Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Seven merry menfolk, wearin’ a bloody blindfold
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Carted Lord Reinut’s booty out the cave o’ gold
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Lo an’ behold Wil De Wit draw the short straw
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Found the Queen’s crown in the Kraken’s claw
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
-
Ancient Pirate Song
(Unknown date)
Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale
The Pirate’s Other Spawn
Part II
-The choice most probable to prosper-
Twenty minutes later, Leo found the three men loitering outside ‘The Purser’. Roark Clark sitting next to the closed entrance looking fast asleep, or past out and Weiss and Hook arguing whether to leave him there for Adele to find him in the morning.
“What if he up an’ rolls away in his slumber?” Weiss queried, dark face barely visible in the lights coming from the still working brothel. This one named the ‘Unicorn Horn’.
“Wher’ he may be rollin’?” Hook asked and they both stared at the platform they were standing on. It ended about three meters from the door. There was a rope playing the role of a rail there, but the gap underneath it enough for a grown man, or woman, to roll over and into the port’s waters. “Hmm, still ev’r heard o’ one rollin’ so much?”
“Ther’ was that boy sleepin’ on the lookout,” ‘Grisly’ Weiss replied and Hook nodded remembering. His look pensive.
“Twas a nasty fall, but still, was it three meters?” He asked, just as Leo stopped a couple of meters from them, a big grin in her mouth.
The roll not the fall, was his meaning.
“Rejoice, for I have work for ye lads,” she whispered, just loud enough for only them to hear. Hook, in the middle of answering to Weiss paused, a deep frown splitting his gruff face in two.
“Who might ye be?” The aged pirate asked, squinting his eyes.
“Guys are ye fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Leo groaned and stepped closer. “It’s me! Now shall I proceed wit—?”
“Is it ye though?” Weiss interrupted her.
“An’ who might that ye be?” Hook added, eyeing her suspiciously.
Leo stood back and licked her lips, spat down next half-coughing half-retching, seeing as the charcoal paint was bitter alike poison.
Arrgh! Damnit!
“It’s Foxy. I’m—” Hook stopped her, before she had the time to finish.
“Let me stop ye right thar’ me boy. Now, seein’ as we both…” He blinked and stared at the still passed out Clark. “…the lot o’ us, are familiar wit miss Vale’s moniker, we can’t allow yer using it, savvy?”
“Find yerself another moniker is his meanin’,” Weiss explained with a knowing look, while Leo stared at both of them nigh incredulous. What the fuck had these guys imbibed?
“So, refrainin’ from that, who might ye be?” Hook asked her letting out a monstrous retch, without batting an eyelash.
“Leo Vale,” she replied barely managing to keep her voice low, a hand on her hip and right boot tapping at the wooden platform irritably.
Hook grimaced, glanced at Weiss and then scratched where his ear used to be, the scar grotesque.
“Perhaps it’s the noise,” he started. “But ye said Leo Vale?”
“Abrakas offer gods-darn aid,” Leo groaned, removed the hat and stooped closer to his face. “Look, ye fuckin’ drunk!”
“Hmm,” Hook said, staring.
“Was ‘Sly’ Erlad yer father lad?” Weiss asked stepping closer. Big round nose, swollen. “Far from me to speak ill o’ the dead, but the man couldn’t keep it in his pants, ye see. Doubtless seeded a pair o’ more wher’ ye hailin’ from.”
Leo blinked and stood back, put the hat back on, removed the big gold ring she had on her finger, skulls and bones engraved on it and stepping forward again, slapped Weiss hard in the face. The man stumbled, head swinging right, as Leo had a heavy hand for a woman and when he came about shocked, she backhanded him again almost dropping him down.
“Hey!” Hook snapped, a hand on the pommel of his cutlass, but Weiss stopped him with a hand, an incredulous look on his swelling cheek.
“It’s Leona, Abrakas curse us!” Weiss gasped.
“What? Have ye lost yer fuckin’ mind?” Hook guffawed. “A good blow to the head could do that ye know! Turn menfolk right stupid aye. Seein’ as ye were almost there afore that, a middlin’ blow would’ve probably sufficed in yer case.”
“It’s her, trust me,” Weiss insisted, rubbing at the sore spot. “That’s the second time she smacks me face in as many days.”
Hook glowered at him.
“What did ye do?”
“Went to snatch a bottle from the shelf,” Leo explained cooly. “Grab me left tit instead. Gave it a good squeeze,” the latter she threw at a distressed Weiss with a glare.
Hook frowned and looked at her up and down with more focused eyes. It was darkish, but even a blind dog could tell it was her from up close, right? She thought.
“Seein’ ye brought it up yerself,” the aged pirate started, still eyeing her. “I can’t help but notice the lack of… ehm, womanly bits?”
Leo sighed. “Have ‘em tied up, Bristol. It’s me. Now, can we progress to the bloody point, wher’ me gives away what tis perhaps, this night’s most important development?”
With a yawn and a loud farting noise, old Weasel Clark woke up and stared at them from where he was sitting in the dark, next to The Purser’s entrance.
“Is that Leo?” Clark asked blinking a couple of times, still heavily inebriated. “Shivers me timbers, thought twas young Erlad standin’ thar’ for a moment!”
‘Grisly’ Weiss stopped abruptly ten minutes later, smacked his lips and looked at Leo.
“The Trout,” the aged seadog said and Hook paused as well, grabbing old Clark by the collar to stop him from walking straight off the docks and into the port’s waters.
“Is that a Schooner? Name doesn’t ring a bell,” he grunted.
Leo turned towards the ships moored in the many small docks adjoined to the platforms around them. Due to the dark, not much could be seen, but the general outlines of them, with the lights on the ‘Corsair’s Gold’ –Yellow Dawson’s Sloop o’ war- being the exception for the time being.
