Eternal Forest [Episode 21]
The 5th Compass | Book Two [2,010 words]
The Eternal Forest is the second book in The 5th Compass series. Daxton and his best friend, Barton, are looking for the other compasses while fending off an immortal foe. Nelle takes Adelaide under her wing, to help her develop her untapped power. Meanwhile, the most hated pirate in all of Stonehaven must decide whether to stand and fight or flee from the Paragon. This book delves into the life of the Paragon and the many lives it touches and destroys.
A horn blew in the distance, causing Barton to fall from his hammock to the floor. “What on earth?” Adelaide woke up quickly, her head looking around the room as if in search of something or someone. “Are you alright? It’s just a horn.”
“I’m fine. Where is everyone?” she asked. Not waiting for an answer, she slipped on her shoes and made her way upstairs. Rushing past her was Wendynn, holding a spyglass up and peering through it on one side of the ship. “What’s going on? Are we under attack?”
“Hard to tell. Their ship is too far off to recognize the flag they fly or to get a glimpse of their color.” Wendynn continued to move about their steamship with haste, stopping every few feet to look through the spyglass, hoping he could see something.
Barton and Daxton slowly made their way on deck, still exhausted, and wishing they could go back to sleep. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing to worry about. Just possibly under attack by a band of mercenaries while you two sleep,” Adelaide responded sarcastically. She looked up at Nelle, who stood behind the wheel, and knew her comment was uncalled for by the look she received.
Barton looked out in the distance to see who approached, honking its horn erratically. “Rock,” he shouted, pointing in the opposite direction of the oncoming ship. Wendynn rushed by again, ignoring them all, until Barton reached out his hand and snatched away the spyglass. He ducked out of Wendynn’s way and used it to see they were headed straight for a large rock. The waves were so choppy it made the boulder difficult to see, the closer they go to it.
As Barton and Wendynn fought over who would get to use the spyglass, Nelle tried to turn the wheel as far to the left as possible. Daxton saw her struggling and ran up to help her. Together they gripped the wheel tightly as they yanked it. Adelaide watched them all struggling and fighting and grew tired of it all.
“Enough!” she shouted, her voice booming across the ocean. They all stopped what they were doing to watch her as she walked over to the end of the ship headed towards the rock. She took her hand and squashed it down into her other, causing the rock in the ocean to crumble into dust. They all looked on in amazement at what Adelaide had just done, even Barton, who was normally scared of her, was impressed.
The ship that honked at them earlier stopped suddenly when they saw the rock was completely gone. “I guess they were just trying to warn us. That was nice of them.”
“No one in the six seas are that nice,” Wendynn said, snatching the spyglass away from Barton and using it to look once more at the ship in the distance. “And I was right.”
He pointed out towards them as the sails began to rise, picking up the light wind. The mystery ship was now headed in their direction. “Are they trying to catch us?”
“Yes, they are. And I think I know who it is,” Wendynn said, passing the spyglass to Adelaide so she could look through it.
“Well, would you mind telling us who we need to worry about now?” Barton asked.
“I may have owed someone some money and I’m not allowed to leave Malithorn until my debt is paid.”
“What kind of man lets a pirate gamble?” Adelaide asked. “He should’ve known you were never going to pay your debt. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Barton asked, looking back and forth from Wendynn to Adelaide, confused. Then the lightbulb went off. “You didn’t tell them you were a pirate.”
“They didn’t ask, and I needed to make some money. They’re mercenaries anyway. Its men like him and the royal bloodline who we steal from,” he reasoned. “They will continue to hunt us down, however, unless we stop them.”
“We? This is your mess and I see no reason why I should have to help you,” Adelaide said, crossing her arms in defiance of helping him. Barton agreed and folded his arms as well.
“Fine, don’t help me, but you’re on this ship same as I am. What makes you think they won’t kill me and the rest of you just for being here?” Adelaide and Barton looked at each other and realized he made a valid point. If they didn’t help him, they ran the risk of possibly losing their lives. They had no choice but to help.
“This ship wasn’t built for speed or battles so you won’t find anything here we can use to defend ourselves.”
“We could use this,” Daxton answered, standing by a tall post that jutted out over the water, with a fishing line dangling from it.
“That’s for catching fish. What could we possibly use that for?” Barton asked. “Maybe if we just talk to these gentlemen, perhaps we can come up with a solution? Like, we give you to them and they let us live.”
Before Wendynn could strike Barton for his snide remark, Daxton stepped between them both to continue with his plan. “If Adelaide can find something to set on fire, I bet we can use this to launch a few fireballs at their ship. Of course, we’d have to wait till they got closer since we couldn’t throw them very far.”
“Why use that to launch them though? I could just throw them.”
