The three boats neighed as it bounced up and down across the angry waters. The sandstorm wasn’t letting up, and no one could see further than a few strides ahead. Sand battered the deck, and a bitter salty taste invaded everyone’s mouths. The clashing of metal weapons bled through ears.

Ayai knelt down towards the swordsman, whom she’s just stripped of his weapon.

“I have a proposal to make. Tell us the device that is preventing us from using sahar spells, and we’ll save your people from this storm.”

“You be talking to me like I’m the captain of the Armada.” He shook his head fervently, his hair soaked with seawater. “But I only control this here ship. Tell you what, this ain’t the full fleet. We’re only reconnaissance-“

“Get straight to the point. Your men and our men are dying as we speak.”

“The two garays, lass. There’s a device on each of them that was installed by She. Find where they’re at and you all can chant spells again.”

“… Very well.” She got up and turned around.

The pirate captain stretched out his hand. “Wait!”

“What is it?”

“You’re not going to fight us?… After what we’ve done?”

She stopped. She didn’t turn back to face him again, not let out a sigh. Ayai kept a hand on her sword’s hilt. Her ponytail fluttered like a tied flag in the wind. Even when the ship crashed into the bigger wave, she didn’t move. The howling sand enveloped her body to form a silhouette.

“You and I are similar in what we’ve done.”

With that she dashed across the deck. Past all the battle and weapons, she ran directly to Suruj who’d finished pummeling a pirate’s face. He held the man’s shirt while gripping something in the other. Suruj panted a bit and expelled dirt from his mouth, wiping his lips with his shirt.

Ayai spoke first to relay her information. “The two ships have a device that disperse particles within the area.”

“You mean this?” Suruj lifted up what was in his other hand. A smashed cylindrical device lay in the Buhang’s grip, with various white sparks and energy flowing from inside it. “Found this up on the mast of this garay. You done something with the pirates here?”

He indicated at the now egregious horn blaring around them. A distinct sound, like that of a sea creature lingering below the depths, caught the attention of a number of pirates on this garay, and those on the Songha-Lia. Ayai deducted that it was the ship’s calling system specific to their own men. Those men that reacted to the horn turned around, and ceased all fighting. In marvelous droves they crossed the boards, returning back to the garay Ayai and Suruj were standing from.

“I had an exchange with someone still civilized with the art of dueling.” Ayai answered him, before pointing to the other ship across from their own. “The other garay is still attacking the Songha-Lia. We’ll extract the next device from there.”

Suruj bowed to her. “Understood. I take it that you want to bring this device in my hands?”

“Yes. It needs to be studied under proper conditions.”

They were interrupted by the boat jerking upward. It crashed into a wave as big as the ship itself, and the other vessels soon found themselves thrust upwards into the sky. Gangplanks , cargo, and men flew overboard as water collided against the human vehicles of the sea; Ayai knew that it would only get worse. She found that the salt water glued her sword shut in its scabbard. An annoyance.

Ayai and Suruj leapt back onto the Songha-Lia. Now that one contraption was down, saharic particles seeped back into the area. The only problem left was the garay on the left flank. Izato and Yulduz’s crew brawled with the pirates still onboard, and their numbers never decreased. Bodies littered the slippery top deck, with crimson water pouring into the crevices below to the Cargo Interior. A burst of screams came from the stairs.

“They’ve breached down below!” Yulduz’s men retreated back to the deck. Covered in blood, their faces warranted a fear that Ayai had seen many times over the course of her life. She had never once doubted her abilities. She let the ongoing retreat happen as men spilled from downstairs.

Tvuj and Izdaha came up as well, with Izdaha going first. Upon seeing Ayai, Tvuj let out a smile of relief. Until a brawny man grabbed her by the wrist. The Azu girl fell headfirst onto the stairs, as she resisted and kicked her attacker to no avail. The man pinned her against the stairs, gripping her skinny arms as if they would snap to his pressure.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Whatcha doin’ little girl? I jus’ wanna have a little fun with ya’, that’s all!” He laughed and sniffed the nape of Tvuj’s neck, unbuttoning her shirt. Suruj and Izdaha stomped their feet forward. Ayai stopped them by raising her arm. Suruj pushed her arm away.

“Toya, what’re doing?! Tvuj is in trouble!” He yelled as veins popped on his forehead, his hands jittery as he cringed with his mouth agape. “Let us go to her! Tvuj! We gotta murder that piece of shit!”

Ayai, a woman herself, watched the confrontation between the man and Tvuj without hesitation. “Wait and see what happens.”

Sure enough what she knew what would happen happened. Another fellow pirate coming from the Cargo Interior witnessed the man with Tvuj. His face tensed up as his fist tightened around his kris blade. The pirate ran towards them and kicked the man off her. The moralistic pirate’s hands trembled as the savage man reeled and held his own hips.

