Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (4 page)

And he was
so
impressed by
that.

“
That was the most amazing thing
I’ve ever seen!
”  He yelled across to her, still holding out his hat to her. 
“It’s an honor to see your work.  I will wear the scar with pride.”

Assuming he
lived
, anyway. 
The wound felt deep.

The woman paused for a moment, then
reached up to quickly remove her conical helmet and its attached leather flap
which covered the back of her neck, as if it were interfering with something. 
With the helmet gone, the girl’s long dark hair blew in the wind behind her,
like it was dancing.

She was wearing the Lamellar armor
and scaled skirt common to the Adithians, which was made of leather and iron. 
Hers was more ornate than the usual footsoldier’s however, a large emblem of a
silver wolf on her breastplate gleaming in the morning sunlight.

The people of the Union of the
Southern Isles were a stunning people, all in all.  Especially the Adithians.

This
woman had them all beat
though.

Her exotic features and skin tone
were so strangely attractive that she took Uriah’s breath away.  He literally
had to lean against the railing again, just to stay on his feet.

She took his breath away.

True, some of that could have been
the fact that she had just shot him with an arrow and it had probably pierced
his lung, but he remained reasonably sure that his current breathing
difficulties had more to do with the woman herself rather than the severe
injury she’d just inflicted upon him.

She was, without a doubt, the most
beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.  Talented to, since he’d never
seen anyone who could have made that shot.

Uriah respected talent even more
than stunning beauty.  In fact, in his mind, they were one and the same. 
Talent
was
beauty, when you came right down to it.

His people believed in magic and
witchcraft and all the mystical bullshit which seemed to be hidden in their
murky swamps at night.  Personally, Uriah had always thought that whole idea was
ridiculous and merely a symptom of a bored and angry people, looking for
anything to take their minds off of how shitty their lives were.  But in this
particular case, if someone had told him that the woman was some kind of witch,
using a spell on him, he might well have believed them.

The woman’s muscular legs were
braced on the deck, and he began to wonder what it would feel like to run his
hands up them…

He wanted to know everything about
her. 
Touch
every inch of her.  Hear her whisper his name in his ear.  Run
his fingers through her shiny black hair.  Look into her eyes as she smiled at
him and
know
that she was his and his alone.  And that she always would
be.

Uriah’s heart was beating fast just
imagining it-- and also probably because of his blood loss from the arrow
wound-- like all he’d been through, his whole life, had been designed to lead
him
here. 
To this moment.  With her.

He had never wanted anything more
in his entire life than he wanted that woman.

She was gorgeous and accomplished
and had just singlehandedly killed at least two dozen men.

He didn’t even know her name.

But Uriah could happily spend the
rest of his life just looking at her.  She was…
a work of art
.  A
beautiful, deadly, captivating work of art.

He found her absolutely
hypnotizing
. 

The woman continued staring at him
as well, looking vaguely perplexed and uneasy.  A gust of wind blew by,
allowing her dazzling hair to blow in the breeze again.  From the looks of it,
she’d once had it up in a complicated ceremonial style, but now it danced
around her face teasingly, as if inviting him closer and drawing attention to
how
perfect
she was.

He had the strangest feeling come
over him, which he’d never before known.

Like he was meeting his best
friend, for the first time.  It was recognition mixed with relief… but also
some amount of joy.  Like: “Oh,
there
you are!  It’s so great to meet
you finally!  I’ve missed you!”

Uriah didn’t believe in love at
first sight.  Not at all.  The Grizzwoodians were
not
a romantic people,
least of all himself.  He was not capable of love and even if he were, it
wouldn’t be for some random woman he didn’t even know.  But what Uriah did
believe in was the idea that certain people were… special.  That there existed
some extraordinary…
something
about them, which when you were in its
presence, made you take notice.  Made you feel something which no one else
could make you feel.  And you could call that whatever you wanted, from just
being bored with commonplace idiots and being excited to finally meet someone
interesting, to choosing to view it as one of his mother’s sentimental bedtime
stories.  Whatever it was, certain people
gleamed
in the dwindling light
of this dull dying world.

