[i]Fool enough[/i]? Markus thought sardonically, glaring daggers at Von Roberts. The man had the audacity to presume to dictate his whereabouts and with whom he pleased? The thought passed his mind far less eloquently and far more quickly, producing a scowl even before the pistols on his adversary's baldric went off. He didn't even deign to look at Emmaline as she made her 'debut' as a sartosan sorceress, which he was going to wallop her for since he had told her not to out herself as one just last night. As it stood... 

The guns misfired and Von Roberts roared for his men to attack. There was a brief moment of hesitation from his men before they started to move. One who watched Markus would doubtless see the man's cunning gaze. A look a hunting cat would be jealous of. Smoothly and without hurry, he unholstered his flintlock pistol and aimed past the score of men making their way around a fruit cart to kill him and his two companions. His weapon discharged with a [i]crack[/i]! No man fell, but a wooden stand collapsed under its own weight. Nineteen hundred pounds of wine barrels rumbled out of a weird contraption on the second floor of a surrounding structure, doubtless used as a clever way to make a tap for party goers at such celebrations such as last night. Markus had seen many things in his relatively young life, but the way four of them men had their bodies bent and twisted under the weight of a barrel falling from ten feet up was an odd sight. Three other men were tripped up from the rolling and the bodies.  

Another pistol went off aimed in his direction. A member of the slow moving crowd behind Markus fell with a cry, blood pouring out of his chest. It caused the rest of the crowd to disperse rather quickly. Another three shots went off, Emmaline ducking behind spice barrels while Sketti open fired himself, breaking the legs of a man that wandered too close with his stump arm. Like as not he would have done it to even an innocent man that wandered too close, but thankfully it was an attacker that had his eyes fixed on Markus rather than the Dwarf. 

It was then the men reached him, and Markus unsheathed his dark elven sword for the first time in mortal combat. He could feel the blade's thirst emanate off the weapon as he drew it, the blade even blacker under the sun than it would be in shadow, as if to spite the very light of day. Black save the red runes like veins that spread across it like roots. As he pulled it out, the movement alone sent it slicing across to take the arm off the screaming, leading man, Markus stepping past him to hack at a blade flying at his head from the next assailant. The two swords met, grey iron and black steel clanging. The pirate hadn't anticipated Markus still holding his discharged pistol within his off hand, following the slash of his sword with the pistol butt. It cracked into the head of the man, sending him to the floor. 

He spun quickly with the movement, tossing his pistol to hit the third man in the chest, staggering him for a second so Markus could duel the next pirate, a surly man with one eye now milky white. He narrowly blocked a chop to the head with his hilt, taking the one eyed man's best surprise attack away from him. He pulled his blade down in a draw cut across the scalp of his opponent, inadvertently bloodying his other eye and sending him screaming back. As the wave of men crashed against him, he cut and thrust furiously, working on pure muscle memory and instinct to stay alive in the maelstrom of fists and blades.