New Horizons (A Pirate Story)

Chapter 3: Lies and Cannon Fire

"Get up you idiot. UP!"

Astryd was thrown from her hammock in a dramatic assault. Sprawled on the ground and franticly forcing her hair from her face, she looked for her attacker. She looked up to see long crimson hair hanging overhead. Carmen looked down at her with a cheesy grin. After a glance around the room, Astryd noticed no one else was there. Before Astryd could ask what was going on Carmen dashed away across the room to the staircase that led to the upper decks. Rushing to her feet, Astryd followed.

The smoke of cannon fire blurred Astryd's line of vision. The sun was barely waking up and peeking through over the horizon. The shouts of the bustling crew surrounding her and the loud pounding in her ears prevented her from understanding anything anyone was saying. She choked on the thick smoke cloud as she tried to fight her way through the crowd. Looking over the railing on the side of the ship, Astryd saw a neighboring ship that seemed nearly within arm's reach. The opposing ship towered over the Crescent. It was at least one story taller and with a much larger crew. The sheer size of the ship made the Crescent look like a dingy.

Astryd could hardly make out any faces among the crowd around her, but she saw a flash of blazing red hair rush by. Astryd rushed after it and found Kincade regally standing in front of the helm and gripping the railing. He had a confident grin on his face and a commanding stature. He seemed to not even notice Astryd was there. He had a look about him that looked like a child playing his favorite game. He shouted commands Astryd could not understand such as, "Watch the keel!" and "About ship!"

Suddenly, something clicked in Astryd's head. "We're being attacked!"

Through all the commotion, Astryd was at a complete loss of what to do. Her first decision was to look for a means of defending herself.

I'm not going down without a fight, she thought.

Astryd scrambled around the small ship packed with people. As she forced her way past a few people towards the stairs that led to the lower decks, she ran head first into a tall, silently intimidating, and muscular man in front of her. He was a bald man with dark skin and foreign tattoos etched into his arms, and he was at least a head taller than Astryd. For a moment she just stared at him, until the man silently extended an axe out to her.

"Oh," she hesitantly took the axe, "thank you?" She wasn't sure if that was the correct response.

Without a word, the man turned his back and faded into the crowd.

"Ah, Morgan beat me to it."

Astryd jumped, axe ready in her hand, and turned to see a boy with straw colored hair standing behind her.

"I was goin' to give you this," the boy showed a cutlass he held in his hand. "Morgan's havin' me pass out weapons."

"Tom!" the large man's booming voice carried from across the ship, and Astryd guessed that was Morgan. Before another word was spoken, the boy dashed after the man.

Astryd looked down at the axe in her hand. She didn't know how to fight. She didn't want to take anyone's life...

"NOW!" Kincade shouted to the crew. She turned around to see Kincade be the first to swing a grappling hook over his head. The claw like hook clung to the railing on the opposing ship. The crew mimicked his actions and a dozen ropes went flying into the air at once. Most of the hooks hit their mark, and the hooks were so large that the rope could not be reached to cut them loose. A man leaned precariously over the end of the ship to reach the rope. But as he tried to reach farther out with over half of his body hanging over the ship, he plummeted into the deep blue water below.