Sisters of the Sea Dolphenia part 3

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

SISTERS OF THE SEA

DOLPHENIA

Part 3

By R. Peterson

Loretta DuPont and the other crew members of the Sea Witch opened their eyes to a ferocious battle going on all around them. Osyok and the Πορθείς fought viciously with three pronged spears to drive the Kreons back into the water. A cloud of inky darkness, that had rendered the crew members unconscious, rose into the air above the bloody and mangled beach. A lone female appeared behind Polly, in one of the wheeled barrels filled with water that the Πορθείς used to travel on land, as Loretta and the others slowly got to their feet. “The Kreons use a chemical to knock out their enemies on land much like a squid uses ink to escape,” the woman explained.  She held two infant Πορθείς in her arms each no larger than newborn humans and wrapped in dripping blanket-like sponges that covered their squirming tails. “Take these children to safety,” she pleaded as she handed one to Loretta and one to Maggie. “Wave and Ripple are almost all that remains of our people now … they will grow rapidly … and they must survive.”

“I’ve never deserted a friend in a fight yet and I won’t now!” Polly vowed as she lunged towards the water with a gully in her hand. The Πορθείς fought with amazing strength and resolve but slowly, one by one they were being overwhelmed by the legions of dark crab-like attackers. The female Πορθείς pulled the dagger wielding Polly back even as she lifted her own trident from the barrel. “Our people cannot defeat the Kreons,” she said. “All creatures in this world have a purpose in life … and in death. Ours is to die so that our children can live. I, Klenna, am depending on you to help us; if you don’t, the known part of our species will be lost forever.”

Another cannon ball, fired by the shipwrecked survivor who proclaimed himself King Henry who was now aboard the anchored ship, exploded in the sand between the crew and Klenna as she rolled toward the fighting. “Mama!” the infant in Maggie’s arms cried as her mother dove into the gory water.

A bloody Klenna surfaced a moment later as the Kreons attacked her from two sides. “Run … and I love you!” she screamed.

The forty-four women, now branded as criminals and pirates by almost all the male dominated governments of Europe, turned and fled into the steaming jungle. Behind them the cannon fire and sounds of death slowly dispelled as the mermaid-like babies in their arms cried out in hopeless anguish and despair.

-------2-------

“Which way do we go?” Polly panted at the edge of a waterfall overlooking a mist covered valley. The path the group followed now split in two directions one zigzagged higher into the mountains and one descended into the jungle. “There!” the infant in Loretta’s arms pointed to the water plunging over the rocks and dropping at least a hundred feet into a river far below.

“That’s crazy!” Alison Drescher moaned peering over the edge and frantically clutching the branch of an overhanging mango tree as if she were already falling. “If we don’t die of fright on the way down, boulder-sized rocks, probably just under the surface at the bottom, will grind us up like berries between a mortar and pestle.”

“My sister, Ripple, is right,” the infant Maggie carried, squirmed his head and arms out from under his wet sponge blanket. “The only way to escape the Kreons is to go over the edge.”

“You speak our language awfully well for being almost newborns,” Loretta said studying both fish-tailed infants. The babies now children seemed to grow a year in size for each passing hour.

“We begin our learning while inside the womb as all babies do,” Ripple explained. “The only difference is that our mothers know this and talk to us continually as if we were already creatures capable of communicating. By the time Wave and I were born, after a 936 week gestation period, or eighteen years inside the womb, we already know much about our undersea society and also the world of land dwellers. All that remains is for us to enlarge which can happen in as little as a day.”

“Do you know what happens to people when they jump off from a cliff as high as a ten story building and land on rocks?” Polly stood next to Alison and gasped as she looked down. She grasped the same branch for reassurance.

“We will be pulled into a kind of hidden cave by a φάλαινα before we ever reach the river rocks,” Ripple assured them. She glanced up at the sun. “I’m almost sure this is feeding time.”

“What is an φάλαινα and what exactly does it eat?” When Loretta tried to pronounce the name it sounded like she was blowing bubbles.

The furious cries and snapping sounds of legions of Kreons charging up the trail behind them caused all the women to glance back in fear.

            “There is no time to explain,” Wave said. “Over the edge we must go!”

Polly left the edge of the cliff and walked between the crowd of women grinning and holding her nose. “We are all beginning to smell a little ripe,” she said. “I think it’s time for a bath.” With a running start she leaped over the edge. Polly’s screams were still receding as Alison shook her head. “Leave it to Polly to decide for everyone.” An instant later she jumped and the rest of the women followed.

Polly was just a speck below them when what looked like the head of an enormous fish darted from the falling water and swallowed her just before she reached the bottom.

            “What the hell was that?” Fiorella’s voice boomed over the falling women’s screams.

            “An φάλαινα!” Ripple smiled. “I was afraid it wasn’t going to be there.”

Seconds later the huge bluish grey monster lurched forward again and opened a mouth as big as a barn. All forty three screaming women were caught by a massive rolling tongue and sucked beneath hundreds of downward dropping baleen plates. And then there was only the flopping sounds of fish, cursing, weeping in the darkness and women thrashing in a rich soup of plankton who believed that life on the seas … truly had come to an end.

-------3-------

Endless minutes later the huge mouth opened partway and the women were forced against the straining fibers as the whale ejected the salt water. Then the mouth opened wide showing dim light reflecting on the surface of a pool inside a large cavern. “The φάλαινα will give us one chance to escape before he swallows,” Wave said. “I suggest we take it.” The women wasted no time scrambling from the mouth of the huge creature. Wave and Ripple both demanded to be released into the water.

            “The φάλαινα was once a land animal the same as the dolphins,” Ripple explained as they swam toward a rocky shoreline along one side of the cave. “This particular creature is old and prefers to have the fish and krill come to it, rather than exhausting itself swimming in search of food.”

