[story] the demon's bride
author: jsg (rijsg)
e-mail: justsomeguyri [ at ] gmail dot com
artist: mene (moonplanet)
It was a dark and stormy night. The Eternal Storm ravaged the sea outside of Crow's Port. While it passed well beyond the shore, it sent heavy wind and rain to wreck the town. The docks were closed for days while the town's coffers shrank, but there was nothing to be done. Anyone stupid enough to sail in the Eternal Storm would doubtless get an audience with Kulah herself.
Most of the sailors stuck in Crow's Port spent their time in the Dirty Knave listening to the Storm thrash against the wooden walls. They drank their coin away and cursed the gods for creating that blight upon the seas. Were the Storm any closer, the Knave would most certainly collapse. Its rotten, termite-infested walls barely held up against the fringes of the Storm, and it was fifty-fifty whether the tavern would survive the night. It shook on its foundation like a ship in rough waters.
At least business was booming with all the stranded sailors. Mister Grimes would need the extra coin for repairs.
"Here you go, Captain!" Victoria said, forcing a cheery smile while she set a bottle and two shot glasses in the center of the circular wooden table. Captain John Avary, commonly known as One-Eye Avary, was a filthy man with bad teeth and a long, scraggly red beard. Despite his name, he had two eyes.
Victoria didn't like him very much. He was the one patron that everyone at the Knave---even Mister Grimeswished---would leave alone. "Just let me know if you need anything else!"
Captain Avary waved her off. "Away, wench. Let me have me drink in peace." He poured a shot in each glass and lifted one to his lips while his drinking companion grabbed the second. "I'll call you if I need me pole waxed, eh." He laughed a bit too loudly and looked around the Knave. Many others joined in, probably out of fear that he'd notice if they didn't.
Victoria turned and scurried back to the bar as fast as she could without betraying that she was running away. Even her short time working at the Knave had gotten her accustomed to pirates and the like---hell, most of the patrons just that night were clearly buccaneers---but One-Eye Avary was a grim legend among sailors. Victoria didn't even know he was real until he walked in and announced himself.
"Just try to get through the night. Avary will dock in a whore's cunt whenever he's ready." Cynthia knew what she was talking about. The Knave wasn't just a tavern, but also an inn and brothel. It had to cater to its clientele, after all. Victoria was usually left alone, aside from some ass-grabbing, in favor of the prostitutes. Several of them drank with the sailors, sang with them, even danced with them.
Mister Grimes never stopped them. It usually guaranteed they'd make him some money.
Victoria looked back at him, and then to Cynthia. "Pray that it's not yours."
"Aye. I been trying to avoid his notice." Cynthia looked around at her colleagues, singing shanties and peeling their clothes off as they danced. It was getting late and they wanted their coin. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go earn my pay. Put this on my tab." Cynthia grabbed a bottle of rum, pulled the collar of her dress lower, conveniently not noticing that it was a little too low, and spied herself a sailor. "I know what day it is for you. And this shit-sucking bastard on top of that," she added in a much lower voice. "Put another one on me and keep it for yourself."
Cythia sat on a man's lap and took a swig of rum. She pressed her lips against his and let it spill onto his tongue. She'd definitely be earning some coin tonight.
And since Victoria recently had begun living with her, she'd definitely have a hard time sleeping tonight. At least her bad luck was consistent.
"More drink!" Avary shouted, and banged his open palm on the table. Victoria quickly grabbed a bottle and hurried to him. He had spilled the previous one in his drunkenness.
"Here you are." She took the spilled bottle and replaced it with a full one.
Avary looked toward Cynthia as she removed her dress to expose the corset and stockings underneath. She drank from a bottle of rum and gave the sailor she was with a swig as well. Victoria didn't like the way Avary smiled at Cynthia. She began to worry for her friend. "Now there's a woman knows what a man wants." One-Eye Avary shifted his frightful gaze to Victoria. "You could learn a thing or two from that one!" He was the loudest man in the Knave, but he could afford to be. Mister Grimes wasn't going to tell him to shut up or get out. "Learn to spread your legs like a real woman, wench."
Victoria really didn't like Captain Avary. It was nothing she hadn't heard before, but she still hated hearing it. She just wanted to serve drinks and get paid. It was a small comfort that most of these men were pirates. They'd run afoul of the elves sooner or later, or the Eternal Storm, or just each other. Kulah would take them in short order, and the death goddess was a harsh mistress indeed.
She was used to that treatment, but Victoria was coming off of a particularly bad day, and that bad day was coming off of several other bad days. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it, but her stupid tongue was loosened by stress, fear, and, yes, a little bit of drink. "A real woman?" she said, unable to stop her stupid mouth, "You mean like Isabelle Burton?"
The revelry stopped dead, and the Knave fell silent, save for the rain pounding against its walls. All eyes fell on Captain Avary. For his part, Avary simply peered out from beneath his tangled mop of fiery hair. Victoria dropped the bottle in her hand, her bowels clenched tightly, and her eyes fixed upon his.
Shit! He was going to shoot her right here and now.
The Knave was frozen in time. No one dared to move, or even to breathe too heavily. Victoria gulped, and in the harsh silence it sounded loud as cannon fire. Her heartbeat hastened and her eyes began to sting with salty tears.
After about ten years, the silence broke with loud, boisterous laughter straight from Avary's large gut. "Isabelle Burton?" he shouted. "The devil bitch of the sea? Ha! Piss on her, I say! The strumpet and her crew of women and slaves without the balls to just fuck her and take command hisself?" He took a long draught from the bottle of whiskey and slammed it down. He extended a hand to Victoria. "Come here, lass, and sit with me."
"I... I have other tables and-"
"Sit!" He loudly stomped his foot on the warped floorboard beneath him. "And you," he said to his drinking companion, "Don't you see a lady's come to the table? Offer her your seat like a right and proper lad."
