Author's Awfully Boring Note: Aha, this is a good chapter, and I congratulate myself greatly. I hope you'll share my opinion, but still, the best's to come. And of course, Review, beside enjoying, which you'll surely do, either by loving it, or by the fit of Killing Tickles that will reach you if you don't like it—oh, I'm such a good witch! By the way, who read the new Harry Potter? It was wicked! I nearly cried at the end, I was so shocked! Anyway, just read, and Review. Just do it, and don't protest. That's all I am asking, got it?

Chapter four

The Wreck

When she woke up, the nearly invisible sun was already falling behind the grey line of the sea, and the mist was slowly creeping over the smooth silvery-black surface. Next to her, the look-out was looking at the horizon, his face tightening with the coming of the night, which he hated implacably.

'Aniting 'apen'd while I woss sleepin'?' she asked limply, stretching.

'Yeah, a buck woz yellin' everywhere yer name, but I didna tell 'im ye was 'ere, as ye ask'd me.'

Eagerly, delighted with herself and the sailor, Arach stood up, straightened her tunic and her corset, and asked, beaming:

'So, what did he do?'

''e storm'd back in 'is room, and said ye were gonna get some o' 'is news.'

'Did he think that I had escaped while he slept?'

'Yeah, fink-so, but well, I dunno really for sure.'

'Too good, really, thanks a lot, mate,' she said, shaking his hand in the most masculine way she could master, and then she jumped away from the crow's nest and made her way down the mast, laughing under her breath.

When she was on the deck, she went quietly to see what he was doing in the room, and saw he was sitting in a corner, draped in his cloaks, smoking a pipe. She came in and closed the door behind her, saying carelessly:

'I had a lot of fun, what about you?'

He didn't answer, and she couldn't even see his eyes, so she said:

'All right, keep quiet if you want, I am going to look for something to eat.'

And she turned away to go, but he spoke:

'The dinner is just finished.'

'Oh', she said, and added, 'Anyway, I am going away from here. You are too lifeless.'

But he wasn't going to listen that, he stood up, and, walking toward her, he whispered:

'Do you realize that I spent five hours looking for you?'

'Why?' she asked, as if it was the last that was counting, 'After all, the only thing you seem to care about is your own precious little life, no? Or…'

'Do you realize, that I am going to hit you if you don't shut your extravagantly large mouth,' he went on, still walking on her.

'Do you realize,' she said, half amused, escaping him, sliding toward the door, 'That I am not going to let you do…'

But the slap came. It hit her on the cheek, so hard she completely lost any sense; she saw red. Throwing herself on him with a long roar of rage, she punched him on the face, as they both collapsed back on the bed. She gave him another punch, and tried to push him away from her with all the power of her arms, but his hands grabbed hers, and with implacable force, he threw her away, and she crashed against the wall, like a wave against a cliff, where she seemed to break herself, and collapsed on the floor. Breathing heavily, she sat up, dazed, then she shook her head, and looking at Hawk, who was standing very straight, hissing with rage and fury, pale with his golden eyes sparkling liquid burning metal, she sighed, faintly, and like a cat, stretched, and curled up against the wooden wall, squeezing the cloak around her thin shoulders.

Hawkke couldn't help to be surprised by this sudden withdrawal. He went to lie on the bed to sleep, and thinking about where could have she hide while he was looking for her. This girl wasn't as stupid and ungraceful as he had thought.

When she woke up, it was in the middle of the night, and the room was in a total darkness, apart from a candle that was burning weakly on the table. She was surprise to find herself on the bed, her head sunk in the clean pillows, and her eyes started to look for the hunter, whom she found sitting on a chair next to the table, smoking a pipe. The light of the candle was illuminating his face, and she saw his gaze on her, and lowered her eyes to the point he was fixing. A glimpse of white flesh, between the slipped black material of her cloak and the belt that held up her breeches, was floating pure misty white in the darkness, and his golden gaze upon this hip of hers seemed to burn her by its flame. Blushing, she pulled the shirt straighter around her, and turning her back to him, she closed her eyes, but was late to fall asleep, haunted by the expression she had saw on this unbearably beautiful face.

When she woke up again, it was even later on the night, but this time it wasn't by herself she had woken up. A bloodcurdling scream had echoed all along the passenger corridor, waking the everyone:

'The Wreck! We're all gonna die! The Wreeeeeeck!'

