Ferry Dutchman

The Ferry Dutchman

I’m no superstitious fellow, but my instincts tell me when a pirate is on the hunt. The men of the Wave-Piercer scuttled about maintaining the ship’s health as the storm beat our hull. A moon pokes from the bleak, dark skies while I check the spinning compass. We’re lost, but I don’t tell my sailors. 

“Admiral Goodman!” the First Mate Sam calls. “We’ve got our catch. Jackalfish are full stock, my lord!” He stumbles, and the Wave-Piercer leers southward. The bow, blessed with the wooden dragon Ao Kuang, suddenly crashes against an oncoming tide. Salt sprays, crabs, and wolfweed splatter like monster guts over the deck. “Admiral, our masts and crownest are trembling! We must get Edgar down before we head to Harbor!” 

My eyes find the man hunched in the crow’s nest. He was a lunatic. Always searching for land or pirates, a true veteran. His rain-sodden face screams above, “ADMIRAL! ADMIRAL! I SAW A SHIP! THARE SHE IS!” 

I turn to Sam. “Climb up. We need that man alive,” he immediately attempts the ladder. But the howling winds protest. “Edgar! Get–” 

The Wave-Piercer’s hull explodes as watery crests paint the main deck. More sea life crawles forth. Sam shrieks, and my eyes catch a sailor’s nightmare. 

He pointed below. “SHARK!” Upon my ship, a sea beast flailed about. Gray gills flexed, a raw mouth opened agape, and dark pearl eyes roved to see panicking men grabbing harpoons. 

“Edgar, get down here!” Once again, another garrison of tidal power smashed our enforcement. “Crowman! What is up there?” Sam pleads.

I maintain the vessel’s balance. The wheel straining against the storm’s hold. My Vice-Admiral clambers towards me, “Arthur!” A violent wind swung his silver hair. “I was at the bow! Edgar’s right. There indeed is a ship.” Suddenly, a third oceanic attack swallowed more oaken boards as the shark’s enormous frame slipped away into the angry currents. “Admiral. The ship is there…though I saw no men. What shall we do?” 

Pirates. Damn, pirates at this hour. Old Deep Gods, I can’t believe it. 

“Vice, grab the wheel while I catch the Captain,” he follows the direct command as I trudge to the deck. “Gyro, where are you?” My palm grabs a fellow sailor, and my words guide him to finding the sought-after individual. 

“Gyro! Arms the cannons get my spears, lances, flintlocks, and anything to put a pirate’s heart on a spike. The harpoons; get the damn harpoons!” 

The Grecian man stumbles in horror. “I know! I know! But we’re bleeding. Buckets are needed just to maintain balance. Damnit to the sea, sorry to say this, Admiral, the Wave-Piercer may be claimed.” My soul cannot fathom the coward’s tone. “Please, sir. The lifeboats must be secured…departure is imminent..sir?” 

My attention flees this sack of a Captain as I order. “Pirates! Thare be pirates at our starboard! Pirates, ring the bell, Sam, pirates, I say!” The sailors follow through on my command, whereas Gyro stares dumfound, “Orders, captain? Did you not hear them?” 

The Vice-Admiral grabs the man by his expensive coat and leads him to the slicked deck as I crawl under the Wave-Piercer to my quarters. My body enters the vast chamber to discover my displayed passion—an honorable RazorLance. A blade crafted with refined, sandy-smooth wood, her sides were peppered with white shark teeth as I touch the familiar handle. “Pirates, you’re blood shall stain this sword once more, disgusting, filthy pillagers you are.” 

I hoist her above my head, remembering the days of glory. When pirate hunting was plentiful, makeshift rafts chased infamous crews and later brought bags of heads to the British. Those were days, but now, in my elder age, new challenges emerge. 

However, that didn’t exclude ancient debts. 

“Admiral Goodman, it’s here!” My First-Mate wails. 

“Haenry,” my mouth grins, “finally, the Tiger and the Shark meet once more in a final bout for the sea!” My rage fuels me as I saunter onto the deck. The cold sea’s wrath bites the Wave-Piercer’s skin, yet the wood stands firm under Gyro’s control. “Keep her steady, lad.” I charged beyond my men to the bow.

The oaken dragon, Ao Kuang, snarls at the ocean while I bend under the RazorLance like a flatfish to a beach. Despite the rocking currents, the willpower of a man trumps it, anger, history, every single day my life has given me to prepare for the perfect strike. Then, after a titan’s wave passes, I see…a ship. 

“Edgar! You were right!” My voice rides the winds. “Alright, Haenry you bastard.” My Adirmal’s coat suddenly flies off as I order. “Harpoons!” In an instant, the command locks-on-success. A barrage of iron hooks fling out the hull and skewers the pirate vessel. 

We’ve won. 

