> Worst that can befall ye,
>
> Is gettin’ measured fer yer chains*.
>
> Most else is naught but an improvement.
>
> Welp, unless ye ‘get a crack at Jenny’s tea cup’ in Deadmen’s Watch,
>
> or find a Gish in yer bed.
>
> Then it’s not.
>
> -
>
> Wayland Dawson,
>
> Pirate Captain.
>
> -Personal file from the Admiralty’s archives in Castalor-
>
> Found guilty in Caspo O’ Bor and pending execution in any of the King’s cities via gibbeting after first broken on the wheel, or hanged drawn & quartered (manner left at the local magister’s discretion). Wanted for excessive plundering in Castalor, Eagleport, Caspo ‘O Bor, Parmaport, Aldenport, Aegium, Rida & Altarinport, Cediorum. Murder on Jelin. Fornicating with a noble woman in Novesium. Excessive abduction of good folk, slave trades, public exposure in Demames, hoarse language & lewd gestures, Heresy & blasphemy to the Five, escaping the King’s justice in Caspo O’ Bor, crops stealing, livestock stealing, skullduggery, treason, dressing as a noble without being one, impersonating a priest at Lord Elrad Van Oord’s wedding & an officer of the courts in Armium. General vandalism.
>
> Born Telus Port, 149 NC – Died unknown
>
> -
>
> *Getting outfitted for a Gibbet Cage, usually before a public execution
>
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Wayland ‘Yellow’ Dawson
‘The Corsair of Ducuril’
The Sinking Isles
Part I
-A famous landing-
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3rd day of First Month of 193NC
Deep South in the Scalding Sea
Crossing the border to ‘Abrakas Gullet’**
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**The unfathomably deep, unchartered slanted triangle-like area of the Scalding Sea between its three vertices of Turtle Isles to the Far East, the Sinking Isles to the West and Split Isles in the distant far South. The Unknown Ocean starting at its base.
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Thumb up a cat’s bum! Wayland thought seeing the Lesia sailor energetically hacking at Corsair’s Gold main mast with an axe. He’d managed to sneak aboard their deck while they were busy killing the sailors on the bank’s Brig. So the captain rushed to the rails grabbed a line still dangling loose from their earlier jump and did the whole thing in reverse.
Dawson landed on the slippery deck, boots slipping in the brines, almost a foot of water constantly on both entangled ships decks both because they had taken on some during the continuing storm and because they were sailing without guidance to the blind.
He cursed the sailor’s mother, swung at him using the momentum he’d gathered from the lunge intending to chop his axe wielding arm off, but caught him right when he had his axe raised and missed. Dawson’s heavy blade hit the battered mast, the man turned and hack at him instead given the opportunity.
“HUH!” Dawson grunted letting go of his sword to step away, the axe’s blade catching his right coat sleeve and ripping it all off along the shirt underneath it. Deskinning his arm from shoulder to the elbow in the process.
“Fuckin’ dog!” The pirate captain cursed and punched him in the mouth splitting his lips and cracking a tooth with his big ring. The sailor’s head snapped back, blood on his teeth and chin, cursed, spat half a tooth out and swung again with that darn axe.
Dawson jumped behind the mast to escape mutilation, furious for having to deal with this himself and stooped to grab a weapon from the deck boards. He found nothing at the near, the sea raging, along with the scrap on the Brig and the sailor rounding up the mast equally furious for getting punched in the mouth.
Absent other weaponry at the near and not wanting to use his small apple cleaning pocket knife, Dawson grabbed a lead line, the plummet on it still attached and jumped away from another swing of the sailor’s axe. The younger man, all fit and energetic looking to corner his riper opponent towards the port side rails of the deck.
Dawson whipped the line out, the lead plummet hitting the man’s chest and shoving him back with a pained grunt. He recovered quickly and made to attack again, but the rope returned and thrashed his left knee. The leg bending the wrong way. He went down this time, the ship rocking this way and there made him slide to the rails and Dawson gave him a good kick as he slithered past him to help the little wanker overboard faster.
Over the man went much to a tired pirate captain’s delight, but he grabbed the line Dawson had dropped and falling backwards pulled at it hard, the darn thing lodging at the rails and turning rigid. Dawson run to see if the man had gone under, but found him dangling perilously over the angry waves both hands clasping at the line, body banging on the Corsair’s Gold port side. He just wouldn’t let go and drown like a normal person.
“Fuck’s sake!” Dawson cursed and found his pocket knife. The blade on it rather small and not well-sharpened. He started working on the taut hemp rope with it, the tiny blade unfit for the task and the sailor seeing him cutting his lifeline desperately heaving to climb back up the deck. “Take a darn breather!” A soaked Dawson grunted an eye on the sailor, the other on the small knife cutting at the rope. “It’ll be a while! Don’t be all worrying for no plaguing reason!”
