daggerblacker - Tumblr blog

daggerblacker · 2 years

Text

Song of the Sample

Song of the Seadog Chapter One

Plot Summary:

23-year-old werewolf archpirate Ydriza “Riz” the Seadog of Darkmaw enjoys the simple things in life: Conquering friends, foes, and innocents alike, then folding worthy lands into their empire, the lawless, forever-expanding Darkmaw. At the heart of which is Riz’s crowning achievement, the Library of Ydriza, the world’s most comprehensive collection of rare and ancient texts. When news of a mysterious fire consuming every scroll, painting, and tapestry makes its way back to the Seadog mid-sail, for the first time in years, Riz makes landfall. Coming face to face with their neglected subjects, and head to head with a fiery fellow she-wolf, a knight Riz bit years ago known as Malmor, still defending the wimpy would-be prince of the conquered land. When a hate-date between the two gives Riz’s first mate the chance to stage a mutiny, take charge of the fleet, and take the prince captive to trade for his own daughter, both knight and pirate take to the sea. Malmor, for the prince she swore and failed to protect. Riz, to win back their water-logged throne as the driven, brutal, unbeatable Seadog of Darkmaw. All the way, grappling with their different morals, vicious, vengeful, opportunistic enemies, and complicated, yet undeniable, bond.

Short prelude:

Cross-posting SONG OF THE SEADOG Chapter One til the Patreon review clears and I can post the full link. This is probably my favorite opening chapter of any project, because I just immediately establish Riz as an asshole. Chapter found below Read More if that's still a thing.

PART ONE: SCOUNDREL RAMPANT

CHAPTER ONE

They oughta bottle the scent of iron and salt, nothing gets the ladies going like blood over the ocean. Nothing, maybe, than the musk of wolf’s wool. All mingled in my tilting cabin, the perfume of a wave-rocked execution flowing down the deck like I’d ordered Grim to let it. Red rain sliding between the floorboards above along with late, lazy golden rays of sun.

Good. The heat would bake the red stains into the sea-softened wood. In that way, even traitors had their use. There was no way to tell if the rumors about my poor leadership were the rigman’s creation, but he was spreading them. That was enough to justify the mauling, instead of the traditional marooning. One was reserved for crewmates who had slipped up thrice, the other for sniveling, gossipy scum.

I felt along the wall beside the canvas hammock I called a bed. My fingers found the little hidden notch in the blackwood. Inside the recessed cabinet, a clean, if tattered, rag hung over a fishscale-bound book. I was careful not to drip on the edition as I took the rag, patted my face dry. One thing was for sure, that rigman hadn’t gone out without a fight.

Five rhythmic raps came at the holey door behind me. Grim’s signature knock, to the tune of some ancient sitcom theme he fancied. One drum of the knuckles per syllable: ‘Ev-ery Where You Look…’ His grizzled voice followed, “Captain?”

He didn’t bother to wait for my reply, never had. Jerking the lop-sided door open to peer into my cabin. I waved him inside, “The innards weren’t swept until they stopped steaming, I hope.”

“Not a second before,” Grim grunted with a nod, the three gold rings threaded through his upper ear jingling. Despite the happenings above, his black boots were spotless while mine were covered in a burgundy sheen. His traditional garb dry--big-brimmed hat to flowing red velvety cloak--while my ruffled black linen shirt still dripped freely. Oh, well. That was why Grim had had the metal-plated floors installed.

Grim was about a decade older than me, somewhere in his early thirties to my twenty-three, with emeralds for eyes and a curly brown beard cascading from that thin sliver of ever-pink face. His complexion pale and rosy to my bark-brown. His mug fresh and unmarred to the web of long scars etched across my nose. While I had taken to the sea only after that fateful bite, the resulting infection, he’d started out my age as a cabinboy, working his way up. But not to the top. He said, “I’m glad you’re sitting down. A dorsaldog just arrived--”

I snarled into the rag, pulling it away to look down into the burgundy stain of my face, wrinkled on my lap. “You know I prefer the crew acclimate to radio communication.”

“Learning curve.” Grim dipped his chin, tucking a stray curl into his hat. “There’s good news, and bad news. Which do you want first?”

My boots thudded on the metal cabin floor as I hefted myself out of the hammock. Grim started at the sound. His hand landed on the hilt of his silvery white cutlass, the curved blade glinting in the narrow shafts of dying light. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalling.”

