Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (25 page)

“Captain,” Stalyart leaned across and whispered, “I
believe for tonight, we should be careful with names.” Then, adopting a normal
volume, “It is good for you to join us tonight, friend. It had been so, so
long.” Stalyart smiled and held his hands wide.

Stalyart reached into his vest and drew out a small
wooden box, slightly larger than the palm of his hand. It was stained a deep
brown that had worn away at the edges and had copper hinges. Stalyart undid the
simple clasp that held it shut. It contained a deck of cards. Stalyart gave the
deck a few perfunctory shuffles as everyone at the table watched, and then set
the deck on the table. He reached then for his purse and pulled out a fistful
of coins, depositing them in front of him in a pile. As everyone else did quick
math to estimate the worth of the pile, Denrik knew almost immediately: it was
the same amount he had been left in his own purse. “Contingency funds,” indeed.

“Tonight we play Crackle, and drink,” Stalyart said.

But Denrik was already ahead of him, pulling out his
own purse and dumping its contents in front of him on the table. The others did
similarly, scrounging on their own persons for loose cash and forming a ring of
seven piles of eckles around a deck of Talis cards at roughly the center of the
table.

“Since I know for fact you all are fully aware the
rules, I dispense with repeating them,” Stalyart said, picking up the deck
again.

He began swiftly dealing out the cards, three to each
player. Talis was a gentleman’s game, played mostly by stuffy old men, their
idle wives, and whip-smart young men aiming to impress their way to a better
career in the employ of stuffy old men. It was a game of subtlety, guile, and
planning, to make the best of good hands and cut your losses on the bad, with
an intricate scoring system that would leave one player the winner after an
evening’s amusement.

Crackle used the same cards as Talis but was seldom
played by gentlemen. It was a game children played with their parents’ Talis
cards—and that grown men played for money. Crackle was not a simplified version
of Talis so much as it was a version gone feral. It was a game of opportunity
and ruthlessness, seized chances and steel-eyed nerves. It was scored each
hand, and the score was paid up in cash. Fortunes swung wildly during a night
of Crackle as luck, and often drink, took hold of the players. Most men who
played regularly were the poorer for it, but there were savvy players who made
tidy profits at the game.

The finest of players had to watch their backs, for
even a drunkard could usually tell which way all his money had gone, and a
properly presented knife later in an alley could quickly undo hours of properly
presented cards on the table. Many of the truly good players were hard, cold
men, used to the prospect of violence directed at their persons. Stalyart was
one of those. He had taught Denrik the game years ago, when he had first joined
the crew of
The Honest Merchant
. Denrik had gotten quite proficient at
the game but had never approached Stalyart’s mastery of it.

Denrik took a quick look at his cards once they were
all dealt, but turned his attention quickly to his fellow players. A Crackle
game was more often won by mistakes than gambits, and watching your opponents’
reactions to see if they let any hint slip about their cards was half the game.
But his opponents this night were inscrutable for the most part. Crackle was
not so much a game for thinkers as it was for those with nerve and resolve.
Your wits kept you from making truly glaring mistakes, but it did not take a
sharp mind to play. These men seated with him might have had the minds of
astronomers or stable muckers, but they had the nerve of gamblers.

The game began with a few terse hands as everyone
settled into the game. Little was said except what was needful to keep the game
apace. But the barmaids came with rounds of ale, paid for by Stalyart, and the
tongues at the table loosened gradually. And though Stalyart had warned against
using names, he was mostly sensitive to anyone giving Captain Zayne away, and
quietly Denrik was able to learn the identities of his would-be crew.

First to his left was Nimrul Scradd, a wiry, thin man
with dark hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. His eyes flicked about like
houseflies trapped in jars, never lighting long in one place. He was apparently
a quartermaster aboard Stalyart’s trading ship. He had been one of the first
that Stalyart had taken on when he began his run of playing at captain.

