The Mad Voyage of Prince Malock (16 page)

“My precious prince looks hungry today,” said
Garnal, as if she were speaking about a child. “Want mommy to feed
you?”

“I'd rather starve than accept food from you,”
Malock said, snarling.

Garnal shook her head. “That's a nice sentiment, but
I'm afraid we still need you alive until we get north. You dying on
us would ruin our plans, and frankly I dislike it when my plans are
ruined.”

Malock gave her the most skeptical, scathing look he
could muster. “Oh? And may I ask what your plans are?”

“Sure,” said Garnal. “Won't hurt to tell you, since
you can't do a thing about 'em and you'll find out what they are
soon enough anyway. I was just discussing them with Daryh,
actually, so they're fresh on my mind.”

Garnal leaned back in her chair, folding her claws
across her chest and looking quite pleased with herself. “You see,
my precious prince, we Gray Pirates are not in a particularly good
situation. I won't tell you the specifics, but we are in desperate
need of men, money, and a good ship.”

Malock raised an eyebrow. “So you're going to take
the
Iron Wind
and turn it's crew into pirates?”

Garnal laughed. “Ha! As if. Not even I could whip
these wimps into pirates. They're hardly better than plankton, if
that. No, I will kill them all eventually.”

“And the ship?”

“This chunk of flotsam and jetsam?” said Garnal.
“We'll sink it and get another. This lady is clearly on her last
legs and it would be far more merciful to let her die in peace
rather than try to fix her up.”

“I don't understand,” said Malock. “How are you
going to get men, money, and a good ship if you're going to kill my
whole crew?”

“That's where you come in,” said Garnal. “You're the
Prince of Carnag. That makes you worth a lot of money, thousands of
coins, perhaps even millions. I imagine your parents are probably
worried sick about you right now, praying to Grinf that you will
have a safe voyage and that you will return alive and whole.”

“Hold on,” said Malock. “Are you going to hold me
for ransom?”

“Looks like you royals aren't so dumb after all,”
said Garnal. “Yes, indeed. Once we return north, we'll offer your
parents a deal. We'll return you, alive and whole, in exchange for
a million coins. Seems like a reasonable deal to me, especially if
your parents care about you even half as much as I think they
do.”

“A million coins?” said Malock. “That would bankrupt
Carnag. It would make Carnag look like Ruwa.”

“And what's so wrong about Ruwa?” said Garnal.
“Lawlessness, poverty, perpetual hunger, and constant strife.
Sounds like a pirate's paradise to me.”

“You'll never get away with this,” said Malock.
“Kano is on my side. She'll drag you to the bottom of the ocean and
torture your broken soul if you even so much as touch me.”

Garnal's expression changed from amused to angry in
a flash. “Don't you dare mention that divine bitch to me, gold
blood. Why, if she were here right now, I'd throttle her, chop her
into pieces, ground those into fine power, and scatter it across
the entirety of the Crystal Sea personally. After what she did to
us—”

“What did she do to you?” Malock said, not caring if
he was interrupting. “Is she the reason you don't have a ship and
only have a dozen men left on your crew?”

“Shut up,” said Garnal. “You may be a prince, but
that doesn't mean you are entitled to know everything about
everybody. All you need to know is that Kano will not save you; if
she wanted to, she would have already done that by now.”

Malock opened her mouth to correct her, but before
he could say anything, the door slammed open and Daryh walked in.
Garnal looked over her shoulder in irritation and said, “Daryh,
what are you doing here? I thought I told you to—”

Daryh let out a long, shuddering gasp and then fell
face first to the floor. Blood leaked out of his back like a
spring, but that wasn't what caught Malock's attention. What caught
Malock's attention was the young woman standing just behind the
now-dead pirate, the woman who held a long, deadly-looking knife
like she did this sort of thing every day.

Garnal rose to her feet, knocking her chair over in
the process, and said, “Who in the Crystal Sea are you?”

The woman smiled. “Jenur Takren. And I'm here to
take you out.”

-

Five minutes earlier ...

