The Pirate (Captains & Cannons Book 1) Read online

  Zoey fell back, grabbing the wound. She was tempted to check to see how much damage had been done, but over the years since she’d first come here, she’d found that paying too much attention to the numbers meant less attention was paid to what was happening right then and there.

  Sammy swung again, but this time, she wasn’t caught off guard like she had been before. As such, she had no chance at failure, and the dodge was made automatically. When she recovered, she regained her footing next to Isabel, who had just finished reloading her pistols.

  Thank the gods of the sea Isabel had opted to take Fast Firing four levels ago.

  “Here you go, love,” she said, bringing both flintlocks up. “Loaded these with something special for you.”

  Isabel pulled the triggers on both weapons. The pistols belched smoke and bright blue flames. The half-inch slugs from each weapon drilled through Sammy’s head, causing it to explode in a shower of gore.

  He dropped to the floor, and his body quickly dissolved into a puddle of black goo.

  “Cripes, what did you use?” Zoey asked.

  Isabel grinned, loading her weapons once again. “Silver bullets. You know, the usual standard against all things unholy or furry.”

  “Remind me to have this weapon blessed when we get back,” Zoey said, picking her cutlass up and sighing with relief.

  “When we get back, we’ll each have enough money to bless an entire armory,” said Stede. “Now, let’s go.”

  The trio made their way up the ascending staircase. Once again, Zoey had the lead because neither of the other two were willing to walk point, especially since she was the only one who had managed to spy the Voodoo trap from before. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, they hadn’t found or triggered anything else, which was just fine with Zoey.

  Just fine indeed.

  The staircase brought them into a small room clogged with cobwebs. There were so many, in fact, one could easily craft enough bandages for a small army, should one so desire. Zoey, however, didn’t, and the thick webbing fell to her blade. After considerable effort on her part, she reached the door on the far side.

  “Some throne room,” Isabell grunted.

  “Maybe it’s through there,” Stede replied. “Let’s see.”

  Zoey spent a moment checking for traps and then two more rechecking and rechecking again. When she came up with nothing, she tried the handle, which turned easily enough, and pushed the door open.

  It swung out, its rusty iron hinges groaning loudly in protest. What it revealed was, indeed, a large throne room, with them entering at the opposite end of where a king once sat. Large columns stood proudly on each side of the great hall, supporting a vaulted ceiling some thirty feet above. Immaculately cut marble tiles lined the floor, while tapestries, old as the sea on which the group had sailed to get there, hung from the walls.

  Colored light poured in from the outside by way of stained glass windows set high, and while the evening sun only had an hour at best before dipping below the horizon, even at the low angle, it provided more than enough light to see.

  Not that Zoey needed it. Again, character perk, Night Vision. Helped with her being a thief, among other things.

  Cautiously, Zoey led the way forward, her eyes straining for any sign of a trap while her ears tried to pick up even the slightest hint of approaching guard. She saw neither. The former, she wasn’t too surprised at, as practically speaking, it was a little stupid to trap one’s own living space. The latter, however, concerned her.

  Where were these hordes of undead they were supposed to be avoiding? The guardians of the isle seemed to be doing a pretty crappy job of guarding at this point. Were they elsewhere? Or had whatever magic that imbued them with life finally given out? She hoped that would be the case but feared it might not be. What if they’d never existed?

  That last thought troubled her the most, and though she didn’t have a concrete answer to what it would mean if that theory proved to be the case, she couldn’t help but feel that it would be bad.

  “Now that’s a throne,” Isabel said, her voice teeming with excitement.

  Zoey snapped out of her thoughts and refocused on what lay ahead. Not even ten yards away sat an obsidian throne fit for a titan atop a platform with a half dozen steps leading up to it. Embedded along its sides were several diamonds and rubies, each easily worth the fortune of a small country. A single one could buy Zoey the ship she so desperately needed so she might finally be able to leave this world and go home.

  “Hell yeah,” Stede said, with a disbelieving laugh. “That’s it. We made it.”

