“Why are you here?” Snakard cocked his head and furrowed his brows, seeming to recognize Geruke as he shot across the floorboards, sword swinging.

Geruke’s claymore crashed against a tsunami of blade swings, slices and thrusts. Snakard’s long black hair whirled, curve, and fluttered around him as he slithered, spun and shot past Geruke’s attacks. It was easier to stab a wiggling string, a flickering flame or its shifting shadow. Snakard's sword was a blurring tornado of steel as it covered Geruke’s body with an extra layer of shallow slices and punctures, spitting clumps of black cloth and dark blood into the air.

As time went on, the wounds deepened, but the rate decreased when footsteps sounded behind Geruke. Snapping his eyes wide with surprise, Lyrassa dashed beside him, whipped her short swords out of their scabbards and swung them at Snakard.

Geruke expected her to hide in the shadows, wait for Snakard to kill him, wait for him to walk into the hallway, and attack him from behind, weakened by Geruke. But she didn’t.

Hypocrite.

Shattering all rumination, Geruke’s and Lyrassa’s backs hit the room’s wooden wall, splinters scratching his back. Blood dappled Lyrassa’s blue tunic, just like his own. Despite outnumbering Snakard, he pressured them back and overpowered them.

Regret wormed its way into his mind because Snakard was too strong for them in a plain fight. They should’ve ambushed him. At this rate, he was awaiting death, so he had to go on the offence.

He spat at Snakard. The unsightly tactic contrasted both Geruke’s and Lyrassa’s careful and skilful swordsmanship, so it caught Snakrard off guard but, most importantly, in the eye. He staggered backwards. His sword flailed. Geruke leapt at him, sword thrusting at his heart. Snakard’s cutlass swung towards it to parry, but he was too slow, letting Geruke’s blade shoot past all defence.

But so did Snakard’s.

His blade pirouetted around the base of Geruke’s claymore and the curved point of the cutlass hooked his cross-guard. Snakard yanked Geruke’s sword out of his grasp, lifting it into the air to spin and stab into the wall on the other side of the room.

Whilst Geruke glared at his empty hands, Lyrassa rushed to Snakard’s side. He dodged a slice and countered with a thrust. The side of her torso spit globs of blood onto the floor, pieces of cloth mixed in with it. She yelled, but she kept fighting, swinging her blade down at his neck. But before the blade could touch flesh, Snakard twirled his cutlass and thrust the pommel at Lyrassa’s cheek.

Skin tore and blood splashed out of her mouth and nose as the blunt pommel sunk into her cheek and banged bone. She dropped and tumbled to the floorboards like a ragged doll. Snakard pointed the tip of his cutlass at her motionless body.

As soon as his blade tore through cloth, Geruke slammed it away from her body with a short sword. The pirate’s cutlass stabbed in the floor.

Geruke leapt at him, sword flashing in the candlelight. Snakard yanked the cutlass out of the wood, splattering chips of it into the air. Their weapons clashed and Geruke’s arm shuddered. He paid it no mind and slashed at him again.

But Snakard didn’t parry. His boot swung at Geruke’s hand. Pain surged through his fingers as his sword flew and spun out of his grasp to plunge into the ceiling.

By the time Geruke’s hand throbbed and stung, wrapping around the hilt of a dagger, Snakard was already upon him. His blurring cutlass already devoured most of his vision. It was too fast to dodg-

The cutlass slowed. Geruke didn’t know why, but he pivoted to the side and dashed backwards to dodge it. He glanced down and saw Lyrassa grabbing and pulling Snakard’s ankle. She saved his life. Snakard turned to her.

Glaring at his empty hands, Geruke stepped backwards and towards the door.

He had at least a dozen more daggers left in his belt, but what was the point? They’d get kicked or cut out of his hands, anyway. Or he’d die before using them all up. Snakard was stronger than he and Lyrassa combined, and she was already out of it. It was up to him. He couldn’t do it. He knew that was the case from the beginning, but his idiocy pushed him into the room, dragging Lyrassa to her death.

But he stepped forward and wrapped his stinging fingers around the hilt of a dagger. She wasn’t dead yet. He could save her. Images of her sweet smile and her passionate scowl as she pulled Snakard’s leg to save his life filled his mind. Geruke pulled the dagger out of his belt; he couldn’t let her di-

Intricate murals of the Templaga beating him down on the town's coarse cobbled street shattered the faint images of a good and beautiful Lyrassa.

Just like back at the lake, his idiocy ruined him. Lyrassa was right. Jarlunn was right.

