Chapters Morning Breeze covered his ears. He could swim well enough without his front hooves. He could handle the choppy salt water and the weight of ammunition in his pockets. What he found most disconcerting was the absolute silence that surrounded him. No far-off whale songs, no thrumming of schools of bait fish. The ocean that claimed him now was black and dead.
He let himself sink. At five metres the water was icy cold. His heart rate dropped almost instantly.
I have time. I have time.
Though his vision was blurred, he could make out the beams of searchlights sweeping over the debris that had been his ship. A massive dark shape, an endless wall, was coming towards him.
At twenty metres he was lost completely to the world above.
At forty metres the shadow engulfed him. Even with the generous clearance its wake dragged him along, sucking him upwards, threatening to dash him against unforgiving barnacle-coated wood.
Don't be scared. This is where you belong.
But he was calculating. With each second his chances grew slimmer. He was starting to feel the urge to breathe. The aching in his chest rose up through his neck. He was starting to tremble.
The surface did not reappear.
Don’t be scared. Don't move.
He was sinking again, weighed down by the contents of his many pockets. The weight was distributed for balance, but that was little comfort to him as he reached fifty metres. His hooves were being pulled into his aching ears.
Don't move!
The force of water rushing into his ears stunned him momentarily. The pain was overwhelming, and the world around him spun like a top. He evacuated his lungs, and pursed his lips just in time to stop himself from inhaling.
He swam with all his might. There was no up or down anymore. All was black, and perhaps he had gone blind as well as deaf. There was no point trying to get out of his jumpsuit now. Instead he emptied his pockets. Six pistol magazines dropped straight down along with loose coins and a spare brass button. Then his spyglass.
Two pencils, rising faster than he could ever hope to...
Floating.
He groped the water in front of him, and felt one of the pencils tumbling through the water.
Downwards.
A box of Flints. He emptied it, and felt each pellet drifting in the direction in which he had been swimming.
Half a cigar: completely soaked and neutrally buoyant.
Reorienting himself, he tore out his breast pockets. The heavy items now sank in the right direction. His skin was numb as he swam with all his might, most certainly towards the surface now. Another agonizing stroke, and he found that he could not move at all. Still the surface eluded him; all he saw was a drear blue light, growing dimmer each second.
And then, suddenly, his nose was cold.
He inhaled desperately. The second half of the breath was entirely water, but he got just enough. He pushed with all his strength, and emerged vomiting violently. He could see shapes floating around him, but the first thing he reached for turned out to be sea foam. He splashed around desperately.
Foam. Foam. Foam.
Then, his hoof touched something hard. He lunged for it, and managed to find something to hold onto; the remains of a heavy knot on a section of mast.
His lungs burned from the salt. Frozen to the bones and exhausted, he clung to the flotsam as the sun set at the edge of the world and a heavy fog rolled in to consume him.
Thirty foot waves battered the Spectre . The line extended into the mist, and creaked whenever its angle changed; it was caught on something substantial, but no one at deck level had yet seen what it was.
“Keep at it,” Captain Winter Oat said as he passed the reel crew. “How much more?”
“One hundred feet, sir,” said Gingersnap when another knot reached the spool. “This wind is driving us too fast. We let out a lot of line to catch… whatever this is.”
The rest of the haul consisted of netting and wooden deck boards. The wrecked ship had been dark blue; that was all they could glean so far. When the first crate was spotted three hours ago the pilot had been concerned about reefs, but that possibility was immediately ruled out. They had been through this patch of water twice before without incident.
The captain patted Gingersnap's shoulder and sat down behind the spool. He had brought up a crossbow and ten bolts from the armory. He drew the bow now, his eyes staring down the tow line into the mist.
“I see it,” Ensign Sorrel called.
Gingersnap released the long arm of the spool. It immediately swung up, lifting him off the deck by the chin and dropping him just in time to bash in his skull as it came around. Fortunately the three other ponies on the team managed to catch the arm before all their progress over the past ten minutes could be lost.
It was a thick log twenty feet long, painted black and ragged on both ends; a piece of a small mast or a large boom. The rope was caught around its centre, its hooked end forming a loop in a way that could not have occurred by accident.
The captain approached the gunwales with his crossbow ready. He squinted at the log for some time, his hoof caressing the trigger.
A loud crack rang through the waterlogged air. A few sailors jumped at the sound, and the colt beside the mid mast ducked.
The captain sighed and fired.
The log screamed.
When it was within twenty feet of the Spectre 's starboard side, other sailors came over with fenders and more ropes. Ten earth ponies hauled the log on board with four pulleys. Water and blood dripped from its end as it dangled over the deck, and from it dangled something else.
His greyish-blue jumpsuit had made him nearly invisible against the water. The earth pony was good-looking as far as sailors went. His brown mane was short and slightly curled, and his beard was not wild like a pirate’s. His eyes, now half-closed, looked faded from years under a harsh sun. The crossbow bolt passed through his right foreleg, pinning him to the log. The sailors lowered their tow gently so as not to crush him.
“Stay away from him!” the captain ordered, shooing away the gathering crowd. He lifted the survivor's chin and stared into his face for a long second. Then he set him down gingerly and turned to his crew. “You two! Take him to sickbay, and don’t leave him unguarded!”
Gingersnap sat down beside the giant spool and massaged his head while the rest of the team struggled with tarps in the driving wind. Two ponies held the barely-conscious prisoner while the bolt was cut. He only grunted feebly as they freed him. Gingersnap caught a whiff of blood when he passed by, and that sent him over the edge. He stumbled towards the starboard side, but did not reach it in time.
There was no window in the infirmary, and the lamps had glazed shields, providing even, warm lighting. Equipment could be hung on sturdy hooks from the beams overhead. The furnace burned quiet and smokeless thanks to oversized vents.
Gingersnap wished the room would stop moving. A sailor since thirteen, he was no stranger to rough seas, but still it did not go well with a concussion. Doctor Sweetwater had spent half an hour pushing various parts of his head before declaring that his skull was intact. Now he lay on one of the six flat beds in the infirmary, feeling nauseous and tired but unable to fall asleep.
The stallion he had helped fish out earlier was fast asleep two beds down. His jumpsuit had been removed, replaced with a dry wool blanket. His hoof was neatly bandaged and splinted. Two ponies were sitting around him like guard dogs; Gingersnap couldn’t see them, but he knew they had not left. Shackles linked both his rear legs to load-bearing ribs of the hull, and he even wore a chain on his neck. He didn’t look dangerous enough to warrant it, but then Gingersnap didn’t know who he was; didn't know for sure, at any rate.
Gingersnap must have dozed off, because he did not notice Captain Winter Oat coming in. It was only when the captain was screaming in agony that the room around him was suddenly thrown into motion.
To Gingersnap it seemed three new ponies had materialized in the room, pulling on the chain around the prisoner’s neck, while two others had his shoulders. The one on the right side of the bed was fumbling with a large iron hook.
A moment later the prisoner fell backwards with blood pouring from his nose. The captain collapsed onto an empty bed, clutching his throat and gasping for breath.
Gingersnap blinked a long blink. When he opened my eyes again the infirmary was empty.
Thirty pounds of chains and shackles held him between two load-bearing beams in the brig. Fresh sutures held his swollen nose together. He had witnessed three changing of the guards through the night. Said guards were invariably broad-shouldered earth ponies spilling out of their navy jackets. Such a physique was unachievable on a sailor’s diet of hardtack and thin soups.
It was an hour after sunrise, but he did not know it until the captain came in through the hatch with a unicorn mare behind him.
Winter Oat, as he had called himself earlier that night, was a white unicorn with straw-colored eyes and mane. At the moment his neck was wrapped in bandages with a bit of red seeping through. His dark blue jacket was open at the front, and he had left his hat behind. Morning Breeze thought it an unbecoming look for a captain.
“So here you are,” he said. His usually deep, unwavering voice was much weakened. He coughed and clutched the bandages.
“Yeah.” One of the guards raised an eyebrow at the sound of that voice. It was soft and throaty, with not a hint of power behind it despite the stallion’s healthy frame.
“Morning Breeze,” Winter Oat said when he recovered. “You don’t know how much trouble you’ve caused.”
“Of course I know.” Breeze sneered and spat at the pristine deck of the never-before-used brig. “Why do you think I started in the first place? Now go on. Where’s the sword? You’re not going to chew my head off, are you?”
Winter Oat cocked his head.
“I’m wanted dead ,” Breeze said. “Do you really think I don’t know anything ? But if you’re going to listen to me…”
“I’m not here for your games,” Winter Oat said. “I’m bringing you in.”
Breeze frowned.
“Why would you do that?” He asked slowly. “Who wants me?”
Winter Oat sighed and stepped closer to Morning Breeze.
“What happened to you?” He said, looking deep into the chestnut brown eyes of his prisoner. “Breeze, you don’t know what I’m risking by bringing you alive to Baltimare. My crew has spent four months in these waters searching for you.”
Morning Breeze’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Ponies spent millions of bits, just to find you,” Winter Oat continued. “If anyone else had led this mission, you would have come out of the water last night with quite a few more bolts in you. I’m going to be court-marshaled when I get back to Baltimare, but I’ll risk it to give you even a slim chance of going home.
“The way I see it, you made one big mistake fifteen years ago, and you’ve been making it worse ever since. Just one mistake! I know you were one of Princess Celestia's favorites. You were the great pirate hunter! Celestia's own explorer! She used to make trips to Baltimare to see your ship come in. That has to mean something to you, even now, even after all these years. If someone had given you a chance to turn back at any point in this whole mess, wouldn’t you take it? Don’t you want to go home? To see your brothers and sisters again? Your mother ? The one who ransomed you to begin with? Don't you think you owe it to her, after all she's done for you, to not go out like this?”
Breeze stared at the captain blankly. Then he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.
“You are kind, captain,” he said. “It’s true. I dream of my family- my big family. I had thousands of brothers and sisters, and other relations too. And old friends that I left in Equestria. I dream of Baltimare. But I can’t go back yet. Not like this. And if you care about Equestria, about your own family, you would let me go right now. Spare me a dory if you can, or drop me overboard if you can’t. But if I go with you, Equestria is doomed.”
“Because you got to Baltimare?” Winter Oat said.
“No,” Morning Breeze replied. “Because I won't be here .”
The two stallions stared each other down for several seconds before Winter Oat turned away.
“Untie him and get him breakfast,” he ordered. “Bring him on deck when he’s ready.”
The guards took their time unlocking his restraints, and dropped him unceremoniously onto the deck without fully loosening the chains. The well-oiled hinges didn’t make a sound as the door closed.
Morning Breeze rolled around awkwardly, straining against the chains until they came fully loose. The painkillers had worn off hours ago, and now he felt like he had lost his hoof altogether. His mouth was dry, and he had a headache.
The guards did not return immediately. Minutes, and then hours passed, and Breeze grew more and more uncomfortable. He tried the door and the grated walls, but the whole ship seemed to be brand new.
He tapped the hull with his good hoof. It was thicker than the standard, but it would do. Breeze drummed out a long pattern of long and short beats, hitting the hull as hard as he could. He only got through it once before he was utterly exhausted.
Finally the door to the cabins opened and the guards returned, but they were not carrying food. Instead each had a crossbow slung over their shoulder, and a bolo knife at their side. The one that came in last had a coil of rope.
Gingersnap rested his head on a crate as he lifted another section of the endless anchor chain. The doctor had cleared him at eleven hundred hours, and the quartermaster found him soon after. He was sent to the machine room behind the prow, where Coral Frond had already been working for a few hours.
Coral Frond was a gregarious unicorn. Unlike most of his crewmates he opted to keep his yellow mane long and tied in a topknot. He had an earthy-red coat, and was probably the only unicorn who wore an eyepatch.
“Do you think it’s him?” He asked as he scrubbed an algae-encrusted link with steel wool. “I didn’t see him last night, but you were there. Did he look like the pictures?”
“I don’t know,” Gingersnap said. “Last night is pretty hazy in my head. He was wearing that suit, so I couldn’t see his cutie mark. And those pictures are almost twenty years old. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a beard when he was seventeen. What did the captain say?”
“Nothing at all,” Coral Frond said, shrugging. “He went back to his cabin, after the brig, and he hasn’t come out. The mate isn’t talking either. But it has to be him, right?”
“It could be a lot of things, but I don't think it's him,” Gingersnap said, dropping his work and closing his eyes to ease a sudden wave of sickness. “Morning Breeze isn’t the only pirate in the world, and I don’t think we’d find him wrecked in open water. Somebody attacked this guy. No wind can break a mast like that, and we’re nowhere near a reef. And if he’s Morning Breeze, why didn’t whoever attacked him look for a body? He has a five million bit bounty in Baltimare, and he was just floating there in plain sight.”
“So who do we have in the brig?”
“Some common pirate, probably,” Gingersnap said, grinding his hooves into his eyes until he saw flashes of white. “If Morning Breeze was easy to find, we wouldn’t be looking for him in the first place.”
“But it could be him, right?” Coral Frond asked. “I hope it’s him, because I want to go home. You know, when I agreed to two years on this ship, I didn’t think they were serious. Two months, sure, but years? Non-stop? There are other things I want to do with my life. But now we’ve gone almost six months without making port. It’s driving me crazy.”
Gingersnap sat up and peered out the slot in the hull. The fog had cleared through the night to reveal a bright albeit chilly day. Dark clouds loomed on the very edge of horizon to the north, but there was no land to be seen.
The Spectre was a ship unlike any other. Technically it was a barquentine, sixty metres long with fifty cannons. But the hull was wider than was normal to provide a shallow draught, and was split into two halves below the water. The sails were dyed blue—Very expensive, not doubt—but the strangest part of all was the glassy material that covered every inch of the hull. It had been put on as panels trimmed so precisely that the seams could not be seen in most places. It was exceptionally sturdy; early in the voyage another sailor had tried to mark it with a pocket knife and dulled it thoroughly without making a scratch. Nothing grew on it either; the last time Gingersnap went down in a dory he had made a note to check for barnacles or algae below the water line, and found nothing of the sort.
The panels were the key to the Spectre ’s success. Gingersnap had not the slightest clue what they were made of, but it had to be magical. Almost every week they spotted another ship or a distant island, yet they had gotten no trouble. They were pirate ships; there was no doubt about that. Over six hundred miles from Equestrian waters, traders and even the EUP had no reason to be in the Chain Islands. Even before Morning Breeze set up shop in the region it had been a forbidden place for sensible sailors. There were no maps, and stories abounded of monsters that lurked here.
“It’s not that bad,” Gingersnap said, cracking his neck before resuming his work. “As long as they keep giving me canned peaches, I’m happy. And just think: four more months, and we’ll have the record for the longest non-stop voyage. We’ll make history and bring back the pirate king. And Captain Winter Oat isn’t one of those ponies who like to break contracts. The bounty’ll be more than our pay.”
A long shadow fell over the floor of the machine room. Gingersnap followed Coral Frond’s gaze to the top of the ladder, where two burly ponies stood. They were extra sailors, assigned to the mission by the admiralty. Mercenaries, in other words; everypony knew it, and Captain Winter Oat had fought long and hard to get rid of as many as possible. In the end only twenty out of the initial forty were onboard when the Spectre left Baltimare, and only because they were paid entirely out of funds beyond Winter Oat’s control. They had proven to be mediocre sailors just as expected, and did nothing for morale. The rest of the crew stayed out of their way as much as possible, and Captain Winter Oat had grown more and more reluctant to use them as time went on.
“Hey Stone Chain,” Coral Frond said, standing up slowly and squinting past the first pony. He was a grey earth pony with a shaved head. His jacket, an extra-large, could not be buttoned up over his bulky chest. A long curved knife dangled from his belt.
Coral Frond backed away one tiny step when the big pony started to descend the ladder. Gingersnap stood up too. He could not help but lower his head. His legs felt weak, but he was getting ready to run. Something felt wrong.
“What do you want?” He asked, trying not to sound defensive. “Is it lunch time?”
“Yeah,” Stone Chain said. He had a chip in his teeth. “The captain said I should escort you, seeing you’re hurt and all.”
“Alright then,” Gingersnap said.
The pony at the top of the ladder turned his head, and cried out in surprise when a blinding bolt of magic threw him into the engine room. Gingersnap jumped out of the way as his smoking body hit the deck. Stone Chain had his weapon out in an instant, but Coral Frond charged into him at full speed. The knife fell to the deck. Stone Chain screamed when he landed heavily on top of the spare anchor.
The other pony was slowly getting up. Gingersnap fumbled with the dropped knife as the much larger pony sat up with one hoof on his head.
“Stay down!” He ordered, brandishing the knife ready to swing.
He was met with a sharp kick to the ribs. He dropped the knife, but the big pony was hit with another blast of magic before he could stand.
Doubled over in pain, Gingersnap heard Coral Frond’s muffled voice. He forced one eye open.
Stone Chain had the young unicorn in a headlock. The latter was trying to break his grip, but Stone Chain’s front leg was almost as thick as his victim's waist. He had his free hoof on Coral Frond’s muzzle, and was slowly pushing his head to the side. Coral Frond struggled to twist his neck in the opposite direction. His mouth was open as wide as it would go, but his captor’s hoof was out of his reach.
Clenching his jaw, Gingersnap got up and stumbled towards the pair. He grabbed the kukri off the deck and threw himself at Stone Chain.
The blade sank deep into his shoulder. With a long scream he threw Coral Frond away and reached for his wound out of reflex. Gingersnap caught him and began to back away from the thug in front of him, until another blast of magic startled him.
Snowsong was halfway down the ladder, glaring at the smoking pony curled up near the anchor. Bruises showed through her white coat, and her jacket was torn. Her golden eyes passed over the two young sailors, and for a second her gaze softened.
“There’s been a mutiny,” she said. “It’s the mercs.”
“What are your orders, ma’am?” Gingersnap asked, gently setting Coral Frond down on the deck where he immediately began checking his head and neck.
“Take those knives and…” Snowsong paused to fire off two more shots, one at the pony she had taken down, and the other at a rallied Stone Chain. “Clear them out. Don’t let them get to the armory.”
Gingersnap quickly took the clean weapon off the pony lying at the bottom of the ladder. Amazingly he was not yet out of the fight. His eyes opened when Gingersnap was still within range, and would have grabbed him had Snowsong not been as attentive as she was. Gingersnap leapt back just as another magical blast struck the big pony.
“Hey, Coral Frond,” he said, shaking him out of his shocked torpor. “Come on. We have our orders.”
Coral Frond nodded, his mouth still hanging open. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Stone Chain struggling to get up yet again. Jumping to his feet, he lowered his head and fired off a spell of his own. Stone Chain hit the bulkhead hard enough to rattle the pots and pans in the galley on the other side.
Snowsong came off the ladder to let the other sailors pass. Her attention was divided between the mercenaries in the room.
“Spells aren’t working like they should,” she said as Coral Frond passed. “If you’re going to hit them, hit them hard.”
For a mutiny the deck was surprisingly calm. The pilot on duty was still at the wheel, and the navigator was even checking her sextant. There was a pegasus on lookout at the top of the highest mast. Upon closer inspection however, Gingersnap saw that the pegasus had a crossbow in his lap.
“Check below deck,” he called, waving at Gingersnap and Coral Frond. “They’re below deck. There!”
Coral Frond ducked, but the pegasus was aiming nowhere near him. Gingersnap cringed at the sound of impact. It was not the hollow ringing of a bolt hitting wood.
“Come on,” he managed to say, taking Coral Frond’s hoof. His mouth was suddenly dry.
Coral Frond kept his horn pointed forward the whole way to the next deckhouse. The door was hanging off its hinges. It was the radio room. Three shelves formed an alcove behind the floor-to-ceiling radio. Gingersnap was sure that somepony was hiding there waiting to pounce.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “If somepony jumps me when I’m in there, blast him.”
He ran into the room with the knife raised over his head. There was nopony behind the bookshelf. He gestured for Coral Frond to follow him as he neared the steep steps leading down into the crew quarters. The lanterns had all been put out. The only light came from tiny portholes. Leaning closer to the open hatch, Gingersnap could make out several voices coming from the deck below. They were gathered in front of the armory door.
“We’re going to the armory first,” Gingersnap said. “I think those are mercs down there. Stay quiet. Don’t shoot until we can be sure.”
Fortunately the metal steps made no sound as they descended. The backing prevented anypony on the other side form seeing them. Coral Frond flipped up his eyepatch and cautiously peered over the side of the steps.
He was thrown to the side by a single crossbow bolt. It struck his horn and ricocheted into the deck. He got up immediately and fired off five bolts of bright red energy in rapid succession. Gingersnap took this moment to charge down the hall. As it turned out, a twenty metre dash was much less feasible when faced with a firing line. The mercenaries were facing a closed armory, but they had managed to arm themselves to an extent before the crew caught on. Coral Frond’s aim was less than stellar; two of five ponies had assumed a position behind broad pillars and were aiming down the narrow hall between the alcoves. Suddenly feeling panicked, Gingersnap leapt onto one of the beds and out of the shooters’ line of sight.
Coral Frond resumed his barrage as soon as Gingersnap was out of the line of fire, but his magic did little beyond knocking the mutineers back. The blasts scattered crossbow bolts everywhere and stopped them from firing, but there would still be five very angry armed mercenaries as soon as he stopped attacking.
“Get to the door!” Gingersnap yelled to Coral Frond. Dropping onto the deck, he crawled out of the alcove on his stomach. “Retreat!”
Coral Frond stood his ground until Gingersnap got past him, and then started backing away. His eyes were squeezed shut in concentration.
They retreated past the heads to a heavy door reinforced with metal. Gingersnap did not recall ever going through it before. Fortunately it was unlocked. He pushed it open and pulled Coral Frond through. The unicorn’s magic fizzled out, and he collapsed on the deck as Gingersnap put his weight on the door.
“What the heck went wrong?”
“I don’t know!” Coral Frond said, rubbing his head. “I was trying to stun them! I’m sure I got the spell right.”
“Alright, so there’s something weird about these guys,” Gingersnap dragged a crate over to block the door. “Let’s get back on deck. Where are we any…”
He trailed off as he turned away from the door. His eyes widened, and his ears drooped.
Four mercenaries were staring at them. They had replaced their ill-fitting uniforms with padded jackets.
Inside one of the cells, hardly visible through the thick bars was Morning Breeze. He was hanging upside down with his front hooves bound behind his back. Water dripped from his mane.
“Get them!” Gingersnap screamed, and charge forwards clumsily with the knife.
It was hopeless from the start, he knew. The mercenaries had more than enough warning, and Coral Frond was too tired to back him up with his spells.
He did not know exactly how it happened, but it hurt a lot. When Gingersnap came to he was sprawled on the floor with a persistent pounding in his head. Coral Frond was propped against the bars of the cell. Morning Breeze still dangled from the ceiling. Blood dripped out of his nostrils, and his eyes were swollen shut.
A huge yellow pony took up the rest of the cell. He was missing a few teeth, and his nose was covered with little scars. He was wearing a lot of cologne, but it did not mask the smell of tobacco completely.
Gingersnap gripped his head with both hooves and squeezed his eyes shut. The deep drumming made it impossible to focus.
“It’s nothing personal,” he said when he noticed Gingersnap looking up at him.
He raised his bolo over his head.
“GET IN HERE NOW!”
Morning Breeze’s scream came so abruptly that even the mercenary was caught off guard. The effort left him coughing and gasping for breath.
The first impact bounced everything into the air. The mercenary lost his balance and fell over. Gingersnap bit back his pain and crawled towards the knife on the ground, but Morning Breeze caught his tail in his mouth before he could get far.
“Hold your breath,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Wake up your friend there. Hurry.”
The second impact felt even more powerful than the first. To his horror Gingersnap saw the boards of the hull bounce apart momentarily. Bits of wood exploded off the hull, and water began to trickle into the brig through dozens of small holes and hairline cracks.
Coral Frond had a lump on his head. His eyes moved beneath their lids when Gingersnap tapped his shoulders, but they did not open.
“Bring him over here,” Morning Breeze said.
The mercenaries were yelling at each other as they staggered towards the stairs. The ship was rocking violently. Gingersnap only dragged Coral Frond a metre from the bars before he lost his balance and fell into an inch of water.
“Hold your breath,” Morning Breeze ordered again just before the ship was hit again.
The boards exploded in every direction. Gingersnap saw a gigantic scaly form breach the water’s surface before disappearing into the depths. Its silver eye, as big as the ship’s wheel, took in everything with a soulless stare.
The last thing Gingersnap saw through the open hatch before he sank beneath the surface was the yellow pony falling backwards with a crossbow bolt in each shoulder.
A cold, scaly tendril wrapped itself around his chest. Another one curled around his neck. He struggled against them, trying to keep his grip on Coral Frond.
An iridescent green pony rose through the water and stopped at eye level. At least, she looked like a pony at first. She had no mane, and no ears. Her blue eyes were bright like gems, and her face was framed with delicate-looking speckled fins. She put her hooves around Coral Frond and pulled him away. Gingersnap didn’t recall letting go, but a moment later she was swimming away, holding the unconscious unicorn by the shoulders.
The light of the surface fade. Gingersnap’s ears popped. He kicked a few times, and reached out for the surface, but the thing holding him possessed a gentle but persistent strength. He could see the shadow of the Spectre above him. But the tendrils threw him this way and that, pulling him ever deeper.
There was a single point of light. Gingersnap could not feel his legs. It was minutes before he realized that he was laying on his side. Later still he realized that his jacket was gone. His skin was damp, and he was frozen to the core.
He tried to move, but every muscle ached. He felt like he was weighed down with lead.
“Coral Frond?” He said. His lips moved sluggishly, barely able to form words. He mumbled the name again and again until he could hear it for himself.
The sound of hooves on stone came suddenly. There were three ponies in the group. Gingersnap groaned and covered his eyes when a lantern appeared in front of his face.
“Can you stand?”
It was Morning Breeze, whispering in the voice of death himself.
“You’re on an island,” he said. “My island. One of them, at least. Come on, the town’s not far.”
Two ponies came over and helped him to his feet. Craning his neck, he saw two others stooping over Coral Frond. One of their lanterns skimmed over the water at the back of the cave, and what he saw chilled his heart entirely.
Half a dozen faces were staring out of the water. The creatures were covered in little scales in shades of green and purple, and instead of manes sheets of colorful membrane drifted about their heads. Their metallic eyes flashed in the light. They appeared to him like drowned sailors peering longingly at the world of the living. He tried to scream, but only a soft moan left his lips.
Morning Breeze had his right hoof in a sling. His muzzle was bandaged, and the fur around his wounds was matted with salve. His gaze lingered on Gingersnap before he gestured for him to follow. In his eyes Gingersnap was surprised to see more sympathy than anger.
Coral Frond was put on a stretcher. yet another pony helped Gingersnap up the tall narrow passage.
The frigid sea wind was made worse by his damp coat. Taking notice, the pony beside him reached into her bulging saddle bag for a heavy wool cloak, which she draped over his back and fastened around his throat.
The cave entrance was a cleft halfway up a rocky hill. A narrow trail led down into an open field of yellow grass and leafless bushes. Gingersnap could hear waves breaking on rocks somewhere nearby, and a light salty mist hung in the air.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Just an island,” said the mare who had given him the cloak. “Come on.”
Once they got off the hill the walk was easy enough. As he breathed the fresh sea air Gingersnap felt more and more like himself. There was a packed dirt road leading over several rounded humps before descending into a valley. The town below had plenty of stone buildings, none higher than two storeys. Looking to his right, Gingersnap caught a glimpse of an impressive sea wall topped with shining black cannons before the houses blocked the view.
He was led into a long stone building. The sharp smell of alcohol told him that it was a hospital even before he saw the metal frame beds. The mare made him get onto one of the beds and pulled over a tray of tools. She had only checked his pupils when Morning Breeze put a hoof on her shoulder.
“Do that later,” he said. “I doubt they're seriously hurt. Get the other one awake and bring us some food and drink. Something hot. I need to talk with these two.”
Gingersnap pulled the thick grey blanket close around his neck. Moments later Coral Frond came to with a long scream. Fortunately the doctor had tied him to the bed.
“It’s alright,” Gingersnap said. “We’re not on the ship anymore.”
They bandaged his wounds and gave him a pillow to rest his head on. Through the chaos Gingersnap struggled to keep Coral Frond in view. The young unicorn was surrounded by five ponies, all of them talking in hushed voices and reaching all over him. A yellow unicorn mare carried in a plate with bread and jam and a pitcher each of water and milk, and then the three were cut off from the rest of the room with heavy curtains.
“Your captain told me that you have been in these waters for four months,” Morning Breeze said without preamble, picking up a slice of bread. “Is this true?”
Gingersnap stared at the stallion as he dipped the bread in one of the jam jars.
“Well?” He snarled suddenly, startling the bedridden ponies. “I have ships patrolling the Chain Islands seventy miles north of here to six hundred miles south. How did you hide a ship that big? And where has it gone?”
Coral Frond had retreated entirely under his blanket.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gingersnap said.
Morning Breeze glared at him with a fire in his eyes that Gingersnap had never seen before. He recalled the frightening apparition in the Spectre 's sickbay. Now there was no doubt in his mind that it had been real. Morning Breeze could do that, and much more.
“It was magic!”
Gingersnap’s head snapped to the side. Coral Frond had worked up the courage to expose his muzzle to talk. His whole body was shaking.
“It’s the tiles!” He continued, half sobbing. “It... It has to be! I was ordered to put magic into them whenever I was on duty. All the other unicorns did it as well! That's all I know, I swear!”
“Those tiles on the hull?” Morning Breeze asked. "What do they do?"
“I don’t know!” Coral Frond said, uncovering one eye. Seeing Morning Breeze, he retreated entirely under the blanket. “They didn’t tell me! I’m nopony important!”
“Right,” Morning Breeze said under his breath. When he looked back at Gingersnap, his anger had died down considerably. “What about you?”
“I’m an earth pony,” he said, pointing to his forehead. “I’m due to be promoted to ensign rank, but I’m not important enough to know much either.”
“I can see that,” Morning Breeze said. “But you know more than I do, and you can guess. Tell me: was the Spectre an Equestrian Navy ship?”
Gingersnap hesitated.
How much does he know?
“That’s complicated…” He began to say.
“Was it commissioned by the admiralty, built in one of the naval shipyard, and paid for by Canterlot? Did your captain inspect it, or have a say in its outfitting? Has it been tested like every other navy ship?”
“No,” Gingersnap said.
“Then where did it come from?” Morning Breeze asked. “You were dressed like a navy officer, and you say that you are one. Is the Equestrian Navy just a bunch of ships for hire now? Has it really come to that?”
“I was assigned to that ship by the admiralty,” Gingersnap said. “Most of my crew was. The captain, the mate… most of us came from a patrol ship on the northern shipping lanes.”
“And you weren’t suspicious?”
“We had orders,” Gingersnap said defensively. “The captain looked into it, but the paperwork was all there. Nothing out of line at all, but he said it felt unusual. We grabbed more crew to get a full staff, and then we set sail.”
“To hunt me down?” Morning Breeze said. “And those big guys who were tearing your ship apart?”
“Mercenaries,” Gingersnap said. “The admiralty wanted them onboard. They wouldn't have it otherwise.”
“You keep using that word,” Morning Breeze said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Which admirals are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” Gingersnap shrugged, and winced as sharp pain shot up through his limbs. “Honestly.” He paused. His eyes drifted to the plate of bread involuntarily. He forced himself to look into Morning Breeze’s eyes, and bit the tip of his tongue to get some moisture in his mouth. He had to speak now, or his heart would rattle him to pieces. “So what happens to us now?”
“For a start, you haven’t touched the food yet,” Morning Breeze said, gesturing at the plate. “The blue one’s saskatoon jam, the red one’s raspberry. That's goat cheese on the side. And don’t worry, this isn’t coming out of some poor shipping crew’s paycheque. It’s all grown in the Chain Islands. The plate might be from a raid though. You can’t expect me to keep track of every little thing that comes through here.”
