Mongrels
Important note: Readers may remember my debate in this post about my female main character’s name. Originally, I named her “Arabella Windcroft,” but I did decide to change her name to avoid similarity to a character’s name in my upcoming debut, which releases this fall. Arabella has been changed to Astrea.
I’m currently writing a pirate-themed fantasy novel titlted The Dread. This week, I thought it might be fun to share a snippet of the novel with my readers and Instagram friends. I’m still in the drafting stages but hope to have a finished manuscript by the end of 2023. To learn more about my career, writing or upcoming releases, visit my social media and website.
This installment is meant to be read after the post entitled Take Cover.
CHAPTER THREE: MONGRELS
Astrea’s mind, her body, her breath froze. M-me? Her mouth worked like a broken lever, finally squeaking out: “What?”
Captain Silvereye waggled one bejeweled finger. “Don’t be coy, girl.”
The pirate restraining Astrea tugged her braid sharp. Eyes smarting, Astrea scrambled to her feet. A shove brought her right up to Silvereye, close enough she could smell his body odor. Brine, leather, and sweat. Pale crows feet marred the corners of his eyes. The blinded one gazed past her, unfocused and white, but the blue pierced straight to her heart.
Astrea clenched her eyes tight, as though shutting them might make him vanish.
A low chuckle rumbled. “You are Astrea Windcroft, are you not? Daughter of His Royal Cartographer Xavier Windcroft.”
Astrea’s eyes snapped open. Silvereye smirked and continued slowly: “Affianced to Governor Ralph Rodgers of Portshelm. En route to undertake your holy nuptials, I imagine.”
How could he know these details? Why in the name of the holy gods did a Dauntless pirate know her name?
“I- I don’t --” For a sharp second, Astrea considered lying. She tasted the lie’s desperate bitterness on her tongue. Perhaps Silvereye tasted it too, for he tilted his head, like a cat toying a mouse. Suddenly the silver orb fixated on her like a searchlight.
His voice dropped to a threatening decibel: “Consider your surroundings, Miss Windcroft. Before you lie to me.”
Astrea swallowed. “Yes. Yes, I am she.”
A murmur rippled through the pirate crew. A slow smile tugged Silvereye’s lips.
“Are ye now,” he crooned as though soothing a frightened animal. Then before she could react, he barked: “Take her across.”
“What?” shrieked Astrea in the same second that someone screamed: “No! Tre!”
Her brother William hurdled through the captive crewmen. A pirate lunged, but William wriggled loose like an unhooked fish and collided with Astrea’s skirts. Astrea jerked one arm free of her captor and caught her little brother.
“I’m alright. It’ll be alright,” she heard herself repeat.
“Don’t you dare touch her!” William rounded on Silverye, small frame bristling with fury. “Devil take you if you do!”
Astrea’s throat closed with terror -- she grasped William’s arm, ready to throw him aside -- but the captain threw back his head and laughed.
Hands on his hips, Silvereye regarded William with an arched brow. “Brave lad,” he said approvingly, then waved a hand at the Endeavor sailors. “Of all these yellow-livered mongrels, you’re the only one who bothered to stand forth.” Silvereye propped his fist on his sword. His good eye flickered from William to Astrea.
Astrea’s grip tightened on William’s shoulder.
Silvereye grunted. “Her brother. Aye, I can see it.” He swept a hand toward his waiting vessel. “Take them both!”
“No!” gasped Astrea. Strength drained from her arms. Her heart quailed; and suddenly, like the boom of thunder, another voice shouted:
“Stop this nonsense!”
Astrea whirled to see the Endeavor’s captain standing erect among the prisoners. Although a short man, he loomed above his bowed crew, the golden threads of his epaulets radiant in the afternoon sun. Astrea’s heart surged.
“You’ll not be taking the boy anywhere. Nor the girl.” The captain’s voice rang with steel, and his crew heard the power in his words. Heads spun from captain to captain. Among Silvereye’s crew, glances darted.
The Endeavor captain stepped from the prisoner line. Pistol and blunderbuss trailed his movements, but he did not bat an eyelash.
“This is an Imperial merchantman,” he thundered. “And we are Imperial citizens. If you seize these children, you invoke the wrath of His Majesty the Holy Emperor’s navy.”
