Pirate Wolf Trilogy (46 page)

~~

Dante
could not see much of anything at all. Dusk was purpling what
little clean air came on board the
Scout
, the rest was filled with smoke, flying debris, scraps of
burning canvas. The mainmast was a shambles of tangled lines and
broken spars. The top third was folded over and men had been sent
up to hack at it with saws and cudgels to rid them of the useless
drag. Every quarter knot of lost speed kept her under the
Talon’s
guns and she was already badly
wounded. Most of her sheets hung from loose or broken lines; spars
swung crazily with the pitch of the ship. Her hull was breached and
the sea was pouring in below the waterline, almost faster than men
on pumps could disgorge it. There was blood everywhere, making the
decks slippery underfoot; five of Carleill’s original crew had
already jumped overboard, preferring to swim for shore and take
their chances with the Spanish rather than remain on board and be
caught in the midst of a grudge match between two
madmen.

Dante’s
madness had a slight advantage in that the
Talon’s
gunners were nowhere near as good as his
own
Virago
men,
despite the fact that they were using Pitt’s own demis against
them. Two out of every four shots scudded harmlessly into the sea,
causing a good deal of spray and chop, and a true appreciation for
every one of the culverins’ retorts that struck wood and bone. Pitt
was keeping up a steady barrage, sharp enough and hot enough to
make Bloodstone think twice about coming in too close too soon, but
another ten minutes or so and it likely would not matter anyway.
The
Scout’s
rudder
was sloppy and she barely had enough sail to keep her moving. She
was pinned as helplessly against the shoreline as the Levantine had
been; the only difference being a captain who would not have struck
his colors had the devil himself been spewing flame at
him.

“Simon!”

Dante was
manning one of the cannon. He reeled away just as the glowing tip
of the linstock was applied to the touch hole and the breeching
tackle jumped to absorb the recoil from the exploding shot.

“
Simon!”

Dante swung
around as the crew hauled in the gun, swabbed the barrel, shoved a
fresh shot down its throat, and packed it against a new powder
cartridge. Pitt was working the gun beside him, his face streaked
with soot and sweat, his blond hair smeared with blood. He was
pointing wildly over the side, shouting something, but Dante’s ears
were still ringing from the last explosion.

Dante saw
nothing at first and he had to wipe his eyes to see what was
causing Pitt to leap up and down like a fool and windmill his arms
nearly out of their sockets. Angling in from upwind was another
galleon, her sails full and straining with vengeance, her guns run
out, spitting thunder as she charged into the fray.

Dante could
barely believe his eyes and had to blink twice before accepting it.
“By God … Beau!”

He
grabbed hold of a shroud line and pulled himself up to stand on the
rail, watching as the
Egret
backed all of her topsails and almost slid to a complete
halt in the water. In her own swirling backwash she angled her
stern around to present her full broadside, and with every man on
board the
Scout
cheering
like lunatics, she fired three immense volleys, seemingly without a
break in smoke, noise, or gouting sparks of flame.

Dante
clenched his fist and added his own voice to those of his men.
“Bloodstone, you bloody-minded coward! How does it feel to choke on
your own treachery!” And even though neither ship could hear him,
he called to the
Egret
as well.
“Ahoy, Jonas, you beautiful bastard! Bring her straight in and
crucify the coward with everything you’ve got!”

Spence
had no choice but
to
bring her in closer, for although the show of support was much
needed to bolster the spirits on board the
Scout
, the
Egret
was still too far out to do any real damage. Even so, some
of the demis struck their mark, tearing a long gash in the
Talon’s
main course and plowing into
timbers on deck.

Two more
volleys and the
Egret
reset her
sails, turning bow-on to the
Talon
,
running in as fast as she could gather windage. Bloodstone seemed
unconcerned. His ship blazed with another broadside, taking out a
section of the
Scout’s
afterdeck and blowing three men into the sea.

“He obviously
doesn’t have much respect for Spence or his ship,” Pitt grated.
“He’s going to finish with us first.”

“He’s going to
try,” Dante agreed with a snarl. “But we still have a few surprises
left.”

“Do I want to
know what they are?”

Dante grinned
larcenously. “You will approve, I’m sure. Those crates of nails you
found in the hold, bring them up and fill the barrels of the bow
guns. Fetch up the kegs of Greek fire while you’re about it and set
them in the stern.”

Pitt’s face
brightened through the grime. “I like it already.”

Dante ran to
the stern, where Edward Carleill stood over the tiller like a
blooded hound. He looked, if anything, more terrified than before,
but thus far had held to Dante’s orders and executed them without
so much as twitching an eyelid.

He blinked this
time when Dante gave him fresh instructions and, if it was
possible, went a shade paler.

“We’ll need as
much speed as you can give me, if it is going to succeed. Have we
anything left?”

“I’ll find it,
sir. Count on it.” He turned and ordered the men in the tops to
trim the sheets, to hold them in place if necessary with their bare
hands.

Dante
left the rudder in Carleill’s hands and ran back to the stern just
as Pitt arrived carrying four small kegs filled with naphtha and
sealed with a layer of tar. They would have to be within spitting
distance of the
Talon
for the
incendiaries to succeed, but if only one hit the target, the
exploding oil would spread flames across the decks faster than
anyone could think to smother them.

Getting
them close enough would take just about all the
Scout
had left in her. The superior firepower of the
privateer would be pounding her all the way in; their one slim hope
was for the
Egret
to see
what they were doing and offer Bloodstone a warm
distraction.

