As night timidly gave way to the first hints of daylights, three figures raced through the dilapidated alleys of Ermythie.
Dande, who seemed to know the city like the back of his hand, ran without looking back, closely followed by Tolas, wearing a taciturn expression, and Raphaëlle, bringing up the rear. They had left Cornell and Skepta in Dande's hideout, well concealed in the almost empty cellar of the grocery store. Since the Altaïr had already been summoned, Tolas had left his own distress flare with the old sailor just in case. Dande had given them his own walkie-talkie, but he had insisted on keeping Monigam's musket and his last bullet with him.
Taking advantage of the silence of their sprint, Raphaëlle watched her companion running ahead of her, reflecting on her previous decision. She didn't regret firing the distress flare; she wouldn't allow the surviving Ermythians to end up as slaves, she couldn't even bear the thought. But she also knew that once again, she had overstepped her position as a deckhand and forced her friend to follow her lead. Yet deep down, she felt strangely proud of her actions and knew without a doubt that she would do it again if necessary.
They continued running for about thirty minutes before Dande began to slow down to catch his breath. He stopped at the mouth of a wide street, sitting heavily on a charred piece of roof. Tolas and Raphaëlle slowed down as well, catching up to the pirate and positioning themselves on either side of him.
"We're... not far now," panted the pirate while wiping his forehead with his hand. "Just three or four more streets and it's straight to the port."
"Alright, then I think it's time we discuss what we’re actually going to do there." said Tolas, leaning against a wall. " Do you know of a place where we could observe the port without being noticed?"
The pirate scratched his chin, lost in thought. Then a gleam appeared in his eyes.
"Yeah, the old navy’s HQ. It faces the port, and if we're lucky, there should be a hidden access to one of the warehouses along the docks from the HQ's cellars. And if we can’t find any, it'll at least bring us a bit closer to the Kemper."
"Hum, I don’t’ know…" remarked Raphaëlle aloud. "I mean, if you know about this potential passage, wouldn’t the other pirates know about it too?”
Dande smirked.
“Trust me, they’d need to have opened an history book to even be aware of the possibility and 95 % sure most of them can’t even spell. The only other people I’m sure knew about it were Baste and the big shots from the island's navy.”
“Why is that?”
“The local navy HQ’s actually pretty old. It was built on the ruins of the old Ruffien Palace, the first inhabitants of Nesperides’ island after their civilization was completely wiped out by the royal family of the time." Dande said in a pedagogical tone, rising to face Raphaëlle and Tolas. "The Ruffiens were known for their mastery of the land and their terraforming capabilities, their cities were half-subterranean and often riddled with tunnels that led from one end of the islands that made up their empire to the other."
Dande began pacing in front of the teenagers, who were strangely attentive to his words. For a moment, it wasn't a pirate and two marines talking, but two adolescents eagerly listening to a teacher.
“Some even said that the Ruffiens were masters in the use of Oka and that it was their connection to this mystical energy that allowed them to earthbe-“
“Dande?" Tolas interrupted abruptly.
The pirate suddenly snapped back to reality, a slight blush on his face.
“Anyway, the point is, they're unlikely to see us coming if we use the tunnels, but we don't know where we might end up if we take them” the pirate concluded.
The two sailors didn't even need to confer to know they were probably thinking the same thing. Despite her burning desire to learn more about Dande's knowledge, Raphaëlle knew time was of the essence. She turned to Tolas without saying a word. The boatswain seemed lost in thought for a moment, but as soon as he felt the young woman's gaze on him, he snapped out of it.
“Okay. Dande, you take the lead, but stay close to me. You're our best chance of catching other pirates by surprise if they come at us. Before we take the tunnels, we'll make sure the HQ is empty, so we don't get spotted as soon as we emerge on the docks.”
“Uh, there's a good chance that bastard Scornwallis has already ordered the others to shoot on sight." the pirate said, sounding unconvinced.
“Well then, looks like we’ve also got our meat shield." Raphaëlle retorted while heavily dropping her hand on his shoulder and giving him a big smile.
“I really don’t like where this is going…”
A few minutes later, Dande entered the old navy HQ in the dim light of the approaching dawn, with Raphaëlle and Tolas on his heels. He approached the stairs, alert for any suspicious noise. Then the pirate made a small hand gesture to the two sailors, and they followed him up, maintaining the same steady pace, just in case the stairs creaked more than they should. The same scenario repeated without a hitch on the second floor.
But as they reached the third and penultimate floor, Dande began to slow down, raising his hand to signal them to be discreet. The two sailors stopped moving altogether. They could all hear footsteps coming from just above them. They couldn't tell how many people there might be upstairs, but it almost reassured Raphaëlle. If there were pirates here, there would be fewer to fight later on.