“Don’t cut the rope ye piece of shit!” the young man growled angry, eyes gawking and veins popping in the effort to reach him.
“Ye scallywag be ruining me mast!” Dawson blasted him irate, not believing the lip on the bastard, chin clenched in a nasty grimace, his arm hurting and bleeding, but also tiring from seesawing with the small blade. “Just let go and die ye motherfucker!” He cursed the approaching stubborn sailor.
“NO!” He cried out with a mean grimace. Dawson swung his left leg over the rail and shoved his boot on the man’s face. Smashed him twice, the sailor letting go of the rope and going for his boot instead, but failing to catch it. With a desperate yelp he finally fell, his head cracking on the keel of ship and disappearing under the waves.
“Hah!” Dawson guffawed and stumbled back on the empty deck of the Corsair’s Gold breathing heavy from the exertion.
“Boss?” He heard ‘Lucky’ Trifton’s voice coming from the Brig over the angry ruckus of the sea. “What are ye doing there?”
“Wanted to…” Dawson tried to say out of breath and pointed at the damaged but still standing mast. “Abrakas curse ye… how’s the fight going?” he growled after a moment.
“They are barricaded abaft sir in the captain’s quarters!” Trifton yelled.
“For what purpose?” Dawson asked.
“Surviving?” Trifton guessed.
“Blimey!” Dawson cursed and stood upright as he’d almost kissed the deck in his attempt to draw breath earlier. His balance of course on the deckboards was legendary and he’d managed not to tumble forward. “Toss me a blasted line so I can cross over again!”
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“Just come out of it!” Dawson barked irate at the barricaded door. “What this shite be? Have ye no shame?”
“You ain’t getting the ship pirate!” A man yelled from behind the sturdy door.
“I don’t care about yer ship!” Dawson growled and wiped his face, the wound on his arm smarting and his coat ruined. “We be sailing in the blind for hours!”
“Do I have your promise sir,” an older man asked, more refined in his manners. “The men will be spared?”
Dawson frowned and glanced at ‘Cruel’ Tack working to get a gold ring out of a severed man’s thumb. Byron Vail three meters from him tossing a couple of corpses overboard and ‘Dour’ Barnet playing ‘hack-a-hand’ with a man trying to hold on to the port side deck rails. The chop sending a ring-less finger flying into the brines.
“Of course,” Dawson lied.
“I’m not convinced sir,” the man replied behind the door.
“Yer calling me a liar?” Dawson grimaced at the affront.
“You are a pirate scum, are you not, sort of by default?”
Huh?
Eh… yeah, he begrudgingly admitted to himself.
“Can we hack it down?” Dawson asked the returning Vail, his quartermaster.
“It’s reinforced wit iron,” Vail replied and flinched at the scream of the man getting his hand severed at the wrist from Barnet.
Dawson sighed and walked frustrated down the Brig’s deck, most of the crew killed already, but they had lost a lot of good men as well, especially to the marines. He found a pirate leaning against the foremast and made to touch him, but realized the young buccaneer was nailed there with a harpoon that had gone through his stomach and out of the left side of his chest afore hitting the mast.
The fact he was still breathing a blasted miracle.
“Can’t… move me hands,” young Alder croaked, blood dripping down his pants and deck to be washed off by the waves.
“We’ll get ye out o’ there son,” Dawson assured him pursing his wrinkled mouth.
“Thank… you,” Alder replied.
Dawson moved away with a scowl and looked to find Roscoe to send him up the lookout. He spotted him and gave the order to the lithe short sailor. ‘Kid’ Roscoe hopped from one ship to the other with ease moments later despite his age. He was about forty now, despite his moniker. Roscoe had gotten it young and it had stayed with him.
Then Dawson returned to the aft of the Brig to deal with the remnants of its crew.
“Fire is out of the question,” Vail was admonishing Trifton when he arrived. Dawson sighed and stared at the door.
“Hey,” he yelled. “We have no grudges wit the Bank!”
“Funny way to show it,” the man from earlier replied. “What’s the heading? I assume you haven’t freed your ship yet to be here talking with me again.”
Ye witty bastard.
“South is my guess,” Dawson hissed.
“How do you know?”
“Nothing but open sea for hours.”
“How many hours?”
“It’s close to sunset,” Dawson admitted.
“Have the rest of the crew surrendered?”
Dawson smacked his lips and flinched when Trifton touched a cloth on his wound.
