Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Four - A Pirate's Life for Thee, But Not for Me

The Beaver plunged into a wall of clouds and came rushing out of the other side.

We weren’t moving as quickly as we could, but at some point we’d taken a slight turn eastwards and started to drop a little. The act of dropping gave us a nice boost in speed to make up for the fact that our engine was off.

The plan was simple to execute, and for the moment the Shady Lady was keeping up with it.

I stood on the poop deck at the rear, my attention almost entirely on the sky behind us. We should have dropped to be at about the same level as the pirate ships had been at.

In any fight, height was a major factor. It could be traded for speed, of course, but also the underside of airships were a lot tougher than their tops, at least in most cases. We could sling spells down a lot easier than we could send them up, in any case.

“I can’t see them,” Calamity said as he came up next to me. He had his dwarven-made bow next to him, strung and ready to fire, as if the clouds would part and reveal a whole armada of pirates.

“Good,” I said. “Hopefully we won’t be seeing them at all.”

I glanced east, along our direction of travel, then had to shield my eyes from the horizon. The sun was rising on the other side of the Harpy Mountains, painting the edges in a bright golden hue. In a few minutes it would be high enough that we wouldn’t be in the mountain’s shadow anymore.

When that happened, there would be no hiding from the pirates anymore. So I crossed my fingers and hoped really hard that they’d continued on straight and hadn’t noticed our turn.

If we could make it to Mattergrove, then we might be able to avoid engagement. Or if we continued eastward for long enough.

The maps showed that there was a big empty space with no notable cities from the north of Mattergrove (where Greenshade was) all the way to Smoulderglen. That was a big space that probably wasn't patrolled by anyone--a big space we were right in the middle of.

The edges of Mattergrove might have patrols ... maybe. Awen’s home country wasn’t very rich, and their airships were apparently not the greatest. Plus, their northern border didn’t matter that much to them since there probably wasn’t much trade going this way.

Our best bet, if we wanted to run into some help, was east. The harpies did have good patrols. Most of them would be on the other side of the mountains, but Amaryllis said that there was an important road that hugged the foot of the mountains which would definitely be protected. It was the trade route from Mattergrove and Deepmarsh all the way north, and since those traders paid the harpy tolls to pass there, the route had to be mostly free of pirates.

It was only the ships that ventured further out and away from the mountains, in the place where we happened to be, that were at risk of piracy. In exchange, those same ships wouldn’t have to pay any tolls to the Harpy Mountains.

At the moment, I wouldn’t have minded any amount of tolls just to have a bit of help in the skies.

I took a deep breath and let it all out.

“Stressed?” Calamity asked.

“Yeah, a little,” I said.

“That’s normal. I’m always a little worried before a big hunt. N’ya wouldn’t be normal if n’ya weren’t a little worried too.”

I laughed. “Thanks, Calamity. I guess I am a little stressed. I think if it was just one ship, we could take them on. Two... maybe we could scare them off. But three? And... and it’s pirates. The bad kind.”

“The bad kind?” Calamity asked. “Not the first time I hear n’ya say ‘the bad kind’ in relation to pirates. Don’t know if there’s a good kind.”

“There should be,” I said. “Look, pirates are free, they’re people who aren’t tied to, like, a government or something like that. They can just go out and explore and see nice things. Like a family. Maybe they can fight bad guys and monsters and help people along the way.”

“That doesn’t sound like pirates,” Calamity observed.

“I know,” I said. I crossed my arms. “I’m not very mature, am I?”

Calamity shrugged. “Yet everyone recognizes n'ya as the captain. Ya think I'd have stayed on if I thought n'ya were incompetent?” He gave a crooked smile. “Maybe you're a little less experienced than a captain ought to be, but I guess I wouldn't know! First ship I've served on, after all.”

Ah, that was true, wasn't it? Calamity usually seemed pretty on top of things, so it'd slipped my mind.

“But experience isn't the same thing as maturity, n'ya know? And I don't think you're immature. A bit naive, yeah, and n'ya have a weird way of seeing things, but bein' optimistic ain't bad.”

I shared a smile with Calamity. “Thanks. I know the world’s not fair. It doesn’t stop me from wishing it was a nicer place. Look at the pirates. Three ships. That’s a lot of crew. A lot of people that all decided that what they wanted to do was hurt people for a living. That’s awful.”

“People can be pretty awful.”

“Yeah, I know. But I wish they were only awful when they didn’t have any other choice. If these pirates can be pirates, then they have the skills to be something better.”

“I don’t know, some people just don’t care that much, or they don’t see the world the way you do, or maybe they don’t have a choice. I don’t know.” Calamity leaned onto the railing at the very back of the Beaver focus still on the skies behind. “I see your friends and I can’t help but think that I don’t quite fit in.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Not because you’re a cat person, I hope?”

