The Corsair

Very few of the clans of Kharsoom bother with a navy. The continent of Obai is vast, but much of the settlements are in the interior. As for its shores, it does not have much in the way of beaches or bays, and much of the coastline is rocky, bordered with cliffs and mountains. Those few places where ships can make port in Kharsoom were perhaps the one place the infamously decaying culture had remained somewhat vital.

Pirates concentrated around these few ports like vultures on a fresh kill. The Shattered Reef was an infamous haven on Obai's western coast, and after my adventure at the Silken Labyrinth, I made my way there. It was not easy to find, and it was across a section of wasteland whose only watering holes were poison. Death to any who did not have a sweetwater goblet. Once again, I thanked Thalalei. Without her, I could never have survived.

I chose the Reef because, after traveling the Red Wastes for so long, I needed the ocean. I needed creaking shipboards beneath my feet and a salt wind on my face. The ocean would return to me a sense of purpose, if only because it had originally robbed me of it.

My time on

Naeri's Revenge

during the Turquoise Conquest had given me skills of an able seaman, and while my piracy had always been in service of a cause, I felt no great guilt at the prospect of preying on Kharsoomian shipping. I merely needed to find a ship that would take me.

A word on the Shattered Reef, for like so much in this different age, it no longer exists. It was one of the scars left by the great cataclysm that cast Kharsoom from its former glory into its then present debased state. It was a maze of islands that led out into the Beryl Ocean, that smallest of waterways between Obai and Jhobai. This maze of islands was uncharted by any official source, but I saw half a dozen maps among the pirates. No two were identical, which I suppose explains the lack of outside maps.

At the eastern edge of this almost bay was the city Repentance. I don't know what it was called originally. I don't think anyone knew even then, and now I am likely the only one who remembers it at all. Once it had been a great walled city, many leagues from the coast, and when I first saw it, it was a port town, a haven for pirates, thieves, whores, and outcasts. In my present state, I fit right in.

I rode into Repentance at midday. The guards at the gate were indifferent, not even bothering to wave me through. The flags flapping on the ramparts were black and showed no device.

As I entered, I found a city that was overwhelming in its Kharsoomianness, if you will forgive my using that word. Its scale had been grander than most. Its ruins were more ruined. The shanties were like layers of oysters and barnacles grown over the hulls of a fleet of shipwrecks. The city simply stopped at a cliff, and that was the edge of the cataclysm that had created the Shattered Reef. The city wall was sliced off, and then, a plunge into the makeshift wharf below. Repentance was at once inexorably dying and impossibly alive, that juxtaposition that made Kharsoom intoxicating.

Steep stairs, cut into the cilff facesthemselves, descended to the wharf. Smaller alcoves had been cut as well, and most of these were taverns and the like. On either side of the wharf, a narrow beach hugged the rocks. A half dozen ships were always anchored there, flying flags of piracy. I knew it was a pirate haven, but I believed it had a veneer of legitimacy. A corrupt and disinterested lord of a desperate clan.

The central avenue was lined with stalls that were little more than tents clinging to crumbling walls. I stopped at the water merchant, a reedy man with a kind, open face.

"What Prince rules this place?" I asked.

He chuckled. "You'll be wanting Lord Salt. His palace is that way." He pointed to the west and gave no further explanation.

I rode Ksenaëe through town. She uttered periodic squawks as though acknowledging the danger of the place. I could not help but agree with her assessment. I went west, not in search of Lord Salt's palace, but to find the taverns that inevitably clustered around the waterfront. Those would be the places looking for a man like me. I would find those places on the cliffs, and I dismounted my qobad, leading her down the stairs. She did not like the narrow pathways, but she was surefooted.

I saw others like me, armed men and women, some still wearing their collars, others striped with old whip scars. We gave each other wary space. Though they were the exception to the rule, there were those boldisars who looked for excuses to challenge their brethren. Whether it was a love of death or a need to test themselves, I do not know. Finding a fight had never been difficult for me. The idea of looking for them was a strange one.

I chose a tavern as close to the water as I could find. It was filled with the dead stink of the harbor. Men and women with windburned faces drank caustic liquor in the heat of the day. I tied Ksenaëe to the hitching post at the foot of the stairs. She gave me an annoyed squawk. I patted her neck. "They don't serve your kind there."

