Celia was convinced that this is what hell was like. For the next three weeks on the ship, the marine captain and her lover learned a lot about pleasing men with their holes, about sucking and fucking and swallowing cum. Despite all this time spent on those degrading tasks, Celia never learned to suck cocks without inwardly retching with revulsion. She could never get used to the horrible taste and to – even worse – the utter degradation and humiliation she felt while servicing unwashed pirate cocks with her nimble tongue.
Unfortunately, that seemed to arouse the pirates even more which is why during every poker evening she and Eliana were made to kneel under the table with pirates playing cards and suck their cocks. They were given one rule: they have to keep sucking all the time but apart from that they were allowed to decide whose cock they are sucking and how. They could suck one cock each, they could use their hands to tease the cock they were sucking or jerk the other cocks off. They could have one suck the tip of one pirate’s cock while the other licked his balls or have both of them slide their tongues up and down a single shaft.
Of course, this was another of Raudur’s methods aimed to humiliate them further. As much as Celia hated feeling their thick cocks inside her, as much as she hated being facefucked and made to swallow loads of disgusting cum, she could at least say that she was forced to do that. Now, ironically, by giving her more agency, by making her choose whose cock she was going to suck and how, by making her participate in her own degradation, they were humiliating and abusing her far deeper than just using her body would. She knew Eliana felt the same about this ordeal.
Yes, Celia was aware that all of this was just another way to humiliate them. After some time, however, she learned to look at it, like an opportunity. An opportunity and the basis of their plan to finally escape this damn ship.
The pirates played cards for money but with an added bonus of the one who won biggest taking the two women with him to be used by him however he liked. During the last couple of days Celia and Eliana were taken by various pirates and in that they learned more about them than they could when they were just gangraped by the whole group.
They learned which pirate preferred what method of fucking him. Who would have them suck him off, who would prefer to assrape them. Some of them liked hurting the two women, whipping them as a prelude to rape, others enjoyed just rough fucking. Some more enterprising ones focused their attention on only one girl while whoring the other to their comrades. After some time Celia even learned that some raiders had a softer heart than others and if they “did well” they would even be rewarded with some more food.
That gave Celia an idea – to check if by sucking cocks in a way to distract all the guys playing cards except the one they wanted to win, they could influence the outcome of the game. It wasn’t easy as it wasn’t an exact science, but Celia believed she finally learned the way. Of course it didn’t always work as a lot still depended on the cards the pirates got but every now and then the women managed to make sure the pirate chosen by them won. It required sucking others in a way that involved more teasing than granting release, however they could not neglect the one they chose – as if he got frustrated with them not sucking him, he would start playing worse. Usually, as much as Celia hated it, the solution was to suck him hard and well and make him cum so he had a clear head while the other men were thinking with their cocks.
Naturally, it was difficult to communicate this strategy to Eliana. They weren’t permitted to speak to one another without the pirates slapping them silly, and even when their owner for the night slept it was hard for Celia to get through to her lover. Over the last weeks, Eliana had begun to take on a hollow look in her once-bright eyes. She was barely responsive to Celia’s whispers at night… she was losing hope. It made Celia’s heard ache for the redhaired girl that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. The blonde needed to all but push her at the men she wanted Elianna to play with, to suck on in order to spare her as much as she could, make sure they ended up with the kinder, gentler pirates as often as possible.
Now, Celia decided to use this strategy once again – but this time, she wasn’t looking to have the most kind pirate win, but a different one… one who, unfortunately, enjoyed choking them halfway to death with his cock. He was fairly vicious… but he was also predictable, and easily manipulated… and careless.
It worked, to her relief. It the games went on for hours, so she couldn’t effect every hand… she just needed to make sure he won big enough at least once that he was going to end on top in the end. Then it was just a game of spreading herself around enough that no one got suspicious. High on his triumph, the pirate managed to give far more of his winnings back than Celia had hoped, but in the end he was still the winner of the night. He delighted in his victory as he pulled both girls out from under the table by the air, gloating to his fellows as he took them towards his room for the night. For Celia’s part, it was easy not to let her victory show in her expression… what she was going to have to do for the foul sailor robbed her of any pleasure in her successful manipulation.
“I’ll try not to wear them out too badly,” the sailor, Maltas, shouted to his companion as he walked away. “Maybe leave you something left for next time.”
