The Viking Throne: The Cursed Seas Collection Read online

  We walked unimpeded to the stairwell leading topside. I nodded to Pierce. He took a deep breath and nodded. We ascended. The deck of the ship was where we would most likely hit trouble, but Jacob’s body, hopefully, would prove a worthy deterrent. Monty’s quarters were most likely in the superstructure of the ship. The more we walked around the ship, the more I understood we were on a small destroyer class ship. The ship was not currently moving. We had to be anchored, waiting for more fuel.

  The brisk, salty Northern air filled my lungs. The sun beat the aft deck hard. It felt good to get onto the deck of the ship. Most of the crew were clear of a path to starboard. Most of the crew stood ready on the end of the aft deck to receive supplies from a supply vessel that looked like an old wooden tall ship that flew a white flag with a red cross in its center, similar to pirate ships of yesteryear long before the seas took most of the earth.

  We reached starboard.

  “Thank you, Jacob. Godspeed.” I felt the need to say something for the poor siren.

  We threw Jacob’s body into the sea.

  “Monty will be somewhere in the command room in the superstructure, along with the implant remote and the manifest where my family might be.” I looked up at the tall grey box that stood at the center of the ship’s deck. “We haven’t much time before he checks in on the crew he sent to the brig. I will go ahead.”

  A thunderous boom shocked us both. The group of crew members and the back of the deck scattered in a cloud of bloody carnage. The tip of the mast of the supply ship stuck out above billowing smoke. The white flag lowered. A black flag was raised, a skull-and-crossbones emblazoned on it. Pirates!

  Chapter Nine

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Excitement stirred in my belly. Perhaps I did indeed bring the luck of the Irish with me. A few of Monty’s redshirts not impacted by the grapeshot were cut down by what sounded like machine gun fire. These pirates were heavily armed. They had access to rare firearms spared by the seas. They made short work of the crew on the aft of the ship.

  The ship’s alarm blared. More redshirts ran to the aft of the ship from the foredeck and the superstructure.

  “Let’s go, mates!” A redshirt threw two harpoon guns at us.

  The first few crewmembers who ran to the aft were cut down again by gunfire. The rest of Monty’s crew hit the deck.

  From the billowing smoke emerged a tall man in a long black coat. He sauntered onto the deck of Monty’s ship, twirling a nickel-plated handgun with his right index finger.

  “All right, ya’ scalawags.” He pointed toward the superstructure.

  From behind the tall man emerged a ragtag crew of pirates armed with swords and handguns. They flooded the deck.

  Monty emerged atop the command deck above the carnage. “Charge! You imbecilic fools!”

  The redshirts who’d hit the deck rose to their knees. A few fired their harpoons. None hit any of the pirates. The pirates shot their handguns while running, and if their shot missed, they ran them through with their swords.

  Pierce and I quickly threw off our red shirts, our wetsuits still underneath.

  “Now’s our chance to get at Monty!” I aimed my harpoon gun at Monty who held the railing on the catwalk of the command center.

  More redshirts poured from the foredeck to face the pirates. They nearly knocked me and Pierce off the ship. A large redshirt stopped, mistaking us for pirates, thrust his harpoon to run us through. We grabbed him and threw him overboard.

  I looked back up to the catwalk. Monty was gone.

  “Shit!” I ran to the stairs of the superstructure.

  Pierce followed close behind.

  Gunshots rang out. Men screamed in agony. Others in rage. Most of the redshirts below were dispatched. The pirates mowed them down with bullets and the occasional blade. A few pirates fell from harpoons but nothing in comparison to the losses of Monty’s men.

  We reached the catwalk and looked into the command center’s window. I saw Monty’s back. He disappeared into the interior of the superstructure. Monty’s crew emptied from the command center and followed him. I walked around to the door and started to continue the pursuit down the stairwell.

  “Here it is!” Pierced picked up the shock remote by Monty’s chair.

  “Excellent. Now let’s get after him! He is the only one who knows where my family is!”