Victoria sat. Captain Avary's companion, whose name she didn't know and had no desire to ask, stood up to give her his chair. Unlike Avary, his beard knew the touch of a razor, and his clothes weren't as ragged as most seamen, but they still bore salty rings of sweat beneath the arms, common among sailors. Victoria hadn't cared about him before, but now he was standing behind her, out of her view. She didn't hear him walk off.
"I like you, girl. You've got balls." He poured a shot of whiskey and slowly slid it across the moldy table. "Drink."
She hesitated.
"Drink! And don't make me go telling you something twice again. Just like a woman..." Victoria drank the shot and, hand shaking, slowly placed the glass back onto the table. "Now," Avary said, "I do love me a good story. So why don't you tell me one, eh? I think I'd like to hear the tale of Isabelle Burton. It's a favorite of mine."
Victoria gulped. Avary slammed his palm on the table. "Well?" he shouted, and she jumped back in her seat with a strangled scream. Her shoulders bumped into Avary's man behind her, and she trembled a bit from the touch. Victoria bit down to stop herself and took a few choppy breaths.
"I-Isabelle Burton... They say that she was spit into the world straight from..." She trailed off. Victoria had told the stories to her daughter several times. She knew them by heart; this may have been the first time she'd ever had trouble with the telling. Captain Avary's harsh stare locked her in fear. It was hard to form the words, they just got caught up in her throat. "Straight from Kulah's own cunt. She's a d-devil in the flesh and-"
Captain Avary rapped his fingers on the table. The rest of the bar waited in almost perfect stillness, drinks planted firmly on tables. No one wanted to be the one Avary saw in the corner of his vision. The only conversation was Victoria's teary stuttering.
"She sails on the Demon, a black ship out of Hell itself. And along with her quartermaster, the dread Mary Crowne, sh-she..."
"She... What?"
"She attacks elf ships, and Isabelle has... She's sunk more..."
Victoria shut her eyes when she saw the captain's hand move under the table. Surely he kept a pistol or a knife with him. Was he going to kill her? Victoria never should have mentioned Isabelle Burton. She cursed her stupid tongue. She could have just said nothing, but she was under too much stress and it just happened. Now she would die for it.
Would it truly be that bad? It was a year to the day since her daughter had died, and the date weighed heavy on Victoria's soul. She'd lost her home and was sleeping on the floor in Cynthia's spare room, and being the newest employee at the Knave, she was first in line for a firing. The Storm wasn't kind to Crow's Port or its taverns, and the sailors were antsy and rambunctious. Mister Grimes would rather spend the money on repairs than on Victoria's purse.
And yet she was still afraid to die. She stared death in the eye. It might as well have been Kulah herself across that table.
"She's sunk more elven ships than any other pirate. She attacks with fire and fury, and she targets slave ships and..." Victoria took a deep breath. "And please don't kill me, Captain. Please-"
"Kill you? What makes you think I aim to kill you? I want you to entertain me with your story. Now, entertain me!" With his visible hand, he grabbed her wrist and squeezed it tightly.
"Relax," Avary's man said, placing his own hand firmly on her shoulder. Victoria's entire body tensed up. Tears fell freely down her cheeks and she shook with every uneasy breath she took. "Captain One-Eye wants to hear a story. Alls you have to do is tell him one."
"Many people see her as a, ah, a hero and a liberator and... And a symbol of hope and courage against the elves," she continued. Every word of praise she gave Isabelle felt like tightening a noose around her neck, but she had the story memorized, and not enough of her wits to tell it any other way.
"She's no more a symbol of hope or courage or any other kind of bullshit as me," Avary said. His tight grip hurt Victoria's arm, and it only became tighter as he spoke. He pulled her close and leaned in, their faces nearly touching. She could smell the liquor on his breath. "She robs and kills same as me. She's a fucking murderer and she's pretending at being a pirate, and a shit one at that. But I say, what can you expect from a whore trying to do a man's job, eh?"
At this, Captain Avary's crew, a group of five men that night, burst into laughter. Everyone else in the Knave still stood in nervous silence. A few tried to quietly slip out, including Cynthia, but one of Avary's sailors positioned himself at the door. She may have been going out to get help, but Victoria wouldn't have blamed her if she just wanted to escape. Victoria spied the sailor's hand brush the knife at his belt, making his intent clear to anyone remotely thinking of escaping until the story was over.
"Now, now, Jim," Captain Avary said. "If the lady doesn't want to hear a story, she doesn't have to."
In an instant Avary raised his flintlock and fired with a thunderous bang, the bullet tearing its way through Cynthia's chest. She fell onto the ground and the people screamed, none as loud as Victoria.
Victoria shook worse than before. She could feel nervous sweat tangling her hair, and it was hard to speak through her crying and the loud sniffling that failed to hold back her runny nose. Worse still, she felt the warm, wet sensation of piss between her legs. She stared at Cynthia's lifeless body. "I... What's happening? Why did..."
"Now," Avary said. "Where were we?"
Victoria didn't look back to him just yet. "Isabelle's ship, the Demon, is... Is... Is the fastest, ah, the fastest ship on the sea. They say it's followed by a ghostly black fog and it can, ah, it can outmaneuver any ship out there. Even..." She was just telling it from memory now, the way she had often told her daughter before she died. Victoria had wanted her to hear about great and adventurous women like Isabelle Burton and Mary Crowne, even if they were nothing but myth.
Captain Avary's jagged, black-crusted fingernails dug into her arm. He glanced at the man standing behind her. What was he doing? She could hear him shifting behind her.
"Even the... Please don't kill me."
Victoria's head sunk. She couldn't think of any other ships to name. "Even the Black Terror."
