The ride in the rowboat from the galleon's stern to the shoreline was a short one, but deeply uncomfortable nonetheless. A typical rowboat such as this one easily carried four people — the typical maximum crew size — and so the presence of Blue and all the supplies they brought made it especially awkward.
Quietly seething, Blue only just kept herself calm and refrained from drawing her dagger on the crew of the Winter's End. Garrett, rightfully ashamed, had not fully rectified the situation. While she appreciated his efforts to give her an advantage, he was not spared her disdain.
When the rowboat was sufficiently pulled onto the sand and emptied of its contents, Captain Hancock produced a map of the island from the breast pocket of his jacket. After giving it a good look over, he began the trek uphill. Blue chose to follow him from a comfortable distance before anyone felt the need to make her walk.
The path they took skirted around the island's southwestern perimeter for a time. Initially, a primal sense of self-preservation had shied Blue away from the sheer drop they walked atop; when she realised that there were hands nearby to stop her from jumping when the fancy struck her, she silently cursed that instinct.
When it seemed they could go no further, they turned inland. The way up was steep and slippery, full of loose sand cradled by hard rock. They passed a seemingly dead tree, too. Though such were a staple of the Wilds, Blue felt it a portent.
They reached what seemed to be about the highest nearby point that they could stand upon without stepping onto stone and then they suddenly took a left. Had they continued, they would have stumbled into a crack in the island. At first glance it didn't look impossible to go down into it; then Blue spotted an obvious path on the other side. Something about it stuck in her mind.
Continuing onward, the crack in the earth came to be on their right. It opened up more and more as they walked, becoming both deeper and wider. This island seemed about as sturdy as the honour of the Winter's End crew seemed.
Before them was a wall, an opening underneath a watch point. If the structure was anything to go off of, the island must have been inhabited at some point. Blue felt more sure of this observation as more structure entered her view. There were fences, ramshackle as many of the buildings were in this land, but still sturdy. With all the elevated platforms that could easily have served as more watch points — and could have comfortably housed a cannon — Blue got the feeling that this was a heavily enforced location at one time. Now, however, it was rather desolate.
Or, perhaps, that simply fit the mood that the group carried more than anything.
A wall lined with punji sticks had been followed, kept to their right. There was a threshold to it that they went through, the area opening up. All around them were more punji sticks and walls, encasing them in what was a fairly protective boundary. Just as she was wondering what they were doing, they came to a stop and Hancock thoroughly scanned the area.
"Anyone see anything that might be what we're looking for?"
Blue was curious what that might be. Everyone looked around the area before spreading out some. She stayed where she was; she hadn't been told to do anything and she certainly wasn't about to offer. The crew had also not spread apart as much as she would have liked to draw her dagger on them.
"Hey, yeah, this is it!" Fisher called from just up the hill.
Up against the western barrier was a grey table with a purple cloth over it, adorned with skulls on the backboard. Upon it were two black and orange pedestals of questionable origins. Blue felt uneasy just looking at the whole thing, then even more so when it occurred to her that the skull and chalice she carried would fit perfectly on them.
Hancock and Fisher both looked over the table. Arthur perused the area some more; Garrett had stayed near Blue and when it seemed this was whatever exactly they were looking for, he motioned for her to sit. She simply brought herself down to kneel and sit on the heels of her feet.
Just as Garrett had told her, they planned to make the battlefield a hazard for their prey, carefully laying down ropes and a lesser number of chains that could be pulled to snare anything that was caught amidst them. Two gunpowder barrels had also been carried onto the island; one was set down beside the table and the other was placed in the middle of the area. A third and fourth were already present on the island and taken custody of as well.
Not considering her place in all of this, it felt… wrong, somehow.
As Hancock had Blue stand again, she realised that the rest of the crew had disappeared. Following the direction he had come from, she spotted Garrett getting comfortable behind a dead tree; the other two were entirely out of sight.
