Oceans of Conflict (Closed for Cate_Archer)

[Nouh_Bdee]

The sailors moved with a practiced rigidity that was unusual in pirates, as was the quality and frequency of their cannons’ volleys. It had been quite some time since Captain Felgin Brynleon had felt outgunned, and he was beginning to become concerned. “Steady!” he called out, as another blast made him stumble against the helm.

Felgin righted himself and looked out at Gehrlias, his first mate. He had to shout to be heard over the booming explosions of the heavy guns. “Why aren’t we shooting back!?”

Gehrlias turned toward him, panic on the younger elf’s face. He never got a word out, though. They were interrupted by an explosion that Felgin felt before he heard. One moment, he was standing on the deck of the Liro’s Justice, and the next he was in the air, his ears ringing and head pounding.

Pain.

Wet.

Cold.

Salt.

Felgin was lucky, and he knew it. He’d been thrown in such a way that he was conscious and largely uninjured. Pain in his leg told him he hadn’t completely escaped injury, but he could at least move with his other three limbs. He swam toward a large piece of the stern of his obliterated ship, swimming under it before surfacing inside the small section of the hull. There was air here, and he could see through gaps that had been torn in the slats by small arms fire.

What he saw made his blood run cold. These pirates had rowboats out in the water, but instead of taking prisoners, they were firing on helpless sailors under his command! Just, pointing their flintlocks at the men scrambling to stay afloat, and turning them into lifeless chum. Despicable.

There was nothing he could do. His heart sank, thinking of his men, and it got worse once he heard the pirates start talking.

“Where’s the captain?”

“Find his body?”

“He must be sharkbait by now! Finish the rest of let’s go!”

They were looking for him? Was that why they’d attacked? His ship had no wealth on board, save a few silver pieces to buy supplies. They men were all paid when they docked back in Elyros. None of this made any sense!

Felgin hid in his little pocket of air for hours after the pirates had left, before swimming back out to try to find some way to survive for longer than nightfall. He couldn’t manage to climb on top of his ship’s stern hideaway; not with the large piece of wood sticking out of his leg. Still, he found a flat section of the hull, just large enough to get him out of the water, and he climbed on.

Felgin knew he needed more of a plan to get to safety, but the pain in his leg, and his exhaustion from the battle caught up to him. He lay prone, floating on his found raft in the turquoise waters, and sleep claimed him.

 

[Cate_Archer]

Map

Captain Cira ‘The Siren’ Belvin glanced through her spyglass at the fast-fleeing ship on the horizon, heading southwest. The vessel was not running from her in particular, probably just trying to reach the safe port of Elyros before being found by the pirates who sailed these waters. Pirates like her.

“That’s no merchant vessel,” said her first mate, Erno, standing on the deck beside her. “I’ve never seen rigging like that on a merchant cog. Maybe something out of Vendos? But not a merchant, that’s for certain.”

“This late in the season?” Cira asked, lowering her spyglass and arching an eyebrow at him. “This time of year, we usually find them heading in the other direction.”

The powerful bald man shrugged. “You are right, captain. Should we give chase?”

Cira considered for a moment. Her ship, The Windblade, was one of the fasted ships on the Gleaming Ocean; she did not doubt that she could catch up to the fleeing ship. But the night was fast approaching, and her preferred prey were fat merchant vessels heading to Elyros weighed down with cargo. It was pointless to run down this ship and potentially waste gunpowder and cannonballs for little in return. “No, I am feeling generous today, Erno. Let them go.” Cira grinned, turning away from the railing and walked back to the wheel. Her long hair was pulled back at the base of her neck, keeping the dark strands out of her way. She had her black wide-brimmed hat settled neatly on top, and her outfit was too rich for a woman such as herself. She wore a coat dyed in Vendian red and fringed with gold over a black sleeveless belted tunic.

