Episode 9:
Trial by Blood

N EEKIN DANGLED NAKED, HER ARMS PULLED above her head by ropes thrown over the railing of the deck above her. The world listed slightly this way and that as the sea rolled beneath the vessel. Her eerie, ill-matched eyes squintted dangerously as she studied the burly man who stood before her.

"Much ill has befallen this crew since you came aboard, wench," he said loudly, so that all might hear the pronouncement of him and his gang. "And it is feared that you are the cause-"

"Nothing has happened that you wouldn't expect to happen, not hunting a sorcerer on this cursed ocean-" Neekin exclaimed.

"Silence!" he roared. Then, more levelly, he said, "That may well be -- indeed it might. But we cannot risk our lives further. As such, you have been condemned as an ill omen, mayhap a witch, and possibly an agent of the black ship we hunt. We know something of the rituals of sorcerers and their ilk. We have decided that your breasts will be cut from your body, your flesh flayed and mortified. However, if you confess all, we will slit your throat before we begin."

Neekin stared, her face white. Her stomach flexed involuntarily as she sucked in short breaths between her teeth.

"Hold!" came a voice from above.

All looked up to see the aloof and distant captain, El-Antiague, staring down upon them. At his side was the mate, Alombo ben Fadahl, who had stolen away the moment the burly man began his speech. "You said you would not interfere, Captain!" shouted the burly man.

"In your judgments, no. But the rules of the sea are clear. If you have a disagreement, she has a right to settle it by combat."

Neekin squintted up at them, and Alombo caught her eye, and nodded slightly. It was obviously he who had pressed the captain to intercede in this way.

"But she's a witch-"

"A witch may be cut by steel," said the captain. "Do you choose trial by combat, girl?"

Neekin started to speak, but the words caught, her throat was so dry. Coughing, she said, "Aye. Aye!"

"Cut her down, then, and give her a blade. We've wasted too much time on this matter as it is." And so saying, the captain fulfilling whatever promise Alombo had elicited from him, turned and strode away, dismissing the matter from his dark and brooding thoughts.

"You heard our captain," shouted Alombo. "Cut her down and give her a good blade. And a shirt, too, by Hell!"

A sailor came to her quickly, one who Neekin suspected had not been a particular supporter of the mob in the first place. He hacked at the ropes stretching her, and she unceremoniously collapsed to the deck, grimacing as fires raced along her shoulders and upper arms. She rubbed her neck and snorted as another sailor, more grudgingly, sent a sword clattering before her. She grabbed it and slowly rose to her feet.

She stood there, straight-spined and defiant, naked save for the sword that gleamed in the early morning sun. Another sailor pulled off his shirt and tossed it to her. Neekin caught it, but instead of donning the garment, she wrapped it about her left arm.

The burly man rubbed his upper lip with a thick, dirty thumb, studying her. This turn of events was not what he had been expecting. At first glance, though, his trepidation was unwarranted. He had the better of her by size and weight.

But he had seen her fight a sea serpent to a draw.

Hefting his own sword, he considered for a moment, then feinted at her experimentally. Neekin did not flinch. He licked his lips, staring at her implaccable ill-matched eyes, one cat green, the other sky blue. Her breasts were prominent, her belly firm and smooth, her legs long. "If you think being naked will distract me, wench, well, I've seen better."

Neekin grinned. That was, in truth, partly why she had not dressed. And though she was not vain, neither was she falsely modest about her beauty. "That's a lie. The only woman you've seen naked is your mother, and even then I'll wager you had to pay for the viewing."

His eyes flared wide, and a ruddy hue flushed his cheeks. "Bitch," he hissed and he raced at her, furious at her taunt, and distracted by her pale, supple flesh. Neekin, who fought with speed and agility more than brute strength, easily ducked beneath the clumsy, ill-conceived attack and slapped his ample buttocks with the flat of her blade as he roared by. Given the deadly seriousness of the combat, it might have seemed ill-advised for her to discard any chance for striking a blow. But Neekin gauged that she could land nothing more than a glancing cut -- a cut that might bring him back to his senses, firm his resolve. Instead, she chose a harmless blow that would, because it was harmless, infuriate him all the more.

With a roar, he spun about and brought his sword down in a cleaving blow that bit deep into the deck. But Neekin was already rolling away. She landed in a cat like crouch, facing him, grinning with a confidence that was part of her strategy to unnerve him. In truth, she did not know if she could take him.

