Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Whisper ‘Pretty Nose’ Jinx
The Pirate’s Other Spawn
Part III
-Abrakas Gullet-
A northern wind blew inside the Straits, the open sails swelling pregnant, the rigs stressing and the whole ship creaking and shuddering, as it broke through the waves at full speed. Captain Gray, jaw clenched, white hair blowing in the wind and lined face soaked, came down the quarterdeck and nimbly grabbed a line to walk down the narrow starboard corridor, heading for the bow of the Marquette. He paused seeing them hugging the main deck rail, soaked to the bone.
“Lady Jinx, Lady Zola,” the man greeted them with a slight bow of the head. “I take it, yer having an easy journey?”
Whisper glanced at Zola, the woman looking alike someone that had freshly puked and grinned.
“Water is nice, in the summer,” she teased, but Zola wasn’t very interested in her joke. Must be all the fuckin’, Jinx thought, her grin fading, and the ship food?
Abrakas sure has a laughin’ wit dis.
“Right then. The faster we get out the Straits the better,” Captain Gray said after a small awkward pause.
“Why is that, Mister Gray?” Jinx purred warmly and Zola rolled her eyes.
“Ehm, well the moment we made that turn at Colant’s Refuge everyone knew where we were heading,” the Captain frowned, hand working his trimmed beard. “We went as far off course as it was prudent, but once on this route, every ship goes for the Straits.”
Jinx nodded, eyes hidden behind a wet pink curtain, Zola grimaced green in the face and Captain Gray tipped his imaginary hat and left not to interrupt their serious conversation.
“Are ye gonna puke again?” Jinx asked, pushing her wet mess of a hair behind her small ears. At some point she had to do something about them, but braiding them was a chore and a half and Jinx kept losing the leather tail holders, she was stealing from the slave girls. She suspected Iskay the redhead as the culprit.
That girl is a pretty thief.
“It passed,” a weary Zola replied and wiped her face with a cloth she got out of the vest opening. The swelling there equaling that of the sails, flapping over their heads. “I have it since Bayspell,” they had stopped there briefly to get provisions for a longer journey. Sen-Iv had a difficult time accepting the two lost days.
Hmm.
“Are ye having too much water?” Jinx asked, turning her head to avoid a big wave gouging her eyes out. “Always drink first from the barrels, the bottom stuff are icky.”
Zola groaned and wiped her face again, glanced up the quarterdeck where Soren was having Liko on his back playing horse, the big Northman while affected from seasickness at the start, had adjusted pretty well. Especially after the sailors started sharing their liquor with him. The Issir woman sighed, a deep sigh this from her stomach and Jinx frowned, scrunched her face this way and that, scratched a nasty tickle at her nostrils and looked for a way to not have this conversation. Whisper’s instincts telling her, she wasn’t going to like it.
“Think, I’m expecting,” Zola blurted out, just as the Gish had turned to hoof it towards the Captain’s cabin.
For fuck’s sake.
“Does it happen frequently?” She jested, absent anything better.
Zola grimaced and stared at her incredulous.
“Are you serious? What the actual fuck, Whisper!”
“Just sayin’ might be a false alarm,” Jinx said quickly, not wanting to talk about it, but fully aware it was an important matter for Zola. Why is this happening to me? What is dis fuckin’ torture, are ye serious? What am I cursed? “Had this rush on my thigh once, thought twas me undies—”
“You never wear undies!” Zola blasted her and Fox Drachen standing a couple of meters away flinched, but kept his eyes straight and kept examining the main mast standing all proud with interest, pretending he wasn’t listening in.
“It wasn’t in me thigh,” Jinx admitted. “The pants, was my meaning. I had ‘em washed thoroughly, but it turned out it wasn’t that.”
Zola groaned in frustration again. “What was it?”
“Ahm, a swelling? Probably rubbed it too hard in me sleep,” Jinx whispered and seeing Zola glaring at her, murder in her eyes, she blurted out blushing. “It went away.”
“Can’t you just grow up a bit?” Zola asked her tiredly. “Stop being so selfish.”
How am I selfish? Jinx thought, looking at her. It hurts hearing this, but I pretend it is fine.
She turned and stared at the dark blue sea.
“You should tell him,” Jinx finally said, wiping a tear down her eye. “Soren is a great guy. Thick as a rock, but ye can’t put a price on the goodness of one’s soul.”
Sen-Iv closed her thin short tunic with a hand and let her walk in. Jinx went straight for the bottle of wine and poured herself a cup. A wooden one, from the ship. Sen walked the short distance to the Captain’s bed and sat on it, the tunic riding up her golden-skinned thighs, enough for Jinx to notice, she had nothing underneath.
Not that she couldn’t tell from the pair of pokers, the shrill silk fabric couldn’t conceal to help itself.
“I had the rings removed,” Sen explained, as if she was talking about groceries, sensual whispery voice the best medicine for a good sleep, or a slow orgasm. “The salt is taxing on them.”
Jinx glanced at her, found no blushing there.
Right.
Save the nipple.
“Sorry about yer clothes,” she said lamely. “Ye did bring that expensive thing though, for the amount of material.”
Sen actually chuckled at that. “Glen loves it.”
I bet he does, Jinx thought, chunking down the rest of her wine. I love it and I haven’t seen ye in it, just saying.
“It’s for the festival, whatever they call it here.”
“People just attend for the drinks,” Jinx agreed, refilling her cup.
“Do you think Glen made it out?” The Cofol woman asked and Whisper walked and plopped down on the bed, next to her.
Tried to at least.
Sen directed her away from the mattress with a firm hand, tunic opening offering Naossis miracles times two and kept pushing her, until Jinx yielded and stepped away cup in hand.
“What?”
Sen-Iv raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Whisper stared down at her pants.
“Leather is wet,” Jinx said. “Not dirty.”
“It’s soaked,” Sen repeated calmly. “And dirty. Remove them, so I can have the girls clean them up.”
Jinx stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Ye want me naked?”
“I have a fresh tunic in that box,” Sen pointed with a manicured finger. The fingernail on it cleaner than Jinx’s teeth.
“Where did you find the box?” Jinx asked, thinking of her poor egg. Glen was so clumsy. Could he lose it? Surely one can’t leave a big box behind, right? Unless his life depended on it, then… yeah, the box wasn’t as important.
“Liko sat on it, in the boat,” Sen explained, caught in mischief. There’s a blush there, Jinx thought. “I may have cheated a little.”
“What did ye bring?”
“Not much clothes, some stones, jewelry, my oils, a small bag of soaps,” she paused realizing that was too much information and added a little apprehensively. “This and that.”
Sen’s tunic reached below Jinx’s knees, almost like a dress. It also was a striking red silk that matched her eyes. Sen-Iv, absurdly expensive brush in hand, pulled hard at her long pink hair, a determined look on her face.