And this woman was one of those
people.

He winked at her flirtatiously, a
smile of absolute joy crossing his face, recognizing how special she was and
how lucky he’d been to stumble across her like this.

She shook her head, as if to clear
it, and brought her recurve composite bow to bear again, which was accented
with the same expensive silver detailing as her armor.  The weapon looked like
it cost more than Uriah’s entire ship.

He swore, preparing to duck to the
side again, this time hopefully to a spot she couldn’t hit.  If such a location
existed.  Despite his honorable intentions to simply be near her-- and his
less
than honorable desire to study how her body moved when she was naked—he
really
didn’t want her to kill him today.

His being dead would make the
courtship so much more problematic.

Luckily for him-- and unluckily for
the girl-- she didn’t get the chance to shoot him again.  Her hand gracefully
reached for an arrow… but she found the quiver strapped to her back was empty.

The girl swore loudly, her voice was
delicate and was marked by the most
adorable
little Adithian accent,
which made the profanity sound both musical and erotic. 
A
lot
of
people tried to kill Uriah, but none of them had been so goddamned
appealing
as this girl was.  It would almost be
worth
dying, just to see her in
action.  Besides, if he lived, she’d be so sad.  It was mean to deny her
victory when she wanted it so badly.

Rowland’s men surged forward
towards her and Uriah felt a momentary twinge of panic.  He couldn’t explain
it, but somewhere along the line, he had started voting for her.  True, if she
won the day, she’d probably kill him, but he couldn’t help but root for her
anyway.

She was the better warrior.  On
equal footing, she would have beaten anyone here.  Uriah included.

For some reason, he found that
unbelievably attractive too.  Perhaps because he came from a warrior culture
himself, or maybe it was simply because the girl was so beautiful that he’d
find pretty much anything she did sexy, even murdering his friends.

Whatever the reason, he didn’t want
to see Rowland’s men cut her down.

Not in the slightest.

Surprisingly, the woman dashed
towards the men, diving onto the deck and came up in a roll, carrying several
arrows she’d grabbed from the wooden surface.  She quickly fired off one,
hitting one of the men, but the others were upon her before she could let loose
another projectile.

One of the men swung his sword,
cutting her bow in half.

Uriah’s heart sank, recognizing
that the fight was now over.

The girl, however, came to no such
conclusion.  She drove her handful of arrows straight into the man’s chest,
then drew a short szable-style dueling saber from her waist and started hacking
away at the other men with it.  From the looks of the blade, it was a goddamned
ceremonial
weapon, but she didn’t seem to care.

It could cut flesh and that was all
that mattered to her.

He shook his head in utter
amazement.  “Wow.”  He breathed to himself, even more smitten with this girl
now.

She just kept going.

Take her ship, take her men, take
her bow… take all of it, she’d continue fighting.

He had such respect for that.

Sadly, that was looking less and
less like the woman’s story was going to have a happy ending.  Her real
artistry was apparently the bow, and although fairly capable with her blade,
there was no question how it was going to turn out when faced with overwhelming
numbers.  Her stance was textbook, graceful and flawless, but it was suited
more for one-on-one fencing against an honorable opponent, rather than a ship
full of degenerate pirates.

Still, she somehow managed to take
down four more of the men before they finally wrestled the weapon away from
her.  She broke the neck of a final pirate with her bare hands before the
others overtook her.

“Hold the bitch down!”  Rowland
commanded, hurrying across the gangplanks back to his own ship.  “Don’t let her
get loose!”

Rowland’s men began to kick the
woman as she struggled to get free.  She smashed the heel of her boot into the
face of one of Rowland’s first mates, driving the man’s nose through his head. 
He fell limply to the deck as the girl continued to struggle.

