Page 43 of Captive of the Pirate King
A new kind of fear pinches my gut as I climb the rigging in the spot Locke indicated. My rope is looped around my arm. Out of the corner of my left eye I see Locke climbing near me, his long limbs moving smoothly, effortlessly. One of his knives is clamped in his teeth, and the sun catches on the silver blade, a gleam of white fire.
“Go,” he calls to me through his gritted teeth.
I’m high up—so terrifyingly, treacherously high. As I look down, the deck seems to shrink farther away. I suck in a hysterical breath and look at Locke.
His answering gaze is steady and reassuring. As if he’s saying,You can do this, Nick.
I can do this.
In the past few weeks I’ve done a million things I never thought I could do. It started when I took money from my father’s coffers, packed a trunk, and paid for passage on theWending Willow. I remember the sense of dizzying, alarming freedom that infused me as I stood at the railing of that ship, watching the coastline of Ivris recede.
I didn’t know where I was going then, or what I’d do when I got there. All I wanted was to escape the tidy betrothal my parents had arranged, and to find out where Mordan had gone when he left us.
That’s still the plan. Finding Mordan, making sure he’s all right—and making sure he isn’t killing people during his manic moods.
To accomplish that goal, I need to do this thing, this one simple thing.
I need to leap.
Locke takes the knife from his jaws for a second to yell at me. “Go, Nick. Now.” He can’t wait for me any longer—he’s a leader on board, and the men will expect him to be over on theLady Marcella, fighting the sailors.
I clutch the rope, grit my teeth and jump, pushing off with both feet.
Wind and sunlight blast against me as I swing into the sky. For a second I’m blinded, dizzied—then I see a crisscrossed tangle of ropes—the rigging of theLady Marcella—a deck full of stamping, whirling figures and flashing blades—like a dance, my brain says distantly—and then I’m swinging dangerously low, starting to skim back toward theArdent.
Just in time, I let go of the rope. I tumble and roll across the deck, narrowly escaping a jab from someone’s sword. I crash against a cabin wall, scramble to my feet, and press my back to the boards, drawing my own sword and pointing it outward.
When pirates attacked theWending Willow, I was belowdecks the entire time. I never saw how chaotic a hand-to-hand fight could be. But the chaos is all around me now—a whirl of faces and fists, every shade of black, brown, and white. Shirts and coats flutter, cutlasses flash, boots stamp and scrape. Men are shouting, jeering, screaming. Now and then there’s a shot, and a puff of smoke. And the blood—there’s blood sprinkling the deck near my feet, blood spraying from a man’s severed arm, blood soaking the shirt of a body near me.
A man rushes toward me, wild-eyed, sword held aloft. He’s in some kind of uniform—hired by the shipping company to protect the cargo, maybe. A hopeless task in the face of a buccaneer vessel as well-equipped and well-manned as theArdent.
At first my brain doesn’t register that the soldier wants to kill me. I don’t think of him as the enemy—but when he looks at me, he seespirate.
I suck in a sharp breath and lift my sword just in time, just as his blade descends toward my chest. I manage to deflect the blow, but he’s already swinging again. This time I dodge, and the soldier’s weapon cuts a groove in the wall where I was.
“Pirate scum!” he screams, and jabs at my stomach. I barely deflect his blade, and its edge cuts the cloth of my shirt along my waist.
As he recovers from the blow, I see an opening. I could charge in and stab him right between the ribs—but I don’t, and the chance passes.
“Back off,” I plead. “I don’t want to kill you. Surrender, and they’ll let you live.”
The soldier stares, his eyes crazed with panic. He’s not hearing me. With a bellow he charges me again—I’m not going to be able to stop it—
Locke darts between us and slashes the man’s throat.
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The soldier’s eyes glaze over and he chokes as blood jets from the neat slice Locke made. Locke pushes the man’s shoulder, toppling him backward onto the deck. Then he rounds on me with a glare. “I saw that. You lost your chance to kill him. Don’t hesitate.”
He whirls and parries an incoming blow, then blocks another slash while kicking his attacker in the crotch. The man goes down, but before Locke has a chance to finish him another sailor jumps into the fray. While Locke’s attention is diverted, I drop to my knees beside the man Locke kicked. He’s cupping his privates, groaning. There’s an open cut along his forearm, and suddenly I have an idea.
I run two fingers through his blood and swipe the liquid over my tongue. “Surrender,” I tell him.
The man rolls onto his back, and when Locke turns around to finish him off, he lifts both hands and cries, “I surrender! I give in!”
For a second I think Locke is going to kill him anyway. There’s a brutality in the harsh lines of his handsome face, a simmering bloodlust I didn’t expect to see—and it paralyzes me.
But then Locke growls and lowers his weapon. “Tie him up, Nick,” he orders.