“Have you ever brushed them?” She asked, tying them in a high bun at the top of her head. Wow, Jinx thought. My ears are fuckin’ huge! She checked Sen’s through the mirror and breathed out relieved. They weren’t.
Now the earrings, she wouldn’t mind having.
“Sure. A couple o’ times,” Jinx replied, moving her head right and left energetically, so she could whip the ponytail sideways alike her horse. “Hmm.”
“What is it?” Sen asked, moving away to go and sit on the bed again. “Come here.”
“So, how do I do that, without a mirror?” Jinx asked sitting down next to her.
Sen stared at her for a long moment, her eyes a kaleidoscope of colors. “You’ve been on the road for too long,” she said finally and Whisper sighed remembering Dante helping her out of the seaweeds, more blue than pink.
“All my life, I reckon.”
“Do you like it, the life?”
Well, it was fine a couple of minutes ago, now it kinda sucks again.
“Tis what it is,” Jinx replied, listening to the ship’s noises. “Glen will make it out. He’s sneaky like that.”
And carries a magic dagger.
“I’m worried, but also believe it with all my heart,” Sen replied and Jinx realized she hadn’t seen her so open another time. “The alternative, I can’t fathom.”
“Getting out of Hellfort was more difficult. He almost died there. Oakenfalls, gods it’s been so long now. I could have shot him first, instead of Emerson. He had no armor on.”
“Why didn’t you?” Sen asked, with a smile.
Jinx shrugged her shoulders. “He looked so scared and out of place. So young. I should have taken Zestari out myself. I’ve thought about it, but didn’t. Two of my friends died for that.”
Fuck, Jinx thought. What are ye doing? Are ye fuckin’ crying?
Sen touched her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Jinx croaked.
“What happened?” The Cofol woman asked.
“Ah, dammit… nothing,” Jinx sniffled. “I’ll be alright, in just a minute. It’s been a difficult year.”
“Your friends? Dante?”
“Yeah, Victor as well,” she saw Pale Hook again up on that cursed bridge, before going under.
“Then there’s the Issir woman,” Sen-Iv added perceptively.
“She’s pregnant,” Jinx blurted out, before she could stop herself. Yeah, I need to get out of here, she thought.
“Would the baby take something from you? Something you could have had, if she wasn’t?”
Jinx sighed and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Nah. I’ve tried everything,” she admitted.
But for the wooden phallus. Glen better not miss that!
Sen dropped the ivory brush she had used in her lap. Jinx stared at it for a moment perturbed at the gesture.
“Now you have a brush,” Sen said and stared her up and down. Jinx thought about kissing her, but managed to get ahold of herself and listen to her words. “Zola will have a baby. Jinx might want to look to her own future. I wager there’s a prince waiting there and I hate gambling. Stop beating the dead horse and get yourself a new one.”
Jinx chuckled. “Ye were doin’ great, but the dead horse kinda threw me off at the end.”
Sen-Iv shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a Horselords saying. Personally I hate them.”
“Haha. What’s wrong wit horses or gambling?” Jinx chuckled, using the tunic to wipe her nose. Sen reached under a pillow, got a hankie out, but Whisper stopped her. “I prefer me way.”
She had to draw the line somewhere.
Glen’s famed wife frowned, stared at the soft hankie and then replied to her previous query, as all the gods were listening.
“The horses is just something new for me. The other thing, well. It is foolish to risk your life for coin and I’ll never leave what’s most precious to chance,” the Celestial Opal of Lai Zel-Ka had said. “Not if I can help it.”
SHIP AHOY!
Jinx heard the outlook yell and rushed up the stairs to the deck, Soren almost running her over, as he was coming down.
“Wow!” Jinx yelled naked feet fighting for purchase.
“Pretty?” Soren gasped stopping her easily, a big hand on her shoulder. “Is that a dress?”
“Tis a tunic!” Jinx snapped, her heart beating wild from the scare. “Where are ye going?”
“Lookin’ for ye,” Soren replied, red beard reaching his belly. “What happened to yer hair?”
“Tis a ponytail,” Whisper deadpanned, then sighed. “Fine then,” and made to shove him out of the way. When that failed, she tried squeezing through desperately in order to reach the top, but didn’t move an inch. The big Northman turned to the side, seeing her struggles and grabbing her by the waist, carried her on the deck.
“Put me down,” Jinx warned him embarrassed and he let her stand on her own with a shrug. “Alright, what do you want?”
“It’s not a Gallant Dogs problem,” Soren said, sounding troubled. He walked to the rails, grabbed them with both hands and almost uprooted a good portion of them, when he heaved tensed.
“Wow big guy,” Jinx cautioned him. “It’s Glen’s ship.”
“Aye, it is,” Soren agreed and relaxed his muscles. “We should have stayed to help him.”
“Glen wanted us here, Soren. Near Sen; we are helping him.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“What is it, big guy?” Jinx asked, although she already knew. Captain Gray had the spyglass in his hands on the quarterdeck. She starred at the sky next and the setting sun.
Half an hour until nightfall, she thought.
Tops.
“Ah, darn it all,” Soren cursed. “I messed it up.”
Oh, come on, get it out ye ox!
“She told you about the baby,” Jinx said.
Soren flinched in shock. “Ye can tell already?”
“No, she told me first.”
“So you know?”
Jinx licked her lips, moved away from the rail not to stain her fancy tunic, the wind blowing through her tingling and crossed her hands behind her back.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“Ye sure?” Soren asked, looking more than a little worried. “In our kind of life, captain… ah, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?”
“We’ll just have her on desk duty,” Jinx replied with a grin.
“Where?”
“Soon as we reach Eikenport, we’ll look to do Alix’s job and ask Glen for a loan,” Jinx replied.
“Where would Glen find the coin?”
“He’s rich as fuck?”
Soren frowned. “Glen?” He thought about it some. “So you have a plan?”
Jinx chuckled and smacked him once on the shoulder. “You’ll be a great dad Soren and yes, Jinx has a plan for the company.”
She didn’t, but might as well start planning. Perhaps a base of operations, she thought. An office space, preferably near a venue of ill repute. A large pool out back. Now that could be expensive.
“You should go ahead and tell Zola, everything will be fine,” she told him. “Maybe show her some love, girls like that.”
Soren puffed out and scratched his head with a spade like hand.
“Yeah, I kinda told her that already,” he admitted. “She knows.”
“There ye go then,” Jinx replied. “Now, I need to head back in, me tits are freezing.”
On the way to the lower deck she bumped onto Nebula the ships carpenter.
“Hey,” Jinx asked him. “What was that ship?”
“Two of them,” The man replied. “Heading for the Straits.”
Jinx frowned.
“Pirates?”
“Who knows?” Nebula said, with shrug. “They missed us, will never find us in the night.”
If Jinx could reach him easily –Nebula was a good three heads taller than her- she would have slapped him hard in the face.
Twice.
