The High Seas, January, 1713
Feb. 3rd, 2018 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doesnotkneel"Privateers."
Edward looked in shock from Captain Dolzell to where Pritchard, the merchant captain whose hands he had just stealthily freed, was sitting.
Pritchard had the presence of mind to keep his hands behind his back, but he was smirking now, any terror gone from his eyes. “It’s Edward Thatch, come to our rescue. You’d better run, Captain. Unlike you, Edward Thatch is a privateer loyal to the Crown, and when I tell him what has taken place here...”
In two long strides, Dolzell darted forward and thrust the point of his sword into Pritchard’s belly. Pritchard tautened in his seat, impaled on the blade. His head shot back and upside-down eyes fixed on Edward's for a second before his body went limp and he slumped in the chair.
“You’ll tell your friend nothing,” snarled Dolzell as he removed his blade.
Pritchard’s hands fell to hang limply by his sides.
“His hands are untied,” Dolzell’s accusing eyes went from Pritchard to Ed.
“Your blade, sir, it sliced the rope,” Edward said quickly. It seemed to satisfy Dolzell, who turned and dashed out of the room. The ship shook; Ed found himself grappling for purchase.
Right. Privateers.
He grabbed a cutlass and a pistol and ran. Right onto the deck of a ship at war, as it transpired. Or rather, a ship about to lose a war, the boards under Edward's feet coated with a river of blood. There was the roar of musket and pistol, the day torn apart by the constant ring of steel, the agonized screams of the dying, the warrior yells of the attacking buccaneers.
Edward'd never been a coward. He wasn't trying to avoid the fight. But what was the point of exchanging blows when so many of your shipmates already laid at your feet? The battle was clearly lost, and he felt no great loyalty to the ship itself.
That bastard Blaney was still alive, that he could see. Also, not far away, was the captain of the privateers’ ship, Edward Thatch was what Pritchard had called him. He was tall and thin, his beard a mess of thick black curls. He had been in the fray; his clothes were splattered with blood and it dripped from the blade of his sword. He and one of his men had advanced up the deck and Edward found himself standing with Blaney and another shipmate, Trafford.
Blaney. It would have to be him.
The battle was over. Edward saw Blaney look from him to Trafford then to Thatch. A plan formed and in the next instance he’d called to Captain Thatch, “Sir, shall I finish them for you?” and swept his sword around to point at Edward and Trafford. For Ed he reserved an especially evil grin.
They both stared at him in absolute disbelief. How could he do this?
“Why, you scurvy bilge-sucking bastard!” yelled Trafford, outraged at the treachery. He leapt towards Blaney, jabbing his cutlass more in hope than expectation, unless his expectation was to die, for that’s exactly what happened.
Blaney stepped easily to one side and at the same time whipped his sword in an underhand slash across Trafford’s chest. The first mate’s shirt split and blood drenched his front. He grunted in pain and surprise but that didn’t stop him launching a second yet, sadly for him, even wilder attack. Blaney punished him for it, slashing again with the cutlass, landing blow after blow, catching Trafford again and again across the face and chest, even after Trafford had dropped his own blade, fallen to his knees and, with a wretched whimper and blood bubbling at his lips, pitched forward to the deck and lay still.
So that had been a bloody stupid idea.
The rest of the deck had fallen silent; each man left alive was looking over to where Blaney and Edward stood between the invaders and the entrance to the captain’s cabin. It felt as though they were the only men alive.
“Shall I finish him, sir?” said Blaney. Before Edward could react the point of his sword was at his throat. Again Blaney grinned.
The crowd of men seemed to part around Edward Thatch as he stepped forward.
“Now” — he waved at Blaney with his cutlass, which still dripped with the blood of their crew — “why would you be calling me, ‘sir,’ lad?”
The point of Blaney’s sword tickled Edward's throat. “I hope to join you, sir,” he replied, “and prove my loyalty to you.”
Thatch turned his attention to Edward. “And you, young ’un, what did you have in mind, besides dying at your ship-mate’s sword, that is? Would you like to join my crew as a privateer or die a pirate, either at the hands of your crewmate here, or back home in Blighty?”
“I never wanted to be a pirate, sir,” Edward said quickly. (Stop yer grinning.) “I merely wanted to earn some money for my wife, sir, honest money to take back to Bristol.”
(A Bristol from which he was banished and a wife he was prevented from seeing. But he decided not to bother Thatch with the little details.)
“Aye,” laughed Thatch, and threw out an arm to indicate the mass of captured men behind him, “and I suppose I could say this for every one of your crew left alive. Every man will swear he never intended a career in piracy. Ordered to do it by the captain, they’ll say. Forced into it against their will.”
