The Curse of Blackbane
Chapter 1 - A Profane Curse
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Introduction
In this dark fantasy tale set during the late 18th century, William Marshall carries the infamous name of Blackbane. The rogue buccaneer captain from the Americas currently works for the Ottomans and plies the waters of the Mediterranean.
During a bloody attack on a convent, Blackbane discovers a golden cross and dies at the hands of archangel Remiel. In a cruel twist, the angel returns the pirate to life while giving him a terrible curse. Blackbane becomes immortal and his memories filled with the everlasting suffering of those he’s killed.
Now pursued by the Seven Princes of Hell, who intend to rip his immorality and soul from his body, Marshall flees to new waters. Captured in France, the captain meets a strange, bloodthirsty preacher called the Black Monk.
Unable to escape his vicious past, Marshall receives a vision, which may put an end to his curse. With the help of his new friend, the pirate believes he found his escape by recovering the lost relics of saints. However, he doesn’t realize that angels carry their own agendas. Like Dante’s journey through Hell, the man called Blackbane finds his new destiny woven in terror, violence, and blood.
Chapter 1
“Curse these blasted fools; we’re here for gold!”
Captain Blackbane stepped inside a long hallway with two of his loyal mates. It was the height of the devil’s hour. His face darkened at the scene inside the Convent of Santa Clara.
Some of his notorious band of cutthroats ignored his orders. Like wolves, the Diano Marina men descended upon the nuns, already drunk with wine found at a nearby monastery. The screams of women and the lewd catcalls of the sailors hit him like a blast of foul air. Amid the chaotic scene lit by oil lamps hanging on the stone walls, his men were already ravaging their victims. Half-naked victims struggled to escape from their sleeping cells where men shared them.
Blackbane cursed in Arabic at the crew while casually stepped over the bloody body of a partially dressed woman.
“Size orospular erkekler taşıyın! Kadınlardan uzaklaşın, göt oğulları!”
Smartly dressed in a blue wool coat, scarlet vest, and white breeches befitting his status, the captain pushed back his dark brown tricorn hat. The yellow light revealed his pockmarked face. A smattering of black dots showed through his beard on one side of the tan skin.
“Bingham, get these bastards off the women. They’ll fetch more when they’re chaste.” Their leader gave no hints of mercy while his dark eyes surveyed the chaotic scene.
His loyal first mate responded immediately when the captain pulled his flintlock and entered the nearby rooms. Blackbane grimly smiled as he watched Bingham strike one of the reluctant men with his pistol butt after the pirate failed to move quickly enough. He and another comrade immediately joined the pirate captain.
Blackbane directed them toward the stairs, pointing with his captured Polish saber. The blade of his karabela, a Polish saber, still glistened with the blood of a monk who lay outside.
“I want every man to scour every spot in this building. No one escapes, or I’ll have your guts for the fish.” His ominous growl sent the men to their task.
The captain watched his pirates scurry away while he drained a tankard filled with Cachaça, a robust local wine which he held in his other hand. He waved his second mate over while turning over the dead body of a nun with his foot.
“Seymore, help round up the rest of the women. I want them on the ship before morning.”
The men immediately hurried away, yelling orders to the other pirates. Bingham continued pulling the men out of the nun’s cells while they held on to their screaming prizes. Seymore’s men pulled the women away, pushing the women into a group near the entrance to the hall. Seymore order more of his armed men to inspect the various rooms the area.
Blackbane continued the hallway, bellowing orders to the men along the way. Seymore followed along after ordering several sailors to escort the female prisoners toward the entrance. As he came alongside the captain, he saw other men rummaging through the nun’s cells. They came out with silver crosses and other religious trinkets found inside.
“It’s a meager haul,” Seymore complained when he saw the items.
“It’s the room I want, damn it. That monk placed his hand upon that damn bible, swearing there was a room of gold.” The captain glanced inside a nearby room. He went back and forth, searching for doors to open.
Earlier, the few monks captured by Blackbane and his men swore they harbored no gold inside the monastery’s walls. However, a lay brother who witnessed the torture of the monks told the captain about a room of golden crosses inside the convent. Blackbane forced the man to lead them to Santa Clara. When they reached the convent, the lay brother confessed he didn’t know the exact location inside the walls; Blackbane cut the man’s throat in rage.
The pirate captain came to the end of the hallway. With a growl, he opened two doors on either side. Inside the second door, he found a crewman raping a nun. The pirate held the pleading woman’s ankles as he savagely thrust into her.
Blackbane kicked the bed with his boot.
“You there, get off the wench. I gave you an order to find that gold room!” The captain bellowed.
“When I finish,” the drunken naked man growled back.
Blackbane dropped his tankard and immediately struck the man across his naked butt with the flat side of his sword. With a savage roar, he grabbed the crewman by his long greasy hair and pulled him from the woman. As he beat the sailor with the pommel of his sword, blood splattered across the nun. When the wounded man fell unconscious to the floor, the captain stood and pointed his razor-sharp sword blade at his victim’s neck. The second mate recognized the danger when he walked by.
“He’s a freeman and voted you captain,” Seymore yelled out while more pirates gathered around the cell to stare inside.
They watched with bated breath while Blackbane paused. Then he glared at his second mate.
