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  Dead Man’s Dice

  Nicholas Boyd Crutchley

  Published by Night Owl 2015

  Copyright © 2015 Nicholas Boyd Crutchley

  eBook Edition

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  To acquire license to reproduce in full or create derivative works, please contact the author. All Rights Reserved.

  The stories are works of fiction and are entirely the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Dead Man’s Dice

  I

  Natasha chokes on foul breath, stale sweat. She tries to push the pirate away—prise his hand from her throat. Excited, he thrusts harder, stabbing, splitting her inside. Each moment an eternity, a strangled thought, his sighs—whispers, groans—distant whimpers, drowned by Natasha’s terror. Who is this beast who defiles?

  Spent. The pirate’s warm lust spills. Collapsing like a fallen tombstone atop a grave, the rapist gives a tobacco-stained grin. Natasha smells the sea as he scrapes his tongue across her tear-drenched cheek and trembling lips. He cuts. Eyes wide, Natasha sees the blade used to slice her cheek. Who is this demon who feasts on fear?

  Hips withdraw. The crime seeps and pools on the floor. The man, dressed as a storybook pirate, rises. Baring crooked teeth like an ogre from tales of old, he pulls up and buckles his breeches. Her head reflexively turns as a gob of spit hits, and meanders down her wounded cheek. His tattooed fist, wrapped around the knife’s handle, flexes. Natasha fixes on eyes—malevolent.

  Stab. Stifling Natasha’s cries with a calloused hand, the pirate punctures her abdomen. In his glare she sees his intended victim: not her, but the child she can no longer bear.

  Stab. The rapist’s knife thrusts more violently than his penis. With a twist of his hand he gouges, tears. In the pirate’s stare Natasha sees jealousy: no man again can love her.

  Stab. His shadow soul, not blade, pierces. Swallowed by the pirate’s spirit, she becomes him….

  II

  “Dead Man’s Dice,” the burly seadog shouts as two ivory cubes come to rest, grinning skulls face up. “You lose Oleth. Six copper.”

  “Damn it, Larko. I had that game won. Double or nothing?”

  Larko eyes the old gambler. “Double or nothing? Are you sure? Have silver tucked away in them rags of yours, do you?”

  “Ha, up yours.”

  Crooked teeth, tobacco stained, grin like a pipe-smoking shark as gruff tones rise on stinking breath. “I tell you what, you win and we are even; lose, you lift me a keg of snakebite grog.”

  “Sod off. A keg’s worth twenty times as much as I owe. Besides, bad luck to steal from your own kin.”

  “Then cough up the copper.”

  The old man’s face scrunches, eyes narrow, as he looks into a sea-weathered face draped with flaxen hair. Scratching his head with a trembling hand, he says, “Ain’t got it, have I? Didn’t think I’d lose to a venom-head like you.”

  Ignoring the insult, Larko says, “That ain’t the way things work, Oleth.”

  “Come see me tonight. The Angel’s Embrace is in dock, and I’ll raise what I owe, easy.”

  “By dipping?” Glancing to his debtor’s quivering hands, he says, “How you going to dip with them tremors? Think you’ll last long with that crew of whore traders? They’ll carve you a jester’s smile for dipping.”

  “Then I’ll sing; tell a story, a joke.”

  “Sing? You’ll sing an old shanty? They’ll harpoon you, you old bastard. And I want my winnings, now. Cough up, or you’re in for a slap.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” the minstrel says. “Hragnoth would tear a strip off your arse.”

  “Think Hragnoth is bothered what happens to you? He’s waiting for you to die so he can inherit your glass eye. Could make a copper out of it, could your boy. Coin’s all he’s interested in.”

  Sagging in defeat, Oleth says, “All right, I’ll nick you a keg, but only if we play again and you beat me. But if I win, it won’t be quits: you’ll give me back what I lost.”

  “Sounds fair.” The seafarer strides down the alley behind the Mermaid Inn. A black-backed gull, perched on a broken ale barrel, watches him pick up the dice, then on turning, drop them into the right pocket of his heavy coat. Back at the throwing line, he cups another pair of dice in his hands, and blows to summon luck. He throws … “Bugger.”

