Plight of an Empire

Chapter Twenty Six- part 1: Elendil

The Tempris River, Rundil

Calm waves lapped at the side of Steel Maiden, spraying a cool mist of the river’s water on her sweaty crew.  The beat of the oarmaster’s drum was a steady and that synchronized perfectly with the splashed of her fifty oars.  The calm waters reflected a light blue sky and its few wisps of clouds.  They had escaped the cruelty of the storm soon after they rounded Southwatch, at the southernmost peak of Hermuna, much to the pleasure of both Elendil and Captain Mancer Stormbeard.

Though the former pirate had sailed through more storms than he could count, he swore that none could best that last one.  He had even gone so far to call Elendil “a mad fool of a boy” to even consider sailing in that storm.  Elendil had just laughed and said, “Oh, come now, captain.  I couldn’t be that bad.”  The storm had broken on Ardith and they had seen a little bit of sun poking through the clouds.  He figured it would deteriorate with time, not pick up again at sea.  Oh, how wrong he had been.

Being a native-born Islander, Elendil was accustomed to rough seas and hard winds.  But that storm was another beast entirely.  He and half the crew were green within the first few days.  Only Captain Mancer and a handful of others managed to not have one end or another hanging off the side of the ship long enough to guide her out of the storm.  The old pirate was a self-proclaimed tough son-of-a-bitch.  Then he would scold himself for calling his mother a bitch.

“Well we should be seeing those great, big walls of Mynoa any day now,” Captain Mancer said as he hocked over the railing.  “Might be by first light if the gods would be kind enough to lend us a wind.”  He looked to the sky expectantly, the closest expression of hope on his face as Elendil was wont to see.  But when no wind came, he just sneered at the sky and hocked again into the Tempris River.  “Ah, I don’t need no stinkin’ wind anyhow.  We’ll be hittin’ Mynoa tomorrow.  Just a matter of when.”

“It matters not to me,” Elendil hummed.  “I’d rather be home than here.  No offense to you, captain.”

He snorted and rubbed his head with the stump that was once his left hand.  “It’d take a lot more than a few words to offend me, boy.”

“Boy?  And here I thought I had already surpassed my coming-of-age?”

The old pirate laughed so hard Elendil thought he might keel over.  “Boy, you’ll always be a boy to me.  Even when yer ass is seated on that big ole throne, I’ll still think of ye as a boy.  If I live that long.”

“I’m sure you’ll outlive both my father and myself, captain.  You’re a very hard man to kill.”

“I’m the toughest son-of-a-bitch you’d ever met, boy.”  His voice dropped to a whisper as he apologized to his mother’s shade.  “How else do ye think I got this?”  The old pirate held out his stump to Elendil’s face.

Elendil chuckled.  “My father cut it off.”

“Aye, that he did, boy.”  He hocked again over the railing.  “Best damned thing he ever did to me too.  Saved me life, that he did.  Made me his own.”  Beneath his course beard, Elendil saw the old pirate’s lips twist into a grin, revealing a mouth of yellowed teeth, save a few that were missing.  The old pirate was an ugly man, there was no denying it.  His face was dark and wrinkled from years under the southern sun.  His once black hair was salted with streaks of grey and white.  Pale scars ran all over his body.  Once when he had shaved his beard, just looking at the old pirate had been enough to make the young Elendil cry.  With the exception of an occasional trim, he hasn’t shaved it since.  The only about the old pirate that hadn’t faded were his eyes.  Still as blue and deep as the Suthron Sea, any man would be a fool to not see the fierceness in those eyes of that of the old pirate.