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Ke
“Be damned,” Ke
“Quite likely, sir,” Sorcor had replied un-perturbed. He had probably already been sniffing the air for the spoor of a slaveship.
Or maybe it was just the man's infernal luck that they had raised this one so quickly. It was a typical Chalcedean slaver, deep hulled and wide waisted, all the better to pack her full of flesh. Never had Ke
“Will you lead the crew to the prize, sir?” Sorcor asked him even as the lookouts on the slaver sounded the first alarms.
“Oh, I think I shall leave that honor to you,” Ke
He felt almost detached as they closed the distance on the slaver. In a desperate bid to outpace them, the slaver was putting on sail, the rigging swarming with men scuttling like disturbed ants. Sorcor cursed his delight with this and ordered the ballista fired. Ke
Ke
Ke
The crew of the slaver had such weapons as they carried to keep their cargo in order and little more than that. They did not, Ke
He had earlier tried to persuade Sorcor that the crew and vessel might have some ransom value, even if divested of their cargo. Sorcor had been adamantly opposed. “We kill the crew, free the cargo and sell the ship. But not back to other slavers,” he had loftily stipulated.
Ke
He quickly wearied of watching the final slaughter. The slaver's crew was no match for his. There was no organization to their ship's defense, merely a band of men trying not to die. They failed at that. The mass of men that had met the pirate's boarding party rapidly diminished to knots of defenders surrounded by implacable foe. The ending was predictable; there was no suspense at all to this conquest. Ke
He wondered if they had not escorted this ship for some time; perhaps they even regarded it companionably, as a sort of provider of easy feeding. They had withdrawn when the Marietta initially attacked, seemingly spooked by the flurry of activity. But when the sounds of battle and the shrieks of the dying began, they came swiftly back. They circled the locked ships like dogs begging at a table, vying with one another for the choicest positions. Never before had Ke