  Oleth peers down the alley. “Snake and Skull? Looks like Lady Fortune loves me again.” Laughing, the minstrel, made bent by a life on the road, totters down the alley.

  “I ain’t got all day,” Larko says, pushing past the doddering man. Feigning frustration, he says, “I’ll get the bloody dice. Get back to the line, you old git.”

  “Now, now, Larko. No need to be ill tempered. I could lose, still.” Ecstatic, knowing the odds of losing to be thirty-six to one against, Oleth rubs his hands.

  “Here.” Larko gives Oleth the rigged dice.

  “Thanking you kindly,” the old gambler says. Then, “Come on my beauties; give an old minstrel something to sing about.”

  The dice clatter. Oleth’s spirits plummet. Staring in disbelief, he watches the sailor collect the dice and slip them into his right pocket. He calculates the odds of how the game has played out. As Larko returns, the savvy gambler says, “I thought Lady Fortune had given me a good kick in the ghoulies when I’d rolled Dead Man’s Dice thrice. But rolling Dead Man’s Dice twice in a row tells me one of two things….”

  “Get the key to the cellar,” Larko says, ignoring the minstrel. “Do it now, while your boy’s out collecting. Like you say, the Angel’s Embrace is in dock, and I’m having me a night of whores and snakebite grog.”

  Oleth continues, “… Either, Lady Fortune cut off my cock after kicking me in the ghoulies, or you’re cheating.”

  Iron eyes level on the minstrel. “Accusing me of cheating?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Smug, Larko reaches into his left pocket and withdraws two ivory dice. Offering them to the old gambler, he says, “Go on, have a good look.”

  The old man slaps the offered hand, sending the dice into rubbish stacked against the Mermaid Inn. “Not them dice; the one’s I just watched you put in your other pocket.”

  Iron eyes fix on the old gambler. Larko says, “Trying to get out of nicking me my snakebite? I ain’t got the patience: I’m feeling the need for a lust rush. Now, go get me my grog.”

  “Desperate for your fix, venom head? Is that why you’ve got dice as crooked as your teeth still in your pocket?”

  Larko glowers. “I ain’t no cheat.”

  Stepping close, Oleth stares into a face like rough rock carved by hate. “Odds are, you bought them dice from Blind Fox, and were stupid enough to use them around here. Me and her go way back. Shall I ask her whether she ever sold you dice? Or should I dip into your pocket?”

  Larko’s eyes widen as the minstrel lifts his palm. Looking at two skulls, then the pickpocket’s steady hand, he says, “You ain’t got the tremors?”

  “I’m an old dodger, you venom head. Tremors keep the mark off guard. Just part of the show.” Beaming a toothless grin, the old man says, “Now you cough up, Larko. Give me what I lost, and what I would have likely won, to keep me quiet. Hragnoth doesn’t have to know.”

  “I needs coin for a bottle of snakebite. Here, have the money back you lost. Call it even for you playing with what you ain’t got.”


  “What sort of punishment is that? Hragnoth can’t abide cheats; we know what happens to those caught cheating in his dens? They don’t die quick with Old Snappy. So, what’s going to happen is you’ll hand it all over. If I finds you supping the snakebite tonight, or hear about a whore beaten on the Angel’s Embrace, I’ll know you kept some back. Then, I’ll whisper in Hragnoth’s ear that—”

  Calloused knuckles strike. The loaded dice sail. As they clatter into the alley’s shadows, Larko growls, “You’ll say nothing to the boss.”

  Oleth, staggered, wipes bloodied lips with the cuff of his jumper and gives a toothless smile. “Got no more teeth to knock out, ’cause they’ve been knocked out by better men than you.” Straightening, he faces off the bigger man, and spits, “Think you can get away with that? Got pox on the brain? Or is it the snakebite grog you’re hooked on? I’d put odds on the pox, me self. Knew your mother. Whored while you grew big in her belly.”

  Dropping low, the sailor drives up his fist, breaking ribs. He hears a gasp, feels Oleth lift from the ground, then bloodies his boots.

  III

  Larko heaves on an oar. The ship’s first mate, Whimsy, rows on the other oar. Together, they transport the huddled children from the Gentle Maiden to the shore.

