The Devil's Tide (40 page)

"It's Dillahunt!" exclaimed one of the riflemen.

Calloway scanned the lower deck until she found Dillahunt, near
Crusader's
upturned bow.

"I've got him," said the one nearest Calloway.

"Nay!" called Blackbeard. "No man kills Captain Dillahunt but me." He lifted the sling that held his six guns over his head and dropped it to the deck. He seized Calloway by the neck, drawing her face near his, and said, "And I've got just the bait."

His huge fingers tightened around her throat, and he pressed her back against the rail. "Dillahunt!" he called down. "Face me, or see the color of your woman's blood!"

Calloway looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Dillahunt's shocked expression. He was frozen in place, deaf to the sounds of men fighting and dying all around him. He obviously hadn't expected to see her alive again, let alone on the deck of Blackbeard's ship.

Calloway grasped at Blackbeard's chest, raking her nails over his leather coat. He had been wise to cast his guns from her reach. She choked as the smoke from his beard wafted over her face. She could barely see him through the haze, save for his evil blue eyes. She raised her right hand, fingers plunging into the scruff of his beard, until they touched something hot. Instead of jerking away, she grasped hold of it, and fire scorched her palm. She clutched tightly, despite the pain jolting up her arm, cramping her muscles. She wrenched the fuse loose, and he cried out as the hemp cord tore away from the curls of his beard.

"You should have killed me," she said, and thrust the burning end of the hemp into his right eye. His eye sizzled, and she pressed the cord deeper into the socket, until milky fluids drizzled down his cheek. The stench was nauseating. His lips peeled from his teeth, and he thrust her back with tremendous force. The rail fell away from her. She saw her legs flailing above her, and realized she was going to hit headfirst. She curled forward. Her back hit with a sickening
crack
and splayed her arms and legs flat across the blood-smeared deck. The back of her skull hit last.

The last thing she saw before her eyes closed were the massive, tattered sails of the mainmast flapping madly in the wind, dispersing the clouds of black smoke that roiled from the deck.

Crusader's
bow was just beginning to tear free of
Revenge's
bulwark when Kate saw Calloway plummet from the quarterdeck. Blackbeard crushed his hands to his face, howling like some kind of animal. Calloway landed somewhere below, but Kate's view was cut off by
Crusader's
upturned bow.

She surged forward without thinking, racing up the stairs to the
Crusader's
forecastle and leaping from the bow. A rope was still dangling from its grapple, and she latched on midair, swinging over
Revenge's
deck . . . and quickly realized she had made a mistake. She swung in a wide arc, feet dangling over several dueling pirates, and she crashed into the foremast. Pain shot through her right shoulder and hip where she took the brunt of the damage. She bounced off and started to swing back around, her palms burning as she slid down the rope.
No way out but down.
If she didn't let go soon, she would smash into
Crusader's
bowsprit. She opened her fingers and came crashing down on one of Blackbeard's men, near the capstan, laying him facedown in a puddle of someone else's blood. He was painfully skinny, and no matter how much he squirmed, he couldn't get out from under her. She scooped up a discarded cutlass and plunged it into his shoulder blades. Blood fountained out of his back and splattered her face. She blinked rapidly until she could see again.

She looked around for Calloway. There were bodies everywhere. Feet hammered the deck like skittish drums following a frenetic tune. Swords clashed and pistols fired. Pirates dueled on the quarterdeck, pirouetting and swiping. For an absurd instant Kate thought of dancers twirling about a dance floor, like the parties she and her husband had occasionally attended in London.

She stuck her sword in the deck and leaned on it in order to stand. A bald pirate lunged at her, screaming. He hesitated for a split second when he saw she was a woman, and she thrust her blade into his belly and pulled it free just as quickly. He dropped to his knees, clutching himself as blood streamed between his fingers. He gave her a final look of disbelief, unable to fathom that he had been killed by a woman, and fell on his face.

She spotted Calloway's lifeless body near the bottom of the stairs that led up to the quarterdeck. Dillahunt was already making his way up, slashing through two pirates that tried to block his path. Blackbeard lowered his hand, revealing a black, smoking hole where his right eye had been. He raised his cutlass and charged at Dillahunt, steam pouring out of his beard and missing eye. Dillahunt saw him coming and charged as well, the loose strands of his many bandages tapering behind him. The deck seemed to tremble when their blades met.

