Ascension Part 2: Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies, #5

By Chris Seabranch

The fifth book in the Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies fantasy series.

An attempt to save the women from the Library in the Forest suddenly becomes unimportant when an unfortunate death forces Buckeye to once more sail west to Midway in search of her heritage. Meanwhile, the Paguans seek revenge for the death of Lord Obrin and will stop at nothing to bring down the Twenty-One Butterflies, including starting a war. Everything quickly turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse with both Stevens and the Paguans being the cats and the Butterflies being twenty-one mice

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Seabranch
• Release date: Aug 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536544992

Book preview

Chapter I

Peacock's was the name of a tavern located dangerously close to the western edge of God's Mercy. Half of it actually leaned over the edge of the floating city in the sky, but twelve wooden beams set at an angle between the floor of the building and the side of the rock kept it in place - at least for now. Despite looking like an unstable deathtrap, Peacock's was one of the most popular taverns in the God's Mercy. Almost all of the city's taverns and brothels were located on Sunset Street in the eastern part of the city, but this little tavern in the western part of the city - and especially its owner - attracted a large local clientele.

Peacock had come to God's Mercy after she left the Twenty-One Butterflies the year earlier. She’d grown up in the city and when she left the Twenty-One Butterflies, she gravitated back to the place that she loved despite it being both decadent and vulgar. It felt like home. God's Mercy was far from a place to everyone's liking, but Peacock thrived among the prostitutes, drunks, men of questionable morals, and criminals. The smell of human waste and vomit filled the air and reminded the young woman of when she was a girl and had learned the ways of the streets. She was proud of who she had been and who she had become, and she could not imagine herself living anywhere else. After returning to her childhood city, she opened up Peacock's, and already within the first week, people started to cram the place every night.

Peacock's was especially popular with the locals. They knew Peacock and her reputation, and the former pirate's tavern was a calm place were fights among the customers only rarely broke out. No one dared to start a brawl, and if someone was foolish enough to do so, Peacock 'reminded' the person why he or she should not have done so. She was perhaps no longer a pirate, but she was just as fierce as ever, and even a raised voice from her made people rethink what they were doing before they threw the first punch. Since Peacock's was a lonely, calm tavern in a place where most taverns sported daily brawls, the peace-loving citizens in God's Mercy always came there as they knew that they could have their beer and rum in relative safety and return unharmed to their wives.

'What can I get you, Martin?' Peacock asked.

The twenty-two year old woman smiled as she always did. She had her sleeves rolled up and her blond hair gathered in a knot at the back of her head with a few locks escaping from the bundle of hair. She still wore the same clothes she did when she had been a pirate, brown leather pants, brown leather vest, and a buttoned down white shirt that made her well-formed cleavage clearly visible. Having her clients thinking of sex rather than fighting helped her keep the tavern intact.

'Two beers please,' a short, broad-shouldered man with thin, grey hair and red, round cheeks said.

The man was the local butcher, and every day, he came to Peacock's for a beer before he went home to his wife. On this day, he had brought his apprentice as well. It was Friday, and it had been a good week in the butcher's shop. Martin wanted to show his appreciation to the apprentice who had worked with him for three years and was well on the way to becoming a skilled butcher, ready to open up his own shop if he wanted to. Secretly, Martin hoped that the apprentice would stay with him for a few more years and take over his shop instead when it was time for himself to retire.

Peacock filled two mugs with beer from a keg and put them on the bar in front of the older man and the boy who was no more than seventeen years old.

'Here you go, sweetheart,' she smiled. She winked at the apprentice and held his gaze long enough for the young man's face to turn red and force him to look down.

'Thank you, Peacock,' Martin said. He paid for the beers, and he and the apprentice sat down at a table in the corner. It was the only table not already occupied, which was unusual for every other tavern this early in the day.

Peacock's was a small tavern, but it was very cozy also. It could fit about forty people around ten small, round tables. Peacock had built all of the tables, chairs, and benches from driftwood, and she had decorated the walls with sailing memorabilia and paintings of landscapes, which she had bought at the local market. The ceiling was low set, and large windows opened up to the west, meaning that one could drink a beer and admire a spectacular and unhindered view of the sea below and as far as the eyes could see to the west. Because of the large windows, the tavern was not as dark as other taverns could be and hence, it did not attract that many of the city's shadier personalities like mercenaries, thieves, or men looking for female entertainment. A few prostitutes came by Peacock's every now and then, and Peacock allowed them there as long as they were not too young. The girls also had to make a living, and it was better for them to pick up a customer in her place than at one of the hangouts for criminals. At least that gave them some assurance of the men paying for their services.

