Blaggard's Moon (25 page)

Tranquility
was disorder in motion as she drifted past, unhelmed. Men
who went below found the hold ablaze. Most of them hadn't brought any water. Smoke and confusion and an excess of personnel kept even those with buckets in hand from any organized effort to douse the flames. Men who stayed up top were starting to choke on smoke as well as it poured up from below. Red-hot rounds that had not been aimed true burned where they struck. The high winds fanned the flames, spreading them rapidly. Those who tried to put them out were easy targets for the marksmen aboard the
Calliope
. As would-be firemen fell, the only men left alive on deck were those firing from protected positions, and unable to attend to the fire as it threatened to engulf them.

“Don't they ever reload?” Skeel Barris asked his accordion player. The Captain was seated behind the gunwale, his back to the fray, reloading his own pistol. The musician to whom he spoke lay sprawled on the deck, his head propped up by a bulkhead wall, his forehead shot through by a stray musket ball. It had been a hot iron ball, too, and so it had left a bloodless, cauterized gray tunnel as it passed through the man's brain.

“I can see what you're thinkin',” Barris said to the unlucky minstrel. Then he chuckled at his own joke. “You're thinkin' Conch'll have my hide. But Conch'll get the last laugh.”

Now an explosion from below rocked the
Tranquility
.

“Then again, he may not be pleased,” he said, less sanguine. “Me losin' a good ship to a bunch a' dandies like these.” But he cheered up almost immediately. “Gimme that dance box, will ye?” Skeel pried the accordion from the lifeless hand of its proprietor and began squeezing out a tune. “I know ye can't sing no more,” he told the man, “but if the wind kicks up just a tad, ye might find ye can whistle.” He laughed again, and kept playing. “No? Well, keep an open mind about it.” Then he laughed some more.

Another explosion followed, and he raised his head. Then in quick succession three more, the last one ripping through the decking not twenty feet from him, an enormous fiery fist punching upward into the air. He could hear men screaming below. Skeel dropped the accordion. He looked down at his own chest to find what he figured to be an eight-inch wooden splinter sticking out about three inches, just below the center line. “ 'Bout time I danced wi' the devil,” he said. “Hope he can take a joke.” He slumped over.

And then, with an enormous roar and a sudden bonfire of flame, the ship came apart from the middle, strewing deck and timbers, mast and sail, pirate captain and crew across the seas.

Cheering erupted aboard the
Calliope
.

“Keep firing!” Damrick's order was terse and uncomplicated.

Many looked at their commander. “Ye heard 'im!” Hale Starpus bellowed. “Fire on!” The men went back to work.

Only a few seemed to have a problem with the order, and Lye Mogene was one of them. He lowered his musket, checked the flint absently. He watched as the others searched for targets. Live, conscious pirates were rare now, but the men fired on anything that looked like it might have once been alive.

“We takin' no prisoners, then?” Lye asked. “Is that how we're runnin' this outfit?”

Damrick did not look away from the onslaught. He aimed, paused, fired. “That's how I'm running it. You have your orders.”

“Then Lord have mercy,” Lye said, aiming an unloaded weapon. “ 'Cause it appears Mr. Damrick Fellows won't.” He clicked the trigger.

Delaney's fingers strained at the knot in his shirt, the one he'd used to scratch his back. He marveled now, as he had many times before, at how easy a knot was to tie and how hard it was to untie again. By the time he finally got it undone his fingertips felt like hot stubs. He put the shirt back on. It was still damp from his swim of…how long ago? An hour? More? But nothing ever really dried in this jungle. He watched the
Chompers
circle. They seemed playful with one another now. Just regular little fish in a pond, even if they were flat in the wrong way. They didn't look like killers at all.

But they were.

Delaney sighed. Dying and killing. He'd lived a life too full of both, around men who didn't all look like killers, didn't act like it always, but who were. He'd made his decisions, and he'd become one of them. Those decisions were like tying knots, he realized, knots that were just plain hard to untie. Damrick Fellows had made hard decisions, too. But it seemed to Delaney that Damrick had only given back to pirate captains what they'd done for ages, grimly refusing to give quarter even to those who begged for their lives.

