Your eyes narrow, the pupils contracting: irises wide, whorls of blue-green fire. "
And what?" you hiss, resonant. "You'll kill one, and I'll loose your entrails. I'll stake your head over my city, and no pirate will trouble me again."
6
The captain's gaze wavers, and the dagger shudders half-hearted in his hand… you snap your glare suddenly to the pikeman, rising on your good foreleg. "
If that dagger draws blood, I'll rend you both."
3
The pikeman's weapon shivers downward. He doesn't budge from his spot— still, you have an opening. You leap.
4
Fear, fury, death. Terrified, the pikeman drops to the ground, cowering as you hurtle past. The captain drives his dagger into the woman's shoulder (a hasty blow), whipping out a polished cutlass— she screams, as you pin him cutlass and all to the ground. The captain spits in your face, glaring. The blood from your foreleg gathers in the wound and falls, splashing golden over the captain's neck; he howls, and you strike his throat open.
Turning, you force the surviving pirate asprawl with a judicious shove. Delicately, you slice a wound across his forehead with one claw— you promised, after all. "Extinguish my blood," you order, "and free my children. I must close this gash before it burns your ship to the ocean floor."
"See to it that my daughter's shoulder is well tended," you add, slinking past him. "If she dies, you die."
Whimpering, the man takes up a bucket. You leap out the hold and immediately into the air, so as not to spill ichor on the dry deckwood. Circling low over the ocean, you quench your injury in the frigid waves: the glassy clot will hold, for now.
3
You turn up the stolen coffers of your HOARD easily enough. Besides your coffers, you don't find much of value on the ship— the pirates, you learn, spent most of their pillage keeping themselves supplied from day to day. New Codhollow was a larger target than usual, hoped to turn their fortunes around… Ervin soon put paid to that.
Crewed by the surviving pirates and the freed captives, the
Falling Star (as your people have rechristened it) makes good time against Karkast, the Smith. You sleep in the hold, surrounded by your watchful subjects. When the moons rise, you watch over them in turn.
6
Under Ervin's guidance, the people of New Codhollow have made steady repairs in your absence. Doors are back on hinges, and the pirate ships lie gutted, the skeletons of new fishing boats rising beside.
Captives reunite with loved ones; tears and laughter fill the air. You march your six prisoners to the meadhall, exulting in the cheers of your people.
The captive pirates kneel sullen, fearful before your dais. Ervin and Lucias stand to either side of you, while Myrre watches by the door: the distaste remains clear on her face, but she seems to have some investment in this.
"The empire law is clear, my lady", says Ervin, watching the huddle. "Death to captains, a brand on their crew. If a branded man is caught in piracy, he loses a foot. If a branded cripple is caught, he loses his bowels."
Four of the captives bear the skull on their foreheads. One wears a carven leg.
"What's empire law to us?" retorts Lucias, surprising you. He's thinner than he was when you left. "We lost
people to these— these—"
Lucias falls silent. Ervin doesn't respond.
…
A) Kill them all.
B) Brand, cripple and execute, as the empire would do.
C) Charge them to tell your story, and release them.
Author
Topic: SPAMDRAGON: ZENDRAKIEL the RESPLENDENT! (Read 13833 times)