Eight captains down the line and none had either seen the man Jacob described or heard of the Black Thorn. The ninth ship down was a large, sleek trading vessel sitting low in the water with the name
the Bloody Bride
, it was just starting to pull away from the pier as Jacob spotted it. He watched for a few moments then began to turn away. Just as he did a face appeared at the starboard railing, a face that looked at once familiar and foreign, a face with an eye patch and a horrific burn scar. The owner of the face spotted Jacob and for a few moments they stared at each other. The ship was already too far out for Jacob to reach and he'd never manage to commandeer another boat in time, at least not one that could catch
the Bloody Bride
.
Turning away from the departing ship, Jacob grabbed a passer-by. “Where is that boat headed?” he asked the man, pointing a long finger at the ship to indicate which one he meant.
“How should I know?” the man shot back, voice full of something that sounded a bit like fear with more than a little offence.
Jacob slapped the man across the face with his right hand, not hard enough to break his jaw but hard enough to hurt, hard enough to bruise and swell. “The next one takes your jaw off,” he told the man, now sobbing and clutching at his face. “Where is that ship headed?”
“The wilds,” came a voice from behind Jacob. He let go of the sobbing, bruise-faced man and turned to confront the speaker. A small, bald man wearing glasses. Not many people could afford glasses; he was someone important.
Jacob grabbed the small bald man by the left shoulder and squeezed. With a scream of pain he dropped to his knees in front of the Arbiter. “Who are you?” Jacob asked.
“Archibald... Gellar,” the small bald man answered, choking back his pain.
“Hmm, I don't know you.” Jacob squeezed the shoulder some more.
“I'm... a dock master... here,” the man managed to say between squeals of agony.
“Oh. Where in the wilds is that ship headed?” Jacob picked the dock master up and turned him around then pointed towards
the Bloody Bride
.
“Solantis. The captain said Solantis.” The dock master was blubbering in fear and pain.
“I see,” Jacob said. It would appear he would not be headed back to his cell as soon as he should. “Are there any other ships going to Solantis?”
“I don't know,” the dock master said. Jacob squeezed some more. “I... please... stop. I... I can check.”
“Oh,” Jacob said with a smile and let go of the man's shoulder. “How kind. Please, lead the way.”
Thorn
Two months was a long time and two months at sea for a man who was well-known to be a piss poor sailor was an even longer time. Still, at least Betrim found himself a use for the prolonged exposure to nautical life. He made sure to eat lots, and kept it down wherever he could. He swung his new axe around a bit, did any heavy lifting that the ship required and even participated in a spot of honest piracy, anything that would help build up some of the muscle he'd lost while lying motionless and wounded in that cell back in Sarth.
Most nights he ate with Arip and Rilly; they spent their time apart from the crew and that suited Betrim just fine. The less people that knew who he was the better, there was never any shortage of folk willing to try to make a name for themselves by killing the Black Thorn. He slept with the crew down in the hold and when he slept he dreamed. Always the same dream, always Kessick stabbing him and taking his eye and always he woke with a start, dripping sweat and with his heart beating in his ears sounding so much like the
thumping
back in his cell.
His hair had started to grow back, though without any eccan nuts to grind into a stinking black paste, the flame red hair he was not known for was starting to show through. A patchy brown stubble had started to grow on the left side of his face, around the burn, and was openly mocked by the thick ginger mat of hair on the right side. He shaved as often as he could be arsed but these days that didn't translate to very often. His left eye socket still itched but the patch that Arip had bought him stopped him from poking at the wound. Betrim reckoned he cut a right fierce figure these days, the very image of a dread pirate. Not that he was about to look for a mirror to find out.
The clothes Arip had provided him were not to Betrim's taste but at least they fit. Plain white trousers that ended just below the knee, a tough leather a belt to hold them up and to hang his axe, and a plain white shirt made of some lightweight and itchy material. Truth was it was the same as most of the crew wore, no use wearing any good clothing on ship. It was the salt, he reckoned, it got everywhere; clothing, hair, eyes, nose. If it wasn't the salt of the sea it was the salt beef that they ate. Truth was Betrim almost enjoyed the rain storm they encountered six weeks in. Sheets of warm, saltless water pelting everything, everyone. Betrim was no use to the crew at that time but he found it fairly pleasurable to stand on deck and let nature wash him clean.
