Author's Note

Please be aware that some of the content in this book is adult material and may be sensitive to some readers. Enjoy, comment, vote!

Evie leaned over the taffrail, peering out into the enchanting shades of pink that swirled in between the clouds and sun. It was particularly hot now that they neared Dratsac; it would only be a day or two now until they reached the continent. An entire blasted week and a half had already passed, and she spent most of it wallowing in her own tortured existence. She became ever present at nightly meetings with Captain Enigma and Nebula. Kelpie was seldom there, but when he was, he was very informative on what they were to expect from his homeland. Some of Dratsac was green and thriving, and the other half was desert. He recanted colonizing in the wasteland with his family for some years. He said, for a Dratsac ogre, the desert became a haven when the invasion of their country began, since the humans were too 'frail and inexperienced' to brave the hot sun and harsh conditions. He had his grievances about returning, and made no effort to hide them.

She hadn't been feeling well-- the drastic change of temperature she experienced was shocking. She was used to the blistering sun, but something about drifting in the Dratsac ocean at the peak of day made it difficult to breathe the thick air around her. She rested her forehead in her palm, massaging above her eyebrows. Think of an oasis, she told herself. Somewhere there's a big waterfall pouring with ale. And a servant boy is there to rub my feet...

Her daydream was interrupted by the painful urge to vomit, and she could feel it rising in her throat-- slimy chunks clawing up her esophagus. But she managed to hold it back, and decided that staring out into the waves would only bring on the feeling again. Cuinn clung to her but was startled by the strange sound that tried to erupt from her throat. Evie turned on her bare heel, her calluses scraping against the deck. Minnix and Fat Tom were shirtless-- a nauseating sight in itself-- and sitting with their backs to the mast, dripping sweat from their balding heads down to their bellies.

"And I once saw this amazingly tall statue made of gold, yeah? And I wanted it, so I strapped it to me back and tried to hoist it out of that marsh. But when I did, something clicked and all I heard next was rocks crumblin--"

"You could never hold up a purely gold statue with those skinny elf legs, Minnix," Fat Tom cut off.

"I did so. And it was some ancient boobie trap ya see," he replied, turning his nose up.

"If yer gonna lie, make it a good one. Been on this ship too bloody long to be listenin to nonsense."

Evie couldn't even find the strength to laugh at their banter or slip in a jest of her own. They looked like two wavy slices of ham cooking in the heat. She wobbled to Enigma's quarters and barely knocked before falling in and hurling into an ornate wastebasket by his armoire. Cuinn took the opportunity to abandon her back and reclined beneath a shaded end table in the corner. Evie succumbed to her nausea and let herself wretch a few times before wiping the spittle from her mouth. A hand found her back and patted it lightly.

"That was a gift from the Ocean Naga peoples in Athme," her captain sighed, laughing.

Evie turned her head up at him; he was fully clothed, despite the blistering heat, and looked not to have a drop of sweat on him. The temperature difference from the deck to this room was exorbitant. The air was still thick, but just being shaded from the rays was a gift in its own.

She slumped back onto her butt and breathed heavily through her nose and out of her mouth. "I...can't believe... you're not sweating," she huffed. Her arm slicked across her damp forehead.

Enigma strolled away from her and found a handkerchief at his desk. He flapped it wildly at her before tossing it down. "I've been around a while, Evie. And I've been everywhere. My body's quite used to all this."

The blonde got to her feet, dabbing all around her face with the cloth. "I'll replace that pretty can you got there," she promised, stuffing the kerchief in her vest.

"No worries, I have ten more just like it. I'm very popular with the Nagarians."

"You're popular with everyone."

They both smiled at that. Evie looked around the room; Enigma had been around so long that he had compiled the most beautiful treasures. She knew it wasn't out of the stereotypical pirate greed that the rest of them had. He was simply curious of all that Oren had to offer-- cultures and traditions mostly-- and had trinkets from every corner of the world. Evie was caught once or twice as a young lass attempting to take a few shiny things, but received a righteous beating for it.

She stopped at the armoire that contained an estranged mix of things. These were his most prized possessions, she knew. That's why he kept them locked away behind the translucent display case, out of potential vomit-range. Cuinn lounged peacefully, cuddling a tabletop bronze statue of a gorilla, his fingers poking at the metal to try and groom it.

