Red Skull

Koldo pushed open the tavern door, and a stench of cheap alcohol, sweat, and damp, moldy wood hit him in the face. He did not even frown. After seven years of breathing it, he could no longer smell it.

The Red Skull Tavern stood at the intersection of two alleys west of the docks. Its storefront was small, with a crooked red skull painted on the sign. The paint had been weathered into patches by the sea wind, and a piece of the skull's jaw was missing, making it look like it was grinning.

The tavern was even older inside than it looked from outside. The wooden floor had been worn into dips by countless feet, creaking whenever anyone stepped on it.

Several faded wanted posters hung on the walls. Their paper had yellowed and curled at the edges, and the faces on them had blurred beyond recognition.

Koldo went around the bar and crossed the main hall.

A few tables were scattered around the hall. Dockworkers huddled together over the cheapest ale, while two men who looked like shipowners spoke in low voices. In the corner, a hat-wearing man lay facedown on a table, either asleep or dead drunk. No one looked up at Koldo.

Koldo had been at Orange Town's docks for seven years. His face, like the smell of alcohol here, had become part of the background.

He walked to the deepest part of the tavern, where an old canvas sheet had been used to partition off a small room.

The canvas had once been off-white, but smoke had turned it a dingy yellow-gray, and several holes had been burned through its edges. He lifted it and slipped inside.

Several people were seated in the partitioned room.

A large man sat in the middle, his back against the wall and his legs propped up on the table.

He wore a dark, coarse-cloth vest. A sea serpent coiled around an anchor was tattooed on his left arm, its head at his shoulder and its tail stretching all the way to his wrist.

A broad-bladed dagger lay on the table, its edge nicked with grooves of varying depths.

Two people sat on either side of the large man.

On the left was a tall, thin man with prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes. He held a dagger, running its tip back and forth along an old scratch in the tabletop.

On the right was a bald man whose neck was thicker than his head. His hands were folded over his belly, his knuckles covered in old scars.

Beside the bald man sat a young-looking kid, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Fuzz had only just begun to grow above his lips, and a pistol hung at his waist, its grip wrapped in red cord.

Koldo sat down across from the large man.

The large man lowered his legs from the table and leaned forward slightly. The oil lamp on the table cast the sea-serpent tattoo on his left arm into shifting light and shadow.

"What's this? Got a big fish?"

Koldo pulled his hand from his pocket and placed it on the table. "Don't know if it's a big fish, but it's definitely one that's run aground."

"How so?"

"It docked this morning. A single-masted sailboat, so new it hurt the eyes. One look and you could tell it wasn't a ship used to running the docks. There were only four people aboard, all little brats."

The tall, thin man's dagger stopped moving across the table. "Four little brats?"

"That's right. And they have cargo you urgently need." Koldo grinned.

The large man leaned back in his chair, which creaked under his weight.

He tilted his head and gestured with his chin at the young kid.

The young kid turned around and took out a folded piece of white cloth. With a light shake, he unfolded it. It was clean and unpatterned, its edges cut square and neat.

Koldo took it and spread it over the table. He picked up a burned piece of charcoal from the large man's side of the table and lowered his head to draw. His wrist moved slowly, but steadily.

He had spent seven years at Orange Town's docks. Once he saw a flag, he never forgot it. That was his skill.

When he finished the last stroke, he set down the charcoal. A fan emblem lay quietly on the white cloth.

The following noon.

At the hottest hour of the day, the dockworkers had all stopped working and were dozing beneath the warehouse eaves. Sunlight turned the sea into a blinding expanse of white, too bright to look at.

On the ashwood ship, four people sat around on the deck. Their lunch was bread and oranges bought from the dock market.

"I found an agent." He chewed an orange as he spoke, his words muffled.

Mila paused while peeling her orange. "What?"

"I ran into him while I was walking around the warehouse district this morning. He approached me himself. Said he'd seen me wandering around there for half the day and asked if I was new. I said yes. He asked whether I was looking for goods, and I said yes. He said he'd been in Orange Town for years and knew every warehouse, shipowner, and cargo owner at the docks."

"And then?" Barlow asked quietly.

"Then he said that if we needed supplies and a warehouse, he could act as our full agent. We wouldn't need to show ourselves. He'd handle everything for us and only take twenty percent."

Mila put an orange segment into her mouth and chewed slowly. "Eighty percent chance it's a trap."

Barlow tore off a piece of bread. "One hundred percent."

Roy stopped chewing halfway through his orange. "...How do you know?"

"At Orange Town's docks, at least eighty, if not a hundred, unfamiliar ships dock every year. Every new ship gets watched. There are two kinds of people watching. The first are brokers who make a living on the docks. They introduce new ships to warehouses, cargo owners, and shipowners, taking a cut in the middle. They live on their reputation and do long-term business. The second kind specializes in butchering newcomers."

"What's the difference?"

"Brokers put up signs on the main dock street. They have fixed storefronts and regular clients. Ask anyone and they'll be able to tell you their names. The second kind has no storefront, no sign, and no name. They only appear when you've been wandering around for a long time without finding a way in."

Roy's orange froze completely before his mouth.

Barlow swallowed his softened bread. "How long had you been walking around the warehouse district before he appeared?"

"...More than an hour."

"When he appeared, were there other people nearby?"

Roy thought back. On the east side of the warehouse district, at the entrance to that narrow alley, he had indeed walked back and forth several times.

Stone warehouse walls stood on both sides of the alley. There were no storefronts, no signs, and no dockworkers coming or going.

He had thought it was a shortcut, but there had been nothing in that alley at all.

"No."

Barlow said nothing more.

Mila stuffed the last orange segment into her mouth and patted the juice from her hands. "When did he tell you to meet him?"

"At dusk, at the Red Skull Tavern."

Mila and Barlow exchanged a glance. It was brief. Barlow set down his bread and brushed the crumbs from his fingers.

"Go."

Mila stood as well, picked up the short knife from the deck, and slid it into her belt. "I'm going too."

Roy looked back and forth between them. "Wait, didn't you just say it was one hundred percent a trap?"

"It is a trap."

"Then why are we going?"

Barlow pulled a ledger from his coat, opened it to the page holding a sea chart, glanced at it, and closed it. "Precisely because it's a trap, we have to go."

He tucked the ledger back into his coat. "He's got his eye on us. If we don't go, he'll try another way. We can't avoid this. Rather than wait for him to use a method we don't know about, we'd better go where he'll show himself."

"And." Mila adjusted the short knife at her waist, positioning its hilt at the most convenient angle for her right hand.

"He thinks we're easy prey. We need to find out who really calls the shots at Orange Town's docks."

Damian sat by the railing, a short knife laid across his knees.

He picked up the whetstone and ran it over the blade once more, the sound of stone scraping steel fine and steady.

He looked at the three of them. Sunlight fell over his broad shoulders, illuminating the fresh cuts on his forearms with perfect clarity.

"At dusk, are three people enough for the tavern?"

"Enough," Barlow said.

Damian nodded once.

"Then go. I've got the ship."

At the docks, the afternoon sun had baked the stone road until it was scorching. Deep in the alley's shadows, the Red Skull Tavern's sign hung crookedly, its red skull grinning.