Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (68 page)

‘In other words,’ Kal clarified, ‘sail with me, and we have the Republic’s permission to be the scalliest pirates who ever put to sea.’

Everyone cheered, except Dogwood who threw down his musket in disgust. Kal stepped among her new crew, taking the noose off from around the doctor’s neck, and captain’s hat off his head. She put it on herself, and took a long spyglass from the hands of another sailor. She pretended to scan the horizon, but in reality she was trying to remember the advice that Lula had given her earlier.

‘Turn twelve points to starboard and run all the canvas out. Get us on a course for Port Black. Let’s not drag our anchor: I want to see what this tub can do!’

As the crew rushed to their stations, Kal looked up at Dogwood.

He winked back at her. The plan had worked.

‘Shall I dump the water supplies, Captain?’ one of her crew called over. ‘We’ll go faster if we lose a few tons of deadweight.’

‘What’ Kal said. ‘Oh yes, damn straight! Er, I mean …
make it so
!’

IV.iii

Cat o’ Nine Tails

As the
Swordfish
raced through the night towards Port Black, Kal tried her damned hardest to mug up on being captain. Right now, too alert and too excited to sleep, she was sat at Dead Leg’s great hardwood desk flicking through the ledgers. The ship’s accounts were a sorry mess—a confusing scrawl of debts and loans. It was impossible to determine if and when the crew had last been paid. Mixed in with the financial records, there were other figures, too: the number of lashes a crewmember had received as punishment for crimes such as ‘sleeping on watch,’ ‘stealing rum,’ and even ‘kissing a goat.’

Kal went to the leaded windows at the back of the ship and tossed the ledger out to sea. Might as well start from scratch; the treasure in the hold would provide for the ship and crew for years and years, never mind paying for new hands, weapons and equipment. There was so much loot that Dogwood was down there now, on permanent guard duty. In her mind’s eye, Kal could imagine gleaming new cannon—perhaps long brass bow and stern-chasers—a new lick of paint and even a new mainsail and flag: black, with a red heart inside a round white moon …

A sound broke through her fantasies—a drawn-out moan and a thumping on the wooden walls. It was Dead Leg, chained up in the galley just along the corridor. When Kal had pulled him out of the water following their leap from the fort, he had momentarily regained his senses, and his humanity. But now the captain had relapsed, and was apparently nothing more than a groaning zombie. Kal had been putting off going to see him; she could hardly bear to see him. Dead Leg had been one of her few real friends among the crew, and she knew that when she did go and visit him, it would most likely be to put him out of his misery.

‘You bring calamity and death. Let us see how many lives you will take …’

Kal shivered despite the hot night. How many of the crew would she lead to her death before she had seen this adventure through? She had never been responsible for anyone’s life before but her own; now every death would be on her head. The Magician’s prophecy was in danger of coming true.

In the bunk in the corner, Lula was sleeping (and snoring) like a baby. Some comfort she was to Kal now. Kal tried to shrug off all gloomy thoughts and went up on deck. The sails were all full—the Reaping Wind was speeding them toward their fate at a rate of knots. The cabin boy was hanging above her like a monkey, drawing in the ropes on the spanker, the aftmost sail.

‘Looking trim, Pip,’ Kal said.

Aye, Captain,’ the youth said. ‘There’s hardly an inch of slack in her lines.’

The ropes were indeed all taut like a cat gut guitar. They hummed with a melancholy lilt as the Reaping Wind plucked them. Kal almost imagined that she could hear a melody in the sound, until she realised that someone was up in the crow’s nest playing an accompaniment on the fiddle. Kal decided to climb up.

She entered the nest via the lubber hole—so named because only non-sailors actually used it. Everyone else would take the scenic route up the futtock shrouds and over the lip. But Kal wasn’t prepared to take
that
many risks to prove she was worthy of being captain.

Doctor Tooth was in the nest, his fiddle jammed under his chin. He stopped playing when he saw Kal, and gave her a warm smile that was free from any animosity.

‘I heard one of the crew call you Sawtooth,’ Kal said. ‘Is that because of the way you play the fiddle?’

The doctor shook his head and patted another instrument at his belt: a surgeon’s bone saw. ‘This beauty produces screams even more discordant than my fiddle,’ he said proudly.