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“Apologies captain,” Trifton murmured.
“Leave it,” Dawson retorted. “You can say they have,” the latter he said to the barricaded men inside the captain’s quarters.
“You could be lying sir,” the infuriating officer noted.
“Of course I be lying ye shit for brains!” Dawson exploded. “What did ye expect me to say? Huh?”
“Is sparing the men a nonstarter then?”
Dawson sighed deeply too tired to continue this for much longer.
“Can we cut the ship away?” He asked Vail.
“Who’s going to watch the door? Could be ten, or fifteen men sardined in there.”
“We have plenty of men left,” Dawson replied loud enough to be heard. “Leave them here and the rest we’ll do the job just fine.”
They didn’t have enough men, but he was going to risk it.
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“GIVE ME A SAIL! ONE MORE ALLGODS DARNIT!” He barked an hour later onboard the Corsair’s Gold. The two ships separated at last, hours into the night, but while they had managed to strip anything of value from the Brig, their own ship was in no condition to sail away from the wind without repairs.
“Ain’t no way dis thing holds,” Vail commented eyeing the work being done on the main mast. “Better to reattach the foremast to lessen the load.”
“How are we supposed to do that Byron?” Dawson grunted, the bandage on his right arm restricting his movement. “Rope it and pray for a gentle breeze?”
“Ye have steering with the Spanker,” Vail insisted.
“Say we turn then what? Fancy a trip to Wetull? Cause its closer than anything else at the near!” Dawson growled spittle flying out of his mouth, not that the soaked to the bone Vail cared.
“Not the worst thing,” Vail admitted. “Friendly port and all.”
He wasn’t wrong in that.
“LAND AHOY!” Roscoe yelled from the lookout.
What?
“Where?” Dawson gasped and hurried down the ladder to sprint to the bow of the ship. The broken foremast tied to the port side useless, the rigging and sails barring his way, but he could navigate the deck of the Corsair with his eyes closed.
Half-closed.
“Don’t see no blasted land ‘Kid’!” He barked hanging outside the bowsprit from the loose shroud.
“SWEAR IT WAS RIGHT THERE ‘YELLOW’!”
“What do ye mean—?” Dawson started, but stopped abruptly seeing the huge black rock coming out of the frothy waters. The bell ringing warningly raising his hairs.
“ASHES TURN TO PORT!” Dawson barked at the top of his lungs. The helmsman reacting timely and the nimble Corsair’s Gold despite being battered turned violently away from the lethal reef.
“What in Abrakas tail?” Vail cursed running to the helm himself to help out.
“LAND!” Roscoe warned again hoarsely.
Shit.
Dawson opened his eyes to spot it from his lower position, got a barrel of brackish waters in the face and almost turned blind, but stubbornly kept his smarting bloodshot eyes open to see the treacherous rock.
“IT’S GONE!” Roscoe informed them, the ship rocking this way and that, but the sea calming down and the waves lessening.
This is not always a good sign when in open waters.
“What do ye mean it’s gone?” Dawson barked at him irate. “Tack climb up there to give me a second bloody opinion!”
“Aye Captain,” Tack replied and jumped on the shrouds of the main mast.
“YE BE PUTTING TOO MUCH WEIGHT ON IT!” Vail blasted him from the bridge and Dawson snarled, drown in problems and turned to go deal with the matter himself, but the massive mountain appeared again, rising out of the waters and missed them for a leg and a bit of foot. Dawson watched it scrapping past them with bloodshot, gawking eyes and a comical gnarly snarl.
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“FURL ALL SAILS! NOW YE RASCALS!” He barked ten minutes later. “GET THE OARS OUT!” Dawson run back the starboard side of the ship to check for any sprouting reefs coming at them out of nowhere, after doing the same port side.
Apparently we’ve found a boulder gathering in the middle of the blasted ocean.
“Vail, I need an explanation—”
“LAND AHOY!” Roscoe warned afore he could finish.
“MORE REEFS PORT SIDE!” Tack yelled as well.
Fuck.
Bugger it arse and mouth.
Fuck!
“Captain?” ‘Red’ Ashes yelped, their only northern lad of the crew.
Surviving that is.
“I’m thinkin’ on it Mister Ashes!” Dawson retorted eyeing the landmass approaching.
“STARBOARD IS CLEAR!” Roscoe yelled.
Are ye plaguing kidding me?
“HOW?” Dawson barked.
“TURN STARBOARD SIDE?” Ashes asked increasingly worried.
“IT WENT UNDER SIR!” Roscoe cried out.
“Rocks don’t do that!” Dawson retorted.
