There Is None Of You But Will Hang Me, I Know

[Plink]

"You'll cross as soon as they signal the bridge is secure." Though the wildcat's eyes were fixed on the rope ladder that sagged off the Deathblow's starboard side and swooped up the additional level to the deck of the Zephyr, Plink knew Burnet was speaking to her.

The young rat looked over the rail and far below at the waves churning between the two massive vessels, and wished it wasn't so. After a three day chase to catch up at Blade's merciless pace, and another day hoping for smoother seas, Burnet refused to wait any longer. Although the ships sailed apace and the waves were not so rough as they had been, the 'bridge' wobbled and bucked between them. Plink could clearly picture her tiny body whipped off into the empty air, then down into the frothing depths.

Just beside her, Burnet's paw shifted on the rail and her claws ghosted out to bite into the wood. "You remember the message, Miss Plink?"

"Aye, Cap'n," she said, stealing a glance at the wildcat. Burnet watched her with an air of satisfaction.

"Then I suppose I will see you at the gates of Salamandastron on the day our bold captain blasts them off their hinges." She revealed just a glimpse of her wicked teeth in a slow grin. "A happy occasion - for most."

Plink nodded dumbly, certain there was a hidden meaning to the words and that she did not wish to know what it was. There was a wind-dampened call from the Zephyr and, high above, a ferret waved his red sash.

"Remember," Burnet said quietly as she clamped a paw on Plink's arm and steered her toward the rope ladder. "Focus on your objective, or you risk falling."

This time, Plink did not need the claws digging subtly through her sleeve to make the hidden message clear.

"Aye, Cap'n." She fixed her eyes on the far end of the rope ladder and wedged the bundle of her belongings into her mouth.

The half-dozen beasts holding the lower end of the ladder pulled some of the slack from the bridge. On all four paws, Plink began the treacherous climb. The rope was sodden from spray and, when the bridge dropped out from under her and then surged up again, her paws slipped frighteningly against it. Plink squeaked, then dug her claws into the twisted fibers and bit down on the rags of her old jacket and pushed herself to climb faster.

After an eternity spent tossed about in the spray, Plink clambered over the rail and tumbled to the deck of the Zephyr, soaked and shaking. Blade's crew ignored her but for a few sour glances, as if reeling in the rope ladder was more important than her appearance among them. Scowling, Plink struggled to her feet and wrung water from the tail of her shirt.

"Where's Cap'n Blade?"

"He be in th' aftcastle," a grizzled searat sneered. He muttered something more to the rat beside him and they shared a snicker, watching her with glittering eyes.

Plink scowled and stalked away. She didn't have time for their nonsense. She had a message to deliver.

She climbed the ornate stair up to the aftcastle and found Blade on his own beyond the helm, staring into their wake. He had a spyglass in one paw and rapped it against the brass buttons above the tail-split of his fine coat, quick and light. The soft clickclickclick of impact was barely audible over the wind.

"Cap'n?" Plink stopped just out of arm's reach, clutching her bundle in her paws before her. "Sir, I've a message from Cap'n Burnet."

Blade neither spoke nor moved. Even the tap of the spyglass remained the same. Plink swallowed.

"Sir, she wants you to know? if the Zephyr keeps on at this speed, the smaller galleys ain't gonna be able to keep up. They're fallin' farther behind every day, sir. An'? she says, with the losses in the harbor, the fleet is gonna be stretched thin to handle the Waverunner defenses as it is."

"Julia says that, does she?" Blade laughed softly and Plink had to step closer to hear him. "I don't need any of 'em. A loaded cannon is as good as any pittance crew o' stragglers."

Abruptly, he turned a piercing look upon her. "So, my little messenger found her way out of the Dead Rock, eh? You missed the Zephyr's launch. I would've waited for you if I could've, but there was a spot of trouble in the harbor? How did you ever get out?"

Plink did her best not to squirm under his stare. "I? I waited 'til our ships were out an' then I pulled the chain to stop 'em from followin' us."