After saying this he stood up and wobbled for a second, nearly stumbling before he stomped his good front hoof and shook his head violently. “My doctors and nurses will take care of you tonight. I’m going back to my house. And tomorrow… tomorrow we’re going to try to find your ship. Once they have you back, maybe your captain will speak to me as an equal.”
He lifted one edge of the curtain, and the attendants outside pushed them aside. Ponies in scrubs and lab coats returned, some of them wheeling machines.
The thorough examination took a whole hour. The staff seemed to hold no ill will against the two survivors. Soon Gingersnap was feeling rather at ease.
Coral Frond did not take it nearly as well. It took three nurses to wrestle him out of his cocoon. They wrapped his head tightly with bandages, and he spent most of the evening in a drug-induced haze. When they finally returned his blanket he immediately hugged it like an old friend, looking around with eyes pointed in two directions.
“He’s not doing well,” the doctor said when Gingersnap asked. “I expect some short-term memory loss. Do you know what happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Gingersnap said. “Those big guys on the ship… they hit hard.”
“You took quite a beating too,” she said. “I’m leaving some painkillers for you with the night shift. Once you start to relax, the pain might bother you. Try to sleep on your left side tonight.”
“Thanks,” Gingersnap said.
He didn’t realize how much he missed soft bread until he had his first bite. The nurses kept a close eye on him, but did not intervene except when he inhaled some crumbs. Coral Frond had to be fed, and only ate two slices of bread and half a glass of milk before losing interest. The whole time he had a dumb smile on his face, and he drooled perpetually.
By the time he went to sleep Gingersnap had washed the bitter taste of seawater out of his mouth entirely. He was warm and contented on the hospital bed, the Spectre a distant memory.
Through the night Gingersnap woke up once to take painkillers. At first he thought he was being crushed under a large stone. The pills were his teeth, which he had to swallow for some reason. When he drank the water he expected whiskey, and even tasted it. His strange state of mind remained until daylight returned.
He was allowed to leave after a lunch of egg sandwiches. Coral Frond was mostly back to his senses when he awoke almost at noontime. He could not remember anything about their conversation with Morning Breeze, but he took the news rather well.
“I’ll be back by seven o’clock,” Gingersnap told him, and lowered his voice for the next part. “I saw a harbor yesterday. I'll see if we can get a ship.”
The sky was overcast, but there was no rain yet. A few children were playing in the street, kicking around an old hoofball while a few skinny dogs watched from the doorsteps. Ponies were dusting off rugs and cleaning pots. It was certainly not how Gingersnap had envisioned a pirate town. For one thing there weren't nearly enough skulls.
Guards stopped him on the road to the sea wall. They wore steel armor over a black jumpsuit, with wool caps instead of helmets; a style unique to the Chain Islands, as Gingersnap had never seen it anywhere else.
“We have orders from Morning Breeze,” said one of them, a yellow earth pony stallion much taller than Gingersnap. “You're not allowed on the seawall or the docks.”
“Right,” Gingersnap said through chattering teeth. The wind was cold and piercing on the treeless plains beyond the town, and he had nothing to wear.
A stroll around the town’s perimeter revealed a rather large island. To the southeast there was low farmland, protected on all sides by overgrown earthen dikes. To the north were hills, growing taller and rockier with each row until the steep cliffs and rookeries some miles away.
Two long walls had been extended from the island to provide some shelter for a modest dock. There were two ships, each with a single mast and no visible armaments. They had been painted blue, but Gingersnap recognized them as raiding sloops.
That’s where he took them.
Morning Breeze had been a privateer before breaking away from Equestria. There had been speculation that he had retained hundreds of the captured ships which were supposed to be destroyed. Now Gingersnap was looking at the proof.
He was frozen to the bone when he returned to the hospital. A fire had been lit, and he took his vegetable soup and bread that night practically lying on top of the crackling logs.
Morning Breeze returned at eight o’clock, wearing a form-fitting blue jumpsuit with the zipper open to accommodate his injured hoof, and a heavy black cloak on top fixed with a big silver crescent brooch. He was neatly groomed and shaved, though the wind had rustled his mane somewhat. The rain started moments after he closed the door, and grew in intensity until the world beyond the deep, narrow windows was lost altogether.
Gingersnap stood up, but Morning Breeze went to Coral Frond’s bed instead. From a pocket on his cloak he produced what looked to be a shard of tinted glass. Coral Frond’s eyes widened.
“The sea ponies salvaged this yesterday,” he said, placing it on the floor and motioning Gingersnap to join him. “It’s a piece of that coating from your ship. Give it a try.”
Coral Frond shot a nervous glance at Gingersnap, who nodded in response. There was no risk as far as he could tell, and he was curious as well.
Coral Frond closed his eyes. His horn glowed, and what looked like a trail of pink vapor reached out from its tip. The moment it touched the shard on the floor, a hole appeared in its place. Gingersnap gasped. He moved his head around, squinting at the foundation of the building. The illusion was perfect.
“Invisibility,” Morning Breeze said, picking up the plate. His entire hoof disappeared when he held it. “And you don’t know what this is?”
“No,” Coral Frond said, stopping his magic.
The crystal continued to work. Morning Breeze put it down and frowned.
“This complicates things,” he said thoughtfully. “Right. I have a ship ready to sail; the Riptide . We’re going to another island fifty miles south of here. It’s much bigger than this one. We can find skilled unicorns there.”
“What about the Spectre ?” Gingersnap asked.
“It disappeared,” Morning Breeze said. “The sea ponies are on high alert, but they haven’t found it. It didn’t sink; that much we know. But obviously we can't see it, so the only chance you have is to come with me. We'll need a way to detect an invisible ship, and I'm guessing neither of you are experts in advanced magical materials.”
“And what’s in this for you?”
Morning Breeze paused and looked into Gingersnap’s eyes.
“You have no choice,” he said. “You can come with me now, or you can say goodbye to Equestria forever. So what will it be?”
“You know that we’ll lock you up again as soon as you set a hoof on the Spectre , right?”
“Will you?” Morning Breeze said. He held his gaze for a long moment before turning towards the door. “Come on. I’ll get you something warm to wear. Don’t keep the good master waiting.”
Outside the rain fell in sheets. In a warehouse down the street the two ponies from Equestria were given heavy wool bodysuits and oilskins. Gingersnap was grateful, but Morning Breeze still made him uneasy.
A trail of lanterns marked the road down to the dock. In a stone archway they got some respite from the rain. Morning Breeze finished off a cigar stub before leading the way onto the boardwalk.
The Riptide was the sloop on the right side of the dock. A few ponies were waiting on the boardwalk, dressed in oilskins with deep hoods. They helped the passengers across the narrow ramp, and the ship was moving as soon as they were onboard.
Morning Breeze immediately led them below deck and bid them to stay in quarters. All the space below deck was one big room except for a head and a half-wall for the kitchen. Beds ran parallel to the ship in three tiers against the hull, and a big table took up most of the space in the middle. A small furnace was burning beside the ladder, barely matching the three gas lanterns in heat output.
Gingersnap and Coral Frond left their soaked outer layers in a pile behind the ladder and sat down near the furnace. Overhead the rain made a muffled drumming on the wooden deck. It was no trivial matter to sit in one spot on the deck on such rough seas. Gingersnap had to brace himself against one of the bunks.
In less than ten minutes Morning Breeze returned. He threw aside his cloak and settled down beside the two. He did not say anything. Gingersnap and Coral Frond could not help glancing at him regularly. They were in the custody of the most notorious pirate of all time.
Gingersnap had imagined him to be much bigger.
“Why did you do it?”
Gingersnap bit down on his tongue. It took him a moment to realize that he had not voiced the question.
“Do what?” Morning Breeze asked. Gingersnap had expected him to be angry. Instead his eyes had taken on a warmer glow. He was smiling ever so slightly, and not in a malicious way.
“Why did you become a pirate?”
“Well, first it was a job,” he said, putting a hoof on Coral Frond’s shoulder. The latter's ears flattened in fear. “Privateering was a respectable job, you know. I think it still is. Proper privateering, I mean.”
“I mean actual pirating,” Coral Frond said.
“That was actual pirating,” Morning Breeze said, barking out a laugh. “I captured other ponies’ ships, carried off their cargo and took prisoners back to my base. You think that was okay just because Celestia told me to do it?”
“But…”
Gingersnap lunged at Coral Frond and grabbed his muzzle, clamping his mouth shut.
“It’s alright,” Morning Breeze said, using his good leg to push Gingersnap back to his spot. “It’s a good question. A sensible question. I was hoping you would ask eventually.
“Equestria betrayed me. It’s simple as that. I had some bad blood with powerful ponies, and it was no small matter. Yes, I was the one who started it. No, it was not entirely my fault, and don't you ever suggest it. But in the end my only choices were to die in Baltimare or get out of Equestria altogether. And where was Celestia? Wringing her hooves in Canterlot.
“Here's what I want you to know. Here's what I learned from this whole mess. If you hit your head again and forget all about me, just remember this: Celestia doesn’t want justice. She wants order. She will sacrifice anypony for the sake of order. As long as the trouble doesn’t reach Canterlot, it's no trouble at all.
“So I came here and built an empire of my own; one where rich and powerful ponies can’t leer down over me. Where they can’t have their way with me. And one day I’ll go back to Baltimare and bring my family here. Then I will have no more business with Equestria.”
Gingersnap stared slack-jawed at Morning Breeze. The anger on his face had grown and died. For a moment he had seemed like a giant; now he looked tired, and once again as remarkable as his guests.
“Now you know,” he said, staring thoughtfully into the glowing heart of the furnace. “Just relax here for a while. Sleep if you want to. The wind is strong tonight; we should make port before sunrise.”
He took a pillow and blanket off one of the beds and lay down on the floor. Gingersnap dared not look away. After a few minutes his breathing became deep and slow. Then he started to snore softly.
After some time Coral Frond took a blanket for himself. Finally Gingersnap did the same. He was not cold; the wool made sure of that. But he felt vulnerable.
That night he dreamt of Baltimare. And the train ride to Baltimare. And three ships, and boot camp…
He woke up in a cold sweat.
He was ancient. Somehow he had lost track of time. Six years in the navy, and six years eking out a living on the shipping lanes before that. The itching of sea salt, his cracked lips and cankered tongue... it had driven him mad a long time ago. He was scared and hurt, with whip scars all over. It was time to go home. He hadn't even eaten breakfast, he had left in such a hurry.
Fortunately home was not far away. A few hundred miles of open ocean was an easy swim, and then he could walk the rest of the way. By sunrise he would be back at that little brick house in ...ville and go up the stairs, and turn left and open the door to a little blue room, and pick up Mr. Huckleberry, and climb onto his bed.
Morning Breeze stifled a yawn as he led the two boys into Port of Mercy. The rain had become a dense mist; had he not known the path so well he could have walked off the side of the boardwalk.
The glistening round stones of the dockmaster’s house appeared out of nowhere. Morning Breeze followed it around the corner, until he found the bright red door. He knocked, and immediately stepped to the side and out of sight.
A pink filly with a dark blue mane answered it.
“Mary,” Morning Breeze said, startling her. “Is your mom here?”
“Yes,” she replied, a smile lighting up her face. “Breeze, we thought you were…”
“I’m fine,” Morning Breeze interrupted. “I need to speak with your mother right now. And don’t make a commotion.”
“Come in,” she said, hurrying out of the living room and taking the lantern with her.
“What’s going on?” Gingersnap asked as he pulled back his soaked hood.
“Just checking in with the dockmaster,” Morning Breeze said. “I want to know what’s happened since the last time I was here. This is one of the big islands, but I haven’t been here in three months.”
The girl soon returned with a bedraggled unicorn in tow. She had a dark blue coat and light blue mane sticking out in every direction. Nevertheless she smiled when the light revealed Morning Breeze and his companions.
“Well it’s about time,” she said, walking up to Morning Breeze. Her smile went away when she noticed his wounds. “Was it him?”
“Let’s talk in private, Moonlight,” Morning Breeze said. He glanced back at Gingersnap. “You two… stay here and don’t touch anything.”
“Who are they?” she asked, looking them up and down.
“Sailors,” Morning Breeze said. “They're with me.”
“Alright,” Moonlight said. “Mary, go back to bed.”
The filly looked mournfully at her mother.
“I know, I’ll make tea,” she offered. “It’s almost morning; you’ll need the fire anyway. And Breeze is here…”
“He's here for business,” Moonlight said firmly. “You have school today…”
Morning Breeze put a hoof on Moonlight’s shoulder and nodded to the doorway.
“Alright. Keep an eye on these two and make sure they don’t take anything. But don’t you whine when you get tired today.”
With that the two went through the darkened kitchen, past the darkened dining room and into a small study. Using her magic Moonlight lit three half-used candles on a tall stand and set down three pillows for Morning Breeze before taking one for herself.
“You heard about what happened a few days back,” Morning Breeze said, lying down across the pillows.
“Oh, we were in the neighborhood,” Moonlight said, looking at Morning Breeze with some concern. “We got your last transmission, and our ships were there before sundown. We couldn't salvage much. Most of must have sank. I never thought you were dead, though. Our ships didn’t find any bodies; nobody did.”
“Of course not,” Morning Breeze said. “He took them all.”
“But not you?”
“No,” he said. “Listen… we have another problem. Not a big problem, mind you, but I think you should know…”
Moonlight’s brow tightened as he told about the Spectre . She looked over the bruises on his face when he described the final moments before the sea ponies arrived, and breathed a small sigh of relief when he was rescued.
“May I see this ‘crystal’?” She asked in the end.
Morning Breeze took it out of his pocket. It was very light; lighter than corkwood. All of its stored magic was spent, and it once again resembled lightly-tinted glass.
“Do you know what it is?” He asked as the unicorn felt it with her hooves and held it up to the candlelight.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, passing it back gently. “But I’m no expert in magical artifacts. You’ll have to ask somepony at the academy. Once upon a time, I would have recommended you go to Canterlot.”
Morning Breeze answered her with an unamused stare.
“It’s true,” Moonlight said. “They’ve been gathering up books for a thousand years, and training unicorns for a few centuries. Whatever you think of them, they know their stuff. But I’m sure you can find somepony here who can figure out what’s going on. Now what about those two you brought with you. What did you say their names were again?”
“Gingersnap and Coral Frond,” he said. “But I got that off their uniforms. They’re young and simple. Not quite right in the head, I don't think, but that could have something to do with nearly drowning recently. They got caught up in this business along with their captain. They don’t want me dead, exactly. They want a piece of the bounty, but they don’t care much about me one way or the other.”
“If you say so,” she said. “And what happens to them when this is all over?”
“If all goes well, they can decide,” Morning Breeze said. Moonlight held his gaze steadily. “For now they’re with me.”
She nodded. They sat in silence for a moment before Morning Breeze got up. He wobbled slightly when all the blood drained from his head. Fortunately Moonlight caught him before he could set his mane on fire with one of the candles.
“I’ll get you some blankets,” she offered, gently lowering him back onto the pillows. “You shouldn’t have left that hospital so soon.”
“I’ll rest when this is over,” Breeze declared, immediately standing up as soon as the dizziness passed.
He stumbled into the living room and stopped.
Mary’s lantern sat on the wooden coffee table beside a tin of almond cookies and a mismatched tea set. On the rug the two young stallions were leaning against each other, fast asleep. Mary was curled up beside them with half a cookie in her hoof.
“I think I’ll stay a while,” Breeze whispered, while a smile crept onto the unicorn mare’s face.
He undressed and settled down in the writing room. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
It was past nine when Moonlight woke them up. Gingersnap could smell his own breath. The long-cold tea that Mary had made had been discarded. Moonlight gave them toothbrushes and towels and told them to wash up behind the house.
The view was breathtaking. Patches of fog flew by on the strong wind, passing over a long pebbly beach littered with kelp and driftwood. The harbor was situated in a natural bay about four miles wide, with forested mountains on either side.
The water from the tap was ice cold and refreshing. Gingersnap rolled down the front half of his bodysuit and scrubbed his hooves and face.
Moonlight prepared a breakfast of buttered rye toast and coffee. It was the best coffee Gingersnap had ever tasted.
“There are a dozen or so plantation on the southern islands,” Morning Breeze explained when Coral Frond asked. “We're at least two weeks from the nearest shipping lane. Nopony's going to lead a raid just for coffee. At least, not anymore.”
Moonlight caught Coral Frond stuffing a slice of toast into his collar, and decided to give him half a loaf for the road.
“What road?” Morning Breeze said, rolling his eyes. “We’re heading into town.”
But Coral Frond was already nibbling on a crust before they reached the city wall.
Two guards saluted them not far down the main street. Unlike the little island from the previous day, the settlement here was a proper city. The cobblestone street was wide and even, leading up a gentle slope. The houses were bigger too, and the morning market was teeming with ponies and griffins. Gingersnap was reminded of the giant portrait of the Saddle Arabian bazaar that hung in the admirals’ hall in Baltimare. The air reeked of fish and fresh fruit and spice all mixed together.
“Stay focused, you two,” Morning Breeze said. “You don’t have a single bit on you, if bits were any good. If you behave, I might give you some pocket money for tomorrow.”
But that was nearly impossible. There was a griffin with big tanks full of the strangest and most beautiful fish Gingersnap had ever seen. Fruits and vegetables so exotic that even a well-traveled captain in his last years would be hard-pressed to name. Gingersnap saw rams with four horns and pigs that stood taller than a pony. Sitting outside a barber shop was a shaggy black dog twice as tall as Gingersnap with a tongue like a red dish rag. Many times Morning Breeze had to drag him or Coral Frond along by the collar.
The crowd thinned at last. The buildings had been growing steadily in height. The ones that stood around the trio now were six floors tall, with magnificent buttresses and brass statues of ponies and griffins on their corners. Lush walls marked the boundaries of their gardens, their ivy turned almost entirely red. Morning Breeze led them through a gateless doorway on their right.
The garden, several acres in size, was entirely in shades of red and gold. All the flowers had gone away long ago. They crossed a moon bridge over a big pond full of bright red minnows, and followed the path up to the marble steps of the building.
Quite a few heads turned as Morning Breeze hobbled through the cavernous entrance hall. It was not that he was an earth pony; there were earth ponies and pegasi in the hall, though unicorns made up the majority. It wasn’t even the way he was dressed; Gingersnap saw ponies in everything from cloaks to welding gear as he trotted down one hallway after another.
Morning Breeze turned at a set of double doors simply labeled “magical research.” Inside was a high-ceilinged workshop with several dozen startled unicorns in aprons and lab goggles.
“Let’s skip the formalities,” he said. "Yes, it's me. Morning Breeze. In the flesh." His voice was not strong enough to echo in the big room. He sat down and took the crystal out of his pocket. “This is a crystal that becomes invisible when it’s charged with unicorn magic. It was used as plating on a ship. I need to know what it is and how it works. This information must remain confidential. Now where is Professor Blaze?”
There was a moment of total stillness before the other ponies in the room started moving again. An older unicorn in a silver cloak came over from one of the tables. He must have had bushy eyebrows once; there were two bare patches above his eyes. His yellow mane was streaked with grey. He had a serious look to him; not unkind, perhaps, but certainly disinclined to laugh. He took the crystal from Morning Breeze and held it up to the light. Then he set it down on a workbench.
“How much time do you have?” He asked quietly.
“Work as fast as you can,” Morning Breeze said. “I’m in a hurry.”
The unicorn nodded.
“Everyone, I have a new project.” He levitated the crystal over his head as he spoke. Its facets began to fade into the pale blue aura that surrounded it. “We are going to figure out what this is. You eight over there! To the library. You five! Materials lab! I want a preliminary report in two hours!”
The rest of the ponies gathered around, taking turns to hold and test the object. There were many gasps of amazement every time somepony’s hoof disappeared behind the powered-up crystal. The “materials labs” ponies filed off bits of it onto watch glasses and left the room.
Morning Breeze retreated into the hall with the two sailors before they could be trampled by the unicorns.
“That’s it?” Coral Frond asked after a few seconds of stunned silence.
“Those are some of the brightest unicorns in the Chain Islands,” Morning Breeze said. “There’s not much we can offer.”
Gingersnap caught Coral Frond staring into the lab with a look he had never seen before. His jaw was slack, and there was a half-realized longing in his bronze eyes. Morning Breeze noticed too, and sidled closer to the young unicorn.
“You can go in if you want,” he said. “They’ll be at it for a few hours at least. Don’t be scared of Blaze. He always appreciates a willing student.”
“What, you think I…” Coral Frond trailed off, looking between the faces of his two companions.
“I’ll have to take that bread off you,” Morning Breeze said, pointing to the satchel slung over his shoulder. “No food in the lab.”
Coral Frond untied the knot hastily and threw it at Morning Breeze. He was much slower approaching the door; hesitant, perhaps, but certainly reverent.
“We’ll meet you by the pond,” Morning Breeze said before Coral Frond disappeared into the room.
Gingersnap lay on a pillow, slowly chewing on a mouthful of hummus and rye. His eyes were fixed on the front door of the school and the constant trickle of ponies coming and going.
After leaving the lab, Morning Breeze took him on an hour-long tour. There were classrooms for mathematics, literature, navigation, architecture…
“This isn’t the naval academy,” Morning Breeze had said.
The truth was he wouldn’t know. Gingersnap had never been to the naval academy. A year of tuition cost two full years of his wage.
And I’m dumb.
Morning Breeze, wrapped in his cloak to avoid attention, was absorbed in a dog-eared novel. Occasionally he threw a ball of bread into the pond, setting off a feeding frenzy. The other ponies in the garden were likewise quiet, lounging through what could be the last warmish day of the year.
Finally he spotted Coral Frond coming out of the school. He was following six older unicorns, talking merrily. Fortunately they went their separate ways about halfway across the lawn.
“Hey Ginger,” Coral Frond said.
“Do you have any news?” Morning Breeze asked before Gingersnap could speak.
“Yes we do,” Coral Frond replied eagerly. “Professor Blaze wants to see you after lunch. Do you still have that bread? I’m starving.”
“What, already?” Gingersnap smirked. “Did they make you run on a treadmill like in the movies?”
“Hey, you don’t know how much energy it takes to cast that many spells,” Coral Frond said.
“Give me a minute,” Morning Breeze said. Sitting up straight, he waved at the school.
With a sharp crack and a puff of smoke, a picnic basket appeared on the bench beside him. Coral Frond stared wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open.
“I ordered this from the cafeteria,” Morning Breeze said, taking out three brown glass bottles. “Unicorn magic is pretty nifty. Now I know you hurt your head recently, but one drink can’t hurt.”
The dark beer was smooth and bitter, and icy cold. Gingersnap found himself enjoying it more and more as he drank, but it left him shivering.
Coral Frond was noticeably unsteady on the way back to the lab. He was only seventeen, and did not drink much except for the cheap rum he used to down his water. He drew a few amused looks from other ponies, but Morning Breeze was still the centre of attention.
“What did you find?” Morning Breeze asked as soon as he found Blaze in the workshop.
“Quite a few things,” he said, flipping through several loose pages. “It’s not a crystal, though I don’t blame you for thinking so. it’s actually closer to metal than glass. It was created magically; you won’t be digging this stuff out of the ground.”
“So what is it made of?” Morning Breeze asked.
“Mostly bronze, as far as I can tell,” Blaze said. “But that hardly matters. It’s a magic-composite material. You can make it out of just about anything. Most of what you see is a magical projection; foam, if you will. There’s barely a sand grain’s worth of metal in this whole block. That’s why it’s so light.
“This must have taken years to design. It can’t be based on a conventional invisibility spell. I know of a few, but they’re complicated and energy-intensive. You could conceal yourself and maybe one more two other ponies nearby for a while, but nothing like this. This foam… it takes all the skill out of invisibility spells. You just charge it up with a bit of magic, and it’s ready to go.”
Gingersnap exchanged worried looks with Coral Frond.
If our ship’s invisible, how are we supposed to find it?
“How do you turn it off?” Morning Breeze asked.
“Well, you can wait for it to wear out,” Blaze said. “Or just drain the power.” He looked Morning Breeze up and down with a serious look on his face. “Where exactly did this thing come from, Breeze?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you personally, Blaze. But at a time like this… it’s better that you know less.”
“Very well then,” Blaze said with a sigh of resignation. He turned to Coral Frond, who tried to duck behind Gingersnap. “It was a pleasure working with you. If you decide to come back in a few years, I think you can learn quite a bit more.”
“Th… thank you sir,” Coral Frond said quietly.
On the way out Morning Breeze gave them each ten small silver coins. They were much thinner than Equestria’s bits, with the image of a schooner with sails full of wind on one side and that of a goat’s skull on the other.
“Have a look at the book store,” he suggested. “You can get some good stories for three bits, if you don’t mind pulp paper.”
After half an hour they were standing in the garden once again. Gingersnap had a copy of The Last Days of the Giants , and a beautiful pheasant quill with a metal nib. He had nopony to write to, but perhaps he would start keeping a journal. The leather-bound notebooks from the store made him uncomfortable, however. Coral Frond had spent all his money on a bottle of ink, a pack of paper, a quill and a tome of spells.
“Can you even understand half of this?” Gingersnap had asked, flipping through the pages of dense letters and postage-stamp-sized diagrams.
“No…” Coral Frond replied, his face turning red. “But one day I will, right?”
Morning Breeze put on his hood as he stepped back into the street. To the disappointment of Gingersnap and Coral Frond the market from earlier had dispersed. The wagons were gone, leaving only a few rotten fruits and fish heads in the gutters, and some flies in the air.
After a few minutes, Gingersnap noticed that Morning Breeze often craned his neck to look behind him. Worried, he began following his gaze and checking the bystreets himself.
He caught eyes with a sand-yellow pegasus stallion sitting at a table outside a bakery. His gaze was cold, with a hint of amusement. It only lasted a brief second, but Gingersnap knew that something was wrong.
Inside a shop, a dark blue pegasus glanced into the street with one eye. A griffin (Gingersnap could not tell its gender) turned ever so slightly as they passed by the bench where it sat. It did not look up, but Gingersnap immediately wished for that specific griffin to go somewhere else.
“What’s going on?” He asked under his breath, unable to keep silent any longer. They were just five streets from the city gate.
“Nothing,” Morning Breeze said. “Just follow me. We’re going back to Midnight’s house.”
Within sight of the gate they passed a procession of ten guards. Morning Breeze grabbed their leader and pulled him into an alleyway. Gingersnap and Coral Frond tried to follow, but where stopped by the remaining guards. After a minute, the two returned, and the guards continued on.
Morning Breeze frowned as he looked over the harbour. Now that the fog had cleared completely, Gingersnap saw that the harbour was breathtakingly large. Boardwalks branched in all directions on the bay, covering at least a sixth of the surface. The Riptide had left, but there were a dozen similar ships ready to replace her. Several large ships were there as well, a few of them as big as heavy freighters.
Morning Breeze went into the three-storey stone cottage without knocking this time, and only called out after he had latched the door.
“Midnight! I need a ship!”
Hooves ran down the steep steps. Moonlight was dressed in a slack jumpsuit like the one Morning Breeze had been wearing on the night of his capture.
“They found you?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Morning Breeze said.
“Wait, who’s they ?” Coral Frond asked.
“Not right now,” Morning Breeze said quickly, pushing him away by the nose. “They must have come over the east ridge.”
“Nopony’s ever done that,” Midnight said, already upstairs again. “It’s impossible. There's nowhere to land.”
“Well they did it,” Morning Breeze said as he climbed into the large radio room that took up most of the second floor. “Can you get me a ship?”
“Of course I can get you a ship!” Midnight said, flipping frantically through a bulging document box. “You’re the emperor , for peat’s sake! Act like one! Just hop on anything with a crew! Have you told the police about this?”
“Yes,” he said. “As soon as I could! But there’s no telling how many of them got in! And you know I can’t just take any ship. I need something fast. Something with firepower.”
“You can’t take them on! I could give you the Firestorm , and you’d still be outclassed…”
Gingersnap’s ears perked up at the mention of that ship. The Firestorm had been one of the Equestrian Navy’s biggest gunships; indeed, one of the biggest ships ever built in any shipyard. It had been lost at sea five years earlier. At least, that was what Gingersnap was told.
“That’s pretty good,” Morning Breeze said. “I didn’t see the Firestorm out there…”
“It left five days ago for a supply run,” Midnight said. “I don’t expect her back for another three weeks.”
“What do you have then?”
“That,” she said, walking over to a window. She was pointing at a large full rigged ship. There were two dozen sailors onboard, and the boardwalk beside it was a mess of crates and barrels. “It’s the Infidel . It used to be the Barber .”
“I remember her,” Morning Breeze said, chewing on his tongue thoughtfully. “How is she?”
“Still a reliable long-range interceptor,” she said. “We haven’t modified her much; no need to fix what’s not broken. The cannons are all in working order, but she’s scheduled for a half-capacity run. Your main advantage will be speed. You got that?”
Morning Breeze nodded.
“Clear it with the master,” he said. “I want them ready in half an hour. I’ll tell them where to go once we’re far enough from here.”
Midnight ran downstairs and out the door with a clipboard between her teeth. Morning Breeze backed away from the window and sat down beside a half-assembled radio.
“What was that about the Firestorm ?” Gingersnap asked, walking up to Morning Breeze. “And since when were you an emperor ?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” he snapped, startling the younger pony. “It’s just something they came up with. It means nothing. And what about the Firestorm ? Do you think anypony except me would have gone after a ship like that? Do you think some common smuggler just climbed onboard one day, and all eighty of her crew just surrendered?”
“I thought the Firestorm sank,” Gingersnap said.
Morning Breeze frowned and cocked his head. He turned to Coral Frond, who also stared back with a confused look in his eyes.
“Wow, you’re serious,” he said blankly. “I’ll tell you what: once we’re on our way, us three will have a long talk. I don’t get much news from Equestria, and at this point that seems like a good thing.”
Gingersnap checked the window again. Midnight was trotting swiftly along the boardwalk back towards shore. The crew of the Infidel moved with a new sense of urgency.
Almost off the boardwalk, Midnight stopped abruptly. Her mouth fell open as she stared at something just out of view from the window. Immediately Gingersnap ducked beneath the windowsill.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, walking in a half-kneeling position until he was well clear of the window. “Midnight’s just outside. I think she’s in trouble.”
Morning Breeze was up in an instant. The front door had opened and slammed shut again before Gingersnap and Coral Frond stepped off the stairs.
Coral Frond was almost to the door when in a moment of clarity Gingersnap grabbed his ankle. He fell heavily on the living room rug and looked back with an annoyed expression.
“We don’t know what’s going on out there,” Gingersnap explained breathlessly. “Lay low for a bit, and watch the windows. Remember what happened in the brig?”
Coral Frond nodded. They stooped and proceeded shoulder-to-shoulder. They needed only to go to the living room window to see the problem.
Five ponies stood on the pebble-covered beach in front of the house facing the dock. Two were sitting, looking down long ornate sticks like they were crossbows. Gingersnap pondered this for a moment before he noticed tiny triggers on the sticks. The ponies were wearing gauntlets with backwards-facing hooks on the side.
“They’re armed,” he said. “The two sitting down have some kind of bow.”
“Look out for that unicorn,” Coral Frond added. “I saw darts under his cloak just now.”
As they watched, the unicorn in question began walking forwards. He had the thin build of a sailor, but his frame was bolstered by his padded jumpsuit and steel plates over his shoulders. Most of his body was hidden beneath a black cloak. The others remained in their place.
“Can you take him?” Gingersnap asked.
“I can’t tell,” Coral Frond said. “One-on-one and without armor or magic maybe. But I can’t think what to do with the big guys.”
Gingersnap looked to the high city wall. Surely a sentry would have noticed something.
There was no sentry on the wall except for two griffins. Their hoods hid their faces completely. They were aiming down the same strange weapons that the ponies held.
“Here’s the plan,” Gingersnap said. “We rush the two with the bows first. Stun them all as fast as you can. Then we’ll worry about the unicorn.”
“Okay.” Coral Frond gulped and clutched his collar.
“On three.”
