Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (2 page)

“But the wine was
excellent.
” 
Uriah added.  “I don’t know why you can never look on the positive.” 

“Number 620 on the list of why
nobody likes you: you’re usually drunk and when you’re not, you’re hungover.”

“I’ll have you know that I am
almost
sober today.”  He defended in righteous indignation, rounding on her.

She readjusted the grey hooded
poncho she was wearing, which shielded most of her scarred face from view.  He
had no idea why she chose to do that.  If he were half as attractive as his
partner, he’d hire a painter to put his image on the sides of buildings. 
“’Almost sober’ is not the same as ‘sober.’”

“It’s close enough!”  He held up a
hand to show his resolve on the issue.  “Certainly as close as I’ve come since
that time…”

“Enough!”  Stiller shouted.  “All I
want is the fucking money!”

“Can you just give it to him,
Uriah?”  Ransom still sounded annoyed.  “Give it to him, so that he can take it
and then kill you anyway, and I can get back to my morning.”

“And just
what
do you have
planned this morning that’s so pressing?”  Uriah’s eyes narrowed in
almost
entirely mock jealousy.  “Because I don’t seem to recall having anything else
on
my
schedule.”

“None of your business.”

“It quite literally
is
my
business, since it’s
my
ship!”  He insisted, not liking the idea of his
partner off talking to other men or other pirates.

Uriah had no illusions about
himself: he was
easily
replaceable for someone like Ransom.  She could
do better for herself in the space of an afternoon and he knew it.

She was brilliant and capable and
gorgeous.

There was
no question
that
she could do better than him, and he didn’t really want her figuring that out.

“What ship!?!”  She pointed towards
the harbor, where his long-lost vessel, the
Deceitful Whore,
was
conspicuously absent.  “Last time I checked, we didn’t even
have
one
anymore!  We haven’t found the
Whore
after months of looking, and Dobbs
took the ship you bought with the Cormoran gold, because you owed…”

“I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY!”  Stiller
screamed, obviously annoyed with being left out of this private conversation.

Uriah took a step away, as if not
noticing the man’s anger.  “I’d be
glad
to give you your money, I just don’t
want to do it
here.” 
He pointed at Ransom and mouthed.  “She’s very
delicate.”

“What?”  Ransom questioned,
straightening on her barrel again, not able to see him mouthing the words but
recognizing that something was going on.  “What’re you saying about me?”

“Nothing, Dove.  Don’t trouble
yourself.”  Uriah waved a dismissive hand, trying to sound reassuring.  “It’s none
of your concern.”  He turned back to the men, putting a finger to his lips to
urge them to be silent about the issue.  “See?”  He mouthed again.  “Delicate.”

“Oh, let’s just do him right here
and be done with it!”  One of the other possible-crewmen suggested to Stiller. 
“I’m sick of dicking around here.”

Uriah took another subtle step back
and to the left, causing the men to advance towards him.

“I think he’s their gang’s ‘tough
one,’ ‘Rai.”  Ransom informed him dryly, as if keeping track of the individual
roles each of the men played in the gang.  “His ‘scary voice’ just makes my
lady parts quiver.”

That should have been amusing, but
instead it caused him to think about his partner’s body…

He cleared his throat, trying to
push the captivating image from his mind.  He took off his hat and held it out. 
“Well, at least let her hold my hat.”  Uriah suggested, shifting to the left
again so that his angle on the men was better.  “I don’t want to get blood on
it.  It’s
vintage
.”

“I’m not touching that thing.” 
Ransom scoffed, holding up her hands.  “You took it off a corpse.”

He rolled his eyes.  “For the last
time, it was a
skeleton!
”

“It’s still dead!”  She shook her
head.  “I’m not wearing anything off a dead person!”

“You’re wearing leather boots! 
Which are off a dead cow!”  He argued rationally.

“A cow isn’t a friggin’ person!” 
She threw out her arms, trying to draw attention to his supposed insanity.  “I
don’t wear corpse clothes!”

“I said ‘hold it,’ not ‘wear it’!” 
He groaned in mock exasperation.  “You’re always so difficult! 
Now
you
refuse to even mind an article of clothing while I go and speak with these fine
gentlemen?  What kind of quartermaster are you!?!”

