THE PIRATES RETURNED to the beach bellowing with laughter and spinning yarns of gilded lies. Their stories were cut with just enough truth to make the dreary march entertaining, to lessen the irritating, itching bites that pocked every inch of exposed flesh. They were eight cruel-looking men in a motley of rags, silks, and everything in between. And all at once, they realized they were stranded.

Their two boats, hauled up onto the sands, far from the sucking, foaming clutches of the cerulean tide, were burnt to ash and black, broken ribs. The ceaseless winds whipped the coals to a gruesome crimson, trailing a pillar of black smoke into the sky like a signal fire.

Half a mile out from shore, the Scarlet Wind held at anchor with its sails furled. Out on the boat, their comrades watched from afar, little more than specks. The pirates had come in on three small boats to refill water casks, hunt for game, and explore the uncharted island that had appeared with the dawn. Now, they might as well have been a world away, for the island was surrounded by jagged, thick reefs and bright lagoons that would play hell on a large vessel.

“They’ll send another boat,” Red Rahm said. He was the closest thing to an officer their crew had, though he had no rank on the others. They followed because he said so, and it was not worth the trouble to speak up. Rahm tossed down his sack of loot and held a hand up to shade his eye. “They wouldn’t strand us.”

“The wind has four of ’em. Had, I guess,” Llyr said. They called him Black Llyr, on account of his hair, and his humor. “Two here, one with the other crew up the shore. One on the boat. No one is stranded, yet.”

The smallest of their number, Linol, dropped his sack on the sand. It jangled with golden promise. “Gonna have to send the fourth boat out for us.”

“Captain won’t send it yet.” Jol was the tallest among them, his skin a rich ebony. He wore a crest of black hair atop his skull. The rest of his scalp was shaved smooth and polished with oils. Jol was thick with muscle, almost fat, and the best brawler amongst the lot of the Scarlet Wind’s reivers. The gold rings in his ears glittered when he shook his mighty head.

“Big man’s right,” Llyr said. “A long night ahead of us.”

“Damn you,” Red Rahm said. “No good standing here picking our asses. We need to go find Teid and the other crew. Llyr, Xireks, and Jol: with me. Linol, Fett, and Tahn-lo, you stay here and keep an eye out. Maybe the Captain will surprise us.”

Llyr glanced at the others. They shrugged, having no better idea. He supposed Rahm was right.

“Hold, lads,” said Llyr. “Who did it?”

“Does it matter?” Jol grunted. Sweat beaded heavily on his dark brow. “Must have been those damn monks. Coward smashed our water kegs, too.”

Llyr shook his head. “Don’t look like monks. Besides, I mark only one set of tracks.”

The others drifted over to where he stood. “Those are huge feet,” Linol said. “Sandaled.”

Solemnly, the men looked around at one another. The single set of unknown prints led off into a strand of high sandy reeds that whispered in the wind. Reading the prints, whoever had set the fire had simply strolled off.

“One of the monks,” Jol muttered, running a hand over his crest. “Ain’t no one else alive on this island. You’re spooking yourself, Llyr.”

Tahn-lo spoke enough of the crew’s pidgin to follow what they were saying. “No monk,” he said. His red hair was curled above almond eyes. “Revenge.”

“To the hells with that!” barked Red Rahm. “It’s like Jol said. Ain’t no one else on this island, except those long-eared mice living in the temple.

This was their work, plain as day, the rotten bastards. But it’s done, and I don’t much feel like combing the jungle for them.” The other men nodded their agreement. “Now, let’s go find Teid and see if we can get back out to the Wind, eh, lads?”

Rahm’s confidence did little to improve the dour mood of the men, and Llyr knew as well as the next man that pretty words were seldom more than wasted wind. And they never filled the sails. They may be sea rats and sea dogs, but brothers of a sort. They knew what to do.

Llyr, Rahm, and his crew began to drift away, walking with a clumsy gait over the loose, shifting sand. The afternoon sun hung overhead like a ball of molten copper, and not a cloud was in sight. The wind played noisily in the branches of the dense treeline that masked the island’s interior. Miles and miles of craggy terrain, packed with sodden, fly-choked jungle, and at its heart, the strange temple and the Great Turtle.

It was better, Llyr reflected whenever he told the story of that cursed island, that only the four of them had gone to find Teid’s crew. Red Rahm might have been a sorry drunkard and a bastard of a cheater at dice, but he knew his men as well as he knew his knives. Some were reliable steel, well-balanced, and always held an edge. Others were brittle and had to be used gently.

The men Red Rahm brought with him cursed and growled like curs, but they did not panic or break when they saw what had become of Teid and his boys.

A mile further up the coast, past a low but treeless crag that jutted out almost into the sea, lay a greenish lagoon where Teid had landed. The sinking sun’s rays glittered like coins on its dappled, plucking surface.

On the white sands, they found the third boat still ablaze. Four stakes stood driven into the sand around the fire, and upon these mounted four severed heads: Teid, Laman, Jern, and Serrace. Their mouths hung slack, and flies swarmed over their dead, waxy flesh. Blood still dribbled onto the sand below these gruesome trophies. Their bodies were dumped inside the boat, and the nauseating, cloying meat-stink of cooked flesh hung heavy over the beach.

