Author's Scaring Note: well, ladies and gemmen, brats and kids, persons of indeterminate gender, and welcome, welcome indeed, to the Fifth and bloody chapter of The Spider's Heir! I said bloody, for you can be sure that blood's gonna spur! Yeah, blood's gonna flood, all hot and crimson—gosh, now Minotaur's getting exited. I'd better not let him read this, it would give him bad ideas. I mean, he's already really angry after E.Sharpe, but if he reads this…erm, never mind. Just read, and enjoy!

Chapter Five

Sea Battle

It averred that the wreck's fighters were really well armed, and that they were much more numbered than the Gleaming Stick's. They were all powerful, beautiful, cheerfully fierce men, and they were even few of them that were old men, but they fought wildly, and in less than one hour of savage combat, they had taken hold of nearly all the ship, apart from the bunkers, and the deck were the huge fight was taking place. Under the orders of Arach, the men of the Gleaming Stick first did well, however, the Wreck's splendid pirates weren't stupid; with a wit as quick as the flashing of their swords in their enemies' chests, they immediately understood that the men were holding because of the girl, and started to try to reach her. Arach, even though she was but a small chit of eighteen, wasn't helpless with a cutlass; in one movement, with a grace sweeping and extraordinary, she slit open the necks of five pirates, as cold-bloodedly and easily as if she was tearing through water; but finally she had to withdraw under the cover of a narrow empty corridor a few minutes, touched and wounded by an arrow sharp as her tong. Gritting her teeth till it hurt, ghastly pale with the bloody wound of her mouth flashing in her face like a ruby in the snow, she sharply pulled the arrow away from her arm, tossing it away, and tried to tie a piece of her sleeve she had ripped around her arm; but it wasn't easy with only one hand, and she had to used her hurting teeth, which were so gritted with the pain that she could do absolutely nothing. And she raged because of her state of idleness, thinking about the men upstairs that were probably despairing, thinking that she had fled. And she jumped when she felt two hands, quick and soft against the flesh that the ripped sleeve had naked, tie the cloth tightly around the bleeding wound. She raised her eyes and saw Hawkke, looking down at her face, his face as pale as the finest carven ivory, and with blood dripping down the alluringly pure line of his jaw, and under his shin.

'Come with me, we are escaping with several other sailors,' he whispered, his mouth to her ear, but she sharply pulled away, and her hand tightened around the moist pommel of her dripping weapon:

'Never!' she protested savagely, 'I'll fight with the men!'

He caught hold of her thin frail arm again, and pulling her close to him, so close she felt his blood on her cheek, he murmured in her cheek:

'I don't want to loose you now. You'll do whatever you want after you've helped me…'

She felt so weak to feel his gentle lips against her own jaw, she felt so dazed between his muscled arms, so good to feel the warmth of his fine feline body against her own thin and cold one, and his short breath in her raven hair, for a splinter of a moment she wanted nothing else but to go with him, and to stay in his arms forever. But then, her dagger-sharp brain told her that he had certainly taken her against him because he knew she wouldn't be able to protest, and she harshly pulled away from him, hissing in her quivering breath.

'No,' she whispered, and then, seized by a rush of fury, she screamed: 'I ain't a bloody coward! I'll fight with my men whatever happens, and damned be you!' and ran away from him, ignoring his hateful cry of 'They aren't your men!'

On the deck, the wooden floor was starting to get seriously slippery with all the blood from the corpses and agonizing bodies, while the fight was getting more and more violent—and desperate. Painfully hauling her tiny body on the thick barrister of the boat, then stood up on her feet in a way surprisingly balanced, Arach yelled, brandishing her cutlass, and with a voice full of a wild tenderness and desperate kindness:

'Oh fly, my loves, fly for your lives! And may the Nereid by with you! Fly, and be at peace! You've saved your honour! Go!'

And then she ravenously threw herself back in the mêlée, from which the sailors were now running away, half grateful for the girl's words, half grudging her being so visibly morally better than them, and throwing themselves in the dark waters, while she killed, in a single graceful swing of her arm three more pirates. And then, she heard a voice, young, but harsh and guttural, calling out in a tearingly raging voice:

'I want her alive! Catch the girl alive! If anything happens to her…'

Definitely a stupid thing to say aloud.

