He snapped the locket shut and returned it to his pocket. He felt a lightness within him, that his mother had found comfort despite her husband and his shortcomings. He glanced skyward at the stars shining through the canopy of the forest, thinking that now Morry and his mother were together once again, and for eternity. If there was any justice in the world, his father spent his time in the hereafter crawling from hell to hell, tormented by demonkind.

Such thoughts brought Amberhill peace, and after a spare meal of bread, cheese, and flat ale, he slept.

The next morning, it was not dawn that awakened him, or even the whinny of his agitated stallion, but a blade at his throat.

PIRATES

“He a pretty one, aye.”

Six of the most disreputable characters Amberhill had ever seen glared down at him where he lay, smelling of fish and their own unwashed bodies. Their hair and beards fell in stringy snarls and their clothes hung off them in tatters, practically rotting off their bodies. None wore shoes, and Amberhill very much doubted they possessed enough teeth among the lot of them to fill one mouth.

He deemed the one who held the rusty cutlass to his throat to be the leader. He had a bulbous nose that was pocked and discolored from disease, but was ornamented with a gold ring. His eyes were yellow and red rimmed and horny growths protruded from his feet. They looked rather like…barnacles.

“Never ye mind the Eardog,” he said to Amberhill. “We hain’t seen women for many a year. He can’t recollect the difference.”

Amberhill swallowed carefully, not wanting to be nicked by the rusted blade, and thinking this was a rude start to his morning. He wanted to protest he was not a woman, but he feared that in their desperate state, the six would not care. Were they prison escapees? Perhaps, but they looked to be something far worse: sailors. “What do you want?”

“Liquor! Women!” the one called Eardog cried. He was missing an ear, and drooled excessively.

“Shut it, Eardog!” the leader snapped.

Eardog subsided, but a crazed expression remained on his face.

“We lost our bearings, see? Our ship run aground, all wrecked and ruined. We look for the nearest port.”

Seamen, indeed, Amberhill thought, and madmen. Their ship was grounded? They sought the nearest port? Insane.

“You are far from the ocean,” he said.

“T’is a strange thing wot happened to us long ago,” the leader said. “A strange tale of witches wot cast an evil curse on us. Aye, bottled up and becalmed on the endless sea. No merchanteer for the picking, no land for the seeing. Nothing. Until now!”

Not just sailors; pirates!

“We could eat the horse,” Eardog suggested.

The others muttered their agreement, and a brown gob of drool leaked from the leader’s lip onto Amberhill’s lapel.

“Tasty land flesh, eh?” the man said. He licked his fingers as if already savoring the meal. “Tired of scaly fishes we are, aye. Ate me sea satchel.” He burbled madly.

“And bilge rats,” Eardog added.

“Aye, and bilge rats, till there were no more.” His grin was hideous, showing his few rotting teeth. “The horse, men! See to it we got some land flesh!”

All but the leader shuffled out of Amberhill’s view, but shortly he heard hooves pound the ground and pirates shouting obscenities at Goss.

“My horse will kill them,” Amberhill said.

“We shall see, me fine cat.”

This was followed by the sound of a wet impact.

“Cap’n Bonnet!” Eardog cried. “It killt Bonesy!”

An intolerable odor wafted over the area, like rotting offal with a tinge of dead fish floating belly up in a marsh. Amberhill’s guts knotted up. The stink enraged Goss all the more and he bugled his fury.

The captain’s face flushed with veiny lines and his neck seemed to swell like gasping gills. “Lost men to the ocean, aye. Lost ’em to hunger and scurvy, aye, and when we hove aground, more lost. Ye will help us kill that beast, or so help me, I will carve out yer heart meself for a snack.”

Captain Bonnet retracted the blade. Amberhill stood and assessed the situation. The dead man, Bonesy, lay in a heap with his brains bashed out, but oddly, his corpse appeared far more decomposed than it ought for a fresh kill. Goss scraped his hoof into the earth, his neck frothy with sweat.

Five pirates were left. Three, including Eardog, surrounded Goss, but dared not advance within striking range of his hooves despite their weapons—a couple of cutlasses and an ax. Another stood well off. He bore an adze, and was probably ship’s carpenter.

The pirates had thrown his sword and gear in a pile out of reach. Fortunately they had not searched him thoroughly.

“If you want me to help kill the horse,” he said, “I shall need a blade. My own sword ought to do.”

Captain Bonnet laughed. “Nay, me cat. Ye will calm the beast, see? We will do the carving.”

Amberhill shrugged and glanced once more at Goss. He was not the most predictable of horses, and no doubt the foul stench of the sailors offended him. He hoped it worked to his advantage, as it already had with Bonesy.

He found himself more than a little irritated by being accosted by this band of cutthroats and alarmed by the amount of time this was costing him. Time he should be using to catch up with Lady Estora and her captors.

He’d be at a disadvantage without his rapier, but as the Raven Mask, he knew to never be unprepared for any situation that may develop. He marked again where each pirate stood, and cross-drew twin knives from wrist sheaths.