If in fact Ham had told it right.

Delaney didn't usually doubt the truth of Ham's tales. Not that he believed there were no fabrications in them, but usually he had no reason to question one particular over another. But that night and that story, with Belisar the Whale listening, Delaney had to wonder. Pirates were not
above pleading for their lives. They feared death as much as anyone, when it came right down to it. Many had become pirates for fear of dying, just as Delaney and his lot had done at Castle Mum. That not a one of Skeel's crew had swum for safety toward the
Calliope
, or waved a white rag, or begged or pleaded, that wasn't usual. That seemed like something Ham had left out. Telling it the way Ham did made the pirates seem braver. No sniveling or crying at the end. But the other way, the more likely way, that would be more like Damrick Fellows as he was known to pirates. He was no Avery Wittle. No, not at all.

One thing was sure and known to be a fact, and that was that Damrick's men had fished the body of Skeel Barris out of the drink. No sense leaving valuable goods to rot. That man had had a price on his head; he'd make the Gatemen as much money as the shares for the cargo would. And either way, returning to port with the corpse of Skeel Barris aboard would be sure to rile up Conch Imbry even more.

And that could only help Ham build that dramatic tension he liked so much.

“What say ye now, Mr. Mazeley? Ye still say I shouldn't a' gone after this wretch myself?”

The pair stood on the docks of Mann late in the afternoon, watching the
Calliope
sail toward them, lazy and golden in the slanting light. Mart Mazeley had no immediate answer for his boss.

They'd been in port for ten days now, enjoying the pleasures of the greatest city in Nearing Vast. The
Shalamon
had arrived here two days after the
Calliope
had set sail. Conch had been itching to pursue. But Mazeley had pointed out that
Shalamon
made port with a partial crew, and the lack of hands had created difficulties just managing the high winds. It would be a far greater liability in a real fight.

Besides, the news of the Gatemen's challenge had drawn other captains from nearer ports, including Skeel Barris, Braid Delacrew, and Shipwreck Morrow. Conch had arrived to find that Skeel had already sailed in pursuit, but he found Braid and Shipwreck loaded and ready. Each assured the Conch that they would happily clean up whatever little was left of the Gatemen after
Tranquility
had had her turn. There seemed no need for the
Shalamon
to set sail as well.

But now, against all odds, like something out of a bad dream, they stood on the docks and watched that fat freighter pull in. She seemed unscathed, and sat high in the water, having emptied her cargo at her
appointed port. None of Conch's three ships had yet returned. None were visible all the way to the horizon behind her. There could be but one conclusion, and the two men drew it correctly. She'd bested the pirates.

“I shoulda gone myself,” Conch Imbry repeated. “Ain't that right, Mr. Mazeley?”

The unimpressive man knew he needed to answer carefully. In plain fact, the return of the Gatemen only proved that Mazeley had judged aright. Somehow Damrick Fellows and company had survived attacks by three ships sent to take her prize, or scuttle her. Had Conch pursued them himself, as he had planned, the end would very likely have been the same. Factual as that may be, it was still not a truth he would like to claim as his own.

“Clearly,” he said after much thought, “it takes more than what those captains had to defeat the Gatemen.”

“The Gatemen.” Conch said it with disdain. But he said it. He could no longer deny that they existed. “Maybe I'll just stand here till he disembarks that sea cow he's sailin'. Introduce myself by way a' slittin' him ear to ear and chin to navel. Be done wif it.”

“Let's think about this,” Mazeley offered. “If he's met even one of our three ships, he's not likely to come to port unprepared for a scuffle.”

Conch contemplated, twirled a moustache end.

“Which means, it will be the two of us against a ship of Gatemen, fresh from the kill.”

Conch sighed. “I hate 'im.”