Grim cleared his throat, straining to brighten his voice. “The good, first, then. Well, morale is high onboard eighty percent of the fleet, Captain. The rest is sure to follow in line after the example you made of the rigman.”

Fodder. “All thanks to your intel, First Mate Grim.” I crossed the room to pat his shoulders. My hand trembled where it rested next to his throat, fingers shivering over with black-fur, until every pale nail was claw. “Now, the real news.”

Grim ran a thick, calloused hand down his face, using his own sweat to smooth his beard. A pirate’s sweat was as versatile as rope: Grease before a hot date, oil in a pinch when tending to rusted rigs, sustenance in times of greatest strife. “It’s Shriekshore.”

It took me a moment to place the name. Darkmaw was nine liberated vassal-states large, now, and always in need of supplies. Caring for the details was Grim’s job, keeping the goods coming was mine. So I hadn’t so much as set foot on conquered land in three years. “Is that the one with all the snapping ivy?”

“No,” Grim rocked on his heels, eyeing the rickety door. He gulped. “It’s the one with the rocky beaches, white sand, and--and the library...”

The roar that ripped through me left my throat raw, and my voice hoarse. “Spit it out, Summer!”

Grim drew his silver, curved cutlass with a jolt, and it clattered to the floor between us. This wouldn’t have been the first time he’d pulled a blade on me. I didn’t judge him. Today wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed a mauling, self preservation was a healthy instinct. That’s why he was First Mate, because he didn’t skirt around what everyone else did: The only reason the empire didn’t have a monster baying at the shore was because the monster ruled it all.

He blushed, “Radicals, Captain. We don’t know who exactly, but the Missives send word of an arson attack. There’s evidence accelerant was strategically traced throughout the structure.”

I kicked the sword, and it slid to the toes of his boots. “The structure?”

Grim knelt to pick it up, hesitating a moment before sheathing the cutlass. “The Library of Ydriza is no more, I’m afraid.”

Tens of thousands of priceless, ancient artifacts. Scrolls containing recipes that hadn’t been replicated since the twenty-first century. Statues of long-fallen rulers lifted out of the deepest depths of the Ichor. Tapestries darned from ocean-eaten remnants with strange words and even stranger images: People hunting woollen, land-bound creatures swallowed up centuries ago. Forests stretching on into oblivion, bearing swollen colorful fruit. Women turning into wolves.

For years, my scouts scoured the far corners of Lanor. Five-thousand never returned. Lost to the cause, I’d reasoned. Swallowed by the shadowy corners of the world in our righteous effort to reclaim what the Ichor Ocean took from our ancestors long ago. To remember the world before Lanor, that unflooded Earth.

What was worse, the final piece had only just been put on display, in the last remaining hall after the first exhibits crowded much of the main castle. A complete wing dedicated only to ancient fiction texts. “There’s no reason to divert the whole fleet. The Blue, Green, and Red volleys go on as planned to intercept the fishers. Evacuate everyone evenly among them, take the dinghies. I can’t risk showing up in one of those dinky things.”

“Captain--”

“Don’t argue, there’s no time to discuss this. I’m taking Black to Shriekshore while the firestarter’s scent is still fresh.”

“I take no issue with that, Riz,” said Grim. “It’s just that the surveyors know their way well enough without me. These radicals are unpredictable, and there are strange stories flying out of Shriekshore every week. Talk of an armored beast--”

“The land-ridden have wild imaginations.”

“I’m coming with you.”

He left to ring the heavy, silver bell over the main deck. The ship gave a chorus of metallic groans as the crew roused, lurching out of their hammocks. After the execution at dusk, the news of a mass re-assignment would be welcome. This way, too, they could spread word of the punishment. Some rumors were good, the kind that only emphasized the Seadog of Darkmaw’s brutality. It had, after all, been eight years since I’d dispatched of Captain Monty Mallard.

That was the difference between Grim and I. The Pirating Index was his handbook, and history was mine. One didn’t become Captain by asking nicely, and one didn’t command with a heart in hand. Fresh blood, fresh legends, fresh fear, that was how you kept a crew in line.

When I emerged, hours later, only a smattering of the fleet was still in sight, lingering on the horizon. Black steel barques bobbing, flags rippling over sails full of wind. The merewolf crest woven into each swimming fang-first across the sky, paws galloping, scaled fish tail splashing in the place of hind legs.

