A Pirate's Crown

"Help me break this up," Vyrun commanded, then charged into the fray without waiting for a response. He went straight for Saffar and Khalan to pull them apart. The two brothers were locked together, eyes aflame and teeth bared like wild animals.

"You heard him," Bromm said to his men, "Separate them before the kill each other."

Bromm rushed forward to Vyrun's side. The visling was unsuccessfully trying to break the brothers' grip on each other, but their strength proved too much for him. Another of Khalan's brothers seized the visling from behind and wrapped an arm around his throat.

"Mind your own, old man," he snarled. Vyrun threw an elbow into his face, and the brother grunted in pain. His grip slackened, and Vyrun wriggled free. He turned to face his attacker, who clutched his nose with one hand and went for his knife with the other.

But Bromm was there first. He seized the threatening hand and pinned it against the man's body. "Take a seat by your father and wait this out," Bromm commanded, then shoved the young man side. Vyrun nodded approvingly to him.

"Let's handle these two," he called over the roar of the brawl as he gestured to Saffar and Khalan. Bromm shoved aside two wrestling pirates and moved behind Saffar, who was so focused on his half-brother that he failed to notice Bromm's presence. On a signal with Vyrun, they each grabbed a brother and pulled them apart. Bromm wrestled Saffar to the floor with a crash.

"Unhand me!" Saffar roared. He turned to face his attacker and his expression changed from murderous rage to one of confusion.

"Stay down," Bromm urged. "I mean you no harm, but you two were about to kill each other."

"Aye," Saffar growled. "My father's crown is mine."

"Indeed. But we can convince your brothers without the use of knives. Or would you rather kill off all your future captains?"

Saffar scowled, but when Bromm released his grip on the man, he did not attack. "Very well," he nodded. Bromm smiled a relieved smile.

"Now, help me quell this brawl before they bring the roof down," Bromm said, offering Saffar a hand up. Saffar stood, dusted himself off, then grabbed one of his brawling men by the shoulders and pulled him off his opponent. Not far away, Bromm saw that Vyrun had been able to talk Khalan down. Following Bromm's lead, Serris and Gan had pulled two men off beating another and the brawl was quickly dying away.

Bromm breathed a sigh of relief as the two sides separated. Khalan and Saffar withdrew to opposite sides of the room, leaving a few bruised and bloodied men between them, though thankfully none were dead. Bromm raised a hand to his throbbing head again, through the pain finally seemed to be subsiding at least a bit. Merciful gods, he thought, may I never drink again.

"Good," Vyrun huffed, seating himself on the end of Terkar's bed. The dead lord's weeping wives raised their tear-streaked faces to look at him. The visling ran a hand through his rust red hair. "Now, let's settle this reasonably, like we divide the loot."

"I am my father's heir," Saffar insisted quietly. Vyrun nodded.

"Aye, according to tradition you are."

"According to my father," Saffar demanded. "I am the eldest, and the most successful captain."

"Only because of your age," Khalan snapped back. "I've taken almost as many prizes as you have in half the time."

"All on raids that Father and I planned. Without my designs, you would be chasing fishing boats and fleeing whenever you saw the sultan's sails."

"Enough!" Vyrun snapped. "Would you two waste your father's work before his body goes cold? We've a fortress and a fleet, not to mention much treasure. Terkar was the terror of the eastern Sea, but we could rise much higher than that. Terkar was a mighty pirate lord, but he laid the foundation for us to be kings. Show me your father's crown."

From the rear of the room, Jiran stepped forward. In his hands he held his father's crown. Saffar flared his nostrils at the sight.

"That is mine." Saffar took a step forward, his hand outstretched to claim his prize, and Khalan did the same. "Where do you think you're going?!" demanded Saffar.

"Enough!" Vyrun threw himself between the brothers. "We will settle this amicably. Give the crown to me, and I will keep it safe until we have decided upon a successor."

"And how do you plan to convince my brothers to step aside?" demanded Saffar. Vyrun sighed, and Bromm could see that the visling was only just beginning to appreciate the challenge that lay before him. Saffar was as stubborn as a mountain, and Khalan little better.

"Just give me the crown, Jiran. One problem at a time."

"How do we know you won't keep the crown for yourself?" snapped Khalan. "This could all be a ploy!"

"Don't be a fool, Khalan," Jiran replied before Vyrun could. "Does a crown make a king? Vyrun could put the crown on his head, but it wouldn't make anyone follow him. Father will be succeeded by one of his sons."

