Fallen Angels

Chapter Sixteen

"What?"

"Parley. I wish to speak to Borden Barlow. He is the captain of your ship, is he not?"

"You wanna parley with the cap'n?"

Thorne nodded calmly, looking straight at the man. The pirate hesitated for a moment, then sighed and lowered his sword.

"Fine. Be warned though, like as not he'll decide he don't like you and have you killed. Painfully. You willin' to take that chance? If'n yer not, I can kill you here, nice and quick like. But I bet you think yer gonna sweet talk yer way into the cap'n's good graces."

Once again Thorne nodded and then came to his feet. He followed behind the pirate, heading towards the gangplank that had been laid across the gap between the Heron and the Lightning. He stepped nimbly onto it and crossed over to the Lightning. He noticed that none of the pirates showed the same comfort moving across the shifting plank, hesitating and then scampering unsteadily across.

He allowed himself to be taken by the arm and forced over to below where a man who was obviously the captain was looking down at the deck from above on the poop. The pirate who now had him by the arm called up to the captain,

"This'n thinks he's worth your time, Cap'n. You wanna hear him out, or should we just gut 'im like the rest?"

The captain looked coldly down at Thorne, studying him with dull green eyes. Thorne stared right back, unwilling to back down even to the man who now controlled his fate. Without looking away from Thorne, the captain said,

"I have no need for extra crew to split our prize with. Kill him."

Thorne raised an eyebrow at this and said,

"Then you should be thanking me. I killed off one of your men, after all. One less person to split with."

"Oh, and I suppose you be wanting part of 'is share now, don't you? In return for relieving us of that burden?" One of the pirates, this one with a Scottish accent, standing around watching jeered at Thorne. In response, Thorne examined his fingernails as he spoke.

"No, I have no need of your money. You may certainly keep his share for yourselves. All I require as compensation is that you let me off once you arrive in the Lucents. I presume you intend to take your newly acquired goods there to sell, yes?" The captain glared at the aura of nonchalance the Thorne was exuding, but answered his question nonetheless.

"Yes, that is indeed where we are headed. But what do we gain from letting you live? Or rather, what do we gain from letting you go free? We could use someone to do our dirty work for us." At this, Thorne sighed and shook his head.

"It's not what you gain by letting me go free that matters. What matters is how much it will cost you to subjugate me. I guarantee I can cause more damage to your ship than I would be worth as your servant. And the longer I'm on this ship, the more chances I'll have to wreak havoc. Do you wish to call my bluff?"

"No, to be honest, I don't, so I propose a test. If you pass, you may leave freely when we arrive in the Lucents the day after tomorrow. I'll even give you a small purse of coins to ease your way. If you lose, well, that means you wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyways. The test is this: floor those three men around you."

Before the captain had even completed his sentence, Thorne was moving on to the final man, having elbowed the two behind him in the throat. He stepped forward and grabbed the man's arm, which was reaching for a knife, and his shirt. He then twisted, sticking his leg out just far enough to make him stumble without face planting, and pitched the man forwards into his two staggering shipmates, which sent the trio tumbling to the deck.