“Where’s the map!?” Palpaul punched Snakard, wobbling him and the chair his enemies tied him to. Blood splattered out of his mouth to smear on the wooden floorboards. It glittered in the moonlight that pooled through portholes, rippling and rocking with the swaying of the ship and the rolling of the sea.

Dim candlelight shimmered on the mahogany floorboards from a table in the far corner of the room. It rattled in its silver and sinuously shaped candle holder, curving like an hourglass and glinting like a sword. Scrunched papers rolled across the table as the ship tilted and groaned. Cracked charcoal pencils spread black powder across the table. It seemed to be the debris of Palpaul’s attempts to re-create the map from memory. Unsuccessful attempts. The chaos of the table pleased Snakard, the pleasure helping in his own attempts to calm himself and ease the chaos that ravaged his senses. Unsuccessful attempts.

A rough rope wrapped around him and the chair, rubbing, squeezing and scratching his bare and wounded arms, and torso. Snakard’s eye socket swelled. Aches and pains pulsed. Cuts stung and pummeled his entire body, but that didn’t make him numb to the punch, so he winced and groaned. But when he glanced up at Palpaul’s sweat-drenched face, he grinned.

Snakard spat a glob of blood and saliva at the sweaty bastard’s face. Palpaul started, grunted and cringed, swiping off the gooey liquid. As he recoiled, his oversized tricorn hat tumbled off of his head to reveal his diabolical blonde bowl cut.

The sole of Palpaul’s boot swallowed Snakard’s vision. His cheek throbbed as the chair he was tied to toppled and his temple rattled on the wooden floor. Splinters scratched and punctured his cheek and forehead. Scabs and shallow cuts tore open. Blood dribbled from his face, shoulder and arm onto the coarse wood and soaked his ragged brown breeches.

Palpaul repeatedly pounded his face with his leather boot and beige breeches covered knee. Snakard gasped as the bastard slammed his stomach and retched when he did it for a fifth time. Blood smeared across his scar covered but clotheless chest. Palpaul snatched Snakard’s long and black hair and dragged him and the chair upright.

“Let’s try this again,” Palpaul brushed his doublet and leather frock coat before he bent over to grab his hideous hat. “Where are you keeping the map?”

“What map?”

Palpaul’s knuckles crunched into his forehead. Snakard’s chair tilted to the side and crashed onto the ground again. “You’re making this harder on yourself,” The soft and pompous prick turned, probably hiding the caressing of the torn skin of his knuckles. “I don’t like torture, but you’re making me consider getting serious.”

What torture? Snakard thought of saying, but he didn’t want the numpty to escalate his ‘torture’ methods too quickly. Snakard snorted and glanced behind Palpaul and glared at the two loons behind him. Why were they even there? Was Palpaul so pathetic that he needed two lackeys to stay with him in case his tied up and weaponless captive posed a challenge?

The two goons leaned against the wooden doorway, smirking and giggling at each of Palpaul’s punches and kicks like children. One of them had ginger ringlets that wiggled at every cackle, and the other had a handlebar moustache he’d twirl when he’d get bored.

Despite their arrogance, they still kept their hands resting on the basket-shaped guards of their cutlasses; strapped to their sashes. Leather armour poked out from behind their poet shirts. And when Snakard flicked his gaze at them, their smiles would flinch and their eyes would flee.

“What are you two losers looking at?” The two goons shuddered. Snakard grinned, the side of his face pressed to the prickly floor. “You wouldn’t be laughing and giggling like that if I wasn’t tied up.”

“I’d be beating you senseless if you weren’t,” the moustached joker puffed up his chest. The fool flushed as his fluffy voice cracked into a squeak. His eyes scattered between a grinning Palpaul and a snickering curly-haired buffoon. Clicking his tongue, he cleared his throat and glared back at Snakard, brows furrowed and teeth bared. “You may be a captain of a crew, but it’s a small crew for a small captain! You’re nothing compared to us.”

“If I’m so small, then why tie me up? I’m pretty sure that’s what people do to dangerous beasts that are violent when let loose, not harmless puppies.”

