Ch: 282 Naval Lint, In MY Bellybutton?
The Ward family took two days of peace and quiet at home, with the house and garden closed to all but friends and kin. The public bath, behind its encircling hedge and the shopfront remained open to the public, though they saw far less traffic than before.
Up at the orphanage, the kids continued their hustles and schemes, uncaring what the adult world thought. Gary and Shai’s shop was still their first and best opportunity to put hard currency in their pockets or acquire clothes and personal goods in trade.
Most shopkeepers wouldn’t bother even bartering with orphans for the small crafts and modest quantities of raw materials they offered. The little shop front in Shai’s house, under the sign that simply read ‘Wardco’, took all trades and gave fair value to its young clients… and turned a surprisingly tidy profit in lumber, grain, hay and foraged goodies.
Whichever of the green capped orphans found themselves hanging around the shop, simply assumed shopkeeping duties, trading off in a loose rotation. If no one was home, a few jots in the ledger and the kids did their trades on the honor system.
Having a reputation for always knowing what was happening in your almost certainly haunted shop and garden did wonders for keeping honest folks honest… And kept shady folks, quite scrupulously accurate in their bookwork.
Gary and his family were up at Shai’s roundhouse and baths on the Adventure compound, cleaning, taking inventory, restocking… and playing shopkeeper, when a ruckus and rumor swept up from the waterfront like a swelling tide.
Shai was in the kitchen with Dannyl and Ivy, tidying up after lunch and trying out a recipe for this ‘fudge’ thing Gary had mentioned recently… Kree had designated herself official taster within seconds of smelling the work in progress.
“Oh, that’s good!” She buzzed, once a sample was cooled enough to taste. “Sooo sweet, and then… wow!” she rocketed off, circling the high conical roof in a tightly coiled spiral. Eventually the flashing golden blur slowed and came in for a landing on her favorite perch, in Tallum’s hair.
“All those things are too sweet… Gary’s world has the weirdest food…” Liam grumbled happily from nearby, where he was ‘testing’ a guitar off the wall. He’d been ‘testing’ rather than cleaning for a few minutes now.
“I don’t work here!” He protested with a grin, when Becky remarked to that effect.
“Aye… ye dinnae work here… An I nae be thy mommy, tae cook an clean fer thee, either… Nor sharpen yer swords an maintain yer kit…” Shai cheerfully weighed in on Becky’s side, abusing her older brother with a smile.
“Now Shai… you know I…” He stammered in feigned terror and went back to dusting and tuning, a smile on his face as well. Over in the corner, Gary was grinning foolishly and trying to teach one of the very youngest orphans how to beatbox. Quint just liked blowing raspberries and getting drool everywhere.
A young boy of twelve in a brown vest and red sash came dashing in through the front door and plowed right into Becky, who had an armful of neatly folded clothing to put back on the shelf in her arms. As shirts and pants went flying, the tiny priestess was already taking her unintentional attacker to task.
“Tommy!” She scolded the lad. “Clumsy goof! No running in the house! That’s two demerits and you gotta help me fold these clothes!”
“Aww!” He whined. “I have important news!”
“Well then… You can talk and fold.” Liam said firmly, as the city alarms began to ring all around.
“Another couple warships landed on your dock.” Tommy grumbled. “The first pack of imperials is squaring off against the new ones and sir Tony is calling out the city guard…” He mumbled disconsolately, while folding underwear. He blushed when he wound up with a handful of colorful and silky girls’ panties. “I… don’t know how to fold these…” He stammered into a nearly empty room.
“All right kids… come taste this ‘fudge’ thing. I’ll fold those undies, Tommy.” Tallum rumbled, with an arm full of Gary and Shai’s kids and a striped wasp behind his ear sleeping off too much fudge. “We’ll stay here, where it’s peaceful.” His huge hand patted Tommy on the shoulder. “Help me with the little ones… Quint needs a change of clothes and I’ve got my hands full here.”
#
Amy, Rio and Wilf weren’t ‘struggling’ against uncle Tallum, cause that would be hopeless anyway, the big moose. He was super resistant to her ‘Leeloo Dallas Multipass’ too, the big meanie.
