Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 10 - The Phoenix

Port Sev’relain was exactly the sort of place Keelin liked. It wasn’t one of those trading towns that claimed to be a free city, but neither did it belong to any sort of empire. It was a small town, though large in comparison to most pirate settlements, full of hard-working honest folk just trying to get by. Here people raised children, enjoyed their lives, and weren’t subject to taxes or the rule of another person. That wasn’t to say there weren’t rules, but they were the rules of the people and any justice that needed handing out was also handed out by the people.

The buildings were small, ugly things mostly made from the trees that crowded the island. It seemed every island of any sort of habitable size in the Pirate Isles was swamped by tall green trees that threatened to label themselves as a jungle. It made clearing an area for a new settlement hard work, but it also had the benefit of providing handy building materials for both houses and ships. Not that many ships out on the water were built by the pirates that infested the isles – just stolen by them.

A one-legged man wielding a wooden crutch began hobbling along the pier towards The Phoenix’s dinghy as it was rowed into position and Morley leapt up to secure it to its berth. The one-legged man made good speed despite his affliction, and the small boy behind him carrying a large tome moved just as fast.

Keelin climbed out of the boat and signalled for the rest of his crew to wait. He’d brought just eight men ashore.

“Come on,” said the one-legged harbour master. “Let’s hear ya voice. My eyesight ain’t no good no more, but unless you’re another new one I reckon I’ll know you by your voice.”

Keelin smiled and briefly considered using a fake accent. “I’ll pay you an extra copper bit for the berth if you get it right,” he said.

The old harbour master snorted. “I’ll accept no bribes from you or anyone else, Stillwater. Still The Phoenix, is it?”

“No other ship for me, old man.”

“Old man? I have the good manners to remember your name,” the harbour master snapped. “Damned least you can do is repay the favour.”

“Uh…”

The harbour master spat into the bay. “Ask around. Loading or unloading?”

“Unloading,” Keelin said, feeling a little embarrassed. “Just a little.”

“Little or a lot, you all pay the same. How long a stay?”

“A few days.”

The old man sighed. “Few is not a fucking number, lad. I thought captains had to know how to count.”

Keelin heard a few of his crew laugh from the boat, and he turned and shot them a glare. “We’ll say four days then.”

“One gold bit,” said the harbour master. “That’s ten silver bits, in case you’re still finding the counting hard. Some people use their fingers as aids.”

Keelin decided the best course was to smile through the humiliation. “It was only eight silver bits last I was here. That’s a two-silver markup.”

“More pirates these days,” the old man said, and he wasn’t wrong. Keelin counted more ships than he’d seen in one place in the Pirate Isles for a long time. “Space is at a premium. And I’m charging you an extra bit for your attitude.”

The old man waited, and the boy behind him carrying the tome watched Keelin. Clearly most captains would attempt to haggle. Keelin knew better than to waste his time. “Sounds reasonable,” he lied as he pulled his purse from his belt and began counting bits.

The boy with the tome stepped forward and expertly opened the large book to a half-filled page. Keelin couldn’t help but notice that his name and that of his ship were already scribbled on the bottom of the page with only the particulars, and the cost of his stay, left blank. He spilled ten silver bits onto the book, which promptly snapped shut. The boy took a hasty step backwards.

“I wonder, um, harbour master,” Keelin said quickly as the man turned to walk away. “Has anyone from Sev’relain seen the Fortune recently.”

The boy stepped forward again, and again opened the book. Keelin noticed the ten silver he’d previously deposited had already vanished. He dropped another bit onto the book, which again snapped shut.

“The Fortune is currently undergoing repairs on a beach just a short walk that way,” the harbour master said with the briefest of nods as to the direction before turning away again.

Keelin considered asking after Drake Morrass specifically, but decided his purse had suffered more than enough for one day.

“Two boats, Morley,” Keelin ordered without turning to look at his quartermaster. “Prioritise men that didn’t get ashore at Fango.”

“The cargo?”

“Can wait. I’ve got crew with bits burning holes in their pockets. Let the men have some fun first. Business can come later for once.” His declaration was greeted by a cheer from the men that had accompanied him.

