Wearing no overcoat, only a tunic with pockets and a skin vest over it, Julian backs up all the way to the port bulwark, so no one can get behind him. He positions himself next to the trunk with the butchering weapons. The trunk no longer holds any interest for him, but it does sit directly in the path between mid-ship and bow, so no crewman can attack Julian from the side without either going around the trunk or jumping and running across it. The sails are not up yet. Hinewai’s entire deck is laid out in front of Julian, to his left and his right. Across from him on the starboard side, Shae stands with terror in her eyes, bundled up in what looks like a half-dozen furs. Julian wishes he could tell her it’s going to be all right. But they’ve run out of time for last words. They’ve run out of time for a lot of things. Stand back from the line of fire. There are no more second chances. There are no rules, no ref, no right, no wrong. There is no closing bell. The last man standing lives.
“What’s going on here?” Tama says in a casual voice, as if he’s chanced upon his mates playing cards when they should be furling sail.
“What’s going on here,” Julian says, “is a small medical emergency. This is why it’s important to have a doctor on board. Because every once in a while, your men fall out of line. And suddenly they get a noose around their necks.” Julian yanks on the rope and the men choke.
“I asked them to keep an eye on you,” Tama says.
“That’s your first mistake,” Julian says. “You didn’t send your A team. Unless that was your A team. In which case—that’s your second mistake. Look what you’ve done, you’ve immobilized your crew when you should’ve been making peace and getting us home. What happened to kia ora?”
Tama struts out onto center deck, his back to the stern, and shifts in place from foot to foot. Neither he nor Julian take a blink away from each other. Julian can judge other fighters. Tama is a real fighter.
“So here’s what occurs to me,” Tama says. “It’s a funny thing, and it takes a while to put together in your head.”
“Especially your head.”
“Words aren’t going to bother me, whiteman. But ever since you’ve come into our lives, bad things started happening.”
Julian glances across deck to Shae and Kiritopa, who are pressed into each other against the bulwark, the Maori’s arm around Shae. Niko is nowhere to be seen; but the crew has climbed up from the forecastle and spread out at the bow of the ship.
Julian watches Tama eyeball his Maori men. Defuse the opponent by any means necessary. The only rule is that there are no rules. Whatever it takes. He doesn’t blame Tama for his tactics, though he holds him in contempt for them.
Julian hears it before he sees it. It’s in the periphery of his left eye and unfortunately he can’t see well out of the periphery of his left eye. He especially can’t see out of the periphery of his left eye when the mortal danger that is Tama is in the periphery of his right. But Julian has been on the alert for the slightest sound, the barest movement, and he hears the air change shape. Without turning his head, he ducks, and the tomahawk whistles over him and lodges in the wood deck a few feet away. The crewman who’d just been wielding the axe jumps onto the steel trunk, and heads for Julian.
He jumps onto the trunk unwisely, for Julian has thickly greased the surface of it with a towel full of blubber. The man’s legs go out from under him. He slides across and falls clumsily by the axe he’s just thrown. Instead of jumping to his feet and pulling up the axe, the crewman compounds his errors by trying to pull it up from a sitting position.
“Get up, Matu!” Tama yells, not moving from where he stands.
Julian strides over to Matu and kicks him in the face, sending him sprawling. He jumps on the man’s arm, breaking his elbow, and pulling the axe out of Matu’s limp hand swings it cheekside at Matu’s head.
Never balance your power against your opponent’s power. Defeat him by any means necessary. This isn’t the ring. This is the ultimate self-defense—kill or die.
Julian is about to hurl the tomahawk overboard because he doesn’t want deadly weapons around that he can’t control, but two more men come at him from the bow. Like a bull, one heads for Julian; again unwisely, since Julian is holding an axe. The time for cheekside has passed. With both hands, Julian swings the axe like a bat, driving the blade into the man’s abdomen. He strides to the second man who has flung open the trunk and stands over it panting in confusion, as if he wanted to find a mincing blade to stick into Julian and can’t seem to locate it. Before the guy has a chance to turn, Julian grabs him by the scruff of the neck, smashes his face down into the steel-reinforced bulwark and throws him overboard.
