image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6.jpeg]

image [https://i.imgur.com/DqimdvY.jpeg]

auchs – An overhead parry done by holding the sword high above one’s head, with the blade tip pointed at the enemy and slightly downward. Meant to have the enemy’s blade impact high, near the practitioner’s hilt, allowing the enemy’s blade to slide down the length of the practitioner’s blade, leaving the enemy open for attack.

WHOEVER THE CAPTAIN of that ship is, Okoa thought, gazing at the Edinburgh moving swiftly through beams of moonlights, he is clever. Savagely clever.

Just moments ago, the Edinburgh had moved away from the Hazard and fired on her, but purposely missed, it would seem, while still coming close. At first this made no sense to Okoa, and he worried he’d somehow fallen into a trap. But then he realized the ploy. The two ships coming straight towards them had been too far away to see the Edinburgh betray the other two brigs, and so her captain was keeping up the ruse of firing upon the pirate sloop-of-war.

Okoa sensed he was being asked by the fifth-rate’s captain to do the same. To keep up his end of the ruse, Okoa commanded his men to fire upon the Edinburgh, but to make sure the shots either went too low or too high. In response, the Edinburgh broke off, bearing west away from the Hazard, as though she was wounded and needed to peel away. But she kept on a parallel course with the Hazard and still fired wildly and uselessly.

“Mr. Okoa?” said Irwin, who was wrestling with the wheel. The current kept wanting to take them northwest, against the wind, slowing them down to a sluggishly fatal speed. They would be easy pickings for those ships trying to catch up.

“Steady on, Mr. Irwin.”

“She’s not gonna take much more o’ this from me, Quartermaster! She’s fighting me! Think we must’ve taken a nick to our rutter, sir! She’s not handling right—”

“Stay on your course, Mr. Irwin, on your life. We won’t get a second chance at—”

The forward guns from the two ships of the line boomed, and cannon shot ripped through their belly, across their deck, slicing a man in half and tearing the arm off another. They’d just come in range of the Hazard, and had tested that range. Now they would reload and fire posthaste, while their broadside battery teams would prepare to fire as they streaked past. But the Edinburgh suddenly moved in, suspiciously slow at first, then gaining speed. When the two enemy vessels were about a hundred yards out, Edinburgh passed in front of them, between Hazard and her enemies. Surely the captains of those enemy vessels thought Edinburgh had only made a mistake in course correction, and held their fire a moment so as not to hit a friendly.

A moment after Edinburgh fired her starboardside cannons at the oncoming ships, she heeled suddenly to starboard, fighting against winds and currents. The oncoming ships, to their credit, broke away from the shocking attack, splitting up in different directions. But by this time Edinburgh already had the speed and circled one of them, evened out, and fired again from her broadsides, raking the English vessel before moving on to the next one.

“Mr. Irwin—”

“I know what to do!”

Irwin turned them hard to port, bringing their own portside batteries (such as they were now, what with so many injured, dead, or thrown overboard) to bear on the enemy.

“Fire!”

The firing line could not have been more disorganized, firing almost simultaneously, which was bad, as it put too much strain on the ship’s timbers and knocked them off course and forced Irwin to fight even harder against the steering. But by God, it sure shocked the crew of the English vessel. They passed so close Okoa saw the disarray on deck. The moonlights showed a dead man hanging over the enemy’s rail. One of the masts was busted nearly to splinters, about to snap and fall like a tree in the woods. Her rigging sagged pitifully, like a spider’s web thrashed by a careless animal.

“A-hoooo-raaaahhh!” the Hazard’s crew shouted madly. Haggard, half dead, exhausted, and this close to Fiddler’s Green, they rallied and cheered and readied their cannons for another salvo.

Percussive hits sounded across the water. Edinburgh had raked the other ship and was chasing her down. Okoa thought again that all of this must be a dream. Why was a fifth-rate vessel helping them? There was no way it was a pirate vessel. And even if it was, even if some madman had taken control of it and set to sea, why in all of Hell had it allied itself with the pitiful, condemned pirate crew of the Hazard?

A shot whistled over their heads. More booms sounded across the water.

“Mr. Okoa!” Belmont shouted.

Okoa had almost forgotten the militiaman was there. Moments before, Belmont had saved his life, kept him from being washed overboard. Now the militiaman sagged against the stern railing and pointed north. “They’re still coming!”

