Bloodshed

Branded a witch yet again, Schierke finds Sonia unshaken; the girl throws the accusation back, naming the men pirates and guessing rightly that they mean to sell the Kushan children. The traffickers, who call themselves traders, explain that with the adult slaves already executed they will work the children as oarsmen before selling them on. Schierke flatly rejects the city's laws, and when the lead pirate lunges for her she freezes him with magic, leaving him able only to speak, to Sonia's open delight.

A stone from Isidro cracks the paralyzed man's skull. Sonia guesses the boy is the one Schierke loves, which Schierke denies. Isidro taunts the pirates for seizing young girls instead of grown women, and when one charges him he drops, rolls, and opens the man's leg in a single motion, startled to feel his body act on its own. It is the first time he has cut down a person rather than a beast or spirit.

The remaining pirates turn deadly serious and press him hard. Schierke's telepathic order to flee only makes Isidro snap at her to stay out of his head, while Sonia cheers him as a hero. Certain the boy will be overwhelmed, Schierke reaches Guts by mind and sends him their location. Surrounded and offered a beating instead of death if he surrenders, Isidro is rescued by Mule Wolflame riding in, whom Sonia lazily calls her watchdog. Mule cuts into the pirates without hesitation, and Isidro throws himself back in rather than be outdone, until a one-legged pirate swings down from a ship's rigging and boots Mule in the chest. His men hail him as their boss, Bonebeard.

"Bloodshed" spans twenty pages of the Millennium Falcon arc and first appeared in Young Animal issue 21 on October 22, 2004. It marks Isidro's first kill of a human opponent and introduces the pirate captain Bonebeard, while Schierke's telepathic summons draws Guts toward the wharf.