The Black Terror was the ship of one Captain John Avary, most feared pirate in the western seas. A man who Victoria honestly thought was a horror story that sailors made up to scare one another.
She'd never left Crow's Port or seen the world. Her father had died before he could take her out to sea, and his ship was taken to settle debts. For all Victoria knew, Isabelle Burton was a real person too, somewhere out there. She doubted it, but it was a good thought.
The only reason she wasn't dead was because One-Eye Avary had already fired his gun. "If that's the case, wench, then answer me this: Why did I sail into Crow's Port with two ships under my command? I captained the Black Terror of course. Care to venture a guess as to my other boat?"
"N-no, Captain."
"I think you can," the man behind her said. "Just try. It'll be fun."
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Guess!" Avary placed a second pistol, half-cocked, onto the table. "Never travel with just one gun. Now, venture a guess as to my second ship. You don't have to be right. I wouldn't expect a bartending bitch to get it, anyways."
After a prolonged silence in which Victoria could do little but cry for fear of her life, she was able to continue. "Is it the D-Demon?"
Avary laughed again, picking up his pistol and pointing it straight at Victoria. She had never stared down the barrel of a gun before. He slowly pulled his thumb downward, cocking it fully. His wide smile showed a mouth full of gnarly, browned teeth. "The Demon? Is that your guess? You think I sailed into port on a magic ship, followed by black fog, that come straight from hell itself? Is that what you're saying, girl?"
"I don't know! I don't know! Please..."
Victoria would be living with Cynthia again soon.
"Well you're right!" Avary set down his flintlock, howling the entire time. "You might not have recognized it. Burned it down, we did, and a boat's hard to recognize in a good fire. I'd wager anyone would have been more concerned with the screaming crew below deck anyways. Best sound in the world, lass, your enemies crying and screaming while they burn.
"Now, I have a question for you. Why is the Demon made of the same fucking wood as my Black Terror? Where's this demonic fog you were pissing about? It really ain't very different from any other ship. Can you explain to me these peculiarities? They don't quite line up with your story. You been lying to me this whole time?"
"I-I-I..."
"And another question for you---just one more, because I don't need some lying cunt spinning more tall tales---do you know why they call me One-Eye Avary?" He grabbed Victoria's chin and held her so she'd look straight into his eyes.
"I don't, Captain." She tried to shift her body to get away from him, and the motion made her keenly aware of how soaked with sweat and piss her dress had become.
Avary's man clasped his hands on both of Victoria's shoulders. She couldn't run if she tried. She didn't have the strength to fight off a child, much less two armed men.
The captain let her go and reached into his coat, fishing around the inside pocket. "I still got both me eyes, but see, when I kill a man and take his ship, I like to keep a, ah, a souvenir of sorts; something to remember his death by. There are just so many of them, and I do drink me fair share, so sometimes I need reminding."
"This here," he said, tossing a human eye onto the table, "Is me latest. It belonged to someone you been pretending you're familiar with, a wench thought she was a real sailor. In the end, your precious little hero went down. She did her share of screaming while I dug it out of her head. Getting it gave me a bit of trouble, I admit, but nothing a nice, sharp knife couldn't fix."
Victoria stared at the eye in horror. "So she's really and truly..."
"Dead and drowned, tossed into shark waters with a bloody socket and a broken spirit. The Storm's done brought her back where she came from. She's resting in Kulah's tits now." He once again pointed his gun at Victoria. "If you so desire, I can arrange for you to meet her. Aye, lass, Isabelle Burton is really and truly-"
"Right here."
Thunder clapped as someone kicked the Knave's door off its hinges. It crushed the man standing guard against escape attempts beneath it. A tall, ragged woman with dark skin and disheveled hair stepped through. She stomped hard on the fallen door and the man beneath it, smashing the wood against his head. She looked exhausted, out of breath, and beaten by the Storm. Her hand, however, was steady as a rock when she raised a pistol to Captain Avary.
His crew raised aimed their guns at her.
From behind the woman, two gunshots boomed, each one felling one of Avary's men. Only the captain himself and the man behind Victoria remained. Another woman stepped in. She was shorter than the first and had skin pale as milk and covered in red tattoos. In each hand she held a smoking gun.
"One-Eye Avary!" the first woman shouted, her voice torn up by whatever ordeal she had gone through to reach the Knave, and it was plain that she went through something by the look of her. "You forgot to cut out me living heart, keep me from raising from the dead. Now," And that's when Victoria noticed that she was missing one eye, and she had a fresh, badly-healing cut down her cheek. "You owe me a ship, and-"
"And you should be dead, Burton!" He looked like he had seen a ghost. "Or did Kulah spit you back out? No matter." He shifted his gun from Victoria to Isabelle, much to the barmaid's relief. "I just get to kill you again. Fun as the first time was, I look forward to it."
"And," his companion added, "You're already spent. You're outgunned."
"Aye," Isabelle said. Victoria couldn't help but think how different from herself Isabelle was. Where Victoria cried and pissed herself, Isabelle was almost beaming. Did she enjoy this? "But not for long. Mary?"
The other woman tossed her spent flintlocks aside and reached into the back of Isabelle's belt, pulling out another pistol. She shot Avary's companion in short order, blowing his head to bits. Victoria shielded herself against the spatter of blood as best she could. She just wanted this nightmare to be over, but she knew it would never end. Cynthia was dead. Even if Victoria somehow survived, her closest friend was gone.
Isabelle took a large step to her right, while her accomplice, Mary Crowne, took one to her left. "What'll it be, One-Eye? You've got one gun in hand, no crew in sight, and you can't shoot both of us." Their guns were empty as well, but each woman held knives in her hand. It didn't matter who Avary shot, he'd be joining her in short order.
