Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale

The Pirate’s Other Spawn

Part I

-A big fat score-

A side effect of the war and the three Kingdoms navies being preoccupied on more important tasks, was the resurgence of piracy those first war years. Had the Kings reacted fast and squashed these cutthroats during their infancy, the problem wouldn’t have gotten as large.

Hindsight being what it is, the Kings didn’t and by the time they, or their successors, decided to act decisively, the Jinni was out of the bottle. The Realm had changed.

Several names rose prominently during those years, the aged ‘Red’ Atterton, brutal ‘Honest’ Van Fleet, the elusive ‘Yellow’ Dawson, but none bothered, or captured the public’s imagination, as the man that almost ruined Kaltha’s war effort single-handedly.

A brazenly infamous, bloodthirsty brigand, a philanderer with a broader taste in partners, than a bear’s appetite for honey. Probably as much truth in the above as lies, since everything known about him, is third hand knowledge at best.

Vice Admiral, Huug Faber

High King’s Servant, a memoir

Chapter 3

-Pirates of the Scalding Seas-

(Prologue)

Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale & Forty tons of gold

(Posthumous release)

Circa 198 NC

Old ‘Weasel’ Clark wasn’t gonna make it.

The grey bearded man, face red and sweaty, small nose and the tattoo of a fish under his left eye, tripped forward and reached with his right arm to grab the counter. The hand missed everything, the counter half-a-meter further, than where he’d thought it’ll be and twirled around his axis, bumping onto one-eared ‘Blunter’ Hook, the long washed-out blond beard of his thinning, but his skills still sharp. Hook stepped aside and shoved him towards the counter with his left hand, the one missing a pinky. Whether he’d gotten the moniker for the ear, or the missing finger, ‘Foxy’ had no idea.

‘Weasel’ Clark still twirling, eyes unfocused, crashed on ‘Grisly’ Weiss, who was sitting on the stool in front of the counter, just about ready to drink from his ceramic pint glass. The beer jumped out of the large cup, splashed ‘Grisly’ Weiss’ face, some of it going up his big nose.

“Arr! Mind wher’ yer goin’ matey!” Weiss snarled, black Issir face –now soaked and dripping- half-hidden behind his beard, most of his lower jaw covered in gold teeth, but for a couple of gaps. He turned his head, saw ‘Weasel’ Clark drooling on his shoulder and grabbed him by the collar and sat him down on the stool next to him.

“Fix him a pint o’ grog, will ya ‘Foxy’?” Weiss ordered. His eyes wandering, either flat out drunk himself, or shamelessly gawking down her bosom.

“What manner?” Vale asked, lips curling on the right side of her mouth. ‘Weasel’ Clark started sliding forward from his stool and Hook coming to sit on the other side of him, stopped him with a hand from toppling and smashing his head on the counter, now close enough to reach it.

“Ahoy there, Foxy,” The man said evenly. “He had a cup o’ rum, or two, me thinks.”

“Fresh out o’ that, lads,” Vale retorted, wiping the bar’s surface with a well-used cloth. “And this looks to me, more than a couple o’ cups,” She took a deep breath, top of her breasts swelling in that tight low cut corset, Weiss licking his lips and mustache, watching carefully. “Since, these beverages weren’t served in this here venue, I’d kindly appreciate, if ye lads presented revelation to the whereabouts of ‘em, so we can rejoice replenishin’ me stock post haste. It might be a nightly activity.”

Hook frowned, mouth sucked in, Weiss kept staring at her breasts nodding and ‘Weasel’ Clark gasped coming about, looking confused.

“Ah, ‘Foxy’…” The inebriated man said, seeing Vale. He pointed a finger behind her and burped once. “I’ll ‘ave to decline yer offer lass. I favor ye, but yer fath’r would ‘ave me walk the plank.”

It wasn’t clear whether the man had the correct meaning of her words, or not.

“Me father is dead,” Vale retorted with a groan.

“Dead menfolk convey no tales,” Weiss agreed, himself equally inebriated, but a more talented drunk than Clark. Everyone nodded to his words though, the truism a solid fact.

“A fine gent he was, yer fath’r,” Hook reminisced pensively, scratching the scar where his ear was. “Good in the sweet trade aye, never left me mates marooned, unless they had it comin’,” He sighed and looked across the counter, where her aunt always kept the good bottles.