“And you, Captan?”

Keelin gave his quartermaster a brief grin. “I’ve got things to do.”

She wasn’t beautiful – Keelin knew – but there was something about her that drew him in like a fish on a line. He’d always been that way, and couldn’t explain why. Things caught his attention, things most people would dismiss in an instant, but with Keelin he couldn’t help but think about them.

Once, long ago, Keelin’s brother, Derran, had noticed that their father’s old cutlass had caught him in just such a way. Keelin was only six at the time, and Derran nine and much bigger, already allowed to train with swords. Together they broke into their father’s armoury and Derran had taught Keelin the basics of fighting with a sword. They both caught the beating of a lifetime when their father found out. Beatings had been a staple of Keelin’s childhood.

This woman wasn’t the first to catch Keelin’s attention. Long ago Elaina Black had been the object of his obsession. That particular infatuation had died the moment the cursed woman had revealed herself to be very much her father’s daughter. Keelin suppressed a shudder as he remembered Elaina covered in red as if she’d bathed in blood, her eyes wide and a manic grin on her face.

A man with ruddy cheeks, from both drink and the obvious exertion of simply staying upright under such intoxication, bumped into Keelin’s table. The man and his two friends laughed and made some joke about the table coming out of nowhere. Keelin did his best to ignore them and continued staring at the not-quite-beautiful woman.

“Now this here,” said the drunk to his companions “is jus’ the fuckin’ thing we’re… uh… we need.”

Keelin glanced at him and then away.

“The table,” said one of the drunken friends. “Seems yer all alone an’ this table is better suited to three fine fellows like ourselves.”

Paying the men a little more attention, Keelin decided they were most definitely pirates, but he couldn’t name either their captain or their ship. “I’m impressed you can count so high,” he said with a smile. “Reckon there’s plenty of other tables in this little tavern. I suggest you find one.”

“I found this one,” the man said, placing both fists on the table and glaring at Keelin across the round stretch of wood.

This was the problem with pirates, Keelin had to admit; all they ever wanted to do was drink, fight, and fuck. And if they were deprived of drinking and fucking for any period of time, they tended to resort to the fighting. It dawned on Keelin that perhaps it would be a good idea to give his own crew a fight every now and then regardless of the inherent danger. At the thought of his crew, he looked around the tavern for backup. Of course, there was none. He’d gone ahead of all of his men precisely to be able to spy, in relative privacy, on the woman. In fact, looking around, he realised he knew no one currently drinking in the tavern, and that meant no one would be likely to come to his aid. He had only two options: stand his ground alone, or run away. Running away had never really been an option for Keelin.

Fixing a nasty grin to his face and slowly pushing to his feet, Keelin made a show of resting his hands on his twin cutlasses despite the fact that using them in a simple bar brawl would be something largely considered against the rules.

“I reckon you might have picked a fight with the wrong person,” he said. The tavern seemed to go quiet, as though everyone inside sensed what was coming. “Keelin Stillwater.” He finished by fixing the drunken man still leaning on the table with a stern stare.

“Never heard of ya,” the man said with a shake of his head.

“Captain Keelin Stillwater,” Keelin clarified, “of The Phoenix.”

“Nope.”

“Widely regarded as the best swordsman the Pirate Isles has to offer.”

“Really?”

Keelin nodded slowly. “Really.”

“Well, I don’t know much about sword fighting,” the drunk said, standing up to his full height and suddenly seeming a lot less drunk. “But I don’t reckon you’ll be drawin’ those fancy stickers o’ yours. ’Less ya want ta end up on the end of a rope.” As he spoke, his two friends moved to flank him.

The thing about a setup, Keelin admitted to himself right there and then, was that they rarely felt like a setup until after the fact. And the thing about a fist fight, he knew from past experience, was that they were usually won by the man who struck first.

In one lightning-fast motion Keelin kicked the table towards the first man and, not waiting to see the result, launched himself at the man to his left, landing a punch squarely between his eyes. A howl of pain and a fair bit of blood later, and Keelin was fairly certain he’d just broken a nose. He spun around and ran at the third man who, it had to be said, was looking a little shocked by the sudden and unexpected outburst of violence. They connected and Keelin pushed the bald pirate backwards a few steps until they collided with a table and both went careening over the top of it, spilling cups everywhere and no doubt kicking a few bystanders on the way. The bald pirate hit the floor, and Keelin hit the bald pirate. Before either of them could recover, Keelin started raining punches down onto the man’s unprotected face.

