"Steady, boys!" braced the Wolfenboss as the pirate line gritted its teeth against the alien onslaught. Land met space, wicker met bronze. Thousands of Tatanga's aliens pushed up against the line of pirate bronze. Sandals slid, plowing the water as the pirates' sailboats were forced back.
An alien's blade drew the first blood, grazing across the shoulder of a young pirate. The boy cried out in anger and breathed hate into the pirate wall. Syrup strained as she and her men finally slowed the tide of silk and wicker, steel and strange skin. They quickly found a seahold that slowed their backwards movement. All at once, a thousand alien eyes grew large with fear as the Wolfenboss lowered his body, rowed forward and thrusted his lance through two aliens at a time.
"Push on!" roared the Wolfenboss.
The Wolfenboss rowed through the enemy without pause. He pierced through the silk leggings and punctured their lungs with such force that the air escaped their lungs in geysers. The pirates rowed on, never breaking their impenetrable human wall. Awabo roared as his large jab roared, cutting through several alien throats at once. The cries of pain let out by Awabo's victims were muffled as they fell under the water below the pirates' advance.
"Push!"
With that, the pirates pushed on.
The pirates practically gathered strength from the waters of Sarasaland herself and the alien invaders fell upon each other, one after the other.
"Clear… to the right!"
Scared aliens, their hearts pounding in hollow determination, quickly fell prey to the skill of the pirates following Syrup.
"No prisoners!"
The pirates roared in acceptance. They stepped and thrusted and rowed forth, easily killing all that stood before them.
"No mercy!"
The pirates roared once more.
A deafening advance, the pirates repulsed the raiders' discharge with deafening ease, forcing the incalculable numbers backwards. "They look thirsty," the Wolfenboss noted to Syrup.
"Give them something to drink boys!" she roared in response.
"To the cliffs!"
The pirates jolted at that. Electrified, they pushed their burnished defense, relentless, sailing over alien bodies, grinding them towards the cliffs. The Wolfenboss lurched and skewered another.
The rear columns of the attacking aliens began to fold and fall away, over the high cliff's edge and into the sea below.
All around, gasps were heard of men without sailboats beneath them and their sinking forms were blackening the River Twygz. High pitched wails and caterwauls bled forth and crumpled back onto the force as the pirates pushed forth. By the hundreds, the raiders fell as the warships rained fire down upon them fromabove. Embrodiered tunics and mail jackets tumbled and burned. Continuous and measured screams sung out as the aliens distorted and separated into the churning salty grave.
"Hold!" commanded Syrup.
With the captain's voice, the pirates stood in their sailboats and watched as the last alien sailed over the cliff face and disappeared without a sound.
"A Hell of a good start!" commended the Wolfenboss and again the pirates roared.
Distant alien horns sounded off as a thousand birds screeched and arrows cut loose. As if on instinct, the pirates dropped to a knee and covered their bodies with the bronze shelter of their shields from the incoming storm. The first wave of arrow heads sunk into the sea around Syrup and her men.
Shaft after shaft sunk into the pirates' shields, momentarily obscuring the sun with their volume. "Alien cowards," swore Syrup. Tatanga's bowmen reached into their quivers and sent more missiles by the thousands, an attack of size and strength never seen by Syrup and her pirates. Shoot crouched, laughing beneath his makeshift bronze roof.
"What in the hell are you laughing at?" asked Antenor beneath the weight of the arrows.
"You had to say it!" he giggled as arrows pounded off their sields and deflected. Shafts snapped, they fell into a deluge and Shoot's own robe was pinned to the ground.
"What?"
"Fight in the shade!" he giggled and they both began to laug. Soon, other pirates began to join in. As the last shrieking volley was cut loose, all was silent save the pirates' laughter in the river. After a few minutes, the Wolfenboss signaled for them all to settle down as Syrup looked to him.
"Let them laugh," she said. "It scares the fight out of our enemy." The Wolfenboss nodded.
"Recover!" roared the Wolfenboss and a cry erupts from the back of the pirates' formation. In the front position, Syrup's saw the mass of beast and men the raiders now offered. Her eyes widened to the sheer force and she set her body for the impact. "No heroes… today no pirate truly dies!" Shoot looked to the Wolfenboss and he nodded softly, a simple gesture of comforting recognition before forces from the mouths of the darkenst corners of the universe itself arrived.
Nostrils flared as giant grape-coloured beasts thundered down upon the pirate sailboats. The Wolfenboss locked his shield into his body. These were the Catbats, eyes as big as domes, pincer like teeth, giant voracious paws and a serpentine tail. Antenor fought back fear, his breath quickening in time with the advancing mounts. It was an explosion of pure violence. The raiders were thrown from their Catbat mounts by pirate spears and then trampled as soon as they hit the water. Sweat and blood flowed freely through the River Twygz. Terror carved and molded to each raider face.
The pirates did what they were trained to do. They advanced with tremendous velocity, their half-naked forms adorning red ribbons and brilliant bronze armour. They sailed forward without cause. The pirates did what they were bred to do. The pirates fought with curved swords, small war axes and hammers engraved with sharks' heads. The pirates did what they were born to do. Their slaughter was as abstract as it was brutal. Raider men, torn limbs, unclothed bodies, crushed and bloody, wounded figures, empty hand-tooled sailboats, beheaded toge, faceless masses clutching to breath and pulse, one by one falling again and again to piratical endurance.
There would be no prisoners. There would be no mercy. This was a good start.