He found he felt the seasickness less when the sea got rougher. Arip seemed to find that a touch odd and Rilly just mocked him with words he didn't understand. Truth was he might have given her a beating but it seemed she meant the mocking in a good nature. Besides, despite his reputation, the Black Thorn did not go around hitting women, especially not the little ones and especially not if they looked like they might fight back and Rilly definitely looked that.
They'd been skimming the coastline for a few days when Solantis sailed into view. Not the largest city by any stretch but then, as far as Betrim was concerned, it wasn't even a real city. Solantis was more like a camp for every lowlife, mercenary and sell-sword the wilds had. It was run by the merc companies that infested it, governed by them and policed by them but it wasn't a free city. Solantis was owned and taxed by the Brekovichs; one of the nine blooded families of the wilds and quite possibly now the most powerful since the unfortunate fall of the H'osts. Solantis was famous for two things above all others; for boasting the highest crime rate in all of the wilds, an unfortunate side effect of being policed by criminals, and for its fighting pits.
Betrim never held to the idea of fighting in the pits but then that was because Betrim never held to the idea of fighting fair. If someone needed killing, and people often did, then Betrim had long ago decided a knife in the back was the best way to get the job done, less chance of them fighting back that way.
Solantis was just about the last place that Betrim wanted to be but Solantis was where he was headed. Didn't mean he needed to stay there long. He'd rustle up some bits, get some new clothes and some supplies and hopefully find a lead on where that bastard Kessick might be. Failing that he'd find a way back to Korral. The southern wilds suited him far better than the north, the temperature was so much cooler up here; at times it even got chilly and the Black Thorn had never liked the cold.
“Da' ses ya frightened o' water,” said Rilly. The little girl liked to try and sneak up on the Black Thorn from behind. Seemed she hadn't figured out he had eyes in the back of his head. Probably had more back there than he did in front these days.
Betrim twisted his neck round to look at her and then realised he'd looked over his left shoulder. One of these days he might get used to the missing eye. He looked over his right shoulder instead. “Black Thorn ain't scared of nothin'. Jus' don't like water... or at least don't like what's in it... or under it.”
Rilly spat over the side of the railing. “Ain't no sea fauna ya gotta be scared of long as ya got a deck 'neath ya. You wanna be more scared of the meteorology of the oceans. Them's the things like ta kill ya. That or the violent populace of the pirate isles.”
Betrim glared at the girl, he would have thought glaring would be harder with only one eye, turns out it was much easier than before. Rilly seemed to enjoy using words that Betrim didn't understand, the fact that she spoke them in a thick wilds drawl just served to make them sound even stranger.
“You outta be scared o' pissin' off folk known ta be violent when angry,” Betrim said with a grin.
Rilly snorted. “Da' ses no need ta be scared o' ya. Ses ya wouldn't hurt me. Ses ya saved my life.”
Betrim turned back to look at Solantis. “Well ya Da' shouldn't be talkin' 'bout such. Least of all ta some shit-mouthed, flat-chested sea witch like yaself.”
“Fuck you, Thorn. Better a sea witch than a narcissistic, chauvinist whore-son.”
Betrim grinned. They'd been insulting each other for the past two months and he was fairly certain he'd never won because she seemed to be talking in some foreign language, but he reckoned he had her this time. “My mother were a rancher, yours were a whore.”
“No she weren't,” Rilly complained.
“Aye,” Betrim said, still grinning. “She were.”
“Da' said she were a pirate.”
“Ya da' lied.”
Rilly stared at him for a few moments then snorted. “Ya a lyin' shit, Black Thorn.” With that she turned and fled leaving Betrim to watch the city of mercs grow larger by the minute. Even from here could see the squat buildings surrounding the docks, most little more than wooden box for the good folk to live in.
Betrim was already packed and ready to go by the time they started floating into dock. Truth was he didn't have anything to pack, all he owned were the clothes on his back and the axe at his side, about as far from a fortune as a man could get. He planned to get off the ship as soon as he could, no need to mill around getting in Arip's way when he started unloading his goods, that and Betrim found he had a pressing need to be on dry land again. He just didn't have the legs, or the stomach, for the sea.