“The kind that’s not your fucking
valet
,
Captain.”  She snorted.  “And the kind that thinks if you want to wear your
creepy dead guy clothes,
you
should be the one to hold them.”

Uriah took another small backwards step
down the street in an effort to drag the men along with him in pursuit, and put
them exactly where he wanted them.

“Well, my only comfort is that I
will remain the best dressed pirate in this alley, then.”  Uriah announced. 
“Sometimes I envy your disability, Dove, as you don’t have to see the sartorial
heartbreak
which I am being confronted with at the moment.”  He made a
point of looking at each of the men in turn, as if judging their outfits, then
turned back to his partner.  “Truly, it’s all I can do not to weep.”

“On the bright side, today won’t be
the first time your clothes have been on a corpse.”  She commiserated.  “So
there’s still hope for these guys adding your tacky crap to their wardrobe.”

He took another subtle step to his
left, stepping away from Ransom so that the men would be between them.  “Now
that’s enough, Dove!”  He chastised.  “Why would you even bring up my death
like that?  You’re ruining my attempts at joining these fine young men in
future criminal escapades.”

“There
is
an opening in
their gang, ‘Rai.”  Ransom announced.  “I don’t think they have a ‘cool one’
yet.”

Uriah took on a sickening smile. 
“I think they’re
all
the ‘cool one.’”

“They’re all
trying
to be
the ‘cool one’.”  She corrected, then shook her head.  “That can’t happen. 
They can’t
all
be ‘the cool one.’”

Uriah took another small step, tempting
the men forward.  “Perhaps one of them can be the ‘funny one’?”

“Funny one?  Funny one!?!”  The man
on the right moved forward.  “I ain’t amused.”  He snared, barring his broken
yellowed teeth.  The man’s movement also put his back to Ransom, his focus entirely
on threatening Uriah and keeping him from escaping.

Which was
exactly
what Uriah
was waiting for.

He clicked the heel of his boot
twice, causing the spur to jingle in a precise way as a signal to his partner. 
Spurs were an entirely unnecessary accessory for most pirates… but most pirates
didn’t have a blind partner who was excellent at listening for auditory cues.  

“621 on the list of reasons why
nobody likes you, Uriah…”  Ransom began.

Uriah gave a quick high-pitched hunting
whistle, their longstanding signal for “Kill him/her/them.”

Ransom lunged forward and wrapped
her arm around the man’s neck, then stabbed him with the jackknife she carried,
“…you ‘ain’t’ amusing.’”  She finished.

At the same instant, Uriah threw
his hat into the face of the man across from him as a distraction, then swiftly
drew his swords, slicing at one of the other men and cutting him from neck to
waist.  The first man recovered his senses and swung his own weapon, which
Uriah dodged, then he calmly sliced open the man’s stomach and kicked him away
so that he slammed into the stone wall and was dead before he hit the ground.   

Stiller lounged forward in an
attempt to run Uriah through, but Uriah parried the strike so that Stiller’s
blade stabbed the man across from him.  Uriah then turned to swiftly decapitate
Stiller with the heavy edge of his Khopesh blade.  The curved sickle sword took
the man’s head clean off and sent it tumbling down the street with a wet
echoing sound.

Uriah turned in a quick circle to
make certain that all of his opponents had been dispatched.

Ransom nonchalantly let her victim
fall to the ground in a bloody heap and flipped her jackknife closed.

“Huh.”  Uriah watched the scene
expressionlessly for a moment as the men’s blood stained the cobblestones at
his feet.  He turned to look at his partner.  “What an entirely preventable
tragedy.”  He heaved a weary sigh.  “It seems that some fresh misfortune has
befallen our beloved crew, Dove.  Will they
ever
catch a break?”

The girl didn’t move a muscle, her
scarred face remaining entirely impassive beneath the shadows of her tattered
hood.  “Halfway pirates.”  She observed calmly, derision in her tone.  His
partner always took personal offense from posers and people she didn’t think
lived up to the proud ethos of piracy and crime.

