I can weather any storm

‘You’re going to poach her from me, are you?’

The calm amusement remained in R’khan’s eyes, even as his crew barged in, chattering amongst themselves, and organised a team to lift the treasure out under the watchful eyes of Vilayn and Azareth. It could almost have been a coincidence that R’khan waited until his first mate was at his shoulder to add,

‘Mistress Willa is sailing with me crew on a voluntary basis, that’s correct. But if she’s on my ship, she’s my responsibility, and I ain’t got no plans to lead her into danger. If she decides she wants to risk it, now that’s her prerogative.’

‘Relkhan?’

‘Mister Vilayn.’

‘We’ve checked the wounded. Two killed in our crew, Mister Bendraal and Mistress Doleth, ordinary seamen. A few major injuries among the rest but nothing Rosie can’t fix on those. I’ve ordered a pyre to be set up in the central courtyard for the casualties.’

‘Very good. I will be with you presently.’ As Vilayn hurried off again, his expression wooden, R’khan nodded politely to Jocelyn. ‘Shall we? We can continue our little discussion later.’

“Poach her from you?” She made a face as if the question had offended her. “I’m no fool, R’khan. I know she won’t sail with me so long as you have Pretty Boy at your heel,” she motioned to Vilayn without shame or reservations. “My concern is that she doesn’t have the same protection as the rest of your crew who have signed your articles. At present, there really isn’t anything preventing you from, say.. selling her or using her as a bargaining chip,” Jocelyn said, keeping her eyes on the two Dunmer as her expression hardened slightly.

“You once told me you like gold and riches, so let me make myself inescapably clear. Selling Willa might make you filthy rich, but I’ll personally see to it that those will be the last septims your grubby little fingers will ever touch,” the captain stated, unflinching and unmoving, looking from R’khan to Vilayn “Willa might be sailing with you on a voluntary basis, but you will treat her right or you’ll have me to answe to, and that goes for both of you.”

The fiddle stopped mid-tune with a screech as Vilayn jumped but, aside from the initial shock, he thought he handled such a foreboding summons rather well. He lowered his instrument and strode over with his face blank, masking any emotion, a trick he had found useful in dealing with captains other than his own. Once he was stood before Jocelyn he raised a hand in salute and stood so stiffly he might as well have been at attention on deck.

She sat back, her butt on the very edge of the chair, making her slouch slightly and she folded her hands over her stomach. “You see, I spent some time with Willa yesterday and we got to talking,” Jocelyn began, gaze never leaving Vilayn - a gaze which had nearly made lesser men wet themselves - and inclined her head slightly. “Most of it doesn’t really concerns you, but some of the things she said got me real curious.”

‘In that case, sera, it’d be a case of got to, wouldn’t it? Seems to me, if I goes after ‘em I’m throwin’ Willa into danger needlessly. You said yourself we didn’t sign up to be part of your crusade, so you manage your crew, and I’ll manage mine.’

Most of this was said in a mild, level tone while Jocelyn was leaving. If she had turned, the most she might have seen was a steely glint of something in R’khan’s eyes – not annoyance, though. Something more like amusement. He remained sat comfortably on his chest, contemplating the corridor thoughtfully, until Azareth and a contingent of the crew arrived to start hauling out the contents of the treasury.

Jocelyn stopped at the treshold to the vault, holding the frame firmly with one hand. “An interesting turn of phrase,” she noted with an assumed calm as she turned to look over her shoulder, furwwoing her brows slightly. 

‘Damn right it ain’t. You may have noticed that obedience and compliance ain’t exactly my style, muthsera, but it don’t make no odds to me whether I’m disobeyin’ the Empire or this cabal or the Mad God Sheog. There’s always going to be somebody who don’t like what I do, so why pick fights with ‘em unless I got to? I certainly ain’t joinin’ some noble crusade to take ‘em down. Ain’t my job.’

For all his insistent denial of interest, R’khan did seem pleased with Jocelyn’s response, if only for her acknowledgement that this was none of his business. He pushed himself up from the chest, had a last look at the chest of Eclipse memorabilia, and nodded.

‘You take what you wants. There’s enough here to keep me crew happy without you payin’ for it.’

Jocelyn remained quiet for a moment longer, but the way she looked at him made it clear that she was just momentarily biting her tongue. She closed the lid on the chest of cult stuff, and while her hands remained gripping the side she said,

“What about Willa, then? She none of your business too?” She slowly lifted her gaze, one which was maddeningly unreadable. “If they find out she’s with you, you know they’ll come looking for her, right?” She added as she straightened up.

By then, before Jocelyn could go so far as to directly threaten R’khan, Kade had gone looking for his captain and now stood in the doorway. “Captain?” He said, causing Jocelyn to turn her head towards him.

R’khan sat down on a second chest and crossed one knee across the other, listening with interest. There were plenty of questions he would have liked to ask, but since he suspected most of them would end with Jocelyn’s sword through his chest, he kept his mouth shut and noted down his queries for later. Only when she had finished and he had thought over his responses did he venture,

‘Big operation. Ain’t surprised they got people in the EEC, obedience and compliance has always been their hardline.’