  “You suppose this is—er, was—the necromancer?” Isabel asked, nodding toward the skeletal figure with taut leathery skin who was slumped over in the throne.

  “Probably,” Zoey said, inching forward. “Stay back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d rather not set off one last trap since we’re this close to getting what we came for,” she explained.

  Zoey went about her task as thoroughly and patiently as she could. Nothing on the floor stood out to her, nor the stairs, nor the throne. She even examined the corpse as best she could without touching it, fearing it might come to life as Sammy had.

  It didn’t.

  But she did get a good look at the deceased. Whoever it was, he wore a fashionable navy longcoat embroidered with gold threads, as well as a white undercoat with matching trousers. On his head of stringy hair sat a bicorne hat, black, that appeared to be in remarkably good condition. One hand clutched an armrest, while the other tightly held a staff topped with a skull. A small ruby amulet hung around his neck, an impressive piece of jewelry, no doubt, but that gem paled compared to the ones actually set in the throne.

  The very last thing that caught Zoey’s eye was a pistol made of silver and dark wood that had been tucked into his belt. Across the butt of the weapon, Zoey could make out etchings—but etchings of what?

  She leaned in for a better view. A spell? Enchantments?

  She almost took it.

  Stede’s voice stayed her hand. “Hang on a second,” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Looking.”

  “More like taking,” he said.

  Though he was right on that part, Zoey argued against it. She wasn’t intentionally being greedy, but there was an allure to the weapon, and curiosity demanded she at least pick the pistol up and see how it felt in her hands.

  His objection did do something else other than keep her from taking the item. It allowed a thought to dawn on her.

  “This isn’t a necromancer,” she said, backing away.

  “Course it is,” Isabel said, walking up to her. “Who else would it be?”

  Zoey shook her head and retreated another step as gooseflesh appeared on her arms. “I don’t know,” she said. “But look at him. That’s not the garb of a necromancer. An admiral is more like it.”

  The jewels on the throne suddenly faded away, revealing, Zoey immediately realized, that they were nothing more than illusions.

  Before she could offer any sort of warning, withered fingers cracked as they flexed on throne and staff. The figure stood, body full of life despite its emaciated frame, and eye sockets full of fire.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the figure said before giving a sweeping bow. “Lord Belmont, at your service. Or perhaps I should say, you will soon be at mine.”

  Chapter Three

  Escape

  Isabel drew her pistols before the breath had a chance to freeze in Zoey’s lungs. “Think again,” she said. “I’ve taken down worse than the likes of you.”

  Lord Belmont toyed with the top of his scepter without an ounce of concern for either the woman’s threats or her weapons pointed at him. “And what are the likes of me, I wonder?”

  “Skeleton. Weight. Revenant. Barrow fiend. Whichever, I don’t care,” Isabel said, narrowing her eyes.

  As the two had their standoff, Stede came to his lover�
�s side, sword drawn. Zoey, on the other hand, eased away. She needed options, either to look for a backstab or a way to beat a hasty retreat into the shadows.

  “Going somewhere?” Lord Belmont said, turning his face toward the woman with a bemused look on his decrepit face.

  Zoey froze, and she worried she hadn’t a prayer to see tomorrow. She was fast, but the casualness at which this undead creature addressed them all told her she wasn’t fast enough no matter what she tried. Or worse, even if she was, it wouldn’t matter.

  “A perceptive thing, aren’t we?” Lord Belmont said as if reading her thoughts. He then gestured to a side hall with his scepter. “Could I interest the three of you in one last meal? I have so many questions regarding where you came from.”

  Isabel thrust her pistols forward, stretching her arms as far as they’d go. Her hands trembled, signaling the break of morale. “Shut up!” she yelled. “Get out of here while you still can, you mummified lobcock.”

  The amulet around Lord Belmont’s neck picked up a soft glow, one that Zoey was certain only she noticed or understood. “He’s not a mummy,” she said, backing away a few more steps and voice trembling. “He’s a lich.”

