…stay and try to get the necklace from Roland.

You want the proof. You want Captain Roland dead as well. You’re here, and you’re in deep, and the job is not yet done; not fully. The amulet thief is not long gone, so you open the wardrobe door and set out into the room.

Events hidden by the keyholes narrow gaze lay themselves out bare before you; the captain’s dead body displayed in all its ransacked state, the mug standing stately and ominous like a tombstone, and the room looking on, impassive. It all seems like a scene from some grim tableau, a stage play chocked with heavy handed symbolism, the fallen mighty lying in the burning ruin of her world. You ignore it all for now, moving to the door and looking through it, fast enough to catch a glimpse of the distant double doors in the room beyond drifting to a close.

“Nicome, you rat bastard! Where’re you?” Captain Roland’s voice comes through the door, muffled yet sounding…spacious, as though yelling into an open void.

“Am here Captain! We leavin?”

The response is barely audible to you, and seems off, like it comes from a downward angle. You reason it could be the lower floor, with your new target standing at the top of a set of stairs or something. The voice sounds nervous; news of the fire must have spread quickly.

“Get some of the boys up here. Wendigo, er, wants us to carry something, before we can go…like at Corak.”

Gods, even his subtlety is stupid; anyone else who heard that must be instantly suspicious. Even if they just heard the tone of his voice they could safely assume he’s up to no good. You keep the door near closed, waiting for him to move first. You would have crossed the small room and the wide low table that dominates it and waited at the double doors, but his words hold you in your place; if he’s bringing people here, he may not be leaving so soon.

Sure enough, after his man gives his assent and no doubt runs off to fulfil his orders, you duck away as the double doors open and Roland begins to re-cross the room to get back to his ‘meeting’. Without yet questioning his motives, you run quietly back to the wardrobe and duck inside on instinct, closing the door just as he steps through into the room. Why? What is he doing? Why does he need men to do it? And couldn’t you have waited behind the door and ambushed him when he walked through it?

That last one stings particularly, as you know the answer paints you as a fool. Yes, you could have, and it would have likely succeed, but no matter. You can wait until he gets near and spring from the wardrobe just as easily. You grip the blade in your hand, ready to go when the best time reveals itself and determined not to let it pass by.

He walks over to the table, and for a shining moment, he picks up the other mug and looks as though he might fill it in his boredom. The few drops of poison you left there would do for him quite nicely, and you watch through the keyhole in anticipation. Unfortunately, he only looks within, swirling the wet dregs of whatever it contained in idle thought. He looks at the other mug. He looks at the one in his hand. You can almost see the thoughts oozing through his brain.

After a moment, he returns it to the table, and you watch with growing concern as he draws the twin knives from his belt and holds them with a lazy dangerousness. He’s good with those knives; you only need to look at him, with your untrained eyes, to know his easy skills are far superior to your own.

The blades themselves are wide and long -closer to short swords than long knives- and notched at the back to catch opposing weapons. Their wide hilts make them duelling daggers, used -as you’ve only heard and never seen- in matches where the two combatants are tied to each other with rope or chain, and only freed when one is dead. Such talk is only found in rough houses and prison cells, and its practice would find ill reception anywhere but the lawless open sea. You couldn’t have asked for a worse opponent.

He steps back from the table and your worst fears are realised as he bends at the waist and looks under the bed. It’s a slow moment, which he hold at a distance from the bed itself, looking into the darkness found underneath. The bed is high and grand in its four poster glory, so the space below is wide enough to see no lurkers within it despite the room’s sparse flickering lights. He moves closer, and you watch through the space near the wardrobes hinges as he lifts the mattress, letting candle light fall through the slats of the bed frame and confirms its emptiness. He’s definitely looking for someone. Either he’s figured out that the world’s most notorious living pirate had not accidently poisoned herself, or he was simply rummaging through her things…with his knives ready. It was likely some cautious boredom that set him about the room; after all, what idiot poisoner would hang around once the deed was done? Perhaps that was the problem: idiots thinking alike.

He passes from the bed and from your sight, towards the side room and into it. You hear him moving and searching, hear the clink of bottles and the scrape of furniture. For a minute, you wander if you should strike now: sneak up behind him and try to catch him off guard. The image of him with the blades and his well-practiced animal caution keeps you paralysed though. You don’t know how big the side room is, or where he is in it, and if you were to sneak up on him, all it would take is a glance to the side for you to be caught in the open.

