Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 55 - North Gale

The dead and dying bodies at their feet were more than enough proof of their prowess and determination, but the dead and dying bodies behind them were more than enough proof of the Five Kingdoms’ superior numbers. It felt like they’d been in the shield wall for hours, stabbing, blocking, grunting, swearing, screaming, stabbing, bleeding, stabbing.

Wave after wave of soldiers had fallen upon them at first, and at a heavy cost to themselves they’d succeeded in felling a good number of T’ruck’s crew. After the Five Kingdoms commanders took control and formed a shield wall of their own things started to change. Most pirates weren’t used to fighting with shields, but T’ruck had trained his own crew well. He’d been born a warrior first, and had taken his lessons from battle to the seas.

Now, with dwindling numbers and wounded men to tend to, the crew of North Gale looked on the verge of collapse. The very idea of surrendering to a Five Kingdoms cock-tickler made T’ruck angry beyond rage, and that rage lent him new strength. He was sure the enemy line would collapse if only they could get to the commander. With that plan in mind, T’ruck sucked in a deep breath and screamed out a battle cry to terrify the gods.

“Push!” T’ruck roared as he put both his strength and weight behind his mammoth shield.

Breaking free from his own wall and crashing into the enemy’s, T’ruck slashed one way then the other. He charged through the ill-prepared Five Kingdoms line, hacking and slashing, and men fell around him like wheat to a scythe. He took wounds, but T’ruck was well used to wounds and none were severe enough to stop him, only fuel his battle rage.

The crew of North Gale surged through the gap their captain had opened, splitting the enemy wall and turning it, falling upon it from two sides and cutting down swathes of enemy soldiers.

T’ruck spotted the enemy commander, sabre in hand and shouting orders to his men, and wasted no time in cutting his way through to the man.

Pain blossomed in T’ruck’s side, just below his ribs. A Five Kingdoms soldier, barely more than a boy, had stabbed him with a spear, but T’ruck was a big man with a lot of muscle and fat. The wound was deep, but not deep enough. He snapped the spearhead off with his sword and crushed the young soldier’s face with the boss of his shield. T’ruck turned back to the enemy commander to find the man gone.

Again pain erupted in T’ruck’s side, this time his right. He turned just as the Five Kingdoms commander, a greying fool with an inexcusably waxed moustache, slashed at T’ruck’s belly with his sabre.

The commander drew back his sword for another strike and something large dropped on him from above, flattening him in an instant. T’ruck looked down upon the ship’s boy, Fried, as he rolled away from the commander, his legs obviously broken. The commander looked stunned but otherwise uninjured; T’ruck remedied the situation by crushing the man’s skull with his shield.

Looking up from the dead commander and dying boy, T’ruck could see his charge had worked. The shield walls were gone, replaced with bloody bodies and clusters of soldiers fighting with pirates. His crew were no longer outnumbered; they’d turned the tide and everywhere they were cutting down smaller groups of men who, without a commander to give them orders, seemed devoid of any organisation. The Five Kingdoms ship had no more soldiers to throw at them, and the captain and his crew were already cutting the lines and pushing the two ships apart. T’ruck would let them; he had no wish to linger.

A single soldier, still bloodcrazed from the battle, charged at T’ruck. It was a simple thing to knock away the man’s sword with his shield, and then T’ruck skewered him, staring down into his uncomprehending eyes as the light left them. He would happily cut down every man in the Five Kingdoms for what they’d done to his family, and he would dance in their blood and drink from their skulls. But there was no time for revelling in the deaths today; they had to run away from the bastards.

“Finish them off and get us moving,” T’ruck roared as loudly as he could.

“Captain!” The scream came from above, and it was raw, a guttural sound full of terror.

North Gale shifted. The world shifted. One moment T’ruck was on his feet and the next he was in the air, arse over head and falling, then rolling across the sloping deck of his ship.

T’ruck shook his head, attempting to still the world and figure out what had happened. Screams were drowned out by the sound of wood crunching and cracking, and T’ruck realised North Gale was splitting in half down its midsection, a rent opening up and travelling down the planks of wood as they bent and snapped. There, towering above his ship, blocking out the light and bringing with it the death of his crew, was the monstruous Five Kingdoms vessel, its ram splitting T’ruck’s ship in half.

Dazed and too confused to be angry, T’ruck let go of both his shield and sword and pushed to his feet. He started straight into a run, charging up the sloping, snapping deck of his ship, towards the Five Kingdoms behemoth. He passed enemy soldiers and friendly pirates alike as they all struggled to understand what was happening.

The Five Kingdoms ship was crushing its way through his ship, and the beast wasn’t stopping. T’ruck leapt for the monster even as he heard the mast of North Gale give way and snap. It was a terrible sound, the death of his ship, and it lent extra power and fury to T’ruck as he used all his strength to pull his way up the ram of the enemy ship. Hand by bloody hand he climbed, ignoring the screams of his crew dying below.

T’ruck couldn’t tell if it took an hour or only a moment, but he reached the top of the ram and pulled himself up onto the railing of the Five Kingdoms ship before jumping down onto the fore deck and roaring his defiance at conquering this new monster.

Steel was drawn from scabbards, and T’ruck heard the tightening of bowstrings even over the sounds of his ship and crew dying. He looked up to see just how meaningless his struggle had been. The decks of this new ship seemed to stretch on forever, and they were crowded with hundreds of soldiers, more than he could count, and machines of war.

Soldiers rushed forwards to restrain T’ruck, and he let them, the need to fight squashed by the realisation of how futile it would be. A heavy kick forced him onto his knees, and he felt his arms pulled behind his back and ropes tied around his wrists.

An older man, impeccably dressed, with dark mahogany hair and an air of command, appeared from the press of soldiers. “Captain T’ruck Khan?” His voice was as cold as the northlands where T’ruck had been born.

T’ruck nodded, defeated and mourning the loss of his ship and his crew.

“Do you know who I am?”

T’ruck glared at the man and nodded again.

“Good,” Captain Peter Verit said. “T’ruck Khan, you are under arrest for countless acts of kidnapping, murder, theft, and piracy. You and any surviving members of your crew will be transported back to Land’s End and hanged for your crimes. Do you have anything to say?”

T’ruck grinned up at the man despite the pain from his wounds and the wave of despair that was threatening to choke him. “I like your ship.”