text: We’d been sailing for a little over a day from Stetguttot Heath. A soft westerly breeze made the sailing straightforward. As of such, Alessia had taken to tying a simple rope knot around the wheel and otherwise relaxing, letting the right-angle winds push us south-east towards Talin Barier I was sitting on the two steps leading up the ship’s wheel as Alessia sat on the side of the boat, her outstretched fingers occasionally brushing the water as the boat leaned into the wind. We’d been discussing our former lives, and I had spent the better part of the last five minutes getting lost in the memories of everyone I knew on Kadear. “I miss Thomas sometimes. I wonder what he’s up to, what happened to him after I left and Kadear changed. There’s a weird ambivalence there. Missing my life and people, and yet knowing it was never real?” “Hmm hmm,” Alessia said, her eyes staring a foot or so above my head. “There must be people you miss too, from back where you’re from.” “I’ve been on the sea too long for that.” Alessia’s tone was flat and her face was frozen in place. “There must be some people. Your family at least?” I found myself letting out an awkward laugh, wanting to see her face shift. “Not really.” Nothing changed. Her whole body locked in place like a hare ready to bolt. I paused for a second, squinting. “Something wrong?” Alessia pushed herself off the taffrail and walked past me up the steps. I quickly stood up and joined her. “You see over there, that boat?” she said. On the horizon, I could make out the silhouette of a tall boat poking up against a mottled sky. “Yeah.” “Last three course changes we’ve made, they’ve copied it, exactly.” “Going the same place?” Alessia shook her head, her jaw tensing. “No. They’re following us.” “Following us?” I asked. Alessia turned and looked out to the port side of the boat, walking over to inspect an island in the distance. “Yeah. We’re being followed.” “Why?” She stopped and turned to me. “They’re pirates, Ferdinand. They want the ship, its cargo, and for us to be dead.” I felt my face go cold, the blood draining from my skin. “Pirates? Shit. Can we outrun them?” Alessia pointed at the boat. “Three sails to our two. Bigger boat. Whatever we do they will get closer bit by bit.” She walked over to the helm and ripped off the rope tied to the wheel. “Where are we going?” I asked. “That island.” Alessia pointed out to the portside. Some seven or eight kilometres away there was a large stretch of land, covered in a thick forest. “Outer Fastanet. There’s some rocks on the south side. *We* can probably sneak between them, but they can’t. Won’t escape, but it can buy us a couple of hours.” “Outer Fastanet? Never heard of it.” “It’s uninhabited. Only know it from charts.” Alessia ripped the wheel to the left and the boat turned sharply in the water. I looked out at the trailing vessel. Just as expected, it turned slightly, changing its course towards us. “So we get through the island, and then what?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat. “We find a beach. Stop. And do everything we can to tip this in our favor. Out here, we’re screwed. On land?” She rocked her head from side to side. “I can think of a couple of things.” “Okay,” I said, trying to prepare myself for the potential fight to come. I looked at the course Alessia has set. The main bulk of the island was just to the left. To the right, a series of jagged rocks stuck out of the water. Waves crashed against them, spray shooting up into the sky. Alessia had us set on a path dead between them. “I need you to do something,” Alessia said, her eyes darting between her course and the sail above her. “Anything.” “Grab a bag. Multiple if you can. Get anything valuable. Money, equipment, anything. Grab any tools too. A saw, maybe some nails. If this goes wrong our best hope is to leave with our lives, some money, and something useful.” “The boat?” “If this goes anything but perfectly, we ain’t keeping the boat.” Alessia’s voice was harsh and firm, but I could notice it waver slightly. “Life first, tools second, money third, boat last. You understand?” “Understood.” I turned and headed down the stairs into the hull. I grabbed a couple of bags and started trying to prioritise what to take, what would be most useful if we never saw the boat again. I spent a long time holding my notes in my hands: all my travels so far, my observations, my memories. Materially they were worth nothing, but truth be told, I may have forced them into the bag had I not also been packing for Alessia. Her orders were to abandon sentimentality. The notes, my letters from home, most of my clothes - they would have to be left. I packed one bag with the money we had and what valuable items we had aboard. The other I packed with tools. A saw, nails, a few tins of food and empty water canisters. This would be it. Two bags. Two bags to hopefully save our lives. I took one last look at the small room I had been able to claim as my own. It