“Care that you don’t wear yourself out too badly,” the sullen voice of a defeated sailor chimed in. “You’ll be on first shift, and Raudur will have your hide if you’re too exhausted from raping those whores.”
As they walked towards the cabin, the ship lurched especially hard to the side, and Celia, her legs tied together with rope, stumbled before Maltas caught her. The pirates all laughed about her fall, but Celia didn’t hear it… her eyes narrowed in consideration. She might be fairly helpless aboard this ship… but she was not foolish, and she was paying attention. She had heard the soldiers talking about the storm on the horizon… and moreover she had heard the tension in their voices. It wasn’t going to be a minor squall, then, but a serious blow. Celia wasn’t a sailor herself, but as a marine she knew ship procedure well. A serious storm would require the entire crew to be working in long shifts to man the deck to the point of exhaustion, and everybody knew it.
Celia knew it would be impossible to escape during the storm itself. Even though everyone would be distracted, unless she planned on swimming to shore she needed one of Banshee’s Wail boats. Stepping onto the deck to lower one, even during the distraction, would be a surefire way to get caught – the ship simply wasn’t that big. Celia would prefer to try to escape after the storm, when the vast majority of the crew would likely be all but catatonic with exhaustion after hours and hours of frantic work during the storm… but that could be days from now, and the fact was that Celia was worried about Eliana’s lethargy and hopelessness. The redhead had suffered far worse than she had… including being summoned by the captain herself many times, and generally being subjected to worse abuse as she didn’t have the dubious protection of being Raudur’s hostage. The fact that the fiery redhead wouldn’t really talk to her was frightening to Celia… and she was unwilling to wait longer. That meant they made the attempt now.
Trying to escape now wasn’t going to be without its advantages… the crew wasn’t going to be so exhausted, but the vast majority of them were going to be asleep… resting up for the coming storm. It meant the deck would be almost empty… and if the ship followed wise procedure like the navy, all the lanterns would be doused in preparation for the storm, as the greatest threat to a ship in a storm was, ironically, fire. It would be night, so they might be able to make it to a dingy without even being seen. It wasn’t as much as she would have liked, but it wasn’t nothing… maybe just enough.
Maltas was walking them towards the cabin that was, by now, very familiar to them. The crew had only one open area for their quarters, but the ship had an extra quarter for an officer that it wasn’t using and Raudur had made it the unofficial quarters for the pair of ship whores… a private quarters where the winner could take his slaves for the evening. He pushed the hobbled girls into the room before turning and closing the door, leering at their naked bodies.
“Alright whores… I’ve been missing you. Now, it’s my turn… and I’m going to fill you with cum before I finish.”
Celia could easily hear the lust in his voice, she saw it in the shaking of his fingers as he frantically, hastily tried to undress as quickly as possible. She settled for just unbuckling his belt and pushing his pants to his ankles, revealing his long if not very thin dick, already hard from the anticipation. Clearly Maltas was overjoyed with the perspective of using and abusing the bodies of the two beautiful captives.
Celia sighed inwardly. With has pants around his ankles, it would take one shove to throw him to the ground. Hopefully, he would hit his head against something and die. Of course that wouldn’t help Celia’s and Eliana’s position in any way if his fall attracted any attention whatsoever, so if they wanted to escape they had to use their bodies to wear this brute down.
At the moment, he was looking at one woman then the other, choosing with whom he wants to start. Maltas was so predictable, that they knew exactly what would be expected from them. Finally the pirate made his choice which he communicated by slapping Eliana viciously. Celia’s hand wrapped into a fist as she forced herself to remain steady instead of rushing towards her lover… or to kill this bastard.
“You, blondie,” Maltas said, turning to Celia before lying down on the bed. “I want you on top of me.”
He didn’t have to say that. They knew the drill with Maltas, they knew what he wanted and expected. Probably it was Raudur or Damara who released the rumor of the two girls being lovers. For some reason the thought of raping lesbians aroused the pirates even more and made them all the more brutal and roughed as they pushed their cocks in the women’s unwilling holes. Over the last couple of days some of the pirates tried to somehow include this fetish in their rapes. Some made them kiss each other as they fucked them, others made them spit cum into each other’s mouth.
