Isle of Fire

Edward Teach and two other men from the Talon’s crew found a cutter unguarded and slowly lowered it down from the stern. Then, like spiders hatching, they clambered down strands of rope to get to their escape vessel.

  As they began to row, one of the men, a swarthy fellow named Bonds, asked, “Where are we going?”

  Richard, the second man, laughed and said, “Nowhere but down in this gale!”

  “Get us to Saba,” said Teach. “We can ride out the storm there. After that, I don’t know.”

  “I’ve heard Jamaica’s nice,” said Bonds.

  Thorne appeared on deck and stormed toward the helm. He didn’t see Dolphin. He didn’t see Teach. They could be anywhere on the ship, but somehow, he knew they had gone. “Why?” he muttered. “Why would you take her?”

  He put his bleeding stick away and grabbed his spyglass. He looked out on the water and scanned the waves. There! Off to the stern, he saw a cutter. There were three figures in it. He focused the spyglass. It was Teach! “You stealing maggot!” Thorne was about to take the ship’s wheel from Brandir, but then he saw the other two people in Teach’s cutter. They were men . . . crewmen from the Talon. Thorne was confused. Then where is Dolphin?

  Thorne moved the spyglass back toward the Robert Bruce. “No!” Throne cried out. He saw another small ship—another cutter. It had almost reached the Bruce. It was too far away to see clearly, but in the briefest instant, Thorne thought he caught a glimpse of Dolphin’s red hair.

  31

  DESPERATE MEASURES

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cat saw the mast of the Constantine. It was just a fleeting glimpse—the tip of the mast, the rigging, a bit of sail—but it was enough. Cat’s thoughts reeled. There was no one on the Constantine who could fight the wind and still knife in on his flank like that, no one except . . . Anne! Anne was alive! Cat was sure of it. The Merchant and his two goons, however, were not so observant. The Merchant was too intent on getting his own prey to see the threat to the Perdition’s Gate.

  Lightning flashed. The mast again. The Constantine was gaining, but Cat didn’t turn his head, didn’t want to alert the others. No, Cat wanted to let Anne pin them down. He wanted Anne to sink the Perdition’s Gate. And he needed her to do it before the Merchant’s ship got the Bruce in its sights. Another flash and the immediate thunder made Cat jump.

  Cat didn’t want to die, but if he had to lose his life to rid the world of a malignant rogue like the Merchant, then . . . that was what he would do. The mast came into view once more, again just a flicker in his peripheral vision—that’s when a new plan began to form in Cat’s mind. If Anne stayed after him, he might be able to . . . It would be a one-in-a-million chance, but he decided to try it. In this wind, who knew if it would even be possible to steer with such precision. The thunder continued to roll.

  “Captain Ross!” yelled Jacques. “Dolphin, Red Eye, Jules, and Hopper are safely aboard.”

  “Yes!” Ross slapped Stede on the back.

  Stede did not join in the merriment. “Declan,” he said, “we b’ having a bit of a problem, mon. Thorne must know what we done. He and the whole Raukar fleet b’ after us now.”

  “The Merchant as well!” yelled Jacques. “That ship is moving up fast!”

  In the flickering illumination of the lightning, Ross saw all the Raukar warships headed their way. Even with the wind kicking up, there was no chance they could outrun them all. Wind.

  “I have an idea,” Ross said.

  “Ya worry me when ya say that, mon,” said Stede. “I don’t mind telling ya.”

  “Sail into the storm,” Ross said.

  “What?”

  “Stede, I want you to sail into the hurricane.”

  Stede looked from Ross to St. Pierre, to Hack and Slash. “Declan, have ya gone mad? The tempest will tear the ship apart!”

  “No, it won’t,” said Ross. “We sail into the outskirts of the storm . . . stay away from the eye.”

  St. Pierre’s eyes suddenly opened wide. “Ah, magnifique!” he shouted. “It will work! Mon capitaine is crazy . . . crazy like a fox, or perhaps . . . like a wolf. Ha-ha! Let’s do it!”

  Cat saw the Bruce’s sudden turn, heading north into the storm, and all hope of trying his plan vanished like sea spray in a stiff wind. Sailing into any severe storm was taking a great risk, but attempting to endure a hurricane was nothing short of suicidal.

  “The Bruce . . . they’ve seen us!” the Merchant yelled. “Go after him!”