The same crest that had flown high above the library.

For hundreds of miles in every direction, above, the black star-crowded night sky, below, the dark, deep blue Ichor. Was I only imagining a hint of the scent of smoke on the cool breeze?

At the helm, the spokes of the steering wheel spun slowly where it was lodged in the center of the control panel. I watched through the wide, fortified window, there, as Grim flitted around the deck. Adjusting the sails so they followed the wind, but also lined up with the lamps along the tallest mast. I threw a lever, two bold yellow beams flickered to life along the tallest mast, each pointed in opposite directions, aimed at the sails so a mist-shrouded, golden projection burst forth, the black shadow of the merewolf riding the light to bound over the ocean. An intimidation play.

This was a trick Grim had taught me. Even if he was a goody-goody, Grim was a pirate from ruddy flesh to pale bone. He knew when to lean away from stealth, and into one’s own mythology. Shriekshore would see me coming, as would the firestarter. And I had a feeling she’d be waiting.

(Scene Break in Document)

Unlike the rusted metal platforms from the first blue waves lapping up and over the country--sideways on their stilts from how hastily the government slapped them together--Shriekshore was true land. The only true land for hundreds of miles in any direction. Not floating, not tethered, but an island city built on sprawling, hilly dirt ground. Every state in Darkmaw was a scrap of ancient Earth.

The swaying golden grass dappling each hill waved at us from afar, that signature warm breeze wafting over the valley like the welcome breath of some god. Orange light flickered in the windows of the boxy clay, pale blue houses dotting the seaside while the glass spires cropping out of the inner city glittered with neon. Shriekshore had once been named after its idyllic weather, Springport favored for its active trading routes. Of course, then, all the incoming riches had rolled uphill to Windlift Castle.

Before the spires had risen to house the thousands flocking to newly-conquered Shriekshore, the castle had been the tallest structure on the whole island. The outside dignified and marbled, the inside a mosaic of kings past and kings to come, a kaleidoscope of color. Tile, fabric, stone, paint, and clay.

Now, the tallest hill was bare except for a blackened stone base. I’d been a fool to expect ruins. Lanor winds could carry a sailor away if she wasn’t careful. Dust, now. I had to remind myself that. It was all dust.

I docked Black at the narrow, wooden walkway, shivering on its stilts as a pair of hat-clad pirates emerged from the slender, silver lighthouse on the powdery beach. Grim retracted the sails while I used a crank next to the control panel to drop anchor. No use idling, we were gonna be here a while.

Grim climbed down the metal ladder attached to the side of the ship, but I dove over the deck headfirst. My boots were strapped to my ankles to keep them from slipping off as my feet came undone.Twisting into paws, black fur straining to fight free of my shoes. My human feet would’ve shattered on impact, but my wolf joints were springy and strong.

One of the missives avoided my gaze, kneeling on the water-worn wood, but the other nodded. Either at me, or Grim, behind me. It was hard to tell. Her eyes did flick to me when she said, “My sincerest condolences, Captain Oakum.”

I waved, striding past both of them. “Save the sorry words for couple’s therapy.”

The man next to her was young, no more than eighteen or so, with an oversized hat tilted on his head. He piped up, “Captain, would you like a pint at the new bar? Have you heard of it?”

“Let me guess,” Grim grumbled to my back, “The Bar of Ydriza?”

The young missive paled, stammering, “Ydriza’s Drinks and Eats, sir.”

Grim righted the missive’s hat. “Captain Oakum has no time for such dalliances.”

“Yet,” I cut in. The sand was so fine, it flowed around my soles as water would. I untied my shoestrings, undid the straps, to step into the moon-white ocean. “I don’t have time yet. First, the library.”

The older missive launched into a spiel I knew she’d practiced, a log of backed up messages. One from Captain Bonesbane, something about a day to rue and his life in shambles since blah, blah, blah. Another from someone or other who’s farm had been seized by a group known as the Jackals. Nothing new, the missives were charged with drawing up overall status reports, not keeping careful watch. The lighthouse was motion-sensored and automated, fit for my modern city. No spying monarchs, no cameras, no order. Out of my paws, that was meant to come from the people up.

