I laughed at the sky as I danced beneath it. My body ached something fierce, old joints and old bones protesting at the rough treatment, but my heart soared and my blood sang loud enough to drown out those meagre pains.

  Lightning lit the sky in the distance, the echoing boom of thunder rolling over us and mingling with the clash of steel and screams of men as I traded blows with the best of the Cerevisian Navy on the blood-soaked and rain-slick deck of the rolling ship.

  For a time, I held my own, superior positioning and technique, not to mention a fair bit of intimidation, doing the work to overcome the soldiers’ overwhelming numbers. But they were overwhelming, and the moment I took the first blow, it would be over. The moment I stopped spinning and slipping beneath and between them, the moment they stopped pulling their blows in fear of hitting their fellows, I would fall beneath the weight of armour and blade, and I’d not be getting up after.

  I heard a shout split the air, deep and sonorous, and then the man in front of me was stumbling forwards, sword slipping from his hand and helmet denting beneath the weight of an oar wielded with the strength of three men. Micah yelled out in the same moment, high and shrill, and it was quickly followed by a scream from the man he hamstrung.

  And then there was another shout, and another, and soon, the soldiers were assaulted from every direction. Sailors, half starved and missing more teeth than a geriatric tavern wench, fell upon the navymen, so very like the vampires they had set out to hunt. Most possessed no weapons, but two or three desperate men can bring to ground any opponent, and while a few of the sailors fell to well-positioned blades, I had thinned the numbers of the soldiers enough already that it didn’t matter.

  A couple of the smarter lads had gripped harpoons and rigging hooks, and set about spearing the soldiers from a distance, harrying them and blinding them so their fellow sailors could sneak beneath notice and stab them in the thigh and belly.

  Had the soldiers been on land, fully armoured and in formation, such a tactic would result in many dead sailors. But out on the sea? With only shining breastplates and helmets? In the pounding rain and surrounded on all sides? Add one final consideration, and it wasn’t even close.

  The Inquisition-forged manacles bound my magic, preventing me from empowering myself and directing the roiling power within me out into the world. It did not, however, prevent me from sharing that power with those of my crew, and there was no more solid a declaration of support than that of the sailors turning on the soldiers.

  With my magic now flowing through their bodies, empowering them beyond mortal means, it meant one thing and one thing only; soldiers died screaming in rapid succession.

  I took the head of the petty officer with my cutlass and strode to the aft castle once it was done, the deck now silent save for the whimpering of an injured soldier, soon silenced by a cruelly barbed harpoon. I didn’t need to call out my congratulations, didn’t need to declare victory and give a rousing speech. My voice resounded in the head of every man still breathing above deck. My intentions and feeling delivered by telepathic bonds of a pirate captain and his crew.

  I heaved a sigh, and then pounded on the door to the aftcastle; four sharp knocks that rattled it in its frame.

  “Come out, Julius,” I called, and I heard a muffled sob from the room beyond.

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  Sniffling and hiccupping, he replied a moment later; “You’ll kill me!”

  “I need you alive to remove these manacles of mine, don’t I?” I asked, knowing he knew the truth of it. Inquisitorial magic required consent for some of its more complex functions, hence why torture was such a prized skill within that cursed institution. If their magic required no assent from its targets, there would be far fewer renegades like myself running around outside the jealous reach of Cerevis.

  “…and once I unlock the restraints? What then?” he demanded, and I pressed my head against the planks beside the door, thinking. I knew I could kick down the door with a few moments of effort, but I hoped to do this the easy way rather than the hard. I was no good at putting men to the question – I lacked my father’s gifts for such black work.

  “You can deal with me, man to man, or you can wait for the deep-crawler to take you and kill us all!” I shouted through the door, turning to lean against the wall and watch the storm clouds race across the dark skies above.

  No answer for a moment. “It’s still down there, Julius, slithering through the ship even now,” I called to him. “They can contort themselves through any hole small as their beak – that’s how this one kept escaping the cage. It’s smart, too, even you can see that.”

  “I can save us though. You release my magic and give me command of the ship, and I will root through every gangplank and ballast rope. I will find the cursed thing, and crush the un-life from it before drowning it beneath the salty tides.”

  Quiet sobbing, hurriedly muffled, before the noble called back a question. “And you will let me live, afterwards? Take me to shore and-”

  I cut him off even as he tried to build a vision of the future.

  “We both know there’s no chance o’ that, Julius,” I told him sadly. “And you’d never believe me if I swore it.”

  He choked back another sob at that, but I continued on. “What I can offer is a quick death, as a man.”

  “I don’t want to die,” he said plaintively, and I rolled my eyes at how pathetic this all was.

  “It’s better than a slow and painful death as an undead abomination, your soul forever barred from the final door, ain’t it?”

  More sobbing. And then; “How will you do it?”

  “Decapitation,” I answered immediately. “It’s the swiftest, and you know my aim is good. Ask the petty officer here if you’ve any doubts,” I said, kicking the severed head at my feet for emphasis, not that the man could see it.

  We waited there, rain still lashing the deck and sailors standing in silence with their makeshift weapons in hand, as the noble decided how he wanted to die. Despite my low opinion of the man, when he unlocked the door and strode out of the aftcastle onto the deck, his back was ramrod straight and he appeared composed.

  Tears tracked their way down his blotchy face, and his lower lip wobbled precariously, but he held my gaze evenly and only flinched mildly when his eyes landed on the officer’s head, sightless gaze pinning him from its position on the deck.

  He hesitantly removed the necklace he wore, wrapping the thin gold chain around one hand and raising it to his forehead in a gesture of piety, before pressing the azure amethyst at its centre to my manacles. He chanted something arcane beneath his breath, and the magical restraints clattered to the floor.

  I laughed as I felt the power within me bloom once more, luxuriating in the feel of freedom; a blade in my hand and magic in my soul. I hadn’t had both together for years, excluding the brief trip to the shipwreck, but then I had been under the supervision of a wytch-hunter and without the accoutrements of my position.

  Now, alone and under no command save my own, I let the magic swirl through me, touching on those old aches and pains and easing them in moments. Robustness returned to my diminished frame, black chasing away the grey that had overtaken my beard, though my hair remained the colour of Cerevisian skies – unrelenting grey.

  Julius Noxel looked to me, and I nodded slowly. “The words,” I reminded him and he bowed his head, falling to his knees in preparation even as he spoke.

  “I relinquish this vessel to you, captain.”

  My blade bit through his neck as soon as the words had their affect, and by the time the noble’s head had rolled across the deck, the ship was mine.

  I began the motion a prisoner, and ended it a Pirate Lord once more in truth.