Sci Fi & Fantasy / Flag of bones, prologue

My eyes fell on the slate grey water at my feet. By high tide, shortly after sunset, the platform I was on would be completely submerged, and they would leave us, myself and my crew, for the shallow shades.  

        I could just make out the voices of my pirate kin, raised in defiant song. They sang Hoist the Colors from their ships at anchor around the Cove. That song was the anthem of us ‘Men of Bones,’ and a way to further taunt the Empire.

        The Empire wouldn’t chase after them since most of the men flew the blue Freehold banner instead of the Flag of Bones.  If these men were laid low under the Freehold flag there would be a public outcry.  That was the last thing the Empire needed at this moment.  I knew this public execution was just a ploy to bolster their support.

        Hanging Pirates was no longer about right and wrong for the Empire.  For them there was something almost spiritual about it.  As if they thought we knew something that could harm them.

  Today they would be very happy for I was the man they called “King of the Pirates.”  Though I had rarely used that term myself I was happy to let others apply it to me. My father Rai Shenn, had also eschewed that title.

Ironically it was my Grandfather that I was named for, and he was the first ‘King of the Pirates.”  He was the man who looked so like me that I have, at times been greeted with sign to scare off the shades of those given unremembered to their grave.  That always made me wonder how my grandfather died, he was famous and then one day he vanished.

        In the distance, I could still make out the masts of ships brought low in these shallows, and I squinted to blur them from my sight.  I didn’t need the reminder of what awaited.  I already knew.  I had known for many a talon-count of days.

        All Pirates know what awaits them they just hope that they can find something to save themselves.  A hundred talon agone, it had been a man called Hergir who had saved me from the noose.  But I hadn’t seen him since the last attempt by the empire on my life.

        But things were different now, something had happened, I had wagered everything I had and lost. And now, here I was, brought to the noose without trial.  It didn’t frighten me that I was about to die, it frightened me that I was about to die with these charges against my blood that I could not answer.  Without that, I could be damned to walk.  For some reason they did not want me to go peacefully.

  I tried not to look at my red hair scattered around my feet, cut short in another attempt to deny me a resting place with the honored dead.

  If I had held out for three more days, just three, I might have made it to a place where I could be safe.  But I felt it was too great a risk to leave my wife and child undefended, and so I used what time I had to get them away.
        
Three days more and I would have been to the very End of the World, the places beyond the edge of the map where it was said that all the secrets of mistic and men lay.

I had gotten to within sight of the beginning of the end, and there I had turned back.  The ship that came against me was too fast and I knew I would be overtaken.  

        This was the end of all Pirates, to be brought to “Devil’s Cove” to hang at sunset and there be left with no braid, no ship, no name, nothing to mark them as honored men.  Nothing but the Unwriten Code.  The one thing they could not take away from us was the one thing we would die to protect.  Follow the code.

        “Captain Shenn,” The Empire Hangman addressed me at last, anxious to get this done before the tide came in stranding him on this spit of an island.

  In some way I hoped that he’d be stuck here too.  Five of my ranking crewmen stood next to me, their hands also tied, their braids also cut.  The rest of my crew stood, chained, facing me, forced to watch me die.  In this way the Empire hoped to break their will, to show that that it was their honor or their life.  But could I really ask that of them, damning them and their kin to this?

        “You are this day accused and convicted of Treasons against the Empire, and against the Dragons.  It is therefore the judgment of this court that you and your crew, your kin, your family, and your friends be sentenced to death, to be carried out forthwith.”

        I paused, waiting for the interpreter to finish speaking before replying.  I didn’t particularly need one, but I always liked to hear how they phrased it.  I knew enough Thalgiri to get by, but like most Men of Bones I didn’t speak it on principle.

   “Where is my trial?  Am I not entitled to a court of boards?”

        “The right of trial has been suspended.”

        That needed no translation.  I understood, the very ink that marked me as a Shenn condemned me.  I bore my family mark across my back in ink.

The phaeon and crossed bones had been my family crest since my Grandfather’s time, and few ever wore it openly, and none quite so openly as I.  I flexed my shoulders making the Phaeon flutter its wings across my shoulders.  That ink was proof enough I was a traitor, A pirate from a line of pirates.

        “Silvermane, You lied!”  This time I addressed the other captain who stood facing me.  Silvermane had been the man to talk me down. He had been the ship that had finally overhauled me. He had sworn that he would stand for me, that only I, and my crew were sought.

