Children of Fury: Hellions Chapter 1. Latent Threat

Chapter 1. Threat

Tongs and hammers, wood and copper, iron and wood, the ship took shape in the backwater of the great bay, hidden by the local geography, the ship grew in its lethal shape.

Knife edged, a keel that reflected the inspired fin of the largest porpoise in the world’s oceans. The Blackfish grew in shape and lethal purpose. Conn O’Danu paced as he directed the Irish carpenters to follow the measurements and drawings to the bitter-end of each page. There would be no gaps, no errors. Conn used green, live oak for building the new ship, stout construction to the extreme.

This pleased Conn, this oak was a resilient wood and made for the tightest construction ever envisioned.

In the course of the construction, the men and women adults felt motivation to build a ship like never before, the motivation  came from Keegan, who reassembled the crew of children that had returned home. Their mission, the small ones had decided, return to the islands in the south and rescue their friends, mothers, fathers and all their families that remained.

The cruelty of the Empires of the world had taught them how to sail and fight.

Now they would return. The 

Copper and iron, Diarmuid the Dubh and Nial Gabham, the two talented blacksmiths of the village, who had made connections to other artisans of metals and the powers of Hephaestus, forged with imagination the plates of copper they attached to the hull of the ship, that remained hidden in the back-waters of the bay.

Ideas from the boy who brought the children home, copper scales nailed on the bottom of the ship’s hull. Copper nails held the dinner-plate sized copper ellipses in place. Brass and bronze nails driven in measured distances by carpenters and craftsmen who followed what Keegan O’Danu and Dana, who the O’Danu’s had adopted as one of their own, showed where to drive the metal spikes into the wood.

Under the shade of a tree nearby, children gathered by ones and twos as word spread.

Mothers with fear building in their hearts, tried to pull these children who gathered in the clearing. Children, those that had been lost and then returned, and who still carried a fire in them that frightened most adults.

Such anger, taught by the Empires of the sea and this New World that they colonized. For the treasures, a life was worth less than the sweat it took to pull a knife from a sheath.

Father’s pulled on children who turned and stared at the patriarchs in the eye.

Words of denial, spoken of in angered whispers.

These were children who had learned a mission. Their first mission was to come home.

A new call to arms, flames of deep anger sparkled in youthful eyes. Confidence, that only the young had, and a fury from the devil himself at those who raided their villages.

The followers of Cromwell, the devil of all the crimes against this group of children that despised the soldiers in red and the Rump Parliament who followed after Pride’s Purge. The efforts of a few had instilled such anger in a whole people.

And the growing Empire angered two groups of people so far.

The Great Scots of the Highlands and the whole of the Hibernian isle.

The Governor of the colony could not know of the return of a crew of children on a ship that was like no other.

In time, despair would settle over the hearts of Governors and Ministers alike in future days as rumors of the hell-ship, Blackfish, that sailed the waters of the West Indies came to their ears.

But we get ahead of ourselves…