"You are to wait one minute before placing the items on the table after I step away," Hancock instructed her. He stepped away and pointed out the keg near the table. "When you are able, you are to use this." Then he stepped away to hide on the other side of the nearest wall.
Briefly, Blue considered ignoring his command and placing them right away. What could he possibly do about that? Something stayed her hands despite her bitterness.
When Blue had roughly counted a minute past, she stood and more properly approached the table. Her skin crawled and tingled as she looked at it. With a deep breath, she placed the items down on the pedestals.
"Who DARES disturb my slumber?!"
Of all the things to happen next, she was not expecting a voice from below the sand to start screaming at her, a voice of rage and hatred. This, she realised, was Graymarrow, and he was very bemused about being roused by someone he did not recognise.
"Your uniform? You're one of Slate's crew! I thought I bound you pitiful wretches and left you to rot! That curse should be unbreakable…"
Or perhaps he did. The clothing was recognisable at the very least to him — another crew's uniform. Now it made sense why she had been given such a nice change of clothes. Worse still was Graymarrow's own admittance to binding souls to things.
"That means you must be — an IMPOSTER!"
This was a terrible situation she had found herself in.
Her mind raced with possible choices she could make to get herself safely through this conundrum.
"I don't know why you wear the uniform of the Morningstar," — that name seemed familiar to her but unimportant at the moment — "ha, but p'raps you'd like to suffer the same fate? Those cowards didn't deserve t' reach the Shores of Gold! They were such worms, one of 'em jumped overboard the moment she laid eyes on me."
Blue wasn't sure if she could blame that lady for deserting her crew; this was a daunting situation but that was a shameful, cowardly thing to do. This also wasn't the time to judge someone else.
"I'll cut you down just as easily, 'cept I think I'll take it nice and slow…"
If all the stories she had overheard and ignored were to be believed, he was being honest and simply telling everyone how this would go down. Blue had to subdue her flight or fight response as she watched a truly enormous skeleton rise from the dirt. With a blue gem set in his eye socket, he scanned the area before him — which consisted primarily of just Blue — and then drew a blunderbuss.
"Wait!"
She put her hands out as best she could, raising them some. The restraints made such a gesture difficult and reduced its effectiveness but if his stillness was anything to go by, Graymarrow noticed. Blue also took a step to the side, then decided that would not do and instead slowly took a few steps closer to him.
"There are four pirates nearby who want to kill you." Graymarrow's head tilted slightly before he laughed, hard. Blue was undeterred and said, "They forced me to go along with their plans. There are gunpowder kegs and snares everywhere—"
Graymarrow was still laughing until he spat, "If you think I'm fallin' fer—"
If Blue didn't know better, that sound was Hancock yowling in rage. A very unkind descriptor for herself came from his lips before he showed himself, pistol in hand. She thought he would aim at her directly; instead, he shot the keg behind her. While not close enough to suffer real injury from it, she was still close enough that the blast forced her forward, knocking her into Graymarrow's looming form.
This seemed an inopportune position to be in. What was more surprising was the sound of Garrett bellowing; after stepping back, she turned to look and was surprised to see him charging toward them. Only slightly dazed, she took this opportunity to reach behind her back, finally unsheathing her dagger and working on freeing herself. She didn't see it, but she heard the blunderbuss go off, the thud that followed, and knew he was dead.
Suddenly, pain erupted from her right hip. Wincing, Blue was aware that she now had to look down at Graymarrow's hulking form — next was the realisation that he had grabbed her and lifted her up with one single hand and she would be next.
With her hands free now, Blue bashed the pommel of her dagger into the side of his head as hard as she could. She was surprised but deeply thankful that he released his grip on her and she dropped to the ground, unable to find her footing in the amount of pain that radiated through her hip and down her leg.
Noises came from the remaining three members of the Winter's End. Hancock was particularly loud but distant. A sword was driven into Graymarrow's side and Blue realised that Arthur and Fisher had come to personally engage him. Now seemed as good a time as any to start scooting back away from the fight and reconsider things.