“There she is, gents,” she pointed between a Brigantine, the ‘Bouquet’ and a small Brig.
“Ain’t that the ‘Pillager’ lass?” Hook asked and scratched the back of his head. “Ye are ‘ware Van Fleet will skin us right? Thar’ is a coach in his quarters all made o’ human leath’r, hair in the filler.”
“Betwixt ‘em, are ye lads blind?” Leo protested and danced closer to the edge of the docks, ending with a twirl hands opened to present the elusive vessel. Weiss had scrunched his face so much, eyes and mouth gathered around his big nose in a bunch.
“Shite, tryin’ me best, but can’t see wher’ yer pointin’ lass,” he finally blurted out a little embarrassed.
Hook stood back troubled.
“What?” Leo snapped seeing his expression souring.
“The Ketch,” the man droned, figuring it out.
Leo raised a white, though covered in black soot, eyebrow. “Guise at that sail gents, me sheets are o’ worse quality!” She attempted to sale it.
“Tis a fishin’ boat, lass.”
“Wait,” Weiss intervened and stared again at the small vessel parked between the others. “Leo is pullin’ our leg, matey. Right?”
“The Trout,” old ‘Weasel’ Clark said, her father’s quartermaster. “Aye, it makes sense.”
“How tis makin’ sense?”
“Tis Horas boat,” Clark replied wiping his face. He looked less inebriated now. “Ain’t using it till morning. He has a legitimate business to run.”
A brothel was his meaning.
“Isn’t he Van Fleet’s broth’r from anoth’r mother?” Hook countered, adding. “Leavin’ aside the matter of hunting down a Barque, wit a blasted fishin’ boat!”
“Ye’ll need more crew, lass,” Clark said, disregarding his objection.
“Anyone in mind?” Leo probed.
“The Joneses. Wil an’ Troy.”
“Are they any good?”
“When they’re not drunk, aye.”
Ah, no better customers than menfolk and womenfolk that favored their liquor.
“Can ye get ‘em on board?” She asked, while Weiss and Hook were looking at their back and forth perturbed.
Clark gathered what he had in his mouth, spat down a big fat splotch right at the edge of the docks, platinum tooth gleaming in the dark and nodded. “Ye’ll captain it?”
“Will they follow a woman?” Leo asked, crossing her hands on her chest.
Will you? Her eyes asked him.
“They’ll follow a Vale, to Abrakas nether region,” the old pirate told her, a touch affronted and Leo who’d thought about it already given the success of her disguise, pressed her lips into a thin line.
She lowered her voice an octave, put a bit of a drunken droll in it -and she knew of a remedy for that- and answered him much as her father had, more than twenty years back.
“No lily-livered lads, Mister Clark. Lest they’re costly. Then get whatev’r ye can find.”
Eh, granted, it wasn’t that much memorable of a quote.
Leo Vale sprinted the wooden docks, lifted on her tip-toes for half of it, normally for the rest, jumped from the edge, hands flailing and legs scissoring over the three meter gap and landed on the narrow bow sprit alike a circus acrobat.
For about two seconds.
Then she slipped to a mounting position, the hard oak smacking her amidst the loins. Leo moaned in muffled agony, slowly got up again and looked back at the men watching in horrified silence.
“I’ll toss ye a line, gents. This part is tricky,” she shushed, barely managing the words out. Leo navigated the bow sprit to its root, climbed down still sore as a whore at the end of her shift and started looking about for a rope attached to the main mast. She found one after a couple of false starts and another proper fall, the visibility on the small vessel very low and tossed it ashore.
Weiss and Hook came up the swashbuckler way, Weiss hugging the main mast unwittingly at the tail end of it.
“Blimey! Them years ashore turned ye into a landlubber Grisly,” Hook guffawed and helped his colleague up. He then started working a flint on his blade, in order to light the big oil lamp hanging from the main topmast.
They needed a bit of illumination.
“Get the anchor Mister Weiss,” Leo ordered and run to the front of the small vessel, only a deck on it and the small hold stinking of fish under a hatch at the ship’s waist. The length of it twelve meters, an even forty foot, the tiny captain’s cabin in front of the wheel.
Leo looked at the docks tensely, as more people started appearing out of the darkness. Lord’s Burrow was fabulously lit up further back, the music still playing, but the seadogs were gathering. In small groups still, mostly heading for the Corsair’s Gold, Dawson’s ship buzzing with activity, but soon they were going to head their way.
“We found the oars,” Hook reported, coming to stand next to her spot. “Why take the risk… lass?”
“Let us preserve the charade, Mister Hook,” Leo replied in his fake droll, glancing at the aged pirate’s maimed profile. “It would be gainful, if the fresh recruits saved themselves o’ this one small fact.”
“Argument can be made, the fact ain’t that small… Captain.”
“But it is though, a tiny one indeed in most cases… moreover, had I found meself in possession of said pair o’ nutmegs, by the flip of a coin in me birth,” Leo took a big breath and continued. “Then a mishap upon seizing this current vessel, such as the one that has occurred already,” she winched at that, a hand pressing on her pubic mound and Hook frowned remembering her fall. “Could have ‘em outright detach, or… perhaps utterly maimed, makin’ the fact yer arguing for… immaterial, Mister Hook.”
“What if they find out?”
“Does the captain of a ship, allows himself be questioned on these matters, Mister Hook?”
Hook scratched his scar amused.
“Me don’t thinks he should, Captain,” he answered after an awkward pause.