“You’re right,” Palpaul whipped his cutlass out of its scabbard and pressed the point to Snakard’s neck. “I could probably kill you, but I acknowledge your strength. Which Is why I’ve tied you up. You’re helpless. How strong you were in the past is irrelevant. I could kill you right now.”

“You need me,” Snakard winced as blood dribbled across his neck from a deepening wound. The skin on his neck stung and tingled as the tip of the cutlass sunk into flesh. “I’m the one with the map. I’m the one with the power.”

“Looks like I’ve got no choice,” Palpaul sighed as he pulled his sword away. Snakard was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but he swallowed and set his jaw, refusing to show any sign of weakness. The blonde bastard sheathed his cutlass, turned, and nodded at his two goons. “Keep an eye on him while I grab my hammer and nail.”

Palpaul opened the door, paused before closing it and glanced back at Snakard, probably hoping for a pang of fright to burst onto his face after hearing the escalation of torture methods, but Snakard showed him nothing but a smirk. Palpaul shook his head as he shut the door.

Waiting for his footsteps to quieten, Snakard glared at the two loons he left him with. Their eyes didn’t flee and their faces barely flinched - they were getting used to him. Perfect. Eventually, the footsteps vanished, creating a silence that only the seething sea’s slapping of the ship’s hull broke, so Snakard smiled up at Palpaul’s pawns, eyes glinting in the room’s orange lustre that flickered from a candle, wobbling as the ship soared over waves and splashed into water.

“Your entire crew is full of weaklings,” Snakard said before he inhaled the salty sea air and spat at the silly bastards. Blood blotched on the bottom of a trouser leg. They clicked their tongues and glowered at Snakard. “There’s no reason for any of you to be proud of what you’ve achieved in your sorry little lives. Yes, your noble-born buddy up there, Palpaul, took mommy’s money to get a large crew of soft-skinned sailors, so of course, his crew has more men than mine, but an army of ants will never beat a single boot.”

They flushed, scowled, marched up to him, and slammed their leather boots against his face and torso. More blood battered the wall and floor, further reddening their trousers and getting some of their shiny leather. They’re not fond of forward-thinking, are they? “Know your place!”

“My place?” Snakard laughed to then cough blood from his sore throat that felt like it tore at every breath. Shaking his head, he swallowed, cleared his throat, and grinned back up at them. “I’m the captain of a crew of killers, you’re the deck scrubbers and pottage cookers for a crew of fancy-dressed jesters.”

“You’re tied up and bleeding on the floor of an enemy ship!” The ginger pant-shitter crouched, wiggling his ginger ringlets, and snatched Snakard’s hair. He pulled it, the roots tugging at the skin of his scalp, to then smash his head on the coarse and splinter covered floorboards. “That’s your place. You’re nothing.”

“Were you the one who tied me up?” Snakard croaked, wincing from the throbbing pain that rushed across his head. “Were you the ones who captured me? What did you do? What have you ever done? What have you ever proved? You know of my accomplishments! A jester doesn’t even begin to describe whatever the fuck you are if you know of that and call me nothing!”

“I’ve had enough.” The moustached public-bath pisser pulled a dagger out of his sash. He crouched and cut through a rope. The restraints felt looser, but still too tight to get free. “I’ll show you who I am.”

“Stop,” the ginger dickhead grabbed his partner in idiocy’s wrist. “He’s a dead man. We have nothing to prove to him.”

“Are you really gonna take what he said?” He cut another rope. Snakard grinned as he pushed on the constraints, about to burst free. “The only way we can break this loser’s ego is by taking him up on his offer, fair and square. That’s how we can get the map from him. That’s how we win! ”

“What if Palpaul comes back?”

“By the time Palpaul comes back, Mr Shittard here will have a concussion!” He cut another rope. Snakard arms plunged through them, swirling around him as they parted. He rushed to his feet. The floorboards rumbled as the two of them roared and rushed at him, fists swinging.

