Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (30 page)

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“Ella!”

She saw him
barreling toward her but she almost didn’t recognize him. Dressed in a linen
shirt tucked at the waist and a leather belt holding two pistols, he looked as
fierce as any pirate on the ship. His hair was wild and blowing. Gone was the
man she had held in her arms just a day earlier. This man striding toward her,
the other pirates parting as he came, was as at home on this ship as any of
them.

This man was a
pirate.

“Rowan!” she
said, her eyes darting from him to the quartermaster, who snapped his head to
see Rowan approach. The young pirate who’d escorted them from the beach suddenly
grabbed her by her arms and twisted them behind her and she shrieked. When she
turned to look at Rowan she saw him pulling both guns from his belt, his face a
thunderous fury.

“Let ‘er go,
Tibbs,” Rowan barked, “or I’ll feed your guts to the sharks.” Out of the corner
of her eye, she saw Sully pull a flintlock pistol from the belt of the big
black pirate, who grabbed for it unsuccessfully.

“Avast, ye
bastard,” Toad snarled to Rowan, stepping in front of his advance and aiming
his pistol at Rowan’s head. One of the pirates who had stood watching the
action suddenly materialized by Toad and knocked the gun from his hand. The
second he did, she felt her captor release her. Rowan kicked Toad’s gun out of
his way, jammed his own weapons back in his belt and, before she could say a
word, took her hand, bent over, and scooped her up and tossed her over his
shoulder. She gasped at how fast it happened as he turned and strode back to
the far side of the ship railing.

It broke the
tension. Before he put her back on her feet she’d heard several of the crew
call out to Rowan in good-natured ribbing as he passed. “Cor,
mkubwa
, she’s spent the night out there
with Sully. Might be she learned a few new things for ye!”

Rowan turned to
look at her and she instantly recognized the man she loved under the tan and
the grit and the fierce expression. “What the hell are you doing here, Ella?
Are you kidding me?”

She jerked her
arm away from him, hurt now that he didn’t appear as happy to see her as she
was to see him. “I was kidnapped, if you want to know!” she hissed. “Do you
think I’d come here
deliberately,
as
you clearly did?”

“We’ll discuss it
later,” he growled. “Wait, was that you in the cabin?”

“We’ll discuss it
later,” she said primly, turning her back to him to watch with the other pirates.

Toad ran over to
where Rowan had kicked his pistol next to one of the large rope coils on the
deck and snatched it up. His face was purple with humiliation and rage and he
turned toward Rowan. Instantly, the crew of thirty-five men folded their arms and
stepped in front of Rowan and Ella. Toad hesitated, then swiveled back to Sully
in frustration.

“My goodness,”
Sully said. “It looks like your crew-of-one-hour is already sick of you,
Edward.”

“Shut up, ye
bastard! It’s ye we’re sick of, and that’s all of us to a man. Now tell us plain
afore I cut yer heart out—why did ye go to the island?”

“To find the girl
you let escape.”

“Don’t give me
that bilge! Ye went to fetch the treasure. Give over, ye bastard, or I’ll chain
ye to the keel.”

Sully moved to
put the railing at his back and Ella wondered if he was thinking of jumping. “As
I am presently pointing a gun at your head, Edward, you’ll excuse me if your
threats don’t scare me.”

“Tell us where
the treasure is, ye bilge-sucking pox, or we’ll swab the deck with your wench’s
blood.”

“Why think you that
I care about the wench?” he asked, but his voice was unsteady. “Besides, you’ll
have to go through the giant first to get her and ‘your’ crew has made it clear
that won’t happen.”

Clearly deciding
a wheedling tone was the better approach, Toad lowered his gun as if to appear
reasonable. “Have done, Sully,” he said calmly, “you know ye’ll never leave
this ship alive. It’s thirty-five to one.”

“Who’ll be the
first to rush me? You? I guarantee whoever it is will get a first-class ticket
to Davy Jones’ Locker.”

“Stalemate,” Ella
whispered, leaning back into Rowan and feeling the strength of his fingers as
he gripped her waist.

