And a whooping 7,275 words later, I bring you all...
A Blow of Crisp Wind
September 9th, 1725
Raphael's Vineyard, Tortuga,
7:05 PM
The quiet sanctuary that was the night was ever-still this evening. The darkness was not a blanket over the sky as it was the mighty hand of God pressing down upon the atmosphere of the Earth, and by his force the air was so thick and opaque one could almost cut a knife through its buttery edges and watch as the wisps of pale white fog cut around it's blade like a piece of meat just gingerly peeling off a ham. Though, the fog itself was not which made the moment so heavy, but it was what enveloped the surroundings - the breaths and heaves of war.
There is a fine space between the forces of good and evil, just small enough to keep the two within an uncomfortably close distance of one another, yet far apart enough to lay the significant boundaries that set them apart - for every mountaintop village undisturbed in its natural beauty, there is a volcano punched up from the earth to which is known to its inhabitants; for every metropolis of culture and finery, there is a cave lined by the efforts of thieves and cutthroats. It is as if they are positioned just out of reach, in the farthest reaches of border, and deepest corner of the eye; only a very silent reminder of the eternal borders than divides the two worlds of one. Though there are exceptions in this defined law of chemistry, where the spaces of these two forces draw closer, building a powerful energy between the two opposing forces like evenly charged magnets, until they reach a disastrous climax when they collide.
This was such the case of Raphael's Vineyard, Tortuga, on this evening. The two forces of good and evil grew closer and closer together as the time of night disclosed by the two priests of their words came near; on either side of the field of vines, the crews prepared all necessities for their upcoming battle. A silent and sly, yet ominously present hand wavered over them, taunting them with the mounting pressure that overcame them as the time of midnight grew near, when Delmaria and Rott were to meet in the center of their battlefield. It gestured over their shoulder, to the open aisles of emptiness, blended by a thickening fog, that would act as their graveyard - and in the shadows of that fog, Death.
"I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." ~Revelation 6:7-8
And such was the passage that Delmaria read from the book the hours before, trying to find his place in the old, weathered text that glided beneath his hands. He knew Death had reserved his seat, but that seat had been vacant for over twenty years. Often he wondered not about what it would be like to die, or when, but what it was like to be Death. Was he alone as Delmaria imagined him to be? Drifting the earth under a black clock, aboard a green horse, it must have been incredibly lonely. Out of all the angels, he could not imagine the feelings Death would go through for being the one, forsaken by his own father to walk the earth and reap it's souls for all of eternity. It was a decision that he had no part in, most likely - and in this, Delmaria felt that he and Death had a very strong relationship with one another; that they would chase each other to the ends of the earth, and that when Delmaria's time comes, it would not be a bitter end, as it would be embracing an old friend. Delmaria and Death had much in common - maybe when they finally met, they could keep one another company.
But that would be saved for his future. Delmaria tightened a dark blue bandanna around his forehead, concentrating on preparing himself in the most convenient and reasonable manner possible. Underneath a layering of shirts he wore a chest made of mail links; though medieval, he felt any sort of extra protection would aid his cause. Over his coat the crew had smeared a heavy, oily liquor that coated over it's black leather surface, creating a layer of rubber that would repel any sort of light ammunition by bouncing it right off the surface. He tightened the small braids that hung from his deep black beard, making sure they would stay secure, and he tapped at a metal wingtip fastened on his boots with a small hammer to ensure that they would stay on the boots while he moved about. When he secured the last of his belts underneath his long coat and tipped his black, gold feathered hat just over his brow, he took a deep breath and turned himself towards Nayana, who stood halfway through the flap of the tent
"Is everything ready?" Delmaria asked, stepping forward as the sounds of the camp came to his ear.
She flicked her hat up over her view and leaned her head out in to the open. "Just about." she called over her shoulder. She turned around and stepped back in, gracefully moving the left side of her coat from in front of her back to her side. He caught a quick glimpse of what appeared to be dark brown, leather belt positioned just at the side of her thick black vest, to which hung an assortment of silvery, curved throwing knives. "The fog is getting denser, which isn't going to help the fact it’s growing late."