  “Into the storm?” Cat objected.

  “My ship has endured worse,” said the Merchant, a dangerous edge to his voice. He drew his dagger. “Follow him, or someone else can take the wheel.”

  “Since you put it that way,” Cat said, turning the wheel. And suddenly, his plan came back to life. The Constantine was right behind them. He’d never have a better chance. He just hoped Anne would continue to close.

  Cat turned the wheel sharply. The Merchant, Guinness, and Lambec stumbled sideways. Then, using the ship’s wheel for leverage, Cat launched a sharp backward kick into Mr. Guinness’s stomach. The big man doubled over. Cat dodged a lethal dagger swipe from the Merchant and ducked under Lambec’s powerful slash. Then he grabbed Guinness’s sword, stepped up on the man’s prone back, and leaped to the rigging on the mainmast. He clambered quickly out of everyone’s reach and raced to the horizontal spars. Then Cat slashed the ropes holding the main sail. The great white expanse of material flapped in the wind but no longer propelled the ship. The Perdition’s Gate slowed markedly, but Cat wasn’t finished. With several of the Merchant’s men climbing after him on the rig ging and pistol shots zinging past his ear, Cat continued up to the next horizontal spar. Then he slashed the topsails, and they, too, flapped uselessly in the wind. Deprived of two of its biggest sails, the Perdition’s Gate lost its lead on the Constantine. In fact, the other ship was coming so hard and so fast that it was in danger of crashing into the Merchant’s vessel.

  That’s what Cat was counting on. He continued to climb until he stood precariously on the highest spar and clutched the top of the mast. His foot slipped once, but he recovered. The fierce hurricane winds threatened to blow him off at any second, and the pelting rain made it so that he could barely see. “Come on, Anne!!” he yelled, but the wind carried his cry away.

  “What is the Merchant doing?!” Anne cried out. She spun the wheel, but she saw the Perdition’s Gate growing huge in front of them. It seemed to be turning right into their path and slowing rapidly all at the same time.

  “Turn, Anne!” bellowed Father Brun. “TURN!!”

  “I’m trying!” Anne saw the massive hull of the Merchant’s ship. She saw the dark holes of the cannon muzzles. If they fire, she thought, and then she said, “If they fire . . . what am I thinking? FIRE STARBOARD CANNONS!!”

  Brother Dmitri and the other gunners lit their fuses. The bow of the Constantine cleared the enemy ship by a few feet, and as they passed, seven cannons fired—all from the Constantine. At such close range, every cannonball burrowed destructively into the flesh of the Perdition’s Gate. One even blasted out of the other side. The barque’s stern was ruined and began to collapse in on itself. Still, the Merchant fired back, but it was too late. One shot connected. It smashed into a cannon bay, ruined a cannon, and scared the daylights out of Brother Javier . . . but did very little damage.

  “Anne, look!” Father Brun pointed high up to where the tops of the two ship’s mainmasts passed to within thirty feet of each other. Anne saw it. Someone was high on the Merchant’s mainmast. He suddenly leaped out and fell. His dark silhouette hung in front of the clouds for several breathless moments. He landed awkwardly in the weblike rigging of the Constantine, but could not grasp it. He rolled once, scrabbled for a handhold, rolled again toward the edge. With a last great effort, this man snagged the bottom of the rigging and held on.

  Her attention divided between the Merchant’s foundering ship and the man in the rigging, Anne steered the Constantine into better p
osition. “Fire!” she yelled. And again, her cannons came to life. The damage this time was fatal. A gaping rent had opened on the stern of the Perdition’s Gate, and it began to take on water. Then it began to sink.

  Anne turned her attention to the acrobatic man in the rigging. He had made his way to one of the long ropes and now began to slide down it to the main deck. Brother Dmitri had his staff ready when the man landed. Anne gave the wheel to Brother Keegan. She drew her cutlass, leaped off the quarterdeck, and ran across the main deck.

  The man hit the deck awkwardly and fell onto his back. “Well, I guess he’s no threat to anyone,” said Brother Dmitri.

  But Anne dropped her sword and ran to him. “Cat!” she cried, taking him into her arms. His matted blond head fell against her shoulder. His eyelids flickered and closed. Anne couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  “I hope you don’t mind me dropping in,” he whispered. Then she kissed him, and it was the first time anyone on board the Constantine had seen a captain kiss a quartermaster.

