Authors: George Bryan Polivka
Blaggard's Moon (2 page)
For Weeks and Lag, and Eeker, for Rodge, for Mark and Dan, and Jimmy, and for all the fellow pirates of my youth.
I'd like to acknowledge all the wonderful folks at Harvest House Publishers for their support.
Specifically, Bob Hawkins, president of Harvest House
LaRae Weikert and her excellent editorial team
Barb Sherrill and her fantastic marketing department
John Constance and his energetic sales department
Gary Lineburg and the creative guys in design and layout
Jenn Butenschoen and the very efficient production staff
And all the behind-the-scenes people at Harvest House who work hard to make a book successful.
A special thanks to Paul Gossard for his invaluable input on copy and story
And to Aime Polivka, for her nautical knowledge and know-how
And to Nick Harrison, whose editing and encouragement are always energizing.
C
ONTENTS
Rave Reviews for George Bryan Polivka's Trophy Chase Trilogy
The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
âT
HE
B
OOK OF
P
ROVERBS
, 16:4
“O
N A POST
. In a pond.”
Delaney said the words aloud, not because anyone could hear him but because the words needed saying. He wished his small declaration could create a bit of sympathy from a crewmate, or a native, or even one of the cutthroats who had left him here. But he was alone.
It wasn't the post to which he'd been abandoned that troubled him, though it was troubling enough. The post was worn and unsteady, about eight inches across at the top where his behind was perched, and it jutted eight feet or so up from the still water below him. His shins hugged its pocked and ragged sides; his feet were knotted at the ankles behind him for balance. Delaney was a sailor, and this was not much different than dock posts in port where he'd sat many times to take his lunch. He was young enough not to be troubled with a little pain in the backside, old enough to have felt his share of it. No, the post wasn't the problem.
The pond from which the post jutted was not terribly troublesome either. It was a lagoon, really, less than a hundred yards across, no more than fifty yards to shore in any direction. He could swim that distance easily. He peered down through the water, past its smooth, still surface, and eyed the silver-green flash of scales, lit bright by the noonday sun.
The piranha, now, they were somewhat vexing.
“Nasty little fishies,” he said aloud. They were a particularly grumpy strain of the meat-eating little monsters. They were so grumpy that he
wasn't even sure they were piranha. Each one was about the size of a bluegill, not much bigger than Delaney's hand, and each boasted an impressive set of teeth. But where piranha were flat side to side, these were flat top to bottom. And while piranha had small mouths and a few sharp teeth, these had wide mouths, all the way around their heads, and their teeth were triangular and interlocked, like little bear traps. They could use them, too, as he'd just witnessed. That had been a gruesome show, put on by the pirate captain just moments ago. Now the irritable little critters were swimming around his post like angry bees. Wanting more.
But even the piranha were not the worst of his troubles.
Belisar the Whale.
Delaney did not say those words aloud. Belisar Whatney was the rotund pirate captain, soft of jowl and hard of heart, wide of girth and narrow of purpose, who had left his sailor here.
“Big in his britches, maybe,” Delaney told the fish, “but small in⦔ he groped for the words, “â¦other ways.” He thought a while longer, then said, “Low enough to raise a man to the top of such a pole.” He nodded once, content. And it was a low thing, he felt, low and wrong to sentence a man like Delaney to such a mean and calumnious end. No, he would not say that man's name aloud.
So instead he said, “Monkeys.”
He said it with a release of breath that seemed to let steam out of his soul. His narrow shoulders sagged. And then he rested his chin on his calloused palm, and he pondered the word, and the world that could harbor such beasts. Here was what troubled him most. Not the post nor the pond nor the piranha nor even the pirates, but the monkeys. And not the furry little creatures that clambered around humorously and screamed maniacally in the jungle canopy in the woods. No, he was not speaking of them.
Looking down past the fish, he saw under the green water piles of broken white bones lying on the bottom. The biggest pile was heaped up around his post, just where it met the floor. Piranha couldn't do that. No sir. No little fishies, not even ones with big teeth, could break bones into splinters and chips, shards of skull and scraps of jaw, slivers of hips and shoulder blades and ribs. Here were arm and leg bones split lengthwise, the marrow eaten out. The bones of men. Something far more powerful than a fish's jaws had done this. Something had come here to feed, fearing no fish. Something strong enough to crack and split human bone. Something with arms and hands like steel. Something with claws.
Sea monkeys.
Delaney had never seen one. And he wasn't the sort of man who could imagine such things on his own. But the pictures had been carefully, even ruthlessly planted in his head, just last night. The local natives, the Hants, had spoken of all this in solemn voices as they sat around their cooking fire sharing their strong drink, their
andowinnie
in the little wooden cups, and passing around their big
hoobatoon
pipes. They had conjured sea monkeys with their words in such a way that no man who heard could unconjure them again. Now he saw them in horrific detail, and he couldn't stop seeing them. His mind had an eye that he couldn't shut.
Oh, he saw them.
The mermonkeys swam toward him underwater from their submerged caves, with their skinny but powerful arms held back at their sides, squinty white faces puckered like skin too long in a bath. Near the post, they reached out with wrinkled hands and he saw the steel sinews of their forearms, the fanning rods of bone that were their hands, their fingers long and crooked, curving claws where fingernails ought to be as they grasped the wooden pole in slow, deliberate movements. One, two, three mermonkeysâsix hands sinking pointy hooks into the hard flesh of the wood.
And then they climbed. Those claws bit deep, and tore out little chunks of post that swirled away under the water. And then the wrinkled flesh of their scrawny hands broke the surface, gleaming white and dripping, and then pale arms with muscle writhing under the skin, and then pasty, doughy faces, white and hairless monkey faces. And then he saw the dark intentions behind those blind, slit eyes, which were white like an overheated poker, and he felt the ravenous hunger of the screeching maws behind those wicked, pointed teeth.
Delaney shuddered.
Mermonkeys.
That's what the crewmen called them. But in their own tongue, the Hants called them
Onka Din Botlay.
Rippers of the Bone.
“Stories to scare the kiddies,” Delaney said aloud with a sniff. He was hoping that these words, spoken by his own mouth here in the warmth of a fetid forest where lazy dragonflies buzzed the surface of a serene green pond, would sound believable. But they did not. They did not reach from his head to his heart; they caught in his throat, barely squeaking past. And then those words just made him seem smaller, more alone, on his post in his pond.