As always, comments, questions, correction and whatnot are welcomed and loved and petted and called George.
-Blue
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Chapter 9
Two days after setting sail the pirates of the Moon’s Revenge spotted their target: a fat, cumbersome cargo vessel that rode low in the water and moved about as fast as a sea turtle on dry land despite the stiff breeze that pushed it along its course. The Revenge, built for speed and maneuvering, caught up quickly to the slaver ship. The slavers tried to run as soon as they realized they were being pursued, but it was hopeless. In a desperate attempt to gain speed they ditched barrels and crates, probably containing provisions and gear, but it made no difference.
Contrary to what Yoshimo expected, Blackbeard gave most of the orders as the Revenge closed on its target, with Smitty throwing in the occasional unprintable terms of endearment to punctuate what the dwarf said. Elliard meanwhile stood at the bow of the ship, obviously concentrating on something, though Yoshimo couldn’t discern what it was. Then he saw Elliard’s hands moving and flame forming between his palms. The elf made a throwing motion and a ball of fire streaked off of his fingertips and struck the water a dozen yards ahead of the slaver ship, causing the water to explode into a hissing cloud of steam. Unable to turn away, the slaver ship plowed headlong into the steam cloud. Yoshimo shivered as he heard the slaver crew scream, their voices shrill and full of pain as the steam scalded them.
Blackbeard shouted, “Drop the boarding planks! Hop to, ye barmy bastards! Get ready to draw steel on this slaver scum!” The crew of the Revenge responded almost instantly, throwing boards across the gap between the two ships and rushing onto the crippled vessel.
Yoshimo tried to follow their example, but Blackbeard caught him by the hem of his tunic. “Hold on lad, don’t get yerself into the middle of that mess. Go down into the hold there and see if ye can’t get a head start on letting the slaves out of their shackles.” It was clear to see that the scalded slavers had by this point regained their senses enough to form a limited resistance to the pirate raiders, but their efforts were weak, and like their attempts to flee, futile.
Never one to argue when it came to keeping himself out of the middle of a chaotic melee, Yoshimo nodded and hurried off, running over the shaking boarding planks and skirting the edge of the fighting and made it to the hold without incident.
He threw the hatch open and ducked inside, hoping that no one had noticed him. He was met by a burly, tusked humanoid carrying a wooden club, who swung wildly at him. Yoshimo dodged to one side, barely avoiding a blow that would have likely crushed his skull, and drew his katana, cursing the tight confines of the hall. The slaver made another, clumsier attack and tripped. As the slaver went down, Yoshimo buried his katana in his neck, ending the slaver’s struggles for good.
He performed a brief search of the slaver’s corpse and found a set of keys, one of which probably went to the door at the end of the narrow corridor. He tested each of the keys until he found the one that fit the lock, and then opened the door.
A foul smell assaulted him immediately, making him stumble back, coughing and struggling for a clean breath of air. Once he had regained himself again he braved the door and entered the slave hold. He half-tripped down the rickety stairs that led into the dark expanse beyond, and was torn between wishing for a light so that he could see where he was going and being thankful that he didn’t.
“Hello?” he shouted, peering into the gloom. He saw human shapes along the hull, but he couldn’t make out anything more than that. He heard movement, but no one spoke up. He retreated up the stairs again, and ransacked the rooms off the corridor for a lantern, which he lit quickly, and then hurried back to the dank hold. He raised the lantern to the doorway and now really wished that he hadn’t.
The slaves writhed in their own filth, shying away from the light that blinded them after so long in darkness. Yoshimo held the lantern aloft and went down the stairs again, trying not to shudder at the idea of living for so long in such wretched condition. The slaves scuttled away from him, the chains that bound them to the decking clanking and rattling as they were stretched to their limits. Somewhere at the back of the room an infant began to cry, and its mother shushed it anxiously.
Unsure of what to do, Yoshimo set the lantern down in the center of the room and walked carefully over to the nearest slave, a man who shrank from him as he approached.
