Майкл Салливан - Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

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4,300 words

I STOOD AT the prow of the Carrion Crow , where moonlit fog swallowed every noise save the creak of our rigging and the slap of waves against our hull. Years of planning would fall into place this night, and I found myself gripping the rail in anticipation. My efforts to spot Lord Buckworth’s merchant fleet were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of someone trying to tiptoe up behind me on a peg leg.

“Blackheart,” whispered a voice, rough as a flogging scar. My given name is Archibald, but I don’t suppose a shipload of cutthroats would respect me if I copped to a foppish name like that, do you?

I turned to see Dead Arm Joe, a wild-haired bear of a man. He stood with three more of the crew, each brandishing an axe or machete and nervously looking about in a different direction. It took quite a bit of head swiveling for them to survey the entire ship as they only had six remaining eyeballs between the four of them.

“It’s time to relieve Captain Cross of his duty. Permanently,” Dead Arm said.

“I reckon the captain knows what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s been stealing the magic out from under noble houses since you and me were small lads.”

“The raid’s too dangerous,” said Isabelle the Scarless. “This is the one that’ll get us all caught or killed, you mark me.”

Aboard any reputable sea vessel, a mangled body part was sure to result in a nickname. But the crew of the Carrion Crow had seen enough hostile swordplay that it was the bits that were still attached that stood out as odd. This is how the Portuguese lass standing beside Dead Arm came to be called Isabelle the Scarless, the Irish bloke next to her became known as Thirty Tooth Thomas, and with them, the new recruit out of Morocco who’d been somewhat jealously nicknamed Two Ears.

Over Dead Arm Joe’s shoulder, I made out the shape of the Flower of the Indus , the flagship in Lord Buckworth’s fleet. She was double our length, armed to the gizzard, and most of her four hundred crewmen still had all their body parts. We’d smeared just enough white paint across the top rail of our man-of-war to pass as one of the merchant fleet, so long as the fog held up. And we kept a healthy distance. And the Flower ’s night-watch crew were a bit drunk.

“The storm magic that’s locked away in the vault of the Flower will make us the most fearsome ship on all the seas,” I said. “Right now, while she’s rounding the cape, that’s our only chance to get her.”

“This one’s suicide, I tell you,” Thomas said, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the Flower of the Indus . Or rather, tried to, before remembering he no longer had a thumb on that hand. “Captain said himself it’s all or nothing—once they’re onto us, our only means of escape is to bring storms down on them other ships. We don’t make it into the Flower ’s vault and snatch Lord Buckworth’s magic, we’re good as caught—it’ll be prison for the lot of us. Those that’s still alive, that is.”

“The time for mutiny is now, while he’s distracted,” Dead Arm said.

Cross would eventually get us killed, true enough, and there’d be no better time than now to catch him off his guard. But I had to ensure this mutiny’s failure. I could no longer suffer my family name laying in tattered ruins, and its restoration depended on tonight’s plan succeeding.

“Right,” I said. “He’s in the armory, aye? Can’t risk his guards sneaking up behind us till we know which side they’ll choose.”

Dead Arm nodded. “We approach from both directions.”

“It’ll only take two to clear the back stairs.” I looked at Dead Arm with all the earnestness I could muster. “Be an honor if you’d let me do it with you, my new captain.”

A smirk broke out across Dead Arm’s face. Without another word we dashed on quiet feet—and pegs—to the rear stairs as Isabelle led the other two down the front. The guards hardly had time to look up before I clubbed the first on the crown of his head. Dead Arm could have used the blunt end of his axe, but chose instead to put his blade in the other guard’s chest.

Dead Arm started to run off, but I stopped him with a cry of “Oh no!”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“You killed Crusty Pete,” I said.

“Did I?”

“Yeah. All the lads loved him.”

“Did they? Well, too bad for Pete, he was in my way.”

“You’re going to have a hard time getting the crew’s loyalty if they know you killed Crusty Pete. Better dump his body overboard.”

Dead Arm hesitated, looking back and forth between Pete and the direction of the armory.

“Quickly,” I said. “Don’t want them to start the mutiny without us, do you? Here, let me hold your axe.”

Dead Arm dragged Pete’s body up the stairs by its armpits and hefted him onto the gunwale. With one hard shove, Pete’s body went overboard. And with one firm push of my boot against his backside, Dead Arm went with him. The two splashed into the waves below, soon followed by a furious cry of “Blackheart!”

I leaned over the side to watch Dead Arm float away behind us. “Actually, my name is Archibald,” I called out in a stage whisper.

“You son of a—!”

“But you have to promise never to tell anyone.”

By the time I reached the armory, Isabelle and the other two mutineers had Captain Cross cornered at the points of their machetes. In the dim lamplight, I could just make out two dozen sailors watching the standoff and waiting to see how things would go before committing to a side. The hulking form of Double Eyeball Bill, Cross’s bodyguard, lay sprawled across the floorboards, groaning, a bloody hand over the left half of his face. It was clear that Double Eyeball would not be doing any more bodyguarding tonight. And that he would be needing a new nickname.

Unarmed, outnumbered three to one, and thin as an eel’s skeleton, still Cross had no intention of going down without a fight. He swung his gaze back and forth between the mutineers, as if trying to decide which to kill first. Each sharp turn of his head whipped his grey curls and jangled the mess of brass keys threaded onto his hoop earring. Cross’s eyes tightened and his face scrunched. Or perhaps it unscrunched. The old man was such a mess of wrinkles and scars it was impossible to know the difference. In any case, the bits that made up his face rearranged themselves in a rather affronted sort of way.

“So it’s mutiny, then, is it?” Cross snarled. “The lure of my magic bounty finally became too much for you traitorous lot, and you’ve come to steal it right out from under me, eh?”

“You mean the magics you snatched from all them noble houses,” Thomas said. “How’s us nicking it from you any different than you nicking it from them?”

“I was doing them a favor,” Cross said, as if truly offended at the accusation. “They’d grown dependent upon their magic to maintain their fortunes. Landing in the slums with the common folk forced their children to grow up tough and resourceful.”

“What are we blithering about for?” Two Ears asked. “Any second now Buckworth’s fleet will spot us.”

“Right you are,” Isabelle said. “Let’s get on with it, then.” Isabelle started forward, then paused, glancing back over her shoulder with a confused look. She caught my eye and in an unsure voice asked, “Where’s Dead Arm?”

“I took his axe and kicked him overboard,” I said. While the three mutineers stood with mouths agape, I strode forward and pushed Isabelle against the wall, putting the axe blade to her throat.