ith the bench in front of her, Eleyna was, perhaps, not shielded from a musket blast, should one make directly for her. She was, however, shielded from the sight of all the other musket blasts that were about, each ball making its individual way into the limb or chest or stomach of some pirate trying his best to scale the merchantman’s hull. The pirates would rise up the ship’s sides, only to be brushed back again and again by raspy torrents of gunfire, like ants caught in a sudden rainstorm, climbing for higher ground.

At least, this was what Eleyna assumed was happening. She could not see it, because of the aforementioned bench. And she was quite content to remain behind her bench, protected in thought if not body, until Yelol rudely interrupted.

“How’s your stratagem working again, Commandant?” he asked her.

“My plan is simple. We hide here until all their gunfire is exhausted, and then see who’s left alive,” said Eleyna.

“That’s a laudable plan,” said Yelol, crouching behind a bench of his own. “But since you were designated the Commander of this operation, I thought perhaps you would take a more active role.”

“I don’t see why I should need to,” said Eleyna. “I hardly care whether or not we take the ship. And I have absolutely no desire to be sliced open by grapeshot.”

Yelol risked a quick look over the top of the bench, retracting his head quickly enough to avoid notice. “Luckily for you, nearly all the witnesses to your spectacular act of cowardice are now dead.”

Eleyna sighed. “I absolutely cannot stand pirates.”

“Well you won’t need to stand too many of them, because most of them are dead.”

“Truly, Yelol, I heard you the first time.”

“And you won’t likely hear me a third time, because we are soon going to be very very lifeless, extraordinarily dead.”

“Please, no more!”

A six pounder flung by a carronade chose that very moment to punch its way through the planks of the launch’s hull not two yards from Eleyna, flinging splinters and seawater skyward. Fortunately for Eleyna and Yelol, most of the former were blocked by their trusty benches, and the latter they were by now accustomed to.

“Alright,” said Eleyna, “that’s it.” Shooting at pirates was all well and good. She could understand that on the part of the sailors, because the pirates were for the most part unpleasant to look at and worse to smell, and because the pirates were trying to forcibly avail themselves of the ship’s treasure. But bombarding her with heavy shot when she was peaceably hidden behind a bench was a step gone too far. She’d had enough. Some poor sailor was going to regret lighting that carronade fuse.

Arden was doing some crouching of his own, though his shelter of choice was the body of an especially burly pirate who had been felled by a pistol shot to the head. Even without the head, there was plenty of body for Arden to hide behind, wedged as he was between the corpse and the bulkhead. The sailor who had delivered the pistol shot came closer to Arden, then another step closer, as Arden waited without breathing. His rapier trembled in his hand. It’s blade had tasted blood already today, and was ready for more. This sailor had dared to try to shoot him, Arden, Crown Prince of Ixthan. If the man took just a step further Arden could repay him the insult in full. Just one more step…

A snapping noise from across the deck drew the sailor’s attention away. His head turned, exposing his neck, veins pulsing with blood ready to be let. Arden moved to thrust, but his arm caught on the buckles of the dead pirate’s pants. Cursing, Arden tried to work free. These damnable buckles, frozen into place by rust and blood and seawater. Never unbuckled, not once, because these damned pirates never changed their clothes.

Finally freeing his blade, Arden prepared for a triumphant thrust. He looked up in time to see the sailor’s head being lopped from his body by an upward angled cutlass slash. Pushing the dead pirate’s body to the deck, Arden watched as Eleyna plunged her cutlass into a charging sailor, then unloaded a pistol into the face of another.

Eleyna was unable to remove her cutlass from the stomach of the fallen sailor, so she made do by appropriating the man’s own, longer blade. Seeing Arden emerging from beneath a dead pirate, she tossed him an extra pistol from her belt and headed for the forecastle. Yelol followed three paces behind, keeping guard on her back, two pistols cocked and loaded.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Arden asked her, hurrying to catch up, nearly tripping over one of the many corpses that littered the deck. “I won’t have any future wife of mine traipsing about a battlefield like some blood-spattered soldier. You could be impaled with a rapier, festooned on a pike, or meet some fate even more undignified. You could be shot like a common criminal.”

Eleyna stopped to consider this, then pointed her pistol at Arden’s throat. “Or, what is more likely, you could be. Shot, I mean, though you clearly are a criminal. And common, beyond a doubt.”

“But,” Arden stammered, “I, I merely.”

“I’ve had about as much as I can stand of your obnoxious prattle. Listen carefully: I will never be your bride. And you are in no position to force me to accept such. Are we clear?”

Arden nodded, grimacing.

Eleyna lowered her pistol, allowing Arden to expel the breath he had been holding in terror. “You’re fortunate that this is my last pistol,” she said. “If I’d had a spare, I might have shot you now, to make certain you took my point.”

“Your point was taken, milady. No need to drive it home with lead.”

“Good. I prefer not to repeat myself. Yelol, follow me. The last of the sailors have barricaded themselves in their Captain’s quarters. We go now to end this inane bloodletting.”

“As you say, Commander,” Yelol replied. “Soon the ship will be yours.”

The two of them left Arden, his humiliation smelting his rage into hotter, purer forms, with only the dead pirates and sailors for company.