Vale stooped over the bar and stared at the three older men, placing both her elbows on the counter. They seemed to sober up immediately, their interest peaking for the wrong reasons.

“Lads,” Vale said with a grimace of annoyance and snapped her fingers, to return their attention to her face. “They are tits, I’ll give ye that. Now, they might be fine tits and all, but still, every inn in Lord’s Burrow has a pair parading about, savvy?”

“If ye allow me to offer different perspective—” Weiss started, but she stopped him.

“There’s only one, far as me tits are concerned. Mine, Mister Weiss.”

“Undoubtedly, the lass is in the right,” Hook intervened.

“Appreciate yer candor, Mister Hook,” Vale said, the man grinning for scoring a point. Hook always favored the long game. “What was my meaning earlier?”

Hook frowned. “Me attention had yielded to the wind blowin’, lass. The sea beckons.”

She smacked her lips eyeing the open windows of the tavern.

“Right. Ah, ye know what? Let’s just forget the whole thing,” ‘Foxy’ decided and stood back. “My shift in ‘The Purser’ is over, lads.”

Roark ‘Weasel’ Clark blinked and then looked about him, quite shocked.

“Whatever happened to the captain’s ship?” He asked. “The bridge is all messed up!”

Vale sighed, gathered the moisture from her neck with her palm and flicked it under the counter. Reached for a bottle of rum, she kept under there, uncorked it and glugged down from it greedily. It burned down her throat, then her stomach and raised her core temperature at least ten degrees.

Noticing the old pirates watching her intrigued, she shrugged her fit shoulders, wiped her wicked mouth, sweat rivulets forming on her caramel-colored forehead.

“What? Tis but bloody water!” She lied and then burped, mouth numb and her teeth hurting. “Port is fresh out of rum!”

“Leona,” Her aunt Adele Vale said, tackling her before she could escape out the back door. Being as she was, twice Foxy’s size in width, it wasn’t particularly difficult. “We are not closed yet.”

“Leo,” She corrected her. “And those lads, had enough.”

“Now, we don’t send the good people away, if they are willing to have another cup, young lady!” Adele admonished her. “We need to keep the place going.”

“It’s a tavern, in a pirate port, auntie. It’ll never go out o’ business!”

“Me brother worked hard for this place. He wished you to have something of yer—”

“I’d preferred a ship!” Leo snapped. “Not the name of it, over a blasted bar!”

“Nonsense. A girl sailing is recipe for disaster!” Adele snapped, putting her hands on her wide waist, the skirt hanging from it enough for two grown women to hide under.

“Huh! ‘Pearly’ Rose captain’s her own!”

“Rose was killed, Leona! Look what it did to poor mister Atterton!” Her Aunt admonished.

“As if he wasn’t drinking aplenty afore that!” Leo parried.

“Sure seems it didn’t make him any better!” Adele retorted, ever determined.

“Better than show my tits for drinks in here!” Leo fired back and glanced up the narrow stairs leading to the upper floor, in case she needed to make a run for it.

“We entice good people to drink more, darling. It’s a business!”

“How about me displaying ‘em outright for coin then? That’s a business too!” Leo countered with a wicked grin.

“Are ye serious?

“Girls next door do it every day ‘n night. Place is packin’!”

“Horas runs a brothel!” Adele all but shrieked and several patrons turned to listen to their conversation interested.

“Four out o’ six venues down this street are!”

“What are you, a port’s harlot?” Adele gasped, standing back in shock. “Yer father will turn in his grave!”

“Me father got hang in Caspo O’ Bor. Don’t think they tossed him in a grave!” Leo blasted her, spittle flying out her mouth.

“Ye are not sailing and I’m sending these fools away,” Adele warned her. “Me brother should never have bedded that Issir harlot—”

“She had her kidnaped! Good grief Adele that was a low blow,” Leo hissed and shoved her out of the way. It didn’t work, as her aunt was unmovable, but Adele seemed to realize she’d gone too far and stood aside to let her walk past her.

Ah, this just can’t go on, Leo thought rummaging through her father’s stuff. Two trunks of them, made of cedar-wood. Locks and everything on them. No coins. Adele had scraped them dry to get the tavern going.

A cutlass in there, iron pommel laced with leather, worn out and half rusted. A shortsword, the handle on it engraved with his name. This one she always favored, even gotten a leather sheath for it made. Cost her a silver and letting ‘Black’ Bill grope a feel. That had gone way out of hand, she thought, shuddering at the memory.