Next to Scradd sat Jon Marshfield. Marshfield was
Golish, a broad, thick fellow with a big round face and a tousle of blond hair
above bright green eyes. His easy smile and guileless manner suggested a
farm-boy’s upbringing, but his shrewd play with the cards told another story.

Next to Marshfield was Mr. Stalyart’s half-brother,
Rogur Crispin. While he had his Acardian mother’s name, Crispin was in all
other ways his father’s son. He and Stalyart might have passed for twins if
Stalyart was not nearly a decade his senior and darker of complexion. They had
the same dark hair, the same build, even their noses sported a similar hooked
downturn. Crispin was dressed in a navy sailor’s work clothes: a simple
sweat-stained white tunic, loose grey slacks, and deck shoes. He had thankfully
left behind the silly little white hat the navy’s noncommissioned officers wore
on duty. He was not half the player his elder brother was, but he held his own
and, in conversation over the table, gave tidbits of information about the ship
and crew they were planning to confront.

Across from Denrik sat their host, and the mastermind
of Denrik’s escape, Robbono Stalyart. Denrik’s admiration for the man had only
grown since his escape plan’s success. Stalyart had flourished out on his own,
free from Denrik’s service. Yet here he was, willingly throwing back the yoke
onto his own back to haul his captain back up to his rightful place on the
seas. Denrik Zayne had not made his mark in piracy by naïveté, but it was
clearly touching how much Stalyart looked up to him. Denrik had come to realize
during their planning of his escape that his former mate wanted his place in
the history books as Denrik’s indispensable right hand, rather than as a
captain in some thick tome entitled
Katamic Sea Pirates of the Zayne Era: An
Alphabetical Listing
. It was Denrik’s sincere hope that the man was not
becoming too competent and charismatic to be left alive.

After Stalyart sat Dorin Kelgart, a stout older man
with a grey beard streaked through with bits of the original dark brown. He was
Stalyart’s carpenter—and the worst player of Crackle at the table. His short,
stubby fingers held the cards awkwardly, as if the game was possibly somewhat
newer to him than to his compatriots. His play was steady and safe, and too
conservative to win against experienced opponents. His face, though, was a mask
of granite. His expression barely changed through the night, and even when he
spoke, his mouth moved little and was further obscured behind his beard. He may
have also been the only one not having fun with the encounter. Denrik took an
immediate liking to him—all business and almost certainly not a troublemaker.

Past Kelgart was Stevin. Stevin gave no family name;
he was an orphan who had never adopted one. His skin was pale with an
orange-yellow tinge to it, suggesting he had been born in Khesh, or perhaps
Feru Maru. Denrik judged he might be as old as twenty, but he would not have
been surprised to learn he was younger. He was just a sailor in Stalyart’s
service, but he was conditioned to survive and scavenge, having been on his own
for most of his life. Stalyart vouched for him as a hard worker, and he seemed
eager and amiable.

Lastly, just to Denrik’s right, was Marfin Holyoake.
Denrik was ashamed to admit he had not recognized the man at first, though that
was plainly to Holyoake’s advantage. Anonymity had its privileges. Holyoake was
one of Denrik’s crew on
The Honest Merchant
, and his inclusion in the
hijacking was a great comfort to Denrik. He had been worried about all the men
involved who were loyal first and foremost to Stalyart, and who may eventually
prefer him as captain over Denrik. But Holyoake had gotten out of prison not
long after being convicted of piracy, in a tale he swore he would give in full
and glorious detail once they were at sea. Holyoake was Captain Zayne’s
boatswain and as reliable as a pirate could be. Older even than Denrik, he was
showing his years physically. He had thinned since Denrik last saw him, and his
hair was nearly all gone, but he was feisty as ever. He took his pipe from his
mouth only long enough to drink, and resumed smoking before his tankard even
hit the table.

The game and the drinking lasted for hours. Money
changed hands, but mostly came out even, though Stalyart’s pile seemed to have
grown a bit. Denrik had gleaned useful information about the minutiae of the
Harbinger
and had a rough outline of the life stories of the men he was taking on as a
crew, but he needed to start battening down a plan.