I sat at an open table, which was merely an old barrel decorated with decades if not centuries of stains and hoped they had something better than akaberry wine. While the bulk of the people in the tavern were Kharsoomians, the population was far from homogenous. I took most of them to be former slaves, as I was. Some bore the scars. One even still wore his collar, though I didn't think it still carried the weight it once had.

A barmaid, an aging but still comely Kharsoomian woman approached me and with barely disguised annoyance asked, "What do you want?"

"Anything that isn't akaberry wine."

"Rum? We have rum."

"Thank all the gods," I sighed.

She brought me rum and I sipped it. It wasn't bad all told.

"Anything else?"

"You know of any ships hiring hands?"

"You a sailor then?"

"I was." I put a pair of caira on the table. They vanished into the pouch hanging from her harness.

She nodded to a table by the lip of the tavern overlooking the wharf where an aging half-orc with a crimson tinge to his skin drank. "That's Hark. Knows every captain, every crew. If there's a ship looking, he'll know it."

The half-orc was a pleasant enough sort and after I paid for a drink, he sent me down to the docks, looking for a ship called, with some measure of fate,

The Boldisar

. He said it was newly arrived in port. It had gotten the wrong end of a skirmish with a pair of frigates from Clan Beldamesh and had lost several sailors.

"It's a Shattered Reaver ship," he finished.

"I don't know what that means."

"Pirate clan."

"Under this Lord Salt?"

Hark snorted. "Lord Salt. That's a joke, boldisar. Oh, I'm sure Repentance had a proper prince sometime long ago, before half of it fell into the sea. Only lord we'll take is Lord Salt, long may he reign." Hark raised his voice with this last, and patrons all around raised their glasses in mock toast.

He downed the rum and looked at me expectantly until I called the barmaid over and bought him another.

"Shattered Reavers are under Princess Arishat. I'll save you the embarrassment, she's no more princess than I am. Rules them from a galleon called

The Typhoon Cross

. No more cruel or vengeful bitch upon the waves, she. Every one of her sailors would die for her without hesitation."

"She sounds impressive."

"You'll see her. When she masses the Reavers, you'll see her. When she wants to make a prize of a convoy. Captain of

The Boldisar

, that'd be Ixalvuh. Capable but headstrong. Look for the flag with the skeletal spearman."

I thanked Hark and made my way to the harbor. I found a scarred frigate beneath a black flag with a white skeleton wielding a spear. The figurehead was a nereid, her breasts and teeth bared. On the wharf, barking orders to the men maintaining the ship was a hulking Kharsoomian man, his head shaved. He wore heavy gold earrings and had cultivated long mustaches growing from the corners of his lip.

He stood next to a woman with deep brown skin and long, curly black hair. Gold sparkled from her wrists and ankles. She wore a Kharsoomian blade on one slender hip and a fighting hook on the other. Her breasts were heavy, with fat, conical nipples, and wide hips. Her body was covered in muscle and scars. She was fetching, though not a great beauty.

"I'm looking for Captain Ixalvuh and

The Boldisar

," I said.

The Kharsoomian turned. "I'm her quartermaster."

"I was told you were looking for sailors."

He looked me over. "Ever served on a ship?"

"At war."

"Doing?"

I hesitated. "Able seaman, boarding actions." He frowned, his eye going to Ur-Anu's blade. The woman's eyes were on it as well. An obsidian blade the size of a man's forearm was remarkable in itself, but it was flawless. Not a single chip marred its keen edge. Then the light would catch the veins like lightning that ran from the blade's base out to the tip. It was obviously a weapon of a hero.

She leaned over and murmured, "I have heard tales of a man like this. Who bears a spear with an obsidian blade. He cut his way out of the hippodrome in Ghanappur." Though she intended the words for the quartermaster's ears alone, my jungle-honed senses plucked them from the air.

"Are you this man?" he asked.

"I am Ashuz, sometimes called Farmer."

"Wielder of the Blackspear," said the woman.

I nodded at the weapon in my hand. "As you can see."

"We'll take you," the quartermaster said.

"My qobad," I said. "I have grown attached."

He gave Ksenaëe an unimpressed glance, then pointed. "Find the livery yonder. Walk south along the wharf and you will not miss it. Keep your qobad there. We return to Repentance often. And when you tire of paying her board, they'll give you a fair price for her."

