Awake

Chapter One - Missie Cream

Bill stood on the forecastle and squinted out towards the horizon. What might previously have been doubted was now undeniable. Two sails, the white of the imperial fleet, drawing closer.

  Against one, they could fly the black and white and let the cutthroats have some sport. But two? They would be outmanned an outgunned. In shallower waters, round the ragged shores and reefs where Bill belonged, they would have had the advantage, being shallower on the draft than the twin frigates tailing them. Out here, however, chasing around the deep channels of these tropical seas, they had scant hope.

“Bill?” Liam nudged his shoulder. “How goes, Bill?”

The two stood in stark contrast. Huge and heavy, Bill towered over the smaller man, a mountain of muscle, his fists his weapon. Liam was a scrawny creature, all bone, dirty blonde hair hanging to his chin, palms itching with bloodlust. He was a man of knives, recognised as half-insane, the most efficient cutthroat of the lot.

  But the two men had served many long years together, under three different captains. There was much to build a brotherhood on.

“Closing,” Bill turned away. “Fetch the captain.”

Liam nodded and vanished. A ship is rarely quiet but it felt quiet now. He could hear the breath of the wind as it rushed past him and he shivered.

  Bill had many qualms about Captain Bard but he needed her now. His distrust was shared: both had tried to kill the other more than once before. But she had also sailed the Straits of Garintar in a winter storm, fought tooth and nail with imperial soldiers, just to save him from his captors.

  Bill would fight for the captain until God called down the judgement and raised them all to Hell, and on that day he would still be standing at her shoulder.

  Bill remembered when she had come aboard, back in the old days under Captain Valentine. They had boarded a warship fresh from the recent battles and there, amongst other spoils, had been the prisoner taken from enemy shores, the little foreign girl. White-skinned, they had nicknamed her Cream and, oh, how little Carmen Bard had grown in these past three years! All the ships of the pirate round knew of Missie Cream, whose skin was now powder-pocked and tanned.

  Bill had many issues with the captain but her youth and her sex were not them. Bill had known too many women to condemn her for it, and all pirates were young. Bill was old, so very old, undead at twenty-nine.

  Missie Cream arrived beside him, silent as a cat, barely reaching his shoulder. She cut a striking figure, even in shirtsleeves, scarcely armed. She was blade-thin, quick. Her dark hair was twisted away under a scarlet scarf. Her eyes blazed and that rakish grin, that smile that had doomed so many, played over her mouth.

“Imps,” Bill pointed. “Two. And closing fast.”

Cream pursed her lips. “Can we outrun them?”

Bill snorted derisively. “We can ry.”