The Pirate's Legacy: New Horizons

Chapter 1: Temple of the Gods

The storm clouds had arrived on Peralta before Dread Pirate Robin and his beloved ship reached within miles of the island capital. Peralta was surrounded by the electrifying veil. Its appearance on the Seeing World had deceived the Pirate King. He had thought it was a mere seasonal occurrence, a late summer thunderstorm. Yet this gale hovering malevolently above Peralta was no mere storm. It was much larger, more destructive, and more sinister. From afar, the winds howled like afflicted souls. The surface of the sea tossed and churned as if the spirits in their underwater cages clamored to be released. The lights in the castle and the city flickered like the eyes of a beast opening and closing rapidly.

The crew believed the gale was an ill omen, or a Fury sent to raze Peralta. They observed how the capital of Tarym seemed to be contained in a bubble. To the pirates, it almost felt as if they stood in front of the gateways to the underworld. The part of the ocean The Jolly Roger sailed in was calm, the sky above them cloudless and star-filled. Many on Dread Robin's ship prayed at the top of their voices to the gods for protection, on their knees and hands raised in supplication. A handful who'd gathered their courage together raised the suggestion to the captain that he could wait until the storm had passed to take to the capital, but a dark glare from the Pirate King sent the party back down to the main deck with their comrades.

From behind the great steering wheel, the first mate shook his blond head at his captain. "Once we enter that tempest, those waves will be strong enough to dash us onto the cliffs if we tried to anchor offshore. The men and I won't be able to keep The Jolly Roger steady on water," he warned. "We must moor her in a safe place."

Dread Robin scowled. He wanted to avoid taking refuge in Peralta's dockyard because of caution against Portunus, the protector of harbor and ports. The protector, but was the god still bound to that duty? As well, Roger was not sure if Calypso's traitorous consort knew of his location, and he didn't want to risk the god learning of it if the latter didn't know. Yet Dread Robin saw the evidence of his first mate's argument before him surrounding the capital island. If Portunus didn't send a sea monster or a tsunami on top of them while the ship was docked at port, then the pirates were in danger of being hit anyway into the outcropping of jutting cliff walls. The Jolly Roger and its captain were between a rock and a hard place.

Fine, thought Roger bitterly. They were damned either way.

The captain ordered his chicken-headed men to cease their hysterics. "We will make our berth in the city's harbor!" Dread Robin barked. "Step lively now! And if I hear any more complaint from your tooth-rotting mouths, I'll make sure those men take their complaints to the gods Themselves!"

Not wanting to meet their gods so soon, The Jolly Roger's crew ceased their complaints and prayers after receiving their orders. The majority of the men may have questioned silently the Pirate King's sanity at one point or another in the past, but no one on the ship questioned him now out of fear for their safety and a loyalty to the Pirate King. Mad as Dread Robin may be, he had the eye of the gods, and everyone on The Jolly Roger believed that to fail the captain was to offend the gods.

Every man scrambled to tie a lifeline around his waist as the first mate sailed The Jolly Roger into the raging storm. All senses were assaulted as soon as the pirates crossed the invisible wall where the gale began. The winds cut like whips across unprotected skin. Ears filled with the deafening sounds of howling and moaning. In mere seconds, everyone was drenched by freezing rain and even icier seawater. It was a hard enough task to keep on one's feet and open his stinging eyes.

Dread Robin came up to his first mate's side. "We'll need more manpower to get through the force of the storm," he bellowed over the din.

Michael nodded in understanding before he switched places with the captain. Leaving Roger to man the wheel, the first mate ran downstairs to the main deck, shouting at the top of his lungs as he did, "Brace yourselves, lads! BRING OUT THE SWEEPS!"