I, the albatross that awaits
for you at the end of the
world…
I, the forgotten soul of the
sailors lost that crossed
Cape Horn from all the seas
of the world.
But die they did not
in the fierce waves,
for today towards eternity
in my wings they soar
in the last crevice
of the Antarctic winds
— Sara Vial
Following the battle with the Deathknell and the ‘resurrection’ of Thaduk, the crew of the Dümplom stood around in a state near shock. The deck was slick with sparkling faerie-blood and littered with the corpses of the drowned. The massive, demonic unicorn that had been Thaduk tried to say something, but it came out as a terrifying growl that left their ears bleeding.
Leo cast
share language on the stallion and a voice that was readily recognizable as Thaduk’s rang out. “Back to work ye swabs! Clean this up!” The crew breathed a collective sigh of relief on learning that the fair-minded and generally well-liked bosun was, in fact, alive inside of the horse-like monstrosity. They immediately went to work tossing corpses over the rail and righting lines that had become tangled in the fighting.
Thaduk, meanwhile, suggested that when they reached port he needed to find a blacksmith to make flaming horseshoes for him. “Would that make you happy?” Sandara asked. Only then did the officers remember their shared vision of a world drowning in blood.
“Right,” they all concurred, “whatever will make you happy…”
As dawn approached, Henrye called down from the crow’s nest, “Land ho!” Captain Caddis called a meeting of the officers to discuss where to land. If they were intent on heading to Moonplum, they needed men and they needed supplies for the voyage across the Pacific.
Leo consulted his charts and informed them that there were four settlements of note on the heavily disputed islands. The main Imperial port was Port Egmont on Saunders Island, which served as a way-stop for Imperial Navy ships heading for the Pacific, and served as home port for a few of the war ships patrolling the South Atlantic trade routes. West Falkland housed Puerto Soledad, a small Spanish Hapsburg penal colony. The island of East Falkland was home to Port Louis, a medium-sized settlement of French settlers from the Empire, not associated with either military. And last was the Tidewater Rock, a small military fortress on the easternmost and uncreatively named “New Island”, strategically positioned for controlling the shipping lanes and currently under “independent” (read as pirate) control. Wanting to avoid the imperials, and figuring that a colony of convicts would be a ready source of recruits, Caddis gave the order to head for Puerto Soledad. Leo guided the ship into Falkland Sound and headed for the port.
Just after noon, they reached Fox Bay. A quick scan of the bay with a spyglass informed them that the small colony was guarded by three batteries of cannon, two arrayed on the elevated headlands, flanking the bay, and a third on ramparts built up by the wharf. A pair of Spanish frigates, much smaller than the Dümplom, but well armed, were anchored in the bay as well.
Leo ordered the sails slacked and Jessica dispelled the wind she’d been conjuring, slowing them, and ordered Henrye to hoist a Spanish merchant’s ensign and a white flag of peace. Signals were raised from both forward batteries in response, ‘stop where you are and drop anchor’. The Dümplom complied, despite the fact that they were in direct line of fire for both batteries, but Caddis ordered Zarina and Oppenheimer to be ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
As the officers discussed what tale to spin for the Spaniards, a contingent of soldiers loaded into one of the frigates, the Esmerelda by name, and the ship put out to meet them. The Esmerelda stopped at a distance of about two-hundred yards, a difficult range for most ship-board cannon, and a voice came carried to them on the wind. “Ho Slaver! What business do you have here?”
Rummy, one of the only Spanish-speakers among them, replied. “We’re not slavers…we’re um…on official business from the Governor of Buenos Aires. We heard your prison was at capacity and are here to transfer prisoners to the penal colony at Tierra del Fuego…”
There was a long pause with no response from the Spaniards, then Caddis pointed out that their ship still had purple sails, and a clearly non-Spanish name painted on the side, and was covered with bones. “We were…um…attacked…” Rummy continued. “Our ship was destroyed in the fighting and we were forced to take possession of this one.”
The wind carried back the response, “Raise sail and prepare to be boarded!” Again they complied, and the Esmerelda sailed abreast of them. Twenty uniformed Spanish soldiers, army rather than navy by the look of them, armed with muskets stood arrayed on the deck, surrounding a well-dressed, jowly, middle-aged man in a powdered wig. As the ships came alongside, a boarding plank was lowered and the man came across, flanked by two of the soldiers. He looked around in apparent shock at the mismatched crew consisting mostly of Dutchmen, blackamoors, and women, all well armed. “I am the Comte Louis Antoine de Bougainville, governor of this colony, and you sirs," he said to no one in particular, “are horrible liars…”
At a gesture from Caddis, Oppenheimer yanked the lever to unfurl the Dümplom’s wings and put them in the air. The wind from the first downbeat almost overturned the smaller ship beside them, sending the land-lubber musketeers reeling. Sandara quickly shrouded the Dümplom in a bank of mist. Rummy leaned out over the rail and dropped a couple flasks of alchemist’s fire on the floundering Esmerelda. One landing a direct hit on the mast, setting its rigging alight and sending the sailing crew scrambling about in a panic.