  Larko stares at a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes—the way the Uztalexians like them. Her hands clasped, gaze fixed on the gibbous moon, she prays as the other children tremble. Sometimes those fearful blue eyes dart his way, and in them he sees a woman no longer innocent.

  The sailors drag the lifeboat ashore as shadows with cunning eyes descend nearby dunes. The seafarer waits as Whimsy greets the Uztalexians in their native tongue, then laughs heartily—has one made a joke?

  Taking out a pipe and tobacco pouch, Larko watches Whimsy line the children along the shore. One boy cries when ordered to remove his clothes. On feeling the back of Whimsy’s hand, the boy’s wailing ceases, and he and the other children undress. With the bulbous barrel stuffed with tobacco, Larko lights it, relaxes back against the lifeboat, and enjoys the blackies testing their goods.

  An argument. Drawn on deeply, the pipe’s tobacco paints crooked teeth cherry, as Larko places a hand on his belt knife. A blacky gibbers while pointing to the blonde girl. Checked, found wanting, the broken virgin’s price plummets and Whimsy, angry, grabs the girl by her hair and lifts her off the sand. She points towards Larko. Whimsy scowls.

  Later, after the sale, Whimsy says nothing. Instead, he points at the pallet exchanged for the children. On lifting its canvas, Larko uncovers kegs marked with a coiled snake. Gripping his pipe’s stem between decaying teeth, he takes a puff and lifts the first cask of snakebite grog.

  After loading the final keg into the lifeboat, Larko packs fresh tobacco into his pipe’s barrel, and looks to the children, roped in a line, snaking their way between hills of sand. Lighting the pipe, he draws in smoke, and watches them fade into moon shadow. As the last, his blonde goodnight kiss, disappears, the seafarer grins.

  The sailors push the boat out and row it towards the Gentle Maiden, a three-mast ship floating peaceably on the ocean. Once manning the oars, Whimsy glances to the cargo and Larko understands. They talk: his old mate won’t squeal to the ship’s captain, or its owner, Hragnoth, about the spoiled goods. They’ll swipe a cask or two of the beer and rum, laced with venom harvested from naga priestesses. Some they will sell to buy whores; the rest, drink.

  IV

  Larko enters an artist’s studio. The brute guarding the door shuts it, quieting the cries of drunken sailors and dancing women. “You want to see me, Hragnoth?”

  “Yes, I do. Come here.”

  Portraits painted in oils, at various stages of completion, watch the seafarer approach their creator, who, dressed in a white smock, holds a brush and palette. The dusky subject of Hragnoth’s current work stands naked before a window, and holds a white feather. Larko does not stare at the feather.

  “You like her, Larko?”

  Larko glances from the ebony-skinned woman to scars that arc from each corner of Hragnoth’s mouth, below chiselled cheekbones and eyes of pale-blue malice, to lobe-clipped ears. Unnerved by the jester’s smile, he asks, “Why the feather?”

  “To tickle the buyer’s fancy, of course.” The artist explains, “The feather must be white, the colour of innocence, purity. It represents the first gentle caress. By drawing out the innocent beneath the tits, I drive up the price.”

  “And it works?”

  “Yes, and leads to repeat business. I present the winner with not only the girl, but her portrait. No doubt hung in private chambers, it serves to remind them of what they paid so highly for.”

  Lanky, ivory-painted lips, and eyes like black opals, the artist’s model seems oblivious of Larko as he gawps at the two tattooed serpents coiling around her breasts. From forked tongues wrapped around swollen nipples, his gaze follows scaled bodies inked in scarlet, to where two tails converge at shaven pubes.

  “If you tear your eyes away and pour us a drink, I’ll fill you in on the job the naga want doing in exchange for her.”

  The artist removes his smock as the seafarer crosses creaky floorboards towards a table covered with a tatty linen sheet, blotched with paint. On it stand two crystal goblets, a matching decanter, and an array of stained pots holding brushes. Nearby, a grey face, weathered and made weary by a life on the road, watches with unfinished eyes.

  “Been two moons since he’s been gone, and I can’t seem to paint his eyes,” the artist says. “Knew my dad all my life, but I can’t remember how his eyes looked. You can’t capture the subject’s soul without their eyes.”

