Love Can Kill You
Chapter 7: No plans, Nowhere To Go
When Captain Jez and most of her crew had gone down the hole in the ice, the remainder of the pirates seemed to change. They smiled more, relaxed, and went about their duties while singing an ice shanty. Even the exhausted sabers and wolves looked more energetic by stretching and cleaning themselves.
After a while, the pirates began changing out the sabers and wolves for newer, fresh ones, leading one predator at a time back into the ship. Unlike before, they didn't have to raise and lower them with rope and a pulley system; the pirates were able to remove enough bones to create a hole in the ship.
Shiara was one of the last ones to be returned to the ship. When she left, she cast a glance back at Diego, looking worried.
Diego wasn't sure if her feelings were for her situation or for his own. After all, they were both in a fix that they had no control over. And since he was injured as well as guarded by three pirates, he had little hope that he could escape or do anything.
Time went by, and Diego wondered how long they would wait by the hole in the ice before the crew returned, defeated by Buck. He had no doubts that the group would retreat with their tails between their legs, but didn't relish the thought. He felt no guilt by leading the pirates to Buck's home only because he was certain that the weasel would be able to deal with the villains, but when Captain Jez returned, he had no doubt who she would be taking her rage out on.
If only Buck would take care of Captain Jez permanently, but Diego knew better. He had allowed Red Claw to live, although that was a mistake. But there was a good chance that life blood would have to be spilled today. The crazed look in Jez's eyes said she would get what she want or die trying. The later would be preferable to Diego.
However, when the crew did return from the excursion, Diego's heart thumped erratically in his chest as he saw their triumphant grins and heard their laughter. Soon, two pirates lugging bodies over their shoulders, tossed them to the ground.
"Buck?" Diego called out in disbelief. "No, she…How could…What happened?" But he didn't need the weasel to answer. There were two bodies tied up in vines lying in the snow.
Tundra. How could he forget about the mink? The pirates must have used her to get to Buck. There wasn't any other way that Diego knew for the weasel to be captured so easily.
Easily? Diego could smell blood, although he wasn't sure if it was Tundra or Buck's. Perhaps the weasel didn't go down without a fight.
At the sound of his voice, the reddish-brown mink lifted her head, her eyes wide, her nose twitching. When her gaze fell on Diego, she stared at him for a moment before recognition crossed her face.
"I'm sorry," Diego said, guilt welling up inside him. "I thought…Buck could take her."
There was no accusation in her face, but pity as she looked down at his paw. Not that that was an excuse. If he had been smart, he would have led Jez away from Buck. Or found some way to escape. Or…
There were so many what ifs, but that wouldn't save anyone now.
When the last pirate crawled out of the hole, a blur of feathers and brown fur shot out into the sky. The horrible condor with Captain Jez on his back circled the ship. The smell of blood became stronger, reeking so much, it was all Diego could smell for a few minutes.
The pirates started lugging the ladder back through the hole, the bones clacking together. A few started untying the bones, putting the robe and bone back where they belonged on the ship.
With everyone so busy, perhaps Diego could…
Careful of his paw, he moved closer to the weasel and mink, trying to make his actions appear innocent to anyone who looked their way. If he could get his teeth on those vines, he could snap through them easily.
A large deer, whether he noticed Diego or not, stepped between him and the trussed up mammals. The deer, unlike the pirates, had a regal, stern posture much like those of his species. He studied the prisoners before bowing his head, and scooping them up with his antlers. The mink and weasel bodies, long and thin, were the right shape to hang off his prongs like some weird ornaments. If they wanted to, Tundra and Buck could wiggle free of the antlers, but it would be a long fall.
The deer, using the bones along the ship, somehow climbed back up into the ship, his small, delicate hooves finding niches and steps that he could use to move upward much like a mountain goat on a cliff face, although he had to lean away from the ship or have his majestic rack catch on the bones.
Diego growled low in his throat, trying to figure out what to do in this situation. His one chance of getting Buck free was gone. If he and Buck had teamed up, they may have been able to free all the sabers and wolves, and then it would be easy to fight off the pirates.
At least, he was almost sure. After all, Captain Jez was Buck's sister. She had defeated Buck once already. And there were a lot of pirates.
It felt as if Diego's heart had sunk down to the tip of his tail. Things were looking bleak.
