Chapter One: Ghost Ship Sighted!

"Captain? There be somethin' amiss out a quarter stern"
The voice was deep and powerful, accented with a thick Norwegian brogue, and the person it came from was no less imposing than he sounded. He moved with supple grace through the shrouding mists and though he was nearly seven feet tall, was as silent as a cat when he stepped. Muscular, clothed in furs and leathers, with a mane of blonde hair and a mustache tied at the corners of his mouth by metal bands, he was an archetypal Norseman, as if one of the old legends had come to life. Across his broad back was slung a war hammer.
The Creachadair cut like a knife through the icy mists, her keel cleaving through small clumps of ice floes. Her gray sails blended right in with the wintry sky and misty air. She was a right trim ship, a galleon of warlike proportions and trimmings, her forty guns ready for anything save Judgement Day itself. Ice crusted the rails and wheel, and snow gently banked on the spars and bowsprit. She was a formidable pirate ship, feared and sought abroad, but her purpose was not piracy. Her purpose was to sail the seas vexing the East India Trading Company until the end. THey were raiders, they were warriors, they were renegades and sailors all...but not pirates. The Norseman grinned. He knew what his captain would say if he even suggested the term pirate to her. THough it was obvious that they were considered pirates, the captain would have a man flogged if he so much as hinted that they were on the same level as Blackbeard or Roberts. The captain had high ideals, high even for a Scot.
"Whae is it now, Ulf me lad?" a femal voice chuckled. The shadow at the prow turned and faced her First Mate with a bemused smile. "Are ye scared o' Beluga whales? That's all I be seein' in these parts, I fear. Nae even a decent East Indiaman we could bully." Her voice sounded disappointed.
"I'm sure there will be one close by." Ulf growled. "It's easy to smell their stench from a distance"
"Above yer own? Hoots, ye must be good." the captain retorted.
Ulf smiled broadly. "Aye, and I've the eyes of a hawk. Which is why I'm tellin' you there's somethin' amiss out here"
"Such as, Mister Larsen? Flyin' Beluga whales"
He sighed. "Cap'n, I can tell ye now that I saw somethin' that looked awfully like a ship movin' about three hundred yards off our starboard side, leeward. I couldn't make out any colors or anythin' 'cept that fact that it's there an' possibly doesn't know we're here"
The captain's eyes narrowed to blue-gray slits and she strode over to the starboard rail, gazing out at the fog. The chilled wind played with her auburn curls and made the feather in her black gold-trimmed tricorne wave. When she turned back to her first mate her eyes were a golden amber.
Ulf did not react. This was fairly normal for Captain Marian Moray.
"Keep a weather eye out an' have the crew ready for anythin'. Ye know how it works." she growled, as the gold faded from her iris.
Ulf nodded grimly. He reached back and touched the head of his hammer. "Son of Thor will be ready for sure." He loved his hammer dearly, given the fact that it could break a man's skull in a single swing. Or worse.
Marian walked past him and felt her fingers curl around the hilt of her claymore. The hair on the back of her neck was stiff and arched. She had scented an alien presence on the wind; dumb rotters, whoever they were, were sailing upwind. What ship could sail against the wind?
She had an idea, but shook it off with a shiver. Ulf went down into the hold and found the ship's gunner, Angus MacGregor, waiting for him. The short, red-haired Scotsman was, as usual, clad in his Highland uniform, complete with tartan kilt and leather boots. Anyone who feared for their lives would never tease him about the kilt, or they would find a claymore thrust into one of their eyeholes. Unless, of course, one was a friend.
"Weel?" he barked, in his typical sharp brogue. "Are we fightin' or no"
"Depends. Cap'n says be ready." Ulf said darkly. He sat in a tall wooden chair and eyed his friend with shrewd blue gaze. "I'd be makin' sure the best guns are fit"
"Aye." Angus said, and turned to tend to his beloved pounders.
On deck, Marian stared off at the bleak horizon. She found her hand straying toward the silver charm that hung around her neck. It was a wolf's head, two blood red rubies set as the slanted eyes. Fenrir's Darkness, bound in a simple trinket. It strained credulity to say the least. But as Jack Sparrow had once told her, most powers are stored in small packages. The little trinket could transform her from a kindhearted lass into a raging demon in an instant. It gave her extra senses and higher abilities in combat and hunting, which was something the Sea Wolves did routinely.
The talisman had belonged to her father, Captain Marcus Moray the Fierce, leader of the Sea Wolves in a time when pirates roamed free and the seas were tamed. But he had been killed in a terrible battle with the East India Company. More specifically, he had been killed by Lord Cutler Beckett, shot in the thigh and head by the ruthless little man. Marian had a secret evil wish to hunt Beckett down and take his head as a trophy, taxiderm it and hang it in her cabin to throw darts at. Before his death, however, Marcus had given his crew special instructions regarding a new captain. They were to send word to Jack Sparrow to find and procure his son, John Moray, who would be his successor after being trained for piracy by Sparrow himself. Sparrow had agreed, out of honor for Moray (one of the few men to save Jack Sparrow out of mere kindness), to get John. But some things had gone awry. Very much awry.