The crew drew weapons, and, faced with 30-to-1 odds, the two soldiers accompanying the governor leaped overboard before they were too high up. Caddis quickly explained to the swooning, white-wigged gentleman that they had come to collect his prisoners. The governor fell to his knees, cowering, begging, and blubbering and mentioning what a large ransom they could expect for his life.
From the air, it became clear that the two forward batteries of cannons were manned only by lookouts, and did not have sufficient crews to fire even one, let alone all twenty of the cannons pointed at them. Sails were unfurled and Leo turned the Dümplom towards the wharf. The third battery of cannons was manned, though insufficiently so. A single barrage rang out, but, trained as they were for targets on the water, could not adjust fast enough for even a single shot to hit a flying target.
As the Dümplom bore down on the battery, the soldiers stationed there broke and ran. Leo gave Zarina the wheel, grabbed a rope, and dove over the side. He misjudged the length of the rope, however, and rather than rappelling, ended up belly-flopping into the bay. Still, it was sufficiently dramatic for the debtors and white-collar criminals held in Puerto Soledad. He rose and
struck up a song, and was soon accompanied by the small army of adorable technical kittens falling from the sky around him.
Soon everyone in the colony, from the lowliest prisoner to the officers were fleeing for the hills. Caddis ordered the Dümplom to fly ahead of the fleeing men and swing about. The horse that had been Thaduk leaped from the ship in front of the runners, and unleashed a torrent of black lightning from his horn, striking everyone present. Rather than harm them, the bolts placed them all into a state of euphoric bliss, halting their flight with what amounted to a magically-induced drug trip.
With the locals thus subdued, Zarina set the Dümplom down in the harbor next to the second friggate, the Liebre, and Caddis released the crew to loot and pillage to their hearts content. A mile out in the harbor, the Esmerelda continued to burn while the soldiers drowned. The settlement was small—just some 20 buildings including dwellings, barracks for officers, seamen, convicts and troops, a chapel, hospital, kiln, and smithy. Coffers and weapon lockers were raided. Cannon and food stores were salvaged. By the next morning the Dümplom was fully restocked with sufficient food to feed two hundred men, enough guns for a full company of soldiers, and enough cannon to keep even Riaris Krine giggling with glee.
Thaduk found the smithy, and a couple of convicts who could swing a hammer, though none capable of making enchanted horseshoes for him. He also found a large herd of wild horses, and, after chasing off the stallions with his horn, proceeded to mount the mares, all one-hundred and three of them, in a two-day-long horsey love-fest, fueled by
Leo’s fatigue-dispelling songs.
Once the magically-induced bliss wore off, Caddis, Leo, Rummy, and Thaduk went among the colony’s survivors and offered them all jobs. Between the promises of fortune and glory for all and freedom for the convicts, and the implied, though never overtly stated, threat of violence, everyone present agreed to work aboard their ship. The governor, Louis, and his officers and officials were put into the brig to be ransomed off later, and the soldiers, guards, sailors, convicts, and support staff were quickly put to work.
Once all of the loot, weapons, and provisions were loaded, and their new crew sorted out, the Dümplom got underway. Leo set a heading west by south-west and Jessica ensured that they had a good tail wind. Two days out they rounded Cape Horn, battling ice and rocks and wind, and had their last glimpse of land before heading out into the Pacific. From there they turned west by north-west, hoping to lose some latitude and have warmer weather for the rest of the nearly nine-thousand mile voyage.
Other than the occasional albatross, breaching whale, and one or two small ships in the distance to the north, they saw nothing for the next four days. Late in the night on their sixth day out from Puerto Soledad, Caddis was awakened by the sound of claws scrabbling at the outside of the hull. He disentangled himself from Fiona and created some light. In the sudden flash, he saw a large, cat-like creature climbing through the window of his cabin.
The thing sprang at him, but stuck an illusory image. Fiona sprang out of bed, snatched up her greatclub, and batted it across the room. The cat-creature caught the wall with its feat and sprang right back at Caddis, this time hitting. It dug its claws into his midsection, shredded his pants with its raking back paws, and then bit him, its razor-sharp teeth severing his manhood.
Caddis screamed and raised the alarm as the cat went shooting out the door of the cabin onto the deck. Leo, half-asleep at the wheel, jolted awake at the scream and chased after it. “It’s a Koro! Get some fish!” he shouted, waking the crew and sending the
Manekineko Parade to surround it. Seeing Leo’s horde of pastel kittens, the Koro rolled onto its back and affixed Caddis’ private parts to its own body.
Rummy, running up on deck, saw the thing and promptly sent it flying over the rail and into the water with a single sharp kick. Caddis, meanwhile, hid in the cabin and cast a spell to regenerate his man-parts.
Once healed he headed out on deck where Leo was rounding up the crew and ordering them to break out the stores of not-yet-salted fish. Koro, he explained, were a kind of water-cat known for stealing a man’s phallus to aid in their own reproduction, but, he said, absolutely hated the smell of rotting fish. By morning, every man on the ship was wearing a dead fish on his belt, and more fish were hung from the gunwhales all around the Dümplom’s perimeter.
The smell was horrible, but not nearly as bad as the alternative.
To be continued…
