Pirates of Vallahar, Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Carrion Flats

         Carrion Flats wasn't much different six years ago than it was at the present time. In fact, it had changed little over the past millennium. Unlike much of the rest of Vallahar, the cracked, barren plains had never seemed to heal from the cataclysmic trauma the entire continent had suffered a thousand years ago at the hands of the first stag invaders. The arid, forbidding landscape was broken only by tall, sheer plateaus. Dry as a bone and quite a bit darker in color, like many of the wastelands spotting the continent the sun always seemed to shine but it didn't seem to affect the temperature much. It rarely rose above fifty degrees from early fall through late spring and often dropped below thirty. The parched, howling winds made for a bleak and forsaken place that very few bothered to visit.
         The cold and oppressive desolation wasn't the only reason not to go near Carrion Flats, however. The headquarters of The Death Mark pirate band was located in the side of a huge plateau near the western border. A giant bay yawned on the western face of the rock formation overlooking a flat, unbroken plain for miles. The bay was cut out of the rock and reinforced with steel beams. It berthed a large number of combat-ready airships docked just inside the cavernous alcove. The floor of the bay was covered with steel plates and there were various relatively high tech repair tackles and fueling stations scattered around the deck. Some of the tools and fuel tanks were based on designs over a thousand years old, and even the newer ones often used the same ancient machine parts from technology that existed before the stags had ever come to Vallahar.
         Though the bay itself was huge, the pirate base went even deeper into the plateau in the form of tunnels and rooms carved out of the rock itself. Occupying various levels joined by sculpted stairways, and lit with electric light bulbs, it was easily the largest, best defended, and most advanced pirate fortress in all of Vallahar; perhaps all the world. This was fitting because The Death Mark was the deadliest band of pirates ever to prowl the skies.

         The galley was crowded when Juryrig came through. The other pirates largely ignored the seventeen-year-old wrench-monkey as they usually did, shouldering him aside if he was in their way. Juryrig approached the chow table. He grabbed a tin plate and helped himself to a piece of bread and a heaping ladle-full of beef and gravy. In the twelve or so years he could remember being with The Death Mark, he never got tired of beef hunks in gravy.
         The pirates were careless with their utensils, those that used them anyway, and there was almost as much food on the floor as there was on the table. Grabbing a tankard of water in his free hand, Juryrig moved from the chow table and headed down the aisle to find a seat. A particularly vile pirate called Toecutter glared at him nastily as he walked past. Juryrig held his breath so as not to spoil his appetite. He glanced quickly around the room trying to spot Jim Piper. He finally noticed the high-ranking pirate at the far end of a table across the room. The man's head was maroon and trembling as he screamed something incoherent about sushi with a mouthful of bread at the top of his lungs. He wasn't upset, that was just how the captain tended to converse. Juryrig ducked behind a passing pirate as the man glanced in his direction.
         The kid made his way to the opposite end of the chow hall and sat down near the end of a long table next to Fedder "Killer" Bandooloo. The man was about six-five and built like a brick wall. He was originally from the southern continent of Cellaphar and still retained his people’s accent and mannerisms.
         "'Ey, Jaryrig! Whaz hoppinan, bwoy?" he aksed.
         "Hey Killer,"
         "You goin' on dat raid wit us tommorra?" the man asked as he took a bite of his roll, dipping his dreadlocks into his rum in the process.
         "Not unless Piper chokes on his loaf over there..." said Juryrig derisively. By now the man had lost three fourths of his mouthful of bread due to talk-spray.
         "Den I'll bring ya back sometin' nice, mon. But don't badda me too soon afta! I gonna git me some pickney pumpum dis time!" He grinned widely and slapped the kid on the back. Juryrig laughed half-heartedly as though he knew what the guy was talking about and swallowed a spoonful of beef. Killer was essentially his only friend next to his nursemaid/surrogate mother Nadie, and his new friend Vixie from the lagoon, and as strange a man as he was, Juryrig new better than to ask questions. If you were going to work at a pirate base, you needed to have at least one actual pirate on your side.
         "Oy! Juryrig!" a voice called abruptly from behind him. Juryrig reluctantly turned away from his meal. "What're you doin' in the mess?" An angry pirate glared at him from the doorway leading to the hangar. He was an unshaven man of average build and fully dressed in his flight gear. He held a bottle of gin in one hand and rested his other on the butt of his holstered pistol. Paranoia came with the job.
         "Eating?!" Juryrig responded caustically.
         "Death Warrant! Haymaker! Gallows! Goshawk! Plus eight o' the gunnies! All goin' out tomorrow!" Juryrig dropped his fork on his plate in frustration. Four capital ships and almost all the gunships... He'd be in that stinking bay all night. So much for sneaking out to see Vixie tonight... It was just as well, he'd lost his map and would probably have wound up in the Xanthi Wastes without it anyway.
         "Easy on 'im dere, Gagach! Da bwoy got plenny o' time!" Killer interjected. The pirate called Gagach ignored him. He jerked a thumb behind him toward the tunnel leading out to the bay.
         "Start gettin' 'em prepped! I want 'em ready to go by sunrise!" Juryrig sighed. He scooped his roll through the last of the gravy and popped it into his mouth as he stood up. Killer nodded to him as he left. The angry pirate turned as Juryrig headed for the tunnel. "Don't let me catch you back in here until they're all ready to burn ass!" Juryrig muttered something under his breath as he left the galley.

