Pirate Wars (16 page)

“Perhaps not. But perhaps yes.”

Kangusta was silent for a moment. “You are brave, little animal.”

Jolly sighed. “Actually, I’m scared to death of you, of the Maelstrom, and of this whole horrible place down here.”

This time Kangusta’s rumbling sounded almost like
human laughter. “Well, little animal, you can stop being afraid of Kangusta. If it succeeds, there will be no more war between you and the deep tribes. So shall it be.”

Jolly heaved a sigh of relief. The warm water of this cave streamed through her lungs, and for a moment it made her feel almost comfortable.

“Go now,” said Kangusta. “I will describe to you the way by which they bring me prey.” She was quiet for a moment, as her giant mouth opened and closed with a smack. “Hurry. I taste mischief in the water.”

“The fish rain
has stopped,” announced the Ghost Trader as he looked down at the shore from the library balcony. Forefather’s eyes were no longer the best, and the Trader had to describe for him what was going on. “The kobalins have withdrawn into the water. But that won’t help us. Tyrone’s fleet is placing the city under fire.”

Cannon thunder rolled up from the sea. The smoke of the guns mixed with the black smoke from the ruins on the bank. The eyes of both the men on the balcony were burning. Forefather’s were red and teary. His appearance made the Ghost Trader aware once again of how human his colleague had grown over all the eons.

They withdrew together to the interior of one of the book rooms, closing the door to the outside behind them. The rumbling of the guns was dulled, but the sharp smell of
the battle had long since filled even the library’s high-ceilinged halls.

“Is it possible that’s the only point for the Maelstrom?” asked the Trader, while his black parrots settled on piles of books to the right and left of him. “Does he intend to drive us into a corner so that we ourselves take the last step?”

“Not we, my friend. Only you have the power to do that. Mine is long gone. But in you there’s still enough left of what we once were.” Forefather laughed softly and sadly. “In comparison to me, you’re young.”

“You could have remained so yourself, if you hadn’t preferred to hole up in this place. The humans in the outside world have almost forgotten you. They revere something that they call god, but they don’t even give him a name anymore. If you’d stayed with them and shown them…then perhaps you’d still have all your powers.”

“I didn’t want that anymore, you know that. In those days, after the destruction of the first sea star city…ah, sometimes I’d be glad if the memory had deserted me along with my powers.”

The Ghost Trader supported himself on a tower of leather-bound folios. “If I do what you wish, it will bring the Maelstrom even closer to his goal.”

“He has only the mind of a little girl, my friend, don’t forget that. It’s the hate of a child that drives him. I’d call it spite if there weren’t so much riding on it. You’re the only one who still has the power to stop him.”

“You’re asking me to let the spirits of the other gods come
to life again. But they wouldn’t obey me for long,” said the Ghost Trader. “They’re not like men, whose souls I can call out of the depths as I will. They’re gods! They’re like
us
!”

Forefather’s bony fingers clenched his stick. “Nevertheless, they will decide the battle for us! Ah, if I could only do it myself…”

The Ghost Trader walked over to the old man, with a gentle smile now, and took his hand. “You’ve used your power for better things, my friend. You have created an entire world.”

“And now shall I watch while the anger of a single girl destroys it? Tell me, is that really
godlike
?”

“Aina has not been a girl for a long time. The masters of the Mare Tenebrosum have made her into the Maelstrom, and she has been that for thousands of years.”

“But she still acts like a child. At first she felt she was betrayed by humans who drove her out because of her abilities. They didn’t know any better. And today she feels deceived by the masters of the Mare because they didn’t stand by her when the first polliwogs defeated her.” Forefather let out a despairing sigh. “She can’t annihilate the Mare Tenebrosum, but she can destroy what the masters want most ardently for their own: my creation. This world! Aina will reduce it to ashes, and all because a few stiff-necked humans threw her out of her village and she got mixed up with powers that were too great for her.”

The Trader nodded thoughtfully. “She will annihilate us.”

“If you do not stop her.” Forefather groaned and, supported by his stick, began to hobble back and forth in the
pathways between the walls of books. “We’ve been going in circles for days now.” He stopped, and his eyes met the gaze of the Trader. “We’ve become like her, don’t you see that? We argue like two children who never tire of pulling on two ends of a rope, back and forth.” Shaking his head, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Back and forth, over and over.”

