The thrall lurched its way across the intervening space between us like a shark scything through tropical waters. There was no time to consider the wisdom of my next move, but two decades of experience on the high seas had imparted upon my weary body the ability to plan and execute in the same breath.

  I reached back, wrenching my arm around on the ship’s wheel, rough grain tearing at my callouses as I strained with all the strength my aging body could produce. The creature slammed into the wheel, rolling towards me even as it recovered from the impact, but the ship responded at the same time.

  A ship is not a carriage, and a wrench of the wheel cannot turn even a nimble frigate in mere moments. But the sea is no road, either. It has a motion of its own, and obeys no laws but those handed down by Nautrescus himself.

  As the rudder altered its angle, ever so slightly, it caught in the swell of the waves that had been building for the last half hour, and the ship responded, rolling above it like a dextrous acrobat.

  A slight shiver and a subtle roll of the deck, and the minute calculus of foot placement was thrown off, the thrall putting weight onto a limb that was still an inch off the floor. Coupled with the tendon I had slit earlier, and bereft of the unnatural dexterity of the wytch-hunter in his life, the thrall slipped, slamming sideways into the railing of the wheel deck.

  I stood from my crouch even as it fell, taking one heavy stride before my boot planted itself in the creature’s chest. The black sea behind it roiled its fury, and I kicked the creature overboard with a hoarse yell of triumph.

  “Back to the sea!” I roared, spittle flecking my beard as I panted in the grey light of a Cerevisian winter’s day.

  Silence beheld the deck as I turned, cutlass in hand and dripping with a red promise. The two rows of soldiers, unsure, hovered with weapons clutched in nervous hands. The two dozen malnourished sailors – and one man-shaped slab of muscle and brawn – stood along the railing on either side, equally uncertain, though most had the sense to cheer the death of a vampire before their eyes.

  A pity it was so few, but also unsurprising. Common sense was named as such after the common man that held it; those of high station knew nothing of its grace and so the younger sons of noble houses that staffed the navy were left bereft of wisdom.

  “Are you not yet convinced?” I demanded, yelling over the patter of slight rain that began to wash the deck clean of blood.

  The grey skies above were rapidly darkening, and I knew a moment of high passion when I saw one. ‘When the gods see fit to hand you an opportunity, you’d best make use of it’ my father would have said.

  “Yes, yes, Radagan. It is clear that you were right. Now settle down, we have things to discuss.”

  Julius’ voice throbbed in my ears, nasally and twisting. It irked me in a way I couldn’t articulate.

  “Settle down!?” I caught myself after the words left my lips, and spat to one side, red phlegm staining the deck before being washed overboard by the fat raindrops that fell from heaven’s dark cloak above. “Give me the ship, Julius.”

  The noble barked with laughter, part disbelief, part nervous braying.

  “That is simply not possible, pirate. I cannot risk it, and besides, it is not for you to make demands of me.”

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  He twirled a hand through the air as if to put the matter to rest, before turning to one of the navymen with a petty officer’s insignia on his right shoulder. “Please relieve Radagan of his weapon.”

  “The deep-crawler is-”

  “Oh, enough of your superstitions, Radagan,” Julius interrupted me with. “These fairy tales may get the blood of uneducated sailors pumping, but I am not impressed. Drop your weapon and talk like a civilised man.”

  “You’ll not part me from my blade again,” I growled, blood still aflame from the recent fight. It was hard to hold to my goal, to remember what I was trying to communicate, in the face of this arrogant fop.

  “Well then, gentlemen; I believe our resident pirate has chosen death,” he said pleasantly to the soldiers, and I saw hands gripping weapons with renewed vigour. “We have passed the straits after all, and we have no use for fools here, I assure you.”

  While still uncertain, the soldiers were beginning to build consensus. I saw dark looks shared between men who had just been humiliated, and I knew what would come next. I didn’t bother appealing to their reason after I saw that. Men were not creatures of reason, after all.

  Instead, I turned to the sailors leaning against the gunwale at either end of the ship.

  “You’ve lived your lives on this ocean,” I called out to them, voice steady and strong despite the increasingly heavy rain hammering into the decking below us. “You’ve given your lives to the Cerivisian navy…”

  Over the drumming of the sheeting rain, the soldiers began to step forward. Cautiously, at first, like cattle approaching a new man in the field, wary and ready to scatter at a moment’s notice. They had seen me kill the thrall they had all so feared, and some even knew my name. Shadows like that lingered, for a time.

  “…and what have you got to show for it?” I questioned the men, slim and emaciated by shit rations and poor hygiene. “They treat you like whipped dogs. You all heard how willing this man was to kill you only yesterday!” I said, pointing to the petty officer in the lead. He stilled when faced with my cutlass, and I saw the sailors’ heads swivelling to take him in, the memory of that confrontation reliving itself in their minds.

  “He’ll carve up every single one of you – that’s what he said. They don’t think of you as their own!”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance – a storm on the horizon, though still far enough off that I couldn’t count on its arrival to help me. Still, the dark clouds and foreboding rain lent some drama to my words. I was known as The Storm-Bringer once, and I knew how to time my words to carry beneath the howling wind and rumbling thunder.

  “Who defended you when the thrall attacked in the night? Not the noble ‘vampire-hunter’, not the soldiers. Who defended you from the soldiers when they were looking for somebody to blame?”

  My questions were not rhetorical, though I didn’t need an answer. They knew, I just needed to remind them. The soldiers themselves moved forwards again, one of the younger lads gaining confidence, or perhaps accurately understanding where I was going.

  He charged forwards with a shout, and I blocked his thrust with a clang of steel on steel, our blades flashing in the darkening light of a storm-battled sky. I reposted, opening him up from shoulder to hip, and he squealed and groaned as he fell to the deck, blood and worse sloshing at my feet to be washed away by the unceasing rain.

  That slowed his fellows, and they flinched back like scared dogs.

  “These men don’t know the ocean. They don’t know the ship, and they don’t know you,” I shouted, spitting to one side to emphasise the point, and draw their gaze to the dead boy at my feet.

  “How about getting something back for your toil, aye?” I called out, eyes wide and arms spread wider as the water matted my beard and my hair streamed behind me in the wind.

  “What do you say, lads? Join my crew, and sail with Radagan Greymane, Old Cannon-Hand himself. I know you’ve all heard my name. The Scourge O' The Seas they called me once!”

  The officer finally decided to do his damned job, and took a step forwards, heavy with intent. “That’s enough! Kill him!” he roared at his men, but the shout was weak, drowned out beneath the rising squall.

  “You wanna know the difference between a sailor and a pirate, lads?”

  I was tempted to take a step back, to give myself time to finish the thought as the soldiers closed in on me, but I knew to do so would send the wrong message, and this was all about messaging.

  I laughed as I deflected a wild slash from a soldier who clearly had not trained with the fencing steel in his hand – trying to cut with a stabbing weapon was a fool’s game. As I whirled away from the three men before me, escaping death by a hair’s breath beneath a storm-front blacker than my own heart, lightning lit the world and silhouetted my shape.

  “A pirate dies with treasure to his name!”