  Hragnoth knows he’s the killer: why else drag him up here, and have Oleth’s portrait waiting for him? Larko judges the weight of the decanter, gauges its use as a weapon, while pouring wine into each goblet.

  Joining Larko, the artist looks at his work. “Never thought I would miss my old man. Thought I’d be glad when the old hanger-on was dead. Funny feeling, grief; been forgetting to collect on debts owed, and that ain’t like me.”

  Larko downs his drink. The wine burns, then surges through him. Head spinning, he tries to work out how to escape Hragnoth’s trap.

  “Anyway.” Hragnoth turns to Larko. “The job’s simple. I want you to nick something worth a fair bit of coin, and more importantly, favour from the naga….”

  The woman holding a feather distracts. There seem too many prominent ribs along her sinuous torso.

  “… Seems our very own Lord Longford did himself a bit of plundering. After the war, he brought back a fair few jewels from Uztalexian temples. The naga want two back—the Eyes of Babalon….”

  Larko half-hears what Hragnoth says, his senses drenched by a sudden downpour of lasciviousness. Thirstily he sups the layered, corpulent wine, qualities he imagines the virgin’s juices to possess. Libidinous daydreams rampage.

  “… Longford is celebrating his daughter’s birthday with a fancy dress ball. The king himself attends. Longford wishes to show off Lady Natasha as a virgin beauty ripe for a profitable union with, rumour has it, the House of Belton. He will present her wearing a loop of sapphires and rubies, from which hangs a diamond flanked by two emeralds—the Eyes of Babalon. Though the naga want only the emeralds, you’ll swipe the lot….”

  Larko inhales, tastes something buried in the depths of the wine, as familiar as the angry lust rising within. Prying his eyes from the woman, he tries to focus on his host.

  “… Among the guests is Lord Khambra. When he falls ill en route to the ball, you’ll take his place, and gain entry with an invitation I have personally faked. You are Khambra’s size and weight, and as it’s a fancy dress ball, no one will recognise …”

  Larko identifies the subtle, yet normally austere flavour marring the wine’s elegance—naga venom. His suspicions of the crime lord’s true intent reignites. Hragnoth knows he killed his father. Why the game?

  “… other guests wait for the birt
hday girl in the grand hall, you should enjoy the rose garden. Lovely place, with a bench and statue of Sol, I hear. Natasha’s balcony overlooks it. If a rose rests on her balcony, climb into her room, swipe the jewels, and walk out the main gate. Your carriage will be waiting, my lord, to take you and the necklace to a boat.” Jester’s smile rising, Hragnoth adds, “We’ll set sail on the Gentle Maiden, and deliver the Eyes of Babalon to the naga, personally. Lot of fun to be had in their temples, I hear. You might find yourself worshipping for a very long time.”

  Larko glances to the door, then the window near the statuesque Uztalexian holding a feather. His thoughts reach for his knife as he says, “How long have you known?”

  “Clever boy.” Hragnoth’s eyes narrow. Dropping the façade, he says, “Thought my subtleties would be lost on a sailor from the streets. But you had to be clever to sneak grog off my ship.”

  Hragnoth doesn’t know. This is about the grog, and only the grog. But he’s still in for it, Larko knows. He readies himself to fight.

  “I am impressed, very impressed with you, Larko. A man that can fool Captain Sig is somebody who could pull off this burglary.”

  “Obviously, I’m in, to pay you back for the grog I nicked,” Larko says, playing along. “But how did you find out?”

  “Whimsy. If he hadn’t been stupid enough to sell my snakebite grog on my streets, you two would still be in business.”

  “Yeah, Whimsy was about as sharp as my arse. Suppose you fed him to Old Snappy?”

  A twitch of Hragnoth’s rising smile affirms, as Oleth watches with unfinished eyes his son chink glasses with his killer.

  V

  Larko steps from a plush carriage drawn by two white horses. Looking back, he watches Hragnoth close a door emblazoned with a bear and eagle, Lord Khambra’s heraldic crest. The rhythm of hooves on cobblestones mixes with the cacophony of gulls as the carriage draws away along High Cliff Road, where it will await his return.