The Ghost Trader pulled his silver ring out of his dark robe. Gently he stroked the cool metal. “I could waken the gods,” he said. “I could throw them against Tyrone and his vassals. Even against the Maelstrom himself. But who would direct them back into the shadows after their victory? I’m not capable of that. The powers that I awaken would be too great for me. They would fall upon each other, and what was left of the world would be torn to pieces—for hate of the creatures by whom they were forgotten in earlier times, or simply because it pleased them to.” The Trader let himself sink wearily against the edge of a table and propped himself on it with both hands. “Whichever way we choose, both lead to destruction.”

“But they are gods!” contradicted Forefather. “They have the right to destroy. The Maelstrom does not have it. He is only…a sport of nature. A running sore that we have the spinners to thank for.”

“The spinners?” The Trader’s voice grew sharper. “They were created by this world, without your help. They don’t need human belief in them, because the world itself believes in them, every stone and every blade of grass. That is why you scorn them.”

“They are—”

The Trader took a step toward Forefather, his eye appearing to blaze. “When the Mare Tenebrosum stirred the first time, the spinners only did what appeared right to them in view of the danger. They created the polliwogs, in order to fend off the masters of the Mare. Do you intend to blame them for that?”

“Nevertheless, Aina was the first of these polliwogs, and she has become the Maelstrom! Perhaps the greatest failure the world has ever seen.”

“But it was the failure of humans, not of the spinners. You do the three a disservice, my friend. They tried to protect the world.”

Forefather lowered his eyes. “Because he who created the world could not protect it,” he said guiltily.

Side by side, Soledad, Walker, and Buenaventure hastened over the coral bridges and stepped streets of the devastated city. They’d joined a troop of guardsmen who were supposed to scout out the fighting morale of the cannibal king’s army. How hard had the long sea battle hit them? What sort of cooperation was there within this army of native tribal fighters thrown together with the scum of the Old World?

In the meantime, the cannibals’ fleet had stopped firing on the city, likely because the ships’ cannons couldn’t angle wide enough to hit the targets that lay higher up Aelenium’s steep cliffs. All the balls had reached only the already destroyed shores.

The reconnaissance patrol made its way downward, and the lower they went, the thicker grew the smoke of the smoldering fires. Soon they came to the first ruins. In many of the houses and villas, only the walls were left, reaching skyward like blackened rib cages.

None of them said a word, and it wasn’t the fire and smoke alone that made them speechless. Soledad had taken part in many battles at sea, but only rarely did one see more than a few dead in the water; often the dead adversaries went down along with their ships. But walking through a city that had turned into a giant battlefield was like a nightmare.

She cast a side glance at Walker and was surprised to discover how much the sight of all the destruction also affected him. Wordlessly she took his hand as they walked.

“Look!”

The cry startled them. They stopped. One of the soldiers had run to a coral railing that bordered a small plaza to the south. From there a smoke-veiled view opened out over the waterfront. Soledad and the others hurried to his side.

On the embankment of the sea star arms, the first attackers were just jumping onto land from their rowboats with wild war shouts and storming in disorder into the openings to side streets.

One of the guardsmen, a man with a white, neatly cropped beard, now sprinkled with kobalin blood, made a disgusted face. “Pirates and savages aren’t even soldiers. They only understand plundering, not how to fight a war.”

Walker was about to contradict him energetically, but he noticed that neither Soledad nor Buenaventure were protesting.

“Is that an advantage for us?” asked Soledad.

The soldier shook his head. “With so many of the enemy? Before the first ones get to the wall, the streets will be swarming with them. They’ll probably just continue there where the kobalins left off.”

Buenaventure growled agreement. “They’re going to overrun us.”

Soledad massaged her wrist thoughtfully. “Well, scarcely. Tyrone must have had around two hundred ships. I can see no more than half of that.”

“A quarter, at most,” said Walker. “Provided there aren’t more waiting out there in the fog.”

“I don’t believe that. Tyrone will throw everything he has left into battle.” Soledad smiled coldly. “The Antilles captains took care of him quite nicely.”

The white-bearded soldier spoke up impatiently. “That’s all well and good, but the fact remains that they far outnumber us. I suggest we go back to the wall. Soon they’re going to need every man there. And,” he added, with the suggestion of a formal nod in Soledad’s direction, “every woman.”

