Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (11 page)

“Technically, we
can.
” 
Uriah corrected.

“Already have.”  Ransom agreed.

Uriah nodded.  “Yep.”

“Already done.”  She continued.

“Yep.”

“We just
shouldn’t
do it because
it’s pointless.”

“And causes us a lot of problems.” 
Uriah added.

“Yep.”  Ransom nodded and gestured
at him, claiming his statement as her own.  “What he said.”

“I’m leaving.”  Ryle announced and
began to stumble towards the gangplank back to the dock.  “I’ve already gone on
one
miserable
trip with you two psychopaths and I have
no
intention
of going on another.”

“You’re not really… umm…
allowed
.” 
Uriah reminded him hesitantly, as if breaking bad news.  “You’re kinda…”

“You’re a hostage.”  Ransom shook
her head.  “Don’t get killed trying to escape.  That’s a bad way to die.”

“Oh, no one is going to kill anyone
for trying to escape.”  Uriah laughed nervously and tried to keep his tone
pleasant and casual.  “We’ll just give you a friendly warning that attempting
to go somewhere without our permission will result in corporal reprisals,
that’s all.”  He cleared his throat.  “How… how is your brother-in-law, by the
way?  I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your sister’s chastity… but is the ogre
sill in the picture?”

“Oh, yeah.”  Ryle nodded, looking
smug.  “I’m an uncle now.”

Uriah swore, imagining how pissed
off the giant would be to find out that his wife’s brother had been taken.

Granted, the boy was annoying and
Dom would undoubtedly enjoy the reprieve from his prattle, but Taylor liked her
brother-- for some reason-- which meant that Dom would kill to get him back for
her.

Uriah let out a long breath.

“Yep.”  Ransom agreed with his
silent realization that they were in deep trouble.  “Right there with you.”

He turned to look at her.  “Our
best course of action?”

She was quiet for a beat, as she
considered the matter.  “I’m thinking that his disappearance should remain a
mystery until a
fter
we find the gold.”

Uriah nodded in agreement.  “If not
longer
.”

“The longer the better, really.” 
She continued.

Ryle’s eyes narrowed.  “You c
annot
kidnap me!  I refuse to…”  He paused.  “Wait…  What gold?”  His brow
furrowed.  “What are we doing?”

“’We’ are not doing anything.” 
Uriah pointed towards the stern of the ship.  “
You
are going to sit over
there and not do anything that makes
us
want to hit you, so that when we
release you…”

“…
if
we release you.” 
Ransom interjected, correcting her partner.  “That hasn’t been decided.”

“…when we
eventually
release
you,” Uriah revised, continuing his thought, “barring unforeseen tragic circumstances
which would somehow make your release regrettably unremunerative for us, you
can tell your dear brother-in-law that we didn’t hit you.”

“But you did hit me!”  Ryle
reminded them.  “You knocked me down a flight of stairs!”

“Lie.”  Ransom advised.

Uriah put his head back and
laughed, both at his partner’s tone and about how utterly screwed they were
this time.

They were broke, their client was a
psycho, they were still being hunted by several kingdoms, and
now
they
had managed to piss off a queen and her ogre.

Uriah just never caught a break.

As if on cue, someone started
shouting from the entrance of the docks.

“We need to go.”  Ransom warned,
apparently recognizing the distant yelling.  “
Now
.”

“Set sail, lads!”  Uriah ordered,
raising his voice so that the crew could hear him.  “Adventure and riches
await!”  The men began to move, but Uriah could tell it wasn’t going to be fast
enough.  “
NOW!
”  He commanded in his loudest Grizzwood bellow.  “NOW! 
YOU SONS OF BITCHES!”

The men rushed to get the ship
underway.

Uriah turned to see Ryle’s sister Taylor
stalking down the dock towards them like death itself.  The Queen of Cormoran apparently
believed in taking a hands-on role in the management of her kingdom, since
she’d come to deal with them herself.  It was almost flattering, except it
would almost certainly result in his death.  “Uriah!”  She screamed at him.  “Just
what do you think you’re doing!?!”

“Fishing trip?”  Ransom suggested
to him sarcastically.  “Oh, how about ‘mermaid hunt’?”

Uriah ignored that and mentally
reviewed his options.  He could hand the boy over to his sister and trust that
she wouldn’t immediately have them killed.  But trusting Taylor hadn’t exactly
worked out for him the last time.  She had tried to double-cross him.

He could continue to debate the
matter with the Queen, risking the arrival of her furious husband, which
couldn’t possibly be more than a minute or two off.  But once Dom arrived, the
matter would be settled with a brutal violent finality.