An elderly woman drew the curtain at the window of the nearest clay dwelling, her face pressed to the glass. Her eyes went big as the color drained from her cheeks. I watched as she hurried to untangle the cords in her grasp, that expression hardening into a good, long glare as the curtains dropped so I wondered if the material was thin enough for her to look through.

I turned to the missive, urging her closer to me. “Why haven’t these hovels been demolished?”

The older missive removed her hat, fiddling with the brim as she answered, “Well, Captain… Not everyone’s agreed to plug into the grid--”

“Then don’t ask them to!” I snapped. The younger missive crumbled in the sand, clasping his throat as if to shield it from my fangs. The more experienced one, however, didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as blink. “Make them. I expect all these clay dens to follow my library before the morning. Have I made myself clear?”

She nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good,” I grunted. “I’ll hear the rest, later. Return to your posts, we’ll take it from here.”

The young man bowed, quickly--a holdover from his days as a squire, perhaps--and bolted to the lighthouse in the distance. His older companion, though, lingered, looking from me to Grim. “As you wish, Captain.”

She strode off.

Grim and I found the stone steps at the edge of the beach. The staircase climbing a steady cliffside up and into the city. Green grass fighting free of the sand peered down at us, bristly on the bottom of my feet when we reached the top. It frittered off into the main road, paved over with the captive architect Jori Tinsley’s special blend of sand, crushed stone, and pearled bits of metal: The melted remains of my enemies’ swords.

These shined metallic spots were cold as I stepped onto the street. Though the sun was long-set, there wasn’t a dark window in sight. I admit, I had to shield my eyes a moment to adjust to the harsh light. Blinking signs advertising low-entry games of King, Fell, Fallen. A screen on the side of a glass tower blaring previews of skin flicks even a pirate would, could, and did blush at.

Just a deep inhale gave me enough information to know my suspicions were correct. The fire-starter had stuck around, all right. Had marked the entire island, just about. Her scent pungent with sweat, a dash of accelerant, a touch of rust. A hint of cologne, but not hers.

I could’ve narrowed in to pick up on specifics. When she’d been where, and doing what, but I widened the scope, instead. Three-hundred thousand residents and their three-hundred thousand exhales of detail-riddled breath. Age, location, what they’d had for breakfast. Spiced waterberry wine, boiled beachbulbs, the finest butters cultivated from dorsal-dog milk. Above all, though, was the reek of hornhoof manure.

It was a distinct scent that tickled at my gag reflex. Even in the days just after I razed the largest farms to build my towers, the plow-hornhoofs’ shit would accumulate on my freshly-paved roads. Well, progress had its snags, right?

A mewling, feral eight-ear with a long, fluffy, striped tail trotted down the sidewalk ahead of us. It was in good shape for a street-prowler, with just three tattered ears, and an assload of crust built up around its big green eyes.

Grim leapt out of the way of the thing as it approached, but I let it come up to me. Didn’t have to call it, animals were born with the ability to recognize werewolves. Its tail curling around my ankle as I swept my thumbs over its face, swiping off all the rubbery grit. The eight-ear’s purple tongue darted out to lick my hand before it padded off, and we turned onto the most gruesome street yet.

The alleyways were rivers of garbage. Scraps of rotting wood jutted out of stained cloth bags, floating amidst green juice that smelled worse than a water-bloated corpse. Grim grunted. “That’s what Fiona was getting to. The issue of trash disposal--”

“Fiona?” A scruffier-looking eight-ear pounced on a rat as it feasted on a molded melon.

“The missive, Riz,” he said. “She’s been serving you for five years.”

“I don’t need the details, Grim,” I said. “I’m more of a big picture gal.”

“Well, the ‘big picture’ is there’s no where to put the stuff. The states have just been shuffling it between each other.”

We crossed the street to avoid passing a particularly nasty-looking alleyway. “What’s that got to do with me? They’ll figure it out.”

Further into town, markets with fruit from all over Darkmaw--from the black, prickly gigaplums of Almera to the tiny, clustered blue-veined fruit of Fangsfyre. I watched a woman in a tan cloak exchange a small, cloth drawstring bag for a cart’s worth of groceries. “What of the currency?” I said. “Don’t tell me they still exchange gold.”

Grim risked placing an arm around my shoulder, steering me away and up another flight of stairs. This one up a steep, grass-blanketed hill. “Old habits die hard, Captain.”

