The splinter was easily five inches long and as broad around as a lion's claw. The surgeon whistled as he extracted it with his forceps. "That was a near miss," he mused, dabbing the gouged flesh of the shoulder with a cloth. "An inch or two closer the neck, and I'd be pulling this out of your jugular."
Bronhelm scowled at his doctor, his chest heaving with indignation. "Spare me your hypotheticals, Ernst. I won't be killed by a fleck of wood; if I am, it had better be as long as a blasted lance!" He looked at the tear the projectile had rent in his jacket's shoulder, and his face soured further. "And look at this! Do these Zoohavenite heathens know the cost of a good tailor, huh? Do they know the value of imported cotton? Do they? I'll be taking compensation from them in spilled blood for this, I will! Come on Ernst, you girl's blouse! Get a bandage over that bloody hole and let's get on with it!"
"Hold still please, sir," the surgeon muttered, pressing a wad of gauze over the injury, holding it in place as best he could with bandages. But Bronhelm was done waiting, and pulled away from the doctor's ministrations, straightening his jacket.
"Alright, hogs!" he blustered gruffly, addressing his guard of honour, muscled swine with elegant tunics and finely crafted swords. "Those sick curs, those mixed species, are over there right now, putting the sword to your fine brethren! Putting the shot to them! And for what? For a traitor in a false crown! For a fake in your true king's colours! By this day's end, that diseased King Lionheart and all his repugnant courtiers at Zooport will know the cost of drawing steel against the rightful sons of the glorious Porcine empire! Now go wet the decks with their blood, and get me the head of this Captain Hopps!"
The soldiers cheered, snorting and shaking their tusks, and rushed towards the melee. Bronhelm paused before his surgeon for a moment, gesturing towards the tattered bodies Judith's cannon blasts had left behind.
"Get these scraps of flesh off my deck. It's unsightly." Then he was gone.
The pistol shot went straight through the hog's neck, putting a look of shock across the sailor's face before he went slack and collapsed. Judith sheathed her first pistol and went for her second, firing at the back of another hog who was drawing a blade, knocking him to the floor.
Across from her, Nick didn't even wait for the pigs to land, sighting one clinging to a rope in mid-swing and striking him right between the eyes. His body splashed down between the two ships. But another eager sailor with a dagger between his teeth took his place faster than Nick could hope to reload. He stood up, sheathing his pistol and flourishing his cutlass. The swinging hog let go his rope and flew straight into Nick, knocking him down with his superior weight. Nick landed hard on his shoulder, and twisted his head to the left just in time to avoid the pig's dagger as it sunk into the wood.
Some keen shot fired a musket their way, and the ball struck the back of the assailant's head, crumbling his skull and emptying its contents onto the deck. Nick winced at the gore and pushed the dead hog away with his hind paws, wrenching the dagger out of the ground and getting to his feet.
Another two pigs were crossing the divide, one skewering a hapless wolf through the stomach as he landed. The other turned to Nick, brandishing a boarding axe. With a snarl, Nick hurled the knife through the air, sinking it into the axe-wielder's gut. He howled, mouth hanging open in pain, his axe slipping from numbed fingers. His comrade pushed the dead wolf aside and advanced quickly, sword raised for a lusty sideways cut.
Then, something grey blurred by, almost invisible in the still drifting smoke. The pig stopped dead in his tracks, trotters going to his sliced throat, wheezing as he gasped through pipes that weren't even connected to his lungs. Nick turned to the side and saw Judith rising to her feet, flicking her blade to shake off the blood.
"Watch your back, Nick! I need you in one piece!" she quipped. To the side, Nick spotted a hog drawing a pistol, and he turned with his sword ready.
He needn't have bothered; Felix came rocketing in from Nick's periphery, ramming the sailor back against the gunwale with such ferocity that the wood buckled. With a roar, he plunged his blade through the pig's torso, passing it straight through and into the timber behind. Then he finished him with a vicious rake of his claws across the shrieking sailor's throat.
It wasn't the first time Nick had seen Felix fight. It was the first time he had seen him fight so ruthlessly. It was definitely the last time Nick would look at the panther without a pang of cold fear.
