The Smell of Roses In The Night Air.

Five years to sea I had been born, four years six months I have been the captain of a buccaneer ship named The Daunting Night. Most would ask the difference between a buccaneer and a pirate, well I will let you know. A buccaneer hunts pirates and enemy nation’s warships. And yes we attack them and take their cargo and often times the ships themselves but we do so under law and with grace from a Monarch, my current one happens to be the Lady Sinsa.

Of those five years on the sea I have hunted a particular pirate in hopes that one day I would get him in a bad spot and rip him to shreds. His name is Captain Clank, I call him clunk because it makes me smile, the undisputed master of a warship named The Bloody Rose. He has burned a path from the cliffs of Mullateck, to the ports of Algarond, all the way to the islands off of Sermbia’s shore near the ruff run shoals.

So it was early in the watch one morning that I thought my luck had been born of Lady Luck. There strait ahead was the Bloody Rose and we where closing at a fine morning clip. The sun rested to our backs, luck of finding her on the dragon coast, and a tingle in my chin told me she would sink today. I gave sign that no sound was to be raised and we began our approach.

There she sat floating on the sea, lording over a merchantmen ship like a great sea beast preparing to have a meal. The great beast’s  hull and gun ports rising out of the water running high toward the clouds at the tip of her mast. You know and I knew she out gunned me and I knew she had more crew than the Daunting Night. Be damn she wasn’t as fast as we, nor as daring! Tonight she would sleep at the bottom of the sea.

“Raise mass, catch the wind and load the starboard guns. We’re going to rake her and see what she is blood well made of underneath!” I bellowed out to the crew as I looked upon the Bloody Rose. The Bloody Rose was the one ship in the sea that scared the living hell out of me, two times we had met and both times I had limped away, yet without a victory or a loss. This would be our third match up and the first one when I got the jump on the bloody beast.

The Rose was a well built warship, made for good speed and a hell of a punch. She stood tall with three masts and her body of brown stained wood and polished brass fittings glimmered in the morning air. Doting along the side of the great beast of a ship rested eight bombard ports, five of which where high set and three of which where resting at the water line. On deck rested four ballista both forward and aft and gracing her sides where catapults, two on each side of long range rock throwers. Resting aft of the ship was a flag, a Red Rose dripping blood in the top left corner, a red skull with a dagger hilt sticking out the top in the lower left corner all on a field of black.

The Rose, like my own Daunting Night, was a wind powered ship and resting upon the center mast where two large sails and a single sail on each of the two lesser masts. Those sails are where the bulk of her speed comes from but I know there is a sea mage on board that ship. He doesn’t dare show himself when I am near after the last battle between the Rose and The Night.

Men scurried about the deck bringing the Daunting Night to bear on the blissfully ignorant Rose floating in the water like a half beached whale. Captain Clunk, the master of the Rose, had been there the day I had salvaged the Daunting Night. As well as the night before, when he sunk the ship which had bore me to that accursed island where the Sea Queen ruled, he was also their when I came within a hairs breath of taking his ship to the bottom of the sea escorted by her own powered magazine.

Saying the Captain of the Rose didn’t like me was like saying that Umberlee had a temper issue that warranted a little time alone. The only thing he wanted more then killing me was to keep the Rose in tacked and sailing the seas for plunder. I wanted to deny him both pleasures and get him out of my hair, there is only so much ocean and we could never get far enough apart. Twice we had tangled since that fateful night when I took to the sea. Twice the Daunting Night had proven herself the faster and more agile ship.

We started our run as the sun began to set on the horizon. The sun and the wind where on our stern, the Bloody Rose wouldn’t know what hit her, at least that is how it should have happened. But Captain Clank has a nose for these things, unnatural I tell you, I think he has had his way with a sea demon or three and with that dark presence in his soul and on the lips of black winged angels.

That lout had dark whispers in his ears as we tore through the sea under the cover of the setting sun, the shown squarely upon our backs. The Rose’s sharpest eyes blinded by the brilliant sun which shown around over and pass us, giving us complete cover in the blinding light.

We pulled within range of the bombards, I bellowed out the second order of the evening “Hard to Starboard and Open the starboard bombard bays” the third order went to the gunner below “fire by twos, from one to eight. Aim for the wave line to crack her keel!” I didn’t want to capture the Rose. I wanted to give her wrapped up in a bow knot to the Sea Queen. My gift of a ship to Sea Queen, for her gift of a ship to me, perhaps that will make her and I even.

Ripping Delilah from her sheath her razor thin blade singing through the air, I prepared for the chance the Bloody Rose would be nimble enough to mix up deck to deck.