Or he could hang onto the boy,
using Ryle as a human shield until he got enough money to defend himself
against the wrath of all of Cormoran and its pissed off ogre king.

It was a messy plan, but it was the
best he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

He just needed a couple more
seconds to get away.

“Taylor!”  He tried to sound
friendly and innocent.  “What a lovely surprise!  You know, I really think that
motherhood agrees with you, because you look simply…”

“
I want my brother back!
” 
Taylor cut him off in fury.  “Now!”

“Oh, no harm has come to the boy!” 
Uriah gestured to Ryle.  “He’s less a hostage and more a member of the family
at this point.”

“More like ‘baggage,’ I’d say.” 
Ransom corrected.

“Taylor!”  Ryle called, bolting for
the dock.  “They’ve kidnapped me again for some reason!  I don’t…”

Uriah pushed him to keep him from
escaping, and the boy collided with one of the barrels and toppled to the deck.

Uriah silently cursed, then threw
his hands up to show his innocence.  “That wasn’t my fault!”  He pointed at
Ryle’s head.  “He has a preexisting injury which makes him unsteady on his feet
and…”

“We warned him about trying to
escape,” Ransom said at the same time, “can’t blame us because…”

“He pushed me again!”  Ryle yelled
over them both, as if reporting it to his sister and expecting her to settle
the matter for him.  “Did you see!?!”

Taylor charged towards the ship,
looking like she intended to kill them all.

Uriah kicked the gangplank away as
the ship pulled from the dock.  “Sorry.”  He shrugged helplessly as the vessel
got underway.  “But I’m afraid that once again, your cherished little brother
is the only thing keeping me from facing your husband’s wrath.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously as
she watched them sail away.

Uriah swore under his breath but he
put on a show of doffing his hat to her in goodbye.

This was really turning out to be a
terrible day.

“I think that went well.”  Ransom
informed him, calmly waving goodbye to Taylor.  “We needed another enemy, so
it’s good that you found us one.  And a queen at that, which is a pretty
impressive nemesis to randomly create on a Wednesday morning.”

“Oh, she
already
hated us.” 
Uriah made a dismissive face.  “It isn’t like this kidnapping is really the
thing which pushed her over the edge in that regard.”

“Didn’t help.”  Ransom argued.

“Well, what would you have me do,
Dove?”

“I don’t know, ‘Rai.”  She shrugged
dramatically.  “Maybe give the queen back her little brother and apologize for
almost killing him?  Again.”

“Apologize!?!”  He scoffed.  “Why
should
I
apologize!?!”  He held out his arms in exasperation.  “She
stole
my
money…”

“Technically, you turned her over
to her enemies, so she kept it.”  Ransom corrected, interrupting him. 

“
You
turned her over to her
enemies!”  He retorted.  “I was just standing there!”

“Because she stole our money!”  His
partner defended, sounding insulted.  “And either way,
you
let her keep
the payment she promised us.  Except for the goat.  That you simply let go, for
some reason.”

Uriah ignored her.  “…then she sent
her little minion here to spy on me and keep me from enjoying my civil
liberties in a
free
kingdom.”  He continued his original thought before
she’d interrupted him, tapping his hand against his chest.  “
I’m
the
injured party here.”

“People often forget how hard a
kidnapping is on the kidnapper.”  She agreed sarcastically.

“Mockery is beneath you, Dove.”  He
sniffed in indignation.  “I would have expected better from you.”

“Nope.  It’s pretty much what I do.” 

There was a barest hint of a smile
on her perfect face, and it was like a beam of sunlight shining into Uriah’s
dark world.

As long as that woman was still
smiling at him, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.  He could deal with
anything, just so long as she was happy with him.

He could do this.

He’d make it work.  Somehow.

“What’s going on?”  Din asked,
arriving back on deck.  “Have we set sail?”

Uriah nodded.  “Absolutely.  I
thought it best to avoid some unpleasantness which was about to mar the
otherwise promising commencement of our auspicious journey.”

“Oh, and you’re at war with
Cormoran now.  They’ll hang you if you ever go back.”  Ransom informed their
client calmly, then shrugged.  “Sorry.”

“My sister is sooooo going to kill
you for this, Uriah.”  Ryle whistled, as if imagining the gristly scene which
was now inevitable.  “Last time, she was willing to…”

“Shut up or I’ll hit you again.” 
Uriah snapped.

“Who
is
that?”  Dim asked
them, sounding confused and almost annoyed by Ryle’s mere presence.