"Think you can take me?!"
Blue didn't even bother wondering what Graymarrow was yelling at, who he shot — it wasn't her so she didn't care. She leaned back against a dead tree and focused on breathing. She could still move and was glad for that, but her hip hurt fiercely. There was no chance of talking her way out of this situation, and what a foe it was she faced. She had no idea a skeleton — a Skeleton Lord, she realised — could ever be capable of inflicting such damage with just their hands. A straight fight seemed out of the question and she didn't even know if the remaining crew of the Winter's End would welcome her at their side after betraying their stealth.
Another gunshot rang out and pulled her from her thoughts. When she looked, she decided it must have been Graymarrow's pistol that was fired for Arthur was currently stumbling backwards, holding his side and swearing loudly. Fisher chose to let go of her sword and take a swing at him with a fist. That certainly was… bold of her.
Feeling better now, she got back on her feet and Blue realised Hancock was nowhere to be seen. Another glance around the surroundings and she spotted him face-down in the sand, blood oozing from his back. He was either dead or near it; another body down made the situation all the more dire.
A noise rang out from the fight; if Blue didn't know better, she would have said it was a keg going off, yet it sounded different. She looked just in time to see Fisher flying through the air away from Graymarrow before landing head-first.
The fight was between her and a way around the island. Rather than risk getting caught up in that, Blue went the other way, up a little more until she reached the great crack in the island. There was no safe way down into it from where she was. Stressed as she was, she only just recalled that there was a path into it back the way they came, but that was quite a distance. She started in that direction anyway. Across the crevice, over at a point that was higher than her side, she heard a noise. She gripped her weapons, ready for trouble, and then nearly dropped them.
"Z!"
"Hey!"
They looked at each other for a brief moment, still and silent as they confirmed that yes, both of them were alive and free. Somehow, Z managed to look rougher than she did.
Z started, "Hey, what's—"
A blood-curdling scream cut him off. Jerking around towards the noise, Blue recoiled at the distant sight of Graymarrow's hands on either side of Fisher's head. Arthur was nowhere to be seen. She looked back to Z before she spotted any details.
"Are you whole?" she asked.
Holding his hands up, expression as though he was unsure of what she meant, Z then nodded. "Yea, I'm fine, what— holy shit, what is that?."
Blue followed his gaze and nearly backed up and fell down the crack at the sight of Graymarrow climbing over the fence and facing them.
"Scared, are ya? Y' should be!"
Rather than wait to be shot, Blue ran back up along the ravine. Hate was a strong word, but she decided it was apt, that she hated Graymarrow. Something so monstrous was deserving of no better.
Z had sprinted along the way on the other side. The ravine's side came closer at a point, a rickety bridge built to bring the sides together. It was not in good condition, far from it, and barely looked sturdy enough to hold a single person on the best of days. This was far from it. Though Z beckoned her across, Blue took one good look at that bridge and decided that was simply not going to do. It was not strong enough with that force of nature trailing after her, she decided.
"No way."
"What? Are you crazy?"
No, but she thought Z was.
A gunshot rang out and Blue heard the bullet speed by her head. She considered it, shook her head at Z one more time before turning around just in time to sight Graymarrow with a chest — no, a crate? — on his shoulder.
"Come out 'n' play, boys!"
Never, ever would Blue have expected a horde of skeletons to emerge from the ground at his command. That Skeleton Lords commanded lesser skeletons was something she had heard, one of the very few things she could recall hearing about them that didn't seem entirely baseless, but never would she have expected that to be taken so literally.
The skeletons posed a problem. While they could normally be found in groups of about two to five, this was far more, so much more. Both she and Z cursed at what they saw moving towards them. Blue took off along the ravine again, just to put some distance between her and all the skeletons, and then had an idea come to her: the crew of the Winter's End had arranged the arena to favour them. While certain aspects wouldn't work in this one — hopefully, two — on-many-fight, there were still gunpowder kegs strewn about.