Blade's eyes narrowed fractionally. "All those escaped slaves and mongooses, and nobeast bothered t' stop you."

It was not a question, but Plink knew he expected some answer. The truth itched at her, that the woodlanders had taken her for one of them, that she used to pass as a mouse. Those were dirty secrets, and if Blade heard them, if he knew what the other pirates were calling her, Plink knew he would not hold her in the same esteem he had before.

And now, with Burnet hemming her in with that other, more incriminating secret, Plink needed that esteem more than ever.

She half-shrugged, then stopped herself. "Beasts don't pay so much attention to you when yer small?"

"Mm," Blade agreed, assessing her as if in a different light. "You've lost your colors, Miss Plink."

"I-"

"Nevermind that now. We'll find new for you. Look at this."

Blade shoved the spyglass into Plink's paws and marched her to the rail, pointing at a spot out on the horizon.

"Look hard," he said near her ear. "Do you see it?"

Plink raised the spyglass and scanned the horizon until the shape swayed into view. A black ship, with black sails. The Phantom.

And aboard it, no doubt, was Robert.

Plink's gut twisted in horror. She had thought that the woodlanders would just sail home to Mossflower once the heat of the fight in the harbor faded. She had often imagined all those goodbeasts happily sailing home to their families, and it was like picking a scab - uncomfortable and a little gross, yet satisfying.

It was suicide for them to chase after Blade's fleet with just one ship. If they managed to close the gap, the pirates would cut them to shreds - if they even managed to get close enough for that.

"They've been burnin' my lights in the night," Blade growled behind her. "Have ye seen it? Off 'n on - as if they could fool me into thinkin' my own blasted ship was some ghost chasin' after me?"

Plink lowered the spyglass and turned to face her captain, but he wasn't looking at her. He was glaring off at the distant ship, his bloodshot eyes unblinking. Words came back to her, an overheard mutter from the Deathblow's bosun.

'E's rattled, an' don't ye doubt it. I'd lay me last coin on it - if that galleon was sailin' light, Blade'd be over the horizon without the lot o' us.

Plink didn't like the idea of Blade being frightened. It made her nervous, as if the ground was uncertain beneath her. She held out the spyglass and Blade took it automatically, grimacing as he shut one eye to glare through it. Plink licked her lips and squeezed her bundle. "What're you gonna do, Cap'n?"

"I should circle back an' sink 'er, that's what I ought t' do." His muzzle twitched, baring his fangs. "Better she goes t' the locker in a hundred pieces an' takes that horde o' slaves with 'er."

It would please Burnet if he did turn back, closing the gaps in the fleet, but Plink spared no thought for the wildcat.

"But-! What- what about Salamandastron, Cap'n? Ain't we gettin' close? What if they heard the cannons?"

"We're still days out," Blade said, but then lowered the spyglass and looked at Plink, a smirk stealing onto his handsome face. "You have a point, though. Why waste my time and ammunition on half-dead rabble when there's a fleet of Waverunners beggin' t' be sunk?"

He clapped her on the shoulder and she staggered a step but smiled gamely anyway. This was what she had dreamed of, after all. An adventure. Battles with self-righteous goodbeasts and sailing headlong into the fray under a captain she could admire. A captain who valued her.

And yet, Blade's eyes slid back to the horizon. "I've a thirst, Miss Plink. Go down t' the hold and fetch me a flagon of summer wine. And see if you can find some proper clothes while you're down there. You're looking ragged as a street urchin, and that won't do for the personal attendant of Captain Blade."

"Aye, Cap'n," Plink said, and hurried below.

It was strange, being back aboard the Zephyr now that it was sailed by an entirely different crew. On the one paw, Plink glowed with pride and a drop of spiteful glee to be part of the pirate crew that took command of Atlas's own ship. Finally, she could stroll openly down the corridors and pass other beasts with the confidence of one who belonged.

