Bonds of Blood
Day Three, Year Unknown
"Ware the ship! Foes! Treason! Death!" you call out and your voice mingles with the ringing of cold steel as you charge into the back of the sailors assaulting Antonio's door, and for one brief moment they quail and you wonder if perhaps they might quit their murderous scheme and throw themselves upon the mercy of the man they had betrayed.
Alas your feet betray you, unsteady on the unfamiliar tilting of the deck your first blow swings so wide that you almost fall, and the mad foes rally to the call of their leader. "You die Norman! I'm gonna piss in your skull!" he roars as he slashes at you with his boarding axe swift and hard. This one had seen battle you know for certain... but not against a knight in armor. The blade slides harmlessly across your shield as you bat it aside.
As the other sailors begin to turn you hear another bolt flying somewhere... though you are unconcerned. They had chosen their fate and now they would meet it. Again you swing in a wide arc, hoping to cut into the ring leader's neck or shoulder, unguarded save for a thin tunic, but he is quick on his feet and wary of the blade, ducking aside as his fellows start to encircle you.
He is not quite fast enough as the sea cat bounds forward and latches on to his leg with both claws and pulls, stripping flesh from bone in a dreadful rending sound that is lost in the furious yowl of the beast.
It is young still for whatever it is, you realize with sudden misplaced insight.
"See how the devil beast guards him?! Kill him! If you value your souls kill him!"
The next crossbow bolt passes perilously close to your head for one shot by starlight and as though taking heart from it in the face of a knight and a beast they had deemed a devil the others close in to try to kill you, armed with clubs and knives. Two do not even hit you in their mad flailing and a third, more skilled or simply more lucky is defeated by the chain that guards your neck, but the fourth manages to graze a knife across your cheek.
You take 2 Damage
"I've had worse than that shaving!" you jeer as Marco sees, or thinks he sees, a moment of distraction and lashes out with his axe only for the sea cat to take the moment to claw at his other leg and once he is on the bloody deck tear out his throat.
Were these another sort of men, not traitors and curs, you might have asked for their surrender then with their leader dead and them in disarray. Instead you press the attack, taking the hand of the man with the club clean at the wrist as he attempts a feeble parry. Another bolt fails to find its mark as the remaining enemies lash out with the fury that only one cornered onto death can match. Again the fellow with the dagger already wet with your blood finds his mark, popping chain at your neck to nick the flesh beneath.
Or maybe a tad more than a nick... a small voice notes at the back of your mind as you feel the warm blood flow down.
You take 3 Damage
Two things happen at once then, the sea cat jumps onto the chest of the man whose hand you had removed, flaying his chest with his claws before again tearing open his throat and the door to the captain's cabin bursts open to reveal Antonio with a crossbow far too cumbersome to be held in just one hand. With a heavy twang the bolt flies right into the eye of the man with the knife... and passing on through the back of his skull.
Though you do not know what the words in his native Genoese mean, you catch their meaning from tone alone.
Seeing the execution of another of their fellows the two surviving mutineers try to turn tail and run, where to you cannot begin to guess, but you can at least put a swifter end to their cowardly lives. You stab one man deep in the side, leaving him howling in agony on the deck... but he was still the lucky one. The sea cat is not done with them and it is no less savage in pursuit. The club wielder dies with his head pressed into the deck by razor sharp claws.
Antonio pays the bloody spectacle no mind while winding his crossbow. Then, his gaze sharper than yours yours or perhaps simply with a better eye for the rigging, he spots the mutineer crossbowman just as he is about to shoot and strikes him. You could not say how but the man falls to the deck, his screams cut off by the sound of cracking bone.
Their plan failed, several more of the mutineers fling themselves into the sea to certain death. You had heard somewhere that sailors do not learn how to swim lest they prolong the end in the face of inevitable death. Whether this is the case here you cannot say, but they drown just the same.
"Thank you..." you begin, turning to Antonio, but the man shakes his head.
"Yes, yes, I was very brave shooting a crossbow at a man who barely knew I was there, you can drink to my glory some other time, yes?" Taking your silence as affirmation he continues. "Now tell me, would your men object to doing sailor's work, for I fear we are going to need it."
"They shan't object to anything that gets them home sooner, or even just to dry land," you reply. "I would man the oars myself at need," you add and you are surprised to find that the words are only half in jest. Somewhere along the line you had come to trust the odd merchant.
What do you do over the next day?
[] Heal and recover from your wounds under the care of Doctor Zaia
[] Spend more time with the sea cat and try to learn more of the odd beast
[] Try to get a hold of whatever is caught in the cat's collar
[] Smooth over the transition of some of your men to sailor roles alongside the remaining loyal crew
[] Write in
OOC: Here's a funny bit of trivia, the very first attack roll I ever did for Roland was a nat 1, and his bad luck sort of held for a bit there, but it got better as the fight went on. All the damage rolls that actually connected were max damage for instance. Also on a more strategic level I can confirm that if you had not gone to talk to your men (or if you had really botched it) there was a chance some of them would join the mutineers.