With shuddering fingers, he stroked his sister’s golden-beaded necklace with one hand and, with the other, pulled his short-sword out of the ceiling to put it back in its scabbard. Lurching under Snakard’s glare, with trembling knees and guilt raging throughout his entire being, Geruke turned and ran. The wicked world twisted and pulled his strings, and he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

As he dragged himself through the hallway and pulled himself up the staircase, Lyrassa’s screams rumbled through the air and ravaged his stomach and wrecked his heart and shattered his soul until it laid in twisted and ruined fragments inside a hollow shell. His eyes burned.

Icy rain showered him as he pushed himself up to the ship’s deck. The way the rain sparkled in the moonlight reminded him of the sparkle of Lyrassa’s eyes, sketching a picture in his mind of one of her smiles, but paintings of her bloody and battered face devoured it. He chewed his gums till blood dripped down his chin, mixing with the rain that stampeded down his face.

Inhaling and exhaling, he told himself that the guilt was just a feeling. All he had to do was suppress it. So he dove into the sea and sank underwater. Holding his breath, he laid and hovered. He shivered and his clothes clung to his skin, but the scraping of cold and the squeezing of water pressure conjured sensations that distracted him from the guilt that thrashed and ripped and tore at his mind.

Easing him even more and smothering him with the comfort of peace was the thought of sinking deeper till his back hit the seabed; too far down to ever go back up. To be enveloped in the snug embrace of darkness. To fade away. To be numb.

He shook his head and burst up and out of the water, gasping for air. As Lyrassa said, he didn’t have a choice. If she were alive, she would’ve congratulated him on what he did. In her honour, he needed to stay alive. He needed to keep looking for ways to ruthlessly take what was his. She was a good friend, so that’s what she wanted from him.

So he swam back to the shore, drenching the sand with the ocean that rained from his soggy black tunic and dripped down his face from his soaked brown hair. He crept behind a beach boulder. Peeking out from behind it, he stared at the battle that continued to rage. The ringing of metal hitting metal, the shouting of the living and the screeching of the dying rattled through the air. Lighting the battlefield with a red and orange lustre, the Town’s Port continued to burn and blacken.

Fifteen of the Town’s Watch laid on the sand in pools of blood. He clicked his tongue as he noticed his heart leap at the thought of Lerute or Madrily being one of them. He shouldn’t care about them. Regardless, his heart eased when he saw the two of them swiftly and easily cutting down a few dozen pirates that surrounded them. Their life or death wasn’t why he was staying instead of escaping the doomed town. It was the fact that it might not be doomed if he helped fight off the pirates.

There was no chance of him going back into the ship and defeating Snakard on his own, so the other method of getting a hold of some of that money would be to help fight off the pirates on the shore. Whilst he and Lyrassa weren’t able to defeat Snakard, he, Lerute, Madrily and the rest of the remaining Town’s Watch should be able to. Hopefully, Snakard could kill the few Town’s Watch soldiers that remained, which could inspire Lerute and Madrily to give all the pirate’s money to Geruke.

After seeing Snakard, he assumed that there would be some powerful warriors on the beach, but seeing how easily Lerute and Madrily slaughtered the pirates, he grew much more confident in the town’s survival. Especially when he couldn’t see Pilla or Griever anywhere on the beach and counted twenty dead pirates laying on the sand, blood smothering them. Geruke whipped out his short sword, ran across the beach, and approached the fray.

During which, Geruke glanced back at the ship, hoping that Snakard would stay there. Portholes lined the hull and only one glowed the golden light of candles and considering the layout he vaguely remembered of the ship, that was probably the room Snakard was in. If the candles continued to burn, it probably meant he was still there. Geruke stopped and stared at the ship. He saw something next to it.

A small and distant figure, silhouetted by the moonlight, moved above the water next to the ship. It was too far away to see a specific form, it just looked like a dark blob. Could that be Snakard? If so, why did he leave the candles on? What would he do if the waves rocked the ship, and the candle fell onto the floor, starting a fire? The form also wasn’t big enough to be a dinghy. Why would he swim to the shore instead of just rowing over in a dinghy? It made little sense. However, whilst the figure moved, it didn’t move directly towards the shore, so it couldn’t have been him. It must've been a barrel or ale keg thrown off the ship and dumped in the ocean.

So Geruke turned away from it and kept running down the beach, towards the battle.