Yet, the ship had certainly been nicer with goodbeasts around to sweep up the messes and keep things in their proper places. Plink went through the jumbled contents of three ransacked supply cabinets before she found a needle and thread. The pantry floor was littered with spoiled food scraps and the entire level beneath the main deck had been torn apart with the installation of the cannons. It reeked of black powder and greased steel.

That, and the pirates she passed went quiet and watched her go by. Some smirked knowingly, some scowled or looked unnerved by her presence, but she could tell that they all knew her name, and they all knew she had been informing on them to Blade.

Finally, Plink made her way down to the hold and began sifting through the disordered contents of each chamber, searching for barrels of wine or spare clothes. She found a heap of discarded Waverunner uniforms, most of which were torn apart and useless. Many had bloodstains darkening the blue cloth. Plink tried not to think about where they had all come from.

At last, she found a salvageable shirt that was near her size and a brown sailor's coat with deep pockets and only a few stains around the cuffed sleeves. In a hurry to find the wine and get back to Blade, she peeled off her tattered old shirt and replaced it with the new one, then shrugged into the brown coat.

Immediately, Plink hated it. It was too loose in the shoulders and it hung only to her hips, and for all that the pockets were deep and had buttoned flaps that would keep her things in, they didn't feel right to her paws. The cloth was thick and new, not pliable the way her old jacket had been.

Plink crouched down and untied the bundle. Perhaps she could fix the damage after all. She placed the items in a neat row along the edge of a crate: a silver button, a bag of gold, a dogeared blue book, a charcoal pencil. There had been other things in her pockets, pretty stones and a stolen embroidered handkerchief, but she had left them scattered on the harbor. They weren't important enough to keep.

Plink spread out the jacket across her legs and examined it. One sleeve was almost completely detached, hanging just by the seam of the shoulder. The torso was ripped as well, all across the back in a ragged diagonal. The edges of the cloth were frayed and threadbare. There was little left to sew together.

But near the nape, stitched tidily into the inside liner, there were three yellow hearts.

"Ma! What if somebeast sees? Pirates' mas don't sew hearts in their clothes!"

"Now settle down. Nobeast'll ever see 'em unless you go an' point it out," Dampaw said as she backstitched the final time and bit through the thread. She held up the new little jacket to admire her handiwork, the clean hems, the unblemished fabric. "But you'll know they're there, an' that yer ma loves you. It'll keep you warmer that way."

Plink ran her thumbpad across the three hearts, across the strong shoulder seams and the blood stain from where Burnet had shoved her and that stoat had almost run her through. She wondered if her ma would still love her, if she knew all the things Plink had done, had failed to do.

With a sigh, the little rat laid the ruined jacket aside and gathered her things into the pockets of her new coat, staring at the heap of abandoned uniforms. Burnet would discard her as easily as that, she knew, and never mind any promises she might make in the mean time.

Perhaps, if Plink told Blade that one of his most trusted captains was scheming against him, he would sink the Deathblow without bothering to talk to the wildcat, but that was a big risk. Burnet would take Plink down instead with just a few words and that flashing diamond.

But that didn't mean that Plink had to stand by and helplessly wait for Burnet to make her move against Blade. There had to be something she could do to protect him. She just had to be smart and brave and she would find the right way.

Plink finally found the wine in the store room where winter squash and crates of potatoes had once been kept. She poured a flagon from the tapped barrel and had taken three steps down the corridor for the stairs when she heard a hoarse voice coming from the brig behind her.

"You there. Please, would you bring me some water? I'm so thirsty?"

Plink peered down the lantern-lit hallway and into the chamber at the end. She could see the bars gleaming, but beyond them there were only shadows. Still, though she could see nothing of the beast and the voice was strangled with thirst, Plink could sense that it came from a large throat.

Not daring yet to speak, she pattered closer, craning her neck to see more of the brig.

"Please," he said again. "I think they've forgotten me. I haven't had food or water for? it must be two days, now."