In the
meantime he kept his head low and his cannon loaded and firing.
Carleill aimed her like an arrow, straight and true, and the
privateer, battered but not defeated, responded with a last burst
of spirit. She gathered speed and courage and determination and
threw herself at the
Talon’s
guns,
and from where Dante crouched by the stern falconets, he could see
Victor Bloodstone standing on the fore-deck, encouraging his men to
shoot as fast as they could reload.

Carleill
denied them as much of a target for as long as he could before he
reached the point of turning. He was passing the orders, tightening
the crew’s grip on the tiller, when a blast from the
Talon
raked the afterdeck, shattering
through timbers and flesh, sweeping the entire upper castle and
everyone on it into the sea.

It gave
Dante a moment’s pause, staring at the gaping hole where Carleill
had been standing, knowing it might have been Beau. … but then he
had no time to think at all. The
Scout
was fifty, forty, thirty yards from the
Talon
, and with no way to turn her off her course, she
was going to ram the privateer at full speed. Pitt fired the bow
guns, then ordered the men back. Four lethal loads of iron nails
were sprayed across the decks of the
Talon
, wreaking terrible damage, and with less than twenty yards
to go, Dante lit the fuses on the stern guns … and
fired.

Beau
watched the
Scout
make her
stumbling turn and start a bow-on run toward the
Talon.
She was expecting Dante to veer
off at the last moment, duplicating the feat he had executed
against the
San Pedro
, but
something went mortally wrong. Even from three hundred yards away
she could hear the screaming of timbers and the smashing of planks
as the two ships collided. The hull of the
Talon
was rammed inward. The privateer staggered and
reeled over, pushing a wave of water off her starboard beam. When
she righted herself, the
Scout
was wedged fast amidships and Dante’s men were scrambling
over the side, cutlasses, pikes, and muskets in hand. Two of the
four kegs of Greek fire found their marks, exploding on the
Talon’s
afterdeck in great sheets of
liquid flame. The combustible ran along the rails and dripped down
the sides of the hull. It fanned across the decks, rippling blue
and gold and red in the darkness, running along planks and spilling
hot blue fingers between the broken boards.

“Hold yer
fire!” Spence shouted over the heads of his gun crews. “Or we’ll
hit both ships! Beau! Bring her in to grapplin’ distance, we’ll
crowd her on the other side!”

Beau
brought the
Egret
in fast
and smooth. The men, led by Jonas Spence, stood ready by the boards
with grappling lines and weapons. The
Talon
was still firing her guns and Spit gave them several hot
replies to the insult at point-blank range, close enough to bring
plumes of sea-water spraying over the rails. Billy Cuthbert took
men up into the shrouds with muskets and pistols and picked out
their targets by the light of the fires blazing in the
Talon’s
stern.

Bedlam had
erupted on the deck of the privateer. Men fought in pairs, in
trios, in swarms; shadowy couples in macabre dances with swords and
daggers, assuming faces and features only when heated by the glow
of the flames.

Beau
scanned the decks for a glimpse of Dante, but there were too many
shadows twisting and writhing in confusion. She saw Pitt, a pistol
in each hand, a blade glinting at his hip, swinging himself over to
the deck of the
Talon
from
the
Scout
And she
saw Lucifer, his twin scimitars hacking at limbs as if he were back
in the Indies harvesting cane. There were dead and injured
everywhere. The decks were streaked with gore.

Beau drew
her cutlass, and with four
Egret
men behind her she clambered over the boarding planks and
dropped into the midst of the fighting. A shadow with a boat hook
came at her from the left and she slashed without thinking, using
both hands to wield the heavy sword across the man’s throat. Two
more shadows lunged for her and she shot one with her pistol, then
used it like a club when it was spent rather than take the trouble
to reload.

The
carpenter, Thomas Moone, was on her left, carrying the lid from a
barrel to use as a shield. He swore every time he swung his
cutlass, but he did so with a practiced eye, knowing the weakest
joints, the most vulnerable bones. Men charged them and more men
poured over from the decks of the
Egret
, and in short order the
Talon’s
crew were throwing down their weapons and throwing
up their arms, screaming for mercy.

And there was
still no sight of Dante de Tourville.

~~

He was,
at that precise moment, on the only clear circle of deck space on
the
Talon.
Victor
Bloodstone stood across from him, panting and sweat-soaked,
circling his hated enemy in a wary crouch, sword in hand, eyes
blazing murder.

“Honorable to
the end, Victor,” Dante spat. “That is what your epitaph will read.
Written in the blood of the men you sacrificed in the name of greed
and ambition.”

Bloodstone
lunged forward with his blade. The thrust was easily put aside by
Dante, though he fought with only one good arm. The other had been
torn open in the impact when the two ships had collided, and
dripped a steady patter of blood onto the deck.

Bloodstone retreated and circled, waiting for another
opening. His enemy was big, solid with brute strength, but some of
that strength was melting away. Moreover, he had seen Dante fight
before and knew he had lived too long on the deck of a ship to
trouble himself with the intricacies of footwork. He preferred to
hack and slash, mostly to good effect, especially if his opponent
had not looked into the menacing steel of his eyes before. Victor
had looked—and laughed—as he did now when he executed a perfect
feint and left a thin red ribbon welling across the massive
chest.

“Why?” Dante
snarled. “Why did you do it? Was it the gold? All for the
gold?”

Bloodstone
shook the sweat out of his eyes. His back was to the flames and the
hated face was lit before him, burnished by the glowing heat.
Farther yet, looming out of the shadows, another face, uglier than
sin with a smashed nose and stealth in his mutilated smile, caused
Victor to stop, to steady his blade a moment as if contemplating
something profound in his answer.