ARRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The crews amassed as the bugle's reverberating wail rumbled throughout the camp, a deep note announcing that the time had come.

From smoldering cook fires and fur tents they came, answering its call like hordes of soldier ants marching at their queen's behest. Ready for battle, they marshaled in a broad ring around Betha's pavilion, bearing their clubs and cutlasses. Some had iron tipped spears and quivers filled with barbed javelins. Others hefted crossbows, harpoons, and stitched hide satchels bulging with bombs slung at the shoulder.

Betha seethed beneath the shade of her pavilion's canopy in silent fury as they gathered around her in a discordant cacophony of voices. She had been in blacker humors before, but for the life of her she could not recall when or why. Such terrible vengeance she vowed to inflict upon her enemies. The murderer and scoundrel Shantae would be keelhauled to a yole and dragged over the jagged reefs of the frozen shore, where the ridged barnacles and razor fossils would shred him to pieces. The King she had planned to dismember until he was naught but a living torso with a head. That way he could be forced to watch as Betha rips the whelp out from the womb of that bitch queen of his. After spit roasting the fetus for an appetizer, she would serve the mother as the main course. Cooked to a golden brown, she would be basted with a marinade of herbs and pan drippings, then presented with a shiny red apple wedged between her teeth. After attending the feast as Betha's guest of honor, the limbless king would be carted outside to be lowered and lashed to the fore of The Black Basilisk, a sentient figurehead crucified beneath the bow. By day he would bake in the sun, and by night the constant slaps of the ocean spray would chill him to the bone. By sunstroke, by chill, by hunger or by heartsickness, one would eventually claim him. It would take days, perhaps even a fortnight, Betha could only hope. The captain planned to leave him there for the galls to pick clean after he was finally dead. A king's skeleton—it would make for a fine festoon. She may even dip the bones in gold and pose them to preserve them for permanent display.

When the thriving throng had finally amassed, and all but the few stragglers rushing to meld themselves in with the crowd were in attendance, Betha tossed the bugle aside and stood from her chair. In one languid motion she ripped the prongs of her golden trident from the earth, gave it a spin, then thrust its points toward the sky. "Sombra!" She bellowed, her savage cry drowning out the voices of those gathered around her.

A captivated hush fell over the camp, sudden and silent as death.

Sneering, Betha swept that golden gaze of hers over the crowd. She spread her arms wide and proclaimed to them, "Today marks the end for this tyrant, this megalomaniac who would style himself in the fashion of a king!"

The crowd roared their response as they raised their weapons, and for that moment Betha stood upon an island surrounded by a sea of bristling steel. Cutlasses waved, steel-studded driftwood cudgels swayed, archers raised their uncocked crossbows, and spearheads bobbed up and down like rippling waves of iron.

Trident in talon, Betha opened her wings to lift herself above her pavilion. The calamity began to peter as they watched her move into position. High and center with all eyes upon her, she inclined her weapon downward toward the amalgamation of crews. "And who is he," the pirate said, "that we must bow so low?"

The rhetorical statement sparked a short but vehement gale of agreement.

"I ask you," The Captain then put to them, "what is a king?" And not waiting for an answer, she said, "A decaying pile of offal, who thinks the shiny hunk of metal sitting atop his inflated head gives him the authority of a god. 'This land is my land,' he says. 'These waters are my waters,' he demands. 'These are my farms; my orchards; my mines.' "

The crowd reciprocated their disgust with a burst of boos and jeers between each sentence.

" 'These are my taxes, you will pay them. These are my laws, you will obey them. And when I send my army to march upon those who will not pay my taxes or obey my laws, your property is mine to appropriate as I see fit.' Celestia and Sombra alike, they murder us, they drive us from our homes, and they take, and take, and take, rapaciously, insatiably, always demanding more!" Betha let out a humorless bark of laughter. "And they have the gall—the absolute temerity—to call us the plunderers? Hypocrites, I say!" Betha slashed the air with a backhanded swing of her trident. "Devils!" she added. "Despots!"