            “How did an ocean-going creature that large get so far inland?”  Loretta asked.

            “We are now at sea level and these passages reach into the sea at high tide,” Wave said pointing toward a series of connected chambers disappearing in the darkness. “I’m almost certain that neither the Kreons nor King Henry the Eighth know anything about these caves. We should be safe for now!”

            “The only thing that fat bilge-rat is king of is feeding his face and filling-up chamber pots,” Polly gasped as she flopped exhausted on the rocky shore.

            “What do we do now?” All eyes looked to Loretta wading out of the water.

            “Right now we need to find materials to build a fire,” she said. “I feel night coming on and we’ll need the light,” She shivered, “and the warmth.”

As their eyes adjusted to the dark, ample piles of dry seaweed and driftwood appeared on the rocks from higher tides.

Polly was already peeling off her clothes. “I was serious about bathing,” she said. “We all smell like a leaking barrel of Spanish brine sardines left open in the summer sun for a fortnight.”

She dove naked into the water where Ripple and Wave were already swimming near the cave entrance and bringing back sudsy handfuls of what appeared to be bulbs from Amole soap plants. The other women gave experimental sniffs of their armpits, … laughed and quickly followed.

-------4-------

Alison recounted with laughter how the crew members had rescued Penny, Polly and Loretta from the gallows on Barbados. After she explained how they were captured inside the Blue Parrot Tavern in Saint Michael the group was suddenly quiet as they dried themselves next to a crackling fire. Polly glanced toward the mermaid Ripple, barely in the water next to the shore, listening with rapt attention. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes we forget that you and your brother have had a terrible loss this day.”

“Our people believe that death is just a new beginning,” Ripple said. “Besides I do all my crying underwater. Did you know that the ocean is nothing more than a stone reservoir to hold a sea of tears? A catch pool for a world filled with endless grief and sorrow.”

“When you look at it that way,” Penny turned a gutted fish on a stick as she held it over the flames. “What hope is there for any of us?”

“The world is in balance,” Ripple said. “Good and bad always appear at the same time as does light and dark. When you feel bad you must always look for the good. It is often hiding … but as sure to be there as any sunrise.”

Wave had just swam in from the other side of the waterfall. His hands were full of fruit and berries. “The Kreons have returned to the lagoon, probably to the sea by now. They can stay out of the water only for a short time.” He sensed the sadness from the women, smiled and began to sing. After the first verse, Ripple, then all of the women pirates joined in.

A SEA OF TEARS

A sea of tears says more than words, speaks louder than a yell.

Tiding after lifetime’s loss, to wash those we loved …who fell.

Conceived in brine is nature’s way, of returning to the sea.

Without our wombs to guide us home, how heartless we would be.

The oceans are our sorrows, water grave-fields dark and deep.

While in the sky a sunlight glows, a promise made to keep.

For every sailor drowned below, for fishes pulled above.

A sea of tears flows endless on, to balance hope and love.

The march of years, the creak of bones like dry and empty well.

Indifferent are the rains we buy, to wash off those who fell.

But mourning, grief and sorrow, must lead you to the sea.

Without our tombs to guide us home, how heartless we would be.

The oceans are tomorrows, our wet-fields dark and deep.

While in the sky a promise grows, a flower there to reap.

For every ship pulled down below, for whales speared up above.

A sea of tears flows endless on, to balance hope and love.

Alana Brennan, who had ran away from an abusive husband in Ireland before she was captured by Mick Moon and sold into slavery, couldn’t pry her eyes off from the mer-child who was quickly becoming a man. She softly repeated every word Wave spoke and laughed when he did. Most of the rest of the crew were sleepy and huddled together by the fire for warmth.

“We will stay here tonight and tomorrow and regain our strength,” Loretta said as she finished eating a fish and threw her stick in the fire, “and in the morning of the next day we will pay a visit to King Henry’s court.”

A giggling Alana sat next to the water talking to Wave long after everyone else had fallen asleep.

-------5-------

            Wave and Ripple led the crew members through the water filled caverns and by mid-morning they were hidden by the shore watching King Henry transport jewels and precious metals to the Sea Witch from an overfilled Jolly Boat. A half dozen Kreons helped hoist the heavy loot aboard the ship.

            “He must have half the Spanish treasure stolen from the New World stowed in our hull!” Alison gasped at the water line almost reaching the gun ports.

            “Probably more,” Ripple said. “For centuries the Πορθείς have recovered finely crafted items from ship wrecks on the ocean floor and brought them here as a way to study your land civilizations. There is a large hidden cave on the far side of the lagoon filled almost to the ceiling with that soft yellow metal.”

            “We have to stop him!” Polly cried. “If this unwashed barnacle returns to England with our ship and all this gold he might actually become a real King Henry!”

            “It won’t be easy,’ Wave said. ‘I believe most of our enemies allies have returned to the sea, and we should be able to swim under water and surprise Henry and his handful of Kreons but one obstacle still remains.” Loretta and her crew stared as a single crocodile-like monster, half the length of the Sea Witch swam in slow circles around the anchored ship.

            “What will we do?” Alison shivered as she stared at the plow share sized teeth gaping from the long crooked mouth.

            “Slip aboard your ship after I lead the monster away!” Wave was already holding a trident with one hand and testing the spear points with the other.

            “You can’t do that! You’ll be killed!” Alana almost dove in the water.

            “The beast is fast … but I’m much quicker,” Wave assured her. “As soon as you see me leading the creature out to sea, have your crew members use οξυγόνο to breathe under water and steal aboard the ship!”

            “What is οξυγόνο?” Loretta was amazed that Wave and Ripple who were but infants the day before seemed to have grown into adults so quickly. She would have to talk to Ripple about wearing a tight-fitting green shirt to cover her now large, round and very ample breasts. They wanted to kill their enemies … not torture them.