Jiran held out the crown to Vyrun, who cautiously took it from him. The visling studied the faces of Khalan and Saffar, wary that he might be attacked by the jealous brothers still.

"Now," he said, stepping back. "We must reach an agreement on who is to be king."

"I will not let anyone take my father's crown," Saffar said again.

"He was my father, too!" Khalan snarled. "I have as much right to the crown as you!"

"Then you will share it," Vyrun interrupted before the brothers could come to blows again.

"There is only one crown," Saffar sneered. "How are we to share it?"

"The crown is just a bit of metal," Vyrun said, "Your father's power was not in his crown, it was in his ships. Eight xebecs, four for each of you. And we will use them to plunder enough gold and jewels to make a second crown."

"Split our fleet?" Saffar "Against the emir's ships, we would fritter away our strength and be destroyed piecemeal. No. The fleet must be as one."

"Then work together," Bromm put in, at last having overcome his hangover enough to leave the staircase railing. He moved to stand beside Vyrun in the center of the room. He looked from Saffar to Khalan, then to Jiran. Jiran was ever ambitious, and Bromm was surprised not to see him lay a claim to his father's crown. "You are right, your fleet is stronger together. So stop squabbling and wield it as one weapon! Your father spent last night telling me of his plans for plunder. From Erathis to the August Cities, he hoped not just to extort tribute, but to be a king! And for that you will need a fleet that is not always at its own throat."

"Bromm speaks true," Vyrun added. "Terkar spoke of these to me many times, and no doubt to you as well. Do not let your father's dream die because you cannot set aside petty differences!"

Saffar and Khalan fumed in silence, each staring covetously at the crown in Vyrun's hands.

"Very well," said Khalan. "How would we share the fleet?"

Vyrun sighed with relief. "Saffar is the plotter," he said, "He would have overall command, but!" he raised his hands to forestall the coming outburst. "In the spirit of cooperation," he shot a meaningful look at Saffar, "he would give you three-fifths of the loot."

"Three-fifths?" Saffar burst out. "While I do all the planning?!"

"And I take all the risk!" retorted Khalan.

"Khalan has your father's head for battle most of all," Bromm added. "While Saffar knows how to plan a raid. Saffar chooses the targets, Khalan cuts them open, we all snatch the loot that tumbles out."

"I am unconvinced," Saffar said slowly with narrowed eyes. "But what of the fortress?"

"Rafiq will hold it for the both of you. He is as loyal a servant as any of your father's."

"He favors my brother," Khalan complained. "I want my own man in control of the harbor bastion that I might have a foothold and access to the harbor."

Vyrun took a deep breath. Bromm stepped up beside him and clapped a supportive hand to his shoulder. He leaned to whisper in the visling's ear.

"They are talking, which means we are making progress." He turned to Khalan and spoke louder. "You can have your man in the bastion. And I will be a guarantor of this agreement. With the most powerful ship in the fleet, no rebellion will succeed without me."

"And if you turn kingmaker?" Jiran questioned. Bromm's eyes narrowed. Of course the notoriously slippery Jiran expected others to break their word.

"I will swear whatever oaths you require of me. This partnership has been valuable to me, and I will do what I can to preserve it."

"Very well," said Saffar, and Khalan nodded in agreement. "I trust Bromm to honor his word, and we need his ship."

"I trust him as well," Khalan put in, "but I will oversee the swearing of the oaths. Nothing personal, Bromm."

"I understand," Bromm replied with a nod.

"Good," Vyrun beamed. "We may avoid bloodshed yet."

"There is still more to sort out," said Jiran. He sat on the edge of his father's bed, seemingly unperturbed by the old, dead feet less than an arm's length from him. Instead, he was as poised and alert as Bromm had seen him at any of their war councils. Jiran laid an arm across his stomach, balancing his other elbow on his fist as he stroked his chin in thought.

"Father did much more than pick the targets and lead in battles. Who will name new captains?" he asked.

"You each have three ships," Vyrun replied. "You may each name whomever you please to command them."

"And when new ships are captured, or built? If Khalan is leading in battles, traditionally the ships would belong to him."

"That would soon leave me at a disadvantage," said Saffar. "I cannot accept that. The ships must be shared evenly."

Khalan bit back a sharp remark, clenching his fists.

"That hardly seems fair to Khalan," said Jiran. "If he to do the work, he must be compensated somehow."

"Indeed, I should!" Khalan snapped. "I will not take all the risk while you wait inside Father's walls with all the gold and all the women."