The unicorn walked completely out of their field of view.
“Two.”
A fly buzzed by one of the sitting ponies’ ears. He lowered his weapon and wiped a hoof across his face. He turned his head to the left…
“Two.”
For some reason Gingersnap did not duck. For a second he sat transfixed by the other pony’s stare. He was an ordinary-looking orange earth pony in steel armor. His eyes, dark green ones, were nothing remarkable, but for an eternity Gingersnap just stared at him through the window, and he stared back. Time slowed down.
Then Gingersnap took a breath.
The pony’s mouth began to open. His body started to turn. The golden brown stallion to his right flapped his ears…
“Three!”
Coral Frond stood up suddenly, his bandaged head delivering a jaw-shattering uppercut to his companion. Gingersnap heard glass shattering, followed by a shrill yelp.
Thunderous explosions rang through the harbor. It was like cannon fire, but the ground did not shake. When he opened his eyes, there were several ragged holes through the south wall at about head-level for an average-sized pony.
Coral Frond was lying beneath the window rubbing his head. Most of the panels were shattered.
When his hearing returned, Gingersnap noticed shouting from outside. He slowly raised his head off the floor.
With a loud bang a new hole appeared instantly in the wall, letting in a stream of sunlight that illuminated a column of rapidly-moving sawdust.
“Get him!”
The cry came from the distance, accompanied by the rumbling of the boardwalk beneath many running hooves.
“Come on,” Gingersnap said, grabbing Coral Frond’s hoof and pulling him towards the door.
He would never forget what he saw. There were dozens of sailors leaping off the boardwalk and galloping towards the house. About ten metres directly in front of him the unicorn from earlier stood within a flickering pink bubble, his teeth gritted in concentration.
Morning Breeze held one of the stick weapons in his good hoof as he floated in midair. Midnight was beside him.
Sailors surrounded the group, most of them facing the city wall. A mint green unicorn mare in a zipped down jumpsuit was falling backwards, her mouth open in a silent scream. Red mist drifted in the air around her, and her shoulder…
Gingersnap squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked again, the stillshot had come to life. He ran towards the gathering crowd, still unsure of what to do. Several unicorns were blasting the pink shield. Coral Frond picked up on it quickly and started firing off his own simple spells.
The unicorn in the cloak stumbled, and the aura around his horn disappeared. Morning Breeze and Midnight landed safely on their feet. Gingersnap was about to pounce on the unicorn, but half a dozen others were much closer and just as eager.
When Gingersnap looked up the wall was attended by dozens of armored guards. The griffins were nowhere to be seen.
“I’m alright,” Morning Breeze said over and over again as he pushed through the crowd towards Gingersnap. “You two! Come on! We’re leaving now.”
Several ponies stayed near the house to serve as temporary sentries. The injured were taken inside, the attackers being handled more roughly.
“Double your patrols,” Morning Breeze said to Moonlight in parting. “Make sure you can trust them. You know how this works.”
“Of course,” she said, grimacing and rubbing her elbow. “I’ll be broadcasting any news I have. Keep your head down, alright?”
Gingersnap and Coral Frond were given a minute to collect their meager possessions from the radio room. They went down the dock surrounded by a ring of sailors; it seemed most of the crew of the Infidel had come to their emperor’s aid. If it was meant to be an honorary title, these sailors certainly didn't take it as such.
The Infidel was an ageing three-mast ship. Its hull had been painted over many times, evident by the bumps in the topmost layer of deep blue and black. Its plaque was made of bronze, completely green and almost unreadable. But despite its cosmetic imperfections, the deck was sturdy and spotless, and everything looked to be in working order. Ropes were neatly coiled, and lines run with the artistic flair usually reserved for christening. The sailors finalized their preparations with military efficiency.
“Captain!”
Gingersnap and Coral Frond both ducked at the exclamation, deep and powerful like gunfire.
The voice belonged to a gigantic earth pony standing on the aftcastle. Sharp crimson eyes stared out from a blue-speckled tan face covered with little scars. His beard was braided into two tails, and his curly brown mane cascaded down his neck, some of it nearly reaching the deck. With his tattered red jacket and tricorne, he was the quintessential pirate. The only things that could have added to the image were a peg leg and an eyepatch.
“Master Hornpipe,” Morning Breeze said, his voice sounding more pathetic from the contrast. “Are you ready to depart?”
“By your orders, sir,” he said. He looked quickly at Gingersnap and Coral Frond. “And who are your guests?”
“Just two sailors,” Morning Breeze said. “They are at your disposal until I need them.”
Gingersnap breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the answer. He did not want to find out what Hornpipe or his crew might do if they knew there were Equestrian navy sailors on their ship.
A pegasus mare in a jumpsuit offered to show them to their rooms, but Morning Breeze insisted on staying on deck until they were far from the island. Gingersnap and Coral Frond stayed by his side, being leery of the pirate crew.
Five minutes later the ship was manoeuvering smoothly through the maze of ships and boardwalks. More and more sails were unfurrowed, first the course sails and then the ones higher up. By the time they cleared the docks the ship was moving swiftly, cutting through the first big wave at the mouth of the bay without a bump.
As the big island sank ever lower on the horizon, Gingersnap thought he saw a gigantic black shape bobbling up and down beside the steep mountains on its east coast.
Gingersnap had never been in a stateroom before. He had seen plenty; had cleaned around several, and brought trays to and from the doors of a few. He had handled a silk-wrapped, silver-embroidered mattress meant for a stateroom. But the threshold had always been a sacred, forbidden thing.
After the first ten minutes it seemed rather boring.
The room was below the aftcastle; he could barely hear the crew moving about on deck. There was a small desk and a chair beneath the silk-curtained window, and a lantern hanging from the beam overhead. The two beds, one on either side of the door, were set into alcoves with a shelf and a cupboard above them and black velvet privacy screens.
After fiddling with the drawers and putting away their books, Gingersnap and Coral Frond undressed and each claimed a bed. The wool suits had left their coats messy and stiff, and neither of them had the courage to ask for a brush. The room was already far above what they felt they deserved.
“What do you think that was about?” Coral Frond asked, scratching his neck to soften the fur there. “I didn’t recognize any of those ponies that attacked Moonlight and Morning Breeze.”
“They weren’t ours,” Gingersnap said. Only his muzzle was visible above the well-stuffed pillow. “Rival pirates, maybe. Probably. In the end they’re all pirates, you know. They do what's right for them.” He paused and listened. There were no hoofsteps in the hall outside, but he got nervous nonetheless. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, mind you, but I don’t think Morning Breeze’s Chain Islands are as… civilized… as Equestria.”
“How can you say that?” Coral Frond sat bolt upright. Fortunately he was too short to hit his head on the top of his alcove. “They have a university, they have their own supply lines, they have cities and towns just as well-built as the ones in Equestria…”
“Okay! Okay!” Gingersnap said, desperately gesturing for Coral Frond to keep his voice down. “Maybe that’s not the best way to say this. Maybe they’re not so bad now, but you know how this all started. Whatever they have now they got from stealing. Think of how many ponies they must have killed between them. And this all started with Morning Breeze breaking out of prison. Most of these ships were stolen! He even admits it!”
“They had good reasons,” Coral Frond said. “These were desert islands! You can’t build something from nothing! What else were they supposed to do?”
“Why did they have to build anything at all?” Gingersnap said. "To escape justice? They murder a bunch of ponies, steal a few million bits worth of cargo every few months, and we should sympathize with them because... what? They're nice now? If any of these ponies had a conscience, they would have gone right back to Equestria. Heck, they wouldn't have left in the first place."
“Nopony would choose that,” Coral Frond said. “What would you have done? You’re floating in the middle of the ocean with twenty ships and three hundred crew, and supplies for a few months at most. You know that you’ll all be locked up forever if you ever set hoof in Equestria again. Would you seriously go back?”
Gingersnap was about to answer, but the sound of hooves coming down the stairs cut him off. There were at least three ponies outside. They did not speak. Gingersnap put aside his blanket and got on his stomach. Coral Frond sat up fully and turned to face the door.
There was a knock.
“Are you two settled?” Morning Breeze said in his raspy voice.
“Yes,” Gingersnap replied, falling back onto his mattress. Coral Frond also lay down and chuckled. “Come in.”
Morning Breeze had new dressing on his hoof. He was flanked by two bodyguards, each one with a leather-sheathed machete strapped to their side.
“Come with me,” he said. “The wardroom is upstairs. We have a lot to discuss.”
The room in question was spacious and for the moment sufficiently lit from the windows. According to the brass clock at the back it was nearly six. The walls were covered with charts and densely-written notes. A long desk ran all along the port side, cluttered with quills and pencils and long rulers and leather-bound books. In the middle of the room was an oval table made of a white stone slab bordered with red hardwood.
The two guards remained outside. Morning Breeze took a cushion out of a large crate in the corner and sat down at the stone table. Gingersnap and Coral Frond followed suit.
“It has come to my attention that we may not be on the same page on more matters than one,” he said. “Now we have a little time to set things straight, though I don't expect to get through everything . First, tell me what you’ve heard about me; what I did, what I do now, and how I got here.”
“You sank a civilian ship,” Coral Frond said. “It was some kind of yacht. Somepony really important died. You were arrested. Then you left Baltimare with your fleet before your trial. You also killed two ship inspectors on your way out.”
Gingersnap gaped at the unicorn. Seeing the look of abject horror on his face, Morning Breeze laughed.
“Most of that was right,” he said. “Yes, I sank a yacht. A very nice and expensive yacht too. Rumor was the Children of the Night had a say in its design, but I can tell you based on how easily it sank that it was an imitation at best. Be that as it may, do you think I would do something like that on a whim?
“That yacht ran down two of my clippers. I lost seventeen able sailors. And for what? A bunch of drunken kids; a son of Gold Standard and a bunch of his bratty friends. They had overwhelmed the yacht’s master and were running amok. I radioed them. I tried to reason with them. But when they started killing my crew, I had to put my hoof down. I was in the Falconeye with a full hold and a fresh crew. I saved as many of the crew as were left. Eight sailors in total, plus two cabin boys; they were the only ones they hadn't thrown overboard or stabbed to death. After that it took two minutes to blast them to bits.”
“Did it occur to you to call for backup?” Gingersnap asked.
“The navy would have escorted them back to Baltimare or one of the islands,” Morning Breeze said, glaring icily across the table. “They would have paid a hefty fine; it would have been a minor scandal. But there would have been no justice. Do you not understand that? Gold Standard controls your navy. Your markets. Everything. He’s the wealthiest pony on the east coast. And that night I became his biggest enemy.”
“So why did you go back to Baltimare at all?” Gingersnap asked. “If you’d stayed away, nopony would know what happened.”
“I was young back then,” he said, glancing down at the table. “I thought I could bring this to light; argue my case. Of course I realized my mistake quickly. They threw me in prison as soon as I reported the incident. They held a public funeral for that brainless brat, and you know what they said about him? He was an innocent flower; a green leaf, taken before his time. But there was no such recognition for my sailors; for my friends . And that's when I woke up from it all. Equestria is a lawless mess, and I vowed never to serve her again.”
Morning Breeze had bitter tears in his eyes. Gingersnap looked down at the table. He had seen something that wasn’t meant to be seen. The silence went on, broken only by the sound of hooves outside and the jarring ticks of the clock.
“So how did you get away?”
“Coral!” Gingersnap said sharply.
Morning Breeze sighed a deep, shuddering sigh. “I had help.”
“From who… m?”
“I had help!” Morning Breeze screamed, making both his guests jump. His voice cut out abruptly. He grimaced and rubbed his throat. “That's all you'll ever know. Please, ask something else.”
“What about the inspectors?” Gingersnap whimpered shakily.
“They were Gold Standard's thugs in disguise,” Morning Breeze said. “My crew and I found them lining our ships with gunpowder mixed with pitch. They were about to destroy my fleet; a few minutes later, and the whole harbor would have been burning. I made them confess before...”
He stood up and hobbled over to a cabinet, from which he produced a stack of steel mugs and a dusty bottle of black rum.
“Gingersnap, help me with this.”
Morning Breeze lit a lantern and placed it in the middle of the table. Gingersnap and Coral Frond only used the rum to flavour their water, but Morning Breeze poured himself a frighteningly-large helping. He took a sip and looked up at the others.
“Now what about those missing ships?” He asked. “The Firestorm was reported lost, you said. What about the Sunny Sky and the Trade Wind ?”
“Lost,” Gingersnap said. Hesitantly he added, “But I suppose you have them as well?”
“That is correct,” he said. “Most of the time I cast the crew adrift and send a distress call on their behalf. But they must have been very careless not to notice that their seaworthy ship was sailing away and not sinking as you say. By my standards now they're not great ships. They're sluggish and delicate, but not so outclassed as to be entirely useless.
“It about time that Equestria found out: I’m not just some pirate roaming the ocean forever with my little fleet. You saw Port of Mercy. That’s not even close to the biggest island I have. I have shipyards, plantations and great cities to rival Canterlot. My ships patrol these waters more efficiently than the coast guard does the Horseshoe Bay. You can send the entire Equestrian Navy against me, and I'll defeat it with a quarter of my fleet. If you ever get back to Equestria, that will be your report.”
At that moment there was a knock at the door. Gingersnap and Coral Frond turned.
“Come in,” Moring Breeze said.
The master entered with a billowing cigar between his chipped yellow teeth. The sun had set entirely, but there were no lights on deck.
“Cover that lantern,” he said, waving frantically. “She’s on our tail! Twelve miles I reckon!”
“The Spectre ?” Coral Frond said hopefully.
“The Snow Queen ,” Morning Breeze corrected. He threw a lantern cover onto the table and went for the door. “Kill the light and meet me at the wheel.”
Gingersnap did as he was told, his heart racing. Once the lantern was out, he could barely make out the outline of the door. He had to sit for a half minute before his eyes adjusted. It was that or risk tumbling overboard on an unfamiliar ship, but those were the longest seconds of his life.
The sky was clear and a half moon provided enough light to work by. The sails were taut with wind, the sea calm all around.
Morning Breeze was looking through a spyglass held up by Hornpipe. Everypony except the pilot was looking to the starboard side.
On the horizon was a tiny point of yellowish light, bobbling up and down ever so slightly. As his eyes adjusted, Gingersnap though he saw something like a tower. It looked much too big to be a ship.
“What’s our speed?” Morning Breeze asked.
“Six knots,” Hornpipe reported. “With this wind I can push her up to seven or eight on a longer route.”
“Do it,” Morning Breeze said. “Sail dark tonight, and keep some rifles on deck. Have someone watch the Snow Queen at all times. If she follows or gains on us, tell me immediately.” He looked around, and seemed surprised to see Gingersnap and Coral Frond. “You two, back to your room. I’ll send you your dinner. Do not light a lantern, or candles, or your horn. Just stay below deck until morning.”
Neither of them had the courage to argue. They sat silent in their dark cabin for ten minutes, until a unicorn brought them a tray with two bowls and a rather large loaf of rye bread. The soup was some kind of creamy chowder. Gingersnap chewed the bread carefully. He recalled stories from his childhood of pirates eating worm-ridden biscuits in the dark. Fortunately his tongue picked out nothing unusual that night.
He did not know the time when he awoke, but it was still dark. His hair stood on end; he thought he had heard a rasping voice in his dream, loud and hideous.
“Your will be done.”
Gingersnap lay stiff as a board, clutching his blanket. The voice had come from beneath his window. From water level. He fell asleep in that position, listening for the voice. It did not speak again that night.
Good sailors as they were, Gingersnap and Coral Frond were up with the sun. They got dressed quietly and snuck on deck, where they were immediately spotted by the pilot. Fortunately their curfew had passed, and they were allowed to enjoy the fresh morning air. The ship had sailed all through the night, and now island after island passed on either side. They were all floating mountains with steep cliffs to the sea in many places. The water below was full of jellyfish. A pod of dark grey porpoises played in the wake, squeaking occasionally.
Gingersnap looked in all directions, but the giant shape from the previous night was nowhere to be seen. He was not sure if he should be relieved or disappointed. The Infidel was no pleasure yacht. Even against a proper gunship she could probably hold her own. What was Morning Breeze so afraid of?
A young earth pony stallion in a tuque rang the bell for breakfast as a replacement team emerged from quarters. Gingersnap was about to follow the sailors to the mess, but Morning Breeze came out of his cabin and called them over. He was wearing a different jumpsuit, blue and orange now. His beard was nearly trimmed, and he looked refreshed. He looked barely over thirty, but Gingersnap had thought of him as somepony from the generation before his own.
“We are dining with Master Hornpipe,” Morning Breeze said. “Come on. He is a cruel master before his coffee.”
Breakfast consisted of warm scones and jam. Hornpipe’s mug was almost as big as the kettle. Contrary to Morning Breeze’s advice, he still seemed displeased after he had downed half its content of black coffee.
"Can we talk plainly, Breeze?" He asked, glaring at Gingersnap and Coral Frond.
"They're my guests," Morning Breeze assured him before addressing the boys in a serious tone. "We are about to discuss some important matters. I can trust you two to forget what you're about to hear as soon as you leave this room, right?"
Gingersnap nodded hastily. A part of him wanted nothing to do with pirate politics, but mostly he was curious. Many a time he would have given anything to see the secret meetings of his commanding officers. Maybe then he would have some insight into their baffling ways. Now he was given a chance, and practically for free.
“We’ve added two full days to our passage,” Hornpipe said. “We can’t just go back the way we came. And the Snow Queen is still on our heel. She followed us all through the night. We’ve made some distance, but Yellow Jack knows where we are.”
“He won’t follow us here,” Morning Breeze said, waving towards the window as another island drifted by. “It’s not deep enough.”
“You know that’s not completely true,” Hornpipe said. “But you're probably right. He won’t risk coming in here. If he’s smart, he’ll be waiting for us at Oakfort. And if he’s not, he’ll try to cut us off at the end of these islands. That too might work in his favor if the winds aren’t right. We can’t stay here long, in any case. I don’t want to meet the Snow Queen head on.”
“Who’s the Snow Queen?” Coral Frond asked with his mouth full, making Gingersnap cringe.
“Well, while we’re here, I say we should take some precautions,” Morning Breeze said, ignoring Coral Frond. “Jack isn’t supplied. I doubt he could bring many cannons over the mountains behind Port of Mercy, and there’s not one depot big enough to arm him fully. And that's assuming he can fight his way into a guarded depot. You’re sailing at half draught now. We can collect the cache here before he starts looking and bring it to a safer site.”
“Who’s the Snow Queen?” Coral Frond asked again, speaking clearly after a swig of coffee.
“But if the Snow Queen comes…” Hornpipe began.
“You’re only carrying thirty light cannons, Hornpipe,” Morning Breeze said, looking the bigger pony square in the face. “This won’t weigh you down. If Jack finds us after we take the cache, at least you’ll have a fighting chance.”
“That’s not a fighting chance!” Hornpipe bellowed, drowning out Coral Frond’s question.
“How big is this Snow Queen ?” Gingersnap asked.
Morning Breeze and Hornpipe both turned slowly to look at him.
“You’re clever, you know that?” Morning Breeze said, a sly smile creeping onto his face. “Go on then, what do you guess?”
“She’s Yellow Jack’s ship,” Gingersnap said shakily, his eyes darting between Coral Frond and the pirates. It was the first time anypony had called him clever. “And Yellow Jack is a pirate. But not one of yours!”
“That’s close to the truth,” Morning Breeze said. “The Snow Queen isn’t Yellow Jack’s ship. I loaned her out to him. Well, go on. What does that tell you?”
“He betrayed you,” Gingersnap said. “But the Snow Queen wasn’t fully outfitted.”
“Exactly,” Morning Breeze said, pointing across the table with his good hoof. “So what do you think? Everypony knows what he did. He can’t land at my cities without getting arrested, and he doesn't have enough marines to win a fight on land. All he has is a ship. But in my early days I set up several emergency depots on small, mostly uninhabitable islands, in case I was ever cut off from support. Jack knows about two of them; the one here, and another hundreds of miles away. Should we take the supplies already here, or should we leave it to him?”
“I agree with you,” Gingersnap said. “But I’m not the master.”
Morning Breeze turned to Hornpipe with a smug smile on his face.
“Alright,” he said. “How many dories do you want? I need enough crew onboard in case something happens.”
“I’ll take four dories and ten of your sailors,” Morning Breeze said. “These two are coming with me.”
“You don’t worry that they'll run away?” Hornpipe asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Where would they go?”
That was a question for Gingersnap and Coral Frond. Gingersnap glanced out the window at the little islands, completely foreign to him. A strong swimmer could perhaps get between them, but there was no sign of roads or habitation as far as he could see. Just dense forest and boulders.
He's going to leave us here.
But Gingersnap could think of anything to say, and Morning Breeze took his silence for agreement.
The landing party was assembled by nine o’clock. The dories at least were of a standard design. Morning Breeze got into the first one along with his two guests and an earth pony stallion from the Infidel . Coral Frond immediately began to put in the thole pins, but Morning Breeze told him to stop.
“We’re about half a mile from the nearest island,” Coral Frond said. “How are we supposed to get there if we don’t row?”
But Morning Breeze just reclined against the side of the boat. With his left rear hoof he started tapping out a rhythm on the floor.
“Just relax,” Gingersnap said, mostly for his own sake. He stuck his head over the side to look into the water. Below them was a dense forest of kelp.
The creature shot straight up. Gingersnap leapt to the other side of the boat with a cry of surprise, startling the others who immediately moved to compensate for the shift in weight. Another one had appeared just past the bow. Their glistening green heads rose out of the water on long necks until they could look down into the boat.
“Any news about Jack?” Gingersnap asked the one at the bow.
“He was heading south,” the creature said. Its raspy, sighing voice sent shivers down Gingersnap’s spine. It sounded female, but he had no idea how a male would sound.
“And the other ship?”
“No sign of her yet,” she said. "We are searching that area thoroughly. Nothing will be missed."
“Thank you,” Morning Breeze said. “Now, I need your help. I’m here to collect my cache. We are short on time, and this approach is too treacherous for oars. I need you to tow these dories to that island over there, and keep watch while we’re away.”
“Say no more,” she said. She saluted with what looked like a hoof. There was a bright red fin behind her foreleg.
Morning Breeze tossed down a bow line. The two creatures dived head first. Their long, snake-like tails slipped beneath the surface with the tiniest splashes. Moments later the line pulled taut and the dory began to move, gathering speed quickly.
“What are they?” Coral Frond asked, staring straight down into the water in front of the bow.
Gingersnap was beside him. The creature was swimming like a fish. Her forelegs were flared out, her fins open like brilliant red wings.
“Sea ponies,” Morning Breeze replied. “You know, the scary ones that eat land ponies. Except they don’t actually do that.”
Gingersnap watched the one towing their dory, mesmerized by her graceful, effortless movement. He did not notice the cliff until its shadow fell over them. After that he kept himself well within the edge of the boat.
For the rest of the approach Coral Frond and Gingersnap sat huddled together in the middle of their bench, clinging to the sides of the boat. Pillars of rock rose around them, and at times the cliff loomed so close that they could have easily touched the wet stone. Sea birds swarmed around them. More than once the sailor from the Infidel had to raise one of the long oars to deflect a diving gull.
The notch appeared suddenly; ten metres wide only and battered by white-crested waves, even the fastest rowers would have been hard-pressed to clear it without being smashed on the steep rocks on either side. Gingersnap would have covered his ears had he not needed his hooves to hold onto the bench as they picked up even more speed. The narrow portion was thirty metres long, and the cliffs slanted inwards as they rose. When the waves lifted them up Gingersnap thought the passage was collapsing.
The dory was heaved into the calm bay at the crest of one wave, and the water came to within half an inch of the brim.
The bay was near-circular and only about two hundred metres from one end to the other. Cliffs cut off view of the sea in most places, and a constant icy wind howled through the shaft. Gnarly plants grew on the grey stone, some clinging onto life with barely a dozen sickly leaves.
The sea ponies pulled the dories to the rocky beach. In shallow water they stood up, folding their fins. Their gill plates clamped tight against their cheeks and seemed to disappear. In this form they resembled lanky ponies with flat manes and long, pointed tails.
The beach went upwards, channeling into a single narrow crack in the cliff above several boulders. Morning Breeze led the way, with Gingersnap and Coral Frond close behind. There were two griffins in the group, each with one of the long pole weapons on their shoulder; rifles. Gingersnap had heard of that word mentioned by other sailors, but nopony had ever said how they were supposed to work. He had always assumed based on descriptions of griffin traders that they were some kind of spear.
The sea pony from Morning Breeze’s dory stopped at the base of the first boulder and turned towards the beach. The others stayed in the water with only their heads exposed.
“Bring the boats to the loading site when the tide comes in,” Morning Breeze said to the sea pony.
The crack grew narrower; they had to go through one at a time. The griffins stood up on their hind legs, pointing the rifles down the path over the ponies’ heads.
All at once they emerged into a forest of windswept trees. Behind them were tall grey cliffs, and the land rose around them in all directions. Tall conifers grew dense all around them, and there was no path through the senescing undergrowth.
“Alright,” Morning Breeze said, pointing away from the cliff. “The cache is a quarter of a mile that way. How’s your lifting magic, Coral Frond?”
“Not good,” he replied. “I can lift a cannonball, not much more. Count me as an earth pony.”
“I will,” Morning Breeze said. “We’ll have to work fast. There is a slope on the east side where a dory can land for about ten or twenty minutes as the tide comes in. In the meantime we’ll have to move thirty 28-pounders, sixty kegs of powder and one thousand cannonballs.”
“And you want to fit all that in four dories?” One of the griffins asked. He had been counting off his fingers as Morning Breeze was talking.
“Not all of it,” he said. “I expect to bring seven cannons, four kegs and a hundred cannonballs, and that’s with us in the water.”
Gingersnap stood perfectly straight and stiff as a board at that suggestion. The pirates exchanged worried looks.
“We’re scuttling the rest of it,” he said.
There was silence. Morning Breeze put his face into his good hoof and shook his head.
“It’s that bad?” The griffin said at last.
“I can’t risk it,” Morning Breeze said in a desperate whisper. “He has rifles and pistols for his whole crew. If he gets cannons…”
“We understand,” the griffins said, walking over and putting a hand on Morning Breeze’s shoulder. “Lead the way.”
The ground turned out to be wet mud. Gingersnap slipped on a moss-covered log. Although the sailors from the Infidel all carried machetes, Morning Breeze did not let them clear a path.
The forest floor soon became a field of lush green basins full of moss and lichen. The air was thick with the sharp sweet scent of fertile earth and pine needles. Morning Breeze signaled for the group to stop, and descended cautiously into one of the pits. He sank almost to his knees in the moss, and Gingersnap saw that the vegetation barely hid a respectable amount of water.
“It’s safe to drink,” he said, slurping some through the moss to prove his point. “You should have some before we pull all this up and make it murky. We put caulked planks above the pits where we hid stuff. That’s why they’re not draining like they should. You three, start going through the other ones. There should be four more.”
An earth pony, a pegasus and one of the griffins left the group, while the remaining sailors clambered into the sizable pit. Morning Breeze got out and supervised from the relative dryness of higher ground. The water was icy cold even through well-knit wool. It was sweet and fresh, and Gingersnap drank his fill before taking a mouthful of moss and pulling. It came up easily, and immediately became pasted against his chin and neck like a messy green and brown beard. The rest of the group laughed.
In a few minutes the floor had been cleared, and they stood in about five inches of moss puree. Gingersnap could feel the boards bending beneath his hooves, and occasionally saw the lines of black caulking between bits of moss.
“Open it up anywhere,” Morning Breeze called into the pit. “Just scrape up the caulking and let it drain. Once that’s done, you can pull up the boards.”
The water gurgled away through the breaks in the seal. Gingersnap heard a muffled metallic ringing from below; water dripping onto cannons, no doubt.
The three others had returned. They had found the remaining pits. Gingersnap and Coral Frond helped pry away the boards, the latter using his horn as a wedge. A lime green unicorn carried the long boards out of the pit with her magic, half a dozen at a time.
Black metal glistened two feet below. The cannons had been stacked without bases with no space to spare. Three cannons covered the width of the pit, and big wooden barrels labeled with black paint filled in the rest of the space. It was not the pirate’s treasure from foals’ stories, but the stash of seemingly brand new cannons was breathtaking to behold.
“Where did these come from?” Coral Frond asked between his teeth as he struggled to drag one powder keg to high ground.
“I don’t remember,” Morning Breeze said. “I might have traded for them. They might be the ones I brought from Equestria in the beginning. I might have intercepted them at some point. You’d be surprised how many cannons end up lost. They weren’t manufactured in the Chain Islands, that’s for sure. We have our own heavy cannons now, more compatible with the ones that the Children of the Night use.”
Gingersnap’s ears perked up at this yet another mention of the Children of the Night. They were ponies who lived in the griffins’ homeland, shrouded in mystery. Though their navy was supposedly far superior to Equestria’s, few Equestrian ponies had ever seen their warships. Their civilian ships were the fastest and most pleasant in any harbor in Equestria, but even Gold Standard himself could not procure one.
In an hour the supplies had been moved out of the pit: fifteen cannons, eight kegs and around one hundred cannonballs. Gingersnap was feeling rather winded. A few days in the lap of luxury had softened him. Even the hardy sailors from the Infidel walked at a reluctant pace to the next pit, their heads down and intermittently wiping their brows.
“Not you two,” Morning Breeze said suddenly, gesturing at Gingersnap and Coral Frond. “Gruff, stay with them. I want you to start moving this stuff to the cliff that way. All of this can go. Walk slow, and don’t get too close to the edge. If you fall in, we can’t save you.”
Gruff was a griffin with glossy brown feathers and a kink in his tail. He kept his rifle ready as he helped Coral Frond with the cannon. Gingersnap was strong enough to drag one all by himself. It was nearly two kilometres to the shore, and mostly uphill. The trees became shorter as the ground grew rocky.
Near the cliff the land became too steep to climb. Gingersnap wedged his cannon on a protruding rock and lay down on the tall grass. Gruff and Coral Frond were still quite far down the slope, just emerging out of the treeline. The griffin still had his rifle propped against his right shoulder. From this angle Gingersnap could see that the rifle was a hollow stick with a perfectly round bore.
It’s a tiny cannon.
Cautiously Gingersnap crawled up the steep slope, stretching his hooves to probe the ground in front of him. When he felt the rocky edge, he pulled himself forwards just enough to see over it.
The drop was about twenty metres into frothing waves. The cliff had been shielding them from the wind and the sound. When Gingersnap backed away, he no longer heard the waves.
Looking back the way they had come, he saw that the land flattened out at about five metres above water level for several kilometres. There was only one short section where the cliff looked rounded and sloped enough perhaps to climb; that was probably the landing site.
As his eyes scanned down the coast, something large moved suddenly. Gingersnap sat up and shielded his eyes with one hoof.
There was no mistaking it; a blue jacket. A brass button flashed once as the pony below dropped prone into a patch of tall yellow grass.
Gingersnap hopped down the slope to his companions, feeling light as a feather without the burden of the cannon.
“There’s somepony down there,” he said quietly, pointing to the spot where he had last seen the pony.
Gruff reached into a breast pocket and took out a spyglass, operating it with one hand while he steadied his rifle with the other.
“Equestrian Navy,” he said, clicking his beak irritably. “I see four… five. They’re watching us.”
He put away the spyglass and raised the rifle up to his eye. He leaned forwards slightly.
Gingersnap let out a startled yelp at the loud report. Gruff turned slightly and fired again. No less than six hundred metres away, a dozen ponies leapt out of their hiding spots, desperately looking for cover. At least six of them had crossbows. Bolts spilt out of their quivers as they tried to set up on the spot, glancing constantly between the hill and their weapons.
“Stop!” Gingersnap cried desperately as he cowered in the grass with his hooves over his ears. “Stop! They can’t even hit us from that far!”
“But I can hit them,” Gruff said loudly enough to be heard from a mile off, though he stopped firing. “I have two hundred chances, in any case.”
