Taylor looked around, but she could not tell at all where the voice had come from.
It did not help her feeling of calm, that she did not speak French. Certainly not enough to understand what had just been shouted at her. Typically though, if someone was shouting, and you stayed put, they tended to be a little pleased with that. Unless they were telling you to go somewhere.
“Asseyez-vous par terre!” The voice gave another instruction.
One that Taylor did not understand at all, and one Benny apparently took as a sign to throw himself into the river and disappear beneath the waves. She stared after him, but hesitated. Was she supposed to follow? Or was he abandoning her? Or was it a dumb thing to do, or…?
Indecision solved the problem for Taylor, when an arrow zinged off the stone in front of her feet. She put her hands up and spun towards where it had come from, and yelled out one of the few French things she knew.
“Paix! Pax! Paix!”
A hand grabbed her by the collar from behind, and she felt her pistol snatched from her hip, and then winced as they found the knife on her leg and took that, too.
They pushed her forwards, and Taylor found herself travelling along the road. As the rough stranger from behind shoved her, two more appeared from ahead. They were dressed in heavy fur coats, as if they had taken the skins from bears, but she really hoped that was from trade and not actually from this accursed set of islands.
Cobblestones and the hand on her collar meant she was stumbling and focused on staying upright, when the road ended at a truly horrific sight.
Four skeletons were braced over a wooden chest, hands interlocked with handcuffs. The joints were fused with a metal that flickered in the torchlight, making them a monument of some kind.
A testament to Flint’s treasure, she supposed.
“Continuez à bouger, édenté.”
She rolled her eyes at the instruction, and the tone with which it was given. It wasn’t as if she was stupid enough to take on three, when she was on her own, and completely disarmed.
Vernon might have.
Thinking on it, he definitely would have. Waving his crutch and cursing as he beat against them with a rage that would have somehow allowed the man to gain a moment - which he would have then taken to flee.
Taylor had to admit that she regretted giving the man her first. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. He was still as charming as ever, in her head. However, he wasn’t someone she could spend the rest of her life with. He was a passing moment.
She hadn’t given it for love, and could never give it again. She had given it out of fear, a justified fear, but it should never have gone that way.
Though, chances were, she was about to die and make sure she could never give it again.
Her brow furrowed, as she began to hear chanting ahead. Firm and hard voices, belting out what honestly sounded like some kind of war chant. They might well be singing out for her death - though she had no idea how they even knew she was coming.
> Pour retrouver ma douce amie,
>
> Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
> Oh mes boués, ouh là ouh là là!
She had to suppose it was more than possible that there had been four, not three, and one had run ahead. She had not seen them until they had seen fit for it. Taylor was no soldier, but these struck her that way.
> Pour retrouver ma douce amie,
> Oh mes boués, ouh là ouh là là!
She truly wished that she spoke French, because it honestly sounded as if they were baying for her blood. They might well have been asking when the roast would be done, as well. She had not a single inkling which it were.
The flickering torches teased her as she walked by each of them. It had been so very clear that someone was using the tunnel. They might not have used that first door that had fallen, but a lit candle had screamed of human inhabitance, and neither she nor the idiot pirate had noticed.
> Pique la baleine, joli baleinier,
> Pique la baleine, je veux naviguer.
Taylor had to admit that she didn’t think it was a mistake that either Vernon nor Dance would make. The latter she did not know as well as the first, but he had struck her as particularly attentive. There were few in the home country that had known her as a woman, but he had known it and kept his trap shut.
These newcomers would see her as a woman.
Her stomach turned at the thought. That she might be seen as an opportunity for fun, rather than just someone whose throat needed slitting. She had no hope that these strangers would act any better than the pirates she had fought in the forest.
> Pique la baleine, joli baleinier,
> Pique la baleine, je veux naviguer.
The one ahead suddenly blinded Taylor by pulling open a wooden door with a creak. Sunlight blasted out, forcing her eyes to both shut and water. She kept her footing somehow, trying to vaguely peer out through the maelstrom of fairy lights that was now her vision.
The sound of the song was almost deafening, as the path beneath ramped sharply upwards. Yet, despite the sudden increase, it was easier to walk. Her feet fit into the grooved patterns of a thousand feet before her.
> Aux mille mers j’ai navigué.
> Oh mes boués, ouh là ouh là là.
Taylor was not sure what she expected, as she stepped out into mud and grass. This far from England, she might have thought it would be wooden huts, or thatched roofs. There was the fort, of course, but the stonework for that… She had thought must have come from afar.
She felt chagrined at her own racist incompetence, as she found herself in a village of a half-dozen stone buildings. Not stones that had been stacked in some primitive fashion, but carved from a mountainside and shaped into near-perfect brickwork.
There were no guns that she could see, but Taylor half expected a small set of infantry to come jogging by at any moment. The clothing was well sewn, and less rugged than the strangers escorting her. She even spied a couple of children laughing and dancing in the same outfits she might have worn at their age.
> Aux mille mers j’ai navigué.
> Oh mes boués, ouh là ouh là là,
They took her out of sight of the children, along a well-beaten track. A dirt and mud swamp that sucked at her boots with every single step. Leading her on a slow spiral around the outside edge of the town, towards the outside edge of the largest building.
Her stomach dropped as she saw the wooden scaffolding that appeared to be their destination. A small platform, standing high enough to be seen by a gathered group, with another structure atop it.
There was no blade, because that was presumably stored away from the weather, but there was no mistaking the short drop and sharp chop. It was the most French of things, yet they had leant into the stereotype and produced a guillotine.
> Pique la baleine, joli baleinier,
> Pique la baleine, je veux naviguer.
As they arrived by the wooden platform, the singing of the village instantly and immediately cut off.
Taylor looked with fear as a man slowly emerged from inside the largest of the huts. She saw his eyes first, cold, grey, and anything but kind. The man who emerged alongside them made her just about wish to release her bladder.
His face had a hooked scar down one side, and an inked tattoo along the other, disappearing beneath a scraggled and ragged black beard that quickly turned to grey. His nose was hooked from being broken more than the once, and she could see the beginnings of a scar at the top of his white shirt.
That face was one she instantly knew. She had seen it dozens of times, on the various reward posters, though she hadn’t remembered it until right at this very moment.
She breathed out, staring, “… Flint.”