"Captain? I need to ask. Why's it so important we find the queen? Shouldn't we be readyin ourselves for whatever war Chaos seeks to unearth on The League?" Evie asked, picking up a large silver platter. Her reflection looked ragged. Her hair was kinked and poofy, her eyes sinking deep in their sockets, and her complexion pale.

Enigma sat in his chair behind his desk and took up a quill, dipping it into an inkwell. "The queen killed the king. She could prove useful in this war. Surely her daughter would agree to an alliance of sorts for the exchange of her mother. Perhaps they conspired together, we can't be sure. Remember, dear Evie, information wins wars--"

"No sir," she said, setting the platter down. "If you're gonna lie, make it a good one," she replied, echoing Fat Tom's words.

The satyr pulled his brows together, scribbling on the parchment. "If you want to keep your tongue, you'll watch how you speak to me, girl. You're still my crew member first and foremost, no matter whose daughter you are," he warned.

Evie bit the inside of her lip. "Aye Captain, I'm out of line." She walked up the the edge of the desk and set her hands down on it, leaning over to look at him. "But you're lying all the same," she said coldly.

The door swung open and in came Prickly Pete panting and tripping over his own feet. "Captain, come quick," he hollered. "Silver sails-- with an eagle emblem. We thought them traders just passin by, but they're approaching at haste. Me thinks they mean to board us."

Enigma pushed his seat back, reaching below to grab his longsword, Orenmir, in one swift movement. "Knox, alert those below deck and grab Lazarus. We'll need you on the boards."

The blonde took flight from the room, her monkey close on her heels. She felt him leap and scurry up her back and latch to her vest. Outside, chaos had already commenced. The invading ship had already begun to close in, its bow swinging around. Cannons protruded portside, and men were drawing a plank to put between the two vessels. Evie spied Nebula across the deck. The elf was shouting orders at her men, and they scattered like flies. Evie cupped her hands around her mouth, ready to call out to the first mate, but an arrow whizzed by her, nearly catching her in the chest.

What the hell! Cuinn screeched in her ear and pounded on her shoulder. She followed his gaze to see archers unloading their quivers on the other ship. She took off down the stairs to the berth, knocking into her mates as she squeezed down the hall to her quarters. Most passed with cannon balls and weapons of all sorts, prepared to fight or die.

She rammed her door open, and swiped Lazarus from the corner. Evie tried to shake the monkey from her, but he refused to let go and be left alone in the room. Knowing she didn't have time to linger, she accepted his company and rushed back into the action. Before she got to the stairs again, a loud crash shook the vessel and Evie fell to her knees. She crushed a few fingers under the weight of her war-axe and muffled a cry of pain as she rose.

Above, it was as if an hour had passed. The ships were collided, men from both sides were mixed up on the vessels, and screaming and carnage were everywhere. Though excruciating to hold, Evie grasped her axe with two hands and twirled it about, gaining momentum for the kills yet to come. A man in mail rushed toward her and Evie turned her body, swinging the full force of the weapon over her head and around to connect with the man's helm. It wedged into the metal where Evie imagined his ear might be, and he immediately dropped his sword and sank to the boards. She roughly pulled the blade from the metal and a spurt of blood squirted from the large gash.

Cuinn cried loudly and jumped from her back. When Evie looked back at him, he was on a man's head, clawing at his eyes. Smiling in a queer appreciation of her pet, Evie continued on her tirade. She swung again at a man who's back was turned, catching him in the neck between his armor, and his head slid straight off onto the deck.

Evie searched for view of Captain Enigma, but he was nowhere to be found on board The Siren's Song. Nebula was bent over, dodging an arrow that came for her. There were still many archers lined across a barrier on the enemy ship. They were slower than the elf, though; for every arrow they let fly, Nebula notched and loosened an arrow of her own into one of their chests. Her water staff was strapped to her back. If she had time enough to retrieve it, she would be able to create great waves to drown their enemy.

Evie bounded toward the plank and vaulted over dead men with every step. She stopped midway and looked down between the ships, and to her surprise, the cannons were not firing. It was clear the enemy meant to board them rather than sink them, and she felt an odd familiarity in the flags that wafted overhead.

She turned just in time to witness an archer unloading an arrow on her, and she brought one of the heads of her axe up to deflect it. It bounced off the weapon and down to the depths below.

She scurried across the way, her bare feet pounding hard against this new ship's deck. Minnix was aboard as well, and he was struggling against a brutish man, who had a greatsword wielded against him. The big man swung down hard, just missing the elf and smashing against the deck, spending splinters bursting around them.