A group of five cut through the docks and the larger gatherings of seadogs, the biggest of them slowly walking towards the ‘Pillager’ singing and talking loud. The whole area had livened up considerably in the last ten minutes and Leo, who was nervously watching the many torches and people approaching, turned to Malden Weiss the man looking soberly at the men hurrying their way.
“Mister Weiss, must we be apprehensive, or even endeavor, to provide ourselves the gratification of a fine journey under the pale moonlight?” Leo asked -always blabbering when nervous- shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the boots not as comfortable as when she’d first put them on.
Weiss glanced at the dark sky above them, then at the small group now running, while pretending it didn’t, in the time-tested manner of all crooks this Realm over.
“That’s Weasel Clark,” Hook intervened and pointed at the last member of the group. “Old fool can barely stand upright, when sober. But ain’t no one more sure-footed than him on land, aye.”
It must be mentioned here that while over fifty, Clark had no more than five years age difference from Weiss, seven from Hook. The exact figures not known by young Leo.
Leo in her male Captain’s garb, looked to see for herself, spotted Clark stumbling over a coiled rope, through a pile of fishing nets, bounce off a cart, tumbling once, but immediately resuming his fast walking –low key running- after the other four, more energetically trotting men.
“Look at ‘em scallywags!” Someone shouted, before she’d time to comment and Leo whipped her head that way, saw a pirate pointing with a hand, a torch in his other. Almost fifty of his friends turning to look where he was indicating.
Abrakas toes, covered in seaweed.
“Get ‘em oars out, Mister Weiss!” She snapped and started waving with both hands, for Clark to notice her. They had tossed another two lines ashore. “We might be goin’ in a hot minute!”
“HEY!” Someone yelled from the big group. “What are those rascals be doin’ thar’?”
Hook dashed the three steps up the forecastle, cutlass in hand. Clark and his small group realizing there was an even bigger group right after them, dropped the act and started running at full sprint towards the moored sailing Ketch and the only light visible on this side of the docks.
Almost half of Lord’s Burrow came after them the moment they made a run for it.
“GET ‘EM SCAMPS!” A very inebriated older seadog bellowed.
“THEY BE HEADIN’ FOR HONEST FLEET’S SHIP!” Another, much younger one screamed.
“On the double, Mister Clark!” Hook roared, with Leo watching the crowd charging towards them with ogling eyes. “Captain,” the experienced Boatswain that had served under her father said, staring apprehensively. “We might ‘ave to fight our way out of Burrow.”
Leo gulped down, her throat dry and in need of greasing with anything containing alcohol.
“Tis a dark night, Mister Hook,” she replied, just as a young man swung over the gap holding on to the line and landed in the ‘Trout’. The young man, closer to twenty than thirty, dirty brown hair a mess got up, glanced at the scowling Hook, then at Leo and stood up straight.
He was a head taller than Leo.
“Captain Vale?” He queried with a drunken grin.
“In the fuckin’ flesh!” Leo rustled, her throat unable to produce coherent sounds all of a sudden.
“Tis Troy Jones, sire,” the man said and pointed at another crashing down on the foredeck, the drop almost fatal. “That’s me broth’r Wil. Worry not, he’ll sober up.”
“Captain, this here be ‘Jolly’ Grim and the young kid, is well… ‘Parley’ Kidd, I suppose,” A heavy breathing sweaty Clark reported, Leo nervously staring at the crowd and the rest of her crew slowly pushing ‘their’ boat away from the docks.
The well over thirty Lorian, turned his head and grinned. He sported the biggest mustache, Leo had ever seen, the tails on it reaching his neck.
“Wit two de’s alike add, sire,” he said.
“Right, ahm… how is it goin’ Mister Hook?” Leo queried anxiously. Some of the gathered and cursing crowd, had started spilling into the two larger ships, lights going up all over the docks.
“Lads arr rowin’ wit purpose Captain Vale, sir,” Hook retorted, himself working on the long oar and pushing hard at the sludge covering the bottom of the port.
Leo stared at the silent Issir. Wiry and chiseled, Leo could count his muscles given that the man had come aboard shirtless, but sporting two long knives on his leather waistband.
“What’s the story wit Mister Grim?” She asked, returning his chilling stare.
“Ah, had his misfortunes wit the law, alike the rest of us,” Clark replied, wiping his sweaty sea-worn face with a cloth.
“Which port?” Leo asked, pursing her mouth.
“Any port really,” Clark deadpanned, looking ahead. “Ye’ll need a killer, or two, Leo,” he added in a lower voice.
Fantastic, Leo thought and almost flinched in panic, seeing ‘Honest’ Fleet appear on the deck of the ‘Pillager’ a hard look on his shaven face.
Wayland Dawson had the Corsair’s Gold turning slowly towards the ‘Narrows’.
Shiver me rottin’ timbers, Leo thought and turned to glare at Weiss manning the wheel. The big boned and not plump Issir –his words- grimaced.
That was as fast as they could go, unless a gush of wind escaped Abrakas arse.
“Arrgh!” Leo growled, saw Will Jones drinking from a metal flask –the second brother half the size of his twin some-fuckin-how- and grabbed it from him. “What manner of grog might there be in here, Mister Jones?” She queried, giving it a good shake.
“Black whiskey, sire,” Will replied. “From Sovya.”
Leo sniffed it once and chunked down its contents with loud glugs, her larynx contracting. The strong liquid burned down her gullet, the taste horrible, but packing quite the punch. Leo burped, tears in her eyes and returned the empty flask to a stunned Will.
“Might ‘ave caught a coal aftertaste in it, Mister Jones,” she pointed, her knees weakening and had to grab ahold of a line, before realizing that Weiss had turned the ‘Trout’ around and Hook had opened the triangular fore stay sail.
“They use ‘em old barrels after they take the coal out,” Will explained and Leo already moving towards the small quarterdeck, turned and flashed him a half-drunk grin.