“TURN—?” Ashes probed again, Dawson cutting him off with a snarl.
“Vail grab the wheel and don’t flinch it either way unless I tell ye!” He ordered nervously and blinked to clear his eyes again.
The reef rising from the depths in silence too close for them to miss it.
“BRACE YERSELVES!” Roscoe yelled with a panicked shriek.
The ship rocked violently, a shudder rattling its joints and loud crackling heard from its keel, the bang sending men and equipment tumbling the other side. Dawson grunted, dangling outside the deck from a piece of the shroud, feet kicking at the water underneath him, a boot lost to the bottom.
“GAAH!” He gurgled spitting water out and climbed up the spilled outside ropes, a small barrel smacking him on the shoulder narrowly missing his head. Cursing all gods in the pantheon the pirate captain made it back on the deck, drenched to the bone and tired as a dog after the races. He collapsed on the boards with his back breathing heavy, the men coming about slowly and calling to see if anyone had gone overboard.
Other than the captain that is.
“LAND AHOY!” Roscoe warned again. “BIG ONE!”
“Curse ye lineage!” Dawson griped and turned on an elbow to get up. A seagull whipping past his soaked drooping hat almost giving him a heart attack and sending him back down.
“Look,” Vail muttered hoarsely standing over the cursing captain and tossed him a spyglass. Dawson snatched it and stood on shaky legs, dancing forward with small steps and then backwards to the rhythm of the ship, much as the experienced Vail.
He examined the nearing landmass, extending far as his eye could see and watched the waters rising to cover it slowly afore retreating again.
“It’s going under,” Vail murmured.
“Not it’s not,” Dawson murmured seeing the reefs sprouting out of the waters again around them, following the water’s movement on the bigger landmass. “It is the tides Mister Vail. High and low.”
“Where have ye seen tides doing that?” Vail protested.
“Nowhere,” Dawson admitted. “Not in so quick a span, but we had a big storm for two days we left behind,” he eyed the redness on the dark sky. The moonlight helping them see further, as most of the clouds had retreated.
“So?”
“Rocks don’t move Vail, period,” Dawson insisted. “But if this is a much deeper spot of the ocean, or Abrakas Gullet, then the difference might be bigger than normal and a storm could stir the waters enough to drown lowlands, or the reefs, afore subsiding again. Look, there are almost no waves now.”
The island blocking their horizon and a distant mountain clearly visible doused in red-gold light. More and more seabirds appearing above their ship that bobbed on the soft waves, touch of wind breezing at their backs.
Ho! I’ll be a hair on monkey’s arse!
“Hmm,” Vail murmured seeing the leer forming on his mouth.
“It’s a mirage Byron,” Dawson elucidated and returned the spyglass to him. “You know what dis means?”
“Ahm, reefs don’t move?” Vail chanced unsure thinking on their conversation.
“Aye, they don’t, that wasn’t—”
“We be taking water sir,” Trifton reported interrupting him. Lucky hadn’t a scratch on him from all the brouhaha.
“How much?” Dawson grunted in alarm.
“Eh, lads say we’re sinking fast,” Trifton confessed pursing his mouth sadly.
“Open the sails,” Dawson growled after a small moment of utter shock, a vein throbbing in the middle of his forehead.
“Which—?”
“ALL OF THEM!” He barked in a stunned Trifton’s face, his jaw hurting and eyes bulging menacingly.
“You’ll crash us ashore!” Vail grunted running after him as he sprinted to the bridge.
“That’s right!” Dawson retorted and glared at him.
“Wayland… captain,” Vail protested and eyed the approaching shores. “Why?”
Dawson sighed and hang his head, the hat falling off and splashing on the deck. He went to grab it, but a sneaky wave came, took it out of his numb fingers, danced it across to the other side and poured it over and into the sea.
Monkey’s arse!
“Damn,” Vail gasped seeing his good yellow hat gone.
Dawson grimaced, grinding his teeth, the gums on his gold ones bleeding and after another deep breathing moment to calm himself down, he replied with a hiss.
“It’s a particularly high tide land dis Vail,” the captain said tiredly. “So if we want to have a ship to work wit on the morrow, assuming this shite won’t stop on our account, we need to land further in.”
“You’ll ruin her…”
Dawson stopped him raising his injured arm. “She’s hurt already mate, I’m trying to save her.”
“You don’t even know where we are!” Byron griped and Dawson put a hand on his shoulder and swung him around to see the sun rising in the east sending its light on the approaching island.
“Look at them big trees Vail, smell the air. That’s Eucalyptus forest, beyond the dancing reefs, the border to Abrakas Gullet,” he said hoarsely in his ear. “As the old sailors tales go, hither be lie the Sinking Isles. Savvy?”