The captain turned the wheel in her hand to set her ship on course once again. Just over the horizon to the east, she could see the sandy shores and palm trees of the Myrk Isles. The Isles were a good place to lie in wait for a merchant ship passing by, and Cira herself had frequently used them. Though on this trip, she had decided not to lie in wait for a ship. According to rumours, the Galian Navy was taking a far more proactive approach to pirates this season – several Galian Naval vessels were patrolling the seas around the coast, and Cira had no wish to run into any unnecessary trouble during her raiding.

As the hours passed, the breeze picked up, driving them on faster. Clouds drifted in from the west as the sky darkened. Cira leaned into the wheel. The ship felt good beneath her feet, swaying gently in the swells.

Just then, she heard one of the crew shout. “Man in the water!” Cira scanned the sea to starboard. At first, she saw nothing in the vast emptiness. Then she caught sight of a length of driftwood, sliding between the troughs of the waves. A man was on top of it.

Cira swung the wheel, and the Windblade jumped, smoothly turning towards the man in the water. It was the unwritten law of the sea – you didn’t leave a man to drown. “Raise the sails,” Cira called out as she brought the ship alongside, and her crew acted with alacrity. Erno was already stripped to his small clothes and jumped over the railing.

Moments later, a shout came back over the railing. “He’s alive; throw down a rope.” The length of rope swung down, and Erno fastened the man to it, and the crew pulled the two of them up slowly. Piter, who served as both cook and medic on the ship, came scuttling from below with his medicine bag.

“Looks like we caught ourselves a sea elf,” One of the men on the deck said, and a few of the crew laughed as Piter got to work. The elf was unconscious and had a wound on his leg. His seawater-soaked clothes were that of Galian Naval officer, Cira noted with distaste. But that thought gave her a pause; Galian Naval officers were usually found aboard their ships, not floating on wreckage on the ocean.

“Captain, you need to see this.” One of her crew called from the railing. Cira hurried over to him. In the distance, the sea was speckled with debris – broken wood, barrels and ripped sails. “I guess that’s his ship,” Cira muttered under her breath.

After ordering her crew back to their posts and sending the unconscious elf below decks, Cira returned to the wheel. Lowering the sails, she turned the Windblade towards the wreckage. They spent a few hours scouring the sea for additional survivors but found only the floating dead. All the while, Cira had two men up in the crow’s nest keeping an eye on the horizon. The sinking of the Galian ship was recent, and you would typically expect to find the victor of the battle still in the vicinity. Cira did not want to be caught unawares, though something told her that the ship she had seen earlier in the day might have been responsible. She wished Piter would do something to wake the damned Galian elf up so that she could question him.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

The void spat Felgin out like a gone-off oyster. He had sat up, gasping, sputtering, and blinking, before he was even fully conscious. Next to him, a man crouched and chuckled, his voice wet and cold. Felgin’s eyes hurt even in the dim light of the...hold?

Memories drifted toward him.

Fear.

Pain.

Wet.

Pain.

Darkness.

The Liro’s Justice! She’d been sunk!

So where was he? This ship didn’t look like his, it’s intact hull further evidence it wasn’t the ship he’d been blown off of a few...how long had it been? He knew he’d passed out on the...raft, that floating section of the Liro’s Justice’s hull. Now, his heart was racing, and that injury in his leg felt like it had been treated. Had that man by the side of...what was he on? A bed? Yes, a bed. Not as soft as his bed in the Elyran manse, but soft enough.

The spidery man next to him was looking back at his face now. Something about him made Felgin nervous, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, exactly. Felgin tried to speak, but at first his voice just came out as a hoarse wheeze, provoking another laugh from the lanky man folded up beside the bed. On his second try, he got something out resembling words.

“Where...am I?”

The medic’s voice chilled him once again. “Just far enough from death’s door, I’d say.”

Felgin took another breath, and swallowed, his mouth dry. “Mm...Well, will you tell me if I’m a prisoner or not?”

The odd man smiled, mischief in his eyes. “Hmmm, I’d say there’s a better-than-average chance of that.”

