‘Piracy,’ the tall man continued, ‘like all forms of murder, is a matter of business. It’s a haggle, a matter of bidding and buying. What they just sent over,’ he paused to nudge the corpse at his feet, ‘is their initial bid, an investment. It’s the price they paid to see how many more men they’d need to take the ship.’
‘That’s a lot of philosophy to justify running away,’ Lenk said, arching an eyebrow.
‘You had a lot of time to think while hiding?’ Kataria asked.
‘It’s really more a matter of instinct,’ Denaos replied.
‘The instinct of a rat,’ Kataria hissed, ‘is to run, hide and eat their own excrement. There’s a reason no one listens to them.’
‘Forgive me, I misspoke.’ He held up his hands, offering an offensively smarmy smile. ‘By “instinct”, I meant to say “it’s blindingly obvious to anyone but a stupid shict”. See, if I were attacking a ship bearing a half-clad, half-mad barbarian that at least resembled a woman wearing breeches tighter than the skin on an overfed hog, I would most certainly want to know how many men I needed to take her with no more holes in her than I could realistically use.’
She opened her mouth, ready to launch a hailstorm of retorts. Her indignation turned into a blink, as though she were confused when nothing would come. Coughing, she looked down.
‘So it’s not that bad an idea,’ she muttered. Finding a sudden surge of courage, she looked back up. ‘But, I mean, we killed the first ones. We can kill them again.’
‘Kill how many?’ Denaos replied. ‘Three? Six? That leaves roughly three dozen left to kill.’ He pointed a finger over the railing. ‘And reason number two.’
Lenk saw the object of attention right away; it was impossible not to once the amalgamation of metal and flesh strode to the fore.
‘Rashodd,’ Lenk muttered.
He had heard the name gasped in fear when the Linkmaster first arrived. He heard it again now as the captain of the black ship stood before his crew, the echo of his heavy boots audible even across the roaring sea.
Rashodd was a Cragsman, as his colossal arms ringed with twisting tattoos declared proudly. The rest of him was a sheer monolith of metal and leather. His chest, twice as broad as any in his crew, was hidden behind a hammered sheet of iron posing as a breastplate. His face was obscured as he peered through a thin slit in his dull grey helmet, tendrils of an equally grey beard twitching beneath it.
And he, too, waited, Lenk noted. No command to attack arose on a metal-smothered shout. No call for action in a falsely elegant voice drifted over the sea. Not one massive, leathery hand drifted to either of the tremendous, single-bit axes hanging from his waist.
They merely folded along with the Cragsman’s titanic arms, crossing over the breastplate and remaining there.
Waiting.
‘Their next bid will be coming shortly,’ Denaos warned. ‘And he’s going to be the one that delivers it.’ He gestured out to the crew. ‘They’re dead, sure, but they’re Argaol’s men. We have to think of our own.’
‘He’s just a human,’ Kataria said derisively, ‘a monkey.’ She glanced at the titanic pirate and frowned. ‘A big monkey, but we’ve killed big ones before. There’s no reason to run.’
‘Good,’ Denaos replied sharply, ‘stay here while all sane creatures embrace reason.’ He sneered. ‘Do try to scream loudly, though. Make it something they’ll savour long enough so that the rest of us can get away.’
‘The only one leaving will be you, round-ear,’ Kataria growled, ‘and we’ll see how long your delusions of wit can sustain you at sea.’
‘Only a shict would think of reason as delusional.’
‘Only a human would think of cowardice as rational!’