Three hours later found her with closed eyes, Sen-Iv sleeping peacefully in the bed, Jinx’s nape at the crook of her hip, listening to the sound of the Cofol woman’s breaths. One hour after Zola had finally stopped moaning in the Second’s smaller cabin and three before dawn, she contemplated of jumping into Sen’s bath barrel for a nap.
Then Whisper felt her bones vibrate. It wasn’t a shudder, as Jinx felt it going from end to end, from the ship’s beams, to the hull’s superstructure and back. It was like a pulse, or a current running through everything, using the sea as medium.
Or a sound Jinx had heard described, when she was still a youngling.
Abrakas warning for the Gish that had their life spared once already.
Stay out of the water.
This female Gish opened her eyes and listened again for it, her toes still tingling. Sen’s slow breathing stopped, the older woman waking up on instinct.
“What is it?” She murmured looking at the pitch black. Jinx got up lithely, reached for her quiver, got the strap over her head and snapped the clasp closed at the front. She wore her harness over it, the silk tunic Jinx had still on looking ridiculous and picked up her bow. “Whisper?” Sen asked again, worried now.
“Lock the door. It might be nothing,” Jinx told her and taking a big breath, opened said door and run up the stairs and on the main deck.
“COMIN’ ABREAST!” Someone yelled from above, the moment she stepped on the wet deck-boards.
“STARBOARD SIDE!” Answered another and Jinx’s swung her head right, saw the Brigantine almost upon them, the long lines whistling right and left, the hooks on them deadly.
“PIRATES!” Several sailors yelled right after, as a general alarm was sounded, lights appearing and bells ringing across the Marquette. Jinx grunted, got an arrow out, lined up a shot from deck to deck, the other ship less lit up than their own, caught a pirate preparing to cross over –the two ships no more than three meters apart- breathed out and nailed him right through the neck.
“PORTSIDE FULL RUDDER!” Gray barked from the quarterdeck, as Jinx glided two meters, her naked feet burning up, then jumped -the wet tunic ballooning over her legs- stepped on the side of the main mast, grabbed a line with her left hand and started walking up. Below her at the main deck wild figures started jumping on board using lines. She counted twenty, before her feet touched the flat main yard beam, the course sail slapping her hard in the back, as the Marquette attempted to turn violently to disengage.
Jinx almost fell to her death, but found her footing a moment later, left shoulder screaming in pain, skin on her hand opening as she clutched desperately at a line and the whole ship creaking and groaning, before coming to a stop, when the grappling hooks locked it in place.
“CUT THE BLOODY LINES!” Someone yelled, amidst the chaos. Jinx, her teeth rattling, got up on one knee, glanced at the pirate ship that had sneaked up on them in the dark, now lit up as well and saw the name of it on the port side, written in bronze.
‘Good Severance.’
“Fuck off ye cunt,” Jinx cursed and reached for another arrow.
A pirate decapitated a young sailor with a nasty cutlass, more a butcher’s weapon than a sword, the head bouncing off the deck and into the black sea. Jinx shot him through the chest, arrow finding his heart and he died on his feet, the cutlass clattering down.
The crew of the Marquette had gathered, in an attempt to block the access to the quarterdeck, but they were overwhelmed and were getting slaughtered too fast for the young Gish to count. Jinx fired arrow after arrow, perilously balancing on the beam, trying to take out the more dangerous opponents, or disable them.
Twenty arrows and perhaps ten kills in, she realized they were losing. Grimacing and low on ammunition, she dashed towards the ship’s stern and jumped in the void, slotting the bowstring over her head mid-air. Jinx found the mizzen sail and bounced off of it, legs kicking and hands flailing mad, until she grasped at the ratline, locked her legs on it and slid down, the burn at her naked thighs smarting something fierce.
The Gish landed behind the row of sailors defending the stairs and caught sight of Soren, chainmail on, but no boots, coming out of the lower deck, with Zola right behind him.
“Pretty, what—”
Oi fuck me wit no spit, Jinx groaned inwardly, raising a bleeding palm to stop him, her back bones hurting.
“Push them back on this side!” She yelled next, took a large gulp of air, wiped her face smearing blood over it and reached for her bow again.
“What are you going to do?” Zola asked her, eyes filled with a thousand worries, as Soren charged at the attacking pirates, axe swinging. The Issir woman pressed a bolt into her crossbow, she only had her night shirt on, but wore her pants and boots, the wooden quiver full.
“Kill the one leading them,” Jinx said and hurried away. It worked the last time.
Her instincts telling her this time it wouldn’t, but she couldn’t tell her that.
Captain Gray got a hook in the face and went down a bloody mess and the remaining crew shuddered on the starboard side of the deck, the other side holding still. Soren’s initial charge down the stairs had hurled half a dozen pirates overboard, the next four wishing they’d taken the plunge.
Jinx’s fired her last arrow aiming at a wild-eyed Lorian wearing chainmail barking orders, ridiculous hat on his head prominent, but she got bumped hard on the left shoulder and missed. She let go of her bow, turned around, as she tumbled down on the wet boards and got her shortsword out, the handle on it slippery.
A pirate charged her wielding a cleaver twice the size of a normal butcher’s and not as clean. Saw her cunt at full display, as her tunic had ridden all the way up and paused intrigued, Zola’s bolt smacking him right in the face and exploding out the back of his skull. It’s not half a bad last image to have, she thought. The pirate dropped down, Jinx got up, only to duck again to avoid a swing from the Pirate Captain, wielding a sabre. The blade whistled over her head, almost taking her ponytail out and stricken hard at the quarterdeck’s rails, chopping one off.
Jinx rolled on a knee towards him, stabbed with the shortsword down and right through his right leather boot, tip of her blade finding hardwood. The pirate cried in blinding pain, Jinx got her blade out and made to make an honest eunuch out of him, but got kicked hard between the tits and was hurled backwards six meters.
Whisper tripped another pirate as she glided on her back, the man hitting the deck and the nimble Gish slashed him casually once across the face, as she slid past him. Jinx stopped at the stairs across the ones she was a moment earlier, having traversed the ship’s width in a second and saw Soren duking it out with five opponents, the big man blocking the narrow corridor by himself, fully committed.
Jinx spat down and jumped up again, glanced back to the starboard side and realized the pirates had broken through there. Cursing she looked about, found a long shaft with a hook at one end of it, bit of bloody hair at the edge and sprinted there to help the remaining crew members defending the quarterdeck.
She made it, just as Zola having killed the pirate Captain, dropped her crossbow and grabbed his sabre to defend herself from his enraged crew.
“TWITSY PRESTON IS DEAD!” Someone yelled, sounding very angry about it for some reason. Jinx had met Preston briefly and she’d thought the man a thug and a right dick.