“You’re not going to miss him, Tama,” Julian says. “He was a bleeder with a glass jaw.”
In the bow, there are four crewmen left, but for some reason they seem less eager to run aft and attack Julian.
Yanking the axe out of the sailor’s gut, Julian throws the man into the sea, and Matu after him. “You’re a child playing captain,” he says to Tama, who still hasn’t moved, except in place, as if waiting for the starting gun to go off. “Are you going to have all your men fight your fights for you? You’re nothing but a little boy. Do you ever plan to fight me like you were just bragging to Kiritopa?”
“Oh, I’m planning to fight you, whiteman,” Tama says.
“Are you planning to surprise me with it? I agree, the element of surprise is important in combat,” Julian says, walking over to the steel trunk. He has decided to keep the axe. Tama doesn’t seem as eager to attack Julian either while he holds a bloodied and dripping tomahawk in his hands. “Here’s my surprise for you.” Julian flips the trunk on its side to show Tama it’s empty. “All your flensing knives are at the bottom of the ocean with three of your men,” Julian says. “If you want the rest of your crew to fight me, they’re going to have to take their chances with what they’ve got.”
“I don’t need them,” Tama says. “I’ll fight you on my own. But a man must know why he’s dying before he dies.”
“Well, before you tell me why I must die,” says Julian, pulling out the jade mere club, “why don’t you first tell your men to get the fuck away from mid-ship. I don’t like them crawling like roaches and upsetting me. My hands sometimes jerk when I’m upset.” With his right hand, he smashes the eye of the axe down on Aata’s ankle. Aata screams. “Like that.”
Tama gives a signal. The men pull back.
“Are you the captain or aren’t you?” Julian says. “I heard you tell Kiritopa you’re the captain now. What’s the captain’s first order of duty? To protect his ship. And the second is to protect his men. You’re really crap at both. If you keep this up, soon you’ll have no men left to raise your sails. Tell the rest of them to stand down.”
“I did.”
“Farther, Tama. Send them below deck.”
“You don’t give me orders.”
Julian slams the mere club into Rangi’s mouth. “Below fucking deck, Tama. This is between you and me.”
Tama waves off his crew. They drop below Julian’s sightline. Julian would like to say they drop below his sightline enthusiastically.
“Now—continue,” Julian says. “You were saying? I must die because…”
“The Terra Nova got stuck in the ice when it shouldn’t have,” Tama says in a crippled-by-fury voice.
“That’s my fault?”
“The Waihopai overflowed, its banks eroded, and the Civic Centre flooded.”
“That’s my fault?”
“Shae’s play got closed down.”
“Wait a minute,” Julian says, “that can’t be my fault.”
“The blackberry crop was drowned out by historic rains and we couldn’t make our moonshine. And this is our dry season.”
“The rains are my fault?”
“There have been fewer whales and seals because of all the drama in the skies, drama such as we’ve never seen.”
“Okay,” Julian says. “That one I’ll give you. The auror
a is my fault.”
“Where does it come from, this new force pressing down on the earth, lighting everything up?” says Tama, pacing like a caged animal. “You came from nowhere, whiteman, you appeared in our midst as if summoned by dark powers. On your arms you carry symbols of things you refuse to explain.”
“I’m like Mary Poppins,” Julian says. “I never explain anything.”
“You reject a woman like our Hula.”
Julian narrows his eyes at Tama. “Is the enemy king angry that I rejected his daughter?” he says ominously.
“I’m not the enemy,” Tama says. He is so enraged he is growling. “You are the enemy. Very soon, your story will end. There is one of you and twelve of us.”
“You might want to check your math. Also,” Julian says, hearing Rangi choke under the noose, gurgling blood from his broken mouth, “you might want to wrap up the life lessons because your best friend here is on his last breath.”
“You are going to stop breathing,” Tama says. He smiles. It is a brutal smile. “Tell me this, whiteman—when you die, what do you think is going to happen to your woman?”
Oh, Shae. Why did you speak to him about me? Didn’t you know who he was? Julian won’t allow himself even a glance in her direction.
“Tama! Don’t you dare kill him.” It’s Niko, who has climbed out on deck.
