Page 12 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

An unsettling silence fell upon Hell’s Serpent.

A splattering of blood streaked across the deck, and Kora quietly followed it. Her boots were near silent on the wood, until she discovered one of the guards from the pit, lifeless on the ground, his throat slit.

“Damn it, William,”

Blake hissed, anger radiating from him.

Kora’s stomach churned as she peered at a shadowy figure by the main mast, near the alarm bell. Fog had fallen during the night, and she strained to see against the faint illumination of iron lanterns at each end of the ship. The light of the moon barely pierced the grey veil coating the body of Hell’s Serpent.

She signalled to Blake in their code. Move in, but stay hidden.

As they neared the mast, a current of smoky air curled from the crew’s quarters, their door broken, the wood splintered. The dark smoke wafting out thickened the fog, and her brow furrowed. What in the gods had happened?

“Where is everyone?”

Kora whispered sharply to Blake.

He shook his head, motioning to lower themselves into a hunting crouch. They quietly approached the heart of the ship, and the moving shadow hissed, followed by a pained yelp. Using the darkness as a cloak, they raced forward. Dread coiled in Kora’s stomach, and a foreboding chill crept into her bones as the fog thinned, reprieving her blindness.

Covered in blood, Jack panted as he threatened a sailor with a cleaver knife to their stubbled throat, and an arm tightly pinning their lean torso.

“Finlay!”

Kora gasped.

Jack whipped his wild gaze to her as she revealed herself from the shadows, and her heart thundered as Finlay trembled, his tremor worse than ever. The knife pressed deeper against his throat.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She held up her hands as Jack eyed her suspiciously, spitting on the floor near her boots.

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“Guess again, lassie.”

His features twisted into a hideous smile.

A tattoo blazed on his right arm, paired with a red grog-blossomed nose from excessive drinking, spreading across a squared, menacing face.

The other Flint brother.

He looked identical to Jack in ways, but his foul nature distinguished them apart.

“Just let him go.”

Thank gods her tone was calm.

“You’re surrounded.”

She gestured to the bereft ship. Eerie silence answered, sending Kora’s mind flying as she scrambled for sight of her crew through the thickening mist. The alarm had been so loud, why weren’t any of them here?

“Nah, don’t think I will, missy.”

The twin’s shoulder oozed thick, darkened blood, soaking his tattered, filthy shirt.

It spilled onto Finlay, as his foot flexed for his broadsword behind them, by the pit entrance. Blood soaked the blade, and a small seed of pride bloomed with Kora. They had fought. Her pride quickly extinguished as Finlay’s head wound spurted, dripping down the side of his ashen face.

“Don’t see any of ye here to stop me,”

the pirate sneered.

Blake had disappeared, melting into the shadows, becoming one with darkness, and she swallowed, praying he was circling the ship to capture the pirate from behind.

“Ye see, I think ye like this lad,”

he continued, laughing sinisterly in Finlay’s ear. Kora grimaced at his rotten teeth. Finlay’s sparkling dark eyes pleaded with her as his tremor became violent.

“Ye be wantin’ him alive.”

She ground her teeth.

“What do you want?”

“Me and me brethren will be gettin’ off ye ship now,”

he grinned.

“With our booty, and ye coffers—as interest.”

He winked, and she nearly launched herself at him. Bilge-sucking scum.

Kora edged closer, and the pirate tutted as he pressed the thick, sharp knife against Finlay’s stubbled throat, spilling precious drops of blood.

Where were the crew? She tried to suppress the rising anxiety within her.

“Stop!”

She raised her hands higher, desperate to save Finlay.

“Where’s Jack?”

A dark predatory shadow weaved through the equally dark gloom of Hell’s Serpent.

“He be here soon. With our treasure.”

The pirate’s gaze flickered, and it was enough of a sign. Kora twisted and froze in horror. A warm light beamed from the open door to her quarters, slicing through the fog, and Jack silently shuffled out of the cabin, dragging something behind him.

This was a diversion.

Blake slithered up behind the rotten pirate with disturbing calmness. He hesitated, glancing towards her with concern, and swept his leg under the twin’s. Blake’s fist pummelled down into his chest, knocking him down, and he mercifully lost his grasp on Finlay.

Finlay careened to Kora, and she caught him before he hit the deck. Thank the gods. His shaking hands gripped onto her as he cried out with fear—fear of death circling him once again. Blake wrestled with the pirate, his hand reaching for the cutlass sword sheathed at his side.

“We need him alive!”

Kora ordered. She was determined these pirates would meet their demise in the courts of the Aldara Council.

“Silas!”

Jack cried from the quarterdeck. He staggered from her quarters, his right shoulder bleeding, the arm hanging limp, hauling the makeshift knapsack of Galen’s wealth with his left arm. He froze at Blake pinning Silas to the floor, his sword drawn in an execution.

“Jack! Don’t move!”

Kora shouted.

Jack dropped the knapsack, swiftly sprinting for the steps up to the quarterdeck, and she chased after him, with Finlay hot on her heels.

“Don’t kill Silas!”

she called to Blake over her shoulder, and he growled in response.

They’d absconded from their cells, and she knew Blake saw death as a fit punishment, but she wanted a crueller hand of justice. Kora wanted to see them rot in the worst place on earth—

Aryn suddenly stumbled out of her quarters as they raced for the ebony steps, and he collapsed to his knees, the fog wrapping around him like a blanket.

