New Horizons (A Pirate Story)

Chapter 7: Trust me

Astryd expected the pursuit to last a matter of hours, but her stress was only prolonged when she discovered that catching up to the ship could take much longer.

"But what about our first morning after we left Esterbell?" Astryd asked Tom while he was helping her move some cargo. "We caught up to that ship overnight."

"Oh, we were lucky with that one. Found it in passing as we were leaving port. Good haul too," Tom replied. "It can take weeks sometimes to catch up to a ship in a normal pursuit."

Astryd groaned. They had been in pursuit for a week now. Slowly, the ship in the distance became larger and larger. But still, slowly.

"Maybe I should just jump overboard," she mumbled to herself.

"Be my guest," the boatswain growled in passing.

Astryd gave him a menacing glare as he wandered off.

"One more week," she kept telling herself.

---

On the morning of the twenty-seventh day since Astryd first departed from Esterbell and stepped foot on the Crescent, almost two weeks since they first spotted the ship, Astryd emerged from below decks after breakfast to find the Esterbell ship to be a mere few hundred yards ahead of them. Now being nearer, the ship looked even less grand than before. The boards of the hull seemed like they were barely holding together, and the sails had horrible patchwork.

Astryd's heartbeat quickened as she began to consider their options. She was the only one who knew they were about to meet an ill fate because no one believed her.

"About ship!" Kincade shouted merrily.

The crew yelled in reply as they scurried about the ship.

Astryd tried her best to convince someone—anyone—that they were walking into a trap. But being a woman, no one believed Astryd. Carmen was the only respected woman aboard and the only woman the crew would listen to, and sadly Astryd could not convince the quartermaster to take her side. Not even Tom could bring himself to believe her.

"Sorry miss," he told her one morning while they were in pursuit, "I've been sailin' with Kincade for a long time now. Two years, actually. I think the capt'n knows what he's doing."

Now here she was with nothing to do but wait for their fate.

Astryd watched as the men bustled around her. Despite her time on the ship, there were still nautical terms that were foreign to her, and she was unsure of what commands Kincade was giving out. All she knew was that if Kincade was taking full command over the ship, it was time to fight.

She hoped they wouldn't have to fight in the end. The most common pirate attack method was to simply intimidate their prey to surrender. This method actually proved to be fairly effective considering the lack of defense on large merchant ships.

But this was an Esterbell ship, and the Crescent was in for a rude awakening.

"Douse the sails!" Kincade shouted over the crew.

Astryd debated whether or not she should even help, considering Kincade was choosing his fate. Then again, Astryd wanted to make sure she made it out of this fight alive.

She followed along with what the men around her were doing. They were taking buckets with rope attached to them and dipping them into the cool ocean water before hauling them back on board. They then handed the bucket down a line until it was hauled to the top of the sail's mast where it was dumped onto the sails. Astryd joined the line and helped pass the buckets back and forth.