Strong hands grabbed hold of Keelin under his arms and pulled him back and off the bald pirate, and Keelin found himself flailing at nothing. A punch to the kidney later and he was gasping in pain and wishing very much that he could swap places with the bleeding man on the floor.

Shoving an elbow backwards, Keelin was rewarded with solid contact and a grunt. He shoved free of the hands holding him and spun around to confront his new assailants, almost tripping over the prone form of the bald pirate, who was now very much curled into a ball in an attempt to protect his vulnerables from a man and a woman who had decided to get in a good kicking.

Keelin saw the haymaker coming a moment too late and, despite his rushed attempt at a block, caught at least half the fast-travelling fist with his cheek. Despite the impressive force of the punch, Keelin took it well and recovered quickly enough to give his assailant the most violent kick to the shins he’d ever delivered. He followed it up with a thunderous punch to the face, which put the other man down. He was just about to congratulate himself and look for an escape route when a body slammed into him and Keelin found his world turned upside down.

Lying face down on the tavern floor with the solid weight of a body on top of him, Keelin looked around to see the unmistakeable random violence of a bar brawl in full swing. Multiple small skirmishes were taking place with odds that ranged from uneven to dire. The woman who had been Keelin’s sole reason for ever coming into the tavern was well and truly gone.

He watched a giant of a man with Riverlands tattoos trading punches with another man who had arms hairier than most monkeys. A small woman wearing a red bandana picked up a chair and turned it to kindling across the giant’s back. The giant turned and, with speed that belied his size, grabbed hold of the woman’s neck with one hand. Keelin decided he might just lie there and play dead until it was all over; rejoining the brawl would likely be detrimental to his health. It was just as he reached that decision that his head was pushed forwards, connecting violently with the wooden floor.

The world first turned upside down, then became very bright before resolving into what could only be described as a painful blur. Keelin pawed uselessly at the floor in an attempt to move. Again his head collided with the wooden boards, and this time everything went a dark shade of black.

Keelin felt his body lift, dragged upright by his arms. He prised his eyes open just in time to see a painful blur hit him in the face and close them again. Something else hit him in the gut, then again and again. He tried to bend over and retch, but someone appeared to have a hold of his arms, so instead he just threw up right there. Painful bile tore at his throat and he heard someone swear and curse.

“Told ya it was our table,” Keelin heard someone say as he sagged against the strong arms holding him. “Now we’re gonna make you eat it.”

A distant part of Keelin recognised he was in real trouble. He struggled, thrashing about wildly, but the person holding him had him tight and all he earned for his effort was another punch to the face.

“Put him there. No. Make him kneel.”

Keelin’s legs were kicked out from under him and he dropped onto his knees. He opened his eyes and saw the edge of a round table right in front of him. Someone pushed his face towards it and Keelin clenched his jaw, struggling as the edge was pressed harder and harder into his mouth. He heard a smash and his arms came free. In one smooth motion he twisted away from the man behind him, rolled onto his back, and kicked at the man, who already appeared to be teetering. The kick sent him well and truly over the edge into sprawling unconsciousness, and Keelin rolled back onto his front and started to scramble away.

“Stillwater?” someone said.

Keelin sprang from his hands and knees, turned, and drew both cutlasses, staring down his attackers with a fierce urge, to kill the first man to come close enough.

The brawl was starting to die down, with many of its participants unable or unwilling to carry on. No doubt the clean up would take the better part of a couple of days, given how much of a mess the tavern was in.

Facing Keelin stood three men he didn’t recognise, but each one was sporting his own marks of involvement in the fight. The two men Keelin did recognise – the two who had been attempting to feed him the table – were down and out, and looking much the worse for wear.

