Chris Pierson - Spirit of the Wind

Red Reaver was only ten yards away. The sailors and pirates exchanged one more pair of volleys-one man on either side fell-then dropped their crossbows.

“Well shot,” Riverwind told Swiftraven.

Swiftraven tossed his bow aside and jerked his sabre from its scabbard. “Not well enough,” he grumbled in disgust.

Riverwind drew his own sword as he watched the distance between the ships dwindle to nothing. Red Reaver missed ramming Brinestrider by an arm’s length, slipping up alongside her.

“Everyone to starboard!” Captain Ar-Tam yelled, running to the rail. “Prepare to be boarded! Get down from the rigging, you fools, and grab a blade!”

Her face pale, Brightdawn watched as the sailors rallied to Kael’s call. She reached for her mace, but Riverwind caught her arm.

“I want you to go below,” he said.

Stubbornly, she shook her head. “No. I’m staying up here.”

Riverwind looked at her, his eyes pleading, but she refused to relent.

“Let her fight,” Kael growled. “We need every arm we’ve got.”

Riverwind slumped, defeated. He glared sourly at the captain, then grabbed Swiftraven and shoved him toward Brightdawn. “Watch her,” he said. “Remember your Courting Quest.”

Captain Ar-Tam waved toward the helmsman, who was still standing at the wheel, gripping it firmly with his right hand. The man’s left arm hung limply, a crossbow bolt stuck in the shoulder. “Move away from there, you idiot!” Kael shouted. “Lash the damned wheel and get over here!”

The helmsman obeyed, looping a leather thong over one of the wheel’s handles and fixing it in place. He pulled a belaying pin from his belt with his good hand and rushed forward, joining the mob of sailors who stood ready, glaring at the pirates scarcely five yards away.

“Too far to jump,” Swiftraven noted. “How will they come across?”

“Boarding planks,” Riverwind answered, pointing with the blade of his sabre. Several pirates stood at Red Reaver’s railing, holding broad wooden planks with iron spikes driven into either end.

The Plainsmen watched as the pirates raised the planks high into the air, then brought them down with a shout, slamming them into Brinestrider’s gunwale. The spikes drove deep into the ship’s hull, bridging the gap between the ships. Several sailors hewed at the planks with their cutlasses, but the wood was tough, and they didn’t have time to do more than carve off a few splinters before the pirates began to charge across.

The dwarf first mate was the first to die, his skull crushed by a boarder’s cudgel. As he fell, he drove his blade through his attacker’s thigh. The pirate staggered with a shout, and another sailor cut his throat. Two more men fell on either side as the pirates pressed forward, weapons glinting in the sunlight. Captain Ar-Tam slashed open a pirate’s belly with his cutlass, dancing aside as the dying man made a last, feeble attempt to run him through.

Riverwind waded into the fray, sabre flashing. He traded blows with a pirate, their blades clashing against each other. Brightdawn followed him, but Swiftraven leapt in front of her, trying to keep her out of danger. His whirling sabre kept the pirates at bay.

For a minute or more, it seemed the sailors might hold the pirates off. Riverwind stabbed one raider through the heart. Swiftraven raked his blade across the stomach of a second. Kael cut off yet another pirate’s sword hand, then cracked his cutlass’s basket-hilt across his face. For every pirate who fell, however, another stepped forward to take his place, and Brinestrider’s crew began to falter. The wounded helmsman died, a bloody hole in his chest. Another sailor took a belaying pin across the side of his head and slumped senseless to the deck. A third crashed back, clutching at a deep wound in the base of his neck.

Captain Ar-Tam and Riverwind fought on, even as men fell all around them. Again and again, Brightdawn swung her mace, trying to join the battle, but every time Swiftraven interposed, shoving aside the pirate she had meant to attack.

“Let me fight!” she snarled.

Swiftraven shook his head stubbornly. Sweat poured down his face, mixing with blood from a gash a pirate’s sword had opened on his cheek. He fought like a madman, facing two or more pirates at a time, always keeping himself between his love and those who would hurt her.

Then, at last, the sailors’ flank collapsed, and the pirates surged over the ship’s deck. In moments, the Plainsfolk and the surviving sailors found themselves encircled by their attackers, trapped in a ring of steel.

“Where in the Abyss are Kronn and Catt when all this is going on?” Swiftraven growled, batting aside a pirate’s blade with his sabre.

“Bastards,” Captain Ar-Tam snarled at the pirates. He had lost his cutlass, but held a dagger in each hand, poised and ready. “I swear, I’ll die rather than-”

“That will be your choice.”

The voice, low and coarse, belonged to a man who could be no one but the pirates’ leader. He was enormous, standing taller even than Riverwind, with a chest as broad as two men standing side by side. His skin had a yellowish cast, and his face’s flat, ugly features spoke of ogrish blood in his ancestry He was clad in leather armor, and a heavy war hammer hung at his hip. He stood between the two ships, atop the boarding planks, his feet planted wide apart and his muscular arms folded across his chest. To either side of him stood a pirate with a loaded crossbow.

“You’ve put up a good fight, all of you,” he said. “But the time for fighting has ended. I’d rather not have to kill the lot of you here and now. Surrender.”

“And what?” Kael challenged. “Let you put us on the block in Sanction?”

“Perhaps.” The half-ogre smiled, revealing a mouthful of brown, rotten teeth. “You’re beaten, Captain. Half your crew are dead. Even with those barbarians’ help, you can’t win this fight. I’m offering you a chance.”

“How merciful,” Swiftraven snarled.

The half-ogre fixed the young warrior with a cold stare. “That one,” he said. “The young barbarian. Shoot him.”

Before anyone could move, one of the crossbowmen beside the half-ogre raised his weapon and fired. The bolt struck Swiftraven’s shoulder, spun him around, and knocked him to the deck.

“No!” Brightdawn cried. Dropping her mace, she threw herself on top of Swiftraven. He moaned in pain, writhing on the deck and clutching at the shaft lodged in his arm. Acting quickly, she tore a strip off his tunic and pressed it to the bloody wound. Riverwind looked on, helpless.

“There, you see?” the half-ogre declared. “I am merciful. Now, if I have to command my other man to shoot anyone,”-he gestured at the second crossbowman, who still stood with his weapon ready-“he will shoot to kill. Then my men will slaughter the rest of you-except the woman, of course. We’ll keep her alive … for a while, at least. Now, I will say it one last time.” The half-ogre’s voice was thick with menace. “Throw down your weapons and surrender.”

Stricken, Riverwind looked at his daughter and Swiftraven, then at the pirates who encircled them. He dropped his sword. It clattered loudly on the deck.

One by one, the surviving sailors-there were only six of them still standing, though some of the fallen were unconscious rather than dead-laid down their arms. Last of all, Kael Ar-Tam tossed his daggers aside.

The half-ogre smiled mirthlessly. “Good,” he hissed.

At that, the pirates stepped forward, grabbing the sailors and binding their hands. As they wrenched his arms behind his back and wound strong jute cord around his wrists, Riverwind glanced at his daughter. Still kneeling over Swiftraven, she glanced back at him, her eyes filled with fear.