The Night of the Coughing Captain

The crew had finally managed to make camp in sight of the Captain's Tiny Golden Yurt, a gleaming beacon in the otherwise desolate moorlands. They had pitched their own quarters—not yurts, mind you, but heavy, regular army supply tents of rather dubious and unknown origin, exactly as the swindling seller at the last port had described them.

The night watch fell to The Russian. The moor was quiet, save for the wind whistling through the canvas of their temporary camp. But as the witching hour approached, the Russian's keen eye caught movement in the shadows.

The Foul-Smelling Raiders

A band of thugs, clothed in ragged rugs and reeking of old, rotten fish, crept closer to the crew's encampment. They moved with the desperate stealth of harbor rats, slipping past the army tents and making a direct, shadowed line for the dimly lit entrance of the Captain's yurt.

The Russian watched, his hand steady, waiting to see how the situation would unfold. The bandits were but five meters from the threshold, their petty weapons drawn, greed glinting in their eyes.

And then, a sound broke the stillness.

It was not the thunderous crack of a gunshot. It was not the sharp, cold clinging of drawn steel. No, from deep within the Tiny Golden Yurt, the Captain simply coughed.

One time.

A single, resonant cough that carried the weight of a hundred storms.

A Hasty Retreat

The effect was instantaneous. The thugs stopped dead in their tracks, their courage vanishing like mist under the morning sun. Panic seized them, and they turned and ran like startled chickens. In their frantic haste to escape the invisible wrath of the yurt's inhabitant, they dropped their petty weapons and spilled their purses of likely stolen coins into the mud.

They took the hasty route to the East, fleeing toward the hills where some cowardly robber baron was no doubt waiting for his cut of their ill-gotten gains.

The Morning Report

When the sun broke over the horizon, the Russian delivered his report to the rest of the crew in his usual short, deliberate, and achingly slow style.

At first, the crew was unruly. A wave of disbelief washed over the morning fire. They could not fathom the story, nor could they believe that the stoic Russian was attempting to tell what sounded suspiciously like his very first joke.

But as the day wore on, the evidence spoke for itself. The abandoned blades and scattered coins lay exactly where the Russian had said. The foul-smelling thugs were never seen in those parts again.

As for the Captain and his mighty, terrifying cough? One can only assume he had simply eaten too much of the rich, local game the night before. Strange, perhaps, but entirely true. Even in his slumber, the Captain guards his camp well.