Stephan punted the head away with his knee and resisted the urge to throw up.

A third boom rocked the ship. The magelights in the ceiling flickered. A sharp, high-pitched squeal signified that the wards—the magical shielding around the ship—had been knocked offline.

The two men with hatchets rushed forward to deal with the girl. Despite her speed, she was only a small thing, after all.

A massive metal object tore through the hull on the starboard side. It threw the two hatchet-bearing slavers across the room and riddled them full of shrapnel, killing them near-instantly. Stephan ducked. He barely avoided a flying piece of sharpened debris.

The object's four hooked prongs sank deep into the ruined hull, securely fastened. A heavy chain was attached to it, stretched taut.

A drain anchor.

The lights flickered once more, then went out as visible arcs of energy rushed out of the ship itself and into the anchor. It was designed to drain the anima from a vessel to render it inoperable, and thus a prime target for a boarding.

The pilot swore himself red-faced in the cockpit, punching the dead control panel. The drain anchor had knocked out power to the whole ship, making the slavers completely dead in the air. At least it seemed to have left enough anima to keep the ship afloat, which Stephan was silently thankful for.

The remaining slavers on the main deck wavered, starting to lose their nerve. The captain barked more orders and they found new courage, raising their pistols towards the green-skinned girl.

A sharp thundercrack echoed through the main deck and sent Stephan’s ears ringing. A hole had been blown in the ceiling, and one of the slavers lay dead, reduced to a bloody mess.

Several more blasts followed, putting similar jagged holes in the ceiling, then a massive foot broke through and knocked off a big piece of metal. It fell to the floor with a heavy twang.

A man—or something vaguely akin to a man—jumped through the newly created hole. Standing at full height, he nearly brushed the ceiling, at least three meters tall. He was wide and husky, broad shoulders and a barrel chest, with an even larger stomach. His face was square and looked like it had been chiseled from stone, completely bald. The man was bare-chested, his torso covered in a natural armor of hard protrusions which resembled ice, making the air around him fog up.

He carried a weapon in both hands, big as most men, probably an old ship’s cannon repurposed into some sort of shotgun.

The second of the captain’s underlings raised his gun and fired several shots into the behemoth, taking off a few chips of ice, but he simply shrugged them off without any visible damage.

The behemoth leveled his shotgun and blasted the man into the wall. The captain stuttered a curse and aimed his gun with a shaky hand, but the massive pirate simply flipped his weapon around and smacked the red-robed Ashlander over the head, knocking him into the doorframe of the open portal leading to the cockpit. The man remained there, out cold.

The pilot rose from his swivel chair, hands in the air, and cried something in Ashlandic about surrendering. The behemoth spattered the slaver’s insides over the bullet glass windscreen.

Footsteps and shouts came from below, and the green-skinned girl hopped into motion. Quick as a cricket, she hopped over to the staircase just as the men jogged up, armed and ready for a fight.

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t seem quite on the clear about what they were up against. Two slavers were dead before they had even realized what was happening.

The men opened fire, and the girl bounced between the walls to avoid the bullets. They were unable to keep their aim steady, but there were enough of them that the steady hail of gunfire kept her at bay.

Stephan swept the dubious food off the metal tray he had been given held it up to try and block the incoming shots, some of which were passing dangerously close. Of course, a bullet would probably just punch straight through the tray and blow his brains out anyway, but it made him feel a little safer regardless.

A man ran across the chain attached to the drain anchor and leapt onto the main deck. His face was split by a wild grin. Half his countenance was marred by bad burn scars, a large part of his greasy, brown hair fading into a lumpy, bare scalp. One of his arms was missing from the shoulder down, replaced with a biomech prosthetic of blackened metal. He was clad in a patched coat that was colored a garish combination of yellow, red and blue.

“Torch!” the green-skinned girl called mid-leap. “Switch with me!”

“Gladly,” the burned man, apparently named Torch, chirped. “Anyone up for a barbecue?” he called to the remaining slavers, about four of them.

The girl bounded away, flipping over Stephan’s head and landing on the other side of the main deck. Torch leapt forward to replace her. He dropped low as soon as the slavers opened fire, avoiding their opening volley.

He slid to a stop and got back up on one knee. He extended his unharmed hand.

“Gneist!” he called. The word was filled with power.

A stream of bright orange flame extended from his palm, pouring over the men in the staircase. They panicked as their clothes caught fire, bumping into one another and screaming as they patted themselves down.

Torch rose to his feet. “How’s that taste, fellas? Not hot enough? Here, let me spice things up.” He dug into his coat and produced a stick of dynamite. He threw it into the throng of flaming men and jumped back with a demented cackle.

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A second later, an explosion scattered flaming body parts all over the back part of the main deck. A chunk of a face hit Stephan’s tray and slid to the ground.

This time, he did throw up, hurling empty bile on the corrugated floor.

An eery quiet fell over the ship apart from the creaking of the drain anchor and the wet crackling of fire dancing on dismembered corpses.

“Oh, how sweet!” Torch squealed, balling up his fists and inhaling the acrid fire smoke. “What a rush!”

The green-skinned girl cleaned her short blades on the edge of Donkey’s robe, sighed, and slipped them back in a pair of slender sheaths resting on her hips.

The icy behemoth hauled the captain into the air with one hand and dumped him on the floor near the middle of the deck. The man curled up, made himself heavy, but the behemoth eventually got him back on his knees.

“What do we do with this creep?” the girl asked, pointing at Stephan with a skinny finger. “He’s been staring at me. Can I kill him?”

