The silence is all but deafening, hanging like a shroud across the salty air after the chaos of the battle. It's cut only by the rhythmic lap of water, the creaking of wood, and the gentle crackle of flames as they begin to devour our ship. I've heard of battles at sea lasting for hours upon hours, as tenacious Captain's pitted their ships doggedly upon one another, but ours was over in minutes.
Not that I actually witnessed all that much of it. The moment I heard the call from the crow's nest I had been on alert, and then when I saw those blood-red sails cresting the horizon, their distinctive wing-like shape, and saw the first colossal splash as a cannonball had struck the waves just off the starboard bough, I'd fled below decks. I'd peered through a gap, watching them draw nearer, and in horror had realised we were turning to face them. We might have outrun them, if we'd caught the wind just right, but Captain Dragur had clearly been out for blood. When the first cannonball had slammed into our stern with an explosion of fractured wood, I had hid, cramming myself into a cubby, and listened, terrified, to the cacophony of the battle as it was thrust suddenly upon us. Blasting cannons, explosive impacts, the clash of swords, the screams and the shouts.
I'm not ashamed, I'm no fighter. I was on that ship because I had nowhere else to turn, not because I truly fancied myself a pirate. I've never even been in a proper fight. To put it simply, I am - was - nothing more than a street rat. I grew up in Kingston, just an urchin, stealing and pulling tricks to scrape by, and while I'd encountered my fair share of pirates, their ways at sea were hardly familiar to me. I'd never even been on a ship until I'd stepped afoot the Baroness' Charm.
I never lived a life of luxury, but I did alright for myself, making the odd coin singing at bars or throwing dice. It wasn't a terrible life, I actually rather enjoyed it, and likely would have gone on enjoying it, had I not gone and made the tremendous mistake of falling madly and utterly in love. Her name was Eliza, a comely, auburn-haired beauty, who just happened to be the daughter of one of the richest plantation owners in Kingston.
We'd met after I'd leapt a fence while running for dear life, an often enough occurrence, and had practically fallen right into her lap as she lay reading beneath a tree on her father's property. From the moment I'd looked into those emerald eyes I'd known it was love. We'd spent months meeting in secret, shy trysts at first, stealing kisses, and then rather suddenly giving into our burning lust and exploring each others bodies with all our teenage abandon.
But we'd been found out. Of course we had, and our little fling had gone up in flames, and I'd realised that unless I wanted to end the day hanging by my neck I had to make myself scarce, and fast. I'll be honest, I always harboured a small desire to one day take to the seas, to join a ship's crew and find out what all the fuss was about.
So that's what I'd done. I'd joined the first ship that would take me on. The Baroness' Charm, captained by the bearded, pot-bellied and foul-tempered Dragur. I've spent the past two months adjusting rather roughly to life at sea, and finding that a life of piracy wasn't quite as exciting as I'd always imagined. Until now, I suppose. I was treated poorly, basically a glorified cabin boy to the crew, even at nineteen, made to clean and cook and scrub the decks and...
Well, I won't bore you with the details. The important thing was that I had escaped a hanging, and that I was alive.
Although that could very well be about to change.
I shouldn't have been surprised when they found me, and dragged me out from my little hidey hole. I hadn't fought; what good would it have done? Towering Easterners, light brown or off-white skin painted with dark war tattoos, light leathers draped over bulging fat and rippling muscle, necks adorned with necklaces of bones. I suppose it's probably a good thing they found me, now I think about it, because the ship is very much aflame, set alight the minute I'd been dragged onto the plank thrown across from their rather exotic-looking vessel.
They dragged me out past the carnage, bodies laid strewn across the deck, splintered wood jutting out, bright blood painting the planks. Now, I try not to whimper as I'm dumped where my crewmates kneel, swords at the napes of their necks, shooting me sour black scowls.
"Coward," Black Pete spits, baring yellowed teeth, murder in his eyes. "Yer a fuckin coward, Jacoby."
Someone else spits, muttering darkly in agreement, as if this whole mess is somehow my fault.