"Despots!" The pirates parroted in agreement.

"They would have us lick their hooves, to grovel in the dirt with the rest of the sycophants. Well, I'm sorry, but the life of some subjugated peasant just doesn't appeal to me, living face down with my ass in the air to be buggered by some king whenever the whim strikes his fancy. I ain't following no king's laws, and I damn sure ain't paying no king's taxes. I choose to be free, and I intend to remain that way. Who's with me!"

Nobody could have said who started the chant, but soon they all took it up, a collective of shouts forming one thunderous monosyllabic intonement. "Free! Free! Free!" Their combined voices created a deep echo that rolled throughout the sky as they pumped their weapons above their heads to the rhythm of their mantra. "Free! Free! Free! Free!"

"This king comes to kill and pillage while telling us, those who were here far before he ever was, that we can't do the same? Under whose authority—his, a self proclaimed king? Make no mistake: We were not the ones who started this war, but we will be the ones to end it, now and today!" Betha's golden trident flashed like a bolt of lightening when she thrust it toward the sky. "YO HO YO HO!" prompted she.

"YO HO YO HO!" her crew roared.

"YO HO YO HO!" Betha cried.

The group all around her pumped their weapons in unison with their "YO HO YO HO!"

And when Betha threw her head back to emit the war cry that would initiate the beginning of their advance, their voices joined with hers, a deafening bellow heard for miles all around.

High, high above them, a murder of carrion birds were gathering, as if to await their hosts in leading them to the impending feast.

Surmounting the knoll of shattered bones and sundered flesh, The King swung his head about like a savage lion anticipating his next challenger, eyes red and teeth barred. From countless wounds he bled, and at one point another round of convulsions had staggered him as he was amidst the throes of an onslaught. A barbed harpoon, lobbed from an opportunist who took advantage of his brief incapacitation, had lodged itself deep into his flank. The missile rendered the anguish incurred by the slightest jounce or bounce debilitating. All but crippled, and with nary a corpsman to be espied amongst the writhing tumult of steel and fury all around him, he had no other choice but to grit his teeth and rip it out by the shaft. Upon its hasty removal, the cruel barb had laid his hide open from flank to gaskin, leaving behind a deep rend that wept copiously his life's blood. Sombra looked away from the wound, grimacing, then eyed the torch ensconced within the niche of a glass shaper's stall, and he knew at that instant what must be done. Smoldering, the torch hissed violently against the red, ruined flesh like a kettle of angry snakes, and the subsequent pain lancing down the cloven flesh was incredible—but it was a necessary operation in order to staunch the profuse flow of red spilling fourth from the tear. The King had lost count of how many times he had been shot. Various quarrels and bolts feathered his back, giving him the obscene appearance of some great black porcupine. Two shafts were lodged in his torso, and the one sticking out from the side of his neck had miraculously missed every single vital point to embed itself deep within the muscle. The King didn't know how many among the projectiles quilling his body had been envenomed, but that mattered not. He was a walking corpse as far as he was concerned. All there was left for him to do was fight until he could not fight anymore.

Ere they had come to kill him, yet now they had come to fear him. King Sombra had never been a comely sight to behold, especially in the dark, with his eyes glowing like demonic lanterns, but now his countless wounds and rills of blood coursing down his black hair and ashen face had bore his countenance a horror to look upon. The griffons surrounding him affected irresolute expressions, unsure of whether or not they should stand their ground or break their line. Their weapons were drawn in front of them, blades and iron points quivering at the ends of their oaken shafts, yet none seemed to be in possession of the intestinal fortitude required to sally forth. Some hid their anxieties behind iron-hard glares, but Sombra was accustomed to the scent of fear. And fear him they did.