“I will not hurt you,” Yoshimo tried to assure him, using his best diction and minimizing his accent as much as possible. “I will help.” The man flinched pathetically as Yoshimo reached his hands forward and tried one key after another on the lock that held the shackles to his ankles. At last the lock clicked and the chains fell away, but contrary to Yoshimo’s expectations, the man did not rejoice or try to run, he just huddled closer to the hull and shivered. Not wanting to waste time, Yoshimo moved on down the line of chained slaves, unlocking their shackles, but they all reacted in the same way as the first man.
After a few minutes, some of the other members of the Revenge’s crew joined him and gently started coaxing the slaves out of their dark prison. Like feral, mistreated animals, they were reluctant to put their faith in their fellow man again, but slowly they began to act more and more human, until at last one woman broke and followed one of the pirates up out of the hold. After that it was like a tidal wave of people clamoring toward the light and their freedom.
Yoshimo passed the keys off to another one of the sailors and took out his lock picks, figuring that having two people working at once would make things move faster; and the faster he got out of that stinking hole the better, as far as he was concerned. The light was poor, but he didn’t need too much light to pick such simple, crude locks, and he moved along almost as quickly as the sailor with the keys.
They were almost done, having gotten all the slaves but two, a woman and her young son, unlocked, and nearly all the rest out of the hold, when Yoshimo heard shouting and then an explosion of flame ripped through the deck above his head and tore a gaping hole in one side of the hull. He was knocked off of his feet and peppered with splinters of wood, dropping his lock picks and losing sight of them as water rushed into the hold. The sailor that had been helping him floated on the rising water face down, a piece of wood a foot long and several inches wide driven through his skull. All the slaves that had until now still been hesitant to leave the hold lost their ambivalence and made a mad, frantic rush toward the rickety stairs out of the hold.
Yoshimo got to his feet and about to turn and leave when the child he had been trying to help started to wail loudly. He turned back, torn between wanting to get the hell off the sinking slaver ship, and knowing that he ought to help the boy. He felt around on the deck again for his lock picks, thinking that if he found them quickly he might be able to help the boy without endangering himself, but though he failed to find his tools his hand did fall on the ring of keys the sailor had dropped. He searched through them, trying to find the right key by feel since the lantern had been put out and thrown only the gods knew where. Only the fact that most of the ceiling had been blown away enabled him to see even a little bit of what he was doing.
He found the right key and waded through the water over to the screeching child. He fumbled under the water for the boy’s shackles and was about to open them when another explosion rocked the ship and a heavy shower of debris descended into the hold. A piece of the mast struck Yoshimo across the back, knocking him into the water. The keys fell from his hands and were lost in the swirling water. Stunned, he tried to get up, but found one of his legs pinned. The child kept screaming.
Yoshimo felt very close to screaming too. He twisted his head about and tried to see is there was anyway he could dislodge himself. The piece of the mast that held him down was wedged tightly against the hull, and though he tried to move it, it wouldn’t budge. He tried to wriggle free, but found himself too firmly stuck. He felt at his side for his katana, but found that it had been dashed away from him in the tumult. He spotted it just out of reach, jammed uselessly into the deck.
The water rose up to his chest, and he began to get violently worried. As Yoshimo began to shout, calling out for help, the boy fell silent, either too shocked to cry out anymore or too tired. Soon the water was up to his chin, and the boy was struggling to keep his head above its roiling surface. Then at last it was Yoshimo who was struggling to keep his head above the water, and the boy disappeared all together.
The sea dabbled at his lips and nose, and he held his breath. His eyes burned from the salty water, but he kept them open and turned up to the faint light that was his only hope. His vision began to erode at the edges, black and red spots seeping in from the sides as his lungs begged for air. He inhaled a mouthful of the sea and wished for gills. He thought he saw something above the water, and then he thought nothing at all.
