The Wrath of a Shipless Pirate (The Godlanders War) by Aaron Pogue

Author:Aaron Pogue [Pogue, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2014-02-11T07:00:00+00:00

Corin spun around, panic scraping at the back of his breastbone, but the thin gray haze still hung over his vision. The glamour held. Still, he watched Ezio stalk across the deck toward him with accusation and murder in his eyes. Corin shifted, trying to find the best stance to meet his opponent. Behind his back, Corin gripped the threaded hilt of his dagger and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Before he had the chance to decide, the other man burst forward. Ezio didn’t strike, though. He shouldered Corin roughly aside and dove upon the tiller.

“You senseless dog. You stupid oaf. I knew you for a fool, but I never thought—” He cut himself off, fighting the sluggish tiller as he tried to force the ship to shallow waters. “Even you…”

Corin frowned, bouncing on his toes. For all his bluster, the other man seemed genuinely concerned with the situation, and that lit a fire in Corin’s belly. He’d seen too much of shipwrecks, the worst of them in these very waters. He pressed forward and asked, “What? What do you need from me?”

“Get overboard and push! That’s all I’d trust you with. Or, here, lean hard on this!” He ceded his place at the wheel, and Corin took it, fighting current to drive the ship in closer to the shore.

Corin swallowed hard. “Are you sure? I saw some rocks—”

“Of course there’s rocks! That’s why we brought the river boat. But you drove us out to sea! This ship ain’t meant for that. One good wave could kill us!”

He watched a moment until he was confident that Corin would hold to the new course. Then he sprang away to trim the sails. “I swear to Ephitel,” he called back while he worked, “if this stunt gets us killed, I’ll curse your mother’s house.”

Corin nearly missed his chance, but he’d heard enough of their bickering to find the right response. “Hah. You try it. She’d serve you up for stew.”

“Still your tongue and steer the ship,” Ezio called back. Then from his place in the rigging, “Rocks! Rocks, you fool! Hard a-post!”

Corin saw them, but the ship felt dumb and sluggish compared to the ones he knew. He fought the tiller as hard as he could, but still had to shout, “Brace yourself!” Two heartbeats later, the lower hull ground up against a knot of submerged boulders. A seagoing vessel with a deeper keel might have broken through the formation, but it’d just as likely have smashed to pieces. This one scudded over the top.

It was no easy ride. Timber groaned and screamed, and the whole ship set to bucking like a wounded horse. The whole ship speared upward, driven by the wind and waves, and then dropped away beneath Corin’s feet. While he was still falling to meet it, the deck kicked up again and smashed the wind from his lungs. He skidded across the main deck, ricocheted off the railing, and barely caught a grip on a trailing line before he skipped up and over the edge.

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