He dug into the chest Jocelyn was studying himself. His hand came out with one of the vials, deceptively pretty with its multifaceted sides considering what it was used for. After studying it for a second, letting its faces catch the eerie green light, he dropped it and let it smash across the flagstones.

‘You going to do anything about ‘em?’ he asked, quite casually, after the ringing shatter had died away. ‘You don’t seem the type to take this lyin’ down.’

Jocelyn’s gaze followed the vial he was investigating all the way to its demise on the stone floor. She stared at the shattered fragments for a few seconds before she scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the crate.

“You say that like I have been sitting on my hands this entire time. The problem is that they grow out new heads faster than I can chop them off, like some damn mythical hydra,” she replied more evenly now, seemingly calming down from her outburst. “This is fucking personal, and not a part of our deal. Your men didn’t sign up to join my crusade, so the plan remains the same, seeing as we still have two more forts to deal with. Hopefully it’ll dredge up some new leads about these fucking cultists.” 

R’khan and Azareth exchanged glances. This level of rage was not the sort which took well to interruptions, in their experience, but some kind of comment was required before any more of the haul was smashed to pieces. Eventually R’khan settled on nodding to the door and muttering,

‘Go see if the crew are ready to start carrying this lot out. We’ll check it as we go.’ 

 Azareth saluted and sloped out of the vault, his footsteps echoing away down the passage. It left R’khan to face Jocelyn’s fury alone. He plucked his sleeve away from the slice on his arm, casual, nonchalant, and cleared his throat, doing his best to strike up a conversation while he picked through the other treasures, as if this were all perfectly normal.

‘This Order… they ain’t anything to do with them Eclipse people Willa and Carina are worried about, are they?’ he asked. ‘Don’t know much about ‘em meself, but Vilayn’s made me promise that if we see ‘em, we kill ‘em. And you know what they says, muthsera. A problem shared is a problem halved, or summat like that.’

To leave Jocelyn to cool off on her own had been the wisest decision they could have made, and by the time Azareth had left and R’khan asked about the object of her fury she had mostly calmed down - enough at least to keep from damaging anything else in the room. 

“They’re one and the same,” she replied, sheathing her sword with practiced ease. “They call themselves the Order of the Eclipse, and they’re a fanatical cult that’s been around for god knows how long. They claim to be wanting order -aboslute obedience and compliance - and they’re using any means to get it. At first I thought there were little more than glorified bandits, but the bastards have their hands in every goddamn governing pie in Tamriel,” she began to explain, raking a hand through her hair as she stretched her back.  

R’khan tossed the key in his palm and led the way down the passage. Beside him, Azareth, bald and somehow smaller without his hat, strode with his arms crossed and a stony expression, which he managed to maintain right up until they opened the door. Then there was a twitch. Just a twitch.

Various treasures had been collected together on Stirk thoughout its history as a bolthole for vagabonds, all of which, along with anything of Ayleid origin which looked shiny enough, the new authorities had collected and moved to the vault. Bright blue stones were illuminated by some kind of ancient energy and cast a spectral glow over the contents, turning the gold green and creating soft, shifting shadows between the chests and boxes. R’khan picked up a silver chain and let it run through his fingers. 

‘Nice. Very nice. Don’t expect we’ll find quite so much in the others. Anything catch your eye, muthsera?’

Jocelyn followed the pair down the corridor, stopping only to let R’khan and Azareth walk into the vault first once the door had been opened. When prompted, she stepped towards the center of the room to get a better look at everything. “I suppose I’d be able to find something, given enough... time,”  she said, eyes roving over golden idols and weapons until she spotted a crate. She visibly bristled and didn’t even turn to look at either of the two Dunmer before she strode towards it with a hatefilled determination. The crate she had her eyes on didn’t look like much, and the only distiguishable feature it had was a black circle with a halo on the side.  

She drew her bloodstained sword and used the hilt to smash the padlock on the lid before she threw it open. Inside was a small assortment of silver blades, flammable oils, pouches, jars, vials, and journals.The hand not holding her sword balled into a white-knuckle fist and she nearly slammed it into the crate, barely managing to step away from it in time to settle for an angry snarl and a string of curses.

Although a surrender was on the horizon, most of the Scamps used the momentary distraction of Jocelyn’s appearance to finish off their foe of the moment, plunging weapons into backs or sending shockwaves of magic through their opponent. The decapitation did give some of them pause, but most of the old hands watched with grim satisfaction as their flame cloaks simmered down. There were no more furtive stabs after the body slumped to the ground. Luca, who had been strictly forbidden from joining the fight and had therefore thrown herself into it with enthusiasm, wandered up to prod the head with a stick, but the crew took it in stride. Apart from some scuffling with prisoners, they fell to the task of rounding up the survivors obediently and, thanks to the barked orders from Vilayn, efficiently. Anyone injured and unable to help was ordered towards Rosie by Braskan.

