Art:AADM/Second round/A Pirate is Born
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The Short
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The sky was dark, and the water darker, as the lone boat slowly headed to port. It had been an exhausting day, with many battles fought, but now only one pair of eyes wearily searched for a safe haven. Only one heartbeat sounded. The boat, (battered and beaten much like its captain) was riding low on the water, weighed down by its heavy burden. Both man and boat seemed to sigh as the solitary dock finally came into view. Carefully picking his way across the deck littered with bodies, the fisherman knew this was his best catch yet. | 
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Safe Haven (Nanofiction) | ||
The Entry
"Abe, it can't be time already," Inez asked still foggy from the deep sleep she was being forced to leave behind.
"Aye. Three hours till dawn," Abraham sarcastically explained. "We got up this time yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before..."
"Yes. Yes. Enough! I just wish the bloody fish, for once, would come out at a more agreeable hour," Inez proclaimed.
Abe, as Inez called him, was born into a long tradition of skilled fishermen. At just over forty years of age, he possessed the chiseled physique that was the product of many long hours of physical exertion. His skin was stained and coarse from exposure to the harsh environment of life at sea. Viewed as a withdrawn man of few words, Abraham had only two priorities: his family first and everything else second.
Inez was his wife of fifteen years. Her parents, who had owned and operated a weaving stall on Zeta Island, died when Inez was only ten years old. She met Abraham while selling sailcloth for a local merchant. A love affair quickly developed and he showered her with all the flowers and gifts his meager earnings could afford. They were married six months later and shortly thereafter Inez gave birth to their only child, Carlos. Inez was considerably younger than her husband, but it was of no matter to her. She loved him dearly and went to sea with him every day to help bring in the catch that was vital to their simple lives.
Carlos followed in his father's footsteps. He had been going to sea since birth and quickly took more and more responsibilities on board. He was a healthy young man and worked hard to please Abraham. He seemed to be adapting to the life of a fisherman with ease.
On this particular day, as she stirred to join her husband, Inez noticed through the small window of their bungalow that the sunless sky was darker than usual. Thick, dark clouds hung low and a strong wind blew in from the shore. It would not be a particularly easy day at sea, but their catch was sure to be plentiful.
"Inez! Be ye ready yet?" Abraham impatiently shouted from outside. "Carlos left twenty minutes ago."
"Good then," Inez needled. "The boat will surely be ready by the time we get there."
"Inez!!! We aren't the only ones catching fish ye know," Abraham needlessly argued. "Time wasted is money wasted. I like food and a roof. Don't ye?"
Inez knew full well how important it was to sail early, but she was simply forgetting how seriously Abraham treated the fishing business. She finally stepped outside wearing a striped shirt and rag trousers, both showing the scars of countless journeys offshore.
"Ready then?" she continued playfully, but Abraham was already walking to the dock.
As they arrived, Carlos hailed them from the deck, "Ahoy!"
"Ahoy son. Is she set?" Abraham responded.
"Aye father. Ready to go," Carlos confidently replied.
Their fishing sloop, the Proud Angler, was left to them when Abraham's father passed away. She was a soundly built vessel and had not hinted once of letting them down. Although at one time a fighting ship, only rope and netting occupied the spaces where her four lethal cannon once stood. She could be handled by a crew of only three and her single mast was more than capable of getting them to the rich fishing waters off nearby Ostreum Island.
As he stepped aboard, Abraham's frustrations intensified as he noticed most of the other fishing vessels had already set sail. "Blast! Single up on the bow and let's get on with it," he commanded.
Carlos untied one of the bow lines that held their sloop to the dock as Abraham unrolled a chart of the archipelago called Pearl. "We can't afford to waste time going to Ostreum now. Surely the good fishing beds are already blanketed with those who are capable of getting up on time," Carlos said snidely as he cut his eyes towards Inez. "No. We go here," he said as he stuck his finger on the chart. "Nuptial."
"Uhm...," Carlos did not know how to begin, "isn't the only decent fishing bed up there on the opposite side of Nuptial...on the inter-arch route?"
"Aye. Exactly and it's a rich spot. We should make quite a haul," Abraham stated.
"Abe. That's the route to Ruby! That is way too dangerous," Inez needlessly reminded him.
