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.”
“Then do so.”
Bill roared his orders, the foghorn bellow of the quartermaster listened to more readily than the captain’s own. Cream kept her eyes on the pursuers.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Do you dare?”
Piracy attracts a certain kind of person. Hopeful and hurting, daring and desperate. The sailors on slavers who beg even the slaves for scraps to eat. The wild dreamers. The let-go soldiers whose skill for the smack of a musket ball and the spray of red mist was no longer appreciated. Young people, always, taking a last chance on a new and irreverent democracy.
And Carmen Bard, a kidnapped little girl nursing in her heart a rage so great it would shake the very oceans.
Out here, there was only wealth and the sea and brotherhood, the only fear that your head may one day be made a stranger to your neck.
Come on. Do you dare?
Closing…closing… There was no chance now that this was a friendly interception. The Imps knew who they were tailing.
How had they found her? How had they got so close? She had outfought and outwitted them all. She owned these seas! How dare they cut her close like this?
“Capitaine?” the elegant Ralphe appeared at her side.
“Ralphe,” Cream rested a hand on his shoulder. “What mistake did I make?”
Ralphe – young, beautiful and fashionable – was a recent addition to the crew, not a born killer by any means. But his friendship was invaluable to the young captain.
“We play with luck,” Ralphe shrugged. “Even the best gamblers lose sometimes.”
Cream’s jaw tightened. “We haven’t lost yet.”
Ralphe raised an arched eyebrow at the ships, now close enough to make out specks of people on deck.
“Bring her about,” Cream’s voice was hard. “Ready the guns.”
“Capitaine…”
“Ready the guns,” Cream repeated. “We will fight this out.”
Ralphe nodded and evaporated into the organised chaos on deck. Cream turned her eyes back to the Imps. She had to be ready. She had to win this one, just as she’s won all the rest before. She had to find the answer.
Unthinking, knowing the steps only too well, she made her way down to the great cabin. It was a crew room, yes, but also where Cream slept alone. It was one small assertion of her blood-won authority.
Open the locker beneath the seat. Twin cutlasses in her belt. Double-barrelled pistol, heavy in her hand. She was quite steady as she loaded it, below with standard lead and above with partridge shot. Twice as many shots, twice as much use. The pouch in her belt was filled with spares.
That was all she would take. Training had made a marksman of her. Up on deck, she would have sixty such marksmen, muskets flashing. One good shot was worth a hundred poor ones. The ship always made sure a crewmember knew how to fire a gun. But you knew the champions from the powder lines around their eyes, marked there forever by years of service to the trigger.
Cream rocked on the balls of her feet, glancing furtively in the tiny mirror she kept safe for her personal use only. She looked calm. She was calm.
Ralphe coughed politely from the doorway. Cream spun round.
“On deck, Capitaine,” he gestured. “The fray will begin.”
“Keep below,” Cream ordered, seizing the neck of a brandy bottle and drinking considerable measure. Not enough to mar her judgement, but enough to make an easy killer out of her.
Ralphe knew his captain well enough to see the concern from which such brusqueness stemmed. He retreated, shutting himself away as he so often did when a bloody fight arose. He had joined before, seen the horror, felt the kick of the pistol in his hand. The smack. The red spray. The easy, easy carnage.
No more. Never again.
Cream rose to the deck. They were close now, unbearably close, the largest coming in, the smaller holding back.
“They’ve sent the flagship,” Cream noted, reading the name on the prow. “I’m honoured.”
Bill’s command sounded it. Cue the guns. Let chaos reign.
The cannons burst into deafening life, counteracting the crack of wood and musket with the deep, resonant boom that was oh-so-familiar. The imperial flagship answered, blue-uniformed navy men running to their posts. Marksmen in the rigging and on deck. Yelling guncrews. Shattering fire stripping the last of the ornamentation from the ship’s rails. Each shot answered, red for red.
The orders were all Cream’s now. Or, rather, they would have been. None could be heard and sight was getting worse in the fog of cannon smoke. It didn’t matter. They knew this fight before it happened. Every decision was already unanimously made.
But the Imps were good. They had to be. They were the best.
The fiddlers started playing on the forecastle. Lively and bright, the music said “You are meaningless. Surrender now.” Cream loved to fight to a song, loved to see it drain the confidence from her enemy’s eyes.
Cream flew across the deck, ducking out from behind boxes to send shots whistling clean and true over into the hearts of imperial men. The deck rocked beneath her but she was balanced like an acrobat. A cannon ball sent her ducking, diving out of the wall to fall against the opposing rail. But she stood again, feeling nothing of the pain.
The air was dense and dark now, choking and hazy. All were deaf from the sounds, ears ringing. The water between the two ships, so perilously close, was churned and white. Seagulls swooped down to fill the space, snatching at fish driven to the surface by the frenzy, at men who fell to their doom down there.
The pirates still had the advantage. They readied to throw caltrops under the feet of the guncrews, so that those bare feet would be stabbed straight through. Up in the riggings, they were preparing with grenados of brimstone and shrapnel that would cut and burn and flame on impact.
But…but…the Imps had raised sheets! Someone commanding them had fought this way before but how dare they? The caltrops were useless. The grenados bounced off into the churning, threshing water. Their superior marksmanship was reduced to potluck.
What madness was this? The sheets were water soaked and would not burn. How dare they fight this way? Like pirates!
Cream dived to the side, firing again and again, tearing tiny holes like bee stings in the sheets. All the while, the canons shocked and shook, pummelling the ship. The space between was impenetrable now, obscured by smoke. How could that be?
Cream had fought Imps before, over and over again. She knew every step of their training. She could have joined their ships and risen to officer in days with all she knew. She knew how to beat them and yet somehow, someone was outthinking her. Someone was breaking all the rules. Someone was putting her in danger.
There was a crash so loud it overthrew the cannon fire. The deck lurched, sending men sprawling onto their faces, dropping the more precariously-balanced from the rigging like baby birds. Slowly, the fog of smoke cleared.
The sheets were down. The pirate marksmen held fire. The fiddlers fell silent. Even Cream did not order them to start again when she saw what was waiting.