“Amy, stay put. Wilf, you’re my second in command.” He grumbled at the two fractious tots. “Rio, no summoning ghosts when Gary, Becky and Shai are away.”
“We wanna see the new people! The new ships!” She whined, as naptime warred with agitation and excitement.
“I wanna have a nap, or at least read a story…” Tallum rumbled in that soft, gentle voice that filled the room and put a subtle pressure on the kids to comply. His huge, warm aura of comfortable, gentle security pushed their fears and anxiety down and calmed the two older tots.
Wilf remained placid as always, calmly sitting by the fire and waiting, with his personal copy of ‘Goodnight Moon’ on his lap.
He adored the colorful tome and always had it tucked away somewhere in his jacket’s magic Pockets!. Becky and Dannyl had put a lot of heart and soul into the calligraphy and artwork and it showed.
The familiar ritual of storytime, along with Quint’s freshly changed attendance got the kids back in line and settled things down. Quint and Wilf snuggled on his enormous lap and were half asleep before the giant childminder was six pages in.
#
Her radiance’s War frigates, Light’s Glimmer and Imperial Dawn were anchored above and below the town, blockading the river and the River Road while the captured barque Salty Kiss and her crew plugged the entrance to the pool where Moonrise and the imperial corvette Wind’s Fury were moored.
Nearly two hundred armed and armored Imperial legionnaires of War were lined up, facing the roughly hundred and twenty warriors of the Imperial Whispers, with the household staff and non combatants behind their line, among the market stalls, holding the front gate of Wheatford against their former comrades.
That the gates were closed to them as well was unimportant to their commander, First Whisper, Spider. “You enter this town over our corpses… dog!” She snapped, blowing the imperial runner’s hair back with the volume of her shout.
Lord Jelek Pearlmutter of her imperial majesty’s navy smiled down from the aft deck of his little armada’s flagship, the ‘Dawn’. Her treasonous words were enough to make his command to execute any Whispers discovered in their expedition far more palatable. The small matter of actually killing them was going to be tricky, however.
He’d stripped his vessels to a skeleton crew on each to field his force and the odds were, despite having full crew on the balistae of his vessels… Facing the Whispers was going to be pretty grim business.
“Last warning traitors…” He shouted into his flagship’s public address enchantment. “You will hand over the empress and this ‘Amy the Pirate Princess’ or we will…”
Forty armored lancers thundered around the city wall from the north, flying the pennant of Wheatford, while a like number of mounted irregulars and nearly the same in heavy foot came around from the southern side, skirting the town wall under the banner of the Orphan’s League.
Both forces formed up to pinch either or both imperial parties between them, while a forest of weapons appeared on the city wall above them.
From that city wall a hugely amplified voice rang out.
“By order of duke Leopold Belen: Cease all hostilities and surrender your arms.” No threats followed, just a simple direct command.
The gate opened, disgorging forty heavy armored knights of Order and War, along with a dozen irregulars in light armor who vanished into the market stalls like ghosts.
Behind them strode a short, burly man in simple steel plate mail and a young man who might be his son, in silver chainmail, carrying a spear bearing the ducal pennant.
He pushed through his own ranks, past the imperial Whispers and to the front, facing the line of red armored legionaries and marines of the empire calmly.
“What’s all this mess then?” Leopold Belen demanded.
#
From a rooftop overlooking the market, Gary and the gang watched helplessly, as the imperials stomped all over his house and garden. They started tossing the place once they bashed their way inside, another crew of goons searched his empty home and wrecked the place… a-fucking-gain.
He banished the house, sending it floating away on the breeze, but they had still busted up some real stuff and damaged his plantings and trees…
When the goon insisted Gabbie be handed over… that was expected. Screaming into the town demanding Amy was the last straw in Gary’s fragile mind.
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“Enough.” He growled softly with his flute in hand.
“Gary… please don’t…” Becky whispered as he brought the instrument to his lips. His angry glare turned her stomach a little, as a stranger stared out from behind his eyes.
“Too late, Becky.” Liam whispered. “He’s already gone.”
Gary swayed in place as his flute wove strange and alien music into the afternoon sky. Barely audible down in the conflict, the warriors ignored the sounds pricking at their senses. Slowly, the music swelled, gaining volume as musicians began appearing among the shadows of the market ward.