Dashing to it, Blue vaulted over a low part of the fence and scanned the area, forcing herself to ignore the sounds of fighting behind her. She moved forward, careful to not trip over anything. As she had expected, Graymarrow was following her, leaving his minions to Z. He'd be fine, she hoped.
Just as he had before, the Skeleton Lord climbed over the fence as though it were nothing. She waited…
"I can smell your fear."
She sincerely doubted that but couldn't quite find the words. Instead, Blue pulled the Eye of the Reach on her back into her grip, quickly aiming and shooting the keg nearest Graymarrow. She heard him grunt and as best she could tell, she had at least annoyed him. More annoyingly, the blast had detonated another keg that was just a little too close, but too far to inflict any damage to the skeleton. On the next shot, Blue aimed at his head.
With a wicked laugh, he said, "Is this your attempt to fight me? Y' should've ran farther when you could!"
"Like the one worm did?" Blue asked with some disdain towards whoever that might be. Even as Graymarrow was closing the distance between them, she reloaded her musket and stood her ground. "I will not." She fired again.
Being shot didn't stop Graymarrow from laughing once more. "I like the style of your pluck. Not at all like hers. It'll make wrenching your soul from your body all the more gratifyin'."
With his focus on her, Blue could step back, controlling Graymarrow's position, hopefully, more than he realised. Or perhaps it was that he just didn't care; she wasn't sure if she wanted to change that. She had backed up through the first threshold they had gone through, leading to a sloped, open area. On the outside of that wall was another keg. When he was right beside it, she fired and hit her mark. This blast was far more impactful, staggering him and setting his form alight.
What the lantern was for, she couldn't deduce. She decided that his gesturing of slitting someone's throat was particularly rude. Then he fell backwards and disappeared into the sand.
That was… more surprising than it ought to have been. What Blue was truly surprised by was his resurgence in a different location, the fire cleansed from his form. Her expression must have betrayed her.
"Ha, you don't get it, do you? You can't beat me. I'm stronger than you, and the strong prey upon the weak."
Blue decided that Graymarrow truly was a monster.
Graymarrow closed the gap between them. She sized him up as he did this, finally drawing the sword she had been given. It was serviceable, nothing special, but that could change. It could become a sword worthy of a name. She needed that to happen on this fateful day.
He was just close enough that he felt he could shoot her with his blunderbuss. He had miscalculated and missed every pellet as she darted to the side and then at him. Blue never expected him to strike her with his other hand. The blow was stunning, landing squarely below her left eye. Refusing to fall, she instead stumbled back. That eye was starry for the moment that he laughed and she could already feel blood trickling down her face.
Blue was ready to try again when she paused, dumbstruck by what she saw. The sword that Graymarrow produced was ridiculous, larger in every direction than any she had ever seen — it was a beast of a weapon.
"I'll hack you down where you stand…"
She could use a sword. She wasn't bad at duel-wielding her dagger in her other hand when the fight was this close, either, if she liked. The musket was where her combat skills shined and she wasn't bad with a pistol either. But fighting this with anything was crazy.
With great effort, Blue parried the first swing.
As spineless as she decided the previous crews had been, she was starting to understand it. She still didn't respect it, didn't think it was all right. Graymarrow acted as though this were a game; he wasn't taking an ambush on his person seriously. He was a force to be reckoned with, and she wondered… How could anyone on the Sea of Thieves ever truly be free when this threat existed?
Another swing was parried; this one took extra effort and Blue stepped backwards, up the hill.
Such an onslaught was unsustainable. Serviceable as her skills with a blade were, she was no good in a contest of strength. Her dagger's parrying hook would be useless against such a weapon, too. Placing both hands on the grip, she was able to properly block the next swing. It took an incredible amount of effort and Blue understood that she could only do that a few times before it exhausted her.