Astrea’s eyes snapped to Silvereye. He considered the Endeavor’s captain with bored indifference, as an adult humors a precocious child.
“Ransack my hold if you wish,” the captain continued. “But I’ll be damned if you take one soul off this sh--”
A crack split the air.
Down fell Captain Bateson of the Royal Frigate Endeavor, heavy and final as felled timber. The captain’s head lolled, a knuckle-sized hole smoldered between his eyes. The back of his head peppered the mainmast.
Shock shoved Astrea’s scream right back down her throat. Before she could process what had happened, steel exploded.
Shouts burst from the Endeavor men. Every sailor clambered to his feet, shoving and swearing, hands bound but eyes blazing. Naked blades flashed into the pirates’ hands.
“Back on yer knees!” roared a one-armed pirate at Astrea’s elbow. He whipped a rapier from his belt and brandished it at the closest soldier. The soldier -- Astrea recognized him as the Endeavor’s boatswain -- spat on the pirate’s boot.
“Devil take you!” roared the boatswain before the pirate’s hook collided with his jaw.
Astrea scrambled backward, dragging William with her. Her erstwhile captor walloped the closest man with the butt of his gun. The sailor fell with a moan --
“ENOUGH!”
The shout rocked the ship and every man on it. The very air stilled as the vowels of that single word -- enough -- rang in Astrea’s bones, pulsing from the tips of her fingers to the base of her skull. She gasped, pressing a hand to her head. Pressure built in her ears, in her lungs. Her knees hit the deck --
Suddenly as it came, the oppression vanished. Pain lifted from Astrea’s skull and she looked up, mouth agape.
Silvereye braced one boot on the quarterdeck ladder. Smoke curled from the end of his pistol. His sword gleamed in his right hand. Power crackled from the very fibers of his greatcoat. The air around the pirate captain sparkled; it rippled like the sea below, suddenly and impossibly alive with power. Power that had filled his one-word command, turned it heavy as a cannon’s blow.
Astrea’s stomach dropped. He’s a powerspinner.
Silvereye’s sword whipped left, then right. “Any of ye codbellied cunts so much as bats an eyelash, I’ll scuttle this vessel and leave you to rot in the Locker.”
No man, pirate or freeman, spoke.
The magic amplifying Silvereye’s voice hummed like a tuning fork. His one good eye burned sapphire bright as he considered the sorry lot of them. Astrea held her breath.
Silvereye lowered his gun, then plucked the tricorn from Captain Bateson’s ruined crown. His boots pounded as crossed the gangway and stopped before a bound soldier. Indecorously, he jammed the blood-spattered hat on the first mate’s tattered wig.
“Congratulations, Captain,” growled the pirate.
Pale as skim milk, the first mate said nothing. Silvereye stooped to study the first mate’s face. To his credit, the first mate squared his shoulders. Silvereye, all dazzled gold and sun-hardened leather, was a different creature from this milkbred naval officer. Silvereye’s serpentine grin reappeared.
“Aye,” he growled. “Ye’ll do.”
Then he spun on his heel. Voice like a gunshot, he roared: “Search every bunk and barrel on this useless slagheap. Upon your head if I hear o’ one corner unturned. The boy and girl come with me.”
In the frenzied exchange, Astrea had forgotten Silverye’s orders. Now fear grasped her hard and cold.
“No!” She screamed as rough hands jerked her to the rail. “No! Don’t you dare! I’m an Imperial citizen! And you’ll -- unhand -- me!”
Hands cradled her knees. A moment of breathless weightlessness -- and then Astrea was falling. Falling over blue water --
Into the arms of another pirate.
“Ello, lassie,” drawled a man with a bead-braided beard. “Steady on.”
Astrea shrieked and clawed at his hands on her waist. With a raucous laugh, he set her on her feet. Heart yammering, Astrea realized she’d been tossed from the Endeavor to the Dread, as simply as a sack of grain. She now stood on the oiled black deck of a Dauntless pirate ship.
A pulsating snap drew her gaze upward. At the pinnacle of the great mainmast, through a maze of rigging and canvas, flew the Dread’s colors. A grinning skull, jaw gaping wide enough to devour the whole sea in one ravenous gulp. From that maw, a snake uncoiled, twisting and twining itself into horrible knots.
Astrea’s bones turned to ice. Gods help me.