*          *          *

         As of six years ago, the leader of the Death Mark was a pirate named Drake Gagach. He had recently replaced The Death Mark's founder, Grecko the Cruel, when the grizzled old pirate had been killed on his own airship during a raid under mysterious circumstances. Grecko had been found dead in his quarters as the raid commenced. He was lying face down on his bed with his own personalized dagger planted deep in his back. His mistress Nadie had been lying next to him unconscious with a blow to the head and severe bruising on her throat, as though someone had attempted to strangle her. The culprit was widely believed to have been an assassin from the Howler Boys pirate brigade. The small pirate band was subsequently annihilated under the command of Captain Piper.
         There was a nasty dispute after Grecko's death about whether Drake Gagach or Jim Piper was second in command at the time. In the end, the higher ranked Gagach assumed the role of leader, but his title was tenuous at best. Piper and Gagach rarely agreed on anything and Piper didn't often relent, splitting the brigade into those loyal to Piper and those loyal to Drake. Though the splits were frequent, they were always short-lived. The strength of the Death Mark was in its fleet. Both men knew it, however stubborn they were. Once in a great while, Piper and Gagach agreed on a course of action and the entire force of the Death Mark was concentrated on a single, very ill-fated target. The last of these uncommon agreements occurred just before the razing of Tamelia...

*          *          *

         Juryrig had returned, just as he'd promised, and Vixie got to see him three more times over the course of the summer. He always landed just before midnight in some scout ship or other with his hand-drawn map in hand and Vixie was always on the bank of the lagoon with him when tomorrow turned into today. Despite their somewhat infrequent meetings, the two were fast friends from the very beginning. Juryrig had a strong, quiet sense of humor and seemed to be totally unaffected by the attitudes and errant philosophies of his employers and pseudo-family. He was the nicest young man Vixie had ever met.
         She had never been interested in the boys of Tamelia. They were all exactly the same. Their lives weren't their own. There was a strict and rigid format already in place for the children of Tamelia, even though neither the adults nor the children recognized it as such. The boys got jobs as soon as they could and worked for whatever farmer or shipping company needed an extra back until they could buy or build a house of their own. After they had their own house, they took a wife, whether they loved her or not, and, if he was lucky in his seed, had a child or two whether he wanted them or not. Of course, they always said they did regardless. To think otherwise when so many people were sterile would be socially deplorable. Having a wife or husband and children was far more important than the fleeting pipe dream of true happiness in this day and age. Better to set your sights at a reasonable level and avoid the bitterness of lonliness. Better to be an unhappy husband or wife with unhappy children than an ostracized bachelor or spinster. At the accepted age, you were expected to do the accepted thing and all the boys and girls of the village did without exception. No one ever broke, or even spoke outside of, this unspecified, indeed unconscious, code of proper conduct, out of fear of the imagined wrath of his or her neighbors. No one except Vixie, that is.
         Vixie Bangalore was much smarter than the average fifteen-year-old, and fifteen-year-old girls were not supposed to be smart in Tamelia. The only boys that liked her were the ones too stupid to realize just how smart she actually was. While the other girls admired her spirit and courage to stand up to the silly traditions of the valley and tell the ignorant and shamelessly single-minded boys to piss off, they never joined in her rebellious attitude. They cowed under and became exactly what they were expected to become like their mothers did before them and their grandmothers did before their mothers. They stagnated in the comfort of routine instead of recklessly chasing adventure and excitement, inviting danger and personal change to their doorsteps like their pretty young friend who simply "refused to grow up." Vixie had always thought this accusation ironic. She felt she was the only 'grown up' in the whole village from a perspective of honesty and maturity. How exciting it was to meet someone else whose future wasn't already written! Juryrig was his own man, more or less, and most importantly could think for himself. He didn’t respond to her questions and comments in the “correct,” accepted way. He didn't participate in the quasi-sacred verbal rituals that had consumed every last shred of honest communication back in the valley. He responded with truth. He actually communicated to exchange information with another human being and not just to play silly courtship or ego massaging games. Juryrig's midnight visits opened Vixie's eyes to just how rare something as simple as plain, unafraid, unobstructed truth could be in a small, peaceful, otherwise idyllic village where everyone knew everyone else and nothing else.