  Brother Keegan called down from the quarterdeck. “One of you two want to come take the wheel? The Bruce, the Raven’s Revenge, and the Oxford are all sailing deeper into the hurricane, and I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

  “Can you stand?” Anne asked.

  “Yes,” Cat replied. She helped him to his feet, and they walked arm in arm to the quarterdeck ladder. Suddenly, the sky lit up with orange light. They looked out to sea and saw a gout of flame rise up from the water where the Merchant’s ship had gone under. They also saw at least a dozen Raukar warships right behind the Constantine and closing fast.

  “I’ll take the wheel!” Cat and Anne said simultaneously.

  “Tell you what,” said Cat. “You take the wheel, and I’ll just yell at you a lot.”

  “Deal,” said Anne.

  “Them b’ coming, Declan!” bellowed Stede.

  “Good,” said Ross. “That’s just what I wanted.”

  “Ya want to b’ sailing into some treacherous storm, all the while we b’ chased by a fleet of angry Viking warriors and a murderous madman who want nothing better than to skin ya alive?”

  “Yeah,” said Ross. “That about sums it up.”

  The Robert Bruce, the Oxford, and the Constantine had now passed under the outer canopy of the hurricane, and it was like entering a different world. The wind shrieked and snapped at the sails. The rain felt like pellets of rock, and lightning flashed incessantly overhead. But most perilous of all were the mounting swells that rose up suddenly out of the sea and threatened to capsize any ship whose captain was unskilled or unwary. Ross was neither.

  “It’s like being in the crosscurrents again!” yelled Ross, referring to the intensely rough sea barrier that surrounded the Isle of Swords. “JULES!! Get down to the swinging bowsprit—Hack and Slash will need your muscle!”

  “Aye, sir!” The massive sailor slip-slided his way to the front of the ship. Ross was glad to have a man with such brute strength.

  St. Pierre suddenly appeared at Ross’s elbow. “Mon capitaine, may I show you something?”

  “Jacques, now isn’t the time,” he replied. “We’re in the midst of chaos with dozens of ships right behind us!”

  “Those pesky ships are why I have come. Ha-ha!” St. Pierre cackled. “Allow me to introduce my newest invention!” Jacques stepped out of the way, revealing a square crate resting on a small raft of planks. A very long string slithered out of a crack in the top of the crate and coiled on the deck next to it.

  Ross squinted. “What does it do?”

  “It explodes, of course!” Jacques laughed maniacally. “The fuse is waterproof, you see. This little bomb will float along and hopefully go BOOM just as an enemy ship goes by. Do I have your permission to launch them?”

  “How many have you made?” Ross asked.

  “Not enough, I am guessing,” replied the Frenchman. “Fifty, maybe.”

  Ross scratched absently at his sideburns. St. Pierre’s weapons would work better at close quarters. In the open sea, even fifty such weapons could miss entirely. Still, it was better than nothing. “Fire away!” he said. As soon as Jacques was gone, Ross turned to Stede and said, “I know we’ll lose some of our distance, but sail east a bit . . . allow Saint Pierre to spread his floating bombs.”

  “Aye, Declan,” Stede replied.

  St. Pierre, Red Eye, and a host of deck hands lit fuses and threw their floating weapons into the sea.

  As the others watched below, Declan scanned the seas from the quarterdeck. Suddenly, the floating bombs began to go off. One after the other, they exploded, sending founts of sea spray up into the wind. But all missed. The Raven’s Revenge and the other Raukar vessels continued to pursue. Jacques yelled and hopped around on the deck. “All that work for noth—”

  One of the Raukar warships disappeared in a massive orange fireball. The floating bomb had gone off on the ship’s port bow, exploding the eldregn stores and vaporizing the ship. It was a success, but not what anyone had hoped. Ross turned back to the seas.

  “Declan!” Stede yelled above the wind. “The winds b’ increasing! We b’ getting too close to the eye. We b’ about to tear the sails off the mast!”

  Ross heard the ominous groans of his masts and prayed that they’d hold. “A little farther, a little farther,” said Ross. “And then be ready to turn and fight.”

  “What about Anne?” Stede asked. “What about Blake and Cutlass Jack?”

