by Noah Harris
They awoke with the dawn to find their two mermen friends had brought them a breakfast of shellfish and fruit. In the daylight, they were as alike as twins, and Thomas could not say which one had saved him and which one had saved Radbert. Hungrily, they ate the food and found a little babbling brook to slake their thirst. Then they dressed, their clothes having dried out overnight. One of the mermen pointed in the direction of the beach and made a line with his arm in the direction of the hills.
Thomas nodded. So, Paddy’s men were already on the move. Thomas indicated that they should follow. They worked their way back the way they had come the previous night. As they went through the jungle the mermen maneuvered so that Radbert and Thomas walked together. When the two humans tried to put some distance between each other, the shifters pushed them together again.
Thomas shook his head in wonder. It was like they could hear his thoughts, feel his desire to be close to Radbert. But didn’t they sense Radbert’s loathing for him?
Thomas despaired. Would he ever convince his love that he was worthy of his trust?
Thomas glared at the hilltops as they briefly became visible through the canopy. The answer lay up there somewhere. Perhaps he could still put this right.
Once they got to the beach, they peeked out from the tree line. At first, they could see nothing but then Thomas spotted a deep rut in the sand where the boat had beached, pulled up to the line of vegetation, and hidden.
Thomas looked out to sea. There was no sign of the Manhunter or the two ships that pursued it, and he doubted they would ever sail near this place. But Paddy was taking no chances.
They crept within the tree line, skirting the beach until they got to where the boat lay hidden under a pile of cut branches. There were no guards. A path hacked through the underbrush with machetes clearly showed the direction they had headed.
They searched through the boat and found to their joy that their weapons and Osier’s remained within. The pirates had all come heavily armed and saw no need to bring anything extra from the stock of those they had betrayed.
Thomas turned to Radbert.
“Now’s the time to come to a decision. They think they’re alone on this island and have gotten careless. We can take the boat and maroon them here. We can return to the Manhunter. Or we can go after the treasure. I, for one, want to see every one of these thugs dead. They tried to kill me, and they tried to kill you.”
A hard glitter came into Radbert’s eye. He may have been young, he may have been nicer than most of the crew, but he was still a pirate.
“At least we agree on that,” he said. “But why not return to the Manhunter and return with more men? Then we can defeat them for certain. As it is now, I don’t see how we can fight them. We’re outnumbered six to one.”
“Finding them and returning would take time. This island is close to the mainland. As soon as they see their boat gone, they’ll make a raft and sail over. We’d never get them or the treasure.”
Radbert considered this and nodded.
“That’s true. All right, we’ll go after them. At least we have the advantage of surprise.” Then the German’s face darkened. “But don’t think for an instant that I trust you. You’re only going after them because they stabbed you and your lover in the back and you want that gold.”
Thomas slumped. It had only been what he could expect.
They armed themselves. Radbert, of course, had not carried any weapons when he had been brought aboard, but he took a couple of Osier’s pistols. Thomas took the werebear’s blunderbuss as well as his own pistols. He also had his musket, which he gave to Radbert, hoping that would earn some trust.
Before they could turn to head up the path, one of the tritons let out a plaintive cry. Outside of the water, they had spoken little and their voices did not carry far, but this brief sound carried the weight of fear and distress.
The shifter pointed down the beach. Thomas squinted, and saw a pair of tracks leading out of the water and into the tree line. At the spot where the tracks met the foliage, they could see a body lying there, half obscured within the greenery. Hiding in the underbrush as well as they could, they made their way over to it.
It was the body of a triton. It lay with its neck twisted almost off its shoulders. The two other mermen sank to their knees and keened.
Thomas looked around. The tracks leading to this spot included a pair of bare feet and another pair of large boots.
Thomas shivered. Radbert put into words the terrible thought that had gone through his mind. “Osier. This merman found him, took the silver manacles off, and Osier rewarded him for saving his life by taking his.”
Thomas ground his teeth. “This doesn’t change anything. It only means we have another pirate to kill.”
Radbert sneered at him. “Oh, I thought you’d be happy to find your lover alive and well.”