         On their last night together in the lagoon, they had lain atop the tall cliff overhanging the water at the eastern end of the pond. As they gazed up at the stars, Vixie realized just how different she was from every last human being she knew and just how similar she was to the tall, skinny boy who lounged next to her.
         "What are they?" she asked quietly. She knew Juryrig would know. He admired the beauty of the tiny pinpoints of light peppering the heavens for a moment before answering.
         "Nadie thinks they're thousands of suns just like ours, only far, far away. A lot farther than our sun we see in the daytime; that's why they look so small and dim. She says the stags came from one of them a thousand years ago."
         "There's so many of them. I wonder if there are any people like us on the lands near them who see their star as the sun and who only see our sun as a star?"
         "Who knows?"
         "If there are, I hope they're like you and not like the people in my village. I hope they know how to understand true things and not just comfortable things. I hope they have children because they love them and not because everyone expects them to." Juryrig said nothing. He sat up and looked over at a small puddle of water that had collected on the top of the cliff from the previous night's rain. Dipping his finger into it, he traced a few characters on the rock. Vixie watched. "What are you drawing?"
         "It's your name. Vixie." She looked at the characters in wonder. Juryrig dipped his finger into the pool again. "And this is your name in Stagakhri, the stags' language." Vixie watched him trace the strange symbols in awe of his knowledge.
         "You know the stags' language?" she asked.
         "Yeah. Nadie gave me a bunch of books when I was a kid and taught me to read them. One of them was called 'Stagakhri: Phonetics and Glyphs,' by Jeder Prechet. I thought it was neat to be able to understand the language of another race. I couldn't put it down. It was written three hundred years ago, you know." Vixie ran her fingers over her name tattooed on the rocks. It was already beginning to dry. Juryrig laid back down and Vixie scooted just a little closer.
         As they stared in silence for a long while, Vixie thought about Juryrig and what his life was like. "Who's Nadie?" she finally asked.
         "She was a mistress of The Death Mark's first leader. I've known her since before I can remember. She's not my mom, but I guess she's as close as anybody can get. She taught me about all kinds of things, especially from the ancient world. Like how to read and write and how to cook. She loves books and she gave me every one she ever owned."
         "She sounds nice."
         "Yeah. She is. I wish you could meet her."
         "Will you teach me to read sometime?"
         "Sure, if you want." Vixie smiled and took a breath as she shut her eyes, letting her mind go and praying that her moment with Juryrig would never end. They said no more that night.

*          *          *

         That had been the last of Juryrig's midnight visits to Sayloo Lagoon that summer, though he'd make one final trip to Tamelia:

