On Discord Isle (6 page)

Fengel pulled the rope mesh over his head and freed himself. He did not stand, however. Instead, he hugged his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. His hat lay beside him in the net. He did not put it back on.
Why did they get rid of me? I was a good captain, wasn’t I? And I was straight with them, respectable, even when I didn’t feel it. I tried to be fair, to project that image. Image is everything. Never let them see you stumble. Where did I stumble? Where did I go wrong?

Natasha jumped and beat at the waves, now too far out to stand. She screamed and yelled incoherently. Fengel glanced at his wife, annoyed at the distraction from his train of thought. Then it hit him like a sledge.

“You,” he whispered. “You’re the one they meant to get rid of.”

Natasha tired quickly. Though mighty, her rage was no match for the ocean. She lashed out once more, sending a light spray of sun-dappled seawater after the retreating airship. Then she collapsed. The waves picked her up and pushed her back to the shoreline. There she lay a moment, gasping and exhausted. Fengel glared as she rolled over onto hands and knees, the surf surging over her.

He leaned forward and jabbed an accusatory finger at her. “You’re the reason they did this.”

Natasha glanced up at him in confusion. “Go drown yourself,” she said reflexively. She staggered to her feet and stretched, puffy blouse now limp and clingy. Natasha ruined the effect by loudly hawking a great gob of mucus and seawater down onto the sand. Then she stalked up the beach towards him.

Fengel climbed to his feet to confront her. Natasha ignored him however, walking past to a small wooden crate that had landed behind them, presumably also left by their mutinous crew. She sat down cross-legged beside it, working at the nailed-down lid with her fingers.

How dare you ignore me?
He opened his mouth to give voice to his thoughts and stopped as he took in the panorama past her. The white, sandy beach ended a dozen yards farther inland, stopping at a dense jungle of palms and thick underbrush. Tropical birds flew through the branches and made raucous, high-pitched cries as they went. A mile or so deeper into the isle, the jungle rose to meet the slopes of a great steaming mountain dominating the center of Almhazlik. A ridge descended from both sides of the volcano, running all the way back down to the ocean and encompassing this part of the island shore in a pie-shaped partition maybe half a mile at its widest.

The mountain struck him most of all. Its slope rose up from the jungle to a dimly glowing crag that puffed white clouds off into the bright blue sky, like the boiler steamstacks of his own rogue airship. Weird monoliths dotted the outer skin of it, sharply triangular pillars of rock. One was larger than all the rest. It rose up several hundred feet above the western tree line in a form that could only have been carved by human hands: the shoulders, neck, and reptilian maw of a dragon, all weathered and covered in jungle foliage.

Almhazlik Isle was not as deserted as his crew had believed.

A loud crack brought him back from this discovery. Natasha lay back upon the sand, and was ramming her boot heel down atop the crate. The lid took two blows before breaking inward. Natasha chortled at her success and sat upright to pry aside the broken planks of wood still nailed to the crate.

Fengel refocused on what was important. “It’s true,” he said to her. “It has to be.”

Natasha ignored him. She pulled objects forth from inside the crate; a tinderbox, some rope, foodstuffs. These she tossed aside. Heavy packets of hardtack and rolls of rock-hard, razor-thin salted jerky landed in the sand between them.

“They meant to get you with the net, but I got caught as well,” he insisted. “They couldn’t let me out without freeing you, so that’s why I’m here. They’ve just flown off to the other side of the island, waiting for me to find them.”

The mound of supplies between them ceased growing as Natasha hit the bottom of the crate. There wasn’t much, enough for maybe a week or more of rough living. His wife gave a cry and sat back happily, holding a dark bottle of rum with both hands.

“What I’m hearing,” she said wickedly, “is denial.” She placed the cork between her perfect teeth and bit with a pressure than Fengel knew could sever fingers. With a hollow noise, Natasha pulled the cork from the bottle and spat it to the sand. “A gentleman has certain standards to maintain,” she mimicked mockingly, “if he doesn’t want his crew to toss him overboard. Oh, I have to look nice and talk like a stodgy Perinese jackass if I don’t want my crew of brigands to find a manlier captain.” She tittered to herself and took a long pull off the bottle.