“Aryn!”

She diverted towards his crumpled figure and Finlay hoarsely cursed. Aryn groaned, clutching his head, which was peppered with bruises, and clogged with thick blood. Kora crouched beside him.

“I’m sorry,”

he mumbled, his body sagging.

“I saw him go in. I-I tried to stop him.”

Kora braced Aryn by his shoulders, helping him sit back against the outside wall of her quarters.

“Do you know where the crew are?”

Aryn pointed weakly towards the crew quarters at the bow end.

“The smoke,”

he wheezed, and her eyes widened. Jack’s boots pounded against the wood above them.

“Finlay, stay here with Aryn,”

she quipped.

“Keep an eye on Blake. Don’t let him kill Silas.”

Finlay sharply nodded as Kora took off to the wide steps, and she rounded the corner, her hand following the smooth curve of the ebony balustrade railing. The fog was thinner up here, and Jack stood defiantly at the helm, his left hand gripping the wheel.

His dark brown eyes tracked her stalking across the deck, and she kept her palms open and up, offering a false sense of parley.

“Jack, stop this now,”

she spoke in Devanian.

“It’s over. You can’t win this.”

He released an exasperated laugh, and his long ginger hair wafted in the gentle night breeze.

“We’re getting off this gods-damned ship alive.”

He spoke in the common tongue, without his pirate dialect.

Who were these pirate twins?

He sucked in moistened air, sweat plastering his face and body, holding himself well despite the obvious wound to his shoulder from one of Aryn’s arrows.

“You know I can’t allow that.”

Kora shuffled closer.

“You don’t know what’s happening.”

His deep breaths became shaky.

“We are not your enemy!”

She paused her hunting stalk, a few feet away from the helm. Her fingers itched to reach behind for one of her hidden curved sabres.

“Don’t feed me that drivel.”

Her lips curled in repulsion.

Jack’s eyes pleaded and her stomach coiled. She narrowed in on his grimy hand clutching at the wheel of Hell’s Serpent.

Her ship.

“We are not your enemy,”

he repeated, switching to Devanian.

Kora’s temper flared. She was angry at pirates for taking her life and her family away, but she was now angry at herself. She’d been foolish, letting Jack use their connection of Devanian to soften her and bring her guard down. The breeze turned into a gust of wind, circling around them with strange warmth, and his face broke into a mystic smile.

“Listen,”

Jack spoke softly.

“Listen to the voice that carries on the wind. I know you can hear it.”

Kora’s world froze. How did he know?

She’d never told anyone about the guiding hand of the wind that followed and whispered carefully to her mind. He laughed, smiling up at the dark, night sky. He was mocking her. A low, animalistic growl ripped from her throat. He had to be lying. He was tricking her once again, and she silently reached for her daggers.

“Jack! Help me!”

Silas roared.

Returning the yell, Jack suddenly spun the wheel, turning the ship starboard side. The ship violently rocked, and Kora’s legs slid as she fell to the deck, her side slamming into the weathered wood.

Jack dashed around the helm, darting to the balustrade and hurling himself over. She scrambled to the railing, unsheathing one of her daggers, ready to impale it into his back. Jack tucked his body in, shielding his injured shoulder from the fall as he expertly rolled onto the deck, disappearing into the thick of the fog in a matter of seconds.

He was no ordinary pirate, and Kora smiled—it was time for a hunt.

Racing down the steps to her left, she gripped her dagger. Aryn lay unconscious by the entrance to her quarters. His body was slumped in the amber light, the exquisite cream makeshift of treasure discarded and forgotten by his feet, and Finlay was nowhere to be seen.

The fog was so thick she could barely see a few feet in front of her, but she carefully stalked to the edge of the ship, keeping her back to the open air of the ocean as she followed the thick railing. It’d become rough over the years from sea exposure, and the number of arrows embedded into it during warfare created various dips and grooves in the wood.

She’d spent so much of her time upon Hell’s Serpent, she could navigate it blind. Once Kora was sure she was adjacent to the main mast, her hand flung out and thankfully grabbed onto the shrouds. She couldn’t charge into the fight hidden within the fog and risk harming Finlay, Blake, or herself.

So, she began to climb.

Once the sound of blades clashing, males shouting, and boots stomping against the wood were directly below her, she paused. The honey glow of the lantern pierced the misted veil enough for her to make out a collection of shadows fighting each other.

It was easy to spot Blake. She knew his body as well as she knew her own, his movements a mirror of hers when they fought. He was a strong opponent against Silas, with Finlay defending the rear. Until Jack’s shadow arrived, and they became an undistinguishable frenzy.

A crash sounded to her right, and Kora sighed with relief as Samuel emerged from the crew’s quarters, his shoulder leaning against the broken doorway, and he stumbled towards the scuffle mere feet below her.

“No! Don’t!”

Finlay cried.

“What are you doing? Why? Pl-please don’t do this! NO!”

he wept, followed by a heavy thud against the deck. Silas’ laugh rang in her ears, as Finlay cried a male’s name over and over.

“Save him,”

the reliable voice pressed on her shoulder, and she relaxed her grip on the shroud, letting her body fall silently towards the grey abyss of her ship.