         It was an early fall morning and Juryrig was mopping down the main deck of a Death Mark battleship called the Goshawk that was supposed to be used in the raid that afternoon. He'd been up all night, but he'd finally finished prepping the fleet. He hadn't heard who was going to be hit this time, but as usual he probably wouldn't be allowed to come along anyway. Ever since Piper had become a force in the Death Mark he was banned from virtually all operations. Piper didn't think field mechanics were necessary. If a man got his ass so shot up he couldn't get home, he didn't deserve to come home. Drake Gagach had never liked Juryrig much either, so when he wanted to get out of Carrion Flats and see what little of the world he could he was stuck with sneaking away at night on recon boats while the pirates were drinking themselves stupid in the galley below. While his explorations were brief, they kindled in him a desire for the freedom to sail the winds on his own: To find out exactly what stags looked like up close and how far it was to the ocean, away from the barked orders of the pirates and the barren stretches of Carrion Flats. He'd often watch the sun set over the horizon outside of the hangar bay and dream of what it'd be like to captain a ship of his own and run missions out there like Sawtooth, Piper, or Toecutter. Unfortunately, Piper considered him nothing more than a wrench monkey. That was all he was good for and all he'd ever be good for.
         As Juryrig slopped another mopfull of water onto the wooden planks of the deck, Lojack, the Goshawk's navigator, climbed up onto the main deck carrying a roll of papers and made his way across the deck towards the interior bridge. The Goshawk, like many airships, had a room just under the flight deck with a window looking out over the main deck. This room had a working helm and several tables and chairs. During inclement weather or heavy combat, the helm controls could be routed into the bridge for protection against rain, cold, and gunfire. While visibility was cut to almost nil, the bridge was still a useful command center and a veteran pilot and navigator could still fly the ship into combat despite the visibility handicap, if absolutely necessary.
         Lojack shouted something at Juryrig as the man did a comical shuffle to avoid slipping on the wet deck. The young deckswab continued nonchalantly.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" the pirate growled as he got to the door of the bridge, fumbling for his key in embarrassment. He went in and shut the door. After a few moments the pirate came back out and climbed down the rope ladder to the floor of the bay. Juryrig laid his mop against the gunwale and headed for the door. Glancing around the still dimly lit hangar, for the sun didn't peer in and warm the air until after noon, he fished his small knife out of his belt and went to work on the lock. Maybe he could find out where this afternoon's raid would take place. If it sounded interesting, he'd try to convince Gagach to let him tag along this time. After all the hard work he put into prepping the fleet, the old fart might bend.
         The door opened without too much trouble. The locks on most airships were feeble and Juryrig had plenty of experience bypassing them since the pirates didn't trust him with keys, yet expected him to perform maintenance duties in sensitive areas all the same. He walked over to the table and unrolled the map. The map showed a line following a few landmarks that led to three townships located in a long, narrow valley. At the southern end of the valley was a small lake surrounded by a cove of trees. The mountains surrounding the villages were labeled "Sayloo Mts." Juryrig’s heart flipped over as he recognized the town. He thrust the large map aside to find a crumpled piece of paper underneath. It was his map! The one he'd drawn that night so that he could find his way back. Tamelia... It was Vixie's home. That was the target of the next raid.
         "Oh no," he said breathlessly to himself. "Vixie..."

         "No. No, you can't come. Piper'd have a fit," Gagach said to Juryrig in his office. It was one of the rare instances when the pirate was sober.
         "But I spent all night clearing those ships for combat! I worked my ass off!"
         "All the more reason to stay here! Get some sleep, kid."
         "I'll sleep on the way out there! I promise I won't get in the way, Drake."
         "Sorry Juryrig, but the answer is no. Between Nadie and Piper, I'd never hear the end of it if I let you come along on a raid." Juryrig's mind raced. He had to go. He had to. Vixie was half a day away from the most serious trouble of her life and it was solely Juryrig's fault.
         "What if I stay below deck the whole time? In the barracks. You won't even see me.' Drake stood up.
         "I said the answer is no." It was firm and final. Juryrig sighed to himself. He had to give up. Gagach may have been a drunk, but he often saw more than you thought he saw. He was a perceptive old pirate, even if he didn't look it.
         "Yes sir," Juryrig said and left the office. Once he was out of sight, he made a run for his personal quarters, threw open his closet and grabbed his flight clothes. His stepmother Nadie was in the scullery preparing to cook breakfast.
         "Did you work all night, Juryrig?" she asked concernedly. She was a tall, thin, older woman with straight brown hair but with a remarkably congenial and beautiful face.
         "Yeah, I'm just getting a change of clothes and I'm going back out. I won't be back 'till later on, okay?" He hated lying to the only person he trusted, but his mind was fixated on Vixie and no one else. The raid was already planned, and Juryrig had no chance of convincing Gagach or Piper to call it off. But there was no way he wasn't going to be onboard one of those raiders when the fleet departed.
         "Juryrig! You're tired. You should get some sleep." She walked into his room. He was hiding a wood saw under his flight jacket. She raised a disapproving eyebrow. "Are you going somewhere?"
         "Sorry Nadie. Save me some please, I'll be starved when I get back!" With that Juryrig fled the quarters. As Nadie watched him go, her stomach sank and she felt far older than she ever had. It seemed like yesterday she was the lively dancing girl of the Death Mark; sought after by every man she encountered; mistress of Grecko the Cruel. Now she was an old maid rotting away deep in the bowels of a mountain without any practical use, save taking care of a boy she could no longer control. Juryrig... She smiled as she thought of him; as she thought of what a handsome and intelligent young man he’d begun to grow into. She supposed maybe she was still of some noble use after all.