            “It’s a flower that when placed in your mouth produces an abundance of oxygen, even after it’s been picked,” Ripple said. “She pointed to fist-sized pink blossoms scattered along the shoreline.

            “There must be another way!” Alana risked being seen by wading into the water and clutching Wave by the arm.

Maggie waved a card from the shoreline and guaranteed Alana. “Do not fear. I consulted the cards after you two seemed to be inseparable last night. You are destined to be together forever!”

With the fortune teller’s assurance, Alana put one of the flowers in her mouth and watched as Wave swam fearlessly toward the monster.

-------6-------

            It was working. By the time Wave disappeared into the ocean with the giant crocodile racing behind him, Loretta and her crew were already climbing the anchor chain onto the ship.

            King Henry had decided to stop for lunch. The ship looked to be so full of treasure it could not hold a pound more and stay afloat. He sat on the deck with his back against the main mast and washed down fruit and dried fish with several bottles of rum. The Kreons clustered about him in a circle clicking their curious claws as he devoured bottle after bottle of the strange liquid. They were taken completely by surprise as the crew members swarmed aboard the ship.

Even six human sized crabs were no match for the mighty forty-four. As each hard shelled Kreon was knocked unconscious and thrown overboard, Ripple tied a large stone to its back leg to insure that it sunk to the bottom.

            “If the British didn’t burn the Handel after they rescued that skunk-loving Dutch captain, he might rescue you if you send up a smoke signal from a raft about a hundred miles west of here, but by thee Gods! There is no way I’ll allow your stench aboard this ship!” Polly held her nose as she clobbered King Henry with a deck pin and then helped Penny roll him off the side of the ship.

Wave was just returning from the sea when Loretta and three others attempted to raise the anchor. It wouldn’t budge. Wave and Ripple dove below the vessel to investigate. They surfaced several minutes later. “King Henry and the Kreons must have been sorting through the treasure and throwing the less valuable pieces overboard,” Wave said. “The anchor is buried under a pile of discarded gold and it will take some time to free it.”

Polly, who had climbed into a crow’s nest high above the topsail, sounded the alarm. “The monster is returning,” she cried. Where the ocean met the lagoon entrance the huge tooth filled snout could be seen rushing through the water.

The crew quickly lifted Ripple out of the water and placed her in an empty rum barrel filled with sea water. Wave dove beneath the ship again. “The anchor is almost free!” he said.

The massive crocodile lunged out of the water behind the ship just as Penny, Renny and Alison were readying a deck gun, and then it plunged below the surface.

            “No,” Alana screamed and dove over the side before the crew could stop her.

The crew of the Sea Witch held their breath as the churning water below the ship gradually became calm. Precious seconds drifted into eternity.

            With a tremendous roar the sea monster leaped out of the water. Wave and Alana both struggled inside its gaping mouth. “Fire!” Loretta yelled. The powerful deck gun blasted a hole the size of a barrel in the creature’s head and it’s powerful jaws relaxed but it was too late. The bloody bodies of Wave and Alana floated to the surface minutes later. Their arms were entwined together in the last moments of life and now into eternity.

-------7-------

            It was with tremendous sorrow that the Sea Witch sailed from the magical islands called Dolphenia. After the first day, a lonely Ripple demanded to be placed back into the water. A day later a group of dolphins had joined her as she guided the ship toward the Caribbean and Dowry Island the place where the Sea Witch pirates always buried their treasure. “We’ll be digging holes and burying chests for a month,” Renny moaned.

A day later the crew was taken by surprise. Four British ships-of-the-line appeared on the horizon and quickly overtook the overladen Sea Witch. Lord Admiral John Horatio Wineapple could be seen pacing on the flagship with Jean Molyneux. The massive seventy-six gun war-ships confidently maneuvered so that the much smaller vessel would have to run a gauntlet between them. “There is no way we can survive that much cannon fire,” Alison moaned, “and it doesn’t look like surrender is an option.”

Ripple rose out of the water her high pitched mermaid voice sounded like a whistle; hundreds of called dolphins were suddenly swimming in the water around her. She spoke to the creatures in a voice that no humans could understand.

When the British ships were close enough to see the smiling and determined faces of Admiral Wineapple and Molyneux the dolphins raced ahead leaping from the waves and spitting streams of sea water directly into the cannon barrels inside each open British gun port. As the Sea Witch passed between the four ships only three dripping enemy cannons managed even a sputter with the saturated powder. The three discharged cannon balls barely made it to the end of the barrels before dropping into the sea. Loretta and the crew members worked fast and furious, to shoot and reload between singing, dancing with Polly, and yelling insults.

The Sea Witch’s guns roared as they made several more passes. Finally most all the enemy ship’s main masts were shattered, and the furious royal navy had gone into hiding below their smoking decks as the women pirates sailed away.

“She certainly knows how to make friends!” Polly exclaimed the next evening as they watched the young mermaid playfully leap from the water along with her new aquatic companions.

            “What will become of us now that we are only forty-three,” several crew members asked Maggie who sat on a small chest filled with diamonds and studied a recipe box stuffed with ancient tarot cards. “The magic always comes in special numbers!”

Maggie looked at Loretta at the ship’s wheel  and they both nodded agreement.

Loretta smiled as she gestured toward Ripple now outracing the dolphins ahead of the overloaded ship. “We Sisters of the Sea have always been … and will forever be … the mighty forty-four!”

And as the Sea Witch sailed west toward the sun sinking into a beautiful crimson and gold horizon the crew began to sing.

"Hoist the sails and trim the winds, with rudder steady go.

            From morning light beneath the sky, till sunset’s wounded glow.

            With musket ball,  and chain and whip, and cannon’s lusty roar.

            No Royal fleet can yet defeat, we mighty forty four.”

THE END?     Not hardly!