Felgin realized he’d worded his question poorly. “Of me being a prisoner or of you telling me whether or not I’m a prisoner?”

A low cackle tickled Felgin’s ears. “Oh-ho! I think I’ll keep that one up my sleeve for now, yes! Besides, now that you’re up, the Captain wants to see you…”

Well, at least there’s a good chance the Captain, whoever he is, will be more helpful than this bag of nuts, Felgin thought. “Very well, send him in.”

“Ha-hmm! Used to giving orders, are we, navy-man? You’ll start to miss that, I’m sure.” He reached out with one long arm to rap on the door, speaking loudly when it opened a crack. “He’s up, he is, aye!”

All Felgin could hear from outside was a grunt, and the door shut again.

“Only a few moments, now, I’d wager! Hee hee, only a few moments.”

 

[Cate_Archer]

They spent several hours at the wreck, scouring for any supplies. They found plenty – a section of the ship was still relatively intact, and the hold had no breaches. Most of the store was foodstuff, cannonballs, small arms and a few barrels of gunpowder that had not gotten wet. Among the wreckage, they found a piece of wood with intricate lettering spelling out ‘Justice’. According to the more knowledgeable crew, two ships in the Galian Navy bore the name ‘Justice’. ‘Liro’s Justice’ and the ‘Justice of Delmar. Though none were sure which was the ship that was sunk.

The more and more supplies they found, the more nervous Cira got – you didn’t sink a ship and not loot the cargo. This wasn’t something she understood. Why else attack another ship? And even if the Galian Navy ship was the aggressor, why not loot it? One possibility worried her. Several years ago, when she was just a little girl, there had been a naval battle between Galia and Shorel, just off the coast of Port Myr. After the fighting was done, shipwrecks had drifted to the shore, their holds still full of supplies. As the crew worked, Cira called over the most senior members of her crew and shared her concerns with them. Both Erno and Callus, the quartermaster, shared her feelings. Neither of them had encountered such a thing before outside of a war. Cira didn’t like the thought that they witnessed the first exchanges in a war between the two nations.

Finally, as the sun sank below the horizon, Cira ordered her crew to stop searching for supplies and ordered the sails to be raised. She took the wheel and turned the Windblade south. Her plans to raid merchant ships around the Myrk were abandoned. They were going to head home to the Free Isles instead. Navies tended to commandeer ships and press-gang sailors during a war. Cira planned to leave most of her crew in the Free Isles and take the Windblade up along the southern coast and into The Dark. That imposing jungle was a good place to hide a ship, and the pirates were on friendly terms with the tribesmen of the Dark. It would be a good place to wait out a war. Clashes between Galia and Shorel were frequent but short.

Cira set the Windblade to head east of the Suntos Skerry, and she preferred to take a longer trip around than head straight through Galian waters. The wind was good, and the seas were calm. The stars guided their way.

It was nearing midnight when one of the crew came up from below decks. “Captain,” He called. “Piter says the elf is awake.”

“About damned time,” Cira thought as she called over Erno to take the wheel. “Now, we will get some answers,” Cira told him. “Keep the heading. Eyes open, I don’t want anything sneaking up on us or have us run into something.”

Cira stopped in the galley to snag some bread and cheese on the way below decks. A crewman was on guard outside the door to the sickbay – Cira had not wanted the elf to have the opportunity to sneak around her ship if he had awakened while Piter was not around. Piter was leaving the small room that served as the Windblade’s sickbay when Cira arrived. “Piter, how is your patient?”

The gangly man looked up. “Hmmm, he will live, Captain. The wound on his leg is not infected and will heal properly if he keeps it clean. Or unless you decide to throw him overboard.”

Cira smiled as Piter scampered away, cackling. “Thank you, Piter.”

Making sure her face was expressionless, Cira opened the door to the sick bay. Taking a bite from the bread in her hand, Cira chewed as she surveyed the room. The elf was sitting propped up on the bed. The lantern light made him look gaunt, but drifting on a piece of wood probably did not help his look.

