21 Seagulls

THE SEAGULL

They woke up much later than the others. The sun’s golden rays poured through the portholes, creating streams of sunshine on the cabin’s weathered wooden furniture. Mascardi gazed through the window glass at the port becoming alive with people coming and going on the docks, carrying sacks and wooden barrels. He woke Basco up and they went up to the deck.

Most chores had been finished, and the ship was ready to depart. The crew members were gathered on the deck, separated into little gossiping nests as they took their breakfast. Vario Darani wasn’t there, and the captain assumed he was still asleep.

Basco’s presence caused a commotion and lots of comments. It was obvious they’d suspected something the night before, and they now came to the right conclusions. There was fear in their eyes, and Mascardi noticed many of them doing the sign of warding off evil, even if he had never seen them praying or talking to the gods in the past.

Dizan took a step forward, looking between Basco and the captain.

“Captain… How did this happen? We were all there, we saw…”

Mascardi grabbed an apple and snapped it in half with a powerful bite. “What you saw was a trick. A well-studied trick. Basco, as you can see, is here, in the flesh, more alive than ever.”

He patted his back in demonstration, raising a cloud of dust; Basco hadn’t washed the dirt of his burial off of him.

The others kept staring, suspicious and frightened. Mascardi hadn’t convinced them.

“Nothing has changed,” he continued undeterred. “It’s just that, as of today, we will be calling him Ghost.”

That really didn’t help things, and Mascardi was the only one who smiled at the irony.

Then, the captain gave the final orders, to load the last provisions, untie the ropes and, finally, raise the Seagull banner up on the main mast, where it flapped in the wind like a bird made of fabric.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t raise the Trident, captain? It’s a better symbol,” Basco suggested again but Mascardi was stubborn.

“I like seagulls,” he insisted.

Mascardi felt more alive than ever that day. Finally, after all these years, his plan would be put into action. After countless battles, on land and at sea, he was now the master of himself and a skilled crew. The Seagull would follow a course into the unknown seas of the South, where rumors about the Monsters’ islands abounded. The Baron Criden’s orders had been imprinted in his head, drawing a map of his course, but Mascardi had learned to open his own roadways and create his own maps.

His journey had just begun, and he was the captain.

***

That afternoon had become tense after the reunion on the deck. When the sun hung low over the horizon and the Knight’s Coast looked like a distant black dot on it, Mascardi gathered the crew and they all sat on the deck for an update. He hoped his words would help them overcome any lingering awkwardness from last night’s events and focus on the future.

The crew was standing around the captain in a disciplined circle. Yarduk, the cook, had served a few drinks and snacks, by order of the captain, and the men picked up little bites with their daggers and wetted their throats with rum.

“There is a lot of water ahead of us, but, as you can guess, there is also a lot of land.”

The murmuring died down. Mascardi slowly raised his eyes from the floor and looked at the men.

“The places we are about to visit are vast, so we have to be in shape. We will act like a small army. I gave my word to the Baron Criden that we will rid these islands of the monsters that nest deep under the ground.”

None seemed discouraged by that prospect.

“What is the real plan?” Odet spoke up. The young man had a big mouth, and Mascardi had overlooked that fact plenty of times in the past. Odet had been his squire for a time, when Mascardi had served as a knight. The then sixteen-year-old had been as bad at being a squire as Mascardi had been at being a knight, but certain skills had earned him a place among his crew. Deftly handling a bow and arrows and knowing how to work leather were two of those.

“The real plan is what I just said, Odet,” Mascardi replied, putting him in his place. “We will claim these islands in the name of the king and make sure to rid them of the monsters that plague them.”

His eyes found Basco’s. Then, he turned to Dizan.

“Now, as you can imagine, these islands aren’t solely the home of monsters.”

“There are others there,” old Karil supplemented this time.

Mascardi nodded at him to speak. The old man smoked his pipe and coughed out a cloud of smoke.

“Deserters and pirates have built their nests on those shores like cockroaches, Mascardi. What do you plan to do about those?”

Mascardi shrugged. “Peace, in the name of the king.”

Karil snorted wryly. “You have enough gold for peace?”

The word “gold” sparked a new round of murmuring.

“No gold for them. We have something better.”

To everyone’s puzzlement, Mascardi pointed at Dizan. The latter sat up, equally curious as the rest.

“I have something for you,” he started saying before Vario Darani appeared, having just come up from the cabins. With heavy footsteps, he entered the circle. No one felt comfortable in his presence. He was twice as big as anyone there and his neck was as thick as a thigh. The commotion, though, was mainly caused by the sight of a young girl accompanying him. Mascardi’s expression revealed he had no idea who she was.

The girl –barely eighteen years old– wore tattered clothes and sported a swollen eye and bruises everywhere, along with blood on her elbows and thighs. Her blonde hair and the angles on her face bespoke of a noble birth, and Mascardi’s temper instantly flared.

Vario’s smug expression was the only proof Mascardi needed to know what he’d been doing with the girl.

“Who is that?” he managed incredulously.

Vario snatched a piece of meat and ate it ravenously. Then he spilled ale on his beard as he drank.

“She’s with me,” he declared with a loud belch, while the girl stared at the floor, embarrassed and exhausted.

