Chapter Fifty-Five: Marauders
Set in front of the mainmast of the Viridian Wind was a large, heavy, barrel-shaped drum. It was the ship's Cadence, and it was silent for the vast majority of the time. Right now, however, it was not quite so silent.
Gwen Twymann saw that it was Nothon who was responsible for the noise. The Viridian Wind's aging bosun wielded two heavy drumsticks, bringing them pounding down on the surface of the Cadence in a tight, distinct rhythm, making the very timbers of the ship tremor slightly with the rolling, thunderous drumbeats.
The Cadence served as a rallying call to the corsairs—after being alerted of danger by the ship's bell, the Captain had given the order to prepare the crew for battle, resulting in the bosun sounding the Cadence. Any of the sailors who were slumbering were immediately roused, and within seconds the ship was crawling with multiple hundred crewmembers, all reporting to their posts at the same time.
Gwen accompanied Aristophanes to the bow of the ship, weaving her way through the groups of turtle corsairs. Unlike a naval vessel, there did not seem to be a corsair equivalent to a marine complement—instead, all the crewmembers began to arm themselves, getting ready to defend their ship. They pulled scimitars, hatchets, swords, and spears from nooks and crannies in the ship that Gwen had not even known existed. Several of the biggest and strongest corsairs simply wielded thick wooden clubs.
Within twenty seconds, all in the deck crew were armed to the teeth, fully prepared to repel boarders.
The Cadence continued to sound.
As Gwen accompanied Aristophanes, the first mate stopped abruptly and glanced over to her, as if he'd momentarily forgotten she was there. When Gwen moved to join him, the first mate held up a hand. "The top deck is no place for you to be, right now," the one-eyed turtle consort said to Gwen. "You are the Witch of Light—I will not have you torn apart by bloody marauders. Get below and join the Master Gunner."
Gwen tried to argue, but even before she could speak Aristophanes placed a dry, scaly finger on her lips and shushed her, shaking his head, informing her that his decision was final and nonnegotiable. He then instructed one of the burlier crewmembers to escort her belowdecks, in case she was still thinking about disobeying.
As she was escorted towards one of the hatchways, she gazed out to sea, getting a good look at the threat the Viridian Wind faced. Two ships—smaller than the Viridian Wind, and not nearly as heavily armed. As such, the enemy ships were much faster than most other ships, though Gwen wondered if they could match the Viridian Wind's speed in a strong breeze. They had black hulls and sails, and had a tattered sort of appearance, their sails still operating normally despite being full of holes. Barnacles had claimed much of their outer hulls. And on the deck, the crew was visible—per vessel, well over a hundred crewmembers…a writhing, frenzied mob of howling, hissing, roaring, and growling creatures; all eager for blood.
The enemy crewmembers were underlings, alright, just as Aristophanes had said. Marauders. Many of them wore clothing—oily coats, three-cornered hats, bandannas, naval uniforms…all clothing taken from previous victims—corsairs and fleetsmen alike, their weapons as well. They were definitely underlings, but they still seemed...different, somehow, from the underlings Gwen had encountered and fought with back in her house. They seemed more organized...smarter, much more vicious. Much more dangerous.
And to make matters slightly worse, the question of the Viridian Wind's likely superior speed was a moot one. Exploiting the Viridian Wind's superior speed would require turning into the wind, which in turn would expose the corsair ship's stern to the enemy, which was a big no-no in naval warfare. And since escape—the corsairs' usual 'Plan A'—was an impossibility at the moment, it was time for them to turn to their usual 'Plan B':
Blow 'em out of the water.
Gwen had every intention of returning to the top deck later, but for now—and Gwen feared she would eat these words later—she was secretly glad to be able to witness this part of the battle. Tycho, the Master Gunner, was making his way down the center of the upper gun deck, barking out orders to his subordinates. Junior officers acting as gun captains hollered orders of their own, commanding the gun crews in their respective sections. The gun ports in the hull were uncovered and the cannons pushed forward into firing position, secured by ropes.
The odor of burning match cord permeated throughout the gun decks as the gunners prepared to fire their weapons. Through the open gun ports, Gwen watched the marauders draw closer and closer, until she could once again see the individual underling creatures aboard the two enemy ships. One of the marauder ships altered its course, moving to cut across the Viridian Wind's stern. The other ship maintained course, forcing the Viridian Wind into a firefight—if the corsairs did not turn to meet the enemy, the marauders would be able to take the corsair vessel from behind.
Gwen had to steady herself as the Viridian Wind's course changed, keeping her balance as the deck shifted. Through the open gun ports, she could still watch what was happening, observing as the Viridian Wind drew up alongside one of the marauder vessels. Though she had never participated in a naval battle, before, Gwen nonetheless knew what was going to follow.
Broadside.
"Larboard batteries at the ready!" The order rang out from above, shouted by Aristophanes. "Blow 'em to the void, Tycho!"
The Master Gunner relayed these orders, shouting loud enough to be heard on all three gun decks, calmly striding down the center aisles. As the Viridian Wind matched the marauder vessel's course, putting the corsairs parallel to the enemy, the Master Gunner shouted out his most important, if a bit colorfully-worded, order: "Fire, you shell-shitting bastards! Fire!"
Every cannon on the left side of the ship roared, spitting fire and smoke. The cannon were rocked back by the force of their shots, but the ropes securing the guns prevented them from being flung across the deck.
Gwen clapped her hands to her ears, her eyes wide with shock at the amount of pain her auditory system was plunged into from the larboard batteries' discharge. A battery of cannon being fired was muchlouder than Gwen thought it would be. Hollywood really did not do it justice—people would probably stop going to the theaters if realistic-sounding movie explosions started blowing out their eardrums.
Once the cannon were fired, the gunner's hands immediately set about reloading. The spongers hurriedly cleared out the insides of the barrels so that the loaders could then load in the black powder.
The veil of smoke that rose from the broadside prevented Gwen from seeing the damage dealt to the enemy ship, but she hoped it was substantial. And while the cannonade had to have been destructive to the marauders, it did not finish them off, because within five seconds an answering barrage hit the Viridian Wind. The corsair ship shook violently as cannonfire tore into her larboard hull. The gun decks immediately became dusty, smoky hellholes as chunks of wood splinters howled through the insides of the corsair vessel, dealing painful wounds to anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in the path of that debris. Two of the cannon had suffered direct hits, gouts of flame exploding right in front of them, sending the unfortunate corsairs who'd been crewing those cannon flying. They did not get back up.
Other crewmembers on the upper gun deck had been wounded by the wood splinters, as well as the middle and lower decks judging by some of the pained yelling coming from below. Those who had suffered wounds ranging from superficial to serious had picked themselves back up and were manning their respective cannons once more, reloading at the Master Gunner's orders. Only those with wounds which prevented them from standing did not rejoin the gun crews—surgeon's mates were climbing to the gun decks to begin moving wounded sailors to the infirmary.
Pain blossomed through Gwen's left arm as she, too, was grazed by a flying splinter of wood, leaving her with a nasty gash close to her shoulder. Gwen clenched her teeth as her brain finally registered the pain, her eyes welling up with tears. She felt a twinge of self-loathing for being in such pain over a wound like this when there were crewmembers lying on the deck all around her with their innards hanging out.