Maltas, for his part, found it amusing to let one taste the pussy of the other girl… off his cock. And so he wanted Celia to ride his cock and later he would proceed to facefuck Eliana with all his strength. Celia knew that but if their plan was to succeed, they had to give him what he wanted. Sighing inwardly, the blonde woman crawled towards the bed and climbed on top of it. Maltas untied the rope tying her legs together and immediately Celia spread her legs before him – which was also something he enjoyed.
“Unn…” she gave a slight moan of discomfort as he pushed his rough fingers in her thoroughly raped pussy. Even despite the numerous rapes and forms of degradation she endured, Celia could not stop her face from becoming red with embarrassment. Maltas pumped her idly for a couple of seconds before withdrawing them and pointing at Eliana.
The red-haired beauty crawled to him and took his fingers in her mouth, sucking on Celia’s juices off them. One look at Eliana’s face told Celia that they needed to escape now, as her lover was close to a breaking point… on the verge of simply giving up.
“Start riding me whore!” Maltas said, grabbing Celia’s nipple and twisting hard enough for her to moan in pain.
Obediently, she straddled over him, his cock pointing upwards like a disgusting pole. Slowly, looking Maltas in the eyes she lowered herself on it. “Unnnnn” she moaned in discomfort as she felt each inch of the cock painfully disappearing inside her pussy.
She continued until the entirety of the cock was in her and she was sitting on the man’s lap. While riding cock she could at least control the pace and speed of the rape but after all this time she spent here, her holes had been so thoroughly raped that she was unbelievably sore… each time a cock was pushed up her pussy, it hurt, it hurt badly. Still, Celia mustered her willpower, lifted her body and then lowered it down on the cock.
Up. And down. Up. And down. Moan of pain. Up and down.
Then abruptly she was shoved off of him to land on her back on the bed. She gave a small cry of surprise that she didn’t really feel, having expected him to discard her as soon as he coated his cock in her reluctant cunt juice. “Shut up,” Matlas laughed at her as he grabbed the hair of the kneeling Eliana, pulling her toward him. He held his cock in his fist, smacking her across the face with the hard, wet length. “Now open your fucking mouth, bitch,” he spat, shoving his length against Eliana trembling lips. “Better hurry up before I change my mind and decide your ass would fell better of my dick.”
At his threat, Eliana forced her mouth open with something that resembled eagerness, if only a desperate form of it. herself to stop talking and opened her mouth, graciously taking Carl’s member into her mouth. Celia, her head flat against the bed with bound hands, watched with wide eyes as her red-haired lover fluttered her tongue against his hot flesh and sucked, savoring the tiny pleasure of the taste of her lovers pussy even as she tried to ignore the cock that was wearing it… anything was better than making Maltas hurt her. Celia understood… it was easier to debase yourself this way rather than get raped up the ass or whipped… but overtime the degredation added up. Celia wondered if to Eliana it felt like willingly sucking him off was just another failure of her strength, and she wanted to scream at her lover that it wasn’t, not to give up hope… that they were going to escape and she was just making the best of the horror they were given…
But saying anything could ruin the entire plan. So Celia suffered in silence as her lover suckled on that cruel pirate’s cock.
Eliana bobbed her head forward and back, easily taking his entire length down her throat now… weeks of constant face fucking had all but obliterated her gag reflex. Celia knew her own was long gone as well. She could see the bulge of his cock as it slid down her throat, see the squeeze of her throat muscles around the head of his prick as it sank into her. Her pale cheeks hollowed out as she sucked hard on the head of his cock, her tongue flicking back and forth across the tiny slit at the end as she tried to please him in the hope it would lead to some small mercy for her.
“That’s it, you bitch,” Maltas growled growled at the beautiful captain. “Suck my cock.” He called her a whore, a slut, a cock-hungry bitch willing that any man pushed into her mouth… and as he said those things, Celia could see Eliana nodding along with his words… knowing that on some level, she was starting to believe them. Eliana gagged briefly but hard around the pirate’s cock as he slammed down her throat, fucking her with a thrust of his own for the first time during her desperate blowjob. The redhead winced as he pulled roughly on her hair, holding her still now for his rough thrusts to batter into her, causing thick strings of saliva to spill from her stretched lips and run down her chin.