“Let us stay this discourse for another time, Mister Jones!”
“Aye captain,” he replied and watched as Leo staggered through the narrow deck heading aft, like a seasoned seadog would, hands spread out to better keep her balance, body dancing to the rhythm of the soft waves. Their small ship had started hopping on the water, the night breeze increasing.
“Go about, Mister Weiss,” Hook yelled. “Then cut full west to bring us in!”
Leo stared at the Corsair’s Gold opening its foresail -noting here that it was bigger than their mains- since it had two masts to work with.
“Unfurl the main, Mister Hook!” Leo ordered him and the flushed scarred ex-pirate -recently out of retirement- looked at her incensed.
“We’ll crash her in the narrows, Captain!” He growled, unable to keep his anger contained.
Leo sucked the sea air in, plenty of stench coming from Burrow in it still, the lower part of her jaw slow to work and her mouth numbed.
“They’ll hang us by our entrails, Mister Hook!” She countered hoarsely and Hook frowned, realization shaking him to his core. He turned to the watching crew all seven of them -counting him as well- and blasted them with righteous indignation, heavy dose of fear mixed in.
“UNFURL THE MAIN, YE BILGE-SUCKING SCALLYWAGS!”
The ‘Trout’ burst out of the ‘Narrows’ the stony chasm in the reefs leading to the hidden port city and out into the angry Scalding Sea, the first gush of scorching wind almost toppling it. The huge waves drenching everyone on board to their core.
Leo coughed, eyes smarting, whatever she’d drunk almost coming back up again and staggered on the slippery deck, her boots heavy with water. Old ‘Weasel’ put a hand on her back, to stop her from going over the rail and into Abrakas Gullet, when the next big wave came. The sky a dark purple, the moons doing what they could to break through the clouds.
“Lower the darn topsail! Or the next one will sink us!” Hook yelled and after ten agonizing minutes, Weiss managed to stabilize the small ship, enough for the shattered crew to take a breather, along mouthfuls of brine water that is.
Stabilize used loosely here.
“Wher’ to, Captain? Krakentrap Straits?” Clark asked, a rare smile on his face. Leo noticed everyone’s spirits had recovered despite the dodgy seas. Even Hook, had a content look on his lined and soaked face.
“We’ll cut straight East, Mister Clark,” Leo replied, remembering her maps. She’d everything memorized in her head. “Towards Castalor. Let Dawson and the others attempt to cut her off at the straits.”
“Ye think, she’ll make it through?”
“Wherever the ‘Marquette’ is goin’, Mister Clark,” Leo said, the grin in her mouth growing, the excitement of being on… a ship of sorts, and sailing towards untold riches and adventures, overcoming the burning in her stomach, her hurting teeth and the need to pee down her pants. “Is a matter, not yet decided, nor known, from those that pursuit it,” she breathed once, the crew staring at her talking, either engrossed, or unable to make out whatever the hells she was talking about, her droll almost unintelligible to a normal person. “Which makes our random choice, as probable to prosper, as theirs, savvy?”
“Aye, Captain,” Clark agreed and grabbed ahold of a line himself pleased.
The morning found the ‘Trout’ sailing on a northeastern route, the sun strong and the sea calmer. Young Troy Jones, tall as a mast, stood up chewing on a piece of hardtack and looked at the crew sprawled on the small ship, not much space available on it for proper cots, so everyone kind of marked his spot and that was it.
“Mind the riggin’,” Hook warned him, scratching at his lined sunburned nappe and eyed Weiss still at the helm, Clark standing next to him on the quarterdeck. Leo had her back on the captain’s quarters, the door to the dark gloomy small place, barely fit for a kid to walk through without smashing his head on the top.
“Aye,” Troy replied. “Just wanted to thank captain Vale, for the opportunity. And the chance to avenge Rose,” he added, a little moved. There was no rum for the toast alas, but Leo bowed deep once at the kind words.
“It’s not reprisal, what one must pursue,” she rustled, one eye a dark red, soot with salt water making a mess of it, the other running since the wind had irritated it something fierce and she could smell the hint of urine on her pants, where she’d let it rip late the previous night. “But the prospect of makin’ enough coin to partake in many a nights of wickedness. For the Briney Deep and a clap of thunder me hearties, are a constant.”
“Aye! Eyup!” The crew replied after a worryingly long pause, with Clark giving a helping hand of sorts and cheering first.
“Hey!” He bellowed next slapping his thighs and Weiss, who was long in the tooth as well, started in his heavy timber voice.
“Seven merry menfolk,” the helmsman sang, with the crew picking up the que, as the ‘Trout’ danced over the waves, her sails full.
“Wearin’ a bloody blindfold,” Hook continued, his voice as rich and baritone as Weiss, with everyone chipping in, even a chuckling Leo.
“Yo, Hi, Ho,” the chorus line went with an occasional ‘hey’ thrown in and the next chorus verse thunderous.
HAIR OF A DOG IN ME PINT O’ GROG!
“Carted Lord Reinut’s booty out the cave o’ gold,” ‘Jolly Grim’ sang, strange passion in his rich Issir common, grey-blue eyes watching her throaty lough. Leo returning the stare while singing the chorus, legs tapping along with the others. The waves dancing all around them, sanguine blue turning to white at the tips, the froth resembling of kraken’s teeth.
Will spotted a large ship coming their way, just before nightfall. Leo put the spyglass on her eye, Clark standing next to her on the forecastle deck. She saw the lines of a Barque appearing, one side of it smashed, half its sails damaged, either by weather, or struggle.
The dead bodies on the ravaged deck, telling of the latter.
Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Seven merry menfolk, wearin’ a bloody blindfold
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Carted Lord Reinut’s booty out the cave o’ gold
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Lo an’ behold Wil De Wit draw the short straw
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
Found the Queen’s crown in the Kraken’s claw
(Yo, Hi, Ho, hair of a dog in me pint o’ grog!)
-
Ancient Pirate Song
(Unknown date)
Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale
The Pirate’s Other Spawn
Part II
-The choice most probable to prosper-
Twenty minutes later, Leo found the three men loitering outside ‘The Purser’. Roark Clark sitting next to the closed entrance looking fast asleep, or past out and Weiss and Hook arguing whether to leave him there for Adele to find him in the morning.
“What if he up an’ rolls away in his slumber?” Weiss queried, dark face barely visible in the lights coming from the still working brothel. This one named the ‘Unicorn Horn’.
“Wher’ he may be rollin’?” Hook asked and they both stared at the platform they were standing on. It ended about three meters from the door. There was a rope playing the role of a rail there, but the gap underneath it enough for a grown man, or woman, to roll over and into the port’s waters. “Hmm, still ev’r heard o’ one rollin’ so much?”
“Ther’ was that boy sleepin’ on the lookout,” ‘Grisly’ Weiss replied and Hook nodded remembering. His look pensive.
“Twas a nasty fall, but still, was it three meters?” He asked, just as Leo stopped a couple of meters from them, a big grin in her mouth.
The roll not the fall, was his meaning.
“Rejoice, for I have work for ye lads,” she whispered, just loud enough for only them to hear. Hook, in the middle of answering to Weiss paused, a deep frown splitting his gruff face in two.
“Who might ye be?” The aged pirate asked, squinting his eyes.
“Guys are ye fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Leo groaned and stepped closer. “It’s me! Now shall I proceed wit—?”
“Is it ye though?” Weiss interrupted her.
“An’ who might that ye be?” Hook added, eyeing her suspiciously.
Leo stood back and licked her lips, spat down next half-coughing half-retching, seeing as the charcoal paint was bitter alike poison.
Arrgh! Damnit!
“It’s Foxy. I’m—” Hook stopped her, before she had the time to finish.
“Let me stop ye right thar’ me boy. Now, seein’ as we both…” He blinked and stared at the still passed out Clark. “…the lot o’ us, are familiar wit miss Vale’s moniker, we can’t allow yer using it, savvy?”
“Find yerself another moniker is his meanin’,” Weiss explained with a knowing look, while Leo stared at both of them nigh incredulous. What the fuck had these guys imbibed?
“So, refrainin’ from that, who might ye be?” Hook asked her letting out a monstrous retch, without batting an eyelash.
“Leo Vale,” she replied barely managing to keep her voice low, a hand on her hip and right boot tapping at the wooden platform irritably.
Hook grimaced, glanced at Weiss and then scratched where his ear used to be, the scar grotesque.
“Perhaps it’s the noise,” he started. “But ye said Leo Vale?”
“Abrakas offer gods-darn aid,” Leo groaned, removed the hat and stooped closer to his face. “Look, ye fuckin’ drunk!”
“Hmm,” Hook said, staring.
“Was ‘Sly’ Erlad yer father lad?” Weiss asked stepping closer. Big round nose, swollen. “Far from me to speak ill o’ the dead, but the man couldn’t keep it in his pants, ye see. Doubtless seeded a pair o’ more wher’ ye hailin’ from.”
Leo blinked and stood back, put the hat back on, removed the big gold ring she had on her finger, skulls and bones engraved on it and stepping forward again, slapped Weiss hard in the face. The man stumbled, head swinging right, as Leo had a heavy hand for a woman and when he came about shocked, she backhanded him again almost dropping him down.
“Hey!” Hook snapped, a hand on the pommel of his cutlass, but Weiss stopped him with a hand, an incredulous look on his swelling cheek.
“It’s Leona, Abrakas curse us!” Weiss gasped.
“What? Have ye lost yer fuckin’ mind?” Hook guffawed. “A good blow to the head could do that ye know! Turn menfolk right stupid aye. Seein’ as ye were almost there afore that, a middlin’ blow would’ve probably sufficed in yer case.”
“It’s her, trust me,” Weiss insisted, rubbing at the sore spot. “That’s the second time she smacks me face in as many days.”
Hook glowered at him.
“What did ye do?”
“Went to snatch a bottle from the shelf,” Leo explained cooly. “Grab me left tit instead. Gave it a good squeeze,” the latter she threw at a distressed Weiss with a glare.
Hook frowned and looked at her up and down with more focused eyes. It was darkish, but even a blind dog could tell it was her from up close, right? She thought.
“Seein’ ye brought it up yerself,” the aged pirate started, still eyeing her. “I can’t help but notice the lack of… ehm, womanly bits?”
Leo sighed. “Have ‘em tied up, Bristol. It’s me. Now, can we progress to the bloody point, wher’ me gives away what tis perhaps, this night’s most important development?”
With a yawn and a loud farting noise, old Weasel Clark woke up and stared at them from where he was sitting in the dark, next to The Purser’s entrance.
“Is that Leo?” Clark asked blinking a couple of times, still heavily inebriated. “Shivers me timbers, thought twas young Erlad standin’ thar’ for a moment!”
‘Grisly’ Weiss stopped abruptly ten minutes later, smacked his lips and looked at Leo.
“The Trout,” the aged seadog said and Hook paused as well, grabbing old Clark by the collar to stop him from walking straight off the docks and into the port’s waters.
“Is that a Schooner? Name doesn’t ring a bell,” he grunted.
