Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 35 - The Phoenix

“You’re mad,” Aimi said with conviction. Keelin considered arguing with her, but in truth he wasn’t entirely certain she was wrong.

“The bigger they are…” Keelin said, though it sounded far more like a damning statement than a consolidatory one.

“He’s stronger than he looks.”

“He can’t be.”

“In old Sev’relain I once saw him hit a man with another man.”

“What?”

“Picked him up and used him as a club.”

Keelin glanced down at her. She was grinning up at him. “For a minute there I thought you were serious.”

Aimi laughed, a pleasant noise that made Keelin want to hear it more often. “I was,” she said, and Keelin found himself once again facing imminent death and once again wishing he’d never laid eyes on the woman.

“Well, good luck, Captain,” Aimi said after another awkward silence.

“Call me Keelin,” he replied as he loosened his cutlasses. After a moment he realised Aimi was quiet, and he glanced over to see her scuffing the dirt with a foot.

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” she said eventually.

She was right, of course. It was in fact contrary to the terms of the deal, but Keelin had been wishing for a while now that he’d never made the deal. “Just a name,” Keelin lied.

“No, it ain’t. I’ve seen the way you look at me, Captain. I’ve seen the way you avoid your own ship since I come aboard.”

It wasn’t really a conversation Keelin wanted to have, and certainly not given the situation he was about to find himself in. If he was really lucky, the giant he was about to fight would kill him and he’d never have to have that conversation.

“Just wish me luck.”

Aimi looked from Keelin to his opponent and back again. “Good luck.”

He had to give the folk of New Sev’relain one thing, if nothing else: they were quick builders. In just two days they’d managed to build an arena in the centre of the little town. Stands rose on two sides of the dust bowl that had been decreed the combatants’ colosseum, and both were full of people, young and old, male and female, pirate and townsfolk. Bets were busy being taken, and those industrious enough to declare themselves bookies were greedily rubbing their hands at the imminent prospect of financial gain at the cost of blood.

For two days Keelin had been dreading this fight, and they hadn’t been the most pleasant of days. The first had been the worst, and mostly because the hangover he’d been suffering had been the most painful of his life. One month of solid drinking, without the prospect of sobriety, had taken its toll. On that first day Keelin had been a shaking wreck barely able to hold a sword, let alone swing one.

The second day had been almost as bad. He’d stood on the deck of The Phoenix with two blunted cutlasses in hand and given an open challenge to every member of his crew. Some no doubt found it therapeutic to be handed a weapon and told to swing it at their captain. Keelin had still been sore, aching, shaking, and sweating from the alcohol in his system. He was sporting the cuts and bruises to prove that he was in no shape to be taking on a battle-ready behemoth.

Morley and Daimen Poole were waiting for Keelin near the little arena. Khan stood just a short distance from the two, looking frustratingly relaxed.

“This is foolish, Captan,” Morley said as Keelin drew close. “I hear the man once wrestled an elephant.”

“Aye?” Poole asked. “An’ exactly how the fuck would one go about wrestlin’ an elephant?”

“Regardless,” Morley continued undeterred, “the rumours say he did, and he won.”

“Sounds like a mighty tale it was too,” Poole said. “But it don’t matter a drop. There’s too much ridin’ on this fight, an’ ya can’t be affordin’ ta back out now. Ya gotta get in there an’ teach that big bastard just why your name is known across the isles as the best swordsman dares to step foot on a boat.”

Keelin let out a groan and stepped away from the two, approaching his opponent. Captain T’ruck Khan watched him all the way, his dark eyes betraying nothing.

“Are you ready, Captain Stillwater?” Khan rumbled.

Keelin let out a sigh. “Why are you doing this?”

Khan nodded. “You are an easterner.” It was a statement.

Keelin considered lying. It was a fact he’d been hiding most of his life, and it was one he wanted to hide doubly so these days. The fewer people that knew he’d been born and raised in the Five Kingdoms, the better, and if they found out he’d been born into nobility he would lose all respect any of them had for him.

“As long as I’m alive, that’s a fact I’d like you to keep to yourself,” Keelin said eventually. “Though if you do kill me, feel free to shout it to the world.”

“I would not,” Khan said. “Your secret is safe with me. I come from the clans beyond the World’s Edge mountains. You should know we follow strength, not weakness. If you want me to follow you, then show me you are stronger.”

Keelin snorted out a laugh. “Ain’t me I’m asking you to follow – it’s Drake Morrass.”

The giant shrugged. “You follow him, so he must be stronger than you. If you fail to best me, perhaps I shall seek out and challenge him instead.”

The crowd were starting to get restless. They’d come to see blood, and so far not a drop had been spilled. It never ceased to amaze Keelin that normal men and women could get so worked up over the prospect of witnessing death.

In the Five Kingdoms most towns and cities sported an arena, and pit fighting was an everyday occurrence. He remembered going to see a fight between two champions long ago. His father had taken Keelin and his older brother, Derran, to Land’s End to see how the family business worked. Afterwards they’d gone to the arena and watched one man slaughter another. At the time it had seemed heroic, and Keelin had cheered with the rest of them. Derran had watched quietly, counting the mistakes each of the warriors made. Later that day, after returning home, they’d recreated the fight, and Derran had shown Keelin each mistake in meticulous, painful detail. They had both always been gifted with a sword, but Derran was an unbeatable terror.