Even with the added force and violence, however, Eliana never tried to pull away. She continued to work with him, sucking and licking as best she could as he rammed into her… Celia could see the desperation in her wide eyes, the helpless hope that maybe, just maybe, if she pleased him enough he would stop hurting her. His heavy balls slapped wetly against her damp chin with each forward thrust, splattering her pretty face with the disgusting froth of her facefuck.
Maltas pulled out of her mouth completely without warning, leaving Eliana to gasp as he dragged his saliva-coated prick across “You’re an excellent little cocksucker,” he mocked her before he pushed back into her mouth and yanked her head forward down his length. “Keep it up and show your dyke friend how it’s done.”
Celia wanted to scream at her lover to stop, to fight back, to bite the pirate’s cock off and spit it back out in his face… but she bit her lip and forced herself to remain silent. Feeling the throbbing pain of her raped cunt, she could certainly see the appeal of giving in, of doing even such a degrading act to avoid further pain. Eliana was doing the only thing she could to avoid a similar violation.
Celia winced in sympathy as he fucked her face harder and harder, knowing her scalp much ache from where the pirate was gripping her hair, yanking her forward and pushing her back. Then without a word the pirate pushed himself himself fully into the beautiful girl’s mouth and groaned as his balls tightened and his cock twitched. Thick, hot cum shot into her mouth and down her tongue. Eliana released a moan of her own as she tasted his disgusting cum on her tongue. “That’s a good little whore, red. A good little whore.”
Eliana woke from an uneasy sleep with a hand clamped down over her mouth. Her eyes went wide immediately, letting out a muffled scream that was silenced almost immediately by the gagging hand. “Eliana, quiet!” a familiar voice hissed into her ear… Celia’s soft voice. “Quiet, love…”
The hand over her mouth didn’t feel quite so stiffling anymore… all she could feel was the soft sensation of her lover’s skin against hers. She couldn’t think about anything but how soft her fingers were as they played across her bonds, untying her hands from behind her back. Dimly, she was aware of Maltas snoring in the background, but it didn’t seem important as she was pulled to her feet, idly rubbing at her wrists. Maltas had bound them sloppily as ever it seemed, she thought with a snort.
Then Celia opened the door to leave the cabin. Eliana’s eyes went wide in panic. “What are you doing?” she posted softly.
“Shhh!” Celia hissed back as she slipped the door open almost silently, looking out on the dark room. No one moved… the only sound was the soft snores of others. Eyes wide in terror, Eliana nevertheless let herself be lead by a hand on her wrist between sleeping pirates, horrified of the punishment she would receive if she was discovered. No pirate stirred, however, and soon Celia had lead her to one of the staircases deeper down into the hold of the ship.
Finally alone, Eliana gazed into Celia’s blue eyes with her own wide ones. “What are you doing, Lia? You’re going to get us whipped!”
“Forget about that… no one is whipping us. We’re escaping, tonight. What do we need to get to make it back to shore?” Celia held her hand softly, her thumb playing over the smooth skin on the back of her hand as she spoke, trying to comfort Eliana… who wasn’t having any of it.
“What?” Eliana asked, shocked… the possibility hadn’t really occurred to her. Of course she wanted to escape… but it was impossible. They were on a ship in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by murderers and rapists who were going to take out this little rebellion on her ass. “What?” she repeated. “I… I don’t…”
Celia lifted her hands up, putting them on either side of Eliana’s face and stared into her eyes with her kind gaze. “Eliana… lover… listen to me. I’m getting you out of here… I have almost all of it figured out already. There’s going to be a storm tonight, and we are going to disappear before the ship sails on into it, but I need your help… what supplies do we need to make a run of it?”
“We are going to get in so much trouble…” Eliana whined softly.
“Lover… focus… please Ellie. Stay with me here… what do we need?”
“What… do we need…” Eliana tried to think. It was hard… surprisingly hard to break through the fog she had let herself slip into over the last few days to avoid thinking about what was done to her. “We need… food. About… two weeks worth. Water too.”
“Does it have to be fresh?”
The red haired captain shook her head slowly. “No…” once she started thinking, it got easier… having to solve a puzzle gave her brain something to do as she shook herself out of it. “By the time nutrition starts to matter, we’d already be dead from lack of water.”
Celia nodded. “I can get that. What else, Ellie?”
