His thoughts were disturbed by a horn.
Three pirate ships were coming toward them. Each of their sails had the symbol of a skull with cross-bones.
“Ready?”
The children nodded and hastily armoured themselves.
More horns sounded and three more ships sailed to attack them.
“ATTACK!” the Scavenger roared.
The ship gently swerved to the left as the Scavenger rotated the wheel.
The children had already planned their moves. Archer, Daniel and James would continuously fire the cannonballs. Matt would use wind to guide the cannonballs to the target.
The trio fired the cannons, and balls of fire whizzed towards the ships. Matt used wind to line them up with their target.
They struck, burning away the ships’ fronts. The pirates roared in anger as many of their mates fell into the sea.
Already sharks were starting to arrive as drops of blood littered the seawater. The pirates in the sea screamed as they tried to escape.
Cannonballs were hurled at their ship by the pirates too. But the ship’s automatic defence system popped up nets that caught the cannonballs, repelled and shot them back towards the bandit ships.
Suddenly, a pirate ship came to the left of the Sails of Time. A rope was thrown to their ship’s mast. The Scavenger, busy in steering the wheel, and the children, busy in controlling the cannons, got wind of the attack too late. Pirates clung to the rope as they swung and made their way onto the Sails of Time.
Matt turned and saw gangs of pirates approaching them. Suddenly he was struck with an idea.
A second later, the deck was full of hundreds of tigers, kneeling before Matt. Matt grinned, looking at the Tiger’s Hide in his hands.
The tigers growled. As if they knew what to do, the tigers spread out everywhere, securing the whole ship. The tigers lunged at the enemy, and most of the pirates fell in the sea.
Archer climbed over the mast and shot fire. The rope burnt and fell away, and the desperate pirates who were still halfway in their attempt to cross over to their ship now lunged towards their ship.
Meanwhile, the enemy ships were catching up, getting closer and closer to them.
Archer suddenly spotted the bag of grenades.
He went down. Picking three grenades from the bag, he hurled them towards the ships. When the grenades were barely a few metres away from their target, Archer shot fire at them in mid-air, and they blasted with a deafening sound.
A protective dome formed around the Sails of Time to repel the shrapnel and the smoke. A second later, it disappeared, its work done. When the smoke cleared, they saw a demolished ship. But several other pirate ships, however, seemed unscathed by the blast.
Suddenly, a voice resounded, “SURRENDER!”
Matt swung back and realized that a robust-looking bloke, maybe the captain, was on the loudspeaker.
The Scavenger barked back on his speaker, “NEVER!”
“Consider this as final warning! If you don’t surrender, we will eliminate you,”
“Then do it!” The Scavenger laughed.
“You dare to defy us,” the bandit leader shouted. “It’s the end of you. ATTACKKKKKKKKKKK!”
Matt ran up to the Scavenger. “What do we do? Do we retreat or fight back?”
“We will be surrounded in no time. Let’s make a strategic retreat.”
The Scavenger rushed to the wheel and increased the ship’s speed.
Matt was busy readying his weapons when he suddenly grasped that James was not around. His heart fluttered as his eyes searched the deck, and there he saw James beside the Scavenger, almost hidden, his eyes closed. He went to wake him, but the Scavenger halted him. “Let him do that. He told us that he would give a surprise.”
Matt shrugged and went back to his position.
The Scavenger shouted, “A little ahead, the sea current takes a roundabout. I will turn the ship into that path and will direct the ship behind the pirates. Once I do that, I need you to fire as much ammunition as possible.”
Matt nodded and set about readying the cannons.
A path appeared straight ahead and they turned. The ship gained speed dramatically and steered out of the path.
Matt saw more bandit ships ahead. “AIM!” the Scavenger yelled. “FIRE!”
The cannons shot several rounds of fire.
Archer tossed four grenades at the ships, and they blasted. “STOP!” the Scavenger shouted.
The smoke cleared and they saw that only three ships remained, far away from the attack zone.
The ship went forward. Archer saw eight more ships coming in their direction. Seriously! he thought to himself. How many pirates are there?!
The Scavenger pulled out his Lightning Sword. “Get ready,” he called back. “We need to fight.” The pirate ships neared.
Eight pirate ships now surrounded the Sails of Time from all directions. It was a critical situation. Cannons aimed at the Sails of Time from all sides.
The Scavenger gritted his teeth. No matter how powerful the Sails of Time was, it wouldn’t be able to sustain that amount of damage.
Then, suddenly, James opened his eyes. The seafloor shook.
Waves as high as hills rose. They hit the pirate ships. No ship could have survived that force. There were screams and yells as the ships overturned under the power of the waves.
Nothing was visible now, not even the remains of the pirate ships.
“Amazing work, James!” the Scavenger marvelled.
Matt was almost sure that no ships remained, when he saw a massive pirate ship coming towards them.
The leader of that ship shouted, “I am Hook Blade, the leader of all the pirates. You will not be able to escape. I give you one last chance. SURRENDER!”
Matt didn’t like this.
“Demolish the pirate ship!” the Scavenger thundered.
Archer threw all the grenades that he had. Meanwhile, the Scavenger increased the speed of the Sails of Time. The grenades blasted behind them. The Scavenger and the children cheered as they saw the grenades destroying the pirate ships.
The Sails of Time safely sailed away.
20
After blasting the pirate ship, the children wasted no time in celebrations. They were completely exhausted and therefore they retired to sleep.
Their vessel reached the Temple