The helmsman did his job perfectly; Jade Maiden sidled up alongside the coaster, just outside of what would be effective cannon-range were the coaster armed. Which evidently she was not, beyond the fighters on top of the rear cabin—it looked like a turret on the Great Wall—the ship appeared to be too poorly favored to be worth defending properly. The fighters were probably mercenaries, too. Well, that will work in my favor, thought Wen.
"All right, everyone," he said, trying to keep his voice pitched low. "Get ready to stand, on my command." He turned to Foghorn. "Hail them, please."
"ATTENTION OVER THERE. MY CAPTAIN, THE NOTORIOUS WEN XIA, CALLS FOR YOUR SURRENDER."
A scarcely audible voice floated across the water, instructing The Notorious Wen Xia to do something anatomically improbable.
"Tell them that we will spare the lives of all who surrender now, including officers and officials," Wen said. Foghorn boomed a copy of the message to the target ship.
"Add that those who do not surrender immediately will be subject to the Reverse-Eviscerating Death of the Beardless Wang."
Foghorn complied, though what he actually threatened the target crew with was the Inverse-Anticipation Death. No matter, thought Wen, they won't believe it until they see it anyway. "Tell them, finally, that I am about to execute the last of those who refused to surrender from my last capture," he concluded. Foghorn got the last sentence perfectly, and the vibrato in his voice as he pronounced "execute" would have thrilled any aristocratic collector of actors, singers, dancers and acrobats.
The crew on the target vessel continued to shout profane defiance. The number of voices was smaller now, though, and their volume considerably less; it was almost impossible to understand what he was being invited to do to various members of his extended family. "Stand up, you worms!" he shouted, adding, more quietly, "Remember, you're deeply ashamed of your refusal to do as instructed earlier."
"I don't think they'll be able to read emotions on their faces," Yin Fengzi said from her position just aft of the mainmast.
"It's more convincing if the actors believe it," Wen said. "Or so I'm told." He raised his voice, but gestured Foghorn to echo him, if only for effect. "Officers, officials and men of the fuchuan Auspicious Destiny," he shouted. "Inasmuch as you refused to accept my honorable offer of surrender, I hereby order that your just and legitimate, if somewhat grisly, sentence of horrible death now be carried out!" As Foghorn stumbled through his copy—and to be fair, Wen had improvised a bit—Yin Fengzi, dressed in weirdly colorful robes assembled from the various leavings in Pocapetl's back room, launched herself into the air, moving across the Maiden until she was floating over the water just beyond the side closest to the target ship. After Foghorn had finished the last announcement—leaving a weird silence hanging between the two ships, as the target crew assimilated the fact that yes, a small figure dressed as a weird old man really was hovering in mid-air in front of them—Fengzi waited a moment, then cast her spell. As the dyed water in the barrels began to bubble, the disguised crew men bent at the knees. Then, at Wen's exaggerated signal, the men leaped onto the springboards they'd built behind themselves. As they flew into the air, Yin Fengzi cast her second spell, and the dyed water burst upward from barrels and from the intestines wrapped around the flying crewmen. The "executed" men flew, or tumbled, over the far rail of the Jade Maiden and into the sea, as a solid sheet of red-dyed water exploded in a crimson spray that, thankfully, the breeze carried away before it could stain the deck.
For a moment after the splashes subsided there was silence from the other ship. Then, slowly, deliberately, Yin Fengzi—still hovering above the water—turned to face the target. She raised her hand, one finger pointed toward the ship.
There was a burst of shouting, and two men went sailing over the side and into the water. Sunlight flashed as it reflected from the armor one of the sailing men was wearing; when he hit the sea he went straight down and did not come up again. The other flailed about, cursing, as the crew lined up alongside the near rail, shouting and crying their immediate surrender.
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