Leo turned towards the ships moored in the many small docks adjoined to the platforms around them. Due to the dark, not much could be seen, but the general outlines of them, with the lights on the ‘Corsair’s Gold’ –Yellow Dawson’s Sloop o’ war- being the exception for the time being.
“There she is, gents,” she pointed between a Brigantine, the ‘Bouquet’ and a small Brig.
“Ain’t that the ‘Pillager’ lass?” Hook asked and scratched the back of his head. “Ye are ‘ware Van Fleet will skin us right? Thar’ is a coach in his quarters all made o’ human leath’r, hair in the filler.”
“Betwixt ‘em, are ye lads blind?” Leo protested and danced closer to the edge of the docks, ending with a twirl hands opened to present the elusive vessel. Weiss had scrunched his face so much, eyes and mouth gathered around his big nose in a bunch.
“Shite, tryin’ me best, but can’t see wher’ yer pointin’ lass,” he finally blurted out a little embarrassed.
Hook stood back troubled.
“What?” Leo snapped seeing his expression souring.
“The Ketch,” the man droned, figuring it out.
Leo raised a white, though covered in black soot, eyebrow. “Guise at that sail gents, me sheets are o’ worse quality!” She attempted to sale it.
“Tis a fishin’ boat, lass.”
“Wait,” Weiss intervened and stared again at the small vessel parked between the others. “Leo is pullin’ our leg, matey. Right?”
“The Trout,” old ‘Weasel’ Clark said, her father’s quartermaster. “Aye, it makes sense.”
“How tis makin’ sense?”
“Tis Horas boat,” Clark replied wiping his face. He looked less inebriated now. “Ain’t using it till morning. He has a legitimate business to run.”
A brothel was his meaning.
“Isn’t he Van Fleet’s broth’r from anoth’r mother?” Hook countered, adding. “Leavin’ aside the matter of hunting down a Barque, wit a blasted fishin’ boat!”
“Ye’ll need more crew, lass,” Clark said, disregarding his objection.
“Anyone in mind?” Leo probed.
“The Joneses. Wil an’ Troy.”
“Are they any good?”
“When they’re not drunk, aye.”
Ah, no better customers than menfolk and womenfolk that favored their liquor.
“Can ye get ‘em on board?” She asked, while Weiss and Hook were looking at their back and forth perturbed.
Clark gathered what he had in his mouth, spat down a big fat splotch right at the edge of the docks, platinum tooth gleaming in the dark and nodded. “Ye’ll captain it?”
“Will they follow a woman?” Leo asked, crossing her hands on her chest.
Will you? Her eyes asked him.
“They’ll follow a Vale, to Abrakas nether region,” the old pirate told her, a touch affronted and Leo who’d thought about it already given the success of her disguise, pressed her lips into a thin line.
She lowered her voice an octave, put a bit of a drunken droll in it -and she knew of a remedy for that- and answered him much as her father had, more than twenty years back.
“No lily-livered lads, Mister Clark. Lest they’re costly. Then get whatev’r ye can find.”
Eh, granted, it wasn’t that much memorable of a quote.
Leo Vale sprinted the wooden docks, lifted on her tip-toes for half of it, normally for the rest, jumped from the edge, hands flailing and legs scissoring over the three meter gap and landed on the narrow bow sprit alike a circus acrobat.
For about two seconds.
Then she slipped to a mounting position, the hard oak smacking her amidst the loins. Leo moaned in muffled agony, slowly got up again and looked back at the men watching in horrified silence.
“I’ll toss ye a line, gents. This part is tricky,” she shushed, barely managing the words out. Leo navigated the bow sprit to its root, climbed down still sore as a whore at the end of her shift and started looking about for a rope attached to the main mast. She found one after a couple of false starts and another proper fall, the visibility on the small vessel very low and tossed it ashore.
Weiss and Hook came up the swashbuckler way, Weiss hugging the main mast unwittingly at the tail end of it.
“Blimey! Them years ashore turned ye into a landlubber Grisly,” Hook guffawed and helped his colleague up. He then started working a flint on his blade, in order to light the big oil lamp hanging from the main topmast.
They needed a bit of illumination.
“Get the anchor Mister Weiss,” Leo ordered and run to the front of the small vessel, only a deck on it and the small hold stinking of fish under a hatch at the ship’s waist. The length of it twelve meters, an even forty foot, the tiny captain’s cabin in front of the wheel.
Leo looked at the docks tensely, as more people started appearing out of the darkness. Lord’s Burrow was fabulously lit up further back, the music still playing, but the seadogs were gathering. In small groups still, mostly heading for the Corsair’s Gold, Dawson’s ship buzzing with activity, but soon they were going to head their way.
“We found the oars,” Hook reported, coming to stand next to her spot. “Why take the risk… lass?”
“Let us preserve the charade, Mister Hook,” Leo replied in his fake droll, glancing at the aged pirate’s maimed profile. “It would be gainful, if the fresh recruits saved themselves o’ this one small fact.”
“Argument can be made, the fact ain’t that small… Captain.”
“But it is though, a tiny one indeed in most cases… moreover, had I found meself in possession of said pair o’ nutmegs, by the flip of a coin in me birth,” Leo took a big breath and continued. “Then a mishap upon seizing this current vessel, such as the one that has occurred already,” she winched at that, a hand pressing on her pubic mound and Hook frowned remembering her fall. “Could have ‘em outright detach, or… perhaps utterly maimed, makin’ the fact yer arguing for… immaterial, Mister Hook.”
“What if they find out?”
“Does the captain of a ship, allows himself be questioned on these matters, Mister Hook?”
Hook scratched his scar amused.
“Me don’t thinks he should, Captain,” he answered after an awkward pause.