R’khan’s first action was to shrug off his elaborate coat and hand it to Azareth, who had taken a position at his side in readiness for collecting their plunder. The captain’s shirt stuck to his skin, wet with both sweat and blood, and he was breathing heavily. He was grinning, too, even as he bled from a gash across his arm.

‘You sure you don’t want to come with for the first look? ‘Cause I ain’t going to ask twice. I’m only asking once ‘cause you did a damn good job out there.’

Mehran stuck a pair of fingers between his lips and whistled loudly for Aria and directed her to team up with Rosie and help with the injured, followed closely by Willa. Once the remains of the Company had been dealt with, most of Jocelyn’s crew seemed content with chatting with their counterparts among the Scamp’s crew. Daynillo in particular had gone over to stroke Oran’s ego, much to Rylen’s amusement. 

In the noise of tumbling rubble, the Runaway Scamp dropping anchor, and officers yelling inside the fort, it was impossible to make out precisely what Jocelyn was shouting. R’khan grinned all the same and drew his cutlass.

‘You gonna give the Stormbreaker all the glory, lads? Get in there!’

Keep reading

Like the Scamps, Mehran had cloaked himself in flames and shaped them into devilish horns and whenever he opened his mouth flames appeared to be spilling out of him. 

The Runaway Scamp moved almost silently through the cover of the fog, apart from the creak of the hull or straining ropes. None of her lanterns were lit. Commands were passed in low voices from quarterdeck to main deck via the medium of Vilayn, who pattered between the two with a light step, while Braskan stood belowdecks with Oran, waiting for the signal. This was a far different crew to the one which wreaked merry havoc on taverns across Tamriel. They were quiet, ready, and obedient, waiting with grim faces, some peering through the fog for the fort, some glancing at shipmates for silent reassurance. Nobody, from Zannammu up the mainmast to Rosie waiting in her makeshift surgery for the wounded to start pouring in, could relax.

Only R’khan, his head tilting between the black sails and the lights ahead, seemed at ease. He was wearing the same outfit as when he was introduced to Jocelyn, but now the coat was heavy with blades, as much for effect as practical use, and it covered a layer of leather armour. Smears of ash across his grey face gave him a grotesque expression even when he was smiling. He eased himself back and forth on his legs in time with the rocking of the deck. When the flash came from the lantern, he only had to nod once. Every person on the ship was watching him, and Vilayn hardly had to give the order to fire.

It raced through the vessel like an electric current and reached Braskan below in a matter of seconds. He smacked Oran on the back, surveying the assortment of mages waiting at the ports.

‘Less’ give ‘em hell, me lads.’

The fire which filled the magedeck was blinding after the darkness they had sailed in. It was soon engulfed in smoke, as the blast of magic hurtled across the ocean, reflected a bloody red in the water, and smashed against the eastern tower moments after the Stormbreaker’s broadside. A second round was hot on its heels, this one commanded by Vilayn and Ethysil on the main deck, and the combined firepower tore a split down the centre of the tower. Not enough to destroy the second trebuchet, not yet. R’khan bellowed into the darkness.

‘Mister Vilayn! Mistress Carina! Bring us round two points to starboard, give us more sea room! Don’t let ‘em get a fix on us!’

‘Aye-aye, Relkhan!’

While the brig heaved round, the mages prepared their second blast. With less time to prepare and with their vessel on the move, not all of the spells hit their target, but Oran’s magic streaked forwards like a comet and ripped the roof from the tower. It left the trebuchet exposed for Ethysil’s second round, and this time they caught the weapon, destroying both it and several of the people manning it.

Carina worked alongside Vilayn and the crew, calling out windspeed and direction as she changed it, giving the men a chance to act ahead of time and get the most out of her assistance. In the meantime the Stormbreaker lined up for another broadside, and Jocelyn gave Daynillo the order to tear down the walls. They managed to land a few more good hits to the front wall of the fort before they received any kind of fire in return. 

With the trebuchets disabled, all they had to do now was to get out of range and hammer them hard into submission, and that was exactly what Jocelyn intended to do. Thanks to their training together on the beach earlier that day, they had come up with a plan on how to take down the fort as quickly as possible. Daynillo and her fellow mages concentrated their fire on key points of the structure, weakening it, and before long one of Oran’s massive fireballs - at least she thought it was Oran’s - blew in the entire wall and took out most of the men in the courtyard along with it. 

Jocelyn wanted this fight over with as soon as possible, knowing that drawing it out would only work against them. “Get ready to go ashore, lads! The fort is as good as ours!” she bellowed out across the deck. The Stormbreaker drew closer to the fort until she was finally close enough to dock and let the crew spill out onto the beach. Jocelyn led the party up towards the gates of the fort and with a finaly barrage of fireballs from Daynillo the wood gave in and blew away. She raised her cutlass and the men charged into the fray, hollering and roaring as they engaged the Company in combat with swords and spells.