Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Three - Awake at the Witching Hour

I flew out of my room while tugging my armoured skirt on and hugging my cuirass under an arm. By the time I reached the stairs leading up to the main deck I had cinched my belt on and was starting to squeeze into my chestpiece when I realized I’d run out of my room barefoot.

I hesitated for just a moment at the edge of the stairs. Did I have time to get my boots on? Could I fight without them?

There were some noises behind me, the others not on watch coming awake.

Another call of ‘pirates!’ from above.

“Ah, shoot,” I swore before fiddling my armour on and running up the steps. Without my gambeson on beneath, the cuirass was loose and uncomfortable, as if I was wearing one of my dad’s too-big shirts or something, only it was made of cold metal. “Where are they?” I asked as I ran onto the deck. There was barely any light to work with. The clouds above masked a quarter moon, and there was nothing to see beyond the deck of the Beaver and the circle of light created by our navigation lights.

I recognized the voice of the one calling out the alarm. Gordon was running across the bridge between decks, looking a bit panicked. “Captain!” he said. “Pirates on our starboard stern, I spotted three ships.”

“How close?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Two klicks, captain, but they’re closing. Could be more of them, visibility isn’t great and there’s clouds.”

I ran past him, feet thumping along until I was stopped by the rails on the starboard deck. My upper half dangled off the edge of the ship as I looked back.

It took some squinting to see the first of the ships, but I spotted it soon enough. It was hard to tell the size of an airship with nothing around it for scale, but I judged it to be a bit bigger than the Beaver, at least in length. The balloon was a dull grey, which hid it well within the clouds, but it had a red blotch on either side of the balloon that gave it away.

The other two took me a while longer to spot, they were flying a little lower, and some cloudy pillars obscured them partially.

“How do you know they’re pirates?” I asked Gordon as he joined me.

He pointed a talon towards the ships. “They have markings. Don’t you see them?”

“The red things?” I asked.

He nodded, then realisation flashed in his eyes. “Ah, right, harpies have good eyesight for this kind of thing,” he said. “Sorry captain. They’re Red Wing pirates. All of their ships have their markings.”

“Are you sure they’re after us?” I asked. Maybe the pirates weren’t the bad sort of pirate and they were just heading off to adventure in the same general direction as us?

“They’re gaining altitude,” he said. “And heading our way.”

I sighed and pulled myself back. “Keep flying us straight and keep an eye on them, I’ll make sure everyone’s awake. Then we’ll prepare the Beaver for a fight if we need it.”

“Aye!” Gordon said before running off to the poop deck and the helm. He wasn’t supposed to be the only one on the morning watch. Awen was supposed to be up too. Then again, she might just be working on something. One of the Scallywags was meant to be up too. Joe, I thought. As I started to run back to the other end of the ship I noticed him up by the helm. So he wasn’t napping on duty, that was good.

I ran back to the port hull, then towards the cabin at the back only to meet Amaryllis in the entrance. “What’s going on?” she asked.

My best harpy friend looked dishevelled and still more than a little tired. She was in her PJs still, but had her dagger-wand in talon. “Pirates,” I said. “Red Wing Pirates, they’re coming up behind us,” I said before squeezing past her.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To wake the others and get dressed!” I said.

Amaryllis said a few words that weren’t fit for proper company and then ran down after me only to dart into her room.

I banged a fist against every closed door. “Wake up! It’s an emergency! Red alert! This is not a drill! All hands to battle stations!” I called as I knocked on each, then I ran into my room and started to prepare properly. That meant throwing off my armour which bounced on my undone bed, then grabbing a shirt and then my gambeson and slipping into it.

Usually getting dressed took me a couple of minutes every morning. It wasn’t hard or anything, but in the rush I was making silly mistakes that I didn’t usually make. Still, I don’t think I’d ever gotten ready so quickly before.

I grabbed my captain’s hat, then secured it firmly on my head before picking up Weedbane and tugging my boots on.

I was as ready as I could be.

Bursting back into the corridor, I almost ran into Caprica, who was striding by while securing a sword to her hip. “Captain Bunch,” she said, sounding far more formal than usual. “I heard you had a pirate problem.”

“A probable pirate problem,” I said. “It might be nothing, but...”

“Rather safe than sorry,” Caprica said with a firm nod. “Let’s go see what we can do.”

“Not without me,” Amaryllis said as she stepped out of her door while tugging her coat on.

“Of course!” I said. “I wouldn’t want to tangle with pirates without my friends!”

We made it onto the deck and Amaryllis looked around. “The lights are still on,” she said. “Where’s Awen?”

“I haven’t seen her yet,” I said.

“I’m going to start removing the lights on this side, get Awen, we’re going to need her. Caprica, can you start with the lights on the other side?”

Caprica nodded, then jogged over to the other deck. It made sense, the lights were fairly bright, casting the deck and the underside of the balloon above in greens and reds. The entire point of the lights was to make us visible at night, which was great for safety -- but which I now realized might also attract pirates, in the same way a lamp attracts moths.