Okoa looked. Yes, indeed, the Edinburgh had bought them some time, but the winds and currents and misfires with the cannons had thrown the Hazard off course enough that she was no longer aligned with the wind. Her speed was cut dramatically and now the enemy was catching up again. And the Edinburgh was preoccupied a quarter-mile west, chasing the other ship away.

“What do we do, sir?” asked Irwin, straining so hard that Belmont had now gone over to help him with the wheel.

“We make for Bull Bay.”

“Sir, we’re not going to make it that far.”

“We make it to Bull Bay, Mr. Irwin, or we never see sunrise again!”

____

The battle aboard the Lively was reminiscent of that aboard the Nuestra Señora de la Purificación, where the ship swayed in stormy waters while wind and rain whipped the fighters’ faces and men slid across the wet deck and it was difficult at times to tell friend from foe. Laurier’s blade parried that of a militiaman’s, he shoulder-charged his foe’s chest and sent him into Roche’s path, who hacked the man’s skull with his axe. Laurier parried another attack, side-stepped the next, spun around the next, front-kicked one man in the stomach and shuffled sideways to attract many different attacks. He delayed them, gave Akil and the others time to come up the gangplank behind him.

Lively heeled. Loose barrels of rice rolled towards him. He stumbled over one, leapt over another, charged an enemy so hard he tackled him and shoved him overboard.

“For the Ladyman!” shouted Jaime.

“A-HOO!”

“For the bloody fucking Hazard!” cried Jenkins.

“A-HOO!”

And now they moved about in a gnashing of blades and pressing bodies. Someone cut Laurier across his right thigh, stabbed his left shoulder. Akil grabbed a militiaman by his throat and lifted him off his feet and flung him bodily overboard. Bogoa and Mosi each ran into the fray, using what machetes and knives they had. Jaime fired his pistol into the face of an oncoming enemy, and behind him Osterholm, the Lively’s quartermaster, was still hobbled in chains, but that didn’t stop him from throwing himself at a man with a hatchet. Anne, weeping as she always did in battle, ran and tackled another enemy and dragged him to the ground, wrestling him for his sabre. Noala grabbed the sword off the man Jaime had shot and ran into the fray, her baby screaming on her back.

Laurier saw Jacobson amid the chaos, slashing across Scarecrow’s face as the tall surgeon tried to hit him with his chains. And beyond Jacobson, Benjamin was near the prow, his back against the railing as two men flanked him.

John shoved his way past a militiaman, parried his next opponent high with auchs, stomped his foot, head-butted him, and pushed him towards Dobbs who skewered the man with his bayonet. Someone slashed at John’s face, came awfully close, but his Corrupted hand snatched the blade in mid-stroke, and held on to it, while he rammed his blade through the teeth of his attacker and sent him to the deck. Someone else swung a dagger at him and, without thought, John raked his talons down the man’s arm, fileting his flesh before gouging one of his eyes.

A few of his enemies now pulled back, dismayed by the speed of his Corrupted hand and the ferocity of his claws. Anne hamstrung a man with her dagger. Roche opened a man’s skull with a ferocious cut. All around him was screaming and blood and madness.

He turned. Saw Jacobson stab Jaime in the leg with a dagger before punching him in the face with the pommel of his sword. Jaime fell backward and Jacobson brought his sword up to gut him. Just then Anne charged into Jacobson and rammed him and knocked him sideways. Jacobson turned and elbowed Anne on the bridge of her nose, stunning her, sending her to the deck.

“Jacobson!” the Ladyman bellowed.

Euric Jacobson paused for only a moment, enough for him to see Laurier coming and prepare himself. Enough time for Jaime and Anne to crawl away.

They sized one another up for only a moment. Only a heartbeat. Then Jacobson came forward with a series of questing moves, first with sword, then punching out with his dagger to slap Laurier’s blade away. Then Jacobson smiled savagely and leapt at him. Their blades crossed and sang their one-note song. Jacobson parried easily using his sword, stabbing viciously with his dagger, glancing off John’s ribs once. But the Corrupted hand wielded the cutlass one-handed and spun it in confusing patterns. Jacobson’s smile wavered.

“There! Ready the line!” someone cried. “Ready the bloody line—”

John swung around in time to see a horrifying sight. Africans, all running up the gangplank and forming up firing lines at the portside rail. They all carried rifles and aimed them at the pirates. All of the pirates, including Jacobson’s people. And they were led by none other than Captain Woodes Rogers, who was unfolding the last stage of his trap, it seemed, and shouting above the storm—

“Ready! Aim!”

