The...things in the rigging might have been men, once. But the sea had wrought strange changes upon them, there were gills, and fins, and pale bulbous eyes, and mouths full of double-ranked teeth, sharp and cruel as the cutlasses they bore. They had known little of pity and mercy in life, and in death, they were now beyond even that. Even their ship was a stinking, rotten hulk, patched planking and sodden rope. But the worst, the very worst, were the patchwork sails, every gust of wind bringing the stench of rotten meat, a charnel stench. They roamed the seas, searching for prey. For the ship's crew always needed feeding. And those damnable sails always needed patching.

The 'Lightning Bug' was a small ship, running on pretty much a skeleton crew. (Literally. The Captain had got them cheap, and his Boatswain spent much of her time wiring them back together.) It was a brave little vessel, and had given its all, but the larger ship was faster, driven by evil powers, and now they were in desperate straits.

The helmsman is slumped over the wheel, only held upright by the great spear through his body. He is defended even now by a tall dark-skinned woman, her face set as stone, but her eyes burning with grief. When the last shot from her crossbow is gone, she smashes it into the face of the enemy, and reaches for her cutlass.

There's a girl dancing in the middle of the fight. Her face is serene, but her hands and feet deal death. A Seeress, rescued from durance vile by her brother, a Healer turned thief, and both of them fallen amongst rogues who turned out to have more honour and loyalty than their own blood. And blood there is, for her brother lies, wounded near to death, and yet striving to reach her, to fight for her, still.

She looks like a farm girl, the little Boatswain. Run away to sea, and her pretence at being a cabin boy had lasted but a week. Her fingers, so deft with rigging, fumble the bolts, she weeps with terror, but she does not stop loading and firing.

The Captain fights for his ship, and his crew. Malachi Rook has a strange code of honour. A lesser man would have sold the passengers out for coin to those that hunt them, thrown them overboard long since, for the trouble that follows them. Now, if it comes to it, he'll cut their throats himself before he lets them fall into the clutches of these foul creatures, though it costs him his own soul.

The last of the crew is a huge man, a vast scarred brute who bellows and smites around him. When his cutlass breaks, he uses his great mailed fists. Grapples hand to hand with a towering thing of claws and tentacles. Headbutts it with a chitinous crack, and sprawls to the deck as it screeches and recoils.

They fight on valiantly, but they are losing. Even now, the ship lists, timbers creaking, as something slaps heavy tentacles over the side, begins to heave its vast, slimy bulk from the waters. A baleful eye rises up... meets a broken spar coming the other way. The convulsive shriek of fury throws the big warrior across the deck.

Crom dashes the blood from his face, and growls. There's one last desperate measure. He tears the amulet from his throat, eyes the stone balefully.

"Sure in hell hope you're listenin' out, little brother." Crushes it to powder.

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There is a dark and fearful name, whispered in the deep and shadowed places of the world, in forbidden tongues, and speech never meant for the minds or mouths of men. The Unmaker, Destroyer, who commands the furies of suns and the chill of the void, who can reorder reality with a word.

"Whatcha doing, sweetie?" Penelope peers over his shoulder.

There's a large glass jar lying on the table. It's half-full of earth, and on it, she can see a group of tiny figures. They've got minuscule buildings, pin-pricks of fire...

"Oh, how sweet. They've even got a little farm..."

"Yes, once they work out how to hitch the ants to the plough, they should get on very well."

Penelope pokes the glass, watches the figures scurry about.

"You could do one with little ships." Pokes the glass again, to watch them panic. "I think I might take the Horde out for some pillaging. Do you want anything?"

"Hmm...well, if you come across any scrolls of Elder Magic...but don't touch anything that looks like it might be cursed..."

"No, dear." Penelope sighs fondly at him. Like she hadn't taken care of herself for years before she met him.

The noise takes them both by surprise. One of the gem stones in the little bowl on the desk has started to strobe, flashing crimson and a brassy blare of trumpets.

Sheldor goes tense, a sudden coiled spring of imminent violence.

"It's a distress signal." He says, sharply, and steps to the great viewing crystal.

00000000

They come through the portal dragon first, which is always a good way to enter a fight. Nothing says 'shock and awe' quite like several tons of flying, fire-breathing reptile.

Penelope somersaults off Tranquillity's back, lands in the middle of a knot of creepy fishguys.

"Hi." She says, brightly. "You must be the seafood special."

Violence ensues.

She drops her axe when something whips a slimy tentacle around her wrist. This just means she has to kick another one in the gills as she gets the knife out of her boot. She's vaguely aware of a pale figure in draperies whirling past and scooping the axe up, but there's stabbing to be done.

Penelope finishes choking her attacker with his own tongue, which, eew, and looks around for Sheldor. He's fighting back to back with something huge and horrible, but apparently human. The great tentacled thing is screeching and struggling, but Sheldor has taken out the other eye with a fireball, and Tranquillity is sitting on its tentacles as she darts her head down to snap at passing fishguys. With a roar, the large pirate puts his shoulder behind the broken spar and pushes. There is a sound like a rotten melon bursting and the thing screeches, shudders and goes limp.