We climbed, and my heart grew heavier with each step. Thud: A bright brown vase depicting strange aircrafts escaping Lanor. Thud: Marble busts of presidents of the twenty-first century, dirt encrusted in their wrinkled foreheads from just as long ago. Thud: Water-worn paintings of the First Wave, one of three to slam into the country and submerge us for good. Lapping tides tinged with cloudy froth like the mouth of some rabid beast, sea creatures from the depths of the blue abyss overtaking the land in their many-armed and jawed hordes.

History is heavy like that.

At the top of the hill, all was still, even those waist-length golden stalks. Not even the wind disturbed such a gravesite. The blackened stone base of Windlift Castle, the Library of Ydriza, was lone at the head of the hill overlooking Shriekshore. Every wall was swept away, every painted window, every mural of my feats at sea splashed across the ceiling to conceal the long-dead Kings.

My eyes stung, and I clasped a hand over them. Not in front of Grim. Not in front of anyone. “Leave me.”

“Riz?” Grim clasped one of my hands, but I yanked my fingers free.

“That’s not a suggestion, Summer,” I barked, whipping my forearm across my face to dry it before spinning on my heels. Face-to-face, his pink nose a hair’s breadth away from my snarling maw. “It’s an order.”

So he waited at the threshold of the base while I stepped inside.

The floor was as grand, if ash-stained, as ever. A sweeping gallery, fit for more than a King. Maybe I’d have it polished as a memorial to that grand thing it had supported, once. The most important structure on Lanor. All my hopes and dreams and sweat and blood and bite.

My legs gave out under it all, and I marvelled at the ghost of a building. In the center of the floor, the cold, still heart of a waist-high blackstone well remained, if singed. The rusted metal hatch cranked shut. The freshwater well was the one thing strategically preserved in the carnage. All else was incidental--a scorched shadow of the bust of an empress--or lost to time.

When I regained the ability to stand, I dragged myself across the floor. There, a proud and intricate pillar had stood, carved of driftwood. Here, a delicate record player, ever-humming the crackling, staticy tune of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing.)”

Doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah.

Only smoke on the wind, now. Fire can consume even sound, even music, even life. Water can, too.

Fat tears clouded my vision for minutes on end while my nose constricted like the Ichor Vipers of yore around those fabled ships. At last, I came to the end of the retched floor. Even though every column was gone, a lone, fire-mottled door still stood at one scorched exit of seven. Though the length of the tall door was marred with ash and deep, deep scars, the doorknob was pristine. A glass bulb with folded paper figurines inside that I knew were positioned to re-enact some sunken mythology of serpents and apples and wisdom and women.

I managed a chuckle. Just what I needed, another reminder of life’s cruel humors. Still, if this was to be my relic, so be it. Any reminder of my library was precious, if bitter.

The door chattered where it stood as I approached it. It was already so brittle, all the doorknob would need was a good pull. So I gripped it, twisted it hard. Close, but no ink. The whole door was still intact enough to swing with my arm.

On the other side of the door, a woman in bronze armor gripped the other end of the doorknob, her black cloth-bound fist closed around the mangled, metal, wirey remains of the lock keeping it in place.

She had the stocky build all Springporters sported, and the bushy, black brows to match. The island-wide skintone of black so muted, the outline of her seemed almost blue. An armored, living re-creation of lightning lacing cloudcover. Her hip-length hair gleamed in the moonlight. Pulled through a long slot in the center of her helmet in the traditional way, so it appeared to be a river of shimmering, liquid obsidian. Each strand as old as her oaths, I knew. Her eyes the color of dark honey harvested from sea-bees in times of starvation. Because those motherfuckers stung like a son of a-- “I wanted to ask before coming in, my grace.”

Her voice had that textured brogue the port-folk were favored for, and the appeal wasn’t lost on me. A chill playing along my shoulders at the sound as the hairs on the back of my neck raised like hackles. Venom dripping from the roof of my mouth, threatening to spill out.

Behind her, a shivering six-foot-tall man with knees as knobby as any gnarled hill in craggy Letsland squeaked at the sight of me. He couldn’t have passed for a native Springporter if a witch rode out of a dream of Atlantis and slapped his royal ass with her wand. The princeling Kaleel Windlift was pale as the Shriekshore beaches, with flashing, long-lashed, two-toned eyes. Gray glinting in the top halves of his irises, while deep blue anchored the other. Only a few families, now, had Liftfield genes strong enough to present the signature two-color eyes. Let alone the silvery locks, each strand translucent, and glittering like spun starlight.

