Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (23 page)

“Well, given the number of times
you seem to find yourself captured, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of practice
before our trip is done. 
Exotic birds
spend less time in cages than you
seem to.”

“Let’s just get out of here before
they come back.”  Ryle started towards the door.  “I don’t want to be beaten to
death by an evil regime because of a disagreement over floristry.”

“Oh, you worry too much.  I have
everything under control.”  He opened the door.  “It’s smooth sailing from here
on out.”

He’d taken one step out into the
long hallway when he saw a huge man standing at the other end, at the top of
the stairs.  Wearing the armor of an Adithian warrior, embellished with a large
silver wolf emblem across his chest, the man looked like he would get
inappropriate joy out of murdering them where they stood.

Uriah frowned and calmly turned to
the Swab.  “You know what?  This is a setback.  I’m not going to lie.”

Ryle swore, taking a step back. 
“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to ask him for
investment
tips
, Ryle.”  Uriah rolled his eyes.  “I’m a pirate, what do you
think
I’m going to do?”

“Do you need any help?”  The boy
offered.  “Because I was in the army back home.  I was one of the best…”

“Oh, by the time that monster was
done with you, there’d be nothing left of you but teeth and broken bones.” 
Uriah heaved a dramatic sigh, cutting him off.  “No, I’ll deal with this fellow
and then I’ll…”

Three more soldiers appeared beside
the large guard.

Crap.

He threw his head back and laughed,
because there was simply no other reaction he could have.

His life was just… well…
THIS.

His entire existence had been this
exact situation.

Every time he tried to do the right
thing, life kicked him in the balls.

Nothing ever went right for him. 
Sadly, he’d used up all his luck when he randomly stumbled upon his partner and
life seemed determined to always make him pay for his only bout of good fortune.

Ryle’s eyebrows soared, evidently
perturbed by Uriah’s off-kilter manic laugh.  “Dude… have you lost it?”

“Quite some time ago, lad, yes.” 
He shrugged, still chuckling.  “But whatever ‘It’ is, life’s easier without
it.”

Ryle shook him, as if to get him to
concentrate.  “What are we going to do!?!”

Uriah laughed again, feeling
completely relaxed. 

Oh, they were so screwed.  So
completely and utterly screwed.

But, might as well get it over
with…

“Go!”  He pushed Ryle back through
the door.  “Get to the wagon and tell Ransom that under
no circumstances should
she wait for me
.  Just get out of here and don’t look back.”

“You sure?”  The boy paused in
hesitation.  “Because…”

“GO!”  Uriah shoved him roughly
again, wanting him out of here as quickly as possible.  “You let my partner get
hurt and I will drag you down to whichever hell I’m damned to.”

This was
pirate
business.

The boy disappeared into the small
ante room and then out the window, to try to climb down the side of the
building.

Uriah kept staring at the very
large warrior blocking the hall in front of him.

The Gardener captain stared back,
his face contorted in rage.

And Uriah wasn’t sure why or how,
but he instantly knew what the man had come for.  Maybe it was because no one
could
possibly
care enough about the Swab to fight for him or maybe it
was Uriah’s own paranoia again, but either way… he knew.  He just
knew
.

“The girl is
mine
.”  He told
the Gardener, his voice low and threatening.  “I don’t care what you want her
for or why.”  He met the man’s eyes.  “What I take, I
keep
.”

The Gardener looked almost amused. 
“My mother will eat her heart.”  His voice was little more than a growl,
somehow filling the room with the feeling of doom.

But dread had never really bothered
Uriah.  It reminded him of home.

Uriah arched a brow.  “Literally?”

“Oh, yes.”  The Gardener nodded. 
“My mother has vowed that she will never be well until she consumes the heart
and liver of that little traitor.”

“Uh-huh.”  Uriah shifted his
stance, preparing to move.  “Is this an ‘I’m the fairest one of all, bitch!’
kind of thing, or is your mama just into unconventional dining options?”

“Do… do you
mock
the holy
mission of my mother?”  The man seemed genuinely horrified.  “She has decreed
it!”  He said the words like that was all the rationale which was required. 
“She decreed it, and so it shall be.”

