Page 29 of Black Sea

An applause resonated in the salty breeze.

I turned my head toward the forecastle. Leaning against the wooden railing, the man I supposed was the captain smiled at us, and the sun’s blinding light reflected off some of his gold teeth.

“Thanks for the show,” he said with a harsh, unpleasant voice, removing his black cocked hat to mock us with a slight bow. “Bring our new passengers aboard,” he commanded the two men still in the lifeboat with us.

A young man wearing a black bandana and a white shirt—maybe his second-in-command—approached the captain. “Help the wounded,” he ordered to no one in particular.

“No!” the captain shouted, causing his men to exchange puzzled looks.

“But, sir!” the second-in-command protested in a low voice, yet clearly audible to me.

“If they’re idiots enough to be beaten by a female,” the captain interrupted him sternly, “they should become food for sharks.”

Seeing him watch carelessly, almost with amusement, as the wounded pirates tried to stay afloat and hoist themselves on the second boat filled me with boiling hatred.

“Throw the dagger in water, woman,” ordered the man whose nose Amlach had broken, wiping the dripping blood with the hairy back of his knife-holding hand. I obeyed, and he sneered. “Sit down, lovebirds”.

The pirate I had struck at the nape placed his large hands on our shoulders and pushed us onto one of the transverse benches. Then he sat down on the bench for the oarsman and started rowing toward the galleon.

Amlach touched my elbow with his, leaning slightly toward me. “Sorry, Elf,” he murmured.

He was apologizing for not telling me earlier before reporting our position to an unknown ship.

Because, in the end, we had been captured.

I looked at him sideways, my hand burning with the urge to intertwine with his to strengthen my words even more. “We will find a way back to our land. I promise.”

16

The tide repeatedly pushed the boat against the hull as the two pirates secured it to the ropes that would lift it back onto the ship.

The guy with the bloody snout and the jacket soaked with his slaughtered friend’s blood spat red mucus into the sea and grinned at me, his teeth greyish and crooked. “Ladies first,” he sing-sang, pointing at the rope ladder that had been lowered.

I traded a grim glance with Amlach and grabbed one of the rungs. I paused briefly to observe the coat of barnacles visible underwater, then I started to climb, feeling a strange burning sensation in my calves and biceps. When I got to the top, I went over the parapet and landed gracefully on the deck.

An acrid sweat stench wafted up my nostrils as I let my hostile gaze roam over the multitude of sailors who looked at me with a mix of lust and fear for what I had done to their friends.

The crew of a galleon like this one could number up to three hundred men. Three hundred men who apparently didn’t bother to wash themselves.

Instead, the deck was just as clean as the rest of the ship, the beams well-polished beneath my feet.

Amlach walked up beside me, brushing his arm against mine for reassurance. He was so tall compared to all the other men that I felt like I was standing next to a giant.

“Well, well!” the captain exclaimed, silencing the rumblings of his crew. “Let’s see what we got here . . .”

With his thumbs tucked into the scarlet band covering the belt of his black trousers and the sheath of the golden-hilted saber that slammed against his leg, he descended the forecastle steps and walked toward the center of the deck with a pompous attitude. He wore a brown leather frock coat over a cream shirt. From beneath his hat, a bright red bandana emerged, making it hard for me to tell whether his brown hair was less oily and frizzy than that of his subordinates, even though he seemed cleaner. His tanned face was lined with wrinkles and spots, a legacy of a life spent under the sun.

He placed a leather boot on the raised base of the main mast, rested one hand on his thigh, propped his other fist against his side, and looked at me with his small brown eyes as if I were a gold nugget.

“What are you?” he asked in a mocking tone. “Two lovers running from their families, who disapproved of their union? Two lovers who thought they could cross the Thalion Sea and live their secret love peacefully in the Lands of the West?” A lazy, sneaky smile spread across his very thin lips. “Or are you something different, given what you’ve done to my men?”

Amlach and I didn’t answer.

The captain’s right-hand man paced around us, wearing a suspicious frown as the sound of his boots on the wooden planks echoed in the silence of the sea. Unlike the other pirates, whose clothing was tattered and poor, he wore a black vest over his white shirt and leather pants.

“By the gods! She’s beautiful,” he said, arching a brow as he stopped beside me. His breath reeked of firewater. He had yellow teeth, but at least they weren’t crooked or rotten like those of the crew watching us with anticipation. And he, too, like his captain, had a gold incisor.

The captain’s gaze was piercing. “ Too beautiful.”