“Yes. As do I. But I recommend an ambush.”

“Ambush, eh?” The more Conch contemplated, the more that seemed like reasonable advice.

Mr. Mazeley watched carefully but discreetly as the
Calliope
docked and the sailors made her fast. He was just another unimpressive Vast citizen watching the ships at harbor. True to his prediction, the merchant marines with their leather armbands and red feathers stood with pistols and muskets in hand, watchful, fully prepared for an attack from either sea or shore. None seemed anxious to disembark, either. When they did, they came in packs, guarding the valuable cargo acquired in their merchant voyage: Two biers carried up from the hold and then down the gangway, each pall managed by four men who were surrounded by seven others, all under watchful eyes of sharpshooters stationed above, at the gunwales of the
Calliope
. Even before the prizes were loaded into a one-horse dray, the gangway was pulled. More than thirty men followed the wagon to
the sheriff's office, where the Gatemen would collect their reward for the capture of two wanted outlaws: Skeel Barris and Shipwreck Morrow.

“Hold on, now, Ham,” a sailor sang out. “Three went after the
Calliope
. Barris, Morrow, and Braid Delacrew. Ain't that what ye said?”

“I did.”

“But only two came back dead. What happened to Delacrew?”

Ham puffed his pipe.

“The Gatemen kilt 'im,” another pirate offered. “Ham got it wrong. Ain't that so, Cap'n?”

Belisar the Whale had been silent. “Braid Delacrew was never heard from again,” he intoned. “The subject of much speculation, as Mr. Drumbone well knows.”

All eyes turned back to their reclining storyteller. “True enough, Captain. What is known for sure is that Damrick Fellows claimed reward only for two of the three, and the fate of Captain Delacrew was never resolved. Some say Damrick sunk him like the others, but his body was not recovered. This seems most likely, though Damrick swore he never saw a trace of the
Yellowbone
. But others say Braid fled to the Warm Climes and gave up pirating, like Fishbait McGee and Skewer Uttley. But unlike those two, he could not be found playing cards and drinking in any known spot down south. Yet others say it was the dark magic of Damrick Fellows, that drew pirates to their deaths like a flame draws a moth, and that he sails the ocean still in a ghost ship. Still others tell it as the hand of God Himself, who sunk the
Yellowbone
without a shot fired. A few have made it out to be just a storm, a sudden squall that rose up and swallowed her. And while that seems an easy explanation to us after all this time, those on the seas that day know that no such weather was in play. Then of course, there's those who say it was the Firefish.”

A few grunts of agreement floated around the deck.

“Sea monsters,” Belisar snorted. “A handy explanation for anything odd that happens at sea. But I'm interested in knowing what you believe, Mr. Drumbone.”

Now the forecastle went silent, waiting. “Well, sir, I must admit that I don't have any special knowledge of it. But were I to guess, I'd say Damrick took that ship down with his hot-shot musketeers, too. And likely, the end was too bloody and gruesome to be reported.”

The crewmen's heads swiveled in their hammocks, back to their
captain. He nodded. “A likely scenario, I would agree. You tell a good tale, Mr. Drumbone. Tell on.” And with that, he left them.

Taking a deep and relieved breath, Ham continued.

“Quite a feat,” an old man standing at the docks beside Mazeley offered out of the blue.

“Really? What feat is that?”

“Why, what the Gatemen done. They took down three pirate ships in nothin' but that tub, and her all full a' ale, sloshin' around in her hold.”

“The Gatemen?” Mazeley said, feigning ignorance. “Oh, yes, I heard about them. A man named…what…Fellows?”

“Oh yes. Damrick Fellows. He's from right here. I know his daddy. I run a saloon just around the corner.”

“So which one is Damrick?” Mazeley asked, as though suddenly curious.

“None of them boys,” responded the old innkeeper. “The short one near the back is Lye Mogene, I believe. He served with Fellows. He was the second man when Damrick boarded
Savage Grace
and kilt that crazy priest they called Sharkbit.”