The wannabe knight, in a futile effort to save his fair lady, put up quite a fight.
Pintel and Ragetti rarely fought anybody as good with a sword as this guy. Granted, they usually manned the cannons rather than board other vessels, but even taking that into account he was a tough fight.
Pintel reckoned he might even be a match for their captain, in terms of skill.
Unfortunately for the boy, skill was not the only factor in play here. They had him out numbered two to one, and they couldn't die.
The latter was doing the heavy lifting tonight.
Pintel and Ragetti slowly pushed their adversary back up the stairs. They didn't manage to score any more sneak attacks against him, now that he knew his own strikes were less than effective.
It was pretty annoying, actually.
"Ragetti!" Pintel called out.
Ragetti understood and gave a nod. Pintel already used his shot against the butler, but Ragetti still had his pistol loaded.
Ragetti pulled back and Pintel lunged at the boy, trying to grab hold of his clothes or a limb.
The boy knew something was coming and reacted, but he wasn't quite prepared to have the pirate run himself through on his sword and wrestle him to the ground.
Ragetti stepped up with the hammer of his pistol cocked, and aimed it at the boy's head.
"No!" the girl from before shouted, distracting Ragetti just long enough for the boy to wrestle Pintel out of position.
*bang*
The shot rang out and Pintel's brains were splattered onto the floor tile. Pintel would have been okay with that had the bullet at least hit the boy, but he had no such luck.
Pintel was thrown off and knocked Ragetti off his feet. The girl scurried away as the three on the ground scrambled to stand up.
The boy was first, but his sword lay on the floor out of reach. In his desperation, he grabbed the pistol that Ragetti dropped when he felt.
"Boy, that pistol only had the one shot!" Pintel sneered as he closed the short distance with a lunge of his cutlass.
The boy responded to his taunt by flipping the firearm and bringing it crunching down onto the fingers of his sword hand. After being disarmed of his weapon, the pistol came back up to crack his jaw and send him spinning.
Haphazard spinning wasn't the safest thing to do at the top of a staircase, which Pintel discovered in short order. He tumbled down in comedic fashion, letting out an "Oof!" each time his head was bashed against a step or a wall.
Ragetti was wise to the boy's trick now, though. He lashed out with a vengeance and kept the boy harried long enough for Pintel to clamber back up to the top.
However, the boy had made an obnoxious discovery. Stabbing the two unkillable pirates was an exercise in futility, but bludgeoning them could at least hold them off.
And hold them off, he did.
At some point, a stray cannonball blew through a wall and destroyed a fancy table. The boy scooped up one of the shattered legs, which proved to be a far better melee weapon than an unloaded pistol.
If Pintel and Ragetti could still feel pain, they'd be in a world of hurt several times over by now. Fortunately, they couldn't, so they just kept on fighting like rabid badgers.
Then the girl came out of nowhere with a fire poker. She got Ragetti upside the head with it pretty good; even knocked his wooden eye out. Would have straight up killed him if they still had warm blood in their veins.
"You little bitch!" Ragetti grabbed her by her long tresses of beautiful hair. Something both the pirates were terribly jealous of.
"Let her go!" The boy bullied past Pintel and charged at Ragetti.
Then he slipped on Ragetti's eye and went down hard. Pintel kicked him in the head for good measure.
"No! Don't hurt him!" the girl begged.
The boy surprisingly wasn't unconscious yet; just very dazed.
"And why shouldn't I?" Pintel asked, suddenly having a brilliant idea. "He's given us more than enough trouble to gut him. What's he worth to you, girl?"
"P-parley!" the girl stuttered.
"What?" Of all the things she could have said, that was the last thing she expected.
"I invoke my right to parley with your captain!" the girl pushed on with renewed confidence. "The pirates' code compels you to bring me to your ship!"
*squeak squeak squeak* *pop*
Ragetti got his wooden eye back into his socket and said, "Nobody would know we broke the code if we just killed you both."
The girl gulped nervously, but didn't falter. "It won't be long until this place is crawling with soldiers. Maybe you can't die, but you aren't immune to getting dogpiled and tied up."
"You aren't making the best case for not slicing your throat and leaving you to bleed," Pintel said, losing patience.
"I'll show you where the governor keeps his valuables," the girl offered. "I've been Miss Swann's handmaiden for years. They trust me. So heed the code, let him live, and it's all yours."
Pintel and Ragetti shared a look and laughed.
Jackpot!
…
Why did they take her dresses?
They were expensive and well made, sure, but her jewelry and the gold in her father's safe were much more so. They even left behind some of the gold so they could carry them!
Somehow, that was the strangest thing she had seen tonight. Which was really saying something because the two pirates escorting her back to their ship didn't have blood or even react when they were stabbed!
Well, no matter. As soon as she finished her parley with their captain, she'd be safely returned to Port Royal as per the terms laid out in the pirates' code. She'd saved Will's life, and the price was far from too high to pay.
The soldiers were out in force now. The pillaging pirates were being pushed back to their ship, slowly but surely.
The pair that came to the manor were sneaky, though. Even the jangling of stolen jewelry wasn't enough to stop them from threading the needle between patrols.
They led her to a rinky dink dinghy and pushed away from shore with practiced ease.
On a cloudy night like this one, it was hard to make out the shape of the ship in the darkness. It had no lanterns to provide an easier target for the fort's cannons, and its crew were keenly aware that the shadows were on their side.
When they were finally upon it, Elizabeth realized how true that was. The hull, the sails, the rigging; every bit of it was black as pitch. It was as if they built the ship with night raids in mind.
"What did you bring onto my ship, Pintel, Ragetti?" an authoritative voice barked in a chipped tone.
"She asked for parley, Captain Barbossa!" the chubby bald one, Pintel, wheedled. "Of course, we couldn't ignore the code!"
Captain Barbossa stepped out of his quarters, rubbing his wrist and flexing the fingers of his hand.
He was dressed in flamboyant attire, albeit in muted colors, though they may be due tk the lack of light. His jaw was covered with a scraggly beard and his eyes shone with intelligence and perhaps a hint of madness.
"Aye, I suppose you can't," Barbossa agreed. "Well then, lass, you have me at a disadvantage. I'm Captain Barbossa Hector. You are?"