Tevun-Krus #30 - PiratePunk

Rafe and Rose - A Short Story by @krazydiamond

 Rafe and Rose

By Krazydiamond

The ship had followed them through the ever long night, trailing them as they cut through the high waters to avoid the eyes of the empress. Little good it had done, when the Iron Blood sniffed after them like a hound, it pointed prow ramming aside the choppy and violent waters that had concealed him and the crew till now.

Caster Rafe cursed under his breath, peering through the ship's scope. The internal gears whirred over the roar of the endless sea, focusing and refocusing until the distant speck of the Iron Blood sharpened with brutal clarity. Not a living soul graced its upper deck, barely a sign of mechanics below. An unmanned Iron Blood was little better than a rabid dog, little better than a hired brute sent to pound him and the crew of Black Eye until they shattered into the hungry sea.

"Bugger this forsaken world," said Rafe, tapping the scope to ease off. There was nothing for it. Their best bet was to abandon the Eye to her royal pain in the arse's mad dog, and take the crew to the nearest merchant port via the current cutters. Though it might take some convincing. The pirates of Alleon held to a strange honor code he didn't quite understand as a foreigner. They were far more honorable than any men serving before the banner of the Empress, that was for damn sure, and most days they contradicted the strange notions of their captain with a level of patient disdain.

Rafe chalked it up to their former status as oath bound sailors, a title and lifestyle that was outlawed when the Empress wrapped her pint sized fists around the watery world of Alleon. All and any who didn't follow her law were now outlaws and pirates. It meant the crew of the Eye were the most cultured and cleanly 'pirates' Rafe ever laid eyes on.

He found his first mate below deck, carefully trimming his beard with heated wire. Rafe waited until the man had the wire away from his skin before he cleared his throat. "I need you to gather the men, Douglass. We have an Iron Blood sniffing our tail."

He watched his first mate's reaction. Iron Bloods came with the empress, an invasive species as it were, living ships with molten iron pumping through their crafted veins, the technology of his home world, melding life to inanimate objects. Like so many other creations of the Empress and her Men of Winding Minds, the Iron Bloods were as monstrous as their were useful. Douglass released a sigh, causing the gills under his beard to ruff out. The natives of Alleon were well suited to their watery environment.

"I'll garther 'em up Cap'n, but ye know 'ow they feel about you bossin' 'em," said Douglass in his thick surly accent.

Rafe was all too aware how the crew viewed him, but they followed him regardless because he was a better pirate and he knew the inner workings of the Empress's forces.

Douglass sauntered off, his beard half trimmed, and left his captain to absently twist the heavy inlaid ring on his index finger. A kraken's tentacles twined around the band in a craftsman's loving detail. Krakens, one of the many inhabitants of Alleon the Empress was surprised to find here. Rafe didn't know why it had shocked her, this world was level upon level of water. There were things that existed in the depths that had died out in their world's seas eons ago.

It took roughly ten minutes to assemble the Eye's crew, a dozen or so men, tempered by the sea until their were a collection of muscled knots and sea scars. A kraken would spit them out for being too tough to chew. They used to call him a pampered lord until the calluses spread across his palms and the sea wind burned its mark into his brow. Now they lent a modicum of respect to him for chancing the top waters at their side.

He hoped they would listen to him now. Rafe had grown rather fond of the stuffy old sea dogs and would hate to see the Iron Blood chew them to pulp.