by Eric Vall
“They’re coming up on starboard!” the captain yelled out to his crew. “Ready on the guns!”
“Fire all!” I could hear the master gunner yell, and the deck vibrated beneath my feet as the first set of cannonballs flew toward the other ship. Two fell short, but the third made a solid hit, and wooden debris and shouts of alarm filled the air.
“Yes!” I shouted and pumped my fist.
We headed down to the main deck, and there didn’t seem to be much to do but wait as the chaos swirled around us. I decided to give myself a little pep talk during the pause in action to pump myself up. I thought back to when I’d stabbed Jamar through the heart with Genie’s Wrath, and the sword was even stronger now, thanks to Fiona’s help.
“I know we can take care of them easily,” Jessamine yelled over the clamor of shouting and the roaring of the wind. “What’s our strategy, hero?”
“Cut those motherfuckers down!” I replied. “I’m ready to see Genie’s Wrath shoot some lightning.”
“Yes, Joe!” Cienna shouted with a grin.
“Fire all!” I heard the master gunner yell again, and the second round of cannonballs flew.
We were close enough to the other ship now that I could see a giant hole had been smashed into the pirate ship’s hull. Water began pouring into the boat, and I knew it would only make the other men more desperate.
“Get down, they’re firing grapeshot from their cannons!” I heard a shout.
We had about fifteen yards between us and the starboard side of the ship, but I wasn’t sure how strong the pirates’ cannons were. So, I pulled the princesses down into a crouch beside me and tried to shield their faces. The waves almost knocked us back against the rail, but we managed to keep our balance, and the boom of the cannons vibrated the deck below my boots.
“They’re trying to bring down the masts!” Cienna shouted.
“Do you think they can do it?” Jessamine wailed.
“They’re not sinking the Lady Starlight!” the blonde princess replied as her teeth flashed in the moonlight. “We’re fighting until the last asshole is lying in a pool of blood!”
A moment later, I watched in horror as the pirates threw huge grappling hooks into the rigging and pulled the ships closer and closer together. Our vessel suddenly lurched to one side, and I tried to grab onto the princesses.
“Hold tight to your weapons,” I yelled.
“And stand guard!” Cienna shouted. “They’re going to make it onto our ship!”
A series of flashes appeared on the starboard side, and I realized the pirates had started to throw rudimentary grenades onto the deck. They looked like something out of a cartoon, and I watched as a small, baseball sized metal orb rolled across the deck with a lit fuse sparking at the top. The smoke from the explosions was growing thicker and thicker in the air, and I had to strain to see anything through the haze and sparks.
“Man down!” I heard a shout, and my heart sank.
“Shit!” Cienna cried out. “I need to protect my crew!”
As I watched, the pirates swung across the gap between the boats on the thick ropes attached to their hooks, and there were suddenly about twenty new men on deck. I watched as one of the sailors immediately knocked a man off the side of the boat with an uppercut to the chin, and I silently cheered him on.
The pirates swarmed the ship, as terrifying and filthy as any stereotype. Their clothes were dirty and torn, and they swung cutlasses with wild abandon. I was ready to blast someone with purple lightning, but I wanted to save it for the right moment.
“Get ready!” I called out to the princesses. A short, ugly man was now charging toward me with his sabre brandished, and I thought a little time magic couldn’t hurt. “Cienna, you’re on!”
“You got it, Joe!” the blonde shouted.
When time froze, I caught a clear glimpse of the man who now lunged toward me. His mouth was wide open in a battle cry, and I could see the remains of rotten brown teeth. Matted black hair fell to his shoulders and matched the wild beard which hung all the way down to his chest, but luckily, he was pretty scrawny, so I thought I had a good plan.
“Got him, Cienna!” I screamed as I moved out of the pirate’s way. As the noise and madness of the ship came roaring to life around me again, the man lurched toward the ship’s rail, and with one swift kick to the ass, the pirate was in the water.
“Yes, Joe!” the blonde shouted, and her blue eyes flashed with delight. “Let’s go kill more pirates!”
