CHAPTER 20

“Let me go! You don’t understand! You’re all in danger!”

Sophia struggled against the hand of her captor—but in vain. His three-fingered grip was like an iron vice on her upper arm. Neither her efforts nor her words were acknowledged with anything but grunts.

The thug had the face of a pig. This was not a judgement on his appearance. His head was literally that of a pig, sitting on a squat, paunchy man’s body. He was a pig-man. He was bald; his ears were large and floppy; his snout was flattened as if it had taken one-too-many punches; yellowed tusks peeked from between his meaty, chapped lips. He stood on two large unguligrade legs and thick cloven hooves. His three-digit paws were like crude clay imitations of human hands, but their strength was shocking.

Of all the non-humans Sophia had ever met—admittedly few—none had ever filled her with so much disgust. Granted, her opinion was probably tainted by the situation and the unwashed, reeking clothes he wore. His off-white shirt was too short. The bottom of his potbelly hung slovenly below the hem and over his crotch, the fat jiggling with every step.

He dragged her deep into the dim bowels of the ship, lighting the way with a flickering oil lantern. The insides of the pirate galleon were as unclean as its crew, and the faint luminescence of the white wood barely improved visibility. Instead, it gave the whole place a surreal air.

One deck below the main, Sophia spied strange elongated shapes in the dark. Their positions near the hull suggested cannons, but those angular shadows struck her as abnormal. Odd white pillars ran from floor to ceiling, more of them than the ship had masts, and covered in circumvoluted symbols. Hammocks hung from the timbers, some along the centre of the space, and many more clustered at the back, underneath the stairs. From there came uncanny anguished whispers. But the priestess was pulled away before she could make out any word.

Down another flight of stairs, they reached a hold filled with rows of shelved bottles, jars, piles of crates and barrels, and racks of cannonballs. Sophia heard squeaks and patters scurrying away from the lantern’s light. Shivers ran down her spine. Something brushed past her feet. She yelped, only to be mercilessly pushed forwards.

They ducked around a capstan and finally stopped in front of a single metal cell, which stood against the hull near the back of the hold. The pig-man—Mr Squee, as the captain had called him—hung the lantern on a ceiling hook and pulled a keyring from his waist. He fumbled a bit before finding the right one.

The old lock clanked loudly when he turned the key, and the door to the cell opened with a whiny creak. Something stirred within, groaning and yawning.

“Hmm? Is it lunchtime already? I want pork chops! And some brandy! Do you have any Emerrose brandy?”

It was a woman—a human woman, by the looks of her. She sat on the floor on the left side of the jail, her arms pulled up and chained to the metal bars. Her puffy white tunic and brown pants were soiled and torn in many places, though not to the extant most pirates had let their clothes deteriorate. Her precise age was difficult to tell with all the dirt on her face, but she could not be older than thirty.

Her long blond hair was done in a loose twisted ponytail and messy side-braids. A few smaller braids fell over her eyes, ringed by smudged black paint. She had a thin face and pouty lips. A scar ran diagonally over her nose, narrowly missing her right eye.

For some reason, she was also barefoot—an obvious fact because her long legs were spread apart very unwomanly in front of her.

Sophia stumbled into the cell, pushed by Mr Squee, who lumbered in after her.

“Oooh! Company! Even better!” Being ignored did not seem to faze the woman. In fact, she sounded weirdly cheerful. “I was afraid I might go slightly mad, alone down here with the… flies and… the vermin. You seem to have a rat problem, by the way. How did you even get rats up in a flying vessel? That had to be done on purpose… Please do take better care of my ship,” she mumbled the last part as if to herself.

The pig-man pretended not to ear her ramblings, but the annoyance in his eyes was evident. His manhandling of his captive got rougher. He shoved Sophia against the bars, opposite the other prisoner, and twisted her arms to snap shackles on her wrists. Sophia cried out, startled by the pain. He did not seem to care.

“You’ll have to forgive Squee, milady,” said the blonde. Her voice had an indolent drawl to it that made each of her word sound slightly slurred. “He’s quite a blunt instrument. It’s not his fault, really. His father was a swine who abandoned his mum, and his mother then abandoned him at a butcher shop when he was but a wee lad. Now, lil’ Squee got daddy issues, and he’s quite uncultured on the subject of the fairer gentry.”

Something in that speech went too far—which was probably all of it. The pirate squealed and spun around, fat jiggling and keys rattling. In a surprisingly fast movement, he had a cleaver at the woman’s throat. He squealed again in her face, covering the blonde in thick spittle.