Fengel felt himself flush. “I am
not
in denial. You’re the one whose been so Goddess-damned obnoxious that you’ve been pitched by a crew. This is the second time this has happened this year!”

“That was Mordecai,” Natasha growled.

“Oh,” said Fengel with a false lightness. “You’re right. It was the fault of your nasty first mate. You were perfectly innocent.” He hardened his voice. “Probably because you were drunk on a raging four-day bender that left half the men back in port crazed or blind from the pox.”

Natasha glared at him. “You pompous, insufferable bag of wind.”

“Floozy.”

“Jackass.”

“Slattern.”

Natasha smiled suddenly.

“Mock me all you want,” she said. “Use that creatively bankrupt brain of yours to come up with all the high-sounding insults you can. Do whatever you have to in order to keep looking away from the truth; that Lucian, Henry, and all the rest
didn’t want you anymore
.”

Fengel froze. He found it hard to breathe. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint tunnel, with Natasha’s mocking smile at the center. She was infuriating. Obnoxious. Dreadful.

And right.

Past the excuses, past his irritation with her, he knew what she said was true.
They’ve turned on me. She’s right. And after all that I’ve done for them.
His stomach seemed to drop into an abyss. The sky threatened to smother him. He should have known better. They were pirates, after all.

Fengel’s irritation ignited into a burning ball of anger. His face flushed. His monocle fell free. Calmly, he wedged it back into place, deciding to set rationality aside and give an output to this growing rage. It was the only sensible thing to do, after all. He reached out and snatched the bottle of rum from his wife. Flipping it, he caught it by the neck and whipped it down hard at the crate. The glass shattered into dozens of pieces, soaking the wooden box and the pale white sands with rum.

Natasha stared at him in unbelieving startlement. “What’d you do that for?” she cried.

“Because I didn’t want you to have it anymore,” he said smugly.

Natasha screamed and threw herself at him.

Her fingers, and nails, were aimed for his eyes. Fengel threw up his hands to grab her wrists, succeeding only in being hit with her whole weight in a full-body tackle. They went rolling off the net and onto the sand of the beach, sending her bandana flying free and his monocle to dangle from its chain. Coming to a stop, Fengel found himself on his back, Natasha astride him. She yanked one wrist free, balled up her hand, and lashed out. The blow connected across his cheekbone, jarring and painful. He swept his free hand out and slapped her, not a stinging tap, but a full open-handed blow. Natasha grunted and rolled with it, climbing off of him.

Fengel looked for a weapon. Something, anything that he could use to get the upper hand. The crate was too large and mostly still in one piece. His eyes alighted on the packet of hardtack, shaped like a brick wrapped in cheap paper. He grabbed it up in both hands, shifting back just in time to see Natasha with a sheaf of dried beef jerky held like a dagger. She lashed out and caught him just under the eye. The thinly sliced meat was as hard and sharp as a wooden blade. Fengel felt pain, and then something hot and wet as he threw himself back out of her reach.

He staggered quickly to his feet, the packet held out before him like a shield. Natasha did as well, weaving the beef back and forth like the experienced knife fighter she was. She leapt out in a feint, but Fengel spied the trick and pulled aside. He thrust out a leg as she overextended. Natasha tripped and rolled down the beach. Fengel made to follow.

Natasha came to a stop at the shoreline and leapt back up to one leg. She looked for him, just in time for the packet to come crashing down on her forehead. The bundle of hardtack split, exploding out in rock-hard crumbles that splashed down into the ocean spray. Natasha groaned, her eyes crossed, and she collapsed backwards. As she went, some instinct, some trained killer skill made her lash out at him. The jerky jabbed deeply into his thigh. Fengel gave a cry and fell to the damp sand.

Accursed witch!
He looked down at his leg, at the hunk of beef sticking out at a right angle from his trousers. Fengel pulled it free and tossed it away, blood staining the tip. The wound and the salt from the meat worked together, turning a dull ache into sharp agony.

Her shadow gave him half a moment’s warning. He wheeled on the sand as Natasha fell at him, fists clasped together in a blow that missed and sent sand spraying. Fengel reacted, grabbing at her throat and wrapping his hands around it. She corrected, grabbed his.