The rest of the gun crews were unfazed by the fate of their less fortunate brethren. They continued reloading their cannon, getting ready for the second inevitable barrage. Once the spongers finished clearing the gun barrels, using long sticks with cloths wrapped around the head, the loaders placed the black powder cartridges in the mouths of the cannon. While the spongers removed the cloth from their sticks and used them to push the black powder down into the cannon, the loaders retrieved cannonballs—or round shot, as it was properly called—from the ammunition barrels. When the loaders returned, they tipped the round shot into their cannon, pushing it all into place with the spongers' ramming sticks.
Even while under fire, even while cannonfire tore through the ship all around them, the corsairs maintained discipline. They moved like clockwork, ignoring their dead and dying brethren as they got the larboard batteries ready for another barrage.
"You there!" a voice suddenly shouted, jerking Gwen back to her senses. She hadn't even realized that she'd been in a mild state of shock after the hits the gun decks took from the enemy cannonade. She looked down to where the voice was coming from.
"Get down here!"
It had been the turtle-consort who was serving as the loader for the nearest cannon—their gunner had been killed by the wood splinters in the last volley, and they needed someone to ignite the cannon when the order came. Either one of them could have taken on the duties of the gunner themselves, but they'd seen Gwen standing around doing nothing and decided it would be easier to just grab another person to act as the gunner.
"What's your name?" the cannon's loader—a well-muscled, broad-shelled, thick-necked corsair with large brown eyes, black and red-mottled skin, and three ugly, parallel scars diagonally traversing his bare chest—asked as he picked up a cartridge of black powder and pushed it into the barrel, stepping aside to allow the sponger to ram it down with the ramrod. "You got a name, don't you?"
"Gwen," Gwen replied, trying not to look down as she stepped over what remained of the cannon's gunner to take her place with the gun crew. "Uh…what's yours?"
"Brygos," the loader grunted. "Now be a sweetheart and grab the bloody match cord!"
Now Gwen had to look down at the torn-up body of the cannon's former gunner, reached down gingerly, picked up the firing rod that bore the slow-burning match cord. It was still smoldering, sending thin tendrils of acrid smoke curling up into the air, adding to the ashen odor of discharged black powder that already filled the gun decks.
The cannon was a thirty-two pounder, mounted on a wooden carriage with wheels, which allowed the cannon to be moved without the crewmembers having to actually pick it up. It had likely been a shiny ebony in color, once upon a time, but years of use had reduced the cannon to a dull, grayish-black. Its surface was covered in scorches, little pockmarks, and dents; all signs of the cannon's obviously long and illustrious career. The cannon's name, Angry Alexandros, was on both sides of the barrel, engraved in the metal.
Gwen was about to inspect the cannon further, only to be rudely interrupted when she was nearly thrown off her feet by a change in course. The Viridian Wind jerked suddenly, the deck tilting sharply as the ship began to turn on a tight arc—much tighter than what should have been possible with a ship like this. The corsairs must have been used to this, for none of them lost their footing or even gave any kind of outward reaction to the sudden movement; they simply remained where they stood, some of the less surefooted gunner's hands grabbing hold of the cannons' securing lines to keep themselves steady.
Despite her best efforts, Gwen found herself wondering what could possibly cause the ship to move like this. Too late, she realized that her thoughts were wandering. If she did not clear her head, then-
A common tactic favored by the corsairs of the Land of Shores and Prisms. So long as there is a strong and favorable wind, it is possible to drop anchor mid-attack, causing one's ship to turn suddenly and swiftly once the anchor finds purchase. This tactic is highly dangerous, capable of causing great harm to the ship executing it; as such, it is rarely ever used outside of battle, and even within battle it is used only as a last resort. The Viridian Wind, however, stands exception to these generalizations, due to this particular ship being fashioned by the Noble of Light out of-
Gwen shook her head several times, pressing her free hand to her temple. She had to focus—she could not afford to let her thoughts wander again, inviting torrents of unwanted information. She came back to her senses just in time to see the hull of the marauder ship sliding on past, growing closer and closer. Just when it looked like the two ships were about to collide, however, the enemy vessel finally cleared the Viridian Wind's tight arc at just the right moment, presenting its stern to the corsairs' larboard batteries.
Gwen had a feeling that this was highly significant, but she-
Considered the 'checkmate' of naval combat, presenting one's stern to the enemy exposes the vessel's hull where it is weakest. If a battery of cannon could press advantage to such a vulnerability, the likelihood of sinking the-
"Are you bloody deaf?" Brygos, the loader, shouted right into Gwen's face, yanking her out of her thoughts. "Stand ready!"
Gwen realized that the Master Gunner had ordered the larboard batteries to be at the ready and she'd completely missed what he said. She had to get her thoughts under control, and she had to do it now. Gwen gripped the firing rod, lowering the sparking match cord fuse to the cannon's touch hole, stopping just short of the small opening.
The Viridian Wind continued on her tight arc. Gwen saw the corner of the marauder ship turn, glide gently past, its stern finally laid out before the corsairs like a giant target on a shooting range. "Fire!" the order came from the Master Gunner, sans profanity this time, roared loud enough to be heard by the gun captains on all three gun decks.
Gwen had never fired a cannon before, but it did not take Light powers or a master's degree in blowing things up for someone to figure out how to use it when they were holding the fuse in their hand. Gwen dropped the match cord into the touch hole, clapping her hands to her ears immediately after. The cannon rocked back, straining the ropes securing it as it thundered and spat smoke and flame.
Once again, the view offered by the portholes was obscured by smoke. It had only just begun to clear when the Master Gunner, relaying orders directly from the captain, shouted for all the gun crews to swap over to the other side of the ship. "Starboard batteries at the ready!" the old turtle-consort snapped, kicking the backside of a younger gunner's hand who was a bit slow on the uptake. "Starboard batteries, move it, move it! Skaia's Light, Diodoros, if your cannon isn't ready to fire before I count to twenty, I will personally toss your worthless shell overboard!"
"This way!" Brygos gripped Gwen by the forearm, dragging her away from the cannon when she failed to immediately react to the Master Gunner's order, displaying a surprising amount of strength. Luckily, the Master Gunner was too busy screaming at slow gunner's hands to notice her. Gwen clambered across the slippery gun deck—she continued to avoid looking down, but she knew that it was not water she was sliding on. It wasn't water that was making the gun decks slippery. On top of the odors of discharged black powder and smoke, the metallic scent of blood and another unpleasant smell that Gwen feared was urine now permeated all throughout the gun decks.
Gwen stepped over several mangled bodies, nearly tripping on a severed limb before she made it to the starboard side of the gun deck, quickly jumping in to help Brygos and Abreas—the sponger—get their new cannon into position. The only difference this cannon had from the one Gwen just came from was its name; Wild Romp.
Angry Alexandros and Wild Romp. Gwen wondered how whomever these cannon had originally belonged to had gone about naming them.
Abreas gave a low grunt as he pulled open the gun port. While the sponger opened the porthole, Brygos pressed his shoulder to the back of the cannon and heaved it forward, Gwen lending her strength where she could. As she peered through the gun port, Gwen could see the second marauder ship approaching the Viridian Wind at an angle that presented the enemy ship's bow—where the hull was thickest—to the corsairs' starboard battery.