"No need to fret over that." Delmaria shook his head. "If we trained them well they can take care of that easily." he said as he passed her by, sticking his head out of the tent. Truth be told, it was worse than he had assumed; the fog prevented you from seeing more than forty feet in front of you, and the darkness that came over it from the night gave you the sense of standing in a cavern, minus the congestion. Luckily torches that were scattered throughout the tent allowed him to see the pirates working diligently to prepare themselves, shining their swords, cleaning their muskets, and any other last-minute necessities. He nodded and turned back in to the tent, where Nayana finished tightening the tie in her hair, and then tucked it back under her hat.
"I suppose I'll sacrifice some beauty for practicality." she chuckled, stuffing it back in and tightening her hat back on her head.
"That's one of the things I needn't worry about." he smiled, to which she giggled a little. Delmaria loved it when Nayana smiled, because her smile reminded him of his daughter's - to him, she was a second daughter of his own, and as such he was just as protective of her, though she wasn't aware of this. "Are you ready, my Lady?"
"I suppose so." she smirked, motioning him to step out of the tent.
As the crisp night air hit his face, Delmaria hit the ground running. He barked orders to his crew in a demanding tone, which sent them all rocketing out of their seats and off to gather everything that they had been assigned, like a flock of birds scattered by a single stray cat. As he waved his hand at a group of slower pirates sitting around a campfire before him, one of his men ran up to him as he furiously tied his bandanna over his dreadlocks. "Cap'n, we wait for your orders."
"Silent the torches and send the men up their respective aisles a minute after Captain Nayana and I make our way to the designated meet up point. I want them all crawling, and they should be in earshot of one another - the farthest up line within earshot of me, but just out of vision. I don't want Rott to take notice and kill us all."
"And for Dedman?"
Delmaria froze from his place at the mere mention of Jeremiah's name, and gave thought to the fact for the first time in a few days that he had existed. He had heard just last night that his condition was worsening by the hour, but Delmaria hastily shrugged it off and went to prepare for the battle. He realized now that this entire battle had started because of Jeremiah, and that he was essentially what they would be fighting for; not for Jeremiah himself, but that he stood as the symbol of dominance at this stage. Morbid that he was reduced to an item, indeed, but better than nothing. Still, he would not take chances; if he couldn't have him, nobody could.
"Keep Father Molony and a few of the men here with him. If Rott's men try to save him, they can give him a proper burial on the spot." Delmaria nodded, and with that the man hurried away, off to relay the message.
Moments later, Nayana reunited herself with Delmaria at the edge of the vineyard, the shallowness of their vision mired by the fog that weaved in and out of the holes in the grapevines. The ends of the aisles was all that could be seen, and then from there in faded off in to quiet, opaque wall of grey, like the passageway to another dimension of existence. They looked off in to the lanes, staring off in to space for a few moments in silence, before they slowly stepped forward, down the grass, and in to the abyss.
Not minutes after they stepped in to the fog and the sights of the camp faded behind them did the sounds of it go as well, like a heavy door shutting them out from the outside world. It was one of those rare moments when the atmosphere was not just quietly, but completely isolated - not even the whispering of the wind or the crinkling of wet grass beneath their feet could be heard. It was so still even moving a muscle felt like shattering the sanctity of a sacred place, but even as they moved forward nothing had changed. Their surroundings did not move, their breaths would not carry; it was as if they were frozen in time.
But then, just after a few minutes of walking, Delmaria caught eye of some movement off in the distance. It was faint at first, fading in and out between the clouds of mist, but Delmaria extended his arm out and stopped Nayana, who had not taken notice. She looked at him in oddity, but then followed his line of sight to where he was looking, making eye contact with it as well - a ball of dim yellow light, swaying back and forth by just a few feet behind the mist. It was not so much a center of light as it was the aura of something being swung side to side, and as it poked through the air it was revealed to be a lantern, covered in a brown, rusted metal. Attached to the lantern's old, rustic handle, was a dark hand, and running back from that hand was a dirty-green long coat that lead right up to the face of Captain Ezekiel Rott, pushing his way through the air.
