The Starfall Treasure

“Port cannons are ready sir!” Hesler shouted across the deck.

“Helmsman, are they still closing?” This new commander could have scheduled the pirates’ attack for all the surprise he showed.

“Same speed sir. I give ‘em two minutes to harpoon range.”

“Davis, get below deck and secure the cargo. Take Jones and Barrow with you and make sure those crates aren’t opened.” A ballista peeked over the pirates deck and snapped, hurling a missile tipped in steel and trailing a tick cable. 

“Could be sooner,” the helmsman corrected, just as metal bit wood with a crack.

“Hard port helm!” Orders leapt about the ship like gulls on rubbish as they leaned into the turn. Hesler gave the signal and cannons locked into firing positions, all charges set and ready for the order to fire. A shudder gripped the ship. Their turn, as sharp as a cargo freight could hope for, halted and the pirates’ ship surged after their target.

“Commander! The line, they’re reeling themselves,” 

“I see it crewman,” the commander cut in. A look and gesture sent two sailors climbing over the stern to cut the cable. Hesler hesitated halfway above-deck. If they couldn’t get the port side guns pointed at the other ship it would come down to swords and side-arms on deck.

“I can almost fire the rear port guns sir. Permission to,” the wizz of a musket ball cut him off. He looked back as the commander fell against the cabin wall, one eye and the back half of his head splattered across the wood. “Of all the black skies and bad luck,” he cursed. “Port guns eight through twelve, fire at will!”

He ran to the gun closet as cannons fired under his feet. He doubted the shots would land, but the pirate ship was smaller. A lucky few cannon rounds could still pierce their hull enough to deter them. “Landis,” he called to a man crewmate nearby, “grab the power and balls. We need these guns on deck.” He scooped the long muskets in both arms and bent double as he hurried across the open part span of deck.

“They got no flag Hes, but those look like Vornish men.”

“I don’t care if they’re fiends from the seafloor. I’d rather shoot them first if I can.” News of the cease-fire with the Vornish came weeks ago. Apparently pirates feeding on war traffic hadn’t heard. 

Their cannons had missed. The pirates’ cable had pulled them off angle and they were quickly closing the last few ship lengths between them. Men loaded guns and crawled to the rails looking for pirates to aim at on the approaching ship. Several minutes passed of musket balls flying both directions. By the sound of it one or two more men got hit on their side, and he heard at least one scream from the other ship. The heat of the confrontation would come when they boarded.

“Looks like you’re right.” The first two men to leap the gap between ships wore loose pants and had patterned patches sewn up across their shirt sleeves. Vornish style. One of those went down to musket fire and the other made it behind a crate. But a wave of shots put all their heads down and when they leaned back out eight of them were paces away on deck with pistols and swords drawn.

“Hes,” Landis said, “I hate being right.”

They both leaned around the mast to fire the round in their muskets and drew cutlasses for the fight to come. Hesler had only been in two other naval conflicts, but they were both like this. Long moments of desperate shots, quick swings of a sword, ducking behind things or rushing an opponent, and moments of realizing he was still alive. Fifteen minutes later one in four of their men were dead though, and the pirates were lining them up by the ship’s rail as their captain surveyed his prize.

“Your captain, commander, commodore, whatever you want to call him,” the pirate sneered and spat in the direction of the body, “looks to have left you to my mercies. Unfortunate that.” One crewman tried to wrestle free and rush the man, but he only got the butt of a musket to his head for his effort. “I’m not all that interested in killing you per se. I just happen to know that a certain island was located by your nation during the prosecution of this war, and a certain cargo has been snaking its way across the sea back to your capital.”

“You think we’re hauling the Starfall Treasure? In this old ship?” Hesler cringed, wishing Landis hadn’t spoken up. They only had naval rations and war prisoners headed to the mainland below decks, but this pirate wouldn’t take a man’s word on it.

“Oh, so you know exactly what I’m looking for.” He looked across the deck, some broken crates, splintered gashes on the mast, some dozen men dead, and the cargo frieghter’s crew lined up on their knees along the rail. His cutlass hissed out of the oiled leather scabbard and scraped along the side of Landis’ neck. “A star screams across our sky to land in the sea, in Vornish waters.” He pressed against Landis’ neck. “Then islands all across these waters start turning up with holes in them. Mines, walls smooth as glass and straight into veins of gold and silver and copper and iron.”

“We don’t have anything like that on board. You don’t think that would be guarded?”

The pirate captain ignored him. “Then stories get out. The Vornish are hoarding ores and metals in the easten sea; witches from the South Islands are ripping gold and silver from the land; marauders’ ghosts of years hence are pulling wealth from the ground like blood from a goat.” His sword pressed harder and he leaned into Landis’ face. “Then your nation starts their war.” He paused and listened to the thuds and pistol blasts under the deck. The commander's men must still be holding out in the cargo hold.