was the greatest gift I had ever received, and over the past few weeks it had truly become a home. The small trinkets on the shelves, the way I had hung up my clothes at the far end; it was the first time I had left a signature of myself on a place other than Kadear. I looked at the room, said a silent thanks, and closed the door, for what may have been the last time. By the time I emerged on the deck we were piercing our way between the islands and the rocks to our starboard side. The sails were fully open, catching as much wind as they could. Normally, such pace through treacherous water would be considered stupid. Under the circumstances, it was a necessity. Alessia’s face squirmed and grimaced; her arms twitching and shifting with each gust of the wind as she tried to keep the boat on path. A backdraft of water from the cliffs dragged us out to sea, knocking us off course. “Shit,” Alessia muttered, as she pulled the wheel against the current. I looked over the right side, as the boat drifted towards a tower of black granite rising from the water. I held my breath as the boat steadied itself, passing within a metre of the pinnacle. We were close enough that I reached out, giving the tower a futile shove, hoping to give us an extra centimetre or two away from the danger. After another twenty minutes of sailing through the knife-like stones off the coast of Outer Fastanet, we emerged into smoother, less worrying waters. I couldn’t help but feel the tension release from me, even if, in the back of my mind, I knew we were far from danger yet. Although the other ship was nowhere to be seen, it seemed inevitable that we would see them again. The dangers we had already faced were merely to buy time. We followed the coast round, the large cliffs blotting out the sun and cutting out much of the wind as we looked for somewhere to land. Ahead, we could see a point where the sun reached out and touched the ocean - steep cliffs no longer blocking it. We steered slightly towards the shore, hoping it would prove to be an inlet. We got lucky. Quickly the towering hillside crumbled and gave way to a small beach. There was perhaps only six or seven metres of sand before a thick coniferous forest consumed the land, but it was still enough. We turned the boat towards the beach, letting the hull grip against the coarse ground. “The tide’s going out, so we don’t need to worry about an anchor,” Alessia said, letting go of the helm. “So let’s try and figure this out.” She looked at our surroundings, staring at a clearing on top of the cliffs overlooking the boat. “What’s the plan?” “Go into the cargo hold. You remember those explosives I bought on Stetguttot Heath? Go get them.” “Explosives?” “Yep. Time to make use of that purchase.” “Is this wise...?” “Right now? Nothing is.” I opened up the trapdoor to the cargo hold and headed once more into the boat. I found the equipment - a small canvas bag at the back of the ship containing wire, fuses, and four separate packs of explosives. I picked up the sack and headed back up, handing it to Alessia. “Okay. Take this,” she said, handing me two sets of wires and a detonator. “Unspool it. I want you to take one end with you, and get up on top of that cliff up there.” She pointed to the overhanging clearing some twenty metres up in the air. I traced the cliff face, spotting the ledges that I reckoned I could climb up to. “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Position these,” Alessia replied, pulling out one of the explosive packs. I jumped down off the side of the boat, and began laying out the wire along the ground towards the cliffs. “Be sure to bury that,” Alessia called out. “Try and make it less obvious.” I stopped and sighed. I redid the few steps I had already taken, lifting the sand over the wire with my shoe, ensuring it was a few centimeters deep, enough for the weight of the beach to keep it in place. At the cliff face, I once more stared at the climb ahead of me. However, after a few seconds, I had figured out a route and I began shuffling between the ledges, shimmying along any path that looked big enough to balance on. It took me the better part of twenty minutes or so, but eventually I reached a ledge at the top of the cliff. As I walked up to the overhang I looked out to sea. There, to the south, maybe an hour or so away, I could see the boat coming around the rocky outcrops. I sprinted the last few steps and pulled the wires over so that they dangled straight down to a thicket of bushes below. “I can see them,” I called out to Alessia. “We won’t have much longer.” “Okay,” she called back. “I’m about done here.” She walked over and picked up the ends of the wires I had been dragging, connecting them to another series of lines before stretching out the wires to the placed explosives. The first few were buried some four metres or so from the boat, however the last two were on the hull itself. “Won’t that damage the boat?” I called out. “That’s the idea,” she