“Don’t!” Gingersnap said sharply, pulling down the warm barrel with both his hooves. He turned around. The ponies had stopped moving and were all staring at the trio on the hill.
“Guys! It’s me!” Gingersnap shouted at the top of his voice. “Coral Frond is up here too!”
“Gingersnap?” Came the reply from below. It was Snowsong.
“Yes!” He yelled, smiling from ear to ear. “We’re alive!”
Even from this distance the others’ relief was evident. They put away their crossbows and began up the slope.
Gingersnap did not notice Morning Breeze and the others until they emerged from the trees. Gruff raised his rifle again. The group near Morning Breeze immediately formed a wall between him and the Equestrian navy officers, though they were still well out of range. The ponies with crossbow sat down instantly, trying to recock their bows with shaking hooves.
Gingersnap facehoofed.
“Everybody calm down!”
That was Morning Breeze. For a moment his hoarse voice became clear and piercing. He cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder with a grimace. Looking into Gruff’s face, he motioned for him to lower his gun.
It took ten minutes for the group to get within conversation distance. Most of that time was spend in a shouted negotiation between Gingersnap and a hoarse-sounding Snowsong. In the end it was decided that all parties were to unload their ranged weapons and sheath all bladed ones. Even then some ponies in Snowsong's party walked with eyes twitching, as if their lives depended on their not blinking.
Snowsong looked the worse for wear. She had bags under her eyes, and the right half of her jacket was darkened with blood. Nevertheless she seemed truly happy to see her lost crewmembers alive and well.
The rest of the sailors had desperate looks on their faces, and stood on shaky legs. A few of them even lay down, and were not rebuked for doing so.
“How did you get here?” Morning Breeze asked in his usual voice, weaker still from recent strain. “The cliff runs all around this island. How did you land?”
“We crashed,” Snowsong replied. “I thought there was a shelf a few miles north of here where we could land. We nearly lost a sailor down there, and all of our boats are gone.”
“And why did you come here?” He asked. “What do you want?”
“We’re looking for water,” Snowsong said, looking down at her hooves. “We lost most of our freshwater supply in the mutiny; we ran out two days ago. We don’t have maps for this region. Please help us. We’ll all be dead in a day or two.”
“And you know who I am?”
Snowsong hesitated, staring into Morning Breeze’s eyes. There was no hiding her desperation.
“Morning Breeze...” She began in a gentler tone, but seemed at a loss for words.
“Alright,” he said after a pause, and turned towards the forest. “I have water enough for all of you, and barrels you can fill up.”
The pirates formed a ring around the newcomers. Gingersnap and Coral Frond fell into step beside Snowsong, getting a few odd looks from both pirates and navy sailors.
“Is Captain Winter Oat okay?” Coral Frond asked quietly.
“He is not well,” she replied, licking her cracked lips with a cankered tongue. “I don’t want to talk. Tell me what happened to you?”
Coral Frond did so enthusiastically and in great detail. Gingersnap kept an eye on the pirates, and especially on Morning Breeze. He did not seem bothered by any of this. Some of the sailors scooped up mouthfuls of wet moss as they walked, so great was their thirst.
Predictably their trek ended at a mossy pit, half excavated to reveal a foot and a half of fresh water. The sailors stumbled over each other to get down the slope. One pale blue pegasus had his head in the water for so long that Coral Frond had to tap him on the shoulder to make sure that he hadn’t drowned.
“Empty four of those powder kegs,” Morning Breeze ordered. “Scatter the powder and wash them out. And get rid of everything we’ve dug up so far. We’re leaving the rest of the cache here.”
There was some hushed argument, but in the end the pirates did as they were told. The powder was mixed with wet soil and covered with moss. Their work would not have fooled anypony, and there was still the issue of the cache that was already open. If Yellow Jack came looking for the guns now, he would have no problem finding them.
When Snowsong climbed out of the pit with her mane dripping with water, Morning Breeze was waiting for her with her jacket. Gingersnap had no idea where he should stand. He was still dressed as a pirate; his old uniform was probably in a trash bin on a distant island. For the moment he stayed slightly behind Snowsong and kept as many ponies in his field of view as he could.
“Where is your ship?” Morning Breeze asked.
“I’ll point it out when we're on the water,” she said without hesitation. “Thank you for your help, Morning Breeze.”
“It’s not for free,” he said warningly. “I need something from you as well. But let’s talk about this when we’re off this island. I want everyone working right now. Get rid of all those cannons over there. You have less than three hours.”
The navy officers were still weakened from their recent brush with death. It took two or even three of them to move a cannon. They left their weapons in a pile on the cliff. Morning Breeze tried to get his pirates to do the same, but they refused, and there was no time to argue his case. The griffins did sling their rifles across their back, however, and soon there was an unspoken understanding between the groups.
Gingersnap went about his work with renewed purpose. The sooner they got rid of the munitions, the sooner he could see his old captain. At the very least he could speak to Snowsong again. She was working alongside the lesser officers, and could not spare the breath to speak at length about the Spectre . It had only been three days since the mutiny, but it felt like much longer.
Morning Breeze supervised from the growing pile of munitions on the cliff. Periodically he looked out to sea, and his gaze seemed to linger on Gingersnap and Coral Frond more often than the others. An uncomfortable idea grew in Gingersnap’s mind with every trip he made.
Will they let me leave?
That thought scared him. Gingersnap had thought of himself as a loyal citizen of Equestria since he joined the navy at thirteen. It was an easy identity to pick up; his first captain had drilled it into his head that every sailor should be ready to die for their home. Gingersnap had come close to doing just that on several occasions, and each time his conviction grew. For a while he had felt truly ready to give his life, until he was reassigned to the milder Captain Winter Oat.
I’m not a pirate. He repeated again and again as he walked. It was a hard case to make wearing a pirate’s clothes with his gut full of pirate food, buying the pirates’ goods and now doing a pirate’s biddings.
And it felt good.
Would Coral Frond want to leave? Gingersnap had grown rather fond of the young unicorn over the past days. He had always found him tolerable, but now they were without a doubt friends. And friends were hard to make in such a precarious trade as sailing, and Gingersnap had already lost several through staff rotations, not to mention the ones that were permanently departed.
They finished with time to spare. Gingersnap collapsed in the grass and watched the pirates push everything over the cliff. The cannons rang like gigantic chime against the cliff before striking water. The cacophony could be heard for miles.
When Morning Breeze called everyone to attention Gingersnap could not get up. His muscles were locked, and ceased up with cramps when he tried to stand. Coral Frond and one of his old shipmates helped him up and supported him from either side. When he still failed to walk they carried him.
The tide was rising noticeably as they descended towards the landing site. Soon Gingersnap felt a light drizzle of seawater against his face.
The dories rounded the cliffs. With the sea ponies completely submersed, the empty boats seemed to glide through the water of their own accord. A few of the navy sailors cried out in amazement.
They reached the landing site seconds before the sea ponies ran onto land. The steep slope was mostly submerged, leaving a stone shelf under a foot of water wide enough for a dozen dories or more. Even Snowsong was visibly frightened by the sea ponies, who eyed the newcomers suspiciously.
“They’re with me,” Morning Breeze said quickly, walking to one of the dories without breaking his pace. “Come on. Gingersnap, Coral Frond, you’re still with me. Gruff, come in here too. And you three! Hurry up!”
Snowsong rode with two ponies from the Infidel and a barrel of water. There was no room to spare. As the tide continued to rise, Gingersnap understood why they moved with such haste. The water over the shelf rose quickly; by the time the sea ponies towed them away from the island the waves were starting to throw the dories up and down with considerable force. In a few minutes the hull would have been smashed open against the shelf.
About two hundred metres from shore the sea ponies put the dories in a ring and raised their heads above the surface.
“Where do you want to go?” the one that had been pulling Morning Breeze asked. The others glared at the new ponies. There was no mistaking their hostility.
“My ship is over there,” Snowsong said, pointing to the open water between two other islands to the east.
The pirates and the sea ponies stared at her quizzically.
“Just head that way,” Snowsong said firmly. “It’s about half a mile away. You’ll see it when we’re close enough.”
“Do as she says,” Morning Breeze ordered.
Gingersnap’s mouth fell open when patches of air started to shimmer. It looked like heat lines at first, growing more intense as the dories continued forward. In the blink of an eye tall masts appeared floating above the water. Loose course sails fluttered in the wind, and on the stern rigging the Flag of the Two Sisters was flying. A few metres more, and he saw the heads and necks and some shoulders of his crewmates, and no fewer than a dozen crossbows. They were much closer to the waterline than he expected.
“Stand Down!” Snowsong shouted to the ponies on deck. “We have water!”
A cheer went around the deck, though the ponies lowered their crossbows barely below the gunwale. They must have been within twenty metres, but the hull remained completely invisible.
It was a strange feeling, climbing a rope ladder that seemed to dangle in midair. Gingersnap could feel the smooth plates that lined the hull, but could see nothing but the sea beneath him. His crewmates who leaned out to help him looked like they had been cut in half at the waist.
As soon as he climbed over the gunwale, everything looked exactly as it should. Looking down, he saw the hull as he always did. The draught had increased by five feet at least, and it was easy to see why. Slightly forward of middeck a ten foot section of the hull was torn off completely. That was where the brig had once been. Some of the sea ponies swam through the ship at this opening. Their amazement was obvious even through the waves that distorted their faces.
Two ponies grabbed Morning Breeze and pulled him aboard roughly. A unicorn approached with a length of heavy rope. In an instant Gruff had replaced him, and a very confused pony was yelling and thrashing around in the water between the dories.
“Nopony touch Morning Breeze!” Snowsong ordered, loud enough to be heard from stern to the tip of the bowsprit. “These ponies are our guests! The griffins too!”
“Thank you,” Morning Breeze said quietly before taking a seat on top of a deck box.
The pirates helped with the winches. The ponies on deck were moving lethargically. The two on bow watch had their heads resting on the gunwales, staring hatefully at the black water all around them.
“Everypony get your mug,” Snowsong ordered as soon as the barrels were all onboard. “No fighting! There’s enough for all of you!”
There was no fighting, but there was a lot of pushing and shoving as everypony tried to squeeze through the limited number of doors. Gingersnap and Coral Frond retreated onto a mast to avoid getting caught in the fray. Four pirates dispensed water from the barrels, scooping it up with bowls and mugs alike. Other ponies came up from below deck; the finest cider in Equestria was never received with such enthusiasm. In half an hour about half the water had been consumed. Gingersnap noticed ponies bringing full mugs down into the hold, and hastily descended the riggings.
He intercepted a light orange pegasus holding a mug with each wing.
“Weathervane,” he said quietly. “Are those for sickbay?”
“Yes,” she said. Her eyes widened in recognition. “Gingersnap? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking the mugs off her wings. He nodded up at the mast. “Coral Frond’s up there. We're both alive. He’ll tell you everything. I can take these.”
Without waiting for a reply he turned and headed down the stairs. At first glance the crew quarter seemed to have not changed at all. Then he felt the crunchy salt on the second last step. Everything was coated in salt up to knee level, and the air smelled heavily of brine. But it was the sight of a white sheet that made him pause.
His old bunk had been cleared of its pillow and blanket. There was just a plain white sheet on the thin mattress, on which several trinkets had been placed: a silver bit; a blue silk ribbon; a stick of cinnamon, for some reason. It was a haunting sight. The same had been done for Coral Frond. Further down the hall there were more white sheets, but they had been treated with a lot less respect.
In all, five of the mercinaries had passed.
Gingersnap wiped his face on his sleeve before opening the infirmary door.
Every bed was occupied, and there was spillover onto the floor. There was a pony with his entire neck covered with bandages, and others that did not look injured at first. A few turned to him with half-seeing eyes. He passed his mugs to the nearest ponies who seemed to have their wits about them. There was already another sailor coming down the hall with more water.
Winter Oat lay on his back with his eyes closed. Bandages hid both his ears. His lips were cracked, and his face was drenched in sweat even though only a thin sheet covered him.
Gingersnap stood at his bedside staring into the familiar face, completely oblivious to everyone around him until he heard Snowsong’s voice.
“Go back on deck,” she said softly. “Everything’s going to be alright. There’s nothing more you can do here.”
Another hoof came to rest on his shoulder.
“I’ll call the Infidel ,” Morning Breeze said. “Master Hornpipe has a good surgeon and supplies to spare. They will be here before sundown.”
But the sun was inches above the water when Gingersnap reemerged on deck. Coral Frond must have been looking for him, because he was by his side in seconds. Seeing the look on his face, the unicorn did not say anything. Instead he sat down beside his friend and put his hooves around him. That made him feel a little better.
With aid from the Infidel all the injured ponies were well enough to leave sickbay after lunch, with the exception of Winter Oat. After making sure the captain was comfortable the two doctors excused themselves. Winter Oat could not get up, and only saw the others from an angled mirror above his head.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Morning Breeze said as he sipped his mug of tea. “I want your help. It’s a shame I had to damage your ship. The Spectre would be much more useful if it’s battle-ready.
“You see, one of my captains has gone rogue. You remember Yellow Jack, right?”
Snowsong nearly dropped her mug. Her surprise was quickly replaced with bewilderment.
“You freed him on purpose ?”
“He wasn’t happy about it,” Morning Breeze said evenly. “I was looking for able sailors when I bombed the Baltimare Maritime Prison. I had lots of ships impounded, and not nearly enough crew to move them all. Of course most of the old pirates were happy to get their own ships back, but Yellow Jack almost didn’t come. I was about to give his ship to his first mate. He never forgave me for that, but we’ve put our differences aside for the last fifteen years. He's commanded a fleet of twenty for the past three years without incident. He got the Snow Queen two months ago."
"And what's so special about this Snow Queen ?" Snowsong asked. "If it's that big of a problem, maybe you should just sink it."
“I can't sink it," Morning Breeze said, leaning forwards until his face was an inch from hers. "It's physically not possible. The Snow Queen is the decommissioned flagship of the Children of the Night. She’s far larger than anything Equestria has. That hull is impervious to everything short of our heaviest coastal cannons. She's supposed to be sturdy enough to ram right through a line of battle, and I don't doubt it. As part of our military alliance the Children of the Night provided the Snow Queen sans armament so we could learn how to handle their super heavy ships. I had my turn, and then gave her to Yellow Jack. Five days ago I was shadowing him in the Falconeye . We were driving downwind, at eleven knots, when he ran me down. It was no accident. He was sending armed marines to board us even as we sank. In the five minutes before my ship went down they carried off most of my crew and any guns they could find. I hid under the debris so he wouldn’t find me. I had planned to signal the sea ponies as soon as Jack moved on, but then I heard you launching salvage lines. In the fog I mistook you for one of my support ships, and tied one of your lines to that piece of mast I was floating on. That’s how you found me.”
“Why would the Children of the Night enter an alliance with you?” Snowsong asked, her brows furrowed. “They agreed not to support enemies of Equestria.”
“I’m not an enemy of Equestria,” he said. “Just because I killed a few ponies, undid most of the progress I made on the pirate problem and stole a bunch of your ships doesn't make me an enemy of Equestria. I am indifferent about Equestria as a whole, just like the Children of the Night. And I am perfectly okay with most ponies. I am an enemy of Gold Standard and his circle of clowns, and with good reason. The Children of the Night clearly agree with me. And as to what they get out of this deal, the Chain Islands is a strategic location. Their ships can resupply up to two weeks in advance by stopping here.”
“Is that why we don’t see many of their ships in Equestrian waters?” Snowsong asked. “They’re all anchoring here?”
“You can speculate on it all you like,” Morning Breeze said, smiling slyly. In truth he wanted to gloat about his control of Equestria’s trade, but this was neither the place nor the time. “The point is, Yellow Jack has one of the most powerful ships in the world at his disposal, and he’s dangerously close to getting cannons for it. Once he’s armed, he’ll be able to sail right up to Baltimare.”
“And you’ll do the same thing if you had it,” Snowsong pointed out.
“Maybe,” Morning Breeze said with a shrug. "But I don't have nearly as long a history of hanging bits of my enemies from the riggings of my ship."
“Why don't you do it yourself?”
Everyone turned at the sound of that voice. They had forgotten Winter Oat completely.
“You want our help. Why?” He asked. “Where are your ships? You left Baltimare with at least forty gunships, and no shortage of interceptors. Assuming half were lost, and I know you're not that careless, and assuming you have not captured or built anything since then, that still leaves you with a bigger fleet than any Equestria has ever sent out to battle. Use it.”
“Hey, you’re one to talk!” Morning Breeze snapped. “You’re on my ship, eating my food, using up my supplies. You owe me!”
“And what are you telling me to do?” He continued, as calm as can be. “That we should sneak up on the Snow Queen and retake her, right? Why? She was unarmed. Is unarmed. And from what Gingersnap told me, I’ve thought up a few dozen ways you could have taken out the Snow Queen two days ago. So what is it? Why is he still out there?”
Morning Breeze glared at him, chewing his tongue.
“Hornpipe,” he said at last in a low, calm voice. “Throw Winter Oat overboard.”
“What’s your plan?” Snowsong said immediately, stepping between the pirates and the bed.
“You be quiet,” Winter Oat said passively. “Morning Breeze, Hornpipe, don't tell me you're resorting to threats already. We've only been here a few minutes. It's foolish and you know it. You’ll just cause a scene, and at the end of it we’ll come back here looking rather stupid; all of us. So while this is still a private matter, why don’t you speak honestly for a moment? Right now I have no reason to believe anything you say. For one thing, you left Baltimare with about seven hundred sailors. You didn’t have enough ponies to fill even one of your islands as Gingersnap described. And the strange thing is, in all these years you’ve never taken anypony against their will. How did you build and fill an entire city as big as Canterlot in fifteen years?”
“We had help,” Morning Breeze said.
“From the zebras?” Winter Oat asked.
“Several hundred of them, yes,” he said.
"And do a few hundred zebras turn into tens of thousands of grown-up ponies and griffins if you put them on an island for a few years?"
Hornpipe chuckled as Morning Breeze slowly turned red. He thought he was starting to understand how Winter Oat ended up taking in a whole crew of misfits.
"The Children of the Night helped quite a bit too," Morning Breeze admitted. He felt like a rat in a pantry where the light had just been turned on.
“I see,” Winter Oat said, smiling knowingly. “So now we’re at the heart of the matter. How did you meet them? I suppose you ran into their ships often enough, but they’re not known for supporting random pirates. How did you get their attention?”
“I was raiding their ships,” Morning Breeze said. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Even back then ships from Equestria don’t come anywhere near the Chain Islands. At first we set up on some of the southern islands, but that only solved the problem of food. We could survive well enough, but we couldn’t build much. In the first few years we made long voyages to Equestrian waters to take your ships and supplies, and we also had agreements with zebras. The first time I attacked one of the Children of the Night’s ships was by accident. It was a big, well-built freighter. They had fresh food, the best oats, and an armory unlike any I'd ever seen. And they were so close. We caught them off-guard with superior numbers; that's the only reason we captured them at all. We didn’t know who she belonged to until we got a closer look at their coins back on our island.
“After that my hooves were tied. The pirates wanted more. Even my old crew wanted in. For some reason the trade ships just kept coming. They must have worked out some agreement with Equestria at around that time, and to get to Equestria the Children of the Night had to cross the Chain Islands. Their ships were always well-armed, but we managed to catch stragglers often enough to make it worthwhile.
“Eventually they sent a fleet to deal with us. I told my pirates to surrender, and several captains including Yellow Jack agreed. We were sure they would treat this as their own matter and not get Equestria involved. But the crew mutinied and set us adrift as the fleet approached.
“The pirates were overpowered in a few hours. I was worried they would scuttle the Falconeye then, but in the end they showed us mercy. There were about a hundred pirates left in five ships that surrendered.
“Most of my captains died in battle. Just like they wanted, I suppose. But the Children of the Night heard my case, and offered help to build up the Chain Islands. They repaired our ships, and sent us a few of their old ships to replace the ones we'd lost.”
“And in return?” Winter Oat asked.
“In return I gave them copies of my complete maps of the Chain Islands, and access to all the ports at all times without exception,” Morning Breeze said. "They let me run things on their behalf, and made sure the survivors got respectable work. As long as the ports keep running they let us do whatever we want. Most of the ponies I sprang from Baltimare are retired from pirating altogether. One of them even moved to Kelp Town. She's a seamstress now."
“But the Children of the Night won’t be pleased to find out that you lost their old flagship,” Winter Oat said. “They might be masters of the high seas, but they don’t want a fight with Equestria. You're obviously biding your time, but Yellow Jack wants his fight right now. They’ve had you on a long leash, but this might be the last straw.”
Morning Breeze sighed heavily. He hated that mental image of a skinny dog on a leash. When he did look up, it was with a face he had not worn since that afternoon the Sparrowhawk pulled him and his “loyal” captains out of the water.
“I can help you, you know?” Winter Oat said. “With both of your problems. My crew will help you with Yellow Jack, but you have to come back to Equestria with me. Seriously consider it, at the very least. The Children of the Night are not to be trifled with; you should know that by now. Nopony knows their heart except the ones they claim as their own. They don't keep allies. Eventually they'll make you take a side, and you'll either be destroyed or bound forever by their ways. You won’t be anyone's prisoner if you come with me, and I will make sure that you get an audience with Princess Celestia herself before you land. I can do that for you. Trust me.”
Morning Breeze eyed him suspiciously, his anger simmering below the surface. He wanted to argue, but feared that he would say too much. How could he know anything about the Children of the Night? Certainly he had never met them. But the older stallion seemed completely lucid. There was nothing patronizing about his tone, and no sign of trickery.
“Fine,” he said slowly. "But I want you to consider my side of things as well. I want you to see with your own eyes the things I’ve built in the Chain Islands. Consider all the times those stuffy old ponies far away left me and you and every one of your crew for dead, and how they disowned us when we proved them wrong. Try to tell me how the Children of the Night can be worse than that. And think about what all these ponies- millions of ponies- will be losing if Yellow Jack gets his way. I just might go with you, captain, but I won't set foot in Baltimare again on anypony’s terms but mine.”
He was numb down to his chest when he finished, and he realized too late that he was breathing rather heavily. Standing on his own ship, he had been forced to plead his case with his prisoners. But if Hornpipe had any opinion on the matter, the respect written on his face was not a bit diminished.
“We have a deal then,” Winter Oat said. “Now what is your plan?”
The Infidel sailed at a sluggish pace, with the Spectre creaking along in tow. Gingersnap sat in a hammock in the riggings, staring at the horizon to the west. Hanging from a chain linked to the collar of his jumpsuit was a pocket watch, its gold cover decorated with etchings of hummingbirds and tropical flowers. Once in a while a white speck appeared at the edge of the sky. He would take its bearing and time on a dog-eared notebook, and scratch it out if it turned out to be a bird. The radio had gone completely silent at three in the morning, and had been so ever since.
Morning Breeze was reluctant to put the Spectre ’s crew to work, especially Coral Frond and Gingersnap. Graduate he was of the naval academy, he offered to teach them navigation and battle tactics, but Gingersnap was as apathetic and Coral Frond was eager. From his hammock Gingersnap could still hear the lecture clearly. Morning Breeze, with his light blue bodysuit showing through the open zipper of his jumpsuit, was speaking just loud enough to be heard. The volume was quite impressive given his condition. He had attracted a small crowd, including a lone seagull, though it was probably waiting for his sandwich to fall apart.
When he was not writing in it Gingersnap hugged the notebook tight against his chest. It was a nervous habit for which he had received much grief on his old ships, especially the cargo freighters where crushable ware had been plentiful. Winter Oat had always been lenient in this matter, and for a while Gingersnap thought he had grown out of it.
Idiot.
Morning Breeze had an inch of his sandwich left when the seagull saw its chance. He was gesturing at storm clouds on the horizon, describing the winds and waves at various distances to a storm. The sandwich stub was balanced on his hoof over the water. The seagull launched off the deck, snatched it up and rode the wind high above the deck.
The sailors erupted with laughter. Gingersnap slapped his knee, forgetting all about the notebook until slid off his heaving chest.
It landed with a loud bang four metres below. The old dried-out bindings exploded, and the wind quickly picked up the yellowing pages.
Slowly Gingersnap leaned over the side of his hammock and looked down.
Everyone was staring right at him.
The next few moments went by in a blur. He saw ponies talking to him from the deck. He could not hear them, nor could he answer. Then Morning Breeze was climbing towards him. Somepony must have alerted Hornpipe, because he was on his way to middeck.
Morning Breeze was right next to him. Gingersnap could not understand him either, but in his hissing voice he perceived a threat. He could not move as the pirate reached for him, his coat turning pure white before his eyes and taking on black stripes. But there was no scimitar in his hoof.
Hornpipe appeared moments later. Together they untied the hammock and lowered him gently to the deck. Snowsong was there to help him up. Before he regained his voice she was leading him down the steps into the mess. He felt like he was running, and the deck had been raised to several times its usual height, and the steps replaced with a tightrope. He thought he would fall for sure, but Snowsong supported him firmly with a combination of magic and her own strength.
The mess was taken up entirely by long benches along two counterbalanced tables. Mugs and pans dangled dense from the beams. Beds rose in four tiers along the hull, each one fitted with a privacy screen. Snowsong sat down beside him on the bench against the starboard side. She put one hoof over his shoulders and blocked his view of the open door the the galley. The darkness and calm soon eased him back to reality, and Gingersnap realized that he was covered in sweat.
He buried his face in his hooves. His eyes were dry and aching. He wriggled his jaw, licking his teeth to make sure that nothing had been damaged.
Snowsong was looking at him with that look. Her lips were curled, but it was not quite a smile. She was about to say that she was proud of him. That he was making progress. But Gingersnap always thought that there was a degree of embarrassment in her eyes.
It had been nearly three years since Gingersnap came out of his long stupor under Snowsong's care, yet he was not cured . Not completely. He had gone for months without incident. The memories had faded. The nightmares had stopped entirely. But he was still not normal .
"Sit here for a bit," she said. "I can stay with you. Or would you rather be alone? You can go back to your room if you want."
Gingersnap bit his tongue. What he wanted to say was completely unreasonable. It was the whining of a spoiled child. Before he knew his letters he had learned to silence that thought as soon as it formed. But the yearning never went away.
I want to go home.
"Thank you," he said instead. The smile that he gave her would not have convinced even himself. "Thank you for everything. I'm alright now."
He thought there was some reluctance in her steps as she left him. He waited a few seconds after the hatch was closed before letting out a long sigh. He felt a slight urge to cry, but he was too busy plotting his escape. Once he got back to Equestria he would run. He could easily make the jump from the deck to the pier. Nopony would be expecting that kind of desertion; it had never happened before. He would run right past Customs and the MP, and disappear into the city before anypony realized what he was doing. In a few months he could be in the Canterlot Archives. He would find a birth record. He would eventually find his house and his room just as he had left it. And his mother would be there, as beautiful and happy as she ought to be. And perhaps he had brothers and sisters too...
"Why are you here?"
Gingersnap dumped the rinse water overboard. Hornpipe had personally tied a rope to each of the wooden buckets that he was allowed to use. Somehow the gesture seemed worse than twenty lashes, but quite a bit better than fifty.
The night was clear and chilly, and a nearly full moon gave him nearly as much light as his lantern. Soon the nights would be quite uncomfortable. Gingersnap had his jumpsuit rolled down to his waist. It was not the best-looking uniform, but it was comfortable and he would surely need it to last the winter.
"I was worried about you," Coral Frond said, sitting down beside Gingersnap on the deck box. He picked up a dirty brass bowl and reached for the soap bucket, but a glare from Gingersnap made him reconsider.
"I'm fine," he said without looking at the unicorn. "It's nothing serious. You know, me and my dramatic staring."
"Come on, don't be like that," Coral Frond said, sidling closer. "After all we've been through together! You can talk to me, you know? If you have anything to say, anything , you can tell me."
Gingersnap dropped the bowl into the rinse bucket and looked at Coral Frond. He appeared exactly as he should, his face as sincere as his voice. He liked that face, despite his best efforts to be indifferent. The events of the past days had forced them together. As much as he dreaded the idea, Gingersnap knew that he had made a friend.
"Alright," he said at last, his voice barely more than a whisper. He wrinkled his nose to stop himself from crying. He couldn't remember the last time he said it out loud. He was afraid that he would hear his own voice from years and years ago. Indeed he thought he did. "I want to go home, Coral Frond."
"Why don't you..."
The rag, backed with a laborer's firm hoof, made a wet snap against the back of his head. Coral Frond flew three feet and fell face-first onto the gunwale. To his credit he did not cry out.
"I've wanted to!" Gingersnap said. He was no louder than before, but in his ears a hundred voices were yelling. "I've always wanted to! For as long as I can remember!"
He stopped abruptly when Coral Frond raised a hoof. When the unicorn turned around, Gingersnap's anger turned to guilt. His left eye was swollen, with the surrounding bruise going across the bridge of his bloodied nose. But Coral Frond did not shy away. Instead he sat down on the deck with his back against the gunwale and put a hoof over his nose.
"'eep going," he said.
Gingersnap took a few deep breaths. The short break made him calm down considerably.
"For as long as I can remember," he said slowly, looking over Coral Frond's head at the dark sea that surrounded him. "Whenever a job was close to done, I would dream of going home. I would tell myself that as soon as we made port I would take some time off and have a look around. Try to find out where I came from."
Coral Frond nodded. Gingersnap hesitated. He felt like he had already said too much, but it barely scratched the surface of what he wanted to say.
"I've been passed around so many times, Coral Frond," he said. He could feel pressure building in his sinus, yet talking was becoming easier. He closed his eyes, searching his memories for something else to say. "I don't know where I came from. It's like I just appeared on somepony's ship one day, and they decided to put me to work. Sometimes I... I remember things. Or I think I do. I can remember a town of some sort, far from the coast, and a house. There's a room on the second floor with blue walls. A foal's room. I think it was mine. I had a mother and a father. I don't know their names or what they look like, but..."
He mouthed the words, but nothing came out. Clearing his throat, he tried again.
"They loved me," he said. His face was wet with tears, but the words came so easily that he would sooner drink the briny dishwater in his bucket than stop. "That love kept me going. When times got tough, I thought of that house and that town, and my father and mother, all of it waiting for me. If I really needed to; if I really, really had to; I could go back to them. I would find them somehow, and they'd take me back.
"But every time my ship reached port I wouldn't do any of that. After a good meal I would convince myself that it wasn't so bad. I would find work on the docks, or stay as my captain's servant. I could endure it, and... wouldn't they be proud of me if I returned home rich? Wouldn't they love me even more?"
He paused to look around, but the only others on deck were two griffins on anchor watch atop the aftcastle.
"I still want to believe it, Coral Frond," he whispered breathlessly. "I want to see my mother again. I want to play in those streets, and call that lovely little town home. And if I ever lay down in that blue room, I swear I could sleep for days. But I know I'm too old for all of that. I'm not a child anymore, but everything I could do, everything that I want to do, is childish. So I have to keep this up.
"I don't know what comes next, Coral Frond. I think this is the last time. When we get back to Equestria I'll have to go somewhere . It's treason, I know, but once I get away from the coast I don't think anyone will try to hunt me down. I'm nopony important. I don't want to be passed around for the rest of my life with nothing to my name, not even the clothes on my back. But I've never been anything but a common sailor, and I don't think they'll need those once I leave the coast."
Coral Frond's hooves were covered with blood and his nose was blocked, but somehow he managed to speak.
"Is there anything I can do?"
Gingersnap stared at his friend, too embarrassed to apologize. He hadn't meant to hurt him so badly. There was no way they could pass it off as an accident. Unless...
"Yeah, one thing," he said slowly, wincing at the idea even as he voiced it. "Take that bucket and smash it over my head."
Coral Frond snorted, shooting a geyser of blood onto the deck.
"What?"
"You'll have to go to sickbay for that, and I really don't want to take the blame. Let's just pretend we were fighting, okay?"
"What?"
"You want to help me? This is the best thing you can do for me right now. Someday I'll find a way to fix myself. Until then you can help me with the little things, alright?"