Plink poked her head through the door, taking in the wall of bars that divided the room, the securely locked door, the dark mountain of a beast inside.

"Don't be afraid," Atlas croaked. His massive striped head quaked slowly side-to-side. "Please? little rat. I am not well."

Even to Plink's unschooled eye, he didn't look it. His fur was fouled and lusterless and did nothing to hide the sickly shriveling of his body. The smell in the brig, even after just three days, was vile and poignant. She remembered the pit smelling bad, but more of rotten food than this, the smell of starvation and illness.

And despite the horror of the badgerlord's ruined body, despite the conspicuous absence of his mad rage, Plink found she was not afraid. Her own throat closed and she scurried from the room, only to come back a moment later with a pitcher of freshwater and a lump of hardtack.

"Come on," she murmured as she held the water through the bars toward him. The tone of her own voice surprised her, and she cleared her throat, reminding herself who this was. Perhaps he seemed like an invalid, but he was still the unpredictable monster who tried to kill her. Plink readied herself to spring back in case he should lunge for her. "I ain't gonna hold it all day."

Atlas reached out, his paw swaying side-to-side in her direction until his claws bumped the earthenware vessel and closed around it. Plink backed away and watched him gulp down the contents.

"Yer gonna get sick like that."

He stopped drinking and sat back against the hull, breathing heavily. "Thank you."

"S'nothin'." She didn't like him like this - not that she'd liked him before, but at least as a raving murderer he had made sense. He was simple, an enemy. Now, Plink found a terrible thread of sympathy tightening, cutting into her. Suddenly embarrassed, she rolled the hardtack across the grimy floor toward him and turned to go.

"I'm sorry," Atlas said, stilted and tense, "for what I almost did to you."

Plink paused in the doorway and looked back. The badger's snout hung low, his scarred brow furrowed in thought.

"You were the stowaway, weren't you? Your voice? I don't remember much clearly from the bloodwrath, but some things stuck. I can still hear you pleading for your life."

Plink glowered and crossed her arms tight over her chest. "Yeah, well, looks like you got what was comin' to you, doesn't it?"

"This is not half what I deserve."

The words startled her, and they drew her back into the room like the lyrics of a familiar song. She took a step nearer.

"For seasons now, I have thought of myself as a blacksmith, forging a sea pure of evil and greed. And now I look back with a clear mind, and I realize I was nothing but a hammer, beating foe and friend alike with the same ruthlessness."

Plink stopped near the bars, watching his blind face twist in pain.

"You were just a child, and I would have murdered you for a thief and a spy."

"It ain't like you were wrong," she said after a silent beat. "I stole from yer crew, an' I did things just to cause trouble. Stealin' buttons an' food an' switching' beasts' uniforms so they wouldn't fit the next day."

"A child's pranks. Not crimes deserving the sort of punishment I would have dealt you."

Plink glared at her gnawed-down thumbclaw. "In the Dead Rock, I did worse. Told Cap'n Blade every secret I ever heard. I nearly got Crue an' Vera killed an'? an' it might've been my fault Tooley died, too." She blinked hard and glared at the ceiling. "An' I sure got Maurick killed. Even if he was a crazy old cannibal, he was still a beast who was alive before I mucked him over."

Atlas nodded, rolling the pitcher between his big paws. "Remorse is a terrible thing. But the lack of it is worse, Miss. Without it, we can allow ourselves to do unspeakable things and not even realize that it is happening."

Plink sneered. "It ain't like feelin' bad changes the way things went. How's it make any difference?"

"If you had it to do again, would you repeat all the choices you have made?" Atlas paused a moment and Plink's mind flitted from one mistake to another in the incriminating silence. At last, he went on. "I will tell you now, I would not repeat a great many of my choices over the past few seasons. It is a gift that you can look back on the things you've done and decide which ones were not right. Not many of your current compatriots share that gift, or understand it."