He wrenched his sword free, splinters flying, and came at her again. Her legs coiled beneath her, Neekin leapt aside as he thrust at her, her own sword glancing off his almost playfully as she flew by. Again, the dismissiveness of her return blow enraged him.

She caught the deck with one foot and danced around until she was planted gracefully, both legs braced. She had barely pulled if off. Indeed, she had hit the deck awkwardly, almost twisting her ankle, and her graceful "dance" was simply an impromptu effort to keep from landing on her bare bottom. But the illusion was maintained that she was in total control of the combat.

The burly man stared at her darkly for a moment, the men starting to cheer or jeer as the mood took them. Those who had never entirely supported the notion of killing Neekin becoming more vocal in their support for her.

The sailor wove his sword back and fourth through the air, as if getting a better feel for its weight. He tried not to let the way her firm breasts quivered with each breath distract him. He tried not too let his gaze linger on the thatch of silk between her legs. He knew her game was to let her sexuality bedazzle him.

He came at her again, prepared for her to attempt to nimbly leap away yet again. He was almost upon her when he realized she was holding her ground and he stumbled over his own heavy feet, frantically swinging his sword around to deflect her thrusting blade.

Neekin swung left, then right, their steel sparking against each other, each blow reverberating up her arms. Then she kicked out, burying her foot in his stomach, and she opened up his scalp with her sword, drawing first blood. Screaming with rage, he chopped at her and Neekin launched herself into a backflip, feeling his blade cut the air just above her arcing belly.

She hit the deck unsteadily, breathing hard, her shoulders still aching from having been stretched up as she had. She rolled over and sprawled heavily upon the boards, still trying to maintain a facade of insouciance.

The burly man wiped blood from his eyes, the cut bloody but superficial. Growling, panting, he focused in on her spread upon the deck. With an inarticulate roar, he charged her.

Neekin lay there, gauging his time, his speed. Then she took the shirt she had wrapped about her arm, the shirt she had not worn, but instead saved for just this moment -- she took it and flung it into his face. His feet tripped over themselves, blinded as he was by the shirt wrapped about his head. He stumbled, collapsing to his knees, and Neekin, snarling, no longer affecting a good natured mockery, swung at him. Her sword cut deep into his thigh and blood spurted as he screamed. She hacked again from the other side, biting into his arm. Blind and bleeding, he flailed about, roaring...until Neekin's third blow took his head from his shoulders.

As his corpse pitched over, spilling blood upon the scrubbed deck, a silence pressed about the crew, as though their very breaths had been pulled from their mouths. Neekin rose grimly to her feet, brandishing a gore stained sword. She glared about her, defiantly, wondering whose was the next move, or what it would be. Was this the end of the matter, or merely the beginning?

The answer would never come.

"Whu-?" someone muttered. "Whu-?" he stammered again. Neekin spared a glance in the direction of the voice, and saw a man staring, not at her or her fallen adversary, but out at the water. And finally, the words he was seeking, the words that were lodged in his throat, came clawing out of his mouth like a ravenous beast: "The black ship!" he screamed. "The black ship! There, on the horizon!"

The combat momentarily forgotten, feet thundered across the deck as a score and a half of fighting men ran fore to catch a glimpse of their long sought enemy. Neekin, her breasts still rising and falling with panting breaths, burning with a rage towards these men who were her companions and had wanted to kill her, nonetheless glanced fore as well. After a moment, she scrambled up into the rigging and peered over their heads out at sea.

For a moment, the distant shape seemed an island, so stilly it sat upon the water's breast, unmoved by the gentle sway of the waves. But she could just make out the shape of its hull, the spires of its masts. A black ship it was, and at least the size of The Falcon's Heart, perhaps greater. For some reason the sight of it made the skin at the nape of her neck shift uncomfortably.

Below her the captain, having climed down from the upper deck, ran forward across the ship's waist, shoving aside sailors in his way. Mounting the forecastle, he stopped and stared, frozen.

A stillness claimed their ship, as though an etching, capturing a moment forever.

Then, across the water, grey sails unfurled and bloomed with the wind.

"She's seen us," Neekin whispered to herself. "She's running."

"To your posts!" cried Alombo, roused from the momentary paralysis. "We'll run the devil off the edge of the world if we must!"

And with a great cry from the crew, the ship leaped in pursuit.

Next...the Conclusion!

Go forward to Episode 10: Boarding the Black Ship

Go back to Episode 8:  "She's a Witch!"