A three-masted ship lay half aground on the beach, wedged at an angle between reef and white sand. Its hull listed roughly twenty degrees to starboard, its keel buried deep in the sand. The tide washed repeatedly over its exposed underside, leaving dark wet streaks on the paint.
Scorch marks covered the edges of a waist-high breach in the bulwark. Charred splinters curled outward, and ashes scattered by the sea breeze still swirled nearby.
A sailor with a red cloth tied around his arm hung limply halfway through the breach. One hand reached forward, fingers spread, as though he meant to jump ship and escape the deck that was turning into a slaughterhouse.
But he never managed that last step. Death caught him from behind.
A scimitar sliced cleanly through his linen coat, leaving a wound that ran diagonally from his shoulder blade to his waist, deep enough to expose bone. Dark red blood welled along the groove of his spine and soaked his entire back.
His outstretched hand spasmed in the air, then dropped. His body slid against the edge of the bulwark as though its bones had been pulled out.
The deck was a wreck. Thick ropes lay scattered across the planks, some already severed, their frayed ends bristling like hair standing on end.
Several crisscrossing gouges had been hacked into the base of the mainmast by scimitars. Blackened bullet holes of varying sizes punctured the tough sailcloth, and thin wisps of smoke still rose from a few.
Bodies lay strewn across the deck. Some lay facedown, their fingers still clasped around scimitar hilts. Others slumped against the bulkheads with their heads tilted sideways, blood and entrails spilled across the planks.
The air reeked of blood, gunsmoke, and briny seawater, a mixture so thick it was almost suffocating.