Peacock rested her elbows on the bar and gazed out the window. She had always wanted to own a tavern. Her mother had been a prostitute, and her most cherished dream had been to one day open an establishment of her own and be free of taking customers to bed every day. Her dreams had carried over to Peacock, and as soon as she left the Twenty-One Butterflies, she acquired the tavern that now had her name on a sign at the door. Peacock loved being a Taverner. She loved her customers, the low buzz of people talking, the smell of beer and rum, the occasional lovers finding each other in the corner of her establishment, and the conversations with the odd merchant who came to God's Mercy from faraway places. However, she missed her old life too. She missed the sea, the adventures, and even the fighting. Most of all, she missed her sisters. Being a Taverner was not all she had hoped it would be. She loved it, but it was an endless succession of identical days. She woke up, worked, and went to bed. That was it. Whenever a merchant visited the tavern, she would give him free beers if he had any new stories to tell her about the Twenty-One Butterflies. In this way, she could follow her friends’ adventures while the longing to be with them welled up inside her. The last things she had heard was that they had left Gallows Sound sailing due west. No one knew where the girls had gone, but that had left more than a month ago. No one had seen them since.

Peacock breathed in deeply. Her tavern had a perfect view of the sunset, which was why she had bought the old house in the first place. A bright orange sun dipped into the sea and reflected on its surface, making it look like a moving golden blanket rested on the top of the deep blue water. She could see strange ships sailing in from the west. It was a convoy of twenty heavy vessels, which cast long shadows across the sea. Peacock did not think further about the ships. Strange ships came to Gallows Sound from the west every day. Sometimes, they stopped there, but other times, they just passed through the area, going further east to the Old World.

'Excuse me, Madam. Can we have two more beers, please?'

The apprentice was back at the bar with the two empty mugs. He held a small coin in his trembling hand and tried desperately not to look at Peacock's breasts, but he struggled under her gaze as well. His face was already turning red again from embarrassment, and he looked as if he might turn on his heels and run out the door.

Peacock smiled at the young boy. He was muscular for his age and had long, dark hair, a well-defined chin, and big brown eyes. The young girls in God's Mercy would definitely turn their heads when he walked by, she thought. Had he been five years older, she would have asked him to stay with her after she closed the bar, but at seventeen, he was too young.

So young and innocent, she thought and leaned over the bar and kissed the young boy on the cheek.

'This round is on me. Just don't call me Madam,' she whispered in his ear and kissed him again, this time resting her lips on his cheek for a little longer. She filled the two mugs with beer and handed them to the apprentice.

'Thank you Mad... I mean thanks you Miss.'

'Thank you will be enough,' Peacock said.

'Sorry. Thank you,' the apprentice said and walked back to his table. He glanced over his shoulder on his way, and Peacock winked at him, almost making him fall over a chair because he forgot to look where he was going.

Peacock giggled. She still had a large appetite for the other sex and considered finding someone with whom to spend the night after she closed for the night. Young sailors came into the city all the time, and not knowing her reputation as a pirate, she could easily lure one of them into her bed. She needed to feel alive and desired, and months had passed since last she had been with someone. The daily routines did not excite her as much as the pirate life had done. Living under the constant threat of death, she had always lived only for each day and never postponed anything. Life was different now. Even if she was happy and content, she felt less alive.

The door to the tavern flapped opened and two red-uniformed soldiers ducked under the doorframe. They scoured the room and looked as if they searched for someone.

'We don't serve soldiers here. Try Sunset Street,' Peacock told them as nicely as she could. She would not have the Governor's men in her tavern, and she would definitely not sell them anything either.

'Shut up woman,' one of the red uniforms snarled. His voice was slurred from drinking and his nose was red

Governor Stevens had two kinds of soldiers, though officially, there was only one. However, everyone knew that in reality, there were two. The first kind was from when LeFevre had been Admiral. Those soldiers were mostly disciplined men who wore ironed uniforms with shiny buttons and kept a posture with their shoulders back and their chins high in the air. The other kind of soldiers had joined the Governor's army within the last year. Most of them resembled mercenaries or criminals rather than men of honor. Their clothes were often dirty and wrinkled, and the men were often drunk on duty. The two red uniforms who had just entered the bar belonged to the latter type of soldier.