The other problem was Graymarrow's steady encroachment. The movements he made with his sword lacked finesse, but then, with such power, he could fight anyhow he liked.
Another swing, another parry and she backed up more. They'd reach the top of the island in no time if he kept this up, and surely he could, giving her no opportunity to trade defence for offence.
One more parry and Blue was astonished to find herself looking up at Graymarrow entirely, having… tripped? No way she had made such a silly mistake in this situation. If she had still been on her feet, she would have been annoyed by his laugh this time; instead, she was horrified to see him raising his sword to bring it down upon her. One hand on the grip, another on the back of her sword, she raised it to stop the other's swing from rending her in half. Instead, her sword snapped in half. Blue had also reflectively leaned to the side to protect her head so instead of landing there, Graymarrow's blade embedded itself in her right shoulder.
What direction was up or down, where she was or what time it was didn't exist — the only thing that existed was the pain that burst from her right shoulder, the impact reverberating through her entire form. The grey sky of the Wilds darkened until she saw nothing, her sight failing her. Panic then mingled with the explosion; she was vaguely aware of Graymarrow's tainted presence, how he belittled her and laughed at the havoc he caused — was this to be it? Slain by a monster that should only have existed in stories? It would not even be a true death — no, something much worse. She could comprehend death, moving on to a new life or ceasing to be anything at all, but to still live and be trapped with nothingness…
With a furious roar, Z barrelled into Graymarrow, shoving the great skeleton aside. Horde or not, he had refused to yield to lesser skeletons. He had the wounds to show for such a fight, little cuts and scrapes and scratches everywhere — overall, though, he was in better shape than Blue was. This was now his fight and Z approached it with gusto, shoving Graymarrow off with another burst of energy.
Having stupefied him for the briefest of moments, Z took that opportunity to loose a shot from his blunderbuss into the Skeleton Lord, staggering him further. He reloaded with urgency and shot again. Ignoring the roar of rage, Z dashed back to Blue. He took one look at her and then gripped the upper arm that wasn't injured — and was now holding the other in place — and pulled her to her feet. She didn't scream this time — and he couldn't have handled another one — but she fell to her knees. She wouldn't be moving yet.
With the opportunity wasted, Z lunged for Graymarrow, their blades colliding with ferocious strength.
"I'll hack you down where you stand, worm!"
Maybe Graymarrow was right to say that. No way could Z beat the skeleton in a contest of strength as he so often could. No, this required skill and footwork. This was an opponent like no other and while Z was thrilled by the notion of fighting someone stronger than him, even a Skeleton Lord, this was Graymarrow…!
"You two lookin' to be cursed yerselves?"
He would get nowhere with this. While Z was able to dance around Graymarrow, he was unable to bring his sword into contact with the skeleton more than once; he had found an opening and it had been promptly closed. Blocking was also something he didn't do — he'd seen Blue's blade break. To make matters worse, he was quickly tiring.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something moving, something bright against the sand. With Graymarrow's offensive, he wasn't allowed another look.
A moment later and Blue was launching herself off a rock, dagger in her off-hand. She landed on Graymarrow's back, blade against his neck. He grunted and before he could do anything more, she twisted it, gave it a hard yank, and the Skeleton Lord's skull came loose from a body that simply collapsed.
With a soft gasp, Z approached her. Before she could grip her injured arm with a dagger in her hand, he took it from her. That wound looked awful.
"Hey— C'mon, we gotta go."
He made to grab her wrist and pull her along, but she stepped away from him and towards the pile of bones. Z was about to chastise her when he saw what she saw: a rectangular stone glowing red. Normally he would have been all for taking any treasure that was rightly earned, but they really needed to get out of there before the galleon's crew had a chance to get back from the Ferry or more skeletons showed up.
"Now can we go?"
