Chapter 19
A Pivotal Parlay
T am stood at the bow of the ship, the sea breeze cool when it brushed along the back of his bare neck, a sensation he was still getting used to after cutting his hair. His hands were tucked into his pockets, and he leaned against the railing, feigning a casual air as the Zinferan pirate captain strutted the rest of the way over to him.
“Good evening, sir,” the pirate called out in mocking tones. “I am Captain Kwon.” He tilted his head, a smug smile on his face, revealing a gold eyetooth that glinted in the lantern light.
“I am Mr. Voll. I’m a scholar who is hoping to revive the study of astrology in Daxaria. I was hoping I might persuade you that there is nothing of value on this ship aside from the men.” Tam bowed his head.
Captain Kwon ran his tongue over his golden tooth, the short goatee around his mouth shifting in the light to reveal that the hairs were spackled with white.
“That might be believable if you weren’t looking so…” He eyed Tam up and down. “Calm. Or if the Gondol harbormaster had received notice of your arrival.”
“We aren’t going to Gondol. We’re sailing around the south of Zinfera and docking in Junya. As the oldest city in Zinfera, it is more likely to have ancient texts on the constellations.” Tam lied easily about their destination while mixing in a bit of truth about the city. “And I’m not overly worried because, as I said, there isn’t really anything here to steal.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. This is a fine boat.” Captain Kwon looked around with an appraising eye.
“You’d spread your crew thin sailing two ships,” Tam stated bluntly.
Captain Kwon’s slanted eyes drifted back to Tam, and after a moment of silent evaluation, he scoffed. “See, there’s that superior attitude that tells me you aren’t just some scholar, and I don’t like being lied to in my waters. Now, how about you let me know who you really are, or—”
The pirate pulled his sword, and Tam could tell by the way he gracefully angled his feet that he was damn good at using it.
“—I’ll kill everyone on this ship and take whatever I find. It won’t be hard to steer a ship to Ori and sell it off anyway. People aren’t asking a lot of questions since the creature has been lurking around.”
“Creature?” Tam frowned.
Captain Kwon began stretching the wrist of his sword hand, making the blade lazily weave closer to Tam.
“Ah, you haven’t heard about ships disappearing around Zinfera? Gone without a trace. No survivors. The only reason anyone knows the disappearances aren’t due to liberal sailors such as ourselves, is that a young deckhand happened to see it one day from a merchant ship. After he alerted his captain, well… Every spyglass was spoken for.”
Tam felt his heart skip several beats. “What did it—”
With a quick jolt, Captain Kwon’s sword tip dove forward, stopping abruptly an inch from Tam’s left eye.
Tam had seized the rail behind him, prepared to launch himself off the back. His magic surged in his being and felt like it was trying to tear his skin away from his muscles.
The captain smirked, and he’d just opened his mouth, undoubtedly to make a sarcastic, heartless retort, when a flicker by the lantern to Tam’s right drew his attention. When his eyes swiveled to it, he discovered black wisps streaked with silver in the light, fluttering from Tam’s skin.
“What—”
It was Tam’s turn to interrupt Captain Kwon. His left forearm came up in a flash while the captain was distracted, knocking the blade aside. Before the pirate could recover, Tam had shot his heel into the man’s lean gut.
There were shouts from the pirate ship, and boots pounded on its deck like a coming storm… But the captain held up his hand to halt the ruckus and slowly rose to stand straight once more, his eyes intent on Tam. “You aren’t a normal human, are you?”
Tam’s magic was making his brain feel like it was crawling with ants. “You should go back to your ship and say there is nothing of value here.” The future duke’s voice came out a rasp. He didn’t dare move.
The power was leaking from him against his will.
The pirate captain tried to smile with his former bravado but failed horribly. The grip on his sword turned unsteady. “I’m not leaving until I get something of value from this ship.”
Tam locked eyes with the captain. “You don’t value your own life?”
He paled. “This Daxarian crew can’t hold up against—”
“I don’t need the crew to deal with you.” Tam knew it was dangerous to take a step closer to the captain. Knew he was hanging on to his magic by a thread… but he needed to wrap things up quickly. He needed to go to a small, safe room and get his magic to stop trying to consume him and everything around him.
The captain made the grave error then of interpreting Tam’s desperate gaze to mean that he actually had the upper hand.
Unbeknownst to Captain Kwon, over his shoulder, Tam had noticed someone emerging from belowdecks…
Luca.
Eli was scrambling up behind him.
The boy must have thought he could help. He had probably heard the earlier commotion on the boat beside them and thought the fighting had started.
The five men whom the pirate captain had boarded with all turned to Luca and Eli, raising their swords.
Tam’s control dissolved.
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“Men!” the pirate captain roared, intending to follow up the call with orders… until he discovered that his sword was on the ground. He could only watch as Tam, eyes filled with obsidian black, and silver smoky tendrils fanned out from his body, seemed to wipe away the world around him with darkness. How had he moved so quickly…?
Captain Kwon soiled himself, and then he was thrown overboard before he could even process what was happening.
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Tam swallowed with difficulty, still battling against the power that was spilling over.
The pendant underneath his shirt glowed when he started to utter guttural words and turned toward the stairs to the main deck where five of the captain’s men waited. He pulled out his two knives from behind him, murmuring under his breath, making the glowing crystal under his shirt gleam brighter and brighter.
By the time the pirates had reached his deck, Tam had successfully battled back the darkness that poured from him. Yet when he fixed his attention on the first two pirates, their murderous expressions turned fearful.
He approached, fluidly flipping a blade in his hand. They tried to lunge at him but found they were too slow, and quickly they, too, joined their captain in the cold waters of the Alcide Sea—alive, thankfully.