  I ran down the stairs into the interior of the superstructure. Pierce followed. We reached the deck when we saw a group of redshirts at starboard. Monty had to be in the middle of the group who were like sheepdogs protecting the flock. Bastards.

  Enraged, I ran toward the group of them, aimed the harpoon at the group, and fired. I hit a man square in the back. He fell, and I kept running at full speed.

  Then, familiar pain. The shock paralyzed me. I fell hard to the deck.

  Chapter Ten

  “Well, well, well. Look who is awake!” A deep, thick Scottish voice resounded in my ears and contributed to an awful headache that pierced the back of my eyes and traveled through the center of my brain.

  “Aye, and who the fuck are you?” I couldn’t move. Ropes fastened my wrists to my ankles. I lay on a wooden floor, flopping around like a soon-to-be-dead fish.

  Pierce was tied the same way. He, too, had just regained consciousness.

  “Who am I?! Well, I am the man who saved yer arse methinks. Isn’t that right, boys? Name’s McBain.”

  The pirates crowded all around me. We were moving. Must be aboard the pirate ship at this point, no cold steel of a destroyer anywhere.

  “Why spare us?”

  “It’s not every day ya’ find a couple siren blokes to help you hunt for treasure, ya’ know,” McBain said.

  “We aren’t your slaves or under your employ,” I popped off. I couldn’t help myself. Monty was either gone or dead by the hands of these savages. To wake up again in bondage also angered me.

  McBain’s boot smashed my face.

  “Another Irishman with a bad temper. I have far too many a’ you aboard already. You will do what I say. Your services are needed, siren. Now shut yer mouth.” McBain’s tone changed from gregarious to frightening. His boot eased up on my face a bit.

  “I know of a treasure in a Norwegian fjord. The biggest emerald I ever saw. It’s yours if you let us become part of your crew. We will work hard for you. Promise.” I was sick of imprisonment.

  He lifted his boot off my face completely. “You don’t say. Now why should I trust a siren aboard that bastard Englishman’s vessel?” McBain smirked. He seemed so casual about the entire situation.

  “We were imprisoned by him. The reason for our sudden lapse to the deck was caused by the shock implants he put in our bodies.” I craned my neck to look him in the face. He was clean-shaven, unlike his fellow pirates.

  “You mean this? I didn’t use it. I swear to you.” McBain flipped the remote in his right hand.

  “I did. I shocked us both, James. You were running blindly at Monty and his crew. They would have killed you on the spot.” Pierce’s voice burst out from behind me. He struggled with the ropes, same as I.

  “Aye, your English friend helped ya’…eh James, was it?” McBain pried.

  “That is correct, James Henihan of the Siren Guard. We were abducted by Montgomery to fetch treasure for him, and we did a good job of it too. We can be of use to you as well.” I furrowed my brow in pain from the rope.

  “I am abreast of your usefulness, James. Although, I must say upon my crew’s inspection of Montgomery’s ship, there be no treasure you speak of.” McBain knelt down next to me.

  “He abandoned ship. Didn’t he? He probably took it with him on his escape vessel.”

  “He did get away on a small yacht. He must have saved enough fuel for his escape plan. The entire vessel is useless. He let the turbines run out, he did. Probably wasted too much on yer treasure hunts. He came to Galway for fuel and, we, of course, happily obliged to bring it to him. See, our tall ship with sails forgoes that d
ependence upon fuel.” McBain laughed.

  “Sorry your raid was unsuccessful.”

  “Oh no, James, we recovered enough food and scrap from the destroyer. It’s not always shiny treasure we are after. You know…I like you, James Henihan. I am not so sure about your English friend, but I like you. Cut ‘em loose, mates.” McBain secured the shock remote in his black coat.

  I hoped that this new arrangement would be for the best. Time would show whether pirates or Monty proved worse bedfellows.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sense of relief from being freed of my bondage lasted only a small time. I hoped that McBain recovered the manifest from the ship. The only clue to my family’s whereabouts lay in that document. There was a small chance the manifest never existed in the first place, and Monty just toyed with me to give me a reason to go on—hope that Maggie and Imogen were still alive.

