The iron lantern himself was involved in a battle with many naval men.
Alaric Vane stood at the center of his ship the grand vessel that had carried him across the Infinite Sea, through storms and monster attacks and countless battles. His eight-foot frame towered over the men who surrounded him, his torn navy robe flapping in the wind, his red scarf tied tightly around his waist. The golden gloves on his hands were streaked with blood some his, most belonging to others.
He used two guns as long as his arms to battle.
The weapons were massive ornate, deadly, beautiful. The barrels were carved with scenes of battle and death, the handles wrapped in leather worn smooth by years of use. He wielded them as both long-range weapons and short-range weapons firing at enemies from a distance, then swinging them like clubs when they got too close.
But a long scar had been impacted on his abdomen.
The wound was deep a gash that ran from his hip to his ribs, carved by a navy saber while he was distracted by another attacker. The flesh was parted, the muscle exposed, the organs beneath visible to anyone who looked closely.
The waves of the sea were not on his favour.
The ship lurched beneath him tilting, rolling, rising and falling with each wave. His balance was compromised. His footing was uncertain. The men who fought against him knew the sea better than he did, and they used that knowledge.
He breathed heavily.
His breath was like hot steam clouding from his mouth, hissing from his lungs, rising into the storm-dark sky. Each exhale was a battle. Each inhale was a prayer.
He looked on the floor.
Blood dripped from his abdomen thick, dark, endless pooling around his boots, staining the deck, mixing with the rain that fell in sheets.
He held his hand against his abdomen.
His palm pressed against the wound, holding in his organs as they threatened to fall out. The flesh was slick with blood. The edges of the gash were ragged, torn, wrong. He could feel his intestines pushing against his fingers, trying to escape, begging for release.
It was like a circle of death that surrounded him.
Naval men pressed in from all sides their faces hard, their eyes cold, their weapons raised. They had been fighting him for hours. Had seen him take wounds that would have killed any other man. Had watched him fall and rise and fall again.
He looked as his eyes were a bit blurry.
The world swam around him the ship, the sea, the enemies that surrounded him all of it blurring together into a single, indistinct mass.
He laughed.
"HAHAHAHA!"
The sound was ragged, wet, defiant.
"I, the great Iron Lantern..." He raised one of his guns to the sky. "...will not meet my end on these seas!"
He coughed blood spraying from his lips.
"If I am to meet my end..." His voice dropped. "...then it will be in battle against my rival."
His eyes blurry, tired, fading hardened.
"Where I shall confirm my ideas."
Close to death he was.
But it could be argued among the naval men who fought him, among the pirates who followed him, among the legends that had grown around his name that this man would not die even if he was killed.
More than a human, he was like a living will.
A force of nature that had simply decided to exist, to fight, to refuse to end.
He used the opportunity where the naval men were distracted.
Their attention had shifted just slightly, just enough as they watched him laugh, as they listened to his words, as they wondered if this man was truly unkillable.
He held one of the guns in his mouth.
His teeth clamped around the barrel metal against enamel, cold against warmth, death against life. The taste of gunpowder filled his mouth, mixing with the blood that already coated his tongue.
He loaded the second gun.
His hands moved fast, precise, mechanical pouring powder, ramming the ball, priming the pan. He had done this a thousand times. A million times. His body remembered what his mind could not.
He ran a bit forward.
His range of motion was small the wound in his abdomen limited his movement, stole his speed, weakened his strikes. But he moved anyway. He charged anyway. He fought anyway.
He fired a shot from his gun.
BANG!
The bullet flew spinning through the air, screaming toward its targets. It ran through the head of three men piercing the first skull, exiting through the second, lodging in the third.
Three bodies fell.
Then he threw the gun into the air.
It spun end over end, gleaming in the storm-light and he caught it by the barrel. The grip slammed into the head of a fourth man CRACK! cracking open his skull, spraying brain and bone across the deck.
He laughed.
The other gun was still in his mouth.
He kept fighting.
And fighting.
He shot all around in a 360-degree motion.
His arm extended, his finger pulled the trigger, his body turned spinning like a top, sweeping across the deck, painting the air with lead. Most of his bullets formed a curved path bending around obstacles, curving around shields, finding their targets with impossible accuracy.
He took down twenty-three of them.
Twenty-three naval men dead, dying, or disabled lay around him.
And yet he still showed no signs of defeat.
He took them down.
But he looked all around him.
And still, he had only taken down a small amount.
The naval fleet was endless. The men kept coming. For every one he killed, two more took his place. For every wave he pushed back, another crashed against him.
His effort was like a drop of water thrown on a rock.
Meaningless.
Fleeting.
Forgotten.
He closed his eyes.
He remembered the time before he became a pirate.
He was a kid on a mountain, looking at the sea.
The mountain was cold. The wind was sharp. The rocks beneath his feet were unforgiving. But the sea the sea was beautiful. Blue and vast and endless, stretching to the horizon and beyond, promising freedom to anyone brave enough to chase it.
His mother's dead and lifeless body was near him.
She had been sick for years wasting away, fading, dying by inches. He had watched her suffer. Had held her hand as she slipped away. Had closed her eyes when they finally stopped moving.
He remembered the words he said that day.
"Hey, Mom." His voice was young high, uncertain, aching. "Look at it."
He pointed at the sea.
"It's the sea. It's blue and big." He paused. "My life on this land is as good as hell. I'll only die here."
He looked at her face peaceful now, still, gone.
"Plus, there's nothing new to explore." He looked back at the sea. "I want to embody everything that makes a man free."
He ticked them off on his fingers.
"Good. Evil. Justice. Friendship. Women. Wealth."
He lowered his hand.
"There's only one way I can do it." His voice hardened. "To most, it might be a dishonour. Trash."
He paused.
"But it's what I want to do." He touched his chest over his heart. "Even if blood fills my hands... I want to be a pirate."
He looked at the sea again.
"And maybe live long enough to be a legend."
His eyes glowed with a fire that had not yet been lit.
"I want to be known." His voice dropped. "And feared."
He raised his fist.
"I want to be a symbol."
He finished the good memories.
The mountain. The sea. His mother's body. The promise he had made to himself.
He opened his eyes.
"So then..." His voice was quiet, firm, absolute. "...I shall put the rest of my life toward that purpose."
He used the fear that he had put in the navy men.
They had seen him fight. Had watched him take wounds that should have killed him. Had felt the weight of his presence pressing against their souls. They feared him not as a man, but as something more.
He ran away.
Breaking a way to escape.
His body moved pushing through the circle of death, shouldering past the men who surrounded him, limping toward the edge of the ship.
He said to himself, his voice barely a whisper.
"Huh." He smiled. "So that old man was right."
He reached the railing.
"There is no honour in death." He looked at the dark water below. "It simply is."
He paused.
"For a pirate like me... in this place... it's even worse."
He shook his head.
"No." His voice hardened. "I will end on my own terms."
He looked at the sky at the storm, at the grey, at the nothing that watched him.
"I will soon die." He touched his abdomen feeling the blood, the pain, the inevitability. "I can't stop it. It's fate."
He paused.
"But before it..." His eyes burned. "...I must do something."
Alaric Vane stood at the edge of his ship.
Wounded. Dying. Unbroken.
And the sea roared.