Tigerheart (10 page)

Paul, from his vantage point, saw the whole thing. Saw Gwenny and the boys mounting a valiant defense, but defense was all it was. Saw The Boy trying again and again to inflict some sort of damage upon his opponent and getting nowhere, while there were now half a dozen cuts upon him. Individually none of them was fatal, or even daunting. But they were accumulating, and soon it would have to wear him down, leaving him open to a killing stroke. Plus there was his own predicament, as the Turk clambered closer and closer to him.

“Boy! Gwenny! We have to get out of here!” Paul shouted over the melee. “We have to leave now!
Now!
”

Paul’s words struck to the very core of The Boy’s pride, which was boundless. The notion of an open retreat was anathema to him. But he looked around and saw the same situation that Paul perceived, and knew in his heart that Paul was right.

The most stunning sight was Mary Slash. She was youthening, the ravages of age melting away from her in the light of her joy. Her gray-white hair was now almost entirely raven black. Her warts and liver spots had disappeared. Her movements became lighter by the second; and with one fast slice of her sword, she cut away the long flowing garment she’d been wearing. Beneath was now revealed a dazzling piratical ensemble: Trousers and a greatcoat, both made of crushed red velvet. A crisp white shirt with a ruffled tie, and classic black buccaneer boots. A wide sash across her middle completed the ensemble, and there was a single-shot pistol jammed into the sash. And her eyes blazed with a singular hatred directed entirely at The Boy.

And still The Boy hesitated, his pride making it impossible for him to withdraw. Seeing that hesitation, Paul called out to him, “Boy! There’s too much going on here that we neither know nor understand! If we fight and die, then we die ignorant, and what purpose will that serve?”

Knowing that Paul was right and despising him for being so, The Boy called out the word that was bile in his mouth: “
Retreat!
”

He ducked under a desperate slash from the shadow’s sword, hurtled through the air like a projectile, and snagged Paul from the uppermost section of the rigging. It was at that moment that Paul remembered he could fly…an understandable lapse in memory, since he had a lot on his mind and the notion that he could defy gravity was still quite novel to him.

Paul shook loose of The Boy’s grasp and floated there for a moment, regaining his equilibrium. The Boy glanced in surprise, for if Paul’s awareness of his airborne abilities was newfound, The Boy was quite simply notorious for forgetting new concepts from one moment to the next. His battle with the shadow of his enemy had so consumed him that not only had it slipped his mind that Paul could fly, but also he had quite forgotten who Paul was.

“I’ll get the boys!” Paul said. “You get Gwenny!”

The Boy nodded, a rare instance of accepting orders at all, much less orders without question. He dove like a streak toward Gwenny, while Paul angled down toward the outstretched arms of Porthos and Irregular. The pirates started to converge on Gwenny, but The Boy easily got to her first. He snagged her wrists and lifted her up, high out of reach. Then he called, “Bully Boys! With me!”

The Bully Boys laughed.

It was the most cutting noise that The Boy had ever heard. He froze there for a moment, and Paul—who was holding Irregular by one hand and Porthos by the other, and was marveling at the fact that they seemed to weigh nothing to him—noticed that The Boy appeared to be sinking slightly.

“I am your captain!” The Boy reminded them.

This drew even more laughter of a most contemptuous nature, and then a female voice soared over their hilarity.

It was Slash, and she pointed her sword hand defiantly at him. Next to her, the shadow of Hack was visibly shaking with mirth. “You were a figurehead, Boy!” she said, trying to contain her amusement and not being terribly successful. “No different than the wooden skull that sits at the prow of the ship! ’Twas the noble Hack who truly guided your hand…and ’tis I, Captain Slash, who is running matters upon this ship! Now fly!”

The Boy, out of defiant reflex, started to head back toward her, and suddenly Agha Bey was swinging one of the deck cannons around at him. The fuse was already burning down, and Paul realized instantly that it was about to detonate. “Boy! The cannon!”

Seeing the source of Paul’s warning, The Boy—given no choice—dropped back, Gwenny clutching desperately onto him with all her strength, her legs thrashing about in the air. The cannon went off, and The Boy twisted to the side, just managing to avoid the cannonball as it hurtled past him. It arced out over the ship’s stern, down, and crashed through the raft that Gwenny and the boys had so carefully manufactured. The raft was shattered to splinters, no longer identifiable even as separate planks of wood, much less a vessel.

As fast as they could, Paul, The Boy, and the others flew away from the pirate ship.

Caveat sidled over to Captain Slash and said in a low voice, “A hit. A palatable hit.”