Whisper reached the bottom of the stairs, long weapon leading, as she skated the last meter on peeled off bloody feet. The Gish glanced left while she did, saw Zola slashing wild with the unfamiliar weapon and downing her opponent, a sailor dying next to her to a spear, then right with clenched teeth, to catch sight of two pirates’ crossing over rather late in the game, one of them wearing a leather eye-patch on his familiar ruffian’s face.
You bloody cunt! Jinx cursed, her spear like weapon plunging at the sides of the pirate blocking the stairs and sending him overboard, when she let the weapon go. Zola getting the same injury from the spear her opponent had. The Issir woman screamed her teeth bloody and cut him once across the face, just as Jinx, beating heart all but bursting out of her chest, jumped three stairs at a time to reach her.
“No,” Jinx gasped, catching Zola as she went down on her knees. “DON’T DO THIS TO ME YE FUCK!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Gods Whisper,” Zola said trying to pull the spear out of her sides. “Help Soren, for fuck’s sake!”
“She ain’t helping no one,” the pirate rustled over them, cutlass in hand. Eyes the color of gold. “Ship’s ours lassie.”
Jinx swung her head around, saw Soren injured, still fighting with at least eight pirates, most of the crew dead and then turned to glare at the pirate standing over her leering, the gloomy Stiles, his lips pressed tight, standing right next to him.
Jinx opened her mouth to curse their whoring mothers, but behind the pirate and the traitor, a massive tentacle came out of the sea, the suckers on it the size of a jungle lion’s head. It rose silently over the ‘Good Severance’ almost at the height of its main mast and then came down breaking everything in its path. The sound of the exploding beams, torn sails and shattering deck so sudden, it covered the screams of the men dying under it. Debris flew over the deck of the Marquette, parts of beams, rope, legs and weapons, all mixed in.
The pirate standing over the open-mouthed, crying Jinx, flinched at the rain of debris reaching them and the sound. He made to turn to see what had just happened and got a foot of blade from Stiles, right through the gut.
“Blimey! Jinx, yer bad luck girl!” Stiles rustled. “Abrakas takes us!”
Behind him four more monstrous tentacles appeared, raising slowly from the depths, each the size of a massive mature tree-trunk, a dark blue color on top, white at the suckers. Then the Kraken trumpeted again, the low-timbre and menacing gurgling pulse running through the Gish, who pissed herself, her bones vibrating again violently, alike the whole ship. The explosion that followed so gargantuan, almost everyone aboard the Marquette not ducking for cover, got thrown overboard and into the frothing waves.
Or just killed outright.
The pirate ship had disappeared, a mess of debris in its place and the waves pushed the freed Marquette violently aside, the large ship almost toppling over. Sails got torn up, beams snapped, rope lines cut and lashed out at anyone unlucky enough to gawk at the spectacle.
Jinx screamed manically, Stiles grabbing a sliding Zola by an arm to stop her from going over and then the ship righted itself again, the dark seas around them eerie silent.
Do it girl, or we’re all dead. Move for fuck’s sake! Jinx thought and crawled on her knees towards the stairs, men screaming in the water and on the damaged Marquette. Others too injured to swim going under in muffled silence. The Gish pulled her tunic over her head and got up, Stiles eye staring incredulous. She glanced once at Zola’s pale face, the spear torn out of her sides in the chaos that had followed the Kraken’s attack. Blood spilling out on the soaked briny boards. She looked towards Soren, found him fallen next to the stairs, battleaxe still in his hands, but bleeding from several places and his chainmail all torn up.
The Gish breathed out next and walked down the few stairs, to reach the bombarded deck of the Marquette. On the starboard side, where the attack had happened, the ship had been shredded up badly, some of the pirates’ hooks still in place, the lines cut. The Kraken rose slowly to the surface, head as big as the ship, most of his massive body submerged still, huge black eye opening up, the mirror surface on it the size of Castalor’s gates and stared at the small naked Gish standing on the deck.
Jinx could see herself in it, all other details blacked out.
“I claim my fuckin’ chance, ye cunt!” Whisper yelled at the top of her lungs, teeth rattling when she finished, legs shaking so much her knees banged at each other, hoping the elders haven’t messed that up and it wasn’t just a story to keep the small Gish from running away, the moment they started walking.
The Kraken’s eye stayed on her for a long terrifying moment, as if committing her to memory and then as silently as it had surfaced, it lowered itself down. The massive tentacles that had surrounded the hapless Marquette retreating in turn, following the colossal creature to the depths of Abrakas Gullet.
“Shivers me timbers,” Stiles rustled, wonder on his ruffian’s face. “Hadn’t me seen that, wit me own eyes… What?” He queried seeing the murderous look on her face. “Saved yer blasted life ye pinkish crack!”
“What happened?” Soren asked two hours later -the night almost gone- and tried to get up, but failed. Jinx checked on his injuries quickly. Whisper should have come for him sooner, but she couldn’t. He’d part of a blade in his left shoulder, three cuts on his legs, with the one above the knee worrying and a nasty welt under his right eye, the cheek cut deep and bleeding.
“You’ll be fine,” she declared and stood up to wear her tunic again, the fabric surprisingly in good condition, but soaked through.
“Ah, I need to get to Zola,” the big Northman said, with a groan and tried again to stand. Jinx stopped him, with a soft hand on his shoulder.
“Sen is looking after her, the girls as well. Save yer strength.”
Soren stared at her swollen eyes and lowered his head. “How bad?”
Ah, Abrakas ye piece of shite.
“Stay. I’ll check up on her again,” she urged him and Soren scrunched his jaw, put the shaft of his axe down and pushed himself upright with a mighty groan.
“Go. I’ll catch up to ye,” he growled through his teeth.
Jinx didn’t want to go anywhere near the quarterdeck, but she hanged her head and started that way just the same, the big Northman hobbling after her.
Sen-Iv wearing her tunic much better than Jinx, saw her climb up the stairs and took a deep breath, the serene look on her face infuriating Whisper. She fought not to lash out on her and came to stand next to the Cofol woman.
Stiles was talking with Drachen about how to get the ship going faster, with half its sails working. The Marquette had started moving again in the meantime. The two slave girls were tending to an ashen faced Zola. They used a cloth to clean her forehead, wipe the blood from her exposed ribs and hands. The muscles on the latter all locked up, not helping.
“My condolences for your loss,” Sen-Iv whispered, as dignified as she could and Jinx closed her swollen from crying eyes, not to see anymore. Nor hear. She had enough. “Gods give,” the Cofol woman continued, as if determined to test her mettle. “Same time as they take.”
Jinx cleared her throat, glanced back, saw a miserable Soren looking from the top of the stairs, barely standing upright and replied with a hiss, her voice dripping poison.
“I don’t give a fuck about the gods.”
A sailor yelled at the top of his lungs next. He was one of the less than ten remaining –majority of those injured- tasked with looking over the horizon for more pirates. His voice more a wretched digested croak, than a warning.
SHIP AHOY!
Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Whisper ‘Pretty Nose’ Jinx
The Pirate’s Other Spawn
Part III
-Abrakas Gullet-
A northern wind blew inside the Straits, the open sails swelling pregnant, the rigs stressing and the whole ship creaking and shuddering, as it broke through the waves at full speed. Captain Gray, jaw clenched, white hair blowing in the wind and lined face soaked, came down the quarterdeck and nimbly grabbed a line to walk down the narrow starboard corridor, heading for the bow of the Marquette. He paused seeing them hugging the main deck rail, soaked to the bone.
“Lady Jinx, Lady Zola,” the man greeted them with a slight bow of the head. “I take it, yer having an easy journey?”
Whisper glanced at Zola, the woman looking alike someone that had freshly puked and grinned.
“Water is nice, in the summer,” she teased, but Zola wasn’t very interested in her joke. Must be all the fuckin’, Jinx thought, her grin fading, and the ship food?
Abrakas sure has a laughin’ wit dis.
“Right then. The faster we get out the Straits the better,” Captain Gray said after a small awkward pause.
“Why is that, Mister Gray?” Jinx purred warmly and Zola rolled her eyes.
“Ehm, well the moment we made that turn at Colant’s Refuge everyone knew where we were heading,” the Captain frowned, hand working his trimmed beard. “We went as far off course as it was prudent, but once on this route, every ship goes for the Straits.”
Jinx nodded, eyes hidden behind a wet pink curtain, Zola grimaced green in the face and Captain Gray tipped his imaginary hat and left not to interrupt their serious conversation.
“Are ye gonna puke again?” Jinx asked, pushing her wet mess of a hair behind her small ears. At some point she had to do something about them, but braiding them was a chore and a half and Jinx kept losing the leather tail holders, she was stealing from the slave girls. She suspected Iskay the redhead as the culprit.
That girl is a pretty thief.
“It passed,” a weary Zola replied and wiped her face with a cloth she got out of the vest opening. The swelling there equaling that of the sails, flapping over their heads. “I have it since Bayspell,” they had stopped there briefly to get provisions for a longer journey. Sen-Iv had a difficult time accepting the two lost days.
Hmm.
“Are ye having too much water?” Jinx asked, turning her head to avoid a big wave gouging her eyes out. “Always drink first from the barrels, the bottom stuff are icky.”
Zola groaned and wiped her face again, glanced up the quarterdeck where Soren was having Liko on his back playing horse, the big Northman while affected from seasickness at the start, had adjusted pretty well. Especially after the sailors started sharing their liquor with him. The Issir woman sighed, a deep sigh this from her stomach and Jinx frowned, scrunched her face this way and that, scratched a nasty tickle at her nostrils and looked for a way to not have this conversation. Whisper’s instincts telling her, she wasn’t going to like it.
“Think, I’m expecting,” Zola blurted out, just as the Gish had turned to hoof it towards the Captain’s cabin.
For fuck’s sake.
“Does it happen frequently?” She jested, absent anything better.
Zola grimaced and stared at her incredulous.
“Are you serious? What the actual fuck, Whisper!”
“Just sayin’ might be a false alarm,” Jinx said quickly, not wanting to talk about it, but fully aware it was an important matter for Zola. Why is this happening to me? What is dis fuckin’ torture, are ye serious? What am I cursed? “Had this rush on my thigh once, thought twas me undies—”
“You never wear undies!” Zola blasted her and Fox Drachen standing a couple of meters away flinched, but kept his eyes straight and kept examining the main mast standing all proud with interest, pretending he wasn’t listening in.
“It wasn’t in me thigh,” Jinx admitted. “The pants, was my meaning. I had ‘em washed thoroughly, but it turned out it wasn’t that.”
Zola groaned in frustration again. “What was it?”
“Ahm, a swelling? Probably rubbed it too hard in me sleep,” Jinx whispered and seeing Zola glaring at her, murder in her eyes, she blurted out blushing. “It went away.”
“Can’t you just grow up a bit?” Zola asked her tiredly. “Stop being so selfish.”
How am I selfish? Jinx thought, looking at her. It hurts hearing this, but I pretend it is fine.
She turned and stared at the dark blue sea.
“You should tell him,” Jinx finally said, wiping a tear down her eye. “Soren is a great guy. Thick as a rock, but ye can’t put a price on the goodness of one’s soul.”
Sen-Iv closed her thin short tunic with a hand and let her walk in. Jinx went straight for the bottle of wine and poured herself a cup. A wooden one, from the ship. Sen walked the short distance to the Captain’s bed and sat on it, the tunic riding up her golden-skinned thighs, enough for Jinx to notice, she had nothing underneath.
Not that she couldn’t tell from the pair of pokers, the shrill silk fabric couldn’t conceal to help itself.
“I had the rings removed,” Sen explained, as if she was talking about groceries, sensual whispery voice the best medicine for a good sleep, or a slow orgasm. “The salt is taxing on them.”
Jinx glanced at her, found no blushing there.
Right.
Save the nipple.
“Sorry about yer clothes,” she said lamely. “Ye did bring that expensive thing though, for the amount of material.”
Sen actually chuckled at that. “Glen loves it.”
I bet he does, Jinx thought, chunking down the rest of her wine. I love it and I haven’t seen ye in it, just saying.
“It’s for the festival, whatever they call it here.”
“People just attend for the drinks,” Jinx agreed, refilling her cup.
“Do you think Glen made it out?” The Cofol woman asked and Whisper walked and plopped down on the bed, next to her.
Tried to at least.
Sen directed her away from the mattress with a firm hand, tunic opening offering Naossis miracles times two and kept pushing her, until Jinx yielded and stepped away cup in hand.
“What?”
Sen-Iv raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Whisper stared down at her pants.
“Leather is wet,” Jinx said. “Not dirty.”
“It’s soaked,” Sen repeated calmly. “And dirty. Remove them, so I can have the girls clean them up.”
Jinx stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Ye want me naked?”
“I have a fresh tunic in that box,” Sen pointed with a manicured finger. The fingernail on it cleaner than Jinx’s teeth.
“Where did you find the box?” Jinx asked, thinking of her poor egg. Glen was so clumsy. Could he lose it? Surely one can’t leave a big box behind, right? Unless his life depended on it, then… yeah, the box wasn’t as important.
“Liko sat on it, in the boat,” Sen explained, caught in mischief. There’s a blush there, Jinx thought. “I may have cheated a little.”
“What did ye bring?”
“Not much clothes, some stones, jewelry, my oils, a small bag of soaps,” she paused realizing that was too much information and added a little apprehensively. “This and that.”
Sen’s tunic reached below Jinx’s knees, almost like a dress. It also was a striking red silk that matched her eyes. Sen-Iv, absurdly expensive brush in hand, pulled hard at her long pink hair, a determined look on her face.