The good pirate threw his blade to the ground. “What are you doing, Bui! Did you not agree to the oath?!”

“The oath?... That pathetic thing we gotta abide by?” The savage man winced while a manical smile came to his face. Tvuj watched on in horror.

“Yeah, the promise the Armada swore!” He screamed at him with intense eyes, as if they would pop from his head. “That we would never do harm to women and children! That we would only take from other men! That promise we made as Bangkaños, to Her! We swore to that oath in Her presence!” He went to Tvuj who backed away. But with gentle hands he fixed Tvuj’s outfit and tidied it back up to the best of his ability. “Bui, you’ve done this every time, and even captain’s tired of your antics. You type of men are the reason why the Armada looks worse than it is.”

The Bangkaño Pirates, they couldn’t be exactly described as savage nomads wandering the sea. Of what ‘moralistic’ pirates Ayai could have called them, were people simply following their ‘oath’, or the moral code of the Bangkaño culture. That was the reason she had harbored no malice the entire time. That was why she understood it all from the start. And she made Suruj and Izdaha witness it with their own eyes how complicated even simple marauders were.

Izdaha finally breached past Ayai’s arm. She took out her scimitar and plunged it into the savage man’s head on the ground. She twisted her blade with two hands, hearing a smuffled scream that ended in seconds. The other pirate aimed his blade with a panic but it was too late. His head flew into the ocean with a clean slice. Suruj moved past Ayai and helped Tvuj to her feet. Without making eye contact, he walked past Ayai. She didn’t move.

“I almost forgot that you left my friends and I behind in the Dineh Kazaàd to die. Ayai Toya.” Suruj didn’t waste a chance to look behind him, and hurried Tvuj away. Izdaha sheathed her scimitar, only to look at Ayai with a fragile glance. Ayai kept her silence. Eventually even Izdaha moved away from her.

It was natural that they would come to dislike her in the end. In the end, Ayai said nothing. She simply moved to the edge of the Songha-Lia, her grip on the handrails keeping her balance to the waves. Ever since that rogue wave, the gangplanks the pirates placed to board had fallen. Therefore, she had no choice but to put her feet into place. The distance between the Songha-Lia and the garay was ten göröms away, and in the middle the raging waters. The garay’s outline was still visible nevertheless in the sandstorm’s midst even though the ship had practically separated from theirs. Ayai sensed the low amount of particles flowing into her body. The mechanism that dispersed particles must’ve reached its outer radius.

She took a deep breath, chanting a sahar spell in exhalation.

“Mayin Dhia.”

Her boots began to illuminate within the sandy haze. Ayai pushed her foot against the rail and thrusted forward. Particles traveled along and supported her in the leap. She glided in the air like a nippy arrow. But as she neared the garay, saharic particles began disappearing in clusters. Her linear trajectory changed downward.

She spotted men on the pirate ship mounting their swivel guns and fired upon her. Ayai weaved through the sea of iron grapeshot. She gracefully spiraled into a pirouette in her airtime; All cannonshot missing its target. Ayai landed into the side of the ship and entered through the ship’s interior where the Songha-Lia’s cannons had shot. Her body tucked and rolled, only to stand to her feet just as quick. Now all she had to do was to destroy that device on the mast.

Ayai made her way to the deck. The rotting floorboards forced her to pay mind, trying to avoid how she fell earlier in the battle.

In one of the masts, a metal box was attached to the pole. Ayai ran to the mast and planted her feet and hands in place. Little by little she crawled up the mast like a brisk insect. Only to tilt her head away.

“What are you doing! Shoot her!”

The swivel cannons rotated around and fired a volley of metal. With a light hop Ayai dropped down a few egems, her hands grasping the hard sandwood. Then she heard a crack. Her fingers on her right hand. They collapsed under the pressure and left her left hand holding on. Anymore work with her right hand and her fingers would break. Her body swung to the left and dodged more cannonfire. Her stamina didn’t just come from nowhere. Fingers couldn’t handle that much pressure in general.

The muscles on her left arm popped as her left hand dug into the sandwood. Preparing once, she did a pull-up. Twice, Ayai pushed her self upwards. She managed to move up a few. The swivel guns’ accuracy were stunted by the rocking ship and her bizarre movements. But sooner or later, they would hit her.

The cannoneers watched in horror and immediately backed off. Even the ship’s captain ordered his men to retreat. Ayai turned her head to the forward, and saw blue. They crashed into a colossal wave, jerking the ship upwards violently. She felt her body jump, and soon she could walk on the mast itself at an acute angle. However the ship would regain balance. She rushed across the pole and met the device. Her foot raised up and smashed it off in one go. The boat rebounded, and she fell.