A pirate turned and yawned at Geruke after she eyed his armorless body. Her eyes widened when her arm shuddered as she blocked his blurring blade, seeming to regret her underestimation of him because his swing shoved back her weak block till his sword burst past it and tore through her neck. Her head rolled across the sand and her headless corpse tumbled onto it.

Seeing that display of strength, five pirates turned and crept towards him. They circled him, surrounding him from all angles. Geruke glanced past them and saw Lerute and Madrily smiling at him through their moon reflecting steel helmets whilst approximately five pirates surrounded each of them. That was another benefit of this plan; it increased Madrily’s approval of him.

Ramming a hurdle in front of that hope, a pirate leapt at him with an axe. Geruke blocked the swing with his short sword, but the axe blade hissed across it till it hooked his cross-guard. The pirate yanked the sword out of his grasp, spinning it past the head of another pirate till it stabbed into the sand.

Geruke once again reached for a dagger, but the pirate with the axe swung at him before his fingers could touch a hilt. Pulling his hand away from his belt, he dashed at the pirate, grabbed his wrists, and pushed the axe up towards the sky.

Footsteps sounded behind him, and a pirate ran at his back, cutlass swinging. Geruke crouched and fell backwards, flinging and flipping the axe-wielding pirate over him. Splattering Geruke's face with blood, a pirate’s cutlass sunk into the axe-wielding pirate’s leg. Groans burst from them as they tumbled over each other and crashed onto the sand.

The three other pirates leapt at Geruke, their cutlasses rushing down at his body as he laid. His hand shot to his belt, and he parried the pirate’s strikes with a dagger, wriggling on the sand. Whilst parrying the three pirate’s strikes, he stepped to his feet, sparks splashing all across his vision.

Once he stood up straight, it wasn’t hard to pivot and dash past a pirate’s plunging arm as she thrust a cutlass at the empty air he used to occupy. His dagger vanished in her throat. Blood splashed out of her neck, dribbled out of her quivering mouth and smothered his hand. It showered the floor as he yanked the dagger out of her flesh, leaving her to grip her bleeding throat, tumble to the sand and writhe across it.

Four left.

The other two standing pirates continued to slice at him, but he parried their blades with enough force to make them recoil. As he did, his shadow devoured one of their bodies and his dagger sunk into their eye to poke out the back of their head.

Three left.

He yanked his dagger out of a man’s brains with one hand and with the other he punched a pirate with the other. Geruke ran at that pirate as she stumbled backwards. Her heart ate his dagger. Blood burst from the wound to dapple his clothes.

Two left.

The sound of crunching sand and rattling rocks pattered behind him. Geruke spun, and it was the cutlass wielding pirate, once again attacking him from behind. After parrying a slash, Geruke thrust his dagger at his throat.

The pirate dodged, crouched and sliced at his abdomen. Geruke spun and slammed his boot at his hand. He groaned, devouring the clicking of breaking bones and the cracking of rocks as his cutlass spun to the ground to slice through sand and break open pebbles. The groans ceased as his head left his body. Both fell to the sand.

One left.

Something whooshed behind Geruke. He turned. An axe spun at him, snatching half of his vision. Strands of his brown hair fluttered in the air as he pivoted and the axe’s blade shot an ant’s width past his nose. The axe-wielding pirate laid on the floor with a bleeding leg. He couldn’t fight any longer with such an injury. Madrily would ignore him and let him live, but he glanced towards her and she was busy with a pirate. She wasn’t looking. And he wasn’t her. He ran at the dying pirate and buried his dagger into his nape as he screamed and crawled away from him, tears dripping down his cheeks.

Geruke stood and turned to Madrily and Lerute, they killed all the pirates that surrounded them. The pirates who manned the cannons laid dead on the sand.

The actual battle still raged further up the beach and in front of the shattered Northern Gate, underneath the battered wooden battlements. The tumult of their killing, injuring and dying continued to smother his ears. An extra four of the Town's Watch soldiers laid dead in that area. One laid dead next to Lerute’s and Madrily's feet, stared at by their misty eyes. Only ten continued to fight.

Amongst those four dead Town Watch soldiers, ten dead pirates pooled blood next to them. The Golden Dragon Pirates weren’t so impressive after all. It was only Snakard they needed to worry about.

“I’m surprised you came,” Lerute said with a smile as he jogged up to him. “Has this made you reconsider joining the Watch?”

“Not at all,” Geruke said, snatching a cutlass from the corpse of a pirate. “But this situation seems pretty dire, so I’ll help this one time.”