"Then compensated you shall be," Vyrun put in before Saffar could respond with what was obviously going to be a caustic remark."

"Very well," the elder brother said at last through gritted teeth. "You will be paid for each ship you deliver under my command. But I must have my own man aboard his ship. Someone with a cooler head than you."

"I am to be in command," Khalan protested. "That was our agreement! Now you want to put your own man aboard my ship to pull my puppet strings? I do not agree!"

"Khalan is too hot-headed for this. He will need someone there to restrain him."

"Restrain me from what, winning more victories than you?"

"Restrain you from killing valuable hostages! That man was nephew to the Emir Naser, who would have paid much silver to get him back! A king's ransom lost because of your wounded pride!"

"The rogue was inciting a revolt among the prisoners," Khalan growled back. "Another moment wasted, and they would have attacked."

"Then you should have separated them! But you just wanted an excuse to kill him. It is always so with you."

"What's done is done," said Bromm. "The ransom is lost, we will just have to earn our keep somewhere else. If we come to blows over it now, we will never earn our money."

"Bromm is right," said Vyrun. "Let us settle this. Is this arrangement amenable to the both of you?" Bromm could see that Vyrun felt an accord was close at hand. Yet Saffar and Khalan did not respond right away. The two feuding brothers looked suspiciously at each other across the room, whispering with their supporters while Bromm and the visling waited.

"This suggestion has merit," said Jiran. His brothers looked to him with suspicion, but the young man stepped forward to look Vyrun in the eye. "Saffar is a capable planner. It was his plan that secure our foothold on the sultan's isle, and it was his plan that let us catch the spice fleet unawares."

"I plotted the spice fleet attack!" spat Khalan. "You think to steal my accomplishments? Saffar has been telling lies again!"

"Nonsense, brother," Saffar replied, oozing insincerity. "I would not think, even for a moment, to be so cruel as to take your sole accomplishment from you."

"Bah!" Khalan roared. "I'll wipe that smug smirk from your face!"

He charged his brother again, and Bromm saw Vyrun's shoulders sag. The brothers came together in a crash and were soon joined by their supporters again. The room devolved into chaos, and those pirates who had not taken a side scattered to cling to the walls and wait. On the far side of the brawl, Bromm could see Terkar's widows retreat behind a curtain, Apsar following close behind them.

"Gods damn them all, arrogant fools!" Vyrun cursed. He kicked a cushioned stool aside, where it cracked against the wall. "We'd better pull them apart, Bromm."

Bromm sighed to himself. His headache was still pounding. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he and Vyrun set about breaking up the brawl. The combatants were more stubborn this time, and more than a few were bloodied and battered by the time the brawl was settled. A pair of lost teeth lay on the floor, but as Bromm bent to collect them, a shocked gasp went up through Khalan's men.

He turned, and beheld a red, blossoming flower of blood on the man's belly. Khalan lay slumped in the arms of a full-blooded brother, with his men gathered around him in a tight knot. His limp legs stretched across the floor to a pool of blood where he had lain.

"Murder!" someone cried, and fingers were pointed at Saffar. "Kinslayer! Foul, accursed shedder of his own blood!"

"I did no such thing!" he shouted back, but it was no use. Knives were drawn, and teeth bared. Vyrun thrust himself between them, pleading for calm. "Call me a kinslayer?" Saffar bellowed, "I'll show you a kinslayer! Slay them all!"

Saffar's men surged forward, shoving Vyrun to the floor. Khalan's brothers and their supporters fought back, but it was not long before the thick carpet was stained with blood. Bromm and Serris ran forward to pull Vyrun out before he was trampled to death. They battled through a kicking, surging, stabbing mass to haul the visling to safety. Bromm spied Terkar's discarded crown on the floor, somehow overlooked in the furious melee, and snatched it up.

They settled the battered Vyrun slumped onto a couch, and he watched through despairing, teary eyes as Saffar's men slaughtered his brothers.

"Gods..." he pleaded, "Don't let it end like this."

"We should go," Serris urged. "Saffar is unlikely to be in a talking mood when he is finished."

"Aye," added Gan. "Jiran has already left."

Bromm looked around and saw it was true. Jiran and all his supporters had departed down the backstairs, along with Terkar's women. Through the fierce battle around the dead king's bed, he caught Saffar's eye. The ascendant prince snarled at him, raising a bloody dagger.

"Let's go!" Bromm decided, and he hauled Vyrun off the couch. The stairs had been cleared out near the top by pirates rushing to join the fight, but as more surged up from below Bromm and his men had to fight.

