Chapter 49: Huddle

“The Golden Son. Handsome, deadly, wealthy, mysterious. The man has it all.”

-Aesthra Imness, author, 180 U.E.

“Be still, fool,” the doctor groused, a dark-skinned woman with grey fuzz for hair. She puffed on a cigarette, a thin assistant holding out a tray to catch the ashes.

Kurko grunted as he lay on the outstretched tarp, Quintilla stroking his head. The doctor extracted another piece of shrapnel from his chest with a pair of long forceps, depositing the piece of compacted metal into a bowl.

Stephan worked his shoulder, stitches tugging on his skin. He sat on a crate in a corner of the room, Taira leaning on him. The governor of Tumba had lent them a sizeable storage room. Most everyone had already been patched up, aside from Kurko and the captain.

“What happened to you people?” Kazzul asked. He leaned against the doorway, scanning over the crew.

“Rand happened,” Quintilla answered without looking up. “He fucked us from both ends.”

“Nearly took you all out, too, from the looks,” the doctor said. “You need to be more careful, Quintilla.”

“Concern for my welfare? How sweet.”

The doctor scoffed. “Hardly. Keep throwing yourself into danger all you want. Just don’t get yourself killed—I’d lose a customer.”

“I think doctors usually refer to their charges as ‘patients’,” Stephan pointed out.

The woman glanced up. “This a new one?”

Quintilla nodded. “Mmhmm. Our cook. Has a decent eye for antiques, too.”

“Get rid of him. Too mouthy.”

“Just mouthy enough, in my experience. Mr. Lordling, this is Prixis—I suspect you’ll get more chances than you’d like to get acquainted with this gem over the course of our long and illustrious career in piracy.”

“Okay, seriously,” Kazzul said insistently, “what happened?”

“I can only properly account for what happened on our end,” Quintilla said. “Namely, a disaster. I scheduled a meeting with the holders of the last map piece, but they never showed. It was a setup, orchestrated by the Concordians. Seems they’ve got a hand in this pie, too.”

Prixis pulled the last squashed-up bullet from beefy Kurko’s pectoral muscle and laughed when the demi-giant growled with pain. She offered him a drag off her cigarette to still his nerves. When he refused, she shrugged and set to stitching him up.

“Concordians? Really?”

“A whole lot of them. It was looking dicey, too, until the Golden Son showed up.”

“The Golden Son?” exclaimed half the people in the room.

Quintilla nodded with a self-satisfied grin. “The very same. Drunk bastard saved our lives, then left. Needless to say, there was no piece. Oh, and Sweet Devil is pretty much a smoldering ruin.”

“Oh, man,” Stephan said,” I was just starting to warm up to that place.”

“Hold up, though,” Kazzul said, running a hand over his head frills. “You met the Golden Son? Fought with him?”

Quintilla cricked her neck. “That’s what I said, yeah. Lot smellier than you’d think.”

“Things turned out a little worse on our end,” Stephan said, hiding his face under the guise of fixing his glasses. “We sort of… lost… the map. Rand attacked with his full strength. We had to run.”

“I suspected as much,” Quintilla said. “Which tells me Rand probably had that last piece we were looking for all along. He wouldn’t move in like that unless it would give him everything he needed.”

“Except he didn’t get quite everything,” Vormor chirped, two of her arms wrapped tight against her torso with fresh bandages. She pulled out the bronze plate she had saved and tapped it with her knuckles. “I got this one out.”

Prixis finished with Kurko and ushered him off to the side with a sharp click of her tongue and a few pointed gestures. Quintilla sat on the tarp in his place, and the doctor began extracting wood splinters from her arm after lighting a new cigarette with her first.

“Things turned to shit is what I’m getting out of this,” Kazzul grumbled. He crossed his arms. “You might be happy to know I finished those upgrades you ordered, captain. It wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t clean. Hells, I don’t even know if it’ll work—might just blow the engine for all I know—but it’s done.”

“Excellent,” Quintilla said with a grin that turned into a grimace as Prixis pulled out a large piece of wood. “I knew I could count on you.”

Kazzul shrugged. “Whatever. Sounds like we’ll probably croak before we get any use out of it.”

“Nonsense.”

“Our pilot does have a point,” Kurko said, seating himself cross-legged against a stone wall with great care. “Our situation seems… bleak.”