“Two on one?” Snakard slapped away a fist, flicking the flimsy arm past his face. The throbbing pain that pulsed across his body grew sharp at the sudden movement. He winced, but he kept fighting. “What’ll this prove?”

Snakard nearly laughed when he saw the moustached imbecile pull his fists down and step away in response to the taunt. They were arrogant and simple-minded creatures. Easier to swat than flies.

The ginger fucker swung a fist at-

Snakard ducked and snatched his wrist with one hand and his sash with the other. Snakard spun and flung him over his shoulder and into the moustached bastard. They fell and fumbled over each other. As they tried to scramble to their feet, they elbowed and kneed each other. Their pile of bodies was a cacophony of groans and moans.

Whilst they winged and staggered to their feet, Snakard shot his hand at a sash. He snatched a cutlass and yanked it out of a scabbard. The dis-armed and moustached dick face stumbled to his feet and yelled as he ran at-

The blood that sprayed from the torn neck of his headless corpse twirled in the air just like he would do with his ridiculous facial hair.

The ginger cretin screamed as he finally arrived at his feet and saw his buddy’s head spinning in the air to fall on the floorboards with a thud, covering the wood with red liquid and pieces of pink flesh. His eyes flicked up at Snakard’s. He scowled and strangled the hilt of his cutlass. He roared for help and leapt at his enemy.

Sweat oozed across Snakard’s face as he parried, dodged, and thrust at the curly-haired fool. The ginger’s legs barely moved and his wrist appeared stiff. In normal circumstances, Snakard’s cutlass would’ve poked out the other side of this amateur’s skull as soon as the fight began. But his arms ached and a sharp pain banged with every fidget of a muscle. He would thrust his cutlass, but the ginger would flick it away with his own blade each time.

So Snakard went for another strategy. He pirouetted his blade around his enemy’s and stuck the curved point into the basket-shaped guard. He yanked the cutlass out of the ginger’s hands and it flew behind him to spin and stab into a wall, spitting shards and shavings of shattered wood into the air.

The ginger’s eyes snapped wide, and his legs shuddered. Snakard ran at him.

Palpaul’s yelling boomed through the ceiling, calling for pirates to follow him below the deck. Snakard had to finish the fight fast.

Snakard swung his blade at the ginger’s-

The bastard shot his hand to his sash and yanked out a dagger, slamming away the cutlass with it.

The ringing of metal bashing metal filled the room. The weakling surprised Snakard. Despite wielding just a dagger, he prevented the cutlass from touching his clothes, let alone his skin or flesh. But such success was temporary.

Snakard pivoted past a dagger thrust and swung his blade down onto the ginger’s outstretched arm.

Blood gushed from the severed wrist, and his screams pierced his ears. Cuts of cloth, along with drops of blood, fluttered in the air. The dying man’s screeching nearly hid the tumult of footsteps banging down a staircase outside of the door.

The sounds of choking and gurgling replaced the sounds of screaming as Snakard shoved his blade into the ginger’s throat. Blood streamed across steel, dribbled across his enemy’s chin, and splattered up and around the room.

Yanking out the cutlass, the floorboards on the landing outside the door creaked and squealed as footsteps pounded them.

Snakard rushed towards a chair. He snatched it and shoved it between the knob and the door of the room.

Banging and yelling bashed and boomed through the door. Snakard spun. He ran for the window and smashed through the glass with the pommel of his cutlass. It cracked. He slammed it again.

The sound of the lapping and the rushing of waves burst into the room. Glass shattered into the roaring ocean and into his arms. He winced as glass shards punctured and scratched his skin, even more blood dripping across his body.

The cracking and crunching of wood clobbered his ears. Shards of shattered wood scattered across the floor. An axe poked through the room’s door. Palpaul held the axe behind a hole, but he couldn’t fit through it. So he rose the axe.

Snakard smashed the window again, increasing the size of the gap in the window. He leapt onto the ledge. Palpaul smashed the door again, splattering more wood around the room. He ducked and rushed through the hole in the door and yelled as his footsteps pounded on the floorboards, plunging at Snakard.

He jumped just as Palpaul shot a hand at his ankle.