“Hostage.”  Ransom reminded him.

“That’s not my name!”  Ryle quickly
interjected, like he was afraid the nickname might catch on.  “That’s
not
going to be a thing!”

“Ignore his chatter.”  Uriah told
their client pleasantly.  “He’s part of an… unrelated matter.”

“Ah.”  Dim blinked rapidly,
obviously trying to understand what was going on.  “Okay…”  He swallowed and
held up the letter his wife had given him.  “It seems that we have to make a
quick stop before we reach the Wasteland.”

“You’re going to the Wasteland?” 
Ryle sounded amazed.  “Why?  That place is a shithole.  The whole Grizzwood is
the worst thing in the world.  It’s basically: cancer, olives, and the swamps
of the Grizzwood in a three-way tie for ‘Worst Thing Ever.’”

“You think you hate the Grizzwood,
wait till you spend more time with its
people
.”  Ransom told him,
gesturing at Uriah with her thumb.  “You don’t
know
what hate is yet.”

“Oh, har-har, Dove.”  Uriah rolled
his eyes.  “And once again, the Wasteland has nothing to do with the Grizzwood
aside from sharing the same culture area.”

“Yeah, ‘Shithole.’”  Ryle supplied,
as if naming the cultural classification of the area in question.

Dim looked like he was about to say
something, then stopped, and looked at Ryle in confused puzzlement.

“Hostage.”  Uriah reminded him,
growing irritated with their client’s tendency to question every little thing. 
“You were saying?”

Dim shook his head as if to clear
it, but still appeared slightly dazed at the situation for some reason. 
“Yes.”  He cleared his throat.  “It seems that we have to pick up one more
passenger first.”

Uriah arched an eyebrow.  “Who?”

Din’s eyes narrowed in obvious
contempt.  “My mother-in-law.”

Marston didn’t like Adithia.

True, the women were
beyond
beautiful
and the food was excellent, but the climate was much too hot for his tastes.

Plus, everyone here was crazy.

But then again, everything seemed
to be pretty crazy lately.  The War of Gold and Silver was tearing the world
apart, and exposing all the hidden lunacies and prejudices that people held. 
All of their sins were coming to the surface.  It was making everyone afraid
and greedy and intolerant and violent.  The cracks which had always existed in
the world were getting wider by the day, breaking everything apart.

The world was becoming a darker and
darker place each year the war raged, and it showed no signs of stopping.

True, a lot of that blame could be
placed on the Adithians, since they were one of the primary forces which drove
the engine of war onward, but Marston knew that if it hadn’t been Adithia and
the Southern Isles, it would have been someone else.

The war was unavoidable.

It had started in The Feast of
Burning Kings, as the rulers of almost every country gathered together in
celebration and were then all burned alive in what was a
llegedly
an
accidental fire which raged through their party.

Personally, Marston had never
really bought that explanation.  He wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, but it seemed
awfully convenient that a building which had stood for centuries would pick
that particular evening to burn to the ground.  No one had asked him, though.

In either event, the limitless
pride of the Southern Isles caused them to join their naval forces with the armies
of the greedy mining barons of Baseland.  Together they had moved quickly to
fill the void in the suddenly leaderless world.  Five other kingdoms rushed to
join them in their scheme, while many more formed ineffective coalitions to
fight them.  And the War of Gold and Silver was on.

Marston himself had been… drafted…
into the Adithian navy almost a year ago, and he didn’t particularly like his
new job.

All Marston wanted to be was a
pirate.

He didn’t want to be an “Admiral”
and he didn’t want to be a trader.  He didn’t want to work for anyone else and
he didn’t want to take orders from anyone.

He just wanted to be a pirate.  His
whole life, that’s all he had ever dreamed of.

He wanted adventures on the high
seas, dammit!  He wanted to drink, kill, and screw his way across this world,
earning and spending five different fortunes in the process.  He wanted freedom
and excitement.  Storms at sea, shipwrecks, and the sound of cannons. 
Swashbuckling exploits and mountains of gold.

Piracy was his calling.

But for some reason, it just didn’t
seem to be working out and he didn’t understand why.  That idiot Uriah had
tried to turn him into little more than a fucking merchant, and despite the
fact that Marston had finally overthrown that tyrannical bastard, he had seen
little personal profit since. 