He was accompanied by two of his lackeys - on one side of him, Ramona, and the other, a sharp-headed nitwit by the name of William "Bill" Barrett. As many who have met him would describe the experience, he was one of the most dim-witted people you could ever meet in your entire life; even the mere mention of his name brought the idea of stupidity to a man's head. He was known for being a nightmare to any captain who had the displeasure of having him aboard his ship; tipping over barrels, overloading cannons, and tearing the sails were one of the most common skills in his arsenal, though none of them were ever done on purpose. And to say the least, how he presented himself was an accurate reflection of his level of intelligence - his clothes, discolored with shades of purple, gold, and swamp green, were far too tight for his six-foot-eight, two-hundred-seventy pound physique, and his dirty blonde hair was shaven in most parts of his round, gargantuan head except for a broad strip running from the back of his head right to the top of his forehead. His face was pierced at the lips, nose, and chin with poorly-smelted pieces of bronze jewelry (though it was most likely they were simply pieces of shrapnel lodged in his face) and underneath his eyes sat two patches of scribbled tattoos in a blackish-red ink that ran down his cheeks. The only thing that kept you from laughing at him like the circus bimbo he is was the fact he was stronger than any man should naturally be, acting as Rott's own muscle at the lack of his own. It wasn't a surprise to Delmaria he had brought two arms to replace his own.
Rott stopped just as he and his convoy had come in to vision, and smiled as he placed the lantern down on the grass at his feet. "Good evening Mister Darkskull... Good evening Miss Nayana."
"Captain Ezekiel Rott," Delmaria sighed, tilting his head to the side a little. "It is under the jurisdiction of the Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court that I ask you to surrender you and your forces over to me. Should you accept a complete surrender....." Delmaria paused, rolling his eyes before he continued, "you and your forces will not receive any harm."
"Oh I'm afraid that this cannot be done, Captain Delmaria. However, should you and your forces surrender to Jolly Roger's Army, you will be met with the same equal treatment." Rott responded with a snip at the tip of his tongue.
Delmaria chuckled. "You and I both know that Jolly Roger is long and dead, Ezekiel. It isn't much of his army anymore, if anything."
"Ah, but just because he is dead does not mean that he truly
is! Sure, the man himself is six feet under, but that does not out rule the fact that his spirit and beliefs still live on in us, his humble followers."
"I don't exactly find thoughts of mass genocide and restriction of civil liberties to be something worth dying for, Rott. I thought the only reason you had allied with Roger in the first place was for eternal life, though it's obvious by now that he's made promises he couldn't keep."
"Oh? And why has Mr. Dedman not lived up to his name, yet?"
"How do you know he's still alive?" an eyebrow raised as he spoke.
"Some of your men are not as loyal as you would like to believe, Delmaria. Money has far greater value nowadays than your words."
The thought of Delmaria's own men turning against him boiled his blood, but he kept his composure - breaking down in front of Rott would only make matters worse. "I will not let my men be defined by a few wicked seeds among us."
"No, but shall we allow it to define you?" Rott snickered. He stepped forward; his hands crossed behind his back, and made his way towards Delmaria and Nayana. Darkskull could feel her weight being offset by him coming near, but he placed his hand on her back and steadied her. He came up to them, and began walking around in a circle, like a fish watching his prey.
"Miss Nayana... quite the reputation you have in these waters for being a strong-handed woman... but what about your father? You could say he was quite strong-handed, as well, yes?" Rott sneered, whispering in to her ear as he came around her.
"Shut your mouth, Rott..." Nayana growled at him.
"And Mr. Delmaria, you didn't even have much of a father, now did you? I guess you could say he's in the same boat as your mother, now, though.."
"At least I didn't have my own brother killed before my eyes in cold blood."
"Yes, but you killed somebody much more important... your own son, Delmaria! And by your own, black hand!" Rott gripped Delmaria's right hand, but Darkskull took his left hand and slapped Ezekiel right across the face, sending him back at least ten feet swirling on his leg. Barrett jumped forward a little, but Ramona stopped him before he could run after Delmaria - not like he had flinched. He took pleasure in watching the blood writhe from Rott's mouth.