Sheldor shouts, gestures, and a massive fireball strikes the hellship. It is too damp to burn, but it seems to collapse in on itself, a creaking and groaning of tortured beams, a snapping and shuddering, until it sinks beneath the waves.

The air feels suddenly cleaner, and there is a stillness. Broken by a happy shout.

"Shel!"

"Don't you dare hug me when you're all over kraken slime." Sheldor tries to hold him off. "Crom..."

Penelope kneels down beside the man in the great coat.

"Hi," she says, "I'm Queen Penelope."

"Captain Malachi Rook." The man gives a sudden charming smile, even through the pain. "This here's my ship. You obviously know Crom."

"He's Sheldor's big brother." She looks him over. "You have a Healer on this ship?"

"He's the one trying to hold his own tripes in." Captain Rook tries to drag himself up, but he can't feel one of his legs. "We're a clear day's sailing from land, and prob'ly further from anyplace won't hang us on sight."

"Oh, that's easy to deal with. Everybody hold onto something." Sheldor flings his arms wide, and begins to chant.

"Crap, this ain't gonna be fun." Crom wraps his arm securely through the rigging, reaches out and snags up the girls in one protesting armful. Everyone else gets a clue and scrambles to do likewise. Tranquillity hunches down, and digs her claws into the deck.

It is storm and fury and raw power, a warping of the world. The entire ship is limned in blue-green fire...and then there is only an empty patch of ocean, surrounded by floating corpses and smouldering wreckage.

They beach fairly abruptly, on a barren stretch of coast. Tranquillity flops her head over the side, and promptly sicks up. The fishmen don't smell any better second time around.

"Where the hell are we?" Captain Rook squints at the sky.

"The Isle of Doom, somewhere between Dagon's Cove and the Swamps of Despair."

"Isn't this the place that has the giant albino alligators?"

"They taste like chicken." Both brothers chorus.

Their arrival has not gone unnoticed. There's a man stumping down the beach, leaning heavily on a staff. He has the look of someone who has crawled into a bottle, tried to crawl out again, and got stuck in the neck. Unshaven and crumpled by life, face seamed with pain, but the eyes are sharp ice-blue. For some unaccountable reason, he has a handful of small ducks following at his heels.

Sheldor simply jumps over the side of the ship, a swirl of cloak, to land lightly on the shingle.

"Gregor the Lame, I presume?"

"Yeah. What gave it away, genius?"

"We've need of your services."

The blue eyes flick over the battered little group, catalogue each gash and scrape, the woman bent over the still and shrouded form.

"Bring 'em all along. Except the big lizard. That won't fit through the door." He uses the staff to clear the way. "And try not to tread on these damn ducklings."

00000000

Gregor has a little hut half-hidden in the thicket of roots and reeds, which proves to be surprisingly spacious and tidy inside. Penelope is playing with the ducklings. There's a glossy black one, a bossy brown one, and a fluffy yellow one that keeps falling over its own feet.

Crom limps over and settles onto the bench beside them. Sheldor's brother is the same height, but about twice the width. He has a lot of scars. Penelope knows this, because he's dressed in only a pair of trousers that look like troll-skin, and fur-topped boots.

"Guess I owe you some thanks for saving our skins, there."

"Momma would tan my hide if I let you get yourself killed." Sheldor sniffs. "Running about with pirates."

"Well, I didn't enjoy teachin'." Crom scuffs his feet.

A puppy-eyed hairy thing shambles up to Sheldor with a chess-board, and groans hopefully at him. Gregor spares a glance over from where he's prodding at the Helmsman's body.

"Let the Woobie win."

"Will he rip my arm off if I don't?"

"No, he'll just burst into tears and want a hug..."

The blond man sits bolt upright with a wheeze of breath. He's promptly embraced by the dark-skinned woman. The Captain blinks.

"I thought he was dead. He had a harpoon right through him."

"He got better." Gregor finishes wiping his hands on a towel. "Yes, I'm just that good. Moving on."

00000000

Everyone's bandaged and breathing and full of an excellent crab dinner. Tranquillity makes an excellent windbreak, and everyone rests against her warm flanks, feet towards the fire. Gregor has produced a lute from somewhere, and strums it softly. The Seeress Diomedea sits down next to him, and they stare at each other like a pair of cats.

"I can't do anything about crazy." he says, finally. Then leers with added eyebrows. "Except speculate lewdly about temple dancers."

"You wouldn't like my dancing. Everybody falls down." She tilts her head. "You brought him back. For the sake of true love."

"I just don't like losing."

"Liar." She grins amiably at him, and he smirks back.

Crom fumbles for a bottle, tips it up hopefully, scowls.

"Why has all the rum gone?"

Rook squints at him.

"I think the dragon drank it."

Tranquillity stares cross-eyed down her own snout, then belches. The resulting jet of flame has a strong smell of burnt sugar, and leaves a glassy smear down the beach.

00000000

The farewells in the morning are, of necessity, quiet and subdued. There's nothing quite so pitiful as a hungover dragon. Crom insists on hugging his little brother goodbye, just to make him flail.

Captain Rook, back at the helm of his vessel, sighs contentedly and gazes out at the distant horizon.

"All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by..."

"Compass works better." Crom holds up his hands in the face of the glare. "I'm just sayin', is all."

"You got no poetry in your soul."