In Which Battle Breaks Out And I Get Ever So Slightly Carried Away
The cannonball burst through the ship’s hull sending splinters the size of bananas stinging through the air, pinged neatly through a bewildered crewmember’s torso, and came to rest in a collection of grain sacks. The newly disembowelled pirate glanced down at the gaping hole in his stomach, murmured something inconsequential, and collapsed backwards into a collection of pots and pans.
I was still waking up, yawning and groggy, and wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. Glob and Edgar were on their feet however, swords drawn, and dragged me from my hammock and onto the floor behind a collection of barrels.
As we huddled, further cannonballs crashed through the hull, spewing biting shards of woods in all directions. We were trapped, helpless, the crew around us clambering over one another like ants, manning the cannons, being picked off one at a time by screaming hot cannonballs and savage grape shot.
“We ‘ave to find Selladore!” cried Glob.
I didn’t offer a counter plan. We followed her in a running crouch upstairs, clambering up the wooden slats after one another, and emerged out onto the deck to a cacophony of hellfire. Our white ship was trapped, flanked by two enormous vessels with tattered black sails. The two ships rose fifteen metres above ours, and row after row of cannon were belching smoke and destruction over the scattered crew of One Ball.
Selladore was nowhere to be seen; his cabin door was shut. We sprinted across the furious deck, ducking low as splinters and flame erupted on all sides. We hopped over ragged bodies strewn across the deck and collapsed hard against the captain’s door. I hammered against it with the hilt of my sword.
“Selladore! We require thee!” I bellowed, over the screams and fracturing woodwork.
“Blast ye, give me a moment!” a voice growled from within.
The crew were being ransacked, dusted from the deck by savage chain-shot. From both sides, planks were extended down onto our ship, ropes were uncoiled from towering masts, and a hundred rogues in black began to flood onto the deck, soaring overhead, sabers drawn, caterwauling, brandishing pistols and torches. The talented chef of One Ball was brandishing a meat cleaver in one hand and a pan in the other, and was furiously dueling a man with one eye. The chef buried his cleaver in the man’s shoulder and kicked him overboard, but was stabbed from behind and collapsed to his knees with a scream. My love of pirates was rapidly diminishing.
“Selladore,” I cried. “SELLADORE?”
“Stand back!” replied the captain.
We moved aside from the door, just as it was kicked off its hinges. Selladore strode out into the chaos, re-clad in his pirate’s attire save for a fabulous crimson boa that was slung around his neck, and immaculate red eye shadow. He turned to me with a devilish smile, minarets of fire gleaming off his eyes.
“It’s the Gristle Twins,” he called over the battle, as a severed arm twirled overhead. “Don’t worry lads, we’ve had worse. Fear not, I’ll get ye to yer Astra!”
Selladore marched across the deck towards the helm, cannonfire blossoming around him. A skinny young pirate started towards the captain, only to be taken off his feet by Selladore’s flintlock. The captain seemed unfazed by the bloodshed, sweeping through the carnage as a bee weaves through the wind-tussled branches of a tree.
We watched in awe as he climbed the stairs to the top deck, grabbing pirates by the scruff of the neck and slinging them out of his way with violent nonchalance. He wrenched the wheel from the dead hands of the headless helmsman and spun it around, barking orders to his slightly-preoccupied crew who, to their credit, did their best to follow his instructions while maintaining their alive-dom. The flames licked at Selladore’s boots, splinters tore his overcoat ragged, and his cutless glittered with ruby blood as he fended off encroaching attackers. All the while, the boa was flipped effortlessly over his shoulder. To this day, I’ve never seen anybody look so fucking magnificent.
Glob turned to me. “We’ve got to help him!”
“He’s doing alright by himself,” I replied, as Selladore ducked under a zipping scimitar and with a graceful flourish of his cutlass, severed the offending arm. Then a stray musket ball zipped into his shoulder and knocked him off balance, and a rush of black-clad pirates bore down on him.
“Come on!”
And then she was gone, that brave little idiot, leaping into the fray with her short sword. Edgar and I, who’d had our fair share of battles over the years, looked at each other and sighed. I hadn’t expected to be stabbing anyone when I went to bed the previous evening. But you just never know.
We brandished our swords and waded reluctantly into the slaughter. You probably imagine me to be a coward, but there’s another reason I choose to avoid battle whenever possible. I’d rather not explain further, if it’s all the same to you. It’s embarrassing.
The Gristle Twin’s cannon had ceased for the time being, to avoid blasting their own men to bits while they ransacked our ship. Edgar and I wove between the various strangulating couples and sought out opponents. I found a very tall chap twirling two axes, and decided he would do. He launched one of his axes my way, but his accuracy was lacking, and it soared a foot over my head. He swung his remaining weapon at my face, but a simple duck was enough to avoid it. I brought my sword up hard as I rose once more, and lopped his head neatly off with a satisfying ‘shlep’.
I hadn’t killed anyone for years. It was quite a rush. The adrenaline coursed through my veins, reminding me of my younger, stronger, more valiant days, when I was more romantically-minded and thought life was all about thunderous cavalry charges and death defying last stands. I had since matured somewhat, I liked to think, however as the blood spattered over my face as I ran through another crusty-bearded rapscallion, I found myself enjoying the sensation once more. The fact that I had lost my left hand hardly seemed to matter. Before I could help myself, I let out an involuntary war cry.
“COME ON THEN!” I screamed, as I booted a portly young buccaneer over the railings onto the deck below, before leaping down after him to finish him off.
I grabbed the pistol from his limp hand and turned on a penny to shoot my next attacker in the cock.
“‘AVE IT YOU SLAGS!” I yelled.
Another foe ran past me towards Edgar, but I caught him by the hair and yanked him backwards, hurling him down on the ground before me. He dropped his sword and grabbed at my feet, begging for his life. I scream-laughed in his face and shot him in the nose.
You see, this is why I don’t fight. I’m actually quite good at it due to countless hours of practice as a kingling and, as you may recall from my earlier feasting debacle, I have very little in the way of self control. Once I get going at something, I’m hell for leather. It’s a bit embarrassing. I get far too pumped up to stop.
“AH HA HA HA!” I screamed, grabbing a dangling rope and leaping off the side of the ship. My momentum brought me sailing around to the upper deck, where Selladore was steadily being hacked to bits by the Giblet Twins or whatever they were called.
“About time ya dog!” he cried, as I landed alongside him, drenched in claret. “What the hell happened to yer?” he asked, but I didn’t hear him.
“I AM BECOME FUCKING DEATH!” I shrieked, and with a cackle launched myself into the oncoming pirates.
I dove beneath two sweeping cutlasses. I rose with a massive 10/10 uppercut and felt my blade flash through flesh. I took a punch from the first twin and staggered backwards, but regained balance in time to leap away from a thrusting knife. I lunged forward with all my might, and with a truly fearsome riposte, skewered both twins at once. I left my sword in them, pinning them together like campfire marshmallows.
“Athelstan, ya devil, you’ve done it!” laughed a bloodied Selladore, but his words fell on mad ears.
I stole the Twins’ pistols from their belts and kneecapped them both-
“Athelstan?“
-then yanked my sword free and beheaded the pair of them with one stroke.
“ATHELSTAN.”
I picked up the heads and impaled them both on a nearby spear and waved it above my head as I clambered up onto the mast, standing above the burning ship screaming like a banshee that stubbed its toe, roaring vivid obscenities and nonsensical insults.
Then I blacked out.