Evie ran towards them, spinning her axe round and round at her side. When she got close enough, she pivoted, landing on one knee and swinging one arm to toss the blade across the brute's calves. They chopped into the greaves and cut his lower half clean off just under his knees. He screamed in agony and fell like a tree in the wood. Minnix thanked her by driving his sword and dagger into the back of the man's neck. A curdling gargle escaped him as he tried to scream again but drowned in his blood.

Ahead, the clashing of swords brought Evie to attention, and she readied herself for another fight. She spied Durward in a fight with three men. Each of them tried to attack from another different side, but he effortlessly evaded their blows and they wound up impaling each other.

"Captain!" Evie shouted to him. He glanced her way. "What's the orders?" she asked, tossing her arms up.

Enigma took a look about the scene to assess their next move. "Back to the ship! Give the order to sink 'em!"

Evie nodded and bolted back to The Siren's Song. She hooked her arm through Minnix's on the way and hustled him across the plank. When they stepped foot back on their home deck, it was covered with dead bodies. Some were of their own men, but thankfully most were armor clad soldiers.

Minnix took off down to the cannons while Evie tried to find Nebula. The elf had gotten her staff off her back, and she was using it to bludgeon a man to death. Cuinn appeared to be perched on her back, wailing wildly. Evie hurried to their side.

"Enigma said to sink it," she told her, breathing heavily. The monkey hopped into her embrace and hung from her neck.

Nebula was doused in blood, half of her pink face painted a deep red. "Where is he?"

"Still aboard."

The elf looked worried for a moment, but her eyes became determined and she jerked her head toward the stair. "Go then. On my signal, tell Kelpie and the boys to fire."

The pirate girl nodded and dashed away, her heart pounding in her ears. She positioned herself halfway between Nebula and opened the latch to the lower deck cannon line. She noticed that all of the other ship's archers had been dealt with, and that most of the action now laid on the enemy's deck. Her foot brushed a dead body beside her, and she noticed it was Prickly Pete, his arm outstretched and fingers curled as if he had been crawling away from his attacker. A hatchet was buried between his shoulder blades. Bastards, Evie thought, her eyes trailing up the deck to Nebula.

The staff swung above her head like a windmill, its long form being misshapen into something round atop her. Wind was picking up around them now, and the waves of the ocean became louder, drowning out the sound of the clashing metal.

A large wave formed around the side of the enemy vessel, and started encircling it. Nebula nodded to Evie at that moment, and the pirate girl dropped to her chest and shouted down the hatch.

"Fire!" she hollered, pulling Cuinn underneath her. She heard echoes of the order from the men below deck. Only a few seconds passed before the hissing of the cannonfire was heard, followed by the great thundering they caused when they penetrated the enemy's walls. They sounded like consecutive knocks on a door-- a big door-- and they sent chunks of wood flying into the oceann in all directions.

Evie pushed herself to her feet, cradling Cuinn and scanned the ship for Enigma. The moment she began to worry about his whereabouts, he came swinging over to their deck by a stretch of rope, and landed on the rail. He hopped down to the boards and turned, whipping out his pistols and shooting at the many soldiers who tried to jump onto The Siren's Song.

Nebula swung her staff across her body in a large motion, and the wave that she had cultivated rose and crashed down over the other ship, flattening them into the seawater. Evie rushed to the rail and peered down over the side. Her nausea had left her and now she felt a sweet pride rising in her chest.

Their men chanted triumphantly and killed the last of the soldiers on board. This had been an ambush by Wyliamme Carac's hand. Evie remembered the sails now that she had a clear head. They must've been on the same path  The Hollow Rovers were if they found the pirates so easily. What other reason would they have to be out in the middle of the Dratsac ocean?

Durward was wiping blood from Orenmir when she approached, and his face was wet with perspiration.

"Still think you're accustomed to the heat, Captain?" she asked coyly.

The satyr smiled, but it quickly disappeared. He turned toward his men left standing, the enemy vessel creaking and sinking below the surface behind them. The pirates were already looting through the soldiers' armor and stealing their weapons, tossing the lifeless bodies to the side when they were finished.

Durward raised Orenmir into the air and cleared his throat. "These were Sir Carac's men!" he shouted for all to hear. "He was not aboard. Otherwise the fight would've been a much different one. I assume his lordship has scattered his fleet across these waters in search of the same thing we are. This will not be the last of them."