Cira looked at him. “So, elf, what did you get yourself into?”

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

“Siren,” Felgin said with venom in his voice. The pirate captain had come to cannon volleys with him before, and he’d wanted to sink the Windblade for years. Now, the only reason he was alive was because he lay in one of her cabins. It would be poetic if she wasn’t a fucking pirate and he wasn’t a lawfully commissioned officer in the Galian Navy.

Cira Fucking Belvin. Shit.

“That wasn’t the Windblade that shot up my ship, though. Were they working with you?” Felgin looked at her with hatred and suspicion in his dark green eyes.

At her negative response (which he didn’t entirely believe), Felgin elaborated. “Alright, fine. We came up on what looked like a small pirate ship, and they had a lot bigger guns than we expected. I bet you’re happy to see one less Navy ship on the water.”
He didn’t feel like elaborating. He’d lost so much: his ship, his fellow officers, his crew. Some of them he had considered friends. The sense of loss and despair was almost as bad as the guilt. Felgin Brynleon was the Liro’s Justice’s Captain. That ship and everyone on it was his responsibility, and he’d failed them. He’d gotten them killed.

Felgin swallowed his grief and looked up at Cira’s face. That was a sight that could make him angry, despite her beauty, and anger would keep the darkness at bay, at least for a bit.

“So, what’s the plan, Siren? Ransom? Extortion? Or are you just going to have fun killing me?”

 

[Cate_Archer]

The Galian elf recognised her. Understandable, given that Cira’s wanted posters were a common sight in all the cities of Galia and Shorel. The rancour in his voice made her think that she might have met him on the seas before. And Cira never had a cordial meeting with a Galian Naval vessel on the seas.

Cira narrowed her dark eyes at his accusation. “I had no hand in the sinking of your ship, elf. If I was going to sink you, I would do it myself. Not hire it out to someone else.” She glowered at him. “So, stow your accusations and tell me what happened to your ship?”

The elf’s reply was terse. Cira did not recognise the ship he described. Most of the seagoing vessels used by the Galian and Shorel navies were larger, built to carry more cannon instead of relying on speed and manoeuvrability. The only ships that came to her mind were her own Windblade and Jon Crall’s Sea Spirit. But it was not the Sea Spirit. Crall had tried to ride through a storm a few months – the Sea Spirit had limped back to port with only half of a mast standing and was still undoing repairs in the Free Isles.

Then Cira remembered the fleeing ship she had seen earlier in the day. It fit the bill. Small and fast, though Cira had not spotted anything unusual about its armaments.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the elf spoke again, his voice hot and angry. Ransom him? Who on the blighted seas was this man? Ah, he must be a noble. The Galian Navy did promote sailors based on merit, but most of the senior naval officers were men born into wealth and nobility. He was one of those, it seemed to Cira.

Cira scowled at the man and did not answer him. “Shut up, elf. You are on my ship, and I ask the questions, and you answer, understand? Or have you banged your head too many times on a boom to grasp that concept?”

Cira sat down on a barrel by the door and took another bite of her bread. She thought about offering some to the elf but decided no. He could be fed once he had answered her questions. “Describe the ship that attacked you. In detail this time. And who are you?”

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

Shit. Cira hadn’t known who he was. Shit. Felgin should’ve kept his mouth shut.

He hung his head with an embarrassed frown, and then he started talking.

“It was a small, fast ship. Sometimes we see some of the less ambitious pirates use clippers like it in the Broken Isles. They’re not usually good for much other than scavenging and accosting the tiniest merchant vessels, and I’ve never seen one in these parts of the sea. Still, we had no reason not to engage.”

He looked up at her and was momentarily distracted by her beauty. Damn! That must’ve been how she’d turned Bellen. Felgin was going to have to keep on his toes. He scowled, and resumed describing the attack.