By now, the ships had drawn so close that the enemy could bridge the gap with their gangplanks, and one – two – three – four came slamming down between the decks, weighted snares burrowing into the timber to hold them in place. Three had been laid at the ship's mid-point and one closer to the bow, over which a trio of hogs were already clambering. Then Nick spotted MacHorn, bracing himself from the other side of the deck and bringing his rifle to bear. It fired with reverberating force, and all three hogs were yanked off their feet, as though they were hoisted away on wires. MacHorn then rushed forward and met the next pig who was brave enough to attempt the crossing with a blow from his bayonet. He didn't so much cut the sailor as drive his head down into his neck, leaving something akin to a smashed watermelon in its place. The hog slumped off the plank into the water.
"I think MacHorn has the bow covered," Nick muttered, turning back to the fray. Judith had slain two more sailors and was menacing a third, and Felix had snatched up an unfired musket and discharged it, trying to slow the advancing sailors. The Zoohavenite crew had rallied amidships, pressing against the pressing wave of enemies, but their numbers simply weren't enough. Sooner or later, they would have to retreat, and to where?
Judith seemed to have noticed the problem as well, and she deftly cut her last adversary across his legs, taking her blade to his throat as he fell. Then she slipped back to the mast where Nick was.
"We have to withdraw to the quarter deck!" she shouted, her voice barely audible above the pistol fire and the ring of clashing steel. "We can use the height of the deck to keep an advantage while they try to fight up the stairs!"
"Alright–"
Nick was interrupted as a ball swept across his shoulder - not passing straight through, but taking a fistful of meat and fur as it went. He collapsed with a hiss of pain, Judith catching him before he hit the ground.
"Son of a Porcine whore!" Nick spat, looking at the blood running down his shoulder, turning his undershirt red.
"Are you alive?" Judith demanded.
"And my right arm, too!" Nick swore, taking his cutlass in his left paw. "My sword arm! You know who I fight like with my left arm? Like you, Judith! I'll be dead in a heartbeat!"
"Get yourself to the quarter deck, and cover our retreat," Judith began, when a shadowy blur from the corner of her vision led her to give Nick a mighty shove, sending him stumbling bow-ward and her sliding back. A furious axe swing passed through the space they had occupied, splitting a deep groove in the deck. Judith rose to her feet, and realised she had dropped her sabre. She made for her sword, but the axe-hog recovered his weapon and brandished it with murderous intent. She spun to retreat instead, rushing back towards the quarter deck with the other sailors. Over her shoulder, she caught sight of Nick being forced in the opposite direction, desperately trying to keep three hogs at bay, parrying their attacks with his left arm as best he could. But it was obvious he was outmatched, and Judith gulped as she realised there was nothing she could do.
Bronhelm had finally strode aboard the Implacable at the main deck. He had both sabre and pistols at his side, but he also carried a large, gold-adorned blunderbuss with a wide, trumpet barrel. A pair of ornamental tusks curled away from its stock, and the word Razorback was inscribed along its length. When a stray Zoohavenite sailor made a lunge at the captain with his sword, Bronhelm turned and discharged the scattergun, shredding the zebra from waist to ear tip.
"I hope it was a life well lived," Bronhelm snarled through a grin, and slung the blunderbuss over his back, drawing his dueling pistols. Judith had seen Bronhelm's entrance, and she cursed under her breath; what a time to have no loaded weapon at hand!
She made it up the stairs to the helm, where Felix was organising a cordon of musketeers to try and hold the advancing hogs at bay. Already shots were streaming down the deck, knocking enemy sailors off their feet. But they were starting to run low on shot and powder, and several of the Zoohavenites had taken up spears to defend the stairways instead. There was slim chance that the outnumbered pikemammals would achieve anything beyond slowing them down.
Felix was rolling his last shot down the barrel of his musket when something blasted through the railing of the deck. Felix dropped with a snarl, clutching at his leg. At least three solid splinters had punched into him, sticking out of his thigh like crossbow quarrels.
