Herbert touched his nose and grinned. "I see, brother. So… why are we trying to join so obvious a pirate ship?"
"Better a wolf than a sheep," he replied with a shrug.
"I suppose that's as good a reason as any."
Edward and Herbert passed by many rough-looking sailors preparing to leave in the early morning. The hour was late, and these were not merchants who lived by the hours of a well-wound clock but were pirates who struck in the mid-day when ships aplenty were found in the vast and plentiful trade routes along the Caribbean Sea.
However, Edward was interested to see there were more than a few men like those they had been with earlier, a few whaling ships looking for hardened men who weren't afraid to face down a beast half the size of the ship they were about to travel on. A few others were merchants Edward suspected served as middlemen to ill-gotten gains, closer to pirates than merchants, but with a foot firmly in the trade business. They had gained the respect of the pirates who frequented these parts, whether through might or connections Edward could not tell.
Upon reaching the pirate's ship, the mates bringing cargo aboard gave them wary glances. All of them were battle-hardened; the faint grey-white of faded scars and the dark lines of sliced and reformed skin protruded and poked out from behind woollen longshirts and beneath messy cleft hair. More than a few had tattoos blackening part of their necks or faces, a brand of their well-worn travels for some, and, from his dark complexion, a tribal honorific for another. Edward read the words "Hold Fast" across one man's knuckles, saw constellation across the back of another's hand, and on the dark-complexioned man were segmented lines in a stunning wave-like pattern across half his face.
Edward leaned down slightly and whispered to Herbert. "You still have those hidden implements in your chair, yes?"
Herbert nodded. "Aye, along with a few other surprises our friend Nassir made for me. I'm never too far from something with which to defend myself."
Herbert spoke of the Queen Anne's Revenge's shipwright, who doubled as a wheelchair expert when it came to Herbert's condition. The most recent addition was hidden compartments only he could reach with weapons at the ready should Herbert need them, and apparently that wasn't all.
"Good," Edward said. "We may have use for them."
Edward and Herbert continued their advance to the gangplank of the ship. It was a two-masted light brigantine with a single deck, and Edward estimated about thirty or so cannons aboard. It would be fast and efficient in any fight, and with a skilled commander it might even give the Queen Anne's Revenge a challenge. Emblazoned in large white letters on the side was the name of the ship, Black Blood, a singular contrast with the words written as they were neither black nor red, but it got the point across. The ship and the men aboard it were not to be trifled with.
"What d'ye want?" a gruff man asked as Edward and Herbert approached. He held his hand aloft in front of him, stopping the men.
The man wasn't tall but built like a rough sailor used to the harsh rigours of a ship at sea with all the right callouses in all the wrong spots. He also had the marks of battle across his face, arms, and no doubt all over his body. His face looked a weathered mess of white scars, pocks from some childhood condition, and broken and healed bones. He couldn't have been that much older than Edward, perhaps in his thirties, but he looked much older.
"We're looking for work and heard you were looking for a few good men to join you on the seas," Edward replied.
The man spat on the pier. The mucous glob stayed mostly intact as it splayed on the grubby wooden planks. Edward and Herbert's gaze followed the spit and the motion of the man's head as he looked back on them. "That's a lie," he said flatly. "No one 'ere would'a told ye ta try joinin' us, less they want ye dead."
Edward noticed the man's hand lower and rest on his hip, near the hilt of his cutlass. He could feel the air around him thicken with eyes watching him more intently now.
Edward inched his own hand to his hip and felt nothing. He remembered he was unarmed, his golden cutlass left behind because he had forgotten it.
A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and rolled down the side of his cheek.
"Nigel, fuck off with that, would ye?" a gruff woman's voice called from the deck.
"But ma'am, we best be leavin' soon if'n we're gonna catch the bastard what done in Jeremiah."
The owner of the voice strode to the port side of the deck and leaned on the railing, her right arm resting lazily across it while her left held steady on her hip. The look was casual, but Edward saw a coiled snake ready to strike at a moment's notice. She could jump over the railing to the deck, or just as quickly pull a knife from behind her, and any number of things in between.
"He's not going anywhere a few minutes won't change. Bring them aboard," the woman said before eyeing Edward and Herbert up and down. "If you're able," she added before casting a sidelong glance at Herbert's chair and walking away from the railing.
The man guarding the gangplank stepped aside, letting Edward and Herbert board. Herbert went first, and Edward helped push him up the steep incline and force his wheelchair over the lip of the deck. He landed on the sole with a loud snap of wood on wood, gaining the attention of the other crewmates who had been paying them no heed until then.
Now on deck, Edward was able to get a better look at the woman
