BECMI Chapter 403 – The Scum of the Scum
“Perish the thought!” Captain Pelgermas of the galleon Haughty Gift exclaimed dramatically, clutching his hand to his chest and looking wonderfully mortified. “You wound me with the very thought, lass! Not that I would have any hope of being a danger to you, mind!” he amended wisely.
“So… you seem to have done well in surprising the Merchant’s Guild, a coincidence of deed and timing that will long be remembered among the Free Clans,” I acknowledged his great feat. “Why, then, are you here with us?”
“Ah, well, m’Lady, I was hoping that your offer of sailing off to a new world, and perhaps settling there with the fruits of our spoils giving us a nice beginning, was still on the table?” he inquired shamelessly.
I tapped my finger on the rail of the Wave, the motion drawing eyes as much as the fact everyone could hear the tap-tap-tap of it very clearly indeed.
“Captain Pelgermas, I don’t blame you for your opportunism. Clearly you didn’t want to share your anticipated spoils with an allied force, and you knew you could roust enough ships to do the job without us.
“But, having done so, you made light of a small fact called a military code of conduct. If we had been with you, we would have kept your allies and rivals under control, but we heard a great deal of the conduct of the Free Clans during their sacking of Emsport, Ensport, and Elshport.”
His smile looked a bit forced suddenly. “Well, things get a bit energetic when so many grudges come together, as you might know…”
“The cost of your passage free and clear to a new world beyond the reach of your enemies is the death of every rapist and every person who deliberately killed an innocent in your fleet. Feed them to the sea, and you may come with us.”
His dark eyes widened in surprise and dismay as my Voice rang out. “That, that’s rather a tall order, Lady Edge, is it not?” he protested feebly. I could already see some of the ships starting to veer off at that demand.
“I am fully capable of identifying all such without fail, Captain Pelgermas. There’s a limit to who I will allow to accompany us. Thieves and rogues, there’s plenty in this armada already. But scum that murder women and children and rape others, unable to control themselves? That is a level of scum below what I will tolerate.
“You know my price, Captains of the Free Clans. And, I will say in all amusement, their deaths mean that fewer people to split your plunder among.” I looked at the three ships bearing off with schadenfreude. “As for those of you who are seeking to flee your judgment, let the guilty bear my Mark.”
Crimson clouds surged across the sky from north to south, and from them fell screaming, bloody skulls, howling for justice and shrieking for the souls of the guilty. Like unending rain, they swept across the ships of the Free Clans, plowing right through the hulls and sails as if they didn’t exist. There was no hiding from them, and there was no hiding the flaming red skull mask upon the faces of those who reeked of those particular Sins.
Holy Magic can be nasty indeed when it comes time. The pirates and buccaneers could only watch them come in horror, holding up their hands to try to stop what wouldn’t be stopped as the rain of skulls swept through them in a wailing crimson deluge. Many of the sailors fell right to their knees at just the sight of it, even before the impact of the skulls scoured their souls for the Sins they were looking for.
“No ship carrying any scum Marked by me may sail with us to a new world and the freedom you all crave. Make your choices, Clansman!” I Spoke to them all, completely undeterred.
Four members of the Gift’s crew were kneeling down and shaking, because all eyes were upon them and the bloody mask-Marks upon their faces, making their faces look like crimson-boned skulls.
Captain Pelgermas looked at them, his face cold and impassive. His eyes flickered over the women and children there, then to me, and back to the north where the Mists of Infinity waited for us in the distance.
“I’d like to borrow that power to speak across the miles, Lady Edge,” he said with a lightness that held an icy saber in its tones. I made a gesture of acquiescence. “Ho, Ships of the Free Clans. We make for a new world, but the price is that the worst of us, those you would not trust to defend your women and your children, cannot come with us.
“If you want the freedom we’ve sought all of our lives, a new beginning, and you value your wives and sisters and mothers and children… then strip the scum who can’t control their bloodlust and throw them into the sea.”
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The shouts rose first on his own ship, as his crew, led by the fiercely grinning first mate and her saber, turned on the worst in their midst and closed on them with cutlasses and dirks, swiftly overwhelming them and stripping off their jewelry and wealth.
In less than a minute the near-naked first one was heaved over the side, protesting that the captain had no right, the witch was mistaken, they were kin, and similar drivel.
He didn’t make it to the sea, it came up to meet him.