It was
Uriah’s
fault Marston
wasn’t drowning in diamonds and whores right now.  The man had just lived in
his own fucking dream world, keeping Marston from success and making cruel demands
of him every day.  That sick son of a bitch
got off
on being an annoying
little prick to people.  And finally Marston just couldn’t take it anymore. 
Couldn’t take his unrelenting snide comments and his tendency to puss out when
the situation called for blood and real leadership.  Couldn’t take the man’s
idiotic moral code, which seemed to be randomly enforced with no warning. 

Uriah had to go.

But now Marston had been drafted by
the Adithians in their war against the other pirates, which not only wasn’t
very fun, but was also making him next to nothing.

But at least he still got to kill
them.

Marston had no real issue with
pirates, obviously, but if he couldn’t find success in the industry, then he’d
be damned if he’d let those bastards find it either. 

He was going to take his fleet of
Adithian pirate craft and crush everyone who disagreed with his employers.  And
when the dust settled, he’d be the only pirate left standing.  And the seas
would belong to him.

He wasn’t a bad person.  He wasn’t one
of the monsters this endless war seemed to create. 

Marston simply wanted to be a
pirate.  Exactly like untold generations of pirates who had come before him. 
No better, no worse.

And he’d kill anyone who tried to
keep him from achieving that dream.

At the moment, he was standing in
the throne room of the Southern Isles, which was located on Adithia, wondering
how many hours he’d have to be on duty before he could go out into the city to
find a drink and a woman.

In Marston’s opinion, piracy
shouldn’t have “meetings.”

Empress Lujayna, ruler of the Union
of the Southern Isles, leaned forward in her silver throne.  “You realize, of
course, that people come to me on a near daily basis with news that she’s finally
been found.”  She pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.  “You offer a
big enough reward and all you get are crackpots and their lies.”

The empress was probably the most beautiful
woman that Marston had ever seen, despite the fact that she was at least twenty-five
years older than he was.  All cheekbones and grace and stunning eyes.  A mane
of black hair framing a perfect face, falling over large breasts and gorgeous
skin.  She lacked the characteristic aloof nature of her countrywomen, instead
expressing her every emotion.

She was
also
the most terrifying
person he’d ever met however, so the lust he’d normally be feeling was undercut
by the recognition that she was one of the scariest bitches to ever walk the
land or sail the waves.  She expressed her every emotion, but nine times out of
ten, that emotion was going to be murderous rage or a batshit crazy delusion
which
ended
in murderous rage.

His first day on the job, just
looking at her hourglass figure and tantalizing ass had given him an erection
which verged on the painful it was so intense.  She was powerful and forbidden
and absolutely stunning.  He had entertained himself with his palm on many a
lonely night at sea thinking about her.  Now, a year later, she could have been
naked, on her hands and knees and begging him to fuck her hard, and his only
feeling would be sheer abject terror.

The woman was off-the-edge-of-the-map
insane.

Marston made it a point to
never
stick his dick in crazy.  Especially if the “crazy” in question happened to be
evil and addicted to dark magic or some shit.

Marston was a pirate, not an idiot.

The woman meeting with the Empress
today nodded nervously, trying to keep her composure.  “I recognize that, Your
Grace, but I’ve spent quite some time researching this woman, and I’m
sure
it’s
her.”

The woman was wearing the standard
silver breastplate of the Adithian officer class, but still came off as a
bureaucrat somehow.  She didn’t look like a warrior, she looked like one of the
fucking pixies or something.

“I spoke with her in Cormoran, Your
Grace, and I have compared my observations with the records here.”  The
pixie-looking girl continued.  “I would not waste your time unless I was sure
they were one and the same.”

“This is ridiculous.”  Csejte, Lujayna’s
son announced, his severe expression unchanging.  “This is the second one this
week, mother.”  He shook his head.  “Even if she
did
survive the attack
on the ship, which I’m still not convinced of, how could she possibly stay
alive in the years since?  A single woman on her own?  She’d be dead or working
in a whorehouse within the week.”

The man was huge and dangerous
looking, the result of decades of relentless training in the Adithian military
regime and living under his mother’s cruel fist.  He was hard and humorless and
was so bloodthirsty that he made
Marston
uncomfortable.  He thought
killing was something to be enjoyed and relished.

Csejte got off on it, in a very very
literal sense.

The man wore the Lamellar armor of
the Adithians, but his featured a large silver wolf emblem across his chest. 
Each small square of the lacquered leather which made up his long coat was
tooled with the name of one of his fallen enemies, written in silver embossed script. 

And it was a very large coat.

It was rumored that the Adithian
prophets had declared Csejte unbeatable in combat, one of the legendary
deathless warriors who would arise to protect their empire from the heathen
outsiders in times of war.