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Awen showed up while I was removing the lights on the rear deck. “Broccoli, what’s going on?” she asked.

I glanced back and noticed that she was dressed for work, her long coat off and replaced by a sweater with rolled up sleeves. “Pirates,” I said. “We’re taking the lights off to hide in the dark better.”

“Oh... oh no,” Awen said. “Where are they?”

I pointed back and down. “You can see them. They’re getting a little closer. Do you think you can do anything to help?”

“I can push the engine harder for a while,” Awen said. “We’ll move faster.”

That wasn’t a bad idea. The best way to avoid the pirates was probably to outrun them now and hope that they’d lose us in the cloud cover. “Alright, you do that. I’m going to check the charts. Do you know of a way to talk to your uncle?”

“Where’s the Shady Lady?” Awen asked while glancing around as if the ship would swoop out of the night sky.

“I don’t know,” I said. But it couldn’t be too far. There was a faint buzzing echo in the air, a sure sign that the Lady’s engine was still going. The problem was pinpointing the direction the noise was coming from. Above? They were probably just out of sight and hidden by our balloon. “We need to let them know about the pirates.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Awen said.

I looked at her. “Why not?”

“Because Uncle will want to do something about them,” she said.

“Ah.”

Yeah, I could imagine Abraham leaping off towards the pirates with nothing more than a ‘haha!’ “I’ll see if Amaryllis can manage something,” I said.

Awen nodded, then ran off to do her work. I checked the helm and noticed that Clive was now standing next to the wheel, lighting his pipe while Joe hung on and kept us flying straight. That was good, Clive was the best pilot we had, so if he was by the wheel, things were going to be alright.

My heart was pitter-pattering harder than ever as I jumped ahead and jogged over to where Amaryllis was stacking the lights in a crate. “We need to get a message to Abraham,” I said.

Amaryllis nodded. “Makes sense. Go ask Caprica.”

“Caprica?” I asked.

“She’s the one with the most military training. I know a few spells that can relay messages, or we could use a light code to send a message, but she has better spells and more experience with them than I do.”

“Oh... that’s surprisingly humble.”

Amaryllis stopped her work to give me a look. “It’s not a question of humility, it’s a question of common sense, something that I’m aware you are very unfamiliar with.”

I grinned. It was nice to have Amaryllis calling me an idiot. Comforting, really.

With my heart beating out a staccato rhythm in my chest, I sprinted across the deck, dodging crew members as they hurried about. Caprica was busy at the other side of the deck, methodically unplugging the lights and stacking them in another crate. As I approached her, she glanced over at me, the glowing orbs reflected in her dark eyes.

“We need to get a message to Abraham,” I panted, leaning against the railings as I tried to catch my breath.

Caprica raised an eyebrow, her hands pausing for a moment. I quickly explained the situation. When I finished, Caprica was silent for a moment, her eyes staring off into the distance. Then she nodded. “I can help with that. I have a decent spell that can send messages over a short distance.”

“Does it need anything special?” I asked.

“Just that the receiver be willing to accept the message,” she said. “I think it might be best to target Raynold first. He seems the more... reasonable of the pair.”

I bobbed my head in a nod. That made perfect sense to me. “Okay... can I leave you to it?”

She sniffed. “Of course. I have always taken my duties seriously. You might want to find someone to take care of these lights. For what little it’s worth. The sun will be rising within the hour.”

“The pirates might reach us before then,” I said. I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, hide the worry in my voice.

“We’ll be fine,” Caprica said. “Probably. Most of us can put up a better fight than the average merchant. They won’t be expecting the amount of trouble we bring. Find someone for the lights, I’ll get to casting.”

I kinda wanted to stay and see the spell at work, but she was right, I needed to get to work. I bounced my way back up to the helm, then tapped Joe on the shoulder and told him to go help with the lights before I turned to Clive. “What should we do?” I asked the pipe-smoking harpy.

Clive exhaled a cloud of fragrant smoke, his gaze steady on the pirate airships in the distance. “We can try and outrun them, but our ship isn't the fastest and they'll most likely catch up to us. We can try and fight them off, but we don't know how many of them there are or how well-equipped they are. Or we can try to outsmart them.”

“I don’t know if I’m smart enough to do that,” I admitted.

Clive chuckled. “No worries, captain. Pirates are hardly known for their smarts. Cunning, yes, but not smart.” He took another puff from his pipe. “We could try to lose them in the clouds. Still dark out. We can dip into the clouds, turn hard, then go quiet and coast along as much as we can.”

I bit my lip, thinking. Running seemed to be the best option, especially if Awen could give us more speed. But if we couldn't outrun them... “Let's start with the clouds,” I said, finally. “If we can lose them, we can avoid a fight. And if not, we'll be ready to face them.”

***