“Seize them!” John cried and some of his pirates tackled the Africans before they could fire. Akil took one down and another fired wildly and missed. The rest of them got their shots off and John couldn’t tell who they hit. Then Rogers’s Africans drew sabres and charged Akil’s men, who looked befuddled to be fighting their own kind—

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Jacobson rushed Laurier. A dying African fell in his way and Jacobson shoved him to one side.

Woodes Rogers leapt into the fray with his sword singing.

Someone bumped into Laurier, setting him off his balance. It was LaCroix, having been knocked back by an enemy. Jacobson seized the opportunity and slashed at his neck. A glancing blow. Laurier felt blood trickling down his collar. He parried the next attack and slashed with such speed he surprised himself and lopped off Jacobson’s left ear, but his enemy merely growled and kept coming forward.

Parry, thrust, parry, parry, push-step, shuffle-step, parry, thrust, thrust, parry, thrust—

The flurry of attacks and defensive moves had Laurier breathing heavy. More than once, the Corrupted hand saved him by being able to catch the blade or parry it. Laurier wielded the cutlass for a moment in his left hand, parried, and slashed out with his right hand, the talons ripping Jacobson’s face. Blood ran rivers down his enemy’s face—

Someone grabbed John’s hair. Yanked him backward. Brought a dagger down to his neck but the Corrupted hand snatched it just in time and twisted it from his attacker’s hand. The butt of Dobbs’ rifle bashed the attacker’s skull and sent him to the deck, where Noala skewered him with her sword. For a moment Laurier met Rogers in the fracas, their swords met briefly before other fighters pushed in between them and Rogers swung around to face off against Akil. Laurier saw Rogers draw a pistol and prepare to fire.

“Akil—”

But the African war chieftain batted the pistol away before it fired. Then he grabbed Rogers by his throat and lifted him and threw him ignominiously overboard.

John felt blood trickling down his neck. The dagger had only gone in an inch. Another inch, and he’d be dead.

The last few moments had delayed him long enough that Jacobson had time to recover and he launched himself at Laurier, who prepared himself—

Suddenly, Jenkins slammed into Jacobson by mistake, pushed by some other foe, and Jacobson whirled and slashed Jenkins’s throat in a motion so fast it was nothing but a blur, then turned back to Laurier, who screamed and charged at him. They parried each other’s sword and caught the wrist of each other’s secondary-weapon hand. Head-butted one another. Spun around and around, locked like deer and their antlers. Jacobson shoved him up against the capstan. A chain whipped around Jacobson’s neck and yanked him off the Ladyman. It was Dawson, trying to choke the man, but before Laurier could attack, Jacobson pushed his rump into Dawson’s waist, lifted him bodily, and performed a hip throw and Dawson was flung to the deck. A vicious kick to Dawson’s head stunned him, just as the Ladyman leapt over him to tackle Jacobson. Laurier’s momentum sent them both tumbling down the ladder, down into the darkness of the forecastle.

Lively was suddenly struck by a rogue wave, which washed up over the deck and leaked down into the forecastle, right when Laurier had stood to his feet and stumbled backward into a swinging hammock. Jacobson stood, his foot temporarily snagged in a rope some careless sailor had left lying about.

Their blades met, and they quested for tactical openings as more water rushed in. In near dark, Laurier could barely make out his enemy, some of their slashes either missed or landed by pure chance. Laurier managed to catch the dagger hand with his Corrupted hand, gripped it, heard bones pop as Jacobson howled and dropped the dagger and head-butted Laurier again. Laurier heard his own nose crunch. Felt blood running over his lips. Tasted it. He drove a knee into Jacobson’s gut, creating space, shin-pressed his lead leg and reaped him, sending him to the deck. Jacobson rolled away from the downward thrust, sprang up, parried Laurier’s next attack and performed a gissard on the second one. His blade glided down Laurier’s and stuck him in the stomach.

The blade went in deep. John screamed.

“You’re dead now, Ladyman! Tell the Devil that Euric Jacobson was better than you!”

Then he heard someone else screaming. Laurier turned and saw a boy of maybe ten or eleven, a brown mop of hair, coming out of the darkness with a pistol. The boy pointed the pistol and for a black instant John thought he would die to some stowaway or cabin boy. But when the shot was fired it sliced through Jacobson’s right ear and he cried out.