I just look at the deck, unsure if it's even worth being ashamed, or terrified, or if I might as well just face death like a man, like the other's appear to be doing.
One of the large sailors who'd dragged me over thuds across the deck, sweeping his beady eyes across the gathered prisoners. He grunts, and barks a command in his native tongue. I don't recognize all the words, but one stands out easily enough.
Lao.
Just like it had on the ship when I'd heard the name called, when those scarlet sails that now ripple above me had first appeared on the horizon, a shiver runs through me. A strange, cold dread that had clutched at my heart, as someone had shouted, "It's the Dread Lotus! It's Zheng fucking Lao!"
The Black Mistress of the sea. We'd all heard the stories of the violent, wrathful, tyrannical pirate queen, her nigh-unbeatable ship and its crew, her appetite for blood and death. And the other stories, whispered in low voices, of how she made pacts with demons, brought men back from the dead in arcane rituals fueled by the sacrifice of young virgins, of how she invited demons into her body as she indulged in all sorts of sick, twisted and...unholy pleasures. I'd been told of her particular interests, of how she takes slaves by the dozen, slaves forced to tend to her voracious carnal desires, her twisted sexual needs, unspeakable things that would make even the blackest and saltiest of sea-dogs blush.
And then, I'd been told, when she grew bored of her slaves, the crew ate them, roasting them alive.
Another shiver runs down my spine as I kneel on the deck, on that terrifying monster's ship, even though a part of me knows they're probably nothing but tall tales. Just rumours, nothing more. We're not here to be sacrificed to demons, far more likely she'll just kill us the old fashioned way.
I suppose that's a little more comforting, although not much.
The crew falls silent, both ours and that of the Dread Lotus', theirs made up of both men and woman, I notice. The men are large, or wiry and scarred, while the woman all wear dark expressions, all fierce and lithe, draped in blood-red cloth. I stare at the deck as a door creaks open behind us, and light footsteps sound across the wood. I don't look up at first, just see the dark shape from the corner of my eye. I don't want to look, to even set eyes upon this creature, but something compels me to risk a glance.
I'm not sure what I expected. Horns, red eyes, scales perhaps, something terrifying and inhuman. The Black Mistress stands amidst our kneeling group, observing us with dark, slanted eyes, her lashes long and black as coal, a shadowy dusting painting the hollows beneath them. She's slight, no taller than I, her body lithe and toned with subtle muscle. She wears blood red cloth wrapped about her slender body, not quite a dress, more of a shawl, and fastened by a series of black leather straps that form a loose armour. Her skin has a dusky, yellowish cast, and is adorned with a rippled network of dark ink along her bare arms and slender neck, twisting, incompressible patterns. Her raven hair is tied in two bundles to either side of her head, a few dark strands hanging across her slender face.
Terrifying, perhaps, but very much human.
She turns slowly, surveying our group, eyes narrowing, her thin lips pressed tightly. A thin shard of white bone pierces her small nose, while more tattoos dot her sharp cheeks. Her slender fingers hold a collection of rings, glinting in the sunlight, and she rests one hand on the pommel of a strange black cutlass. I see more knives strapped to her back as she turns, another sticking from her high boots.
I know that I'm staring, and realise the moment she sees that she might cut my eyes out for the slight, but I can't look away. I'm not repulsed, as I feared I would be. This isn't the terrifying, ghastly creature I had dreamt up. I am afraid, don't get me wrong, I'm trembling. Her fierce gaze and casually threatening demeanor gives me the impression she would plunge that sword into me at a moment's notice, perhaps simply to see how I would react, perhaps simply for the pleasure of it.
But something about that fear, that sense of danger is...strangely captivating. She stands shrouded in a strange, dark beauty, weaved through that vulpine form she wears, one that makes me tremble in fear even as I stare. Those straps binding the red cloth to her do so tightly, accentuating her slender form, her narrow waist, the soft curve of her hips, the swell of her small breasts, the subtle curve of her backside. There's a savage grace about her, something both predatory and oddly...sensual. It stirs something in me, a strange mix of dread and...