“Niko, go back downstairs!” Tama yells. “Stay out of this! This is between him and me.”
As soon as Kiritopa sees Niko, he pushes Shae toward the bow, away from himself, and reaches into his coat. “That is not how we do things,” Niko says, striding to the center and facing Tama. “You do not kill your enemy until he sees with his own two eyes what happens to his woman.” Old Niko looms on deck as if he’s still the commander. “That is how victors do things,” he says. “First they enjoy the feast of victory. Tama, you will manacle him, and he will watch as we tie her to the mast and rip out her still beating heart, and then we—”
Niko’s mistake is that he says these words facing Tama instead of Kiritopa.
Julian hurls the axe at Niko’s head. He misses. He misses because Niko jerks. He jerks because Kiritopa doesn’t miss. He has pitched a barbed harpoon he has pulled from his coat.
The spear enters Niko’s neck, and the barb exits his throat. Niko collapses, blood spurting out over Rangi and Aata. Kiritopa steps forward, pulls the axe out of the deck and returns to Shae’s side, holding the axe in his hands.
The deck is slick with the blood of men.
Julian pulls the Bowie knife from his boot. In one hand he wields the knife, in the other, the mere club.
Screaming a war cry, Tama charges at Julian. In one hand, he holds his own knife, in the other a mere club.
Julian advances on the rushing Tama but feints to the right. Tama pitches his blade at Julian’s face. But Julian only feints to the right. He sidesteps left, and the knife flies past. As Tama hurtles past him, having lost his footing and his balance in the blood on deck, Julian thrusts the Bowie up into Tama’s tricep. It doesn’t penetrate as fully as Julian would like. Tama is wearing layers to protect him, almost like chain mail. The Maori lands on top of his dead captain and his dying men, but now he’s armed only with the mere. Julian grabs Tama’s fallen blade and pitches it into the sea. Everything is in the sea, and still the sea is not full.
For a suspended moment, Tama is motionless. Then he springs to his feet, from lying to standing in one practiced motion. He leaps into the air, twisting and extending his body and kicks Julian in the chest, knocking him to the ground and the Bowie knife out of his hand. The knife slides away. They scramble to their feet and ram against each other.
They brawl. Bare-fisted they punch each other and block the punches with their short flat paddles. Julian doesn’t allow a gap between himself and the Maori. Any space or time he leaves is space or time for Tama to get away or to run and grab the Bowie knife. They punch-block-hold, kick-punch-kick. Julian’s every punch is on the half-beat. In three seconds, he lands six blows against Tama. Every time Julian punches, it’s to the center of Tama’s head. Tama’s nose gets broken. Julian’s nose gets broken. It doesn’t stop either man. Tama has many strengths as a fighter, but he does not do what Julian does, which is block and strike in the same move. Tama blocks, and then punches, and because of that he often misses. Though not often enough.
Tama is dangerous because he is impervious to secondary injury and immune to sharp pain, even extreme pain, so no kick in the shin or a penetrating knife wound in his tricep deters him. No fracture or disability halts his attack. Julian breaks Tama’s rib with a palm strike and kicks his knee—twice—yet Tama is not stopped. Tama has been trained to fight through fractures and beatings. He will not fall into shock from blows to his ribs or collarbone. Even a nasty jab with the mere, knocking out one of his teeth doesn’t stop him.
The only thing that will stop him is a fatal blow. But Tama protects himself as Julian protects himself. He dodges and weaves as Julian dodges and weaves. They both guard their heads with their arms. They cover their temples, their ears, their necks, their points of ultimate weakness. They go at each other like they’re taking a bow, chin to chest. They protect their throats. Both men know a strike to the throat means death. No one can recover from a crushed windpipe, not a Maori, not a Viking.
Tama is a vicious fighter. He is more proficient with his mere than Julian, and he wields it like a shield and a kettlebell. He gets Julian off balance and smashes him on the head with the club. It feels as if half of Julian’s head has blown off, like a fucking electric bulb exploded in his skull. He loses his balance and his own mere. Julian grapples with Tama. He knows he can’t let Tama hit him again. One more strike to the head, and Julian will be down for good. Krav Maga has trained Julian not to stop fighting until the enemy is motionless or dead. The trouble is, he can’t get Tama motionless. He has pitted his power against the Maori but can’t finish him off. And now he is without his mere, while Tama still has his.