In a flash, the Corrupted hand grabbed the blade. Held it in place. Didn’t remove it, didn’t even try to disarm it. Laurier’s blade came up fast in his left hand and he drove it into Jacobson’s gut. Drove it up, up, up, and each time he did Jacobson’s mouth opened wider in a silent scream. He twisted, mangling his enemy’s insides. Then Jacobson let go of his own sword and pulled away. Laurier’s cutlass remained where it was, covered in blood. Jacobson kept staggering backward until he stumbled and landed in a sitting position in someone’s hammock. He swung there a moment, holding his bleeding stomach.

Laurier caught his breath. A dull wonder that he had somehow survived first made itself manifest. He had never fought one so savage and clever with a blade, not even Capitán Del Campo.

Slowly, the Corrupted hand removed the blade from his belly, almost of its own volition. Panting, he gave one last look at Jacobson, then all his thoughts drained from him and he existed in some place between dream and reality. Then he gasped from the pain in his gut, and his thoughts went to one thing. Ben! He was still up there on the deck, possibly still surrounded.

Laurier swung round and looked at the boy that had saved him, huddled there in a dark corner with smoking pistol clutched in his hands. He was weeping. When Laurier started up the ladder, Jacobson called out, “Ladyman!”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“In this new world…with this new order…I’m sure we’ll be seeing…each other…again. Dead is not dead anymore. Or hadn’t you heard? Dead…is…is not…” He gave a brief spasm, then sagged back into the hammock. His eyes flashed purple. “Dead isn’t…it’s not…” He spasmed again. “It’s very cold…just like Da said…when he died at our home…by the river…it’s very…very…”

Laurier didn’t hear the rest. He turned and ran up the steps. The numerous head-butts had caused him dizziness and when he came up to the deck he was seeing doubles for a moment. Blurry trails. Especially if he turned his head too quickly.

He saw Jenkins lying on the ground, his throat opened and gushing. Dobbs fought side-by-side with Bogoa. Mosi was gone, Laurier couldn’t find him. Roche was still taking his axe to the same man he’d killed when he first came aboard, not caring the man was already a corpse. Laurier let him be and ran to help Vhingfrith, who had gotten some help from Akil and LaCroix, fighting off five swordsmen. Laurier ran past Dawson, who was on the deck, straddling an enemy’s chest, strangling the fellow with his chains. Scarecrow had survived and was bleeding badly, also strangling someone with his chains.

Laurier came up behind one of the men flanking Vhingfrith and ran him through, yanked out his blade, and stabbed a talon into the eye of another foe. He shuffle-stepped towards another, forcing the man to back up, trip over barrels, and fall to the deck, where Laurier skewered him.

Two men jumped over the rails, into the water, and another pair of men escaped the Lively on the gangplank. Of the Africans Rogers had broad aboard to help him, half a dozen threw their weapons to the ground and dropped to their knees in surrender.

John caught Ben’s eyes. The one twinkling cat’s-eye was eerie and beautiful in the moonlights. Drenched in blood and rain, John walked over to him. It looked like Ben was going to say something, but before he could the Ladyman grabbed him by collar and pulled him in and kissed him. All over the deck, men were calling out their injuries. Someone hollered out that Mosi had been knocked overboard, but they were fishing him out of the drink.

Laurier barely heard this. He held his companion close, not caring about the monsters or the Behemoth still stomping across Port Royal or Noala’s baby’s cries or Jacobson’s promise to see him again or that brief flash of purple in the man’s eyes or any of it. For a moment, all of time evaporated, and the ship bobbed there on the water, amid a lagoon of shadows and swirling rain and unnatural moons.

When he finally pulled his lips away from Benjamin’s, John said, “Sink me. You did it.”

“We did it,” Vhingfrith said. He stared at Laurier a moment longer, then suddenly barked out, “You there! Look lively! Get you to the steering, Mr. Dawson! Dobbs, I understand you’re a good man to have in the crow’s nest! Let’s see it! You,” he pointed to the Africans, “to the capstan bars! Weigh anchor! You there, Scotsman, I forget your name—”

“It’s Jai—”

“Take Bonny and whoever else up to the mizzen, these men only got their sheets half free. Handsomely now!”

“I only take orders from the Ladyman!” said Jaime. “An’ ’ow about a fookin’ thank yeh, eh? You damn ungrateful bastard! We came all this way for you! Ye’re the reason ’alf my mates are dead!” Jaime limped over to Vhingfrith, clutching his bleeding leg. “We’re at the end o’ the bloody fookin’ world an’ ye’re out ’ere barkin’ orders like some—”

“Jaime!” the Ladyman shouted.

Everyone stopped and looked at Laurier.