“Indeed,” said Slash.

“They’ll retreat to the tree house.”

“Oh, they’ll try to,” Slash said. “They will not, however, be especially successful.”

“Why not?”

“Let us just say that I’ve attended to it,” she said with a smile.

“Well, if they’re not successful at returning home,” Caveat said aloud, “they will surely seek other means to come after us. I don’t think any of us truly believes this is over.”

“Oh, I know it’s not over,” said Slash. She was reaching into one of the copious pockets in her greatcoat. “But when it continues, I shall have…certain advantages.”

“What sort of advantages?”

She withdrew a small tin box from her pocket. With a grim smile, she shook it and was rewarded with a frustrated and slightly frightened ringing from within. It was the sound of a very mortified Fiddlefix, slamming about within the box and getting absolutely nowhere.

“A small one,” she said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Caveat leaned forward, stared at the box, and grinned. “In-dubiously,” he confirmed.

Chapter 10

Slash and Burn

P
aul had never seen The Boy looking more lost.

The Boy stood on the ground, looking up, side by side with Gwenny, Paul, and the others; and the anguish on his face was plain for Paul to see. If nothing else, it mirrored their expressions.

There were the smoldering ruins of the tree house. Where there had once been a comfortable domicile, all that remained was a charred husk. Wisps of smoke were still rising from it; and glowing embers wafted away from it, looking like pixies in the lengthening twilight.

It was that realization which suddenly prompted Paul to look around and say with alarm, “Where’s Fiddle?”

The Boy didn’t answer. He was too busy looking woefully at the remains of the tree house. “Gone. All gone. I built it with my own hands.”

“Did he?” Paul asked Gwenny.

“Yes,” said Gwenny, “if one defines ‘own hands’ as standing around or floating around and barking orders while everyone else does it.”

“I suppose being in charge counts for something,” Paul said philosophically.

“It must have been Slash,” said The Boy, his anger beginning to escalate. “I don’t know when she did this—”

“Not that it matters,” said Irregular tragically.

“—but she will taste my wrath. She will learn that she cannot do this and get away with it,” continued The Boy, as if Irregular had said nothing, which, as far as The Boy was concerned, was probably the case.

“Where’s Fiddle?”
Paul said again, this time with some more force behind it.

It was sufficient to grab The Boy’s mild attention, and he afforded Paul a brief glance before saying indifferently, “She’s around somewhere, no doubt.”

“But what if she was captured?”

“Far more likely that something else caught her attention.”

“That much is true,” said Gwenny. “Sprites are most transient in their nature, and sometimes…” She stopped, stared at Paul as if seeing him for the first time, and said, “
Who
are you again?”

“It doesn’t matter who he is,” said The Boy brusquely.

“Boy! You’ve no excuse for being so rude….”

“At the moment, he’s right. It doesn’t matter,” said Paul. “There’s more pressing problems.” He was busy looking upward, and saw dark and fearsome clouds rolling toward them. Indeed, it seemed as if the clouds had targeted them specifically and were bearing down upon them. “We need shelter. We need it quickly.”

They took shelter in a dark and dank cave some distance away. Paul, Gwenny, and the others huddled close to one another for mutual warmth as the storm shattered the skies overhead, rain thundering down. The Boy, by contrast, huddled by himself at the far end of the cave. There was no source of light other than the dimness filtering in through the cave opening. So the only things visible from the rear of the cave were The Boy’s eyes. They could have been floating there by themselves, and they had the grim appearance of a trapped and angry beast.

“What are you doing here?” The Boy said abruptly.

The others in the cave looked at one another in confusion, and then all gazes settled on Paul. “Oh. You mean me.” When The Boy nodded curtly, Paul said, “Well…actually…I’m here because of my sister.”

He then proceeded to describe all the events that had brought him—and them, as it happened—to this particular point. They listened with rapt attention, even The Boy, since he was always partial to a good story. When Paul got to the part on the ship, he began to taper off since everyone had been there and thus presumably knew what had transpired. But Porthos egged him on with, “What next?” and so, with a shrug, Paul continued until he arrived at their taking shelter within the cave. At which point Porthos, like a large eager puppy, prompted yet again, “And what next? What happened next?”

“Well, I…don’t rightly know,” Paul said.