With the knife hidden up his sleeve (Jenur had shown
Kinker how to hide it so he could easily draw it when he needed
it), Kinker made his way from the stern to the main deck. He tried
to look as casual as he could, hoping against hope that he would
not be stopped and searched by one of the Pirates, that he could
make it to the hatch without being noticed. If any of the Pirates
stopped him, the entire plan would probably fall apart.

To calm himself, he recited the story in his head
again and again, the exact reason he was going down to the
hold.

I am going to the hold to retrieve some supplies
to repair the trawl,
Kinker thought, climbing down the steps
from the poop deck to the main deck.
I am going to the hold to
retrieve some supplies to repair the trawl. I am going to the hold
to retrieve some supplies to repair the trawl. I am—

“Hey, you!” said a voice, causing Kinker to freeze.
“Where are you going?”

Kinker turned and saw Daryh above him, standing just
outside the stateroom, near the helm, where a couple of sailors
were steering the ship. The eel-like aquarian's eyes almost burned
him, but Kinker tried to look as innocent as he could.

“I am going to the hold to retrieve some supplies to
repair the trawl,” Kinker said. “I'll be back in a few
minutes.”

Daryh didn't look convinced. “Did Hino give you
permission to go wandering about the ship like this?”

“Yes,” said Kinker. “He threatened to beat me to
death if I didn't return in ten minutes, so I must be going, if
you'd let me.”

Daryh shook his head. “No way. I know exactly what
you're trying to do. You can't fool—”

Jenur appeared behind Daryh just then and stabbed
him in the back. The first mate let out a loud scream, causing the
rest of the crew—Pirates and sailors alike—to turn and look at him
in surprise. Even Kinker was too stunned to move for a moment.

Still driving her knife into his back, Jenur
shouted, “Everyone! The time has come to kick these pirates off of
our ship! Fight for your freedom!”

Everyone was still too surprised to react, but
Kinker realized that he had a rare opportunity here to go below
deck before the Pirates recovered from shock. He ran as fast as he
could to the hatch, pulled it open, and climbed down the ladder
below deck even as the sounds of battle and cries of pain began to
fill his ears.

As he made his way down the hall, he passed several
sailors, telling them as he did, “Go top deck and help the others
fight the pirates,” but didn't stop long enough to tell them the
whole story. Not that he needed to. When the sailors he passed
heard that, they let out big whoops and dashed in the opposite
direction that he was going. Kinker would have joined them, but he
had his own job to complete right now.

As he climbed down the ladder that led to the hold,
he realized just how stupid he'd been. In his rush to get to the
hold, he had forgotten to get help from some of the other sailors.
He was so focused on the original plan, which involved him
discreetly killing the guard and freeing the prisoners, that he had
forgotten that things had changed, which meant the plan had
changed, too.

But Kinker kept climbing down anyway. He didn't have
time to go back up and find someone. All of the sailors in the
lower decks were probably already on their way to the surface.
Right now, the guard probably didn't know about the fighting and if
he saw Kinker climbing down with three or four other armed sailors,
he would probably realize what was happening and attack them.
Kinker hoped that Jenur's earlier advice to him would work.

The lowest deck, where the hold was located, was
much darker than the middle deck. Kinker had never been down here
before, never having a reason to, and he now wished he didn't have
to. While light would stream through the ceiling of the middle
deck, down here, the only light was a lamp at the end of the hall,
in front of the door to the hold, leaving the rest of the deck in
darkness.

Not only that, but Kinker could feel the ocean
currents better down here, too. The ship lurched slightly, sending
him staggering to the right. He leaned against a wall and realized
it was wet. He realized that he was technically underwater and
that, if a hole was busted open down, he would undoubtedly drown.
It was not a pleasant thought.

Doing his best to retain his balance and hide his
fear, Kinker made his way down the hall. Through the walls of the
lowest deck, the slightly muffled sounds of the ocean currents
drowned out most of the other sounds, which certainly worked in
Kinker's favor because that meant that the guard would not hear the
noises from the fighting above. And with luck, the guard would
never learn about the battle at all.