Eliana started talking, slowly at first, but then more confidently. “Clothing, of course… otherwise we’ll freeze in a storm. Something to make a signal if we find another ship… a horn or something. There should be something that will do in the stores. We Navigation… we don’t stictly need a compass, the sun will do, but it would help. And…” Eliana paused as she realized where her thoughts were taking her, eyes closing as she tried to think of a reason she was wrong.
“And…” Celia prompted after a few seconds.
“And we need to see some charts.” Eliana said unhappily. “We need to know vaguely where we are, so we know which direction to sail. There is so much open ocean in the South Seas… if we go the wrong direction, we could sail for weeks without even seeing land. Without knowing roughly where we are and where to go, it’s pointless.”
Celia look unhappy, but nodded. “I’ll go get them. Wait here…”
Eliana shook her head. “No… too much. If there’s a storm coming, people will wake up soon.” It was true, and Celia knew it… Eliana could see it in her eyes. “And I know how to read charts much better than you do… and I’ve seen where Damara keeps them.” Should could all but feel the scar on her face burn. “I’ll get them. You get everything else from the hold.”
Celia frowned, but didn’t disagree. “There’s a dingy on the stern of the ship, on the maindeck… meet me there, fast as you can.”
Eliana nodded. “I will.”
Celia lunged forward and kissed her, hard. It was so similar to what so many rapists had done to her in the last weeks… and yet so amazingly different. Eliana kissed her back, just as enthusiastically. “Love you,” Celia whispered, then she was gone, slipping deeper into the hold and leaving her lover to find the charts they needed.
Now, with a single goal in her mind, she began to move with renewed purpose. She finally had a clear objective and, more importantly, she finally had hope. She was almost afraid of giving in to it, of believing that she may be free from those monsters from the endless rapes… but she was willing to give it a try. Oh, so very willing. After all, Celia was behind it.
With this hope something different came – a terrible feeling of embarrassment. How could she, a captain of the Imperial Navy, let herself fall so low. How could she, even for a moment and to some degree, begin to accept what was being done to her? And worst of all, how could she stop fighting for a second?
Yes, she could tell herself that resistance would bring nothing good – except more beating, more rapes, more lashes. She could tell herself that – until now – there was no way to escape or take over the ship and the only thing they could do was trying to endure their captivity. She could tell herself all of that, but it didn’t matter. Still she was so ashamed that she stopped fighting, that she gave up. No, she shouldn’t have resisted openly… but she should have tried to find a way out.
Like Celia.
Her lover had it almost as bad as she, but didn’t surrender. She hid her feelings, her thoughts, obeyed and all this time… she was planning. Thinking. Plotting. And now, when the favourable circumstances arose, she was ready to act. True, this may have been suicide. They might die during the escape attempt, in the storm or, even worse, they could be captured alive and then punished for their escape… but all that was better than just accepting what was being done to them.
Besides, she could get a chance for payback.
The charts would be in Damara’s cabin and Eliana wanted nothing more than to squeeze her neck and keep squeezing until she dies… or just beat her face into a pulp. The one useful thing that happened during their captivity was her learning the layout of the ship… though of course it was smaller than the ships she served on. Quickly she found Damara’s cabin, took a breath and entered the room.
She was both relieved as well as disappointed to discover that Damara wasn’t there. Yes, Eliana wanted to kill her, but she was aware that any fighting would attract attention and could jeopardize their entire escape. Quickly she looked around the place. The charts were there, together with a leather tube into which she put them. Just as she was ready to leave, she saw something else – a golden amulet with a black pearl, hanging on metal chain.
She remembered it, she remembered it being Damara’s favorite piece of jewelry… but she also remembered as one day, in the middle of their torture session, when Damara was pounding at her ass with a thick strap-on, while twisting her nipples, the pirate captain suddenly pulled out of her ass, screaming, tearing the amulet of her neck and throwing it. Quickly however she lifted it, bringing it to her heart.
Whatever the thing was, whatever love-hate relationship Damara had with it, she surely treasured it greatly… and taking something so dear from the pirate was almost as good as killing her. Almost.
Quickly and quietly she went back to the place where she was supposed to see Celia again. Her lover wasn’t there. Eliana felt a pang of fear but managed to calm herself. Taking the supplies definitely would take more time than simply grabbing the charts… The worst thing she could do right now was to start running throughout the ship, alerting every pirate who wasn’t sleeping and waking up everyone that was. Besides, it would make finding her even harder for Celia when she finally returned.