"Running from a fight?" shouted one orc trying to summit the stairs. "And with the king's crown? Have at you!" He drew a broadsword in one hand, but Bromm was in no mood. He kicked the orc in the chest, sending him toppling over the railing. The orc screamed and plunged toward the ground with a pitiful wail. From far below, there was a crash, and the sea of pirates behind him part to admit Bromm's party.

"Where to?" demanded Serris as they reached the ground floor.

"Back to the rooms," Bromm replied, "Ji will have it locked up tight and we can plot our escape from there." The bottom floor of the drum tower was a madhouse. Two pirates were pulling the fallen orc from the wreckage of a table and, to Bromm's surprise, the orc was somehow still alive. Others streamed in through the door to join the melee upstairs while a few had taken the opportunity to settle scores. Five pirates lay dead against the wall with their throats cut. Bromm and his companions made for the door.

"Escape?" Vyrun protested as they shoved two sea rats aside from the door. "No, no! We must stay behind. Terkar's dream---"

"Terkar's dream is dead, Vyrun!" Bromm retorted. "His sons are slaughtering each other and this fortress will be a charnel house by sundown. We need to grab what treasure and ships we can and head for the open sea while we can. The Emir Naser will surely come for revenge and this fortress won't be in any state to hold out."

They pressed through the door and into the bailey. Pirates were streaming toward the tower from the outer buildings, weapons at the ready. Bromm pulled Vyrun through them toward the wing where his crew were quartered. To his relief, Ji was positioned atop the roof, his musket at the ready. Below him, a throng of other crewmen manned the doors and windows, all of them armed and ready for battle.

Bromm stormed past them and into the hall below. "Bar the door!" he called, and his men slammed it shut behind him.

"What's going on, captain?" asked Ji, emerging from the stairwell.

"Terkar's dead," Bromm said in a rush, "Khalan too. Saffar is slaughtering his brothers to seize the crown."

"And Bromm's taken the crown," Vyrun added, slumped against the wall, "So they'll be coming for us soon enough."

"Should we cast off?" suggested Serris.

"What about the loot?" Gan asked. "We can't leave all our loot behind!"

"We won't," Bromm reassured them. "Ji, gather a party and head for the vaults. Grab everything you can, but don't start a fight with anyone. We want to keep our options open as long as we can. Gan, assemble everything we have in these rooms for transport. Serris, send someone down to the Lion and tell Kainan to make ready."

"You're leaving just like that?" Vyrun was crestfallen. Bromm sighed.

"Not yet. Once Saffar, or whoever else, emerges victorious, we'll see how they intend to deal with us. But I won't be trapped in here if things turn sour. Now go, there's little time to lose."

He gave them a little shove to get them going and watched with some satisfaction as they piled out the door. Pirates continued to stream both in and out of the drum tower, with those fleeing wounded as often as not. Behind the tower, he could see men barricading the wing that Jiran had claimed for himself, and more of Jiran's soldiers had stormed the fortress's armory. They were arming themselves for a bloody struggle.

Bromm looked down at the crown in his hands and sighed. Serris seemed to read his thoughts.

"It's not worth it, Bromm. We should just set sail now."

"We had a good thing going with Terkar. I had hoped we might salvage it."

"That chance slips further away with every passing moment. Saffar is killing many of his best men right now. Some will side with him, but the fleet's edge will be dulled."

"And our ship will stand out all the clearer among them. They will need us," Bromm replied. He clutched the crown in his hand before him. "They will pay dearly for it. Whatever position in his kingdom we want, we can have."

"Sell it to the highest bidder then, whether here or in Torvuls," Serris suggested. "But Saffar will remember the price you may him pay for his father's crown. He will turn on you soon enough. Take the money and make whatever promises he wants to hear, but favor gold now over future rewards. Then, as soon as his back is turned, let us sail for Torvuls and its pleasures. Or..." he smiled a sly smile. "Just keep it. There's about to be room for a new pirate king in these waters."

Bromm smiled to himself. But he turned to Serris with a skeptical eye. "You would dishonor your promises to Terkar's sons so easily?"

Serris shrugged. "Terkar was good to me. He gave me much loot," he held up his hands, bedecked with jeweled rings, "But he is dead. His sons are unproven, young, and rash. Had they come together and forged a new kingdom straight away, I would have counseled you to stay around. Yet they turned on each other before their father's corpse was cold. They would be nothing without him. Nothing without you. And we can do better on our own."