The hatch shuddered with impact from above. A shower of splinters fell from the underside as the wood split and warped. Aaralon could hear the raised voices and hoots of the sailors above, forcing entry into the hold. With the twisting and moaning of the timbers giving way, a spike pierced the hatch.
"And, HEAVE!"
The hatch buckled and was pulled outward, giving way at the hinges. The light of torches flickered down through the open hole, and then vanished as the first of the pirates, a scarred and limber filthy-looking man worked his way through. His tunic was stained with blood.
The man's cruel smile curled up into a gape-toothed grin as he spotted the students hiding in the darkness. He advanced on the four waiting students, truncheon in hand. Behind him, several more pirates slid effortlessly through the broken hole into the hold of the ship.
Stanton was the first to make his move. With a two-handed grip on a short wooden plank he swung the heavy board around in a circle, building momentum, and then released it at the approaching man.
The scarred pirate ducked as the plank sailed over his head and punctured a water barrel behind him with a crash. Without waiting for the larger man to recover his balance, Stanton yelled out and charged the pirate brandishing a heavy caulking hammer plundered from the piles of supplies.
With an upward lunge, the pirate caught Stanton in the midsection using a fist blow that made his opponent double over in pain. The scarred man followed up with a twist at the boy's right arm that sent the hammer to the floor with a clatter, then brought the truncheon down on the boy's forearm in an arc with the full weight of the pirate's burly body behind it. Stanton's limb gave way, cracking sharply with the unmistakable sound of tearing ligament and breaking bone. The farm boy crumpled to the floor, his shattered arm coming to rest at an unnatural angle from the rest of his body.
Olive hid behind Nora, clutching the back of the older girl's robe. Tears streamed from her wide, terrified eyes.
A calm and reasoning corner of Aaralon's mind knew that the situation was hopeless and that further resistance would be fruitless. That part of his rationality, however, was drowned by the student's rage and frustration at the situation. The safety of his companions, Stanton, Olive, and Nora didn't particularly bothered him. What fueled his anger was the thought that he, Aaralon, the prodigy of the magic academy and summoner of powerful demons, was about to meet his end helplessly at the hands of these pirates, mere worthless ruffians with less brains than they had muscle.
With rage and desperation burning in his veins like fever, Aaralon extended his hands at the approaching men focusing the very last of his reserves of energy and will into a single release of power.
The darkness of the hold was obliterated as the damp, salty air itself ignited into brilliant flame that consumed the approaching pirates whole and set entire barrels, rope, timbers and even the hull ablaze in the flash inferno.
His energy spent, Aaralon could hold the darkness at bay no longer. He passed out on the floor next to the charred and burning skeletal corpses of his victims even as the growing flames licked at the edges of his robe and the hold filled with acrid smoke. |