“Do I…” Keelin slurred, and then proceeded to spit out a mouthful of blood, spittle, and bile. He ran his tongue around his mouth, wincing at the pain, but miraculously found no missing or loose teeth. “Do I know you?” he said around a rapidly swelling lip.

The lead man, a fellow of short stature but with the muscles of someone used to plenty of hard work, tucked his hands into his threadbare suede jacket. “Don’t reckon so. Name’s Pip.”

Keelin nodded. “Well. Thank you.” He gestured to the two men lying unconscious on the floor.

Pip laughed. He sounded good natured enough, but Keelin well knew looks, or sounds, could be deceiving where pirates were concerned. Or simply where people were concerned, if he was being brutally honest.

“Might be you don’t wanna go throwing around ya thanks jus’ yet,” Pip continued. “Didn’t exactly save ya out the goodness of our own hearts.”

Keelin tightened his grip on his twin cutlasses. Pip noticed and held up his hands.

“Whoa there. You won’t be needin’ those. Just got a man who’ll be wanting to talk to ya, is all.”

Keelin narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

Pip grinned.

For a town, Port Sev’relain was small, but for a pirate town it was almost excessively large. Pip and his two friends led Keelin up the hill that gave way to the forest threatening the outskirts, waiting for the day it could reclaim the pirate-infested portion of the island. As they went, the buildings grew more and more sparse and more and more grand. Here was where the elite of Sev’relain resided, and the most elite of them all was the man who owned most of the island – Loke.

Pip led Keelin past the walled and gated residence of Sev’relain’s master. Keelin snatched a glance through the gates and saw green gardens and stone buildings complete with brutish-looking guards who appeared to be armed with the very latest in ranged warfare – rifles. Clearly Loke was rich enough to afford not only luxurious living, but also luxurious protection.

“Just in there, mate,” Pip said with a slap on Keelin’s back as he turned to leave.

“Not coming in?”

The pirate didn’t even turn around. “I fancy continuin’ my shore leave, an’ they don’t much like my kind in there. You’ll feel right at home.”

Keelin eyed the building in front of him. It was a tall stone structure that boasted none of the obvious merriment of most pirate taverns. In fact, the only indication that it was one was the sign hanging outside that showed a picture of a man with his head through a noose and the words “Never Again”. It seemed the elite of the Pirate Isles had their own tavern and, for the very first time in all his years of pirating, Keelin was invited.

It was gloomy inside, with dim lighting – and little of it – that cast the whole room into shifting shadows. A suspicious-looking bartender was sitting by a selection of side-stacked barrels; he looked up from a book as Keelin entered, and quickly pointed to the other side of the room. Keelin followed the gesture and found just the man he was looking for sitting with his boots up on a table.

With a smile that hurt every one of his cuts and bruises, Keelin wandered over to Drake Morrass’ table. He was sitting with a woman whose back was to Keelin, but her hair was clearly visible from underneath her hat and it was a stunning shade of blond, almost golden. Keelin would have put good money on the woman being from Sarth.

Drake looked up as Keelin approached and smiled, a single golden tooth glinting in the lamplight. “Quite a shiner you’re sporting there, Stillwater.”

Keelin touched a hand to the right side of his face; it was tender and swollen and he was certain his eye would soon be black. “Seems I owe you a debt, Drake,” he said, pulling a chair from underneath the table and sitting without being asked.

“You do?” Drake had to take his feet off the table to keep Keelin in view. The woman watched through cold blue eyes, and Keelin noticed she was armed with more pistols than anyone could hope to use at once.

“Your men pulled me out of the fight just before I lost a set of teeth,” Keelin admitted. “And I happen to be fairly fond of my teeth.”

“They are very white,” Drake said before raising his voice. “Yron, Stillwater’s buying the next round.”

The bartender looked up from his book. “Something from the top row?”

“I reckon so.” Drake grinned as the bartender stood and started pulling three mugs from one of the top casks.

“More expensive than the bottom row?” Keelin said.

“You better believe.”

“So we’re done? Debt repaid?”

“My boys save your life and you think a single drink will cover it?” Drake slowly shook his head. “Is that all your life is worth?”

Haggling was just another form of stealing, and never more so than when it was over a debt. Keelin wondered if he could somehow gain a copy of Drake’s charts out of whatever deal they were about to strike.

