The Guardian of the Sea

48.

Elizabeta

"What the hell is happening on that ship?" Feliks asked, wearing a baffled expression. I could not disagree with his question, because the sight of Kirkland's ship was blocked by smoke. We heard screams, explosions and clanging sounds but couldn't see anything.

Before I could voice my worries, I heard Kirkland through the patch. He mentioned underwater cannons which had damaged their ship greatly. Unfortunately, their vessel was not the only one that was targeted; only seconds after his exclamation, our ship started shaking too. But the impact was not triggered by any bombs, cannons or explosions; but by the ocean's waves.

"Seriously? What now?" Feliks muttered, holding onto the railing next to me.

"It seems as if they are only attacking Kirkland," I noticed, regretting the words I used only seconds later. The blonde admiral's ship was under attack for the purpose of distraction. We did not realise it until foreign pirates entered our deck and surprised us with their filthy presence.

"Oh shit," I cursed while Feliks looked at the new guests with a critical expression.

"Seriously? That outfit? I thought the Edelsteins had enough money to occupy a good designer who at least had a little sense of fashion."

I was not the only one whose widened eyes focussed on Feliks after hearing his remark. Even if I was used to this kind of exclamations from him; listening to his critics in the middle of a war was surprising – although I was certain that he tended to hide his fears with those expressions. His eyes were still judging our enemies, who grew angrier the more they were stared at by a rather sassy Feliks.

I could have smiled or laughed because the scene was too funny to watch, but decided against it due to the current circumstances. There was neither time nor the right moment to laugh at those who were capable of killing us.

"My my. What do we have here? Dear Lizzie, her father and the crew."

That voice . . . It had the same cruel ring in it as it always did whenever I heard it. The face of Captain Roberts greeted us. It was his ship that attacked us, but I had not recognised any of his crew members. Either he had some of Edelstein's members on his ship or new recruits.

"Oh," Mathias – who had placed himself next to me and my father – uttered before he started swinging his axe. We did not waste any minutes and ran forward in order to attack the notorious captain and his damned crew. I wanted to target Roberts; he who had caused so much trouble and pain. Yet I was stopped by one of is lackeys. "Don't stand in my way!" I screamed before knocking him down with all the energy I had left in my body – which was a lot; my father had always told me that I had fierce strength. I quickly looked around: everyone was fighting and so far, my crew was doing fine. Mathias was throwing the enemies across the ship as if they were mere pillows, while every single strike of Feliks against the pirates was accompanied with a judging look or comment – a tactic to distract the enemies and which had worked more than once.

As some minutes passed, my high spirits left me. There were too many enemies attacking us and Kirkland's and Antonio's ship had not reappeared – smoke was still preventing us to see what had happened. My eyes focussed back on the persons in front of me. It were two tall men; one holding a pistol, while the other was swinging his cutlass. I wasted no time in fighting and I had one great advantage: those two underestimated me, the one with the sword wanted to have some fun with me. The other one would wait until he could finish me off with his pistol. To their dismay, I had already analysed their moves. The tallest of them – with the cutlass – attacked me, but I ducked and kicked him in the gut before caressing his throat with my sword. My hands did not let go of him when he fell; I used him as a shield, causing the other pirate to shot at me. I pushed the dead body forward when I rushed towards the shooting enemy, making him step behind – which to his dismay was the railing of the ship. He fell behind into the ocean, a little shocked by my bold move.