Outside, the world went mad.
The battle raged for what felt like hours. I had never heard a man die in battle before, or at all for that matter, and I knew I would never get that sound out of my head. Those who caught fire were the loudest, and their shrieks made the skin crawl. I prayed it would be over for them soon, and it almost made me want to put them out of their misery. The princess cried for them as they wailed.
In the light of the swinging torch, I inspected the slivers in my right arm. It resembled a pin cushion and was bleeding pretty bad. I had been hit with a few in the upper thigh as well, but luckily I had covered my head when the explosion went off and avoided being blinded or killed.
The largest sliver was about three inches long and embedded at least an inch, it was going to bleed when I yanked it out.
Yeah, this was going to suck.
“Eva, I need your help.”
She quivered in the corner. “Snap out of it! If I don’t stop the bleeding, I’ll die and you’ll be all alone.”
Her glazed eyes turned toward me, and she blinked heavily. After a moment, she nodded.
“You’re a brave girl,” I told her as she crawled over to me.
“Are we going to die?” she asked solemnly.
“Not if I can help it. Help me get this shirt off—just rip it—I already started the tear.”
She ripped my shirt open and met my eyes, and we both sat there frozen for a moment. I could see the passion stirring in her, and for the moment, it warded off the fear. I had a primal urge to take her then and there, to wrap my arms around her, hold her, make love to her, and tell her everything was going to be okay as the world crashed down around us.
Another explosion rocked the ship, and seawater seeped into our cabin. It trickled in through the crack under the door and pooled in the corner behind Eva.
“That’s kind of lucky and not at the same time,” I said. “Can you grab the water pitcher and fill it up please?”
She hurried to find the pitcher, then filled it up in the corner. While she did that, I tore my T-shirt into strips with my teeth. Once I had a dozen thin bandages, I put them across my left thigh and settled the pitcher of water between my legs.
“If I pass out while I’m doing this, you need to stop the bleeding, okay?”
Eva bit her lip. “What can I do?”
“Soak one of those strips and get ready to apply pressure when I pull these little bastards out.”
I yanked the first sliver out of my forearm. It didn’t hurt too bad, but I hadn’t gotten to the big ones yet. Eva pressed the wet cloth against the wound and helped me bandage my arm as we worked up from the wrist. When I got to the deepest of them all, I prepared myself for pain and warned her to expect a lot of blood. I pulled it out slowly and to my surprise, it didn’t bleed—not at first, anyway. A few seconds later, blood poured down my arm.
“Apply pressure!”
Eva fell over and slumped against the wall.
Doughboy took her place. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but it took the pain away.
That didn’t make sense. I gently pushed him aside so I could see.
“What the fuck?” I whispered when I saw little wads of dough covering my wounds. I was a little grossed out when D pinched his belly, pulled off a skittle-sized piece of dough, and packed it into one of the cuts.
“The bleeding stopped,” I said with a laugh. “Did the goddess give you healing power or some shit?”
He shrugged and smiled wide.
After Doughboy finished, he wrapped the T-shirt strips around my arm and took a step back to check his work.
“Looks good, D.”
He offered me a thumbs-up.
Eva was still out, but her breathing was normal, so I figured I might as well let her sleep through as much as possible. I held her as the war waged and hummed the song “War” by Edwin Starr.
When the battle finally subsided, an eerie quiet shrouded us in quivering silence. I began to pull away from her, but she clung to me like a frightened child.
“We’ve got to find out what happened,” I told her softly. “If it was the orcs, we need to be ready to fight.”
“No!” she said and pulled me closer.
I had to pry her white-knuckled hands off me. “We’re alive, and I’m trying to keep it that way.”
“Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t. Get up.”
I pulled her to her feet and found my enchanted shovel near the door. A quick inspection revealed it was as good as new, and that gave me courage.
I forced her to look me in the eyes. “We’re going up on deck. We will do this slowly and quietly. If you see an orc, please don’t scream.”