“Come on,” Madrily called as she beckoned them towards her, running ahead of them and towards the battle. “We need to help the rest of the Watch, quickly!”

Geruke and Lerute followed.

“Where’s Lyrassa, by the way?” Lerute asked, running beside Geruke. “And why’re so wet? Don’t tell me that’s sweat?” He chuckled.

Madrily’s running slowed, and she glared back at Geruke. His eyes fleed theirs to stick to the sand as he explained what happened.

“I like you, Geru,” Madrily said, scowling back at him. “But you need to stop being so pathetic.”

“Whilst dozens here died, you and Lyra went to the pirate’s ship to steal a few rubounds!?” Lerute growled, his eyes wide with rage. “Not only that, but you abandon Lyra, your friend, when she’s in trouble? I knew you were a scumbag, Geru, but you’ve had issues, so I didn’t hold it against you. But I didn’t know you were this awful.”

“We would’ve both died If I stayed,” Geruke said, flicking his eyes back up at them and furrowed his brows.

“I don’t care about your excuses!” Madrily shouted as she stopped and turned to him. “A friend is a friend! Friends are supposed to stick up for each other no matter what!”

“I don’t think you’re describing a friend there, Maddy,” Geruke ran past her and towards the battle. “You’re describing a slave.”

“You’re delusional,” Lerute said as he and Madrily followed Geruke into battle.

Pirates spun and called for help as they saw the Watch’s commanders run towards them. They seemed to have quickly realized how strong the two of them were. A wall of five pirates ran at Geruke. They must have seen him fight as well.

As Geruke rammed his cutlass against a wave of five blades, Madrily did the same. However, Lerute didn’t. He stood further back and turned towards the shore and at a man with long black hair and a red bandana who hopped off a dinghy at the edge of the beach and ran up towards them, cutlass glittering in the rain and moonlight.

Snakard arrived.

He arrived earlier than Geruke hoped because there were still plenty of pirates that he needed to defeat. However, it was still beneficial because after Geruke could free himself from the five pirates that attacked him, he could sneak past Snakard as he engaged Lerute and Madrily, and swim back to his ship to steal his money.

He hoped the two of them could handle him. They probably couldn’t. If Madrily died, his hopes of becoming the Lord of Archi and re-entering the nobility would vanish. He should probably hel-

No. He shouldn’t care about them. He refused to let that happen. Even if Madrily hated Geruke, he knew that she and her mother were Dischans. Even if she died, he knew Barssanna was single and was a Dischan. He could make her marry him if he wanted.

Once again, inhaling and exhaling, he focused on the five pirates at hand, vowing to not help Madrily and Lerute after he dealt with them.

Surprising Geruke, the pirates made him sweat. Their strikes shuddered his arm and their weapons were fast enough to turn to blurs. Just to make matters worse, footsteps banged behind him. He glanced at his back to see a pirate’s pole axe smothering Geruke with its shadow. He blocked the axe, but once again his arms and whole body shook, but more worryingly the axe scraped down his blade to hook his cutlass’ basket shaped guard.

Stumbling forwards, the pirate yanked Geruke’s sword out of his grasp. It spun in the air to tumble behind a beach boulder. The other five pirates dashed at him from all angles, so he snatched two daggers from his belt. Geruke struggled and held off their tornado of steel, scowls and sparks with two daggers, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do so for long.

Hearing Madrily groan, Geruke glanced past the violent tornado that rumbled around him to see that Madrily was in a similar predicament. A pirate with a war hammer slammed, bent, and shattered her short sword. She chucked the broken thing away and pulled out two daggers.

Lerute’s scream soared over the clanging of steel and the grunting of pirates. Geruke saw Snakard slice his wrist. Lerute dropped his sword, and Snakard kicked it away. Lerute pulled out daggers and blocked and dodged Snakard’s blurring thrusts and slashes, but he wouldn’t be able to do so for long. He was about to die. Just like Geruke.

Hope filled him when he saw where Snakard kicked Lerute’s sword; a couple of metres beside Geruke. All he had to do was dash past a pirate, reach for it, grab it and defeat his enemies, saving his own life.

“Geru!” Madrily shouted over the top of the violent tumult whilst slashing the chest of a pirate with her dagger. “Grab the sword and throw it to Lerute!”

Fury flickered in his stomach at the command. Geruke was about to die as well. Albeit, Lerute was in greater risk, considering Snakard’s unbelievable strength, but why would Geruke risk his life in such a situation?