“Have you ever brushed them?” She asked, tying them in a high bun at the top of her head. Wow, Jinx thought. My ears are fuckin’ huge! She checked Sen’s through the mirror and breathed out relieved. They weren’t.
Now the earrings, she wouldn’t mind having.
“Sure. A couple o’ times,” Jinx replied, moving her head right and left energetically, so she could whip the ponytail sideways alike her horse. “Hmm.”
“What is it?” Sen asked, moving away to go and sit on the bed again. “Come here.”
“So, how do I do that, without a mirror?” Jinx asked sitting down next to her.
Sen stared at her for a long moment, her eyes a kaleidoscope of colors. “You’ve been on the road for too long,” she said finally and Whisper sighed remembering Dante helping her out of the seaweeds, more blue than pink.
“All my life, I reckon.”
“Do you like it, the life?”
Well, it was fine a couple of minutes ago, now it kinda sucks again.
“Tis what it is,” Jinx replied, listening to the ship’s noises. “Glen will make it out. He’s sneaky like that.”
And carries a magic dagger.
“I’m worried, but also believe it with all my heart,” Sen replied and Jinx realized she hadn’t seen her so open another time. “The alternative, I can’t fathom.”
“Getting out of Hellfort was more difficult. He almost died there. Oakenfalls, gods it’s been so long now. I could have shot him first, instead of Emerson. He had no armor on.”
“Why didn’t you?” Sen asked, with a smile.
Jinx shrugged her shoulders. “He looked so scared and out of place. So young. I should have taken Zestari out myself. I’ve thought about it, but didn’t. Two of my friends died for that.”
Fuck, Jinx thought. What are ye doing? Are ye fuckin’ crying?
Sen touched her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Jinx croaked.
“What happened?” The Cofol woman asked.
“Ah, dammit… nothing,” Jinx sniffled. “I’ll be alright, in just a minute. It’s been a difficult year.”
“Your friends? Dante?”
“Yeah, Victor as well,” she saw Pale Hook again up on that cursed bridge, before going under.
“Then there’s the Issir woman,” Sen-Iv added perceptively.
“She’s pregnant,” Jinx blurted out, before she could stop herself. Yeah, I need to get out of here, she thought.
“Would the baby take something from you? Something you could have had, if she wasn’t?”
Jinx sighed and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Nah. I’ve tried everything,” she admitted.
But for the wooden phallus. Glen better not miss that!
Sen dropped the ivory brush she had used in her lap. Jinx stared at it for a moment perturbed at the gesture.
“Now you have a brush,” Sen said and stared her up and down. Jinx thought about kissing her, but managed to get ahold of herself and listen to her words. “Zola will have a baby. Jinx might want to look to her own future. I wager there’s a prince waiting there and I hate gambling. Stop beating the dead horse and get yourself a new one.”
Jinx chuckled. “Ye were doin’ great, but the dead horse kinda threw me off at the end.”
Sen-Iv shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a Horselords saying. Personally I hate them.”
“Haha. What’s wrong wit horses or gambling?” Jinx chuckled, using the tunic to wipe her nose. Sen reached under a pillow, got a hankie out, but Whisper stopped her. “I prefer me way.”
She had to draw the line somewhere.
Glen’s famed wife frowned, stared at the soft hankie and then replied to her previous query, as all the gods were listening.
“The horses is just something new for me. The other thing, well. It is foolish to risk your life for coin and I’ll never leave what’s most precious to chance,” the Celestial Opal of Lai Zel-Ka had said. “Not if I can help it.”
SHIP AHOY!
Jinx heard the outlook yell and rushed up the stairs to the deck, Soren almost running her over, as he was coming down.
“Wow!” Jinx yelled naked feet fighting for purchase.
“Pretty?” Soren gasped stopping her easily, a big hand on her shoulder. “Is that a dress?”
“Tis a tunic!” Jinx snapped, her heart beating wild from the scare. “Where are ye going?”
“Lookin’ for ye,” Soren replied, red beard reaching his belly. “What happened to yer hair?”
“Tis a ponytail,” Whisper deadpanned, then sighed. “Fine then,” and made to shove him out of the way. When that failed, she tried squeezing through desperately in order to reach the top, but didn’t move an inch. The big Northman turned to the side, seeing her struggles and grabbing her by the waist, carried her on the deck.
“Put me down,” Jinx warned him embarrassed and he let her stand on her own with a shrug. “Alright, what do you want?”
“It’s not a Gallant Dogs problem,” Soren said, sounding troubled. He walked to the rails, grabbed them with both hands and almost uprooted a good portion of them, when he heaved tensed.
“Wow big guy,” Jinx cautioned him. “It’s Glen’s ship.”
“Aye, it is,” Soren agreed and relaxed his muscles. “We should have stayed to help him.”
“Glen wanted us here, Soren. Near Sen; we are helping him.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“What is it, big guy?” Jinx asked, although she already knew. Captain Gray had the spyglass in his hands on the quarterdeck. She starred at the sky next and the setting sun.
Half an hour until nightfall, she thought.
Tops.
“Ah, darn it all,” Soren cursed. “I messed it up.”
Oh, come on, get it out ye ox!
“She told you about the baby,” Jinx said.
Soren flinched in shock. “Ye can tell already?”
“No, she told me first.”
“So you know?”
Jinx licked her lips, moved away from the rail not to stain her fancy tunic, the wind blowing through her tingling and crossed her hands behind her back.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“Ye sure?” Soren asked, looking more than a little worried. “In our kind of life, captain… ah, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?”
“We’ll just have her on desk duty,” Jinx replied with a grin.
“Where?”
“Soon as we reach Eikenport, we’ll look to do Alix’s job and ask Glen for a loan,” Jinx replied.
“Where would Glen find the coin?”
“He’s rich as fuck?”
Soren frowned. “Glen?” He thought about it some. “So you have a plan?”
Jinx chuckled and smacked him once on the shoulder. “You’ll be a great dad Soren and yes, Jinx has a plan for the company.”
She didn’t, but might as well start planning. Perhaps a base of operations, she thought. An office space, preferably near a venue of ill repute. A large pool out back. Now that could be expensive.
“You should go ahead and tell Zola, everything will be fine,” she told him. “Maybe show her some love, girls like that.”
Soren puffed out and scratched his head with a spade like hand.
“Yeah, I kinda told her that already,” he admitted. “She knows.”
“There ye go then,” Jinx replied. “Now, I need to head back in, me tits are freezing.”
On the way to the lower deck she bumped onto Nebula the ships carpenter.
“Hey,” Jinx asked him. “What was that ship?”
“Two of them,” The man replied. “Heading for the Straits.”
Jinx frowned.
“Pirates?”
“Who knows?” Nebula said, with shrug. “They missed us, will never find us in the night.”
If Jinx could reach him easily –Nebula was a good three heads taller than her- she would have slapped him hard in the face.
Twice.