“Vorn started this war. We both know that. Your ships were swarming our waters, harassing out fishing boats, you started raiding out ports.”

Oddly he relaxed, the captain smirked like he and Landis just found something in common. “Our great and honorable King Anthony the First of Vorn started throwing away lives in the northeast sea. You’re right.” His sword fell away from his victim’s neck. “Our lives. We sailed through sun or storm or frost searching this sea. And that’s when your Irian Patrarch suddenly cared about some old fishing tubs. Cared enough to send his entire navy swarming across foreign waves to teach those dirty Vorns a lesson, right?” His sword point jumped back up to Landis’ throat.

“We protect our sovereign waters. That’s all.” The point was diggin slowly into his skin no matter how hard he craned his neck.

“That’s all? What do you have in your hold then good sailor? What suddenly convinced your Patrarch, six months into his war, that we had learned our lesson?”

“Rations and prisoners.” Hes had to cut in, hoping distraction might save Landis life yet. Assuming the pirate didn’t scuttle the ship and send them all down with it. “All we have are war rations and Vornish navy prisoners. You don’t seem too interested in them though.”

“No, you can keep them for all I care.” He waved his sword across the water to his own ship. “You may notice the conspicuous lack of Vorn colors on my mast over there.”

Another pistol cracked, followed by a muted clamor of swords crossing below decks, and finally the whole ship grew quiet. Creaking riggins and lapping waves filled the moment, and the lack of any other noise told Hesler the pirates had every inch of the ship under control.

“Captain,” one of the captors called up the ladder, “no metals down here.” The disappointment in the pirate’s voice didn’t phase the Captain’s face. For all his talk of chasing the Starfall Treasure across the sea he didn’t show a moment of disappointment. “A few men were guarding a crate at back of the hold though. Think it’s got prisoners in it.”

The Captain’s face lit up. “No, throw the hold doors open and pull the crate up mid-ship.” Just like that the crew were forgotten. The captain sheathed his sword and stood over the hold doors, two eight-foot wide doors set into the deck, watching them creak open like he expected a stairway to paradise underneath. The doors thudded open on the deck. Four of the pirates finished pulling the crate into view under the opening. It could hold four or five prisoners, to Hes’ eye, but why have a hold half full of chained prisoners and nail a few into a crate?

“Pry it open.”

The pirates came up with pry-bars and set to levering at the edges of the crate. His breath caught as the boards started coming loose. He hadn’t believed the stories. Iria wouldn’t go to war over sailors’ tales of an island full of precious metals. An island nobody even knew where to find. The near side of the crate fell to the floor.

Half the men on the ship screamed, and the half went pale and froze. Half of both groups had swords in their hand, and pirate and crewman alike stared at the same thing. Something crawled forward from the crate. Something gray as a morning sea and rough like a shark’s skin. In the stunned silence following that first glance he heard its skin scrape against the wood. It unfolded. Legs like horses’, but with toes longer than a man’s fingers stretched. What he guessed to be a head stood ten feet off the floor of the hold, and hands with more fingers than he could make sense of grabbed onto each side of the hold doors. Every man on board saw a demon, a monster, or some horror that might repay him for all his sins, except the captain.

“Your accommodations seem less than ideal.” His outspread arms and cheerfully apologetic grin showed no hint of fear or revulsion. “May I offer you an alternative?” 

The thing blinked huge black eyes and looked around the ship, putting sight to the sound of conflict it no doubt just heard. Men jumped again as its head reared back and several gashes, mouths, opened on its neck. At first Hesler thought it just hissed and spit, until the sound resolved in his mind to words. 

“I will not help your nation.” It looked over to the crew of the cargo vessel. “I would not help this nation. I will not change your course.”

“I’m not so concerned with nations these days.” He glanced around the two ships. “They didn’t seem overly concerned for me.”

It looked to believe him. Hesler did. “What I make I make to leave. Where I make it I will destroy so that you cannot study. The material I gather, what I leave behind, this will be yours.”

A grin split the pirate captain’s face. “My humble ship is at your disposal. I trust you have no qualms for how this crew is dealt with?”

“None,” the looming creature hissed. It pulled itself from the hold and stalked across the deck toward the pirates’ ship without looking back. 

A sailor saw many strange things over the years, and one of those things would always be the last one he saw. Like most sailors, and most of their stories, he knew today would end at the bottom of a cold uncaring sea. “You heard it boys. Tie up the crew, load the rations, and scuttle the ship. We have some extraordinary things to get up to.”