Indebted (working title)

Messenger (Part 1)

He only saw it for an instant... A shadow that flickered on the wooden walls of the hold in a backdrop of purple light and faded like a half-remembered dream. Shakale recognized the silhouette, he recognized the outline of thin, tendril-like braids, and the shape of an ornate headdress that he'd seen in nightmares that jolted him awake screaming and drenched in cold sweat another group of unchained prisoners moved to rush the doorway to the upper deck... and they would be the last. Desperate wretches still trapped in their bindings pleaded for Shakale to set them free, but to Shakale, their voices sounded like distant echoey calls from the back of some deep cave. All at once the world was in motion but for Shakale it was standing still/

He stood there, frozen, caught in some horrible blend of hypnosis and trauma, the chaos flowing around him like a rock in a stream. He wondered if she'd finally kill him this time, but he knew that she wouldn't; he'd kept her entertained for so long and few things on this earth could hold her interest. Water poured in from some new hole. He could hear it rushing in to fill the hold and feel the wet cold sensation as it crept slowly up from his ankles to just below his knees. Gunshots rang out from above him and grunts and screams blended together in an anguished chorus that pained him with its familiarity.

"I'm sorry", he said as he left them. "I'm sorry!". He shouted as he bolted up the stairs. Behind him trailed horrible, panicked cries, and pleading voices that melted into unintelligible wailings... then choking... then gurgling... then silence.

Above deck, captain Melody fought like a man possessed. A young slave brandishing a stolen cutlass launched at him from his left, but Melody sidestepped him effortlessly before bringing his own sword down between his attacker's neck and shoulder. The blade sliced through muscle and snapped bone, nearly cleaving the man's body in two with a single strike. The slave's momentum carried him forward a few more steps and he collapsed onto the ground dead. Melody reached out and grabbed a pistol from a crewman's holster as he came barreling past holding a wound on his face that gushed blood and left him blinded. Two slaves who'd decided to seek higher ground had been climbing up the thick ropes of the ship's rigging when Melody spotted them. He raised his gun and fired a shot at the one closest to the crow's nest. The bullet pierced the man's neck and he instinctively let go of the ropes to grab at his gushing throat. He tried to scream as he fell to the deck forty feet below, but all that came out was a long bloody gurgle and a grunt as he collided with the floorboards and went still.

The remaining man reached out to his fallen friend and shouted some long and complicated name that made Melody roll his eyes. He started the long tedious process of reloading his pistol but decided to abandon it when he saw something that he found somewhat unsettling. Though African bodies littered the upper deck like fallen leaves in autumn, there were also a disturbing amount of Melody's own deckhands, deckhands who lied bloodied and broken amidst wasted cargo, their faces contorted into silent screams and wide-eyed shock. And then... he saw something else, a small, familiar, black, body weaving through the crowd holding a stolen rifle that was bigger than she was. He saw her face and realized that it was the woman he'd had Francios bring to him earlier in the day. He'd planned on treating her well, he'd planned on keeping her to himself once he got to shore not sell her with the rest of the savage lot, she was to be a permanent fixture aboard his ship, it would have been a great honor from someone like her to sail with someone like him as anything more than cargo, but here she was holding one of his guns and using it to fire upon his crew. He charged at her filled with maddening anger and indignation But just before he reached her and just before she noticed him, a tattered piece of fabric tore away from the mast and flew off into the distance, Melody's eyes followed it to see that it was flying towards the spouts. The Almsgiver had drifted close enough to the spouts for her crew to feel their pull. When he turned back around the woman, was gone.

"It doesn't matter", he thought to himself. "It won't be long now".

Closer to the ship's stern, Louis stumbled over himself in a mad dash to the sleeping quarters. He had been focusing hard on Francois's broad, bright red, back, trying not to lose him in the fray. He heard a loud boom and the gentle clicks of splintering wood falling to the floor as Francios smashed through the door to the bunks and then suddenly stopped. Louis still running full speed, crashed into his back, but Francios barely moved an inch. Francios peered into the dark room until he could make out faces, frightened eyes stared back at him from behind the thick hanging sheets that served as beds aboard the Almsgiver. He counted out five of them, and saw that only one of them was wounded, the rest were cowards who'd been hiding in the bunk room since the fighting broke out.

The wounded man, an extremely old, perpetually frowning man named Weiss, sat up against a wall with one of his veiny hands quivering under the weight of the pistol he was pointing at the doorway, the other pressed against the blood-soaked rags that covered a wound in his side. He used to brag about his years spent sailing and how he'd survived two slave rebellions in his time but now, he just looked scared. He was a weak dying old man who knew, with absolute certainty, that he would not get lucky a third time.

"Have you... come to hide... here as well?", Weiss asked, struggling to breathe with a punctured lung/

Louis felt a twinge of shame at the old man's words.

"they're overtaking the bridge, We need to push back hard.", said Francios. " I have a few more pistols stashed in back I just need to--"

"Oh, what's the point?!", Said a nasally voice from the shadows. Prewitt stepped forward allowing his lanky frame to come into full view. His cheek was bruised and his arm had small burns from the friction of the ropes he'd tied himself with earlier. Just as the fighting was starting, he'd managed to free himself from the mast with a knife and slink off into the bunkroom to hide with the other crewmen who felt their earnings for this trip were not worth fighting for.

In the corner of the room Melody's cat hissed furiously at the lot of them, her green eyes darting between them as if to say, "This is my space, come no further".

"What's the point, Francios?", Prewitt repeated. "If it's the savages or the storm that does us in, honestly, what does it matter? I for one would much rather be done in by some cruel act of god than some beast wielding a stolen sword".

"Shut... up... Prewitt!", Weiss shouted as loudly as his fading breath would allow. "Shut up... or... I swear to God... I'll shoot you myself! I'd rather sail... with a group of savages... than you cowardly lot". The old man tried to say something else but was interrupted by an episode of coughs that pushed globs of bloody phlegm from his throat.

A squeak of the door behind Francios pulled everyone's attention to the front of the room. Everyone grew silent; Melody's cat ceased her hateful hissing and both Weiss and Francios raised their guns as a tall dark figure entered the room. In the dim light he was mostly a shadow. All the men could make out were hazel eyes, forearms striped with scars, and two bloody swords. Only one barrel of Francios's tri-barreled pistol was loaded and Weis's gun had gotten so wet that he doubted it would even fire, still, they pulled their triggers, briefly brightening the room with dual blasts of fire and filling it with the thick smell and tart taste of gun smoke.

Both men... missed. Francios was made aware of this fact when his throat was slit so deeply and so expertly that he was nearly decapitated. It had taken less than a second. The movement was so swift and decisive that no one who'd witnessed it was sure of what they'd seen till Francios fell over dead and the impact of his fat body striking the hard floor, freed his head from his shoulders and sent it rolling off to a far corner of the room.

What followed was an odd and horrid symphony of screams and gasps as Zion darted around the room full of stunned and frightened sailors and cut them down one by one. Most did not have time to tap into that primal sense that overtakes trapped animals and imbues them with courage and strength. Zion's blade was so swift that before his victim could even tell that they were in his sights, they were feeling the sharp sting of the blades sliding through them.

Old man Weiss watched in fear that quickly turned to rage.