shouted back in a terse tone. “What?” “If the first lot of explosives fail, and they go for the boat, then we take the boat and them down. If we aren’t sailing away on her, then nobody is.” Her voice cut through the air like broken glass, sharp but fragile. She tied up the final wire and placed a hand on the side of the boat, pressing her palm against the grained wood. She held it for a second before she peeled herself away. “I’m going to go hide the bags in the woods and then take the long way up to you. I’ll see you in twenty, okay?” I signalled my understanding, and watched as Alessia walked off into the dense forest, immediately disappearing among the wall of green I set about tying the first of the wires to the detonator as the world returned to calm once more. I could hear the sound of the wind as it rustled past my ears and brushed against the thick branches of the trees. I watched as the waves lapped up on the thin beach. But otherwise, all was still. Half an hour later Alessia appeared from the forest and walked up the rest of the pathway to the top of the cliff. She kept low, being sure to keep herself out of eyeline from the sea. However, as she approached, she crept up to the edge of cliff, taking a peak over the side. “Well, here they come. Better get ready.” We lay down prone on the ledge, the detonator positioned just between us. A moment later we could see the boat pull into the cove, releasing its sail as it plowed into the sand further down the beach. I could see movement on the hull, as figures scurried across the deck, dropping down onto the beach on the far side. They stayed there for a minute or two - the beach, trees and sea poised, watching, waiting for the bloodshed to come. Eventually they appeared from the other side of the boat. Four of them in total. Two carried knives held out in front of them, the sunlight catching the glimmering metal surface. The other two carried thick machetes. The metal was dull, but the blade was wide and thick, enough to cause damage from impact alone. The retreating tide had left Alessia’s boat completely on dry land, and it had listed over to its port side, so that all the attackers could see was the hull. It seemed to make them cautious. Unsure of where the occupants were lurking. They skulked across the beach. Their knees crouched, their arms raised and ready to swing at a moment’s notice. But pace-by-pace they were walking towards the boat. “Come on...” Alessia muttered under her breath. “Another twenty paces, that’s all I need.” She reached out a hand, and placed it on the lever of the detonator. I could see the muscles in her forearm contract, tense, ready to be triggered. I watched the four men travel across the beach, my eyes pinpointed on where I knew the first explosive to be. As they approached the mark their pace crawled even slower. Their steps became small jittery movements, their feet dragging through the sand rather than walking across it. Their focus was consumed by the hull of the boat, waiting for it to make a move. My ears pricked briefly at the sound of rustling from the trees. At first I dismissed it as the air but the wind speed didn’t change. I turned my eyes briefly towards the top of the beach. For a moment, there was nothing. But then there was a scream, a violent roar. Men and women charged from the forest. Their skin was pale, blotchy and red, and all of it was on show. Their hair was long and messy. The men had large uncontrolled beards. Most importantly they carried in their hands, large, pointed stones. They ran at the four men. The pirates barely had time to turn before the naked attackers lunged at them. Knives and machetes were dropped from stunned arms as bodies landed on their backs against the sand. The forest people climbed on top of them, raising their hands to the air. “No, please, no!” one of the pirates screamed, as a rock came down, and snuffed out the plea, with a short thud. The rock raised once more, this time painted red, and came down again, and again. The beach was dyed with the blood of the pirates until all four were completely lifeless. In the space of less than a minute the beach had been transformed into an abattoir. The pirates I feared, now stains to be washed away by the turning tides. I looked at the corpses, the broken faces left on perfectly preserved bodies. Skulls smashed in. Eyes, noses, smiles nothing more than a pool of crimson melting into the sand. The attackers gathered around, poking the bodies, making well and truly sure they had completed their mission. Satisfied that all four victims were dead, they lifted down and picked up the bodies, slinging them over their shoulders. Then, with a relaxed walk, they carried the corpses off into the forest, the knives and machetes left behind. Once more they were cloaked by the trees. The last sign of them was some inaudible chatter among the attackers, and a joke that seemed to send a ripple of laughter through the group that bellowed from the forest.