Ghostly, ghastly and only partially visible, they strummed, blew, struck and plucked a gathering storm of music out into the conflict.
The soft, rapid notes of his flute were joined by bongos and tomtoms, thudding in spectral and hollow tones. A loud and strident chorus of voices rose from all around, barking, rather than singing the strange, angry lyrics…
Ahhhhh!
Watch out-! You might -get what you're after!
Cool- -babies! Strange -but -not -a -stranger!
I'm - an - or-di-na-ry - guy!
Burning down the house!
Hold tight-! Wait till the- party's ov-er!
Hold tight-! we're in for nasty- wea-ther!
There -has -got -to -be -a -way!
Burning down the house!
“Witchcraft…” Captain Vurstag muttered in horror. “Necromancy…” With a shuddering lurch Imperial Dawn pitched and slowly began to drift in the current, directly for Light’s glimmer, anchored downstream.
“What’s happening?!” Lord Perlmutter shrieked, shortly before he pitched over the railing and landed on the main deck, flat on his back and groaning.
Groaning equally loudly, the anchor chain at ‘Dawn’s’ prow was pulled taut and slicing through the water, headed downstream fast… and moving faster. Figures on the deck of ‘Glimmer scurried about, trying to free their own anchors, when the ram of ‘Dawn’ made contact amidships, with a grinding crunch.
The two frigates became a tangled mass of wood and rigging as the flagship was dragged inexorably downstream, towed by whatever malign demon had taken hold of her anchor. Salty spray fared no better. The smaller and barely crewed vessel blocking moonrise and the corvette in was alive with activity as her half dozen crew fled up the rigging to escape a horde of hungry, pinching claws. Hundreds of jackrabbit and small dog sized crawdaddies were swarming the small ship, nibbling and tasting everything that didn’t actively try to eat them first.
The squad of marines who had been pillaging the house, now found themselves looting an empty meadow in the gathering twilight. A meadow surrounded by dark forms, moving among the trees and bushes all around. Whatever the nightmarish and percussively violent music was, it shook their nerves at least as much as those shadow figures did.
Whispered rumors of witchcraft and dark arts had been circulating since the empress’ kidnapping by this ‘Dread Pirate Amy, Terror of the Shallow Sea’ had become public knowledge. Those forbidden tales came home to roost, as the shadows lengthened. Watching the two frigates collide, entangle and slowly head downstream under the relentless pull on Dawn’s anchor did little to ease their fears.
More shades rose from the blue riverboat moored on the pier, swarming up and joining the unseen army all around. That was enough for them. Twenty marines of the imperial navy came hotfooting it over the Belen River bridge in a classic formation… ‘panicked flight in terror’.
They crashed into the rear ranks of their comrades and started a swirling mess that devolved into a barely coherent mob, while duke Belen looked on in annoyance.
“Rolf… go find that fool and silence him… gently. Very gently, I doubt he will be…” Leopold shrugged, as his bannerman dashed off, after handing the banner to Giles, a young knight just given his spurs last week.
“Stay close, lad… They didn’t train you to face eldritch witchcraft… follow my lead.” Leopold muttered to the nervous young man.
A short slender woman in silk and lacquer armor bearing the badges of a full imperial captain stepped forward and bowed to the angry blonde duke and his nervous bannerman.
“I am Captain Wai Chen of her imperial majesty’s naval vessel Light’s Glimmer…” She muttered. “Forgiveness, my lord. We have come for these traitors and seeking a notorious pirate, not to trouble your lands… My commander, lord Pearlmutter seems to be… indisposed.”
She glanced downstream to the entangled ships, now wedged on a sandbank together. “Allow me to seize these traitors and we will be off.” She muttered softly.
“That I cannot do, These people are my guests, as is their mistress, empress Gabriella Rex.” He said softly as well.
The shudder of absolute dread and terror that thrilled down her spine was swiftly replaced by sickly, creeping hope. “The empress is alive…? Did you capture the Amy, the Pirate Princess…?” She whispered in awe.
“That terror? No, she remains at large… somewhere out there.” Duke Belen spoke low and earnestly, choosing his words with care. “If ever you tangle with Admiral Amy, the Pirate Princess of the Shallow Sea, the gods alone could help you… though I doubt they would.”