"We'll be fine," Abraham said reassuringly just as it began to rain. "Besides, pirates hate the rain."
They all chuckled nervously at the joke, but Abraham knew the danger was even more real than Inez thought. He had heard the reports from the old salts at the inn. There was a pirate working the inter-arch route recently, but that wasn't going to deter Abraham today. He was going to rely on his sailing skill and a fair amount of luck to see them through.
"Cast off all lines," Abraham commanded.
They sailed the route from Zeta to Nuptial as quickly as they could. Abraham caught a good westerly wind and sailed around Nuptial into the inter-arch route. They soon reached the first league point and brought in their sails.
"This is it," Abraham announced. "Ready the nets."
Their first haul of fish was so large that it nearly snapped the lines. It took only half a dozen drags of the net to completely fill the hold with fish.
Satisfied with himself, Abraham asked for the nets to be stowed and the vessel made ready to sail. He was studying the charts when Carlos announced, "unflagged sloop off the starboard bow."
Abraham looked up and squinted through the foul weather.
"Secure the gear and prepare to raise sail," Abraham stated again, hoping to disguise his concern.
"Father, she's closing fast...and appears to be on an intercept course," Carlos called out with disciplined precision.
Inez, however, was in a panic. She struggled with the halyard and managed to tangle it rather than hoisting the mainsail.
"Carlos, see to your mother," Abraham commanded as the unknown sloop came upon them. The mystery vessel struck its sails and slowly pulled alongside the Proud Angler.
"Ahoy!" Abraham shouted with only silence as the reply.
The fog and light rain made it difficult to see any movement on her deck. "Ahoy!" Abraham shouted again.
At just that moment, his inquisitiveness melted as the men positioned behind the cannon came into view.
"Fire!" came the voice from upon the mystery vessel's deck.
Abraham had turned to shout a warning, but it was too late. The first volley seared through the Proud Angler's upper deck like the scorching breath of an angry dragon. Splinters rained down on Abraham as he dropped to his knees. He looked up to locate his wife and son, but a second volley blasted through shredding more of the injured sloop's superstructure. As Abraham peered up again, he saw Inez and Carlos towards the aft and on the opposite side. "Stay down!" he commanded.
His warning had the opposite effect. Both Inez and Carlos looked up, frantically searching for Abraham through the smoke and debris. That's when another volley was fired. This time it was chain-shot, two cannon balls connected by a chain, and Abraham watched as it shredded through the rigging and sails before taking both his beloved wife and son with it off the side and into the murky depths.
"Noooooo!" Abraham bellowed as he scrambled across the deck. He dove into the water, but struck a piece of debris with his head and was knocked nearly unconscious. Abraham tried to find any sign of his family, but it was no use. The encumbrance of blurred vision and a bleeding head was compounded by the water relentlessly trying to slam him into the side of the boat. It was as if the sea didn't want him to find his family.
Abraham continued to search, but as fatigue set in he found it frighteningly difficult to keep his head out of the water long enough to take a breath. He was close to death when a rope splashed into the water next to him.
"Grab it mate," came the sound of a calm voice overhead.
Abraham turned to see the toothless grin of the man responsible for this. He was terrifyingly large and wreaked of rum and the revolting stench of aged durian. His clothes were soiled and his hair and beard grew together into a single, twisted mass of filth. He carried two black skull daggers on his belt, neither of which he was reaching for at the moment.
Still stunned from the blow to the head and acting almost entirely out of raw instinct, Abraham grabbed the rope and allowed himself to be pulled back aboard. He saw that the large man in front of him was joined by another surly individual and tied alongside the Proud Angler was their sloop, the Fiendish Pincher, with two more brigands on its deck.
"The name's Roberts," the pirate said. "Now let me put this to ye straight. Yer gonna' die today, mate. Now either ye can tell me what I want to know and I'll kill ye quickly or ye can do this the hard way, which means me and the boys get to be creative with how this ends, if ye know what I mean."
Abraham listened intently.
"Now tell me where anything of value is on yer vessel," Roberts continued as he placed his powerful hands on Abraham's shoulders, "and tell me right now."
"I've got nothing," Abraham said somberly. "I'm just a poor fisherman. All that mattered to me was my family and you've already taken that."
