The Tides of Avarice (33 page)

Half the pirates were drunk already on their nightly ration of grog, which did nothing to increase the coordination of the response to Cheesefang's discovery.

Sylvester permitted himself a tense little giggle. There was a long way to go before the lemmings would be out of the wood or, more accurately, free of the Shadeblaze but this was an excellent start.

He nudged Viola. “Did I ever tell you you're brilliant?”

“Can't remember.”

“Well, I'm telling you now.”

“Gosh. Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

“Shaddup, you two spoonin' lovebirds, afore I chucks me load.”

Sylvester shrugged in the darkness. Maybe it'd have been better, after all, if Mrs. Pickleberry had decided to stay with the crew.

Too late for that wish now, though.

“Time we were making tracks,” he whispered to Viola.

Together they threw their shoulders against the planks that had been concealing their hiding place from view.

The three lemmings tumbled into the cabin. The door was still swinging open, as Cheesefang had left it.

“Help me,” grunted Sylvester, picking up one of the planks from the floor.

Viola gaped at him. “What're you doing?”

“Boarding up the den again. We” – how could he explain this? – “We owe it to old Josiah. Something like that. We can't let Rustbane and his thugs go pawing their way through the old rogue's secrets, can we?”

“There's not any time for sentiment, you idiot!”

Mrs. Pickleberry was already vanishing out through the cabin door.

Sylvester didn't bother answering Viola's angry hiss, just maneuvered the first of the boards back into its place in the wall.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “You're an idiot, but you may have a point.”

She passed him the second plank and he struggled to fit it into its slot.

“Done,” he said at last, when he was sure Cap'n Adamite's study was as safe from rediscovery as it was ever going to be. “Now, let's fly!”

He grabbed Viola's paw and darted out of the cabin.

They peered up the darkened companionway. They could just see Viola's mother at the top, peering back down at them.

“The coast's clear,” said Mrs. Pickleberry, “but who knows how long it's gonna stay that way? Get a move on, yer two great lardlumps.”

They hardly needed any urging. Quicker than thought, they were by Mrs. Pickleberry's side.

Sylvester was glad to notice she'd remembered to bring Elvira, her rolling pin, with her. Depending on how things worked out, the weapon might prove to be the difference between success and failure, between escape from the clutches of the pirates and …

… and death.

Better to get it right out into the forefront of his mind, Sylvester thought. This wasn't just a game. The penalty the three of them would almost certainly pay if Rustbane or any of his crew clapped eyes on them as they fled was death.

And a lingering, tormented death at that.

He gulped.

If it came to it, he must be prepared to face such an agonizing fate if it meant that Viola could go free.

Viola and her mother, he told himself less confidently.

He suspected Mrs. Pickleberry was far better than he'd ever be at looking after herself.

“Anyone around?” he asked her now in an urgent whisper.

“Told you, the coast's clear. Ain't no one anywhere near.”

“So where are they all?”

“They's combin' the dock from one end to the other. Reck'n Cheesefang must of swallowed hook, line an' sinker the illusion we'd gone out the porthole, and convinced the rest o' those scurvy cutthroats we was long gone from the ship.”

Now that Mrs. Pickleberry had mentioned it, Sylvester could hear the hue and cry as the Shadeblaze's crew carried out their search of the harbor surrounds. Not all of the locals were happy about what the strangers were doing. There were shouts, curses, occasional clashes of steel and, a couple of times, the abrupt cutting short of a strangulated scream.

This was both good news and bad news.

The pirates' activities offered the fugitive lemmings perfect cover. No one in Hangman's Haven would think twice about an extra stranger or three.

The only trouble was, of course, that the pirates might actually be doing a proper job of the hunt, and succeed in catching the lemmings in the net they were casting.

Or a Blighter Islander might have become sufficiently enraged by the pirates as to slaughter the lemmings on sight as just another three of those boorish, violent, inconsiderate foreigners.

Sylvester squared his shoulders.

Always look on the bright side, as his mother used to tell him.