Julian pivots, sidesteps, ducks Tama’s blows. He shoulder rolls. Tama keeps swinging the mere over and over. The adrenaline masks the pain, but Julian’s left forearm is pulp from blocking that fucking club. He and Tama are about the same height, but Julian has twenty pounds of muscle on the kid. Tama is younger but Julian’s reflexes are quicker. They have to be, or he’d get beaten to death with the mere. It’s those reflexes that allow Julian to slip under an overhand mere blow, grab Tama’s right wrist from the side and wrench it. The wrist snaps. Finally—the mere falls from Tama’s hand.
The Maori is wobbly for half a second, but that half-second is enough for Julian. He hammerfists Tama, aiming for the temple, trying to end Tama’s life, but the Maori jerks his head. Julian must have burst his drum because Tama bleeds from his ear, but he still lowers his chin and barrels forward. Julian barely manages to avoid a side jab into his Adam’s apple. But this time he doesn’t let a slightly off-balance Tama take a step back and regroup, not even for a half-second. Julian punches him with a brutal left, left, left, right and left again. He lets a dazed Tama grab his right arm, while he hits him again and again with his left, aiming for the throat and breaking the man’s jaw instead.
But despite the broken jaw, despite the pummeling, Tama doesn’t fall. Julian hits him with the meaty part of the palm directly into his sternum, hits him so hard that Tama drops to his knees as if he’s just had a heart attack. Julian steps away, no longer facing Tama but coming at him from the side. He drives his palm flat up into Tama’s already broken nose, and snaps Tama’s head back. Tama sways, lists, but doesn’t fall.
One of his eyes swollen shut, Tama smiles, spitting blood and a tooth out of his mouth.
“Julian!” Shae screams. It’s a piercing, gut-wrenching wail. “Watch out!”
Julian’s Bowie knife is clutched in Tama’s left fist.
Shae’s scream gives Julian a blink to jerk his wrist away from the flashing blade and step behind the Maori. Julian grabs him in a choke
hold to snap his neck and nearly screams himself. There is searing pain in his right hand. Tama has sliced through Julian’s hand to free himself. Julian can no longer get a firm enough grip on Tama’s neck to break it. Tama’s jaw and throat are slippery with Julian’s blood. Tama wrestles free and turns to Julian, who has sunk to his knees, trying to hide his devastating injury.
“You’re going to die, whiteman,” Tama says. Both men are on their knees.
“Julian!” Shae screams again. She wrestles away from Kiritopa.
“Shae, no!” Julian yells.
Before the crying-out Maori can grab her coats to stop her, Shae throws herself over the side of the ship into the freezing water.
Julian is out of time. He makes a supernatural effort to get to his feet. With his remaining strength, he kicks Tama in the face, pitching him back. The knife slips out of Tama’s grasp. Tama crawls toward it and Julian hobbles toward it, hooking his crippled hand to his body. Grabbing at Julian’s tunic, Tama tries to get off his knees, to stand up. Julian seizes the knife with his barely closing, swollen left fist, because his other hand, pouring blood, is useless. He lifts his arm in the air, spins around, and thrusts the Bowie blade straight down into Tama’s raised face, driving it to the hilt into Tama’s eye.
Kiritopa cries, pointing to the water.
Julian limps to the bulwark and falls into the ocean after Shae.
He opens his eyes under water to see where she is and shuts them quickly before he is blinded by salt freeze. She is sinking into the watery darkness. As hard as he can, he paddles down to her. The furs have made her heavy, her boots and cardigans and skins have doubled her weight.
It’s almost as if she has deliberately weighted herself down.
But she is alive!
Shae, Shae. Why did you do that? He is dead, we’ll be okay, we just have to swim to the surface. Julian tries to unbutton her coats with his one working hand. Hold on to me. I’ll pull us out. Briefly he opens his eyes again. The water around them is darkened with his blood.
Her arms reach out to him, grab him around the neck. She pulls him to her, holds him to herself.
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