This drew The Boy forward a bit, so that his silhouette was visible in the darkness. “What sort of story is that?” he said. “It doesn’t have a proper ending at all. Not even a ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”

“But the story’s not complete,” Paul tried to explain. Even as he did so, he was seeing that as a very poor excuse for an incomplete story. The other boys quickly confirmed that, imploring him to stop holding back and please, oh please, tell them everything that happened next. Gwenny patiently tried to point out to them that their expectations were a bit excessive, given the givens; but they paid her no mind, which was often the case with boys and their mothers.

His mind racing, Paul suddenly said, “And so…The Boy decided he needed help—”

“I never need help!” The Boy said defiantly, standing now and placing his fists firmly on his hips. “I mean, he—The Boy—never needs help.”

“Well, he does in this story.”

“What kind of story is that?”

“Mine,” Paul said firmly, for he knew that he was in the mode of storyteller and thus had the final say in all the important matters. “And you wanted to hear it. You insisted. So now I’m telling it, and, by your own rules, you have to listen.”

Caught in a web of his own credulity, The Boy made a rude noise and then flopped down to the rocky cave floor. “From whom did he seek help?” There was a hint of challenge in his voice, just enough to remind Paul that The Boy had a sword tucked in his belt and might well not hesitate to use it if he did not like how the tale was unfolding.

Paul was ready to continue, though, for The Boy’s resistance to the tale had given Paul enough time to conceive of where it was to go. “And so The Boy, most splendid and wonderful as he was, sought out the aid of the Picca tribe. For the Piccas had a vast warrior army, capable of canny maneuvers in their canoes. The Piccas were happy to join The Boy in an attack on their mutual enemy.”

The Boy was nodding slowly; and naturally the others took their cues from him, so they nodded as well. Thus emboldened, Paul continued: “And so the Piccas, in the company of The Boy and his stalwarts, snuck up on the pirates, attacked, and destroyed them utterly.”

“
Hurrah!
” crowed the boys.

“What of the Bully Boys?” Gwenny said worriedly. Although she had no hesitation to see the pirates done for, she still could not help but feel that the boys left behind upon the pirate ship were merely misguided and not deserving of the ultimate penalty.

“They…saw the error of their ways, swore fealty to The Boy, and became family once more.”

“
Hurrah!
” they all said again.

“And what of your quest?” Irregular said. “To find a new sister to keep your mum from being sad.”

“I…” Paul tried to come up with something, but his own future was a blank wall to him. He could not begin to imagine what would happen. So he settled for saying, “I…found a sister. And my mum, and dad, and all concerned, including you lot, lived happily ever after.”

This inspired yet another cheer from the listeners, who had quite forgotten about their plight as they had become engaged in Paul’s history. “Well!” said The Boy, slapping his hands on his thighs. “At least that’s all settled! On to the next thing!”

“It’s not all settled!” Paul said.

The Boy looked puzzled. “It’s not?”

“No, Boy, it’s not,” Gwenny said, understanding faster than the lads what Paul meant, since girls are traditionally far more clever than boys. “You haven’t actually done any of these things yet. Nothing is settled. The pirates are still running about, we have no home, and Captain Hack remains in possession of your shadow. None of these things are going to change until you take the steps to change them.”

The Boy gave a lot of thought to that. He was accustomed to stories being presented to him in a completed manner, described after the fact. Here he was apparently in the middle of the tale and needed to do whatever was necessary to be able to write “Happily ever after” himself…preferably in blood, for he was a rather sanguinary youth. Finally he smiled and nodded and said, “It shall be so! On the morrow we go to the Piccas, enlist their aid, and defeat the pirates…and then have lunch!”

Gwenny clapped her hands in approval, as did the rest. “And what will we do
after
lunch, Boy?” said Porthos with typical enthusiasm.

“Something exciting, I fancy,” he said. Then, slightly cautious, he looked at Paul and said, “Right?”

“Absolutely right,” said Paul, although honestly he did not see the entire campaign as something that would be wrapped up before lunch. In the past weeks, Paul had come to realize that matters rarely proceeded as smoothly and without fuss as he would like them to. He had a dark suspicion that this would be no exception.

And as I think you have already figured out—considering that there are far more pages remaining in this book than would be reasonable for a quick “We’ve won, let’s have lunch, and they lived happily ever after”—the sad fact is that Paul was very much correct. There would be much more arguing, fighting, mistrust, betrayals, natural and unnatural disasters, and one or two more deaths of individuals we’d much rather see survive.

So now you know this. And I’ve said it in a very low voice so that The Boy, Paul, and the others won’t overhear. Otherwise they might remain in the cave indefinitely rather than launch themselves into situations that could prove overwhelming. Besides…no one should know too much of what is to happen, or too much of the details of his own demise.