“Slave, looks like,” the behemoth grunted, his voice as deep as a ship’s horn. “The captain will decide his fate.”

As he spoke, a woman walked across the chain and jumped onto the ship. Her skin was dark brown and smooth as silk, eyes chocolatey. She was slender, but filled out nicely in the posterior quarters, with wide hips and thick legs framed flatteringly by a pair of tight, black jeans. She wore a red button-up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a heavy revolver rested on her hip. She wore a pair of tall leather boots, and her hair was made into a series of intricate braids, wound into a knot in the back and left to hang over her shoulder. Gold and silver bangles were woven into her hair, catching the sunlight.

The woman had an easy confidence about her, strutting onto the ship as if she owned it. Considering she had already killed its previous owners, he figured that was as good as true.

The woman looked to Stephan and nodded towards him.

“Who’s this?” she asked in Low Elandran.

Now, that was a language he knew. He had studied it for four years as a youth, along with a bit of High Elandran, and he had brushed up on his knowledge during his training to become a diplomat.

“Stephan Lordling,” he said quickly. “Diplomat for the Ministry of Glory. I was taken captive by these men twenty-three days ago. If you contact the Concord’s Department of Special Intelligence via transceiver, I am sure you will be able to fetch a tidy reward in exchange for my safe return to Northmark or any other major Concordian settlement.”

The woman blinked slowly. “Do you always talk that fast, or is it only when you’re pissing yourself? Because I stopped listening after ‘Stephan Lordling’.”

Stephan looked down and noticed a growing wet spot at the crotch of his dress pants.

Oh, great. Way to make a good impression with the bloodthirsty killers.

The captain of the slavers was finally coming to, and he started begging for mercy in several languages.

“Spare me,” he said, first in Ashlandic, then Elandran. “Spare me, and I will give you money. So much money you will bathe in it, yes?”

The woman pulled the revolver from its holster and shot the man in the head. His brains spattered on the floor, and the behemoth let the dead man fall onto his back.

“He was the smart one,” the woman said, eyes still focused on Stephan. “He wore red, at least. Makes for less of a mess, wouldn’t you say?”

Looking at the puddle of blood, bits of bone, and chunks of brain matter spread around the slaver captain’s head like a gloria, Stephan found it difficult to agree.

“I…” he stuttered. “Can I just…?” He couldn’t stop his body shaking.

At least I already pissed myself, he thought bitterly. It’s not like it can get worse.

“Don’t start begging,” the woman said, slowly waltzing up to Stephan. She switched the beat-up revolver from one hand to the other, then back again. “I hate begging, alright?”

Stephan nodded and clamped his mouth shut.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, pointing to herself. She squatted in front of him and leaned in dangerously close. Her full lips taunted him only a hand’s length from his face, curled into a cocksure smirk. “My name is Quintilla Wenezian.”

Stephan had never heard that name before. Then again, he wasn’t well versed in pirate lore, either.

“Tell me, Stephan Lordling,” she continued without waiting for a response, “how could you prove useful to me and my crew? You see, I’m not flying to the fucking Concord to hand over some fucking diplomat for a fucking pittance of a fucking reward. So tell me—what can you do?”

Stephan blinked.

Quintilla gestured insistently towards him with the revolver. “Well? Can you repair machinery? Dance? Crack jokes?”

“Uh…” Stephan scrambled to think of anything that would allow him to keep his head attached to his shoulders. “I’m a pretty decent cook, I think?”

“Pretty decent? You think?” She glanced over her shoulder at the behemoth, who shook his head. “So far, it’s looking like you’re going to end up in the drink.”

Stephan took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped cold sweat from his brow. “I am a good cook,” he corrected. “And, uh… I have an eye for antiques.”

The green-skinned girl sniggered as she looted the corpses of the dead slavers. So far she had come up with a couple of purses, gathered in her arms like a treasure.

Quintilla looked at him severely.

She raised her revolver…

Blew a wisp of smoke off the barrel…

And stuck it back in its holster.

All the pirates burst out laughing, including Quintilla Wenezian herself. The behemoth laughed so that the whole deck rumbled, and the girl snorted with laughter until she doubled over and her face turned a disconcerting shade of purple.

Quintilla had a melodic, easy laugh, chest bobbing.

“I’m messing with you, man,” she said. She clapped his shoulder and stood. “We’re not gonna kill you. We’ll give you passage back to Tumba, and from there you can go wherever the fuck you want, including running back to your precious Concord. Kurko, get the man loose.”

The behemoth stepped forward, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes with a fat sausage of a finger. He grabbed the shackles keeping Stephan attached to the floor and gave them a sharp tug. The metal wrenched into two twisted pieces, which he threw aside.

Stephan stared at his hands. Numbly, he rubbed his raw, scabbed-up wrists.

“You… won’t kill me?” he asked, just to make sure.

“Not as long as you behave,” Kurko said. “And as long as you stop staring at the captain.”

Stephan struggled to think of an excuse, glancing at the captain, but Kurko held up a giant hand and made him shut his mouth again.

“Hey! Found the doodad!”

Torch, the burned man came up the stairs leading from the lower deck. In his hand, he held a thin slab of aged bronze, perfectly square. Its surface was pitted and dented, but there wasn’t a bit of oxidation on it.

“Excellent,” Quintilla said with a nod. “We got what we came for, then. Gentlemen, woman, let us clear out.” She headed towards the hole in the hull, but stopped and looked back at Stephan.

“Oh, and Lordling. I hope you don’t mind heights. The only way onto the Tits Up is over that chain. Unless you’d like Kurko to carry you, of course.”

Stephan let out a sigh.

Man, my life sucks.