Song of Ramona (Book #1 in Pirates of the Cloudsea Trilogy) (Teaser)

II. Bloodstained Pages

Blood thrummed in my veins as I ducked under the slash of a machete. I freed my grappling hook and swung it like a flail. Round and round it flew, warding off my would-be assailants from the opposition. I retracted it into the apparatus on my forearm and drew my vicious little cutlass, a lightweight blade I had pilfered from the armory of a Dassanian warship.

These were the moments the world made sense. My brain shut off and I did not have to think about anything except self-preservation.

There were a hundred of us against less than fifty of them, and we were better armed by far. A proper pirate always had a sword on his hip, a dagger in his boot, and a pistol holstered over his heart. These merchants had naught but their swords. Their captain and his officers had pistols, but those had been spent. They were finished.

It was my experience, that in battle, time slowed, and I became more at peace than ever since before the revolution. Weapons collided and produced a rhythm like the ticking of machinery, punctuated by a cry that tore through the brain like an engine coming to life. I slashed and parried, spinning out of Death's reach whenever an attacker stole advantage. Every breath of gunpowder charged me with adrenalin and hurled me deeper into a flow of evasion.

As a child, I had known nothing of battle. All I needed back then were my threadbare boys' clothing to keep me safe. Each day, I rose early to ready my master's pawnbroker shop for business. Mr. Greyson had found me wandering the streets asking for work as a seamstress, the only trade I knew. My parents both died in the revolution. Had I not found the old pawnbroker, had he not made me a boy, I would have surely perished or been sold to a house of pleasure.

The little shop, tucked away up a side-street from the market square, dealt in secondhand treasures. Beside a velvet armchair, a clothing rack overburdened with coats sunk in the middle. A writing desk, a pipe organ, and a cider press lined one wall. Bookshelves, full to the brim, lined another. We stacked the books vertically, for there were too many to do otherwise. Beneath our glass counters, a thousand trinkets glittered, each with its own individual story, perhaps of the date a couple came to be married, of the rare gem's journey from Leridia, or of the lady who needed money to leave her husband. In the window, we showcased a singing automaton, one that I found frightening and uncanny with its unblinking and unseeing eyes.

I put the utmost care into my work for Mr. Greyson, for all I craved in the world was his approval. Even though it was often cold in the mornings, even though my fingertips would be numb through my torn-up mittens, I scrubbed every last smudge of oily residue from the windows until they sparkled clear as day.

I could still see it in my mind's eye. Mr. Greyson, a white-haired old man with skin like wrinkled parchment and a beard as wispy as raw cotton, waddled out of the shop with some porridge for me. He adjusted his black-rimmed spectacles and inspected my work.

"You're too ambitious for your own good, Clikk. I'm sure you imagine you'll own this shop the day I croak. Eh, boy?" With his cedar wood cane, the old grouse prodded my arm.

I turned my head down and rung the water out of my shammy. "No, sir. A girl cannot own property."

"What nonsense is this about girls? Go on and practice your letters, son. If you're to manage a business, you'll need to know how to read and write."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Greyson!" I took up my bucket and scurried inside. The old man's chuckle bubbled up as he came in behind me. I loved the sound of that more than anything. He might have seemed cantankerous, but he had a soft heart, the sweet old bear.

I descended into the basement, where the old man let me sleep. My books were still lying open on a trunk.

I liked to read boys' adventure stories about pirates and treasure and bad-tempered captains. In fact, I was reading something about pirates the day Mr. Greyson died.