Rott shook his head to bring his senses back, before turning back to Delmaria. He chuckled deeply, and began to backpedal to his group. "It seems that we have both learned to disagree to the point where we can get nothing done other than insult one another." He stepped back with his two groupies, but continued walking backward, having them follow him. "If that is the case, then let the fun begin." he beckoned, and in an instant he was shrouded back behind the mist.
At last Delmaria knew that it was time. He wouldn't let Ezekiel escape this time, and that was his only thought as he drew his cutlass and yelled out in to the openness "ROTT! Don't hide from me!" with a rough overtone in his force. "ROTT! ROTTTT!" He screamed over and over again, waiting for Ezekiel to come back to him so he could for once fight his own battle. His blood pumped through his veins like a firehouse, but as the silence fell back over the field, he thought as though he had lost him once more. But he was proven wrong.
From the mist two small, iron balls chained together at the sides came spinning out of the air in a whirlwind and wrapped right around Delmaria's legs, pushing him back and off his feet. He flipped forward with an immediate, rocketing thrust, and caught himself on his hands just as his torso came within inches of the ground. It was like he was hit by a truck, his body far from where his mind was, and as he waved his arms around and tried to find where he was his mind focused back on where he was and what was around him - and the group of men running towards him.
Nayana whipped the side of her coat over and grabbed three small, three-inch knives from the belt that hung at her waist and flicked her wrist, sending them off one at a time towards each of the men that made their way towards Delmaria. The first made contact to the foremost's neck the second to his thigh, and the third to his stomach, stopping each of them in their tracks and sending them to the ground. She moved herself forward and grabbed another just as the second man began to stumble back to his feet, waving his pitchfork over his head, and sent it at just ten feet away straight in to his left eye, where a river of blood gushed out as it collapsed on itself as he did. She slid to her knees and began untangling the chains around Delmaria's ankle, but as she did more of them began to file out of the abyss, towards her.
"GO, GO! I've got it!" Delmaria shouted, gripping his cutlass and waving her towards the fight. She nodded, brandishing her thick, shining broadsword from under her coat and jumping over his crumpled body to repel the invaders. Delmaria gripped his hands around the iron chain between his ankles and slowly unraveled the clumped mess of heavy links until he freed his leather boots from their clutches, tossing it off to the side and then rolling over to grab his cutlass, which had moved just a few inches from his side. On his knees, he turned back up to the battle, where Nayana fought valiantly against five men who had managed to swarm around her in a circle, picking at her with their sabers, knives, and farmer's tools.
He stormed up to his feet and cut down the first man who stood with his back to him in ignorance, sending his blade across his back from shoulder to pelvis and leaving a rain of blood slowly trickling down his back before he gripped him by the shoulder and tossed him back behind him. He then flipped his cutlass over his side and nearly jutted it right in to the jaw of the next soldier, but he had luckily moved downward and jumped back before the golden blade could make contact with his bone. He took note of how skinny each of the men they had encountered thus far were so skinny, and thusly lean enough to be quick and agile - Rott had been starving them for a reason.
Delmaria lined his back up against Nayana, and he could feel the satisfaction perpetuate from her as her chest gave out a light breath of relaxation. They pushed on to one another and spun around in a circle, allowing Delmaria to catch one of the soldiers stepping out of line and quickly kicking his leg out from under him, sending him to the floor and then making two quick cuts across both of his knees to keep him there. When Delmaria left her backside Nayana pushed off and ran at the two before her, planting her heel in the ground and spinning her blade with her over her head before chopping it down before the two men in front of her. Their weapons - one held a shovel chiseled to the point, and another a thin, bent rapier - were knocked back with a superior force, which allowed Nayana to dig her sword underneath and cut them both across the fronts of their bodies with a single diagonal cut from bottom left to top right that left them both whimpering in pain as their grabbed for their afflicted wounds. The last of the five was taken care of by Delmaria, who had managed to grab a hold of his arm and cut right across his elbow with a decisive, miserable slash that cut through a thick tendon in the soldier's arm.