“He ruled with a rod of iron, sir,” Edward said. “Any man who said as much would be telling you the truth.”
“How did your captain manage to persuade you to enter into this act of piracy, pray tell?” demanded Thatch.
“By telling us we would soon be pirates anyway, sir, when a treaty was signed.”
“Well he’s right most likely” — Thatch sighed thoughtfully — “no denying it. Still, that’s no excuse.” He grinned. “Not while I remain a privateer that is, sworn to protect and assist Her Majesty’s Navy, which includes watching over the likes of the Amazon Galley. Now — you’re not a swordsman, are you, boy?”
Edward shook his head no.
Thatch chuckled. “Aye, that is apparent. Didn’t stop you throwing yourself at this man here though, did it? Knowing that you would meet your end at the point of his sword. Why was that then?”
Edward bristled. “Blaney had turned traitor, sir, I saw red.”
Thatch jammed the point of his cutlass to the deck, rested both hands on the hilt and looked from Ed to Blaney, who had added wariness to his usual expression of angry incomprehension. Edward knew how he felt. It was impossible to say from Thatch’s demeanour where his sympathies lay. He simply looked from Edward to Blaney, then back again. From Ed to Blaney, then back again.
“I have an idea,” he roared at last, and every man on the deck seemed to relax at once. “Let’s settle this with a duel. What do you say, lads?”
Like a set of scales, the crew’s spirits rose as Edward's sank. Ed had barely used a blade. Blaney, on the other hand, was an experienced swordsman. Settling the matter would be the work of a heartbeat for him.
Thatch chuckled. “Ah, but not with swords, lads, because we’ve already seen how this one here has certain skills with the blade. No, I suggest a straight fight. No weapons, not even knives, does that suit you, boy?”
Edward nodded yes, thinking what would suit him most was no fight at all, but a straight fight was the best he could hope for.
“Good.” Thatch clapped his hands and his sword shuddered in the wood. “Then let us begin. Come on, lads, form a ring, let these two gentlemen get to it.”
The year was 1713, and Edward was about to die, he was sure of it.
“Then let us begin,” Thatch commanded.
Men had climbed the rigging and clung to the masts. Men were in the rat-lines, on the rails and the top decks of all three ships—every man-jack of them craning to get a better view. Playing to the crowd, Blaney stripped off his shirt so that he was down to his breeches. Conscious of his puny torso, Edward did the same. Then they dropped their elbows, raised their fists, eyed each other up.
From the decks and rigging came the shouts of the crew keen to witness a good bout.
So let’s give it to them, Edward thought. He brought his own fists up and what he thought about was how Blaney had been a huge pain in the arse from the moment Edward had set foot on board. Nobody else. Just him. This thick-as-pigshit cretin. All his time on ship Ed’d spent dodging Blaney and wondering why he hated him because Edward wasn’t snot-nosed and arrogant then, not like he’d been back home, and at Fandom.
Right then it came to Edward the reason why. He hated him because. Just because. If Ed hadn’t been around to hate, he would have found someone else to fill his shoes. One of the cabin boys, perhaps, one of the black sailors. He just liked hating.
And for that Edward hated him in return, and he channelled that feeling, that hate. Turned everything to hate.
Because of that, the first strike was Edward's. He stepped in and it seemed to explode out of him, using his speed and his size to his advantage, ducking beneath Blaney's protecting fists and smashing him in the solar plexus. He let out an oof and staggered back, the surprise more than the pain making him drop his guard, enough for Edward to dance quickly to his left and drive forward with his left fist, finding a spot above his right eye that, just for one delicious second, Ed thought might have been good enough to finish him off.
A roar of approval and blood-lust from the men. It had been a good punch, enough to open a cut that began to leak a steady stream of blood down his face. But no, it wasn’t enough to stop him for good. Instead, the look of angry incomprehension he always wore became even more uncomprehending. Even angrier. Edward’d landed two punches, he precisely none. He hadn’t even moved from his spot.
Ed flitted back. He'd never been one for fancy foot-work, but compared to Blaney he was nimble. Plus he had the advantage. First blood to Edward and with the crowd on his side. David versus Goliath.
“Come on, you fat bastard,” Edward taunted him. “Come on, this is what you wanted to do the minute I came aboard the ship. Let’s see what you got, Blaney.”
How quick the crowd was to turn as Blaney struck. Never go down in the fight. It’s the one golden rule. But Edward had no choice as his fist made contact and bells rang in his head as he went to the deck on his hands and knees and spat out teeth on a string of blood and phlegm. My vision jarred and blurred. Ed’d been hit before, of course, many times, but never — never — as hard as that.
