Hope and Red Read Online Free Page B

stumping down the steep wooden steps as he muttered to himself.
    “Girls and kids as crew. What a rotten voyage this is shaping up to be.”
    He was an older gaf, lots of white mixed in with his greasy black hair and beard. He wore a wool sweater stretched across a vast paunch, and he limped a little. Sadie and the boy were sitting next to each other on the floor, rope visibly wrapped around their wrists. She forced her face to remain blank as the sailor squinted at her with eyes that looked bleary with drink.
    “Listen up, you two,” he said. “You’ve been volunteered to work on the crew of this here ship, the Savage Wind . If you follow orders and do just as the captain and I say, you’re free to go when we return to port at New Laven. We might even pay you. If you don’t follow orders, you’ll be flayed within a breath of dying. It’ll be like this.” He slammed his great big slab of a hand into the side of Sadie’s face so hard, her lip split. “Only a lot worse. Do we have an understanding?”
    Sadie smiled, letting the blood dribble out the side of her mouth. “Do you know why they call me Sadie the Goat?”
    He leaned in close, his breath stinking of grog. “Because of the beard?”
    She slammed her forehead into his face. While he gaped at her, blood gushing from his broken nose, she shook off the rope that had been loosely coiled around her wrists, pulled the dagger from his boot, and shoved it up into the soft skin beneath his chin. She slowly twisted, and he convulsed against her, blood spattering her face. Then she jerked the blade, opening a vertical slit in his neck that went all the way down to his collarbone. She pulled out the knife and let the still-shuddering body drop to the ground.
    She wiped her face with her sleeve, then leaned over and drew the sailor’s sword.
    “Here.” She handed the knife to the boy. “There’s bound to be more of them topside. Most like we’ll need to kill them all.”
    The boy stared at the knife, still wet with blood, that lay in his hand.
    “Red,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she gave him a swat across the back of his head. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
    He blinked stupidly at her.
    “Red. That’s your name now. You’re my sidekick. Sunny?”
    His eyes grew wide, and he nodded.
    “Now, let’s go explain to these gafs how we ain’t interested in being southended.”
    It was dark out on the deck, with only a sliver of moon. The sailor who stood watch topside was so surprised to see them that she planted her sword in his eye before he could even say a word. He fell twitching, and it took her a moment to wrench the blade free from his skull. Most of the sailors were drunk or asleep or both. Sadie didn’t care. This was what they deserved. She was no swordsman, so it was all hack and slash as they made their way through the ship. By the time they reached the captain’s quarters, she was breathing hard, her arm ached, and she was covered in the blood of six men. The cabin door was locked, so she pounded on the wood with the pommel of her sword. “Come out, you fish-bellied scum!”
    “Sadie!” came Red’s shrill voice.
    She turned just in time to see a man in a wide-brimmed hat about ten feet away leveling a pistol at her. But instead of firing, the gun fell from his hand as he clutched the knife handle that protruded from his chest.
    Red’s hand was empty. He smiled a bit sheepishly, his ruby eyes glimmering in the moonlight. “I was aiming for the gun.”
    Sadie grinned and slapped him on the back. “Well done, Red. I knew you had some mettle under all that artsy softness. Now, let’s turn this tub around. There’s one more gaf back on New Laven who needs it explained to him nice and slow why nobody southends Sadie the Goat.”
    *  *  *
    Getting the boat back to downtown New Laven was tricky with only Sadie and Red, neither of them knowing what they were doing. But the wind was in their favor and they reached the