“I didn’t even see any cannons at all, until they flipped down these wooden panels they’d rigged their hull with. They waited until we were too close, and then they blasted us.”

Felgin took a deep breath. He could still see it in his mind, but reliving caused him a pain that he hadn’t felt the first time, when his crew had still been alive.

“We could’ve recovered after the first volley. We even sent one of our own within seconds. But, these ‘pirates’ moved like trained sailors. They had their cannons reloaded nearly as soon as our first shot had even gotten off. We barely got a second volley in before they hit us with their fourth, and that must’ve been the one that cracked the Justice in half. Next thing I knew I was in the water.”

Felgin was embarrassed, and he couldn’t quite hide it. He wasn’t some imbecile given his commission just because of who his father was. He was a talented, respected captain! How could he have let his crew down? His face sunk even further as the thought that he’d gotten them all killed ran back through his mind.

His words slowed down as his emotions surged. His voice even broke once or twice when he described hiding under the broken stern, waiting until the victors left, assuming him dead.

Felgin hadn’t told her who he was. He knew she wouldn’t forget to ask forever, but maybe he could buy a little time, get a better handle on what kind of captain she was first.

 

[Cate_Archer]

Cira listened, chewing softly on her bread and cheese as the elf spoke. His description of the ship that attacked him fit the ship Cira had seen. Cira had wandered the Broken Isles herself before and had encountered the ships he mentioned. Though she had not gotten close enough to see if it had gunports, that sounded like a good idea – a hidden advantage if the Windblade got accosted by a naval ship, catch them off guard and blast them. She would have to talk with a boatwright when they got to the Isles to see if he could rig something like that up.

The elf was shaken up, retelling what had happened to his ship. And from the way he spoke, Cira was quite sure that he was the ship's captain. His story bothered her. The ship she had seen had been travelling west, deeper into Galian territory and heading towards Elyros. That made no sense; one did not attack a Galian ship and then run off to Galia.

“I believe I saw the ship that attacked yours. It did not belong to any pirate operating out of the Free Isles, that much I am sure of. I don’t know why you were attacked.” Cira said softly when the elf finished speaking. “We almost came upon it as it was fleeing the scene. I would have given chase, but it did not look like if it carried anything worth taking. And if we had, we would not come across you. You should count yourself lucky. I doubt that with your leg, you would have survived more than a night or two on the sea.”

Cira stood up, brushing her hands. She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “You know who I am. But I don’t know who you are, elf. Though I can guess, you must be a Galian lordling, with a ship and commission bought. That’s why your first thought went to ransom.” She gave him a slight smile. “Normally, we would drop off any sailors – be either Galian or Shorel – on the coast if they did not want to join us. You, too, would have the choice if you had not spoken so rashly. This trip would have been a waste. But since you mentioned it, I think I have to ransom you. I might as well make some money off you. So, what is your name, elf? And your ship, what was it called?”

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

Well, shit. It turned out that Cira Belvin was no idiot. Felgin was going to have to tell her who he was, and that meant that his father would be notified of his failure. Perhaps, though, if he cooperated, he would find an opportunity to escape on his own, before the ransom made it aboard. The mystery of the attacking ship could be solved later.

Felgin scowled at the Siren, a withering glare on his angular face. “Very well, Siren.” He brought a weary hand to his chest. “Felgin Brynleon.” He wanted to say something else, know that his identity was revealed, something to let her know what he thought of her. At least call her pirate scum, or something like that. “Captain of the Liro’s Justice.”

Oh well, maybe she’d be able to tell how little he thought of her from the look of scorn on his face. She really was good, though. Good at being deceitful and manipulative. Good for him that he could tell that bit about dropping off rescues was bullshit. She probably sold them to slavers or something. After corrupting Bellen Lamour, Felgin’s old shipmate, this human woman was most definitely not to be trusted.

He stared at her, silent. Cira was probably waiting for him to speak first, to let something else slip, but he’d recovered from his cannon-shock, and he wasn’t going to speak without thinking again.