He was pretty sure she had, anyway, even though he couldn't remember her doing so.

“Let's get going,” he said.

“That's what I bin tryin' to tell you,” insisted Mrs. Pickleberry, “but instead you just bin standin' here with yer mouth openin' and shuttin' like you was a fish in a bowl.”

“Okay, okay,” said Sylvester.

“You great—”

“Mo–om!”

“And as for you, you—”

“Mom!”

“Yeah?”

“Just stow it, will you?”

“Why, you young—”

“Put a sock in it.”

“You—”

“Stuff your head up your—”

“Could you two save the invective for later?” intervened Sylvester nervously. “Like, you know, after we've gotten ourselves to somewhere we don't have a hundred buccaneers wanting to cut us to pieces?”

“Right,” said Viola sullenly. Her mother didn't deign to say anything at all, but Sylvester could see the older lemming's lips moving.

“On the count of three,” Sylvester said, taking Viola by the arm.

“How original of you.”

“One.”

“You're always so macho when you're counting.”

“Two.”

“That's higher than you've ever managed before.”

“Thr—look, dammit, Viola, just whose side are you on?”

“Go!” said Mrs. Pickleberry.

She went, went so fast that all Sylvester could detect of her was the blurred impression of a rolling pin wielded on high as she darted down the gangplank to lose herself in the shadows alongside one of the harbor's decrepit warehouses.

“Wow,” said Sylvester, unable to stop himself.

“C'mon,” snapped Viola.

He could almost hear the air whistle as she vanished in the direction her mother had taken.

She's never run as fast as that when we've been racing each other on the hill, he mused, then became immediately angry with himself for having been so stupid as to waste time on the thought.

He ran as fast as his feet would carry him. Then, down the gangplank, across the dirty cement of the dock, and into the shadows.

There.

Done that.

The only trouble was that none of them had noticed the pirate who'd been stationed at the foot of the gangplank just in case the escapees, whom Rustbane assumed to have already made it ashore, tried cunningly to smuggle themselves back aboard the Shadeblaze.

The pirate, for his part, hadn't noticed either of the Pickleberries scuttling past him, so swiftly and light-footedly had they been moving. He was a big, fat groundhog whom Sylvester had seen around on the Shadeblaze. It wasn't any wonder the two female lemmings' rapid progress had eluded the slow-witted animal's attention, especially since he'd been taking the opportunity of being left on his own to help himself to a bolstering swallow or two from the flask in his pocket. But Sylvester's heavier lumber was another matter altogether.

“Oi!”

“Well, darn it,” said Viola's mom. “You great clumsy oaf, Sylv—”

“Oh, stow it 'til later, you old bag,” Sylvester hissed back at her.

For the first time in a very long time, Mrs. Pickleberry was stunned into silence.

“Oi!” the pirate cried again, far more clearly than before, when his shout had been partly smothered by the glug of grog he'd been clandestinely trying to swallow at the same time. “Fugitives sighted! This way! This way!”

There must still have been a few pirates left aboard the ship, too, because suddenly the Shadeblaze's bell started clanging.

Blang! Blang! Berrrr-laaaang!

The groundhog began lurching across the dock toward them, drawing his sword laboriously from his belt. “I got the scum in me sights, Cap'n!” he bellowed. “This way! This way!”

Sylvester darted his eyes this way and that.

The dock was almost entirely in darkness except for the lights shining onto it from the ships moored there. Farther along, though, perhaps a couple of hundred yards from where the three lemmings cowered in the inky shadows, there was an outburst of light and sound.

A tavern!

A dockside tavern!

If only Sylvester and the other two could reach it, maybe they could lose themselves among the carousing throngs?

Some fat chance.

But, right now, it looked to be the only chance they had.

Beggars can't be choosers.

“Follow me,” he hissed at Viola.

“But—”

“No arguments. Just follow!”

“This way! This way!” bawled the oafish groundhog again. He had a patch over one eye. The other looked rheumy from an excess of grog. The fact that Sylvester could tell this meant the pirate had gotten far too close to them.