“What do we do?" Dande whispered, pressing himself against the wall.
“You need to go up first and try to distract them," Tolas explained. "Raphaëlle and I will follow closely behind you and we'll neutralize them as fast as we can."
“That's not a new plan, it’s literally all we’ve been doing up to now!" the pirate complained, grimacing.
“If you can come up with something better right now, I'm all ears!"
The pirate stood there dumbfounded, unable to come up with another plan, before lowering his head, defeated.
“Well, as a matter of fact…" Raphaëlle started.
Tolas and Dande looked at her simultaneously.
“Dande, you’re still going to be bait, we just need you to get them...," the young woman trailed of, scanning the darkness of the hallway before spotting the threshold of an open door, “…over there! Tolas, come with me. We’re doing the town hall plan.”
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It was Tolas's turn to be speechless before regaining his composure and nodding firmly. They stealthily darted towards the open door and hid in the shadows, on either side of the door. Dande, rolling his eyes, went to the middle of the room where the two Altaïr sailors were and took a deep breath.
“Guys! I-I need help!" Dande loudly belted.
Hastily approaching footsteps pounded the floor above their heads, heading rapidly towards the stairs before abruptly stopping halfway.
“Dande?” asked a hoarse voice from upstairs. “That you?”
“Jooce!” exclaimed Dande, adopting a mournful tone. “Yeah... it's me... damn, things have really gone south...”
“What's going on?” the voice continued suspiciously.
“I can’t… I can’t move anymore…you’ve got to help me” the pirate sheepishly said.
Raphaëlle, hidden against the wall just next to the entrance, closed her eyes and controlled her breathing. She could hear the pirates approaching, her senses seemingly sharpening as they drew closer. There were only two of them; she could clearly count them with a little focus.
“Where are you, Dande?” Jooce asked, getting closer to the doorway with his companion following.
“Here...” Dande weakly replied, stepping back a bit to let his two comrades in.
Jooce and the other pirate stepped into the room, trying to look for Dande, their boarding sabers at the ready.
“I don't know what you've done, Dande, but the captain ain’t too hap-” Jooce began before feeling a presence behind him.
As quick as lightning, Raphaëlle struck behind the pirate's knees, causing him to bend backward, his head hitting the floor heavily. Without wasting a second, the wolf delivered a right kick to Jooce's temple, knocking him unconscious instantly. At the same moment, Tolas delivered a massive elbow blow to the neck of the other pirate, who collapsed immediately, his eyes completely rolling back. The action had only lasted a few seconds. Dande whistled in admiration, impressed by their coordination. He then went to Jooce and began searching him.
“What are you looking for?” Tolas asked him.
“Just...” the pirate began before widening his eyes with a smile as he pulled a small black box from Jooce's pocket, “this! His walkie-talkie!”
“Oh, that's perfect! Can we use it to contact Cornell?” exclaimed Raphaëlle.
“No, we might attract attention to ourselves for nothing if we activate this walkie-talkie and one of the pirates intercepts the transmission." Tolas told her.
“He's right, there's only one frequency to transmit on with these old things." Dande added, putting the device in his back pocket.
“Oh, okay, got it." Raphaëlle said. “Let’s check out this port then, shall we?”
The two men nodded. They closed the door of the room and all three climbed to the third floor. Once near the window, Dande knelt down and signaled for the other two to come closer to him. Together, they lifted their heads just high enough to have a direct view of the port below. Despite the orange sky of the impending dawn, they could make out enough detail to observe the bay clearly.
“There, that's the Kemper!” said Dande, nodding forward. “You’d hardly miss it anyway; they sank the rest of the boats to prevent people from escaping via the bay.”
The Kemper was an old galleon in poor condition, even from a distance. The deck was heavily damaged, with visibly hastily patched holes and a nearly nonexistent railing, probably destroyed by the island's defenses when it landed. Only two of the three masts of the galleon were still intact; the mizzenmast was broken into three pieces just above its step and now leaned against the stern castle of the galleon. Its sails covered a good part of it, almost completely obscuring it.
Raphaëlle counted eight pirates already on the deck, clumsily patching up the breaches they could see. They all seemed to be in bad shape; some limped, while others walked extremely slowly, as if they were seasick. The wolf's gaze lingered slightly on the mizzenmast before continuing to scan the rest of the ship.
“Crap... crap, crap, crap !” Dante complained.
“What's wrong?” Tolas inquired.
“There’s only one of the guys I usually talk to on the deck! Shit, the others must be part of the team Scornwallis sent to the town hall!”