The blood-thirsty condor swooped down low, and the spotted weasel captain jumped off, skidding to a stop right in front of the saber-toothed tiger. She looked more pleased than a cat after a kill.
"Well done, saber," she said. She lifted her sword, letting it tap Diego on the chin. "You have delivered just as you promised. And I will honor my end of the bargain." She sheathed her sword. "You may go?"
"Huh?" Diego asked, her words the last thing he had expected.
"Go," she ordered sternly, pointing off into the distance. Her eyes narrowed. "You should know how lucky you are. I never let prisoners go. Never. So hope that I never see you again."
Diego didn't doubt it, seeing the splatters and flecks of blood in her fur, still glistening in the sunlight. If he had any chance of helping Buck, Tundra, Shiara, and the other sabers, he had to leave now, because Jez didn't come across as a weasel that kept useless prisoners alive.
He also didn't want to give the captain any indication of his intention of saving Buck, so he slunk down to his belly, keeping his tail down, and practically crawled away. He hated it. It was the posture of an omega, the lowest rung in a pack. He had never been an omega, even when he had lost favor with Desoto. But at this moment, if he did what he had to.
When he was far enough away, he limped away, moving as fast as he could without putting any pressure on his paw. If he wanted to, he could have walked on it as damaged as it was if he wanted to show strength, but he had to appear weak. Luckily he didn't have far to go. Nearby was a glen. The winter months were winding down and the trees were starting to grow tentative buds, the bushes on the ground producing leaves as fast as they could to gather the weak sunlight.
It would be as good as any place to hide.
Huddling against a bank of snow with bushes on all sides, Diego lay down and watched the bone ship that was brilliant with the sun bearing down on it. He could barely see the mammals scrambling around, getting ready to head out. He had a half-formed plan in mind, but if it didn't work, he wasn't sure about his options. There was no way he could follow the ship with his paw as damaged as it was. And there was no way he would go to Manny for help. After Peaches being mammoth-napped not long ago, Diego was adamant about keeping the mammoth family out of this. Besides, it was Diego's fault that Captain Jez had found Buck.
Almost an hour passed before he saw the pack of wolves and sabers get to their feet, all of the pirates in the ship. He slowly got to his feet as he saw the predators strained at their harnesses, pulling the ship through the snow. Inch by inch, the ship moved, slow to gain speed.
Diego kept low to the ground as if he were stalking his prey. Although he wasn't white, he wouldn't be too obvious against the snow. The sun's reflection off the snow often had strange effects, sometimes causing the snow to glow in different colors. But just to be sure, he burrowed into a deep bank, covering his back and head in a few inches of snow.
As the ship continued to gain speed slowly, Diego inched closer. If any of the pirates spotted him, he would know by sending that evil condor after him.
Once the ship gained a certain amount of speed, a spray of snow followed after, creating the best cover that Diego was counting on. Once the spray thickened, he sped up. Snow and ice crystals bombarded his face and his paw burned from the sharp pain, but he ignored all this, pushing forward even when he couldn't see where he was going.
Tensing the muscles in his face, he aimed his whiskers forward, hoping that they would help him know if he was close enough to the ship before ramming into it. The ice and snow were too thick, and he had to squint just to be able to keep his eyes open. It was more luck than anything that helped him to know just when he was right up against the bones.
He leaped, claws scratching and digging into the bones. He struggled, climbing up the side of the ship much like the deer had earlier, which is where he got his idea. Once he had gotten high enough that the snow spray wasn't hitting him anymore, he started pulling away bones and tossing them to the ground. Eventually, he created a hollow big enough for him to lie in.
"And that's my whole plan," Diego said to no one, confident that the sound of the ship against the snow would be enough to drown out his voice. "Now what are you going to do, Diego?"
Buck knew that resisting was useless. Once Jez had found him, he was certain that she wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted or she was dead. He just couldn't figure out how she was alive. Or more importantly, how she knew he was alive. Once he caught sight of Diego, he knew how she had found him, but who had told her to go looking for him?
As the deer carried them up onto Jez's ship, Buck couldn't help but shiver at the ghastly bones that made up their transport. He was no stranger when it came to death, but gathering up enough bones to build a ship, it was unbelievable. He saw that the larger structure of the ship was made of mammoth and other large mammal bones while the deck was a crisscross of smaller animals. Normally, an ice ship would have a mast and a sail, but Jez's ship didn't have one.