  “How did you manage this arrangement?” Pierce stretched his arms and legs. We were still below deck near a black iron cage. McBain’s brig.

  “Don’t get too excited. He still has control over us. That shock remote was ours, until you used it on the both of us. You idiot.” I stretched too, and extended my annoyance at him with a pointed, intense look.

  “I saved you, you stubborn Irishman. You had no chance against Monty’s men.” Pierce returned the look I gave him.

  “We’ll never know how I would have fared, now will we?” I looked around the ship. The timber looked treated, kept clean, almost new. These were professional pirates. McBain’s insistence on old-school navigation and engineering proved useful. I noticed four cannons on each side of the sloop. This boat did not bear a heavy draught. It was shallow on the draught and fast.

  A loud explosion sounded and then loud cheers.

  We ran to the steps and reached the gray skies of the deck. Montgomery’s destroyer descended to the depths.

  McBain had seen to it that everything of use aboard the destroyer were now on his ship before he sent her below the sea. The boxes were stacked high. The rations spread about the deck of his ship. These provisions would last McBain’s men a long while.

  The grey superstructure tipped to the side. The sea roiled and bubbled around the destroyer, and soon, it was gone from sight.

  “Well, if it ain’t the fish men,” a short pirate yelled at us as he turned his head away from the sea.

  “Aye, let’s just hope they don’t like to shine each other’s harpoons, boys,” another rather rotund pirate heckled.

  “I dunno. They look pretty sexy in their tight wetsuits.” The short pirate moved closer to me.

  I didn’t hesitate. I punched him in the face. The sting on my knuckles proved how hard his dumb head felt. He shook his head in recovery, and I braced for his attack. He raised his fist, when Pierce grabbed his arm and knocked him to the deck by pushing him square in the chest. The short pirate hit the deck hard with a crack. I wasn’t sure if it was the wood cracking or a bone in the vertically challenged pirate’s body.

  At this point, I felt the cool air warm around me as we now had an audience of the crew. The round one tackled Pierce, who lost his footing quickly on the damp deck. A constant light, misty rain poured from the clouds. I ran over to the round pirate and elbowed the back of his head several times. He pinned and kept a strong grip on Pierce’s neck. I continued my elbows to his head and neck. He loosened his grip on Pierce. I grabbed his arm and twisted it around his back. Then I dislocated the fat bastard’s shoulder and broke his arm quickly thereafter with a classic arm bar.

  “AHHHH!” The rotund one passed out from the pain.

  “Enough fuckin’ around. Err‘one back ta work,” a pirate of average height ordered. He wore a red bandana and had a noticeably nasty scar down the middle of his face. I noticed it from a considerable distance away from him. It was that prominent. He had to be McBain’s first mate considering his orders were followed so immediately and impressively.

  The pirates scattered and went back to their tasks, doling out the latest booty from Monty’s ship. The scarred pirate examined the two crewmembers Pierce and I had severely injured.

  “You two…you two fish men are on barnacle duty.” His eyes were intense. Frightening, even. Dark, muddy green.

  I didn’t want to be on barnacle duty but didn’t want to push my luck. Pierce and I stared at his scar. We couldn’t help ourselves.

  “Did you not hear what I said? I want every barnacle scraped from the hull of this ship before we set sail in the mornin’,” the scarred pirate said.

  “Forgive me reluctance in taking orders from you. Who the hell are you?” My pride got the best of me. I just had to give him a hard time.

  “Bold you are, Irish Fish. Bold. Start scraping the hull now.” He threw two metal tools at us, a flat metal sheet attached to a handle.

  I let it fall to the deck and didn’t pick it up out of spite.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pressed.

  Pierce put his hand on my shoulder, signaling for me to cease my resistance. He picked up the tools and pushed one to my chest.

  “You’d do well to heed your friend’s advice. Name’s Doyle and you will be dealin’ with me directly. I am McBain’s first mate. The captain likes me to handle the daily routines. He warned me of yer tenacity, Henihan. I will wear you down.” He stood close to the main mast, his arms crossed.