  “Right you are, my dear woman, and—”

  Isabel fired both pistols, interrupting whatever else he had to say, screaming from the top of her lungs as she did. The bullets tore straight through whatever black heart still beat inside Lord Belmont’s chest.

  The lich didn’t flinch. He didn’t even snarl or seem mildly surprised for that matter. He simply raised his staff, and the skull’s eye sockets briefly flared a deep orange before dark tendrils snaked out its mouth and wrapped themselves around Isabel.

  The woman shrieked, her body contorting and aging a thousand years in the blink of an eye. Light poured out of her chest, but only for a moment. Those very same tendrils grabbed hold of it and pulled it back into the staff.

  “Isabel!” The power behind Stede’s yell was second only to the guttural war cry that followed it. He leaped through the air, sword high overhead, only to be met with a similar fate.

  His withered corpse hit the floor next to Lord Belmont’s feet, shattering into fragments of bone and dust.

  Lord Belmont rubbed his now brightly glowing amulet, seemingly taking great pleasure in whatever sensation it gave him.

  “This,” the lich said, motioning to what little remained of Zoey’s companions, “is why I’m the one to restore goodness to the world.”

  Zoey snorted, retreating further. “Yeah? How’s that? You don’t exactly seem to be the charitable type, seeing how you murdered my friends.”

  Lord Belmont snickered. “At least now I don’t have to wonder about you.”

  “Come again?”

  “By your own words, you’re friends with thieves and brigands,” he explained. “Those so brazen that they’d break into a man’s home and rob him while he’s still there.”

  “This place was supposed to be abandoned!”

  “No, I believe you thought the necromancer who once lived here was now dead, which at best makes you a grave robber—a despicable sort, perhaps even more than those who rob the living,” Lord Belmont corrected. “And for the record, the necromancer is indeed dead, by my hand, in fact. Resurrected to serve the greater cause by my hand as well. Which is exactly what’s going to happen to you.”

  Zoey turned on the balls of her feet and ran, her legs pumping feverishly. She was fast, faster than most, but as she’d feared, she wasn’t fast enough.

  Lord Belmont whipped his scepter in line with her, and from his mouth, dark words of power flowed. Again, the tendrils came. They snaked around her arms and legs, burned her flesh, but Zoey pressed on, gritting her teeth and refusing to succumb.

  Her legs gave out two strides later, and she crashed to the floor. Her head struck the ground, dazing her. She had enough presence of mind to keep scrambling for where she thought the exit lay, somewhere in the shadowy mess of darkness and shapes that now was her world.

  Spidery fingers found the back of her neck and hoisted her off the ground. Her vision refocused right as Lord Belmont spun her around and slammed her back into one of the columns. He pinned her there, pressing his scepter against her neck, and eyed her as if she were some curiosity that had never graced this world before.

  “What are you?” he asked, more to himself than her. A moment passed before recognition shone on his face. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” he said, laughing. “A kindred spirit, or maybe a distant cousin, all things considered.”

  “Let me go,” she said, struggling against his grip, but she might as well have been struggling against a leviathan.

  “I think not,” he said, pushing a little harder. “But at the same time, I can’t exactly kill you like the others, can I? What a waste of potential power.”

  Fear, in the most basic, primal sense, the sort of existential dread that only those who’d stood at the edge of the abyss and stared into its bottomless dark had ever experienced, took hold. Her strength left her, and she could feel the dark abilities she bore leave her body.

  “You’re…not…taking…me…” she croaked. Zoey’s eyes rolled back as her spirit desperately tried to tap into one shred of her old self before Lord Belmont ripped it all away.

  Her body dissolved into what was little more than a white mist, and Lord Belmont, caught completely unaware, stumbled into the column. When Zoey reformed, she was at the other end of the hall, running for the side room from which they’d originally entered.

  Lord Belmont whipped out his pistol and fired. The bullet tore a chunk of stone out of the wall only an inch from her chest.