But as Delmaria turned back towards where his foes had spawned, he could tell more were on their way as their silhouettes began to poke through the fog. They came all at once, and in numbers much too overwhelming for two combatants no matter how powerful they were. Delmaria turned back towards the emptiness, and just by chance he caught a pair of two blue eyes hiding underneath one of the grapevines, sparkling like gems in the immersive sea of water droplets. One of his men had been watching in silence, waiting for his orders; but now, as Delmaria's eyes foretold, a verbal command was not needed.
Within seconds a ring of battle cries flowed through the air, with the ominous scent of gunpowder flooding back in to Darkskull's nose once more. Long lines of bullets cut through the air like hot knives through butter in the aisles opposite of Delmaria's side, sending down groups of Rott's men to the floor with a vicious thud. The grapevines were lit alive with a fierce, smoldering fire that ran along the lines of the plants, and a thick black smoke rose in the sky to replace the darkening grey above them. Their surroundings became as light as day, and before him Delmaria saw the faces of about thirty-five men and women in his lane alone; all lanky, dirty, and poorly armed, yet still they prided themselves with a face of ferocity and blood lust. And to his back, Delmaria could feel an equally driven presence, running forward with the stampeding of leather on dirt and the swishing of weaponry being raised in the air.
Delmaria gripped Nayana by the forearm and tossed her under the flames of one of the grapevines, rolling her under in to a less crowded aisle and then following behind her as the waves of pirates clashed in a heap of battle behind them. By the time he had squeezed himself through the vine Nayana had gotten her hand in to chopping down the soldiers who had unluckily passed by as she made her way through, by laying on her back and stabbing them upward one by one. As she cleared the third and final soldier in her immediate path, Delmaria had jostled up to his feet and wrapped a sturdy hand around her armpit, tugging her up to the ground and moving her in a walk opposite the direction they had come from.
“Rott?” she panted.
“Aye.”
They trucked their way down the aisle, avoiding the walls of vines as the fire crept through the fog along them like a massive serpent intertwined in the branches. They pushed aside any of Rott’s men who ran past them, but as they proceeded downward farther and farther and the emphatic roars of the weaponry and screams from the main part of the battle, the more unopposed they became. Their senses fell from the constant battery that they had succumbed to – the fog rolled gingerly back to their vision in it’s easy, peaceful fashion, the crisp smell of the wet leaves with a tint of the smoke from the expanses of land behind them just whispering under the tips of their noses. Their ran came back down from a run, to a steady walk.
Just a few moments after they slowed their pace, Delmaria stepped his foot in to what he realized to be Rott’s old war camp, now completely silent in the wake of his soldier’s march forward. The vapor of the moisture in the air was accompanied by a wicked companion – it was the exposure of the wicked. It wasn’t the atrocious scent of pig blood or sweat that lingered in the air so much as it was the very presence of an overturned evil, moved forward to offset the world from its balance. It left the place spinning and unstill, though the desolate closure of space was really not moving at all – tables and crates were left in a standstill in awkwardly thrown positions, the grass was pleated and meshed with the pounding of a horde of boots, and the lanky, thinned bodies of a few of the soldiers who had failed to survive through Rott’s test was piled up in the corner – appropriately next to the corner where wastes were displaced.
As Nayana and Delmaria stepped in to the confines of the camp, the flap of Rott’s tented moved itself over to the side with a large, tan hand. Underneath it stepped Ramona, and then following behind was Barrett, both of them making a quite rude facial expression as they met eye contact with the pair – though it seemed like they were expecting them.
“Where’s Rott?” Delmaria demanded, stepping forward with his hand clenched around the hilt of his sword.
“Captain ain’t heyur no more.” Bill muttered out in his monotone, lurching voice. “He gone off outta here.”
“Shows how much your captain really loves you if he leaves you here to die.” Nayana jabbed with the flick of her eyelash.
“I’m sure that he loves us more than any man has ever loved you, Miss. But it would be stupid for him to stay behind and risk his life out on the battlefield when he has more importantly places to be at the moment.” Ramona turned her head to Delmaria. “I’ll be the first to admit to you; he is known for his brains, not his grit.”
