Nigel gritted his teeth and glanced over at John. "He shouldn'a tried to join in the first—"
Edward sprang, his hand darting down and then up towards Nigel's wrist. Nigel's eyes—anyone's eyes, for that matter—were too slow for the smooth and efficient motion. Like a viper, Edward snapped at Nigel's wrist, striking it smartly. The swiftness took Nigel by surprise, and the knife flew from his grip and lodged itself into the wooden wall of the surgeon's room with a thunk and a twang.
Behind him, Edward heard a scuffle that he hoped Herbert was in control of. Edward couldn't afford to look away from Nigel now, even if it meant getting stabbed in the back again.
A voice broke through the small din of the fight, taking the wind out of everyone's sails. "By these copper legs o' mine, if you all don't stop yer fighting, I'll dump the lot of you overboard." The words came from behind Nigel, a simple, almost soft, declaration that carried with it a queer kind of weight.
The tension was cut at once, a sharp contrast to the still swaying blade in the plank of the surgeon's room.
"Get out here, all of ye."
Nigel gave Edward and John a harsh look before turning around and exiting the alcove. Edward gave himself a moment to glance over his shoulder at Herbert, who had gotten the better of his opponent and looked unharmed. He gestured to Edward, signalling everything was all right before he headed the long way around the surgeon's room along with Nigel's friend. Edward and John were the last to leave the small space.
Nigel and his friends all lined up in front of Grace and the other men, while Herbert stayed off to the side away from Edward. John pulled Edward back, and the two stayed a few paces from the three who had just attacked them.
"Want ta try and explain just what you were about to do?" Grace asked.
"Jus' a little welcoming party for the new recruits, ma'am," Nigel responded, with a bit too much cockiness by Edward's estimation.
Grace grinned as though she enjoyed the joke Nigel made, then kneed him in his nether regions more swiftly than Edward had knocked the knife from his hands.
Too much cockiness by far.
Nigel doubled over in pain, grabbing his ballocks in both hands. He fell to his knees with a gasp of pain.
Grace bent down slowly to Nigel's pain-postured level. "You would'a killed him if I hadn't come along. Just admit it, for both our sakes." Her words were soft, but they carried the same measured, even, and cold words of command. This was not the kind of tone that could be taught, only the kind learned over a lifetime of experience.
Nigel, still whimpering, protested at first, before lapsing into begging. Edward understood the protesting, but not the begging. Why was he begging?
Grace rose to her feet in that same measured, even, and slow way she had moved when she'd knelt. "I don't permit liars on my ship," she said, "nor those who kill a crewmate."
In one motion, Grace pulled a pistol from her belt and fired it at the back of Nigel's head, his last supplication brought short by a lead ball through the brain. His pulpy mass exploded onto the deck below as the loud crack rang across the ship and took all other noises with it if but for a brief moment.
When the other noises returned, although stunted by the crew recognizing the sound of gunfire, Edward was able to process what had just happened.
Edward felt pressure on his sleeve and noticed John had gripped his shoulder and a part of his clothes. When Edward looked over, he let go.
"Ugh, got blood on me boots!" Grace lamented. "Get this mess off my ship," she commanded. The senior officers leapt into action and dragged the bloody body of Nigel away.
Grace looked into the eyes of the two remaining attackers, followed by Edward, John, and Herbert, one by one. "Let this be a lesson to each of you. I'm the captain here, and I don't take kindly with my crew trying to kill each other. Or being a cunt. Don't be like Nigel," she said, waving a hand at the splayed viscera on the deck and over her copper greaves.
Satisfied with the looks of shock plastered on the faces of her audience, she gave a curt nod before she turned and walked away from the scene. The slamming of her copper boots echoed down the deck, cutting through the growing crowd's animated questions about what had happened.
The whole event was so quick, the only remnant left of the fight and of Nigel was his knife still lodged in the wood beside the surgeon's room.
7. For Whom the Golden Bell Tolls
The crack of the pistol awoke not just Anne, but most of the men on the upper floor of the general store. That sharp, whip-like sound touched at the inner parts of the mind that controlled urgency like no other, and for those with the sense, it stripped away all tiredness in an instant. Those without the sense were not long for this world that Anne and company found themselves in.
Anne glanced at William, who also awoke just as she did, and then she jumped from her bed and over to the window overlooking the hamlet. William was but a half-step behind her, and the rest of the men a few steps behind him.
Anne scanned the small crossroads of the hamlet below for signs of the fight. She only allowed herself a few seconds before she began to turn around and head outside, but William stopped her with a point of his finger.
She looked back to see two of the crewmates who were out on watch retreating to the general store as they loaded pistols. Another crack sounded, and a puff of dirt shot into the air a few feet from one of the crewmates.
Anne had seen all she
