It was always surprising how much blood the human body carried, Aurelia thought, resting her eyes on the deck, stained red. The hundred strong she had managed to gather on her way to the deck appeared to drain of color.
'Weaklings, the lot of them.'
There was only one person she could trust, and that was Zariel, to watch her back. To say nothing of how he taught her to fight, he was still significantly stronger even if she was physically stronger. It didn't seem fair how much better he was at killing.
The fight on the deck had ceased. What little courage the passengers and officers had vanished as they openly surrendered, allowing the pirates to capture them. That had seemed their original intent.
"Throw down your swords, or they die," a long-faced man with a crooked scar running along his eyes shouted. He surveyed her up and down, chuckling, pressing the edge of his scimitar to a woman cradling her baby between her breasts.
The next Chapter will explain exactly what happened from Beowulf's perspective.