A group of five cut through the docks and the larger gatherings of seadogs, the biggest of them slowly walking towards the ‘Pillager’ singing and talking loud. The whole area had livened up considerably in the last ten minutes and Leo, who was nervously watching the many torches and people approaching, turned to Malden Weiss the man looking soberly at the men hurrying their way.
“Mister Weiss, must we be apprehensive, or even endeavor, to provide ourselves the gratification of a fine journey under the pale moonlight?” Leo asked -always blabbering when nervous- shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the boots not as comfortable as when she’d first put them on.
Weiss glanced at the dark sky above them, then at the small group now running, while pretending it didn’t, in the time-tested manner of all crooks this Realm over.
“That’s Weasel Clark,” Hook intervened and pointed at the last member of the group. “Old fool can barely stand upright, when sober. But ain’t no one more sure-footed than him on land, aye.”
It must be mentioned here that while over fifty, Clark had no more than five years age difference from Weiss, seven from Hook. The exact figures not known by young Leo.
Leo in her male Captain’s garb, looked to see for herself, spotted Clark stumbling over a coiled rope, through a pile of fishing nets, bounce off a cart, tumbling once, but immediately resuming his fast walking –low key running- after the other four, more energetically trotting men.
“Look at ‘em scallywags!” Someone shouted, before she’d time to comment and Leo whipped her head that way, saw a pirate pointing with a hand, a torch in his other. Almost fifty of his friends turning to look where he was indicating.
Abrakas toes, covered in seaweed.
“Get ‘em oars out, Mister Weiss!” She snapped and started waving with both hands, for Clark to notice her. They had tossed another two lines ashore. “We might be goin’ in a hot minute!”
“HEY!” Someone yelled from the big group. “What are those rascals be doin’ thar’?”
Hook dashed the three steps up the forecastle, cutlass in hand. Clark and his small group realizing there was an even bigger group right after them, dropped the act and started running at full sprint towards the moored sailing Ketch and the only light visible on this side of the docks.
Almost half of Lord’s Burrow came after them the moment they made a run for it.
“GET ‘EM SCAMPS!” A very inebriated older seadog bellowed.
“THEY BE HEADIN’ FOR HONEST FLEET’S SHIP!” Another, much younger one screamed.
“On the double, Mister Clark!” Hook roared, with Leo watching the crowd charging towards them with ogling eyes. “Captain,” the experienced Boatswain that had served under her father said, staring apprehensively. “We might ‘ave to fight our way out of Burrow.”
Leo gulped down, her throat dry and in need of greasing with anything containing alcohol.
“Tis a dark night, Mister Hook,” she replied, just as a young man swung over the gap holding on to the line and landed in the ‘Trout’. The young man, closer to twenty than thirty, dirty brown hair a mess got up, glanced at the scowling Hook, then at Leo and stood up straight.
He was a head taller than Leo.
“Captain Vale?” He queried with a drunken grin.
“In the fuckin’ flesh!” Leo rustled, her throat unable to produce coherent sounds all of a sudden.
“Tis Troy Jones, sire,” the man said and pointed at another crashing down on the foredeck, the drop almost fatal. “That’s me broth’r Wil. Worry not, he’ll sober up.”
“Captain, this here be ‘Jolly’ Grim and the young kid, is well… ‘Parley’ Kidd, I suppose,” A heavy breathing sweaty Clark reported, Leo nervously staring at the crowd and the rest of her crew slowly pushing ‘their’ boat away from the docks.
The well over thirty Lorian, turned his head and grinned. He sported the biggest mustache, Leo had ever seen, the tails on it reaching his neck.
“Wit two de’s alike add, sire,” he said.
“Right, ahm… how is it goin’ Mister Hook?” Leo queried anxiously. Some of the gathered and cursing crowd, had started spilling into the two larger ships, lights going up all over the docks.
“Lads arr rowin’ wit purpose Captain Vale, sir,” Hook retorted, himself working on the long oar and pushing hard at the sludge covering the bottom of the port.
Leo stared at the silent Issir. Wiry and chiseled, Leo could count his muscles given that the man had come aboard shirtless, but sporting two long knives on his leather waistband.
“What’s the story wit Mister Grim?” She asked, returning his chilling stare.
“Ah, had his misfortunes wit the law, alike the rest of us,” Clark replied, wiping his sweaty sea-worn face with a cloth.
“Which port?” Leo asked, pursing her mouth.
“Any port really,” Clark deadpanned, looking ahead. “Ye’ll need a killer, or two, Leo,” he added in a lower voice.
Fantastic, Leo thought and almost flinched in panic, seeing ‘Honest’ Fleet appear on the deck of the ‘Pillager’ a hard look on his shaven face.
Wayland Dawson had the Corsair’s Gold turning slowly towards the ‘Narrows’.
Shiver me rottin’ timbers, Leo thought and turned to glare at Weiss manning the wheel. The big boned and not plump Issir –his words- grimaced.
That was as fast as they could go, unless a gush of wind escaped Abrakas arse.
“Arrgh!” Leo growled, saw Will Jones drinking from a metal flask –the second brother half the size of his twin some-fuckin-how- and grabbed it from him. “What manner of grog might there be in here, Mister Jones?” She queried, giving it a good shake.
“Black whiskey, sire,” Will replied. “From Sovya.”
Leo sniffed it once and chunked down its contents with loud glugs, her larynx contracting. The strong liquid burned down her gullet, the taste horrible, but packing quite the punch. Leo burped, tears in her eyes and returned the empty flask to a stunned Will.
“Might ‘ave caught a coal aftertaste in it, Mister Jones,” she pointed, her knees weakening and had to grab ahold of a line, before realizing that Weiss had turned the ‘Trout’ around and Hook had opened the triangular fore stay sail.