“You go ahead with your men,” said Soledad. “Walker, Buenaventure, and I will try to get at Tyrone.”

Walker raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes?”

“Soledad is right,” Buenaventure agreed. “It sounds like a plan, anyway. In any case, better than waiting up there on the wall until they trample us under.”

The soldier grew pale, but he continued to hold the gaze of the pit bull man. Then he nodded. Perhaps he was glad to get free of the three pirates.

Soledad turned to Walker. “Let’s at least try.”

He sighed softly, then shrugged. “A beautiful woman is always right, my father said.”

Soledad flashed a smile. “I thought you never knew your father.”

The white-bearded soldier cleared his throat in disapproval. “Very well,” he said firmly, “my men and I will make our way back. Good luck, you three—and I mean that sincerely.”

The steps of the soldiers quickly died out beyond the crackling of the fire and the cries from the shore. A few moments later the three set out. Soledad and Walker went ahead, Buenaventure remained directly behind them.

In some streets the fire burned so hotly that they had to turn around and look for another way. In several passages, on the other hand, the smoke was so thick that it was almost impossible to breathe.

Finally they crossed a narrow, railingless coral bridge that led over one of the wider streets. Below them a pack of pirates and cannibals in garish war paint stormed up the mountain, followed by a troop that moved in an orderly formation, suspiciously eyeing the burned-out windows on both sides of the road. Some also looked up at the bridge, and Soledad, Walker, and Buenaventure were just able to throw themselves to the ground in time not to be discovered.

In the midst of the band of pirates strode a black figure. The cannibal king’s head was shaved bald up to a long, black ponytail at the back of his head. In contrast to the other pirates, he’d assumed the war paint of the savages he’d made his subjects years before. His black, flowing clothing was that of a nobleman, with knee-high, wide-cuffed boots and a wide cape, which looked as if Tyrone were pulling a dark trail of smoke behind him. From up here the three couldn’t see his filed teeth, but the mere knowledge of them made Soledad feel sick.

She feared him. There was no reason not to admit that to herself. Tyrone was cruel, without any scruples, and thus an outstanding fighter. Even when he was still sailing the Caribbean as a pirate, the stories of his raids had been legend. After his disappearance into the jungles of the Orinoco and later when he returned as the leader of the cannibal tribes, the rumor mills worked overtime. There was no grisliness, no barbarity that he hadn’t surpassed long since.

His officers hurried up through the smoke-filled streets in his wake, big men with scarred, hardened faces. Another swarm of pirates followed them, ragged cutthroats who protected their masters’ backs.

Behind them was someone who looked like—

“Griffin?” Soledad’s jaw dropped. “Look! Down there! Isn’t that Griffin?”

“Impossible,” growled Buenaventure.

“Yet you’re right!” Walker’s voice sounded excited, and he tried to damp it even as he spoke. He didn’t like to show how
very fond he’d become of the pirate boy in the weeks they’d been under way together.

Griffin was walking in the middle of the pirates. He wore a dirty shirt, red-and-white-striped trousers, and a black cloth on his head. He had a nicked saber over his shoulder like a hiking stick.

Soledad stretched her head a little too far over the edge of the bridge; for a moment she had to be clearly visible from below. But only one of them raised his eyes, almost as if he’d felt her presence.

Griffin concealed his surprise and tried hard not to betray his excitement. The strain of moving in the midst of his enemies was getting on his nerves. His face twitched.

“What a devil of a fellow,” growled Buenaventure.

“And with the devil is just where he’s going to land if he doesn’t look sharp right now!” Walter sounded alarmed, and the two others saw at once what he meant. Soledad smothered a frightened exclamation.

Two pirates walking right behind Griffin had clearly noticed that he didn’t belong among them. One pirate pulled his dagger, and the other stretched out his arm to grab the boy by the shoulder.

In a fraction of a second Soledad was on her feet, pushed off, and jumped. While still in the air she knocked the weapon out of the hands of one foe and struck at him with her own. Walker and Buenaventure landed to the right and left of her and immediately went on the attack. They’d landed in the middle of the mob of pirates, almost ten
yards from the place where Griffin had just fallen to the ground.

Soledad had no time to keep an eye out for the boy. She had enough to do to take out as many pirates and cannibals as possible before her opponents could realize that they weren’t facing an army but only three desperadoes.