The run went perfect until the Rose and Captain Clunk with the help form the dark whispers, pulled a new rabbit from his hat. The Bloody Rose seemed to jump from the shock of the guns roaring to life. Landing just outside of the danger zone and right in the correct line for a sweep shot from five men attached to double mount swivel guns.

Swivel guns mounted along the aft of the Rose barked loud, a fire blossom later, and the harpoons and chains struck true to the hull of the Night. Held fast to the starboard hull the harpoon gave a great yank on the body of the Daunting Night. They had us; this was not according to plan! Time for plan B good thing I had thought of a plan B for just such a situation.

“Boarding teams one through three, cross to engage! Boarding teams four and five get those damnedable chains cut free of my ship!” the orders echoed out as I crossed onto the Rose for the third time since I had met her. The Night’s boarding parties where not there to take the ship but to keep them off of the Daunting Night long enough to cut us free and then to get the hell off this boat and out of here before she riddled us with holes.

The battle was swift and chaotic, as merchantman fought pirate and pirate fought buccaneer and buccaneer tried to keep from killing merchantman. Commands were barked out from every corner of the Rose, hoping and seeking to set some type of order to the chaotic moment. I personally hoped the chaos kept up long enough to get my ship free and on its way. Then the Captain appears out of no where, his steel clad leg thumping against the open deck.

“Well well well Governor, Been dancing lately?” I said a twinkle of mischief dancing in my eye.

He was a tall man, especially for a human, with dark black stringy hair. I personally think he has a touch of ogre in his blood lines but that could just been the ugly that is born about his face. A large brim hat shadowed his left eye and cheek, as the heavy sea cloak covered the crippled leg that told a fool he was slow, course fools died to him often and in great pain. Of Clunks legs one of which was normal and the other looked like there was an upset one legged golem somewhere in the world.
         
Clunk pulled a curved blade from his right and a whip from his left, a wicked smile upon his scared face the captain spoke “Well if it isn’t The Dread Pirate Tibalt!” A touch of sarcasm and laughter hidden behind each word.

“I’m a buccaneer! Not a pirate!” snapping more out of emotion then out of wit. “Damn that pirate got to me”

The scene on the deck of the rose was chaotic to say the least, thirty or more of the Rose’s pirates fought against five boarding teams. Three from the night and two from the random merchantman that now showed signs of listing. Each team seemed to have six to eight members and to someone who was uneducated in the world of the Bloody Rose would think that we had her right where we wanted her.

This was anything but the truth. The merchant teams seem to have been bolstered by our arrival and entrance into the fray. They where fools for thinking so, what your observer would miss is the fact that as soon as the Night was free we where out of here with only a few bombards to announce our leaving.

In short order boarding teams one and three had secured the crossing planks. While boarding team two, lead by myself, was dancing with the limeys on the deck of Rose.

This is when I took a moment to steal a glance over my shoulder to seek the progress of the last two teams in their endeavor. They were true sailors each as men and ape worked hand and hand to remove the harpoons from the hull of the ship in short order.

To my surprise and I must admit my joy as the last of the swivel gun harpoons where dislodged and the sound for retreat was echoing across the decks of all three ships. I waved my hand high in the air signaling out the retreat and began fighting my way to the gang planks that crossed off this damnable ship and onto the deck of the Daunting Night.

With the removal of the harpoons that anchored us to the Bloody Rose we shifted the ship to give high tail and bellow out a couple of rear guns as we ran. Just as we went to catch sail and our rear bombards sent two fire blossoms headed for the Rose.  We weren’t the only ones with the idea of giving in one last punch to this fight.

A strange sound like a hundred forks scraping along plates pierced the morning air. Suddenly to my right and left, I see men falling and canvass ripping all about the ship, as grape shot and chains tear our rigging from stern to bow in a matter of moments. The ship slows as the wind begins to rush through the newly ripped rigging.

“Bloody Salt and Sea Bitch!” I exclaimed as I spun to see two bombards slap into broadside of the Blood Rose.

From top side my ever clever and ever witty deck ape that was also my third and command screamed out “Just going to hit them he said. Just going to hit them and run then watch them sink he said. And now look my ship looks like it lost to a mountain size swarm of moths on an eating frenzy”

My response was clean and clear. “You good for nothing flea bag, swing your banana brain down here get these mean to the infirmary then start patching my canvass!”

I wouldn’t be waltzing away with a clear cut victory today, heck I wouldn’t waltz anywhere now my rigging whistled in the breeze. Nor would I worry about the Bloody Rose running me down in this state either. Again we tied.

I walked over to the master of orders and told him “Signal for port, we go home with our current winnings”