Chapter 1 #2
A shadow blocked the sun. He looked up to see a man with a determined face, his eyes calculated and gleaming. Men were falling from the sky like terrifying rain, their swords pointed to strike – and Alister was next.
Gnashing his teeth with unyielding rage, he prepared himself for impact and pointed his blade upwards.
At the last second, he stepped forward to narrowly miss a descending sword and sunk his own into the enemy’s stomach. They both went tumbling back.
Alister kicked him away, off his blade, so he could roll back to his feet with swiftness, despite his large, muscled frame. Turning just in time towards the thud he heard, he slashed sideways to gut the man who landed next to him, stabbing again just to make sure he was truly dead.
A roar of yells sounded from below the deck. His gunmen were charging to greet the enemy on the surface. Any moment now.
Any moment and he’d have dozens of men prepared to fight the crazed flying enemy. Like a swarm of fucking monkeys.
The ching of multiple swords crossing filled his ears. Yells. Shouts. Gasps. His men were violently defending his ship. The pungent smell of burning timber from the other ship and blood on his own invaded his nostrils.
A yell caught his attention, and he turned to find a man running straight for him, his own cutlass raised.
Alister blocked it, using the swing of his sword to direct it away from him, and then punched the man in the eye.
The man stumbled back, giving Alister an opening to slash him across the throat.
A small boom echoed. A cannonball grenade blew men across the main deck, surprising him; none of his crew had such careless weaponry skills. He had to turn quickly to avoid being hit by sharp, splintered wood and metal shrapnel as it flew in every direction.
Shit. The last thing he needed was for his other eye to go blind. Alister wore a black eye patch on one side of his face. He’d be useless if he needed bloody two!
The turn meant he was able to see Derek, still manning the helm, cut down the enemy trying to take the wheel. Good man.
But they were being overrun. Where are my gunmen? What about the rest of his crew who’d been below deck?
He turned his gaze towards the stairs, watching as an enemy ran over the top of his rowboats – upside down and strapped to the deck – to leap onto Pierre. No!
The blond-haired man stepped to the side, slicing his sword beside him to cut into the enemy, who instantly crumbled.
Relief washed through him.
Once more, Alister tried to get a visual on the stairs below deck, only to discover someone had closed the hatch and turned the locking mechanism shut.
It was stopping those below from coming to the surface.
“Get the hatch open!” he yelled, stomping his way over.
Stepping over the dead bodies of both his crew and the enemy, he cut the ropes of the grappling hooks, which elicited shouts from the men who’d been climbing them as they fell into the sea.
He couldn’t let anymore reach his ship, not until he had more men on the surface. Otherwise, at this rate, they’d circle the small crew manning the sails.
Pushing a tumbling man with a dagger protruding from his jugular out of his way, he finally found the hatch just as one of his crewmen was stabbed in the back for trying to open it.
Richard! He was one of Alister’s best men.
Richard must have understood, just as he had, why they were being overrun.
Despite his fondness for the man, Alister booted Richard’s dying corpse out of the way before the enemy could take out his sword.
He reached out and grabbed one of his crewmen by the collar of his tunic to protect his back. Then he crouched down to move the heavy locking pin, sliding it open.
The hatch flew open so fast, he stumbled back. A mass of angry, sword-wielding men emerged from it.
He pointed to the top of his main sail. “Take back my ship!”
The roars grew louder in response, and he turned to watch them circle the outside of the main deck near the railing to surround the enemy.
Within moments, the invaders realised their predicament, and there was a shuffling pause.
The tips of their blades moved from side to side, clinking against the sea of sword pointed at them, as if they were unsure who to attack first.
“No mercy?” one of his crewmen shouted.
Alister shouldered his large frame through the crowd, the fighting halted for now. “Nay. I want answers.”
He also knew he’d lost many of his men, and this ship required a large crew to function properly.
They fought well. Now, he would make them work like slaves under his employment – by force.
“Search their ship before it sinks!”
Some of his crew backed away to swing onto the enemy vessel at his command.
He could hear fighting in the distance, but it didn’t last; most of them had already jumped from the ship. As he’d been cutting the grappling hook ropes, he’d noticed some of them had released their rowboats.
They probably expected to be fished out of the water once they’d taken over his ship.
“Who is your captain?” he asked the group of men, who stood frozen, their swords poised.
None of them answered.
“I will start tossing you, one by one, into the depths until you tell me.”
Silence followed, but he noticed their eyes narrowing into squints. Glares deepened with every second that passed.
Swiftly, he stepped forward and slashed his sword sideways, cutting the nearest man’s throat. Two of his crew grabbed him as he fell back, tossing his dying body over the railing before he even had a chance to touch the ground.