She opened the other trunk, clothes in one side, a pair of boots and maps on the other. Leo reached for the maps. Crude drawings and merchant routes, her father’s chicken writing impossible to read at times.

There’s Cediorum, she thought tracing one of the better ones. This one commissioned, or stolen from an official of Regia’s Admiralty. That’s Turtle Isles, a straight line West and you’ll reach the Sinking Isles, survive the dash through the open seas, to make it to Talon’s, brave the Reefs, or cut hard North. Straight up, leave Eikenport to yer west and ye’ll find Lord’s Burrow.

Her father’s words. Only he’d started at Lord’s Burrow, reached Cediorum a rich man, finding ‘Zilan doubloons’ somewhere along the way, ‘bought’ a bigger ship ‘The Purser’ there. He raided up the coast of Regia with it for seven years, made it as far as Ver’s Island, before attempting to plunder Eagleport with his flotilla in seventy eight.

He got ambushed trying to get through the straits between Cepri Fort and Talontip, lost a two day and night struggle and gotten himself imprisoned, along with most of his crew. The High King cut their hands and feet off, then hang them all in Caspo O’ Bor a month later. Not Antoon, his father.

Where did ye get the treasure, paps? Leo asked looking at the map. How did ye cross the Scalding Sea?

No pirate worth his salt will write down everything. One had to see the journey in his mind. Her, she thought. Her mind. Ah, darn it. Leo pouted, then sucked at her lower lip, eyes on the pair of good quality whale-leather boots. Sturdy, made in Aegium, good wax sealing the bindings, the wooden soles lined to better walk on wet deck. She stared at her gathered foot, the paint on her toes badly finished. Removed the sandal, checked to see there wasn’t a rat hidden inside the boot and put it on.

“Ho!” Leo thought surprised. Her father was a bigger man, but the boots fitted her pretty good. Eh, perhaps a thin sock is needed to make it perfect. “Hmm,” She thought and reached for the other one.

Leo could barely breathe. She’d tied her breasts with a roll of white cloth, round and round her torso, ending under her armpits. Sorry girls, but the more ye move, the worse it’ll be out into the seas. She raised that arm, smelled the thin white hairs there and grimaced.

Exhaling put a bright red shirt on, lapel prominent. Tucked the lower part into her tight leather pants, her arse protesting. Secured the belt tight, silver buckle on it huge. It had Vale written on it, her father’s gift when she was eight, just before he’d left for his last journey. Put a leather vest on top, black as Oras heart and Abrakas toes. A snug coat, lined with chainmail, a heavy thing, three leather clasps at the front.

‘Foxy’ Vale puffed hard sweating all over and pushed her white Issir hair back, looking at a polished bronze mirror. Her skin had a light caramel color, close to that of the Cofols, her Lorian father and Issir mother making a mess of her genetics and dark-emerald eyes. She reached for the oily charcoal mixture in the makeup kit and sank the tip of her finger in it.

Start with the eyes, like Rose, Leo decided. Let’s confuse the fuck out of people. Make ye look tough.

An hour later, the sun setting over Lord’s Burrow, Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale wearing a black hat, over a dark-red bandana the tails of it dancing down her back, jumped out of a second story window and almost straight through the gap left at the narrow bridge connecting each block of houses to each other. It acted as a dark alley and it could have finished her story right there, our -‘heroine’ of sorts- drown in the sludge at the bottom of the port.

Eh, she almost managed it and that would have been a nigh embarrassing fail.

She spread her legs apart falling, having realized she’d misjudged her acrobatics in the twilight, made the perfect splits for the first time in a couple of years, her loins set on fire and cursing, moaning and groveling, managed to climb onto the narrow wooden bridge and collapsed on it.

“Abrakas cock rots in a bloody jar! Fuck!” Leo cursed and a pirate neighbor stopped to see, if she was seriously injured. His intention to wait her out and rob her warm corpse later. “I’m fine!” Leo snapped and the man shrugged his shoulders.

“Not if Adele catches ye, matey,” The man said. “She’ll have yer balls boy,” He added and walked away.

Leo made to correct him, for assuming she was escaping after a naughty escapade with herself, but paused, scratched her ear instead and then massaged her loins, using two hands. No balls there, she thought with a wicked grin and ‘jumped’ up, much as seasoned buccaneers do.

That is, she stood up relatively slow and letting out small pained groans at regular intervals.

