AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lowe?” I bellowed at the man coming aboard who was trying to take my ship.
Ned snapped his head to me. The apathetic deadness in his eyes told me there was nothing left in him except for greed, fame, and malice. He knew what ship he was raiding and didn’t care.
Ned Lowe was known across the sea for being merciless, a pirate who got off on brutality and torture. Except we had known each other for a long time, been crew together in our youth, drank in pubs, fought pirate hunters, and raided merchant ships. I saved his skin more times than I could count.
Not exactly friends, but certainly not enemies. A comrade who would help me in an attack, not be the assailant.
I was wrong.
“Is this who you are now?” I motioned around, our men at war, though mine were already falling.
“Nothing personal, Croygen.” He sneered. His scarred, bearded face, worn clothes, sharp broadsword, and filthy, knotted hair made a frightening figure. He wanted to look savage, someone you’d fear for his cold ruthlessness.
“Not personal?” I regripped my sword, moving closer to him. “It feels very personal to me. After everything, you come for me?”
“I’m here only for what is mine.”
“Yours? I have nothing here for you.” Nor much bounty. I hadn’t had much luck lately with pilfering merchant ships.
Bangs and screams circled around me. Several of my crew were already dead, their blood staining the wood red.
“Get off my ship, Lowe.”
“But your ship was part of the deal.”
“What deal?”
Lowe’s grin was haughty, like there was something I was missing.
“Oh, Croygen. At one time, I used to respect you. Looked up to you. Now all I see is a washed-up, gullible man whose own crew doesn’t even respect him.” He wagged his head. “A man about to lose everything.”
A boom blasted in my ears. A cannonball cropped the quarterdeck, throwing me back, my head smacking hard against the deck before everything went black.
Shaking my head, I shoved the memory back, the anger still curdled in the back of my throat. That day altered my life forever. Ned’s words stuck like a sword because he was right—I had lost everything.
Collapsing in my chair, I threw my feet on the table, exhausted but too riled to sleep. The journey ahead was going to be fraught with danger, harsh conditions, and arbitrary fae doors we could disappear into.
In a land of lawlessness, one would find out exactly the kind of person you were when everything was about life and death.
The horse’s hooves clipped along the road, my ass aching with every bounce. My mood had soured somewhere in the fifth or sixth hour of our fifteen-hour ride, and we’d barely made a dent in the land we needed to cover. The sun was stifling, but eased as it lowered over the horizon. Days like this made me realize how much I missed modern conveniences—cars, trains, motorcycles, planes.
What used to take hours now took a week or two, going back to the days Genghis Khan used to ride these same trails.
My horse kept a strong pace, leading, while Katrina or Cooper took turns watching our backs. Even in the daylight, we weren’t safe anymore. When there was no right or wrong, no police to run to, why wait for darkness? The only thing that made traveling in the day safer was the raiders were probably staying indoors and out of the heat.
When the sun disappeared, the thieves would start to hunt.
“I think she looks like a Sally? No, maybe a Gertrude?” An annoying voice grated in my ear, his fur brushing my hot, sticky skin.
“Not naming the horse,” I grumbled. We had taken the burden of caring for these horses off some rich asshole in the suburbs, where the elite had moved to, trading their high-rises for farms. The elite outright stole homes with land, farming, and animals, while the original farmer was usually forced to work his own land, living in a hut away from the main house while the new owners took the profits.
“That’s rude. No one wants to be calledWhatchamacallit. Oooohhh, do you remember those? Sweet caramel, peanut crisps, and chocolate goodness. They would have been better if they dipped them in extra honey too, but still, they were good. Why they never gave them a name, I don’t understand.
“That was their name.”
“What was?”
“Whatchamacallit.” I knew where this was going.