The giant square-jawed boxer shark erupted out of the sea, snapping great jaws on him in midair before falling back into the sea, crimson foam leaping up in its wake. The startled sailors suddenly noticed there were a LOT of fins breaking the surface in the area…
The second man went shrieking overboard, and this time two of the bright red-striped coral sharks hit him from different directions, ripping him apart before he hit the waters. The blood began to spread, and the surface of the sea foam behind us.
Ships in the distance were swarming with knots of conflict, and only one of those fleeing was still under way.
Captain Pelgermas noticed the direction of my gaze. “The Reaper’s Scully,” he said of the black-painted ship over half a mile distant and peeling away urgently. “They’ve a hard reputation even among the Free Clans,” he added dismissively.
“No, they don’t.”
The Skullbolt came down from on high, a screaming bloody Skull half the size of the ship, trailing crimson petals as it slammed into the frigate amidships and blew its mainmast, sails, and mid-deck into shrapnel and splinters. The water about it was instantly churning as the men thrown overboard found things waiting for them… and then the crimson petals turned all black, began to lengthen with horrific speed, and great vines sprouting foot-long razor sharp bloody thorns entwined the nearly-bisected ship with audible crunches, cracklings, and snappings of wood giving way.
The keel gave with a crack we heard way over here. The Reaper’s Scully folded up in the middle like a pair of scissors, and then it looked like a dozen waves from all directions surged over it and dragged it down with supernatural speed.
Pelgermas made an impressed face, even as the last of his Masked crew was sent over the side. This time, a great sea serpent lunged up, caught him, and towered ten feet over the side of the deck with the screaming man in his mouth for a moment, watching the shocked crew with brilliant green and yellow eyes.
I just pointed down, and it wisely sank into the waters all around us, the churning of the frenzied sharks quickly left behind and the glass-like wake around us returning.
“Why,” Pelgermas remarked to the skies, “do I have the impression their fine spoils won’t be going to waste in the deep?”
“They were riding rather low for much maneuverability,” I replied with a straight face. “Heavy cargo. Someone on good terms with the local water Elementals might be able to make quite a killing taking their ill-gotten lucre for themselves. Captain Sigmal, take us over to that area, would you?” I asked over my shoulder.
“As the Lady commands!” he shouted back, bellowing for sails to be shifted as the Wave veered off and around. I gave Captain Pelgermas a half-salute, he gave me a much more formal one in reply, cold and hard acceptance in his eye of what he’d had to do, and would quite willingly do again.
The Elementals could get the wealth to me regardless, or stack it up for Hydrosa’s use, but staying on top of it would hasten the speed it could be transported up to me, and inside my Sanctum.
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In the end, none of the ships turned back. The crews of the other two that had begun to turned on their captains and the officers who’d made the call, and I flitted over to make sure they weren’t massacred by those with skulls for faces.
It meant that the Sinners were dead before being tossed overboard, but the sharks didn’t much care if the chum was fresh or freshly-killed, they tore them apart and ate them regardless.
I did have a few Elementals grab up fallen knives and cutlasses and stuff, threw Vivic Weapon on them, and had them clear up the bloody areas and any remains, making sure no undead spirits would remain behind… and specifically noted that the Reaver’s Scully was to be reduced to coral food and not left intact to rise as a ghost vessel.
If tons of cargo and chests of goods were brought to the surface and quickly shuttled into my Sanctum, the crew said nothing. I was taking none of their plunder, they weren’t going to begrudge me grabbing some from dead pirates.
By the time the moving of cargo was done, the combined fleets were already miles away from us, which was perfectly fine. The Scampering Wave still barely touched the waters as it turned north after them, I waved up a very strong gust, and we took off after them at speed sailing ships just did not achieve naturally… which just made the crew excited, whooping and calling out as the spray of crossing waves flashed up every now and then as we cut through them.
Up above us, Duum soared along Invisibly, watching everything and wary for surprises. These islands were thick with monstrous creatures enjoying the many reefs and bays, and, if they weren’t the size of the creatures who lived out in the major ocean areas, they could still be plenty dangerous.
Also, he wanted to try the fish, as he had enjoyed the giant frogs at Loch Monds while the Ritual was going on, but he had room for more.
Ahead of us, the sky began to glitter and the horizon flatten as magical geography stretched and altered. The North Pole of this world wasn’t really any colder than anywhere else on the planet, but the remnants of the dimension-rending magic had gathered there, rising up in a sparkling cloud of what looked like ice motes, but in reality were dimensional fractals, waverings and wobblings in the Veil to higher and lower spaces.
A strong will, the right magic, and a lot of focus could align those fractals for a short period of time, and the resultant Portal extend through time and space.
Ahead was our way home!