*          *          *

         Three hours later, The Death Mark raiders slowly lifted off and made their way out of the bay and out into Carrion Flats. The fearsome Death Mark fleet was a sight to behold. It consisted of four capital ships and eight smaller gunboats. The cap ships were hardened battle frigates bristling with guns and swathed in armor. Even their gas balloons were protected by several thin, bullet-resistant jointed metal plates. Capable of laying siege to entire cities, Death Mark battleships were feared almost as much as stag destroyers. The gunships were smaller but no less armed. They were slightly more maneuverable and faster than the battleships and could deal out just as much damage. They were protected by less armor, however, and could carry far fewer troops and cargo.
         Juryrig was stowed away in the bilge aboard the flagship Death Warrant, a battle cruiser of continent-wide renown. Drake Gagach was in command of The Death Warrant, The Gallows, and half the gunboats; Piper was in command of the rest. While Drake didn't like Juryrig either, it was much safer for the young man to be caught aboard The Death Warrant than any of Piper's ships.
         As he sat against an empty gunpowder crate deep in the dark crawlspace under the lowest deck of the ship, he breathed warm air into his hands. Golden slits in the floor panels illuminated the cramped area underneath the floor of the lowest deck. Far below, the barren, cracked Carrion Flats reflected the midday sunlight enough through the slots in the old wooden floor to allow Juryrig to see the dust, debris, and dead rats peppering the belly of the ship.
         Tamelia... he thought to himself again with his stomach flipping over and over. Anywhere but Tamelia... The pirates must have found his lost map on the scout ship he often "borrowed" and scouted the place out for themselves. Guess they liked what they saw... Juryrig thought sickly to himself. He wondered where they thought it came from. Maybe they think it was a scout mission that failed to report. Or that the report slipped through the cracks. Probably they don't care. What mattered was there was a virtually defenseless, resource rich town within less than a half-day's journey.
         His thoughts drifted back to his dark-haired friend. What was going to happen to Vixie? What could he do? He couldn't stop the raid. Why hadn't he just stayed at the base and forgotten about her? What if she found out that he was the reason for the raid?
         Juryrig had the whole four-hour voyage to come up with a plan. All he managed to do was rig up a trap door in the keel of The Death Warrant. Using the old saw he'd smuggled aboard along with himself, he cut out a square shaped hole in the planks just big enough for him to squeeze through. Then, using two discarded two-by-fours from a pile he found in the back of the bilge, probably left over from the construction of the ship, he fashioned a cross-brace to keep the makeshift door together and in place. When they landed, he could pull the boards up, drop to the ground, and go find Vixie.
         He cursed his helplessness as he fit the door back into the hole and sat back to wait. He cursed the fact that he was forced to live as a pirate, hurting innocent people for his own survival. Grecko had always told him that nobody was innocent; that everyone is out for their own survival, and that the only good people are the ones who are best as surviving. But Vixie was innocent. She may not have been the best at surviving, but she was still a good person. He cursed the only family he'd ever known for misleading him to such a grotesque degree. To hell with survival, Vixie is all that matters.