Thomas glared back at him. He was getting tired of Radbert’s mistrust. Thomas had been through too much, and his patience had worn thin. “I explained it all to you before. If you don’t believe me, fine. Load your guns and get ready to fight. I’ll kill Osier myself.”
Radbert looked at him uncertainly and did as he was told.
Thomas loaded his own guns, filling Osier’s blunderbuss with loose shot. He dug into his pocket and found the silver bullets he had fashioned back on the Manhunter were still there. He loaded all three of his pistols with them. The mermen stared at the silver bullets and pointed angrily at the booted tracks and their dead companion.
Thomas nodded. “I’ll kill him, and I know you’ll help us.”
“I can’t see where Osier has gone off to. There are no obvious tracks through the jungle,” Radbert said, looking around.
“He must have found the path the others made and is following it just as we are. We must take care.”
They returned to the path. The mermen looked determined. Claws extended from their fingertips and they padded quietly on bare feet. Thomas gripped his blunderbuss, worrying about his lack of marksmanship. While anyone could hit something with this scattergun, he had no confidence in making the mark with his three pistols. At least he had a cutlass at his belt, too.
The path the pirates had cut through the jungle was clear enough. It led straight up to the most prominent of four hills right in front of them. Although Thomas had only seen the treasure map once, and then only while his mind was occupied with escaping the men of the Conqueror, he recalled that the hill with the treasure cave had been drawn as slightly bigger than the rest.
Beyond that his memory was vague. Luckily, all he had to do was follow the men with the map.
But Osier was out here somewhere, too, with the same idea.
Thomas went first, the blunderbuss leveled and ready. Radbert came next, his musket ready. Thomas felt better having him there, because he knew his former lover was a good shot. The two tritons took up the rear.
Thomas strained his ears for any sound of the other men, but all he heard was the cawing of the birds, the rustle of leaves, and the hundred other sounds of the jungle. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The day was growing hot and muggy, and the air was hazy with humidity, even though it was still early morning.
They came to the foot of the hill and stopped. Thomas looked back at his companions uncertainly.
“How do we do this? We can’t just walk up the path right to them,” he whispered.
Radbert bit his lip. “If we cut through the jungle they might hear us. These tritons are clumsy on land. The trouble is, we don’t know where they are. If they’re in the cave we should be all right, but what if they left a guard outside?”
Thomas nodded. There seemed no good solution.
“I’ll go on a bit ahead,” Thomas said. “There’s no point in all of us running the risk. If there’s no guard, or I can dispatch him quietly, I’ll come back for the rest of you.”
Radbert’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. It cut Thomas’s heart and angered him at the same time.
T
homas was about to snap at him, only controlling himself at the last minute. Instead he reasoned with the youth. “If I wanted to shoot you in the back, wouldn’t I send you in front? Remember, they tried to kill me, too.”
Radbert looked mollified but not convinced. Not wishing to argue further, Thomas motioned to the tritons to stay put and crept up the path.
It ascended the rocky side of the hill. The vegetation became sparse in some spots, with only a few trees and low bushes, and Thomas had to look closely to see where the pirates had gone. In some parts, they hadn’t needed to cut back the vines and branches at all, and Thomas lost the path only to find it again further up. He kept low, darting from cover to cover, worried that he was exposed to view.
The hillside broke into a swale thick with greenery and, once again, the path they had cut through the jungle with machetes became clear. Vaguely Thomas remembered this feature from the map, but could not recall any other details. He sensed he must be close now.
And then suddenly he was upon it. He was walking up a steep incline, thick underbrush all around him and the forest canopy overhead, when he stepped out into a clear, rocky area.
Immediately, he leapt back to the cover of the jungle.
Taking care, he peered through the gaps in the leaves. The bare patch of rock was about an acre in size. Further upslope, the jungle became thinner, the soil stony, but downslope where he stood, and on either side, the jungle still grew thick and lush. Near the center of the open area was a mound of several large boulders. Two of them leaned on each other, with a dark fissure between them, a triangular opening a little less than the height of a man.