The pirate began to wring his hands, his face slowly turning pale.
“This is bad, oh, this is real bad…” he whispered.
“I counted eight people on the deck; is Scornwallis among them?” Raphaëlle asked.
The young woman's question went unanswered. Raphaëlle eventually turned to Dande, her eyes widening when she saw that the pirate was as white as a sheet.
“Wow, Dande, are you okay?” Raphaëlle asked.
He glanced at her in a panic.
“We…we’d better bail. We have to.” he pleaded weakly.
“Huh? No! We're almost there! Why are you chickening out all of a sudden?” the young woman exclaimed.
Dande looked at the deck again, then at his two companions in distress.
“Without all my guys... we don’t stand a chance against Scornwallis! He could murder us with one hand behind his back!”
Raphaëlle stood in front of the pirate.
“Okay, first off, it's way too late to back down, alright? Second, these guys look like a light breeze could take them out and we have the element of surprise on our side. You’ve seen us in action, I don’t think I’m too cocky when I say I’m pretty sure we can take them.”
Dande stared into the young woman's eyes, furrowing his brows.
“You... wait, you actually believe it! You really have no idea who you're up against! And you, why aren’t you say anything?” the pirate said, looking at Tolas.
The bosco, who had continued to silently analyze the boat, finally turned his attention back to Dande.
“Raphaëlle's right. At this point, we don't really have much choice anyway. We don't know where the pirates who went looking for us are, we have two other unconscious ones just below... if we infiltrate the Kemper, at least we'll know what we're up against.”
Dande let out a sad little laugh. He really saw no way of backing out now that they had come this far. He quickly calculated his chances of survival. Alone, he was almost certain he wouldn't survive more than a few days. If he left the city, the jungle would quickly take its toll on him and he had no way of leaving the island anyway. With Tolas and Raphaëlle, fleeing would have been the ideal option, of course, but it was clearly no longer an option.
Then suddenly, the pirate had an epiphany. He looked back at the Kemper, squinting, hope awakening with each passing second.
“Did you see a very pale man or someone with a black helmet on their head pass by?” Dande asked eagerly.
The two teenagers shook their heads. Dande breathed out all at once, looking somewhat relieved.
“Okay, perfect! If Lowell and Zedek are still unconscious, we might actually have a shot.”
Tolas frowned for a moment.
“Lowell... Why does that name ring a bell?”
“’Cause you might now his family; he was the scion of an old noble family if I’m remembering it correctly. The... Gryffiths?
The bosco's eyes lit up.
“Lowell Gryfas! I saw his name in a navy report once! Wait, he’s working with Scornwallis?”
Dande chuckled.
“If you meant “groveling under his feet” then yes, he’s definitely working with him. The things I've seen him do under his orders...no nightmares could ever compare. The man’s already a menace by himself but when you pair him with Zedek, they become nigh unstoppable.”
“Then we'd better take advantage of their absence quickly,” pressed Tolas. “Do you see anything in the port that would indicate the presence of a passage?”
The pirate fell silent, apparently examining the roofs of the various warehouses just a few meters to the right of the Kemper.
There were four of them, brown brick buildings attached to each other, about two stories high and, by the looks of it, about fifty meters deep each. Their tin roofs were all serrated and topped with a chimney about ten meters high and five or six meters wide. Suddenly, Dande exclaimed:
“There! The fourth roof, can you see the chimney? It's much wider than the ones on the other roofs, almost double in size.”
“So?” Raphaëlle asked.
“Warehouses built under edict are required to have an emergency exit to the outside and a vault in case a member of the royalty or a royal administrator is in danger on one of the islands. I'm willing to bet that if there are still tunnels under the city, they must all lead to that warehouse!”
Raphaëlle silently questioned her friend, who shrugged and nodded.
“Okay first the tunnels, then the island's history and now this? How do you even know all this?” Raphaëlle asked, turning her attention back to Dande.
The pirate remained silent for a few seconds, his face expressing a kind of deep melancholy, his eyes staring into space. Then he spoke again.
“Were you always in the navy?”
For a moment, Raphaëlle's life before the Altaïr flashed before her eyes. Her grandmother with her bright blond hair, the dirty alleys of her city and the Shadows of Kardak, Marciano's butcher shop and his massive, slightly stooped back silently carving kilos of fresh meat. Then everything stopped, and she was back there, hiding in a derelict building, accompanied by a pirate and a sailor and ready to board a pirate ship.
“No...” she replied with a heavy heart.
“Well, I haven't always been a pirate either.” Dande concluded gravely. “Follow me; I think I know where the tunnels are around here.”