“The girl is
mine
.”  Uriah
reiterated coldly.  “Her heart and liver included.”

The man burst into uproarious
laughter for some reason.  “She can’t love anyone!  You turn your back on her
and she’ll put a knife in it.  She did it to me and she’ll do it to you!”

“She already put an arrow in it. 
I’m still here.”  Uriah’s gaze shifted to the other guards, trying to come up
with some kind of battle plan here.  “And I didn’t say she loved me, because
she doesn’t.  But she’s
still
mine.  She’s mine until I say different.” 
He shook his head slowly.  “And I ain’t saying different, mister.”

“You would really deny my mother
that which is hers?”  The man sounded confused.  “She needs to consume that
tainted heart!  She cannot rest until she achieves this goal!  She wishes it
so!”

“See, now I was hoping that
debating the issue with you would lead us to some kind of compromise, where I get
to keep what’s mine and your mother gets to blow me, but then your argument
descended to bathos.  I mean, you almost had me convinced, but I’m afraid that
the ridiculous wishes of your mother just aren’t ranking very highly on my
‘Should I give a shit?’ scale today.”  He shook his head.  “But fear not, I
haven’t given up hope we can still yet reach some kind of rational compromise
here, like… I don’t know… ‘I keep what’s
mine
and your mother can
blow
me
,’ for instance.”

The man took the words about as well
as Uriah expected him to.  The Gardener captain prowled forward, his entire
face awash with rage.  He pointed to the hundreds of small leather and lacquer
squares which made up the ankle-length armored tunic he was wearing.  “Each of
these is the name of a man I’ve killed.”

Uriah snorted in dismissal.  “Isn’t
that cute.  You’re still at the stage where you keep track.”  He smiled
tauntingly, and took off his hat, showing his ceremonial haircut.  “
I
stopped counting years ago
.”

“Ahhh…”  The Gardener nodded in
understanding.  “I know who you are now, Grizzwoodian.  Word had it you gave up
this game.” 

“Well, I’m
back
.”

The Gardener shook his head.  “And I
am still not impressed.”  He started towards him again, a look of complete
pride on his face.  As with all Adithians, it apparently never even crossed the
Gardener’s mind that someone else might be able to beat him.  Their
characteristic hubris wouldn’t let them even consider the notion.  “Killing
savages isn’t difficult.”

“Now, now, there’s no need to
disparage my people.”  Uriah backed away, holding up his hands and taking on a
reasonable tone.  “Listen, I think we’re just both on edge right now, due to
circumstances outside of our control.”  He shrugged.  “But I’m a reasonable
man.  I’m sure we can discuss this.”

“
There will be no bargain,
Grizzle
.”  The man bit out, still prowling forward with his three friends.

“I don’t see why.”  Uriah sighed
and looked up at the ceiling.  “I fully understand your frustration, my friend,
and the very last thing I’d want…”  Uriah drew his sword midsentence and
slashed at the man before his opponent even had a chance to register the
movement.  The blade cut deeply into the side of the Gardner captain’s neck and
the man stumbled to the side, swearing.

It was probably the least honorable
thing you could possibly do in a swordfight, but Uriah didn’t care.  Generally,
you could only accuse someone of “cheating” if you were still alive.

The other guards moved to attack
Uriah, but Uriah had put years into practicing how to effectively kill groups
of men quickly. 

They were dead before they could do
much more than raise their swords.

The Gardener Captain staggered back
down the hall, his hand to the wound on his neck.  Uriah charged after him,
hacking at him again, intending to cut the bastard in two.  Before the sword
connected however, the man swiftly pulled his own weapon, which turned out to
be an Adithian swordbreaker.  Few people carried them because they were too
damn heavy.  The large weapon was like a sword, but instead of a traditional
blade it had a long iron rod with a roughly rectangular shape to it.  The
corners of the iron was sharpened and the point at the end was fully capable of
running Uriah through.  Sadly, it also lived up to its name and Uriah’s sword
shattered upon striking the corner of the thick iron so forcefully.

