Page 42 of Scourge of the Shores
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER
Robert set foot on Rogue’s Isle and tipped his hat to a merchant leaving for the day.
He scanned the neutral place and made his way to the tavern, The Drunken Sailor .
A second figure joined him—Danna, her coat smelling of sea spray and conquest. She didn’t need an introduction.
The room knew. The North Sea bowed to them.
Two Pirate Kings, two thrones, one ship, united by fate, passion, and the prophecy of a sea dragon spike.
Nothing had ever come of Cain’s relic. Despite Danna’s protests of keeping it in the beginning, Robert had kept it bolted to his mast as a sign of power and reverence.
They saw how ships stayed away, knowing it had the relic.
It kept his fleets safe on the lawless waters.
Perhaps it was all just a myth from ancient times, but the relic held importance, reverence, and respect; it would protect anyone tied to it, until the world’s beliefs changed.
“Spiced rum,” Robert ordered, and the keeper slid two bottles across the worn wooden counter. Robert popped the cork of one and threw his head back, taking a swig. It burned good all the way down, reminding him of battles won and promises kept. He ran a sleeve across his mouth and licked his lip.
“Good one,” he told the keeper with a nod.
“Only the best for Captain Jaymes and Captain Chadwick,” the keeper said, before he gestured to the corner of the room. “And Captains, there be a man waitin’ for ye at yer table.”
Robert lofted an eyebrow, changing his speech to match the keeper’s. “At me table?”
“Aye,” the keeper said and threw his gaze toward the dark corner of the tavern.
A man sat cloaked in shadow, his fingers tapping the rim of an untouched mug. The hood of his cloak obscured his face, but sand-colored curls peeked from beneath it.
“He ain’t moved since he came, ain’t touched his drink either. Only watchin’. Waitin’,” the keeper said low.
Robert’s instincts flared to life. A man who sat too still, drank too little, and stared too long was either desperate—or dangerous.
A shiver of intrigue raced down his spine. “Waitin’, ye say?”
“Aye.” The keeper nodded. “Human. Pirate. No name. Hid his face from me. Wears a cloak.”
“In the summer?” Danna whispered, shifting her gaze.
“Methinks he ain’t wanna be known,” the keeper whispered.
Danna gave Robert the nod for him to approach alone. She’d be there if there were trouble. Robert took another swig before shifting off the stool.
Loosely grasping the bottle’s neck, he spun around and walked straight toward his table.
He stood at the head of it. “Who are ye, and what do ye want?”
The man leaned forward under the light. Sand-colored curls peeked out from underneath his hood before he tugged it.
“Captain Jaymes, Pirate King of the North Sea, I’m a South Sea pirate, and I’ve got a proposition for ye.
” He dropped a flat palm atop a worn scroll.
His hand was that of a youth. Barely twenty, if that.
The man had refused to tell his name, which unsettled Robert’s stomach.
But Robert’s name had traveled even into the harsh South Sea.
Hiding the surprise, Robert leaned over to look at it and scoffed. “A map?”
“Aye, but not just any map,” the man said. “The grandest treasure to ever grace the seas—and whoever claims it, commands the world for all eternity. It’s said to be forged by the gods themselves.”
Robert rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t ye go after it yerself, then?”
The young man coughed, voice ragged as worn sails.
"It’s missin’ a piece. I’ve scoured the seas me whole life, but it’s always just outta reach." He paused, breath shallow. "I’m dyin’, Capt’n. Won’t see many more dawns. But I’ve watched the pirate kings—every last one of them—and only ye’ve risen high enough—worthy enough—to hold such a map."
Robert slid into the chair across from the stranger, leaned back with fingers drumming the table beside the scroll. Rosa and Blackwood would disagree with the stranger’s statements. They were still a triad, nearly equal in fleet size, though they’d all grown.
“So after a lifetime of searchin’, which, judgin’ by yer face, ain’t very long. And with death knockin’ at yer door, ye’d just give it away?” Robert studied the young man’s features, etching them into memory. “Sounds too easy, mate.”
The man’s lips curled at the corners as he adjusted the cloak’s hood to hide in shadow again.
“I ain’t just givin’ it away. I’m choosin’ its rightful owner.
” He dropped his voice low. “This treasure, mate, it don’t belong to just anyone.
It chooses its master. And ye, Captain Jaymes,”—he glanced at Danna—“Captain Chadwick, been chosen.”
Robert scanned his face for deception. He wished he could call Danna over; she was always better at reading men than he was.
“What ye dyin’ of, lad.” He was too young to be sick. His cough seemed forced, but a treasure forged by gods enticed him.