The air in the gun decks had already grown stifling, rapidly approaching the point where it would become unbearable. Gwen's throat burned with every breath from the smoke, and her stomach quivered as the stench of blood, bodily waste, and ash ruthlessly shoved its way through her olfactories. She honestly had no idea how she had not vomited, yet.
There was no time for throwing up.
"Starboard batteries hold!" the Master Gunner called. "Wait for my bloody command, or I'll have your shells cracked!"
Then the marauder ship altered its course, turning to come up alongside the Viridian Wind, its own cannon batteries emerging from the haphazard, splintered gaps in the hull that served as makeshift gun ports. Gwen could see armed imps scurrying about the ship, beaten and spurred along by ogres. Adorning the masts and rails of the marauder ship, like macabre decorations, were strange-looking objects that Gwen quickly realized were giant turtle shells. The significance of this hit her, and she felt even more sick to her stomach.
Brygos noticed Gwen's expression, already knowing what she was looking at. "That's what becomes of the marauders' victims. They don't take prisoners."
"Good thing I don't have a shell," Gwen chuckled in spite of herself, trying to introduce a little humor to keep her nerves down.
Brygos gave a low grunt, giving Gwen a thoughtful glance. "Aye, sure, you ain't got a shell...but you still got skin, don't you? Marauders'll make some nice clothing out of you, they will."
Gwen's mouth snapped shut. So much for her little joke… "Are you afraid of them?" she asked the gunner's hand.
Brygos turned his attention back to the porthole, watching the marauder ship turn parallel to the Viridian Wind. "Any man who says he ain't afraid of the marauders is a bloody liar. I've seen plenty of lads join this crew, fillin' the air with all the different ways they were gonna send the marauders screamin' back to the shiteholes they were spawned in…and when they fight the marauders for the first time, when they actually stare down those scum and realize that the marauders are incapable of feeling pain, incapable of feeling fear...they shit themselves."
"Did you?"
"Hm?"
"Did you shit yourself?" Gwen clarified.
That got another round of laughter from Brygos. "Bloody hell, of course I didn't shit myself! I was lucky enough to empty my bowels before my first brush with the monsters—all I did was piss my pants before the first mate had to save my sorry shell. But that was another time."
By then, the marauder ship had drawn close to the Viridian Wind, finally drawing within range of the corsair ship's starboard batteries.
Tycho, the Master Gunner, did not give the marauders the chance to attack first. "Fire!" the aging turtle-consort bellowed. "Shred the bastards, lads!"
"Now!" Brygos snapped to Gwen, who promptly lowered the fuse to the cannon's touch hole.
Wild Romp gave an ear-shattering, thunderous roar, bucking back into the ropes keeping it in place. Yet again, fire and smoke blasted out of the cannon's barrel, momentarily obscuring the view of the gun port. Gwen squinted, trying to see through the smoke, trying to see how much damage had been dealt by the starboard batteries.
Gwen's eyes smarted and stung from all the smoke, and she had to rub them to get the pain to lessen and allow herself to see more clearly. She raised her hands to her eyes, trying to get them to stop burning. This probably saved her from becoming temporarily blind, for at that moment the world beyond Gwen's fingers exploded with light.
She was only able to process the light for a microsecond before she felt a furious surge of heat roar right into her, almost as if she had been struck by a sumo wrestler running at full clip. Gwen was blown off her feet, flying nearly all the way to the other side of the gun deck, the remains of Wild Romp silhouetted in the blast. The cannon had been hurled free of its carriage, which in turn had been obliterated into splinters of wood, along with a good part of the ship around it.
Pain was the first thing Gwen felt. Then the adrenaline and endorphins took hold, courtesy of her endocrine system, allowing Gwen to function without having her body throw in the towel at the slightest movement. After the pain came a feeling of… Gwen found difficulty describing it. Numbness? Or maybe not quite so exclusively physical—detachment, perhaps, was a better word to describe it. Or distanced. It felt like there was a barrier between Gwen's thoughts and the world around her. She felt robotic, emotionless; dispassionately observing the action occurring all around her on the gun deck—knowing what was happening, but strangely not caring very much.
Was this what shock felt like?
Then the pain briefly returned, this time in her chest and lungs, piercing through that strange barrier. Gwen realized she was coughing and heaving, focused on it, gradually brought it under control. She was relieved that there was no blood in her coughs.
Gwen blinked several times, staring at the gaping hole in the hull where her cannon had once rested, gazing blankly, uncomprehendingly. Had this really just happened? Had she really almost died in battle on a ship that belonged in the 1800s? If the battle had been surreal for Gwen thus far, if she'd felt like she'd been dreaming in some way...no longer. Everything now felt all too real.
And even if there was someone to whom she could ask those questions, she would not have heard the answer—the only real thing she could hear was a loud, high-pitched ringing in her ears. Well, that was not entirely true; she could still hear the shouting, the screams, the bellows of the Master Gunner…but they sounded faint, distant. Like she was listening to them through several thick walls. Or underwater.
There was a dull pain in Gwen's right shoulder, likely from the way she'd landed, and her head was beginning to throb. Lying immediately to Gwen's left was a brown-skinned arm and part of a shoulder. Not much further away was the rest of the body of Abreas—Brygos's sponger. The corsair's corpse was covered in blood, riddled with wooden shrapnel. And even if Abreas had not been killed by the eight-inch splinter lodged in his throat, the blood loss from losing an arm and shoulder would almost certainly have finished the job.
The corsairs were already setting about reloading the starboard batteries, ignoring Gwen as she slowly picked herself back up. She half-stumbled, half-crawled over to the nearest ladder, grasping at the rungs, pulled herself all the way up, steadied herself, got her bearings. Ever so slowly, her hearing was starting to return—she could catch a few words from all the shouting, now, instead of having it all sound like warped gibberish.
Gwen took a deep breath, something she realized she hadn't done yet. She took a moment to focus on her breathing, establishing a steady pattern. In, then out… In, then back out…
By then, the starboard batteries had been reloaded, and the Master Gunner was calling for his cannon to be at the ready. Suddenly overcome by a strong urge to get the hell out of the gun decks, Gwen decided that she had waited below long enough. She felt like she was being suffocated, and before she even knew it she was already climbing up the ladder, pulling herself up towards the light, rung by rung.
Pain tore through Gwen's right shoulder every time she reached up to grab the next rung. She looked down at herself and was surprised to find that she was bleeding. She had been struck by another wood splinter. Unlike the last wood splinter that had swiped Gwen, leaving her with a laceration, this splinter was here to stay. It was perhaps three or four inches in length, lodged in her right shoulder. No wonder she was hurting so badly there.
Gwen winced, looked away from the piece of the Viridian Wind that was embedded in her shoulder. She would not be able to remove the splinter until the fight was over without running the risk of heavy bleeding. And if she were to start bleeding heavily now, then by the time the fight was over Gwen would probably be dead or unconscious from blood loss. And so, she did her best to block out the pain, though only with moderate success.
At first, the daylight was harsh on Gwen's eyes, but they quickly adjusted. She never had problems adjusting to new light. She clambered out of the hatchway leading to the gun decks below, breathing in fresh air that smelled of the sea. The odor of black powder was still strong up on the top deck, but the wind did a good job of carrying it away before it could really build up. There were wounded consorts up on the top deck, as well, but thankfully the wind whisked away those other unpleasant smells, as well, before they could reach Gwen's nose.