Eventually, he returns to the room, and you look through the keyhole as he searches for more places someone could hide. He turns to your wardrobe, no doubt seeing it as the prime hiding place you did, and after giving the space below the same kind of distant under look he gave the bed, he begins to approach.

You grip the blade, shifting your feet to jump at him and moving aside dresses so you are not tangled. A quiet steady breath flows through you. This is it. Ready or not.

The door opens. There’s no one there. So ready were you that you lurch forward and have to stop yourself diving at thin air. He’s simply not there! He steps about the door, having opened it carefully and keeping it at arm’s length. He looks at you, and you at him.

You dive, jumping forward with blade outstretched in your right hand. It’s no matter; he takes a quick step back, once more putting the wardrobe door between you and him and leaving you with only air as your opponent. You focus on landing, letting your feet step out and stay under you as you regain your balance, but your few staggering steps forward are given no chances as a booted foot sweeps out unthinkingly, setting you tumbling and crashing to the floor. You try to pick yourself up, moving the blade between you and him to buy time, but it doesn’t move. Captain Washkin, a dead woman, holds it in place, not with her hand, but with her knee; you’d fallen far enough to reach her body and in your decent, accidently stabbed the meat of her lower thigh! Lifting the metal had been briefly tied with lifting all of her, making the blade stay put in your time of need, and a sudden attempt to pull pulls her legs wide before the dagger loosens. It begins to slide out. A thick soled leather boot slams into your ribs.

While all the breath of your lungs stays by the dead captains side, the rest of you slides hard across the floor, punted almost to the wall. Things feel cracked, and you huddle up about your chest, unable to move, unable to breathe as you wheeze life back into yourself. Needless to say the dagger stayed behind, Captain Washkin disarming you from beyond the grave.

Captain Roland, meanwhile, looks down at you with daggers up and ready, expecting you to leap to your feet and give him the fight of his life, as perhaps an assassin from stories would. Perhaps even as an assassin who fully knew what they were doing would. As for you, you’ve never been kicked so hard in your life. It hurts! It hurts a lot! The first gasp in what feels like forever fills a teacups worth of your lungs before you’re gasping and swallowing again. Panic rises. The man, ready and wanting to kill, steps closer.

“Captain?” a frantic rapping at the door accompanies the nervous voice, freezing you both. Captain Roland levels his blade at you, growling out a whisper.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move.” He opens the door a little, then opens it wide. “Took you long enough! All of you, tie him up.”

They file in, four men in total, each stained in smears ash or even blood, with a bald man leading them.

“With what?”

“Find something!” Roland barks back at him.

Two of the men come to you and grab your arms and legs. You’re still in no position to fight back, resisting only so you can keep huddled as you regain control of your shocked breathing. The others look for rope or its equivalent, kicking apart some of the piles of material left scattered about the room.

“Is that-“

“Yes. He killed her.” Roland answers the obvious question. Four sets of eyes land on the exposed breasts of the dead woman, and you can’t help but notice some of them don’t believe their captain. The man smothering your struggling arms asks back.

“Should we kill him?”

You don’t have time to panic any more. Captain Roland answers immediately, with rising rage and fluster.

“If you do that, who the fuck is going to tell everyone that I didn’t!? I don’t want that bitch’s crew on our backs, let alone the whole fucking archipelago!”

Rope is found, from somewhere, the two men coming back with lengths for your arms and legs and tying them as the others draw them together and up behind your back.

“So then what do we do?”

Roland sighs. “We take him to…what’s his name? Maxwell? Wendigo’s second. We’ll make him explain what happened.”

From his vague gesture, by ‘him’ you realise he means you; a belief that comes from the benefit of a cloth covering your nose and mouth, but even the slightest examination would change that. The men gripping your wrists and ankles must know different, unless they think you a young and skinny boy.

“Now?”

Roland glares at the bald man by way of response, daring him to question further, and the bald man swallows before explaining, with added cringing deference. “Captain, the whole islands on fire, everybody’s getting gone. Folks’ve panicked. People are dead.”

He throws up his hands. Obviously, now’s not the best time to be explaining things calmly.

“Then we go back to the ship and sort it out in the morning! I’m not leaving with that bitch’s **** on my name!”