           

I hope you enjoyed this story. You are the only reason I write. If you would like to read more of the Sea Witch adventures please purchase "Sisters of the Sea" one of 14 short stories included in the volume CRAYON MONSTERS available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KHLD2O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav Thank you !!!!

Sisters of the Sea Dolphenia part 2

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

SISTERS OF THE SEA

DOLPHENIA

Part 2

By R. Peterson

To say the all-women pirate crew of the Sea Witch were astonished to see a merman in the sheltered lagoon and to hear him speak was an understatement. Alison Drescher collapsed on the ship’s deck, opening and closing her eyes while slapping her face as though trying to wake-up from  a dream. Pollyanna Nottingham, who had been convinced all along the large group of dolphins that had surrounded the ship were trying to communicate, lost her grip on a Moonraker high about the main mast and caught her leg on a sheet attached to the main sail. She hung upside down gaping with awe at this new spectacle. Half the crew members prayed while the other half reached for weapons. “Are you real?” Loretta DuPont the ship’s captain stammered as she watched the half-man half-fish splash in the water.

“Of course not all the fantastic stories that come from the sea are true, most are the product of boredom born on long voyages and rum-activated imaginations, but not all are lies,” the creature said. “My formerly land-loving companions,” he gestured to the dolphins swimming in the water about him, “entered the oceans about fifty-million years ago. My own ancestors returned to the sea much later, only about one-hundred centuries ago when a whole continent sank beneath the waves. As you can see,” he flapped his tail in the water and waved his arms, “we are not completely converted to life in water.”

“Atlantis!” Margaret Waldheim, the ship’s navigator, cried. “You are what remains of that fabled lost continent?”

“We call ourselves πορθείς (watermen) and yes this part of the ocean we call Aτλαντισ the creature said. My name is Οδηγός and I will try to keep you safe from harm.”

“Οδηγός?” Loretta struggled to pronounce the name, which resembled sounds made underwater, but couldn’t. “We just escaped from a dozen British warships!” She glanced around the peaceful lagoon. It had the appearance of an exquisite paradise rather than a battleground. “What enemies could you people possibly have?”

“It might be easier if you called me Osyok,” he continued. Not all of my people who returned to the sea were peace-loving,” Osyok hung his human head sadly as if something that happened thousands of years before still caused him great distress. “A large faction blamed our leaders for the sinking continent. They insisted that we should have been more ruthless in our dealings with others. They separated from us and formed their own society. As the centuries past they evolved differently from us. The Kreons have now become their own distinct and unique species.”

“And now you are at war with these Kreons?” Loretta wondered what these new vile creatures might be.

“We were at war,” Osyok confirmed. “Our once great empire that numbered almost a million inhabitants has been reduced by fighting to a colony of fewer than thirty individuals and several hundred of our allies the ones you call dolphins. These sheltered islands you see here are what remains of Atlantis and all of its past glory.”

“The dolphins not only saved us from the British, they brought us here for a reason,” Polly said as she reached into a barrel and threw dried fish to the chattering group surrounding the ship. “Didn’t they?”

                “We are in our final days,” Osyok said. “Our people will not survive the next attack. Rather than see our race perish, those few of us that are left are willing to be transported to your world, to live as curiosities in zoos and scientific exhibits if need be to save ourselves from extinction.”

            “You wish for us to deliver you to safety, but we don’t even know where we are?” Maggie gestured toward the broken compass. “We were driven here by a storm from hell.”

            “Atlantis has its own magnetic field that always misdirects a lodestone,” Osyok said. “As well as un-navigable fierce winds that spread outward in all directions. It is this protection among others that has kept us hidden from the rest of the world all these centuries.”

            “If your enemies are so powerful what makes you think we can escape them?” Polly had  distributed the contents of one barrel of dried fish and was opening another.

            “The Kreons are formidable under the seas,” Osyok said. “But can only breathe air for a short time and are slow and awkward out of water. With the right winds we should be able to glide over their forces and make our escape.”

            “Where would you go that the first fisherman you encountered would not gut and salt your tails before you were transported to market?” Loretta asked bluntly, and glared at Polly who continued to feed the dolphins fish from the barrels.

            “I believe the closest port is Barbados.” Osyok said. “We have friends there.”

“I knew it …. We’re smack in the middle of the Devil’s triangle,” Alison gasped. 

“And these friends know of your existence?” Polly was amazed.

            “Even the world’s tightest drums will spring a leak.” Osyok pointed to a pool of briny liquid seeping from Polly’s barrel. “Those who know the truth are, fortunately for our kind, almost always branded as lunatics.”

            “I don’t know about your friends, but I’m sure we must all be hallucinating,” Loretta told him.

            “Follow me,” Osyok said as he began to swim toward a wide stream of fresh water entering the lagoon from the mountains. “And I’ll show you that no asylum for the mentally unfit waits for you in your future.”

Polly, Alison and Maggie all looked at Loretta. “Do we have any choice?” she asked as they lowered the Jolly Boat into the water.

-------2-------

 Loretta’s former handmaiden Fiorella and half the crew stayed aboard the Sea Witch as the other members rowed behind Osyok who only occasionally popped his head from the water to make sure they were following. The stream was wide, deep and swept past fruit trees so heavily laden that some branches hung into the water. The bottom of the boat was soon filled with sweet tasting oranges, bananas and mangos and Loretta struggled to keep the women rowing rather than feasting.

Magnificent columns of pastel red, yellow and pink coral rose from the banks, some forming spectacular arches and bridges that spanned the water. Walls with doorways and even buildings appeared. All were so intricately formed they might have been built by a sculptor. Osyok smiled when he noticed the women were in awe of the structures. “Our ancestors had a working relationship with these tiny sea creatures,” he said, “when the sea level was much higher. Ancient aquatic engineers designed special forms for the coelenterates to attach to and insured an adequate supply of nutrients.”