         After several hours of drifting in and out of a fitful sleep, Juryrig awoke to distant noises; people screaming, running water, a few gravelly pirate shouts. Suddenly the light dimmed in the floor of the bilge and the ship jolted slightly, wooden skeleton creaking. Juryrig sat up; drowsiness rapidly replaced by apprehension. They'd landed. He'd assumed they would descend to about twelve feet from the ground, drop anchor, and open the cargo bay. He would then have been able to drop through his escape hatch behind the open bay door under the ship and perhaps beat the pirates to Vixie's house. He crawled over to his trap door and pulled it up. His fears were confirmed. He saw nothing but dark grass plugging the hole in the dim light. The ship had actually set down somewhere in the valley. "Dammit!"
         He heard footsteps above him and a barked order to open the bay doors. The raid was on. Replacing his trap door as best he could, he crawled over to the fore end of the bilge and opened the maintenance hatch leading up into the cargo bay. The hatch was currently behind several kegs of gunpowder, so he eased up into the bay and crouched behind the barrels out of sight. The pirates moved out into the lower town with pistols sounding and tossing torches into houses. From out the open bay doors, he could see the western rise of the mountains. He recognized Vixie's house high on the hilltop at the other end of the valley. He wondered where the village militia was. Vixie had said that her father was the constable. If they're smart, they rounded up as many people as they could and high-tailed it for Oak Ridge. Juryrig held onto the hope that Vixie's father had gotten her away from the village, gladly trading ever seeing her again for her safety.
         The Haymaker had set down further up the valley in the township just west of Tamelia, but it looked like the upper part of the valley in the east was still untouched. Juryrig waited until all of the pirates had left the cargo bay and then he sprinted out into the town in the direction of the hills.
         He passed by several pirates, ducking behind buildings to keep from being seen. Getting by the Haymaker was going to be trouble, because he had no doubt that Piper would kill him on sight for coming along on the raid without permission. He doubted Gagach would lie for him and claim to have given him permission either, not because the man wasn't a liar, but because he ultimately didn't care for Juryrig anymore than Piper did.
         Juryrig slipped past the huge Haymaker and her crew trying to avert his eyes from the merciless killing of the townspeople. He was sickened as he heard a woman screaming and turned to see a pirate dragging her by the neck into the cargo bay of the Haymaker. I never knew how bad it was... 'No such thing as innocents' my ass. I guess they didn't call him 'Grecko the Cruel' for nothing... Grecko had been the closest thing to a father Juryrig had ever known. And he was one of them, he thought disgustedly as Jim Piper slashed an unarmed man across the face with a cutlass. Such brutal killing. What did I expect? Polite requests? Juryrig's face burned with shame as he ran on. How stupid he was to have thought that pirate raids would be exciting. No wonder the pirates never let him participate. You had to be a man of a certain quality to victimize innocent people and indulge such base, animalistic behavior. How does Nadie put up with it? Why does she stay with the Death Mark? He knew the answer and balled his fists at his own selfishness and naiveté. Never again. Never again am I going to be so ignorant and trusting of men like these. I gotta get Vixie and get her away from here. Then I have to get Nadie out... What have I done? What have I gotten the only two people I love into?
         He didn't stop running until he'd rounded the corner into Vixie's neighborhood. One of the houses was already on fire. A flaming arrow landed on the cobblestone road ahead of him and skipped sparking into the grass. Two small children stood crying in the street, their parents nowhere to be seen. Juryrig looked down the street, sucking wind from his sprint. Just up the hill he could see the large house that he'd determined must have been Vixie's. Cannon fire echoed through the valley as the Death Warrant lifted off far below and began heading slowly in his direction; houses in its path bursting apart under the haphazard cannon-fire.
As he made his way quickly up the hill, he heard a muffled scream followed by a gunshot coming from the two-story house. A man clutching a pistol tumbled out of a second story window. He hit the rocks with a wet crack and rolled down the hill to the street. Juryrig raced over to him and rolled him over. His dead eyes were wide open. The man's neck was broken. In his right hand he clutched a one-shot flintlock pistol, still loaded and cocked. These people were virtually defenseless... They lived in ignorance and trust just like I did... and we crushed them just for the sake of doing it. Just because we were powerful enough to do it, and frightened enough to think we needed to. Maybe they weren't really the ignorant ones after all...
         Juryrig suddenly heard a loud, clear scream that chilled him right to the bone. A scream with a subtle, terrifying tone he never could have imagined, yet recognized just the same. The front door of the house kicked open and a dark pirate walked out with a girl thrown over his shoulder. Juryrig would have known that scream anywhere. He grabbed the dead man's gun and dove behind a hedge in the front yard.
