Jinny gasped as a thin hand touched her ankle. She saw the other prisoners huddled together, and left the view outside. For warmth, she nestled against smooth skin, wooly hide, scaled and husked bodies, as the moon’s face burned ever brighter through the porthole.
A roaring crash tilted the entire ship and they tumbled across the cage. From above came shouts and clattering metal, footfalls stamping across the deck, squeals and yowls among wet chops and meaty thuds. Some of the blind glob creatures left the oars and half-rolled, half-flowed to the far stairs, drawing curved clubs from their folded gray bulk.
The hatch opened above them, and in rushed a vicious blur of slashing longswords and hissing torches. Within the frenzied combat Jinny saw male and female attackers of many skins, but also horns and hooves, hound-like postures, and swiping paws. Their fury felled most of the spongy beasts and turbaned men, and drove the remaining few against the hold wall. In the quiet that fell over the ship like a departed storm, a single pair of booted feet echoed across the deck and descended the stairs.
Her enthralling movements whispered in dark leather and scales, the red-haired woman strode with authority to the cage, flicking black blood from her triangular blade. A gaunt, cloudy-winged creature perched on her right shoulder, larger than a bat, sable-skinned and faceless, with inward-curving horns and a barbed tail. The woman removed her gloves, uncovering pale white hands spotted with a ruby ring, and wiped bloody grime from her face. Age and measure showed in the creases around her eyes, but their green irises shone fiercely.
“Now, my friends,” she said, scanning their faces through the bars with a smile both dauntless and comforting, “come up and see the show.”
With a single strike of her sword’s pommel she shattered the lock on the cage. While one of her crew stepped forward to whistle and grunt translations in at least three languages, her emerald eyes caught Jinny’s, and her grin curled to one side.
“Well, we ain’t seen one like you in some time.”
“What you mean, Miss?” Jinny said, keeping her gaze low.
“That’s Captain Bloodrose you speak with,” her translator barked. He resembled an upright hairless dog with rubbery skin, long teeth, and carrion breath.
“It’s fine, Richard,” the captain said, then to Jinny, “I mean human, my dear.” The winged creature nuzzled her spiral curls.
Slowly and gently, the prisoners were helped upstairs.
The ship’s deck had become an abattoir, strewn with severed limbs and pulpy chunks in dull greasy blood, among the bodies of turbaned men and bulbous creatures. Another ship, sleek and crimson with sharp red sails, groaned against the moon-beasts’ captured vessel. The gibbous moon was large and closer now, while the green-blue globe was contracted far behind.
Some of the turbaned men had surrendered and removed their headwear and robes, revealing hirsute bodies with short tails. She saw some of their kind among the Bloodrose crew.
The four surviving gray-blobbed beasts were encouraged with swords and spears to balance themselves on the starboard railing. Jinny understood now that they owned the dark ship.
Captain Bloodrose and her crew lined up across on port side. “I give you a choice,” she called to the captured villains. “Jump or be pushed. We’ll see whether you fall to your moon or back to earthen ground.”
Her translator began and she lifted a silencing hand. “They know what I say.”
One of the moon-beasts made an obscene gesture with his nebulous arm.
The captain’s face immediately churned with anger. At the snap of her fingers, the black creature took flight from her shoulder. It tucked in its diaphanous wings and dived at the gray beast. Its claws tore off a warding arm as its sharp tail pierced the tentacled face. Then that face was ripped off for good measure.
The ruined gray body fell away.
“Thank you, Emalee.” The flying creature returned to her.
It took only a moment for the other beasts to decide. Their plump, amorphous forms tumbled overboard.
“The rest of you may join my crew, for you cannot stay here. We take turns at the rigging and the work. We may get you home to Leng soon, or never.”
They boarded the Arkham Rose, unhooked grapples, and threw oil and torches back over. The black galley listed and rolled aflame into the dark infinity beyond the planets.
“And you, my dear…” Captain Bloodrose placed a hand on Jinny’s shoulder, then removed it just as lightly. “You may choose between the crew bunks, or my quarters.”
The captain’s spacious cabin was finished with exquisite hardwood walls, displaying dozens of weapons. Curved and angled blades etched with obscenely elaborate patterns and inhuman symbols, fearsome hooked axes, worn stone clubs, curved bows crafted from mingled woods, dozens of knives each a different honed shape, and some oddly twisted implements not forged for a five-fingered hand. They all exhibited nicks and scrapes from heavy use.
Captain Bloodrose seemed engrossed in polishing her battle blade, so Jinny stood in waiting, as night’s chill settled on her skin. She worried at the choice she’d made.
The painting hung over a map-filled desk caught her attention. She studied the brushstroke detail of the single tree in the harvest field, where something sinister seemed to wait, and she looked away.
The captain hung her sword and sat heavily at the desk chair, as her gaunt pet flew over to an iron perch by the window. She tried to tug off a boot, and was unsuccessful.
Jinny knelt and assisted. She paired the footwear together against the wall.
The captain sighed. “Here I was trying to be so alluring.” She undid her hair tie and curls fell past her shoulders.
“You look fine, Miss.” And she meant it.
“I’m sorry — what’s your name, young lady? And where are you from?”
“It’s Jinny, Miss.” She still could not remember anything before the weird beach. “I can’t…”
“Georgia, by your accent, or maybe Louisiana?” The captain rubbed her feet.
“I don’t know such places you say, Miss.”
“You should, I think. We’ll work on that.”
Jinny frowned. She looked back at the painting and was startled to see it now depicted carnivorous-looking mountains. Unearthly fires burned on their slopes, around which ominous figures danced.
“Richard painted this for me,” the captain gestured. “Like all my crew, he had a very different life before joining us. Come now!” She stood and pulled Jinny upright, rubbing her cold arms. “You’re freezing! You need a hot bath.”
“I’ll warm some water, Miss.”
“Now, you must call me Captain out there. In here, you can call me Pyrena. Or if you get cross with me, Pyrena Coccineous Meredith Rose.” Then she barked at the door. “Richard!”
Soon the ghoul brought buckets in his powerful paws, and filled the clawfoot tub in the corner.
“Miss Captain… Pyrena, have you been to the moon?”
“It’s my aim to do so. I’ll need more ships to get there.”
“It always looked far away and colder than ice.”
“True. In fact you cannot breathe upon it at all, nor in the gulf of space between.”