gunwales were dozens of warriors, bristling with weapons and eyeing me like hungry pirates staring down a fat merchantman in the Age of Sail. The ship was actually similar to a sailing vessel from Earth, with a wooden hull some one hundred feet in length, painted jet-black and adorned from bow to stern with brass and copper. She was rigged like a brig with two masts and a spanker trailing from the main. What was odd were outrigger masts jutting from the hull to each side. She had another full set of masts, extruding at low angles beneath what would have been the waterline to port and starboard, raked back to give the ship even greater speed. She was a fine lady, elegant and fast, and from her open deck, she boasted half a dozen cannon on each side, and a pair of long guns protruded from the top of the foredeck.
As the ship came to a stop a few hundred yards from the floating shard, the crew began a terrible chant, accompanied with the banging of their weapons on the bulwark. It was a terrible sound, which I knew translated to “death” in the alien’s gruff languages. Like the Mist Army I had encountered almost a year ago, the crew of the ship was a motley gathering of many species, from reptilian to mammalian, from bipedal creatures to slithering worm-like creatures. They slammed on the sides of the ship rhythmically, roaring in their different languages in a symphony of death. A few of the crew busied themselves unloosing a longboat from the main deck, bringing it alongside where a dozen warriors boarded led by the ship captain. I could tell little of the man, save he was bipedal, tall, and wearing a traditional embroidered long blue coat with white facings and scarlet epaulets, blue breeches, and long white socks. Atop his head he wore a tricorn hat of similar blue material, all in all giving him a very traditional Royal Navy look.
I took to the highest point on the shard, a small rocky outcropping that would serve as my last stand. Then again, if they had ranged weapons I was done for. But hopefully this would appeal to their warrior instincts, to their desire to defeat the legendary “Brackshock” as they had butchered my name. I watched them “beach” their longboat on my little island and disembark. As they came closer, I noticed the soldiers’ garb was uneven, with no two men wearing the same clothing, nor wielding similar weapons. In fact, they appeared more like slovenly pirates than a crew of Mist Army warriors. Only their captain wore anything resembling formal military clothing and, as the group came closer, I realized that he was actually a she. Humanoid in most respects, save for her lilac skin and reversed lower legs, more like those of a satyr. She had a pair of horns that twisted from the sides of her head and her facial features oblong and spread, with large reptilian eyes.
The captain stood at the base of my rock and shouted up at me in commanding fashion. The others continued their rumbling death chant, though low enough to not disrupt her.
I took a quick headcount and noted fifteen warriors, four of which looked like more than a match for me single-handed. One was a ridiculously massive, green reptilian biped, with malformed tiny lower limbs, so he basically walked with his hands. Atop his brawny shoulders was a formation of eyestalks that gazed in every direction at once. For weapons he had the equivalent of a brass knuckle in each hand, which also doubled as his shoes. His arms were trunks, though, as wide as I was in my shoulders, and each fist was the size of a ripe pumpkin. Taking a punch from that guy was a bad idea, but I strolled down the hill and pointed at him then at myself.
“Him and me,” I told the captain, hoping she would understand and welcome the fight. The secret I didn’t want to clue them into was that once their champion was down, once I got the blood rushing through my heart, I was going to take them all out, commandeer that skiff, and take the wheel of their pirate ship all for myself.
Laughter broke through the contingent, a strange combination of wheezes, whistles, and guffaws.
“You’re afraid I’m going to hurt your boy?” I taunted, hoping someone would understand my language. No one did, and the merriment continued at