Boarding Party • 14. "Working for the Enemy" Part II (Patreon)

As the Festering Wound sailed closer to the privateers, D’anna watched as Cain continued to bark orders to the crew. They were sober and concise—free from any of the captain’s colorful insults towards the enemy. Several mates loaded the top guns at their usual dawdling pace, taxing their rotting brains to know where to aim and when to fire. The elf got a sick feeling in her stomach seeing them, not because of breakfast, but because they were preparing for the inevitable battle that lay ahead of them. Either the Wound would take the lives of another couple hundred sailors, or their years of sin would finally catch up. Her eyes became misty just thinking about the whole ordeal. Couldn’t they just sail past each other and continue on their merry way? Why does a lifetime of pillaging have to have so much bloodshed? 

Majel was screaming from below, taking out her anger on those less-fortunate crewmates tasked with the lower decks. Yowls demanded them to hurry the bloody hell up and load those cannons already. Hisses made sure that the repairmen had enough nails and planks to work with, lest they end up under the jurisdiction of one Davy Jones. D’anna sighed as she passed them, knowing exactly where her post was: held up in the galley, nursing a pistol and wondering if—in the case of the Wound’s capture—she would use it for defense or for a quick escape. 

But just as the elf’s hand twisted the doorknob, it happened—thousands of feet away, the blast of the enemy’s guns could’ve been mistaken for a cluster of volcanoes that, prior to the battle, had planned to sync their eruptions. As the cannonballs soared through the air, they whistled like banshees damning the Wound to their awaiting fate. D’anna ran into the kitchen, slammed the door shut, and cupped her hands over her pointy ears—lest they start to bleed from it all. 

BAM!

The entire ship rocked to the side from the impact, sending D’anna tumbling to the ground (as well as several crewmates whose legs had been the targets of their personal rigor mortis). She began to sob as she flattened herself against the ground, not wanting to be split in half by a whizzing cannon like that one captain, “Immortal” Henry Wilkins. 

Even D’anna’s worst anxieties about the battle could not match up to the real thing. Not only did the sounds become louder as the ships further enclosed each other, but they increased in number, too. It seemed as though for every blast from the Wound, the privateers would shoot back three more. The elf could barely hear herself think from all the noise—the firing of the cannons, planks being blasted apart, the rapid stomping from the deck above, and her superiors’ increasingly desperate orders. 

She wasn’t a complete coward; she wanted to help, but knew that it was for the best if she just got out of everybody’s way. She wasn’t in the best of shape and could hardly fetch supplies in a timely manner. She couldn’t fix up any sort of holes, since being that close to the line of fire was reserved for the more “expendable” members of the crew. And with her aim, she’d find a way to somehow fire upon her own ship. No, she was just a cook, that’s all—and a useless one to boot. Whenever she wasn’t pouring barrels of gore into a trough, she was responsible for the meals of one other person. It’d almost be better if she wasn’t aboard at all. She began to cry again—and this time, not out of fear. 

But there was no time for tears when a battle was being fought. 

“D’ANNA!” Cain called out from the deck above.“GET YER ASS UP HERE!” 

The elf scurried up to the top deck as fast as she could, now out of breath with a high tempo heartbeat. She looked up after taking a couple gasps and shrieked when she saw what had become of the Wound's top deck—almost all of the crewmates were dead, scattered about the floor and mixed with the blasted-away shipplanks. Majel was the only one on the cannons anymore, crouching to avoid meeting the same fate as her zombic companions (as well as “Immortal” Henry Wilkins). A bead of blood was dripping down her forehead and tracing down the rest of her face, although it seemed the least of her worries at the moment. Cain was panicking at the helm, trying to both steer the Wound and man the sails against the choppy waters they found themselves in. 

D’anna’s now-familiar blood-curdling scream had quickly caught the skeleton’s attention. He flashed a brief smile at her seeing that she was okay—then remembered all the shit he was in and scowled once more. “D'anna! Adjust tha sails, we be runnin’ away!”

D'anna ran up to them and began to untangle the ropes. “Which way, Captain!?”

“STARBOARD!” he grunted, trying to accommodate against a mighty surge rocking the Wound one way before Majel's cannon fire rocked them another. 

D’anna held up her hands to produce an “L” with her left and an inverted one with her right. "Which one is starboard again!?"

“THA RIGHT, D’ANNA!” 

“Gah, cock it! Who the hell are you tryin' to impress, Sawyer?” Majel sneered, stuffing a way-too-much amount of gunpowder in the cannon before lighting it. "Just talk like a normal PERSON…!" she said before hitting the deck. 

BOOM!

The surge cracked the hull of the privateers' ship, sending two of its men tumbling overboard. Their vessel was in a much better shape than the Wound’s, whose hull was becoming more air than wood the longer the skirmish went on. D'anna almost fell forward from the blast, clutching one of the ropes before she too toppled over the railing. 

"D'anna! Drop every canvas an’ adjust ‘em rightward!" 

"I'm sorry, Captain!” the elf yelled as she began to run down the deck. “I promise I'll do it right this time! Where do you want them?!” 

“I WANT THEM RIGHT!” screamed the skeleton. 

“I know!” cried the elf, “Which—”

“Right as in STARBOARD, ye twit!” He turned to Majel. “This! This is why we say ‘Starboard’! Now, HANG ON, YE TWOOO!" 

The skeleton kicked the helm, sending the wheel spiraling rapidly to the right. There was a loud creaking noise as the now-structurally-unsound Wound began to turn on its heel, almost twisting like a coil. Several splashes came portside, no doubt barrels and supplies rolling through the ship’s gaping holes. D'anna and Majel collapsed onto the Wound's deck, having no time to heed Cain’s advice. The elf groaned in pain, having forgotten those exhausting days the Wound’s crew was just the three of them. Perhaps all the zombies weren’t so bad after all…

Once the Wound had reached a full 180°, Cain looked back and uncollapsed his now-partially-shattered spyglass. “Get back up, ye two! They be dead-set on finishin’ this!” 

“What!?” D’anna shot up. She began to cry. “That’s not fair, we just made it out!”

"Aye, but we can’t get inta another skirmish like that again! We just have ta… keep runnin’ til we lose ‘em, ‘til they lose interest, or we ‘til find someone else ta shake ‘em off our tail...”

Majel looked over the side of the ship. "Sawyer, does the sealine seem... higher than usual to you?"

The skeleton leaned over the railing and he groaned. “Aye, too high, in fact! Go! I'll keep us goin’ in a straight line, ye two, start bailin’ like yer lives depend on it!”

“They DO depend on it, you bloody pile of bones!” Majel shot back as she put her hands on her hips. “Maybe if you—” 

“SHUT YER TRAP AN’ GET TA BAILIN’!” the skeleton interrupted her.