy just a couple of hours earlier to find out how the captain usually handled taking ships, and he’d assured her that Captain Stillwater preferred bloodless encounters. This one was anything but. Aimi had also learned that Feather had yet to kill a man. Judging by the blood on the boy’s blade, he could no longer claim such a thing.
The pirate who had emerged from below decks wore an insane grin as he approached the captain and whispered in his ear. Stillwater nodded solemnly and pointed towards the ship’s quartermaster, Smithe, and the pirate eagerly went to spread the news.
Aimi glanced back towards The Phoenix. Morley, the first mate, had stayed behind to man the ship, along with a number of other crew including Kebble Salt, who sat up in the nest casting his watchful eye over the surrounding sea.
Kebble was a mystery to Aimi. The man took no part in the sailing of the ship and bunked with the other pirates, yet all of the crew showed him great respect. She’d seen Kebble shoot and knew just how deadly he was with his rifle, but Aimi knew full well how disrespectful pirates tended to be to any who didn’t know how to sail.
“Ho there, little one,” someone said from above.
Aimi looked up to see Jojo Hyrene sitting in the rigging above her. Jojo was from the southern wilds and a true veteran of the seas, with more years on the ocean, and more exciting stories from those years, than most sailors were ever likely to see. Jojo was also one of the most likeable and friendly folk Aimi had ever met, despite being a pirate.
“Come to see how we do things?” Jojo said in his deep, raspy voice. He held out a small clay flask, which Aimi took gratefully. She swallowed a mouthful of burning rum before answering.
“Figured I best get to know the ropes.” She grinned, shaking the rigging as she handed back the flask.
Jojo laughed. “Well, the real work’s done already. After the killing comes the looting, then the captain will send the bastards lucky enough to survive on their merry way. You look a little pale – need another hit?” He offered the flask again, and Aimi shook her head.
“Just not used to the blood yet.”
Jojo nodded, his pale eyes full of understanding. “Pray you never are, little one.”
“Keelin?”
Aimi turned back to the scene on the carrack to see one of the prisoners on his feet. The man was short and bald with a hook-like nose and the dark grey robes of a priest. Judging by the blood soaking into the man’s robes, he had, until just now, been kneeling with all the other prisoners. Aimi realised he was the man Feather had escorted from the cabin, and she saw the woman he’d been with shaking her head and trying to pull the man back down onto the deck.
The captain glanced at the man once and then went back to what looked like a frustrating conversation with the quartermaster.
“Keelin Fowl?” the man in the grey robe said again, louder this time. “I’m not imagining this, it is you. I’d recognise you anywhere, boy. I watched you grow up, taught you your numbers and letters.”
Again the captain looked at the captive, and this time, after a moment, he crossed to the ladder and descended to the main deck, approaching him with a menacing step.
“Your father was convinced you were dead,” the man continued.
“Listen, mate.” The captain’s accent was more heavily tinged with the Pirate Isles than usual. “Reckon ya got me mistaken for some other bastard. So sit back down before I put ya back down.”
Again the pregnant woman pulled on the robed man’s hand, but he shook her away.
Aimi looked up at Jojo. Jojo shrugged down at Aimi, and they both returned their attention to the main deck of the carrack.
“No mistake,” the robed man said. “Don’t you remember me? Orin Syú, your father’s steward.”
Captain Stillwater was a few inches taller and broader than Syú, but he seemed to tower over him. Aimi realised that both the crew of The Phoenix and those who remained of the carrack were deathly silent; only the sound of the waves lapping against the hull and the creak of the rigging breaking the stillness.
“Last chance, mate,” Stillwater said in a voice as cold as his grey eyes. “Ya obviously got me mixed up with someone else. So how about ya stop trying to save ya worthless skin and sit back down with the rest of these smart folk.”
The captain turned and started back towards the sterncastle. Both crews relaxed.
“Your brother is still alive,” the robed man said.
Captain Stillwater let out a long sigh and shook his head. He turned back to the captive.
“They call him the Sword of…” Syú said before the captain’s fist collided with his face.
A couple of pirates cheered; most just watched in silence, and Aimi was no different.
The captain grabbed hold of the robed man by the neck before he could fall, and started dragging him towards the starboard railing. The pregnant woman was crying and begging for his forgiveness. The man seemed to regain his lucidity just as the captain drew his dagger and stabbed the poor fellow in the gut, then hauled him overboard. Aimi didn’t even hear the splash as the man’s body hit the water, and there were no screams other than the pregnant woman’s.
Captain Stillwater spent a minute looking over the starboard railing before turning back to the prisoners gathered on the main deck.
“Anyone else reckon they taught me to read?” he said, to a chorus of silence. Without another word the captain mounted the ladder to the sterncastle deck and resumed his conversation with the quartermaster.
Aimi looked up at Jojo, who appeared unconcerned by the murder. “Sometimes there’s a bit more killing to be done,” he said with a shrug, and again offered her the clay flask.
With night quickly approaching, lanterns were lit on both ships and, while The Phoenix floated leisurely nearby, the captured carrack was cleared of bodies and made ready to sail. It appeared the ship was to be taken back to New Sev’relain, where its goods could be offloaded and the ship itself could be repurposed into the pirate fleet. The prisoners – those that were in a healthy enough condition to serve – were quickly press-ganged into service, split between the two ships. The quartermaster was tasked with keeping all the men so busy they’d have no time to think about an ill-thought-out mutiny.