Kinker reached the end of the hall sooner than he
wanted, stopping a few feet away from the guard. The guard looked
to be asleep at first, his eyes closed and his shark-like head
lowered onto his chest. He was sitting on a chair, which was
leaning against the door to the hold, a key ring tied to his belt.
Kinker wanted to reach out and take those keys, but he refrained
from doing so. It was not yet time.

Then the guard's eyes opened and he looked up.
Kinker wished that the guard's eyes would look more human and less
shark-like because right now the old man felt like he was being
scrutinized for lunch.

“What are you doing down here?” said the guard. His
arms, Kinker noticed, were quite large, probably thicker than
Kinker's entire body. “Garnal said no one was allowed down here
except for Gray Pirates.”

“Yes, well, you see, I am in desperate need of
supplies to repair the trawl with,” Kinker said, his voice
accidentally trembling over the word 'trawl.' “Daryh sent me down
here to retrieve some rope we could use to fix it. It's in the
hold, so if you will just let me in—”

“I smell fear,” said the guard. He raised his head
to sniff the air, exposing his neck. “I don't think you'd be afraid
if you were telling me the—”

Kinker didn't let him finish. Just as Jenur showed
him, Kinker let the knife slip out of his sleeve and into his hand.
And then, again as Jenur had showed him, Kinker leaped forward and
rammed the knife straight into the pirate's exposed throat.

The Pirate lashed out with a kick, hitting Kinker in
the knee and sending the fisherman falling to the ground. Yet a
moment later, the Pirate slumped in his seat, blood pouring from
his neck onto his shirt, staining it and making it look even uglier
than usual.

Rubbing his knee, Kinker stood up and looked at his
knife, which was covered in blood. He was surprised at how easily
the guard had died. It made him wonder how Jenur knew the right
place to kill someone instantly, but he decided that was a question
for another day. Right now, he had to free the prisoners.

The shark pirate was as heavy as a log, but Kinker
eventually pushed the Pirate's body onto the floor and pushed the
chair aside. He fished the key ring from the Pirate's body and
fiddled with several different keys until he found one that fit the
hold's lock. He turned the key and opened the door.

As soon as he opened it, a terrible smell of
unwashed bodies, rotting food, and seawater entered his nostrils,
making him gag. He had little time to recover, however, because
Banika appeared in the doorway, holding a chunk of wood, and
brought it down on his head even as he held up a hand and said,
“Wait! Its me, Kinker! Stop!”

His words did little to stop her. The chunk of wood
slammed into the top of his head and he crashed to the floor,
losing consciousness instantly.

-

Currently ...

Now Malock didn't know Jenur very well, but he was
so glad to see her that he could have kissed her. The sounds of
battle raged behind her, but that didn't matter right now because
he was certain he was going to be saved now.

“You're going to take me down?” said Garnal, her
back to Malock. “That's a funny joke, young girl. You may have
killed Daryh, but he was always an idiot despite his academic
credentials.”

“I didn't just kill Daryh,” said Jenur. “Killed
Hino, too. Oh, and the rest of your band of dirty thieves is
currently fighting for their lives. I imagine the rest of the crew
is showing them no mercy at the moment.”

For the first time, Garnal's claws shook.
“Impossible. You sailors are too scrawny and weak to defeat my
men.”

“True, we haven't had a good meal in a long time,”
said Jenur. “But we still out number you— two to one—and all of us
are incredibly pissed off, which is a pretty good combination in
any fight. We might suffer a few losses ourselves, but it'll be
nothing compared to the losses you will suffer.”

“Big words for such a small girl,” Garnal said.
“Besides, if knives are the best you got, I'm afraid you'll be
losing your head tonight. My armor, if you haven't noticed, is
extremely thick. Not even Grinfian knives can pierce this
hide.”

Garnal tapped her shell as she spoke, a hollow
ringing sound echoing as she did that.

Jenur shrugged. “My knives have pierced things much
thicker than a crab shell before. Like the skulls of idiots.”

Garnal immediately moved behind the desk. With her
claws, she snapped the ropes tying down Malock as easily as string
and then forced the prince to stand. Malock struggled to escape her
grasp, but he felt one of her claws close around his throat,
causing him to cease struggling.