Kate dropped to Calloway's side. She lightly slapped the girl's cheeks. "Jaq?"

Calloway's eyelids slowly parted. "Is it over? Did we win?"

Kate looked around. "Not quite."

"Your face is red," she said, reaching up to touch Kate's cheek.

At least she can move her arms.

"We can't stay here," Kate said.

Calloway groggily shook her head, one eye closing while the other was barely a slit. "Let's just go to sleep right here. I'm tired. The wood is nice and wet."

"That's not water," Kate reminded her.

"Oh, what is it?"

"Get up!" Kate seized her by the wrists and peeled her off the deck with all her strength. Calloway came up . . . and then dipped into Kate, nearly knocking her over. Kate wrapped her arms around the girl's waist, balancing her.

"Tired," she said.

"You hit your head," Kate replied.

"It doesn't hurt," Calloway assured her. Her brow formed a line when she saw Kate's bodice. "Are those roses? How dainty."

Crusader's
bow finally slipped off the starboard rail, crashing into the water. Freed of the weight,
Revenge
pitched toward its port, and pirates living and dead were catapulted in that direction. On the quarterdeck, Blackbeard and Dillahunt stumbled out of view with their blades locked in a crisscross.

Kate and Calloway fell together. Kate got up and struggled to get the girl back on her feet. "We can't stay here, Jaq!" she shouted in her face. The girl opened her eyes a little more.

Half of Dillahunt's men had taken the fighting to the quarterdeck, but several were still fighting on the cutdown forecastle. If Kate and Calloway stayed here much longer, they would be ripped to shreds.

Kate finally got Calloway back on her feet. Two fighting pirates nearly collided with them, and Kate veered out of the way. She looked to
Crusader
, but it had pulled too far from
Revenge
now and was tilting parallel, with the remaining crew firing rifles and swivel guns.

Kate spotted an open hatchway set in the deck before the capstan. She made for it at once, dragging Calloway along. The girl was taller, but Kate weighed a bit more, with stronger arms and legs. Still, it was no easy task. She zigzagged through two pairs of dueling pirates, brandishing her cutlass with her free hand. One of them was Andrew Harrow, who barreled into his combatant in order to make room for the women. "Go on!" he barked over his shoulder, knowing where they were headed.

Fear gradually enlarged Calloway's eyes as she regained her senses and realized where she was. Kate bent down long enough to pick up a dead pirate's pistol, shoving it in the front of her pants. A granado rolled across the deck as the ship swayed. "Grab that!" she told Calloway. Calloway fell to her knees and picked up the granado before it could roll past. Kate lifted her back up and continued for the hatch.

When they finally reached their destination, a hulk of a pirate popped out of the hatch, raising his sword. Kate thrust her blade through his neck, and the tip stuck in the base of the capstan behind him. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and his mouth dropped open, chin resting on the flat of the blade. She wrenched the sword free, and he collapsed back into the hatch, rolling down the stairs. "Go!" Kate said, urging Calloway inside.

She looked over her shoulder and saw a dozen more of Blackbeard's men emerging from the dark hollow beneath the quarterdeck. Only five of Dillahunt's men remained on the cutdown forecastle, and they were about to be overwhelmed. The rest were dead or raiding the higher levels. Kate gave Harrow a final look. He hacked away at his opponent's blade until the man's knees buckled, and he kept on hacking until his blade split the man's skull. And then Blackbeard's men surrounded him, cutting him off from Kate's view.

She ducked into the hatch and followed after Calloway, who was stumbling over the corpse of the hulk, which had collected at the foot of the upper stairway. They hurried through the slim door to the crew's quarters. The room was packed with hammocks and bunks. Both walls slanted to a point at the far end of the room, forming the bow. Fortunately, no one was inside, save for a corpse with a red bandana. He was still gripping a pistol. Kate ushered Calloway to the back of the room, shoving her into a dark hollow between two bunks. She pried the pistol from the dead man's fingers and handed it to Calloway. "Stay here," she said.

The girl set the gun and granado in her lap and rubbed the back of her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "That smarts. What happened?"