“They use ‘em old barrels after they take the coal out,” Will explained and Leo already moving towards the small quarterdeck, turned and flashed him a half-drunk grin.
“Let us stay this discourse for another time, Mister Jones!”
“Aye captain,” he replied and watched as Leo staggered through the narrow deck heading aft, like a seasoned seadog would, hands spread out to better keep her balance, body dancing to the rhythm of the soft waves. Their small ship had started hopping on the water, the night breeze increasing.
“Go about, Mister Weiss,” Hook yelled. “Then cut full west to bring us in!”
Leo stared at the Corsair’s Gold opening its foresail -noting here that it was bigger than their mains- since it had two masts to work with.
“Unfurl the main, Mister Hook!” Leo ordered him and the flushed scarred ex-pirate -recently out of retirement- looked at her incensed.
“We’ll crash her in the narrows, Captain!” He growled, unable to keep his anger contained.
Leo sucked the sea air in, plenty of stench coming from Burrow in it still, the lower part of her jaw slow to work and her mouth numbed.
“They’ll hang us by our entrails, Mister Hook!” She countered hoarsely and Hook frowned, realization shaking him to his core. He turned to the watching crew all seven of them -counting him as well- and blasted them with righteous indignation, heavy dose of fear mixed in.
“UNFURL THE MAIN, YE BILGE-SUCKING SCALLYWAGS!”
The ‘Trout’ burst out of the ‘Narrows’ the stony chasm in the reefs leading to the hidden port city and out into the angry Scalding Sea, the first gush of scorching wind almost toppling it. The huge waves drenching everyone on board to their core.
Leo coughed, eyes smarting, whatever she’d drunk almost coming back up again and staggered on the slippery deck, her boots heavy with water. Old ‘Weasel’ put a hand on her back, to stop her from going over the rail and into Abrakas Gullet, when the next big wave came. The sky a dark purple, the moons doing what they could to break through the clouds.
“Lower the darn topsail! Or the next one will sink us!” Hook yelled and after ten agonizing minutes, Weiss managed to stabilize the small ship, enough for the shattered crew to take a breather, along mouthfuls of brine water that is.
Stabilize used loosely here.
“Wher’ to, Captain? Krakentrap Straits?” Clark asked, a rare smile on his face. Leo noticed everyone’s spirits had recovered despite the dodgy seas. Even Hook, had a content look on his lined and soaked face.
“We’ll cut straight East, Mister Clark,” Leo replied, remembering her maps. She’d everything memorized in her head. “Towards Castalor. Let Dawson and the others attempt to cut her off at the straits.”
“Ye think, she’ll make it through?”
“Wherever the ‘Marquette’ is goin’, Mister Clark,” Leo said, the grin in her mouth growing, the excitement of being on… a ship of sorts, and sailing towards untold riches and adventures, overcoming the burning in her stomach, her hurting teeth and the need to pee down her pants. “Is a matter, not yet decided, nor known, from those that pursuit it,” she breathed once, the crew staring at her talking, either engrossed, or unable to make out whatever the hells she was talking about, her droll almost unintelligible to a normal person. “Which makes our random choice, as probable to prosper, as theirs, savvy?”
“Aye, Captain,” Clark agreed and grabbed ahold of a line himself pleased.
The morning found the ‘Trout’ sailing on a northeastern route, the sun strong and the sea calmer. Young Troy Jones, tall as a mast, stood up chewing on a piece of hardtack and looked at the crew sprawled on the small ship, not much space available on it for proper cots, so everyone kind of marked his spot and that was it.
“Mind the riggin’,” Hook warned him, scratching at his lined sunburned nappe and eyed Weiss still at the helm, Clark standing next to him on the quarterdeck. Leo had her back on the captain’s quarters, the door to the dark gloomy small place, barely fit for a kid to walk through without smashing his head on the top.
“Aye,” Troy replied. “Just wanted to thank captain Vale, for the opportunity. And the chance to avenge Rose,” he added, a little moved. There was no rum for the toast alas, but Leo bowed deep once at the kind words.
“It’s not reprisal, what one must pursue,” she rustled, one eye a dark red, soot with salt water making a mess of it, the other running since the wind had irritated it something fierce and she could smell the hint of urine on her pants, where she’d let it rip late the previous night. “But the prospect of makin’ enough coin to partake in many a nights of wickedness. For the Briney Deep and a clap of thunder me hearties, are a constant.”
“Aye! Eyup!” The crew replied after a worryingly long pause, with Clark giving a helping hand of sorts and cheering first.
“Hey!” He bellowed next slapping his thighs and Weiss, who was long in the tooth as well, started in his heavy timber voice.
“Seven merry menfolk,” the helmsman sang, with the crew picking up the que, as the ‘Trout’ danced over the waves, her sails full.
“Wearin’ a bloody blindfold,” Hook continued, his voice as rich and baritone as Weiss, with everyone chipping in, even a chuckling Leo.
“Yo, Hi, Ho,” the chorus line went with an occasional ‘hey’ thrown in and the next chorus verse thunderous.
HAIR OF A DOG IN ME PINT O’ GROG!
“Carted Lord Reinut’s booty out the cave o’ gold,” ‘Jolly Grim’ sang, strange passion in his rich Issir common, grey-blue eyes watching her throaty lough. Leo returning the stare while singing the chorus, legs tapping along with the others. The waves dancing all around them, sanguine blue turning to white at the tips, the froth resembling of kraken’s teeth.
Will spotted a large ship coming their way, just before nightfall. Leo put the spyglass on her eye, Clark standing next to her on the forecastle deck. She saw the lines of a Barque appearing, one side of it smashed, half its sails damaged, either by weather, or struggle.
The dead bodies on the ravaged deck, telling of the latter.
