On Discord Isle by Jonathon Burgess Page B

captured by the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Perinault.
    They descended to the camp. It was very recent. The tents were set out in traditional military formation, a long, orderly line of cloth with a latrine dug off behind it. Several fire pits ranged down its length. Crates, sacks, and other supplies were stacked neatly in large piles to one side, the sheer volume surprising. These had to be most of the supplies from their ship, including several large barrels of black powder. Behind those hunkered a portable ship’s forge—poorly placed, in his opinion.
    Nostalgia washed over him. The camp was set with a mindless order-for-order’s-sake mentality that he remembered from his navy days. The fire pits were directly in the way of the wind, not sheltered at all by the jungle or the ship, as common sense would dictate. The latrines were also dug slightly uphill from the tents; a rather foolish thing if one stopped to think about it, yet perfectly in accordance with the Military Code of Instruction.
    Past the camp was the ship itself. Three things struck Fengel about it. First was its anchorage. The vessel was far too close to shore, and thus surely grounded. The second was its unfamiliar make. She was a ship-of-the-line, though small and built for speed, with modern paddlewheels amidships. Lastly was the gold lettering across her bow. This was the H.M.S. Goliath.
    That’s the missing escort for the Minnow. Now, what is she doing here?
    The sailors and Bluecoat marines of the camp crowded around as Fengel and his captors approached. One of the marines stepped out from the press. Fengel blinked at him. The bars on his shoulder denoted him a sergeant, but the man was a hunk of jerky in uniform. Beady eyes stared out from beneath a slanting brow and a lumpy, repeatedly broken nose. Cauliflower ears adorned the sides of his head.
    “What you got there, Hayes?” he asked
    “I’m not entirely certain, Sergeant,” said the sub-lieutenant. “They stumbled over our picket—”
    “Oh,” cried Natasha. She clung to Hayes’s arm and pressed herself against the man. “They saved me. Just as I was about to be ravaged by that brute of a pirate.”
    Fengel grit his teeth. His wife was in fine form at the moment.
    “A pirate?” said the sergeant. “Here?” he frowned, then peered at Fengel and Natasha more closely.
    “Well, they’re not from the Salmalin ,” replied Hayes.
    “He’s not. But with skin like that, she could be, and the golden eyes to boot. She speaks the King’s tongue without an accent, though. That says Copper Isles pirate to me.”
    It seemed to Fengel that his own status was a foregone conclusion. Cheerfully, though, everyone now stared anew at Natasha, and not in befuddled admiration. A surprised frown flashed across her face, so quick only Fengel recognized it. He smiled and reappraised the battered Bluecoat. The man was a brute, but a clever one.
    “That’s ridiculous,” snarled Natasha. She caught herself and fell against Hayes’s chest. “However could you think such a thing?” She gazed imploringly up at the sub-lieutenant with glistening eyes.
    Fengel rolled his eyes. Oh, for the love of the Goddess. His wife preferred brutality and ruthlessness, which was why she only had a few simple tricks up her sleeve. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be working. It usually did, when she bothered. The sub-lieutenant had that slack-jawed, glazed-over look that Fengel had seen far too often on other men.
    “Nonsense,” said Hayes. He smiled slightly. “The poor lass has obviously suffered very dearly at the hands of this man. I’m taking them both to the Commander, and we’ll whistle the truth out of him then. Your business, Sergeant Cumbers, is to tighten the perimeter against any of this fellow’s associates.”
    Hayes glared for a moment before resuming his pace back towards the ship, gently supporting Natasha. The sergeant narrowed his eyes at the sub-lieutenant, then turned back to the other