Avarice of the Sea | | b o o k 1

4: Mistaken

After studying me with those hard eyes once more, a calm, lazy smile spread on his lips, like the alcohol was already affecting him. "Splendid," he all but whispered, his voice coarse like the touch of sandpaper on my skin. "I'd like'ta formally welcome ya to my ship, sweetheart."

He sat back into his desk chair and waved a hand off to the door. A moment later the pirate's hand was tugging me out of the cabin. I staggered out onto the deck, finding the dark, damp air to be colder than before. We didn't stick around there for long, but instead took a route around crates and barrels all the way to a set of stairs leading underneath the deck.

"Where are we going?" I demanded, struggling to keep up as he trudged onward down the steps. He looked back at me when I spoke up, and I caught sight of his smile, the same perfect teeth as the captain, minus the gold canines.

Beneath the deck lay the cannon rigs, the weapons, and the barrels of rum stashed away for a rainy day. I noted how haphazardly they were tossed onto the barrel racks, and yet for a pirate ship I expected less. There was a rough scrub-and-done look to the floor, and the patted down dust on the beds. On one end, lay a completely separate space for the captain's main crew. I could only assume this man who led me onward down the ranks had a place there beneath Avarice's cabin.

I suspected his relations to Avarice, but I did not want to believe it. He did not seem quite so cruel, though his appearance said otherwise.

His head reached the top of the ceiling, and his lean frame had to bend down as we descended the staircase on the other end of the sub-deck area. His arms were nearly absent in the dark due to all of his tattoos, and I noted how his hair was tied back into a low ponytail that barely reached past the top of his shoulder blades.

"Ya can stop yer staring an' try'n keep up," he remarked, which succeeded in causing my ears to turn red and a sour taste to form in my mouth.

"You never told me your name," I commented. "What is it?"

"Whatever it is, it is not your concern," he told me, and took a moment to stop and give me a harsh stare. Whatever his name was, he did not want anyone to know. I wondered if it was due to the fact that I was on board, and in any case when my father's fleets found The Avarice of the Sea, there would be no such thing as cruel punishment against him.

"Then can you at least tell me where we are going?" I questioned.

"Yer sleeping quarters," he explained. I dreaded wherever we were going the farther down we went, all the way until we reached the darkest stairwell at what could only be explained as the dungeon of the ship.

He fetched a lamp from the wall and led me down the stairs, keeping a strong hold on my hand. The flame illuminated orange gleams of light on the rusty bars of old cells and damaged wood. I shuffled closer to him as we crossed paths with men who had not had a good shave in weeks, not a good meal in days, and parched, dry mouths snarling at us through the bars.

"Got yerself a girly, eh?" an older fellow sneered, his face squishing through the bars. His eyes were beady and bloodshot, and his arthritic hands clung to the metal poles.

The pirate kicked his boot out at the prisoner's hands, succeeding in keeping him back in his cell. "Lay off it, Loren," he retorted. I scrambled after him, bouncing on my toes when I saw Loren's hand come through the bars as the shadows crossed over him.

"Y-You can't keep me down here," I stuttered, already clinging desperately to the pirate's hand as he approached a cell farther down the line.

"Too bad," he told me, prying his hand out of mine so he could unlock the door. He swung the lantern up over our heads, and hooked it onto one of the beams. The light swayed, providing a limited circle around us while the swaying boat.

"Please! Just put me in one of the rooms up above--I won't move an inch," I begged, nose wrinkling at the stench of spoiled feces and urine. He studied me for a long while when I did not make a move to enter the cell. He drew in a deep breath and shut the door to the cell with a loud crash of metal. I flinched, and the hope in me soared higher, only to crash when he took the lantern and moved farther away from the other inmates.

"'Wish I could, princess, but this is the best yer gettin'. It's been a while since we put anyone this far back, so it should be good as new," he reported to me, but then he muttered something under his breath that I could not quite catch. After a turn in the narrow hall, and another twist, we arrived in a place that looked exactly like the one before, but rather than the smell of waste and death, there was mildew in the air and a stale, saltiness on the touch of my skin.

He hooked the lantern overhead and unlocked the cell door. My shoulders slouched, and no matter what I did, my misery would not effect him. I shuffled into the cell, and was closely followed by the pirate who then hook the chain to my ankle. He tugged at it against the wooden planks, and determined it secure.

"H-How long will I be down here?" I stammered, standing feebly alongside him as he rose to his full height. He took a once over my face, then all the way down to my feet and back up again. Bile rose in the back of my throat, but I kept it down by clearing my throat and drawing his eyes back up to mine.

"We'll be passing the Brunmere peninsula at midday," he replied. I deflated significantly. As he exited the cell, and shut the door behind him, I crumbled down to the ground and slouched over my knees, shivering in the cold and the dampness. Brunmere was at the southernmost tip of Valens--so far away from home it hurt. It would take a fortnight to get all the way back to Damunt by land alone!

Something warm hit me on the shoulder, and I caught it before it could slip to the ground. It was the man's coat, as black as the shadows that flickered in the lamplight. I looked up to find him staring down at me.

"Well then, are ya gonna put it on er not? Might as well take it back if ya aren't," he sneered, setting back to work by dislodging the metal loop hooked to his belt. He locked the door with one of his keys, and swung the ring around his index finger while I shrugged on his oversized coat. I felt instantly warmer, even as he walked off with the lantern and left me in complete darkness.

I heard some shuffling on his way out, and then the clinking of keys being swished about and sorted through. In the glow of the light now over his head, I saw him knock obnoxiously on the bars of one of the cells.

"Rise and shine!" he shouted. I crawled over to the edge of the cell to get a closer look as he opened up the cell door and waltzed in to unlock the prisoner. "Cap'ain wants ta speak with ya."

"No," I heard a hoarse voice crack. "No, no, no, please, just leave me 'ere."

"No can do," the stranger announced loudly and exited the cell with a man in tow. His frail figure was a sore sight to see, and I cringed at the image of watching the pirate drag him through the halls, unable to kick or scream much louder than a hoarse croak. I heard it all the way up the stairs where the light disappeared.

Even after he was gone, I could still hear the chilling echoes of his weak begging.

I figured I must have stared ahead of me for an hour before all the sounds of the cell hit me in a wave of unease. The dripping of water was haunting, and the echoed shuffles of the inmates were crawling up on me, and seemed to get louder with ever second that passed. I reached out to the side for one of the bars, and eventually found it so I could lean up against it and search for the lamp light.

"Wait! S-Stop, I need the-"

It was gone.