The moon was bright.
The air was still.
An oar sliced through the stygian Rhoyne.
"No crickets," Arano muttered, perched at the dinghy's bow. "Odd."
Heaving, thrusting, rowing, Varoquo pricked his ears.
Nothing.
Fifty feet ahead of them, silent amidst the whispering reeds, a single-masted sloop sat dead in the water.
The Springtime Bride, by Varoquo's recollection, a regular on this route, one of those spartan passenger ferries – old repurposed freighters – that alleged itself the 'premium option.'
Fewer termites than the competition, he supposed.
Its current captain, a bow-legged Braavosi, was all in all a straight shooter, in and out with minimal fuss. They'd an arrangement, you see, a regular toll: three hundred silver in exchange for safe passage, with another thirty more per passenger – or, on occasion, a passenger outright, for ransom or bondage or … leisure.
Just the cost of doing business.
But tonight, no lanterns flickered in the dark, no signal flags fluttered from the mast, and no pilots stood lookout on the deck.
"Thinks he's clever," Arano chuckled. "Blow out the candles and pretend no one's home, eh? Enough to fool a halfwit, maybe."
Varoquo frowned – much as he tried, he couldn't shake his unease. In his experience, these riverboat crews usually knew better than to play games.
"Someone got here before us."
The Springtime Bride might've been theirs – there was, in theory, a system to these things – but he wasn't so naive, not anymore, as to have any faith in a fellow thief's honor.
Arano shook his head. "Too tidy" – the average pirate wasn't exactly known for his restraint, after all. "Look," he gestured, "it's practically fresh from the wharf."
Varoquo huffed – heave, thrust, row. "Might be deliberate." He spared a second to catch his breath. "A trophy, or something. Capture now, pick up later."
Eyebrow raised, Arano absently brushed a hand over the hilt of his knife. "I guess we'll see."
Lashing a rope around an overhanging spar, the pair hauled their dinghy right abeam the sloop, hulls knocking together as they both bobbed in place. Arano, after one last check of his kit, clambered over the bulwarks and onto the Springtime Bride; offering a hand, he then pulled his partner up with a full-throated grunt.
Ropes, buckets, canvas, everything on deck seemed just as it should've, nary a slashmark or bloodstain in sight.
Arano, a flash of merriment tugging at his lips, slapped the other man on the shoulder. "That's one point for me."
"Just means they didn't fight back," Varoquo countered, narrowed eyes scanning for movement.
Boots thumping against the boards, rigging groaning above, the pirates warily scratched about, kicking barrels and lifting hatches, slowly working their way towards the cabin.
"Don't like the feel of this." Varoquo's instincts rarely served him wrong, and in that moment, they were screaming.
For all the bravado beating in his chest, Arano couldn't bring himself to disagree.
Squinting through the shadows, the pair approached the cabin door – hardened oak, iron-banded, latched and locked shut.
The faintest specks of light were peeking through the cracks.
A scrape.
A whine.
A thud.
Varoquo and Arano whipped around, blades flying from their sheathes – the Springtime Bride's captain scrambled up from the hold, trembling hands seizing Arano by the arms.
"What are you doing here?!" the Braavosi hissed.
They shoved him away, Arano squaring his shoulders as he backpedaled a step, Varoquo leveling his rapier at their assailant's throat.
"You must leave!" Bloodshot eyes, sweat-soaked shirt, he looked like he hadn't slept in days. "You must! It is not … the … you will wake her!"
The pirates exchanged glances.
"Look, mate," Arano plowed through his building sense of alarm, "we ain't budging 'til we get what we're owed."
The captain lurched closer, undeterred by the blades pricking his skin. "Double, triple next time!" Fingers raking through matted hair, he was all but begging on his knees. "Please, just – "
Quiet.
Knees locked, breath caught, hair stood on end.
Varoquo felt it carve into his bones – something was right behind him.
"Y-your Worship," the captain blubbered, eyes wide, hands clasped, "I beg – "
Need I repeat myself?
His throat seized, teeth clacked together, and he shrank and cringed away, gaze fixed down at the deck boards.
Air thickening, the presence shifted; its attention scraping his soul, Varoquo dared not face it.
A second's scrutiny lasted for eternity.
How droll.
The sliding of silk.
The heady reek of ozone.
A knife clattered to the ground; Arano started to scream.
Thrumming heat, a simmering mirage, the eldritch chime of reality cracking.
Then, silence.
Your payment.
Inspecting its handiwork, the being stalked out into the open, form silhouetted in the moonlight – too tall, too lithe, too fluid.
I trust this is enough?
What followed passed in a blur, garbled mumbles into ringing ears, shapeless flashes into clouded eyes.
All Varoquo truly recalled was the throat-tearing agony frozen on Arano's face, sculpted from solid gold.
V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V
" … one of my best men! I refuse to see this insult go unanswered!"
"An insult for which you've been amply compensated."
"How dare you!"
Piracy was a business.
It was barbarous, of course, parasitic, degenerate, the substantiated lust of the scum of the earth, suffused with a certain self-serving romanticism.
Nevertheless, fundamentally, a business.
And like any other business, it had its own politics.
"How dare I? You poked someone you damn well shouldn't have, thank the good gods above you only lost a man!"
"Spare me the puffery! This is a witch we're facing, not a god!"
"Unnatural all the same!"
Profit being the fruit of strength, the lion's share of pirates – exempting only the outliers, the rawest and the saltiest, and the notoriously unreliable – confederated themselves into fleets, syndicates, rackets, strength enough to be found in numbers.
No less than five plagued Dagger Lake, each boasting dozens of crews.
These were markedly loose arrangements, understand, no formalized management or oversight, say nothing of codes or constitutions; held together by mutual self-interest, apelike posturing, and perhaps a charismatic figurehead or two, the fleets – for all their talk of fraternity – chiefly served as forums for grievances, cheaper venues for dispute resolution than battling it out on the water.
Honest cooperation (much to the benefit of most everybody else) was a rarity in this line of work.
"Such timidity! And here I thought you were a man!"
"What you call timidity, I call sense! Let the matter lie!"
"If we allow – !"
"It is not human."
Cradling an untouched cup, numb gaze tracing the table's woodgrain, Varoquo only realized that he'd spoken aloud when the rest of the room, mouths clapping shut, expectantly turned his way.
He swallowed.
"Whatever it is, it is not human."
The hush lingered, heavy with wordless disquietude.
Finally, a sneer – "Risk yours all you'd like, I refuse to risk mine."
With that, the dissenting captains filed from the commons, returning to their own; and the self-styled admiral, swollen with pride, sailed forth in pursuit with a squadron of six.
Later that day, as sunset's crimson crept across the sky, hundreds of bodies washed upon the shore, waves lapping at carbonized flesh.
The pirates never bothered the Springtime Bride again.