        “Pardon?”

        I knew the captain was asking for an explanation, but I was in no mood to give it.

“Not from me.”  The words in Thalgiri were innocuous, but in Illis, the language I spoke, they amounted to a declaration of war.  And I could see by the look on his face that it took him a moment to catch my meaning in the use of the Illis word.

        “Your pardon captain, but I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

        I smiled and clarified my charge against him.  “You swore to me my wife and child were not sought.”

        “I didn’t know.”

        “The writ was sworn when you told me.”  I told him.  “You swore, by Deeps that you sought only me.  That if I came easy you would spare my wife and child.  I held you to your word as a man of the Deeps.”  

        “I did not know.” Silvermane was adamant.  But he also knew what the Edict usually read.  He had made it seem that this was a special case.

        “The edict was written when you swore against.”  I repeated.  “You made me a liar to my men.”

        “I did not know, on my honor Captain.”  He called me Captain, but I didn’t know if he meant to usurp my honor or if he meant it as a compliment.  But either way, he had lied to a Man of Bones.

        “There is no honor between your blood and mine Silvermane.  Your word is but dry sands.  I have no braid, but even a freehold knows the Unwritten Code, and they will pay it out if I am brought low.”

        “Aye, but this day the Empire means to bring you low with all your crew and kin beside.  You cannot pay me out.”

        “Your word is as dry sand to us.”  I repeated.  There is no place you can go, and nothing you can say to save yourself.  And though I be brought low, the Banner remembers.”
He meant to make himself an honorable end by setting himself as my enemy, though his son bore a pirate marker.

The gleam of hope was in Silvermane’s eyes, and it only brightened as I spoke.  But it took a while before I understood Silvermane’s game.  

        “So be it.” He replied.

        “This day you are sentenced to hang for your crimes.  Have you anything to say?” The hangman interrupted. I knew this was his only reminder to me that he ran the show.

  I also knew that one of the guards held a whip, and the one in front of me was armed.  I paused and calmed myself.  I certainly didn’t need to provoke him into calling for the whip.  I’d had enough of that in my two hundred and thirty-odd talon.

        “Hangman, grant that I may speak to my crew.” I drawled in the simpering speech of a slave to his master, but the Hangman was too unfamiliar with Illis to catch the implication.

        “Speak, then, save them from the noose.”

        I switched to Draconis, the language known as the Forbidden Tongue, and pleaded with my men to “speak aye,” that is, to tell them they would hold the Dragon Banner instead of the skull and bones that warranted the noose.  It wasn’t that I wanted them to betray the code, but if they could save themselves this fate, and save their kin, how could I ask them to stand with me?

  It was Coram, my First Mate who stood next to me that finally answered.  “Captain, I do not know about these, but I am your crew though you are not my master.  My blood is not on the boards, I come or go at my own word.  My word says I stay.”

        “You are unblooded, you owe me neither honor nor life, why throw both of them away on this?”

        “What would a Pirate, twice sworn to hang at Devils Cove and marked with forbidden ink know of honor, Captain?” Coram smiled.  “Besides, I could not betray you as my brother has.”

        I smiled and waited to hear anyone cry against.  When there was unbroken silence for a moment or two I replied to the Hangman at last.

“Hangman, we stand.”  I spoke at last in Illis, my native tongue.  “We will neither renounce or deny.”

        “Then this day—“

        “Belay your ropes and weapons.  Hold.”

  A new voice shouted as a boat bumped against the boards sending a shudder through us all.

“Hold your ropes and weapons.  I bear a writ, signed and dated this day by the Governor of Illis, and it reads ‘For the Captain known as Jalen Shenn, resident of Illis, blood born on these shores and a member of the Freehold Nations.  This day is issued and granted full pardon.”

        “The Captain stands to hang.”  The hangman replied.

        “Then so do you.”

        “You would dare defy the Empire?”

        The figure spoke softly in a language I didn’t know and then there were footsteps and I heard my guard draw his blade.  The tip rested just below my chin, the boy was standing off to my right, almost in my blind spot.   A moment later, I heard another blade drawn, but this one had a better sound, deeper, richer, if it wasn’t a dragon blade it was a close match.

        The young Empire soldier who held the blade to my throat spoke at last  “Hold not against.”  His voice was quiet and wavered slightly.  I knew this boy hadn’t seen much bloodshed. He couldn’t be more than a couple of outwater trips old, I doubted he was thirty talon, still a child.  