There was something else that she could do. Something much, much better.
Surrounded by the scores of sleeping, snoring pirates, Eliana smiled and took a dagger from the floor. It wouldn’t be easy, she would need to stop each pirate from making sound as she was cutting their throats, but she could do this, she could kill all of those bastards one by one. She smiled grimly. There was some ironic, almost poetic justice in her gagging them as she cut their throats… after all those times they gagged her with their disgusting, throbbing dicks. She approached the closest one, a rat-like fellow named Rory, who loved to fuck her in the ass, rutting at her wildly…
She raised her hands, ready to put her hands over his mouth and cut. One more second…
“Eliana… what are you doing?” Celia whispered as loud as she could, without attracting attention.
“What those bastards deserve!” Eliana replied.
“No! Not… not like this!” Celia said.
Eliana wanted to argue, but there was nothing more stupid than standing her next to sleeping pirates and arguing. Besides one look at Celia’s determined face, told her there was nothing that she could do to convince her lover to go through with this deed. Besides, the blond was almost hunched under the weight of water and sacks with food that she collected. They were ready to escape. That would have to be enough… but Eliana knew that once they are safe in the Empire, she would do her best to bring the entire might of the Imperial Navy to find Damara.
“Come Ellie… I have everything we need. Lets just… go,” Celia begged her. Sighing to herself, Eliana stepped away from the pirate, following her lover out of the room and back into the hold. The clothing Celia had procured wasn’t anything exciting or flattering… merely plain seafaring clothing that didn’t really fit, and had to be tied down to their lithe bodies in order to fit… but after weeks of being eternally naked and stared at by every perverted pirate on the entire ship, they felt like the nicest clothing Eliana had ever warn.
Captain Eliana thrust the dagger through the makeshift belt she had fashioned for herself and stood up for a moment, her back at parade ground straight. She was still on board Banshee’s Wail, this wasn’t her uniform, and nothing would ever undo what had been done to her… but she was dressed, armed, and back in control of her life… and for the first time since her ship had been sent to the bottom of the harbor Eliana felt like a captain again.
Without a further word of protest over leaving the pirates alive, Eliana hoisted two of the heaviest bags of supplies without complaint. She couldn’t help but notice that Celia had found herself a sword someone… a curved pirate’s cutlass rather than the straight blades she preferred, but the Eliana had no doubts her lover could use it to equally deadly effect. It also didn’t escape her that the blonde hadn’t given her a blade… under the circumstances, she didn’t think she could blame her. So armed, Eliana wasn’t sure she would be able to stop herself from trying to slaughter every pirate she saw.
Together, they crawled up the staircase to the topdeck, pausing to peer around. The ship was manned by only four people that they saw… one on the helm, one on lookout, and two swabbing the decks… not merely to clean them but to provide some traction by removing what oil build up there was. Eliana could see the helm lashing the wheel in place with lengths of heavy rope, to keep the ship on course in the storm and stop it from being blown whichever way the wind wished. The ship was flying only one of its three sails and a jib at the moment… all of the other canvas had bee stowed in preparation for the coming blow. The wind was blowing across the deck toward them, showing that the ship had been steered into the wind to ride out the storm.
It was as good as they were going to get.
Celia lead the way… they were going to be in plain sight for several seconds before the got around the rear castle to the dingy… it was dark, but if one of the swabbers happened to look over, they were done. She had to rely on their sleepiness and the darkness to hide them… and her gamble paid over. Eliana was barely a pair of steps behind her as she made it around the side of the raised deck, slipping out of sight as Eliana laid eyes on the most beautiful thing she had ever seen… the small dingy runner of the ship.
Small, the dingy had a single mast with room for a sail and a jib… perhaps four people could fit on it with supplies. Smaller than the rowboats that she used to get a raiding party to shore to do a landing, this boat was for messenger duty, or getting a few crewmen to shore in a hurry without a large party. It was the only boat on board that might make it to an island… if they could ride out the storm themselves.