“I think you’re the reason they’re coming here. They saw you destroy that rock. They know you have magic.”
And Daxton was right. On board the SS Hannah was, Baptiste. He runs a casino from this ship he keeps docked, where heavy gamblers frequent, to drink, and sometimes enjoy the company of women. Regular customers on Baptiste’s ship know the rules. First, no one is allowed to leave it without paying their debts, if they owe any. And second, no one touches Hannah, the woman for which the ship is named after. She is a thing of beauty that all men wish they could have. On the very night Wendynn escaped the ship after cheating the House out of a sizeable amount of money, he was last seen with Hannah, and now she has disappeared as well. He managed to stay hidden from Baptiste and his men ever since. And no one’s seen Hannah, which is hard to believe, as beautiful as she is.
Baptiste is not one to be without a woman, and although he’s powerful enough to withstand ridicule from any man who might stir trouble about losing a woman under such suspicious circumstances, he needs a replacement. As he looked through his spyglass, out of his one good eye, he knew he’d found the perfect one.
“Yes, Wendynn, she will do nicely,” he said to himself. “Prepare to take that ship. Leave no man alive and bring the young woman to me.” His rather large belly jiggled as he pushed passed his men, towards his quarters, directly under the wheel of the ship. He had to hold in his gut and walk sideways because of his broad shoulders, in order to pass through the doorway. The men under his command, taking pleasures whenever they could find them, stopped to watch him squeeze himself through. One of them even snickered aloud, which caused them all to scatter quickly or face being thrown overboard if caught.
Once through the door, Baptiste turned around quickly to catch whoever it was who snickered at him but no one was there. All his men were busy raising the sails and preparing canons for the attack. Before midday he would have his revenge on that thief, get a new girl, and could return his ship back to its resting place.
He hated the sea more than any man or woman in his life because it stole his child away long ago. Baptiste wasn’t always an angry old man. There was a time, in his youthful days, when he had himself a family, a wife and a child, and was content living his life as a tax collector. He wasn’t a rich man, but he wasn’t a poor one either. Not long after he started working as a tax collector, though, he realized his keen ability for numbers and making them work for him. Soon enough, greed took hold of him and he eventually ended up taking the business from his boss.
At the time, his wife didn’t like the man her husband had become and threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop being a man of greed and go back to being the man she fell in love with. In a moment of rage he wished he could take back, he struck her across the face.
The next morning, he left for work as if nothing had happened. It was midday, similar to today, when he received word of the accident. His wife and child were killed when they boarded a ship in an attempt to leave him. The ship wasn’t in the best of shape and his wife knew it, but she was so afraid of him and worried for the safety of their child that she took the risk. Instead of his guilt driving him to be a better man, it turned him into an even uglier one. He vowed to never have any more children or to love a woman the way he loved her.
Baptiste huffed and puffed his way to a desk chair in his room. His desk was cluttered with maps and papers he looked at all day, a system only he could understand. He rifled through them, letting some fall to the floor, until he found what he was looking for; a locket. When his son was born, his wife had a lock of her hair and of his newborn child’s woven together and placed inside a locket for him to always carry with him. He stopped carrying it long before he lost them to the sea, but he never got rid of it.
As the sound of the first cannon ball being fired rang out, he opened the locket and touched the auburn locks with this pudgy index finger. A tear fell from his cheek, which he quickly wiped away.
“Fire!”
He shot up from his chair so quickly it fell backwards. He closed the locket quickly and placed it in his pocket as he rushed to open his door. Flames were licking at his boots and growing steadily as he watched his men jumping overboard. He took one step, but withdrew his foot as the fire was too hot and too high now for him to escape through it. He slammed the door back, as if it would magically protect him, but he knew it wouldn’t. He heard the ship begin to crack around him and smelled the smoke as it seeped under his door.
As calmly as he could, he sat back down at his desk chair, grabbed his bottle of whiskey, uncorked it, and drained its contents. He threw it down at the door where the smoke was billowing in, causing what little alcohol remained in the bottle to ignite on impact. He laughed out loud as the fire was not rapidly consuming his room.
“I don’t think they’ll be coming after us anymore,” Daxton announced, as they all stood and watched the ship become engulfed in flames. A loud explosion made them all shield their eyes as debris rained down around them. A large piece of plywood from the ship landed with a thunk against their steamship and they all looked overboard to see what it was.
Bobbing up and down in the choppy waters was the word ‘SS Hannah’ in large letters, partly singed, but largely intact. Wendynn kicked off his boots and socks.
“What on earth are you doing?” Adelaide asked him.
“Souvenir,” he said, before climbing up onto the side of the ship, holding his nose, and jumping in after the sign.