Peacock wondered if she should just kick them out right away, but she decided to wait and see what they wanted. Maybe they would leave on their own. They often did when they did not find what they were looking for. She would prefer not to start a fight in her own tavern. She liked the reputation of it being a peaceful place and did not want the soldiers to come back with more of their friends. Still, she reached under the bar and grabbed two short knives, sliding them under her belt.

The two soldiers walked around among the customers, bumping into them and spilling their beer. It looked like they were spoiling for a fight. Everyone was silent, not wanting to bring the attention of the soldiers upon themselves.

'What are you looking at?' one of the soldiers told a skinny man with glasses who looked like a banker or a lawyer.

The skinny man did not answer him, but lowered his head, staring into the table and letting the soldier take his beer. The soldier took a large gulp of the mug and threw it back to the man, spilling the remaining beer into his lap and on the piece of paper on which he was writing.

'Whoops. Sorry,' he grinned.

Meanwhile, the other soldier walked over to the butcher and the apprentice.

'What are you looking at old man? Keep your eyes to yourself,' he threatened.

However, the butcher would not be intimidated and kept looking into the soldier's eyes. He was too old to let two criminals in red uniforms tell him what he could and could not do.

'I said keep your eyes to yourself,' the soldier sneered and slapped the butcher across the cheek with the palm of his hand, leaving red marks from the chin to the ear.

The butcher’s head snapped sideways from the blow, but he turned to face the soldier again, ready to receive another slap if necessary.

The soldier raised his arm again and smiled content. This time he fisted his hand.

'Leave him alone,' the apprentice, who had been sitting still until then, shouted and got on his feet to help the old butcher.

However, as he got up from the bench his was sitting on, the other soldier was upon him right away and punched him hard in the stomach, expelling all the air from his lungs and sending him to the floor unable to breathe. The apprentice curled up and gasped for air. It was not what he had intended to happen but at least, he moved the soldier's attention away from the butcher and on to himself.

'Look at this boy. He looks like a small pup, thinking he is a big dog. Look at him,' one of the soldiers laughed. 'Maybe he wants to lick my boots. You want to lick my boot, pup?'

The soldier stepped onto the apprentice’s head with the heel of his dirty, black boot while the other soldier held the butcher back by pointing the tip of his bayonet at him. Around them, the rest of the customers cleared the tavern and ran out the door, wanting to escape the inevitable violence.

'Lick it, pup,' the soldiers shouted and pushed the tip of his dirty boot into the apprentice’s mouth.

The young boy cried and tried to get away from the tip of the boot, but the soldier stepped even harder on his head, holding him in a vice-like grip between his boot and the floor.

'I will crush your skull, if you don't start licking,' he commanded and leaned even harder on the young boy's head.

'Leave him alone,' the butcher pleaded, seeing in how much pain the young boy was.

'Shut up, pops! My boots are dirty and need cleaning. Either he will do it or else you will.'

The soldier pulled on the butcher's collar and pushed him down on his knees. He grabbed him by the neck and forced his head down toward the boot.

'I'll do it. I will do it if you just leave him alone,' the butcher said and moved his head closer to the soldier's boot.

The two soldiers smiled to each other.

'That's better,' the one standing on the apprentice's head said. 'And when my boots are shiny, you will lick clean my friends boot as well. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' the butcher said, and the soldier lifted his foot off the apprentice’s head.

The apprentice cried, and the soldiers lifted him up and pushed him back onto the bench he sat on before.

'Now, lick them, old man,' one of them shouted.

They were his last words. A second after he had shouted at the old man on the floor, Peacock's knee hit him hard in the back and sent him forward through one of the large windows in the back of the tavern. The window shattered, and the soldier continued through it. Desperately, he grabbed for anything to hold on to, and his hands caught the window frame, leaving him dangling precariously over the three-hundred feet drop to the sea below.

'Help me Carl, I'm falling,' he cried. His voice was no longer slurry and deep, but light and scared.

The other soldier jumped across the table and got a hold of his friend's hands. He pulled him in at the same time as Peacock helped the butcher to his feet and the apprentice out of the way.

'Run!' she said and pushed the two men in the direction of the front door.

'What about you?' the butcher asked, but Peacock smiled at him.

'Don't worry about me. I'll be just fine,' she assured him and turned to the two soldiers who were now both back inside the tavern. They had picked up their rifles from the floor and were about to cock them.

