No Mercy for Dead Men
closed | @baddestdad
“Ships don’t just meet up for tea and biscuits—it’s a bloody raid.”
He didn’t recognise the attacker. The defender, a cargo ship. Looked like a slaver—with a full hold, from how low it sat in the water. His knuckles tightened around the spyglass until the metal creaked in protest under his grip.
“Give me dat before ya break it again!” Louise snatched it off him. “Lord knows dey’re expensive enough.”
Mike only grunted in response. The sound of cannon fire had yet to reach them across the water, which meant that the situation was being resolved by sword. And that was the tactic of someone who wanted the slaver’s cargo—alive. “Who are we dealing with?” He said, his voice calm, the ice to the fire within. Its heat curled his hands into fists at his side, hungry for the feel of breaking bones, of clashing metal and blood and—
Patience. They’d have justice soon enough.
“I seen dem colours, looks like Small’s ship.” Louise lowered the spyglass, slowly, worrying at her lip with her shark teeth in that way she always did when about to ask him to show mercy. “Cap’n, ya know he—”
He flipped through the list anyway, though the name meant nothing to him beyond what it stood for and, really, he’d already made the call. Pirates were pirates. Slavers were slavers. He’d forgotten the meaning of mercy a long time ago. “Never heard of him,” he said, tucking the list away in his coat and gesturing to the rest of the crew.
“Sink them both.”