Three hours later found her with closed eyes, Sen-Iv sleeping peacefully in the bed, Jinx’s nape at the crook of her hip, listening to the sound of the Cofol woman’s breaths. One hour after Zola had finally stopped moaning in the Second’s smaller cabin and three before dawn, she contemplated of jumping into Sen’s bath barrel for a nap.
Then Whisper felt her bones vibrate. It wasn’t a shudder, as Jinx felt it going from end to end, from the ship’s beams, to the hull’s superstructure and back. It was like a pulse, or a current running through everything, using the sea as medium.
Or a sound Jinx had heard described, when she was still a youngling.
Abrakas warning for the Gish that had their life spared once already.
Stay out of the water.
This female Gish opened her eyes and listened again for it, her toes still tingling. Sen’s slow breathing stopped, the older woman waking up on instinct.
“What is it?” She murmured looking at the pitch black. Jinx got up lithely, reached for her quiver, got the strap over her head and snapped the clasp closed at the front. She wore her harness over it, the silk tunic Jinx had still on looking ridiculous and picked up her bow. “Whisper?” Sen asked again, worried now.
“Lock the door. It might be nothing,” Jinx told her and taking a big breath, opened said door and run up the stairs and on the main deck.
“COMIN’ ABREAST!” Someone yelled from above, the moment she stepped on the wet deck-boards.
“STARBOARD SIDE!” Answered another and Jinx’s swung her head right, saw the Brigantine almost upon them, the long lines whistling right and left, the hooks on them deadly.
“PIRATES!” Several sailors yelled right after, as a general alarm was sounded, lights appearing and bells ringing across the Marquette. Jinx grunted, got an arrow out, lined up a shot from deck to deck, the other ship less lit up than their own, caught a pirate preparing to cross over –the two ships no more than three meters apart- breathed out and nailed him right through the neck.
“PORTSIDE FULL RUDDER!” Gray barked from the quarterdeck, as Jinx glided two meters, her naked feet burning up, then jumped -the wet tunic ballooning over her legs- stepped on the side of the main mast, grabbed a line with her left hand and started walking up. Below her at the main deck wild figures started jumping on board using lines. She counted twenty, before her feet touched the flat main yard beam, the course sail slapping her hard in the back, as the Marquette attempted to turn violently to disengage.
Jinx almost fell to her death, but found her footing a moment later, left shoulder screaming in pain, skin on her hand opening as she clutched desperately at a line and the whole ship creaking and groaning, before coming to a stop, when the grappling hooks locked it in place.
“CUT THE BLOODY LINES!” Someone yelled, amidst the chaos. Jinx, her teeth rattling, got up on one knee, glanced at the pirate ship that had sneaked up on them in the dark, now lit up as well and saw the name of it on the port side, written in bronze.
‘Good Severance.’
“Fuck off ye cunt,” Jinx cursed and reached for another arrow.
A pirate decapitated a young sailor with a nasty cutlass, more a butcher’s weapon than a sword, the head bouncing off the deck and into the black sea. Jinx shot him through the chest, arrow finding his heart and he died on his feet, the cutlass clattering down.
The crew of the Marquette had gathered, in an attempt to block the access to the quarterdeck, but they were overwhelmed and were getting slaughtered too fast for the young Gish to count. Jinx fired arrow after arrow, perilously balancing on the beam, trying to take out the more dangerous opponents, or disable them.
Twenty arrows and perhaps ten kills in, she realized they were losing. Grimacing and low on ammunition, she dashed towards the ship’s stern and jumped in the void, slotting the bowstring over her head mid-air. Jinx found the mizzen sail and bounced off of it, legs kicking and hands flailing mad, until she grasped at the ratline, locked her legs on it and slid down, the burn at her naked thighs smarting something fierce.
The Gish landed behind the row of sailors defending the stairs and caught sight of Soren, chainmail on, but no boots, coming out of the lower deck, with Zola right behind him.
“Pretty, what—”
Oi fuck me wit no spit, Jinx groaned inwardly, raising a bleeding palm to stop him, her back bones hurting.
“Push them back on this side!” She yelled next, took a large gulp of air, wiped her face smearing blood over it and reached for her bow again.
“What are you going to do?” Zola asked her, eyes filled with a thousand worries, as Soren charged at the attacking pirates, axe swinging. The Issir woman pressed a bolt into her crossbow, she only had her night shirt on, but wore her pants and boots, the wooden quiver full.
“Kill the one leading them,” Jinx said and hurried away. It worked the last time.
Her instincts telling her this time it wouldn’t, but she couldn’t tell her that.
Captain Gray got a hook in the face and went down a bloody mess and the remaining crew shuddered on the starboard side of the deck, the other side holding still. Soren’s initial charge down the stairs had hurled half a dozen pirates overboard, the next four wishing they’d taken the plunge.
Jinx’s fired her last arrow aiming at a wild-eyed Lorian wearing chainmail barking orders, ridiculous hat on his head prominent, but she got bumped hard on the left shoulder and missed. She let go of her bow, turned around, as she tumbled down on the wet boards and got her shortsword out, the handle on it slippery.
A pirate charged her wielding a cleaver twice the size of a normal butcher’s and not as clean. Saw her cunt at full display, as her tunic had ridden all the way up and paused intrigued, Zola’s bolt smacking him right in the face and exploding out the back of his skull. It’s not half a bad last image to have, she thought. The pirate dropped down, Jinx got up, only to duck again to avoid a swing from the Pirate Captain, wielding a sabre. The blade whistled over her head, almost taking her ponytail out and stricken hard at the quarterdeck’s rails, chopping one off.
Jinx rolled on a knee towards him, stabbed with the shortsword down and right through his right leather boot, tip of her blade finding hardwood. The pirate cried in blinding pain, Jinx got her blade out and made to make an honest eunuch out of him, but got kicked hard between the tits and was hurled backwards six meters.
Whisper tripped another pirate as she glided on her back, the man hitting the deck and the nimble Gish slashed him casually once across the face, as she slid past him. Jinx stopped at the stairs across the ones she was a moment earlier, having traversed the ship’s width in a second and saw Soren duking it out with five opponents, the big man blocking the narrow corridor by himself, fully committed.
Jinx spat down and jumped up again, glanced back to the starboard side and realized the pirates had broken through there. Cursing she looked about, found a long shaft with a hook at one end of it, bit of bloody hair at the edge and sprinted there to help the remaining crew members defending the quarterdeck.
She made it, just as Zola having killed the pirate Captain, dropped her crossbow and grabbed his sabre to defend herself from his enraged crew.
“TWITSY PRESTON IS DEAD!” Someone yelled, sounding very angry about it for some reason. Jinx had met Preston briefly and she’d thought the man a thug and a right dick.