She looked dazed, not even looking directly at him as she nodded. Z put his hand on her back, shifted it to her good arm's shoulder blade and hurried her along. They didn't have far to go, just down the slope and through a lookout point and they were at the Forlorn Phoenix. There was another path that Z had taken instead and he mentally cursed his ill luck. If he had been able to get there sooner, maybe neither of them would be so injured.
For once, nearly beaching his vessel worked in his favour. No way could Blue climb the ladder, but the water was so shallow they could walk right up to the side of the sloop. With him helping by pushing her up, she was able to climb onto the main-deck. He climbed up after her.
"All right, we—"
Finally able to breathe for a moment, Z stopped and really looked at his shipmate, blood dripping off her limp hand. No, it was no mere cut on her shoulder — her shoulder had been cut through. He almost asked out loud how she wasn't dead.
Hand on her back again and the other taking her good arm into possession, he led her to the mid-deck with a gentle, "C'mere." He got her settled in the chair by the desk and considered the next move. Before he could ponder more, Blue attempted to stand and he stopped her.
"What, sit—"
"The books."
She was not worried about some scribblings on paper. He would have scolded her for this, but Blue was insistent.
"All right, fine." He finally got her to sit still. "What am I lookin' for?"
"Three… in the cabin," she said weakly and he had to consider that for a moment.
"Cabin… The galleon's cabin?" He just barely heard the 'mhmm' from her and he sighed. "Fine. You stay right there and don't move," he warned before disembarking.
Getting back to the top of the island was easy enough. Thankfully, there was still a trail of footprints he could find to follow back to the galleon, smoke now emitting from it. Considering Blue's insistence on this, he was glad he hadn't been able to find any sizeable amounts of gunpowder to properly blow it apart with, though not for why.
As he entered the captain's cabin, Z immediately spotted three books on the table. Surely that was what he was looking for. He scooped them up and held them over his head before hopping into the shallow water and making his way back.
On the sloop, Blue was still sitting where he had left her, but she looked far worse. He didn't even think she was conscious until she lifted her head to look at him.
Setting the books on the far side of the table, he told her, "Jus' sit still." Then he made his way to the hold. Blue had large scraps of sailcloth, for whatever reason he wasn't sure, and there was that entire sail folded up down there, but the scraps would suffice.
Bringing the first scrap up, he folded it neatly into a line and laid it down on the floor beside the chair, avoiding the pooling blood. Blue wasn't even paying attention, but that was fine. Z collected a smaller piece of scrap and brought it down on her shoulder to hopefully stymie the bleeding. He grit his teeth as she sucked a breath in and stifled a stronger response. He hushed her gently before putting his arms around her so he could lie her down on the other scrap. Once situated right, he pulled it across her chest and tied it so that it pulled her shoulder together and kept a constant pressure on it, something she was no longer able to do herself. Blue was looking a little better, though. That was right — lying someone down when they were bleeding like this helped.
Patting her uninjured arm, he gave her a gentle nudge until she looked at him. "Stay awake." Then he stood back up so he could go back down into the hold. The next order of business was a pineapple. Maybe two? Injuries like this were not common in the Sea of Thieves, and when they did happen, people usually died. Hell, the last time he had dealt with a wound like this, he'd died shortly after. Or maybe that was still worse than this was. Whatever the case, Z made his way back to his shipmate and placed the fruit in her good hand.
"Eat," he insisted. He didn't wait and babysit her, instead having decided that they needed to get moving. If the galleon crew was allowed a speedy return, he wanted to be nowhere near them. Then again, with the Code…
Glancing at the map, Z considered where to go besides away. Marauder's Arch was out of the question; Sunken Grove had gotten them into this situation; the outposts… Galleon's Grave was far too far away, but Dagger Tooth was fairly close. The wind was on their side and the current wouldn't fight them, and surely someone there would be able to aid Blue. Z's ungraceful touch would do her no good in her state. No, this seemed as good a plan as any.
He spared a glance to his injured crewmate before hurrying upstairs to the quarter-deck.