“Who’s the woman?” Keelin asked with a sideways glance.

“Crew,” said Drake.

“Not many folk sail with women on the crew. Last I heard you weren’t one of the few.”

“Times change,” Drake said as the bartender arrived with three mugs of something that looked and smelled suspiciously like beer. “She watches my back, makes certain it doesn’t get stabbed.”

The bartender cleared his throat. “One gold bit,” he said pointedly to Keelin.

“Eh?” Keelin exclaimed rather pointedly. “For three drinks? Not unless it came from Pelsing’s golden tits.”

“Four drinks, actually,” Drake said with an easy smile. “Custom is for Yron to get one of what everyone else orders.”

“Cheap way to get drunk.” Keelin still didn’t reach for his purse.

“Actually, I think he just takes the money. I suggest you pay up, Stillwater. Folk who skip out on Yron without paying don’t tend to make it out of Sev’relain. Unmarked graves somewhere out in the forest, or so I hear.”

The bartender let slip a dirty grin to reinforce Drake’s point, and Keelin took the hint, though not without comment. “Fucking robbery, this.”

The bartender snatched the coin from Keelin’s fingers and snorted. “And I suppose the folk on the ships you catch willingly hand over their goods.”

Drake chuckled. “Folk’ll willingly do just about anything at the point of a sword.”

“Doesn’t taste like it came from anyone’s tits I’ve ever known, golden or otherwise,” said the woman, having already drained half her mug.

Drake turned his attention to her and grinned. She kept her gaze firmly on the mug, taking another swig.

“Word has it you burned Black Sands,” Keelin said, deciding to try to put Drake on the back foot.

“Whose word?” The captain snapped his attention back to Keelin with a look like fire and thunder mixed into one.

Keelin shrugged.

“Don’t be coy with me, Stillwater. There are some slurs to my reputation I will not abide, and credit for that massacre is very much one of them.”

Keelin hadn’t believed for a moment that Drake was behind the burning of Black Sands, and his current state of agitation only proved it. “Don’t know whose word. Heard it said in Fango though.”

“Tanner.” Drake looked like he was about to spit on the floor, but one glance towards the bartender and he seemed to decide otherwise. “There’s gonna come a time that old bastard is gonna need dealing with.

“I was there, that much is true. Sailed in just in time to see a few folk all afire trying to save themselves in the sea. Not quite in time to help them though. Sent a few boys ashore to look for survivors, but they didn’t find none. They did catch a glimpse of the fuckers that did it. Man of War flying the pretty colours of Sarth.”

Keelin glanced at the woman, wondering if there was a connection. “Very convincing,” he said. “I’m convinced.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, mate. Reckon I’ll be calling in that debt now.”

“Huh?”

“My crew saved you from… eating a table, was it? Reckon that constitutes saving your miserable life, no?”

“It may not have been fatal.” Keelin had the sudden feeling that he was a very small fish in a very large net.

“Well, either way, when you walked in you said you owed me a debt. I’m cashing in that one right now.”

“What for?”

“Your help, Captain Stillwater, in saving this town, the Pirate Isles, and every thief, beggar, and bastard that lives here.”

Keelin tried to hold it in, but it was too much for him to take and the laughter escaped as a very pointed snigger. The very idea of Captain Drake Morrass wanting to save anybody, let alone the entire Pirate Isles, was almost certainly the last thing Keelin had expected to hear. Unfortunately, as both Drake and his female companion remained stony-faced, it quickly became clear the man wasn’t joking.

“Save them from whom?” Keelin said, still laughing. “Themselves? Come on, Drake, you’ve been doing this for longer than I have. Black Sands ain’t the first town burned to the ground and it ain’t gonna be the last. That bloody God Emperor of Sarth has to look like he’s doing something about all the piracy. So they found and burned a town – two more will spring up in its place within a year.”

Drake was shaking his head. “Not this time. It ain’t just Sarth coming for us. That new king of the Five Kingdoms is building himself warships. Ain’t no need to do that unless he’s planning on using them.”