"I suppose I can't," Captain Avary said. "Seems this is it for me, at the hands of a ship's whore playing at being captain. Aye, John Avary is done for, but I ain't hanging the jib." He steadied his hand against the whiskey, aiming straight at Isabelle's chest. At this distance, there was no way he'd miss, addled or not. "‘Cause I'll be taking you with me, Burton."
"No!"
Victoria couldn't say where her sudden burst of courage or madness came from. Maybe she just didn't care if she lived or died anymore. She screamed and lunged from her seat, grabbing Avary's firing arm with both hands. The sudden motion and the impact of her body made his finger twitch against the trigger. His gun boomed, louder than anything Victoria ever heard, leaving her ears ringing.
His shot was wasted. One-Eye Avary was at Isabelle's mercy.
She couldn't say where it came from, but one minute Victoria Darksmoor was frozen scared and the next she was saving a woman she had thought was just a bedtime story.
Isabelle cackled like a madwoman. "Look at you, Avary! Undone by a barwench! Ha!" She took a few steps forward, a gleeful madness in her eye that looked more terrifying than John Avary ever had. "Now, as I was saying. You owe me a ship, you owe me a crew, and," in a swift motion she flung a knife into Avary's eye, the blade sliding in to the hilt. Blood spurted out as he fell dead onto the dirty floor. "You owe me a fucking eye."
Was it finally over? John Avary lay dead on the floor, knife jutting out of his head. But was Isabelle even worse? She had survived the Storm, with a freshly removed eye, and killed several men with no trouble at all. Captain Avary had fallen before her and she clearly fucking loved it.
Victoria envied that, just a little bit.
"Here lies the former captain, One-Eye Avary, finally earning that stupid name of his," Isabelle boasted, spreading her arms and standing over his corpse. "Killed by a woman! May this shit's worthless soul find its way down to Kulah's bilge, so that he might spend eternity under an even worse woman!"
Isabelle and Mary both noticed Victoria at the same time once they finally stopped laughing over the fallen captain. She crept backwards away from them.
Mary Crowne was the first to speak to her. "What's your name, girl?"
"Victoria Darksmoor." It was hard to make her voice much more than a shaky whisper. She was drawn to the strange, bloody red color of Mary's eyes, staring into her own. Mary had just finished gunning down three men without batting an eye. Three armed men that could have easily killed her. What would she do to someone like Victoria? If the stories were true---and so far, they all seemed right on the mark---Isabelle and Mary had little interest in men. Some of the stories said they were lovers, damn near all of them said they had proclivities toward women.
After a life in Crow's Port, raised by a merchant sailor, Victoria knew well what pirates did to women. She wanted to think these different, better somehow, because they were women themselves.
As they stood, looking hungrily at her pathetic form, it wasn't an easy thought to hold onto. Isabelle didn't seem like the hero she loved to tell her daughter about anymore.
No one in the Dirty Knave was brave enough to do anything but watch in grim anticipation.
Isabelle licked her lips and gave her a fearsome, lusty grin.
Victoria began trembling. Her back was to the bar; she had nowhere to go. She curled her legs and arms before herself and shielded her head.
The pirates shared a glance, and began to laugh. Isabelle reached out to her with a dark hand. "Get up, Victoria."
Victoria quickly reached out and took it, scared to disobey. She was pulled to her feet, and almost fell straight back down. She felt weak in the knees and her legs were jelly beneath her.
"Don't be so scared, lass," Mary said. "We aren't going to harm you. Just having a little fun is all. Lighten up!" She slapped Victoria on the back harder than she'd have liked. She stumbled forward a little. "If it weren't for you, Isabelle would be in Kulah's cold bosom right now."
"I owe you," Isabelle told her, "And I don't like to be in anyone's debt. Victoria Darksmoor, name a boon and I'll give it to you." She lowered her voice so only Victoria and Mary could hear. "Just not my pretty new boat. And I don't actually have any money. This bilge-rat," she pointed to Avary, "burned down the Demon and killed me fucking crew. I don't have anything but the clothes on me back right now. I can give you that if it'll square us."
Isabelle's clothes were too large for Victoria, extremely dirty, and horribly mismatched. Plus she had no intention of leaving a woman naked in a Crow's Port bar. She felt more than a bit overwhelmed after the events of the last few minutes. They were all finally crashing down on her: how close she had come to death, that Cynthia was gone forever, shot down without a second thought. Without Cynthia, Victoria didn't have a place to live.
Mister Grimes might not fire her after all this, but she didn't want to set foot in the Dirty Knave again. She just wanted to go away for a long, long time.
That was it!
"You need a crew, right?"
"Aye, that we do."
Victoria took a deep breath---a real breath, not a choppy, exasperated breath---and looked down at the floor, anything to put off what she needed to say. She knew what she wanted, but the thought of actually doing it...
Fuck it. "Would you take me with you? Take me away from here. Please."
"You don't have what it takes," Mary said. "Do you even know how to sail?"
"My father taught me. He was a merchant seaman, but he died and his ship was taken. I've never sailed in the open waters, but I know my way around a ship. There's nothing left for me here. Take me away. That's my boon." She looked at the corpse of her friend near the door. "I want out of this place."
"A sailing life will just take you to more places like this," Isabelle told her. "You may have horrible memories of this place, but this shit will be your life from now on."
Victoria stood for a while, then nodded.
Isabelle shared a few whispered words with Mary, then turned and spoke. "I've made proper scoundrels out of slaves, whores, carousers, and even dwarves." She laughed and threw her arm around Victoria's shoulder. "How hard could a bar wench be? Victoria Darksmoor, welcome to the crew of the Demon's Bride!"
"The Demon's Bride?"
