The Buccaneer's Apprentice by V. Briceland Page A

compliment. “Yes! Thank you! Watch.” He cleared his throat, and then in an extremely loud voice, “Allo! Bongzur! Voo avec big pirate killer , comprendvu? ”
    “Even I,” Nic turned to announce, unimpressed, “can tell that was not a proper sentence.”
    “Do I know you?” The words had sounded like the rustle of autumn leaves across an empty piazza, but they were distinct enough. Nic shifted on his knees to face the old man again. His eyes were focused now, though they blinked with confusion. “You look like someone I know.”
    “We’re like you,” Nic told him, inching forward until he was kneeling directly beside the old man. “Prisoners. Wait,” he said, suddenly realizing something. The man had spoken without accent or flaw. “Are you from Cassaforte?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Cassafort City!” exclaimed Maxl, seeming to follow the conversation. “Yes, beautiful! Many beautiful women! All love Maxl. Hah! Hah!”
    The pirate barked out his laughter so loudly that it echoed throughout the cavern. It must have been audible from without, for a shadow crossed the sands in front of the entrance. Long and dark it loomed, though its owner did not materialize.
    “Is everything all right in there?” It was the girl, Nic knew. She spoke with a strange accent, almost like the languid tones of Pays d’Azur, but yet not quite. “Sssh,” he warned the others. Maxl immediately stifled his amusement.
    “Old man?” the girl called, a touch of warning in her voice.
    It seemed to take the elderly gentleman an eternity to struggle to a half-sitting position. He was indeed a gentleman, Nic could now tell. The aristocratic nose, the former formality of his beard and robes, the gentility of his words, all bespoke a certain class. If he was not of the Seven and Thirty, he was at least very well connected among their society. “All is well,” he called out. His voice did not sound strong, but it carried like an actor’s. “No need for alarm.”
    The three men waited while the shadow seemed to waver with indecision. After a moment, however, it receded. They all seemed to relax. Nic had only caught a glimpse of the girl, shortly before she’d banged the back of his head and rendered him unconscious. “She’s dangerous,” he whispered to the old man. “The girl. She took out both of us on her own.”
    “She-tiger,” said Maxl. “Killer of pirate-killers. Almost!” Nic shot him a dirty look.
    “Yes, she’s dangerous indeed,” the gentleman agreed. By his sober nod, Nic understood that she had overcome him as well. “I would fear crossing her.”
    “What do you know of her?” While the old man thought, Nic rapidly began to theorize. “She’s not part of Maxl’s group of pirates.”
    “Maxl pirating no more,” he reminded them. “Never see girl, ever, before here.”
    “She must be part of another group of buccaneers,” Nic said. The idea sounded more persuasive as he spoke it. Wasn’t the cavern filled with supplies plundered from cargo ships? “But is she the leader? Or just one of them?”
    The expression on the old man’s face was difficult to pin down. “Surely the girl is too young to lead her own merry pirate band?”
    “And that accent,” Nic said. “What is she?”
    “Half of her is of Cassaforte,” said the old man, turning his head to look at the cave entrance. He was sitting up straighter now. Though he did not appear to be a strong man at all, his posture had dignity and bearing. “Half of Pays d’Azur.”
    Nic nodded. That made sense. In the short time he’d heard her speak, she’d managed to combine the lilt of his own language with the nasality of Azurite. Exotic, it sounded, but familiar. “Why in the world would she attack a half-countryman?”
    “Well …”
    Nic thought he saw the direction in which his elder’s doubt was heading. “True. She might not have known I was a countryman. Perhaps if I just talk to her …”
    Maxl had a definite opinion on that