        “No debt.”  I could not damn this boy for following orders.

        The young man’s hands shook as he held the blade.  “Grant pardon Captain, I can do nothing but what I am ordered.”

        “The debt remains with me, they will not pay out.”  I kept my voice soft and closed my eyes, praying that even in his youth he was well enough trained to make it clean.

        “Do it!”  The hangman squawked, “Kill him!”

        I waited, expecting to feel the angry bite of the blade.  But nothing happened for a moment, and then, my benefactor stopped him with a single spoken word.  “Parley.”

        The boy lowered his weapon. I opened my eyes, for now I was safe, such was the law of Parley.   The Deep Laws ruled here.  The boy was not about to wager his life on striking a Captain under Parley.

        “Strike him down.” The hangman ordered again, either ignoring or not hearing the Parley.

        “Hold,” this time my benefactor addressed his own men who had advanced.  I heard footsteps.  Instead of calling the Hangman out for trying to break Parley, he asked a question, “Hangman?” The heavy steps came closer.  I knew the figure wore armor, the steps were too dull for anything else.  “Do you know this blade?”

        “No.”  The hangman’s voice made it clear that it was a lie.  

        “You are a man of Empire, sworn to the Dragon, an’ ye do not know this blade?”

        “I-I swear it.” The hitch in his voice told me he had a closer view of the blade in question than he appreciated.

  I knew what everyone else seemed to forget, this man, whoever he was, had called Parley, so no blood could be spilled.  Though I began to think the either the hangman didn’t know the law of Parley, or he didn’t trust this man to keep it.

        “Then you would swear yourself a liar and damn yourself to the noose you save for the captain.”

Now I knew my benefactor to be schooled in both the Empire laws and Deep Water law, he knew both land and sea.  Strange for this time of history.

        “Under whose order?”

        “If ye do not know this blade, call it out so that my men in the noose can know it.  I grant that at least one of them will recognize it.”

        There was a long pause before he spoke again.  “It bears a black Phaeon, wings outstretched, grey on sable, with a dark-dragonsteel blade.”

        “Aye, and this breastplate the same, and this shield, the Black Phaeon.”

        I knew that sword, I had seen it; I had even held it once. It bore the Phaeon that was part of the Shenn Family Crest.   But what he said next surprised even me.

  “And written in dragon script the length of the blade it says, ‘To defend those who are downtrodden.’”  

        I heard the blade whistle and stop abruptly.  “And on the other side, it reads, ‘one must often risk all.”

        That line, I knew was part of what was often called the ‘greater incantation.’  It was said that when the six swords of the Black Company’s generals were held side by side and read, they would awaken secrets men did not understand.  Which meant that this blade was one of the six, and that line gave rise to the name of the sword.  Cruce, ‘Just crusader.’  This man then, was the Steward.

        “This blade, this armor, and this steel give me right to countermand even the Emperor himself.”  I heard my benefactor walk away before speaking to the hangman again.  “Hangman, I have called Parley, you cannot fear for your life.”

        “Jalen is damned.”

        “The condemned would speak.”

        When no one protested I continued unbidden.

        “None save those of us here, have heard what happened, so I will surrender the name of Shenn, and I will call myself by another name that way you may say that the Captain Shenn came here to be hung and did not leave.”

        “You would give up the name of Shenn and the Banner?  You would damn yourself to shallow water?”

        “I would bind myself to whatever the man who Suretied me demanded.  If that be a shallows course, so be it.”

        “I will surety you Jalen.”

        “Lord Captain,” the boy who had held the sword to my throat spoke, softly. I knew by the fact that he hailed me as Lord Captain that he was a Commoner.  “I would speak.”

        “Speak.”  

        “I have failed to kill one sworn to die by Empire, and indeed, I have no love of Dragon, but my Father when he hears this tale will surely turn me over to the Hangman because I did not kill you.”

        “And?”

        “Speak with the Hangman, please.  Even if it is just as a cabin-boy, grant that I may come with you.”

        The Hangman still stood at his place across from us.  And I was still in the noose.

  “Any else?” The hangman asked, as if we were negotiating my terms of surrender.

        “The boy here, you damn him as traitor, he is my worry now.”

        The hangman nodded.  “I don’t know the boy.”  As simply as that the boy was released.  “As for you captain, what name will you choose for yourself?”

        “Leshawn.”