“I would think a pretty face like yours wouldn’t be left behind either without a purpose, though? It seems we’re fated on the same plane once more, Ramona.” Delmaria edged his cutlass
“If I have to lay my neck on the line to allow him to survive, so it be.” Ramona smiled. She rested her hand up on Bill’s shoulder, and patted him so that he could draw his dopey eyes to a wink bouncing off hers. It was obvious that Delmaria wasn’t going to be getting his wish of fighting Rott alone – not tonight.
Bill let out a brutish scream and slammed his feet in to the ground, running at a charge with his hands in fists towards Nayana and Delmaria. Delmaria pushed Nayana over to the side and drew out his sword, but as Barrett came forward he knew that it would be unable to do much of anything. He raised it off to the side and tried to chop down before him, but Barrett stopped a few inches too early for the blade to reach him, and instead lunged out as the blade passed him and gripped Delmaria’s hand with an anaconda-like grip. His tight, meaty fingers wrapped around Delmaria’s forearm with intent to crack the bone, but Barrett was already preparing to knock Delmaria with a clear shot across the head with his other hand. He clenched his opposite hand and took a swoop at Delmaria’s head, but the pirate dropped to his knees and Barrett’s swing just skidded the top of his hat, knocking it clean off his head.
Nayana reached back in to her coat and fished out a sharp, curved dagger with a golden brown hilt, but as she darted back towards Barrett, Ramona came down on top of her from the side and knocked her to the ground with a hard kick from her boot, sending the dagger out of her hand and in to obscurity. Delmaria finished for his cutlass in his left hand while he rested down on his knee, but Barrett shot his hand back down like a raven on to his back – Delmaria was sure that he heard at least one bone crack. His body trembled under the shock of his power, and at last Bill let go of his grip and let Delmaria hit the floor with a thud.
Ramona jumped on top of Nayana, hunching over her body and delivering a stern punch to Nayana’s face. Guerra brought her other hand around to move back in for another hit, but Nayana caught her fist and tossed it back with a thrash, then violently tossing her body over so Ramona would fall over on to the side. Guerra rolled across the grass a few yards from Nayana, who jumped herself back on her feet and threw her coat down to give her easy access to the weaponry latched across her torso. What she revealed was an arsenal of knives, small pistols, and shortblades, but she ignored them and went for her broadsword, pulling it out and waiting for Ramona as she too stammered to her feet and pull out her blade.
Barrett circled around Delmaria a few times, watching as the pirate lay there in a broken pain on the soft mud ground. Droplets of rain began to shoot through the mist like bullets at an increasing rate, bouncing around in puddles that formed in rivets in the ground that almost made it seem like the camp was becoming a set of sandbars in the middle of an inch-deep ocean.
“C’mon boy, get’up!” Bill called to Delmaria. The pirate still laid there motionless, a crumpled piece of paper just laying face down on the floor. Barrett became anxious, hoping that his prey would put up more of a fight. Though, it seemed he had knocked Delmaria cold with only a single blow, to which he patted himself on the back. He walked forward to claim his prize with a smile on his face, and grabbed Delmaria by the back of his coat, lifting him off the ground.
Delmaria then flung a handful of thick, brown mud straight in to Barrett’s face, enough to rocket up his nostrils and dig underneath his eyelids to blind him in a goopy mess. Delmaria wriggled free of his assailants grip and ran for his cutlass, sliding gingerly across the wet ground until he picked it up by it’s cold blue grip. He turned back as Barrett bumbled around the campground before he finally washed the mud off his face, and then moved back towards Delmaria once more.
Ramona jumped forward with her light black sword and cut down on top of Nayana, though she easily pushed Ramona away by the stature of her blade. When Guerra rebounded to swipe quickly at the side, her blade misjudged it’s landing and hit one of the daggers latched to Nayana’s side, acting like a piece of armor that clanging as metal met metal. Nayana stepped away and flung her sword in a turn that nearly topped at Ramona’s head, but she ducked underneath it in to the puddle and swiped at Nayana’s ankle, making a very light cut on the front of her pants. She disregarded it, however, and marched forward as she took through a few light chops (as light as possible with a broadsword) to keep Ramona scooting back across the wet ground before she finally spun around and ran back a few feet to gain her balance.
