The Dramatic Saga of the Îles Chaudes Folles
Half a dozen canoes whispered through the waves, carrying along their cargo of pointy-toothed cannibals. Or, so the waves imagined.
In truth, the men were not cannibals, and, in fact, one of them refused to eat any sort of meat whatsoever, and would have been a vegetarian, except that vegetarians had not been invented yet. If vegetarians had been invented, he would still not have been one, unless a very strange occurrence occurred, as, once they were invented, they were invented on a different planet, altogether.
However, he was not a cannibal, as he ate mainly vegetables, and he was mainly meat, and, so, the waves were wrong, and that really is the point.
Waves are often wrong, as a matter of course, because they have been around since the beginning of most everything, on whatever planet they exist on, and, strangely, even though they have a great deal of mobility, in some respects, they still manage to get very set in their ways.
“Oh,” say the waves, after having seen the same cannibal tribes passing over the same area, since cannibals came into existence, upon seeing a new set of canoes bobbing into view “here comes a new set of cannibals.”
Eight times out of ten, they would be correct, too; but, tonight, the men in the canoes were riding the ninth wave, the one that takes you all the way in to shore, and, what rides the ninth wave, always makes the other waves wrong.
Or, so surfer legend has it; but, to believe that, would be to assume that if the men were riding the seventh wave they would have broken into a frenzy of cannibalism, according to the Htunk Tunk tribes of Outer Ingleston,who believe that what does not ride the ninth wave proves every other wave right. However, the Screnton Buccaneers of Ptweeret Bay believe that the waves just generally waffle about the ocean, doing as they please, including tricking passing cannibals, surfers, and pirates into believing that they have any significance at all.
The men in the canoes were not cannibals, nor were they surfers. Surfers seldom carry quite so many muskets, swords, and other accoutrement of destruction upon their person, in much the same way that pirates seldom carry surfboard wax. These men had no such wax, not even a little bit.
On the canoes sped, riding a wave they were no longer sure they believed in, which did not consider their existence, so, existentially speaking, all was copacetic in the ocean.
They wore leather breeches, menacing grins, smelly hair styles and not much else, these men. The waves did not mind, the canoes did not mind, but, the people whom they were about to invade were apt to mind very, very much.
It is not pleasant to be marauded at, even less so if one is sleeping peacefully at the beginning of the marauding spree; and, much, much less so, if the marauders are half naked, at best, grinning menacingly, armed to the teeth, and apt to leave a nasty smell on your hands if you pull their hair to try to stop them from biting you.
Since this fact of the sheer unpleasantness that marauding is pervaded with, from the point of view of the maraudees, was exactly what the pirates were booking on, every slurgle of the ocean which brought them closer to shore filled their nasty grins with a bit more gleaming menace.
And, where were these men of gleaming menace coming from? And, where were these men, bereft of surfboard wax, headed to?
Their settlement at Sangre-empapado, which lay just off the northern corner of Middlegrote Duistere Mensen, had seen them off, and wished good riddance to bad rubbish as they set paddles for the chain of tiny islands sprawling across the approach to the Passaggio di Vento Malato, which route served well the Gefahren ships who were inbound for Caldo.
Their final destination was the easterly cape of the Lugar de Grande, a known place of refuge for the Gefahren, where the yearly fleet always put in to re-provision after its long voyage through the wetter portions of the Sacred Veils.
Reaching the shoreline, the men jumped free of the canoes, pulling them along to the beach and tipping them over at the edge of the forest, where they camouflaged them with leafy brush.
A few trees were then selected and chopped down, in a particularly pernicious fashion, which, only pirates who are axing down trees in the protected forest of the god king Chaos can manage. Chopping the trees into little logs, they, then, dragged them to shore and assembled a pyre.
Next, huts were built of leaves, twigs, vines, and whatever other odd bits that were laying about, which were many. The pirate who found the black t-shirt had no idea what a Harley was, but, he did appreciate the drawing and thought the cloth made an excellent tent flap for his hut. He smiled, without menace, until he realized that his nearest neighbor had found part of a naked woman for a tent pole, and then the menace was back with full force.
Of course, it was not a real naked woman, but, only one of those representational naked women that occasionally appeared as a blessing from the Sacred Veils. Still, it looked pretty good as a tent pole, and was as close to a real woman, naked or otherwise, as any of them had gotten in a very long while.