“Captain,” I corrected her. “That’s ‘Captain’ to you. I’m not of your little landcub’s ilk.”

I let go of the doorknob, but she held on from her end, squeezing her slender fingers through the circular hole where the other knob had been incinerated to clasp it. Even she, though, seemed unsure of what to say next. Drawing one sweaty palm along the crest on her breastplate so the symbol--a helix tied at either end so it doubled as an infinity sign--was obscured in a thick, wet sheen.

I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her or the princeling in three years. Not since…

My eyes glided over the knight’s forearms, clad in thick leather padding, bronze plates sewn onto the outer ends of each armguard. There was no way to make out the bite. Not like it would look the same after so many years, anyway.

All that blood. My fangs ringing against the bone.

“I expected you,” I admitted, “but I gotta admit, Mal, you didn’t seem like the type to play with fire.”

Malmor the Gallant let go of the doorknob for a moment to flail, balking, before regaining her grip in either sense. “I’m taking up lots of new interests,” she spat. “Collecting, for one. Rare items, just like this doorknob. Once you burn, and conquer, and kill, it belongs to you, right?”

There was something new about her, yet. A blaze behind the eyes so that jolly twinge to them seemed more mania than glee. I would know. So I didn’t push her. “Keep it. It’s your right,” I said. “It belongs to the people of Lanor.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “The people of Lanor don’t belong to themselves.”

So things weren’t so different, after all. “I know who you belong to, Malmor.” I looked to the princeling, and he yelped as if I’d bared my teeth, hugging Malmor’s shoulderplate.

Though his clothes were fine and delicately-woven, bright fabrics of the silver and pale blue that royals used to wear, they were no where near as decorative as the originals garb. Indeed, all the prince had to show for his royal heritage were his eyes, his silver-blond locks, and a triangular scrap of his royal blue childhood cloak clinging to his back. Well, that and--

A shortsword rattled in a metal sheath attached to his belt. Tink, tink, tink, tink, tink. An anxious song I smirked at. Even at eighteen, that Windlift telekinesis was untrained, unsharpened to that fatal edge the King and Queen had lorded over Springport. That the Liftfield clan brandished over Lanor. Before me, anyway. “Mal, you got to talk to her, fine. Let’s go.”

Mal shrugged him off of her shoulder. “I don’t want to talk to her, highness. I want to dethrone her.”

“Them,” I said, hovering in the doorway over her and the princeling on the shallow stone staircase. We never had gotten to introductions, and port-folk were slow on the uptake when it came to thirty-second century norms. Monarchies don’t freeze time, they rewind it. “I’ve long-grown out of your land-ridden genders. And you can’t dethrone someone when there’s no throne to sit upon. Tell me, landknight, how can you so long for that monarchy yet destroy the only remaining monument of it?”

Mal scoffed. “My prince is the only monument to the true rule of this land I need.”

“Yeah you, because no one else cares, Mal.” I leaned in the crispy doorway, sizing the knight up. The get-up was new, yes, and dual-purpose. Conceal that bite, and prevent another one. Back when we were twenty, and the prince just fifteen, she’d only worn a squire’s canvas shirt. Even before the bite, she’d had a wolf’s speed, dashing in front of the prince as I moved in for the ceremonial mauling.

It wasn’t the princeling’s fault his folks wouldn’t bend at will--and didn’t have a daughter my age to whisper promises of peace to over waterberry wine. Only about half of the states surrendered, so the rules were clear, while the warnings ran scarlet. Up until then I hadn’t left any survivors, no pleading mates, no baying mind-changers at the wedding of my fangs to their flesh.

Then again, up until then, I’d never left anyone only bitten.

So the prince lived without so much as a strand of that cloud-colored hair harmed, and that foolish squire lived, too. In thirty-one sixteen, she’d writhed in the dirt before the blood-flooded palace. Barking and raving, so feverish even her eyes grew redder. Indeed, for days they would bleed. But I didn’t stick around for that part.