Marston thought that was just
another way of saying: “Asshole.”

Adithia considered itself the
cultural capital of the world though, always quick to remind people of the
central role it played in all of its own prophesies.  Like there had ever been
a culture anywhere that didn’t put themselves at the top of the ladder in that
respect.  But the Adithians didn’t care.  They thought they were important and
they made sure everyone else knew it too.  And if someone didn’t agree, the
Adithians took great pains to cause
that person
great pains.

The rest of the world tended to
think of the Adithians as aggressive bastards who dabbled too much in the dark
arts and who spent too much time debating amongst themselves the precise
reasons why they were so superior to everyone else.  That they
were
superior
really wasn’t in doubt in their own minds, they merely disagreed about the
exact impetus of that superiority.

Was it because they were
genetically better?  Or because the Adithian Gods loved the Adithians most of
all?  Or perhaps it was simply their culture and history which granted them the
tools to achieve superiority over everyone else?  All of those reason together?

It was a hotly debated subject in
every university on the island.

Marston couldn’t stand them.  Their
whole culture was a bit iffy in his mind, to say nothing of the fact that their
accent was annoying after a while. 

All in all, with the exception of
their women and their food, their kingdom didn’t really have a lot to offer the
world.  Their greatest gift to humankind was the fact that so many of them were
dying in this war.

Empress Lujayna turned to glare at
her son, her beautiful eyes narrowing in irritation.  “Did I
ask
for
your opinion, Csejte?”

The huge man paled, obviously
afraid of the woman’s wrath despite the fact that he towered over her by at
least two feet of solid muscle.  “N-n-n-no, mother.”  He stammered.  “I just…”

“You just thought that I
needed
your
help, is that it?”  She persisted, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

He shook his head rapidly.  “No,
I…”

“So you were just speaking
mindlessly then?”  She pressed, unwilling to let the issue drop.  “Like some
little schoolhouse girl, gossiping to her friends?”

The man took a step back, just in
case the woman launched herself at him.  It was an entirely reasonable concern,
if you knew the Empress.  “No, I was just…”  He swallowed.  “I was just… I
didn’t think this was worthy of your valuable time, mother.  That’s all.”

Marston had seen the man kill ten
men at once, with his bare hands, but now he was all but pissing his pants. 
Which would have been funny, except that Marston was legitimately afraid at the
moment too.

Lujayna, The Silver Tree, was a
dangerous woman.

She could kill everyone in the
room, then calmly go have her nails done by one of the many shirtless muscular
men chained up in her harem.

“
You
are not worthy of my
time, Csejte, and yet I didn’t drown you at birth, did I?”  The woman’s voice softened
slightly, as if moved by the touching story of her own mercy towards her child.

“No, mother.”  He shook his head
again.  “You didn’t.”  He paused.  “Again, as always, thank you for your
clemency on that.”

“Well,
it’s not too late
,
Csejte.”  She pointed at him with an elegant finger.  “You step out of line and
I will show you
what pain really is
.”

The man swallowed nervously again. 
“Yes, mother.  Obviously, I serve at your command.”

It was said that the empress had
sold their souls to the demons of myth in exchange for wealth and power.

Marston really didn’t believe in
magic or demons… but whenever he was in the woman’s presence, he got the
feeling that there was something wrong with her.

Something not entirely human.

Lujayna was stately and she was
built like some kind of sex goddess… but she was terrifying.  There simply
wasn’t anything to the woman but curves and evil.  And she was the vainest
bitch he had ever met, which was saying a lot because pride was the Adithians’
national pastime and defining characteristic.  But the Empress took that to
extremes, always preening in a mirror and making sure everyone knew that she
was the prettiest woman around.

If you threatened that?  She
drowned you in molten silver, then arranged your sparkly corpse into fanciful
poses to use you as prop in her “garden,” so that her exotic trees could climb
your remains like a trellis.

And the people who worked in the
palace whispered that their leader liked to do strange things with her entombed
enemies, late at night.  Marston had never personally seen anything like that,
but he wouldn’t put it past the woman.  Like her son, the woman got off on
death and pain.  Using the silver-plated corpses of her foes as sex toys would
be entirely in character for her.

“Am I the only one wondering why
we’re even still interested in her anyway?  I mean, it’s been years.”  The
empress’ daughter Allerleirauh wondered aloud.  Allerleirauh was one of Lujayna’s
oldest daughters of the seven she’d brought into the world originally.  But
life in Adithia and with their mother had been tough on the girls and there
were only three of them left, by Marston’s count.