"I'm sure as shit not calling my new sloop the Black Terror. Now, I've had a shit few days, and it's well past time to splice the mainsail." Isabelle and Mary sat at the bar and looked to Victoria. "Your first order of duty is to get us the biggest fucking bottle of rum in this entire port."
the end
e-mail: justsomeguyri [ at ] gmail dot com
artist: mene (moonplanet)
It was a dark and stormy night. The Eternal Storm ravaged the sea outside of Crow's Port. While it passed well beyond the shore, it sent heavy wind and rain to wreck the town. The docks were closed for days while the town's coffers shrank, but there was nothing to be done. Anyone stupid enough to sail in the Eternal Storm would doubtless get an audience with Kulah herself.
Most of the sailors stuck in Crow's Port spent their time in the Dirty Knave listening to the Storm thrash against the wooden walls. They drank their coin away and cursed the gods for creating that blight upon the seas. Were the Storm any closer, the Knave would most certainly collapse. Its rotten, termite-infested walls barely held up against the fringes of the Storm, and it was fifty-fifty whether the tavern would survive the night. It shook on its foundation like a ship in rough waters.
At least business was booming with all the stranded sailors. Mister Grimes would need the extra coin for repairs.
"Here you go, Captain!" Victoria said, forcing a cheery smile while she set a bottle and two shot glasses in the center of the circular wooden table. Captain John Avary, commonly known as One-Eye Avary, was a filthy man with bad teeth and a long, scraggly red beard. Despite his name, he had two eyes.
Victoria didn't like him very much. He was the one patron that everyone at the Knave---even Mister Grimeswished---would leave alone. "Just let me know if you need anything else!"
Captain Avary waved her off. "Away, wench. Let me have me drink in peace." He poured a shot in each glass and lifted one to his lips while his drinking companion grabbed the second. "I'll call you if I need me pole waxed, eh." He laughed a bit too loudly and looked around the Knave. Many others joined in, probably out of fear that he'd notice if they didn't.
Victoria turned and scurried back to the bar as fast as she could without betraying that she was running away. Even her short time working at the Knave had gotten her accustomed to pirates and the like---hell, most of the patrons just that night were clearly buccaneers---but One-Eye Avary was a grim legend among sailors. Victoria didn't even know he was real until he walked in and announced himself.
"Just try to get through the night. Avary will dock in a whore's cunt whenever he's ready." Cynthia knew what she was talking about. The Knave wasn't just a tavern, but also an inn and brothel. It had to cater to its clientele, after all. Victoria was usually left alone, aside from some ass-grabbing, in favor of the prostitutes. Several of them drank with the sailors, sang with them, even danced with them.
Mister Grimes never stopped them. It usually guaranteed they'd make him some money.
Victoria looked back at him, and then to Cynthia. "Pray that it's not yours."
"Aye. I been trying to avoid his notice." Cynthia looked around at her colleagues, singing shanties and peeling their clothes off as they danced. It was getting late and they wanted their coin. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go earn my pay. Put this on my tab." Cynthia grabbed a bottle of rum, pulled the collar of her dress lower, conveniently not noticing that it was a little too low, and spied herself a sailor. "I know what day it is for you. And this shit-sucking bastard on top of that," she added in a much lower voice. "Put another one on me and keep it for yourself."
Cythia sat on a man's lap and took a swig of rum. She pressed her lips against his and let it spill onto his tongue. She'd definitely be earning some coin tonight.
And since Victoria recently had begun living with her, she'd definitely have a hard time sleeping tonight. At least her bad luck was consistent.
"More drink!" Avary shouted, and banged his open palm on the table. Victoria quickly grabbed a bottle and hurried to him. He had spilled the previous one in his drunkenness.
"Here you are." She took the spilled bottle and replaced it with a full one.
Avary looked toward Cynthia as she removed her dress to expose the corset and stockings underneath. She drank from a bottle of rum and gave the sailor she was with a swig as well. Victoria didn't like the way Avary smiled at Cynthia. She began to worry for her friend. "Now there's a woman knows what a man wants." One-Eye Avary shifted his frightful gaze to Victoria. "You could learn a thing or two from that one!" He was the loudest man in the Knave, but he could afford to be. Mister Grimes wasn't going to tell him to shut up or get out. "Learn to spread your legs like a real woman, wench."
Victoria really didn't like Captain Avary. It was nothing she hadn't heard before, but she still hated hearing it. She just wanted to serve drinks and get paid. It was a small comfort that most of these men were pirates. They'd run afoul of the elves sooner or later, or the Eternal Storm, or just each other. Kulah would take them in short order, and the death goddess was a harsh mistress indeed.
She was used to that treatment, but Victoria was coming off of a particularly bad day, and that bad day was coming off of several other bad days. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it, but her stupid tongue was loosened by stress, fear, and, yes, a little bit of drink. "A real woman?" she said, unable to stop her stupid mouth, "You mean like Isabelle Burton?"
The revelry stopped dead, and the Knave fell silent, save for the rain pounding against its walls. All eyes fell on Captain Avary. For his part, Avary simply peered out from beneath his tangled mop of fiery hair. Victoria dropped the bottle in her hand, her bowels clenched tightly, and her eyes fixed upon his.
Shit! He was going to shoot her right here and now.
The Knave was frozen in time. No one dared to move, or even to breathe too heavily. Victoria gulped, and in the harsh silence it sounded loud as cannon fire. Her heartbeat hastened and her eyes began to sting with salty tears.
After about ten years, the silence broke with loud, boisterous laughter straight from Avary's large gut. "Isabelle Burton?" he shouted. "The devil bitch of the sea? Ha! Piss on her, I say! The strumpet and her crew of women and slaves without the balls to just fuck her and take command hisself?" He took a long draught from the bottle of whiskey and slammed it down. He extended a hand to Victoria. "Come here, lass, and sit with me."
"I... I have other tables and-"
"Sit!" He loudly stomped his foot on the warped floorboard beneath him. "And you," he said to his drinking companion, "Don't you see a lady's come to the table? Offer her your seat like a right and proper lad."