“Maybe he’s thinking of attacking Sarth?” Keelin suggested, though he already knew that would never happen. The Five Kingdoms and Sarth were far too closely allied.

Drake snorted. “You looked out in the port when you sailed in? Or, not just this port, any of them. What do ya notice?”

Keelin shrugged. “Ships? Water? Can I have a hint?”

“Ships,” Drake said in a tone that suggested he was deadly serious. “And a fuck load of them. Or maybe you and yours gone hunting of late only to find another crew has already taken the boat?”

Keelin nodded slowly. “That has happened once.”

“There’s too many of us,” Drake said, banging the table to emphasise his point. “More than ever. More, even, than in Black’s evil fucking reign. And what did Sarth and the Five Kingdoms do when the old Black was around?”

“Built ships, sailed in, and murdered everybody they could find,” Keelin agreed. “But one town doesn’t make this a purge, Drake, and I’m not about to tie my ship to yours.” Keelin drained his mug, stood up, and turned to go.

“Why not?”

Maybe it was the beating he’d only recently taken and the subsequent aches and pains, or maybe it was the daylight robbery that the bartender had just submitted him to, but Keelin was feeling particularly angry and more than willing to tell Drake the cold, hard truth.

“Because you’re Drake fucking Morrass,” he said with more venom than the average sea snake bite. “You really think I’d believe that ‘save the Pirate Isles’ shit?” Keelin let out a bitter laugh and shook his head. “I don’t. I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you and no one else does either. I’ll admit, I don’t believe you burned Black Sands yourself, but others will. They’ll believe it because they know you’re capable of it, same as Tanner Black is, only he started the rumour mill first instead of trying to peddle some shit about Sarth starting a new purge.”

“Careful, Stillwater,” Drake said behind flashing green eyes.

“Problem is, Drake,” Keelin continued, knowing somewhere deep down that he should stop but wanting to drive the point home and hurt someone, “everybody knows that you’re only out for yourself, that Drake Morrass never does anything that doesn’t benefit Drake Morrass.” With that Keelin turned and stormed towards the door. He heard the scrape and crash of a chair hitting the floor but ignored it, hoping he wasn’t about to get a bullet in the back from the Sarth woman in the hat. He made it outside before Drake caught up to him.

“How dare you question my motives, you pretend bloody pirate.”

They were out in the dust with the tavern and a couple of large houses nearby, the trees of the forest looming overhead, and the vista of Port Sev’relain spreading out below them. There was nobody around to witness the altercation and nobody around to stop any blood being spilled. Drake was close, staring right at Keelin, but his hands didn’t stray near the sword attached to his belt. His companion was loitering in the doorway, leaning against the frame, her hands hovering close to the pistols attached to her jerkin.

Keelin decided there was no point in backing down now. “I’ll stop questioning your motives just as soon as you tell me what they really are. You say you want my help. To do what? ’Cos it sure as shit ain’t saving folk you don’t care one drop about, Drake. What do you get out of helping these people?”

Drake looked torn between throwing a punch at Keelin and throwing two punches at him, but to the man’s credit, he kept control. “You self-righteous little shit. If I didn’t need your help I’d happily put a sword in you. Just my fucking luck, and yours as it happens, that I do need you.

“’Course my intentions ain’t wholly pure – no one’s are. Greed rules us all, mate. You think because you sail around on that ship of yours and offer – nay – urge folk to surrender so you don’t gotta fight – you think that makes you a good man? You’re a pirate. You rob people. You kill people. Or am I missing something? Do you then give all your loot away to folk more deserving and less financially acclimated?”

Drake’s accusation hit home, but Keelin wasn’t about to let that show. He kept his face stony, neutral.

“It’s all about greed, Stillwater. Whether the gain is money, power, fame, or even the freedom that being a pirate offers. Fact is, we’re all in this game because we want something for ourselves. So yeah, what I’m proposing does in fact benefit Drake fucking Morrass. Doesn’t mean I’m not also trying to save these people and the isles.”

Keelin wasn’t even sure what the man was proposing just yet, but there was something more important he needed to know first. “And just how do you benefit from your plan?”

Drake smiled, one golden tooth glinting in the fading light. “I intend…”

Boom!