A nearby barrel that sat by the side of Rott’s tent became subject to Barrett’s arsenal. He grabbed the sturdy oak container, raised it above his head with little effort, and chucked it as hard as he could over him. It bounced the ground just once before it landed near Delmaria, but he shuffled to the side and ran as fast as he could up to Barrett, running right at his side and jutting out his sword to an attempt to make an impact. The cut ran about an inch in to Barrett’s side, but because of his thick, blubbery skin it wasn’t nearly as painful as it would be to a normal-sized man. Still, blood began to run down to his hip, and he limped everso slightly when he turned around to catch eye of Delmaria already making another cut in to his leg.
Barrett shrieked in not pain, but anger as he saw another drop of crimson run down from the cut that ran across the side of his left thigh. Delmaria’s way of fighting was not meant to overpower his opponent – moreover, to tire them to the point they can no longer go on. He remembered the nights in Tortuga when he was much younger where he had lost almost everything he owned in a fight because he tried to overpower somebody the same weight as he; in the end, it came down to who was able to work the other one down enough to deliver a final blow, and suffice to say, that was not Delmaria. He had learned his lesson from there.
But as Barrett became frustrated with his body becoming less and less efficient at squashing the “pest,” he swiped his hand in front of Delmaria and then made a dramatic turn in a dash towards the entrance to Rott’s tent. He quickly darted inside with a light whimper mixed underneath heavy grunts of hot breath, and Delmaria made his way after him.
Nayana clapped a set of small knives from her belt and tossed the first one just as Ramona struggled to gain her balance in the patch of slimy mud positioned beneath her boots. She managed to duck her head underneath the first, and then flicked the rest of them away like flies with incredible accuracy by blocking them with her thin yet stern blade. Even Nayana was impressed with how Ramona handled her blades, but that was due to a lack of prior knowledge of her foe to begin with.
While Rott worked the crowds, and Barrett and Dedman served as his “campaign managers,” per say, Ramona was tasked with the jobs away from the spotlight. The reason many people had never heard of her name was because of her incredibly elusive behavior – and, because she did her job correctly. Need it be scoping out an area of interest, infiltrating other bands of pirates, or simply taking down a threat to Rott’s “image,” she used her extreme flexibility with both body and words to carry out each of her objectives efficiently, and without much attachment. Her blades were as swift and sharp as her words, based on experience since an early age.
But in this case both women of experienced backgrounds met in a gridlock of battle. Ramona whirled her sabre in a spiral filled with twists in turns so random and elaborate she was convinced Nayana would become lost in its dance. But as she broke her blade away and feinted it towards Nayana’s side, she quickly punched the sword away with hers and spun back around to try and behead Guerra. The broadsword again nearly cleared her of her head, but this time she was close enough to slip a dagger down from the strap on her bicep and jabbed it right in to Nayana’s calf.
The Lady of Tortuga hobbled back a few inches, trying to work out the pain, but it became too much for her body to bare and from instinct it collapsed on itself. She fell on her back on to the mud, smearing her entire body with splatters and wipes of goop. Ramona flicked a dagger just as Nayana’s body pounded off the ground and it landed inches from where she had targeted, in to her shoulder – she had aimed for the neck. Nayana shrieked in pain, pounding her hand on to the ground as the rain fell harder and harder down on to her body.
Ramona walked up to her prey with the pleasure of watching it squander in its own filth and revilement. “Poor baby girl.” She shook her head, toying with her sabre in her hand. She taunted Nayana with a smile as the pirate looked up her with utter disgust through her suffering. “If only your father had loved you just a little bit more.”
As Delmaria approached the flap of Rott’s tent, he was knocked back by the sudden appearance of a flat, wooden surface that mowed him underneath Barrett’s feet like a truck. Bill had taken the table from inside the tent and used it as a ram, plowing it straight in to Delmaria and then fumbling over him like a baboon. The sheer shock and force of the blunt surface left Darkskull with a numbing, pounding pain in his chest and his head that made it grievous for him to even attempt at sitting up, but he knew that he had to.