“Jake,” she said, trembling. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. I was sent to you by a goddess to see you safely home. I’ve got a crazy wad of dough that can’t wait to try orc face, and I’ve got a weapon hungry for blood. Those green fucks should be scared.”
“Okay.”
I took her hand in mine. “Let’s go.”
We slowly crept down the hall, past the cannonball hole and up the stairs. The air was clearer up there, but smoke lingered, and I smelled blood, piss, and death. The main mast had gone up in flames and was still smoldering, and the sails had burned to ash long ago. Half-burned rigging created a charred web.
Eva quivered, and I squeezed her hand to offer some comfort.
“Easy now,” I whispered when I saw the first of the slain men.
He’d sustained a grizzly blow to the neck that left it twisted at an odd angle. Blood had pooled around him and mingled with a dark, oily slick of orc blood. It covered the deck and speckled the masts and sails.
I counted at least two dozen mangled human bodies and nearly as many orcs. They came in all sizes, ranged in color from green to brown, and some had black or gray stripes. Thier faces were more lizard-like than humanoid, with elliptical pupils and slits for noses and mouths that seemed too big for their faces.
I prayed the princess wouldn’t lose her shit when she saw the bloodbath and moved out onto the deck, peering left and right.
“Jake—”
“Bury it,” I told her sternly.
She bit her lip and nodded.
No one was moving on the poop deck or the quarter deck, and there was no sound below deck either. The orc ship’s sails rose high above both vessels, and I realized they were stuck together. Presumably everyone was dead. We climbed the stairs to the next deck, and I thought I saw movement near the captain’s quarters. I studied the dark, half-open door for a full minute, listening.
I heard voices inside, and they weren’t human.
Pulling Eva along with me, I crept stealthily to the gangplank on the starboard side. I had seen lifeboats on that side earlier, and ours had been hoisted up and secured there, as well. I motioned for her to stay down and glanced over the side. One lifeboat was missing and another was hanging by a single line, half of it gone.
“Shit!” I hissed and tried to see around the bulge of the boat for our rowboat.
I snuck along the gangplank with Eva in tow and checked farther along. I finally found our boat, but it was cracked in half and charred by dragon fire.
My search for a lifeboat had taken us to the front of the ship, much closer to the orcs. I hid behind mangled fishing tackle when three orcs appeared on the poop deck. They were looting corpses and killing off survivors who were injured, human and orc. I watched them mercilessly kill one of their own, who lay bloody on the deck.
Apparently, we were dealing with some sick bastards.
What they had done to the dragon by tacking him up there on the front of the ship had been a good indication, but the heartlessness with which they dispatched their comrades was unsettling.
I sized them up and didn’t like my odds. There were three of them, two short and fat and one tall and skinny. The two fat orcs carried hatchets, and the tall one had a spear with a hacksaw blade down both sides. Their a
rmor was minimal, but so was mine.
“I need a distraction, D.” I pointed at the orcs. Before I had a chance to tell him what I had in mind, he was gone.
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed under my breath. “Where did he go?”
She shrugged, and I wondered exactly what world she was on.
“Stay here and keep your head down. Don’t look at what I’m about to do. You might cry out and give me away.”
“Don’t leave me, Jake.”
“Eva, babe, I need a little of that bitchy princess I know and love right now, alright? Where is she? Can you get her for me?”
A scowl formed on her beautiful, dirty face.
“That’s better. Stay down. I’ll be right back.”
The orcs were fighting over something one of them had found. Crouching and keeping an eye on them, I slipped past what looked like big lobster cages, then crawled under them until I found an outlet that led to the poop deck. From my perch I watched the orcs continue to fight, and I mentally egged them on, hoping they would start killing each other. They sure seemed like the type.
The fight escalated as I climbed up the rigging and dropped onto the poop deck. Pizza shovel in both hands, I mentally prepared for the fight.
Two more orcs were talking some distance away, and I guessed they were on the orc ship. I needed to take these fuckers out, and I needed to do it now, before three became five.
I was about to start my charge when Doughboy emerged from the shadows and flew through the air, arms and legs splayed, and landed on the face of one of the short orcs. He latched onto the creature and the other two backpedaled and drew their swords. Their backs were to me, so I leapt into action.
The closest orc, the other short one, turned as I approached and swung a dagger. I blocked it with the butt of my weapon, then hacked into the creature’s leg. He howled and stabbed at me, but I was already spinning away. I brought the blade around as the orc dropped to his injured side and sank the blade into his head, which split in two. The blade stuck in the floor, and I desperately yanked it out as the tall orc turned toward me.
His too-big eyes moved over his fallen comrade, then found me. He snarled, and I snarled right back.
He charged with his spear out in front, and I leaped into the air.
Our weapons met, clanging together violently. He reversed momentum and tried to stick me with the sharpened butt of his spear, but I blocked it with my own. We settled into a rhythm, and it soon became apparent I was dealing with no mere novice. He had trained for years, and he was strong and surprisingly fast. But I had trained with a similar weapon since I was thirteen, and I was no novice either.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doughboy still munching on the orc’s head, and I maneuvered my opponent so his back was to him.
The orc growled. “When I kill you, I’m going to eat your balls first.”
“When I kill you,” I said and caught his downward strike with the shaft of my weapon, “I’m going to feed you to Doughboy.”
He cocked his head as we stood locked in battle, then I turned his weapon aside and kicked him in the left ear. He staggered to the side, and I swung with all my might. My blade sailed through the air toward his midsection, sliced right through the shaft of his spear, and cut through half his body. He leaned over my blade and dropped his spear, then looked me dead in the eye and grinned.
I pulled my shovel blade out, and his guts came with it. His smile slowly faded.
Doughboy jumped on the dead orc’s back, and I scowled at the little dude.
“Really? Now you want to help?”
Doughboy grumbled, and I turned to look for Eva.
She’d followed me and was staring at me from beneath the hanging cages with a look of wonderment and disgust.
I glanced around to make sure the coast was clear, then motioned her over.
“That was…. I don’t know what that was,” she said breathlessly. “That was amazing. You really are a champion.”
“Who do you think killed the goblins in the tower?”
“Witnessing it firsthand is something altogether different,” she explained.
She seemed to be handling things a lot better. Soon she would be insisting on a drawn bath and a five-star dinner.
“Don’t get too worked up, sweetheart. We’ve still got to find a lifeboat and get off this ship. If we can’t find one on the other side, we’ll have to search the orc ship.”
“You won’t find one there. Orcs don’t believe in preparing for defeat. They consider it cowardly.”
It began to rain as we snuck around the helm in search of a lifeboat. The fires hissed as the droplets worked to put them out, and I thought of the poor dragon that had been attached to the front of the orc ship. I hadn’t heard the beast, and I couldn’t see it due to the way the two ships were stuck together.
The orcs had tied off to the fishing ship and pulled the two so close you could hop from one to the other. Both ships were listing badly, and the fishing boat seemed to be sinking, because it leaned on the orc ship in a way that suggested without it, we’d sink.
I gazed into the darkness between the ships, and had it not been for the burning cannonball holes in both vessels, I wouldn’t have seen the lifeboat hanging about fifteen feet below me. The find was bittersweet, though. The boat was tangled in rigging. I was going to have to attempt to haul it up or climb down and try to free it. If I managed that, there was the task of getting the princess into it without making noise and alerting the remaining orcs. I could hear more of them now, talking on their ship. The guttural language was hard to understand, even though I heard it in English, thanks to the goddess’s blessing. They were discussing how best to save their floundering ship, but more than one of them was arguing they had failed and should go down with it, saving their honor rather than their hides.
