as himself small movements were easy to spot.
Woody was protected from active battle by the efforts of his friend and shipmate Simon the Holy. Though an accomplished swordsman and marksman, he elected to fight only with his fists as it gave a ‘more natural feel’ to the fight. Now he was staying true to his word and circling around Woody like a boxer, daring any ninja to approach him for a fight.
Some did, but were instantly dispatched by his whirling fists. They tried a more stealthy approach by climbing the ceiling or wall and attempting to leap out at the unsuspected brawler, but Woody’s keen eye soon stopped them. Soon a small pile of black-robed bodies was growing near the proficient pair as Woody continued to make the enemy drop like flies, literally.
Jawface Jones was nowhere to be seen. Bluebeard had seen him dart off into a side-door shrieking bloody murder at one ninja in particular, presumably the specimen who had left him for dead in the forest. He wished him luck and good hunting, for the ninja scum deserved what was coming to him.
The Captain himself was not yet engaged in the hostilities. He stood still by the entrance, scanning the room for one thing in particular, one person-
And then he saw him. Hirosaki, the ninja leader, was dancing down the staircase from the first floor, throwing projectiles all over the place. Bluebeard ducked and heard a scream from somewhere in front of him; he could not see who had uttered it from his safe hiding place behind the suit of armour, but he was almost certain it had been the shrill cry of pain of Princess Alice.
Sure enough, when he pulled himself out into the open once more and marched purposefully towards Hirosaki, he saw Alice lying on the ground with blood dripping from her abdomen. Marley was trying to simultaneously tend to her wounds and fight of Hirosaki’s swordplay, with mixed results: though he was successfully keeping the ninja leader at bay, he was doing so by sacrificing his own limbs. He was already missing two fingers by the time Bluebeard came close and wincing with pain.
A third finger went flying, and Marley cried out. Bluebeard decided now was his time to join the fray and pulled out his blade. He caught Hirosaki completely off-guard, succeeding in removing a bit of his ear, and grinned with triumph.
He should not have been so presumptuous: for even with bloodied ear, the ninja leader was a force to be reckoned with. The two of them began to dance their way back up the stairs, sparring swords and exchanging cruel words, both intent on the complete destruction of their enemy.
“I will not rest until you are diced and sliced and served as sushi on my plate!” spat out Hirosaki to Bluebeard. “No-one, you hear me, no-one cuts Hirosaki’s ear!”
“I did, you great scum bucket,” pointed out Bluebeard. “I won’t rest until I’ve got your leg on a plate in front of me served with mint sauce and herbs.”
“I will not rest until I’ve put your flesh in a blender and made soup out of you!”
“I won’t rest until your genitals are used as bait for my fishermen!”
“I will not stop until I can eat your brain served with rice and soya sauce!”
This whole ridiculous exchange went on for a while without much gained in terms of fighting. In fact, their battle became a lazy clashing of blade on blade without much effort to kill or wound the other at all.
“I will cut your ear from the side of your skull and feed it to my cat!” declared Hirosaki in the latest of their food-based exchanges.
“Oh yeah? Well I will-” began Bluebeard, before stopping himself. He paused his speech to think for a second and continued “You know what? I’m just going to kill you.”
He stabbed his sword forward and, by luck, managed to wound Hirosaki in the chest. His opponent reeled backwards in pain, eyes wide in shock that Bluebeard had managed to pierce him and that he had allowed himself to get lulled into a childish game of words.
Yet Bluebeard’s victory was premature, for Hirosaki’s wound was not fatal. As the Captain foolishly put down his sword and gazed around the room seeking applause as if he were a rock star, his erstwhile opponent recovered some will and plunged a knife into the back of his neck.
He was lucky. It was positioned just so that it did not cut the spinal cord or sever a major blood vessel. Nevertheless, it hurt like hell.
“You- dick!” he screamed at Hirosaki. The latter just smiled.
“We are equal now, don’t you think?” he observed.
Bluebeard did not have an opportunity to answer, for the whole battle was interrupted presently by the rumbling and clattering of what felt like an earthquake. It came in short, rhythmic bursts at a rate of about one rumbling every five seconds. It was like someone was beating a drum or-
Or walking. The sound was like the footsteps of a vast giant, and as the assembled pirates and ninjas were drawn from their battles to the magnanimous sound, the front door squealed open and a face peered through.