As quick as she could her make her legs go, she ran away from the pirates that were now all desperately trying to catch her, and nimbly climbed on the breast work of the ship, and pulled the blade of the sword against her young feeble chest. The pirates, like one, had grown all still, and as the silence fell like the sky on the day of apocalypse; she, peacefully, haughtily, studied their faces; some were young and handsome, other old and terrible looking, some with faces from the south, from the north, from the east, from the east, from between, and some so horrifyingly deformed by awesome scars that they were unrecognizable; and all heavily armed with swords, cutlasses, bows and axes, all drenched from head to foot with blood, all looking exhilarated, but surprised in front of this insolent, spidery girl, who was looking at them with the irritating air of an almighty queen.

'Sorry. If you want me alive, sea rats, you'll have to swear you won't kill anyone!' she finally declared, a great stroke of nocturnal wind tearing back her jet black mane of hair in the night.

'You are not in position to talk, my beauty,' tossed a dark-haired pirate, with a face beautiful to suicide, a bloody red scarf around his head, and dark, shining eyes like glittery gemstones.

'I am,' she serenely tossed back, 'because if you kill one more person, I kill myself.'

'And so what?' he asked carelessly, but he nonetheless seemed annoyed, and surprised by her audacious, nearly stupid words.

'And so your captain won't be very happy, will he?' she cried out in ringing tones, and looking down at the men delightfully, raised in front of all their eyes, with her long coat flying in the night, and her pale face gleaming like a opal in a casket of black satin.

'Listen, you've been brave, my love, braver than the captain of this dead ship, who's fled away with some women and some cowards. We accept not to kill anyone, on the condition that you may join us, and become a pirate like a person with so many talents ought to be.'

'I wanna talk to your captain,' she said, stubbornly.

'I am,' answered the beautiful, dark eyed young pirate.

'Oh, then, let me tell you something, poor little man, I don't wanna join such men as yous. I wanna go back to my land. So here is my proposition for you: I am going to tell you where are the treasures on the ship and you'll leave them be. Do you accept?'

'I am very well able to kill you, and to kill everyone, take the women and children to ravish and sell them, take the boat and the treasures, don't you think?' he asked, disdainful and ironical.

'Sure,' said Arach, and she smiled, suddenly looking brightly amused, 'If I were you, it would be I would have do, without the shadow of a doubt.'

The pirates looked at each other, clearly gobsmacked. An old man grinned widely to a puzzled looking, novice young pirate. She chuckled, and added:

'So then, no one will be able to say that I didn't try to save this measly ship. Anyway, I tell you farewell, Cap'ain, and I would give you a kiss, because you are a man that I ought to like, but the trouble is; I can't do it right now, so I'll do it another time. Faaaarewells...'

And she tossed herself backwards, and fell in an infinitely gracious way into the waters, under the astonished eyes of the pirates, and accompanied with the booming laugh of the old pirate, who seemed to have never been so satisfied in his whole life. The captain, young and wild, whose pride had been thrown on the floor, stabbed, and then stamped upon, screamed out with rage, and shouted to his men:

'Catch her! Alive, that I can punish her! No one has ever treated me like that!'

And all his men, those pirates that looked so clever and invincible, jumped in the water after the girl. He turned away, and added to the three men that had stayed with him, and in a dark tone but calm way:

'And after all, she owns me a kiss.'

And a low voice, quivering with anger, snarled behind him:

'She's mine.'

Author's Arrogant After-note: so? Not bad, eh? I love the way the person who wrote this (me? Ooh, I had forgotten :simpersimper:) Anyway, I love the way I did the bloody battle, with the small, quiet moment between Hawkke and Arach slipped in the middle... And I also love the conversation between Arach and the Pirate Captain. Well, I'll just let you have your own word; no, no, you don't need to pay one pound for each review, I swear—just REVIEW, okay?