The smaller boat was held over the deck by a crane. Working as quietly as the pair of women could, they swung the crane so the ship was out over the water, then Celia began to crank, lowering the dingy one bit at a time. With every sound, Eliana feared that they would be heard… but with the wind pushing against them, it seemed it was carrying the sound away. Their luck was holding. Stepping lightly, wincing with every creak of the crane, Elianna stepped into the dingy as it lowered a few few, beginning to rig the sail up as Celia tossed supplies in the ship.
Then a bell began to ring.
Celia didn’t know what had gone wrong, what had given away the plan and exposed them… perhaps someone had heard the boat and sounded an alarm, or perhaps the lookout in the crows nest above had caught a glimpse of them. Maybe that drunken idiot downstairs had woken to find them gone… she didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter. What mattered now was that the jig was up, and they needed to make it count now or not at all.
“Keep rigging the sail!” Celia called as she abandoned the effort of throwing supplies in the boat… it would have to be enough. Instead, she threw herself entirely to into lowering the boat as quickly as she could… she needed to get it into the sea before…
Raudur rounded the corner, his sword already drawn and a pistol in his other hand. His eyes narrowed in a thrill as he came around and caught sight of her there, bent over over the crane, and pointed the pistol at her. Celia froze. Raudur froze. Just then, the rain began to fall.
“Lia!” Eliana cried in alarm, catching sight of Raudur over the edge.
“Good try,” Raudur said softly, actually nodding his head in appreciation like a proper fencer. The gesture ill suited the rapist, in Celia’s mind… it pissed her off to watch. “But the game is over. Your surrender is forfeit. Hands away from the rail, or I’ll have to shoot you and deal with one less cunt on board for the men… and I promise, they’ll make your lover pay for it.
Celia was almost shaking with frustration. It wasn’t fair… not this close. She had to get Ellie out of here, she just had to… Then the marine noticed that Raudur was shaking almost as badly as she was. Odd… but she could only think of one reason. The longer she thought about it, the more sense it made… and as the rain poured down around her, slicking her hair to the side of her head, she became convinced of it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eliana preparing to climb out of the boat and back onto Banshee’s wail… she wanted to scream at her lover to stop. Instead, she met Raudur’s eyes. “If you do that, you’ll never get to fight me.”
Raudur shrugged… but his hands didn’t stop shaking. “I can live with that,” he said… but Celia didn’t believe him. She remembered his anger when his captain had interrupted their last fight… he wanted to match himself against her blade badly. But was it badly enough?
Celia glanced downward over the rail as quickly as she could. The dingy was about fifteen feet from the surface of the roiling ocean… not perfect, but the best she could do. “No,” Celia said quietly. “You can’t.” And she drew her cutlass in one swift motion and spun, waiting for the gunshot to end her life if she been wrong in calling his bluff… no blast of powder shook the night as her sword sliced through the crane ropes holding the boat up, sending it and Eliana plummeting down to the sea below.
“LIA!” Eliana screamed as she fell, but Celia couldn’t afford to pay attention to it. She turned back to Raudur to find that he still held his pistol… but his hands had stopped shaking. Slowly, he put this pistol away, shifting his long hanger blade into his right hand.
Raudur shook his head sadly as he spread his legs, moving into a fencing posture. “She’s as good as dead in the storm, you know that,” he said.
Celia didn’t believe that, couldn’t believe that, even as she knew it was possible. “Better fate than you and your captain would have given her.” She spread her own stance, flicking her soaked hair as far out of her face as she could and wished it was bound.
“Damara is going to kill you for this, you know,” Raudur warned.
Celia shrugged. “Fair trade,” she whispered… and lunged for Raudur’s throat.
The speed of her attack almost surprised him. Almost. At the last moment she partly pushed the incoming blow away and partly twisted his body, having the blade miss him by mere inches. Quickly he took a couple of quick steps backwards, trying to mount some form of defense. Celia didn’t give him a chance. She rained a torrent of blows on him, attacking from direction, trying to find some weak spot in his defense.
There wasn’t any. His parries were barely on time, each time their weapons clashed it seemed that if Raudur would be a heartbeat too slow, he would die… but he didn’t make any mistakes. Slowly but surely his frantic defense became more confident and then turned into offense. At first he launched a few probing lunges but then he began to push forward, regaining the ground he lost.