Leo spotted ‘Lucky’ Trifton bursting out of a side alley, a determined look on his face and went after him, dancing on a single board perilously on the tips of her toes, to cut into the distance. Trifton stopped outside of the Rigid Spears, the venue soaring with customers, loud yelling, screaming and cackling coming out of it. He thought about it, a port whore shaking her huge tits for him offering distraction, giving the time for Leo to stop behind him, sweating from her ears, brooks of black paint running down her neck, despite the cool night sea breeze.

“What?” The harlot snapped, more gaps than teeth in her mouth, lips painted a garish red –a bit messed up, or hurried- the starts of a balding on her large forehead. “Yer not interested?”

“Moly,” Trifton replied chastised, “Me time is limited.”

“Yer dying?” Moly queried, not very sympathetic. “Is it contagious? Got a couple o’ things meself.”

“What? Nay, tis Wayland. Need to have word wit him,” Trifton said, looking down to see he wasn’t stepping on his shadow.

Leo rolled her eyes, breathed once deep and almost missed the pirate slipping inside. She made to go after him, but Moly stopped her putting a hand on her chest, pressing at her right nipple.

“Wher’ ye goin’ in a hurry?” She probed, eyeing Leo.

“Unfortunately, I found myself absent the skillset required, ma’am,” Leo blurted out, backing away.

“I can show ye a trick, or two. Started many young lads down the right path,” Moly countered. Leo stared at the massive mounds of flesh and sighed, as if sad.

“Nah, respectfully me pass on thy offer,” She said with a smirk and ducked under her arm to slip inside the Rigid Spears.

A drunk bearded man, eyes huge on a small head, bump rushed her on a wall, the moment she stepped in the packed, stinking place. There was some music playing, guitar, flutes and violins hitting the same tune without pause, the noise deafening and the man spitting in her face, either yelling, or apologizing.

Leo slipped past him, her shortsword handle digging at her ribs, got a kiss from a young harlot, with blue sparkling eyes, went along with it, whore’s right hand searching between her loins and then pushing her away with a grimace.

Leo touched the tip of her hat in a courtesy, moved the other way and further inside the brothel where the tables were located. She spotted ‘Yellow’ Dawson talking with Byron Vail –his name spelled differently- on a large one at the corner and rushed that way, just as a sweaty ‘Lucky’ Trifton reached them, a goblet of foamy beer in hand.

“Lucky, kindly reassure me, this ain’t rum,” Captain Dawson, told his man and he shook his head, all sad.

“Burrow’s dried up Captain,” Trifton explained and glugged down his goblet finishing it off, with a thunderous burp. “Just beer me reckons.”

“Lots of piss in it,” Byron agreed, staring at his own large pint. “That young whore gave me cockrot for sure.”

Dawson scratched his forehead with a thumb and stared at his man.

“Now we have the quartermaster’s input on the matter,” He said scornfully. “Do enlighten us, Mister Trifton. I dare venture ye ain’t here to inform us, the rum’s gone?”

Leo chuckled unwittingly, caught a lecherous pirate, with a narrow face and a milky eye winking at her and scowled. Almost missing Trifton’s reply.

“…so word is spreadin’ captain.”

“Blimey! The Marquette? Is the man certain?” Dawson rustled getting up, yellow sash catching Leo’s eye.

“Aye, captain.”

“Heading for Castalor again?”

“Ahm, difficult to say. Never seen a ship rushing the Krakentrap Straits like that, captain.”

“Where else could it be goin’?” Byron taunted. “Me willing’ to wager ye it cuts hard southeast.”

“Right then. Here, have I been ruminatin’, whether to take a crack at Jenny’s tea cup,” Dawson said smacking his thighs once, after he pushed the table away, spilling beer on it. “And business comes knockin’. Right, mister Vail?”

“They’ll be a mad dash for the narrows, if the words spreads, captain. Another towards Krakentrap,” Byron said and got up himself. “Lots of people, want to avenge Rose. None more, than Atterton himself.”

Damn, Leo thought. Oh, this is a big fat score. Lots of fame in it as well.

She backed away, got a smack on her fit right buttock from the sneaky lecherous man, avoided the next one, slipped under a giggling waitress and rushed for the exit.

Leo ‘Foxy’ Vale needed a ship and a crew.

She had no ship at the ready, but Leo knew, where she could find the starts of a crew.