The pyre made, the huts made, the fighting over parts of representational women over, the pirates settled down to wait .. and wait .. and wait …. with time stretching out and over them, oppressively, until they felt they would go mad.
After the first hour, they did go mad, gave up settling down, drank up, fought for a while, and passed out instead. Upon waking the next morrow, they were, thusly, headachy and in a better mood to simply sit and let time flow over them.
The first day passed slowly, but, steadily, with the sun rising up, scorching things for several hours, and then dropping back into the sea to rest itself from its exertions. However, the night was a different matter.
Lightning played across the dark canvas of the sky, clouds gathering to swirl and twist above the island in patterns that made the men wish for more rum, and, before the break of dawn, every hut, inside and out, was a soaking mess.
Fortunately, the next day, the sun was up bright and early, ready to scorch all the wet out of the men's clothing and huts, as well as sucking all the moisture out of their flesh.
The night returned the moisture to their bodies. Unfortunately, it also returned the moisture to their huts and clothing, and left them soaking, again.
Fortunately, the next day, the sun soared through the sky, burning all in its path of blazing glory, and left the men shivering from the ill effect of its passing. Then, the night came again.
In the night, strange sounds could be heard. Scritchings and creakings, slupping noises from across the waves. In the first light of dawn, with the fog from the Sacred Veils coddling the shallow banks to the west, the men spotted a small ship, which they sincerely hoped was the explanation for all the noise of the night before.
It was a small frigate. If ships were guns, this frigate would have been a snub nose .22, nestled in the purse of a woman who never intended on firing a shot, it was that small and ineffectual looking. However, many is the unwary would be robber who is surprised by how effectual such a silly looking thing can really be, and, in much the same way, many were the seafarers who were surprised by the stealth, speed, strength and gun power of this darling little toy boat.
Ronald Dubois, otherwise known as the leader of the pirate crew, espied the ship, laughing to himself over its teensy exterior, and savored this moment as he stood so near victorious revenge against the
Gefahredians, whose infantry from Heiliges Simon had once burned out their settlement. It was, he thought, the start of a new life for them all. All that remained was to bait the trap.
With a flick of the flint, Dubois set it all in motion. A bucket of fat, a jug of rum, and pow, the pyre bloomed into fire. True, it was a sputtering, smoking fire, which spewed a gray cloud forth, choking the men, but, it was a fire; and, as the gray cloud also plumed skyward, it was a fire that was doing the job it was made to do.
“Ready your canoes, men!” he called out.
“Ckkkhhh aaack ak!” was one reply, chokingly made, as the men moved obediently toward the leafy camouflage. Dubois reached out and caught the sleeve of one particular man as he was passing by.
“Jenkins, “ he said. “You stay here. I want you beside me, in case things don't go as planned.”
This was not the best news to Jenkins, who had no wish to be a pirate in the first place, and who had no great liking for Dubois in the second place. Nevertheless, as the man had a good fifty pounds of heft, three more guns, and a sleeve-hold on him, Jenkins complied.
Now, Jenkins was one of the newest men of their band, and one of the strangest by their calculations. So strange, in fact, that if he had come to them in any other fashion than the one he did, he would have been tossed into the ocean, or traded to the cannibals for pearls. However, as the ocean tossed him into the pirates, first, the pirates felt it best not to look a gift weirdo in the mouth and kept Jenkins on.
As it turned out, he really was a blessing from the sea, in that Jenkins, despite his vegetable noshing ways, was very apt at many piratical things, such as tying knots, picking up fair maidens who lived on the shore, reading the weather, fishing, and taking deadly aim at anything he wished to be dead.
“Help me with this fire, first off.” ordered Dubois. The two men, together, piled on more wood, stoking the fire, making sure that its' plume would be easily visible to the passing ship.
A few garbled shouts, a jumble of orders, a bow into the wind, and the ship came steering into the bay. Ronald grunted with dismay at the size of her.
“Stupid little thing. If she was a fish, I'd throw her back. Catch another fish with her!” he grumbled.
Nevertheless, she was a ship, and as a ship that was small was better than no ship at all, he called out, in Gefahrenian, that they were marooned seamen, in need of aid.
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