  I made sure to gaze a few moments at the scar, hoping to piss him off. Pierce pulled me to starboard.

  “You made a deal with McBain to work hard, remember?” Pierce said.

  “I know it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” I gripped the scraper and jumped off the side of the sloop. The water felt good. Too much air wasn’t good for me. I grew irritable. I needed the sea.

  Pierce and I scraped barnacles off the side for a few hours. I will spare you the details. It wasn’t fun.

  Doyle observed us in intervals, sometimes barking out specific orders to chide us like “ya missed one” and “don’t forget the small ones too.” He seemed to revel in his advantage over us.

  In all the classic stories, I never would have thought a pirate’s life could be so tedious. I needed to know if there was a manifest. I would follow orders and hope to get in good favor with McBain. It was all I could do–live a pirate’s life.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was under the hull, scraping away while submerged underneath the cool Atlantic. After a while, I didn’t mind the tedium. The rhythm of this type of work did well to ease my mind. The light from the surface began to dim. Pierce and I didn’t have much time left and would have to continue our siren-tailored duty in the morning. I swam under the hull then to the surface.

  “Light is burning out. We can’t scrape if we can’t see!” I yelled to the deck.

  Doyle appeared above me. He threw two analog flashlights overboard. One almost hit me in the face. I wanted to scream at him but resisted the urge. I cranked both torches up, then dove to give one to Pierce.

  “We have to keep working. Here’s your torch.” I handed one to Pierce.

  “Perhaps if you’d respected Doyle at the start.” Pierce pointed the torch at the hull and continued scraping.

  “This, coming from the idiot who nearly got us all killed in the mansion, barging into every door, alerting the banshee.”

  “There was a specific objective to complete in a short amount of time.” Pierce looked at me while he scraped and raked his hand on a barnacle. Blood slowly spewed from the top of his right hand.

  Darkness crept in, our torches the only respite from total blindness.

  “Get that cut under control,” I warned Pierce.

  The lights from our torches had begun to dim already. I turned the crank and the torch grew brighter, but again, the brevity of the charge caused much frustration.

  Pierce covered the cut with his left hand and put pressure on it. The smoky, bloody water dissipated around his hand.

  “Could you charge my torch?” He pushed the flashlight to
me.

  I pointed my flashlight at him to grab his torch when I saw the big fish. Pierce’s blood had attracted a shark. A tiger shark, whose cold dark eye stared into my very soul. The shark was a few meters away still but headed in our direction.

  “Pierce, we have to swim away now. Let’s go.”

  “Nonsense, Doyle will assuredly punish us if we don’t finish what we started. Can I have my torch back?” Pierce still held his hands together.

  The time it took for the words to spill out of Pierce’s mouth was enough for the tiger shark to reach us.

  “Shark!” I exclaimed as loud as possible.

  Pierce turned and dodged the shark’s open mouth and serrated teeth. The shark swam past us both. I pointed my torch at the water beyond the hull, but I’d lost the shark. Just newly scraped floating barnacles surrounded us. I quickly cranked Pierce’s flashlight to help track the deadly predator.

  Pierce grabbed his and aimed his torch’s light in the opposite direction. He turned back to me and shook his head. I didn’t think we should waste any more time. I pushed forward to swim then stopped.

  Clicking sounds traveled through the water at a steady staccato. Then high-pitched calls and whistles. The sounds were loud and close. Overwhelming.

  Pierce and I pointed the lights in the direction the tiger shark had come from. The pod was upon us. Killer whales. Too many to count. They swam at and below us, moving fast. The pod ignored us and kept swimming. They seemed to be on the hunt for the shark.

  The clicking and whistling faded.

  I looked at Pierce with wide eyes. He looked stunned.

  Our shock only increased when we heard a deep, loud, and reverberating call. A sound I’d never heard in my entire life. It was then that I realized that the shark and pod of killer whales were swimming away from something. The pod wasn’t hunting the shark. Something was hunting them. Something much bigger.