“Indeed.”  He nodded sadly.  “May
the Gods save our profession from the dilettantti, Dove.”  He agreed.  “They
have no passion for our craft.”

“Maybe you should stop hiring
people based on their ability to remember dirty songs, and instead start
looking for people who know how to sail or fight?”  She offered unemotionally. 
“Just a suggestion.”

“But I already
know
how to
sail and fight.”  He argued logically.  “If I have to endure other people, the
least they can do is keep me entertained.”  He straightened his coat. 
“Besides, if I hired people who could fight, I’d have a harder time killing
them when they inevitably betrayed us.”

She thought that over for a moment. 
“Well, you got me there.”  She admitted.

“Ha!”  He nodded.  “That’s right. 
Bow to reason.”

“I don’t know what would happen if
you ever made an enemy who wasn’t a complete idiot.”  She thought aloud.

“She almost killed me with an arrow
and then punched me in the face.”  He smiled at the memory.  “But thanks in no
small part to a convenient bout of amnesia and my own magnetic charisma, we
were able to put that misunderstanding behind us.”

“I’m just lulling you into a false
sense of security.”  Ransom teased.

Uriah threw his head back and
laughed, still having a wonderful day.  True, he has killed a higher number of
people than usual so far today, but that was to be expected. 

Weekend
.

The crewman Stiller had
inadvertently stabbed rose up on his elbows, and weakly put his hands up.

Uriah stooped to retrieve his hat,
then watched the man for a moment, pursing his lips.  “Our best course of
action?” He asked his partner. 

Ransom shrugged disinterestedly, as
if none of this concerned them anyway.

Uriah nodded in understanding. 
“Excellent guidance, Dove, as always.  This is why you’re in charge of charting
the long-term goals of our enterprise.  Too often I find myself steered by my
gentle soul, rather than letting the more down to earth practical concerns of
business
direct my course.”  He chuckled, as though admitting something he was ashamed
of.  “But such is my nature, I suppose.  I have the heart of a poet.”  He
turned to look at her again.  “Remind me to show it to you sometime, yes?  I
keep it in a box on my dresser.  The unfortunate chap it belonged to didn’t
need it anymore.”

His partner snorted in amusement
and then they both broke into genuine laughter a moment later, finding
themselves the
funniest
people around.

He absently swung his sword again,
putting the man out of his misery.

He really had no other option.

If he let the man live, it would
put Ransom in danger.

So the man had to die.

Piracy was a brutal trade, but its
rules were easy to understand.  The crew all knew that going in.

“Come, Dove.”  He put his weapons
away, then took her hand to help her over the bodies.  “I’ll buy you a cool
libation at the hostelry while we continue to await our contact’s tardy arrival.”

Her hand was so soft and small in
his.

He loved touching that woman.  Even
if it was just something tiny and casual like this.  After years in her
company, it still caused his heart to beat faster and his throat to become dry.
 Just feeling her skin against his…

He found quietly holding her hand more
sensual than the prospect of a lifetime of sexual exploits with anyone else.

But she didn’t want him.

He knew that.

She’d
told him
that.

But if this was as far as he could
ever expect their relationship to go, it was more than enough.  He could be
happy with this.

She made a non-committal sound and
pointed at the bodies.  “I think
that’s
probably why everyone hates you,
Uriah.”  She told him, starting to walk from the scene using her cane to guide
her way.  “Because you’re a tough man to kill, try as they might.”

He started after her.  “But that
still doesn’t explain why anyone would hate me to begin with, Dove.  Yes, I’m
rather difficult to kill, but why would anyone even decide to try?”

“Do you want me to continue telling
you reasons?  Because I have a few hundred more, if you really want to hear
them.  I’ve been keeping a mental list for years.”

He rolled his eyes.  “
Again
with
the negativity.”

“Reality has a way of inspiring
pessimism.”  She agreed.

He made a face at her retreating
back, feeling annoyed and pouty.  And when his good mood was in danger of
crashing, he always turned to one thing.  “Dammit… I want a cupcake.”

She stopped in her tracks at the
non sequitur.  “Huh?”

“What?”  He shrugged.  “I want a
cupcake.”

“I don’t think they make cupcakes
here.”