The deck was bursting with activity; over a hundred corsairs were retrieving their weapons, ferrying black powder and round shot to the lighter deck guns, or moving the wounded so that no one would trip over them. Keeping her breathing steady, Gwen spotted Aristophanes and the Captain on the quarterdeck—the raised portion of the top deck located behind the mainmast. She began to move in that direction, pushing her way through the throng corsairs.
Gwen did not have very much time to enjoy her relief at getting out of the gun decks, because many of the marauders on the second ship had now climbed into their rigging, grabbing hold of free-hanging ropes before leaping into the air, the underlings' bloodthirsty howls clashing with the corsairs' defiant yells and insults. The underling boarders started to swing across the gap between the two ships.
"Weapons, you dung heaps!" the captain of the Viridian Wind barked, his voice clearly audible from all parts of the ship despite all the din. "Send these scum to the void—our bloody shells are not for the taking!"
The corsairs on the top deck raised their weapons into the air, giving an answering roar, ready to meet the marauder boarders.
Gwen swore under her breath. Out of the frying pan, into the fire; she could not seem to catch a break, today. Luckily, her hearing had more or less returned, so she would not be fighting deaf. Accessing her strife specibus, Gwen retrieved her Walther, barely having enough time to flick off the safety before the first of the marauders landed.
Gwen remembered all the times her Gramps had taken her to the firing range, heard the gravelly voice of Grafton Twymann telling her to relax her stance, steady her breathing, recalled the pain of when her Gramps had first walloped her for accidentally pointing her weapon at another person. Now, it was time to put everything she'd learned into practice.
The first of the marauders released their ropes, hurtling over the railing and landing deftly on their feet. Blood began to spill immediately. Gwen watched, almost in slow-motion, as the first imp to land drew a short scimitar from a scabbard on its belt, slashing out with it and managing to score a hit on the back of a young corsair's legs. The young turtle-consort—who'd clearly never been in a close-quarters fight, before—fell to the deck screaming, his hamstrung leg no longer able to support his weight. The imp leaped onto the fallen consort's chest, bringing its scimitar cleaving down.
The young corsair stopped screaming.
A couple other consorts also fell to the imps as the underlings used their smaller size to their advantage, wounding the consorts' legs, finishing the turtle corsairs off when they fell. But those who fell to these imps were younger crewmembers, were facing marauders for the first time, did not know what to expect or how to prepare.
No help or advice is given to new recruits by the veterans of a corsair crew. As followers of the Fortune path of the Light Aspect, veteran corsairs believe that new recruits who manage to survive their first battle with no help or advice from their elders, using nothing but their wits and reflexes, are clearly blessed with favorable luck. Corsairs, after all, do not want to have unlucky crewmembers aboard; this could cloud the ship's connection with the Light-
Gwen raised her Walther and squeezed the trigger, allowing the loud report of the gunshot to snap her out of her own thoughts. She made a mental note of the new information she'd just gleaned, filing it away somewhere in her mind for later study. Right now, though, she needed to focus…
The imp who had been leaping straight for Gwen was caught in midair by the force of the bullet piercing the spot between its eyes, drilling its way out the back of its head. The underling's corpse was pitched back to the ground, dissolving into a pile of grist as it fell. The grist scattered along the deck for a moment before glowing indigo and vanishing into Gwen's grist cache.
Gwen took a deep breath, doing her best to block out any and all possible distractions, which was becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day. It occurred to Gwen that, since playing Sburb and entering this strange dimensional reality earlier in the week, she had not taken her meds. She was prescribed Vyvanse for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD—lately, however, there had been so much happening that even her ADHD was not getting in her way. But that did not prevent it from causing her thoughts to wander at incredibly inopportune moments.
Like right now! Gwen shook her head again, suppressing a burst of profanity as a second imp nearly succeeded in running her through with a crude knife that looked like it was made out of bone. Turtle-consort bone, most likely. Gwen sidestepped the thrust, lashing out instinctively and bringing the butt of her Walther down on the stumbling imp's head, sending the smaller creature crumpling to the deck. Gwen planted a foot on the imp's shoulder and put a round through the back of its head to finish it off, causing its body to dissolve into grist.
By now, multiple dozen imps had swung across the gap and boarded the Viridian Wind. There was no strategy to the boarding action—even the ogre marauders who served as the marauder ship's twisted version of 'officers' did not attempt to organize the imps. Gwen could clearly see how these monsters differed from pirates; they were not interested in the Viridian Wind, or in any of the booty she carried, or even in staying alive…they simply wanted blood. That was all they wanted.
The sheer simplicity of the underlings' objective was frightening.
Still, the corsairs of the Viridian Wind had been sailing these oceans for a long time. Many of the core group of veterans and officers had even served together in the same crew on various ships—corsair crews were always shifting as they 'acquired' new ships, and also as they lost older ones to the Fleet, to the marauders, or to the sea. But, when compared to that of other corsair vessels, the crew of the Viridian Windhad remained unusually constant.
Even before the information virus in Gwen's mind could start trying to explain to her why the Viridian Wind seemed to be such an exception when it came to the ships that sailed the oceans of LOSAP, the teenager redoubled her focus on the here and now, swiveling her weapon to the left and taking aim at an imp that was about to deliver a killing blow to a fallen crewmember. Gwen squeezed the trigger, felling the imp with a well-aimed shot to the side of its head. The crewmember picked himself back up to his feet and dusted himself off, retrieving his shortsword. Seeing that Gwen was his savior, the corsair offered her a brief nod of thanks—there was no time for a more suitable 'thank you'.
Gwen slowly made her way back to the quarterdeck, killing any imps that attempted to impede her. She also did her best to take out any underlings that were about to kill a consort, but she was only moderately successful—the top deck had turned into a chaotic, churning melee as the corsairs did their best to repel the boarders. There were times when Gwen would not be able to help her consorts because she was equally likely to kill them instead of the underlings; the further away the target, the more impossible it was to get a clean shot.
"Skaia's Light!" The voice of Aristophanes filled Gwen's ears as she stepped up onto the quarterdeck. "I told you to stay below! This is no place for-"
"If you want me to go belowdecks, you'll have to kill me!" Gwen declared, cutting off the first mate midsentence as she turned to face him. "Because the only way I'm going back to those gun decks is in a fucking body bag!"
"You would do well to duck, then!"
Gwen's brow furrowed in confusion as she tried to make sense of what the first mate had just said. "What?"
"Duck!"
Gwen found that she was already ducking even as she processed what Aristophanes shouted at her. At the very edges of her vision, Gwen could see the blurry shape of a jagged blade slicing through the air where her neck had just been. The moment she ducked, Aristophanes drew one of his flintlock pistols and fired it at something behind Gwen.
As Gwen turned around, she saw that one of the ogre marauders had managed to sneak up on her while she spoke with the first mate, nearly decapitating her with that blow she had barely evaded. Its lifeless body fell to the deck, a still-smoking hole in its face where its right eye had been, displaying where it had been shot by Aristophanes. Gwen silently swore at herself for allowing the ogre to nearly take her from behind like that, vowing not to let it happen again.