“Damn,” Vail repeated staring at the large landmass coming to view under the clear sky.
All they needed now was a swift nice landing and a flat beach.
They failed on both counts, but be that as it may it was a famous landing.
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Crack.
Clack.
A crab was clipping at his big toe. The one on his left foot, where that boot was missing. The water was splashing him in the face, froth, seaweeds and pebbles mixed in, a rock under his back lodged between the shoulder blades hurting, but not as much as the pincher that had cut through the woolen sock and was working on the flesh.
“Moth’r…” Dawson cursed, coughing up water. The stuff getting out of his nostrils bitter like bile and kicked the leg out to dislodge the persistent creature. He managed to free the toe, the crab hurled away in scowling silence, pincer still snapping at the air stubbornly and he pushed back on his elbows to escape the waves splashing the shore. A rocky shore this, with gravel pouring in the chasms, but better further ahead after the rocky barrier. A small pool of seawater, ten meter wide, where he’d landed.
Dawson had been launched over the bowsprit and into the sea, as the depth fooled them in the final approach and the Corsair’s Gold had found more rocks than water near the finish line. The sandy beach he’d spotted having a nasty barrier guarding it like a royal knight guards a naughty princess’ virtue.
“Son of Castalor’s harlot!” he grunted reaching the sands and placing his sunburned and salt covered head on it. The sun not helping and coming much later than he’d have preferred.
He breathed out slowly trying to gauge how injured he was and felt something riffling through his pockets first and then untying his sword sheath and lifting it off of him. Dawson cracked an eye open to see if the crab had brought back reinforcements, already boiling the darn thing in water for a fine meal in his mind.
But saw nothing.
The sword was missing though and light footsteps were heard near his head. The pirate captain swung around on an elbow, the arm smarting and bandage darkened in his blood and glared at the beach through blurry, bloodshot eyes.
There was a kid two meters from him, wearing a loincloth, thin legs tanned to a crisp and a washed out mop of red hair on his weird face. The kid looped the large leather belt over his head and secured the sheath with Dawson’s sword on his back. The cutlass too big for him.
Pink hair, he decided and pushed himself up with a groan that startled the kid.
He also had no nose, like someone had punched him there and it got sucked into his face, leaving two small nostrils in its place.
A Gish.
“You live!” the Gish hollered and gave him the thumbs up with both hands.
The thieving Gish.
“Give me…” Dawson croaked and coughed a mouth of phlegm out in the attempt to clear his throat.
“Wow,” the Gish gasped in disgust seeing the large splotch on the sands. “Fuck is wrong wit you? Huh?”
“Nothing… arr, give me the sword back kid!” Dawson spat and cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What sword?”
“The one ye have strapped on yer back, ye lousy rascal!” Dawson barked and the Gish jumped back scared.
“Tis mine!”
“Ye stole it!”
“I didn’t!”
“Ye piece of arse-colored scum, I saw ye doing it!” Dawson growled and lunged at him, but he stumbled on the sandy beach, wearing the one boot, the other soaked and full with sea water and he got away.
“You were dead!” The Gish protested backing away. “Admit it!”
“I wasn’t! Give me my sword,” Dawson warned him irate.
“I saved ye, so this is my reward!” The Gish countered.
“How did ye… Dis is yer last warning kid,” Dawson grunted and the Gish narrowed his eyes, raised a thin arm and gave him the middle finger, afore bolting it down the beach. Small feet sending sand back, but fast as a gazelle on half the legs no less.
“Motherfucker,” Dawson griped standing on the beach watching the small bodied Gish running and heard light crunching coming from his right side. He twisted around panicked, but there was nothing there. Then his eyes lowered a bit more and found an even shorter Gish standing barely above his knee, long pink hair reaching her back and chewing on a lemon-like fruit soberly.
“What the allgods are ye?” Dawson asked the female Gish. She also wore a loincloth and had her small breasts uncovered.
“Virtix,” the Gish replied mid-chomping. “That was Rabix that took yer blade.”
“Right,” Dawson rustled and looked about him spotting another Gish that looked exactly like her sitting on a rock ten meters away and covering his body with leaves. Dawson guessed he was a boy by the shorter hair.
“That’s Vitrix,” Virtix explained. “My brother. We’re twins,” she elucidated and offered him her half eaten fruit. “Trade?”
“Ugh?” Dawson gasped, in deep bewilderment and unsure on who was who.
“My fruit for yer scarf,” Virtix said calmly, then grinned unconvincingly. “I don’t like yellow, so ye only get half of it, which is fair. Right?”
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