"Yes. Yes. How sad," Roberts quickly said. "Now I'm going to give ye one last chance."
As Abraham stared down at the deck awaiting the fate that was sure to come, he heard the voices of the two pirates from the other sloop rise above the wind. They sounded either excited or concerned; Abraham couldn't tell.
Roberts began to join his hands around Abraham's neck and squeeze. "Tell me mate. Don't be a fool," Roberts said.
Suddenly the two voices from the pirate ship echoed loudly across the deck and, as Roberts turned to look, something smashed against the Proud Angler's hull. The entire sloop creaked violently and Roberts fell to the deck with an enormous crash. Although he appeared to be stunned, the junior pirate standing with him moved quickly. As he drew his sword and lunged, Abraham rolled to the side and leapt to his feet. As he did so, he grabbed a heavy piece of mast from the deck and struck the pirate squarely on the head. The sound of the impact was sickening and the man fell lifelessly to the deck.
Abraham glanced across at the Fiendish Pincher and saw the two pirates there lining up the cannon to fire down into the water. He couldn't imagine what they were distracted with and didn't have time to figure it out. Roberts was beginning to regain consciousness. He sat up, but luckily did not yet know where he was or what was going on.
Abraham, feeling oddly detached from what he was about to do, reached down and drew the skull daggers from their sheaths on Roberts' belt. He raised them high in the air before bringing them down in a swift, crossing pattern that caught Roberts just above the line of the shoulders. Roberts' head rolled across the deck of the Proud Angler and splashed into the water.
The roar of the Fiendish Pincher's cannon brought Abraham's attention in that direction again. He looked over to see the pirates firing relentlessly into the water. Still clutching the skull daggers, Abraham crossed over to the Fiendish Pincher and approached them from behind. He drove one dagger deep into the back of the first pirate and, as the second turned, he drove the other dagger into his heart. Both men fell to the deck almost on top of each other. Abraham withdrew the swords and kicked their lifeless bodies into the water. As he did so, Abraham found what they had been shooting at. The battered and bloody carcass of a young kraken floated in the water alongside. That's what had jostled the Proud Angler.
Abraham paused a moment and looked around. In just a few short moments his world had turned upside down. His wife and only child were dead and their bodies lost at sea. The only thing of value he owned, his fishing sloop, was critically damaged and slowly sinking. Now he had killed four dangerous men and stood alone aboard their conquered vessel; his head still throbbing and covered in blood, not all his own.
As he regained his senses, Abraham walked to the hold of the Fiendish Pincher and peered inside. There he saw riches the likes of which his eyes had never seen. Not only was there a single large chest overflowing with pieces of eight, but it was surrounded by piles of black enamel and fine cloth, racks of swords and bludgeons, several pieces of ancient furniture, a small mound of gold ore, and several barrels of blood surely to be that of a kraken. These were the riches of a monarch and now they were in the hold of a ship commanded by Abraham.
The moment was surreal and Abraham struggled to find some connection to the man he used to be. As he looked down into the palms of his bloodstained hands, he realized there was none. He was no longer a fisherman. He was no longer even Abraham. He was a pirate and what shocked him most was that the thought of being a pirate excited him. A strange sensation surged through his body. There was no going back. There was nothing to go back to. This world had taken from Abraham what he held dearest. Now it was his turn to do the taking. He had lost much, but in due course he would take back so much more.
Abraham retrieved a few possessions from the Proud Angler before ending its slow death with a few shots from his plundered vessel's cannon. As he watched the last connection to his former life sink before him, he prepared himself to sail onward and never look back. The sky was dark, and the water darker, as the lone boat slowly headed to port. Rather than return to the familiar routes of Pearl, it was into Ruby that he sailed. This had been an exhausting day, having lost his family and slaughtered four merciless marauders to save himself, but now only one pair of eyes wearily searched for a safe haven. The boat, (battered and beaten much like its new captain) was riding low on the water, weighed down by its heavy burden. Both man and boat seemed to sigh as the solitary dock finally came into view. Carefully picking his way across the deck, littered with the remnants of battle, the fisherman knew this was his best catch yet. It was his true destiny that had caught up with him today. What he thought had been his life was now only the prologue to what would become a legendary tale of riches taken, lives lost, and hearts shattered. On this day a pirate was born.