Aristophanes stowed his pistol and quickly tripped up the imp he was currently fighting, sending the small underling crashing to the deck on its back. Not giving the imp a chance to recover, Aristophanes thrust his rapier down, impaling the imp through its stomach. He then brought the heel of his boot crushing down on the imp's snarling face, resulting in a grisly explosion of bone, brain matter, teeth, and other such bodily components.
"Good thing about these bloody marauders, if you happen to be searching for a silver lining," Aristophanes grunted, scraping the gore off his boot. "Their bones aren't very strong. Makes for damned good crushing, it does."
Another ogre landed directly on the quarterdeck, swung from the rope it had been holding onto as it jumped from the rigging of the marauder ship. It lunged at Aristophanes, who was able to dive out of the way at the last moment, rolling along the contour of his shell and back onto his feet. It advanced on the first mate once more, only to be distracted by a bullet wound that suddenly appeared in the side of its neck.
The captain of the Viridian Wind lowered his pistol, quickly setting about reloading it. He would not be able to reload his weapon in time, however, before the ogre reached him; that much was certain. Gwen saw this, sprang into action. She set her feet apart, granting more stability to her stance, and emptied the rest of the rest of her magazine into the ogre's skull.
While ogres had very thick skulls, in contrast to the weak-boned imps, even they could not simply shrug off half a magazine of nine-millimeter hollow-point bullets fired from a modern-day Walther PPK. The ogre's corpse started to glow as it was transmuted into a mound of grist even before its body hit the deck—a significantly larger-sized mound than those left by vanquished imps. The grist melted away from its tangible form, storing itself within Gwen's grist cache.
The captain quietly finished reloading his pistol, eyeing Gwen's handgun with a fair amount of interest. "What kind of weapon did you say that was?" the older turtle-consort asked Gwen, taking a moment to adjust his three-cornered hat even as another wave of imps swarmed the quarterdeck; either from scaling the Viridian Wind's hull and vaulting over the railings, or swinging directly in via loose rope.
"It's what your pistol will be in a couple hundred years!" Gwen shouted back, allowing the empty magazine to drop free from her handgun, retrieving a fresh one mentally from her strife specibus, silently thanking her Gramps, who had included a massive amount of ammunition within the specibus for Gwen to use in a pinch. And she was certainly in a pinch, right now.
Gwen was not sure if the captain heard her or not. She was briefly aware of the older turtle-consort being engaged by another ogre and a small group of imps, pressed into fighting back-to-back with Nothon, the ship's bosun. The aging bosun wielded a small hatchet in one hand and a dagger in the other, which struck Gwen as an interesting combination. He used the hatchet much more frequently, felling imps with powerful hacks and slashes before they could get too close, saved the dagger for when an underling got past his guard and needed to be dealt with up close.
The captain drew a rapier of his own, wielding it with his free hand and bringing it up to deflect the ogre's latest blow. The ogre was wielding a massive club that already had several bloodstains on it, and it did not relent with it, did not give the captain a moment of breathing time. It was hell-bent on making the captain the latest stain on its weapon.
The captain deflected the latest blow from the ogre marauder's club—his rapier, being a rapier, lacked the strength to fully block an enemy strike, but a swordsman skilled with that blade could use it to meet and simply divert the energy of a more powerful enemy blow. And when the ogre's blow was diverted…until it was able to recover its energy and come at the captain again, it was vulnerable.
Even as the ogre's blow was deflected and the heavily-muscled underling stumbled past, the captain pivoted on one foot and planted himself behind the off-balanced marauder. His pistol had already been aimed, the trigger pulled before Gwen could fully process how fast the captain was moving. The ogre continued to stumble even as a lead bullet punched through the back of its head, lodging in its brain. The underling's head flopped forward and its body crashed to the deck, blood already pooling around it.
The ogre was not killed by Gwen, so its corpse would remain, fouling up the quarterdeck until it was disposed of.
A few moments later, Gwen clapped her hands to her ears as the Viridian Wind's starboard batteries opened fire once more. This time, she could see large chunks of the marauder ship getting blasted away by the power of the Viridian Wind's guns, several of the enemy vessel's cannon successfully obliterated. Unfortunately, while the latest broadside was certainly a spectacle to behold, it had not dealt any major damage to the marauders.
The captain obviously arrived at the same conclusion, for irritation was the most evident emotion being conveyed by his facial expression and tone of voice. "This is bloody pointless unless we can get the scum dead in the water!" he exclaimed to Aristophanes, pausing momentarily to skewer an imp marauder that attempted to slash his legs. "Have the Master Gunner take out their mainmast!"
Gwen was no expert on swordsmanship, but it was not difficult to recognize the fact that the ship's captain was a master with the blade by observing how he was effectively able to hold entire groups of underlings at bay, all by himself, using nothing but his sword. Aristophanes, however, seemed to be the only one who clearly outstripped the captain in skill—while the captain would duel groups of underlings and take them down one by one, the first mate looked as if he were performing some sort of intricate, graceful dance. He glided from one foot to the other, one position to the next, one spot to another; and wherever he went, marauders would fall.
Aristophanes, who was currently in the middle of singlehandedly fending off an axe-wielding ogre marauder and three accompanying imps, acknowledged the captain's order with a quick nod. He immediately stopped toying with the ogre and twirled his rapier in a circle around the underling's battle axe, wedged his thin blade under one of the axe's blades, sent the weapon spinning away off the quarterdeck. He dispatched the ogre with a lightning-fast strike to the throat.
With the ogre dead, the three surviving imp marauders all set upon Aristophanes at once. The first mate calmly took a step back, plunging his blade into the chest of the leading underling, quickly withdrawing his weapon from the now-deceased marauder's corpse before the others could reach him. He took a second step back, slashing his rapier to the side as the second underling attacked, catching the smaller creature across its throat.
Even as the second imp crumpled to the deck, choking on its own blood, Aristophanes surprised the third imp by suddenly taking a step forward, breaking his pattern. As the startled marauder attempted to backpedal, Aristophanes lashed out with his free arm, wrapping it around the seafaring imp's neck, jerking it around until he heard a satisfying crunch. The imp's body went slack and lifeless, sprawling out on the deck after Aristophanes dropped it.
The first mate then took a step forward, grasped the railings of the quarterdeck, raised his voice in order to be heard by the Master Gunner over the sounds of battle. "Starboard batteries hold! Load chain-shot and aim true!" Aristophanes cupped a hand to his mouth as he bellowed the captain's instructions to the gun decks below. The gravelly tones of Tycho, the Master Gunner, could faintly be heard barking out orders of his own, swearing at and layering abuse upon the corsairs manning the starboard guns, relaying the orders given indirectly to him by the captain. Even after the marauder ship returned fire with a barrage of its own, Tycho could still be heard cursing and shouting like normal, as if nothing had happened, his voice carrying up from below as more smoke and dust billowed from the open hatchways.
It would take more than a barrage of enemy cannonfire and flying wood splinters to faze the aging Master Gunner.
Gwen raised her Walther PPK and squeezed off the first shot from the fresh magazine, catching an imp in the right of its chest. The marauder imp had been running towards a corsair who was in the process of finishing off a dying ogre—fortunately for the corsair, the imp collapsed from the gunshot wound in its chest.