Coral Frond looked over to the bucket and covered his eyes with one hoof, revealing a bloodied, mischievous smile.
"You'll have to hit me hard," Gingersnap said, squeezing his eyes shut and baring his teeth. "I'm made of sturdier stuff than you are."
They moved out of the lantern light. The anchor watch, engrossed in a game of cards, never noticed the commotion. Gingersnap grunted with each impact. The ragged edge of the bucket caught his ears more than once, and left shallow gashes on his shoulders.
"A bit more," he said more than once after reaching up to feel the damage.
He thought the bucket took it worse than he did.
They left the clean dishes out to dry on deck and went down to sickbay, both of them convincingly bloodied and bruised. They tried hard not to laugh as they recounted their tall tale of a wager over the words to a song. Even if the doctor didn't quite believe them, they were at least safe until morning. When they were finally left alone for a moment they both broke out laughing. They didn't know why.
“So what made you turn?”
Morning Breeze peeled his eyes from the line of ships on the horizon and looked at the yellow stallion beside him. The rim of the dory hovered about half a foot above the surface. He wanted to jump into the water just so he could stretch his legs. Surely the others would be grateful to shed a little weight, and he was the only one who didn't really need the boat.
“Why did you run?” He asked, casually gesturing to the horizon. “I know it got rough for you near the end, but is this really better? We’re about to be executed, and I don't think hanging will do. I heard the Children of the Night will have you quartered if they hate you enough. This is your last chance to talk before they cut out your tongue.”
Morning Breeze shot him a poisonous glare. The stallion laughed, and soon coughed up a big gob of black phlegm. This he spat overboard.
"It's such a pity," he continued while Morning Breeze looked away in disgust. "Equestria lost a good admiral in you. The best they'd ever have, if they hadn't turned on you. And for what it's worth, I don't think you did anything wrong. Equestria could do well with fewer spoiled brats running around. They would have gone on to kill way more ponies than you ever did."
"Can you be quiet?" Morning Breeze hissed through his teeth.
“Very well then.”
A gigantic prow replaced the sky. It struck him with all the force of an out of control hay cart, driving him ever deeper into the icy water…
Morning Breeze woke up, killing the scream just as it passed his lips. He was sweating profusely beneath his heavy blanket, and his mouth was completely dry.
He drank directly from the hemp-covered glass bottle hanging from the hook above his bed. He got up quietly, letting the air cool his naked body for a moment.
Fifteen years and countless operations had not completely fixed the damage. The coat around his flank was much too thin to mask the massive burn scars, all obtained from one week in Gold Standard's dungeon. The top half of his cutie mark, once a stylized pair of diving goggles, was barely visible only on his left side. The whip marks from his early childhood, all but gone for a few precious years in his teens, had been replaced in his twenties by even deeper tracks gouged by barnacles and mussels. The memory of being keel-hauled for "treason" could still bring tears to his eyes.
He slipped into a thin bodysuit and sat down on the bed. For much of his life Morning Breeze had worn clothes. Even as a child he had loved how even a simple vest could cover up the many imperfections of his body. With a colorful bodysuit he could look just as nice as the other kids. Ponies didn't stare or ask him as many questions. They didn't collect their children when he passed, or call him an abomination. Clothes had been a necessity for him, and he did not begrudge it.
His right hoof was still tender from the injury, but it had mended well. He wondered for a moment if his rapid recovery was entirely thanks the skill of his surgeon. Morning Breeze had a reputation for resilience even before he left the Canterlot Orphanage, but he collected scars like no other. Paper cuts would leave a mark for weeks, and after a scooter accident when he was ten his right knee never looked quite the same. He was not slightly worried about the knot in the middle of his hoof. He would never walk around with it exposed.
He looked into the small mirror on the wall. Staring back at him was a younger face than he expected. There were perhaps more lines there than a stallion of his age in Canterlot would have carried, but he was not ancient. The face in the mirror was not yet worn bare by days baking in the sun or blackened by long frozen months in arctic waters, though both he had braved season after season.
Morning Breeze sighed and fell back onto the bed. He tried to fall asleep again, but the cabin was closing in around him. It was only two in the morning according to the little brass watch hanging from its hook on the wall. Not yet released from the trance of the night, he lay on his side for nearly twenty minutes before realizing that he was under no curfew.
There were just enough sailors on deck to keep the ship moving. Morning Breeze avoided the radio room and the helm, staying in the shadows as he made his way towards the bow. Most ponies would not dare do such a thing. There would be no one to sound the alarm if he fell overboard.
He opened the hatch slowly, feeling the friction of the hinge in case it squeaked. Hot, putrid air rushed out of the hold. He slipped through the hatch without a sound, nimbly skipping down the ladder and landing with a soft thud.
The prisoners lay in a row, chained down by their limbs and their neck. Though they appeared to be asleep, Morning Breeze kept one hoof on the ladder. His eyes found the one that Hornpipe had attacked. The shoulder which Hornpipe had cut to the bone less than a week ago, which had not been stitched or bandaged, was nearly mended.
Morning Breeze felt destructive indignation burning in his chest and across his skin. It was the same blinding rage that had allowed him to sink Gold Standard's yacht, and the one that had allowed him to set fire to Baltimare Harbor. Now it was telling him to yell.
“Wake up!”
All at the same time the ponies lifted their heads. Many groaned when their chains pulled taut against the deck. Bleary-eyed, scared and confused, the giants cowered under Morning Breeze’s glare.
“You’re not common mercenaries,” he declared. “You think I wouldn’t notice? You think I’m dumb? You think I won't recognize your modifications? Who are you?”
The big yellow stallion—Anchor Chain—was the first to recover his wits. A smug smile replaced his look of fear.
“I’m Anchor Chain,” he began.
“No you’re not,” Morning Breeze said. His hissing voice seemed to come from all directions. Most of the ponies shivered at the sound; the dark blue stallion at the end of the row put his hooves over his ears. “A pony named Anchor Chain would be a sailor. He would be half your size, and he would have quite a different accent. Your real name. Now! Out with it!”
“Coin Purse,” he replied with a smirk, closing his eyes. “Not a good name for a mercenary, is it?”
Morning Breeze rolled his eyes. He could smell the fear in the room. These were not experienced mercenaries; not even close.
“Coin Purse,” Morning Breeze repeated. “A good name for a wealthy pony, isn’t it? And you grew up in Baltimare?”
Coin Purse’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You know I grew up in Baltimare,” Morning Breeze said. “I served at your fancy parties; me and my brothers and sisters. We played music for you, ran deliveries... your parents thought it was cute, and if there's one good thing about you lot, it's that you paid well. I might have called you 'Master' at some point." He cleared his throat and spat at the prisoner. "Oh how the times change."
Coin Purse looked at him, biting his tongue. Clearly he had expected Morning Breeze to be the one in chains. In Baltimare he had been a pony who could buy the attention of anyone he pleased. Morning Breeze had to look away from the childish outrage he saw on the prisoner's face, lest it made him physically sick.
"You’re not much younger than me," he continued. "I'd say you're around the same age as Gold Standard’s son, if he were still alive.”
“You murderous swine!”
Rattling filled the room as several ponies tried to pounce at Morning Breeze. The deck bulged from the strain, but the anchors held.
Morning Breeze laughed. A well-rehearsed, evil laugh it was, and his prisoners fell for the act. They stared at him with more hatred than ever, but they also stopped struggling.
“Is this how the aristocrats of Baltimare spend their days now, or has it always been this way? You flatter me! What were you supposed to be? A lawyer? A banker? Or an Admiral of the Fleet?”
Coin Purse spat at Morning Breeze. The ball of phlegm barely reached half the distance.
“And the rest of you too?” Morning Breeze continued, gesturing at the others with his recently-injured hoof. “Of course! What big, strong, incredibly handsome ponies you are. You're no mercenaries! Mercenaries don't look like bodybuilders, or slick their hair like that. At your age most of them would have lost a limb or an eye or something. You're like... like those actors in those plays! This is adorable!"
This last remark rattled them more than any insult ever could. Morning Breeze was amused and thoroughly horrified by their petulance. A hard stomp of his hoof silenced them. He continued in a serious tone, his voice reverting back to a whisper.
“Don’t tell me you’ve come all this way for some childish revenge fantasy. You think I’m a murderer? What excuse did you have for your debauchery? That idiot son of Gold Standard?”
“He was drunk!” Coin Purse yelled. “He wasn’t in his right mind! You knew, and you killed him anyway! What he did on his ship was none of your business!”
Morning Breeze clenched his jaw. It was all he could do not to tremble with rage.
“You’re a thick one, aren’t you?” He said slowly. “You’re on my ship now, Coin Purse. And by your own word you’ve absolved me of all the laws of Equestria. You think your title or your lineage or your wealth mean anything to me? Do you think you have any power over me? Me ?”
“I am the son of…”
“I don’t care!” Morning Breeze snapped. “The son of? You’re a grown pony! You should have kids by now, or at least a real job of some sort. What have you done? What have you created? Have you made anypony’s life better?”
“At least I’m not a pirate ,” Coin Purse growled. “Go steal another ship, you scum sucker! There’s a reason nopony wanted you right from the start!”
His heart pounded in his ears. He could have stomped down on Coin Purse’s face then and there. Nopony would have questioned him. If he gave that permission to the rest of the crew he had no doubt that everybody would line up for their turn. Had he been younger, he would have done just that.
Instead, Morning Breeze returned to the ladder.
“That’s right! Run away you pack of rats in a pony skin!” Coin Purse howled. “When I get back to Baltimare, I’m going to demolish that orphanage and build a mansion in its place! Your brothers and sisters will be my servants! I'll burn your ships! I'll feed your body to sharks!”
“We’ll just see, won’t we?” Morning Breeze said as he slipped through the hatch.
There were four ponies waiting on deck for him, with whips and irons ready. Their grim faces barely concealed their outrage.
“Get back to your posts,” Morning Breeze said gently after a few long, deep breaths of the cool night air.
“Breeze,” said one of them, a young navy-blue unicorn mare. “The things they said just now…”
“Whatever you plan to do, it’s utterly pointless,” Morning Breeze said, putting a hoof on her shoulder and looking her in the eyes. “These creatures can’t be taught. They’ll just keep making you angrier and angrier. It's not good for your health.”
“Then why don’t we just kill them?” She asked. “Hanging would be too good for this lot.”
“I would love that,” Morning Breeze said. “I would love to have them brought up here right now. I would have their heads as our new ensign. But how good would that look in the morning sun?
“I won’t do it, not for their sake, but for ours. We are wealthy in our way, they in theirs. We have our dignity and our pride. That’s it. That's all there is to set us apart from them. We didn’t let Equestria take that from us, and we certainly won’t throw it away ourselves.”
“So what will you do?”
“Keep them like this for now,” he said. “When we land, we'll have them put down quietly. No public hanging, no fanfare. Shoot them in the head if we can spare the bullets, or have them strangled, or poisoned. Get rid of the bodies quickly. They were nothing, they have done nothing with their lives, they have built nothing of value. They are nothing. There’s no sense getting everyone worked up over nothing.”
The three ponies bowed politely and stepped aside to let him pass. He was thankful for the darkness, lest they saw him blushing.
Back in his cabin Morning Breeze groomed his coat with a coarse brush. Coin Purse’s threat affected him more and more as he mulled it over. He could easily find enough powerful, like-minded ponies to make it happen. Morning Breeze felt sick just thinking about it.
I’ll make it right, he told himself when he finally climbed back onto the bed with an overly-fluffed coat. As soon as this is over, I’ll go back and make everything right.
The Infidel was received with subdued fanfare. Icewall had done better before, but the present crisis had not passed it over. As it was, ponies and griffins were holding up warm buns and bottles of juice or beer before the ship stopped moving. The youngest sailors eagerly stuffed their pockets with the treats, ignoring their master’s glare.
Gingersnap, who had not eaten anything since the previous night, emptied two large brown bottles before anypony noticed, and was tipsy before the loading ramp was put down. Coral Frond stayed close behind him, ready to grab his tail in case he toppled off the crowded boardwalk.
The harbormaster was a tall, graceful mare, built more like a fashion model than a sailor. Even a loose-fitting jumpsuit looked flattering on her. Gingersnap tried not to stare, which in his inebriated state meant turning his head almost fully backwards as he walked past her on the way into town.
The Spectre ’s crew was brought to an inn with a complete view of the harbor. The red brick walls and white roof was pretty but not magnificent. Soon most everyone was enjoying breakfast on the cobblestone path of the garden. Gingersnap and Coral Frond ate their waffles leaning against the low wall at the edge of the garden. It was a considerable drop to the next street, and behind them the street rose higher and higher up the side of the island's central mound.
The Infidel was by far the biggest ship in sight. The others, fifty-seven from Gingersnap's count, were mostly single-mast sloops with a few schooners. Few sailors in Baltimare would dare to sail the open ocean in such small ships, yet as they watched ponies and griffins were busy loading two sloops that could not have been more than thirty feet long each. There was even a dory with two griffins bobbing precariously on the waves a good distance from shore.
Gingersnap was enjoying the Chain Islands far too much. He wished the fruit syrup didn’t taste so good, and that the clothes he wore didn’t fit so comfortably. He recalled stories of sea ponies that sailors told each other. Probably false, he now realized, but probably with some meaning that gave them the vitality to be passed on for so many generations.
You never realize their treachery until you’ve leapt into their waiting hooves.
“Hey.”
Gingersnap felt the prod at his shoulder and realized that Coral Frond had been talking softly for some time.
“What is it?” He said.
Coral Frond’s ears flapped nervously, and he looked over both shoulders before leaning in closer.
“Do you think… Do you think Morning Breeze will actually let me stay here?”
Gingersnap felt a chill spreading out from his heart. He swallowed, looking into Coral frond’s bright, sincere eyes.
“He will,” he said. “But why would you want to? You’ll never be able to go home again. And isn’t that what you want?”
Coral Frond scratched the back of his left hoof with his right. Gingersnap recognized the problem instantly.
“Why did you want to go back to Equestria before?” He asked, sounding more exasperated than he meant to. “Why go back, if you had nothing?”
“I was going to have money,” Coral Frond said, dangling his head dejectedly over the ledge. “I… I was going to go to Canterlot. Get an education and make something of myself. That’s all I ever wanted. All this time in the navy, I was just saving up money.”
“Aren’t you a bit old for school?”
It was a reasonable question, or so Gingersnap thought. But Coral Frond just closed his eyes. Gingersnap went back to eating, but when he looked up again the younger pony was shaking.
“What’s the matter?” It was Gingersnap’s turn to check behind his shoulder. Fortunately most of his shipmates had gone inside. He huddled close to Coral Frond and put a hoof over his shoulder.
“I’m too old,” he sobbed. “Way too old. I’m not as good as some unicorns half my age. But Canterlot was my only chance. They’ve made exceptions before; strange things have happened in that city. If I can just go back to Port of Mercy, and if Professor Blaze would take me… but that'll never happen.”
Gingersnap sat down and pulled his friend off the ledge. Coral Frond didn’t resist.
“If this is what you want, talk to Morning Breeze,” he said, looking straight into Coral Frond’s tear-stained face. “Don’t let me or anyone else make that choice for you. You and I know what that feels like. It’s happened way too often to us, and this is your one chance to do what you want.”
They sat quietly staring out to sea until they were both shivering. Only then did they go their separate ways. The inn had private rooms. Gingersnap undressed and fell onto the bed without brushing himself. It was all too strange. He had to constantly remind himself where he was and where he had come from. He told himself that the Infidel was not his ship; that Morning Breeze and Hornpipe had no authority over him.
But what authority did the admiralty have over him, or Celestia for that matter?
Gingersnap breathed through the pillow until he was dizzy. All the same the dangerous thoughts echoed in his mind.
What has Equestria ever done for you?
“You told them already?” Morning Breeze rubbed his brow and breathed deeply, doing his best to stay civil.
“As I ought, Breeze,” Alice said. “What do you have to gain from all of this? We’re prepared for something like this. You’re not.”
“Of course I am!”
“The Snow Queen is dangerous, Breeze,” she said evenly. “Lending it to you, we anticipated something would go wrong. Nopony blames you. If I'm to be completely honest, we were expecting you to be the problem.”
“I don’t care if they send me chocolates and roses!” He snapped. “This is a matter for the Chain Islands. The Children of the Night will get their ship back at the agreed-upon time. Until then your war fleets stay out.”
Alice sighed. She refilled his teacup with her strong herbal brew and offered him more biscuits. He accepted them grudgingly. They must have been laced with something more than sugar and butter.
“It's personal, I understand,” she said. “Yellow Jack destroyed your ship. I know you’re angry…”
“It’s not that,” he said slowly, nibbling on his jelly-topped biscuit. “You… you know Jack, don’t you? He came here pretty often. You know what he’s like.”
“I know him,” she said with a cold edge to her voice. “We weren’t friends. But you two were close?”
“Hardly,” he said, looking into his steaming teacup. “He’s rude, smelly, and missing a few screws. But if you’d spend some time with him you’ll notice the good in him.” He paused, distracted by a tendril of vapor rising from his cup. “I thought we had something in common. He said it himself all the time. You know, when I first offered him his ship back, he didn’t take it. His crew was getting ready; they were gonna get out of Baltimare with or without him. But he just stood on the boardwalk looking at me. He said it was his ship, and he would decide when he would board. I had a machete and he was unarmed, and he just stared me down.
“I… I guess that doesn’t make him good . But he did something right. He must have. In the past, when he was younger, he was a good pony.”
“Almost everybody starts off good,” Alice said, reaching across the little kitchen table to take his hoof. “You know that, and I know that. Any reasonable pony would know it. But he’s tried to kill you twice. Why are you going out of your way to spare him?”
“I know what you’re thinking, Alice,” Morning Breeze said without looking up. “That’s not it. I would do the same for anypony. I know that ponies die; even on a freighter on calm seas in peaceful territory something could still go wrong. But I don’t spend my spare time shanking ponies for fun. I was never that kind of pirate.
“Peace and order doesn’t come naturally to us, but for the last decade we’ve fared pretty well. We couldn’t have done it without the help of the Children of the Night, but you have to admit we've done better than you were expecting. We’re all retired from pirating. When was the last time you heard someone say that? But these ponies have never been tested like this. Whether the Chain Islands can survive this crisis is the real trial. If by this time next week the Children of the Night can arrive at this harbor and be greeted warmly by the same ponies who greeted me today, you’ll know that we’ve won.”
“And that’s all there is to the matter?” Alice raised an eyebrow.
“All that and nothing more.”
“I have five gunships and thirteen sloops of war. That should be enough of a distraction.”
It was strange seeing Morning Breeze like this. Wearing a clean blue suit with a dark blue bow around his neck, he had the aloofness of somepony of great importance. He existed above all others, and needed no crown or scepter. He did not even speak directly to the assembled parties, and even though Gingersnap knew that it was out of necessity he could not help feel uncomfortable distanced from him. Hornpipe lent his voice, and though he stood so much taller than Morning Breeze and spoke with the conviction of a great leader no hypothetical uninformed pony who happened to wander into that meeting would have mistaken him for the Emperor.
The stone and mortar city hall was two blocks uphill of the inn. Its main chamber was furnished with sixty wide wooden desks covered in ink blotches. Large windows on one side offered a view of the harbor; it seemed every building in Icewall had a window of that sort. There were only a few dozen present at the meeting, and it was easy to recognize who’s who. There was a captain and at least one officer for each ship, all in distinctive uniforms ranging from drab jackets to costumes that bordered on theatrical. Alice was there, and Gingersnap could not help glancing at her from time to time. Workers from the dock were also present, some still wearing greasy coveralls. This last group made him feel less out of place in the meeting.
“Where do we fit in?”
Gingersnap elbowed Coral Frond before he could say anything else. Snowsong and Winter Oat were still focused on the maps and notes on the corkboard.
“Your ship will be our troop carrier,” Hornpipe said while Morning Breeze looked on stoically. “The Spectre will be fully repaired by tomorrow morning. The Snow Queen can’t be harmed with light cannons, and there are shelters on deck that can protect her crew from mortar attacks. We can pin them down with artillery, but we can’t cull their numbers significantly. Yellow Jack has about eight hundred marines and over a hundred sailors. That’s not enough to sustain a ship as big as the Snow Queen , but they’ll put up a good fight. And even though they don’t have super heavy cannons, they set off with plenty of small arms and more than enough regular cannons to sink any ship that tries to approach. Their griffins will be sniping from the masts too. Only the Spectre can get close enough to deliver a sizable boarding party.
“It will take five to twelve hours to intercept the Snow Queen from here. The winds can’t be counted upon this time of year. I want the Spectre to carry at least two hundred marines.
“Captain Winter Oat, I want you to stay here until we return. Give me enough crew to run your ship. The rest of you should stay out of harm’s way.”
All eyes turned to the Winter Oat in his wheelchair. His head was lolling to the side. He scanned the room with only his eyes moving.
“You’re in charge, Snowsong,” he said, and snorted in defeat. “I don’t know why I’m here. Excuse me.”
Morning Breeze nodded. The two nurses escorted Winter Oat out of the room, one pushing the wheelchair and the other wheeling his oxygen tank. He would be well enough to walk in a week or two, but Gingersnap still worried for him. He knew that it was none of his business, but of all the captains he had served with he liked Winter Oat the best.
“It’s decided then,” Hornpipe said. “Snowsong, pick out your best sailors. Leave the rest here. The fleet assembles at 0400.”
There was no real prison in Icewall. The best they could do for the mercenaries was empty out a warehouse on the boardwalk and post lots of guards. They had been constantly tranquilized ever since their arrival, and had received nothing except some water. Even unconscious they were each chained to two large anchors.
Morning Breeze had his dinner of oats and fried tubers by lantern light as he waited for the prisoners to come to. A dozen griffins surrounded them with long rifles drawn and ready in addition to the usual guards.
I can shoot them all right now.
He downed a full glass of sweet raspberry wine to silence that voice.
Not this time. They get one more chance. Just this once.
When the first prisoner stirred one of the guards doused him with a bucket of cold seawater. Even then he looked up reluctantly, devoid of strength after nearly a week of fasting.
“Hello again,” Morning Breeze said as he refilled his glass. He intended to talk quite a bit. “Now I know you’ve had a rough few days, and I’ll have you know that I don’t care. I’m offering you a job, and if you do it I’ll let you go. Otherwise these griffins will skewer you to death. Too many wasted bullets otherwise."
He paused for a moment and downed the entire glass. “I was a Prince once. You remember, right?”
He nodded slowly, indignant yet terrified.
“You know what I did, or you’ve heard the rumors at least. It was all true. I was as bloodthirsty and merciless as they say, and I haven’t mellowed with age. You’re on my turf now. Don’t think that there’s anything I can’t do.”
The prisoner did not speak. His teeth were clenched tightly. He squeezed his eyes shut, but tears flowed from the corners. Morning Breeze looked away, embarrassed for his sake.
The others were starting to wake. He waited until they were all lucid before repeating his offer.
“I want you to fight for me. Do my biddings, follow orders from my captains, and do it without question. You’ll be common marines, but no less than that. Once your work for me is done, I’ll send you back to Equestria.”
The silence that followed was not complete; there was some sniffling and low growling. They were not pleased, exactly as he expected.
“We’ll never work for you!” Shouted one of the unicorns. But all the others looked to Morning Breeze with expressions of terror.
Seeing the imperious sneer on that face, Morning Breeze felt a hot wave of anger flush through his veins. He could have done anything at that moment. No one would have stopped him. He could order any kind of torture, or deliver it personally. He wanted to yell at him, to rip out his mane and file down his teeth, and he had the power to do it. They would have done the same to him; had already done it, and for lesser transgressions.
I’m better than that.
“Shoot that one,” Morning Breeze said, flicking one hoof at the defiant one.
He did not look away, and forced himself not to flinch when the rifle sounded. He forced himself to wear a stone-cold face as the unicorn’s mouth gaped in realization. There was no time to beg for mercy. The screaming of the remaining prisoners were lost to him as his ears rang on and on. He only hoped the ponies at the inn wouldn’t hear the shot.
Gingersnap yawned and knocked on the door. He could still taste sweet potatoes and rosemary in his mouth, and would much rather be enjoying his hay-stuffed bed at that moment. Half a dozen of his fellow sailors stood just behind him, all of them staring at the door uneasily. It was past eight, and Coral Frond was still pacing loudly around his room.
“What’s wrong?” Gingersnap asked as soon as Coral Frond answered.
Coral Frond’s eyes narrowed as he looked over the other faces.
“We can all hear you,” Gingersnap said. “Do you want me to come inside?”
The unicorn stepped back and opened the door fully. Gingersnap waved for the others to leave before entering.
The room was furnished exactly like his with two bedside tables, a bed big enough for two and a vanity. The window was open, and a gently current rustled the pages of Coral Frond's book of spells, not quite strong enough to flip one over. On the floor was arranged a ring of eight candle stubs, probably taken from the housekeeper’s bin. In the middle was a broken quill.
“What’s the matter?” Gingersnap asked.
“I’ve been practicing,” Coral Frond said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Teaching myself. I want to help however I can.”
“You’re a marine, aren’t you?” Gingersnap pointed out. “I thought there was a shortage of experienced fighters.”
“Morning Breeze wants me to stay behind,” Coral Frond said. “He has better marines probably. Of course he does! I’m nothing special. But I can be useful. I can help. I know I can.”
“What’s the circle for?” Gingersnap asked, waving to the candles on the floor.
“It’s a spell,” he said, blushing slightly. “It’s supposed to build an entire bird out of a feather.”
“Right,” Gingersnap said slowly, taking a few sidesteps away from the circle. He joined Coral Frond on the bed. “Listen to me, Coral Frond. It’s a good thing that he’s not taking you to the Snow Queen . He’s trying to keep you safe; keep us safe. You’re only in it for the money, aren’t you? Well, for once they’re letting us off the hook. I’ve served some brutal masters and lived through some bloody battles. I’ve had to abandon ship a few times, and I’ve been nearly drowned. Morning Breeze didn’t leave us out because we’re no good. He’s leaving us here because he actually cares what happens to us. He’s a good pony, just as book-learned as our officers but more experienced than most of them. He’s not padding his numbers to make himself look impressive. I think tomorrow will be a terrible day out there, and I’d rather not see it with my own eyes.”
Coral Frond continued to frown at the circle on the floor for some time. Gingersnap could only wonder at what his friend was thinking. He almost smiled when it crossed his mind that he might simply be trying to light the candles.
He’s never fought a real battle his whole life , was all he could think. Nopony wants to go into battle just like that. Not after the first time.
“It’s getting late,” Gingersnap said as the twilight faded and night set in around them. “Coral Frond, get some rest while you can. It’s not every day you get a room all to yourself. Not even every year for us. This here might be the best bed you’ll ever get.”
Coral Frond smiled thoughtfully. Not a truly happy smile, but it eased his heart somewhat. They hugged, and Gingersnap got up. The last thing he saw as he closed the door was Coral Frond putting the candles away.
The Infidel was nearly as invisible as the Spectre when the fleet assembled under a light snow. Flakes drifted past the few lanterns on deck, all of them soon to be extinguished.
Morning Breeze, wearing black wool under his jumpsuit and a holstered pistol on a sash, stared down from his perch halfway along the bowsprit. There were two sea ponies idling just below the surface, swimming in a tight loop. For ten minutes they had been silent. Then out of the depths appeared another, with dark blue scales and iridescent black fins. All three breached the surface silently and looked up at him.
“The guides are assembled,” said the newcomer. “One every five miles leading to the Snow Queen . We are tracking your target from far below, and four leviathans standing by. We can pass a message to the front line in a few seconds.”
“Good,” Morning Breeze said. “Lead the way. Are you sure your ponies are safe? Yellow Jack has no idea you’re tracking him?”
“Yellow Jack is just a pony,” she said. “He has limits; things he can’t do, no matter how hard he tries. Everything below the surface is out of reach to him.”
“Alright,” Morning Breeze said, glancing quickly to the horizon where daylight was nowhere to be found. “Lead the way.”
The fleet moved awkwardly at first; for miles they could not fall into formation. The Spectre was entirely invisible, sailing a full mile starboard of the others to avoid collision. The sea ponies could feel her displacement and wake and would warn him if anything was amiss, but Morning Breeze could not supress the suspicion that the ship had abandoned his cause. Most of the pirates had experience in large naval operations, and had brushed off the training program that the Children of the Night had introduced. But with decades of experience on their side they were at least competent sailors.
The sea ponies guided from a distance, regularly raising their colorful tails out of the water for the ships to see. When they reached a guide station a new set of sea ponies took over. They chased these ever-changing flags through the morning at a rate that must have seemed painfully slow to their guides.
Other than the ponies watching the sails everyone else was preparing mortars. Every griffin had a rifle and a whole crate of ammunition each. Mortars were set up all along the deck, angled sufficiently low that they could never hit a mast. On the smaller ships floating mines were being primed and cast afloat on a long tether. None of these things could damage the Snow Queen considerably, but they would certainly be distracting.
The fleet sailed into the dull grey morning, into waters remote to all the main islands. A stiff cold wind drove them along. In bigger expanses of water they were thrown about by the gigantic waves of the open ocean. Younger sailors struggled to keep their footing.
It appeared suddenly, a black spike on the horizon. Across the fleet spyglasses were being unfolded. Morning Breeze looked too, and saw a pair of griffins peering out from a spacious enclosed crow’s nest, one of them looking straight at him through a pair of binoculars while the other made her report on a radio. There was no sign of alarm at being spotted; a fleet could not be hidden in daylight on open water. But at this great range they could do nothing except stare at one another, minds making up stories that ears could not confirm.
“We see her, Captain!” Hornpipe called from middeck. “You can come back now.”
“I’ll be fine,” He replied as loud as he could. With the spring-loaded hooks on his gauntlet he opened the snaps on his holster and took the pistol in his right hoof. He tapped the thigh pockets where he kept four extra magazines. Without a real hand the weapon would always be a little awkward for him, but there was no denying its efficiency, frightening even to him.
The Snow Queen appeared bit by bit. Like a white mountain its sails emerged, glistening like silver, sheer as silk. Each of the three masts was a tower unto itself, with balconies and snipers’ nests wherever there was room between sails. The dark blue hull bore the silver crescent moon and stars of the Children of the Night, clearly discernible to the naked eye from beyond the range of even a landlocked cannon, an insignia as big as some of the ships in Morning Breeze’s current fleet.
“Tell the others to start firing as soon as they’re in range,” he said, abandoning his perch for a moment to address Hornpipe. “Keep your distance and keep moving. She can ram any of us if she gets the chance. It won’t even slow her down.”
It was one of the sloops that fired first, the griffins leading with rifles before the first barrage of artillery. The others soon followed. The deck of the Snow Queen was quickly smothered with smoke. The lowest set of sails were torn, though they did not catch fire. High in the riggings the Snow Queen ’s crew set up their defence. The yards had broad walkways built across them, and on these stood dozens of griffins with guns aimed at the attackers.
Bullets struck the ships intermittently. The gunners on the Snow Queen had to keep their balance as the mast swung back and forth in a gigantic arc. Clearly her pilot was attempting evasive manoeuvers, but orders did not travel well across four hundred metres of deck during a battle. The stern-most sail fell slack and began to luff. The force was strong enough to shatter a block, destabilizing the sails further.
A unicorn on a neighboring gunship fell backwards. One of his shipmates caught him and he was promptly taken below, leaving a trail of red on the otherwise pristine deck.
Suddenly half the gunners on the Snow Queen turned towards the port side. A rifle fell straight to the deck. The sound of impact was horribly loud and protracted. Morning Breeze could see the freshly-caulked boards on the Spectre splitting open in his mind. For an instant the ensign of the Spectre flashed against the grey sky.
Morning Breeze ran now, down the centre of the deck to the radio room. The operator, an old griffin with dull greying feathers, was waiting for him with one hand on the frequency dial and another on the microphone.
“Try the radio again,” Morning Breeze ordered as he closed the door behind him. “Hail the Spectre . Get a full damage report.”
