“Bastard!”
A thin cry tore the air as a man flew at the Storm from out of the dark. The privateer lashed out with his blade, heard a gasp of pain. Grabbing the fellow’s collar, the Storm saw that his foe was old and feeble, clad in a robe as red as the blood now gushing from his chest.
“Laird Kustaa, I presume,” the Storm murmured.
“You d-dare …,” the laird wheezed.
“O, I dare, old man. That’s the difference between me and most.”
The freebooter released his grip, let the laird sink to his knees. Kustaa clutched his chest and set about turning the stone beneath him as red and sticky as possible.
“O, no!”
A figure in a thin white gown stumbled across the room, falling to her knees at the laird’s side. She was barely more than a girl, winter pale and slender, loose dark hair flowing down to her waist, sharp bangs over her eyes. She rolled Kustaa onto his back, stripping away his robe to inspect the wound.
“My Laird?” The girl shook the old man’s shoulder. “My Laird!”
“Dona Astrid?”
The girl blinked up at him, hair strung like black cobwebs about her face. She was beautiful, he realized. Cherry, bee-stung lips and kohled eyes, black enough to drown in. Gunnar Sv?rda’s daughter had been imprisoned in Brightstone for over two months—Aa only knew what torments she’d endured at Kustaa’s hands. But as she knelt there in the widening pool of the laird’s blood, the Storm swore she looked almost grieved at the old bastard’s death.
He offered his hand. “Mi Dona, I’ve come to rescue you.”
Her ears were bleeding from the arkemical bomb’s shock wave, poor thing. It took her a moment to grasp his words.
“… Rescue me?”
“Aye, Dona.” He swept his tricorn off in a perfect bow. “Do you know who I am?”
Gunnar’s daughter looked back down at the dead laird’s body. Shoulders slumping as she hung her head.
“Aye,” she sighed. “I know who you are.”
The girl rose from the blood.
The shadows rippled at her feet as she snarled.
“You’re an absolute fucking wanker.”