“Do as he says. We have to push off. Now. Just do as he says and let’s get underway you rotten fucking scallywags. After all,” he added, clutching his bloody nose, “it’s his ship. Now, someone search the bodies of these redcoats, one of them must have the keys to the prisoners’ chains. Mr. Akil?”

“Captain?”

“Where is Woodes Rogers?”

“Who?”

“The man you threw overboard.”

Akil looked over the railing. “He gone, Captain.”

John looked around at the half-dozen Africans Rogers had brought with them, all on their knees looking confused and frightened. “If you would please, tell these men they can choose to remain here and continue to serve Woodes Rogers, or they can take the same deal you did and come with us. They’re either slaves or they are pirates, I can do nothing else for them.”

“Yes, Captain.”

John looked around at the rest of his pirates. Injured as they were, they had no time for their sorrows, no time to lick their wounds. But some of them were still stunned to inaction.

“What are you all looking at? I said move!”

Some started to shuffle, but weren’t too sure about obeying Captain Vhingfrith.

John pointed north—he pointed with his index finger’s talon. “Look there.” They all turned and saw the Behemoth sprouting branches, which lengthened minute by minute, stretching up into the sky, spreading yellow-glowing clouds. “Yonder is the doom of us all. And you’ve all witnessed the Devil’s work tonight while in Royal. But Royal may be dead now, and we have to leave her.” He pointed out to sea, where they heard the thunder of cannonfire. “Because out there is Liberalia! You hear me? Libertalia! And out in that bay is the Hazard, and she needs us. Now be about your work, you bloody scallywags!”

There was only a moment’s hesitation, then they started moving, and quickly. Anne moved spryly up the ratlines, and Jaime, after giving Vhingfrith a baleful stare, was right after her, as was Noala. Akil, Bogoa, and Mosi manned the capstan to raise the anchor. Roche was still hacking the corpse to a mulch. Dawson was working the wheel even as the stunsails bloomed. Maxwell, Lively’s cook, was among the chained prisoners, and seemed to be the only person unhurt, and so he and Osterholm attended Scarecrow, pressing cloth against the surgeon’s bloodied face and neck.

John felt a hand on his right arm. He turned. Ben’s hand trailed down his arm, touching his Corrupted hand. John hadn’t felt it. He looked down and pulled away from him.

“There’s a boy,” John said. “Down below. He saved me when Jacobson just about had me. Send someone to help him. Looks scared.”

Ben nodded to someone and they went running down to the forecastle.

Cannons roared on the water. Out there somewhere, the Hazard was still fighting.

When the Ladyman walked past Dobbs the young man was hunched over Jenkins’s body, holding his hands. “He’s gone, sir. Him and Tomlinson, they were the ones saved me from Isaacson.”

“And Isaacson?”

Dobbs looked up at him. Said nothing.

Laurier nodded. “Then the whole wicked chapter is over. Come, we may yet survive this day, and get you that wife in the Colonies. Yo-ho, Mr. Dobbs.”

Dobbs reached down and closed Jenkins’s eyes. “Yo-ho, Captain.”

____

Jack hid from the pirate that came below and called out to her. “Boy? You there?” She kept to the dark and looked over at the body of the man she’d helped kill. She still held the pistol out in case anyone came for her. The pistol was not reloaded, it could not fire again, and yet she pointed it at the pirate who walked past her hiding spot unknowingly.

And when she felt the ship lurch, Jack felt fear like she hadn’t felt before. She’d never left home, never been away from Port Royal. And now that she was finally leaving she didn’t want to. It meant leaving Mother and Father behind in their graves, with the candle for Mr. Cowert’s memory resting there, forever unlit, and her treehouse falling into disrepair, and the dogs left alone. But it also meant leaving the horrors she had seen, the Monsters that had been walking the streets. When all the mayhem had begun she could only think of getting away, and ran to the only place she could think might be safe. She had hidden here before the sailors came, had listened while the first group came and fought and died, and then the second group.

Jack had saved the Ladyman. And she knew it was the Ladyman despite him not wearing his usual feminine garb, because the man she’d killed had called him that during their fight. In an instant, Jack had a decision to make. She knew that someone would have control over the Lively in a few moments, and that she would be stuck onboard. Now she felt the ship heeling to starboard, heard water sloshing in the bilge below.

She closed her eyes and thought of Father, and sang the chanty he sang whenever he took her down to the docks to meet the other sailors. “As I was walking down the street / A pretty young damsel I chanced to meet / Weigh, hey now…Weigh…hey now…”

Soon, she heard cannon fire getting closer.

“Weigh, hey now.”