Victoria sat. Captain Avary's companion, whose name she didn't know and had no desire to ask, stood up to give her his chair. Unlike Avary, his beard knew the touch of a razor, and his clothes weren't as ragged as most seamen, but they still bore salty rings of sweat beneath the arms, common among sailors. Victoria hadn't cared about him before, but now he was standing behind her, out of her view. She didn't hear him walk off.
"I like you, girl. You've got balls." He poured a shot of whiskey and slowly slid it across the moldy table. "Drink."
She hesitated.
"Drink! And don't make me go telling you something twice again. Just like a woman..." Victoria drank the shot and, hand shaking, slowly placed the glass back onto the table. "Now," Avary said, "I do love me a good story. So why don't you tell me one, eh? I think I'd like to hear the tale of Isabelle Burton. It's a favorite of mine."
Victoria gulped. Avary slammed his palm on the table. "Well?" he shouted, and she jumped back in her seat with a strangled scream. Her shoulders bumped into Avary's man behind her, and she trembled a bit from the touch. Victoria bit down to stop herself and took a few choppy breaths.
"I-Isabelle Burton... They say that she was spit into the world straight from..." She trailed off. Victoria had told the stories to her daughter several times. She knew them by heart; this may have been the first time she'd ever had trouble with the telling. Captain Avary's harsh stare locked her in fear. It was hard to form the words, they just got caught up in her throat. "Straight from Kulah's own cunt. She's a d-devil in the flesh and-"
Captain Avary rapped his fingers on the table. The rest of the bar waited in almost perfect stillness, drinks planted firmly on tables. No one wanted to be the one Avary saw in the corner of his vision. The only conversation was Victoria's teary stuttering.
"She sails on the Demon, a black ship out of Hell itself. And along with her quartermaster, the dread Mary Crowne, sh-she..."
"She... What?"
"She attacks elf ships, and Isabelle has... She's sunk more..."
Victoria shut her eyes when she saw the captain's hand move under the table. Surely he kept a pistol or a knife with him. Was he going to kill her? Victoria never should have mentioned Isabelle Burton. She cursed her stupid tongue. She could have just said nothing, but she was under too much stress and it just happened. Now she would die for it.
Would it truly be that bad? It was a year to the day since her daughter had died, and the date weighed heavy on Victoria's soul. She'd lost her home and was sleeping on the floor in Cynthia's spare room, and being the newest employee at the Knave, she was first in line for a firing. The Storm wasn't kind to Crow's Port or its taverns, and the sailors were antsy and rambunctious. Mister Grimes would rather spend the money on repairs than on Victoria's purse.
And yet she was still afraid to die. She stared death in the eye. It might as well have been Kulah herself across that table.
"She's sunk more elven ships than any other pirate. She attacks with fire and fury, and she targets slave ships and..." Victoria took a deep breath. "And please don't kill me, Captain. Please-"
"Kill you? What makes you think I aim to kill you? I want you to entertain me with your story. Now, entertain me!" With his visible hand, he grabbed her wrist and squeezed it tightly.
"Relax," Avary's man said, placing his own hand firmly on her shoulder. Victoria's entire body tensed up. Tears fell freely down her cheeks and she shook with every uneasy breath she took. "Captain One-Eye wants to hear a story. Alls you have to do is tell him one."
"Many people see her as a, ah, a hero and a liberator and... And a symbol of hope and courage against the elves," she continued. Every word of praise she gave Isabelle felt like tightening a noose around her neck, but she had the story memorized, and not enough of her wits to tell it any other way.
"She's no more a symbol of hope or courage or any other kind of bullshit as me," Avary said. His tight grip hurt Victoria's arm, and it only became tighter as he spoke. He pulled her close and leaned in, their faces nearly touching. She could smell the liquor on his breath. "She robs and kills same as me. She's a fucking murderer and she's pretending at being a pirate, and a shit one at that. But I say, what can you expect from a whore trying to do a man's job, eh?"
At this, Captain Avary's crew, a group of five men that night, burst into laughter. Everyone else in the Knave still stood in nervous silence. A few tried to quietly slip out, including Cynthia, but one of Avary's sailors positioned himself at the door. She may have been going out to get help, but Victoria wouldn't have blamed her if she just wanted to escape. Victoria spied the sailor's hand brush the knife at his belt, making his intent clear to anyone remotely thinking of escaping until the story was over.
"Now, now, Jim," Captain Avary said. "If the lady doesn't want to hear a story, she doesn't have to."
In an instant Avary raised his flintlock and fired with a thunderous bang, the bullet tearing its way through Cynthia's chest. She fell onto the ground and the people screamed, none as loud as Victoria.
Victoria shook worse than before. She could feel nervous sweat tangling her hair, and it was hard to speak through her crying and the loud sniffling that failed to hold back her runny nose. Worse still, she felt the warm, wet sensation of piss between her legs. She stared at Cynthia's lifeless body. "I... What's happening? Why did..."
"Now," Avary said. "Where were we?"
Victoria didn't look back to him just yet. "Isabelle's ship, the Demon, is... Is... Is the fastest, ah, the fastest ship on the sea. They say it's followed by a ghostly black fog and it can, ah, it can outmaneuver any ship out there. Even..." She was just telling it from memory now, the way she had often told her daughter before she died. Victoria had wanted her to hear about great and adventurous women like Isabelle Burton and Mary Crowne, even if they were nothing but myth.
Captain Avary's jagged, black-crusted fingernails dug into her arm. He glanced at the man standing behind her. What was he doing? She could hear him shifting behind her.
"Even the... Please don't kill me."
Victoria's head sunk. She couldn't think of any other ships to name. "Even the Black Terror."
The Black Terror was the ship of one Captain John Avary, most feared pirate in the western seas. A man who Victoria honestly thought was a horror story that sailors made up to scare one another.