Snakard cut Lerute’s belt, his daggers poured onto the floor, and the pirate captain shovelled them up with his cutlass to chuck them away. Panic lurched in Geruke’s chest and wormed its way to his stomach. But he refused to let himself do anything about it.

“Please!” Madrily screamed. “Don’t let our friend die!”

Snakard bashed Lerute’s face. He stumbled in a daze. He was a great friend. He saved him many years ago. It was Geruke’s turn. Yet, when Geruke plunged past the pirates’ blades and their dashing bodies, slid across the sand, and snatched Lerute’s sword; he slashed at a pirate with a shuddering soul and a heart that begged him to pass it to his friend.

Inhaling and exhaling, he turned away from Lerute and faced his enemies, sword firmly clenched his hands. If he killed the pirates, maybe he could save him. That could be a healthy compromise.

“Do you not care about us!?” Madrily whimpered before a groan as her cheek ate the bashing of a pommel. She spit blood and dashed backwards, giving her the opportunity to glare Geruke in the eye. Her begging gaze slowed the falling of rain, the swinging of weapons, the splattering of blood, and hurt him harder than the flinging of any clenched hand or hammer. “Have the last few years been a lie?”

Geruke turned away from her to pivot beside the swinging of a cutlass. Pushing all of his frustration that built up from the beginning of that dreadful day into the hilt of his claymore, he sunk the blade into a pirate’s abdomen, crunched through spine, and ripped it out through the dying man’s lower back.

The pirate’s torso tumbled in a writhing and screeching mess of gleaming bone, wriggling intestines, and splashing blood. The hips and legs staggered and fell on top of it.

Five left.

Geruke spun to slap away a flimsy thrust, and blurred his blade, whipping it at a pirate’s head. It vanished in a fountain of blood.

Four left.

A poleaxe plunged through the air in his periphery and once again this axe-wielding bastard hooked the axe around his cross-guard. However, this time Geruke hissed his blade out of the hook and away from the axe.

He saved his sword, but he also left himself open. The axe-wielding pirate kicked his hand, already weakened by Snakard’s prior kick. Geruke’s sword spun in the air and crashed into a puff of sand.

He crouched under the swing of the poleaxe’s hammer end, letting it rustle his hair as it passed. Dashing backwards, he whipped two daggers out of his belt. Two pirates rushed at him from both sides. He blocked one blade with one dagger and his other dagger swerved a blade to the side of Geruke’s head and slid past it to crunch into the cheek of a pirate and sink into flesh.

Three left.

Yanking it out, he crouched and spun, kicking his leg at the other pirate. Her legs lifted in the air and she fell as if hovering. As she did, Geruke leapt at her, daggers flashing. A poleaxe once again blurred in his periphery and Geruke kicked the ground and dashed backwards. But the weapon didn’t aim for him. The hammer end of the poleaxe slammed his dagger, making it vanish as it spun up to the night sky.

Geruke yelled as his hand pulsed and throbbed with stinging pain and during that recoil, he could do nothing but crouch to dodge yet another swing, but yet again the poleaxe didn’t swing for him, but his dagger. That vanished in the sand as well.

Geruke had more daggers, but as soon as his fingers brushed the hilt of one, the poleaxe wielding pirate was already upon him, axe blurring down at this head. Dashing past it, the axe’s smashing of the ground boomed in his ears, splashing sand and shattering rocks. He was probably betting that Geruke would reach for his dagger at that moment, considering how much power he committed to the strike.

But instead, Geruke’s empty hands shot at the pirate’s head. His parent’s martial arts practice flashed through his mind as he gripped the man’s neck and twisted till he heard a click and a crack.

Two left.

As his mangled neck fell to the sand along with his lifeless body, Geruke leapt for the poleaxe. Another pirate rushed at it, got there before him, and kicked it away instead, leaving Geruke’s hand to claw at empty air. But kicking the axe gave Geruke the time and opportunity to reach for his belt. In a flurry of dagger swings, thrusts and slashes, Geruke dashed past the pirate, leaving his corpse to crumple and collapse in a spraying mess of cuts, blood and torn flesh.

One left.

Excitement and images of wealth and luxury rushed through his mind as he ran at the last shivering pirate, plunged past flimsy and shuddering swings and shoved both of his daggers into her chest with zero finesse, precision or strategy. He had enough of this. Regardless, she crashed in a sea of blood, his daggers pressing her to the sand. Ripping them out, he glanced at Lerute.

Blood gushed out of his shoulder, smothered Snakard’s blade, and dripped on the steel armour that covered a severed arm, bleeding on the sand.