The Crusades of Captain Rye and his Renegades - Book One: Tyranny

Chapter 8: Captain Rye and the Coming Storm

In the grand scheme, across the ocean of time and it's ages that ebb and flow like the tides, between the white-capped waves that roll rhythmically to the shore, we are the stuff of ripples and eddies. And in the great stories of the world, whose volumes fill great libraries, whose chapters carry but numbers for lack of titles, whose pages count innumerable, we are the stuff of mere reference or footnote.

And for most this small part suits us just fine, what more could we want in our brief life and time? To live and to love, to find joy in small things, from sunsets to huggles to butterfly wings. But for others this lot is not in the cards, their part will be greater and sung by the bards. Whether line or page or chapter they'll hold, or for a rare few a book will be told. And so a time comes when one must choose, what fills the page for all to peruse.

A few days East of the Wakesand Reef and the frontier town of Draw and Quarter, the newly named Kimkitty cruises with a strong wind in its sails. On deck crewmen tend to their duties as the Captain and his First Mate stare out to the grey horizon. Pensively, Mandy proposes meaning to the Captain's troubling dream, for this is a time of omen and vision, ere the relegation of such mysticism to superstition and wive's tale. It is a time of magic and destiny, of cruel fate and divine justice.

Mandy juggles in her mind, perhaps the Captain fears losing his crew, finding himself alone and abandoned. Perhaps he fears failure or death. Or perhaps death means rebirth and the becoming of something new. Or perhaps a great choice looms, between two paths from which there will be no return, a choice that will hence forth dominate the road he treads.

And there is a sense of courage and power, and a contrast between the two. The Captain's hand plays absently about the hilt of his new found sword, the sword that in his dream hung cloaked in ice, then sheathed in fire. And if Mandy examined it and recalled the stories, she may have guessed at its name. Bat-Tail it was dubbed, pronounced Bat-Eye by most, the blind sword and the edge of justice, the widow-maker and the bastard blade, the Wind Finger, the King Curse and the pound of flesh. It passed in and out of many tales, and served no master for long.

And of the four empty cots it can be said to be mindful of guidance, and to heed wisdom when it is offered, by the winds, by his companions, by his dreams. It can be said, but it would be wrong. For as the number of empty cots increases, so too is the path chosen, and heavier do the chains of that choice weigh.

Below deck the Goliath recovers slowly, and passes in and out of consciousness in a sudden delirium and fever. And as the day presses on he is joined by others of the crew, one by one. Five of the Sea Goat's crew, and Lucky Leigh and Pretty Patti, and soon even the Captain weakens leaving the First Mate and Le Capitaine Mathieu on deck. And even they eventually succumb, and the remaining crew are instructed to sail true and with haste to the Wakesand Reef.

The Captain, powerless, closes his eyes under the ache of his body and dizziness of his mind and nausea in his stomach. The groans below deck fade to silence by the setting of the sun, and the Kimkitty sails quietly on with minimal crew. And if the Captain were but asleep he would have roused at the sound of the hold door unlocking, and the instruction to keep the ship on course, and that those loyal would be compensated handsomely. He would have been alarmed to hear that the water was to receive the poison, and given to the unconscious crew as their doses wore off. He would have remembered how many doses he had received over the next couple of days until the Kimkitty achieved it's destination.

All that remains of the the last few days of passage however is an ache in his body, and weakness in his muscles and a fuzziness about the fringes of his mind. To say that there is a hole or gap in his memory would have at least implied a sense of time, but there is nothing between the closing of his eyelids to their reopening besides a question. How did he get here? And another question, where is here? Oh, and a third question from the Goliath who lies naked on a bench a few feet away. "How are you feeling, Captain?"