Amid the rushing of pain and the roaring of the spectators — roaring for blood, which Blaney was going to give to them, with pleasure — he bent to Edward.
“‘Fat bastard,’ eh?” he said, and hawked up a green. Ed felt the wet slap of phlegm on his face.
Then Blaney straightened, and his boot was so near to Edward's face he could see the spider-cracks in the leather. Still trying to shake off the pain, Ed lifted one pathetic hand as though to ward off the inevitable kick.
The kick, though, was aimed not at Edward's face but squarely at his belly, so hard that it lifted him into the air and he was deposited back to the deck. From the corner of Edward's eye he saw Thatch, and perhaps he had allowed himself to believe that he favoured Ed in the bout, but he was laughing just as heartily at Edward's misfortune as he had been when Blaney was rocked. Edward rolled weakly to my side as he saw Blaney coming towards him. The men on the decks were shouting for blood by then. He lifted his boot to stamp Edward, looked up to Thatch. “Sir?” he asked him.
To hell with that. Edward wasn’t waiting. With a grunt he grabbed Blaney's foot, twisted it and sent him sprawling back to the deck. A tremor of renewed interest ran through the spectators. Whistles and shouts. Cheers and boos.
They didn’t care who won. They just wanted the spectacle. Blaney was down and with a fresh surge of strength Edward threw myself on top of him, pummelling him with his fists at the same time as he drove his knees into Blaney'ss groin and midriff, attacking him like a child in the throes of a temper tantrum, hoping against hope that he might lay Blaney out with a lucky blow.
Edward didn’t. There were no lucky blows that day. Just Blaney grabbing his fists, wrenching him to the side, slamming the flat of his hand into his face and sending him flying backwards. Edward heard his nose break and felt blood gush over his top lip. Blaney lumbered over and this time he wasn’t waiting for Thatch’s permission. This time he was coming on for the kill. In his fist shone a blade . . .
There was the crack of a pistol and a hole appeared on his forehead. His mouth dropped open, and the fat bastard fell to his knees then dead to the deck.
When Edward's vision cleared he saw Thatch reaching to help him from the deck with one hand. In the other a flint-lock pistol, still warm.
“I got a vacancy on my crew, lad,” he said. “Do you want to fill it?”
[[ violence and bloodshed under the cut. taken from the Assassin's Creed: Black Flag novelization. shut up this isn't late. ]]
Edward looked in shock from Captain Dolzell to where Pritchard, the merchant captain whose hands he had just stealthily freed, was sitting.
Pritchard had the presence of mind to keep his hands behind his back, but he was smirking now, any terror gone from his eyes. “It’s Edward Thatch, come to our rescue. You’d better run, Captain. Unlike you, Edward Thatch is a privateer loyal to the Crown, and when I tell him what has taken place here...”
In two long strides, Dolzell darted forward and thrust the point of his sword into Pritchard’s belly. Pritchard tautened in his seat, impaled on the blade. His head shot back and upside-down eyes fixed on Edward's for a second before his body went limp and he slumped in the chair.
“You’ll tell your friend nothing,” snarled Dolzell as he removed his blade.
Pritchard’s hands fell to hang limply by his sides.
“His hands are untied,” Dolzell’s accusing eyes went from Pritchard to Ed.
“Your blade, sir, it sliced the rope,” Edward said quickly. It seemed to satisfy Dolzell, who turned and dashed out of the room. The ship shook; Ed found himself grappling for purchase.
Right. Privateers.
He grabbed a cutlass and a pistol and ran. Right onto the deck of a ship at war, as it transpired. Or rather, a ship about to lose a war, the boards under Edward's feet coated with a river of blood. There was the roar of musket and pistol, the day torn apart by the constant ring of steel, the agonized screams of the dying, the warrior yells of the attacking buccaneers.
Edward'd never been a coward. He wasn't trying to avoid the fight. But what was the point of exchanging blows when so many of your shipmates already laid at your feet? The battle was clearly lost, and he felt no great loyalty to the ship itself.
That bastard Blaney was still alive, that he could see. Also, not far away, was the captain of the privateers’ ship, Edward Thatch was what Pritchard had called him. He was tall and thin, his beard a mess of thick black curls. He had been in the fray; his clothes were splattered with blood and it dripped from the blade of his sword. He and one of his men had advanced up the deck and Edward found himself standing with Blaney and another shipmate, Trafford.
Blaney. It would have to be him.
The battle was over. Edward saw Blaney look from him to Trafford then to Thatch. A plan formed and in the next instance he’d called to Captain Thatch, “Sir, shall I finish them for you?” and swept his sword around to point at Edward and Trafford. For Ed he reserved an especially evil grin.