Sully pulled out the
diamond from his bag to gasps from the crew. He held it high to let the light
catch it for all to see and then placed it on the ship railing. He touched it
with the tip of his pistol. Ella saw the morning light dazzle through the gem,
even in its uncut state.

“It’s Jan’s
treasure,” Rowan said in wonder. “So he really had it after all.”

“And checkmate,”
Ella said under her breath. She couldn’t resist grinning.
What a cool piece of work this guy is! Nerves of effin’ granite.

“Let the girl go,”
Sully said, nudging the diamond on the railing with his gun, “or your treasure
goes overboard into the dark, inky depths never to be spent by anyone ever.”

“Ye would never!”

“Oh, Edward, how
little you know me. Let her go—with the giant—or the largest uncut
diamond in the world disappears to the bottom of the ocean.”

Some of the crew
called out, “Go on, make haste,
mkubwa,
and take ‘er,” and began to move away as if to clear a path to the rope ladder
and the dinghy waiting below.

Toad aimed his gun
at the pair and shouted. “Avast, all of ye! No one leaves my ship.”

He turned back to
Sully and pointed to the diamond sitting on the railing. “It ain’t in ye to
throw away a prize like that,” he sneered. “Not for a wench. Besides, I have a
matter to settle with her.”

Sully turned to
the gathered men. “Did you all vote to sink your prize so your new captain
could get his revenge on a wench?”

“Nay!” Ansel
yelled, “we never!” A chorus of dissension erupted from the rest of the crew,
who moved back in place to block Ella and Rowan from Toad’s sightline. “Touch
‘er, Mister Toad,” Ansel said, pulling his cutlass free of his belt, “and we’ll
be voting fer a new cap’n—one that’s
alive
!”

In manic
frustration, Toad turned back to Sully, raised his pistol and fired.

Ella screamed as
she saw Sully stagger backward in a puff of sulfurous smoke and then fall to
the deck. As if in slow motion, she saw the long barrel of his pistol nudge the
duck egg-sized diamond sending it skittering over the railing into the ocean
below.

An explosion of
rage bellowed through the air as the crew realized what happened.

Ella jerked
forward to see where Sully had fallen but was held fast by Rowan’s grip. Before
she could pry herself free, the sound of a cannon blast deafened her and the
topmast seemed to explode before them and fall hurtling to the deck, scattering
the stunned men and hitting three.

She turned to
look off the starboard bow to see one of Commodore Porter’s twenty-oared gun
barges
squatting on the shoal.

Toad stared,
stunned, at the destruction of wood and broken lumber on the deck at their
feet, the sounds of men howling and racing to grab up their weapons. “Ye said
they wouldn’t dare attack us with the girl on board,” he said in a daze.

Ella watched in
horror as ten gun ports in the barge’s side opened up and erupted fire. A full
broadside of grapeshot and round shot ripped a hole in the
Die Hard’s
hull, pummeling it with such force that she instantly
began to heel over. Thirty men lining the barge’s bulwarks and gunwales opened fire
on the pirates with muskets and flintlocks.

Ella looked
around desperately for a place to hide as musket balls thudded into the deck
around her. Rowan grabbed her hand and yanked her at a run to the far side of
the ship, which was listing severely now. They climbed to the railing, Rowan’s
cutlass tucked under his arm and one hand around Ella, the other reaching for
the bannister to pull them free of the melee.

The pirates,
scrambling for their weapons, quickly returned fire with blunderbusses,
blasting a wild spray of lead shot, nails and glass fragments. Even Ella could
see the result was ineffective. The crew was panicked, taken totally off guard.
There was no leader to urge them to man the four-pounders—their only
hope—and no one to direct their man-to-man defense. Rudderless, the men reacted
in fear and confused desperation.

When the first
volley of the pirates’ sawed-off shotguns failed, Porter’s men responded with a
salvo of musket fire. Ella screamed when she saw the fusillade sever the main
mast and rip through the rigging and the ratlines, the cut ropes flashing and
twisting through the air like spasmodic snakes. The topmast cracked and fell
with a heavy explosion onto the main deck, scattering the pirates, many of whom
leapt overboard.

Ella saw the
cabin boy, Kip, stunned and rooted to the deck, staring at the onslaught with
horror-filled eyes.