“Seymore, get this man out of her. Tell this rotten crew that I’ll flay the next man alive who fails my orders,” the captain loudly declared. Still fuming, he pushed through the entrance to the room.
The man looked over at the men watching him.
“Now, get this rabble moving!” He yelled.
“Bear down, men. The women go to the ship, or they’re be a cat-o-nine bearing on your back,” Seymore bellowed out. Then he smacked the closest pirate with the broadside of his sword blade to emphasize the point.
The second ordered another crewman to take his unconscious crewmate back to the ship. He sullenly grabbed the half-naked nun from the crew, sending her down the hallway to join the others huddled near the entrance.
Blackbane returned after opening another nearby door. He recognized that he’d spoiled his crew’s expected entertainment. It was a position that he needed to address or risk losing his position. Pirates were a temperamental group who required diversions.
“Damn ye maggots who forgot our prize! I want that gold room found before sunrise. By Brendan the Navigator’s heart, I’ll give a chest of silver reales to the man who finds the treasure,” Blackbane roared out to the surrounding men.
The effect was immediate on the sullen pirates. They roared with approval before they scattered like cockroaches. Blackbane’s frown lifted a bit as he walked back to the huddled group of nuns. He waved his second mate over.
“Take the women to the ship,” the captain ordered Seymore. “Remind the watch not to molest the young ones, or I’ll have their hide. They’re worth a lot of silver to the crew. The men can have the old ones for their Fiddler’s Green.”
Seymore laughed at the thought.
“Aye, captain, they’ll think even the old ones are paradise after so long at sea. I’ll make sure they treat our cargo well.”
“Best take them with your trusted men and be off with you,” Blackbane said. He waited, watching until his valuable prisoners were on their way to the Diano Marina.
Blackbane turned and walked through the hallway, where he found another passageway leading past a series of opened doors. He followed the trail of destruction left by pirates as they entered the rooms. As he walked past the open doors, the bearded man glanced in to ensure no one was inside.
He heard a couple of pirates cursing at the end of a nearby corridor, and the captain went to investigate. Two men stood by a closed door. The thick wood remained impervious to the pirate’s attempts to shoulder the door open. Finally, one man started hacking at the handle with a boarding ax. With growing anticipation, Blackbane stood behind them as he watched their toil.
As the door handle finally splintered apart, Blackbane took the lead and pushed through the doorway. He nearly ran over a small, fearless woman who stood in his path. The convent’s abbess had several terrified nuns standing behind her.
“You swine,” she savagely told the captain in Portuguese. “This is a holy order, protected by God. He’ll punish your blasphemy while the Duke of Gandía hunts you down and rips out your black heart for this insult.”
She saw the captain’s brown eyes turn cold while he returned a merciless laugh.
“A black heart, you say?” he inquired in her language, then shook his head. “No, you have the name wrong, woman. I’m known as Blackbane.”
He enjoyed how her eyes widen in fear at his name.
“I see you’ve heard of me. I’m honored the Christians on this coast know of my conquests. Now, join the other captives. You’ll have a long voyage come dawn.”
“Blackbane, I’ve heard you rape, kill, or enslave Christians for your Muslim masters. You have no honor, and I most certainly don’t fear you,” she said spitefully.
“You’re wrong, old lady! I also rape, kill, or enslave Muslims if the price is right.” he looked her over with an ugly smile. “I have no religion. Gold is my crown, and I take crosses of silver for my coins.”
He backhanded her. The woman fell back.
“Where is the room of gold in this place?” he exploded.
The woman shook off the help offered by the nuns. She stepped up in front of the larger man.
“You don’t scare me, Blackbane. God protects me!”
“He won’t protect you from my wrath if you don’t tell me where the location of the Gold Room is. I’ll leave you alive to sell on the slave market. You might not bring much, but it beats what I’ll do otherwise….”
He slapped her. The blow brought a trickle of blood to the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes stared back in defiance. With a scowl at her resistance, the man pointed his sword blade at her chest. Then he looked past her at the nuns with an evil grin.
“You have grit, sister. But are you willing to have your nuns tortured to make you talk?”
The expression on the woman’s face softened. Then, the abbess grabbed the blade of his sword. In a flash, she stepped into the karabela’s razor-sharp point. The mother superior’s blood spurted across the pirate captain before she fell to the floor in a heap.
Gasps and screams came from the nuns who kneeled beside her, praying as she died. A pirate who stood next to his captain crossed himself as a few more men investigated the commotion they heard in the hall.
“You can worry about God on your time,” Blackbane quickly gathered himself as he jeered the crewman standing by him. The captain grabbed the closest nun by the collar of her simple bed dress. He pointed his bloody sword at her neck.
“Alright, my sweet virgin, I’ll run you through unless you tell me the location of the Gold Room!”
Her big brown eyes widened at the threat, and she recited the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish.
Blackbane’s fist struck her across the cheek, and she stumbled backward. Blackbane pushed the woman down, forcing her into a crouched position.
“Last warning, wench!” he stated with a menacing growl.
Again, the woman prayed with her head bowed down. With a yell of tormented frustration, Blackbane’s sword blade sliced down on the woman’s neck. Her head tumbled several feet away.
The captain turned to the next nun.
Next Chapter
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The line "When I finish" could be read in more than one way, given the context.