The three of us moved a few feet away from the rail with our backs turned to one another and our weapons held high. I didn’t want anyone to approach us from behind, but I didn’t want the princesses to fall overboard, either. Unfortunately, moving forward meant heading directly into the craziness of the fight.
“I have Genie’s Wrath, so I think I can protect us,” I told my wives. “Cienna, freeze time for the two of you so you can take on some dudes with your swords, and I’ll cover you both.”
“Yes, hero,” Jessamine nodded. I’d seen the speed at which she could cut through a man with her scimitars, and I knew she’d do alright for herself.
Suddenly, I heard a voice call out from the center of the ship.
“Yarghhh, where be the princesses?”
Yargh? Seriously? I really was in a pirate movie.
I looked over to see a huge man standing on the steps to the upper deck and scanning the ship. He wore a tattered captain’s hat and an eyepatch, and I couldn’t believe he actually had a peg leg. It was almost like seeing Captain Hook, except a lot more terrifying. His rusty pistol gleamed in the moonlight, and when I heard he was looking for my women, I knew the man had to die.
“Stand back,” I told the princesses as quietly as possible. “They know you’re on this ship. I want you next to me but hiding in plain sight. Jessamine, transform the two of you into crew members, but keep your weapons!”
“Got it!” Jessamine focused for a moment, and I only saw the shimmering air for a second before two new sailors stood before me. Cienna was now a taller, fair man, and Jessamine was tan and dark-haired. Then Jessamine continued in a new, deeper voice. “We’re going to need to stick close together to hold it. I’ll keep casting it again, but I don’t want them to see us in between spells.”
“Okay, your magic seems good for the time being,” I told them. “I’m ready to move forward and kill some motherfuckers.”
I heard a noise behind me and whirled around, and I immediately saw another man coming toward me with a cutlass in his hand. The pirate slashed out at my chest, but I deflected his blow with the edge of Genie’s Wrath and knocked him off balance. The vibration of the strike surged down my arm, and I stumbled a little myself, but I quickly regained my footing.
“Avast, ye dirty animal!” The pirate lunged again and slashed out at me, but I parried with Genie’s Wrath. We locked swords for a moment, and I could see the stringy blond hair that fell over his shoulders and smell his rancid breath.
“Fuck you!” I screamed as I pushed him off me. He stumbled again, and I knew I had him where I wanted him. So, I struck out again as hard as I could toward his hip and was shocked when Genie’s Wrath sliced his left leg clean off at the thigh.
The pirate stood for a moment with a look of shock and horror on his face, and then he crashed backward onto the deck. The blood from the wound began to pool and mix with the puddles of seawater that the wind had blown up onto the deck, and the combined liquid ran in pink streams across the wood.
I stared for a moment in disbelief at the man’s disembodied limb lying on the ground and still wearing a dirty black boot, but I didn’t have the luxury of contemplating what had just happened.
Another man came up behind me on the left, and I disabled him with a quick elbow to the face. I could feel the sharp point of my arm connect with the bones in his nose and shatter them with a satisfying crunch. When I got a chance to turn around and look at the man, I saw him stumble into the main mast and crack the back
of his head against the wood before he fell. Thick streams of blood poured out of both nostrils and collected at the corners of his mouth, but I was only satisfied when his eyes slowly fluttered shut.
“Yarghhh,” another pirate shouted as he charged toward me, but the man slipped across the bloody deck and almost ran right into me. It wasn’t hard to pull my arm back and stab him through the gut with the tip of my blade, and the sensation was similar to cutting through a rare piece of meat. As the man fell back, I pulled my sword from the wound and stared at the bright crimson liquid dripping from its edge.
It seemed I wasn’t half bad at fighting pirates.
I had a moment of respite from direct attackers, and I looked around for the disguised princesses.
The sailor I knew to be Jessamine now faced off against a tall man with a thick, red beard and a black scarf wrapped around his head, and I was about to step in to assist when I noticed her illusion falter for a moment. For a split second, the sailor looked like a princess again, and her opponent’s mouth dropped open in shock. She took the opportunity to slash out with the sword in her right hand and cut the pirate’s throat open. The bearded man put both hands up to the gash, and we watched scarlet liquid spray out from between his fingers before he collapsed.