“Ew…” She stared cross-eyed at a dollop hanging from her nose. Squee grunted and huffed angrily. His cleaver pressed harder against her skin. She quickly retreated against the prison bars. “Wow, wow, wow… Squee, ma boy, easy there. Let’s not do something we’ll both regret—especially me. After all, what’s a little banter about our mothers between gentle… err… pigs? You hate your mother. I hate my mother. We’re all mother-haters! Let’s get along!”

The pig-man looked unconvinced and not back down an inch.

“Hey, matey. Come on,” the blonde tried another approach. “I was just courteously informing our new guest. I mean, look at her. Does she seem like she knows anything about the world? Anything at all? That was a rhetorical question, by the way. Don’t hurt yourself thinking about it.”

The pig-man’s narrowed his porcine eyes, unsure if he had just been insulted, but she was already continuing, “She must be from a rich family. Fair skin. Satin hair. Saintwood jewellery.” Sophia’s surprised gaze fell the pendant between her breasts. It was the first time she heard the material being called that. “Look at those rosy squirrel cheeks. She can’t have been hungry one day in her cosy, privileged life. What are you even keeping her here for? A ransom? I bet it’s a ransom. I hope you’re askin’ pretty penny for the lady. That necklace alone should be worth a mansion in Tauddale. A big one. With anything you might want! Like… servants, exotic masseuses, soap, and lots of… err… truffles?”

At last, Squee slowly turned back around. Greed gleamed in his sunken, beady black eyes. Sophia blinked in disbelief, then glared at the blonde over the pirate’s shoulder. The other only returned a helpless grimace.

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The pig-man’s pudgy fingers reached for Sophia’s chest. She tried to move out of the way, but the shackles fulfilled their role.

“Squeal!” Suddenly, the pirate tumbled forwards with a short, shocked cry. His hands grabbed the bars on both sides of the priestess to stop his fall, but his snout still landed right between her breasts. It was her turn to squeal.

“Hiiiiii! Get off me! Get off me, you… shithead!” Twenty years around Meredith had left their mark, and even though she tried to suppress it, Sophia’s mouth sometimes had a mind of its own. When the pirate did not immediately comply, her knee came up brutally. Squee slid to the floor, twitching, cross-eyed and holding his groin. Sophia hissed, “Do not touch me!” Her entire body was shivering from combined fright, anger and nausea.

“Can’t stay up, mate?” taunted the other prisoner. “You know, you should really give up pirating if you can’t handle a little pitch.” Her expression was too craftily innocent, and her eyes sparkled with mischief. Her previously spread legs had suspiciously retreated underneath her—as if to say she had not just kicked the pig-man in the butt.

She was not fooling anyone, not even Squee. Squealing in rage, the pig-man stood and raised his cleaver. This time, he truly seemed about to chop something important off the chained jester. “Wowowow!” The blonde hurriedly curled on herself even tighter, attempting to make herself a smaller target. “Do you think that’s judicious, mate? What would your dear Captain Slashtoe say?”

Her words stopped the pig-man in his track. Snarling, he threatened her one last time with the cleaver, then knelt to pick up the keyring he had dropped, and spun to leave the cell. At the last second, he paused and ripped Sophia’s necklace off her neck. The door clanged loudly behind him.

“Wait! Give it back!”

The sound of a turning lock echoed with finality in Sophia’s ears, and heavy footsteps stomped away, taking the lantern and her mother’s last gift with them.

She turned to glare at her fellow captive. She could now barely make out the other’s traits in the dim glow of the wood. “Why did you do that? Who the fuck are you?” Still unsettled, Sophia continued to channel her grandmother.

Unperturbed, the blond woman sat straighter and threw her braids back with a movement of her neck. Most fell right back over her eyes. “Mistress Adventuress Petra Hummingbird, also Captain of this fine vessel, although currently deposed. At your service, milady. I would kiss your hand, and more. Unfortunately, I seem to have donned the wrong jewellery for a proper social encounter.” She rattled the chains that shackled her hands up.

Sophia frowned suspiciously. “What do you mean, you’re the captain?”

“Ah! Funny story that is.” Petra leaned back against the bars. “It all started some years back. On the course of one of my many, many travels across this vast world, I came across a ruin. In the ruin, I found a map. The map led to a key. The key opened a chest, which I had to find—and I did. In the chest was a book, which spoke of an ancient mythical ship that could sail the skies like a bird.” The woman’s voice had the hypnotic rhythm of a seasoned storyteller, and despite her anger, Sophia found herself getting engrossed in her tale.

“Unfortunately, the ship was lost to the ages. But the chest also held another map. On it was the location of an island, an island… far into the Western ocean, beyond the horizons explored by the Alliance’s fleets, deep inside the territory of ungodly creatures of the depth. So I hired a ship and an intrepid crew, and we sailed in search of this mysterious island. And we found it! The island, and the Dove’s Heart, the legendary flying ship from a time when the gods, Good and Evil, trod the mortal plane!” Petra’s voice to a triumphant end.