The Piercer dives forth. Icey water sprays across my scars as I bellow. The gods of wind try to stall the execution. But they are no match for me. An Adimiral’s training kicks into function, and I latch onto a rope. My RazorLance acts like a zipguard as I descend over the sea. “Hold her steady, boys. Soon enough,  you’re hands will carry bounties above yer wildest dreams.” 

The eastern waters do not lend my voice ear. An angry sea pushes me forward, and then I clearly witness Haenry’s vessel. The Harbinger arrives before my eyes. The pirate’s weapon-of-war has aged poorly, tattered sails, shattered masts, and no crewmembers present. Yet, his scent lingers. This is my boar to skin. Immediately, once the rope has ended, I leap onto the slippery deck. 

“Captain of the Cruel. Piratelord, skull-skinner, where are you? Surely, you haven’t come this far to simply fish for Jackals, ey?” I cast infamous titles as a lure, attempting to test the man’s ego. “Perhaps our last joust has frightened the coward away. Maybe you are no lord.” Suddenly, a barbed, sharkskin whip cracks mere millimeters away. “There we go…”

A few feet beyond stands Captain Haenry. His old sea legs keep him standing against the ocean’s turbulence. An ancient red Adirmal’s coat clung onto the arms, and a pistol for a hand raises towards me. “Se weet again? Arthur, after all these damn years, eh?” He coughs up bloodied wolfweed as he enters view. Then he gargles through a laugh, “Oi…oi…oi…after all these years…though I swore I killed ya at Harbor. But, no? Yah live, yah live…” 

The Piratelord’s tone didn’t sound anything like his younger, more ambitious self. “Why do you stutter, traitor?” I inquire. A distant lightning bolt crashes, illuminating Haenry’s fate.

That’s when my eyes catch the truth.  

He was dead.  

One side of his face was burnt, with a dark pit where the right eye should’ve been. In contrast, the left was sagging, zombie-like flesh covering rotten yellow bones. The throat’s windpipe could be seen breathing and leaking seawater as he fired the pistol. Immediately, I slit the bullet into two. 

“What happened to you?” I ask. “Has ye sea beasts devoured your handsome side?” My RazorLance doesn’t break or halt while we dance. Haenry fires the whip. A nearby wooden plank breaks, but I stand firm as my blade glides. As we joust, I notice his ribs shivering, clothes hanging between the bones, and maggot-infested organs falling off. He attempts to activate the pistol. However, my Lance is far faster. “Fiend!” 

Haenry laughs like a maniac. In a storm’s flash, the Harbinger lurches. The vessel flips backward as I land hard on a broken rail. Wooden spikes jut through my guts, and I scream while the Captain of the Cruel stands stone-still. His skeletal palm squeezes. Suddenly, the currents sway the Piercer into my gaze. It’s alive, yet its wounds profusely bleed. The ship is only a few minutes before sinkage unless I untether it. But that would mean Haenry would escape. The sea violently thrashes the Harbinger, followed by the Wave-Piercer disappearing behind a rainwall. 

“Prepare to face you’re doom pirate-killer!” the Piratelord launches the whip like a deadly fist. I don’t dodge fast enough and meet a grisly severed stump where my arm used to be. “That hurts doesn’t it, eh? Tell me! Do you know what it’s like to be beaten?” The weapon slices my abdomen, and hot searing pain brands my bones. “Tell me, pig? Have you ever seen your men fall or beheaded?” A nasty split catches my eye. “Tell me! What’s it like to be sold by a fellow Piratelord?”  

Suddenly, another stormwind blasts the ship. I fly into the sky as I slowly look upon the dead man walking as I land, breaking my arm while I cry. “I wanted to be an Adimral, Haenry!” My voice says. 

The traitor’s mouth contorts and twists, “LIAR!” His palm fires the pistol again. “Look at me! The chateaus have trapped me in darkness, marines beaten my skin, tore me of my ego, now I’m a husk of man…and I want my soul back! Is that not vengeance or justice?” He brutally slugs the sharksin, and takes off my leg.”You sold me out for money, for that cheap Lance you so wear. Gods of Deep you’re a liar, a liar I–” 

The Harbinger drops like a pin. My stomach inwardly churns as we fall. Then, a shadow curses us, and a giant wave engrosses our view. Henry reaches, “No! My justice must be quenched!” 

The ship is overtaken along with the Wave-Piercer. 

I write this story not from an Admiral's feast but from a cell. Yes, I’m a former Piratelord, a plunderer, a great thief, and a killer of captains. I was the richest man alive, yet that was never enough. To my officers, the public has received all my treasures, my family is protected, and Haenry and the Piercer are both gone because of me. 

I do fee guiltyl, but that will never fix this issue. We, as humans, have one life, and we must choose and fight for what we want. I’m not trying to break your spirits, but as someone who lived like a madman, I now believe in the Old Deep Gods because no man can bring such swift, holy justice upon a mortal like myself. These are my final words before execution. 

• Arthur Goodman (ex-Admiral convicted of piracy, thievery, murder, and fraud). 
• GUILTY.