The group passed forests of fragrant wildflowers towering like trees above glistening meadows. The delightful odors drifting in the air were intoxicating. “It is an unabated pride among my people that we are vastly superior to humans in that we have conquered two worlds land and the seas,” Osyok said as they reached a dock and a ramp all built of colorful calcium. He maneuvered himself into a kind of barrel with attached wheels just under the surface and used his strong arms to move up the ramp onto dry land. “Having a tail is fine for swimming,” he said. “But this self-propelled machine works exceptionally well on land and keeps my bottom half from becoming too dry.”

The party crossed several bridges and entered a magnificent city almost empty of inhabitants. Through open doorways, πορθείς could be seen swimming in small indoor pools and several children approached all propelling smaller versions of Osyok’s chariot and stared in timid wonder at the leg-equipped strangers. “I suppose you want to know how it is that I come to speak your language as I may claim without bragging so exceptionally well,” Osyok said as they entered a virtual palace surrounded by exotic plants, fountains and pathways made of glistening gemstones.

An overweight sailor with bits of food tangled in a scraggly black beard, and nested inside a cloud of hovering flies, lounged in a floating chair, made from an inflated whale bladder, while several bare-breasted πορθείς females swam about and served him from silver plates. He viciously slapped one young almost child-like attendant for being too slow. Polly drew a dagger from her belt but only stared. An exaggerated moan came from the man as he lifted flabby tattoo-covered arms to stuff fruit, meats and various breads into his mouth. The stench was horrible. Polly gagged and several of the Sea Witch crew members covered their noses. “This is Henry the Eighth, King of Britain,” Osyok said with an ever so slight smirk. “He has a great aversion to soap and water.”

When Henry saw the newcomers he scowled. “I bloody well told you not to fetch ‘em here!” he bellowed. “Anything what you scaly-bottoms needs I can gives to yah!”

“You learned your eloquence from this royal wagon-load of pig fat?” Polly was furious.

“King Henry washed up on our shores clinging to several broken ship timbers lashed together along with a dozen crates filled with books bound for the new world,” Osyok said. “He inadvertently taught me the fundamentals of your language and the rest I learned on my own … from reading.”

The king sat up in his floating chair as much as his enormous bulk would allow and shook a threatening fist above his head, creating a cavity in the flies. “This is my sovereign realm,” he glared at the crew members and especially Polly. “We don’t need any outsiders. Leave at once and never return or I’ll have you cut into pieces to feed the fishes!”

“I’m afraid that with our new friends we are no longer in need of your services,” Osyok told the king. “Knowledge has always been the weapon that frees slaves from tyrants.”

Polly jumped at the chance to puncture the floating chair with her dagger. King Henry bellowed and cursed as he floundered in waist-deep water. Minutes later, the group watched the king from a window as he trampled through several flower-beds before vanishing into the forest, vowing in a loud voice to return and destroy all who had come to depose him.

“We have prepared a feast in your honor,” Osyok told the Sea Witch crew. “Let’s hope your stay here is from now on much more enjoyable.”

-------3-------

            As nightfall came the ship was left unguarded in the lagoon so that all the crew members could enjoy the party. Banquet tables placed around a large indoor pool in a magnificent but near-empty hall were laden with assorted meats and fruits of a kind the women had never before seen or tasted. Allison took second helpings of meat from a special shellfish that made her eyes glow in the dark. She claimed she could now see twice as good in darkness as she had in daylight. Fiorella devoured plate after plate of a spicy fruit-salad that made her lose weight with every bite.  She sat smiling with yards of cotton fabric now hanging on her skinny frame and called for more. Polly discovered purple berries that made her giggle each time she touched one and laugh out loud each time one was placed in her mouth. She sat at least two seats away from everyone else, surrounded by pools of sticky berry juice, most of which had dripped from her mouth. “I feel like King Henry’s better half,” she giggled.

A dozen πορθείς swam around the pool in tight formation while an especially attractive female perched on their shoulders. She played a stringed instrument much like a harp crossed with a lute and sang a strange song that alternately put you to sleep, woke you up and made you want to dance with each verse:

Sweet dreams come on with blink of eye, a soft slumber gently calls.

Rise-up and wake, it’s do or die, by late a water falls.

Shake your arms and swish your tail, you’ll never feel him better.

And dance with joy when love you’ve found, discovered, marked and met her.

Heavy eyes for want of sleep, it’s off to sandy shores we go

To wake with fish in morning stream, to swim and feed and tow.

Spin round about and glide across, a frozen water floor.

And bid fond greetings to the friends we’ve made, the mighty forty-four.

           

When the πορθείς learned Maggie was adept at fortune telling they pleaded with her to read their fortunes. She shuffled cards on a low table while the πορθείς clustered about, some in the water and some out. “You have rid yourself of a terrible parasite who was attached to you for many years,” Maggie said as she turned over the first card.

“King Henry!” Osyok shook his head. “He was like a pilot fish grown fat and self-important from our labors.”

“You are about to embark on a voyage that will forever change the destiny of your people,” Maggie said when she saw the second card.

“These are very hard times and we have no choice.” Osyok and several others hung their heads.

“You and all those who live in two worlds are at this moment in great danger,” Maggie gasped when she turned over the last card.

Osyok and the others were speechless. They looked to Maggie and then to Loretta for an explanation. A distant rumble like thunder caused the πορθείς to cluster together in terror. “It sounds like the beginning of a storm,” Polly tried to reassure them.

            “All weather in these seas is created by us!” Osyok said. “This night was to be without wind or rain.”

At that moment an iron cannon-ball blasted through a coral wall and made splinters of a banquet table. The Πορθείς and the Sea Witch crew-members swam and ran in all directions.

            “King Henry!” Osyok gasped. “He’s made good on his promise to return and seek revenge.

            “He must be aboard the Sea Witch,” Loretta said. “But he can’t possibly man and shoot those large cannons by himself!”