The Butcher and the apprentice did not wait for Peacock to repeat her instructions. At the sight of the soldiers, cocking their rifles, they ran for the door and disappeared outside, slamming it behind them. Peacock did not wait for the soldiers to fire at her either. She took five quick steps, jumped across the bar, and landed on the floor behind it. She hit the floor and flattened herself on it, and as she did, two bullets penetrated the wooden bar, making two holes in it right above her head.

'That stupid cow,' one of the soldiers cursed. 'I cut my hand. Did we get her?'

'I don’t know. You go have a look,' the other soldier answered him.

The men hesitated, and Peacock could hear their boots slowly approach. She flipped the two knives in her hands and grabbed the blades, ready to throw them at the soldiers as soon as she could see them appear above or around the sides of the bar. As she held her breath, she could hear the men whisper.

'You go that way,' one of them said.

Peacock put her head to the side of the bar. She tightened her grip on the daggers, and as she crouched, the tip of a bayonet came through the wood where her head had just been. The blade grazed her shoulder and ripped her shirt, and she jumped to her feet just in time to get out of the way of the soldier's second thrust of the bayonet through the wood.

'Got you,' the other soldiers shouted, and before Peacock could duck, he hit her across the head with the butt of his rifle.

The hit was hard, and Peacock's vision became blurred. She staggered, and the soldier named Carl pushed her hard into a corner behind the bar where she pulled down a shelf filled with bottles that came crashing to the floor. The other soldier jumped over the bar and joined them, pointing his rifle at the young Taverner. His hands still dripped with blood from crashing through the window, and he narrowed his bloodshot eyes, looking for revenge. 

Peacock tried to blink to regain her focus so she could defend herself, but she kept seeing four or eight soldiers instead of just two. She held the two knives in her hands to keep the two men at a distance, but the soldiers struck them with their rifles and forced her to drop them. The soldier with the bloody hands picked one of the knives up.

'Let's cut up that pretty face,' he threatened. 'Hold her, Carl.'

Before Peacock could react, the other man grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. He pulled it up hard, and Peacock screamed in pain. It felt as if the man was going to break the arm if he lifted it just a little further up on her back.

'This will teach you a lesson, bitch,' the soldier with the knife said. He grabbed Peacock by the throat and moved the knife closer. The shiny metal reflected the light coming through the windows in the back of the tavern.

Peacock blinked again, and this time, she could finally see the two soldiers. She could also see the incoming knife and tried to pull her head back from it. However, the soldier held her tight by the throat, and when she realized that she could not pull away, she lifted her knee hard instead, and buried it right between the soldier's legs. The soldier squealed and instantly dropped on the floor in front of her, squirming in pain.

'That is enough!' the still standing soldier shouted, and forced Peacock away from the corner, leaning her over the bar instead still with her arm behind her back. He grabbed a bottle and slammed it into the bar, shattering it and leaving him with a jagged weapon in his hand.

'Cut her, Carl. Cut her up,' the other man hissed, still writhing in pain on the floor.

'I will cut her up alright,' Carl answered without taking his eyes away from the girl on the bar.

Peacock stared frightened at the sharp glass coming closer to her face, but just as the tip of it touched her cheek, a sudden loud bang made the soldier stop. Both the soldier with the broken flask in his hand, Peacock, and the man on the floor froze and looked out the broken window in the back of the tavern. The twenty strange-looking ships that Peacock had noticed earlier in the evening had come closer. They lay up in the sea in a half-circle three quarters of a mile from God's Mercy with black smoke rising from cannons on the decks. A hail of cannonballs flew through the air in the direction of the floating city in the sky. They were under attack.

'What the...' the soldier holding Peacock exclaimed. He stared at the incoming cannonballs and forgot all about punishing the young girl he had forced down on the bar.

In the confusion, Peacock saw her chance to get away. She wrestled her arm out of the man's grip and pushed him hard in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards, falling over his friend. She glanced out the window one more time before she dashed for the main door, and just before she reached it, the first projectiles hit the city. Cannonballs crashed down all along the western part of God's Mercy and shattered stone and wood. Peacock felt and heard her tavern creek and complain as several of the twelve thick beams, which kept it from falling into the sea, started to break under the relentless onslaught. She opened the door, but as she did, the floor under her gave way. The tavern slowly started to tilt over the edge of the floating rock, and she lost her balance, grabbing on to the door handle to keep from falling.