The King leapt down from the fleshy perch of bludgeoned bodies and pressed the attack, since the cowards were seemingly hesitant to do so themselves. His hapless target was quick to drop his steely facade as he turned to retreat, his vernacular a stream of panicked curses. Sombra landed full on his back, since the fool was so gracious as to expose it to him. There was a scream, a sound like a pile of chicken bones being compacted into splinters, and his target began to weep. Content on leaving his now-immobile victim to writhe away in his last moments left of his pitiful life, Sombra turned just in time to parry the bite of a steel cutlass aimed for his head. The blade swished icily, a steel fang gleaming like winter lightening as it cleaved naught but air. The King's counter attack was quick and decisive, sweeping the swordsman's leg out from under him. With a horrible "squawk!" the pirate dropped his sword and cried piteously to his friends for help before he was lifted by his hind paw and slammed mercilessly against the ground. The air went out of him, but he still struggled like an animal caught in a trap. After five or six more body slams the dead pirate's body was no more than a feathery sack of jellied organs and spalled bones. Sombra dropped him unceremoniously, and before the cur's body could land to sprawl dead and prone in the snow he was already upon his next target.

Stick and move, thus was Sombra's strategy, attaching then detaching himself with his guards and militia in their various skirmishes all over town. Sombra was the decisive factor that dictated the outcome of every melee in which he melded himself, and the Newhavenites who were once scattered and routed managed to regroup with their factions. In this Sombra had brought organization to the siege. This didn't bode well for the remaining pirates, whose victories were reliant upon chaos, ambush and subterfuge. Pirates liked to get in, hit hard before their victims knew what was happening, then make off back to their ships with all the plunder and meat they could carry. The last desire any pirate crew had was to go up against a marshaled force who was prepared and ready to fight them.

Nearing what seemed like the pivotal point of the battle, some mad lad amongst Sombra's ranks had the notion to take a detachment of mages and conjure a tornado, wherein the weapons from fallen friends and foes were swept up in a deadly funnel of swirling steel. Marksmen sought the highest ground they could acquire, bent their crossbows toward the sky, and waited. A company of four mages flanked the tornado, two in front, two in back, the better to maintain control over the voracious twister so as to avoid friendly casualties. Together they scoured the roads and alleyways of their foes, who were in full retreat from the ravenous blender Sombra's mages had created. Those who were pulled into it were shredded into gory strips of confetti. When scores of terrified pirates took to the sky to flee the mages' wrath, the archers who had positioned themselves amongst the towers and thatched roofs of the town feathered them down with wooden shafts. Their screams pealed throughout the sky as corpses fell to the earth like a fleshy rain.

When the mages' reserves of magic were finally nearing their capacity, they saw no other choice but to send their gory funnel of destruction into the nearby hills to be safely detonated before they could lose their control over it. From down in the hamlet Sombra had a splendid view of the broken weaponry and splashes of gore that were sent hurling in every direction when the tornado was dispelled, painting the frozen hummocks in a red paste—whereupon the carrion eaters eagerly descended.

By this point The King was a spattered and tattered mess. Another spasm had taken him as he was giving chase to a group of retreating pirates through a narrow alleyway, and this time it was severe enough to take him off his hooves. His black vomit came up thicker and oilier than before, and it ablated the snow around him in plumes of white steam. He didn't know how long he spent lying sick and bloody in the snow. It might have been seconds, it might have been hours. Finally, when King Sombra felt some of his strength returning, he could sense a presence approaching. He lifted his head and blinked the bleariness from his eyes to behold a lavender form approaching him from down the alleyway.

"You're wounded," a voice informed him.

"Your powers of perception are—" The King stopped to hawk and spit up the lingering dregs of gunk obstructing his throat. "—quite impressive," he finished, as he laboriously pushed himself up to his hooves. His body was beginning to give out, he could feel it. He felt not his age, and for the first time in his life the weight of his armor hindered him. "What do you here, Princess?"