Plink eyed him, not sure whether she should be offended or not. "You think they can't? 'Cause they're vermin?"

Atlas shrugged his massive shoulders. "I do not know. Perhaps it is only that they have never been encouraged to try."

Both were quiet for a moment, thoughtful, and Plink could hear somebeast shouting someplace far off. She remembered the flagon of wine, still waiting in the corridor. "I have to go," she said, already half-way out the door. She paused, looked back over her shoulder. "I might come back."

Atlas patted the floor beside him until he found the hardtack. "I hope you will," he said, and Plink had the feeling that he meant it, and not simply for food and water. She hurried from the brig without saying goodbye, but as she headed back toward the stairs, she stopped in the room with the heap of uniforms. With a torn-out square of worn fabric carefully folded in her pocket, she collected the wine and returned to the main deck.

Blade stood just where she had left him, though presently he was rapping off orders to the boatswain, a weasel Plink had once overheard discussing the treasure with a skinny searat on the harbor. Surg, she remembered, was his name. He nodded vigorously as Blade finished. "Aye Cap'n, it'll be done just like ye say, Cap'n!"

He turned to go, and Plink barely glimpsed the tick in his jaw before he caught sight of her and hustled past. She watched him for a second, then took the wine to Blade. He tore his eyes from the sea and frowned down at the silver vessel, then at her.

"You expect me to drink straight from that like some sort of vagrant?"

Plink looked at her own face pinched down and reflected back at her in the flagon's side. "Er? No, Cap'n? just?"

Blade rolled his eyes away from her. "Fetch my goblet from my office. And get a new sash while you're there."

Swallowing the urge to ask where she would find those things, Plink set down the flagon on a nearby crate and returned below. She made her way to the captain's quarters - a place she had never dared to enter during Atlas's stint in command.

The captain's office was stately, with plush furnishings and rich wooden paneling. Blade's possessions were strewn across the enormous desk, maps and parchment as well as a few books stacked together. To Plink's relief, the goblet was immediately evident. It was an ornate piece, heavy with gold and gems, and Plink held it in one paw as she began rifling through drawers in search of a sash.

Yet, the second drawer she opened contained something else, an object she had not expected to see for some time, still. It gleamed there in the drawer with the spare quills and ink pots and a vaguely familiar ruby necklace, and the sight of it made Plink freeze and forget the heavy goblet in her paw. Even when the golden cup hit the floor and rolled against her footpaw, she did not notice it.

She couldn't tear her eyes from Scully's dagger.

A secret mission, huh? Sounds mighty important for one leveret.

I can tell you for a fact that he killed Mister Craws and had his body incinerated so none of us would know until he was ready to rub it in our faces? He'll cut you down the second you lose your value to him.

'E don't care 'bout anybeast but 'imself. Yer just another tool t' 'im!

Carefully, as if even the hilt might cut her, Plink lifted the dagger from the drawer. In her paw, it felt heavier even than the goblet had, and unpleasantly cold. She wanted to throw it back in the drawer and leave. She wanted to pretend that she had never seen it, and that she had no idea what it meant that it was here. She wanted to believe that villainy was just a meaningless word goodbeasts used against vermin to justify the things they did to them.

But Plink couldn't believe that anymore. She had seen villainy, and all of it happened under Blade's command. The tormenting of the slaves, the pointless bloodshed of Greyjaw's rebellion, Tooley's death, Vera's torture, Crue, Scully?

Plink slowly slid the drawer shut. She found a row of red and black sashes draped over a chair back and tied one of each around her waist, looping them twice to create a wide band. Then she stuck the dagger down the back where her jacket would hide it.

Soon, she would need to make a choice. She would need to face the forces that were converging all around her. Burnet, the Phantom, Salamandastron. Blade. Plink would need to be brave if she was going to do what was right.

But for now, she had to be smart.

Plink picked up the goblet from the floor and shut the door quietly behind her as she left to attend the ferret in command.