The Vampire & Her Witch

”My lord, you can’t be serious!” Baron Amren Dalais protested.

Each and every baron of Blackwell County had their own reasons to curse the scourge of piracy on the open seas, but few lost more to pirate raids than Amren’s Dalais Barony.

Very few pirate fleets were daring enough or desperate enough to raid the towns and villages of the island baronies, and fishing fleets were rarely worth the trouble. If a pirate captain wanted a hold full of raw, unprocessed fish, he was better off dragging his own nets than stealing someone else’s catch.

Matters were different for men like Amren, who loaded up large cogs full of everything from sacks of flour to casks of wine, finished fabric by the yard, and even fresh fruit by the barrel. Those boats made their way not only to the island baronies of Blackwell but further up the coast in Trevarthan Duchy and at times, all the way to the Royal Capital of Gaalen.

Those ships were the ones most prized by the pirate fleets that made their home in the northern isles, beyond the reach of Blackwell’s fleets. Each ship that failed to return home struck Dalais Barony like a knife to the heart.

”I’ve lost good men and more than a dozen ships to those cutthroats and murderers,” Amren said fiercely. ”How can I go home and face the widows of those men and tell them that we’ve chosen the wolf over the bear?”

The loss of wealth barely bothered Amren. A bookkeeper’s notation adding one part in twenty to the budget for ’estimated losses’ turned a hold full of stolen goods into an extra tithe that could be planned around and managed. ’The cost of doing business.’ But the men who died at sea, the broken families they left behind... Those would haunt him until the day he saw necks stretched and justice done.

”If we let the wolves roam among our flocks because we’re afraid of the bears outside our gates...” Amren continued, only for a sharp cough to cut him off.

”Amren, don’t go too far,” Domenec interrupted. ”You’re right to be concerned about these ’allies’ Lord Rhys wants to recruit,” he said, turning his gaze on the count while making it clear that he wasn’t entirely on board with Rhys’s plan either.

Unlike his younger peer, however, he was willing to give Rhys time to explain himself before taking a stand against him, and if it turned out that his lord already had answers to his objections, there was no need to speak at all.

”I know you have your grievances, Amren,” Rhys said calmly. ”I have mine as well,” he reminded not only Amren but the rest of the hall as well. ”I’ve lost brave knights hunting pirates, and good friends too. But I’ve sat in judgment of more than one pirate crew, and owed debts to them as well.”

One of those pirates had risked everything to help Rhys rescue the retinue of Baron Jeroni Crast when Count Wren DuCree refused to pay their ransom. It wasn’t an easy thing for one pirate to turn on another, but Captain Albyn knew all too well the fate that awaited the wives and daughters of Baron Jeroni and his knights, and he’d risked execution from Rhys and his pirate companions alike to guide a Blackwell fleet to rescue the captive aristocrats.

Rhys had granted him a pardon for his crimes and offered him a place in his fleet, but Albyn had refused every offer Rhys had made until finally, he accepted the count’s ’suggestion’ that he accept Owain Lothian’s recruitment in order to watch over Jocelynn.

Albyn was a man of honor and one who never would have been a pirate in the first place if the Kingdom hadn’t failed him, and he’d been a powerful reminder to Rhys that not every man who sailed under a pirate’s flag was an irredeemable murderer and scoundrel.

”I will not offer a general amnesty,” Rhys promised. ”There are crimes that can never be forgiven and lines that no man should cross. I can pardon simple piracy and likely smuggling too,” he explained. ”I can even hoist a tankard to a man whose only victim is the King’s tax collector,” he said, provoking a wave of quiet laughter from the tables filled with commoners and even a few of the knights.

”Baron Mervyn, Baron Domenec,” Rhys said. ”I want you to set sail for the northern isles under a flag of truth. Seek out those men and fleets who hold themselves back from real villainy and invite them to discuss terms with me.”

”And the rest, my Lord?” Mervyn asked as he cracked his knuckles with an eager grin forming on his lips. ”Can we deal with them while we’re at it?”

”No, you can’t,” Rhys said firmly. ”For any man who is willing to sail for us against the Crown and the Church, I’ll issue letters of marque and reprisal, recognizing them as privateers,” he said.

Those letters would provide a shield as thick as the parchment it was written on if the men who sailed under them were ever defeated and captured in the act of piracy, but they would at least provide an opportunity for Rhys to ransom them back, and it would spare them from the hangman’s noose so long as whoever defeated them recognized the legitimacy of the letters.

But Rhys had something more in mind for the men he intended to bring into his fleet, and for that, these new ’privateers’ would need to prove themselves against their former outlaw brethren.

”There are honorable men among the pirate fleets who keep a code we can acknowledge and respect,” Rhys said. ”But there are also men who are monsters. Men who shackle their rowers to their oars, who sell their captives into slavery in the Iron Kingdom across the sea, and men who seize women as property.”

”There are savages and murderers who delight in human misery,” Rhys said as his voice grew cold. ”You’ve heard their names. Giston the Red, Yeddik Broken Bow, and half a dozen others,” Rhys said, calling out the names of some of the most infamous pirates to haunt the open seas.

”If any privateer can bring us the heads of those men, or sink their ships beneath the waves,” Rhys said. ”I’ll make that man a knight and offer up a place in the Witchwood Fleet to his crew,” he promised.

”The order of the world will change,” Rhys promised. ”The Eldritch will return, and one day soon, we will sever our ties with the Kingdom of Gaal and the Church that treats its lords like puppets. But we will lose ourselves in the process. In the days when Phylip ruled these lands, it was understood that the strong must protect the weak, so that all could prosper with fair wind in their sails.”

”It’s the right and proper order of things,” Rhys said firmly. ”And no matter how much we need their ships and their swords, I will not betray that principle to recruit men who delight in preying on the weak.”

”So, do I have your support, Baron Amren?” Rhys asked. ”Or do you still have concerns?”

”I only ask one thing,” Amren said, holding himself back from giving a simple agreement despite the pressure he could feel from the room to follow in his lord’s wake. ”Before you pardon these men, they must stand trial for their crimes, and I would like to argue against their pardons,” he said. ”If I can show cause why they should not be pardoned, will you listen to my words?”

”I wouldn’t have it any other way, my friend,” Rhys said, clapping Amren on the shoulder. ”My word is final, but I am neither king nor tyrant. If they’ve hidden vile crimes to appear as honorable men and you can expose their wicked deeds, then you’ve done us all a service, and I will not hold it against you.”

”Then you have my support, my Lord,” Amren said, thumping his chest in salute. ”And the rest of Dalais Barony as well.”

”Good,” Rhys said, sighing in relief. He felt like he’d just taken a ship past the breakwater in a summer gale, but the storm had passed at last, and he could feel the room slowly uniting behind his plans.

”We have a month, two at the most, to conclude our discussions with the pirate fleets before I intend to set sail upriver. I need to meet with my brother-in-law, Count Dylan DuCoumont, and have to find a way to reach Ashlynn, too, but I will not leave until I know we’re on the right path here.”

”Now, who else has ideas for how we can prepare for the storm to come?” Rhys asked as he opened the floor to every descendant of the First Crew who’d gathered here. ”We are all one crew, and I value what each and every one of you can offer, so please, don’t hold back your wisdom or your worries...”

It was the longest night of the year, and tonight’s discussions would make it longer still, but Rhys had no intention of holding back. He meant what he said, because it would take not just the hard work of everyone in this room, but the hard work of every man and woman in Blackwell if they were going to weather the coming storm...