Fat Tom was crouching down as low as his weight permitted beside Prickly Pete. He pulled the dead man up in his arms and cradled him there. Evie felt a pang in her stomach, but showed no weakness.

"The depths are too great to dive for any treasure this ship may have left behind," he continued. "Strip and dump the soldiers. Then take care of our men. We will give them a true pirates's burial at sundown." He sounded shamed. It was never easy losing crewmembers, but their losses were few this time. "Raise the sails. Continue on the course at hand," he ordered, retreating back towards his cabin. He kicked a dead soldier with his hoof on his way.

Evie set to work, her fingers unlatching the breastplate from the first soldier she found. She was through ten men by the time they were sailing again. She found three flasks of ale-- which seemed of little use for fighting a battle and was probably the cause of some of their downfalls-- four mangy pouches of silver, one of many bronze coins, seven vials of a luminescent potion of sorts-- or possibly poison-- and various small, one-handed weapons like daggers, brass knuckles and throwing knives.

One by one, she lugged her emptied men to the side of the ship and left them in a pile where Fat Tom and Leo the Lame assisted in chucking them over into the water. Evie made note of their own who had perished. They were being lined up across the deck at the stern, their hands resting across their torsos. Now that they had separated the dead, she saw that more had fallen than she first noticed, not to mention the ones aboard the sunken ship.

The sun was cooling. The sky had a different color now; pink and purple swirled between orange and red, and it looked like the sun had melted across the horizon. Durward reemerged when the darkness engulfed them. He hadn't cleaned himself up, so Evie figured he'd been reflecting on the battle, possibly even creating a plan to secure themselves for the next ambush.

Nebula handed candles to a few men and snapped her fingers over the wick, igniting them. Kelpie and Fat Tom took care of their lifeless men. Each pirate was wrapped in black cloth, whether it were bedsheets or old flags, and Minnix had taken the liberty to paint a skull and crossbones across their chests. The Hollow Rovers all filed in alongside the bodies, and Nebula and Durward stood at the head of the crowd.

Evie jingled the purse of coin she'd compiled from all the soldiers and took a handful of silvers from the bag, placing it in the folded hands of each of her dead brothers. "May you enter Fastrever a rich man. May Ushuros grant you voyage across the dead sea," she whispered to each. A silver for Benny Bullseye, and one for Jetty, and another for Rix the necromancer, and a few extra for Prickly Pete. She placed more silvers in the rest of the cold, dead hands and whispered goodbyes. Tom and Kelpie lifted each man and gently rolled them over. Eight splashed into the sea and floated on.

They lowered their sails to half mast and most stood in silence for the better part of an hour. Each man was permitted to say a few words if they chose. Minnix played a sad tune on his flute and Manny the elf accompanied his melody with a song. Durward retired almost immediately and Nebula was not long behind.

Evie climbed the crows nest and looked out. In a day or so they'd be on Dratsaci soil, a place she had never before visited in her life. Durward never found reason to sail to Dratsac, with the constant political tension that had been growing there over the last century from the mainland.

Her face and arms were caked with crusted blood, and her clothes soiled. Cuinn rested comfy on her shoulder, falling into a quiet snooze. Evie nestled his furry head and pressed him into her neck. She whistled the tune that Minnix continued to play below, the stars twinkling above. She remembered daring Myles to jump from the crows nest into the sea on his fourteenth birthday-- since they didn't know his true birthday they chose the corresponding day of the season change each year. She tried to convince him that it was a right of passage, but he picked up on her bullshit right away. He still jumped, she remembered, and soon she was following behind to prove that she wasn't afraid. They were lucky they didn't break their necks or legs, but not so lucky in the discipline they received from Nebula.

The girl's lips turned up in the corners at her memory and she sank, stretching her stiff legs out as best she could in the little, round entrapment. She laid her head against the wall and continued her whistling until it somehow morphed into a lullaby she faintly remembered from her childhood. It came so easily to her, though she never thought about it before. And she began to sing quietly.

"Tonight the hangman hangs his own,
Tonight he truly sees,
The pain of true love sent to die,
To see your sweetheart bleed.

He gave the order on his own,
His lady tied up tight.
It was her crimes that sent her there,
And she put up no fight.

She dangled long and dangled true,
And he wept right from the start.
He cursed his love, he cursed her who,
Had a pirate heart..."