"Felix!" Judith shouted, and started to head towards him. A solid weight suddenly smacked against her forehead, and for a moment her vision was whitewashed, the sounds bleeding together into a hideous high-pitched drone. She recovered quickly though, and realised she was staring at the floor through just one eye. Half her vision was murky and black. She had taken a glancing shot over her eye, and her sight was partly spoiled by her own blood. Wincing, she tried to collect her bearings, when a strong pair of arms lifted her off the ground and hauled her away. She watched helplessly as a crew of hogs with swords emerged from the left stairwell, cutting down the Blue Jackets who stayed to defy them.
"Where are we going?" Judith moaned, and realised it was Felix's strong paws that were around her. "Where are we going, Felix!?" she repeated, outrage creeping into her voice. "Take me back to the fight!"
"The fight is lost!" Felix roared, and with a free paw he grabbed the doors to the storage deck and wrenched them open. Then he stepped through, dropped Judith on the ground, and slammed the gate behind them.
Judith was on all fours, trying to summon the will to stand. Her mind was a soup of nausea, her throat laced with the bitter tinge of bile. She tried to scoop some of the blood out of her right eye.
Behind her, Felix grunted as he hefted a beam in place to seal the doors shut. He could hear the commotion outside; the few of their remaining number surrendering or being slaughtered. The locked door would hold them off, but with enough time and hands, they would hack their way through that as well. They had run out of redoubts to fall back to.
"Felix," Judith mumbled, still struggling to rise, "what are we doing in here? Why have we fled the battle? I order you–"
"You're no use to us if you're dead," the panther hissed, slumped against the wall, taking the weight off his butchered leg.
"We're of less use if we're cowards!" Judith scathed, and suddenly the sickness overtook her. She rolled to the side, losing the contents of her stomach.
Once she was done retching, Felix went and knelt by her side. "Captain, my race is run. I can barely hold up my own weight. You don't even have a weapon! I'd believe you would go on fighting, even against these impossible odds. But it would be a hopeless stand. A waste. Hopeful waiting is the better bet; there might be a light in the darkness still."
"Where is this light then, Felix? Where is this hope?" Judith barked. She didn't believe it for a second. The Implacable was lost. She had failed.
A deep voice boomed from beyond the sealed doorway. "Captain! Captain Judith Hopps! Are you in there, skulking in the dark? Can you hear me with those abominable ears?"
Felix was silent. Judith narrowed her eyes.
"If you can, then know two things: the first, I am Captain Otto Julian Bronhelm, third of that name, and I never take prisoners; the second, I will order my soldiers to fire this hold if you don't lay down your arms and tell your remaining crew of ill-fits to surrender. Fail to do this, and they will pay your debts in blood."
"I thought you said you were unfamiliar with the practice of taking prisoners!" Judith responded. "You're a poor liar, Bronhelm; as soon as our paws are in the air, you'll gut us and throw our corpses in the sea!"
Bronhelm snorted outside, amused. "Just because I don't take prisoners doesn't mean I have to murder you. You have slain a great number of my sailors today, Hopps. Not enough to worry my cause, but enough that I'm willing to bargain to avoid further losses. And, since you put the guns to my ship, I find I am in need of a serviceable vessel. If you surrender, and your crew follows your example, I will give you the Tribunal - absent its remaining mast, of course. For that, and your lives, I only ask you surrender the Implacable to me. Ugly and pestilent though it most certainly is, I need it intact more than I need to spill your blood."
Judith gnawed her lip, her eyes darting to and fro. This was a nightmare - they had lost every scrap of leverage, and Bronhelm's words were sounding reasonable. She thought she'd had the capacity for cowardice drummed out during her while training at the Naval Academy, but was it really cowardice when there were no options left? All that stopped her assent was her distrust of the Porcine lord.
"He won't honour the arrangement," Judith whispered to Felix. "He won't. He's a counterfeit diplomat. If we lay down arms, I'll be killed and you'll be killed and everyone left will be bodies in the ocean by sundown."
Felix's lip twisted. Then he drew a short dagger from his belt and handed it to Judith. "I have my sword, and my claws. I'll exit first, and draw their attacks. You go between my legs and aim for Bronhelm's neck. We'll get one shot."
Judith was frozen, but finally nodded. "One shot."
"It's been an honour, Captain."
Bronhelm's blustering roar shattered the silence. "It's an easy decision to make, Hopps! I can't imagine what is giving you pause! So, you have until my soldiers cut through these walls, and then your fate is your own doing! Axes!"