            “I fear he has betrayed us to the Kreons and is receiving help from them!” Osyok grabbed a trident leaning against one wall and swam toward the lagoon followed by the ship’s crew and as many warriors that could be found.

-------4-------

            The Sea Witch sat idly in the center of the lagoon but now it appeared to be painted from hull to topsail with a black crust … that was moving. “The Kreons are here,” Osyok said handing Loretta a pair of enlarging spectacles. When she balanced them on her nose even distant objects appeared up close and in fine detail. What had appeared to be paint was thousands of giant hard shell decapodas (crabs) walking upright as they swarmed across the ship’s deck and climbed onto the rigging. King Henry could be seen placing a torch to another cannon’s touch-hole while behind him the Kreons loaded more guns. The resulting explosion blew the roof off from the building the banquet had been held in.

            “You knew they were coming. Why didn’t you try to stop them?” Alison blurted.

            “The Kreons are non-swimming,” Osyok said. “They travel on the bottom of the sea. The area all around our island is covered by traps except for a few secret places where we bring in underwater farm supplies. We thought the traps would hold them back until our escape. King Henry must have shown the Kreons have to circumvent our defenses.”

            “The dolphins seemed very loyal, perhaps they will help us!” Polly looked but could not see any of the creatures she’d called angels.

            “The dolphins were our greatest allies and our most loyal friends,” Osyok said. “They were our last defense!” He gestured to a far shore where what looked like hundreds of grey logs were washing up on the beach. Polly took the magnifying spectacles from Loretta and gasped. Blood covered the sand on the opposite side of the lagoon. Many dolphins had been cut in half, all were dead. Not a single flipper moved.

            “How?” Polly cried. I thought you said the Kreons only traveled on the ocean floor.”

            “They do,” Osyok replied. “But they have other larger and more ferocious allies.”

With a tremendous roar, three crocodile-like monsters, each one longer than three Jolly Boats placed end to end, rose out of the water showing double rows of plowshare sized teeth. The crew members had been so consumed by the pitiful spectacle of the dead dolphins that they didn’t notice King Henry aim a cannon in their direction. The iron ball exploded directly in front of them just as hundreds of Kreons swarmed out of the water. Flying sand, bits of shell and small stones stung their arms, legs, hands and faces and drew blood just before the world started to spin and darkness came.

To be continued …

Thank you for reading ... I hope you enjoyed this story. It is for you dear reader that I write. If this tale made you smile, if it made your dreams a little brighter, please purchase my first "Sisters of the Sea" adventure. It is one of 14 short stories contained in the volume CRAYON MONSTERS available from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KHLD2O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav  

Sisters of the Sea Dolphenia

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

Pollyanna Nottingham squealed with delight as she slid gracefully down a rope from a wooden platform nested high on the aft mast. She handed a stolen metatarsal telescope, finely-crafted in Rotterdam, to Loretta. “We’ve got the bloody buggers now,” she giggled. “Their rudder is blasted to stove-wood and they’re at the mercy of the wind and waves.”

Loretta DuPont swept the expensive magnifier across the shimmering horizon and focused on the crippled merchant ship floundering in rolling seas. The smoking Handel listed to port as it twisted violently in circles, a shattered foremast tangling her bow. No white flag had been raised on the main mast. “We’ll have half the crew board her with a Jolly Boat and muskets,” Loretta ordered. “I dare not bring our magic lady alongside that churning wreckage or she’ll have us both in tatters.”

Fiorella and the stout sisters Penny and Renny were rolling a heavy chase gun across the pitched deck hoping to get another long-range shot. ‘I don’t see any bilge rats polishing the Fleut’s boards with their knees,” The peering woman said as she adjusted the barrel. “Perhaps they need another storm of falling timber to show we’re serious.”

“Send a wedding-ball across the gun walls as a greeting,” Loretta told her.

Loretta watched as her former chamber maid, now an almost three-hundred pound ship’s gunner, tampered powder and two four-pound cannon-balls connected by chain into the long barreled deck-gun.

Fire roared from the starboard cannon seconds before a hastily-rigged lateen sail on the Handel flew skyward and flames erupted below. A minute later, amidst scurrying activity on the helpless vessel, a white flag fluttered high on the Dutch ship’s main mast as the forty-four women pirates of the Sea Witch cheered.

-------2-------

            Twenty-two heavily armed women swept aboard the listing merchant ship from a Jacob's ladder hung over the leeboard side. The heavily bearded captain of the Handel stomped on his beaver-fur hat trimmed with silver lace when he saw the female pirates. "Vloek de winden als wij nog niet door een stelletje rokken genomen!" (Curse the winds if we haven’t been taken by a bunch of skirts!) he bellowed.

            “Vloek de winden … vloek de winden!” Polly mocked him as she climbed into the ship’s rigging with a brace of pistols aimed down at the men. “You were out-sailed and outgunned … Bless the wind! Don’t you mutts ever bath? This ship smells like a floating chamber pot!”

“Easy does it, lads. A new mast or two and you’ll be on your way. No real damage!” Loretta spoke to the captive crew. “A blade held in the hand of a woman cuts just as quickly as a man’s,” She assured the red-faced captain as she separated a bag filled with gold coins along with his trousers from his bulging waistline. Several of the humiliated crew members snickered at their captain’s distress even as they glared at the swarming women, obviously looking for a chance to turn the tables.

Alison Drescher stared at the portly captain’s now bare and very hairy legs, and at his scowling face. She walked down the double line of men who had surrendered, slicing each belt with a saber and laughing as their pants also fell to the deck. “What the hell is it you’re hauling aboard this rotting tub?” She pinched her nose as she walked toward the cargo hatch. “Ga niet naar beneden er!” the captain bellowed in obvious terror as Alison went below. Moments later, her delighted voice carried from below. “Here kitty kitty kitty.”