Kal winced and looked out to sea. She could see a faint chain of lights that marked the beacons that ran the length of the reef. An almost constant flickering to the north indicated the position of the Eldragoran Armada blasting their way through.

‘They’re breaking through the narrowest part of the reef,’ the doctor said. ‘But luckily for us, it’s miles from Port Black. We’ll beat them there for sure. The wind is our side; we should make town as dawn breaks. We’re lucky with that, too; without Jako, we need all the help we can get.’

Kal nodded grimly. Jako had been their star navigator, sailor and swordsman. But Kal had accused him of being the Magician’s spy, and he had left them. She wondered where he was now. Would she have to fight her way past those dual scimitars to get to the Magician? Would the person wielding them even be human any more?

‘You’re a doctor,’ Kal said. ‘Do you think there’s any way to cure them once they’ve turned? Dead Leg, Jako … the hundreds of Islanders that the Magician has under his spell?’

The doctor just shrugged. ‘The only cure I know of is amputation of the head.’ He stroked his saw fondly.

Kal sighed. ‘I have to go and see Dead Leg,’ she said. ‘One last time.’

* * *

Kal hung around in the corridor for ten minutes while the doctor and two of the stronger lads went into the galley and made sure it was safe. While she was waiting, Lula passed by. Kal’s friend had finally woken up, and was now looking as fresh as a flower, despite her ordeal on the island. If she had as bad a headache as Kal did, she was hiding it well.

‘Waiting for breakfast?’ Lula said brightly. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a whale.’

‘I’ll bring you something,’ Kal said. ‘Go and check on the crew, Quartermaster. Make sure everyone has weapons. We’re almost there.’ Lula nodded and swaggered off. The doctor and the others reappeared and motioned for Kal to enter the galley.

‘Will you need this?’ the doctor said, offering up his saw.

‘I’m good,’ Kal said. She held up her cleaver. Its blade had remained razor sharp since the day she threw it in her sea chest. The doctor flinched and stepped aside.

The galley was dark, lit by a single swinging lantern that threw moving shadows around the walls, and it smelled of curry and mould. Pots left unwashed since Che had cooked down here lay strewn about. Kal almost jumped out of her skin when the light fell on a gruesome trophy nailed to the wall: Che’s two giant rats that he had caught in the one big trap. The cook had made a bodge job of stuffing and displaying them.

In the corner, Dead Leg moaned.

The
Swordfish’s
ex-captain was hunched over on a stool. Chains secured him to a meat hook on the wall. His wooden leg tapped spasmodically on the floorboards.

Kal cautiously approached. ‘Hey, Dead Leg. It’s me. It’s Kal … Kal Moonheart—’

Dead Leg lifted his head and growled at her. His round face and bald head were ashen grey, his one good eye a milky globe. He rattled his chains violently.

All hope died inside Kal. There was no point in drawing this out any longer. She raised her cleaver and advanced on the sad creature.

‘Let us see how many lives you will take … Ten … Twenty … Twenty-nine!’

Dead Leg suddenly lunged forward and the hook popped out of the wall. Before she knew it, Kal was jammed back against the worktop with Dead Leg’s bulk crushing her ribcage. With one hand, she managed to hold his head away and keep his gnashing, frothing jaws from her neck. Her other hand was free, so she brought the cleaver to the zombie’s neck …

… and then paused.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill him.

‘Lula!’ she screamed. ‘Get in here! Quick!’

* * *

Kal and Lula watched over the hapless crew, who they had herded at the narrow end of the forecastle, while Dogwood searched the bunks. The only person not present was Dead Leg, who was safely chained up again in the galley.

‘Are you sure about this, Kal?’ Lula said. ‘You’re going to look paranoid and weak if you’re wrong.’

‘I’m not wrong,’ Kal said. ‘I could see flecks of it all over Dead Leg’s clothes.’

As if to confirm her words, Dogwood gave a grunt of satisfaction, and came out from under one of the bunks clutching a small package. He tossed it to Kal. She unwrapped it in full view of the crew; it was Sirensbane, of course. Someone had been drip-feeding it to Dead Leg, keeping him in his zombified state.

‘Whose bunk is that?’ Kal asked in a low, dangerous voice.