The throaty clunk of blades against wood started to fill the cabin. Felix slouched against the door, his hands on the beam. He swallowed, and fixed Judith with a stare.
"Ready?"
Judith turned the dagger over in her paw. She nodded.
Suddenly, a resonating clatter sounded from beneath their feet. Judith spun, nearly bowled over with shock. Felix paused, staring at the floor.
The clatter became the steady clank of metal on metal - of gears turning - and slowly, just visible in the gloom, a square of the floor split in two and began to fall away to the sides. It was the trap door to the lower storage deck; someone was opening it from the other side.
When the doors had parted, Judith made her way to the opening and peered over the lip, Felix leaning over beside her.
There, standing in the shadows, covered in blood and scratched to ribbons, but smiling from ear to ear, was Nick.
"Carrots," he called softly, leaning on his cutlass, "you'll be delighted to learn I haven't been skewered like a cob of corn. Felix, you probably less so. Now maybe you'd like to come down here and flog me for insubordination."
Judith couldn't keep the smile of her face, although she stamped down on the tear that threatened to well in her good eye. She turned to Felix. "You first; you can catch me."
Felix clenched his teeth, and with a nod he lowered his legs over the edge and dropped into the space below, landing with a splash in a layer of water. He growled in pain, his leg folding underneath him, but he recovered quickly and held up his paws for Judith.
Behind her, one brutal axe stroke left a split in the timber, a bead of light rushing in. Judith dived off the edge, landing safely in Felix's paws.
"Nick, you Master of Rodent-like Trickery! How the damned hell did you sneak your way down here?"
"There's a hatch at the fore of the ship, just before the bowsprit, that leads down into the hull," Nick said. "MacHorn and the others were holding the forecastle just fine without me, so I figured my services were better spent back here."
"A fine story," mumbled Felix, "and we are saved, momentarily. But we're still outnumbered and depleted. How do we take back the leverage in this fight, fox?"
Nick's lip trembled in mock hurt. "Sir, I am wounded - literally and figuratively. Do you really think I'd come to your rescue without plan to reverse the odds? How have you not noticed the smell?"
It struck Judith like a lightning bolt; the permeating stink of alcohol. She looked at the liquid sloshing under foot.
"This isn't water, is it?" she said.
A quick glace revealed the walls of the hold were stocked, layer on layer, with barrels of reeking Blackrock rum. The head of every barrel had been smashed open, their contents sloshing out.
"Now," Nick finished, "if we are done with pleasantries, I suggest we head back towards the front of the ship. There's a fight to be won, and this–" he waved at the accumulating alcohol "–this looks, quite frankly, very dangerous."
Without another word, the injured trio vanished into the hold, while above them the din of woodcutting halted. A hole just large enough to pass something through was now open in the wall of the storage room. On Bronhelm's nod, a soldier struck a flint over a wrapped torch, which burst into licking orange flame.
"My apologies, Rabbit," he called, "but not all captaincies are destined to end in glory. Give my regards to the angels in the Afterworld!"
With that, the Porcine sailor tossed the lit torch through the gap, laughing as he did. It tumbled through the air, lighting the interior of the storage deck, and vanishing into the lower hold.
As it turned out, Nick was wise to have avoided testing the flammability of the rum.
It started as a sheet of angry fire rushing across the surface of the spillage on the hold's floor. Quickly, the searching flames rushed up the streams pouring from the barrels, consuming them in an instant. A moment later, just as a hog aimed to toss a second torch through the breach, the whole hold burst into a pillar of inferno that rushed towards the ceiling, looking for any escape.
The door was blasted clear off its hinges. The roof trembled and collapsed. The walls split apart, loosing torrents of fire wherever they relented. The conflagration consumed everything, and spent it into the sky as unholy black exhaust.
Soon the shock of the blast subsided, leaving the roar of the flames and a blooming tower of smoke and hot ash. From the bow of the ship, where the remaining Zoohavenite sailors were mounting a brave defence, the fighting came to a standstill. All eyes, Porcine and other, watched the swirling, pitch-dark cloud in shocked silence.
And then, drifting across the air like haunting ghosts, came the cries.