“I can’t do that sir,” said the griffin, his frown deepening as he turned the dial. “Listen to this.”
He flicked a switch, and the large speakers at the front of the unit buzzed to life.
“Hello Breeze,” said a crackling voice, its delivery interrupted by the gunfire outside. There were snippets of other voices on the channel, but this one drowned them all out. “I know this broadcast isn’t up to standard, and frankly I don’t care. I see your ghost ship and your boarding party, and I have to thank you for the new prisoners. I was wondering when you’d show up. Now where are you? You know where I am. Don’t make me look for you. I am much too old for that kind of hunt.”
Morning Breeze looked to the griffin, who seemed to grow more and more concerned as he looked at him.
“You should stay here, sir,” he said, glancing between Morning Breeze and the radio. “Jack’s baiting you. This will be over in an hour or two.”
“Of course,” Morning Breeze replied, forcing himself to smile. He was breathing rather quickly, and his heart was racing even though the battle resembled a weapons test more than a major engagement.
Back on deck, he returned to the bowsprit. The Snow Queen ’s topsails were still intact, each one bigger than all the sails of the Infidel combined. They were full of wind, and the sloops on their wide-arcing paths were hard-pressed to catch up. Squinting into the water, he could make out the shape of a sea pony lingering at depth. He tapped a code on the gunwale. In seconds the sea pony surfaced.
“Get the leviathans,” Morning Breeze said, hanging low on the bowsprit to get closer to the water. “See if the Spectre is in trouble. Take down the Snow Queen ’s masts if you can. I want to do some real damage. She’s not getting away again.”
The sea pony saluted and sank back beneath the waves. Morning Breeze heard the whistling and clicking of the sea ponies underwater. Within seconds the order was carried out.
They sent columns of foam as high as the deck of the Snow Queen when they breached the surface. White streaked with red and iridescent blue, each scale the size of a rowboat and hard as stone. Their mouths were full of milky crystalline teeth, and even their flailing tongues were barbed. Their bodies seemed endless; indeed, Morning Breeze had never seen a single leviathan from head to tail. These ones latched onto the deck of the Snow Queen and began thrashing, rocking the gigantic ship a little at first, and then more and more.
Griffins and pegasi fled the Snow Queen in a big flock. Morning Breeze could not tell his marines from Jack’s. As the rocking grew to a dangerous amplitude, earth ponies and unicorns leapt overboard. All the while the bombardment continued from the fleet. Even mortars did little to disturb the serpentine giants.
Morning Breeze eyed the scene anxiously. His spyglass did not leave his eye for minutes at a time. Jack was doomed. His crew was scattered, being dragged away by sea ponies or else fighting in the sky. They were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, and the leviathans would get through the hull eventually…
He saw the face appear beside the head of a leviathan. The crystal-studded eyepatch, the feathered tricorn, and the pleated mane were all present just as he remembered.
His ear popped, and as he lowered his spyglass he was confused for a moment by the sight of Yellow Jack standing before him, looking even bigger than he had through the lens.
“Kneel.”
The rough hemp ropes slid around him with alarming speed. Morning Breeze screamed as they tore through his tough clothes and ripped into his skin. Between the gaps in the coils strips of fabric burst into flames and filled his lungs with smoke. The ropes dragged him down, and his cheek was pressed against the splintered deck. He could smell the leviathan’s vile hot breath surging across the deck and hear the deafening screech of its teeth grinding through wood and metal.
“It doesn’t feel good, does it?” Jack said, leaning down to look him in the eye. His horn was glowing white as brilliant as the sun. “You’re just doing your own thing, having a great time, living your life, and then somebody comes at you with a big fleet and says, ‘you belong to me now.’ That’s not fair, is it?”
The ropes snaked higher, over his muzzle and then across his eyes. Then they started tightening again. Morning Breeze held his breath. The crushing power was worse than the pressure from his deepest dives. He felt as if his ears had exploded. His skull would be next.
“Hey, look here,” Jack said. The ropes slackened slightly as they forced him to kneel. Another coil snaked its way around his neck and directed his face upwards.
When the dark crimson blotches faded from his vision, Morning Breeze faced a scene that made his skin crawl. Ropes, each one as thick as his leg, writhed and flailed from the riggings. Nests of hemp worms had infested every juncture of the mast. They squirmed along the surface of the sails and climbed down the mast, and probed tentatively beyond the edges of the deck.
Two leviathans flailed in the air, suspended nearly fifty metres overhead. Thick black globs dripped from the many places where ropes disappeared beneath their scales, falling to the deck in deafening crashes, sending up clouds of sawdust and splinters. Their gills flared angrily, exposing bright red membranes. But ropes could not be intimidated.
“This is making you uncomfortable,” Jack said. Reaching into his heavily-adulterated Equestrian Navy jacket, he produced a pipe and a rusted lighter. “Well, at least tell me you’re not surprised.” He turned sideways and pointed at his cutie mark; a square knot outlined in white. “You know it meant something .”
Morning Breeze tried to speak, but only got a mouthful of tobacco ash when Yellow Jack emptied his pipe into his mouth. He bit down defiantly, shattering the head of the pipe and spitting the bits out before his mouth was covered once again.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Jack said. Looking out to sea, he smiled. “Looks like they’re leaving. We’ll finally have some time to ourselves. And before I forget…”
A dozen ropes shot from the second yard of the midmast into the water. Their target screamed in protest, but it was not the scream of any living thing.
The Spectre lurched slowly into view, raised entirely above the deck. Her bow was smashed open, her bowsprit gone. White sails fluttered in the wind, and only the first mast remained intact. As it dangled bits of furniture fell from the many ruptures in the hull; duffle bags, boxes, crates of food, entire cannons dropped into the water.
His eyes were just starting to glow, but Jack did not break a sweat. He loaded the stub of his pipe as well as he could and lit it again.
“You honourless swine!”
At the sound of that voice Morning Breeze felt a wave of rage burn through his veins. With a grunt he threw his strength against the ropes. His joints popped painfully, but the ropes slackened a little. In the newfound airspace the remains of his clothes and his coat burst into flames. The ropes retreated like living things. But before he could touch the deck they were back. The fire was smothered, and this time large swaths of burnt skin were rubbed away entirely. He screamed, and the coils squeezed him until his lungs were empty.
“Don’t you kill him! Don’t you dare! He’s ours!”
“Shut up you numbskull!”
Jack frowned at Morning Breeze.
“I don’t recognize these ones,” he said to Morning Breeze as if the intruders were some abstract concept. He did not even look at them. “They’re not your friends, I can tell. Old enemies then? But not very old; from your generation. Definitely not your brothers, though they too have a good reason to want to crush you with their own hooves.”
“We’re no brothers of his!” Cried the insolent voice. “We’re here to kill him! Give him to us!”
“No! Be quiet! He doesn’t mean it!”
There was a sickening wet crack, followed by shrill screams. Even through all his pain a part of Morning Breeze was thankful.
“The rest of you shut up!” Jack was breathing through his ruined pipe like a diver through an air hose. “Don’t you worry, Breeze. I won’t kill you. That wouldn’t be right. I just want your word that you won’t come after me again. I like you, I really do. I wish you the best. But it’s poor form for a pirate, what you’re doing. If I can’t count on you to help, at least you can leave me alone. You don’t work for Celestia anymore. You rebelled against Equestria and everything it stood for. That part was good. You could have done literally anything after that. Instead you went and found yourself a new master, the first one that would have you. Not that the Children of the Night don’t pay well, but you think we’d just fall in line because you told us to?”
Jack gasped sharply. His eyes widened in surprise; now fear.
His horn flickered. Then he stumbled.
The ropes moved him so quickly that he nearly slid out of his skin. When he finally blinked away the tears Morning Breeze saw the world turned upside-down.
Balanced precariously on the slanted and crumbling deck of the Spectre was Snowsong. Six crossbows floated around her, three on either side. The one by her left shoulder was reloading itself.
Morning Breeze could hear Jack gurgling. He stumbled as a small red dot appeared on his chest. Yet the ropes held Morning Breeze as firmly as ever. Overhead the leviathans had stopped struggling. Water still dripped from their collapsed gill plates.
“Brace yourself,” Snowsong cried, looking straight at him.
Jack regained his footing and swallowed forcefully. He coughed, but already the shock had passed. His eyes glowed a little brighter, and the bloodstain on his jacket started to recede.
The crossbows fell. To Morning Breeze it seemed the Snow Queen and Jack and the dead leviathans disappeared instantly, replaced with dark blue waves that rushed towards him at an alarming rate.
The water turned red around him. He could not keep his eyes open, and did not think to cover his ears. He would never forget the sensation of falling apart. The water dragged him around, ribbons of skin moving in ways he had never thought possible.
Something grabbed him around the shoulders. Whether it was a sea pony or a sailor he could not tell. He closed his eyes; somehow he thought he could blink the water away and clear his vision. What he got was even better as all his pain and discomfort went away instantly.
“It’s Nephthys , ma’am. Moonlight’s a-looking for ya. Says Mercy is in trouble. She’s got a lot of ships wit ‘er, and lots injured. They ‘er still coming in when I left. We’re unloading them with rowboats, there’s so many!”
Water dripped off the colt’s hat and jacket. In his haste he had forgotten to button his jacket, and his chest was plastered with wet snow.
“I’ll be there right away,” Alice said, setting her tea down on the table in the inn's kitchen. “You stay here and warm up a bit. You’re done for tonight.”
“Thank you,” he stammered, trotting eagerly to the nearest of the two fires in the dining hall of the inn.
Gingersnap put down his own drink and hastened to the window. It was ten to eleven, and most of his shipmates had retired to their rooms. Pushing aside the heavy brown curtains, he looked out upon a scene upside down. Beneath the overcast sky the harbor was bright with running lights and swaying lanterns. He counted twenty ships for sure through the snow. Leading the fleet was a strange-looking vessel with a high, curved prow, its deck sitting almost level with the water, or so it seemed from a distance. There was a round insignia on its single white sail, and through a lull in the storm he noticed that the deck was packed with passengers.
“What’s going on?” He asked the colt, joining him at the fire. Marigold, the old innkeeper, had just brought a mug of coco and some cookies for him.
“I canna tell you exactly,” he said absentmindedly, looking into the fire. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, yet a mature grimness shrouded his fear. “We’ve ne’er seen this afore. Nephthys ha’en’t sailed in years. She’s all’s ready, I s’pose. But she’s kep’ in a warehouse usu’ly. Moonlight loves her too much, and with Falconeye gone ‘s she is, I did nae think she’s too eager to sail her anywhere. It can’t be good if she’s a-needed.”
“Thanks,” Gingersnap said before heading up the stairs. He did not run; the boy would notice.
Coral Frond was knocking on his door when he got upstairs. He was already dressed.
“What’s happening out there?” He asked. “What’s with all the ships? Is Yellow Jack coming?”
“I don’t think it’s Yellow Jack himself,” Gingersnap said. “They’ve evacuated Port of Mercy. Do you think you can do some heavy lifting tonight?”
“All this off time is making you soft,” Coral Frond said, stretching out his back like a cat. “It’s the middle of the night and freezing outside. Let’s go already.”
“Grab anyone else that’s willing,” he instructed, trotting backwards down the hall. “Make sure they know we’re not under attack. We’ll do whatever the harbormaster tells us.”
In five minutes a band of sixteen sailors and marines headed out the door. Coral Frond and Gingersnap were warm enough, but the others huddled close together, clutching their collars against the icy wind. There had been few winter uniforms onboard the Spectre to begin with, and none at all after the mutiny.
The road was well lit and quickly filling with ponies and griffins alike. All along the street they were shoveling sand and salt, so the walk was not especially treacherous. Guards with heavy black cloaks over their armor were heading for the harbor, forcing civilians aside but not stopping them. There was no shortage of guns and lances in the procession, but food and drink were being brought down as well. They were ready for anything.
As they came within sight of the boardwalk they encountered a huge gathering. Children were crying as they sat in the slush that covered the streets. Hundreds of ponies rushed through the crowd, distributing dry clothes and towels, looking for the most vulnerable to bring into the relative warmth of nearby warehouses. Tarps; ship covers; umbrellas; tents without poles; anything that could have been slightly waterproof had been brought out to give the refugees some shelter.
“Ask around,” Gingersnap ordered with a bit of hesitation. “They’ll probably need more rowers. Come on.”
The path through the crowd was narrow and perilous. Before he knew it Gingersnap had given his hat and jacket to a pegasus mare with two foals.
A chestnut unicorn with a grizzled beard was standing at the edge of the boardwalk, his horn blinking in code.
“We brought fresh rowers!” Gingersnap announced over the din.
“Perfect,” replied the unicorn without turning away from his task. “They’ll be coming in on the floating docks. Get down there, four to a dock, and switch off when the dories come back.”
Looking out onto the water Gingersnap saw the red ship again. It was even stranger up close. The deck was unusually narrow and indeed as low as it had appeared from a distance. The only rooms it had were above deck: a big house at middeck and nothing else. The hull was thickly lacquered from prow to stern, appearing like a ship hewn from a single gigantic tree. A mast rose from middeck, with a single yard supporting sails much wider than the ship itself. The prow rose to three times the height of a reared up pony, curving backwards and then forwards and ending with a gigantic golden cobra with fangs bared.
The dory was packed when it returned. Gingersnap and Coral Frond held the bow and stern lines as they disembarked, and bid the previous rowers go up with their passengers. There was little time for questions.
“We’re unloading the Airmid ,” instructed one of the rowers. “She’s the sixth ship out, with a blue-tinted lamp. The crew’s waiting on her starboard side.”
Gingersnap was thankful for the activity; without his waterproof layer he was soaked and freezing. He primed the lantern again before setting out, with Coral Frond rowing beside him. Other dories moved all around them as they wove through the fleet. The docks only had room enough for the smaller sloops and schooners.
The first wave beyond the bay threw the dory a full ten metres off course. Gingersnap and Coral Frond rowed hard against the wind, guided by the blue beacon and the shadows of ponies stationed around it. Other ships were even further out to sea, visible only by their color-coded lights like a perverse Hearths Warming Eve display.
Coral Frond called out to the crew as they neared, and fenders were lowered just in time as a wave threw their dory against the ship. Gingersnap tossed up the lines, and a ladder was lowered from the deck. They were loaded hastily with fifteen ponies, eight adults and seven children. They were grimly silent, and on each face was an expression of fear and shock. The dory barely moved under the incredible load, but in time the dock appeared once again.
Any sense of time was swiftly worn away. They made six more trips before the old rowers relieved them. After the Airmid they evacuated the New Moon , and two more after that. Gingersnap did not notice the coming of morning until the sky had become entirely grey. Two inches of snow had accumulated on the roofs of the warehouses. Finally a pair of town guards dragged him out of the dory along with the load of passengers.
“You’re exhausted,” said a griffin through his scarf. He brushed Gingersnap’s shoulder roughly. Instead of light snow a chunk of ice flew off into the puddle that stretched out like a lake around him.
Gingersnap tried to reply, but found that he couldn’t. The other guard was slowly ascending the steep steps to the boardwalk with Coral Frond draped over his shoulder.
He closed his eyes just for a blink, and opened them to find the world sideways. His skin was numb, and he had no energy to move. He saw hooves and lion’s feet and bird’s feet walking before him. Feet without bodies as far as he could tell. There was a great weight on top of him, but it was not at all uncomfortable.
When Gingersnap came to again it took all his strength to roll onto his back. He gasped in pain as the headache set in without warning. He could not free his hooves from under the covers. Every effort to move only brought on new sources of pain.
Somepony, a nurse perhaps, found him eventually and wiped the sweat from his brow. She was saying things, he did not know what, but the sound of her voice was enough to lull him back to sleep.
Every time he awoke it was dark. Each time he grew more panicked. He thought he lost days; weeks. But each time someone was around to sooth him. He thought he heard his crewmates saying goodbye; telling him that they would be leaving for Equestria soon.
I’m coming! He cried out in his mind, but his mouth would not move. He watched them leave one by one, getting up from the beds around him, some staggering without falling, never looking back.
Finally he saw daylight, grey and dreary in the dusty room. It gave him hope. He resolved not to close his eyes again, though the pillow might as well have been moulded from fresh sea foam. He worked on sitting up. His back felt completely rigid, and he could not rotate his shoulders very much.
“Hey!” Someone shouted from above him. “Hey! I need a nurse over here!”
Moments later someone was beside Gingersnap. Unfortunately the feeling of sharp talons through the blanket had the opposite of the intended effect.
“Who are you?” He gasped, trying to push away the claw.
“Gabrielle,” said the griffin. “My name is Gabrielle. Do you need anything?”
“I need to get back to Equestria,” Gingersnap mumbled as he was lowered back onto the pillow. “They left me here.”
“You were dreaming,” Gabrielle assured him, putting her scaly palm on his forehead. “Your shipmates are all here. Do you remember anything from last night?”
“Last night?”
“The fleet from Port of Mercy showed up late last night,” she recounted. “You and a bunch of other navy officers came down from the inn to help us get everypony unloaded. It’s just past noon right now.”
“Let me up,” Gingersnap said, stubbornly pushing her away. “Where’s everypony else?”
“You won’t get far,” she said, sitting down beside him. “You can walk around here if you want. You don’t have a room at the inn anymore. Or anywhere. We just quadrupled our population overnight. We have foals sleeping in cupboards, and any properly docked ship is crammed full as well.”
Gabrielle helped him to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but after a few steps he got used to the feeling of his legs. It didn’t hurt nearly as bad as he thought it would. He could not change his posture easily, but on flat ground he could walk just fine.
The makeshift clinic was in a big warehouse on the docks. Most ponies had spent the night on thin mats at ground level just as he had. The room was drafty, and the ponies that had not left sat with blankets wrapped around their shoulders.
Gingersnap found Coral Frond sitting outside, wrapped in a thick patchwork quilt against the chilly wind. A layer of sharp ice shards coated his left side. With bags under his eyes and raw matted coat he looked a proper vagrant. But when he noticed Gingersnap he smiled.
“You want coffee?” He asked, raising a nearly empty mug. “They had coffee earlier. Here, I saved you something.”
He offered up a half-eaten bun. Gingersnap snickered.
“No, seriously,” Coral Frond said. “I don’t think there’ll be much food for the next few days. This is all they gave me, and they said there won’t be more until seven. And I think it’ll just be worse after this.”
Gingersnap took the cold bun and ate it in one bite. He wanted much more, but as he looked up to the town he saw smoke billowing from every chimney. Cooking fires, probably.
At the doorway of the deckhouse of the nearest ship a few ponies were huddled around a sack of oats. The sack had been roughly torn open. A young pegasus colt, maybe five or six years old, was licked the inside of a tiny can. Gingersnap asked them for some food. The colt’s mother filled the empty tin with oats and flew it over to him. It was like chewing on rock chips at first, and by the time he finished the inside of his mouth was completely dry.
“That’s one weird ship, don’t you think?”
Gingersnap followed Coral Frond’s pointing hoof. The odd red ship was hidden except for its mast and figurehead. The cobra leering at him over the decks of lesser vessels. The single mast was little more than a pillar. There were no fixed yards, and only two stays supported it.
“That big red one is Nephthys ,” Coral Frond said. “I went down there and had a look for myself earlier. I saw Moonlight this morning. She was far too busy to say anything.”
“Is Mary okay?” Gingersnap asked, sitting down on the icy boardwalk beside him. Coral Frond offered him a part of the large quilt.
“She’s fine,” Coral Frond said. “Moonlight’s keeping a close eye on her. She’s taking all this pretty well. Better than I would have at that age. Or even now.”
Gingersnap got hungrier by the minute, and Coral Frond seemed to forget he was there as soon as he stopped talking. He went back to his bed and tried to sleep through the dreary day.
It was full dark before the ponies from town arrived, many of them with bags under their eyes. Gingersnap could not stand up to go to them. He could only hope that he would not be forgotten again as the others crowded around the doors.
In additional to catering carts they brought carriages lined with cheesecloth and stuffed to the ceiling with bread. Metal-sided carts were loaded with soup packed in barrels, smoking like fires. Five squeaky wood carts arrived last, looking like a poor porcelain dealer’s caravan. The town must have been emptied entirely of food containers and cutlery, for the carts contained everything from small pots to salad bowls to infants’ bottles.
Guards soon broke through the crowd and ushered children to the front. A few dozen lines formed, all of them murmuring restlessly. No one dared to speak up. Even children of three or four walked with their food in solemn silence, ushered along by older siblings or parents. Gingersnap watched all the ponies and griffins acting out this parody of a feast.
He was losing hope when Coral Frond appeared out of the food line with two trays. He set down his quilt as a kind of picnic blanket on the muddy floor and set down their dinner. The soup was a thick sludge of every soup ingredient ever conceived in history, and the dense, dry loaf was some combination of cornbread, pumpernickel and fruitcake. Gingersnap thought it was the greatest meal he ever had.
Strengthened by their meal, many of the refugees got up to offer their help. Gingersnap and Coral Frond joined the growing line of ponies and griffins awaiting instructions. The messenger boy from the previous night was back along with several of his peers, serving simultaneously as guides and supervisors.
“Hey! Coral Frond!”
Gingersnap jumped. Mary was right beside him. She wore a reflective vest over her snowsuit, and a loosely-tied blue scarf. Her mane was uncombed, and an occasional twitch of her eyelid betrayed her exhaustion. She looked at him, and seemed genuinely surprised.
“You’re here too!” She yelled, apparently unaware of her surroundings. “That’s great! My mom wants to see both of you right away! It’s urgent! Come on!”
She ran up the pier unsteadily like she was drunk. Even with his sore legs Gingersnap had no trouble keeping up. Their destination was the stone house just beyond the gate of the harbor. Through the window Gingersnap could see that the first floor lobby was packed with ponies.
“Excuse me!” Mary said, pushing ruthlessly through the crowd. One stallion tried to kick her, but Coral Frond was right behind her and checked him so hard he fell over backwards. As the last pony in the group Gingersnap took the job of damage control, mumbling apologies to every glaring face he saw.
Fortunately the crowd ended at a row of three tables where fully-armored town guards were desperately working through boxes upon boxes of paperwork. Mary led them up a flight of wood stairs, narrow but incredibly sturdy.
On the second floor a single door stood ajar, emanating a flickering orange light. Mary barged in without slowing down.
“I found them!” She announced, gesturing to the confused sailors with one hoof.
“Thank you dear,” Moonlight said with a tired smile.
She was half-dressed in a jumpsuit, and was struggling to keep her eyes open. She looked at Gingersnap and Coral Frond, as if to say, “Give me a moment.” They backed into the hallway.
“Go to bed, sweetie,” Moonlight said softly. Her shadow receded off the wall as she leaned over her daughter. “You were such a big help today. But you need to be rested for tomorrow.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t be like this, Mary.” Midnight sighed. A grossly-distorted black hoof slid across the floor and up the wall, tenderly connecting with the filly’s gigantic head. “I know you want to help, but the best thing you can do for me right now is to go to sleep. The attic is all set up for you. You can keep the lamp on if you want. Come on.”
Gingersnap and Coral Frond shuffled to the side to allow Midnight to pass. Mary was slung across her back, looking rather annoyed. Alice appeared in the doorway shortly after and ushered the boys inside.
The bedroom was arranged simply and tastefully, just like everything else they had seen of the Chain Islands. The bed was a simple wood frame containing a hay mattress topped with clean blue sheets that nopony had yet lain on. There were six chairs, evidently gathered from a variety of sources. The vanity, if a long desk with a shallow drawer could be called that, was covered half in a mess of paper and quills and half a dozen spent inkwells, and half in the remains of a messy tea.
Upon Alice’s invitation, Gingersnap and Coral Frond had emptied the open tin of butter cookies before Midnight returned. She showed them a tired smile, which Gingersnap felt embarrassed yet obliged to reciprocate.
“Winter Oat told me to find you,” she said, raising her engraved brass mug to her lip with a slightly-trembling hoof. “He filled me in on what has happened since you left Port of Mercy. Up to the point when you found the Spectre anyway.”
“We’ll tell you as much as we know, ma’am,” Gingersnap said. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he quickly wiped the crumbs off his cheeks.
“I don’t need much from you,” Midnight said. “I want your candid answer. That’s all. You were among the last ponies to see him before he sailed.”
“He sailed with a big fleet,” Coral Frond remarked.
“What was his plan? Did he say he would kill Jack?”
“He expected to win,” Gingersnap said. “He… I mean… speaking candidly… he didn’t speak to us directly. He didn’t tell us anything at all after we got here, actually.”
Moonlight bowed her head. Gingersnap felt his own hope waning.
“He won’t be coming back here then,” she said firmly. The exhaustion was completely gone from her face, replaced with ruthless, bloodthirsty determination. “Yellow Jack is our problem now. His forces took Port of Mercy. He can land there whenever he wants. Even if we can intercept him, he’ll just ram through any blockade we can put up. Fighting him with the ships we have is pointless. Whatever damage Morning Breeze might have done, it can all be patched up at the in Port of Mercy. He can pick up supplies, a fresh crew and heavy cannons.”
Coral Frond had been edging backwards involuntarily. He bumped against the doorframe and jumped.
“We’ll need everybody and everything ,” Midnight said, turning to Alice. “Call up Kelp Town. I'm sure the Snow Queen is high priority for the Children of the Night. Tomorrow we’ll send out messengers and get the reserve fleets, and hope that Jack hasn’t turned them too.” She squinted at the boys. “You’re able sailors, I suppose?”
“He’s a marine, actually,” Gingersnap offered. Coral Frond looked at him in alarm. “I was raised on ships; all kinds of ships. We’re ready to help, if our captain permits.”
“Good,” Midnight said, her features softening into a warm, motherly smile. “Get rested. You seem to be in decent shape, and I need all the sailors and soldiers I can get. I’ll send someone to fetch you tomorrow morning.”
She gave them a lantern for the walk back. The road was slick with ice, and fresh snow was falling. Gingersnap’s spot on the floor had been taken by two fillies. Most of the available floor space was wet and muddy. After ten minutes they managed to find a half-broken crate at the very back of the warehouse. They let the lamp burn half-covered by their shared blanket until the fuel ran out. Despite the bent nails and splinters poking his back Gingersnap slept soundly that night.
Gingersnap scrubbed his face with the scalding hot towel. He grunted as his neck popped half a dozen times. He could remember many dreary days of rain and sleet, and waves that shut down the ship’s kitchen for days at a time, but that morning was the first time he had woken up with snot frozen over his nostrils.
After offloading two inches of heavy wet snow the sky was starting to clear up. The sight of a star as they were led up to the town by a pair of guards gave Gingersnap a feeling of hope, however unjustified.
Mary was not yet awake when they first entered the house, much to his relief. The main room was still full of ponies, and now it thundered with snoring. Only a tiny corridor passed between the cots, and along this Gingersnap and Coral Frond had tiptoed into the kitchen.
Gingersnap heard a crackle as he passed the threshold, and suddenly his ears were assaulted with the sound of metal scraping on metal. The stove was covered with four gigantic pots, and in the fireplace Alice was making an omelette. Two earth ponies in striped pink aprons and hoof-covers were watching the pots, picking them up as they came to a boil and dumping their contents into large wood barrels outside.
At the small dining table a very bedraggled Moonlight was part of an assembly line of four folding towels and bed-covers. Her horn glowed dimly, keeping up the barrier spell in the doorway as she worked on the towels with her hooves.
“Grab one,” she had ordered without looking up. “Hot water’s outside. Clean yourselves up. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Gingersnap rolled up the dirty towel and returned to the kitchen feeling rather out of place. One of the water ponies nearly bumped into him in the doorway, but she was fortunately more nimble than him and avoided spilling the steaming water in her pot.
“Go upstairs,” Moonlight said. “Same room as last night. There should be something to eat.”
The curtains in the bedroom were drawn back in anticipation of morning, though three freshly primed lanterns were hissing away. A few plain tins sat open on the floor, along with a large teapot and several jars of what looked to be tar.
Coral Frond was dulling his teeth on a sea biscuit, and jumped when Gingersnap walked up beside him.
“It’s not chocolate,” he warned when Gingersnap reached for a jar.
From the other side of the food pile a well-built earth pony mare laughed. She was taller than either of the boys, which was not very impressive on its own, but Gingersnap thought that she looked even tougher than Hornpipe. Her eye patch was sitting on her forehead above her slightly cloudy left eye, while her right was clear with a sheen like polished oak wood. She wore her black mane in a long, thick braid, and her light cream coat was dense and well-groomed. Her regal air was such that the ragged scar on her right foreleg seemed like a well-thought-out accessory.
“It’s not bad if you use a little bit at a time,” Coral Frond explained, flicking one of the jars of black sludge. “It’s really salty.”
Gingersnap took the warning to heart and used the black paste sparingly. It had an overwhelmingly rich taste that seemed to never go away. He enjoyed it at first but the novelty wore off quickly, and he had to wash it down with a few cups of strong black tea.
Moonlight arrived walking unsteadily, followed by Alice and a few others. Judging by their colorful jackets they were captains and officers.
“Your fleet is outfitted,” she said to the big mare with the glazed-over eye. “I found a few more sailors for you. You can review them on your own time…”
“You found sailors for me ?”
Gingersnap backed up against the wall. The big mare stormed up to Moonlight, her good eye bright with rage.
Moonlight’s spell rattled the room and blew the lid off the teapot. Her attacker dug her hooves in, and was only pushed back a few inches.
“This is not the time, Gloriana,” Alice said sharply. Moonlight stumbled against her, saving herself from an embarrassing fall.
“Yes, I found sailors for you,” Moonlight said, standing up straight and meeting Gloriana’s gaze. “This isn't the time for bickering. You will take what I give you. Jack's raiders went after our best sailors first. They killed fifty when they sacked my town, and over a hundred are missing. Jack is still jamming our radios. Morning Breeze’s ships are gone , and we’re best to assume that everyone who went with him is dead. And you know what? It’s going to get worse if we don’t come together and do something.
“You can bet that Yellow Jack’s marines know where we are.” She addressed the whole room now. “Razing the harbor only stalls them for a few days. They’re just waiting for their own fleet to pick them up, and meanwhile they have access to everything we left behind.
“Yellow Jack is the single greatest threat to all of us, and we have no chance against him unless we work together. I don't mean his fleet or his sailors. They can overrun a few islands, but they're an unremarkable force otherwise. But Yellow Jack is different. No one knows the limits of his magic. We have all challenged him in battle, and we have all failed. Even Morning Breeze never defeated him, though he's come the closest out of all of us. But for all his experience in battle, he has never faced Jack. He burned Jack's fleet and killed most of his sailors, but Jack didn't step in personally. He surrendered to Morning Breeze…” She paused and glanced at Gingersnap and Coral Frond, and seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I don’t know what his plan was back then. Maybe he foresaw all this. Maybe he's been toying with us for years. But I know he will not surrender again. This fight won’t be easy, and from now on we will have no misunderstandings. As long as his heart beats Jack is dangerous.
“Alone we were never able to bring enough force to bear against him. His fleet was the strongest, and it's true that no unicorn can face him alone. But times have changed. At the moment he has nothing but the Snow Queen . We are superior in numbers and firepower, and we must push our advantage now. This is our only chance, and we must make the most of it.
“Alice will stay here with Casanova , Meridian , Crown of Thorns and Libretto . The Children of the Night have guaranteed Icewall at least ten warships within the next five days, as well as food and any other supplies you may need. Everyone here will be safe. The rest of you are coming with me. We’ll loop far southwest to gather more ships. I know his supporters came from the far western islands, and if they're taking the route of least resistance we will intercept them before they reach Jack. In the best case we can eliminate his entire fleet so that all of our allies can converge on the Snow Queen . If not, we will still be fighting a small, weak fleet with our entire navy plus the ships from Kelp Town. Now we must gather all our forces. If Jack can overpower a thousand ponies we'll attack him with ten thousand. Jack must not survive. We will burn his body before we set hoof in Icewall again.”