He tossed the useless hilt of his
weapon aside and dodged the man’s counter-attack.  “That’s okay.”  He spun out
of the way and pulled his Khopesh sword. “I carry two.”

His opponent’s swordbreaker wasn’t
going to do jackshit against what was essentially a mixture of a sickle and an
axe.

The man still had his hand pressed to
the wound on his neck, which was gushing blood.  “I haven’t been wounded in the
last seven hundred fights.” 

“Ever?  And these were
humans
you
were fighting, right?”  He took several steps back towards the door.  “Not fighting
against your childhood obesity or something?”

The Gardener captain’s eyes
practically glowed with fury.  “I’m going to…”

Uriah kicked him hard in the gut,
driving him back a step, then spun the Khopesh around in an attempt to
decapitate him. 

The man ducked out of the way at
the last second, and struck out at Uriah’s exposed legs, but missed when Uriah
jumped over the attack.

Uriah pointed the tip of his weapon
at him, entering the small ante room again and circling around his opponent. 
The man was good.  Very good.

But Uriah knew he was
better
. 
He’d been told every day of his adult life that he was a mindless brutal thug,
from a land filled with the same.  But he was a very good one.  He’d spent the
years since meeting his partner training relentlessly, perfecting his craft and
becoming the most efficient killer this world had ever seen.  The savagery of
his people mixed with the artistry of every master swordsman Uriah could find
and learn something from. 

And he
certainly
wasn’t
afraid of some monster the Adithians had cooked up to send against him.

The man might be their greatest
warrior, but the Grizzwoodians didn’t back down from
anyone
.  And Uriah
was going to cut him into pieces or die trying.

Right here
.

He moved in to attack the man
again, and they exchanged a long volley of strikes and defenses, neither quite
able to gain the upper hand.

The man lunged forward and Uriah
used the hook of the Khopesh to trap the Gardener’s arm, raking it from elbow
to wrist with the inward facing second tip.

The man swore and delivered a
powerful punch to Uriah’s side, knocking the wind out of him.  Uriah
immediately recovered and tried again to decapitate the man, but the Gardener
saw the move coming and instead slashed Uriah across the chest.  Deeply.  He
leaned back to dodge a second more powerful strike, then staggered out of
range.

The Gardener pointed at him with
his weapon.  “Your problem,
corpse,
is that you grow impatient and go
for the quick kill.”

“To be fair,” Uriah replied, trying
to ignore the pain from what would soon be his latest scar, “I usually
get
it.
”

Their weapons locked and Uriah used
the proximity to smash his forehead into the other man’s nose, then slammed his
shoulder into him, knocking him to the ground.  “See?”  He swung the weapon
downward in a killing blow.

The Gardener rolled to the side and
the Khopesh blade sent up a shower of sparks as it cracked the stone floor with
its heavy edge.

The man attempted to kick Uriah’s legs
out from under him, but Uriah expected the strike, and instead of Uriah’s knee,
all the Gardener found was the hooked sickle blade of the Khopesh.  The man
howled in pain as the weapon dug into his shin, using the force of his own
attack against him and almost cutting his leg in two.

The man quickly rolled to the side,
pulling himself to his feet and limping away just in time to avoid Uriah’s
follow up blow.

They both stood motionless for a
moment, bleeding and out of breath.

Uriah slowly began walking to the
right, which caused the man to counter the movement.  And put him right in
front of the open cell.

Uriah smiled as he casually kicked
the door, knocking the man backwards and sealing him inside.

Uriah tipped his hat to him.  “Not
that this hasn’t been fun, but I’m afraid I have a prior engagement.”  He
opened the door to the hall again, preparing to leave this awful place.  “Tell
your mommy I said ‘love and sloppy kisses’ though, yes?”

There was a crash behind him as the
Gardener smashed the heavy iron cell door aside as if it were nothing and sent
it tumbling across the room.

Uriah heaved another sigh.

Bullocks.

Why was nothing every simple?

There was a sudden pain in his
thigh and he looked down to see that an archer on the staircase at the end of
the hall had just shot him with a fucking arrow.  He slammed the hall door shut
again and staggered back into the ante room.