"I'll return soon," I said.

"Good. Plenty of work for you, Blackspear."

The quartermaster was Agon, the woman with was the Master-at-Arms, Hriti. As a marine, I would be under her command. She seemed an agreeable sort, and no one who suffered as many scars as she was a coward. Until a boarding action, I would be employed at restoring

The Boldisar

to full battle-readiness.

As I joined the work crew, others filtered in from Repentance, eager to sign on with the Shattered Reavers. I found the crew welcoming enough, and swiftly word got around about who I was. Apparently escaping the hippodrome and butchering a few dozen of Clan El's fighting men was enough to gain a reputation.

I got my first glimpse of Ixalvuh as well. Her tattoos and coloring said she was Lixhan, but she was clad as a Kharsoomian. Her harness dripped with weaponry, from straight Kharsoomian swords, to throwing daggers, and a fighting hook. Her black hair had been shaven on the sides, and a leather patch covered her right eye. I would not call her beautiful, but there was a certain allure to her ferocity, and perhaps there was still enough of the boy from Burley Shoal that a nude woman would always be pleasing. Most remarkably, the silky fleece between her legs had been shaven into a lightning bolt.

I soon learned this was a fairly common practice among the non-Kharsoomians in not only the Shattered Reavers, but in the pirate culture of the city at large. Our body hair marked us as exotic and the Kharsoomians often attached strange attraction to it. Those who shaped their hair did so with an alchemical concoction, and though I was offered some, I declined. I was one of the only members of the crew who covered my vitals, and felt no need for any modification.

A week after I joined,

The Boldisar

set out from Repentance. Our helmsman, a diminutive man from Batsei, guided the vessel through the winding avenues, making for the Beryl Ocean. I grew closer with the crew, learning their songs, and teaching them the Axichan ones I had learned so long ago. There is something about life at sea. All sailors share a culture that spans the world, spans languages. I'd only served on an Axichan ship, and outside of a regular command structure, yet I fit in amongst Kharsoomian corsairs.

Perhaps had I not been a wizard I would have been a sailor. I was not born in Burley Shoal, so Rhadoviel told me, but it is small wonder that I might find an attraction to the ocean. I grew up smelling it on the air, feeling its spray on my cheeks, seeing it roiling outside my window. I find myself at home on the sea. There is something about the operation of a ship, in all its meticulous detail, that appeals to me. And most importantly, there is always another horizon.

We found our prey, a wallowing tub separated from its convoy, shortly after hitting the open water and swept down on it like a qobad on an unfortunate lizard. The convoy circled about to try to drive us off, but the wind was against them.

We flung a few broadsides at one another before pulling up alongside. Grappling hooks went over the gunwales as we hauled the ships hull-to-hull. I was one of the first to set foot on enemy boards. Clutching Ur-Anu, the threads of Fate reached into my mind and showed me my path. The men on the deck, Tabiyyan by the looks of them, were fierce fighters but they could not compare to me.

Was I arrogant? Perhaps. No, that is overly generous. I

was

arrogant. With Ur-Anu in my hand there was nothing they could do against me, not these merchants nor the marines they employed. I slew their captain and kicked his body to the circling sharks.

We opened the hold to find cases of salt, a collection of Kharsoomian spices, and some chests of silver. No akaberry wine, as they could never get anyone else to drink the vile stuff. The empty shackles on the floor said that this had been a slaving vessel, unloading its cargo in Deszu. On impulse, I sliced a few holes in the hull and made my way back to

The Boldisar

.

We were off as the first of the convoy's catapult stones splashed into the water off our stern. They had to choose between rescuing the sailors on the sinking ship and pursuing us into the teeth of the wind. They chose their men and we were lost to the sky with our hold filled with their treasure.

"You fight well," Hriti said. She had a few new stripes on her, but she had done far more to them. Her skin glistened with sweat, a few lines of crimson running over her muscles.

"They were no true challenge."

"You might find what you're looking for out here."

"When that happens, tell me. I still don't know."

Hriti laughed, leaving me to my labors.

We made our way into the maze that was the Shattered Reef, ready to empty our holds and enjoy our spoils. Nearly every island had some settlement, ranging from mere firepits to full villages. We made our way to one of the largest, a place I learned was called Urok by the locals. It featured a single stone wall, older than the island itself, and the settlement had grown up around that. Although "settlement" was overstating things.

