Irina found it to be rather surreal. The river serpent was ducking in and out of the water, laying waste to both the burning Esprit and their own boat. People were screaming. The musicians had fled the ship, the cello player using his cello case as a raft. In the middle stood Niccolo, a rope tied around his waist, a barrel of gunpowder under his one arm as he climbed the mast. Irina and Aitor were standing next to several other barrels, holding on to the rope. What they could do with that wasn’t entirely clear. If Niccolo lost his balance, they could only make his fall worse by pulling on the rope.

When Niccolo reached the top of the mast, he stood upright and grinned.

“When I say ‘pull’, you pull as hard as you can, alright?” he shouted. Irina raised a thumb.

Niccolo then turned to the river snake and began waving at it, while shouting insults at its serpentine ancestry. While the beast ignored him at first, it eventually moved closer, no doubt intrigued by the noise. Niccolo lit the barrel.

As it approached, mouth open, Niccolo jumped. For a few seconds he seemed to fly and then began its descent towards the mouth. He hurled the barrel into the mouth of the beast. Right before he himself could be swallowed, he shouted.

“Pull! Pull my friends!”

Irina pulled, dragging Aitor to the ground who had been standing slack jawed. Niccolo was drawn away from the beast’s mouth and slammed onto the deck. The barrel exploded and the snake let out a scream. It twisted and turned its head before disappearing under water. Niccolo crawled back up, a broad grin on his face, his left arm raised and his right hand pressed against his ribs.

“A trick I learned from my uncle. It never fails.”

Then the beast rose from the river again and rammed into the boat, splitting it almost in half. The wooden planks cracked, the ropes snapped and the ship began to sink. Irina stumbled and could see what little of the crew that had remained abandon ship.

“Back for more eh?” Niccolo laughed. “Someone get me a second barrel.”

Irina grabbed a barrel, tossed it at Niccolo and soon he was climbing the mast again. It was slightly tilted, breaking at the bottom, but that did not deter Niccolo. He was humming a song underneath his breath and soon stood at the top again.

“Snake, ready for round two?” Niccolo shouted.

While the serpent hadn’t shown much intelligence so far, it wasn’t daft either. As soon as it saw Niccolo, it lashed out. It missed Niccolo, but the mast was splintered. Niccolo decided to jump on the beast’s head, holding on tight with one hand, while still grabbing the barrel. The beast shook its head and roared.

Niccolo grinned madly, launched himself from the beast’s head and flew away in an arc. As he circled the beast, he drew his pistol, hurled the barrel in its mouth and fired. The barrel exploded as Irina and Aitor pulled. Niccolo hit the ground even harder than before and Irina thought she could hear something break.

The serpent screamed and fell flat into the water, next to the burning husk of the Esprit. Their own boat was also rapidly sinking. Niccolo stumbled up and then fell back down again, clearly dazed. Irina sighed and called out to the crew who were watching from a smaller boat not too far away. She most definitely wouldn’t go swimming in chainmail.