Copyright J.B. Norman
“Pirates. I hate pirates.”” Kat groans, peeking out from the cover of the barrels she’s sheltering behind on the deck of Goblinbeard’s ship.
“Yeah,” Lena agrees. “Me too.”
On Kat’s right side, Captain Goblinbeard unsubtly and indignant clears his throat.
“They’re shooting at us!” Kat notes.
On Kat’s left side, Dunstana unsubtly and indignant clears her throat.
“They’re shooting at us!” Kat protests.
She fits an arrow to her bowstring and pops up to shoot back.
“Look, I can justify myself to you two later,” she says. “Right now. We should do something about the people who are shooting. at. us.”
“Cover me, Captain,” Goblinbeard’s Half-Elf crew member Billie cries, dashing out from behind the barrels and up the deck. “I have a plan.”
“Ye heard her,” Goblinbeard says.
As one of the enemy pirates takes aim at Billie, Kat sprints forward and goes into a slide to kick his legs out from under him. She rolls, springs into a crouch and looses an arrow at the next one.
Kat, Lena, Captain Goblinbeard, and Dunstana slowly advance up to the deck, covering Billie as she dashes across the open space to the ship’s mast. As soon as she reaches the mast, she begins to climb.
“What is she planning?” Kat wonders.
“I don’t know,” Dunstana says, reloading her cork gun. “But I bet it’s going to be awesome!”
“Hey you,” Billie calls down from the mast’s boom to the enemy pirate captain. “We accept your surrender.”
“Get down from there, lass,” the pirate captain says. “Before you hurt yourself.”
“You want me to come down?” Billie says.
“Aye,” the pirate captain says. “That’s literally what I just said. I couldn’t in good conscience abide you slipping and falling and getting hurt.”
Kat throws up her hands in disbelief. “What are you talking about? You’ve been shooting at us!”
“Aye,” the pirate captain says. “But that’s legitimate self-defence. This would be gross negligence on my part.”
“Self-defence?” Kat repeats incredulously.
“You attacked us first!” Lena notes.
“So,” Billie calls down to the pirate captain. “You want me to come down?”
He nods.
Billie shrugs. “Alright,” she mutters. “Here I come!”
And then she jumps.
As she sails through the air like a diving falcon, she brings her elbow up. A heartbeat later, she falls like thunderbolt, catching the pirate captain with her elbow.
The pirate captain drops to the deck in a senseless heap. Billie slowly rises to her feet and steadies herself on the rail.
“Miss Hawkins!” Captain Goblinbeard exclaims. “Be ye alright?”
“Fine, Captain,” Billie says.
“Impressive as that were, Miss Hawkins,” Captain Goblinbeard says. “Ne’er do such a foolhardy thing e’er again. Though I must begrudgingly admit, yer form was well and truly excellent. That were doubtless the yarest elbow drop I e’er did see, the very likes o’ which would make Wilhelmus Ferox hisself jealous.”
“That was the coolest thing I have ever seen!” Dunstana exclaims. “I want to try!”
She begins to scurry towards the mast.
“Absolutely not,” Kat says, catching her sister by the collar of her jacket.
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