Charlisse drew her knife. The pirates continued their advance.
Isabel let out a stifled cry.
They raised their swords, bloodlust in their eyes.
Above them, the dark sky folded in on itself and crouched as if ready to strike. Hissing charged the airlike the sound of a sizzling linstock thrust into the touchhole of the cannon.
A flash ignited the sky with a buzzing crackle. The muted grays of the gloomy day sparked into stark whites and blacks.
Wide-eyed, the pirates gazed upward.
Two bolts of lightning shot down from an ominous cloud and struck their swords. The metal ignited in a blinding glow that violently jerked the pirates to and fro before wrenching them across the deck.
The force of the charge flung Charlisse backward. Catching her breath, she watched the lightning withdraw and the pirates crumple to the deck. Wisps of gray smoke drifted off their twitching bodies while the stench of burning flesh filled the air.
An eerie silence followed.