Five Sentence Fiction: Pirates by Jeff Tsuruoka

I am hosting Jeff Tsuruoka (@jtsuruoka on Twitter) again for Lillie McFerrin's Five Sentence Fiction. This week's theme is Pirates. There's still time if you'd like to join in! Arrr!

 The Rules of Ascension

            We left the town in flames but the captain died of his wounds less than half an hour after we put out from the burning harbor.

            Shrike, an savage old hand with one eye and six teeth who drooled when he spoke, and his cadre of backers confronted me in the dim corridor outside the captain's quarters to challenge my ascension to the captaincy.

            “Fenwick, you son-of-a-whore,” slurred Shrike as he pulled his cutlass out of his belt and followed me up to the main deck, “one of us'll be dead and the other captain 'fore this day's through.”

            My first order as captain of the Pogue Mahone was to have Shrike's most ardent backers throw his corpse and then themselves overboard.

            Sharks need to eat, same as us.