“So you take night watches, do you?” Denrik asked
Crispin, who nodded by way of reply. “When will you be on deck?”

“Tomorrow night, midnight to predawn. Then four days
hence, dusk to midnight,” Crispin answered, speaking low so that no one at the
other tables might hear him. He was a navy officer and seemed concerned that
someone from his ship might overhear him giving away information that was of
use only for nefarious purposes.

“Tomorrow night is too soon,” Denrik said. “The new
long guns will not be aboard yet, and we won’t have much time to make
arrangements. We will move four nights from now, on the first night watch.”

He looked slowly around the table and met the gaze of
each man. This was the one thing he had to know for sure: whether he had their
full attention. Each gaze was met, and every man passed one other test: Denrik
could see the fire in their eyes. These men were not nervous; they seemed
determined and hungry.

He turned his attention back solely to Crispin. “How
many will be aboard, and where will they be?”

“A few men will end up waking in the brothels in the
morning, and two have family in Acardia that they will stay with. Most will
spend the night drinking ashore, though, or taking their pleasures and
returning later to the ship. If we move before ten bells, most of the crew will
be ashore. The ones still on board will be the ones who take their bed early,
or prefer to drink and gamble belowdecks. Perhaps twenty men.”

“Hmm,” Denrik said, pondering. “And is it a single
watch while in port, or do you keep double?”

“Double most nights.”

“All right. The plan is simple enough,” Denrik said
even as he thought it through. “Stalyart, get your own ship loaded with
whatever valuables you have. The night we attack, have it set out to sea and
anchor a few miles out. Make sure you have at least one loyal man aboard to
make sure they surrender when we board. They will be our first mark once we are
back in business.

“Crispin, you will be in charge of keeping things
quiet until we are aboard. If it is a two-man watch, your job will be to make
sure the other sentry does not take note of us. Upon your signal, we will rush
the gangplank and make our way aboard. I do not care how you dispose of the
other man on watch —get him dead drunk, wait until he is in the head, knife in
the gut—just make sure that when you signal us, we can make it to the deck before
anyone is the wiser.”

Crispin nodded once in reply, his expression mirroring
the seriousness of the task he was just set.

“Stalyart, you are going to need to get a hold of any
weapons you are able. I have two cutlasses stolen from the
Bringer of Hope
,
but that is it. We will need more blades at the least, and as many pistols as
you are able to gather in four days. Mind you, I will have four more of my own
men along, so have something for them as well. Oh, and an axe or two ought to
get us free from the moorings quickly. If we raise a general alarm in the port,
we will need to be off quickly.”

Stalyart nodded. “Of course. I have six pistols
already, and I shall see if I can manage more in time.”

He seemed like he was about to expound, but Denrik
started right up again: “If Crispin does his part, we shall be on deck
unnoticed. I need two men to start getting the ship ready to sail. That will
mean cutting the ropes mooring us, then seeing to the anchor and sails. If
things go badly, I will give the order to cut the anchor and start immediately
on the sails.

“The rest will go below deck and run through anyone
who does not surrender quick enough. We shall take prisoners, and maybe Crispin
can pick out a few that we might make use of.”

“What of the captain?” Stalyart asked. “Surely he must
be aboard. Old man, eh? Not so young to be taking drink with sailors.”

Crispin pondered briefly. “Well, Captain Rannison has
dinner with various councilors and lords when he’s in port. He’s from an old
family and has got connections. Still, I’d plan for him being in his cabin. You
know, just in case.”

“I shall deal with the captain myself, if he is
aboard,” Denrik said. “If there are no objections, this is our plan. If there
are changes to be made, I shall send word with Stalyart.”

With that, Denrik rose from the table, scooping his
winnings into his purse. With a minimum of fuss, he made his way through the
crowded taproom and out into the night.