Chapter Three
PEDR
Lubba and his crew didn’t have time to notice Pedr swimming away using his fastest breaststroke.
They were too busy running around, half-drunk, tripping over each other, and shouting about holes in the ship.
Cannon fire thundered in the background, and crew members poured out of the hatches, bubbling onto the deck with fisted hands and belligerent bellows.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The frigate fired six cannons in sixty seconds. Determined bastids. Pedr cut his stroke away from Lubba, and angled north. The frigate attacked from due west. Though the cooling water was a balm on his burned skin, the shattering destruction of Lubba’s vessel was a bigger balm to his soul.
After several minutes, Pedr paused and swirled around.
The frigate had slowed her course. Men scrambled around her sails, the deck, calling orders in controlled chaos.
Cannons continued to shatter Lubba’s pathetic home.
There was an odd sense of satisfaction watching that horrid beast splinter and crew members flail in the water, dodging away from falling timbers and shuddering sails.
Reality returned too quickly.
“Shite,” he muttered. This had been stupid.
Stupider, actually, than letting Lubba destroy his yawl.
Though not as stupid as staying onboard a doomed ship.
Pedr wouldn’t last long on the wide sea, but death by cannon would have been far faster.
Recollections of his siblings anchored him in the moment.
Britt and Malcolm needed him, so he couldn’t give up yet.
They had enough family dying by the sea in recent months.
“I need help,” he muttered.
No matter where he scanned, no refuge appeared. No other vessels—of course not—and how would he catch their attention if they did?
Help, he thought. I need help.
The silent plea didn’t last long, because his predicament lay bare and little choice remained: he’d have to take his chances with the frigate. If they didn’t shoot him with a revolver, and brought him on board and believed his wild story, General Helsing might speak for him.
Might.
His hope wasn’t strong.
The words I need help looped into a refrain he chanted while swimming, defining his tempo as he cut away from Lubba’s dwindling ship. There was a decent distance to cross, but the swim was welcome, despite his long-empty stomach.
Only a few minutes later, a glimmer of reflected light caught Pedr’s eye.
He paused, whipping strands of long red hair out of his eyes.
A third ship sailed directly east of him.
Brigantine, he guessed once he studied the sails.
A figure stood at the bow and stared right at Pedr. Based on the fluffy white hair and beard, he was an old man.
He held a mirror, manipulating the light to catch Pedr’s eye.
Aghast, Pedr could only stare.
But . . . how?
He’d just studied that direction. It had been positively empty.
The old man signaled again. Pedr lifted a hand to acknowledge him, and the stranger straightened.
Pedr glanced over his shoulder. Thanks to strong currents, he couldn’t see the mainland frigate all that well—little remained of Lubba’s vessel except waving arms and sobs for mercy—so neither seemed to notice the refracting light.
Pedr had been swimming west toward the mainland frigate.
So how had he swung so far to the east? He stopped pondering.
A potent mixture of curiosity and desperation propelled him toward the mysterious brig.
He swam without asking too much of himself, because his body already felt weak.
Not enough to eat, nor enough sleep, for weeks.
But the splash of the ocean across his body was invigorating, and the scent of sea in his nostrils a boon.
He dove into the waves and hoped he wasn’t hallucinating.
To his greatest surprise, the brig didn’t move. At all.
No drift.
No wheeling.
She faced east with the steadiness of a beached vessel, which was impossible. There were no islands here. While Pedr continued his steady strokes through increasingly choppy waves, destruction and annihilation continued behind him. Dying screams withered their farewells, steadily decreasing.
Good riddance, he thought. Lubba had been caught with his pants around his ankles and swam with the fish chum Pedr had just cleaned off his decks, a fitting place for the bastid.
The sun lowered beneath the horizon as Pedr closed the distance. The wizened sailor stood with his arms casually folded on the railing, tufts of cottony beard floating in the breeze. He sucked on his front teeth, kicked something with his foot. A rope shot off the deck and zipped to the water.
He called, “I heard you needed help.”
Pedr hesitated at the bottom of a hastily-constructed rope ladder. He gripped it in one fist, the rough fibers scratching his palm.
“I do. Thank you. Can I come aboard?”
“Looking forward to it.”
The man disappeared.
Seawater gushed onto the deck as Pedr stepped off the rope and onto the sun-warmed boards. The Captain retreated to the wheel while Pedr swiped the hair out of his eyes.