Urok was a collection of bonfires on the shore with tents extending out into the hillier parts of the island. As with everything in Kharsoom, the terrain was barren, with only a few leafless trees and thorny brambles clinging to the soil. Ruling over the bay was the great galleon

The Typhoon Cross

.

The story I heard much later was that she was built by Clan Hasdrubaal, intended to protect their port at Deszu. Princess Arishat, already an accomplished corsair, had absconded with it in a daring theft, and now it was the flagship of our pirate clan. It was an impressive beast, to be sure, and as I beheld it in the comically small bay in front of Urok, I wondered if we couldn't have used her on the Turquoise.

It was the first time in a long time that the war intruded into my thoughts. Inevitably, the memory of the final battle came upon me, but this time the pitching waves and the screams of my hetairoi were far off. They had died protecting me. Not out of some great love, though I do not doubt that they came to love me, but for Axichis. The Dreadstorm had been the best weapon against the Heacharid. Though it hurt, it was no longer an anguish that threatened to swallow me.

To find that this agony from the war had scabbed over in my soul was something of a comfort. I did not feel peace exactly, but I could accept what happened. Einoë and Kallea had died heroes, and I had given them a final wish. I held them close in my mind. I would look to them as inspirations and treasure their memories.

"Ashuz," Hriti said, clapping me on the shoulder. "You will come with me to the fights."

"Will I?" I looked her over, my gaze lingering on her belly, where her muscles crawled beneath her glistening skin.

"You like the fights, don't you?"

"If they have food and drink, yes." I thought about it. "What will be fighting?"

"Half the fun is finding out."

As it happened, the battle was between a pair of pirates and the biggest ripper lizard I had ever seen. Hriti gambled some of her share of loot, and collected a bit when the lizard only managed to kill one of the men before the other slew it. Immediately, the beast's carcass was taken from the ring to be butchered. The scent of its roasting filled the air over the next bout, a pair of heavily-armed pirates fighting with spear and shield.

"What do you think of them?"

"The one there," I said, nodding to the woman. "An amazon taught her. She'll win."

"Care to make a wager?"

"If you've a mind to lose your money."

She did, and I collected it when the amazon-trained woman knocked the other off his feet and made him yield. I nearly asked her name. Then I knew I would have to say my own. My real name. And I knew I couldn't. It was still stuck within me. I was unworthy of it.

We watched a few more fights, the last of them with a haunch of ripper lizard to share. The rum flowed too, and Hriti drank like no one I had ever seen. I had some myself, and by the time the fights were finishing, I was thinking of finding a quiet place to sleep.

Hriti threw her arm about me. Her flesh was warm, her breath heavy with rum. She smelled of smoke and sweat and blood. "Fancy a tumble, Ashuz?"

I squinted at the bawdy house. It was little more than a tent. "It's the end of the night. The women are likely tired. Not much fun."

She laughed. "Not with them. With me."

"Oh, in that case, yes."

"Wise man." She dragged me quickly through the chilly Kharsoomian night, pulling me to the place where the crew had pitched their tents not far from the harbor. She pulled me into hers, and her mouth was on mine. Her tongue was clumsy with drink, but it didn't matter. It had been some months since my adventure in the Silken Labyrinth, and I could use a bout of love.

She reached beneath my kilt, finding me hardening, and chuckled. "I had a feeling you had another impressive spear," she said as I swelled in her hand. I removed the loincloth, pushing her down on the pile of furs and roughly spreading her legs.

Hriti had shaven her fleece in an unusual pattern. Her lips were bald, the hair forming an archway on either side and above her sex, as though welcoming me. I admit, I would not prefer this with a woman, but it was an interesting novelty, and I had no illusions about the romance or longevity of our dalliance. I spread her open, her dark innerfolds giving way to bright pink inside. She moaned as I swiftly sampled her nectar. It was already flowing, and with a heavy, musky taste cut with liquor and sweat. I teased only a bit, before sheathing my fingers in her. When I brushed over her pearl, she hissed in pleasure.

She pushed me over, her warrior's body powerful. She grinned at the sight of my staff turgid between us. "More like a purplespear, hmm?" She gave me a lick, then her hot mouth closed over me for a few quick sucks, her hand pumping me from root to crown.