“And what do these two have to do with anything?” Gloriana asked, nodding at the boys. Coral Frond retreated into Gingersnap’s shadow.
“They’re new,” Moonlight said. “This is just to get them up to speed. They’re veterans of the Equestrian Navy. Given the circumstances they’re the most competent sailors I could find for myself.”
Gingersnap clenched his jaw nervously as beads of cold sweat formed on his brow. But he had given his word that he would help, and he would not back out no matter how much he regretted his decision.
The formal part of the meeting thus adjourned, the ponies quickly finished all the remaining food. Alice left first, leading her four captains and their officers. After some hushed discussion with Moonlight the others went too, and finally Moonlight waved for Gingersnap and Coral Frond to follow her.
She put on a thick black cloak at the door. The streets outside were mostly empty, and the few ponies that they did meet—bent, shivering silhouettes—paid them no mind. The road down to the harbor was still iced over, a team of earth ponies having only cleared the first hundred metres or so. Gingersnap bruised his knees on the way down, and nearly slid into the water in the last few metres before the boardwalk.
“Where’s Mary?” Coral Frond asked suddenly.
“She’ll be safe here,” Moonlight said without slowing down. “She’s worked way too hard, and she deserves some rest. Alice will take good care of her.”
“Did you say goodbye?”
Gingersnap slapped Coral Frond in the back of his head and glared at him disapprovingly.
“She’ll understand,” Moonlight said. “This is for the best.”
The prow of the Nephthys appeared suddenly, startling the boys. The flickering light of the hanging lantern at the edge of the dock gave life to the gigantic gilded cobra. Gingersnap thought he saw its jeweled eyes moving in their sockets and its long, dripping fangs wriggling in its mouth.
“I need you two at your very best,” Moonlight said seriously, pushing back her hood and turning to face the boys for the first time since they left the house. “Several of your shipmates from the Spectre have been assigned to other ships; I've conscripted anyone willing and able to fight. You were properly trained by the Equestrian Navy, and right now that means a lot.
“Coral Frond, I need you to train and lead a boarding party. You’ll have eager fighters, but they’re all inexperienced or out of practice. And Gingersnap, I need you to supervise the shifts extra closely. I know you’ve been in combat before, and you’re a good sailor according to Winter Oat.”
“I can’t do that!” Coral Frond protested without reprimand from Gingersnap.
“You have to,” Moonlight said, stepping closer to him. The frightened unicorn backed away until he was at the edge of the boardwalk. “Winter Oat recommended you as one of his best, and it seems Morning Breeze liked you too. Coral Frond, I trust you. You won’t be seeing combat for weeks yet. You will train them well, and you will lead them to victory. Trust me, this will be good for you. And whatever the navy was paying you, whatever reward you were expecting, I’ll pay a hundred times more. You will return to Baltimare rich. That’s for both of you.”
But payment meant little to Coral Frond at that moment. All the vaults of Canterlot Castle could not have persuaded him to get on that ship. But as he stared long into Moonlight's tired face there was a change in his eyes.
“I guess we promised,” he said, his voice cracking mid-sentence. “Permission to board?”
“Permission granted,” Moonlight said, and made her way up the boarding ramp.
The well-worn deck was ever-so-slightly bowed and uncomfortably low. If there was anything below deck it was no more than crawlspace. Only a dozen sailors were out and about, working solemnly on their pre-departure duties. A grumpy-looking griffin with thoroughly-ruffled feathers was sitting under the lantern at the entrance to the main deckhouse, chewing on a pumpernickel sandwich filled with a single comically small fish.
The interior of the deckhouse was surprisingly comfortable. The shipbuilders had made use of every inch of the shallow draught, and the gently-slanted ceiling was much higher than Gingersnap expected. Supplies were tucked away in the space under the exterior walls, so the floor was nearly empty. Even with long tables and benches for the crew there was lots of room to walk around. Insulated hammocks were hung in layers, the type of hammocks that were considered too luxurious for common sailors.
The griffin outside turned out to be the quartermaster. He looked the boys over quickly and then pulled out a few large burlap sacks. They each received a heavier wool suit and one of the loose jumpsuits of the style ubiquitous among the pirates. The legs enclosed their hooves and were rubberized halfway up the knee. When they emerged on deck once again the cold voyage ahead seemed just a little less daunting.
Nephthys had one gigantic square sail for its single mast, hauled up by a yard that did not stay horizontal and tied at its two lower corners. Looking only at that sail, one could easily get impatient with the odd vessel. But the ship moved steadily, and in ten minutes the first ocean wave surged over the bow. Gingersnap fully appreciated his new uniform then.
All through the day Gingersnap caught glimpses of the other ships of the fleet trailing behind Nephthys . Each appeared briefly at the crest of a white-capped wave, half-hidden by mist, before slipping back into the troughs. He counted eight different ones, including a stately black ship flying a bright pink-and-red flag. He imagined the crew of that ship stayed considerably drier than he did.
There were two beams of sunlight through the whole day, one near noon and another just before sunset. Gingersnap got the sense that he was moving south quite quickly, though without a sextant he could not be sure. The sail seemed to luff half the time, and needed two ponies on each stay, yet the low-floating ship stayed far ahead of the other better-rigged vessels and had lost no ground by sundown.
Mercifully the deckhouse stayed dry. Dinner consisted of rich vegetable chowder and oranges. Gingersnap learned later that Moonlight had cooked the meal, using her magic to juggle the pot and stove as her ship bucked and heaved atop the merciless winter sea. The few times he looked up from his bowl, Gingersnap noticed several pairs of unfriendly eyes. Coral Frond must have made a few enemies among the marines, but there were a few sailors eyeing him too. A wave of dread passed over him as he remembered what these ponies had once been capable of. Some had grown mellow with age, but most could still be called young.
He slept well that night, but not as soundly as he would have liked.
The rocky pool had turned black with blood and soot. Morning Breeze lay with his chin just above the water line. A reed mat kept him off the rough bottom. His face was covered with damp snow. Thin lines of vapor trailing from his nostrils were the only signs of life.
He had been called the Silent Prince, and not because he was mute. Otherwise he would not be the third. It was the title of the Prince in Baltimare, because Canterlot rarely heard from them. They never attended the Grand Galloping Gala, though they were invited every year without fail. They rarely recruited guards or attended summits inland. But they could always be trusted to be guardians of Equestria.
Baltimare had always been problematic when a prince or princess was needed. With so many ponies coming and going, it was rare for any one pony to rise to prominence. More often than not there was no Prince of Baltimare. Morning Breeze was the first one to be named while his predecessor was still living, and at first all signs pointed to a smooth transition of power.
The tide came in, diluting the bloody water. Morning Breeze sank completely below the surface.
Nopony in Equestria had known about Yellow Jack. His victims, thousands of them, had simply been written off as lost at sea. Nopony ever saw him. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if it had stayed that way. If Morning Breeze had not heard the tales from the lesser pirates he brought back to Baltimare, if he had been older and wiser, maybe he would have realized that some things were better left alone.
His heart slowed down, and soon the trail of bubbles from his nose ended. He did not feel cold.
Hornpipe fished him out of a clear pool and immediately wrapped him in a heavy blanket. The island of Indica was never formally settled. The pirates had built shelters on the hills in their early days and still maintained an emergency cache, but most of the time this sizable and not-too-rocky island remained uninhabited.
The remainder of the fleet, eight ships in total, were anchored in calm water not far offshore. The others had scattered, and Morning Breeze could not say how far they fled. Likely they were homeward-bound to bring news of the defeat.
“We’re outside his range,” Hornpipe reported as he applied new bandages to Morning Breeze’s wounds. “He’s a good sailor, but he doesn’t know one end of a mortar from the other, and he has no crew left. We already won.”
You don’t have to lie to me.
Hornpipe read the words in his eyes and smiled sheepishly.
“You’re not that kind of optimist,” he said, pinning the end of the bandage at his waist. He paused and looked out the single round window of the little lodge. “And you’re not that kind of emperor either. What were you trying to prove?”
Morning Breeze licked his lips with a parched tongue. His throat burned from cold, and he felt a great weight on his chest.
“I’m not him,” he whispered. “Nothing like him. Never.”
“We know,” Hornpipe said solemnly.
Breakfast was brought in by a unicorn youth in a bright orange exposure suit. The ragged green bandana over her mane made her look older. Hornpipe sent her away with a crinkled wax paper satchel of lemon drops in way of payment. Their meal was a simple porridge of oats flavored with some kind of fruit preserve, served in mismatched metal bowls.
Morning Breeze was about to pick up his bowl and try his luck holding the spoon with his bandaged hooves when a thunderous boom rattled the single room lodge.
Hooves came racing towards the shelter. Hornpipe stared at Morning Breeze with a look of amazement and trepidation. Morning Breeze was too tired to be properly surprised.
There came three calm, well-spaced knocks. It was an almost musical sound.
“Come in, Moondancer,” Morning Breeze whispered. “Did Alice summon you?”
The door opened slowly, and a tall mare entered. Even though her body was covered in a shapeless black cloak she was a study in beauty. Her coat was perfectly white, and the nearly iridescent pink of her mane was a pink shared with nothing in the world. Despite her slim build her face was not pointed or angular, nothing like the cold, indifferent masks of Canterlot models. Instead she had the kindly care-worn face of an older mare, experienced with the troubles of the world but not trodden down by them.
“Why did you think I wouldn’t show?” She asked in her gently, melodious voice. She hung her head and took a few breaths to calm herself before continuing. “Morning Breeze, I know what you think of me. You said it clear enough the last time we saw each other. What I did to you and Yellow Jack… it goes against everything we believe in. And I know you feel betrayed. But I’m here now. I’m not asking you to forget everything I did, but I accept you as family even if you don’t feel the same way. I offer you every resource at my disposal without restriction so that Yellow Jack may be contained.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Morning Breeze whispered. “He’s your son.”
“And that’s the answer,” she replied. She tried to come closer, but Hornpipe stood up defensively.
“And I should deal with him?” Morning Breeze tapped his chest with a bandaged hoof. “Me? Now that I know everything? I was fine before you and Jack got involved! I was happy! While you were living it up in Saddle Arabia and Jack was pillaging the islands, I grew up. I found a family. You threw me away, but I became something. I should have killed Jack the first time. That was all my fault, I’ll own up to it. I could have done it back then, but I didn’t, and now I can’t. I won’t. And you ! Daughter of Princess Luna herself! You had all the time in the world, all that power, and you wouldn’t lift a hoof for twenty years! Now you expect me to be your obedient little grandson and run your errands?
“Do what you will, but I’ll have no part in it. You all made it abundantly clear that you didn’t want me—you never wanted me— so keep your family issues in the family.”
This had all been said before, of course. From beginning to end, it had been scripted since Moondancer had found him adrift and abandoned by his rebellious crew. Moondancer looked as mortified as she always did.
“Fine.” She sighed. “What do you want? Will you let Jack run amok just to spite me? I think you’re being unreasonable, and that you have nothing to offer me. I’ve built you an empire in these islands, and I’ve asked for very little. But name your price. More ships? More cities? Do you want your voice fixed? A beautiful, flawless coat? Do you want Saddle Arabia? I’ll give it to you, and all the trade routes extending from its ports. Alicorn powers? Anything for some peace with you.”
Morning Breeze looked into his bowl. It was all silly and meaningless bluffing, and he did not feel any better for it. He could not stand being in Moondancer’s presence, and her patience was not infinite either. In the best of times he had treated her coldly. It might have been petty and petulant, but in the moment he had always felt justified.
“Come here,” Morning Breeze said finally. “I’m going to ask for something; many things. Nothing for me personally. Pledge them to me, and you will have my help.”
Gingersnap enjoyed the morning immensely. After five days of storms the watch roused everyone early to see the sun. It was dim and grey, with no power against the biting wind that filled their sail, yet they were heartened all the same. Old sailors who looked incapable of smiling elbowed each other and laughed over private jokes, and there were moments during breakfast when Gingersnap felt that he was among old crewmates and friends.
By eleven o’clock (the pirates were casual with their timekeeping, and Gingersnap had no timepiece of his own) the forward watch spotted land. The Island of Fiddlehead supported three towns, two on the coast and one in the highlands. Runners were sent out as soon as the fleet landed, and by late afternoon the spacious harbor was full of sailors and soldiers. Gingersnap had never seen so many marines in one place. There were more in that harbor than Baltimare’s barracks could house. The crew of the Nephthys brought aboard supplies faster than he could fill in his inventory sheet, and a few times he caught himself counting warships instead of sacks of oats.
“I suppose you don’t know much about Jack,” the quartermaster said suddenly. “You wouldn’t be so surprised otherwise.”
“He’s just one pony, right?” Gingersnap asked through the pencil between his teeth.
“An alicorn is also just one pony technically; doesn’t mean you can fight one,” said the griffin. He was eating a large raw salmon, and try as he might Gingersnap could not look at him with a straight face. He was using the fish as an extension of his hand, letting it flop around as he gestured at the harbor. “Jack is what’s called a Nephilim . That’s not a word you’ll see in Equestria, because they don’t exist there.
“He’s the youngest son of one of the Children of the Night and Shining Beacon. In terms that you can understand, he’s Princess Luna’s grandson.”
Gingersnap was about to object, but was stopped by the half-eaten fish flopping onto his muzzle and blocking his eyes.
“Write down eight palates of tinned fruit,” he heard the quartermaster say. “You really don’t know anything then. That can be forgiven, seeing how Equestria remembers nothing. The Children of the Night are Luna’s children, all alicorns. Shining Beacon was a unicorn, a great pirate king. The first capital letters Pirate King, actually. His fleet was thousands strong, and he had an alicorn on his side. By his side. The other Children of the Night liked him too. The world was spread before him, and the only reason Equestria still exists is because he just wasn’t interested in that territory. It’s all land. You can’t sail from Baltimare to Canterlot, and what’s the fun in that? Well, that and when his two oldest sons turned on him.
“He had four children, all from the same mother, three sons and one daughter. The short version is that the two older boys got along real well, and Jack and his sister were also a pair. Jack was maybe fourteen when this all happened, and he and his sister escaped with their mother and about a third of the fleet. That’s a lot more ships than the Equestrian Navy, and of course their mother had connections. Jack and his sister regrouped and attacked their brothers. It was a single epic battle that lasted nearly a month, and left half a million dead. The bodies and shipwrecks formed an island all to themselves. Only a few dozen ships from Shining Beacon’s fleet survived, and of his children only Jack was left.
“After that Jack’s mother tried to take him home, but he wouldn’t go. And so she gave him some time alone to heal at his own pace, but when you’re that kind of royalty everything gets blown completely out of proportion. Jack sailed around Equestria’s islands with all the wealth anyone could ever want. But that could never satisfy a pony like him.
“He became a terror to sailors. Nobody that sees his fleet on the horizon ever returns, and I mean it. His name was unknown in Equestria. For thirty years he reigned, preying upon merchants and navy alike. Froom Equestria’s point of view their ships were lost at sea or simple vanished, and nobody could say otherwise. This was before the Children of the Night appeared in Equestria again, before they made peace with Celestia.
“Around this time Morning Breeze came of age at the Baltimare Orphanage, as in he was old enough to join the Naval Academy. And while others were born into nobility his was entirely of his own making. He was a freediver, and by that point he had made a fortune from selling pearls. But no one knew back then where he came from, and that was suspicious. In Baltimare, you see, you can parade down the streets with a thousand pure white attendants, shedding gems and crown jewels from Celestia’s own chariot, but you’ll not get an audience with the lowliest baron if you can’t name your relations.”
Gingersnap winced at this mention of Baltimare, and would have told the griffin just how well he knew the prejudices of Baltimare if he had not kept talking.
“He was turned away that year, and that made all the difference in the world. If they’d let him in he would not have gone back to pearl diving. He would not have become so close with Gold Standard. If they had let him in then, he would not have met Princess Celestia the way he did. She would not have named him a Prince, and a lot of the old admirals of the Baltimare Fleet would still be alive. He would not have taken the voyages that he did, and he would not have brought Jack back to Baltimare all charred and bound in chains. And he wouldn’t know…”
“That’s enough, Gerald.”
Gingersnap jumped. Posing as a common deck hoof, Moonlight had snuck aboard her own ship beneath a hundred pound sack of onions.
“Some of Yellow Jack’s old crew are here,” she reported. “They’re under house arrest now, and they’re cooperating. We have twenty thousand marines, but only space for less than two thousand. Captain Block is offering the Wayward Son . He promised to be outfitted by 2100.”
Gerald clicked his beak nervously.
“Captain Block himself?” He said. The fish with its midsection stripped of flesh snapped at the spine. The head along with a considerable amount of meat fell with a wet splat onto the deck.
“Captain Block himself in his flagship,” Moonlight said, glancing over her shoulder towards the town. “A ship without a Master since Swiftwater passed away, but he insisted on coming with us.”
“We’ll have no shortage of firepower at least,” Gerald mumbled.
“How are things looking here, Gingersnap?”
“A few more things to go,” he reported, quickly flipping through the pages on his clipboard. “We have two sets of spare sails, and enough cloth and thread to make five more. The spare anchors are stowed. We have chains, rope, fresh water… spare oars.”
“What’s the matter?” Moonlight asked in a softer tone, leaning in like she was examining a child.
“Nothing, Ma’am,” he said quickly, straightening his neck at attention.
“He’s surprised, that’s all.” Gerald chuckled. “Never seen a ship like this before. How could he? Equestria never had galleys like this, and he’s too young to remember when this one was impounded.”
Never had Gingersnap been so thankful for his jumpsuit as the griffin slapped his slimy palm on his shoulder.
“This here is a galley, and not just any galley. This was the Royal galley of Prince Zephaniah during his rebellion against his brother the Pharaoh of the Immortal Dunes. Seven years he sailed, terrorizing merchant ships of the tropics, until the letter came from Celestia. She would turn a blind eye if we happened to encounter Zephaniah’s fleet and things got out of hand. And if Zephaniah’s treasure was lost at sea, so be it.”
Gerald winked after every other word and ruffled his wings. Even so, Gingersnap did not realize his implication until after Moonlight hauled him below deck.
On shore a battalion of griffins and pegasi took flight. The thunder of their wings rolled across the harbor. Gingersnap ducked under the gunwale and squeezed his eyes shut until they had landed onboard their ship.
Let me live. Just let me live.
The Wayward Son began its descent from dry dock at 1900. Before then the fleet sailed out to wait just beyond the harbor. Then the main street leading to the harbor was cleared and lined with rollers and hay bales. The segmented door of the four storey tall warehouse were opened by a team of earth ponies, first the bottom half and then the top. Gingersnap could hardly see them from the deck of the Nephthys .
The ship was gigantic, lumbering along without masts, sending out ropes in every direction. It was like a bowl of fireflies, with the crew providing the flicker by hurrying from one side of the deck to the other. Based on the hatches he could see Gingersnap estimated three hundred broadside guns.
“Good thing he’s on our side,” Coral Frond mumbled under his breath.
The three masts with sails already set rose from storehouses near the water. Dozens of unicorns on shore held them in the air while pegasi and griffins guided the ropes. In minutes the Wayward Son was fully assembled. Finally a signal was sent to the rest of the fleet via a volley of cannon fire that left Gingersnap with stars in his eyes.
“Set out!” Barked the watch commander, a unicorn mare from Fiddlehead.
Across the water the command was being repeated on every deck. The pirates had an unnerving habit that Gingersnap had not fully appreciated until now, with the big fleet assembled on calm water. They sailed without running lights. Within minutes lanterns were being lowered from the riggings and snuffed out. One by one the ships winked out of existence, returning as shadowy spectres like the backs of misshapen whales.
Gingersnap retired to his hammock an hour later, without undressing lest a taller ship ran down the Nephthys in the middle of the night.
Gingersnap awoke to the sound of ponies yelling on deck, but he was sure that there had not been a collision. No one had been sent to rouse the sleepers, but as he looked around from his hammock he noticed dozens of shining eyes.
There were orders to deploy extra sails and oars, but when a colt rushed down the hatch with a lantern swinging wildly between his teeth and started unpacking pumps everyone got up.
“What’s the matter?” Gerald growled, surging out of the darkness and startling the child.
“There’s a fleet coming from due north,” he reported quickly. “Captain Moonlight says they’re hydrofoils. All the hydrofoils we have.”
The quartermaster clicked his beak as a wave of raised feathers and fur passed from his beak to his tail.
“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “Marines prepare to board, sailors on deck. Gingersnap, stay a while and place all the pumps. Pick ten sailors for yourself, and start pumping as soon as there’s a breach.”
Gingersnap picked his crew as they left the deckhouse. A steady drumbeat had been established on deck, and the grunting rowers pulled with all their might. The colt helped unpack the five oversized pumps, but could not help much to move them. Gingersnap placed them as he had been asked, and seeing that the colt could assemble them satisfactorily he rushed out onto a slurry-slicken deck.
Twenty long oars extended from the starboard side, twenty from port, rolling in unison. A pair of griffins attended the rudder, and barely balanced atop the masthead was a pegasus. Squinting towards the bow, Gingersnap saw another pony clinging to the golden cobra head. Marines were starting to assemble in their parties of five or seven, each party armed with a mix of spears, war scythes and machetes.
“Six miles!” Called the pegasus on the masthead.
Coral Frond’s team emerged, seven looking like three. If any were older than their leader it was not by much. For his part Coral Frond did not seem at all nervous. A calm grimness had taken hold of him, yet that made Gingersnap all the more worried.
“Five miles!”
The cry startled him. Under oars and sail the Nephthys must have been pushing ten knots. A ship at twice that speed could not close a mile so quickly.
“Four miles!”
A flash from half a mile to the stern made everyone jump. The tiny shadow of the fleet was burnt into the horizon, and Gingersnap thought he saw gigantic feathers sticking out of the sea. The sound of the cannons reached them a moment later, and it seemed mere seconds before the spotter called three miles.
“Twenty ships incoming!”
“Mortars! Fire!”
The deck recoiled. Without riggings the Nephthys had plenty of room for high angle mortars. Gingersnap had never seen this kind of battle before. Bright shells arched high overhead in a lazy arc, barely moving at times it seemed. About three quarters through their trajectory the brightest ones faded completely, and for seconds nothing happened.
Fire seemed to erupt out of the sea as the shells found their mark, but Gingersnap was not sure what exactly was hit. Four giant feathers burst into flames, revealing soft trusses that fell away as the canvas was consumed. It was a sail of some sort, but where was the ship? Nephthys was a low-floating ship, but the “hydrofoil” seemed to have no distinction between deck and hull. And as the sail burned away these ships seemed to dive beneath the waves, lurching as their own wake caught up to them. One was dragged down so suddenly that its stern was thrown into the air.
The six other ships appeared to fly above the waves, with slender split hulls raised almost entirely out of water. Their decks, if they had any true decks, were crowded with ponies. By the time the second volley was ready they were among the fleet.
Tongues of fire burst forth from the fast ships, and black shapes leapt onto the fleet like fleas off a dog. Gunfire flashed on the decks and in the air, and in seconds the attackers had caught and surpassed the Nephthys .
“Hard to starboard!” Moonlight ordered, blasting two pegasi out of the air before they could reach the deck. “Port rifles fire!”
A pegasus landed before Gingersnap, and he did not realize immediately that it was not one of his shipmates. He did think that the pony was rather clumsy to land in his way, and shoved him roughly aside in the direction of the marines. He jumped at the sound of blades piercing flesh and ducked against the deck.
“Look sharp!” Moonlight called to her crew. A burst of magic from her horn threw all the pegasi still in the air hard into the water.
“Grenades!”
A dimly glowing bubble enveloped the ship just as the hydrofoils zoomed by again. The explosions were muffled, but Gingersnap noticed the unicorns of the crew stagger.
“Pegasi! Board!”
Lamps and spotlights and the beams from horns lit up the water for a hundred metres in every direction, and as two dozen marines made the leap onboard one of the hydrofoils Gingersnap finally got a clear look of its hull.
It was roughly half as long as the Nephthys , but had the deck space of a large canoe at best. Each of its hulls was not quite wide enough for two marines to safely stand shoulder-to-shoulder. An enclosed deckhouse was perched on the beams connecting the two hulls, directly below the feather-shaped sail. Its front of the deckhouse was rounded, and the whole thing could have housed six bunks and the wheel, eight if they were especially cramped. The craft yawed dangerously with the slightest movement. The windward hull rose free of the water entirely as it turned, crossing within an inch of the Nephthys ’s bow. It was faster than any chariot on land, and faster than most pegasi could fly. Some of the Nephthys ’s marines tumbled off the stern of the hydrofoil, narrowly avoiding the water as their wings beat frantically in the chaotic wake left behind.
“Grenades!”
The shield was raised once again. One of the returning marines flew headlong into it. Gingersnap thought he heard the pony’s nose cracking, but that turned out to be the least of his concerns. The hydrofoil flashed into existence behind him. Lined up on the leeward hull, roped in and knee-deep in water a dozen attackers were priming stick grenades.
“Go up!” Cried the marines on deck. The portside rowers lost their rhythm, a few of them dropping their oars altogether to wave frantically at the dazed pegasus.
He backed away from the barrier holding his nose. His eyes were squeezed shut. His wings were beating and he rose unsteadily, but too late.
Gingersnap stared petrified. It was cleaner than he expected, and somehow that made it more terrible. The pegasus seemed to drop without much fuss, without exploding into tiny, unrecognizable pieces. He was pushed against the barrier a few times, and his legs flopped around him like laces trying to tie themselves in knots. The most dramatic thing about it was the way his long blue feathers burst from his wings, and how those wings lost their shape. He dropped into the water amidst a rain of shrapnel, and only then was there blood.
“Keep rowing!”
Gerald ran from stern to bow brandishing a length of rope, shoving stunned rowers back to their posts. When he reached Gingersnap he threw him down the steps into the deckhouse.
“Start pumping!”
The colt was still inside with his lantern; that was the only light left in the deckhouse. He stared at Gingersnap with big, frightened eyes.
“Everything’s fine,” Gingersnap managed to say. “Don’t go outside. Just… keep looking for leaks.”
“There are no leaks,” said the colt in a hollow voice.
“Great.”
Gingersnap went up the stairs. His legs were bruised from the fall despite his padded suit.
“No damage!” He yelled to no one in particular, or at least he thought he did.
The Nephthys had slowed down, and the fleet was spread out. The gunwales of the Wayward Son was crowded with rifles, and three hydrofoils were bobbing inert in the water around that ship. Fire had darkened patches of the hull, but the damage was only cosmetic.
“Brace for impact!”
The hydrofoil appeared out of the night, its now-ragged sail suddenly looming over the deck of the Nephthys . Gingersnap reached out for the doorframe and missed. On The port side rowers extended their oars and held them straight out to catch the speeding ship.
The remaining ten crew of the hydrofoil leapt into the air, the earth ponies and unicorns among them lifted by pegasi. The last to leave threw down a torch, and something on the hull ignited like a pile of dry hay.
“TAKE COVER!” Gerald materialized at middeck to blow out Gingersnap’s right eardrum. Without waiting for a reaction he pushed past the earth pony and leapt into the deckhouse.
The world turned white, and the shockwave nearly toppled the Nephthys . Gingersnap felt his mouth and nostrils baked dry in the heat and immediately coated with ash. For long seconds the world was dark and silent, but one of the first things he heard was the distant squeaking of a single frantic pump.
“Who did that?” Demanded Moonlight.
Gingersnap blinked hard, trying to get some tears to wet his eyes. Each ship appeared a warm orange orb of light on a perfectly dark backdrop. It made him nauseous.
“Coral Frond ?!”
Oars splashed into the water as rowers fled their post.
“Nobody touch him!” Moonlight ordered.
“What is that?”
“What’s happening?” Gingersnap tried to yell, but choked on soot. “Coral Frond? Is he okay?”
Gerald put a hand on his shoulder, brushing it a little to clear up some dust.
“Don’t you block the door,” he said gruffly. Gingersnap turned around, but the deckhouse was just a cavern of darkness. Gerald’s voice softened. “Here, go back to bed. It’s over.”
“Coral Frond.” Gingersnap coughed and spat out a solid glob of powder.
“He’s fine,” Gerald said. “You can talk in the morning. Come on.”
Gerald practically lifted him into the hammock. Gingersnap lay awake for an hour, his ears tuned to sounds of cannon fire and impacts. But the sea was quite once again, and soon ponies were returning to their beds all around him.
On the verge of sleep, he heard Moonlight whispering gently, and something hissing and gurgling in reply. It was a desperate, heartbroken sound. Gingersnap could discern which of the sounds represented screams.
The next morning the front fifth of the deckhouse was cordoned off with one of the spare sails. The windows were also curtained, so no one could see what was inside. Of course everyone knew immediately that it was Coral Frond hidden in the new room.
No one was especially hungry that morning. A few sailors ate raw oats with mugs of water, keeping a nervous watch of the horizon. Gingersnap assessed the damage and took a census of the sailors, stumbling a few times as he went. Assuming he was nauseous, a griffin offered him a dried anchovy out of a greased paper package. It was nothing but salt, but it did make him feel better.
A few of the marines had cuts and bruises, two with gashes deep enough to require stitching, but there was but the one fatality. By the time he got to his name—Rolling Thunder—Gerald had already sewn the pegasus’ stiff body into a canvas sack and was smoking his greasy pipe over it. He had his suit rolled down to the waist, and all his feathers stood on end so that it seemed the suit couldn’t possibly have fit him in the first place.
“About two o’clock in the morning, I reckon,” he said without looking up. “Write that down. Moonlight will break the news to his folks when we return to Icewall. Are the boats back?”
He was referring to the eight boats that had set out before sunrise to take stock of the fleet. Gingersnap reported that seven had returned.
“I suppose the Wayward Son ’s the problem,” Gerald said. “We’ll sail tomorrow then. Today we send off Old Captain Block along with this one.”
“There was no death flag on that ship,” Gingersnap remarked.
Gerald looked up, but before he could answer the boy from the previous night came with a message that Gingersnap was to report to the Captain in the deckhouse at once.
Moonlight was waiting for him alone at the makeshift curtain. She looked uncertain, even nervous.
“Coral Frond is not hurt very badly,” she said, seeing the despair that was building on his face. She paused for a moment and quickly glanced over her shoulder at the curtain. “There’s something about him. You’re not like him, are you?”
“What?” Gingersnap was starting to feel lightheaded, his mind racing through a thousand possibilities at once.
“Gingersnap,” Moonlight said in a motherly tone. “I don’t know the details, but here is what I suspect: your friend was badly injured many years ago. The face we’ve all seen… that’s not what he looks like now. He was not deceiving us out of malice. He’s still your friend, and he said he wants to see you. Just… prepare for the worst. Take a moment now. Remember, it’s still Coral Frond. Can you promise me you won’t panic?”
“Just show me already,” Gingersnap said. “If he’s not in pain, if he’s still in one piece, if his mind is still sound then I’ll be satisfied.”
“You say that now,” Moonlight said, planting her hoof.
“Just let me see him,” he said with some bite in his tone. “He’s my best friend. And I’ve seen a hundred exotic maladies in as many infirmaries. I’ve been in battles. My own face was once swollen so big that I could hardly breathe for days. What kind of deformity is so bad that even I can’t see him?”
“Alright.” she conceded and held open the end of the curtain for him.
A pair of glistening blue eyes stared at him from a nest of cushions and blankets and pages of logbooks, eyes without whites or pupils or any other features. His face was hairless, black and shining like new lacquer. It was the face of a changeling, a creature that Gingersnap had only ever seen as drawings, and drawings which he had always assumed to be wild exaggerations.
But as the initial shock faded, Gingersnap realized that he was not a changeling. Not entirely. Reddish coat covered his chest up to a ragged edge. The black shell ran down his neck in a seam slightly left of centre. The back of his neck and head were all covered with normal skin and coat, extending as far forward as the base of his left ear, though both ears were the black tubular ears of a changeling. His front hooves too had been replaced, the left going all the way up to his shoulder. Most remarkable of all was his horn. It was a unicorn’s horn affixed to the shell. The base was noticeably bleached, nearly white where it was merged with the forehead, but the top half had retained its original vibrant red.
