The Kiss of the Dead (Revised)

Chapter 2

I couldn't hear. I could barely see. Through the slowly thinning ash-fog, the ship's deck wandered in and out of focus - my eyes, no longer coordinated. Straining them, I turned to the fully-lacerated, crimson-covered corpse lying next to me. My eyes slowly drifted together, timidly gaining consciousness. The vicious pirate who once tried to decapitate me, now lay still. Peaceful, almost. But his contorted face cried a long and suffering sigh, jaw loose and his limp, tongue bloodied. Although his dark, bleeding eyes still carried such strength, they hadn't yet tried to wash the acrid smoke from themselves. His once dominating demeanour had left him, anything recognisable gouged from his pale, dirty skin. Nothing but a clump of gore beside me. My nostrils swelled in the heat, trying not to smell the thick miasma of murder. A desperate attempt to protect me from their poisons. The bloodied corpse made a good shield - the pirate himself, one of more than three-hundred dead.

My head hit the barrel of powder behind me and I thought again about Vane. Standing with the balance of a thousand years' practice. Effortlessly on top of his ship's rail. He'd dropped his arm and sentenced every man on my ship to death.

Gripping the head of a nail, I pulled it's tooth free from my arm. The squelch of skin churned my unsteady gut. A gush of acidic blood erupted from my arm, burning the flesh around it. The whiff of rust-infused blood was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the stinging sweat in my wound. I clamped my grip over it, I could only hope the damage wasn't permanent.

Ringing. So much ringing. I couldn't hear anything but. The hail of stones and nails stopped and I looked out from my cover.

The pirates rang their silver bell wildly, the crew cheering. I heard none of it. A truly ruthless victory, with only half their own men slaughtered.

I pulled the remaining nails from my arm, applying a tourniquet made from my shield's blood-sodden shirt. They knew they had won, and so did I. I sat quietly. Certain that the only six allies I could see, knew that same sorry fact.

Pirates dropped onto our deck. He did too. Slowly approaching our crippled crew, we waited. Less than twenty, still alive. Boy and man, quickly gathered up.

Vane savoured every moment of his conquest, lifting his hat and sliding back his matted hair before clapping his hands together. And again. And again.

Objections were beaten out of our mouths - worth less than the ears they sat between. I stood, outwardly defiant, but with a core that trembled. I would say it was the after-fight exhaustion, but that would be a lie.

Vane looked at the half-dozen, quaking boys, huddled behind me. Like a hen, I spread my wings to protect them from the vile man.

He stepped towards us, slowly kneeling down, but before his knee had reached the boards, it jammed. He struck a blow to the back of it with the butt of a pistol. A loud pop followed, and it finally snapped into position.

'War wound.' Vane cackled. Running out of breath, he took a deep, wheezing inhale.

The twisted man drew his long, silver dagger from his baldric, pointing it below my arm. I tensed up, wrapping my arms tighter around the boys. But as soon as the blade grazed my loose sleeve, my arm moved obediently out of his way.

Leaning forward, Vane slapped the youngest across the cheek. The echo clapped across the ship.

'Look me in the eye, boy.' He growled at the terrified scruff. 'Don't you know who I am?'

The child froze. Words tried to escape him. He shivered, stuttering and stammering. Noises that didn't form letters nor words. Vane raised his fist, opened it, and swung the back of his hand at the boy. The five year old quickly wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a standing ball.

Vane's dagger slowly forced its way through the boy's defences, found his chin and carefully lifted it out.

'Look at the flag atop my ship, boy. It's black - yes?' He asked the boy calmly.

The boy nodded frantically, but still no words could get out.

'And what does a black flag mean?' Croaked the vile captain.

And that poor boy, with tears falling freely, still could not speak. His words mangled in his quivering throat.

'What does it mean-boy?' roared Vane, louder than orders over cannonfire. He retired the posture of a tired old man, for that of a fighter. Shoulders stretched, tightening muscles that bulged through his plain coat.

'Pirates!' squealed the child, body shaking.

'Now, the black's the colour of me 'art, but what of my insignia? - ne'er has any else used the skull and cross swords, aye? Answer me boy!'

'you . . . You're Charles Vane.'

Vane's lips curled, revealing blackening teeth. Out-stretching his dagger hand, he pointed at each boy in turn.

'And who, for your milk-mouthed mates, is Charles Vane?'

'A huh, a horr . . horrible man, with a heart darker than the deepest storm clouds. A man so cruel and awful that trade has all but stopped,' the child chanted in a delicate castrato.

'Right you are, boy. Right you are.' Muttered Vane, sighing, and redrawing his pistol.

'But I'll not 'ave it said that I take such harsh words from a powder monkey,' continued the captain.

He aimed the gun straight at the boy, and in that moment, I hadn't the nerve to intervene.

But he didn't shoot. He was much worse than a murderer. Instead, he handed that same silver dagger to the boy.

'Cut off yer ear. Cut it off in the hopes you may ne'er hear such foul words again,' he erupted, spurred on by the grim laughter of his toothless men.

The boy took the dagger from Vane, shaking as he raised it to his ear. None of us could bear to watch, we couldn't look at the screaming child as he began to cut free his own flesh.

I felt another of the boys force his way out from behind me. He ripped the dagger from the cutting boy's grip, and within a second had quickly lunged the blade for Vane's throat. But he wasn't quick enough. That boy died braver than the adults that surrounded him.

Vane stepped away from the child's body, smiling his grim, black smile. He spoke again, only this time more calmly.

'Well, gentleman. That's sated my blood lust.' He paused, looking up from the body, and into the eyes of his captives. 'For the moment.' He began to relay orders, 'Get me their captain. Empty their hold. Kill any of theirs who can't stand unaided. Hell, kill ours too!' He laughed. 'We'll have a fairer share of the profit that way.' He turned to cheers, before heading back to his own ship.

Pausing, as his right foot hit a climbing groove, he looked back. 'And dismember, then kill, half the new recruits. Punishment for that brave boy's idiocy.'