In a movement, Arach jumped on her feet, and ran to the door, but Hawkke was quicker, he had already reached the door, which he slammed back so hard the door bounced right back from the wall, flinging Arach straight into him, as he caught the yeller: a young boy who's pale freckle-bombarded young face was ghastly with a fright beyond any rational fright, a fright way past terror. Arach raised herself on the tip of her feet to take a look at him over the hunter's shoulder, eager, her eyes gleaming, immensely satisfied with the mayhem, as he asked:

'What are talking about, young fool?'

'You are the fool, not him,' Arach commented smugly, but the look he tossed her over his shoulder succeeded in shutting her up.

'It's the Wreck, my Lord, I swear I saw it!' the boy yelled, looking down at his big hands, and then screaming hysterically: 'On the water, my Lord, she was gliding toward us! We're all going to die, my Lord! We're doomed!'

'Who's the Wreck?' inquired Arach with great interest over the hunter's shoulder.

'She's the worst pirate ship in the entire Silver Kingdom, my Lady!' shrieked the boy feverishly.

'Is it!' exclaimed Arach excitedly, and she ran down the long dark corridor, ducking through the chaotic flow of passengers and sailors that were rushing away from their cabins, with Hawkke following her, yelling at her to go to the hiding cave with the women. Instead, Arach went to the great solid chest where the sailors were arming themselves with cutlasses and other weapons, in the middle of the crowded deck, and, taking one in her hands, brandishing it in the air, she bellowed at the top of her voice:

'All the women, old men and children go to the hiding cave! All the sailors, young men and warriors on the deck!'

Most of the passengers were men, and the few women and old people ran directly to the cave, hiding under their canes or skirts the cowards. Most of the travelers, foolhardy young men eager to prove their valor, came to pick up a weapon, looking extremely conceited in spite of their fear. Weaving through the sea of bawling men, elbowing her way through yells of surprise and protest as different member of the crowd felt a sharp arm being thrust into their stomach or ribs, Arach went to join a responsible-looking blond young man, and abruptly asking him:

'Where is the captain?'

'He's gone in the caves with the wimmen,' answered the blond man, tying a belt around his waist, and pulling two cutlasses in them.

'What!' shouted Arach

'Well, 'e canta-fight. He's just a merchant, ach, avter all,' he said, shrugging in an exasperatingly nonchalant fashion.

'Who is responsible here, then?' she bellowed, grasping his muscled arm.

'Me,' said the blond youth, and he said the 'Me' so proudly that he seemed to say 'me, the supreme master of the whole universe and beyond'.

'Ah,' said Arach, splendidly disdainful, 'and you know anything about this 'Wreck'?'

'What d'ye mean?'

'Are the men more or less than my men?' asked Arach importantly, waving in a great unleashed movement at the crowd of sailors and men on the deck.

'I think more,' he said, and added thoughtfully: 'perhaps less.'

'You're definitely stupid,' she declared, and went away from the useless person.

When she was back at the chest, she snapped it close, and hauled herself lightly on top of its wooden lid, and yelled:

'Are all the weak people safely in the bunkers?'

A few of the sailors looked up, surprised, if not utterly flabbergasted, to see this piece of white silk of a girl perched over the chest of weapons and shouting her head of as if she actually owned them all. After they had howled a simple: 'Aye,' she went on:

'And does anyone here knows about the arming of the Wreck!'

'Aye aye! They're an awful lot Ma'am!' cried a handful of sailors from the front, while the silence slowly grew behind them.

Arach opened her mouth wide to ask some more details, but she didn't have time, the lookout suddenly screamed from the crow's nest, his voice quivering with fright:

'She's coming toward us! She's there, by the sea-witch! Ach!'

But his shout didn't equal in stimulation Arach's formidable:

'Fight for your honor, my boys! And the cowards will get my cutlass in their ribs! To us Victory!'

Author's Scientifically Wrong After-note: Ach, to us Victory!—shut up, Bob, or else, you'll get a deten—SHUT UP E.Sharpe! All right then, where were we? Hope you all liked this chapter, I think it's good. This chapter, as well as five and six, were all in one chapter at the beginning, Chapter Two, called 'The Wreck', and so were the first and second chapter, which were originally the first chapter, entitled 'At the Bird's Tavern.' I cut them into smaller chapters for the reader( consequently you, whoever you are)'s suitability. Hope you liked this chapter Four anyway: and hope it prepared you well for the coming Sea Battle, hé hé. Now, do review, for thou knoweth not thy doom as thee readeth these lines…