She stood straighter and nodded. “Your grace, if you would be so kind as to escort me to the empress, my first officer will get things in hand here.” She waved to a short, blocky man with spiky black hair standing at attention a discrete distance away.
“Tanaka, get these troops in order and see about recovering the ships…” She sighed. “Pearlmutter is probably wetting his trousers and having another panic attack.”
She drew her scabbarded swords from her sash, one a handspan longer than the other and both gently curved. With careful reverence she handed them both hilt first to the duke’s bannerman with a bow.
#
“What did he do?” Rolf asked quietly, a few yards away from the snoring musician, lost in a heap of pillows on a rooftop overlooking the docks. “It was terrifying, even having experienced it so many times before… This was different.” He whispered.
“My brother is in a difficult and trying emotional state… If his friend Rolf is here to check on him, be welcome. If sir Rolf of Order is asking…” Becky whispered. “He will wake by dawn and may be able to answer your questions then…”
“Where is Shai… Journeyman Ward.” He asked, unsubtly. “I need to know what he did to those ships… if he’s becoming a danger to shipping and commerce…”
“She is busy finishing what he started, with master Khan and his troop.” Becky said crisply. “She’s gone fishing.”
#
Ninety five feet long and hideously scaled, the monster sturgeon surged and tugged in the shallows, caught by the anchor and chain lodged down its gullet. Two entangled ships swayed slightly with its struggles, but were so firmly run aground that no one was going anywhere…
Down the Belen river road the thunder of hooves on stone rang out in the evening, as fifty men and women in armor rode pell mell for the sandy bend where the titanic beast struggled.
At their head, astride mighty Annie, Khan rode, a heavy lance of odd design couched in his stirrup. His wide smile and gleeful warhorn rang out, as he lowered his Wardco Fishlance™ and charged the armor plated horror.
Right beside him, Shai Ward Journeyman smith, blushing bride and dedicated fisherwoman, lowered her Wardco Gaffomatic™ harpoon, with an armor piercing, detachable, barbed head and a long spool of spidersilk braid.
“I love my job!” Was Khan’s battle cry, as he and his comrades drove a flight of lances into the behemoth.
#
“We surrendered?” Lord Pearlmutter whispered from his bunk, after finally waking from another ‘attack’.
“Oh, thank the gods! Just the thought of…” He turned green and sank back into his bunk. “Let captain Cheng answer to the council of clerics for this debacle…” He moaned. “I was struck down by some strange witchcraft…”
“Captain Chen, my lord. Captain Wai Chen, of Light’s Glimmer, my lord. She was with your ground troops, as is fitting for a commoner.” His advisor priest whispered. “Her name must be correct in the reports, if this mess is to be properly hung around her neck.”
“She surrendered… this dishonor is hers alone.” He sniffed. “I doubt the ransom these barbarians will demand will be exorbitant… poor simpletons. A few coins and a shiny lacquer chest will please this duke of nothing in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll draw a suitably impressive trinket or two from stores, my lord.” Biwa said humbly. The young acolyte of Order was shaping up to be a fine secretary… Lord Pearlmutter mused, as his nerves slowly calmed.
Shortly, a warhorn ran out nearby, as the sounds of a pitched cavalry battle erupted outside his crippled, listing ship. He staggered to his off kilter window and peered down on a scene of utter madness.
Fifty irregular lancers were engaged with a vast, white, paddle snouted fish as it thrashed in the shallows, his own anchor lost somewhere inside the creature’s maw. His ship creaked and shifted, when the beast hurled itself about at the end of its tether.
The lancers of War, Order and the orphan’s league hurled themselves at the creature, spending lances on the armored monster by the fistful. The battle went on for more than an hour, his own crew sending ballista bolts into the nightmare creature as well, until it finally went limp.
#
“Fie… we’ll be needin a full crew fer fileting this beastie…” Shai gasped, leaning on Winslow’s sweaty shoulder, beside Khan and Annie. “Tis a fine wedding’s present, me lad hae fished up fer me…”
“How?” Khan gasped, from behind a smile that turned his usually immaculate mustache into a bristly bush. “How’d he do it?”