It turned out to be the doctor’s. Kal shook her head in furious disappointment. ‘What are we going to do with you, Sawtooth?’ she said. ‘Maybe if you want the treasure all for yourself so bad, we should tie you to a gold bar and throw you overboard.’

‘Hang him!’ Dogwood said with a grin.

The doctor was as white as a sheet, and looked resigned to his fate. And Kal was resigned to hers, too: a fate that had decreed that she would take someone’s life tonight.

‘Lu,’ she said. ‘Fetch the rope again.’

* * *

They gathered once more on deck under the mainmast. While the doctor stood with Lula, who had even made him hold the coil of rope, Kal addressed the crew.

‘All your past crimes and transgressions were wiped clean the moment you pledged yourself to me,’ she reminded them. ‘But I’m going to show you now that there
will
be discipline and justice aboard the
Swordfish
.’

‘We’re all dead anyway,’ the doctor said in a quiet voice. ‘Whether by your hand, or the Magician’s, we’re all going to be lying in Whalo’s arms at the bottom of the sea before this business is over.’

Kal let the doctor’s words hang in the air for several silent moments, before she revealed her course of action. ‘Hanging is too good for you, Sawtooth,’ she said. ‘Wait here.’

She left them in suspense and returned to her cabin. When she came back, she brought with her an item that Dead Leg had once fondly referred to as the
ship’s pussy
: a leather baton that sprouted nine three-foot-long thongs of knotted corded cotton.

‘Lula,’ she said to her quartermaster. ‘I think it’s time the doctor puckered up and kissed the wooden lady.’

The rest of the crew let out a nervous laugh at this expression. The doctor was stripped to the waist, turned to face the mast and made to hug it. Lula tied his hands with the rope. He squeezed his eyes shut as everyone stepped clear, and Kal shook loose the cat.

‘You’re going to get through this, Doctor,’ Kal said, ‘because we still
need
good men like you in our crew. Everyone here is too valuable to lose. You’ll get your treasure eventually, but you’ll always have these scars to remind you what you risked to get it.’

The cat made a soft whipping sound as it fell, but the doctor’s screams split the predawn sky.

Kal worked in silence, but inside a part of her was also screaming at what she had to do.

IV.iv

Hempen Halter

The
Swordfish
blew into Port Black on the westerly wind just as the sun started to rise over the Purple Mountain. The town was still in darkness, and it was quiet, like it always was in the mornings. But it was not unguarded …

A new ship lurked in the middle of the bay: an enormous galleon. It was the kind of ship that in years gone by might have formed part of the Republic or Eldragoran treasure fleet: a slow, hulking container ship that hauled plundered gold and artefacts from one end of the world to the other. No sooner had Kal noted the newcomer than a puff of smoke signalled the imminent arrival of a cannonball.

‘Incoming!’ Dogwood yelled as the shot hurtled towards them. But he needn’t have worried: it plopped into the water a good fifty yards off their larboard bow.

Lula had a telescope trained on the galleon. ‘That had to be a warning shot,’ she said. ‘Nobody shoots that poorly. The ship is in bad shape too; it looks like a patched up wreck. There are no lanterns on board even—how are they running the guns in the dark? … Wait a minute!’

‘What?’ Kal said, joining Lula at the rail.

‘Zombies,’ she said. ‘That ship has a zombie crew.’

Kal let out a harsh laugh.
This was the state of the Magician’s defences?
Kal’s confidence surged. Now that they were finally free of the curse themselves, the Magician had no power over them. His threats were all illusion, and his army was a shambling mess. The powerful and mysterious sorcerer was, to Kal, now simply a petty crook and a trickster. Taking him down would be a quick and easy pleasure.

‘Lu,’ she said. ‘Help me at the tiller.’

Together they tackled the heavy wooden arm, and the
Swordfish
elegantly fishtailed between the galleon’s subsequent shots, which fell on either side and behind the playful schooner. The
Swordfish
slipped into the centre of a group of closely-moored brigs and let out the anchor lines. Kal wasted no time in dispensing orders:

‘Take up all the canvas, lower the flag and strike the figurehead. I want to see bare poles before the sun comes up. We want to look liked we’ve been moored here all night. This ship isn’t the
Swordfish
any more. We’re all going ashore separately, and nobody’s to let on that we’re back in town. I want to surprise the Magician if I can.’