The battle had finally worked its way back to Rott’s encampment. His forces proved to be quite the match for Delmaria’s well-trained militia, but their agility couldn’t keep them from running back for long from the bullets that grazed through the vines. Both forces came running back in depleted numbers, drastically torn apart by the fierceness of the short battle that had been taking place – 15 men from Delmaria’s crew, and 27 from Rott’s still remained standing, but just barely as the hot rain burned holes where the cuts in their clothes and skin wallowed in between streaks of dirt and linen. They had been fighting straight through even as Rott’s forces fell back to the camp, and now as the lines of men poured back in to the openness it returned to its full swing; matches between man on man and group on group reformed, blood trickled back down from wailing foreheads at the same graphic pace, and the stillness that once lingered just outside of the battle around the four pirates had now been pushed completely outside.
And the fires came, too.
It seemed that now every grapevine that surrounded the tent was consumed by a nipping, fierce fire that bit at every little fragment of human being that came near. The battle became illuminated in a bright, crimson-orange light that cornered them on all sides, like the lights of a massive arena breathing down with all its fierceness on a single point. The fog lifted to reveal a scene of gruesome horror in its most fulfilled form; a painting not yet finished now landscaped out before you in all of its greatness and demony.
“In this time that we have here left on Earth, it is that we hope to make the best of our lives. Know that in taking your life, I do it not out of personal hatred – you simply crossed my path on the road to happiness, with intent to stop me in my tracks.” Ramona weaved her blade like a snake as she pointed it’s elongated tip right at the base of Nayana’s neck.
Barrett screamed with pleasure as he beckoned to soldier’s from his side with his table, showing it off almost like a trophy as the weapon that he intended to use to smite Delmaria. Darkskull planted a foot in to the ground, and struck his sword at his side to use as a cane to help himself up. Barrett bounced up and down with glee, seeing Darkskull’s pain, and waited eagerly at a distance to perform his strike one more time to send Delmaria to a chilling, dark sleep.
“Whenever you see your father again, please tell him thank you for exploiting your weaknesses for you. It made it so much easier on me.” Ramona grinned as she pulled back her sword. “See you in hell.”
Barrett charged at Delmaria with all the power his massive body could push, and with all his two-hundred seventy pound weight he leaned against the table as it came down upon the old captain’s beaten body. And as he came within inches of Delmaria, he saw a flash of gold metal cut up from its stick in the ground and hide itself behind his mount; by the time he had realized, it was too late.
And again Barrett let out a bloodcurdling yell as he tried to get his arms to push the sword-shacked table off of his body. The blood that spurted on to the bottom of the table bounced off and washed down with the rain in to the puddles below, brown mixing with red to form a blackish-crimson pile of muck. The sword’s hilt just barely made contact with the table that was now impaled directly to Barrett’s chest, and with a final heave he fell backward, allowing the legs of the table to hit the ground first, snap, and then close over him like a burial blanket.
Ramona turned in shock as her pack mule fell to the ground, and she let out a horrid scream. Though some would say that it was two consecutive screams instead of one prolonged one; one to signify her distraught in Bill’s sudden and unpredictable death at what may has well have been David’s slingshot, and another to express her own pain in the dagger that Nayana freed from her collar bone and stuck in to the back of Guerra’s neck.
And with the blow of a crisp wind, Ramona’s body splashed in to a puddle of crimson red before her; the last of Rott’s men, bested by the eight pirates that still stood tall from the battle, chopped to bits by their overpowering presence; and the hush of the sizzling fire as the downpour of rain quieted the charred remains of the grapevines.
And with the blow of a crisp wind, the vineyard fell silent once more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some important news, mates!
From now on my story is going to be posted somewhere else, where I will be able to type this more freely. If you would like the link to where the story is, just message me, but as of now this is the last story update that you will see on this thread! The new location will pick up from this point.
Thanks, mates!