She'd never left Crow's Port or seen the world. Her father had died before he could take her out to sea, and his ship was taken to settle debts. For all Victoria knew, Isabelle Burton was a real person too, somewhere out there. She doubted it, but it was a good thought.
The only reason she wasn't dead was because One-Eye Avary had already fired his gun. "If that's the case, wench, then answer me this: Why did I sail into Crow's Port with two ships under my command? I captained the Black Terror of course. Care to venture a guess as to my other boat?"
"N-no, Captain."
"I think you can," the man behind her said. "Just try. It'll be fun."
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Guess!" Avary placed a second pistol, half-cocked, onto the table. "Never travel with just one gun. Now, venture a guess as to my second ship. You don't have to be right. I wouldn't expect a bartending bitch to get it, anyways."
After a prolonged silence in which Victoria could do little but cry for fear of her life, she was able to continue. "Is it the D-Demon?"
Avary laughed again, picking up his pistol and pointing it straight at Victoria. She had never stared down the barrel of a gun before. He slowly pulled his thumb downward, cocking it fully. His wide smile showed a mouth full of gnarly, browned teeth. "The Demon? Is that your guess? You think I sailed into port on a magic ship, followed by black fog, that come straight from hell itself? Is that what you're saying, girl?"
"I don't know! I don't know! Please..."
Victoria would be living with Cynthia again soon.
"Well you're right!" Avary set down his flintlock, howling the entire time. "You might not have recognized it. Burned it down, we did, and a boat's hard to recognize in a good fire. I'd wager anyone would have been more concerned with the screaming crew below deck anyways. Best sound in the world, lass, your enemies crying and screaming while they burn.
"Now, I have a question for you. Why is the Demon made of the same fucking wood as my Black Terror? Where's this demonic fog you were pissing about? It really ain't very different from any other ship. Can you explain to me these peculiarities? They don't quite line up with your story. You been lying to me this whole time?"
"I-I-I..."
"And another question for you---just one more, because I don't need some lying cunt spinning more tall tales---do you know why they call me One-Eye Avary?" He grabbed Victoria's chin and held her so she'd look straight into his eyes.
"I don't, Captain." She tried to shift her body to get away from him, and the motion made her keenly aware of how soaked with sweat and piss her dress had become.
Avary's man clasped his hands on both of Victoria's shoulders. She couldn't run if she tried. She didn't have the strength to fight off a child, much less two armed men.
The captain let her go and reached into his coat, fishing around the inside pocket. "I still got both me eyes, but see, when I kill a man and take his ship, I like to keep a, ah, a souvenir of sorts; something to remember his death by. There are just so many of them, and I do drink me fair share, so sometimes I need reminding."
"This here," he said, tossing a human eye onto the table, "Is me latest. It belonged to someone you been pretending you're familiar with, a wench thought she was a real sailor. In the end, your precious little hero went down. She did her share of screaming while I dug it out of her head. Getting it gave me a bit of trouble, I admit, but nothing a nice, sharp knife couldn't fix."
Victoria stared at the eye in horror. "So she's really and truly..."
"Dead and drowned, tossed into shark waters with a bloody socket and a broken spirit. The Storm's done brought her back where she came from. She's resting in Kulah's tits now." He once again pointed his gun at Victoria. "If you so desire, I can arrange for you to meet her. Aye, lass, Isabelle Burton is really and truly-"
"Right here."
Thunder clapped as someone kicked the Knave's door off its hinges. It crushed the man standing guard against escape attempts beneath it. A tall, ragged woman with dark skin and disheveled hair stepped through. She stomped hard on the fallen door and the man beneath it, smashing the wood against his head. She looked exhausted, out of breath, and beaten by the Storm. Her hand, however, was steady as a rock when she raised a pistol to Captain Avary.
His crew raised aimed their guns at her.
From behind the woman, two gunshots boomed, each one felling one of Avary's men. Only the captain himself and the man behind Victoria remained. Another woman stepped in. She was shorter than the first and had skin pale as milk and covered in red tattoos. In each hand she held a smoking gun.
"One-Eye Avary!" the first woman shouted, her voice torn up by whatever ordeal she had gone through to reach the Knave, and it was plain that she went through something by the look of her. "You forgot to cut out me living heart, keep me from raising from the dead. Now," And that's when Victoria noticed that she was missing one eye, and she had a fresh, badly-healing cut down her cheek. "You owe me a ship, and-"
"And you should be dead, Burton!" He looked like he had seen a ghost. "Or did Kulah spit you back out? No matter." He shifted his gun from Victoria to Isabelle, much to the barmaid's relief. "I just get to kill you again. Fun as the first time was, I look forward to it."
"And," his companion added, "You're already spent. You're outgunned."
"Aye," Isabelle said. Victoria couldn't help but think how different from herself Isabelle was. Where Victoria cried and pissed herself, Isabelle was almost beaming. Did she enjoy this? "But not for long. Mary?"
The other woman tossed her spent flintlocks aside and reached into the back of Isabelle's belt, pulling out another pistol. She shot Avary's companion in short order, blowing his head to bits. Victoria shielded herself against the spatter of blood as best she could. She just wanted this nightmare to be over, but she knew it would never end. Cynthia was dead. Even if Victoria somehow survived, her closest friend was gone.
Isabelle took a large step to her right, while her accomplice, Mary Crowne, took one to her left. "What'll it be, One-Eye? You've got one gun in hand, no crew in sight, and you can't shoot both of us." Their guns were empty as well, but each woman held knives in her hand. It didn't matter who Avary shot, he'd be joining her in short order.