I heard three distinct voices, but there could have been a dozen of them for all I knew. The humans had done a hell of a job fighting the maniacal orcs, and the two factions had nearly wiped each other out.
“I found a lifeboat,” I told Eva. “I think it’s seaworthy, but it’s going to be a bitch getting to it.”
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“I can’t do what I’ve got to do without making a lot of noise. The orcs will definitely hear me. Besides, they’re going to start wondering where their buddies are. I’ve got to get rid of them.” D poked me in the leg, and when I looked down at him, he flexed his muscles. “I mean Doughboy and I have to get rid of them.”
He nodded determinedly and started toward the other ship.
“Wait,” I said, but he disappeared into the darkness. “Damn it! I’ve got to train that little psycho.”
Lifting her chin, she said, “I’m going with you.”
“Fine,” I said, not wanting to attract attention by arguing. “But stay down and keep quiet.”
We crab-walked along the portside rail to a gangplank that connected the two ships. I guided her across, and we hunkered down behind some large crates stacked on the starboard side. I wondered about the fate of the dragon. Smoke and fog obscured the view, and I couldn’t see it.
After cautioning her to be quiet, we moved toward the guttural voices. She squeezed my hand, and I wondered if Doughboy was already in place. Black sails flapped above us, like ragged bat wings. The falling rain soaked us as we hunkered down behind a rail that separated the main deck from the quarter deck. I squinted through the smoke and saw two orcs walk out of a room I assumed was the captain’s quarters.
They seemed angry with whatever decision had been reached and grumbled to each other that they should kill the others and take the loot for themselves rather than give it all to the sea. But then the talking ceased, and both orcs raised their snouts to the air and sniffed.
“You smell that, Okrock?” said the shorter of the two.
“Smells like—”
I didn’t hear what he said, because some burning rigging on the human ship fell onto the deck
with a clatter.
“What did they say?” I whispered to Eva.
She blushed and shrugged, and I looked back at the orcs. One of them was humping the air, and the other was licking the space between two fingers.
“Human woman,” said the one humping the air.
They glanced at the human ship, eyes narrowed and smiles huge, and my blood began to boil.
“We kill the others, take the woman for ourselves, squirt in her belly,” said Okrock.
I glanced at Eva. “Not if I can help it.”
“There are too many of them,” she said solemnly. She looked scared, and there were tears in her eyes. “Better I give myself to the sea than those ugly demons.”
“Don’t talk like that. Humans never give up. That’s what makes us great. Never despair, never give up. Fight to the bitter end.”
She pursed her lips, raised her chin, nodded, then wiped her eyes angrily.
I handed her my dagger. “Just in case.”
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“If someone finds you, stick them with it and run.”
I left her and the safety of cover, and climbed over the rail. I didn’t know where Doughboy was, but he knew enough to wait. I assumed he was watching somewhere nearby, waiting to strike.
I hoped so anyway.
“What’s that?” said the short orc, and they sniffed at the air again.
I broke into a full sprint, my boots easily gripping the wet deck. The rain came down with a ferocity to match my own, and I let out a primal scream.
The two orcs turned toward me, but I was already within striking distance. My enchanted pizza shovel struck the short orc in the armpit as he raised his weapon. The blade sliced up and through the shoulder, and severed his head at an angle.
Okrock’s surprise wore off quickly, and I was forced to duck under his two-sword sideways slash. I swiped his legs with the shaft of my weapon, and he landed hard on his back. Before I could bring the blade around for a killing blow, he hacked downward with his left-hand sword, and I was forced to block rather than dispatch him. He stabbed at me with the other sword, twisting sideways to do so, and I spun my weapon to lock up both his swords. They clattered to the floor, and Okrock sprang at me. He grabbed the shaft of my pizza shovel, and I was forced back. But I used his momentum against him and rolled onto my back, planted a foot in his crotch, and launched him into the captain’s quarters.
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