Whisper reached the bottom of the stairs, long weapon leading, as she skated the last meter on peeled off bloody feet. The Gish glanced left while she did, saw Zola slashing wild with the unfamiliar weapon and downing her opponent, a sailor dying next to her to a spear, then right with clenched teeth, to catch sight of two pirates’ crossing over rather late in the game, one of them wearing a leather eye-patch on his familiar ruffian’s face.
You bloody cunt! Jinx cursed, her spear like weapon plunging at the sides of the pirate blocking the stairs and sending him overboard, when she let the weapon go. Zola getting the same injury from the spear her opponent had. The Issir woman screamed her teeth bloody and cut him once across the face, just as Jinx, beating heart all but bursting out of her chest, jumped three stairs at a time to reach her.
“No,” Jinx gasped, catching Zola as she went down on her knees. “DON’T DO THIS TO ME YE FUCK!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Gods Whisper,” Zola said trying to pull the spear out of her sides. “Help Soren, for fuck’s sake!”
“She ain’t helping no one,” the pirate rustled over them, cutlass in hand. Eyes the color of gold. “Ship’s ours lassie.”
Jinx swung her head around, saw Soren injured, still fighting with at least eight pirates, most of the crew dead and then turned to glare at the pirate standing over her leering, the gloomy Stiles, his lips pressed tight, standing right next to him.
Jinx opened her mouth to curse their whoring mothers, but behind the pirate and the traitor, a massive tentacle came out of the sea, the suckers on it the size of a jungle lion’s head. It rose silently over the ‘Good Severance’ almost at the height of its main mast and then came down breaking everything in its path. The sound of the exploding beams, torn sails and shattering deck so sudden, it covered the screams of the men dying under it. Debris flew over the deck of the Marquette, parts of beams, rope, legs and weapons, all mixed in.
The pirate standing over the open-mouthed, crying Jinx, flinched at the rain of debris reaching them and the sound. He made to turn to see what had just happened and got a foot of blade from Stiles, right through the gut.
“Blimey! Jinx, yer bad luck girl!” Stiles rustled. “Abrakas takes us!”
Behind him four more monstrous tentacles appeared, raising slowly from the depths, each the size of a massive mature tree-trunk, a dark blue color on top, white at the suckers. Then the Kraken trumpeted again, the low-timbre and menacing gurgling pulse running through the Gish, who pissed herself, her bones vibrating again violently, alike the whole ship. The explosion that followed so gargantuan, almost everyone aboard the Marquette not ducking for cover, got thrown overboard and into the frothing waves.
Or just killed outright.
The pirate ship had disappeared, a mess of debris in its place and the waves pushed the freed Marquette violently aside, the large ship almost toppling over. Sails got torn up, beams snapped, rope lines cut and lashed out at anyone unlucky enough to gawk at the spectacle.
Jinx screamed manically, Stiles grabbing a sliding Zola by an arm to stop her from going over and then the ship righted itself again, the dark seas around them eerie silent.
Do it girl, or we’re all dead. Move for fuck’s sake! Jinx thought and crawled on her knees towards the stairs, men screaming in the water and on the damaged Marquette. Others too injured to swim going under in muffled silence. The Gish pulled her tunic over her head and got up, Stiles eye staring incredulous. She glanced once at Zola’s pale face, the spear torn out of her sides in the chaos that had followed the Kraken’s attack. Blood spilling out on the soaked briny boards. She looked towards Soren, found him fallen next to the stairs, battleaxe still in his hands, but bleeding from several places and his chainmail all torn up.
The Gish breathed out next and walked down the few stairs, to reach the bombarded deck of the Marquette. On the starboard side, where the attack had happened, the ship had been shredded up badly, some of the pirates’ hooks still in place, the lines cut. The Kraken rose slowly to the surface, head as big as the ship, most of his massive body submerged still, huge black eye opening up, the mirror surface on it the size of Castalor’s gates and stared at the small naked Gish standing on the deck.
Jinx could see herself in it, all other details blacked out.
“I claim my fuckin’ chance, ye cunt!” Whisper yelled at the top of her lungs, teeth rattling when she finished, legs shaking so much her knees banged at each other, hoping the elders haven’t messed that up and it wasn’t just a story to keep the small Gish from running away, the moment they started walking.
The Kraken’s eye stayed on her for a long terrifying moment, as if committing her to memory and then as silently as it had surfaced, it lowered itself down. The massive tentacles that had surrounded the hapless Marquette retreating in turn, following the colossal creature to the depths of Abrakas Gullet.
“Shivers me timbers,” Stiles rustled, wonder on his ruffian’s face. “Hadn’t me seen that, wit me own eyes… What?” He queried seeing the murderous look on her face. “Saved yer blasted life ye pinkish crack!”
“What happened?” Soren asked two hours later -the night almost gone- and tried to get up, but failed. Jinx checked on his injuries quickly. Whisper should have come for him sooner, but she couldn’t. He’d part of a blade in his left shoulder, three cuts on his legs, with the one above the knee worrying and a nasty welt under his right eye, the cheek cut deep and bleeding.
“You’ll be fine,” she declared and stood up to wear her tunic again, the fabric surprisingly in good condition, but soaked through.
“Ah, I need to get to Zola,” the big Northman said, with a groan and tried again to stand. Jinx stopped him, with a soft hand on his shoulder.
“Sen is looking after her, the girls as well. Save yer strength.”
Soren stared at her swollen eyes and lowered his head. “How bad?”
Ah, Abrakas ye piece of shite.
“Stay. I’ll check up on her again,” she urged him and Soren scrunched his jaw, put the shaft of his axe down and pushed himself upright with a mighty groan.
“Go. I’ll catch up to ye,” he growled through his teeth.
Jinx didn’t want to go anywhere near the quarterdeck, but she hanged her head and started that way just the same, the big Northman hobbling after her.
Sen-Iv wearing her tunic much better than Jinx, saw her climb up the stairs and took a deep breath, the serene look on her face infuriating Whisper. She fought not to lash out on her and came to stand next to the Cofol woman.
Stiles was talking with Drachen about how to get the ship going faster, with half its sails working. The Marquette had started moving again in the meantime. The two slave girls were tending to an ashen faced Zola. They used a cloth to clean her forehead, wipe the blood from her exposed ribs and hands. The muscles on the latter all locked up, not helping.
“My condolences for your loss,” Sen-Iv whispered, as dignified as she could and Jinx closed her swollen from crying eyes, not to see anymore. Nor hear. She had enough. “Gods give,” the Cofol woman continued, as if determined to test her mettle. “Same time as they take.”
Jinx cleared her throat, glanced back, saw a miserable Soren looking from the top of the stairs, barely standing upright and replied with a hiss, her voice dripping poison.
“I don’t give a fuck about the gods.”
A sailor yelled at the top of his lungs next. He was one of the less than ten remaining –majority of those injured- tasked with looking over the horizon for more pirates. His voice more a wretched digested croak, than a warning.
SHIP AHOY!