“Nyah, not because of that. The crew’s weird enough that I’m barely a blip.” His ears wiggled in the holes made for them on his hat. “But you’re all the sort of folk that stories are made of.”

“I don’t think we’re that special,” I said.

He looked at me. “You have two nobles, a princess from different nations, and a riftwalker, a crew of experienced sailors from the Harpy Mountains and... well, I suppose I might fit in with the Scallywags, but they’re just kids.”

“I’m sure you’re just as special as any of us. It’s silly to think that you’re not at least a little.”

Calamity grinned. “Oh, I know I’m special. I’ve known that for a good long while. But I’m not talking so much about the past of the folk here. It’s the attitudes. Even Amaryllis, as stuck up as she is, sees the world as either just or unjust, and she wants to make it more just. Most people see plenty of problems and might complain about them, but they don’t do much to fix them. This crew’s different that way.”

“Oh,” I said.

I supposed that was kind of true. But I wasn’t sure if we really did all that much to help. We could have done more before. We could do more now, but instead we were southbound to attend a wedding of all things. A wedding which might be foiled by someone mean, but still.

“I don’t think we’re heroes. Or at least, I don’t think we’re choosing to be heroes or anything like that.”

Calamity hummed, gaze still on the horizon. “Maybe not heroes... well, Abraham kind of fits the image, I guess. But you’re good folk doing good things for the right reasons, and I think that counts for a lot. I don’t think that way so much.”

I gave him a hug, because it felt like the right thing to do at that moment, and Calamity chuckled, his arm twisting around to give me a pat on the back.

“Thanks, captain. Do you feel better now?”

I blinked. “Did you try to make me make you feel better so that I’d feel better myself?”

There was an evil spark in his eye. “I’m a hunter, captain, I do what I need to get my quarry, even if that quarry’s the captain’s stress.”

“I don’t know if that’s mean or not,” I said.

Calamity laughed, then his laughter turned into a sigh. “Looks like being mean might be on the menu.” He pointed, and I followed to see something in the sky. Three somethings, I suppose.

The pirate ships were about even with us, maybe a little higher. Either they’d climbed or we levelled off lower than they had. It didn’t matter. They were wheeling around into a wide turn in our direction.

It looked like they were about three or so kilometres away. So we had gained some distance, but the clouds were parting and they’d caught sight of us. It was hard to hide a ship as colourful as the Beaver without night.

I turned. “Stations, everyone!” I shouted. “Get the engine back on! Full speed ahead!”

We had widened our lead, if only a little bit. But even that much would help a lot. Plus, they were still turning in our direction, which would give us a bit more time to get up to speed.

The Beaver jolted as the engine kicked to life with a loud bang. The propellor at the back started to spin, at first lazily, but it quickly picked up until I could feel the wind being sucked into it from where I stood.

I ran up to Clive. “Is there anything we can do to go faster?” I asked.

Clive raised his head and let out a long plume of pipesmoke. It blew out ahead of him for a bit before pulling back towards the propellor. He nodded. “Wind’s at our backs. It’ll be at theirs too. Put out every bit of sail we have and we might catch some of it.”

“Got it!” I said before turning towards the deck. “All sails to full! Deploy everything!”

It wasn’t a bad idea, not just because it would give us a little boost, but also because the pirates would see the sails and might be tempted to deploy their own.

That would make it harder for them to fight, or try something like a boarding action. At least, I hoped it would.

I jumped out ahead and ran over to where Oda was grunting as he pulled on a rope. Together we managed to deploy one of the side-rudders until its canvas snapped in the wind.

Soon every sail was out and I realized that I had nothing to do. I stood there, ready to act, but... there wasn’t anything productive for anyone to do. The Beaver would either outrun them, or it wouldn’t.

Instead of fidgeting too much, I walked back to the helm and kept my eyes on the pirate ships. It was hard to tell, at first, but they were gaining on us.

Minutes turned into what felt like hours as we strained our eyes at the distant trio of ships that seemed to grow larger. The sun was now high in the sky, giving away our position, while the golden light highlighted the black sails of our pursuers, making the already tense chase turn ominous.

Caprica joined me, wearing her full military regalia and looking super imposing in it. She squinted at the pirate ships. “Roughly two hours,” she mused.

“Two hours?”

“Until we’re at the furthest range you could expect to land a ballista hit,” she said. “Another half-hour... less, and we’ll be within firebolt range. It probably won’t be that long, actually. Our engine’s at the rear, it wouldn’t be hard to hit the prop.”

“Oh,” I said. The western edge of the Harpy Mountains was half a day away, at least, even with the wind at our backs and at the pace we were going. “If we can’t outrun them, then what?”

Caprica's icy eyes narrowed as she considered the question. “If we cannot outrun them, then our only options are to outfight them or to surrender.”

I really didn’t like those options.

***