'Carl, help me!' one of the soldiers screamed behind her, and Peacock looked back just as the man slid across the precariously angled floor to the back of the tavern, crashing into the wall between two windows. Through them, she could no longer see the horizon. The tavern tilted so much that she could only see the sea below God's Mercy. A table crashed through the tavern and went past the soldier, disappearing out the window on its way to the sea three-hundred feet below.

'Help me, Carl!' the soldier begged again.

However, his friend could not help him. He desperately held on to the bar, but his fingers slipped, and he fell through the room between chairs, benches, tables, flasks, and pitchers. Both furniture and man fell through the window that was already broken and disappeared out of view.

'Carl!' the soldier yelled when his friend passed by him. The falling man screamed for a couple of seconds. Then he hit the water and became silent.

'Carl, No!'

The man started to cry, both for the loss of his friend, but also because he knew he would very soon share his fate.

In the other end of the tavern, Peacock dangled from the door handle, and her hands started to slip on the polished brass. She feverishly reached for the doorframe for something to hold on to and to be able to pull herself out. To her sides, the walls of the tavern began to come apart, and the last soldier screamed like a hysterical child below her. Just when Peacock thought she could no longer hold on to the door handle, a pair of strong hands suddenly reached through the door and grabbed her wrists. They held on to her tightly as the tavern finally came loose from the floating rock and dropped into the sea below. When her tavern fell and fell apart around her with thunderous noise, Peacock closed her eyes. Large wooden beams snapped under the stress and filled the air with projectile-like splinters. Then everything became silent, and when she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the doomed building, but hanging from someone's hands off the side of God's Mercy itself. She could still hear the last soldier scream, but then the building hit the water and shattered into thousands of pieces. The man stopped screaming, and Peacock's was gone.

Peacock held on tight to the hands that had saved her. She first looked around in disbelief that her taverns was gone, and then she looked up at the man who had saved her, gazing into the brown eyes of the butcher's apprentice. He smiled at her, but struggled to hold on to her hands. However, he held his grip, and soon after, his lifted her out of danger and up onto the floating rock.

'Thank you,' Peacock smiled when she reached safety and gave the young man a wet kiss, leaving him in a state of both confusion and blissful happiness. 'Now, let's get out of here, before we get fired at again.'

She looked around. The city was in chaos, and terrified people dashed about randomly, screaming in fear. Along the entire western edge of God's Mercy, houses had fallen into the sea, and people lay dead in the streets, crushed by cannonballs or toppled walls. The city was under attack, and she had no idea why.

Chapter II

Peacock ran as fast as she could through the narrow streets of God's Mercy. To the west, the strange ships fired again, and seconds later, another shower of cannonballs pummeled the entire western side of the city. Peacock ducked. A cannonball crashed through the roof of a house to her right and sent splinters of wood in every direction. She covered her eyes with her hands as she ran through them, feeling the splinters nick the skin on her arms. Even before the wooden projectiles hit the ground, the cannonball inside the house smashed into the floor, changed direction, and came out the side of the house, shattering its façade. It flew across the street in front of Peacock, narrowly missing her and only coming to a stop when it hit the wall on the other side. It rolled a few feet and came to a halt. To Peacock's left, a young merchant in his twenties smiled relieved to her that the cannonball had not hit either of them.

'Close, huh?' he said, trying to sound cheerful.

However, the young merchant celebrated too soon. Another cannonball hit him in the back between the shoulder blades and threw him forward. He was dead, even before his brain registered what had happened to him. Peacock closed her eyes and stepped over his mangled body, which was sprawled across the street. He lay on his stomach with the head forced back and resting between the shoulder blades. His eyes were still open and staring at the sky above, and he still had a smile of relief on his lips.

The further west, Peacock ran, the fewer cannonballs fell around her. When she reached Balance Square in the middle of the city, all the cannonballs fell behind her, and she could finally stop running and turn around to see what was going on. Hundreds of people had gathered in the square and stared at the destruction to the west. Houses were burning or in ruins and more people came running toward the square. Some made it while others fell victims to the iron balls of destruction. The people shouted warnings when they saw volleys of cannonballs appear from below the edge of the city. The projectiles rose higher in the air, reached their maximum altitude, and rained down on the fleeing people, hitting them and crushing their bones on impact. A woman in a common brown dress sat on her knees beside her dead husband. A cannonball had hit him in the back of the head and removed a large part of his skull, and the woman did not know where to put her hands on him. She cried and screamed, but the next