Before Gwen could see whether or not the imp had died from the gunshot, she was set upon by another two of the smaller, deadly creatures. The marauders did not have unending numbers, but there sure did not seem to be any end to the onslaught in sight—Gwen still had yet to have a moment to catch her breath since she'd first come back to the top deck. She shot the leading imp in the left side of its chest, blowing a hole right through where she guessed its heart to be. The imp immediately dissolved into grist, so Gwen's aim had been true.
Pain lanced through Gwen's leg, suddenly, causing her to falter and nearly lose her balance. A third imp had made its way onto the quarterdeck while Gwen shot the first marauder underling through the heart. It moved low and fast, skittered around Aristophanes as the first mate sent another clutch of its kinsmen to the afterlife, avoiding the deadly reach of the one-eyed turtle-consort's rapier, and moved on Gwen, whose left side was exposed. As it charged Gwen, it swung its scimitar down towards her left leg, aiming to hamstring the teenager.
Luckily, Gwen had taken a step back at the moment of the strike, so the imp's blade ended up slicing across the side of her thigh, missing the hamstrings altogether. The resulting wound was quite painful, but it was little more than a deep flesh wound—no muscles had been damaged. And Gwen's step back had placed her next to the third imp, so she seized the unique opportunity presented to her and inverted her grip on her Walther, brought the handgun around, brutally clubbed the imp across the face with the butt of the handgun.
Moving almost robotically, as if her body had gone on autopilot and allowed her instincts and reflexes to take control, Gwen held her Walther in a proper grip once more and finished off the pistol-whipped imp with a follow-up shot to the head before snapping her aim back in its original direction, firing twice at the second imp as it tried to charge at her with its bone knives in either hand, catching the hapless underling in the upper torso both times. The three fresh corpses all reverted to grist at roughly the same time as one another.
When the starboard batteries fired once more, perhaps thirty seconds had elapsed since the captain had given the order. Thirty seconds was really not all that much time, in the grand scheme of things; but in the thick of a furious melee where a momentary wandering of one's thoughts could result in instant death…thirty seconds felt much longer than half a minute. Half a day, more like.
Gwen had reloaded twice already, and was slotting a fourth magazine into her Walther when the starboard batteries roared. This barrage was much quieter than the last ones; Gwen realized that, because of the angle required for cannon to fire on an enemy top deck, only the batteries on the uppermost of the Viridian Wind's three gun decks were being used.
Plumes of smoke and gouts of flame blasted from the corsair cannon, but this barrage yielded much less damage due to its being aimed at the marauder ship's top deck. The gunner's hands, instead of loading the cannon with normal round shot, had followed the captain's orders and used chain-shot—a special type of ammunition formed by taking two round shot cannonballs and connecting them with a chain. Both the chained cannonballs would be loaded into the cannon and fired at the same time, whereupon the chain connecting them would cause the two cannonballs to constantly whiplash around one another as they flew.
And had Gwen not already known what chain-shot was primarily used for, then today she would have learned something new. Bits and pieces of the marauder ship's already splintered and jagged railings were shattered even further by the barrage of chain-shot as the Viridian Wind's gun crews attempted to hit their target.
No one knew which gun crew made the critical shot, but that was an issue that would be endlessly argued over by the corsairs serving on the gun deck, after the end of the battle. For now, cheering was the only noise the gunner's hands made when the barrage ceased and a loud, angry CRACK was heard from the enemy ship in response. For a moment, nothing on the marauder ship moved. Then another crack rang out, and another…and finally, underscored by a series of smaller snapping and splintering noises, the mainmast of the marauder vessel slowly started sagging to one side. The entire marauder ship seemed to groan as its mainmast fell; its sails tearing like tissue paper, lines snapping like overstretched rubber bands. It leaned further and further over until it reached a critical point and snapped completely, slammed into the deck below, hopefully taking a few underlings with it.
"Nicely done, Tycho," Gwen heard Aristophanes mutter to himself. "Nicely done."
On the other side of the Viridian Wind, the front third or so of the first marauder ship, which the Viridian Wind had just gutted through the stern, was still poking out above the surface of the ocean, though more and more of it slipped away by the minute. Marauders from that ship could be seen floundering about in the water—imps and ogres clawing at the water, trying to keep afloat right up until the point when the waves closed over their heads and the green ocean claimed them. That ship, and all evidence that it ever existed, would be gone within the next few minutes. As for the second ship…
Without its mainmast, the second ship was not going anywhere fast, leaving it essentially at the mercy of the corsairs. And corsairs were not particularly merciful towards marauders in any situation; not to mention towards these marauders that were attempting to torch their ship, slaughter them, and then desecrate their bodies. The marauders were animals—dangerous animals; much more intelligent, cunning, and deadly than the underlings who dwelled on land—but animals nonetheless.
They were incapable of mercy. And so they received none.
Less marauders were swinging the gap and boarding the Viridian Wind, by now. The first few large waves of underlings had already thrown themselves against the corsairs, leaving only the smaller groups of stragglers to join the fray. But the marauders were no longer streaming onto the corsair ship at an alarming rate.
As if they could sense the wane in the number of underlings now attacking them, the corsairs seemed to start growing bolder, felling marauders with more fervor and zeal. The turtle-consorts were rallying on their own, ever so slowly grouping up with each other and pushing the marauders back towards the starboard railings.
The seafaring imps and ogres did not suffer a lapse in energy or bloodlust, however—just because the corsairs' morale was increasing did not mean the marauders were losing any desire to fight. They were beyond the idea of morale; they would butcher the turtle-consorts who crewed the Viridian Wind and decorate their own ship with the shells of the fallen corsairs, or they would die trying. Such was their nature, incomprehensible to the civilized. The corsairs pushing the marauders back found that they had to keep their guard up constantly, or else risk falling prey to misfortune.
While his crew started to beat back the underling boarders, the captain assessed the state of the damaged marauder vessel, making a snap decision on what his next course of action should be. Once he was satisfied, the captain turned around and called over to his first mate, issuing his next set of orders. "Have Tycho stand down; we no longer require the main batteries. Lead the gunner's hands down to the bilges and have them take up oars—where I point, you will have them follow."
"Aye." Aristophanes gave an answering nod, continuing to fight off additional marauders even as he made his way off the quarterdeck, wading through the chaos that had taken hold of most of the top deck and vanishing down the nearest hatchway to the gun decks below.
Another ogre, this one armed with a giant hammer, of all things, leaped up onto the quarterdeck, the latest in a long string of challengers. It held its hammer high, letting out a deafening, raw-throated, bloodthirsty roar as it lunged towards the captain, ready to crack the turtle-consort's shell into a hundred pieces, ready to squish all the softer bits underneath. The captain calmly turned to face the marauder, not even slightly fazed by the underling's howling, pulling his rapier back as he prepared to intercept the charging ogre.
The captain could already see the strike in his mind. Quick evasion to avoid the ogre's inevitable first blow, which will also be its strongest—leaving it vulnerable for a crucial moment or two as it recovered from the miss. A clean thrust, slip the rapier between the ogre's ribs, and withdraw just as neatly after-
But then, just as the captain was about to strike, even before he was finished visualizing it, the ogre stopped short abruptly. A hatchet had flown seemingly out of nowhere, burying itself vertically in the ogre's face with a dull thunk, cleanly bisecting the brutish underling's left eye, as well as the socket and skull underneath. The captain gave a start, nearly thrusting his sword forward to attack what was now only empty air. Nothon, who had been fighting off underlings behind the captain, jogged over to the dead ogre and grasped the handle of his hatchet, yanked it free with a stomach-turning squelch, wiped the blade off on the dead ogre's coat.