        My men laughed. They knew Illis better than the hangman and so they understood my play on words.  ‘living Shen’ or as we would say it, ‘living shade’ for that was what my house meant.

        The Steward held his blade at the ready to ward off the hangman, though he had called Parley, he would not be brought low because the empire chose not to follow it.  Meanwhile his men came and untied all of us, and I took the noose from around my own neck.

        I waited for the Hangman to amend the book and then turned to walk back to my ship.  But my benefactor barred my way.

        “Your surety Jalen.”

        “You have it.”  I said, not really intending to swear myself to shallows again.

        “No Jalen, more is needed, a Pirate’s word at gallows is easily forgotten in the deeps and my mission is too dire.”  

        “What do you demand?”

        He held the small scarab marker toward me.  A blood surety, unbreakable.

        “’An I say away?”

        “Then I damn myself and bring you low where you stand.  You are alive because of my word Jalen. It may come that you go to the Far-remembered lands without this surety, and I hope it happens that way, but I must have your surety or you will never leave these boards alive.”  He smiled, but I will grant that you leave them either way.”

He was offering me a Deep Water burial.  But at what price, my life was surety for my boards, my boards were surety for my men, without either I was nothing.

        I looked at him, and then back at my crew.  But even before I spoke I knew I had no choice, I was here, on land, with no braid.  I was here under the Dragon, so even though it was a ship, it was also land.  Leave it to the Empire to mess up straightforward laws. “I’ll aye.”

        “And here is why I demand the surety, Jalen Shenn, you and those upon your boards must carry me and mine, or whoever I send with this marker beyond the End of the World and to the very Forgotten Land itself, or at least as close as may be gotten by a truthful attempt.”

        I had walked into it.  He wanted me to go beyond the Forbidden Isles to the land that lay beyond, to the old Mainland where it was said only the ghosts live.  Beyond the End of The World.

         His hand moved to his knife and I knew I couldn’t stall. “I will swear.”

        “By boards?”

        I would have to pledge my ship, my honor, and my very life on the debt. And if I refused later he would pay me out, take command of my ship, and bring me to the shallows as an unremembered man.

        “Aye, by boards.”

        “By Deeps and the Unwritten Code?” He made sure I was held to both the freehold and Pirate codes.  There was no way out.  Though few but a Pirate would swear by the Code.

        “Aye, by Deeps and the Unwritten Code.”

        “Give me your hand.”

        “You, his men bear witness that I used no force to this.”  His black dagger moved swiftly and a burning stream of blood welled up from my hand. My blood smoldered as it dripped to the boards and he smiled understanding my secret.

        “By the blood that buys your boards?”

        “Aye, by blood.  This I swear and bind myself.”

        He placed the black scarab marker on my hand and we watched as its wings turned iridescent rainbow black, the body stayed the obsidian color we had always known them to be.  He knew I spoke the truth for a lie would keep the marker black and damn me to the shallows.

        He pulled a cloth from one of his pockets and bound my hand.  “I pray captain Shenn that I never have to call this marker, for that will mean that all else has failed.”

        I made to bow but he stopped me, hand to my shoulder. “Remain afoot, I will not have my friend kneel before me. You and yours will know me by this, when I come again I shall hail you by a name now lost to the sea.”

        As quickly as he had come, he went.  Leaving me, and my crew, to secure our boards and head back to Corimar.  I hated Corimar, most captains did, but for now, it was where I had to stay.

I wanted to go to Darkwater, but I knew they would turn me away since my braid was shorn close to the back of my head.  It would be many thirty-day before I’d be able to show myself in deeper waters again… Assuming I could get a paying fare to deep waters.

        I turned to assemble my crew.  “What of me?” It was the boy who had refused to kill me.

        “Ride or walk your choice.” I was giving him a chance to walk away.

        “You would turn me away?”

        “If you chose.”

        “You would let the Empire hang Dragon over my house?”

        I stopped.  Would I really let him go?  Even knowing that the boy, and his family, were likely to die?  I would.  It came down to the fact that, I didn’t know the boy.

        “How many Talon have you seen boy, you cannot be older than a few Out water trips.”

        “I have twenty-five Talon to my name.”

        “And you ride with me you are not likely to double that.”

        “I will have nothing to return to, for my father is Dragon-bound.”

        “So he would turn you away or lay you low?”  I nodded to Coram that he was safe.  I felt no ill-will in him.  If I had only known.

        “Aye.” The boy looked at me.

        I shrugged,“Then if you will ride, follow.”
        

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