“Rowan!” Ella
called. “The boy! He—”

But before Rowan
could turn to look she saw the bullet that cut the child down. She watched him
crumple to his knees and sag to the deck in a growing pool of his own blood.

“Ella,
now
!” Rowan roared, pulling her ahead of
him and pushing her to the far side of the quarterdeck. “They’ll concentrate on
the ship’s center. We need to get to the captain’s quarters.”

Ella watched more
pirates jump from the ship and saw that some of Porter’s men were directing
their aim into the water. She stumbled past Rowan toward the cabin.

“Going somewhere,
mkubwa
?” a voice snarled from the
opposite side of the helm.

Ella recognized
the voice and stopped, preferring to take her chances with a stray grapeshot on
deck than the owner of that voice. She felt Rowan’s arm come in front of her
and sweep her behind him in one fluid motion. The other hand held his cutlass
pointed at the man rising up from a crouch by the helm.

“It’s over,
Toad,” Rowan rasped. “They’ve got you now.”

“Aye, but mayhap
I’ve got ye and the wench afore I die.”

Ella watched in
horror as the man lunged at Rowan, a dagger in each hand. His face was
contorted with madness and hate. She staggered backward at the assault and fell
over a coil of rope on the deck.

Rowan stepped forward
into the attack, deflecting one of the dagger’s downward arcs with his cutlass
and twisting aside as the second one grazed his hip. Without flinching, Rowan
drove the tip of his cutlass into the back of Toad’s neck as he fell with the
forward trajectory of the blade. She was shocked to see Rowan’s killing blow,
delivered without hesitation or thought. She heard Toad’s grunt as he collapsed
to his knees, his shirt drenched in gore. Rowan kicked both daggers away and
stepped over Toad as he crumpled to the deck.

“Ella, let’s go,”
he called, his hand out to her.

Ella scrambled to
her feet, her eyes still on Toad. She could see he was alive, but just. His
eyes blinked and then closed. She grabbed Rowan’s hand and felt him pull her
nearly off her feet and toward the cabin door. He jerked the door open and,
after a quick glance, pushed her inside.

Before he could
leave, she grabbed his sleeve. “Rowan, no! Both of us, please!”

She saw the indecision
flicker in his eyes. She had never seen him like this.
He wants to go back to the fight.

She turned to the
nightstand to look for the lighter. It was gone. She ran back to him. “You
found it, didn’t you? The lighter?” she said. She saw in his eyes that he had. “We
can leave now. We just need to stay alive long enough.”

“Wait for me,
El,” he said, his eyes flicking from her face to the battle that raged on the
main deck. The men on the barge weren’t bothering to board the
Die Hard
. It was pretty clear their
intent was to sink her and kill everyone on the ship and in the water.

“Rowan, you can’t
stop them and they don’t know you’re not one of them! Look how you’re dressed!
Stay with me!”

He shrugged off
her grip and turned to go. “I’ll be back,” he said over his shoulder.

Ella bolted from
the cabin in time to see Rowan lean down and rip the sword from the scabbard on
Toad’s body. He dropped his cutlass to the deck with a heavy thud and wheeled
around to face an unknown assailant from behind the capstan. Ella couldn’t see whom
he was fighting. With Toad dead and the Americans not bothering to leave their
barge, he could only be fighting another of the pirates.

She grabbed at the
splintering remains of the topmast for support; the stump felt hot where a
cannonball had hit it. She ran to Rowan. She knew she would distract him if he
saw her even out of the corner of his eye, so she edged carefully around to the
other side of the helm, not sure what she was doing or why, just knowing she couldn’t
stay in that cabin waiting for the worst.

Rowan was
slashing wildly, viciously with his sword, any interest in style or swordsmanship—if
he’d ever had any—was no longer evident. His combatant stood facing him
in the shadows by the yardarm without moving, only his sword arm engaged. Even
over the sounds of the screams and splashes and diminishing reports of musket
fire, Ella heard the evil swish of the pirate’s sword as it sliced through the
air intent on taking Rowan’s head off at the neck. She watched Rowan dance away
from the reach of the wicked blade, missing contact with it by millimeters.