While Marcus sailed the high seas, his wife raised two children back in Perth, Scotland: John and Marian. She had died of scarlet fever while they were babies and they had gone on to a cruel and cold orphanage. John had died at the age of seventeen of influenza. Marian was left alone and unprotected, making her the perfect target for evil men. When she was just fifteen, a man named Lachlan MacMurray had attempted to rape her as she brought water from the village well. Marian, scared for her life and gifted with a terrible temper, had struck him in the head with the bucket, and he had never moved again. Of course, the village elders, pompous windbags that they were, had interpreted this accident as a brash, unholy seed of a sinful father murdering a man of the faith. MacMurray had been a prominent member of the local presbyterian church. Thusly Marian had found herself aboard a slave ship bound for the Caribbean, to Jamaica.
But things had turned around. Captain Jack Sparrow had found her and trained her to be a seaworthy lass. But that is another story.
So here she was, leader of the Sea Wolves, captain and guardian of the Northern Oceans. She had a sword named Atropos, named for one of the Fates, she who cuts the thread of life at death. How fitting. Marian never liked taking another's life, but when another was set on death, it was dog eat dog. Wolf eat wolf. There were no compromises in battle.
She came out of her reverie as a barely audible sound reached her ears.
A click.
A minute, tiny click, but enough to catch her attention.
It came from the thick mists.
She strained her eyes, which morphed from blue to amber in seconds. Heat. She detected heat. And oddly enough, the rank odor of fish.
A fishing boat? No. The sound of the keel against the water was too heavy.
Why did the air reek of fish?! It was all she could do to keep from pinching her nose. Heightened senses meant twice the burden.
Suddenly the mists cleared a bit, and Marian's eyes widened. It was a ship, a large one. A frigate fit for war.
And it was covered in slime, grime, and barnacles. Not to mention the serpents at the stern and corroded coral plastered all over the sides.
"Sea Wolves, arm yourselves! T'is the Flying Dutchman!" she yelled, bolting for the helm.
Ulf stormed out of the hold, eyes wide, followed by his twin brother Ulrich. Ulrich only had one arm, the right one. The other had been lost to the Kraken while he was yet a youth. Still, he was a formidable fighter.
"What in the name of Loki the Deceiver?" Ulf boomed.
"I just told ye, ya dimwit. To arms! Prepare tae fire on me mark!" Marian snapped.
"We're attackin'?" Ulrich sputtered. He grabbed her wrist. "That ship has taken down many, ships much more powerful than we"
"Mister Larsen," Marian spat through gritted teeth, her eyes flickering, "Do as I say. THey've sighted us an' if we don't go down fightin' we'd just as well sit an' wait for the Kraken. Which, sir, do ya prefer"
Ulrich greened and drew his sword. "They're probably waitin' fer us tae turn tail an' run so's they can have a go at us wi' the triple guns. I've heard tales o' Davy Jones's strategy. I say we meet 'em head on an' give 'em a hard time gettin' us tae go down!" Angus bellowed.
Marian felt real, cold fear gnawing at her gut. She also had heard tales of Davy Jones's way with prisoners. But if they were to go down, they would go down fighting.
"Is there a chance that we may avoid the conflict?" the ship's doctor, Philip O'Brien, asked urgently, his Irish voice a bit shaky.
"Nae. We've got nae chance wi' the wind against us." Ulf said sullenly. He heaved Son of Thor with a practised air, his strong arms flexing as he did.
The crew jumped to task, loading the cannons, anything to inflict damage on the ghost ship. They were all pale and shaking, and many men were unable to load their weapons due to the trembling.
While the chaos went on, Marian pulled out her spyglass and looked through it at the Dutchman. She could see the legendary cursed crew from here. Her stomach twisted but she pressed her lips together and crushed her fear. She did not fear death!
She frowned. Had she just seen a flash of blond hair? No, she couldn't have. Not the way it looked...like a woman's.
She slammed her spyglass shut and growled ferally, feeling the energies of the charm as they ignited her blood. She could feel her eyeteeth lengthening just a bit; she could feel her nails morphing into claws.
"We are with you, m'lady." Ulrich said solemnly, raising his broadsword. Marian nodded. She loved the twins like brothers. Once she had felt a bit more strongly for Ulf, but not now. "I'd like to see 'em get past Tyr's Twins." Marian said with a grin. That was everyone's pet name for the mighty duo.
Ulf expertly swung his hammer up, down, in an arc, and smiled. It was a mournful, grim smile.
"Shall we take the first shot?" he suggested, with a warrior's casual air.
Marian felt her grin spread in pure malice. "Aye. Prepare tae fire a broadside!"