"We won't be able to outrun them!" A man cried, though not in despair. Clearly he didn't have the inkling of a fear Markus did. The Captain stretched out a hand to his left, signifying Morgan should approach him. As the shape of the sails became visible to even the short sighted among them, he told Morgan to send eight of the men below decks to man the guns. As Morgan to went to give the orders, Markus added an after thought. "Don't open the hatches yet. Open them when we're abreast of them." 

The following minutes moved swiftly, Markus stalking around the ship to maintain a semblance of command for any eyes on their decks. His eyes sometimes fell on where Emmaline hid, but she always ducked down at just the last second not to be seen. The woman saw the shirtless, big Norscan, bald and heavily bearded, carrying up a barrel from below decks with ne'er a grunt before moving to the aft castle. The next time she looked back at the approaching Caravel, she saw something that would freeze the blood of any sailor. 

Those weren't Brettonians. They were strange beings, with sickly pale skin and ethereal stature. Wearing jagged and spiked pauldrons and bracers and wielding wicked sabers of black metal, their elongated, screaming faces was something out of a nightmare. On the Brettonian sail, a bloodstained symbol of the dark lady was streaked along its once proud fabric. Even Markus felt himself a bit too afraid at what this meant. He had never seen Druchii, but he had heard stories in the backalley taverns and seedy messhalls late in the night. They were slavers and torturers, never leaving any survivors. That last bit had Markus grinning. "Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?" He breathed. 

Suddenly, all seemed lost. They dark elves outnumbered them two to one, and each Druchii was likely worth two or more of the Imperial sailors when it came to combat. A nameless fear began to creep along the decks of the [i]Hammer[/i] as their ships now slowly approached one another like old lovers rekindling their passions. Mad laughter and jesting in their strange tongue erupted from the Druchii ship, thinking the [i]Hammer[/i] fooled by their ploy until it was too late, and hooked were shot from ingenious crossbows that themselves were hooked along the railings of their ship, embedding into the wood of the sloop and slowly pulling the two ships together. 

As the wood of the ships audibly complained, Markus held up his sword and shouted. "Underdeck fire!" 

Suddenly, realizing too late that half the crew were below decks and not frightened up to, the dark elves watched as the gun doors swiveled open. Eight guns, four six pounders and four four pounders, aimed and ready, poked their barrels out of the hatches. The screams and warcries of the elves reached a crescendo before they were silenced by the deafening roars of the cannons gutting their ship in a cacophony of iron and gunpowder. 

Running up the stairs of the aft castle, Markus found Halfdan holding the barrel of gunpowder. They had only one shot at this. The Captain unholstered his pistol, cocking it and giving the Norscan the nod. Once they renounced any allegiences to Chaos, the norscans weren't such bad folk. They lived, breathed, joked, and died like any man of the Old World. Halfdan had proven his strength and loyalty time and again and Markus waited for him to launch the barrel over the short distance to the Druchii vessel. To his surprise and distress, a lance of wood and steel from a javelin thrower was launched across the gap between the boats and pierced Halfdan in the stomach. 

The big man cried out and dropped the barrel, Markus feeling a pang of regret and loss at the fallen man now on the ground, writhing in pain. Markus caught the barrel before it hit the ground and busted along the aft castle thankfully, but as hard muscled as he was, he couldn't hope to throw it. 

"Go!" the Norscan said, holding the shaft of the weapon stuck in him. At least it was remade Brettonian steel and not Dark Elf steel, or else it would have eaten away at his body like acid. Markus gave him and nod and readjusted the barrel in his grip, holding the heavy thing by the rope entwined around it and finding a rigging rope. As he put a booted foot on the rail, he saw the first dark elves leaping over the abyss of the sea like dancers, swords and spears twirling in an almost mesmerizing way. The first of his men were cut down, and even pistol shots killed them maybe every other time due to their master crafted armor, but soon the men below decks streamed upwards and flanked the dark elves, turning the massacre into an all out brawl. 

Markus took in a deep breath, wrapped the rope around his right hand, and let himself swing over to the Brettonian vessel. He lazily floated above them, seeing a few of the dark elves look up and notice him in their strange eyes before he dropped the barrel just atop their deck. One dark elf slashed at the barrel on instinct, but it only helped Markus pick his target as he aimed his pistol at the gunpowder that had spilled from it. 

Needless to say, the explosion engulfed half the Brettonian deck, and Markus was lost in the fire and smoke.