They both stared at him in absolute disbelief. How could he do this?
“Why, you scurvy bilge-sucking bastard!” yelled Trafford, outraged at the treachery. He leapt towards Blaney, jabbing his cutlass more in hope than expectation, unless his expectation was to die, for that’s exactly what happened.
Blaney stepped easily to one side and at the same time whipped his sword in an underhand slash across Trafford’s chest. The first mate’s shirt split and blood drenched his front. He grunted in pain and surprise but that didn’t stop him launching a second yet, sadly for him, even wilder attack. Blaney punished him for it, slashing again with the cutlass, landing blow after blow, catching Trafford again and again across the face and chest, even after Trafford had dropped his own blade, fallen to his knees and, with a wretched whimper and blood bubbling at his lips, pitched forward to the deck and lay still.
So that had been a bloody stupid idea.
The rest of the deck had fallen silent; each man left alive was looking over to where Blaney and Edward stood between the invaders and the entrance to the captain’s cabin. It felt as though they were the only men alive.
“Shall I finish him, sir?” said Blaney. Before Edward could react the point of his sword was at his throat. Again Blaney grinned.
The crowd of men seemed to part around Edward Thatch as he stepped forward.
“Now” — he waved at Blaney with his cutlass, which still dripped with the blood of their crew — “why would you be calling me, ‘sir,’ lad?”
The point of Blaney’s sword tickled Edward's throat. “I hope to join you, sir,” he replied, “and prove my loyalty to you.”
Thatch turned his attention to Edward. “And you, young ’un, what did you have in mind, besides dying at your ship-mate’s sword, that is? Would you like to join my crew as a privateer or die a pirate, either at the hands of your crewmate here, or back home in Blighty?”
“I never wanted to be a pirate, sir,” Edward said quickly. (Stop yer grinning.) “I merely wanted to earn some money for my wife, sir, honest money to take back to Bristol.”
(A Bristol from which he was banished and a wife he was prevented from seeing. But he decided not to bother Thatch with the little details.)
“Aye,” laughed Thatch, and threw out an arm to indicate the mass of captured men behind him, “and I suppose I could say this for every one of your crew left alive. Every man will swear he never intended a career in piracy. Ordered to do it by the captain, they’ll say. Forced into it against their will.”
“He ruled with a rod of iron, sir,” Edward said. “Any man who said as much would be telling you the truth.”
“How did your captain manage to persuade you to enter into this act of piracy, pray tell?” demanded Thatch.
“By telling us we would soon be pirates anyway, sir, when a treaty was signed.”
“Well he’s right most likely” — Thatch sighed thoughtfully — “no denying it. Still, that’s no excuse.” He grinned. “Not while I remain a privateer that is, sworn to protect and assist Her Majesty’s Navy, which includes watching over the likes of the Amazon Galley. Now — you’re not a swordsman, are you, boy?”
Edward shook his head no.
Thatch chuckled. “Aye, that is apparent. Didn’t stop you throwing yourself at this man here though, did it? Knowing that you would meet your end at the point of his sword. Why was that then?”
Edward bristled. “Blaney had turned traitor, sir, I saw red.”
Thatch jammed the point of his cutlass to the deck, rested both hands on the hilt and looked from Ed to Blaney, who had added wariness to his usual expression of angry incomprehension. Edward knew how he felt. It was impossible to say from Thatch’s demeanour where his sympathies lay. He simply looked from Edward to Blaney, then back again. From Ed to Blaney, then back again.
“I have an idea,” he roared at last, and every man on the deck seemed to relax at once. “Let’s settle this with a duel. What do you say, lads?”
Like a set of scales, the crew’s spirits rose as Edward's sank. Ed had barely used a blade. Blaney, on the other hand, was an experienced swordsman. Settling the matter would be the work of a heartbeat for him.
Thatch chuckled. “Ah, but not with swords, lads, because we’ve already seen how this one here has certain skills with the blade. No, I suggest a straight fight. No weapons, not even knives, does that suit you, boy?”
Edward nodded yes, thinking what would suit him most was no fight at all, but a straight fight was the best he could hope for.
“Good.” Thatch clapped his hands and his sword shuddered in the wood. “Then let us begin. Come on, lads, form a ring, let these two gentlemen get to it.”
The year was 1713, and Edward was about to die, he was sure of it.
“Then let us begin,” Thatch commanded.
Men had climbed the rigging and clung to the masts. Men were in the rat-lines, on the rails and the top decks of all three ships—every man-jack of them craning to get a better view. Playing to the crowd, Blaney stripped off his shirt so that he was down to his breeches. Conscious of his puny torso, Edward did the same. Then they dropped their elbows, raised their fists, eyed each other up.