“You okay, Jessamine?” I panted. “Is your magic holding up alright?”
“Yes, but casting it over and over is taxing,” the dark-haired princess gasped. “I’m not done yet, though!”
“Nice work,” I told her, and I looked around for Cienna. When I caught sight of the blonde sailor, I noticed she’d picked up a dagger from one of the pirates. I caught a quick glimpse of her much-larger opponent, and then the blonde must have cast her time magic, because the man was immediately on the floor with a dagger through his foot and an eye gouged out of his face.
“Damn, Cienna!” I shouted, and she looked at me and managed to force out a smile.
I tried to catch my breath and leaned back against the railing to reassess the situation. From my perspective at the side of the boat, I could see men slide across the deck in the mixture of blood and salt water, and they hacked at one another with various types of blades. I thought we were lucky the pirate captain seemed to be the only invader with a gun, though I’d temporarily lost sight of the man. The cannons continued to boom, and the smoke was so thick I almost choked. Then I noticed the leg I’d slashed off the pirate I’d fought earlier was far from the only disembodied limb on the deck, and I fought back a slight gagging sensation.
“Take that, you bastard!”
I whirled around at the sound of Cienna’s voice, and I realized the disguised princesses were in danger. They were now backed against the foot of the mainmast, and they couldn’t see the threat that lurked behind them in the rigging. One of the pirates had climbed up the ropes and pulled a dagger from each side of his belt, and I could see he was prepared to leap down upon them and stab them both in the back.
Before I had time to think, I charged between my two wives. The man flew down through the air toward them, and I tackled him back against the ropes. We grappled for a moment, but we were too close for me to get Genie’s Wrath into a good position. I didn’t seem to have a choice but to knee him in the balls, and when the pirate doubled over, I was able to pull my arm back and stab down into the place where his shoulder met his neck. Hot blood splashed against my boots, and the pirate died with a gurgling sound as he hit the deck.
“Come on!” I grabbed both princesses by the arm and pulled them through the fighting men toward the stern of the ship. From that point of view, I could see a man climbing all the way up the mainmast’s rigging, and then he took his blade, stabbed it into the canvas, careened back down to the deck, and slashed a deep cut all the way down the mainsail.
“The mainsail’s down!” I heard a man shout, and Cienna reached over and squeezed my hand.
“Oh, no!” Cienna cried out. “My ship!”
“It’s okay,” I replied in a grim tone. “I think they can fix the sail, we just need to destroy these bastards first.”
It was still hard to tell who was winning at this point on the deck of the Lady Starlight, since there still seemed to be about ten men left on either side. The men all appeared to be occupied fighting one another for the time being, so I took a minute to catch my breath.
The only thing that worried me was the pirates’ captain still wasn’t in view.
I thought we were lucky the pirate ship hadn’t fired any cannonballs at the Lady Starlight, since ours had basically destroyed their entire hull by this point. Their bow was listing at a dangerous angle, and I saw a few remaining desperate pirates jumping down into the water.
Although the night sky was still bright with explosions, clouds had covered the moon. Then a light, misty drizzle started to come down, and it made the deck even more slippery. Between the rolling waves and the slick surface, men started to slide all over the place as they still attempted to battle one another.
“Joe,” Jessamine gasped, and when I looked over at the princesses, I saw the illusion she’d created had started to fade. I could still see masculine bodies wearing sailor’s uniforms, but my wives’ striking faces were totally in view now, and their long hair spilled down their backs. “I hate to say this, but I’m getting a little tired.”
“My magic is getting a little weak, too,” Cienna panted. “This fight is lasting a long time. With this kind of chaos, it’s hard to stick close enough together to make my powers stronger.”
“Listen, if you two want to go to our cabin, I can post myself at the door,” I reassured them. “It seems like the pirate captain is looking for you, and I understand if you don’t want to be found yet. It doesn’t seem like they’re anywhere near strong enough to sink this ship.”