The sound of crashing water filled their ears.
No one spoke, and he gave a gruntled laugh. “I will gladly do this all day, lads.”
They began to shuffle their feet, darting looks to each other as the whites of their eyes became more visible.
With his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth in a tsk tsk, he stepped forward once more.
His target dropped his sword and raised both his hands. “Wait.”
“Captain!” someone yelled from behind him.
Alister swung his head to the voice. “What is it?”
Dale, another one of his men, pushed his way through the crowd in a hurry.
He was huffing, his chest rising and falling quickly as he pointed over the railing. “Captain, there is a woman aboard their ship!”
One sightless and the other with perfect vision, he rolled his eyes as though the answer was obvious. “Then get her off it!”
He focused his gaze back to the man who may have been about to tell him who their captain was.
Good gods, it isn’t hard to get a woman off a sinking ship! She could be trying to flee it. What are they doing with a woman, anyway?
They rarely sailed with women; they caused too many issues. There were also myths about how sailing with one could bring on terrible luck.
Alister wasn’t so superstitious.
“She’s barricaded herself in the captain’s room. She sounds terrified.”
His head shot to the side once more, his brows creasing into a frown. “A captive?”
“Aye, seems like it.”
A captive woman with a crew of, from what he could tell, pirates like themselves. That could only mean one thing.
She was a scared, traumatised woman who’d been kidnapped.
Why should I care for her wellbeing? If she didn’t want off a sinking ship, why should it matter to Alister? I would be doing her a favour, letting her drown. She wouldn’t remember whatever misery she’d been faced with for goodness knows how long.
Just as he turned back to the man in front of him with his sword raised, he paused.
Whatever you do with your life, Alister, a feminine voice in his memory softly echoed, fight the strong and help those who cannot help themselves.
His lips thinned as he thought about that gentle voice, the words spoken to him years ago. A growl-like sound of irritation rose up his throat and past his clenched teeth.
Curse this bleeding heart! the pirate thought, right as he cut down the pleading man in front of him without mercy.
“Move!” he yelled at his crewmen as he entered the crowd, pushing them to the side. “Keep them where they are!”
Sheathing his sword at his hip, he rubbed underneath his eye patch to remove the sweat irritating his blinded, although fully intact, eye.
Then, he grabbed one of the ropes attached to the mainsail, twisting it around his hand before running for the side of his ship.
He jumped from the main deck railing and flew into the air.
With a distinct thud against the thick timber, his boots landed on the enemy’s ship, already halfway sunk.
He didn’t have long.
It didn’t take a genius to know where the captain’s quarters were. He immediately headed for the closed door.
Turning the handle while at the same time ramming his shoulder into it, Alister grimaced when it refused to budge. He pushed off it so he could boot the door right where the lock was with a thick, muscled leg.
His first powerful kick made it cave in. The second flung the door wide open with a loud boom as it hit the wall and nearly flew off its hinges.
Alister flinched backwards when a projectile flew at his head, clipping him on the bridge of his nose.
He glanced down, rubbing his face. A candlestick?
Scanning the room, he spotted a woman huddled on the ground next to a bed. It looked as though she was trying to hide between it and a small mounted table.
“Not more pirates!” she cried, blindly reaching to grab something from the side table behind her.
“Aye, more pirates.” He stepped forward, just as a book was thrown at him. He swiftly dodged it. “Look, lass. This ship is going down.”
“Then let me drown!” She clutched at her frilly, pale-yellow dress with one hand while reaching behind her back again. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing left on the little table. “I won’t go through it again!”
Blue eyes stared at him, obviously terrified. Her dark-brown hair was tousled around her head, knotted and windblown. She looked frail, trembling and shaking.
Water sloshed around his leather boots, small waves reaching further and further inside the room with each swish.
I don’t have time for this shit! He stomped forward, despite her cries and screams, and grabbed her around the wrist to drag her to her feet.
She attempted to pull away, bashing on his arm, and he used it to flip her onto his shoulder.
“Put me down!”
She kicked her knees into his broad chest while slapping him on the back. Her soft attacks barely left a dent, and he continued to cart her over his shoulder.
Wading in almost knee-deep water, he walked up the stairs to the poop deck, the highest point of this sinking ship.
Holding onto her legs tightly, he brought his free hand to his face, placed the tip of his thumb and pointer finger between his lips, and let out a whooping whistle.
Catching the rope tossed to him, he twisted his forearm around it. With the kicking, bashing, screaming woman on his shoulder, his men hoisted him up the side of his own ship.
Only one thought eclipsed his mental cursing: What an annoying turn of events!