"I suppose I can't," Captain Avary said. "Seems this is it for me, at the hands of a ship's whore playing at being captain. Aye, John Avary is done for, but I ain't hanging the jib." He steadied his hand against the whiskey, aiming straight at Isabelle's chest. At this distance, there was no way he'd miss, addled or not. "‘Cause I'll be taking you with me, Burton."
"No!"
Victoria couldn't say where her sudden burst of courage or madness came from. Maybe she just didn't care if she lived or died anymore. She screamed and lunged from her seat, grabbing Avary's firing arm with both hands. The sudden motion and the impact of her body made his finger twitch against the trigger. His gun boomed, louder than anything Victoria ever heard, leaving her ears ringing.
His shot was wasted. One-Eye Avary was at Isabelle's mercy.
She couldn't say where it came from, but one minute Victoria Darksmoor was frozen scared and the next she was saving a woman she had thought was just a bedtime story.
Isabelle cackled like a madwoman. "Look at you, Avary! Undone by a barwench! Ha!" She took a few steps forward, a gleeful madness in her eye that looked more terrifying than John Avary ever had. "Now, as I was saying. You owe me a ship, you owe me a crew, and," in a swift motion she flung a knife into Avary's eye, the blade sliding in to the hilt. Blood spurted out as he fell dead onto the dirty floor. "You owe me a fucking eye."
Was it finally over? John Avary lay dead on the floor, knife jutting out of his head. But was Isabelle even worse? She had survived the Storm, with a freshly removed eye, and killed several men with no trouble at all. Captain Avary had fallen before her and she clearly fucking loved it.
Victoria envied that, just a little bit.
"Here lies the former captain, One-Eye Avary, finally earning that stupid name of his," Isabelle boasted, spreading her arms and standing over his corpse. "Killed by a woman! May this shit's worthless soul find its way down to Kulah's bilge, so that he might spend eternity under an even worse woman!"
Isabelle and Mary both noticed Victoria at the same time once they finally stopped laughing over the fallen captain. She crept backwards away from them.
Mary Crowne was the first to speak to her. "What's your name, girl?"
"Victoria Darksmoor." It was hard to make her voice much more than a shaky whisper. She was drawn to the strange, bloody red color of Mary's eyes, staring into her own. Mary had just finished gunning down three men without batting an eye. Three armed men that could have easily killed her. What would she do to someone like Victoria? If the stories were true---and so far, they all seemed right on the mark---Isabelle and Mary had little interest in men. Some of the stories said they were lovers, damn near all of them said they had proclivities toward women.
After a life in Crow's Port, raised by a merchant sailor, Victoria knew well what pirates did to women. She wanted to think these different, better somehow, because they were women themselves.
As they stood, looking hungrily at her pathetic form, it wasn't an easy thought to hold onto. Isabelle didn't seem like the hero she loved to tell her daughter about anymore.
No one in the Dirty Knave was brave enough to do anything but watch in grim anticipation.
Isabelle licked her lips and gave her a fearsome, lusty grin.
Victoria began trembling. Her back was to the bar; she had nowhere to go. She curled her legs and arms before herself and shielded her head.
The pirates shared a glance, and began to laugh. Isabelle reached out to her with a dark hand. "Get up, Victoria."
Victoria quickly reached out and took it, scared to disobey. She was pulled to her feet, and almost fell straight back down. She felt weak in the knees and her legs were jelly beneath her.
"Don't be so scared, lass," Mary said. "We aren't going to harm you. Just having a little fun is all. Lighten up!" She slapped Victoria on the back harder than she'd have liked. She stumbled forward a little. "If it weren't for you, Isabelle would be in Kulah's cold bosom right now."
"I owe you," Isabelle told her, "And I don't like to be in anyone's debt. Victoria Darksmoor, name a boon and I'll give it to you." She lowered her voice so only Victoria and Mary could hear. "Just not my pretty new boat. And I don't actually have any money. This bilge-rat," she pointed to Avary, "burned down the Demon and killed me fucking crew. I don't have anything but the clothes on me back right now. I can give you that if it'll square us."
Isabelle's clothes were too large for Victoria, extremely dirty, and horribly mismatched. Plus she had no intention of leaving a woman naked in a Crow's Port bar. She felt more than a bit overwhelmed after the events of the last few minutes. They were all finally crashing down on her: how close she had come to death, that Cynthia was gone forever, shot down without a second thought. Without Cynthia, Victoria didn't have a place to live.
Mister Grimes might not fire her after all this, but she didn't want to set foot in the Dirty Knave again. She just wanted to go away for a long, long time.
That was it!
"You need a crew, right?"
"Aye, that we do."
Victoria took a deep breath---a real breath, not a choppy, exasperated breath---and looked down at the floor, anything to put off what she needed to say. She knew what she wanted, but the thought of actually doing it...
Fuck it. "Would you take me with you? Take me away from here. Please."
"You don't have what it takes," Mary said. "Do you even know how to sail?"
"My father taught me. He was a merchant seaman, but he died and his ship was taken. I've never sailed in the open waters, but I know my way around a ship. There's nothing left for me here. Take me away. That's my boon." She looked at the corpse of her friend near the door. "I want out of this place."
"A sailing life will just take you to more places like this," Isabelle told her. "You may have horrible memories of this place, but this shit will be your life from now on."
Victoria stood for a while, then nodded.
Isabelle shared a few whispered words with Mary, then turned and spoke. "I've made proper scoundrels out of slaves, whores, carousers, and even dwarves." She laughed and threw her arm around Victoria's shoulder. "How hard could a bar wench be? Victoria Darksmoor, welcome to the crew of the Demon's Bride!"
"The Demon's Bride?"
"I'm sure as shit not calling my new sloop the Black Terror. Now, I've had a shit few days, and it's well past time to splice the mainsail." Isabelle and Mary sat at the bar and looked to Victoria. "Your first order of duty is to get us the biggest fucking bottle of rum in this entire port."
the end