"I've been helping the townsfolk get to sanctuary while you've been..." Twilight beheld the ravaged king in amazement as he rose like a wounded leviathan, pincushioned with quarrels and covered from hackle to hoof in deep wounds. His black hair was slick with gore and matted to his face, and at one point the massive harpoon wound in his flank had opened itself back up. The area in which he had been laying was a half melted puddle of black and red slush. "S-shit," The Princess stammered as her astonished gaze moved over his body.

"Shit," Sombra agreed weakly.

"The second wave will be here by noon, Sombra," Twilight said. "What will you do?"

"The remainders of the three thousand," Sombra said with a grimace. "I will meet them in open combat, as I did with their vanguard. What of you?"

"I can't just sit in the throne room and twiddle my hooves, Sombra. Not when I know I can help."

"I thought you a pacifist."

"I'm not a killer Sombra, but I'll do whatever I have to if the alternative is just sitting back and watching as others are being killed. It's a sin to simply stand by and watch such carnage unfold when one has the power to help."

The King winced at a fresh spasm of pain cutting through his chest. He spit out another glob of black and replied, "You're a far cry from that hypocritical friend of yours. I should have tried to recruit you instead."

"Starlight," Twilight said wistfully. "Sunset and I have left the palace to offer aid and relief. Right now Moondancer is gathering the terrified civilians who have barricaded themselves in their homes and escorting them and their families to the palace. After that, we're going to go look for Starlight."

"Look for her?" Sombra echoed. "She's dead, most like."

"She's not!" Twilight punctuated her denial with a stubborn stamp of her hoof. "The pirates didn't kill her, Sombra. She was taken back to their camp. Weren't you in the throne room when your wife was interrogating that pirate?"

Sombra could only remember as far back as waking to his wife and her friends arguing heatedly amongst each other. "Why did they take her?" he asked, more of out of curiosity than concern.

Twilight rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You really were dead to the world while all that was going on, weren't you?"

"More than you realize," Sombra said dryly, remembering the pale image of the ferrypony beckoning to him. Or was that all a hallucination? He would know soon enough, he supposed.

"The pirates foalnapped Starlight Glimmer. They targeted her specifically, because they thought you and she were lovers. Their captain has a vendetta to settle with you."

Bewilderment spread across The King's face, but before he could voice his bemusement another seizure took him. Worse than the last one, The King fell to the ground clutching his chest. The black he spat up now was flecked with viscus chunks, and the veins that spiderwebbed about his wounds were beginning to expand. Not just the one in his chest, but all over. Everywhere where an envenomed tip had pierced his flesh the veins were darkening.

Twilight started as he crumpled at her hooves. Some of the shafts protruding from his body furrowed the snow before they broke off, while others were driven deeper into his body by the force of his own weight. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Sombra clutched at his chest, every haggard breath a desperate gasp.

"Medic!" Twilight shouted. "I need a medic over here, now!"

Sombra's eyelids were beginning to grow heavy, and all around him there were voices approaching from up and down the alleyway.

"Twilight, is that you? What's going on?"

"Sunset, where have you been!"

"I was helping the mages melt snow for the structure fires, what's got you all—Apollo father of Celestia, what happened to Sombra! Looks like he's been put through a shredder."

A torrent of black, foul-smelling ooze projected from The King's maw. His body began to convulse uncontrollably. A deep and terrible death rattle like nothing any beast on earth would be able to imitate came gurgling from his throat.

An exclamation of surprise broke from Sunset's lips as she leapt back to avoid getting any of the black sludge on her hooves. "Twilight, save your breath," she said not unkindly. "He's beyond first aid now."

"We can't allow him to die just yet, we still need..."

Her voice was beginning to distort as lucidity abandoned the dying king. Near or far, it made no matter, everything sounded distant and muddled in his ears. Dark and otherworldly sounds seemed to swim all about him, like the melancholy peal of a dirge. And finally, the weight of his eyelids became too much to bear.