I don’t know what it was, exactly. Because I was impressed at her bravery, stunned by her stupidity, or shocked at having, at last, lit the match in me I swore I’d never strike in another. Not without ending them. I fled to the sea, and they fled to the city. Work on the Library of Ydriza began in my absence.

Then, her face had been gnarled with anger, then illness, on the ground convulsing before the prince. Now, Malmor’s brow was worn. As brightly as her eyes burned, her soul simmered, I knew. It was all in the curve of the lips, just a half-frown, just the dregs of anger after the fire tore through most of the fuel. How did the saying go? A sailor’s mouth is only as clean as the one kissing it…

Maybe it was too late to save my library, but I could save myself the trouble of a do-over. Aye, princesses and pirates often frequented the floating bar orbiting Rotsworth under clipped names. The only way we could be sure to avoid assassins, and those that might agree to anything we said out of fear instead of fun and pleasure. It was customary to reveal one’s full identity before parting. Three times I’d made a convincing argument for a princess to abdicate. The old two-degree takeover. I was going about this the wrong way. I had to quench the landknight’s ire with pillow talk, not smothering.

I didn’t need to fall over myself to convince me, she’d been a fierce sight three years ago. Unflinching, dagger drawn against an impossible opponent: Me. Malmor bulky, then, and even more so, now, thick cords of muscle threaded around each arm. Brave, boiling with rage, and strong enough to lift a whalecamel. In other words, just my type.

This time, I would stay. Soften at her touch so she saw the Seadog of Darkmaw--the Scoundrel of Lanor--was just a title, after all, and I was only a lover. “Do you like imported beer, my lady?”

“That’s the only kind of beer since you ‘developed’ all the farmland…” Malmor growled. “Not like I’d share a pint with the likes of you.”

There was that hiccup. Courting did usually come before biting for most. “I just mean that it’s about time we saw eye-to-eye.” I wrenched the doorknob out of its position, while Mal’s hands twiddled the hilt of her sheathed greatsword, and rolled it around my palms. “Like, if we’d spoken before, you’d know the King’s farmland network was sapping fresh water so quickly a fifth of all Springporters died of dehydration over the course of just two years after he took rule.”

Malmor didn’t dispute this, rubbed her armguard, the one on her left forearm. “Now all the residents would rather die than eat that strange food your raiders keep hauling to our shore.”

“Let’s discuss everything, then. All grievances. Neither of us stands to gain from these hilltop pissing contests.” I motioned to the stone floor with one hand. “You’ve lost a castle, I’ve lost a library. Net zero, we’re square as kincorn beans. Let’s put this whole thing to bed, shall we? Talk it out over drinks at that new bar downtown.”

“What decisions could be made without my prince?”

I chuckled. “What leadership experience does beast-bait over there have?”

“He doesn’t need experience,” she was quick with her retort, “It’s in his blood. Everything you have you’ve stolen.”

“Propaganda,” I waved. “Something else we can discuss, tonight. The Windlifts and their relatives stole an entire world when they took the wells, I only stole it back.”

Malmor half-drew her sword, one foot of the black steel four exposed. That thick, black brow furrowed. A moment of her silent thoughts. Wordlessly, she regarded Kaleel.

He nodded in big, cartoonish movements, as if trying to use his head to fish an agreement out of her mouth. “This has to end, sometime,” the prince noted. “So many have died, already.” The man’s mouth twitched, but he forced a smile. “No more stunts. I only have you, Malmor.”

The knight nodded. “We talk,” she said, sheathing the rest of the blade. “Woman to woman.”

I winced. Womanhood, just another skin I’d shed when I was bitten. I knew it was just a common honorable phrase, a slip-up. The landknight reaching for the handiest applicable words in her modest, land-bound vocabulary. If she required my patience in the endeavor of progress, that was just what Darkmaw stood for. “When I took to the sea, I washed my paws of all that gender stuff and saw myself as I am.” I corrected her, “Wolf to wolf.”

It was Mal’s turn to flinch. She kneeled on the step she stood on. Bowing, kneeling, grovelling. Land customs.

I urged her to her feet, extending my arm. She rose to inspect my hand, finally extending her own. I clasped her wrist. After a beat, she clasped mine. The pirate’s goodbye. With the other hand, I pressed the glass bulb into her palm. “Don’t forget your doorknob.”

#sots #song of the seadog #sample #science fantasy

0 notes