The red haired giantess shrugged and smiled. “Mayhap he’ll tell, mayhap not… either way, ‘twas a fine evenin’s fishin’...” She murmured. “I really did fear he might’n call sumat dark an terrible down…”
“I have concerns, Shai… he’s becoming… unstable.” Khan whispered.
“Aye… This be a thing fer me an he tae worry at.” She muttered, while the lord of this tangled little armada was marched away under a token guard.
#
“Your instructions were to find and return with me, dead or alive… and to execute the Dread Pirate Amy and her crew… as well as any of my Whispers you discovered along the way… Yes?” Gabbie asked a rumpled lord, his two captains and four key officers, all of whom were face down on the floor of Shai’s parent’s forge.
“My empress… Since captain Cheng assumed command and surrendered… surely she should…” Pearlmutter whined.
“Captain Chen made her report to me directly… when she requested to be brought into my presence… as is custom. She did not surrender, she complied with imperial law and tradition.” Gabbie answered calmly.
She was perched on a wrought iron stool beside the glowing forge, soaking in the warmth on an evening gone strangely cold. Despite her humble surroundings and barbarian dress, she sat her workman’s stool with all the dignity she’d ever displayed atop the cubic throne of Light.
“From her report, it’s past time I returned home and put my house in order…” She turned to sir Rolf, standing nearby. “Please convey my regrets to your parents and thank them for their hospitality on my… holiday away.”
She turned back to the four officers sprawled behind their captains. “Tell your troops that we will sail for home as soon as we are able. Their empress commands it.”
Four flag rated officers of the imperial legion and navy vanished with a soft scuffle of swift moving feet, off to get their commands in order.
“Captains… Lord Pearlmutter is relieved of command and will be your guest for our return journey… It would be best if I did not see his face until we reach the imperial city.”
“Imperial majesty…” Captain Chen whispered. “Acolyte Biwa of Order… He was lord Pearlmutter’s secretary…”
“Yes?” She asked gently. “What of this person?”
“He must have been taken… but he was not with the others… I would not have a member of my expedition lost needlessly…” She sighed and relaxed visibly when Gabbie turned to sir Rolf.
“Know you of this Biwa, acolyte of Order?” She asked the young knight.
“No one of that name and no clerics of Order were taken, Empress Gabbie.” He replied with a warm and friendly smile for her radiance that made her hidden guardians shudder with repressed outrage.
Iosopod trembled so much that his armored scutes rattled audibly, drawing a smile from the empress.
‘She’s fucking with us…’ Centepede thought in wonder, before scolding himself and getting focused.
#
Gary pried his sticky gummy eyes open in the loft of Shai’s roundhouse, a bright blue sky above him through the thick, glass shingles. All three kids, Becky and Shai were downstairs in the kitchen cooking something that smelled divine.
“Breakfast ramen?” He croaked when he managed to stagger downstairs.
“Nae, slug-a-bed husband… tis fishcake ramen fer lunch, an a late lunch at that.” She sighed. “Ye did miss a mighty battle on the sand flats.”
“As long as there was no battle in the market ward…” He sighed. “I think I firmed up my ‘terrifying dark witch’ credentials in town last night.”
“Aye… ye hae. I were a might scared, me ownself… those were dark doings, lad.”
“Sweetie, I’m the for real high priest of a for real Death god now… dark and light don’t have the same meanings for me anymore.” He smiled and slurped a wad of noodles into his ravenous maw. “He’s way cooler than me.”
“Gary… I have to know how you did that to both those ships.” Rolf said quietly from down the table.
“Hey, did you ever notice I never run out of sweet, crisp, delicious crawdaddie, Rolf?” He asked, with a nugget of that red speckled flesh in his chopsticks. “The riverbottom is crawling with them. They just keep spawning and growing.” He smiled and took a deep draught of his broth.
“I mojoed a bunch of the biggest, juiciest of the lot to climb on that anchor and hang out until…” He chomped down on a fish cake with a hungry smile.
“Mister sturgeon was a top predator, he’s probably been munching up and down this section of the river for centuries. He liked crawdaddies as much as I do… the rest is all fishing.”
“Aye, save one thing, lad, it were mistress sturgeon.” She said with satisfaction as a bowl of dark gray softball sized objects landed on the table.
“Monster caviar, lads… we hae the largest toast points ye did ever see!”
#