“On the contrary, dear nihilists,” Quintilla said. “Our purpose is clearer than ever. Given the timing of the attacks, it’s safe to assume that Rand and the Concordians are working together to get their hands on the treasure. If my theory is correct, and Rand had one to begin with, they now have thirteen. But without the fourteenth, which my good aunt has seen to, they won’t get anywhere. They’re sitting with their titties in the wind just as much as we are, and they won’t be bold enough to attack the fort directly. The Concordians clearly brought numbers, but not that many.”

“Which leaves us… where, exactly?” Kazzul asked.

“For now, just some light reconnaissance, give ourselves time to lick our wounds. Yin, I want you to comb the city until you find where the Concordians have squirreled themselves away. I’m going to have a chat with Chaesim. The rest of you, get some winks.”

“That’s it?” Stephan asked. “Captain, that’s not a plan.”

“I’ve got ideas. Just want to wait for things to coalesce.”

Prixis wrapped Quintilla’s arm with tape and gave her shoulder a clap. “There. Good as new. Try not to ruin it right away.”

“Thanks, Prixis,” the captain said. “Do we get a group discount or anything?”

Prixis snorted. “You’re lucky I don’t charge you double just for being an asshole.”

Quintilla jumped to her feet and boxed Prixis on the shoulder. “Shut up. You love me.”

“I tolerate you.”

“I get it, you’re shy. Your secret is safe with me.”

The doctor took her payment, waited for her assistant to pack up the supplies, and left. Stephan allowed himself to slump, all the strength leaving him. The stitches tugged however he sat. They kept him from getting comfortable.

“Some day,” he said.

“Some day,” Taira returned.

*****

Ario watched as the scruffy entered the room, remaining motionless in his chair. He motioned to another opposite him by the window. Rand sank into it with a dramatic sigh and a sharp whir from his metal leg, the stink of cheap booze and dental decay wafting in Ario’s face.

“You succeeded in your task, I presume?” Ario asked, hands templed before his face. “Seeing as how you’re still alive.”

Rand chuckled. “I don’t make a habit of losing. Wenezian’s safehouse is embers.”

“And the pieces?”

“Got most of ‘em. Wenezian’s people made away with one.”

Ario slowly nodded. “Regrettable. Very well—an acceptable delay.”

“And what about your little charade? Is she dead?”

“Wenezian? No. There was a slight… miscalculation.”

Rand leaned forward in his chair, prosthetic groaning. “You let her walk away?” His lips peeled back, gold teeth glinting. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. She was supposed to die in that bar. Now she’ll never stop coming. That woman is relentless.”

Ario spread his hands. “Like I said, a slight miscalculation. There was an unknown element I hadn’t accounted for. No fear, however—Captain Wenezian will be dealt with in time.”

“What unknown element?” Rand hissed.

Ario’s lips pressed into a thin line. It was only silly superstition, of course, but he hesitated to speak the name regardless. “The Golden Son. He happened to be present in the bar at the time of the ambush and joined in on Wenezian’s side. Casualties were… extensive.”

Rand jumped up, chair clattering to the floor, and began to pace about the room. “The fucking Golden Son? You’ve been in the city a couple days, and you’ve already made an enemy of the most dangerous pirate who ever lived? You absolute donkey!”

Ario felt a sudden urge to crack the man’s head open on the edge of his desk. To open him up from throat to crotch with a scalpel and arrange his organs in neat little patterns. Anything to shut him up.

But he took a deep breath and cleared his head of all that. “Now, now. No need to fret. My agents assure me that the Golden Son appears to want no further quarrel with the Concord. He left the scene shortly after the ambush was called off and has not been spotted since.”

“Great. That fills me with so much confidence.”

“I do not need your confidence. I only need your expertise.”

Rand stopped, a hand on his forehead. The prosthetic hissed steam, metal foot tapping. “Fine. What’s the play?”

“Firstly, you will give the map pieces you have gathered to me. I possess greater resources to ensure their safety.”

“Already handed them over to your boys downstairs,” Rand said with a shrug. “I kept one for myself, of course, as insurance.”

Ario nodded. “Of course.”

“Continue.”

“Wenezian and her crew are hiding beneath the protection of the Tumbani governor. I will convince him to hand them over to us.”

“How will you do that?”

“I will get it done. That is what matters. After that, we will have the full map, and the treasure will be ours.”

Rand’s eyes sparkled with unchecked greed, and his lips curled into a grin.

“Fifty-fifty, yeah? Like we agreed?”

Ario nodded. “Certainly.”

But Ario knew that neither of them had any intention of sharing one shred of that treasure.