“Thanks.”
The old man studied him from crown to toe. Interest made his eyes brighten. Pedr recognized a wise seaman when he met one.
“You’re Pedr.”
Pedr’s voice pitched higher with surprise. “Do I know you?”
“No. My name is Havard.”
“Then how?—”
“The sea. Pedr what?”
“The sea?”
“The sea!” Havard cried. “It knows you. Knew you the moment you swam. It’s why I appeared, naturally.” He waved toward the remaining survivors of Lubba’s crew and the retreating patroller. “They can’t see us, by the way. What’s your last name?”
Blinking away the confusion Havard inspired—what did he mean, the sea knew Pedr? And how didn’t the patroller see them?—he asked, “Does my last name matter?”
“Sometimes.”
He shrugged. “Not to me.”
The Captain returned the gesture. “Fine.”
“Thanks for the ride, Havard.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You won’t be enslaved here.” He stopped, face screwed up, and added, “Not to me, but you gotta work. I’ll feed you, but there isn’t much.”
Pedr’s cold, hungry, tired mind stumbled over not to me but couldn’t make sense of it. He didn’t lay at the bottom of the sea, so this situation had to be a little better.
“I’m willing to work.”
Havard laughed. A rangy, high sound that left everything to implication. Pedr felt as if he’d missed a step while walking downhill.
An explosion broke in the distance. On instinct, Pedr jolted, then dropped to the deck.
Havard howled with amusement. Peering over the top of the gunwale, Pedr caught a fireball belching from the spot where Lubba’s ship once occupied.
Timber and bodies sprayed outward in a star.
The burgeoning crimson-and-orange ball expanded wide before curling higher in a mushroom of black smoke.
Pedr’s jaw dropped.
“Shite.”
The old man stood, shaking a long finger.
“Now that is what I would call a close call. Did that fool store gunpowder? Well, I can hear the frigate cheering, so at least there’s a winner somewhere. Here.” A towel hit Pedr in the face. “Dry yourself off. What kind of pirate are you, anyway?”
Pedr scoffed as he opened the clumped fabric and scrubbed it down his arms. A cool breeze trickled past, rattling the sails and further chilling his cool skin.
“I’m not a pirate.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Well they are liars. I’m not a pirate.” Pedr motioned with a wave of his hand across the water. “They are the pirates.”
“You look like a pirate.”
Hiding his irritation, Pedr said, “Does that make me one?”
“Could be,” he reasoned. “Call yourself something like Burning Beard with fiery hair like that. Has a nice ring, don’t you think?”
Pedr hid his eye roll. Everyone on the sea had an opinion.
Even kooky old men that enjoyed watching the slow destruction of another vessel.
The lowering sun robbed daylight, leaving a dusky twilight over the ocean.
This was Pedr’s favorite time of day, particularly with servitude and Lubba far behind him.
“Sure,” he said, adding, “except I’m not a pirate.”
The old man seemed to consider this. He rubbed a hand along his chin, muttered, “Yes, it seems you aren’t,” and continued to watch Lubba’s dwindling destruction.
Screams had ebbed entirely. The mainland frigate crept closer, approaching what was left.
The wooden shrapnel raced far and wide across the waters.
It smoldered a smoky death beacon in the sky.
Minutes later, the frigate, having lost interest, pirouetted her massive frame toward the south.
His back prickling—probably from the sunburn and salt water combination—Pedr shifted uncomfortably. Unable to help himself, he burst out with, “Can we go? I don’t want the frigate to swing over here.”
“Nah.”
“But—“
“They can’t see us.”
“Sorry?”
“Already told you when you came up—they can’t see us.
” Havard pointed to the ocean cemetery littered with ship shrapnel and burning wood.
“You know, at least those idjits experienced a burial at sea. Better than what most can boast.” He slapped a hand on the wheel.
“But you received help, as requested, and here we are.”
As requested? Pedr almost asked, but didn’t dare. This entire strange day began to take its toll. He didn’t know what was going on, and he’d be a bastid to ask. The old man had saved him, so Pedr could at least help out.
“You believe me?” he asked.
The old man guffawed. “It does.”
“It?”
“The sea.”
“The sea believes me?”
“Yes,” Havard snapped, instantly crotchety. “And it’s the best judge of character I’ve ever met, so it doesn’t matter what I say. Himmel isn’t a bad judge either. She observes a lot. Still!”