Page 107 of Blow Me Down
Corbin was in the crow’s nest as our ship turned to follow the curved shoreline.
I climbed up to join him, every muscle in my body protesting the action. “See him yet?”
“No. But he’s out there, hiding in shadows. I can feel him. He’s probably waiting for us to get into range, then he’ll—”
A flash of orange came from the left, slightly upward of our bow. The noise of guns firing followed almost instantly, but before we could shout a warning to those on deck, cannonballs ripped into the bow. Wood splintered and flew with the velocity of missiles. Men and women alike screamed and ran for cover.
“All hands at their stations,” I yelled as Corbin flung himself over the side of the crow’s nest, barely touching the rope. He was on the deck and shouting orders to fire before I was halfway down. Another flash andboom boom boomripped through the night, the ship reeling with the blows. The hits were so hard, I lost my grip on the rope ladder and fell to the deck, lying stunned for a few minutes.
I managed to get my brain working again and crawled to my feet just as the ship bucked when Corbin fired off three guns. I felt a moment of satisfaction at hearing the shots connect with a solid form rather than splashing uselessly into the water.
“Drop the sails,” Corbin shouted above the sound of cries and orders being yelled by everyone. “Helm hard to port.”
I rushed to get the sails lowered so we could maneuver ourselves out of danger, but fell to the ground when our mainmast was struck by a lucky shot, the top part of it crashing down on the deck.
“Port,” Corbin yelled, loading one of the guns single-handedly. “Amy, helm to port.”
I dragged myself over to the wheel, jerking hard on it to the left. The ship shuddered and wanted to fight me as she took on bilge, but I tied the wheel and ran to help one of the women pull rigging off another who was unlucky enough to be in the way. We hauled her to safety aft. I ran back to help with the remaining sails, but a horrible grating sound stopped me dead.
“We’ve rammed her,” one of the men yelled. Over the remains of the downed mast I could see that he was absolutely right—we’d run smack dab into another sloop. Dark shadows danced around on her deck, indicating they were as aware of the situation as we were.
“Boarding axes,” Corbin yelled. “No quarter, mates. Let’s take them down.”
“Yarr,” I yelled with the others, snatching up one of the short axes that was used on board ship in numerous ways— as a handhold when boarding a ship (or cleaving someone’s head) was just one of its many uses. A couple of crewmates threw grappling hooks over the side of the sloop, but that wasn’t really necessary—her bow was wedged into the port side of our bow. Corbin leaped onto the railing, throwing himself onto Bart’s ship with a cry that would have scared the crap out of me if I’d been a member of Bart’s crew.
I scrambled up onto the railing, pausing for a moment to assess the scene. The men from our ship had poured onto Bart’s, meeting his crew as they were about to board us. The fighting that followed as the two crews clashed was noisy, chaotic, and bloody—at least, from what I could see it was. One of the women hauled herself onto the railing next to me, her skirt hiked up, an arm-sized piece of wood from the broken mast in her hands. I shoved the boarding axe at her. She protested, but I yelled, “I do better with a sword,” as I pulled out my foil and flung myself at the nearest pirate.
He had a flintlock pistol, which he fired in my direction, but his aim was (fortunately) lamentable, and he tossed the pistol down as I rushed him with my sword drawn. For a fraction of a second I truly considered running him through with it, but in the end I simply whacked him on the head with the steel hand guard and pushed him over the side of the ship. Bart had evidently beached his ship in order to hide in shadows cast by a couple of mangrove trees, so the pirate wouldn’t have far to swim to make it to shore.
“That’s one down,” I yelled, whipping my sword around in a dramatic fashion that would have done Zorro proud. “Right, who wants a piece of this?”
Two men rushed me, both with cutlasses. I did a bit of instantaneous calculating with regards to the strength and general effectiveness of my foil, of my skill using it, and of my overall health and well-being, and came to a quick decision. “Cooooooooooorbin,” I yelled, running down the deck to where I could see him madly fighting with another man, the two pirates in hot pursuit.
One of our guys fell backward in front of us, a short pike buried in his chest. I stopped, staring down at him, time seeming to halt as he gasped a couple of times, then died right there in front of me, blood seeping into a pool on the wet deck beneath him. I knew that man—he was one of Bart’s crew,mycrew, a man who’d been pressed into service, but who had married one of the widows.
His name was Gabriel. He was a nice guy, relatively gentle and soft-spoken…
and now he was dead.
A fury like nothing I’ve ever felt swept over me, crashing into me with such force that I literally reeled for a second before grabbing the pike and jerking it from Gabriel’s body to run screaming at the two men who were pursuing me.
Fear flashed in their eyes as I ran the first one through with the pike; the second fell a few moments later as my sword flashed. Blood and seawater were everywhere, the light almost nonexistent as various lamps were knocked down by the battles, but the screams of the wounded, and the sound of the wood creaking as the tide rocked the ships together, all served to combine into a horrible nightmarish scene that I feared would have no end.
I fought like a madwoman, ignoring both physical and emotional pain as I struggled against the almost overwhelming number of crew on Bart’s ship.
Behind me, the remainder of my crew fought just as hard, but one by one they dropped until there were ten of Bart’s crew left, and just two of us. I crouched at the bow, bloody but unbowed, my sword held out before me, while Bart’s second crew formed a semicircle around me, laughing and sneering and taunting me.
I was too exhausted to answer, too outnumbered to stand a ghost of a chance at fighting, but I wasn’t going to go down without taking a couple of them with me.
“Paul,” Corbin yelled, his voice carrying over the groans of the wounded and the wood-on-wood shriek of the ships as they shifted. He ripped open the port hatch. “I know you’re down there skulking like the coward you are. Come out here and fight me like a man.”
Corbin started down the ladder to the lower deck but fell backward as a shot rang out from below. I screamed and threw myself heedlessly forward as a circle of red appeared on his side.
“Corbin!” The men caught me (but not before I made sure that one of them wouldn’t be siring children anytime in the near future), twisting my arms painfully behind me as they hauled me forward to where Corbin was struggling to his knees. Bart leaped out of the hold, standing over Corbin with a pistol in one hand, a sword in the other.
“How very fittin‘ to have ye grovelin’ at me feet,” Bart drawled, putting his foot on Corbin’s shoulder, knocking him back to the ground. He kicked the sword from his hand, sending it skittering across the wet deck.
“Oh, you aresodead,” I yelled, struggling to free myself from the pirates who held me captive. “You slimy bastard! Did you have to shoot him there? That was healing so nicely!”
