yarrr, ye scurvy boy-king, halt ye whinin'

Inda had been drinking hot cider in the wardroom; he emerged into the waist just as Jeje ran up, Leugre pounding after her, a boarding sword in one hand, a grappling hook in the other.

"Get Kodl," Inda said to Jeje without looking at her.

She vaulted up the ladder to the weather deck.

Leugre stood there, breathing hard, feeling unreal, despite the weapons he kept gripping and regripping in each hand, despite the sharp smell of sweat from his own body, and the faint smell of sweet cider in the air. They were, at last, going to take over the ship. Mutiny! They would be pirates! He had always heard about them, but never thought of pirates being actual people like him.

But in his way was Scalis' strutting Marlovan horse turd.

Inda shut out the sounds of feet on wooden boards, the creakings of the ship, the flacking of sails being taken in, and the thumps and yells of Norsh's people running about wildly waving weapons.

He faced Leugre, his eyes flickering from side to side.

Leugre mistook that glance for fear.

"Want it easy or hard?" he asked, licking his lips. "Easy, you have to beg."

The brat shuffled crabwise to the side, a purposeless movement to Leugre, who was trying to decide how long he would take killing him before he had to go find Kodl; then somehow all he could see was shadow, since the deck lamp was now above and behind the Marlovan, the light distracting his eyes.

"Hard," Inda said.

"Leugre?" came the call from somewhere behind him.

Leugre slashed with the grappling hook at the Marlovan, the sword in his left ready for the kill. The grappler clattered on a barrel, and Leugre stumbled against a bulkhead, then pain splintered his throat from a lethal palm-heel strike. He fell, choking to death on his own blood.

Just then Gillip, Black Boots, and one of his mates arrived, saw Leugre fall, and they rushed Inda, who blocked the ladder to the deck, hands empty -

Up on deck Niz and Scalis arrived from fore and aft at a run. They saw the Marlovan boy in the waist make a smooth circular movement with both hands, too quick to follow, but suddenly he stood there holding two knives, not like swords, but half-hidden against his forearms, and as the sailors rushed him, he flowed into the shadows of the swinging lamp above, whirled around, and within five heartbeats three sailors lay on the deck bleeding their lives out.

Inda leaped over the last one and dashed back to the ladder, looking around in fast assessment -

"Hah!" a hoarse laugh cracked the air.

Inda's head jerked sideways and up. There stood Scalis and Niz, lounging against the binnacle, as if nothing were going on. But nothing was going on now, Inda realized, his mind catching up: the fights had all ended.

"That's five you owe me," Scalis said to Niz, his breath clouding in the bright lamplight. "Knives, like I told ya." And significant nods.

----

"Good work, Elgar," Kodl said.

Inda made a gesture of negation, realized he was still holding his knives, and that his hands shook. His grip was so tight it took a moment to loosen his fingers. Then he noticed the blood splashed down his shirt. He ripped it off, used it to clean the knives, and pitched it overboard, trembling more from reaction than the cold.

Then he shoved the knives back in the sheaths that everyone could now see.

from Inda by Sherwood Smith