They had known each of those men; had trusted them when the sails were dead and the fates gave nothing but sun and salt for weeks; had fought and bled with them as they cut their living from the backs of weaker men. Now they were dead, robbed of their dignity, their remains reduced to gristly theater.

“By the black hells,” Llyr gasped. “Why?”

“To send a message,” Red Rahm snarled.

“To who?”

“To us!” Xireks’s voice was high and tight with fear. “Tahn-lo was right! He wants bloody revenge!”

“Don’t be fools,” Red Rahm said. “There ain’t another soul on this island. Can’t be. Don’t go dragging ghosts up where there ain’t any, says I!”

Llyr knew hollow words when he heard them. Rahm was making over something he did not want to see. And this time, it did not help. The proof was right in front of them: what they all feared, but would not name. There was something else on the island with them—or perhaps more truly, they were trapped on the island with it. And it wanted their heads.

“What do you know? We don’t know anything about this fly-ridden swamp!”

“I know enough to shut my mouth before I catch those flies,” Red Rahm snapped.

Deadly invective boiled on Llyr’s tongue, but he dared not voice it. He knew better than to start a fight with a man who had your back. He settled for spitting on the sand and ignored Rahm’s barbed chuckle.

Jol was digging in the sand with his huge hands. He scooped away until he had made enough room to bury one of the heads. He did this with unexpected tenderness from a man of such powerful size. Then he took out a handful of the booty from his sack and placed it in the hole.

“To pay for their crossing. And a little extra, for the sin.”

There was a dark rumble of laughter, and the others joined in. They laid their fellows to rest as best they could. It was all they could do.

Having done this, they worked out a plan. They expected the Captain to hold back the fourth boat until morning. That meant they had to hole up for the night on the island. It was rugged and vacant, except for the temple at the heart, to which they had paid a lucrative visit earlier in the day. They would return to the others, explain that Teid had already returned to the Scarlet Wind—a little lie to stop the panic, Rahm insisted—and march back to the temple for the night. In the morning they would come back to the beach and flag down the fourth boat.

It seemed like a good enough plan, given the situation, Llyr guessed. With a clap on the shoulders, Red Rahm led them back down the beach. They heard the screaming before they saw their comrades. Linol was lying on the beach with a long spear through his belly. Tahn-lo knelt beside him, shouting in his heavy accent for the others to come back.

“Fett ran!” Tahn-lo cried. “Left me.”

“And me,” Linol said weakly. His hands were wrapped around the base of the spear. There was no saving him, Llyr saw. That was clear from a hundred paces off. Blood was trickling from the corners of the thin man’s mouth and his eyes fluttered weakly. It was all they could do to ease him, now.

“I’m going after them,” Jol said. He was pacing like a caged panther. Now he drew his sword as if a decision had been reached. “I’m not staying here on this rotten beach.”

“By the hells you won’t!” Red Rahm’s face was crimson with anger. “What’s your plan, fool? Get yourself lost, too?” Jol bared his teeth at the man, but said nothing. Rahm rounded on Tahn-lo. “What happened?”

The small man composed himself. His skin was a copper that never seemed to burn, even during long days climbing rigging and working among the sails. Now it looked sallow, pale. “Dog-man threw spear from trees,” he said, pointing at Linol, who was mewling weakly on the ground beside him. “Gray, brown. Like big ape.”

“An ape did this?” said Red Rahm incredulously.

Tahn-lo shook his head, fear clear in his eyes as he looked at his compatriots, struggling to make himself understood. “Like man, but ape. Gray skin, gray eyes. Made noise like dog.”

“He’s raving,” Jol said. “There ain’t no apes here.”

“Maybe it’s not an ape,” Llyr said. He rested his hand on the hilt of the ornate sword that hung at his hip.

Red Rahm’s face flushed a dangerous scarlet. “What are you suggesting, Llyr?”

The smaller man held his free hand up in peace. “Nothing that we’re not already thinking.”

Behind him, Xereks said, “He’s dead, Llyr. We all saw him go down under the waves.”

“Revenge,” Tahn-lo said again. “Now his ghost hunts us.”

“Hopeless,” Red Rahm groaned. “You’re all so scared you’re not thinking straight. We killed him. It’s over.” He dug around in his sack and drew out a water skin. When he pulled the cork, the others could smell the alcohol. He took a long slug and stowed it in his sack. It did not mask his shaking hands.

“Linol is gone,” said Llyr quietly. Tahn-lo closed the thin man’s unseeing eyes with his fingertips.

“Poor bastard. Do we bury him?”

“No,” Rahm said grimly. “We’ll collect him in the morning. Give him a proper send-off. At least someone will get one. Leave the sack, too. None of us wants to lug that heavy bastard up those stairs, eh?”

Tahn-lo sighed shakily. He looked frail, folded up there on the sand and smeared with another man’s blood. “The other boat?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Llyr said. “We’re hiking back to the temple for the night. And if that fool has any sense, Fett will meet us there.”