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CHAPTER ONE: "may I interest you kind folks in a bit of parlay?"
THE FIRST TIME MERCY MET THE INFAMOUS STURMHOND, she robbed him blind.
Granted, the blonde bastard had taken her for every penny she had at the gambling tables of Kerch but there was still a kind of smug satisfaction that came from giving the handsome stranger as good as he gave- even if she didn't stay around long enough to see him realise that they had parted equals.
So, maybe she had poured half a tonnes worth of gold into the pockets of whatever sick scumbag owned the Emerald Palace, but she left with an impressive gilded rapier that hummed and sung with the slightest movements. Whoever that Sturmhond was - he certainly knew how to accessorise.
Saints, she loved Ketterdam.
If she hadn't fashioned herself a home on the waves perhaps Mercy could have found sanctuary in the slums of this broken city. The crowded streets couldn't have catered more to her insatiable appetite for chaos, with its moral depravity and tendency to turn a blind eye to convicts and criminals the same. Of course, there was the slight inconvenience that Kerch didn't welcome the Immaculata's crew with open arms, on account of their worship of a God of Trade and Commerce ( Ghezen? Who could say? ) and her crew's collective distaste for trade routes and the sanctity of merchandising. After all, on the open water, there was no God but her. She couldn't think of a reason why the land had to be any different.
But for a few nights a year, the two forces put their differences aside and Mercy swapped her cutlass for her favourite vices: the cards and the tables. And she would lose. Badly. But there was nothing like the thrill she got from the anticipation, the chance and the allure of leaving her fate up to Lady Lucky.
Besides, it wasn't like she couldn't cover her losses.
"What would a lovely lady like you be doing in a place like this?"
At her side, Mercy felt Aarav tense, his hands flexing instinctively to go to his blades. Even surrounded by the scum of the Barrel, he still managed to look every inch as intimidating as he did on the waves. Mercy supposed an assassin was still an assassin, no matter what company he was in and Aarav wasn't the type to let other people forget it. But despite being on the receiving end of a look that could kill, the stranger laughed.
"Calm down my friend. I was just making niceties before I take the pretty lady's money."
And as much as Mercy hated to admit it, he really did.
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THE SECOND TIME MERCY ENCOUNTERED STURMHOND, he returned the favour.
It was a simple boat-borne attack. Nothing she hadn't done a thousand times over and so the only probable chain of events played out like clockwork the second Aarav spied a merchant ship on the horizon. The dreaded skull and crossbones was replaced by a flag that masked the Immaculata as nothing more than a trading vessel in distress and the ruse alone was enough to draw the attention and the presence of the beautiful ship some miles away.