While the captain was slightly irritated at having been robbed of his rightful kill, it worked out nicely because Nothon was the one to whom he needed to give his next set of orders. "Bosun!" the corsair captain called out to his subordinate, getting the older consort's attention.
"Apologies for interruptin' the cap'n an' his killin's," the old bosun started to apologize in a wearied tone, believing the captain to be about to tear him a new one. "I threw me bloody hatchet, I did, threw it 'afore I could see that I was aimin' at your next-"
"Still your fucking tongue, old man!" the captain cut Nothon off midsentence, lacking both the time and patience to listen to the rest of what the bosun had to say. The captain had orders to give, and he had to give them now. "The marauder ship is dead in the water; I want to take us around on a finishing pass and send the rest of the scum to the void. Take in sail and ready the pyroshot."
Nothon, not fazed or bothered in the slightest by the tongue-lashing he'd just received, promptly left the quarterdeck as he started thundering out orders of his own. Once they heard the bosun's familiar tones shouting out orders, even if they were otherwise engaged, members of the rigging crews quickly disengaged from the melee and scampered up the masts and lines into the higher reaches of the ship, setting about pulling in the sails and tying them off to their spars. Once this was accomplished, the Viridian Wind ceased whatever portion of her forward movement that was powered by the wind in her now-furled sails, slowing down considerably.
Despite no longer having the wind in her sails, however, the Viridian Wind continued to drift forward at a much faster speed than the marauder ship, quickly leaving the enemy vessel behind until Aristophanes's rowers down in the bilges got their oars into the water and started rowing. The rowers on the starboard side performed backstrokes, rowing backwards while those on the ship's port side continued rowing normally, causing the corsair ship to turn in a gradual, clockwise arc.
Slowly, the corsair ship came about to face the crippled marauder vessel. The two ships were now facing each other, bow to bow. While the captain of the Viridian Wind coordinated with Aristophanes to direct the rowers, Nothon was hard at work at the very front of the ship. He worked with several of the younger crewmembers, whom he'd dragged along with him and pressed into service. They were doing the Viridian Wind more service by assisting the bosun than they were by fighting the boarders, anyway. The bosun had set the younger sailors to purpose, having them operate what appeared to be a large, wooden, T-shaped pump that was built into the deck.
When not in use, the pump handle was stored within the actual planking of the deck, but now it had been pulled up from its resting place. The turtle-consorts helping Nothon pushed the pump handle down, until it was nearly touching the deck, before bringing it back up to waist height. They then pushed it back down again and brought it right back up a second time. And so they toiled, repeating the up-down cycle several times, building up the pressure.
While the younger crewmembers operated the pump, Nothon donned a pair of heavy, perhaps leather gloves, and retrieved a long coil of some sort of flexible material that looked almost like some sort of leather. It seemed to Gwen like a crude progenitor to one of those large hoses that firemen used, only a bit smaller in width and not nearly as long. Gwen also noted how strange the inside of the hose looked—it was an odd, off-white color, and it almost seemed to cast reflections like a mirror. Some sort of special lining, perhaps?
Gwen had a feeling that when the hose was put into play, it would not be siphoning water.
Located just behind the bowsprit was a small, cylindrical pedestal with flames painted around the sides, the sun-like symbol of the Light Aspect emblazoned on the very top. It was made of hardwood; a different, darker-colored wood than the green wood that the ship was made out of. In the middle of the Light symbol was some sort of opening that Gwen could not quite make out, but she was sure it was an opening because—squinting in order to see more clearly, with meager success—she then saw Nothon insert one of the ends of his hose-like tool into the top of the pedestal, twisting it counterclockwise slightly to lock it in.
The bosun then took the other end of the hose, which had a metal nozzle attached onto the head of the hose, and started to climb out onto the bowsprit. He edged out onto the frontward-protruding spar, nozzle in one hand, using his free hand to steady himself by grabbing the bobstay line—the rope attached to the end of the bowsprit that ran all the way back to the stern. After a few seconds of centering himself, the bosun let go of the bobstay and stood on his own, balancing himself on the bowsprit even as the ship was moved forward by the progress of the gunner's mates-turned-rowers.
While all this was happening, Gwen continued to fend off underlings on the quarterdeck. She had to be constantly moving—if she stood in one place for too long, it was only a matter of time until an imp was able to surprise her from behind or above. Gwen was nearing the point where she felt the impulse to shoot anything nearby that moved, and she'd had to stifle that impulse several times when the ship's captain turned out to be the one who was moving. Accidentally shooting the captain would have been very bad, so Gwen took great care not to let her instincts and reflexes take too much control.
The marauders on the Viridian Wind seemed only to fight even harder when the corsair ship pulled away from the enemy vessel, leaving it behind. The corsairs were not necessarily fighting for their lives, any longer, but they were still locked in combat with an incredibly dangerous foe. A foe whose energy and bloodlust had not decreased in the slightest since the beginning of the fight. The corsairs' victory was no longer in doubt, but it still had yet to be achieved. The turtle-consorts would not drop their guard until they saw the ocean claim the last of the marauders.
Gwen went on helping the captain rid the quarterdeck of any imps and ogres that dared board it, earning the captain's respect for her accuracy with the Walther. While she had not exactly enjoyed all her Gramps's strict shooting lessons throughout childhood, all the annoying trips to the firing range he'd taken her on instead of just going to the park, like she'd wanted…while she had not enjoyed them, she was now incredibly grateful for them. She did not want to imagine how much of a fail with the Walther she would have been today, had her Gramps not trained her beforehand.
Finally, as the Viridian Wind completed her rightward, clockwise arc, and now began to advance on the crippled marauder ship, the corsairs were able to get the marauder boarders under control. By then, all the ogres had been slain, leaving only a couple dozen imps as all that was left of the rather sizable marauder boarding party.
The turtle-consorts stuck close together, not letting the imps cause any further mayhem by separating them. By now, those new additions to the crew who were lucky enough to still be alive had learned the hard lessons their bloodied and deceased kinsmen had taught them with their deaths. It was very much a real life example of 'baptism by fire' that Gwen was witnessing—there were no crewmembers on the Viridian Wind, now, who could still be called fresh-faced.
Everyone was a veteran, now.
More and more of the underlings fell to the corsairs' blades. After shooting down a clump of four imps that tried to rush at and overwhelm the captain, Gwen found herself able to take pause and breathe in a few deep breaths—the remaining marauders stopped trying to take the quarterdeck, now focusing solely on taking as many corsairs down with them as they possibly could. She limped over to the starboard side of the quarterdeck and propped herself up with the railing, wincing at the pain that flared in her leg and shoulder with each new movement. The adrenaline rush was beginning to wear off, leaving Gwen receptive to the pain of her wounds once again.
Gwen watched the corsairs mop up the now-few remaining imps, until the very last surviving marauder found itself suddenly impaled by five or seven different weapons all at once—spears, cutlasses, and what appeared to be a shortsword. The corsairs who felled that final marauder tore their weapons from its corpse somewhat violently, effectively ripping it to pieces, spitting on the grisly remains.