  An instant later, she raced down the stairs, taking three or four at a time. She slammed into the curved wall more than once before she reached the bottom. Behind her, she could hear the lich bellowing, calling to someone, or someones, unseen.

  She leaped over Sammy’s fallen body, and after passing a T-junction, a hidden slab of rock dropped from the ceiling, blocking off her escape.

  “Oh, come on,” Zoey cried out. “That’s not fair at all.”

  She backtracked and took the other hall, hoping, praying that this one would still lead to an exit. She ran for only the gods knew how long, down twisting passages, taking branches at random. Nearly a dozen times by her count, she spotted a pressure plate or a tripwire only a split second before setting it off, but her luck didn’t hold forever.

  She entered an L-shaped room full of wine barrels and was headed for the exit on the other end when she inadvertently stepped on a loose tile that sank a few inches when her foot struck it. Zoey tensed, expecting to be riddled with bolts or incinerated by fire.

  None of that came, but what did was no less deadly. It started as a distant roar, some sort of sound she couldn’t quite place. But a second later, she knew exactly what it was. It was the roar of a tsunami.

  Zoey ran faster than before, throwing a glance over her shoulder to see a deluge of water rushing toward her.

  She dashed through the lower levels of Lord Belmont’s citadel at breakneck speeds. She bolted down a curved corridor that branched in three places near the end. She took the passage to the left and then up a flight of stairs, thinking going up might buy her some time against the flood behind her. These stairs dumped her into an octagonal chamber where two dozen skeletons lay strewn about along with the remains of one of their former party members.

  She wouldn’t have slowed here either if it hadn’t been for the deep rumbling that came from practically every direction at once.

  “What the—” was all she got out before a torrent of water came pouring at her from three different directions. Before she could even think about getting out of the way, the flood crashed into her and swept her away.

  Underwater, Zoey rolled across the hard floor, twice striking her head. Thankfully, she had the wherewithal to hold her breath as she tumbled. Eventually, she struck something hard with her back, which kept her from rolling an
y further. Quickly, she pushed herself up and kicked toward the surface. When she broke through and gasped for air, she found herself in another part of the lower levels that she’d been in before, which meant she knew where the exit was.

  “I swear, when I get out of here, I’m never playing this stupid game ever again,” Zoey muttered as she went for a passage to her right.

  She waded down it as fast as she could, and the water had risen to chest level by the time she’d almost reached a set of stairs she knew would lead her to safety.

  A tentacle suddenly wrapped around her chest and dragged her under.

  Zoey yelled in fright but managed to stop herself before completely expelling all of her air. The creature violently yanked her around. In the midst of the frenzy, she hacked away at it with her cutlass. The first couple of times she swung, she missed, but the third strike cut deeply into whatever had grabbed her. The tentacle instantly released its grip, and at the same time, whatever it was shot out a dark inky cloud that completely blinded her.

  Sputtering, Zoey managed to reach the surface once again, but she had to swim for it. The water had risen so high at this point, there were only a couple feet between the surface and the dungeon ceiling. Worse, the current was strong and dragged her off.

  Down the corridor she went, bouncing off of walls and columns until she managed to catch hold of an open doorway and pull herself onto some stairs. Tired, cold, and at her breaking point, Zoey stumbled up the flight until she reached a small square chamber that held only barrels.

  “Come on,” she said, glancing in each one. “There’s got to be something I can use.”

  There was something. Wine. But at the moment, that didn’t do her much good. Worse, the water had started to make its way into the room at this point. Giving up on finding some steampunk SCUBA gear, or a potion that might temporarily transmute her into a mermaid, her eyes went to the walls.

  There had to be a way out.

  There just had to be. This place had been filled with secret passages practically from top to bottom. You could pretty much push bricks at random and find something eventually. And since the water rose here, that meant the air had to be getting out, too. As such, the odds of there not being one had to be astronomical. Or, well, maybe fifty-fifty if she was being honest. Ninety-ten, against, more like it.