Suddenly gunfire and clouds of reeking stench rose from the open hull causing several women to retch and all to cover their faces.

            “Driehonderd caged-Mephitidae, bound for the Parfumfabrieken (perfume factories) of Paris,” the captain moaned in the language of his captors. “Their beschermende olie (exotic oils) have an uncommon value. Your cannons have agitated a few individuals and their ongenoegen (outrage) is apparent.”

            “The lastage (cargo area) is filled with pulents! (skunks)” a dripping Alison screamed as she vaulted up the stairs onto the deck.

            “The beasts are secured in cages, are they not?” Loretta choked, her eyes burning.

            “They were,” Alison bent over the side-rail gagging, “in one large cage. It was hard to see in the dark and dinge. I’m afraid I broke the door when I forced the lock.”

It looks like half the Royal Navy has been lured here by the smell,” Polly shouted pointing to the horizon as she slid down a halyard.

Three British war ships appeared on the horizon bearing down on the party just as a battalion of violent white-backed monsters streamed onto the upper deck with their tails raised.

“When you make your report, your ship was ravaged by that stinker Radge MacLagan the Aberdeen scourge of the seven seas and his cutthroat crew,” Loretta told the furious captain as she held her nose amidst the raging tumult, “otherwise you’re sure to lose your commission … along with your sense of smell.”

Loretta and Polly both dove over the side. The other women were already in the water swimming frantically toward the Sea Witch and towing the Jolly Boat loaded with discarded muskets and bags of tainted booty behind them.

            “I feel terrible about this,” Polly tried to wash her face as she paddled the water. The sound of screams and splashing water came from behind as the Dutch crew abandoned their ravaged ship. “That poor Dutch captain is finished on the seas and will have to learn a new profession.”

            “It’s just as well,” Loretta replied as she swam alongside. “I’m sure the British will burn his ship rather than tow it to port.”

-------2-------

The Sea Witch had hoisted all sails and was well on its way by the time they stopped to retrieve Loretta, Polly and the others. “You were aware of British ships approaching.” Loretta was pleased with her former handmaid’s actions.

            “How could we miss them,” Fiorella said helping to raise the jolly boat out of the water. The three Royal Navy ships Polly had spied earlier were now seven, and coming on briskly from two directions. “Not much loot for a freighter,” she commented when she lifted the bags of coins from the boat. “The hull must have been empty.”

            “Oh it was full enough,” Polly said with a grin.

            “But you would have turned your nose up at the treasure,” Loretta laughed.

The Sea Witch was under full sail with a good wind but the pursuing fleet was not stopping. Loretta was worried as she adjusted the telescope for a closer look. At the rate the British ships were gaining, the Sea Witch would be within cannon range in a matter of minutes. She caught a glimpse of a furious Jean Molyneux, her former intended, arguing with officers on the deck of the nearest enemy vessel while a crew readied deck guns and fired torches. Not only had she jilted the wealthy merchant but she had stolen his ship. “Throw everything over the side that doesn’t catch wind, cut flesh, or make a big bang,” she ordered her crew.

            “Surely not the treasure!” Alison moaned. “We’ve got half the taxes of Castile in our hull!”

            “A room full of gilded necklaces will not hide rope burns on your neck,” Loretta told her. “But leave the gold for last. Let’s try to keep our heads.”

Fiorella, Penny and Renny hoisted a large iron cooking stove from below deck and shoved it over the side along with a cannon whose barrel had exploded during an earlier skirmish. The ship rode higher in the water and they picked up speed.

They were sailing into the sun and there was at least five-hundred gallons of whale oil in the cargo hold. Polly drilled a hole in the top of each keg brought to the stern, secured them to each other with lengths of rope,  and Alison stuffed a burning rag into each hole just before they were set adrift in the wake. “Please let their hulls be as dry as desert bones and their lookouts as drunk as tavern worms,” Polly closed her eyes and prayed. “And a legion of angels with bows and lightning bolts wouldn’t hurt either!”

Loretta watched through the scope as the first burning keg collided with the prow of a swift moving British warship and shattered, but without spreading fire. The ship’s pilot veered hard to port to try to avoid the other barrels but the lines pulled them into the hull. Three barrels broke open, but still the flames did not take. An extraordinarily high wave lifted the last barrel high and broke it across the gun-walls spreading oil across the deck. Seconds later, black smoke billowed into the air. Loretta looked again through the scope to see a cursing Jean Molyneux stomping about the flames. It was enough to slow the pursuers, but not for long.

-------3-------

Delightful cries came from the ship’s prow. Polly had crawled to the far end of the bow sprit and was trying to touch the noses of a group of dolphins, racing along with the vessel and arching playfully high out of the water. “I believe if I threw them a hawser they would tow us,” the tiny nymphet giggled.

Unfriendly thunder sounded in the distance and a second later a cannon ball hurdled across the deck just missing the main mast, splintering a binnacle, and shattering the ship’s compass, much to the consternation of Margaret Waldheim, the ship’s navigator. An un-laden frigate, high out of the water and just skimming the surface waves was closing fast. “What I wouldn’t give for another twenty barrels of whale oil,” Fiorella moaned as she helped Penny, Renny and Maggie roll a deck gun to the stern.

Loretta glanced toward the prow. Polly had filled a bucket with sardines and was feeding the bow riding mammals now surrounding both sides of the ship. Loretta decided to let her have her moment of joy. The way things were looking, this voyage was apt to end badly. Fiorella had just tamped a twelve-pound ball into a powder charge sealed with wadding when another ball blasted deck planks and destroyed half the stern rigging. The aft-mast sails fluttered useless in the wind. A dazed Fiorella and a dozen women crew members strained to upright the heavy gun now laying on its side.

Loretta supervised the loading of muskets as Fiorella prepared once again to fire the cannon. “We won’t be taken easy,” the entire crew agreed.