Roland’s statement is resolute, and with a gesture to one of the bigger and meaner looking men, you are hoisted over his shoulder and carried from the room. The five men all walk across the low table in the adjoining room, and through the double doors your suspicions are confirmed. A grand looking foyer, complete with a sprawling staircase spilling from the landing to the ground floor, is lit with the glow of numerous lanterns.

“Hey! What are you all doing up here?”

It’s the man who shouted down from the roof. Slung as you are, you can’t get a good look at him.

“This guy killed Wendigo.”

Your (admittedly not very feminine) bottom is aimed at the newcomer by way of explanation. Your breath is mostly steady now, but you decide to keep from talking so long as they think you a man. Whatever his conclusions, the man runs past the group and heads into Captain Washkins rooms, looking for confirmation.

As you descend, you try to twist your back, lifting your head to the side so you can see past your carriers arm. You’re panicking of course, desperately so, but being restrained limits your options somewhat. If looking is all you can do then you will. Perhaps you’ll see some way out of this.

There’s a small gathering at the bottom of the stairs. Two women and two men, wearing brown servants clothes (though the older mans are particularly raggedy) stand to one side. Across from them are six men in total, each looking distinct in his own right. The nearest is an old man with a permanently bitter expression on his face, who wears blue silks too frilly to be in fashion this side of the last fifty years. Behind him is a dangerous looking man with a gaunt face and tattooed arms revealed by the rolled up sleeves of his green jacket. A bulky man in bright gold silks stands at odds with a man who could be part of the Losh nobility; all dark silks with muted colours and silver buttons, and carrying a dark cane. Beside him is likely his porter, looking smart and professional, and to the back of them all is a fat man dressed in a red robe that’s just thin enough to be uncomfortable to look at.

He seems to be the smartest of the bunch, backing away at the sight of the group walking down the stairs and trying to shrink his ample bulk as to avoid being seen. The tattooed man, perhaps also realising he may be in danger, looks to be elsewhere, but he’s the only one. The staff look worried and the others just look confused, save the porter. The noble’s servant just looks…capable.

“Time to go ladies and gentlemen; Captain Wendigo will not be servicing you tonight.”

Their eyes are all drawn to Captain Roland as he speaks, barking it out as both joke and insult. The old man at the front, his expression turning grim, calls back in a shrewd rasp.

“What have you done boy?”

“This bastard-“

“They killed Captain Wendigo!”

Roland’s words are cut off from that man at the top of the stairs, who you see now is definitely the man from the roof. Quick as lightning, one of Roland’s men calls back to him with a pointing finger.

“Fuck you!”

Roland points at you. “He did it! We can sort this out tomorrow!”

The man at the top of the stairs shouts incredulously, with an almost hysterical hitch in his voice.

“That’s bullshit!”

“What!?”

The roar comes not from the group, but from the lower foyer, past the small crowd milling at the bottom of the stairs. You look back and see a man standing in a heavy doorway at the foyers far end, a gravel path beyond him marking that as the front entrance. You can’t see much of it though; the man is huge. Leather armour stretches across his wide wall like chest and he stands a head taller than the next tallest man. He eases a heavy looking axe from a loop in his belt, but his eyes and his question are upon the man at top of the stairs, and he gets his answer.

“They killed the captain!”

The man at the top points to your group for emphasis.

“We didn’t!” Roland shouts back in a rasping angry plea of innocence. “Now you two can let us pass, or you can die, your choice!”

The words don’t have much of an effect on the big man, who begins to stride towards them. His eyes, though, are at the top of the stairs, a concerned and pained expression on his face as he rushes to check like his friend above did. Roland doesn’t see it that way though.

With a lift and drop of his arm, Roland’s heavy dagger shoots through the air, spearing the giant in hip, just above his left thigh. It’s a big target, but still a good shot, avoiding the armour and drawing a roar of pain from the man as he staggers back. The other three man leap forward, and Roland behind, each drawing weapons and descending on the man with club and shiv. Roland removes his blade and finishes it in seconds.

You were all prepared to shuffle off if possible: if chaos ensued and the others all joined in. The man above you on the stares looked like he might, but it’s clear he could have done little save die. As for the rest, the staff runs off, with one blond plaited maid screaming and having to be dragged away by the other dark haired maid. The fat man does what you assumed was impossible and disappears, with the others all quickly backing away. Oddly enough, the nobleman doesn’t hide behind his man servant, who stands with far more composure.

After a pale faced look at his dead comrade, that man at the top of the stairs runs.

“He came for us! We didn’t kill Wendigo! That bastard did!” Roland points squarely at you and shouts to the house in general. “We’ll sort all this out in the morning!” He makes it sound like a forgone conclusion, like its already happened, already sorted. He repeats it again, like a prayer, quietly to himself “We’ll sort all this out in the morning.”

As your captors move out, one takes the giants axe and another, the bald man, has a go at tugging off the leather armour. While he gets it undone, rolling the giant proves too much and he trots after you when the rest of the group moves into the night air.

You play the part of a limp sack, hoping vainly to be forgotten about even as you are carried. Your lifted head watches the mansion as it gets smaller and eventually disappears, the winding gravel path taking its sight behind a row of trees. There is a crackle; the roar of the fire you started grows close, spilling smoke and haze into the air. There is the sound of panic and pandemonium, and as the first few houses reach your sight, so does the first body. He looks trampled, or stamped to ****, his pale drained skin under the smeared red matching the colour of his uniform. While you hope his comrades might attack Roland’s group, the few others you do see all look to their own escape. Some of the houses burn, casing their heat on you as you pass, and people run to the docks to escape them, your group being no exception. You soon leave the doomed village behind.

The hill road provides a good view of the docks, but all you really see is the road and the man’s backside. The downward pace sets his shoulder more harshly into your guts with each step, and it’s almost a relief when it levels out and turns to wood boards with sand below them. They run forward, letting the sand turn to lapping waves, and you lift your head all you can, looking back at the island.

Fire. It’s like a great spill coating the left side of the island. It doesn’t yet reach the shore, just as it doesn’t yet reach the side of the path, but it will. Even bouncing with each step, you see it spread, new trees touched and torched, consumed in the space of seconds. Smoke billows up into the sky, and the heat of the fire makes wind, pulling air into it as it grows and grows.

There are screams, yells, shouts of orders and shouts of fighting. No one wants to be left behind. No one trusts anyone else. You pass a whore begging to board a boat quickly being unmoored and kicked to sea. She jumps after them, splashing from your sight. There are bodies here as well, but as the dock has several long piers and the grand galleons that dominate them are separated by distance, the bodies lie in battle lines, with the wounded dragged away and noted by bloody trails leading to their sea fortresses. The two crews must really hate each other.

As your group passes a line of red and yellow, they slow, with Roland being hailed by several of them. The order is given to grab everything and cast off, the rational being that the docks may burn, and even if it doesn’t, falling embers would do for the sails and strand them all. They’d go out to sea and hold position until the fires burn themselves out. For a bunch of louts, they manage it in the span of a minute, unmooring and bobbing away in a hard turn. There’s a crunch, but the call comes back ok. Apparently the other boat was much smaller.

“What should I do with this one Captain?”

You almost tell your carrier to shut up lest his captain hear him.

“Take him… Take him to my quarters. Unacka!”

An old, bald, darker skinned man looks back, clearly in the middle of organising a group of rope carrying men. Roland waves him over as the man whose shoulder you ride quickly walks through a door and out of sight, carrying you down a narrow wooden corridor into the dark bowels of the ship.

Roland’s quarters are narrower than you thought, but longer as well. A bed and washbasin sit across from each other at the half way mark, each ready to be covered by a small curtain, and the rooms end is dominated by a large rear window, wall to wall and crosshatched with lead for strength, showing the burning island, the moon above it, and the waves churned up by the ships hasty retreat. A table -large for the room- is just before it, and a fair few maps are scattered about its surface.

Your carrier does something with a chair, unhooking it somehow from below the table and dragging it out enough to dump you down hard on its unpadded surface. You wince. He steps back to look at you, tied tightly in the hands and feet, and decided that you aren’t going anywhere.

Before he leaves, he look at you again, tipping on his heels as he stops himself in his tracks. He stretches out a hand, pulling your black face mask down so it slips from your nose and mouth. He looks at you for a moment, eyebrows raised, clearly surprised that he’d been carrying a woman this whole time, and reaches out a hand again, as though to touch your face to be sure. His eyes flick to the distant orange glow and he reconsiders, leaving you sitting unattended in the unlit room.

There are no lanterns flickering, but it’s hardly dark. The island glows brighter and brighter with each second, even though you sail away from it, and the moon above is also full, streaming in for its low hang and clouded only by the rising wood smoke that gives it a much more sickly colour than when you arrived. It lights the floor in a waxy yellow shine, like old bones, that wavers more readily in the rise and fall of the waves. An ill moon for an ill night.

You look about the room, trying to figure some way out of it. Tied as you are, such a prospect seems slim, but only a fool would give up hope entirely. You could just about stand and hop about like a bunny; if you didn’t fall over, perhaps you could break the glass and jump out? Not a pleasant prospect considering the lead and that you only have your face to use. You look for a latch and find door bolts on the top and bottom of the frame, closed and holding it shut. The bottom you could reach, but not the top, unless you could hop onto the chair and unlatch it with your nose? Could you even swim, bound in the arms and legs? You’re not the best swimmer all things considered, but you picture the way that a fish swims; perhaps you’ll have an advantage now that you’re all head and tail.

The rest of the room offers no escape. There are two brutal looking axes on the wall, but they are far higher than your hands and strapped down, and nothing else sharp enough to cut through the ropes jumps out at you. It’s fairly austere now that you look critically at it, with a few cupboards built into the walls and a various hooks about the walls. Some of them are empty, while others hold tied boots or plane string bags of crumpled clothes. The sink is plane porcelain and the bed a narrow, unmade heap. Only the thick curtains by the window and the finely woven grand rug below hold much value.

There are boot steps outside, back and forth and up and down, and as you consider what plan you can put into action, several steps stop outside the door and it opens with a violent bang. There’s a crunch of torn wood at the hinge; this is not the first time the door has suffered from it users anger.

“Then he came at us with a fucking axe. A Fucking Axe! So we took him down. The others all scarpered.”

Captain Roland, short, red faced, and wearing his usual garish red and yellow sleeveless coat, gives the tail end of his story by the light of the lantern in his hand. The man just behind him, who you recognise as Unacka, nods with a look of concentrated concern and understanding, like the rotten parent of a spoiled child, hearing of its misdeeds and siding with it completely. You sit still as they both come into the wider part of the room.

“Then we made our way through that shit storm and joined up.” He looks to you, a smile twisting up his scarred and lined face, his tirade not stopping for addressing you. “So you are a woman. I just assumed otherwise since you know when to shut up.” He turns back to Unacka. “So I figure, we get her to confess to killing Wendigo and get that bitches crew off our back.”

Unacka lifts the lantern he carries, setting it upon a hook fitted to the ceiling. He speaks carefully, measured, not looking at his captain.

“And who takes over the…coalition, in Wendigo’s place?”

“Who cares?” Roland throws out his hands, setting down his own lantern on the table. “As long as we aren’t the target for ****!”

The bald man winces at his captain’s lack of subtlety, gently sitting on the end of the unmade bed. The act places him slightly lower than Roland, making him look more like a supplicant, begging for understanding.

“If we return to the island, none of Wendigo’s lackeys will believe us.” He holds the palms of his hands apart as though holding and framing the situation in the space between them. “If they don’t attack us outright, they will leave and tell the others that we killed Wendigo. That is, if they haven’t sent word through pigeon or messenger or something already.”

Roland throws his hands toward you.

“That’s why she’s here! She’s proof!”

Unacka leans forward, his eyes fixed on Roland.

“No one will believe her because no one will _want _to believe her, or you. Think about it.” He moves his hands, squaring out a different box. “What if it was some other captain here? If it was Dofan or, or, or Daggarty or someone like that? If you heard that one of them killed Wendi-“

“But I didn’t kill Wendigo!”

“But what if you heard it! What if you heard? What would you do? Would you listen?” He spreads his hands, presenting the answer. “There would be a prize on their head put there by whoever takes over, and then there would be the necklace and the bounty and even the rep. Gods!” He stands, hands coming to his head, realising the extent of their trouble. “Even unaligned people would take a cut at us, at them,” he quickly corrects, “just to bring down the one who brought down Wendigo! No one will listen because no one will _want _to listen… Except,” he pauses for dramatic effect, his finger flippantly to his chin, “maybe a few.”

To his credit, Captain Roland seems to know he’s being led by the nose, but with no solutions forthcoming in his own brain, he asks the baited question.

“Who?”

Unacka taps his chin, considering. It’s clear from the conversation which of the two has kept this ship afloat over the years.

“If we go to someone who’s powerful, with a few ships-“

“Shan-Mahjour?” Roland offers. You recognise the name; another of Captain Washkins subordinate captains.

The older man rejects the suggestion. “No, not Shan-Mahjour.”

“Good; can’t stand that prick.”

Unacka talks as though Roland has not just spoken. “He’s the most likely to take over, and if he does it right, the others will fall into line. He gets nothing from helping us, and _everything _from scapegoating us. But,” he pauses, half considering, half treading lightly, “if we go to someone like Quain-“

“Quain’s a piece of shit.” Once more Roland’s blunt opinion is offered unasked. He’s countered by the other man’s careful wisdom.

“Quain has his own fleet, but he’d fall in line with Shan-Mahjour _unless _we get to him first.”

“Quain thinks I’m a piece of shit,” Roland counters. Quain is another pirate, though you can’t help but agree with his assessment here, “there’s no way he’d listen to me.”

The older man sighs, intent on his point. You watch as he moves back to the bed, sitting down tiredly like a wise old man. The effect is calculated, and delivered well.

“He’s smart enough to know that if we run straight to him, it makes it look like he ordered us to kill Wendigo, and then Shan-Mahjour can’t accept him. There would be conflict, and Quain would then need all the ships he could to stand against Shan-Mahjour. He’d need us.”

Roland, leaning against the table at this point with arms folded, mutters back, “Unless he presents my head to Shan-Mahjour.”

Unacka makes a placating gesture. “That wouldn’t work; it wouldn’t clear Quain of suspicion once we report to him.”

Roland stands, shouting, “But he may still try it anyway!”

Breath saws through his nose and the lantern above reflects its light across the shining scars of his face. The biggest of them runs across the side of his temple, leaving his dark hair, streaked with grey and pulled back, uneven at the sides.

“It’s a…” Unacka tilts his head side to side, trying to find a word that is truthful while not being as off-putting as the truth. “It’s a risk. True. But if we go back, we’ll be in a battle with Wendigo’s crew, and if we run -be it north, west, or east- someone, whoever gets to be in charge, will send someone else, or several someone else’s, after us to settle the score.” He pauses, done, continuing only when he thinks of more. “_And _if we continue with the take, we’ll be denied trading from most if not all of Wendigo’s old allies, which is basically everyone. And, without protection, we’ll be a sacrifice for the Navy in no time.” He holds out a hand, grabbing the phantom future he constructed in the space before him. “Quain is a risk, but if he accepts us -which he should-“ the clawed hand turns to a pointing finger, “then whether he lives or dies, the heat of all this mess is on him, and _off _us.”

Roland’s face, so animated in his anger, stiffens, ageing twenty years in the process.

“I know him. Quain’s a fucking **** sentence.”

Silence descends upon the room, the two men thinking hard. It had been an informative conversation, which you’re glad you got to hear. Had you be locked in some hold below, or worse, you would never have known their plight, and you would never have known that your usefulness had ended until it was too late. As it stands, you’ve been given both the warning, and, perhaps, the tools needed to escape.

You take a breath.

“I have a suggestion.”

They both look daggers at you. Silence had been useful as you’d not wanted to be noticed and taken away, but now you continue on, saying your piece before they can stop you.

“You have the necklace, right?” You nod at the captain’s pocket, where you know it to be hidden. “That’s a big score right there; a _retirement _score.” You try to talk like them, a little, and ‘bounty’ doesn’t seem like a term that would endear you to their world. “50,000 gold pieces, and an island, which you could sell if you wanted. All you have to do is turn it in.”

If you could get them onto the right side of the law, your fate would no doubt improve. You reason that it can’t really get worse. The loss of the bounty would be unfortunate, but your humbling experience since the failed attack on Roland has taught you that you can’t spend anything if you’re dead.

“Do you have any idea how big my own bounty is?”

Roland sounds…well, you don’t quite know; weary? Angry? Prideful at his own bounty? From the lack of swearing or telling you to shut up, you can at least surmise ‘open to suggestion’.

“Is it 50,000 gold pieces and an island?” you cut back. There seemed to be no love lost between him and Captain Washkin, and while a ‘hers is bigger than yours’ response seems likely to rankle, you need him on target. You try to emphasise your points with nods of your head. “You could claim responsibility for her ****, turn in the amulet, then pay off your own bounty, and that of your crew. Then you’d still have enough left over to never want for anything for the rest of your life! Lives!” You add, looking at the brains of the two. He rubs his chin in consideration.

Roland expression, however, sours, tasting the prospect of a life not wanted by the law. Perhaps that would mean he wasn’t wanted by anyone?

“There would be a price on my head. The others-“

“Then move inland, change your name! Or if you want to stay on the sea, you could buy a commission in the navy, a _high _commission, or work as a privateer! Both would mean having an army at your back! You’d have the skills for it, and a ship, and the coin. You’d have enough money to be _Lord _Roland if you wanted to be!” You suppress a smug smile as Roland’s eyes widen. He seemed the type to be tempted by such things and you were right on the mark. “You’d have a lot more options than under Quain’s boot, if he doesn’t kill you outright, which he probably will if you bring your problems to his door.” You don’t really know that, or much about whoever Quain is, but you trust scum to know scum.

The two men look at each other, clearly not having considered a life outside of piracy. Roland opens his palm; he’d withdrawn the necklace from his pocket at some point and the three of you look at it, each wondering if it was poison or salvation.

You take a breath before spicing your suggestion with your own usefulness.

“I’m an Agent of the principalities; I can setup a meeting and vouch for you.”

Your reveal is not well received. Roland groans quietly but audibly, even as he thinks, and Unacka shakes his head almost disappointed. Perhaps they had thought you an honest and reputable killer for hire? Instead of a sneaky and shiftless protector of the piece. Still, while they may not like you for being their natural enemy, they must surely see the worth in it.

“The boys wouldn’t like it.”

Unacka’s words and expression doesn’t discount it; only that they would have opposition. He looks to Roland, eyebrows raised; apparently it would be the captain who ultimately kept the crew in line.

“They get twent- er, ten gold each and they’ll love it. Most haven’t ever seen that much before.” Roland does some quick calculations in his head, or tries to. The roadblock is almost immediate. “Wait, if we give all of em all ten gold pieces each, how much is left?”

Unacka runs the simple numbers.

“Oh, around 47,000. Remove all the bounties and we’re not even below 40,000”

“40,000 gold?”

Unacka nods.

“And an island” you chime in. It’s not needed, but best not forgotten either.

“What island?” Unacka asks, his first question directed at you.

“Selka. I hear it’s beautiful and worth quite a bit on its own.” For a moment, you think you made a mis-step. You don’t know either of those things and had in fact been assuming Selka was a worthless craggy heap used to spice the bounty. These men know far more about the islands of the archipelago than you do, but evidently not enough. Unacka nods without recognition, and Roland follows suit. There are a lot of islands after all.

“It’s bold, and risky. Quain is still-“

Roland stands. “Quain can fuck himself, with the broad end of a bilge scrubber for all I care.”

Silence. Apparently he had nothing more to say, which you suppose means they are going with your plan. Unacka looks to the standing Roland, a little confused, but willing.

“Er, ok… you’re the boss. Shall we chart a course for Lilia then?”

New Lilia is the capital city of Coronac. Roland nods and you allow yourself a relieved smile. From **** and confession, then uselessness and ****, to ending in a position of power, on your way to a Coronac courthouse. Finally, something goes right for you.

“Er…I do have one question.”

You both look to Unacka, who looks at you.

“What’s to stop you from telling everyone than you killed Wendigo and that we should just be hung? If you’re vouching for us an all…”

The bald man looks at you flatly, sitting on the end of the bed in the flickering half-light. Only his eyes seem to catch the lantern flames, the whites shining while the dark holes bore into you. His face could even be kind were it not for those eyes.

“Errrrr…”

You’re not sure. What way are you useful now? How do you assure someone that you are more honest than they are?

“Y-you have my word of hon-“

“What’s to stop us,” Unacka cuts across, addressing Roland more than you, “from going in ourselves under fake names, or sending one of the boys in there? Even I could go in there. We have enough to pay off my small bounty, and after that I can cash in the necklace for us as a free man and pay off everyone else’s.” He turns back to you. “You’re an Agent, sure, but as long as we have the proof, the bounty boys would believe we went traitor just fine. However, if you were to kick up a fuss…suddenly, no one’s going to believe us over a right-honourable Agent, right?” He leans forward, almost whispering. The light hanging from the ceiling casts dark hoods over his eyes.

“All you are, at this point, is a witness. No?”

Your mouth is dry, your mind scrabbling for purchase as the situation falls out from under you.

“No! I…I could still…arbitrate; you need the money fast right? If I’m on your side, they’ll believe you quicker and and you’ll get you money quicker! I can also pay off your bounties without risk to you!”

“Oh I wouldn’t say ‘without risk’, and maybe you could speed things along.” His eyes shift to Roland. “But if we do this, there can be no risks, and no doubts.”

You wrack you brains, thinking of something to say.

“Come on…this…this isn’t the best way to start a new life! And the others will be on your tail! Do you want to be waiting in port like a sitting duck while paperwork is sorted or do you want my help!”

Unacka smiles, his eyes squeezed to narrow slits. His face is not so kind as you imagined it would be.

“I’d guess at a week or two before anyone even figures we gone to Lilia. And as for our new lives…nothing’s started yet.”

Roland interrupts the evil glare. “Unacka! Go and set a course. We’ll go the long way, past the Bareshan islands, to the coast south of New Lilia. We can hind and walk up from there.”

After a pause, Unacka slaps his thighs and stands, sharing a look with his captain that you cannot see. “Right you are sir, I’ll see to it.”

He leaves without looking at you.

Roland sighs, finally pulling a chair and sitting down. He looks older, for a moment, struck so by the lantern light falling poorly on his features. He already looks to be a man in his fifties, or even early sixties, and while every moment you had seen him, he’d had the anger an animation of a young man, his stillness finally robbed him of that. You’d think he’d look happier to be retiring rich.

“You started the fire didn’t you?”

It still burns in the window, now reaching and consuming the islands other side. You don’t say anything, but you don’t need to. He straightens with a single hummed laugh, his mouth turning briefly in a single smile.

“You did me a good turn.” He looks at you -looks down you- taking you in from head to toe. Voices sound from above; orders shouted and acknowledged. The ship starts to turn, the island sliding on the horizon.

“I’m going to fuck you now.”

A shiver of dread oozes through your spine like a cold liquid lightning. He can’t mean that, but he looks at you, and he does. He explains in the same tired, almost resigned voice, “Wendigo was a bitch, but a good lay. Always left with a wet dick, each time we met. You’re just gonna take her place tonight.”

“A…”

He doesn’t interrupt, you just have nothing to say, or a thousand things to say all competing. It’s hard to tell in the turmoil his words stir in you. The chair shakes as you do.

“When I’m done,” -a forgone conclusion; you feel sick- “I’m gonna toss you out of that window there, and we’ll never see each other again. Now…” His finger, which had been pointing at the window, holds itself up, silencing the fresh protest that well up on your tongue. “Since you did me such a good turn, I’ll give you a choice. You can fuck me…or I can fuck you. How much of a whore you are depends on if I open that belly of yours before I toss you out.”

That’s your choice? Either he rapes you, or you let him **** you? And for a prize he either tosses you out to sea mortally wounded, or just to drown lost in the infinite islands of the archipelago? No, it would be more than simply letting him loose on your body; you’d have to do what he says, act the whore. You’d have to ‘fuck him’ as he said. And worst of all, what are the odds he’ll just kill you anyway?

The choice of just being **** and gutted may be more honest, but it’s not a choice at all.

He leans forward, stroking a hand up your inner thigh.

“Don’t worry. As I said, you did me a good turn. It’s not like you can swim to New Lilia before we get there anyway.”

You look at him with a sick doubt. He just shrugs. He’s going to fuck you, he said. As you look into the hard lines of his face, smell the sweat and smoke of either the fires or decades of pipe ash, your flower cringes. He’s short. Taller than you, but you’re short for a woman. His thick hands feel calloused, stroking ever nearer.

Damn him. Damn him! There is no way you can do what he says, but what other choices is there? If you…go along with it, there’s a chance at least. Poor odds he’ll keep his word. Odds paid for with your honour and your dignity. Alternately, if you can call it that, you can resist. You’ll hold on to some self-respect, and let the world know on your final night that you will not be taken without resistance. But there is no hope in it, just defiance. He may be short, but he’s still a man and one proven strong and dangerous; you’d have no real chance of resisting, even untied. Still, the idea of sinking your teeth into him is more appealing than playing the meek maiden.

A fool’s hope or a hopeless defiance. He stands, unable to reach further from his seat.