A terrible face. A horrific face. A truly monstrous face the likes of which none of them had ever seen before. Bluebeard pulled the blade out from his neck with great strain and felt a chill pass down his spine as Liu’s words reverberated through his head: “Doom! Doom at the end of a reptilian leg!”
For standing before them all was a dinosaur. He towered taller than any man had ever seen. His scaly skin was sickly green and razor sharp, thick as iron too so that no human weapon could pierce it. The pirates had arrived here early in the morning and it was now three in the afternoon. With all the excitement over booty and battle, they had all completely forgotten that they had found by fortune a house whose owner would inevitably return. And here was the owner, faced with a house full of miniature thieves killing each other and wrecking his aura.
He was angry. He emitted a full-blooded roar and closed the door behind him, glaring down at the frozen people gathered around him. They did not know what to do, for their enemies were each other: ninjas fought pirates and pirates fought ninjas; moreover, ninjas knew how to fight pirates, and pirates knew how to fight ninjas. It was instinctive, woven into the fabric of their nature. It did not matter that these particular pirates had never fought ninjas before, for it was in their blood to know how to do it. Pirates versus ninjas was a story as old as cats versus dogs. But pirates versus dinosaur? Now that was odd.
Their decision was made for them by the sudden arrival of Liu. Completely ignorant of the situation, she had sauntered on in carefree with Agatha “Bottle-Neck” Saunders in her wake. She stood now behind the tail of the Tyrannosaurus Rex waving blissfully at her Captain, lost in one of her trances and unaware of her world; unaware that her warning of the early morning was coming true before her very eyes.
She did not notice the dinosaur, but the dinosaur noticed her. He leant his head through his legs to get a good look at her and, liking what he saw, he picked her up.
“No!” yelled both Bluebeard and Hirosaki simultaneously. They both looked at each other with shock, then with sudden understanding in their eyes: for Liu was as precious to each of them as she was to the other. She was the whole reason for this war, the true treasure that the ninjas had been trying to steal.
Or liberate, as Hirosaki explained it.
“When you raided that village so many years ago and took Liu away,” he explained quickly, “you took away my fiancée. I grew up in that village. When I was five years old, she was betrothed to me; our marriage was arranged. But it wasn’t a forced marriage. I loved her. I still do. I heard that she had been sighted around the coast of Europe, so one year ago I set off with my team of ninjas to rescue her.”
Bluebeard didn’t need to say anything; the plan made itself. For the sake of Liu, and for the sake of their own survival, the pirates and the ninjas would team up, at least temporarily, and defeat the dragon in their midst.
They did not know what it might do with its captive. They scarcely dared think. Eat her? Or worse- molest her? They could be sure, however, that it would not be good; and even if it would be, their jealous hearts both wanted Liu for themselves. They could not allow her to be t
aken by a love-rival, especially one who was a lizard.
So they lifted themselves up from the ground where they had been nursing their wounds and descended the stairs quickly, rallying their troops. The surviving ninjas crowded around Hirosaki immediately, ready to do his every whim. Yet the pirates were harder to convince.
They stayed where they were, frozen on the spots where they had been fighting. Woody summed it up when he said: “Liu?”
It was just one word, but it was enough. It sent a bolt down Bluebeard’s spine and told him everything he needed to know. The tone was one of shock, disbelief, even disgust. His pirates had realised that this whole fight was for that one girl and they were not happy. They had never got on with her, always viewing her with suspicion, but since the incident in the forest it had begun to seem plausible that she was the de facto Captain of the ship. Bluebeard may have the hat and the title, but when it came down to it he would go to every beck and call of Liu.
They had thought that he had left Saunders to rot in the forest, as would be the pirate thing to do. It would have shown him to be a strong leader. Yet the arrival of Liu and Bottle-Neck’s presence with her was enough to turn their whole world upside down. The picture was clear: the Captain had wanted to leave the girl in the pit; Liu had forbidden it; Bluebeard had ordered her to go