The man’s grin fell flat. “I ain’t foolin’ ye. I just ain’t got no will to live. Me lass was taken from me when we went south. Krakenking and all.” He leaned back, shifting his gaze to Danna. “Surely, Captain Jaymes, ye know what it’d be like.”
It was a poor attempt at manipulation, so Robert tested his first assumption. “If I took it from ye, what’s yer payment?”
“Yer blessing to live what life I want well.”
“Delphi then?”
“Ten Delphi’d be enough.”
Robert narrowed his eyes. Greed. There wasn’t any woman. And he sure wasn’t dying. The man probably spent himself into poverty and needed coin—desperate—as he initially assumed.
“The greatest treasure, ye say?” Robert asked with a knowing grin.
“Legend has it,”—the stranger leaned in—“the father of the South Sea Pirate Kings stole it from the Atlanteans.”
“The Atlanteans?” Robert inclined his head. He reasoned that the treasure could be, as the legend states, and it was only ten Delphi. To a peon, it was ten years’ pay, but for pirate royalty, it was pocket change.
But he didn’t want to be taken for a fool.
Surely, the other pirates in the tavern would know something about this when he did not. Robert addressed the tavern guests. “Anyone care to tell about the legend of the greatest treasure in the world? The one from Atlantea?”
At Robert’s question, the tavern stilled. A single drop of rum hit the wooden floor from a man’s tankard, loud as a gunshot in the sudden silence.
A few pirates exchanged uneasy glances. Some made warding signs with their fingers, as if the mere mention of the treasure might summon something unholy. Others looked around, clueless, and shrugged.
Then, low and rough, the keeper’s voice cut through the hush.
“Have ye not heard, Captain Jaymes? ‘Tis an ages-old song from the South Sea,” the keeper crooned, his voice low and shrouded in shadow.
“The treasure’s more than gold,
Forged in the days when the sea was old,
Not coin, nor crown, nor dragon's fee,
But the heart of the Deep in a lockless key.”
“Yo-ho,” the pirates echoed, a shiver in their mirth.
“It curses the hand; it blesses the bold,
It’s stolen from gods, yet never grows cold,
Sunk in a tomb, beneath a weeping reef,
Guarded by silence, sorrow, and grief.”
“That’s the treasure for me,”
A pirate hummed, tapping his mug.
Another sang, hushed.
“But where could it be?”
A woman at the hearth whispered the last line like a prayer:
“Only known to a maid of the sea.”
Robert’s smug grin stretched wide across his face. “I suppose I hadn’t. Thank ye for the entertainment this evenin’.”
The keeper shrugged and joked, lifting the mood once again, “I’ll add it to yer tab.”
Robert leaned back in the chair before turning his steely gaze to the stranger.
Robert had planned to venture into the South Sea next summer with Rosa and Blackwood to unite the South Sea Pirate Kings under them.
If he succeeded, it would be a massive feat, and his legacy would be sealed forever.
But he wouldn’t even need Rosa and Blackwood if the treasure were true.
Robert ran a finger along the map’s curled edge as his voice dropped. “The shanty says only a maid of the sea knows where it lies. And I ain’t sailin’ West to find a siren.”
The stranger’s fingers twitched. "Aye, it does, and ye ain’t be needin’ a siren, Capt’n,” the man rasped, his gaze hard as barnacled wood.
“Why’s that?” Robert asked.
“Me family’s spent generations—aye, generations—trackin’ it down. This here’s the piece we’ve narrowed it to."
He paused, his voice dropping to a bitter whisper.
"But marauders took me brothers—cut ‘em down like dogs. I’m the last of me line. Too poor to see the hunt through meself."
His eyes gleamed with a mix of grief and ambition.
"I reckoned only the finest should lay claim to such a prize. And that be ye, Captain Jaymes. No other would I trust with it. The centuries-long Bloodfang line in the south? Their power wanes. The South Sea Pirate Kings grow weak, as do their brotherly bonds. Captains Rosa and Blackwood—they ain’t done nothing worthy.
But ye and yer father: forty kings to three, slew a sea dragon, got its spike on yer mast. More than done yer due.
For this treasure, it don’t just glisten with gold. It makes men rule the world.”
Robert took another swig of rum and set the bottle on the table. “If anything, ye’ll be rewarded for yer flattery, but if ye dare call me a princock, I’ll slit yer throat.”
“Never,” the stranger said. “All know the great Jaymes earned his place among the legends with the heir of Chadwick and a son and a daughter primed to take yer place. With the sea dragon’s prophecy, yer and yer father’s legacy ain’t gonna be swept with the tide.”