Chapter Text
The battle ended, having barely begun. The ship was well-guarded, with a good deal of armed men, but their discipline – the lack of one, to be precise – failed them, most of them drunk when his crew’s grapnels flew over the side of their ship. It was almost pathetic to slay them, equal in skill to toddlers - they couldn’t even hold their swords properly, promptly falling to their knees once their weapons were knocked out of their hands. The head often followed the sword – his crew didn’t like cowards.
Once the guards were down, everyone stopped the hopeless fight. Everyone but that blonde bastard in a very fancy dress with a very fancy rapier, thin but stinging like a bitch, and he was damn good with it, his movements fast and precise. Not nearly fast enough than Nikki’s, of course, but not too bad for a rich kid either. When the throats of his bodyguards were sliced open right in front of him, the blonde flew into some kind of frenzy, killed two of his men and injured three before Nikki intervened and put him in his place.
Soon he was pressing the sole of his boot into the boy’s neck, a cut from his blade on the blonde’s face slowly filling up with blood, oh my, this was gonna scar horrifically; another gash in the right shoulder rendered his right hand completely useless. Nikki ordered to patch him up and throw him into the lower deck. “Let him think about his behavior”, Nikki laughed then, and all blood drew from the kid’s face, and if people could kill with their eyes, Nikki’s body would have hit the floor that instant. Too bad he was already hammer-locked and tied up, Tommy tugging at a rope around his neck, Robbin already pulling at his richly embroidered jacket, despite the boy’s head barely reaching his chin.
As his men were searching for and tying up the rest, he and Tommy explored the ship. It was ill-fitted for a proper fight and too heavy to serve well for their purposes. But it was spacious, and its hold was filled with goods: clothing, textiles, shoes, weapons, and provision enough to feed a small town. It could serve as their backup, loaded with their loot, while the Devil Shout raided its next prey. Oh, and they needed to keep the captives somewhere until they reached Port Royal.
Nikki took a shine to the captain’s cabin, decorated with furs and carpets, but his heart was won by a bookcase filled with books. Some of them were in English, and he could even understand what they were about – mostly seafaring, it appeared, but there were a couple of fiction titles there too. Tommy looked at him with bewilderment as he was digging into the bookcase – for him, it were the furs and the fancy jerkins with golden epaulets in the wardrobe that attracted his undivided attention. The bed, soft, with clean sheets and a pillow with real feathers, drove them both ecstatic, though. He knew they were definitely trying it out tonight.
Maybe they should also involve the blonde.
***
Vince lay in the complete darkness, his wrists tied together with a bristly rope behind his back. The slash across his shoulder, roughly stitched together with a thick thread, throbbed with pain, its sharp spikes flashing through his upper body, making him grit his teeth and bite his lips in order to not let out pathetic whimpers. He died to scratch it, but couldn’t, obviously, and he wasn’t desperate enough to grind on the floor yet. His cheek was burning too, dry blood around it feeling astringent on his skin. How big a gash was there he could only guess, but he was pretty certain his face was ruined. Good thing that was one of his lesser problems.
He knew they would not win this battle, but tried anyway, tried on his own, recklessly, foolishly – but dying an honorable death with a sword in your hand was better than living in stocks. The cruel fate took even this privilege away from him; he was instead imprisoned and separated from the rest of his crew, thrown down here for Lord knows what purposes. Maybe they wanted revenge for the blood of their captain that his rapier drew, even though it was just a small scratch – but they could get it all they wanted while he lay there, helpless, the sole of the boot pressing down on his neck. That moment he thought he was going to die; he was so sure of it, he could almost see the light… and then they tied him up, dragged him down here, ripping off his clothing and jewelry in process, even boots, leaving him in only trousers and torn and bloody shirt. His feet were freezing, but every movement caused pain dwelling in his shoulder to shoot down his torso, and he was afraid to rip the stitch open.
It wasn’t the worst pain he was going through at that moment, though. It was nothing compared to the betrayal of his people. He considered them loyal, but once a danger came, they dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, goddamn cowards. Only the captain and a couple of high-ranking officers put up a fight, but they were too few and far between to really make an impact. The captain, his friend, in whose room he had spent a lot of time talking and reading, was shot dead before he even got to draw his first blood; the rest slew a couple of pirates, but soon were ruthlessly killed as well. It was still better than where he ended up, lying here in the cold and darkness, helpless and humiliated beyond measure. He’d rather die, rather jump out into the sea, if he had the chance – anything to get away from here, to wipe the attack out of his memory, to suppress the overwhelming guilt growing in his chest. His first serious assignment, his first voyage without the control of his father – and he failed it, failed miserably.
And now he was there, injured, stripped and tied up in the darkness of the hold, with only the murmur of waves to listen to, and he had not a slightest idea what was going to happen to him. If they wanted him dead, they would have killed him already. Did they, always greedy for more money, want a ransom in exchange for him? Did they want to hold a public execution, like many did to dishonor their victims completely?
He didn’t know, and that tormented him the most.