  Ross grimaced. “Let’s hope they follow our lead.”

  32

  THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

  Commodore Blake!!” a new deck hand named Craig cried out. “Our masts are coming apart!”

  Blake had heard the wood groan in duress, but the recent cracks terrified him. He looked up and saw that the sails held, but the spars that supported them were twisting in the wind. If the wind speed increased by so much as a knot, he knew his ship would be destroyed, left to the mercy of the waves and then the Raukar. But Dolphin was aboard the Bruce and was sailing with Ross deeper into the storm. He had to do something, but every choice meant separation from his beloved wife . . . perhaps permanently.

  Commodore Brandon Blake had made thousands of difficult decisions in his time as a ship’s captain. But none were more personally devastating than this one. He called his makeshift crew up on deck, even as he turned the wheel to bring the ship about.

  “We goin’ back, sir?” asked a young man named Timmons.

  “Got to,” said Craig. “Ship can’t take no more’n this wind.”

  “As I see it, we have one option,” Blake said. “Turn and fight. If we must go down, let’s take as many of them with us as we can!”

  “AYE, SIR!!” the crew yelled. There certainly weren’t enough men to man the Oxford properly, Blake thought. But these men had more than enough heart.

  It did not take long for the Raven’s Revenge and the other Raukar warships to catch up to the Oxford. But Thorne did not stop to contend with Blake. He sailed past without firing a shot. Several Raukar vessels swung well out of range, and they, too, went by. But a pair of long, well-armed warships appeared to be heading straight for the Oxford.

  “Mister Craig?” Blake called.

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to get everyone off the main deck . . . and every one of you man the cannons below.”

  “But, sir, the sails . . . the rigging . . . you ne—”

  “I need you all on the cannons, but do not fire until my signal.”

  “What will that be, sir?” Craig asked. “Down below, we won’t hear you over the wind.”

  Blake drew a pistol from his side holster. “When you hear this gun, I want every cannon on both sides of the ship to fire.”

  Craig turned and saw the two oncoming warships. “Sir, they’re too close together. How will we—”

  “I mean to split them.”

  “NOW, JULES!!” Ross yelled from the quarterdeck. Jules, Hack, and Slash operated
the swinging bowsprit while Stede turned the ship’s wheel. The Robert Bruce banked and came about faster than Thorne or the Raukar could have imagined. “FIRE!!” Ross yelled.

  The Bruce’s cannons sent a wall of cannon shot toward the approaching enemy vessels. Anne and Cutlass Jack did the same. Ross scanned the sea. Where is Blake?

  The first salvo took out three Raukar warships but fifteen, including Thorne’s ship, remained. That didn’t even the odds enough. Ross ordered his crew to fire again. He wanted to provoke them, bully them into using their fire weapon. And at last, they did.

  Five of the closest Raukar vessels launched eldregn canisters at the Bruce and the others. Stede watched one sail high overhead, and he feared for the Bruce. But the canister seemed to hang in the air. When it exploded, a deluge of fiery rain blew back onto the ship that had launched it, as well as two others. Fire danced frenetically on the three Raukar warships as the storm’s winds fought with the flames. But soon, all three ships exploded.

  Bartholomew Thorne was not so ignorant. He refused to fire the eldregn, but unleashed his arsenal of conventional cannons instead. His first barrage slammed into Cutlass Jack’s Banshee like a woodsman’s axe, tearing up the port hull and sending deadly splinters of wood into the crew. The Banshee did not return fire.

  “Uncle Jack!” Anne cried. They’d been helpless to stop the attack, but watched in horror as the Raven’s Revenge devastated their friend.

  “Anne, I don’t think that ship’s going to stay afloat,” said Cat. “And Thorne’s closing on him.”

  “They’re not even firing back,” whispered Anne. She turned the wheel. “We’ve got to help him.”

  Thorne was not content to disable the Banshee. He wanted to watch it die. He brought the Raven’s Revenge within one hundred yards of the wounded ship and gave the order: “Fire port cannons!” The heavy sixteen-and eighteen-pound cannonballs crashed into the smaller ship’s hull, collapsed the quarterdeck, and blew the rudder off the back of the ship. The stress of the now-twisting hull snapped the ship’s keel, and the ship fell awkwardly on its side. Fires burned and hissed in the sea spray, and the turbulent water began to claim the ship.