ALAIN chants as the creatures close in for the kill...
Just in time, rocks tumble down from the storm overhead, pounding the nearest of the attackers into the splintering deck.
Klokulf batters a fin-man with his morningstar, knocking it back.
More creatures push in, hemming in the little group of defenders, pushing to cut them off from a possible escape back into the cabins.
Alain flicks his knife out and rattles off an incantation as he hurls the blade low at the column charging him.
The steel nicks one enemy and flies along its path, now hidden by darkness and the bodies of the fin-men, but making its passage evident in the gargling howls of injured foes.
Seconds later, the dagger flies back out of the storm and hilt-first into Alain's open right hand, like a falcon returning to its master.
The sailors cheer.
One of the fin-men croaks a command and suddenly the raiders all scramble for the gunwales.
Before even Alain can strike again, the enemy has dropped out of sight, sinking into the dark, storm-tossed waters. Only the dead remain.
Kat returns, clothes and mail dripping with rain, her rapier dark with blood.
Moments later, the shipmaster limps up with the First Mate and two sailors, all of them armed and all in bloody shirts.
He addresses the adventurers,
"We've got to sweep the ship top to bottom, storm or no, to make sure the fin-folk didn't leave us any nasty surprises. Can ye guard the deck with a couple of my crewmen, make sure they don't come back up?"
Before anyone answers, the man bellow for more light, more lanterns brought up.
KLOKULF
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)