They struggled, rolling back down into the waves. His vision blurred, from lack of air and from the chop of the water. The tide sucked at him and tried to pull him out to sea, but the weight of his wife kept him pinned against damp sand and tidal water. All he could see was her face, beautiful even now, grimacing and wide-eyed with her own efforts.

Black spots sprung out through his vision. His strength failed him. In moments it was gone, his hands now like that of a puppet without its strings. They slacked and fell with a splash onto the sand and foamy water swirling around him. Amazingly, Natasha slackened her grip as well. She fell away to one side. Breath returned, painfully. Fengel reflexively sucked in a great chestful of air, not caring how much it hurt. Dimly he heard Natasha do the same.

He recovered slowly, too weak to do her further harm, but knowing that she was spent as well. As soon as he could, Fengel flopped over and crawled up from the surf, then unsteadily up onto his knees. Fengel glanced back to where Natasha was feebly laying, glaring hatefully up at him.

His anger was dulled. He stared down at his wife and grimaced. “I’ll show you,” he said, “and I’ll show them too.” In his ears his own voice was small and tinny.

Natasha raised one hand, made a fist, and extended a single finger.

Fengel staggered away and up the beach. The provisions that his crew had left were ruined, stamped into the sand and scattered. The tinderbox was missing, as were the other packets of hardtack. A few larger pieces looked mostly unbroken. He retrieved two, as well as his hat. Then he stalked down the beach without looking back, sun overhead, the jungle to his right, and the traitor ocean on his left.

The commentary of that surf was unrelenting. It mocked his outrage, overshadowing the call of the jungle birds and the sighing passage of the breeze. Beginning slowly, quietly, it swelled to a muted roar as it toppled forward onto the sand, only to pull back into the ocean with a hiss, starting the process all over again. It was consistent, yet irregular. Fengel could not find a rhythm with which to match his steps. Before long the divisions between one moment and the next seemed to slide away.             

Fengel could not maintain his anger. He paused after awhile to take stock of his surroundings. Glancing around, he realized that his steps had taken him significantly closer to the ridge of rough cliffs near this end of the beach. Looking back, he couldn’t even see Natasha anymore, or where they had landed. The curve of the island hid it completely. Out over the ocean, the sky was a clear blue that seemed to go on forever, only the clouds and the almost-gone speck of the
Dawnhawk
marring it.

Wild desperation took him. Fengel dashed out from the sand and into the water, chasing his wayward crew.

“Fellows!” he cried. “Come back! I’m sure you had a perfectly good reason for what you did, I just can’t think of it!” He pushed against the surf, now thigh-high, his boots completely soaked. “Please, now, lads,” he called. “I’m sure we can come to an accord. D’you want more grog? I can do that! More time ashore? Done!”

Fengel waded until the water was at his chest. “All right, you were right, I can see that now. Whatever it was we, I mean I, did, I can change that. Just come back, lads. Please? Don’t leave me here. Lucian? Henry? Lina?”

His voice echoed across the waves. The ocean laughed at him, smothering it with the incessant pounding of the surf around him. The distant speck of his airship, his command, disappeared, winking away as if it had never been. All the energy and drive in Fengel drained away, replaced with a hollowness in his stomach. He gave up struggling and floated on his back, letting the ocean carry him ashore. When it could push him no farther inland, he sat up and stared at his trouser legs and the water lapping about him. They were covered with wet sand.

They left me here. They really meant it.
Fengel reached up to cover his face with a hand.
What’s the point? Why go on? I’m stuck here. They really and truly meant to leave me here.
He kicked at the sand petulantly.
I guess I’ll just have to make a go of it, then. Exile on a deserted island. Things could be worse, I suppose.

Fengel felt very tired, but this exile made certain things necessary. The first was shelter. He glanced around at the beach, the jungle, and the cliff wall. The beach offered nothing to protect him from the wind and the rain. Likewise, the ridgeline was without cave or cranny. The jungle, though....

Jutting out from the foliage and onto the sand was an enormous banyan tree. Its central trunk was massive and sprawling, spreading branches like a many-fingered hand outward, where they bent again to put down thick root-columns of their own. The upper branches were covered in thick banks of green leaves that gave shade and shelter to everything below them.