The former lady in waiting used precious minutes adjusting the gun sights. “Let his Majesty’s Royal Navy get any closer … and they’ll ram the barrel!” a flustered Alison insisted.

Fiorella’s attention to detail paid off. The charge blasted into the port side of the frigate’s bow leaving a gaping hole that gulped water as it broke into each wave. The pursuing ship fell back much to the agonized cries of its crew but was soon replaced by two heavily-armed ships of the line now gaining on the crippled Sea Witch due to her reduced sailing capability.

-------4-------

“I don’t think they’ll blow us out of the water,” Loretta said, staring at the seventy-gun warships. “If it’s any consolation, Jean Molyneux obviously wants his ship back intact and looks forward to our public execution.”

“I think my angels want us to follow them!” Polly called from the bow sprit. Loretta, Alison and Maggie walked to the front of the ship, welcoming the distraction as a second gun was being readied on the aft deck. The small group of dolphins had now become a multitude. Hundreds of the mammals leaped from the water on all sides of the ship, turning ninety-degrees into the wind and then coming back when the Sea Witch failed to respond. “We can’t sail into the wind,” Loretta sighed. “Even with our aft sails intact we’d be lucky to make a third our speed.”

“Our new friends will help us!” Polly insisted. “Watch our speed increase when the angels return!” One of Maggie’s young navigation assistants tossed a log tied to a long rope into the sea and counted knots placed at regular intervals in the rope sliding through her fingers as she stared at a clock and the line played out from the stern. “We gain at least three knots per minute when the dolphins are with us … and lose them when they veer off.”

Another blast came from directly behind and a flaming ball passed close enough to scorch the hairs on Loretta’s neck. “What have we got to lose?” she cried to Alison who had seized the ship’s wheel. “Follow the flying fins into the wind … and God help us all!”

-------5-------

 The crew lowered all the sails as the ship turned into a growing breeze. Surprisingly the Sea Witch began to pull away from the English war ships. Hundreds of dolphins appeared to lift the heavy ship almost out of the water and transport it across the waves and into a now brisk wind with surprising speed. Alison gasped as she pointed to a fleet of dark funnel clouds appearing on the horizon, complete with rumbling cannon and lightning flashes directly in their path. “It’s a water spout the size of London, with spears of light and an updraft strong enough to bring even Neptune himself up from the depths.”

The British ships had not given up the chase, they had trimmed their sails and were tacking into the wind. Still the Sea Witch was escaping.

Fiorella couldn’t resist giving Jean Molyneux and his Royal Navy friends one last parting shot, firing a special, hollow, fused-ball filled with gunpowder, pitch, sulfur and Venetian turpentine. The resulting explosion on the deck of the floundering frigate spread flames high into the ships rigging igniting several sails.

The crew of the Sea Witch were at the mercy of the approaching storm and the legions of dolphins transporting them to who knows where. With the sails lowered and the ships wheel spinning with the thrashing fins, the crew clustered on deck to ride out the storm. Polly who was obviously under a Cetacean spell, began to sing  and all the other voices aboard ship soon followed.

The Song of Dolphenia

Led away from battles deep, from which destruction wasn’t born.

Into a tempest day of night, where sun was ever scorned.

Beneath the waves by tail and fin, the water-winds do blow.

And spin the arms of octopus, for compass headings go.

Stand the seas and rap her waves, the ocean’s ready-door.

No tailor sent to sew the seams, of the mighty forty-four.

Through darkness dim and oar-less glide, the savage mothers stow.

And sing a song of merriment, to fearsome things below.

With fife and float the carriage speeds, with sea-horses endless chatter.

And delivers calm to all who seek, an endless ever after.

Sail the seas and lift her waves, the ocean’s dirty-floor.

No children sent to guide the schemes, of the mighty forty-four.

Wake to night and sleep at dawn, the world twists upside down.

To catch the moon out dancing, in a raining wedding gown.

Gold and silver, wishing shells, a treasure to behold.

A voyage to the last of days, that never will be told.

Sail the seas and rap her waves, the ocean’s ever more.

No lovers sent to guide the dreams, of the mighty forty-four.

The darkness was total and empty of compassion. Currents of soggy gale circled the ship, lifting whales, worms and sand from the treacherous depths of despair. It was no longer clear if the ship lingered above or below the waves. The crew of the Sea Witch clung to the mast posts as the sea raged in final desperate agony. “I never regretted a moment of this roguish life!” Polly strained to make her voice heard above the roar of the wind. “To end it all now, would not diminish a single splendor from my memory.”

“We are and were sisters to the very end,” Alison agreed. “The bottom of the sea chills my heart far less than the end of a judge’s rope.”

Amazingly the dolphins still circled the ship, thrashing so close together they looked like grey links in an enormous herringbone chain.

Then as suddenly as it began, the waterspout dissolved with a hissing breath of storm. A flock of lightning bolts disappeared over the horizon like migrating geese. The Sea Witch glided across waters as smooth as glass, reflecting with mirror-like accuracy the colors of sunlight passing through prisms of hope and salvation. The dolphins were pulling in earnest now, no longer leaping playfully from the water.

Volcanic mountains appeared on the horizon then forests, beaches and finally a sheltered harbor ringed by cascading cliff-streams and waterfalls. Polly’s aquatic angels halted in the lagoon and began to leap continually from the water. So joyous was their chatter than every crew members face erupted in a smile. “It’s as if they are trying to speak to us,” Polly gasped. At that moment, a lone figure dove from cliffs on the far side of the shallow lake. The newcomer swam with fins and tail but the head was very human as it surfaced in the water next to the ship. “Welcome to Dolphenia,” the creature said.

TO BE CONTINUED …

Thank you dear reader; You are the reason I write. I hope you enjoyed this tale. For my 1st. female pirate adventure please purchase my volume of 14 short stories called CRAYON MONSTERS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KHLD2O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav