“Be cautious, Vance, that’s all I’m saying. When fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become monsters ourselves.” Then, with a swish of her skirts, she turned around and glided like a phantom out into the dark hallway, leaving me alone with the sleeping Wind Goddess and dark thoughts about the final battle to come.
Chapter Ten
The next week of sailing was relatively smooth; Elandriel had likely exhausted himself calling up that titan of a storm and would need time to recover before launching any more attacks on us. After two or three days of rest, Rami-Xayon recovered. I disclosed to her that I’d had to make use of her powers while she’d been unconscious, and she was understanding, given that it had been a life and death situation. When her powers returned, she called up a powerful wind to propel us forward in our journey, and we made excellent time, covering a great distance at speed.
Below us, on the floor of the ocean, my army struggled onward. We left them far behind, greatly outstripping them with our superior speed. I only hoped that it wouldn’t take them too long to reach Prand; the timing of their arrival would be crucial in terms of determining whether I could defeat Elandriel and crush the Blood God once and for all, or whether the outcome of the final battle would be much less favorable to me.
A few days before we got within sight of the Prandish continent, I was scouting ahead via Talon’s eyes high in the sky when I caught sight of a pirate ship a few miles in the distance. It looked as if they were heading in the direction of Yeng. Figuring that they would probably have some information on the current state of affairs in Prand, I decided to adjust our course so that we could intercept them.
Percy steered the Death ship their way, and late in the afternoon we saw their ship on the horizon. They spotted us too, and turned to sail toward us. They had surely seen that this was a warship, but the sight of a gray skull on the black sails rather than the insignia of the Church of Light Navy must have told them that this was no ordinary vessel.
I didn’t want a fight—we would obliterate them in battle, of course, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted information from these pirates, and loosening their tongues with a bit of gold, which I had more than enough of, would surely yield me more honest information, given more readily, than beating it out of them … which wasn’t entirely off the table if they decided to act like assholes.
One we got within a nautical mile of the pirate ship, I suited myself up in my full set of black plate armor, which was always a good look when it came to impressing and intimidating people, and filled a sack with gold coins. I got Percy and his pirate crew to load and aim the Death-enhanced ballistae at the pirate ship and punch their hull full of holes if they didn’t cooperate. Then, I commanded Talon to lift me up and fly me over to the pirate ship.
The pirates gathered on deck to watch me as I approached, and their scarred faces were twisted into expressions of wonder, awe, and more than a little fear; it wasn’t every day that these ratty seafarers got to see a harpy transporting a fully armored knight through the air.
All of the pirates had bows, crossbows and spears, and they aimed them as us as we approached. Their captain, an obese pirate with a huge red beard, twisted into beaded plaits, climbed up onto the prow. He pointed his cutlass at me and yelled. “Who are you, ye strange winged bastard?! Come any closer and my boys’ll turn ye both into pincushions, we will!”
I pulled out a handful of gold coins from the sack and flung them onto the deck of the ship. They bounced around, and when the pirates saw what they were, they scrambled eagerly to snatch them up, fighting and shoving each other out of the way in their haste and greed to grab a coin.
“All I want from you is some information!” I yelled back. “Tell me what I want to know, and this whole sack of gold coins is yours!”
“Arr, fair enough, fair enough,” the captain replied, a glint of greed glistening in his eyes, “but you still haven’t told us who you are! Give me that courtesy, stranger, an’ then I’ll decide if I want to wag me jaw with ye! I am Captain Thegramm, by the way,”
“I am Vance Chauzec, God of Death!”
A look of awe and disbelief came across the captain’s face. “You’re … real!” he gasped. “The legend is true! The God of Death lives! Come aboard, God of Death, come aboard! Lay down your weapons, ye scurvy dogs! Make space for the God of Death to come aboard, go on, make some room!”
The pirates moved to the edge of the deck, leaving a space in the middle for me to land. Controlling Talon with expert finesse, I got her to hover a few feet above the deck and then drop me there. I landed with acrobatic grace, and then tossed the sack of gold at Captain Thegramm’s feet. “All I want is some information, Thegramm, so answer my questions honestly and you can keep everything that’s in that sack.”
He slashed his cutlass across the side of the sack, and when a pile of gold coins poured out of the cut a gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd of pirates. I could almost taste the greed and lust for gold hovering in the air.
“Aye, I’ll answer your questions, God of Death,” he said. “Tis