He probably should have seen it coming, should have suspected something was amiss by the way the crew were looking at him funny, by the way they'd been avoiding him for a couple of days. Betrim had put their behaviour down to the distancing of a man about to leave the ship but it seems there was more to it.
The low afternoon sun spread its lazy light over the murky green waters of the Bay of Solantis and Betrim was busy staring at those waters, wondering what might be lurking underneath, when they confronted him. Not the smartest of ambushes though, they started off with words instead of sharp objects.
“Black Thorn,” said the one with the bulbous nose and crooked eyebrow. He was as tall as Thorn and well-muscled as lifetime sailors often were. Might be his name was Jonas but Betrim couldn't remember and didn't much care to. “Be a kindness if ya put down that axe an' came quiet. No one need get hurt here.”
The pier was still a ways off and Betrim didn't fancy it was a good time to learn to swim. He turned to confront his assailants. There were six of them in all; some young, some older, all unprepared to take on the Black Thorn. They were armed though; two had dull cutlasses spotted with rust and last sharpened somewhere around never, two had axes, one had a dagger and one wielded a meat cleaver. Took Betrim a moment to recognise the man wielding the cleaver as the cook. Would be a shame to kill that one, he knew his way round the galley pretty well, smoked fish had never tasted so good to Betrim’s recollection.
“Don't reckon ya wanna do this, lads,” Betrim said in voice that sounded like he meant it and had the skill to back up his threat. He glared at each of them with his one eye. He was yet to take his own axe in hand yet though, the threat seemed more potent with him being empty handed.
“For the money ya worth, reckon we do,” replied Crooked Eyebrow.
The silence that followed seemed to hold for a good long while. None of the six lads wanted to be the first to make a move; chances were if they knew who Betrim was then they'd heard what he'd done, what he were capable of. Not a one of them volunteered to be the first to die. Betrim wondered whether he could get out of this one without a fight.
“Reckon you've heard of me,” Betrim said. “Reckon ya might've picked the wrong man. Can't claim no reward if ya dead an' the Black Thorn ain't known fer lettin' men that attacked him ta live. Last chance, I reckon, lads. Walk away from this one.”
There was some nervous foot shifting and some scared gaze flickering. Some of the lads gave some of the others meaningful looks but none packed it in and went back to work. Seemed fifty thousand was a big pile of bits.
“What the hell is goin' on here?” Arip Winters’ voice thundered over the ship with the air of command that only a captain can give. Rilly vaulted from the forecastle onto the deck and eye-balled each of the men in turn. Each of them looked away from her shit-brown eyes until she came to the chef. Quick as a snake the cook's hand shot out, grabbed Rilly by her brown ponytail and dragged her close, his cleaver going to her neck.
“Ain't meanin' no disrespec', Cap'n,” said Crooked Eyebrow, “but fuck off. This 'ere's the Black Thorn an' it jus' so happens he's worth more than this ship. Hell, even at the half we'll get fer turnin' him over 'ere we can buy our own, bigger an' faster than the
Bride
'ere. All ya need ta do is stay out o' this an' Rilly goes free.”
“This is akin ta mutiny, Jonas. I'll hang you myself,” Arip threatened.
“You do that, Cap’n, an' Rilly gets bled like a pig.”
To make his point the chef pressed his cleaver into the girl's neck. Blood started to trickle down the solid chunk of sharp metal and drip to the deck. Most girls Betrim had known would have started to cry at such but Rilly was made of sterner stuff.
“Get that damned cleaver out o' my face you putrid lump o’ pallid flesh,” she screamed. A look of utter confusion crossed the cook's pasty white face but he didn't move. The cleaver stayed at the girl's neck.
Arip gave Betrim a look and the Black Thorn gave his old friend a look right back accompanied by the slightest shake of his head, he might have winked too but the problem was he only had the one eye these days and he didn't want to take it off the situation even for a moment. Truth was the last thing Betrim needed was to be blamed for Rilly's death. It clearly pained Arip to back away from the situation but he did so and left Betrim to handle it on his own.