“Fuck no,” Cienna growled. “Are you kidding me? We fight until the end.”
“I want to look him in the eye before he tries to take me down,” Jessamine replied, and I was surprised by how dark the normally cheerful woman’s voice sounded. “And then I’m going to cut his head off.”
“We don’t even need magic for that bastard,” Cienna confirmed, and as if to punctuate her point, she picked a discarded spear up off the deck and threw it forward across the boat. The weapon impaled a pirate’s hand and pinned him to a mast, and Cienna looked at me and winked.
Nice.
“You’ll meet yer maker next!” someone shouted, and I suddenly saw a bright red flash as I heard the loud bang of an explosion next to us.
I instinctively dove to cover the princesses, and we all tumbled to the deck with me atop my wives. When I looked up, it appeared someone had thrown a grenade near us, and I could see a pirate had been destroyed by the shrapnel. His ruined body laid only a few feet away, and I had to admit I’d grown weary of all the violence. I suspected that, with our help, the crew of the Lady Starlight was very close to defeating the marauders, but I hadn’t seen the pirate captain’s body yet.
A thick cloud of smoke now filled the air, and I started to cough.
“Are you two alright?” I managed to get out as I struggled to get to my feet. The boat lurched, and I stumbled back against the ship’s rail. I managed to get solid wood under my hands again and pull myself up, but the rolling of the ship had started to make me slightly dizzy.
“I’m fine,” Jessamine gasped, and she pulled herself up off the ground.
“Me, too,” Cienna replied as she stood up, “but I’m ready to finish this off.”
And then, as if she’d summoned him, a face with an eyepatch appeared out of the haze. The man grinned at us, and I noticed he still seemed to have all of his gleaming white teeth, punctuated by a gold tooth that glittered red in the fire from a nearby torch. He wore a ragged blue coat and torn britches over his boot, and long, dark curls spilled down over his shoulders from under his hat, which was tilted at a strange angle.
And then the pirate captain pointed his pistol in our direction.
I could feel my pulse
pounding in my neck, and I tightened my grip on Genie’s Wrath. I didn’t want to make any sudden movements with the gun pointed at us, but I had to figure out a way to protect my wives.
“Ahoy, Your Highnesses.” The pirate captain folded at the waist in a slight, mocking bow. “I’ve finally found ye. But don’t ye worry, I’m not going to shoot yet.”
“What do you want from us?” Cienna asked, and she stood up to her full height to meet the captain’s gaze with fierce, glittering eyes. “No one tries to take down the Lady Starlight and gets away with it.”
“I don’t want yer ship, though it will be a fine additional prize,” the captain said as he grinned again. “All I really need to get away with is ye princesses. “There be a bounty on ye heads, and I mean to bring ye in alive.”
“Your crew is practically gone, and you have nothing left,” Jessamine informed the awful pirate. “It’s time for you to surrender.”
“Never!” the man cried out, and he laughed again, mirthlessly this time, as he raised his pistol higher. “I still mean to take ye princesses, even if I have to do it meself. I don’t see anyone else with a gun here, do ye?”
I felt a chill go down my spine, and I fingered the hilt of my sword again. I didn’t want to cause attention to myself by pulling out the giant gold blade before it was time, but there was no way this man was going to get away with my wives.
“Who is looking for us?” Cienna asked the man, and I was impressed by the way she was still able to stare him down under extreme pressure.
“Now that I can’t tell ye,” the pirate captain said, and he smirked at the blonde princess. “But I can say ye wenches are worth a pretty penny.”
“Wenches?” Jessamine gasped at the insult, and I knew my time to act was now or never. So, as quickly as I possibly could, I aimed the tip of Genie’s Wrath in the pirate’s direction.
The man turned his one good eye away from Cienna and made eye contact with me for the first time.
“Ye must be the hero I’ve heard so much about,” the captain drawled as his gold tooth gleamed, and he straightened his hat. “Ahoy, me heartie. We’re on the same team, we are. We both want these women alive, aye?”