“Rowland!”  Uriah yelled at the
other captain, stalking after him.  “Tell your men to stop
immediately!” 
He
pointed at the girl.
  “
She’s unarmed!”

“Are you kidding!?!”  Rowland cried,
sounding like that was a genuine question.  He made his way into the captain’s
cabin of his vessel, no longer concerned with the matter.  “If they let that
woman up, there’s no telling how many more of us she’ll kill!”

“With what!?!”  Uriah stormed into the
cabin after him.  “They’ve taken her weapons!  What could she use to harm
them?  Insulting insinuations about their paternity?  Vicious glares?  Strangle
them with her shiny hair?”

“That woman is more dangerous than
you can possibly imagine.”  Rowland began to rifle through papers on his desk. 
“Just take your 5% and
leave
, Uriah.  Let my crew handle their own
business.  You read the letter, you know what has to happen and why.  Frankly,
it doesn’t make sense to me either, but that’s the Adithians for you.”

“The Adithians are monsters,
Rowland.”  Uriah reminded him bluntly.

“The world is
filled
with
monsters, Uriah.”  Rowland opened one of his drawers.  “And who are
we
to judge?  You and I have never been on the right side of anything and you know
it.”

Rowland was right, of course.

Uriah paused in the doorway, his
eyes moving to a bowl of fruit sitting on a nearby table.

Goddamned fruit basket.  It was
always there to ruin Uriah’s life.  It had been the cause of
all
of
this; the reason why Uriah couldn’t get ahead in this world.

The fruit basket was going to kill
everything he loved.  Take everything he had.  Again. 

Uriah wasn’t a hero.  Not by any
means or definition.  Or squeamish.  Any other person in the world, there was a
very good chance he would have followed Rowland’s suggestion, kept walking, and
never looked back.

In fact, it was almost certainly
what would happen.  There was little doubt, even in his own mind.

He wasn’t proud or embarrassed
about that fact, it simply was the way it was.  He was a terrible human being,
from a land filled with terrible human beings.  No better, no worse.

Any other person in the world would
have been on their fucking own in this situation.

But this w
asn’t
any other
person in the world.

Uriah’s people believed that what
you wanted was
yours.
  You wanted it, you took it.
 
And once
something was
yours,
you were duty bound to defend it from harm or anyone
seeking to challenge your possession of it.  If it was
yours,
it
stayed
yours.
  The Grizzwoodians often took that split-second decision to
unhealthy levels, gaining a bit of a reputation in the world for being the most
jealous and possessive people who ever walked or crawled.  They were mindless,
violent barbarians, and not even the gods could help a man who stood between a
Grizzwoodian and what he considered
his.
  It didn’t matter if it was his
chair, his broken cup, or his woman, a true Grizzwoodian would fight for any of
them.  All of them.  Against any odds or opponent.

With every goddamned breath in his
body.

Because it was
HIS.

Not that Uriah really lived his
life according to the teachings of his people.  Truth told, he didn’t care
about his homeland’s beliefs any more than he cared about what other pirates
expected him to do.

All Uriah cared about was the fact
that he wanted the girl.

Period.

He wanted her smiles, he wanted her
body, and he wanted her talent.  It was
all
his already as far as he was
concerned.  He’d seen her, he wanted her, she was his.

So none of that other bullshit made
a damn bit of difference.  It wouldn’t have mattered to him if the people of
the Grizzwood had all been god-fearing pacifists, or if he had sworn some kind
of blood-oath to the other pirates where he vowed to never take their prizes.

Uriah wanted her.

He was going to take her. 

End of story. 

It really didn’t matter how the
pieces were arranged on the board or where this little scene was playing out,
Uriah was going to take her anyway.

He’d take her from his brother, or
his king, or his treasured friend.

He’d take her if they were all standing
in a church, or a graveyard, or at her 50
^th
anniversary to her
beloved husband.