There were still many marauders left onboard the enemy vessel, and so the corsairs did not allow themselves to relax. The enemy was defeated, but not destroyed. The corsairs remained wary, gathering towards the starboard railings as the Viridian Wind neared the marauder ship, preparing for any kind of potential future boarding attempt by the surviving underlings.
Gwen was curious to see what came next. She'd been expecting the captain to hit the marauder ship in the stern with another cannon barrage, but he seemed to have other plans. And besides, with most of the gunner's hands acting as rowers down in the bilges of the ship, there was no one really available at the moment to fire the starboard batteries, anyway. No, the captain obviously had something else up his sleeve.
Once again, Gwen's attention was drawn to the bow of the ship, where Nothon was still standing perfectly balanced on the bowsprit, nozzle in hand and ready.
While the turtle-consorts seemed to go about their duties on this ship with a slightly more laid-back attitude than what Gwen would have expected on, say, a military vessel—keeping in tune with these consorts' piratical nature—the corsairs clearly were not messing around when it came to whatever the mechanism at the very front of the ship was, whatever Nothon and company were busy operating. No one came near the bowsprit, the flame-painted hardwood pedestal, or the crewmembers operating the pump.
As the marauder ship grew close, Nothon pulled a length of match cord from his belt, lighting the end of the slow-burning fuse with a match, clutching it in his free hand. He aimed the nozzle on the end of the leather hose squarely at the marauder ship, holding the burning match cord underneath the nozzle's mouth.
The corsair ship drew closer and closer to the demasted marauder vessel with every stroke the rowers gave, until the rowers were ordered by Aristophanes to slow their pace, reducing the Viridian Wind'sspeed even further. It was at that point, as the Viridian Wind's bowsprit started to edge past the very front of the marauder vessel, when the captain gave the order.
"Torch the scum, bosun!" the captain commanded.
Nothon rapped out an order of his own, and one of the corsairs operating the pump handle hurried over to the hardwood pedestal. Gwen watched the younger consort feel around the sides of the pedestal, saw him find purchase. There were hidden handles on the sides of the pedestal, she realized; handles which the turtle-consort now tightly gripped, awaiting further instruction.
"Ready to fire?" Nothon hollered back to the corsair on the pedestal.
"Ready to fire!" the younger turtle-consort shouted back in reply.
Nothon gave the last order, which was more of a warning than anything else. "Firing the pyroshot! Stand clear!"
The consort gripping the handles on the pedestal now heaved, pulling the entire pedestal upwards out of the deck. The pedestal was taller than it appeared, however, extending deep down into the depths of the corsair ship. It did not come free of the deck—it was merely raised by a foot or so, part of a mechanism that allowed the built-up pressure from the pump to be released and concentrated.
Nothon managed to keep his footing as a fine, odorless, almost clear substance came bursting forth from the nozzle, visible in its inert state only for the briefest of moments before it reacted with the match cord and violently exploded into a gushing torrent of fire. It was a very strange substance…some very unusual union of fire and liquid. Some of it fell into the ocean below, where it continued to burn even as it floated on the surface of the water.
Under Nothon's guidance and direction, the 'liquid fire' was sprayed onto the marauder ship. Wherever the incendiary substance landed, fires took hold. The pressure built up by the pump was concentrated by being channeled only through the release nozzle, which was what gave the liquid fire enough range to hit the enemy vessel. Nothon increased the angle at which he was holding the nozzle, sending the pressurized liquid fire crackling up into the air, and then right back down onto the deck of the marauder ship in a neat arc. He was also careful to hit the side of the enemy ship, setting fire to the lower portions of the hull in order to speed the process along.
The rowers maintained an even pace, bringing the Viridian Wind gliding past the burning marauder ship. Nothon continued to rain fire on the marauder vessel the whole time, stopping only when the Viridian Wind had passed the enemy ship, taking his liquid fire out of range. The corsair vessel now rang out with cheers and thunderous cries of victory, as well as a deluge of insults directed at the unfortunate marauders. Turtle-consorts roared with laughter and pointed, enjoying themselves as they watched the marauders scramble to avoid the flames—some jumped into the ocean, where they quickly drowned, while others remained onboard and were eventually consumed by the corsairs' unnatural fire.
Gwen watched the whole thing unfold, her eyes wide with awe as the flames tore through the marauder ship, much faster than any normal fire would, thick black smoke gushing into the sky. The second enemy vessel did not really sink like the first one did—rather, enough of it was burned away that it ended up collapsing in on itself. The larger, heavier pieces of wreckage sank straightaway, while the smaller pieces of charred flotsam remained afloat, some of them still stubbornly on fire.
And these, too, eventually slipped underneath the waves, leaving the Viridian Wind as the sole occupant of this particular part of the sea.
With the marauders now an unpleasant memory and the Viridian Wind still going strong, the corsairs now started to perform one of the least desirable tasks of any battle—the cleanup that followed. The oars were retracted and the rowers were ordered to stand down, allowed to leave the bilges; the rigging crews called down to deck. Dead bodies—underling and consort alike—were gathered up and dumped overboard.
The surgeon's mates moved from wounded to wounded, determining the severity of the fallen corsairs' conditions. Those who could be saved were picked up and moved below to the infirmary. Those whose wounds were too grave were given a bit of rum and moved to the top deck—when they died, their bodies would also be dumped overboard. The youngest of the corsairs retrieved scrubbing blocks and buckets from belowdecks, and they set about the daunting task of scouring the blood from the top deck.
As for Gwen, she remained on the quarterdeck, still half-numb from everything that had just happened. Corsairs offered her grunts and nods of respect when they moved past her, something they had not done in the past. Perhaps Gwen had proven herself to them in some way, having survived her first tangle on the high seas.
After the battle was over, the captain retired to his cabin, as was his right, leaving the cleanup to be overseen by his first mate. After supervising the disassembly of the fire-spewing pyroshot, Aristophanes returned to the quarterdeck, joining Gwen there. A faint grin tugged at the corners of the one-eyed turtle-consort's mouth as he saw Gwen's face, recognized the expression she wore all too well, recognized it from his own first brush with the marauders.
"And those, my dear Witch, were marauders," the first mate declared jovially, as if he were moonlighting as a tour guide. He reached into an inner pocket in his greatcoat and produced a small, silver flask. He opened the flask and took a sharp swig—a subtle twitch of the upper lip the only outward reaction given in response to the strength of the flask's clearly potent contents. "They leave quite a first impression, do they not?"
"Well, uh..." Gwen searched for the right words to do that understatement justice, but came up short. She was still feeling a bit out of sorts, dazed... She would need to get someone to look at her wounds, soon. "Well, you can say that again..."
"Quite a first impression, indeed." Aristophanes blinked his lone, stormy gray eye, regarding Gwen with amusement. He took another swig from his flask, stoppered it, stowed it back within his greatcoat. "And congratulations are in order; you faced the marauders for your first time without shitting or wetting yourself! Now, that's something to be proud of!" And with that, the first mate started to leave the quarterdeck, gesturing for Gwen to follow him belowdecks. "Come, now, let us get you down to the infirmary and see to your shoulder. If we leave that splinter in for too long, you might lose the whole bloody arm!"