The Mosque Hill Fortune (The Sons of Masguard, Book One)

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Chimmy’s hands were shaking as he turned the doorknob, not at all surprised to find the Marauder’s room unlocked. He was only the most notorious pirate in the Secoran Kingdom. It wasn’t as if anyone would dare to enter his room without permission.

That would be crazy.

Head low, the possum poked his snout into the darkened cabin, nose and whiskers twitching in apprehension. When nothing stirred, he glanced over his shoulder, then ducked inside.

The pirate captain was lost in the kind of slumber that Chimmy hardly recognized, for he hadn’t experienced it in ages, if at all.

Maybe the Marauder’s too accustomed to guilt to be kept up by his misdeeds, he consoled himself bitterly as he recalled his recent nights on the Negvar – each of them a study in wakefulness. Pushing his resentment aside as best he could, the possum tip-toed across the room, pausing here and there to stare nervously at the rise and fall of McKinley’s chest. When he reached the captain’s bedside, he froze.

This was madness.

He should turn back now, while he still had the chance.

You can do this, he drew a deep breath and held it, looping his fingers beneath the chain around McKinley’s neck. It’s the right thing.

He reached to unclasp the chain.

Then McKinley’s hand clamped around his wrist like a livid vice. Chimmy cried out in shock and pain as he watched the momentary confusion on the Marauder’s face turn to fury.

“Are you thieving from me, boy?” the pirate captain seethed, sitting upright to tower over him with readied muscles and a dangerous glare.

Terrified, Chimmy tried to pull away but found himself held fast.

“From me?!” With a thrust of his arm, the Marauder threw Chimmy to the opposite end of the room, far from the door. “You’re bold, Leech, I’ll give you that. But audacity has a time and a place. On a good day, I might chuckle over your inability to recognize that.” His face darkened. “But a good day I have not had!”

The Marauder reached for his sword.

And found that it wasn’t there.

His surprise gave Chimmy an opening, one the possum took as he lunged for a nearby lamp with no plan beyond wildly lashing out for escape. The heavy canister flew through the air, catching McKinley upside the head. Reacting from surprise rather than pain, McKinley stumbled just enough for Chimmy to haphazardly plant his shoulder into the captain’s chest, knocking him to the floor.

There, with all of his slender might, Chimmy again hefted the lamp and threw it down on the back of McKinley’s head.

The lamp shattered.

The Marauder fell limp.

Eventually, Chimmy the would-be thug stopped shaking. Then he leaned forward to jerk hesitantly at the chain around McKinley’s neck until the old metal snapped free in his hands. The sudden give sent him off-balance and he stumbled away, tipping over furniture and pointing an angry finger to the Marauder’s motionless form.

“Y-you had it coming!” he stammered in a voice of false commitment before bolting for the door with his prize, giving scarcely more than a second’s thought to what he’d just done.

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Marshall practically danced across the deck of the Albatross, his sword slicing through the air in precise, measured movements. It was a rare exercise, this solo weapons drill – one so intricate and advanced that few members of the Warriors Guild ever got around to learning it.