“Should we set some rules then?” Keelin said. “To stop either one of us dying for no good reason.”

Khan laughed and started towards the arena. “I will be trying to kill you, Captain Stillwater. If you want to survive, I suggest you not let me.”

The crowd let out a cheer, happy to see the fight about to get under way. It didn’t lift Keelin’s spirits at all to see that he knew every face and every name of the people in the crowd. Over the last few months he’d saved most of their lives at least once, he’d helped build them a town, helped secure them a future, and now here they all were, cheering on a man who was going to kill him. “Ungrateful” only began to cover the bastards. He’d given so much to all of them, and now they wanted his life as well. Then he saw Smithe’s face in the crowd, cheering along with the rest of them and watching Keelin with greedy eyes. Keelin spat into the dust and swore that even should Khan kill him in the arena, he would rise from the grave and take Smithe down to the watery Hells with him before allowing the bastard to captain The Phoenix.

Khan lifted the leather strap that held his sword in place up over his head and drew the weapon, throwing the scabbard away into the dust and planting his sword in the ground. It was a monster of a weapon best suited to huge, cleaving blows, but the giant looked like he could use it much like most normal men would use a longsword. Keelin, on the other hand, had his weapons of choice: dual cutlasses. They were heavy and sharp and deadly, but he wasn’t looking to be deadly today. Khan began stretching and, with his chest completely bare barring his dangling beard, Keelin could see the man’s muscles and reckoned he was outmatched at least twice over. With such strength and such a sword, blocking attacks would be useless. Keelin would have to rely on dodging and parrying, and somewhere along the line he might look at getting in a few strikes of his own.

Khan raised his sword and held it ready in front of him. The crowd cheered. With a heavy sigh Keelin slipped out of his jacket, letting it fall to the dust, and stepped into the arena, drawing both his cutlasses in one smooth motion.

Khan charged.

It took only a moment for the giant to cross the stretch between them. He slid to a halt, planted his feet, and swung his sword around in a deadly, neck-height slash that could have decapitated a bear made of stone.

Reacting on pure instinct, Keelin dropped into a crouch, rolled forwards into the giant’s reach, and thrust both swords up into the pirate captain’s unprotected belly. Khan gasped, his mouth dropping open. He made a pained mewling sound, slumping forwards onto one knee with much of his weight resting on Keelin. They remained there for what seemed like an age as Khan fought to regain his breath and Keelin fought to keep the bigger man from collapsing on top of him.

“If I were trying to kill you,” Keelin said eventually, still struggling to support the giant’s weight, “you would be very dead right now.”

Khan let out a grunt that left Keelin none the wiser to his future intentions.

“Is this over?” Keelin said.

“Stop fuckin’ huggin’ an’ fight,” someone shouted, and Keelin realised the crowd was still there, and that the cheering had been replaced with a dissatisfied murmuring.

“Aye,” Khan growled as he pushed his weight back onto his own legs and used his sword as a crutch. Very little sapped the strength from a man’s limbs like a good winding, and two sword pommels to the gut would do just that. “You win, Captain Stillwater.”

Keelin stood, still watching Khan warily. He seemed the honourable sort, but honour among thieves was ever a fluid definition, and they were all nothing if not thieves.

“Is that it?” shouted another member of the crowd.

“Yes,” Khan roared back so suddenly that Keelin had to fight every instinct he had not to jump backwards and take up a battle-ready stance. “Stillwater bested me.”

Keelin resheathed his cutlasses and sent a prayer of thanks to Rin that he’d had the sense to reverse his grip on his swords at the last moment.

“Nobody’s even fuckin’ bleedin’.” Keelin recognised the antagonist as Smithe, and scanned the crowd for the ugly bastard’s face.

“You want blood?” Khan shouted. “Then step down here and fight me. I will drain yours and drink it from your skull.”

The crowd fell silent, and many even started to slip away.

Keelin wiped sweat from his forehead. Now he was confident the giant wasn’t about to swing for him and catch him unaware, he wanted nothing so much as a bottle of rum and the company of an infuriating woman.

“Morrass is stronger than you?” Khan said quietly, still staring down members of the crowd.

Keelin thought about it. In a fight he was certain he could dispatch Drake even quicker than he had the giant, but not all strength was measured in skill with a blade, and Keelin knew for certain that no other captain in the isles could unite the pirates. Like it or not, Drake was the strongest candidate for king they had.

“Aye. You said you follow strength. Drake’s the mightiest we got.” Keelin smiled. “And we need you. We need that bloody great ship of yours, and we need your crew.”

Khan turned to Keelin with a toothy smile beneath his midnight-black beard. “You have all three.”

Keelin laughed. “I reckon that deserves a drink, eh? And if you wouldn’t mind telling me, how the fuck did you take the Victorious with only a sloop?”