A stream of slime flowed steadily from the corner of Coral Frond’s mouth. He was controlling the flow with a piece of canvas cloth. He closed his eyes when Gingersnap took a step forward.
“Did you know?” Gingersnap asked. It took a great effort just to speak.
Coral Frond shook his head without opening his eyes.
“It’s not your fault then,” Gingersnap said. He looked over his shoulder at Moonlight, who subtly nodded her approval. “Coral Frond, this really isn’t a good time. We’ll figure out what happened to you when our job is done. I’ll help you. But we need you on your hooves right now.”
“You’ll be wealthy when this is through, I’ll make sure of it,” Moonlight said. “You can be free of the navy. You can be free of Equestria altogether if you wish.”
Coral Frond hissed angrily, shooting green globs all over the deck. Suddenly embarrassed, he hastily wadded up the canvas and shoved it into his mouth.
“Say something,” Gingersnap urged anxiously. “Change your face back. What’s wrong?"
“His magic is drained, but that’s not the crux of it.” Moonlight said. She lay down next to Coral Frond and addressed him. “I doubt anyone will mind your appearance, but you’ll need to talk somehow.” She looked up at Gingersnap. “Can he borrow your face for now?”
“What?”
“He can’t remember what he looked like,” Moonlight explained, patting Coral Frond’s shoulder to keep him calm. “Not enough mirrors around here, and no good photographs either. He needs an undistorted image to work from. As his friend, I thought you were the best pony to ask.”
“Alright,” Gingersnap said. “Coral Frond, do what you have to do. At least then we can talk.”
Coral Frond cocked his head. Gingersnap read the pain in his face, though his stiff snout and painted-on eyes would have seemed uncanny to any casual observer. His horn glowed, first a dull green and then powering up to red. There was a quick flash, and then Gingersnap was face to face with a disconcerting vision of himself.
The chin and nose and forehead were his, but it was covered in Coral Frond’s skin. The mane was much longer, cascading down to his shoulders in full golden curls (which did not go well at all with his trimmed tail), and of course he had a horn. The eyes were also like Gingersnap’s, save for the color. Gingersnap had seen the dejected look in those eyes before, and could not understand why he did not feel the same. He took a step forward and embraced Coral Frond, both of them falling into the pile of blankets and pillows.
“I don’t know what happened,” Coral Frond said. Gingersnap felt his tears on his shoulder and held him tighter. “I’m not a changeling. I’m still me. I’m Coral Frond.”
“I believe you,” Gingersnap answered. Remembering that Moonlight—Captain Moonlight—was watching, he reluctantly took on a serious tone. “Pull yourself together. There’s work to do yet.”
“Alright,” Coral Frond said with a sigh, letting go and stumbling to his feet. He looked shaken, but there was new confidence in his eyes. “I’ll meet with my marines tonight. Will you be there?”
“Find me when you’re ready,” Gingersnap said.
“You two put all this back in order,” Moonlight said, easing back into her professional demeanor. “Any news from the other ships?”
“No other casualties so far,” Gingersnap reported, standing up straight and meeting her gaze. “Our boat to the Wayward Son has not returned. Gerald speculates that Captain Block is dead.”
“He’s not dead,” Moonlight said softly and continued. “You have your orders. I’ll be at the wheel.”
She tore down the curtains as she left. Gingersnap and Coral Frond worked hastily, both thinking over the new state of things. Coral Frond was about to close the last crate when a deep, clear voice filled the room. It was loud but not painfully so, and Gingersnap could not tell from whence it came.
“Permission to board, Captain Moonlight?”
“Come aboard, Captain Block,” came the reply, slightly muffled by the dense tropical wood of the Nephthys .
Coral Frond slammed down the lid and pushed the crates into the appropriate alcoves, and the two hurried on deck at a pace that would not seem too eager to the rest of the crew.
Captain Block was the oldest pony Gingersnap had ever seen. His face was gaunt and bald almost to the base of his neck where a few patches of bleached grey coat still clung on. His wide, square jaw was noticeably crooked, and a lump on the right side of his chin showed where it had been broken. His eye patch no longer covered his left socket, which seemed to expand and contract with each steaming breath. The rest of his body he covered with a flowing black cape with a gold-embroidered collar, and Gingersnap assumed from the way he drifted across the deck that he did not walk. Even his horn, the sturdiest and most consistent part of a unicorn, had managed to twist itself apart over the years to form two blunted tips and a hole halfway down its length.
“Captain Moonlight,” he said, his voice not at all proportionate to the nearly-imperceptible fluttering of his shriveled lips. “I am here for the funeral. You did not dump the body, did you?”
“He’s over here,” Gerald called from middeck. “We were going to have a short service; bare minimum.”
“You’ve already delayed us all night,” Captain Block said. Gingersnap shook his head, hoping to dislodge the voice from his ears. “Does anyone know the deceased? Family or friends? Surely he’s not alone.”
“His brother is a cook on the Finback , and he has two sisters on the Aeolian .” Moonlight reported, looking across the water all the way to the horizon beyond which those ships sailed. “He’s from Icewall. I did not know him well myself.”
Captain Block rotated slowly, glaring at all the young faces that turned aside or downwards one after another. Gingersnap made sure not to look away, though it seemed to matter little to the ancient captain.
“I thought you knew better, Captain Moonlight,” he said in a low voice. “What happened to your crew? The one that claimed the Hoard of the Immortal Dunes all those years ago?”
“They moved on,” Moonlight said, blushing slightly as Captain Block began to circle her. “They fish now. Some pilot cargo ships. A few are farmers. Those that answered my call are spread out across the fleet.”
“You are sailing to the hardest battle of your life, Captain Moonlight,” he said. “This is all you have?”
“They are more than adequate,” Moonlight said coldly. “Do what you will, Captain Block. I expect to sail before sundown.”
Captain Block rolled his one good eye and mumbled something under his breath, though Gingersnap thought he saw a smile curl his lips for a second.
The crew gathered on deck in two rows, with Captain Block whispering instructions in their ears. It was not a standard formation, yet somehow Gingersnap found his place without too much trouble. The boy waited by the bell, but there was no music. The body had become stiff in its shroud. Thankfully Captain Block could lift it smoothly with magic.
“We offer Rolling Thunder of Icewall, killed in battle,” he intoned solemnly. No doubt every ear in the fleet could hear him. “If we were friends to him in life, may he grant us smooth water and fair winds. And a bounty of fish, because I intend to fish tonight and many of us have a taste for it.”
Gingersnap thought he heard a bark of laughter from across the water. The body drifted over the gunwale and turned upright. The canvas fell by their own weight, forming an outline around Rolling Thunder’s face and catching slightly on his shoulders. Slowly he sank to the bell’s lento toll, and Gingersnap felt the dead stallion’s eyes staring at him.
And then as the bell continued to toll he rose up, wet cloth now clinging to his distorted features, his mouth open…
Gingersnap fell out of his hammock and bit back his scream. He could still taste the salty chowder from dinner. The air in the deckhouse seemed especially stale. Without putting on his outer suit he stumbled towards the centre of the room, groping for a ladder before remembering the layout of the ship. Opening a door he emerged onto the deck where a cool wind was blowing.
The sky was clear and full of stars. The fleet cut through the water on waves as calm as a puddle after a storm. A pair of lanterns was swinging at middeck on the Wayward Son as five griffins drew in skimming nets.
“Bless the old prune,” Gerald said under his breath. His line cut deep into his heavy leather gloves, but his tuna was nearly reeled in.
Healing magic was forbidden in Equestria. It was exactly as painful as receiving the injury, and the healer felt it too. Even the Children of the Night rarely used it.
Morning Breeze stepped out of the circle of stones smouldering, snow sizzling under his hooves. Moondancer had a two metre ring of dry pebbles around her.
New tracts of scar tissue ran all over his body. Morning Breeze sank into a fresh tide pool and looked to the east. In one more day the ships from Kelp Town would arrive; Yellow Jack’s birthright, and soon to be his.
That morning the sea ponies reported that Jack was moving west. A message had been dispatched for Moonlight’s fleet, but there would be little hope of her catching up if Jack meant to sail straight to Baltimare.
Without a blockade or heavy guns, without the half million marines and sailors pledged to his cause, Morning Breeze had to slow him down.
Coral Frond told his story at least a dozen times. The Chain Islands had never been threatened by changelings, and the sailors were more curious than suspicious. Over the next few days Gingersnap stayed close to him as much as his duties would permit, but Coral Frond was also more pleasant to be around. With no secrets left, not even to himself, he became confident overnight. He drilled his marines mercilessly, and trained alongside them. With the richer diet on the Nephthys he had become sturdier.
The fleet grew bigger as well. Some of the islands were less than a day apart, so that some nights the sailors could spend on shore. Even the smallest settlements offered a few ships for the cause. There were small interceptors, gunships, carriers, and after two weeks they had dozens of ships of the line. Of these the Wayward Son was the greatest, leading the rest like a mother hen and herself led by swifter vessels.
One evening when the fleet was anchored around a rocky island almost devoid of trees Moonlight emerged on deck near the end of the first watch. She disappeared to the stern and leaned over the gunwale. The watch, consisting of Gingersnap and four other ponies huddled around a lantern, thought nothing of it at first. Their conversation about tropical beaches ceased, however, when their Captain appeared on the roof of the deckhouse. At the peak of the slightly-slanted roof she stopped and raised her horn. From it a single purple orb rose slowly, growing brighter until it was past the tip of the mast, and then quickly shot into the sky. For a full minute the image of the final burst of fire overhead was burned into Gingersnap’s eyes, while thunder rolled over the water.
Minutes passed, then an alarmed cry was heard from one of the smaller ships. A wildly-swaying light was brought to the edge of that ship. Others followed. Curious, the watch of the Nephthys lowered their own lantern and recoiled in alarm.
Though all sailors knew the frightening depth of the ocean, most never saw it. They doled out anchor chains and sounding lines, kilometres at a time in the case of the latter, but it usually sank out of view into some unknown and unknowable abyss. Few would hesitate to lean over the gunwale to retrieve a snagged line, and few would dare do the same if they were atop some hypothetical tower from which all of Canterlot Castle looked like a pin’s head.
The water beneath them had become clear. All the bait fish and plankton had scattered, all their waste cleared away. Lanterns penetrated a hundred metres if not more, and their cones of light were filled with horrors previously unknown to those born to the air.
A gigantic purple tentacle ran beneath the Nephthys , dotted with barnacles the size of a pony’s head. The head of the creature was somewhere past the ship’s bow, with at least four unblinking eyes. Dead eyes of iridescent silver and gold stared up at Gingersnap from even greater depths. These he recognized from the mutiny on the Spectre that seemed a lifetime ago. Deeper still were masses half-corporeal, their outlines fading into the water. All were herded by sea ponies, many thousands darting between the giants.
“Tomorrow we sail for the Snow Queen,” Moonlight said after climbing down to the deck. “The Children of the Night are here, and we are out of time.”
She did not say anything more and went back inside. Gingersnap exchanged solemn nods with the rest of the watch. When they were relieved at midnight they found the crew quarters lit up with lanterns. Many left their bunk at least once that night to gawk at the eerie scene beneath them.
At dusk the topmast of the Snow Queen appeared on the horizon. Morning Breeze squinted through his spyglass, but Yellow Jack was not on that masthead.
His jacket carried wardings against teleportation spells, as did the bodysuit he wore under it. Each sigil was embroidered with a single continuous strand of gold or silver. In terms of efficacy this was second only to carving the marks into his skin. His gauntlets were brand new, leather with bamboo slats and fingers that folded backwards when not in use. “Shooting gloves,” Moondancer had called them, and almost all the ponies were wearing at least one.
In numbers and size of individual ships the pirates were dwarfed by the Kelp Town fleet. An interceptor by the design of the Children of the Night was as big as an Equestrian Navy destroyer, and much more agile. Morning Breeze had always favored those ships; even the Falconeye had been adapted from a blueprint secretly obtained from Kelp Town. As it was he stayed onboard the Infidel . He had always mistrusted the Children of the Night, and discovering his ancestry only made it worse. They were too efficient a force, each one of them too well-equipped. While most Equestrian Navy ships had locked armories to prevent mutiny, the Children of the Night made no practical distinction between marines and sailors. Even their cadets carried at least a knife and a pistol, and at any time there were at least a dozen repeaters on deck. Theirs were the only ships that gave chase to pirates on sight.
Flags flashed across the decks of the many ships: permission to engage?
Morning Breeze nodded to his own officer, a griffin with grey feathers and a frayed beak. The Snow Queen had passed the westernmost reach of the Chain Islands in the early afternoon. Only six days separated Jack from the first of Equestria’s islands.
Bright lamps were lit across the fleet as darkness fell, and parabolic reflectors directed their beams towards the Snow Queen . The first mortars were fired at 1900 hours, the first round of shells being bright sounding flares. The gigantic ship was impossible to miss, but the shells all disintegrated in fireballs well above her masts.
“Keep hitting him,” Morning Breeze hissed to each sailor as he made his round of the deck, scowling occasionally at the Snow Queen under the spotlights. “Fire all the shells. As fast as you can.”
Hornpipe watched the Snow Queen from the bowsprit, having transformed into a three-headed abomination. The middle head bore his usual bearded face, except the beard and mane were caked in whale blood (he had sworn off pony blood some thirty years ago). The other two had burlap skin stretched tight over a frame and were tattooed with swirls and runes and stripes like zebra's. Zebra unicorn heads, if there was such a thing, and in his youth Hornpipe had bragged that he had killed the last two in existence. The rest of his body was marked similarly using whale blood mixed with pitch and perhaps coriander. Steam rose from his bare shoulders.
“Brace for impact!” He bellowed suddenly, as darkness fell over the deck and the last of six hundred shells left the barrel. For a moment Morning Breeze heard only the ringing in his ears. Turning around quickly, he saw the fleet, his fleet, in the distance. Each ship was encased in a flickering magic bubble. He hoped they all had one. The echoes of the previous volley had not faded when shells were flying again.
Yellow Jack’s power was not infinite, and Hornpipe’s dark witchcraft would baffle him for a time. At the bow two ponies had thrown a heavy cloak over Hornpipe and were lowering him to the deck. They did not dare touch the rusted yoke with its two smouldering heads.
They worked in the dark now, without so much as a whisper though the explosions overhead would have drowned out anything. The Snow Queen blocked out a full half of the sky, and from their angle there was no telling which side was the bow. Morning Breeze strapped on his rifle and patted the knife and pistol under his jacket. Then he joined the line of marines that covered almost the entire length of the deck. Only a skeleton crew remained to trim the sails and place the oversized fenders, and even fewer would be left to guard the ship.
The Snow Queen’s deck was nearly fifty metres overhead, too far to throw a boarding hook and beyond the reach of most unicorns. The members of the crew capable of flight hugged the hull all the way up, fastening the hooks without boarding or even peeking over the gunwale. Two to a pony, they half-lifted the rest of the crew onto the deck. Finally the crates were pulled up using ropes: half a tonne each of ammunition and dynamite.
Had they not sailed onboard the Snow Queen in the past the crew would have gawked for much longer. The deck did not feel like a large ship but a small island. Looking across an eighty metre beam, there was no sign of the ocean on the other side. Many of the big steel umbrellas had been knocked over by the first assault, providing valuable cover for gunners. Four ponies could stand comfortable in the deep shadow beneath one of these crumpled structures.
Morning Breeze and his ten marines picked up their share of magazines and grabbed fistfuls of loose ammunition for good measure. They were not a boarding party but an expeditionary force without the option of swift retreat. Each team had a mission, and would not reunite until extraction.
Their point of entry was a deckhouse where the watch would usually take its breaks. The deck was arrayed with over a hundred minor points of entry, but most were too exposed. An officer at the wheel could simply look down to see nine tenth of his entire realm. The oversized hangar doors under the five-storey aftcastle, behind which the ship’s heaviest cannons would normally be housed, were technically invisible. These however opened slowly and noisily. All that remained then were three smaller deckhouses with doors faced the bow.
Moring Breeze’s squad ran between the sparse points of cover towards the stern. Yellow Jack was visible to them as a blinding white beacon atop the aftcastle, the floodlights that were his eyes pointed for the moment towards the fleet.
They had nearly reached their destination when a pillar of fire erupted from adjacent the port side of the Snow Queen . The wind in its wake sent splinters flying across the deck and ripped away ten feet of gunwale nearest the explosion. Morning Breeze grunted under his breath as a five-inch sliver embedded itself into his chest along with many smaller projectiles. The pony next to him lost a piece of his left ear, but all remained silent.
Duchess Spring and her crew of five were no more.
Yellow Jack had gone dark. Overhead dozens of bright shells were raining down, and an observer from any point on the Snow Queen would have sworn that they were all coming straight at him.
The team now proceeded with greater caution and new urgency. In a few seconds the entire deck would be set ablaze. The gunners under the umbrellas would be spared the worst of it, but Morning Breeze’s group were completely exposed.
The deck house was a mess of greasy ropes and assorted tools. They all clambered inside, Morning Breeze picking up the rear. In the last seconds as the first shell struck the deck he looked to the aftcastle one last time with dark-trained eyes. Though he was not expecting to see jack the sight of his abandoned post still filled him with dread.
The deckhouse rattled from the bombardment. Everything that had been kept off the ground by any means fell. In the darkness they dug through the pile until a trap door was found, and one by one dropped down into a ship built to transport an army.
Morning Breeze stifled a yawn. It was truly difficult to stay awake lying in a warm bed near midnight. Even the gently swaying of the ship felt like the rocking of a cradle. The painkillers didn’t help. He had tried reading, and then chatting with the doctor until the latter politely excused himself. Snowsong was pretending to be asleep on a mat on the floor of the infirmary. Of course she was not actually sleeping. Just like the two ponies in naval attire standing at the infirmary door, she was trying to be as polite as she could, given the circumstances.
He could have waited until morning, but a lot could change in a single night. In the bed next to his, Winter Oat let out a sigh and tried to turn over. He grunted in pain and fell limp once more. His fever broke at about nine, and the doctor had said that he should be somewhat awake soon. He had pieces of three crossbow bolts in his body, but miraculously infection had been minimal.
Suddenly the ponies on guard stood at attention and stepped into the doorway. Snowsong sat up like a guard dog.
“I have water.”
“Let him in,” Morning Breeze said, adjusting his pillows and sitting up a little straighter.
“Do as he says.” Snowsong agreed.
Gingersnap entered, walking carefully with a tray of mugs on his back. Coral Frond looked idle by comparison with a large tin of biscuits. They had finally found the time for a dry brushing, and their coats were soft and smooth once more.
“I thought I told you two to go to bed,” Snowsong said. “You did good work today, and rest assured you won’t be tried for cooperating with pirates. You have my word.”
“We know, ma’am,” Coral Frond said as refreshments went around the infirmary. “But with so many injured, we thought we would make ourselves useful.”
“Is Captain Winter Oat alright?” Gingersnap asked under his breath when he reached Morning Breeze’s bed.
“He is in no danger now,” he replied. “You can speak with him tomorrow morning, if he’s strong enough. But right now you two need to sleep. If Snowsong doesn’t object, you can keep using the stateroom.”
“You have my permission,” Snowsong said, waving her hoof dismissively. “Nopony’s going back to the Spectre if they don’t need to. Good night, gentleponies.”
“Good night ma’am,” Gingersnap and Coral Frond said together, but they left the room reluctantly.
Winter Oat stirred again. Morning Breeze shook his head to keep himself awake, but the captain did not come to.
Maybe I should wait. Unless…
“Snowsong,” he said slowly. “I have a question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m on your ship,” she said. “Ask.”
“You are a psychiatric counsellor, aren’t you?”
Snowsong blinked.
“I am a lieutenant of the Equestrian Navy,” she said.
“But you’re really a counsellor from the support side of things,” Morning Breeze said. “That’s not a trident cutie mark. I know a few ponies with tridents in their cutie marks, and none of them look like that.”
Snowsong stared at him for a long while, examining him. He reclined into his pillows and closed his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t going to speak with Winter Oat tonight.
“You’re right,” she said. Her voice came to him as if through a lot of water. “I was… I am a counsellor. Most of the executive crew are counsellors. We were all from a T/R ship…”
“A what now?”
The room was dim. Five of the six lanterns had been removed for the night. The guards were standing perfectly still at the door, their faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods; truly asleep now. There were a few heavy snorers in the infirmary, as there were in every room at night.
He groped the tray beside him until he found his bottle of painkillers. There was half a mug of tepid water. It was enough.
“A T/R ship…” he mumbled, rebuilding his pile of pillows and reclining into it. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He turned his head just a little to look at Winter Oat through the corner of his eye.
Might as well give this a try.
“Well?” he asked, a little louder. “Captain? What do you have to say?”
“What?” Came the muffled, groggy response.
“You heard me,” he said.
Winter Oat sighed heavily and immediately groaned in pain.
“My last ship was called the Hatchet ,” he said. “Sixty sailors, twenty executive staff. Nineteen counsellors, and me.”
“And what are you?”
“Captain and master,” he said. He was silent for a long time. Morning Breeze thought he had returned to sleep before he spoke again. “And a pony with a heart. I…”
With great effort he turned his head and looked up at Morning Breeze. The haze cleared from his eyes. He was surprised, but not angry. Disappointed, maybe. Defeated.
“You know your crew very well then,” Morning Breeze said. “What’s wrong with them? You had a T/R ship. What's a T/R ship?”
“Therapy,” he said slowly. “My crew is damaged; every one of them not fit for duty. I take the crippled, the scarred... ponies with nowhere else to go.”
“Ponies like Gingersnap?” Morning Breeze said, feeling gooseflesh on his neck. Suddenly the goofy boys he had rescued from the brig did not seem so trivial. “What happened to Gingersnap? Where did he come from?”
“I haven't quite figured that out myself,” Winter Oat said. Even through the drugs and exhaustion his disgust in the tale came through. “He joined the navy when he was thirteen, but that's after a whole bunch of shipping jobs. I don't think we'll ever know where he came from, unless he speaks up one day. They put him on a ship with the cruelest captain I’d ever seen. And I only saw him briefly at his trial. He sailed for months at a time, going to the fringes of Equestrian waters. He picked fights with the worst pirates. And two years ago, his luck ran out.
“He engaged a fleet of zebra ships. Just his one ship against ten. They defeated him easily and slaughtered most of his sailors. He escaped with twelve of his eighty crew. Gingersnap had his throat cut. They thought he was dead for eight days, and the captain even told his rescuers that he was dead. They left him at the bottom of the dory with two rotting bodies for another day, until they were ready to sew them up and bury them.
“Gingersnap eventually got a great sum of money to his name out of that trial; about ten years’ pay all at once. But it was nearly a year after the fact, and nopony could find him. He had been discharged from the hospital, but nopony had picked him up. I was in Baltimare at the time, and was both a juror at the trial and tasked with delivering news of the settlement. I found his crewmates or their families easy enough, but he had no address on file beyond the mailbox at the docks.
“It took me a whole month to track him down. I spent my own money on the search; the admiralty would not fund it. They assumed he deserted and went home, but I had this feeling that he was not alright. Eventually I found him outside a bar near Pier 45.
“He could not speak at all. He'd been living off garbage and his own hooves. He had chewed through his front hooves entirely by the time I found him. Any other part of town would not have tolerated him.”
Winter Oat’s voice failed, and he wept for several minutes. Morning Breeze looked down at his own hoof. He felt ashamed now for breaching the subject.
“That day I brought him to my own house and hired Snowsong away from her old captain. She’s a talented counsellor, though she rarely worked as one. Back then she was more or less a show piece on the second Firestorm . It took four months before Gingersnap learned to talk again, and by then I had exhausted half of his settlement money. Snowsong said it would be years before he got well enough to be left alone for good. I couldn't afford to keep him as a dependent for that long, and I couldn't... couldn't leave him.”
“So you took your case to the admirals,” Morning Breeze said.
“Of course not,” Winter Oat said. His strained smile cast grotesque shadows across his face. “The admirals cares about pageantry. They care about fancy headquarters and new ships, not sailors.”
“You and I have some common ground after all,” Morning Breeze said, flashing a smile as sinister as his companion's.
Winter Oat rolled his eyes. “I took my case to the Princesses directly. They were holding a court in Baltimare four years ago. I argued for a program to support these sailors. I proposed giving them a ship and letting them patrol the northern shipping routes; keep them on payroll. Sailors are just as poor as they used to be. These aren't ponies who can go off to Mexicolt for a year-long vacation to recover from the trauma of a bad hooficure. The northern routes aren't balmy, but they're safe; far from zebras, and far from your kind. It's where most of the sponsored officers serve their terms before they're made admirals. The princesses approved the project, superseding the admiralty and giving me funds directly from Canterlot.”
“I’d be a fool not to know the rest,” Morning Breeze said, closing his eyes. “Go back to sleep. You’re going to be fine. Everything will be fine.”
He thought back to the incident at Port of Mercy. He had seen the light fade from Gingersnap’s eyes just before he called for action. He thought he had looked into the eyes of a dead pony. And that was exactly it.
Breakfast was a cheery occasion. After months living on cheap rum and dry rations, some of the Spectre ’s crew were nearly brought to tears when fresh apples were passed around. The doctor threw open the two hatches onto the deck to let some light in. It was a cold, cloudless day, and the ship was exactly where it had been on the previous night.
Winter Oat’s breakfast of lukewarm sludge put him in a bad enough mood that Morning Breeze decided not to speak with him immediately.
In the mess hall Gingersnap and Coral Frond were the centre of attention. Morning Breeze checked on them twice, but they were answering questions in sufficiently vague terms. There was no mention of the Snow Queen or the Firestorm .
The Spectre was tied to the starboard side of the Infidel . With all the plates depleted of magic it looked like a ship hewn from a solid obsidian block. The illusion was only broken by the ragged hole in the hull, exposing the wrecked brig and all the underlying wood. A few sea ponies were taking stock of the damage, supervised from the deck of the Infidel by Snowsong and Hornpipe.
“It doesn’t look good,” Hornpipe said without looking at his captain. “If we had a few hours the sea ponies can patch her up well enough to be towed. A beam just under the deck is barely holding her together as it is. And the water damage in the quarters... I give them credit for patching it up as well as they did, but it’s going to fill up again if we start moving.”
Morning Breeze looked over the side into the water. The nearest sea pony looked up at him and shook her head.
No sign of Yellow Jack.
He counted the hours in his head. It would have taken almost a week to reach Oakfort. With a ship in tow that could stretch to three or more. Even if all the griffins ate nothing but fish the food would not last that long. They could make a stop at another island, but then everypony would know exactly what had happened.
Of course, there is one more option…
He felt a wave of goosebumps travel up his neck and over his head. He stomped his hoof to stop himself from falling over.
Never.
“Can you transfer the plates over?” He called down to the water.
“That will take even longer,” the sea pony replied. “A day, maybe, even if you let us destroy the ship completely.”
“Don’t do that,” Snowsong said quickly. “Morning Breeze, that ship is one of a kind. One of the best…”
“The best in Equestria, maybe,” he said. “It’s nice; don’t get me wrong. Better than the ships that I started with. And you’re right, I’ve never seen this specific design before. But it’s not the best. You have to realize, Snowsong, that Equestria is not the whole world. And when it comes to ships, ponies are just no good. The griffins have been building fishing ships for more than a thousand years. And all the coastal zebra tribes have better interceptors than any that have come out of Equestria.” He leaned over the gunwales to address the sea ponies. “Patch up that gap as well as you can, and set a watch. If there’s any ship within thirty miles, I need to know.”
The sea pony saluted and sank completely beneath the water.
“I’ll see the prisoners now,” Morning Breeze said.
Snowsong seemed a little uneasy, but she was in no position to argue. Hornpipe licked his lips, and his eyes flashed viciously. He was a relic from the age of zebra raiders, experienced in cruelty. He led the way to the bow, down the steep stairs to the forward hold.
Stripped of their uniforms, the brutes were each wrapped tightly with anchor chain. Sweat dripped from their faces despite the frigid night that still lingered in the stagnant air. Only two were strong enough to look up as their captors approached. Their cracked lips gaped, and their bloodshot eyes darted from face to face.
“Here I am,” Morning Breeze said icily. “Come on. You were sent here to do something. Speak up.”
They closed their mouths and looked away. Their faces twitched in pain. The chains were crushing their limbs and pinching their skin. There were spots of blood on some of the links.
Without warning Hornpipe lunged at the nearest prisoner. He raised his head, desperately kicking against the chains. Perhaps he saw the gleam of the shucking knife. Hornpipe thrust the blade into his shoulder, enthusiastically twisting and pulling it through his flesh. The white pegasus whimpered and growled, incoherently begging for him to stop.
Snowsong covered her muzzle and looked down. Morning Breeze kicked a nearby bucket in her directing, thinking she might be sick, while he too closed his eyes. Hornpipe left a messy, gaping wound. On the pegasus’ shoulder a bit of bone was showing. He looked like he had been mauled by a dog.
“So?” Morning Breeze said in his hissing half-whisper. “Somepony in Baltimare was paying you… to do what?”
“To kill you, you blood-drinking blockhead!” Shouted a black earth pony with three gold earrings. “If Winter Oat failed to do it, we would end all of you! ALL OF YOU!”
“And who was paying you?” Morning Breeze asked, approaching him. The other stallion tried to shuffle backwards, but was hopelessly weighed down. He opened his mouth and licked his lips. The earth pony lowered his head trying to protect his throat.
“It was Gold Standard!” He cried when Morning Breeze had almost reached him. “It was him! He commissioned the ship! He bribed the admirals! You want him! You want the admirals! Not us!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, turning on the spot.
Snowsong was sitting down, staring wide-eyed at Morning Breeze. Hornpipe was cleaning off his tool with a greasy handkerchief.
“You heard him,” Morning Breeze said. “That’s a confession. They were going to kill me, you, your captain and probably every one of your crew.” He turned his gaze to Hornpipe. “Tell the sea ponies to ready a leviathan. I don’t think they can stomach this garbage themselves.”
The hold was suddenly filled with voices. Through thirst and exhaustion, every mercenary spoke up. Some pledged everlasting allegiance, while others threw out the foulest curses. Hornpipe took a rope off the wall and descended on the prisoners mercilessly.
“You don’t have to do this,” Snowsong said, grabbing Morning Breeze as he was about to mount the ladder. “You shouldn’t.”
“We don’t have room for them,” he said. “We can get rid of them now, or let them die slowly in here. Were we traveling for an hour with all the supplies that we have, I wouldn't spare them a drop of dishwater. I can get the sea ponies to properly butcher them before they’re eaten. It’s not a lot worse than hanging. And you know they won't be hanged if we let them get back to Equestria.”
“They’re my crew!” Snowsong argued, tightening her grip.
“They’re nobody’s crew,” he said. “They work for money, and you can’t outbid Gold Standard.”
Hornpipe was breathing heavily when he returned the rope to its hook. The prisoners had been subdued. Many were crying quietly, and there was a lot more blood on their chains.
“It’s not good for you , if nothing else,” Snowsong said. “You don’t enjoy this. I can tell. Just give these ponies to me. I’ll make sure they never bother you again.”
Morning Breeze looked into her eyes. She was sincere. And there was also the matter of her cutie mark.
“Keep them bound until they can’t walk,” he ordered. “Don’t feed them or give them water until I say so. They’ll not leave here until they’re too weak to cause any havoc.”
“That won’t do,” Snowsong urged.
“I’ve spared them their lives,” he said, glaring at her. “That’s merciful and plenty generous for this lot. Few ponies would do this; no other pirate, certainly. Hornpipe, do you still collect ears?”
“I should,” he growled, twisting the right ear of the nearest pony until he screamed and the cartilage popped. “But it’s bad luck to collect ears from living ponies. They tend to come back for them.”
“Make sure this hold is well guarded,” Morning Breeze said. “At least eight sailors at any one time. None of these get out for any reason until I come back. Now let’s go. We have a lot to discuss.”
