Copyright J.B. Norman
Kat storms into the Lyte public house.
“Amara got kidnapped by pirates,” she explains simply. “I need help.”
“What?” Nolan exclaims.
“Come on, uh —” Kat stares at Nolan and realises she doesn’t remember his name. “— you. We’re going to go save your girlfriend.”
“She is not my —” Nolan begins.
He blinks as a thought occurs to him.
“Wait. Does Amara talk about me?”
“Take it up with her after we rescue her,” Kat says, hauling Nolan to his feet and out of the pub.
The rest of the Lyte Brigade stares dumbly as this unfolds.
“S-should we go help?” Tancred asks, breaking the silence.
“Probably,” Pela says. “Amara’s our friend and Nolan is our Captain.”
Soon, Kat and the Lyte Brigade are at Darkstone Manor, trying to come up with a plan to rescue Amara from her piratical captors, as Dunstana restlessly orbits the table, trying to peer over the others’ shoulders to offer her own input.
“I’ve scoped out the pirates’ boathouse,” Kat explains. “And it’s built like a fortress. We’re either going to hit it really hard, or be really clever to find a way inside.”
“We could try to bluff our way in,” Matilda offers. “Put on disguises, or something, and talk them into just letting us in.”
“All seven of us?” Tancred asks.
“We could pretend to be new recruits who want to join the pirates,” Nolan offers.
“Oh!” Pela says suddenly. “We could bake a really big pie for the rest of us to hide in while two of us deliver it to the pirates.”
“But wouldn’t they realise that they never ordered a giant pie?” Matilda asks.
Pela frowns. “Oh, yeah. That’s the sort of thing they’d be talking about.” Her frown deepens. “I think I might just be hungry. Maybe we should stop for lunch.”
Falcata points to Kat’s sketch of the pirates’ boathouse. “That side door seems like an obvious week point,” she offers. “We could simply batter it down and storm the boathouse.”
“Can we storm an entire crew of pirates with seven people?” Nolan asks.
“What we set fire to one of the outbuildings?” Tancred offers. “What’s that, a storage shed? We could use that as a distraction without running the risk of hurting anyone?”
Tancred looks up to the others staring in mute bemusement at him.
“What?” he asks defensively. “It’s a perfectly legitimate siege tactic.”
“We can’t just go around starting fires in the dock district!” Matilda protests.
“But, you know, if we did start a fire,” Dunstana muses.
“We are not starting any fires!” Kat interjects. “Especially not you, Dunstana!”
“But —”
“No, Dunstana.”
“Not even a little one?”
“No, Dunstana.”
Kat slumps back against the couch.
“Ugh. We’re not getting anywhere!”
“Come on,” Nolan urges the others. “Amara is counting on us! We can’t just leave her there. I’m sure we can think of something if we all work together.”
Dunstana slowly raises her hand.
“No fires, Dunstana!” Kat says.
“Would some music help you think?” Dunstana asks hopefully.
She reaches into her coat pockets and pulls out her cowbell.
CLONK! CLONK! CLONK!
“Why do you still have that?”
“Boss. I’m starting to think this whole ransom thing is more trouble than it’s worth,” one of the pirates says to the captain as they haul a thoroughly unimpressed Amara out of the broom closet they’ve been keeping her locked in.
“Deal with it,” the captain declares bluntly.
“But, Boss,” the first says. “She kicked me!”
“She bit me!”
“She kicked me, while biting me!”
“You’re pirates,” the captain notes. “And she’s, like, twelve. I’m pretty sure you can take her when she’s starts mouthing off.”
“Twelve?” Amara repeats hotly. “Is it your eyes that are lacking, or your brain?”
“Now,” the pirate captain tells Amara, “if you dear father doesn’t want to start getting you back in pieces, he’d better have half a millions marks ready for us.”
Amara scoffs. “My father will never pay that!”
“He’ll pay what I tell him to pay,” the pirate captain declares.
“Half a million marks? Are you mad?”
The pirate captain dismissively waves his hand. “If you’re going to be difficult, I can go even higher.”
“Exactly!” Amara says.
The pirate captain blinks at her.
“Wait. What?”
“A mere half a million marks is, frankly, an insult!” Amara says. “You can’t possibly ransom a Valda, much less Marcellinus Valdus’ firstborn daughter, for anything less than a full million! And well, I don’t mean to brag, but I am Father’s favourite child. Of course, he would never admit it, especially not with Cyprian in earshot, but, really, one learns to see the signs.”
“A million it is, then,” the captain pirate says, hastily scrawling an amendment to his ransom note. “Take her back to the broom closet.”
The three pirates, futilely attempting to avoid yet more kicking and biting, manage to haul Amara back to the broom closet, toss her inside, slam the door shut, lock the door, then barricade the door with several large crates for added protection.
“I will have redress for this indignity!” Amara rants through the door. “Do you know who I am? I am Amara. Gemina. Valda. I will not suffer being locked in a broom closet like some common mop! And my vengeance will be swift and terrible!”
“That’s bad,” one the pirate mutters.
“Pain!” Amara vows through the door. “To be delivered in novel and horrifying fashion. I will run you up a flagpole by your spleens! I will fold you into pretzels! I will make your backs frontwards! I will turn your rightsides upside down! Your entrails will be your extrails!”
“I think she’s finished,” one of the pirates offers.
There’s a loud bang that makes the pirates flinch as Amara hurls herself against the door.
“Pain!”
“Do you think she’s calmed down?” the second pirate asks.
The third pirate takes a tentative step towards the door.
“— and to boot,” Amara continues ranting through the door, “the stench of you mongrels! You all look like the wrong end of a mule and you have the smell to match!”
“No. I don’t believe she’s calmed down,” the first pirate muses.
“Stench? It must be one of you lot,” the second pirate protests indignantly. “I buy special soap from the Outlands Quarter!”
“Well,” the third offers. “Maybe that’s just because you smell the worst.”
Julius Caesar was famously once kidnapped by pirates. He demanded that they increase the ransom they were trying to get from his family. Upon being ransomed, he promised he’d be back to see them all crucified.
They all had a good laugh about it.
Until he came back and had all the pirates crucified.
Though, knowing the Roman, that was probably the point he had a good laugh about the whole thing…
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