"You fell," Kate reminded her. "I'll be back. And if you have to shoot anyone, make sure he isn't one of Dillahunt's."

"Where are you going?"

Kate snatched the granado from Calloway's lap. "To find a powder keg."

She sheathed her cutlass in her belt and drew her pistol. She left the crew's quarters with pistol in one hand and granado in the other. She took the stair down into the cargo hold, which was dimly lit by a couple of lanterns swaying from the ceiling. She made her way around the stacked water casks in the middle of the room, stepping over the ballast stones that covered the floor. The starboard side was brighter, with beams of light shining through where
Crusader's
bow had pulverized the hull.

She approached a slim passage to what she guessed was the powder room. A figure emerged from the dark, stopping her in her tracks. Underneath a black cap adorned with a red ribbon he had short grey hair, and a deep scar ran down his forehead. He wore a white shirt and maroon breeches. And he was aiming a gun.

"Who might you be, girly?" His voice was barely above a whisper, difficult to hear over the screaming and thumping of feet and cracks of gunfire above.

"I might be Kate Lindsay," she answered, aiming her pistol.

He scowled at the name. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care," she replied.

"Well," he said, straightening his back, "whoever you be, my name's Jethro, and I'll wager from the granado in your hand that you're here to get at the powder kegs, yes?"

"You wager correctly," she said.

Jethro nodded indicatively, and Kate glanced over her shoulder. Another hulk of a man had crept up behind her, cutlass in hand. He looked a lot like the hulk she had killed on the stairs. Maybe they were brothers.

Jethro smiled, keeping his gun level. "Odds aren't in your favor."

"I'm used to that," Kate said with a smile.

"Best to just lower that gun, missy," Jethro urged.

Her eyes trailed downward. "Those are very pretty breeches, Jethro. What color is that?"

He frowned, glancing down. "Thank you. I believe that's called—"

Kate pulled the trigger. The hold flashed white, capturing Jethro's hapless expression for an instant. The bullet had penetrated his upper lip. Kate sidestepped as he toppled forward, dropping her gun and snatching his out of his hand as he fell, all in a single motion. She spun around and aimed as the second hulk charged with his sword held high. His face ran right into the barrel as she pulled the trigger, and his brains scattered into the darkness. He landed on top of Jethro, sword clanging harmlessly on the ballast stones.

Kate stepped into the slim passage. Three kegs were stacked horizontally against the wall. She gripped the plug of one of the kegs, wrenching it loose. Black powder spilled out in a steady stream. She smiled. "Beautiful."

She moved back into the cargo hold. She cocked the hammer of Jethro's pistol and set the fuse of her granado against the frizzen. She pulled the trigger. The flint struck the frizzen, and the spark ignited the fuse. She tossed the sizzling granado into the powder room, dropped the gun, and ran. She nearly stumbled over the ballast stones but grabbed hold of a water cask to steady herself. She ran back up the stairs and into the crew's quarters. Before she got to Calloway, a tremendous
boom
sounded, and something slapped her from behind and lifted her off her feet, hurtling her toward the end of the room. She didn't stop until she hit the crease where each side of the ship's hull met the bow. Her forehead split on a beam, pain lancing into her skull. She crumpled to the floor, clutching her face. Her hands came away slick with blood.

Dillahunt's back was flat against the port rail when the starboard side of the cutdown forecastle erupted in a blinding yellow fireball, showering
Crusader
in flaming splinters. Blackbeard halted mid attack, sword suspended in the air, and swiveled his huge head.

The men Dillahunt had brought over to
Revenge
were all but spent. As far as he could tell, seven remained. Five of them were fighting on the quarterdeck. The other two were somewhere below, last he looked, although the explosion had probably claimed them.

"What in God's name?" Blackbeard muttered in disbelief.

"Not God," Dillahunt replied, swinging his blade. "Last I looked, he doesn't deal in fire."

Blackbeard parried without even looking at Dillahunt. "My ship," he said, dazed. "What's happening to my ship?"

Dillahunt almost felt sorry for the man. He knew better than anyone that a captain's bond with his ship was nothing to make light of, and
Queen Anne's Revenge
was one of the most impressive ships he had ever seen.