The deer walked across the deck with astounding balance, making his way toward the entrance to below deck, down into the belly of the ship. However, he stopped at the threshold, bent his neck, and carefully dropped Buck into the arms of a fox and Tundra into the arms of a weasel.
"Captain Jez says to make our guests comfortable. Put the mink with the black saber and the weasel in her quarters," the deer ordered.
The fox and weasel carried the prisoners below deck. It wasn't long before the fox and weasel split ways.
"Where is he taking her?" Buck growled at the fox.
He had intended to keep his relationship with Tundra a secret least it be used against him, and he had acted marvelously during his fight with Jez. But he couldn't ignore the ominous order of putting her with a saber. Jez had said she was going to keep Tundra as a bargaining chip. Had she changed her mind? Not that Tundra couldn't take care of herself. A saber wasn't a match for his Angel-girl.
The fox wound through what seemed like a labyrinth of hallways of bones, the only light coming from the cracks in the bones, making the inner workings of the ship dim. Eventually they came to a wooden door. It looked too smooth and formed for it to be naturally broken from a tree. The only wood Buck had seen like that came from humans. Was Jez so brazen that she even attacked and stole from humans?
It wouldn't surprise him.
The fox opened the door and tossed Buck through it. The vines that were wrapped around his long body took the brunt of the fall, but he still felt bones bruise his muscles and a few sharp areas cut through his fur.
Then the door slammed behind him, leaving him alone.
Only then did Buck slip out of his bonds. He could have done it any time, but it wasn't to his benefit. Any attempt to escape within Jez's and her pet condor's sight would result in getting Tundra killed. But he wasn't trying to escape, not quite yet.
Freed from the vines, Buck searched the room he was left in. He was certain the fox or some other pirate was stationed outside the door, but he didn't want to leave at that moment. What he needed was a weapon since his knife—oh, why did he drop his knife?—had been dropped during his fight with Jez.
A quick look around the room told Buck that this must be Jez's sleeping quarters. There was a pile of furs—she always was the morbid one—in the corner that smelled like her. There also was a stockpile of food, eggs, berries, roots, and strips of meat, some dried and some rotting.
There were a couple of logs, perhaps for sitting on so that Jez's rump didn't have to touch the dead. Buck checked in the hollows of the logs, but found nothing of interest in there except for mushrooms growing, perhaps for food or just because nobody bothered to clear them out. He tried taking bones out of the floor or walls, because a femur would make a really good club, but they were so well entangled in the structure as well as the weight of the above deck that he couldn't pull anything bigger than a rib of a small mammal.
With nothing better to do, Buck decided to wait until his sister deemed to grace him with her presence. Eventually, he could feel the ship moving, gaining speed slowly. He recalled the feeling and gained his ship legs easily, although he missed the feel of a real ice-ship under his feet. These bones made walking a balancing act. If he had to fight Jez here, she would have the advantage. But then again, when they fought again, he wouldn't pretend to loose.
It was several minutes after the ship reached cruising speed that the door squeaked open. Although Buck's muscles tensed, ready for anything, he kept his outward appearance looking relaxed and nonchalant.
Jez had the same relaxed expression as she stepped in, neglecting to close the door. Or did she forget to do that? Was she testing him? Waiting to see if he would make a break for it? Out in the hallway, there were no signs of pirates. It would be easy for him to run for it. If he could be faster than Jez, it wouldn't be hard for him to reach the deck and jump off the ship. Oh, he would risk an injury, at most a broken leg, nothing he couldn't handle.
But Jez knew this. It was practically an invitation to escape. She was testing him, seeing if he regarded Tundra as lowly as he acted. He had come to a dead end.
Shaking off his blasé act, Buck got to his feet and glared at his sister. "If she gets hurt, I'll stop caring."
Jez closed the door. "Good. Now you're serious, Buckminster," she said, her mouth popping the syllables of his name. "We can get down to business." She sauntered over to him, the same walk that they both had perfected in their prime of pirate-hood. "Because if you don't give me everything I want, I will feed her to my pet condor. You remember Caliban. You remember how much he enjoys eating his prey alive."
Buck gritted his teeth, rage he hadn't experienced in a long time, pushed against the walls of his body, ready to burst out.
"And I'll make you watch every second," Jez said, delighted at the thought. "So, if you want to save your little whore, then you will give me the map to Captain Firefur's treasure."