         Juryrig recognized the massive pirate with a sickening lurch. It was "Killer" Bandooloo. Not you Killer. Please not you... He'd always been relatively nice to Juryrig. Now he had Vixie slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Her hysterical sobs were nothing to him. It was as though the man didn't even hear it when she reached out for the carcass lying broken in the street and wailed "Daddy!" He headed intently down the street in the direction of the parked Haymaker, having apparently collected the only prize he desired on this trip. His "pickney pumpum" as he'd called it yesterday. For the first time, Juryrig truly understood where he got his nickname.
         Juryrig left the hedge before he even knew what he was doing. He walked purposefully toward his old friend from behind. He wanted to call out to him; to ask him in a cool, casual manner what it was that he was doing; to pretend like he didn't already know; to pretend that there had been some mistake and that Killer was really not all that bad of a guy. He wanted to ask Killer to convince him that hurting another human being was all part of the circle of life. That if he didn't do it, somebody else would do it for him and then to him. But for some reason he couldn't say a word. His cheeks flushed in some obscure emotion that he hoped very few people ever experienced. It felt a little like shame or embarrassment, but it numbed his entire body, darkened his vision, and burned his face. It was like loathing himself and the world simultaneously with all his heart. He felt sick as he marched right up behind the man, his friend who trusted him like a brother, perhaps even a son, who was only putting in a day's work as he had a thousand times before, inserted the pistol through Vixie's long black hair, buried it in the small of the man's muscular back, and fired.
         Killer's belly blew out in a spray of crimson, showering the stone street in front of him as his knees buckled. He collapsed silently forward into a warm pool of blood, his dreadlocks splashing in the red puddle.
         Juryrig numbly dropped the pistol and caught Vixie as the pirate fell. He pulled her by her arms away from the gore and off the street. She bawled hysterically into her fists and curled up into a ball as he let her down. What have I done? he thought again in horror.
         Vixie laid in the cool grass sobbing as Juryrig sat down next to her, staring woozily at Killer's body. His legs felt weak. He had vowed several years ago never again to take a man's life, and here he had become just like the men he'd grown to hate and done just that. It was his destiny, he supposed. Every pirate raid he participated in he was destined to kill at least one person who'd never have hurt him in cold blood. That's why this will be without a doubt the last pirate raid I participate in, he resolved. He couldn't recall the person who used to beg to be allowed to come along on raids. That day in Tamelia, that other kid died. Juryrig became a different person. His destiny shifted. He ceased to be another instinctive animal and became Juryrig, the sapient human being...
         "What the ruddy hell are you doing here?!" a voice shouted harshly from behind him. Juryrig turned in alarm to see Drake Gagach in the street holding an axe and a shotgun. "Get back aboard before Piper sees you!" Juryrig blinked as he tried to process what was happening. "Ah, for Kail's sake!" Gagach shouldered the shotgun, walked over and yanked him roughly to his feet. He motioned behind him with the axe. "Get outa here! And don't forget your loot!" he motioned towards Vixie. Juryrig noticed for the first time that The Death Warrant had set down again. It was now parked conveniently down the street in upper Tamelia.
         As Gagach walked over to examine Killer's body, Juryrig reached down and picked Vixie up into his arms. He couldn't bring himself to sling her over his shoulder like a dead animal as would have been expected of any self-respecting pirate, so he cradled his arms under her knees and shoulders and made for the Death Warrant. Vixie had stopped crying and was now staring blankly off into space, her hands folded together in her chest. He tried not to make eye contact with her just the same.
         He avoided going into the cargo bay, after Guttermouth tried to loudly offer him friendly advice on the proper way to carry a wench into a ship, using his trademark colorful expletives. Juryrig made his way around to the stern and went under the keel. The Death Warrant was suspended about five feet off the ground now, so he had no trouble pushing the trap door open and sliding Vixie up inside. After he'd gotten her in he took one last look around the destroyed human settlement, made sure no one was looking, and climbed in himself.
         He entered the dark crawlspace in the belly of the ship. As his eyes adjusted to the relatively dim bilge area, he saw Vixie sitting near one of the abandoned barrels towards the stern. He replaced the trapdoor and took a breath. Safe... for the moment, he thought. He locked eyes with Vixie. Her eyes were red, her cheeks were streaked and puffy, and her face was contorted in unimaginable hurt and betrayal. Juryrig's heart sank like lead under that pitiful gaze. He wanted to tell her it wasn't his fault. That he was trying to save her. As he started towards her, she immediately crawled away further aft and curled up in a dark corner in the back of the keel. A horrible weight settled in the pit of his stomach. He sat back against the empty keg, his eyes welling up with burning tears. What have I done?

         Before long, the floor lurched under them and the ground began to fall away through the cracks in the floor. The raid was over. Sayloo Valley was razed, her family was dead, and Vixie Bangalore was now a slave of the Death Mark.