“I didn’t bring you here to amuse yourself with girls!” the captain snapped, but Vario’s expression didn’t change.

“No, captain, you brought me here to kill monsters,” he said, chewing.

He took two steps into the circle – a way to show his power. Even his shadow was intimidating. From all the killers Mascardi had met in his life so far, Vario was the most capable one, but like a bull in a china shop, the damage he could cause was unfathomable. 

Mascardi didn’t know how to respond to that obvious challenge. The air between them was already charged. He decided to ignore it for now.

“Our first stop is Loriax.”

“The island of thunder,” Dizan added.

Mascardi nodded, standing up. “They call it the Island of Thunder because that’s exactly what it is. Lightning never ceases there. Day or night.”

“It is the wrath of the gods,” Alaoso interrupted. “The Great Sentinel relentlessly batters this island, I think.”

The murmuring started intensifying again.

“The knights of Lothen couldn’t even travel up Loriax’s cape. Lightning bolts struck their metal armors, drawn by them the way foot soldiers attract arrows,” he said, causing a round of laughter.

“But we won’t have armors,” Vario said in his deep voice.

“No. No, we won’t,” Mascardi agreed with a smile. “When we arrive there, we will split into two groups. The larger one will come with me, and the smaller one will stay at the camp and follow the instructions.”

He looked at Dizan then, and the young man realized that was what the captain had been talking about before Vario showed up. He still didn’t know what this was about but was confident he’d receive all the necessary information in private when the time came.

They went on with planning their course of action, as well as with an update about equipment, provisions, and the route they’d take. Every stop would be a chance to restock the ship with supplies, and the plan was optimistic but realistic enough. Mascardi explained what it meant acting like a small army without formally being one – if they followed the plan faithfully, the result would be the same.

As the light dimmed over the open seas of the south, the men dispersed. Vario returned to his cabin with the trophy girl, and Mascardi summoned Dizan, Karil and Basco to his quarters.

***

The cabin had filled with old Karil’s smoke. The elderly man smoked his pipe and drank without stop, and his face was scrunched up from the negative thoughts and the clouds inside his head. The four men sat in a tight circle as the ship glided over the dark waters. Through the cracks of the wooden walls, they could hear the girl’s cries. Mascardi had closed his eyes, visibly mad.

“She can’t come with us,” he said in a low tone.

“You go and take her from him,” Karil challenged, coughing. Mascardi glared at him.

“What do we care what woman Vario has in his bed?” Dizan asked.

“Vario is trouble, Dizan,” the captain informed him.

“Yes, but he’s the best monster hunter we could have, and once we get to the islands and fight the monsters, he will prove that.”

His voice rose, heated towards the end. Mascardi rubbed his throbbing temples. Dizan was still confused, waiting for an adequate explanation.

“We can’t be hunting monsters and having Vario being distracted by the thought of a girl waiting in his room.”

Dizan certainly couldn’t imagine why this would be a problem. His face twitched. “Captain, if you believe Vario is the type of person that falls in love, then you are overestimating him.”

Mascardi rose to his feet. “I haven’t overestimated any of you, believe me!” he said with true anger on his face. “He will grow softer with time, Dizan. A beautiful, highborn girl will crawl under his skin, and soon, she’ll make him careless. I won’t put up with a man like Vario being careless!”

The room grew quiet. Karil surrendered to a prolonged fit of dry cough.

“We have to get her out of there,” Mascardi concluded.

The men looked at each other.

“I’ll bring her to you, Mascardi,” Basco offered, and Dizan smiled at him.

“You will sneak into his room like a ghost, eh? Slip under the covers maybe? Vario will enjoy killing you again, Basco. He could do it every day, given the chance.”

Basco rose to his feet, unfazed. He looked at Mascardi, who nodded. “Bring her to the deck, Basco, as soon as they fall asleep, but be careful. Vario may have drunk a lot but he used to be a hunter for years; he’ll be a light sleeper.”

Basco nodded and turned to leave.

“One moment!” Dizan stopped him. “He has put that kid outside his room as a guard, you won’t be able to get in.”

“Odet? I can handle Odet,” Basco insisted and Dizan simply shrugged.

The Ghost took a few steps, opened the door, and got out.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Karil stood up. He opened a cabinet and drew out a small, wooden box. Opening it, he found a few soft pieces that looked like mushrooms, and started chopping them on the table with the aid of a switchblade.

“You will have to kill that daughter, lad,” he grunted, his voice so low it sounded like a rumble. Mascardi felt the tension but didn’t answer. “She will only bring trouble. Kill her.”

Mascardi opened his mouth to say something but no words came out.

“If I can do it, then you certainly can too,” the old man went on.

Dizan was in the dark again.

“What are you planning to see with those?” he asked the old man, pointing at the mushrooms in his hands. Karil picked up a few with his fingers and stuffed them in his mouth.

“Whatever the gods wish me to see,” he replied. “And now go, I don’t need your noise. I have to be able to hear their voices clearly.”

Mascardi rose, nudging Dizan’s shoulder for him to do the same.

“I will wait for you to tell me what you saw, Karil,” he told him. The old man waved him away.

“Kill the daughter,” he muttered through his teeth. The men left the room.