From the decks and rigging came the shouts of the crew keen to witness a good bout.
So let’s give it to them, Edward thought. He brought his own fists up and what he thought about was how Blaney had been a huge pain in the arse from the moment Edward had set foot on board. Nobody else. Just him. This thick-as-pigshit cretin. All his time on ship Ed’d spent dodging Blaney and wondering why he hated him because Edward wasn’t snot-nosed and arrogant then, not like he’d been back home, and at Fandom.
Right then it came to Edward the reason why. He hated him because. Just because. If Ed hadn’t been around to hate, he would have found someone else to fill his shoes. One of the cabin boys, perhaps, one of the black sailors. He just liked hating.
And for that Edward hated him in return, and he channelled that feeling, that hate. Turned everything to hate.
Because of that, the first strike was Edward's. He stepped in and it seemed to explode out of him, using his speed and his size to his advantage, ducking beneath Blaney's protecting fists and smashing him in the solar plexus. He let out an oof and staggered back, the surprise more than the pain making him drop his guard, enough for Edward to dance quickly to his left and drive forward with his left fist, finding a spot above his right eye that, just for one delicious second, Ed thought might have been good enough to finish him off.
A roar of approval and blood-lust from the men. It had been a good punch, enough to open a cut that began to leak a steady stream of blood down his face. But no, it wasn’t enough to stop him for good. Instead, the look of angry incomprehension he always wore became even more uncomprehending. Even angrier. Edward’d landed two punches, he precisely none. He hadn’t even moved from his spot.
Ed flitted back. He'd never been one for fancy foot-work, but compared to Blaney he was nimble. Plus he had the advantage. First blood to Edward and with the crowd on his side. David versus Goliath.
“Come on, you fat bastard,” Edward taunted him. “Come on, this is what you wanted to do the minute I came aboard the ship. Let’s see what you got, Blaney.”
How quick the crowd was to turn as Blaney struck. Never go down in the fight. It’s the one golden rule. But Edward had no choice as his fist made contact and bells rang in his head as he went to the deck on his hands and knees and spat out teeth on a string of blood and phlegm. My vision jarred and blurred. Ed’d been hit before, of course, many times, but never — never — as hard as that.
Amid the rushing of pain and the roaring of the spectators — roaring for blood, which Blaney was going to give to them, with pleasure — he bent to Edward.
“‘Fat bastard,’ eh?” he said, and hawked up a green. Ed felt the wet slap of phlegm on his face.
Then Blaney straightened, and his boot was so near to Edward's face he could see the spider-cracks in the leather. Still trying to shake off the pain, Ed lifted one pathetic hand as though to ward off the inevitable kick.
The kick, though, was aimed not at Edward's face but squarely at his belly, so hard that it lifted him into the air and he was deposited back to the deck. From the corner of Edward's eye he saw Thatch, and perhaps he had allowed himself to believe that he favoured Ed in the bout, but he was laughing just as heartily at Edward's misfortune as he had been when Blaney was rocked. Edward rolled weakly to my side as he saw Blaney coming towards him. The men on the decks were shouting for blood by then. He lifted his boot to stamp Edward, looked up to Thatch. “Sir?” he asked him.
To hell with that. Edward wasn’t waiting. With a grunt he grabbed Blaney's foot, twisted it and sent him sprawling back to the deck. A tremor of renewed interest ran through the spectators. Whistles and shouts. Cheers and boos.
They didn’t care who won. They just wanted the spectacle. Blaney was down and with a fresh surge of strength Edward threw myself on top of him, pummelling him with his fists at the same time as he drove his knees into Blaney'ss groin and midriff, attacking him like a child in the throes of a temper tantrum, hoping against hope that he might lay Blaney out with a lucky blow.
Edward didn’t. There were no lucky blows that day. Just Blaney grabbing his fists, wrenching him to the side, slamming the flat of his hand into his face and sending him flying backwards. Edward heard his nose break and felt blood gush over his top lip. Blaney lumbered over and this time he wasn’t waiting for Thatch’s permission. This time he was coming on for the kill. In his fist shone a blade . . .
There was the crack of a pistol and a hole appeared on his forehead. His mouth dropped open, and the fat bastard fell to his knees then dead to the deck.
When Edward's vision cleared he saw Thatch reaching to help him from the deck with one hand. In the other a flint-lock pistol, still warm.
“I got a vacancy on my crew, lad,” he said. “Do you want to fill it?”
[[ violence and bloodshed under the cut. taken from the Assassin's Creed: Black Flag novelization. shut up this isn't late. ]]