“Now!” Sylvester yelled.

He ran like the wind in the direction of the brightly lit tavern.

Behind him he could hear the rattle of claws on stone as Viola sprinted in his wake. He hoped her mother was doing the same and hadn't stupidly stayed behind in the hopes she could win a fight with a groundhog. The pirate was stupid and half drunk and addle-brained, but he was twice the size of Mrs. Pickleberry. When it came to a brawl between a lemming and a groundhog, there could only be one winner, and it wasn't the lemming.

Rolling pin or not.

The two hundred yards seemed to get longer and longer the farther Sylvester ran. His breathing was like a thunderstorm in his ears. Ahead of him he could see the front of the gaudily illuminated pub as if through the wrong end of a telescope, like a tiny but preternaturally bright image at the far end of an extremely long tunnel whose dark walls were pressing in on Sylvester's eyes.

Out of his peripheral vision he became aware that Viola was pulling up alongside him.

“Soon be there,” he gasped, not sure if he believed his own words.

“Keep running!”

It was almost a satisfaction that she seemed as puffed as he was.

“Daphne?” he forced himself to ask.

“Behind us.”

“Okay.”

“Run!”

He was already running, he thought resentfully, as fast as he was able.

Which was faster than the drunken groundhog. Sylvester could hear the pirate calling, “This way! This way!” still, but from a distance that grew increasingly larger each minute. For sure, the other pirates must be scuttling to try to intercept them, but so far there was no sign of them. Maybe the lemmings had been lucky and all of Rustbane's verminous crew had happened to be on the far side of the harbor when the lemmings had chosen to make their dash for freedom.

Maybe.

Unlikely, but anything's possible, isn't it?

Sylvester could now make out the name written on the sign that hung out in front of the tavern.

The Monkey's Curse

I didn't need to know that, he thought wildly. I could have put all the effort of reading those words into trying to run a bit faster. I could have …

He realized he was thinking nonsense and just concentrated on trying to get to The Monkey's Curse as quickly as he possibly could.

Now there were indications of the other pirates in hot pursuit. Shouts. Cries. Heavy footfalls.

“There they go! Catch 'em!”

Rustbane's voice commanding his men, but from a good distance away. There were other pirates far closer, though. It was going to be touch and go who made it to The Monkey's Curse first.

Just to this side of the tavern was a vertical slit of darkness.

An alley.

You couldn't even see it was there until you were almost on top of it.

Sylvester let out an unintelligible grunt and jerked his head towards the black streak.

Viola drew up beside him, her eyes flaring. She'd seen the alley too. They were just going to have to trust luck and the Great Spirit Lhaeminguas (or perhaps even the triple-breasted goddess?) that Mrs. Pickleberry, trundling along in the wake of the two younger lemmings, had spotted the dark haven likewise. And that none of the pirates had. That was a lot of luck to be calling on. Especially when your heart was about to burst through your ribs.

Then Sylvester and Viola reached the alley. They ran at full speed straight into pitch blackness, and tripped over a heap of debris and garbage cans, which sounded like a bomb going off in the middle of a hardware store.

“Yaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!” screamed Viola as her mother landed at full tilt on top of her, rolling-pin end first.

Sylvester could hardly hear them. His ear was jammed hard up against a half-cooked pumpkin someone had wisely thrown out when it got too old. He had the suspicion that a single feather's worth of extra force and his head wouldn't be on the outside of the pumpkin any longer.

A horrible faux quiet descended on the interior of the alley. A faux quiet broken only by the painful gasping of the three lemmings and the pocka pocka pocka as one last can lid settled itself down flat on the ground.

It wasn't a real quiet, but when the lid stopped moving it seemed like it was real.

It was faux because nowhere this close to a pub like The Monkey's Curse could ever be truly quiet, even when the pub was empty.

Despite the cacophony of the lemmings' arrival, it was obvious no one inside the tavern had noticed a thing.