With dismay, Celia noticed how much her combat capabilities suffered during their imprisonment. Since they were captured, the only thing Celia was training was various ways of giving pleasure with her body. And of all people, Raudur was the one opponent she didn’t to face with her skills diminished in any way. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like she had a choice. Still, as a warrior in her heart and soul as well as in body, she was prepared that not always things would go her way. How often would one fight in perfectly controlled conditions?
Focusing on every move, with each parry, dodge or blow timed perfectly she stood her ground. Battle was so much more than raw skill. Raudur was so used to being the best – with his confidence not being unjustified – that he would underestimate her, especially, as he knew as well as Celia how her fighting prowess has been affected by her imprisonment and the hardships she endured during her captivity. Everything they did to her body, the ways they hurt her… she endured everything with commendable resilience but it must have taken a toll on her body. There must have been aching in her limbs, weakness that wasn’t there before.
Still, she was the best opponent he had in quite a long time, but it wasn’t the same inspired enemy he fought on Constantos. With that disappointment came anger – at his comrades for abusing her in such a way and on himself for allowing and taking part in it. If they, if he hadn’t she would be a better sport now. In that moment, in a move that seemed like a barely contained misstep Celia closed the distance, pushed his blade aside and kicked him with her knees. It almost connected with his groin and if it had it would be the end of the clash. Instead, feeling sudden pain in his thigh, Raudur took a wobbly step back and barely parried another blow… but not entirely quickly enough as a red line on his shoulder proved.
And, to Celia’s surprise, at that moment he smiled before he jumped with a frenzied counter attack, with wide, powerful blows pushing the woman back, almost to the railing.
And so the battle went, in this void in which time ceased to exist. Each deception was answered with a deception, each blow with a blow, each feint with a feint, each advantage proved to be fleeting. Every now and then Raudur could see Celia glancing towards Eliana’s boat… though after the first time he tried to used it and she replied with a riposte, he realized that each such glance could be as well a feint as a genuine look. Neither was really aware of the fact that they were now surrounded by the entire crew, observing the duel.
And then, after glancing once again in Eliana’s direction and seeing her lover had disappeared into the fog, Celia made the one move to which Raudur had no counter. After dodging one of his blow, she dropped the cutlass and lifted her hands, open palms towards her opponent. “I surrender,” she said.
Raudur blinked for a second and then fury twisted his face. “Noooo!” he yelled. “Not again! Face me!”
Celia stood motionless. With a terrifying scream he slashed at her neck. She had to use all of her willpower to stop her reflexes from taking over and dodging the blow or reaching for the weapon. She just stood her… and Raudur stopped the weapon centimeters from her. “Dark Dwellers take you! Fight! Fight!” he roared.
“Raudur, please stop behaving like a brat,” Damara said, though she watched with curiosity the strange sight of Raudur losing his legendary control.
Ignoring his captain and focused only on Celia, Raudur approached her, grabbed her by the neck and pulled towards him. “I thought you were one of your word,” he said, suddenly not seeming especially angry… rather mildly annoyed. “You were not supposed to try to escape.”
“And so I haven’t. I am still here, am I not?” she said, with a thin smile. “Really, you should take greater care about the specifics of the arrangements you make. If you wanted me not to help anyone else leave the ship, you should have asked.” Celia said, keeping the mockery out of her voice as she echoed Raudur’s own betrayal back at him. She might not have escaped… but Eliana was off the ship. That was the victory she had wanted… she would take it.
At that Raudur chuckled a bit and released his grip. “If I haven’t stopped you, you would have escaped, your word be damned.”
“Would I?” Celia asked innocently. “Guess we’ll never know.”
“Well played,” he said. “But you are aware you are for the mother of all rapes? I’ll take great pleasure in showing you…”
“No, you won’t,” Damara said flatly, cutting off Raudur as she stepping in and faced Celia. The two women stood in front of each other for a long while, in complete silence. The pirate captain was the first one to speak. “You think you saved her? She’ll die in that storm,” she hissed towards Celia. When the blonde didn’t respond she turned to Raudur. “I hold you responsible for this, Raudur… you are just as much to blame for the other whore’s escape as she is. I’ll think of the way to punish your useless ass later. Take the whore to my cabin!” she ordered the other pirates. “And stop lazing about and get my ship ready for the storm or I’ll feed your hides to a leviathan!”
As Celia was grabbed by both of her arms and dragged away, the last thing she saw what the black look in Raudur’s dark eyes… not looking at her but at the captain.
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