The next two happened to be more seasoned. When Tam’s gaze turned toward them climbing the stairs, they were taken aback but recovered in an instant.
Sheathing his blades once more, Tam gripped either side of the railing at the top of the stairs and swung his legs up. When the pirate in front tried to slice one leg off just below the knee, Tam kicked his blade aside with his left boot heel and smashed the man’s chin with his right, sending him tumbling back into his fellow pirate.
Tam glanced over to where he had last seen Eli and Luca and was relieved to see that his assistant had somehow managed to shove Luca back belowdecks. But then Tam saw Eli staring up at a pirate who easily had a hundred-pound advantage on her. Tam leapt over the pirates that were still recovering at the bottom of the stairs and sprinted toward her.
But he couldn’t reach Eli before more of the pirates had stormed the gangplank. Luckily, some of the crew on Tam’s ship had sprung into action. But unluckily, it had become clear to the pirates that Tam was the biggest threat.
Three of them appeared in front of Tam. Faced with three obstacles with poor hygiene blocking him from Eli, he withdrew one of his blades again. He wanted to avoid killing as much as possible…
“Gods… it’s the devil…” one of the pirates in front of him gasped while his two accomplices shared nervous glances.
“Get off this ship.” Tam couldn’t tell what he looked like in that moment, but if pirates were calling him the devil, there was a chance he could get them to flee without having to fight them.
Sadly, the seasoned sea dogs were determined to uphold their dignity as pirates, and so with gritted teeth, they lunged toward Tam with their curved swords.
Luckily for Tam, neither of them was quite as skilled as their captain. He was able to step out of their reach, his eyes darting to Eli just in time to see her duck out of the path of a pirate’s sword, followed by Captain Pinnel’s arrival to save her.
However the time it took Tam to see this had distracted him, and he failed to dodge a slash toward his middle. He felt the awful, stinging pain of a slice across his abdomen.
Stumbling back, his free hand seizing his wounded gut, Tam saw the sword swinging back toward him a second time, but was able to avoid it and plunge his knife into his assailant’s kidney.
The pirate crumpled onto his side, taking Tam’s blade with him, and giving the two other pirate crew members a better opportunity to strike him.
Fortunately, Tam had been trained for just such circumstances. He lowered his head, leapt over the body of the man he had just stabbed, and rammed his shoulder into the nearest pirate, toppling the two together much as he had the men on the stairs.
By now Declan had appeared and was able to give the killing blow to the pirate that had fallen. But the one Tam had shouldered had already recovered; he now drew a knife from his boot, shot upward, and thrust the blade toward Tam’s throat.
Seeing this, Tam seized the pirate’s arm with his left hand then elbowed back with his right, breaking the pirate’s nose.
Declan ran the final man through right in time for them to hear shouts from the pirate ship beside them that they were already steering away from.
“WE’RE TAKING ON WATER!”
Tam released a breath of relief when he saw that the pirate ship had already moved far enough away that no one could jump or throw hooks to reach them. After a quick scan around himself, he realized that all the other pirates aboard had been dispatched by the crew, though there was a Daxarian man Tam had seen managing the sails of his own ship who was lying quite still near the railing where the gangplank was…
Closing his eyes in both pain and dismay, the future duke tried to steady the world around him as it began to spin.
Then it occurred to him that the first mate wasn’t saying anything despite his passenger being quite obviously injured. Opening his eyes again, Tam squinted at Declan, who flinched in response.
If he hadn’t been focused on the throbbing pain radiating from his middle, Tam would’ve felt his stomach churn at the fear in the man’s eyes.
He decided that was something he could worry about later. With a nod of wary thanks to the first mate, Tam took shuffling steps toward the stairs that would take him belowdecks. He wanted to check on Eli and Luca, and then maybe see about stitching his wound.
The stickiness of his blood and its metallic smell grew stronger in Tam’s nose, and while it was far from his favorite scent, he was at least somewhat used to it. With a shaking right hand, he seized the railing and started to descend.
“My lord! My lord, I brought bandages, a needle, and thread! I put Luca back in your cabin—I’m so sorry he came abovedeck, he heard the commotion and got worried about you and—” Eli had rushed up the stairs to his side, but when she noticed the blood staining his shirt she abruptly stopped talking.
Tam halted on the second step and leaned his head against the wooden wall. He shook his head slowly, then immediately regretted it as nausea began to build.
“Not… your fault… You’re fine? He’s fine?”
“Yes, my lord,” Eli assured him with a firm nod, though she was looking a mite shaken.
“Good… Good. Let’s go to your cabin. I don’t want Luca seeing this…” Tam swallowed and then resumed his journey back down the stairs, wondering if he was going to vomit or faint first.
“My lord, I… Luca did not see it, but I… I saw something when you faced the captain… It was like everything around you and him went black. Was that—”
“I don’t ask about your magic, you don’t ask about mine,” Tam managed as he touched down on the corridor that would take him to Eli’s cabin.
“I-I wasn’t sure if it was your magic. My apologies, my lord… I was confused. Especially when it seemed like that necklace you’re wearing was glowing like a mage crystal.”
Tam halted and looked at Eli.
Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch.
“If we’re asking questions now, does your magic somehow make you lighter on your feet?”
Eli pressed her lips shut, and Tam, having expected this reaction, proceeded forward to her cabin. He just wanted to get the pain of stitches over with so he could go to bed. Hopefully, he’d have some time tomorrow to rest and think about tonight’s events.
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Unbeknownst to Tam, the surviving pirate crew and even the men of the vessel he rode were all busy discussing his mysterious dark power, and how it must mean that he had to be none other than the devil, son of the Gods, creator of evil. The Daxarian crew sailing with Tam wouldn’t dream of asking if this assumption were true or not, and so all decided to give the nobleman a wide berth for the rest of their journey to Zinfera.