But after that grandiose finale, she slumped and shrugged. “Alas, it seems I had put my trust and money in the wrong people. As soon as we found the ship, I was mutinied against. And now, here I am.”

Sophia had several questions. Legendary ships? Gods walking the world? Improbable treasure maps and mysterious island? Were she not inside an actual flying galleon, she would not have believed one word of what the suspicious woman said. But she decided all of these could wait.

There was, however, one thing she could not understand. “Why didn’t they simply kill you? Or leave you behind? They had the ship.” And maybe, if they’d left you behind, I wouldn’t have lost my medallion! Sophia did not say that last part out loud. She was already ashamed to indirectly wish ill upon someone.

Petra’s full lips cast the shadow of a sly grin. “Because, love… no one but me can fly this ship.”

“But it’s flying right now.” Sophia was confused.

“Hardly,” Petra scoffed. “Right now, it’s reduced to ferrying around like some ungainly barge.” The mere idea seemed to disgust her. “The Dove needs an air mage at the helm. But not just any magus will do. You see, Captain Exus ‘All Eyes’ Slashtoe thought he could just throw money at a random chap with enough magic juice in his hands. But it’s not about power, love. It’s about skill. And there ain’t no air mage in these lands more skilled than Mistress Adventuress Petra Hummingbird.” She grinned cockily.

But the expression quickly deflated, and she rattled her chains. “All good that does me with these. Mageblight steel. I can’t even summon the wind to ruffle a rat’s ass with these on.”

Concerned, Sophia tried to call forth her own magic. She managed to, but as soon as she tried to push the spell out, her shackles glowed blue and seemed to suck her power away. She slumped, suddenly feeling lightheaded.

Petra whistled, impressed. “Not just a pretty face then… What is it Slashtoe’s band wants with you, I wonder.”

“I don’t know,” Sophia sighed.

“Well, whatever it is, it can’t be good. The man’s heart is blacker than coal, and filled only with Greed. He’d sell his own mother for a bag of coins. And his crew ain’t any better. They’re, as the song goes, buccaneers who drown their sins in rum. The Devil Himself would have to call them scum,” the blonde hummed gaily to herself.

“That’s just a silly rhyme. There’s no One Devil.” The priestess rolled her eyes. Finally, she had enough of this foolish woman’s ridiculousness.

“Ah. But who’s to rule Hell then?”

“There’s no ruler in Tartarus. It’s a place of absolute chaos where the Sins wage constant wars among themselves for power. Everyone knows that.”

“Is it, now?” Petra drawled off mysteriously. “Well, anyway. I suggest you get comfortable, love. I’m not usually such boring company, but there’s very little in the way of entertainment down here, I’m afraid—except the rats, maybe. So, sit down, relax, and try to get some sleep before Squee comes to pick you up for whatever niceties Slashtoe has planned for you. No use worrying when there’s no hope, anyway.” She herself reclined against the bars, seemingly intent to resume her nap.

Sophia’s heartrate picked up in alarm. Was the situation really hopeless? She was trapped, chained, behind bars, in a flying pirate ship, and her only potential ally was an unreliable fanfaron who had already caused Sophia to lose something precious to her. Indeed, the circumstances seemed pretty grim.

But her worried frown quickly turned into one of resolve. “No.” She shook her head. “No. Sam will come for me.”

“Sam? Is that your beau’s name?” Petra enquired, but she continued before Sophia could say anything. “It must be nice to live in the land of puppies and rainbows. But no, treasure. No one’s coming for you. Even if they did, it’d be useless. This is no mere den of rapscallions. This be a cesspool of warlocks and demons. Captain Slashtoe and his band of ramshackle buccaneers might not look like much, but appearances are deceiving. Only a fool with a death wish would risk their hide coming here.”

“No, Sam will definitely come,” Sophia said categorically. Her eyes were cold, as she both hoped for and dreaded the demon’s arrival. She knew a bloodbath would follow, and despite all that happened, she abhorred the thought of men dying, no matter how unworthy of salvation they might be. “We have a deal.”

“Well, then...” Petra’s eyebrow rose up. “Still nothing to do but get comfortable until your gallant suicidal knight comes to the rescue. Please do ask him to remember little old me when he does, assuming he still has his head when you reunite.” With that, the strange blonde lowered her head, and seemed to fall back asleep.

Sophia ignored her grim pessimism. She could not picture a force in this world that could stop Sam, not when even her goddess treated the demon with caution. The compass in her soul had lost track of the demon, but its unwavering, pulsing warmth filled Sophia with an absolute certainty.

Sam was on her way.

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