The cave?
He heard nothing but the regular sounds of the jungle. Shading his eyes from the sun, he studied the fissure from a distance, not daring to approach yet. Was that a gleam of light that he saw inside?
He studied the ground between him and the fissure, but could see no footprints. He’d never been much of a tracker. He had never done any hunting growing up, as the forest and wild glades around his family farm were all reserved for the nobility, and he had gone to sea at a young age. It was the sea he understood, not land.
He drew closer to the edge of the jungle to get a better view. A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. A thick snake slithered across a fallen trunk and disappeared into the shadows. Thomas shuddered and looked back at the clearing.
He scanned the edges all around, but did not see another path hacked through the foliage. If the pirates had continued, they must have continued up the slope where they would not have needed to use their machetes.
Checking his blunderbuss and summoning his courage, he stepped out into the clearing. He moved quickly and silently, coming at the boulders from an angle so if someone stood in the darkness within, they would not see him.
He got to the entrance and noticed three things in rapid succession:
First, there was indeed a gleaming of a lantern inside, although it was faint, as if deep in the cave. He also heard the distant scrape of picks and shovels.
Second, he noticed a pool of blood by the entrance. It looked half dried, as if spilled several minutes before.
Third, he saw Osier peek out from the underbrush to his right.
He turned and fired.
As soon as Thomas fired, he realized his mistake. Just as he pulled the trigger he saw that Osier was smiling at him and motioning him to come over. The werebear hadn’t been readying an attack, he had been signaling to him, still thinking they were on the same side. Thomas could have gained an ally against the pirates within the cave, at least for the moment.
But he understood all of this an instant too late, and an instant later he realized it was better this way. Better to shoot Osier than play along with this farce any longer.
The blunderbuss thundered, spraying its lead shot right at Osier, who stood twenty paces away.
It was then that Thomas, so ignorant in firearms, got a hard lesson in the limitations of a blunderbuss.
The shot scattered in a wide path, snipping off twigs and tearing leaves for a good five feet all around the werebear, but doing little real damage. Osier jerked back, blood sprouting from three small wounds in his face and chest. At that range, the shot had spread too thinly to give any serious harm.
In fact, Osier didn’t look hurt at all. He looked enraged.
The werebear stared at him stupidly for a moment, completely caught off guard, then let out a bestial roar. He swelled in size, hair sprouting from his flesh. As he did so, Thomas noticed a dead body lying at his feet, one of the pirates who had been keeping watch outside the cave and who had no doubt been surprised, killed, and dragged off by the werebear.
Osier picked up a heavy log and hurled it at Thomas, who dropped the smoking blunderbuss and threw himself into the only cover available—the cave entrance.
The log thudded against the stone just where Thomas had been standing a moment before. Thomas drew his cutlass, banging his elbow against the close confines of the entrance as he did so. Shouts and footsteps came from deeper within the cave.
He glanced in that direction, and saw the cave went into the hillside for a few paces before taking a sharp turn. While the way opened up a bit beyond the entrance, it remained narrow. Only two men could walk abreast, and only one could fight with ease.
Thomas pulled one of his pistols from his belt, cocked it, and ducked back out of the cave.
Osier was charging across the clearing at him, growing bigger and more bestial with each step. He held a stone as large as a whiskey keg over his head.
Thomas leveled the gun and fired, hoping to put a silver bullet straight into the beast’s heart.
He missed.
Letting out a cry of despair for his terrible marksmanship, he tossed the pistol at Osier and leapt back into the cave entrance, drawing the second of his three pistols as he did so.
Jumping back into the cave saved his life, for Osier tossed the rock and it smashed into a dozen pieces against the cave entrance.
At that moment, the first of the pirates rounded the bend. Thomas had no time to raise his cutlass and no choice but to put a bullet into the man’s gut.
At the range, even Thomas could not miss. The man doubled over with a groan. Thomas leapt forward and hacked down the second man just as he came around the turn. The blade bit deep into the man’s skull and he fell without a sound, instantly dead.
The third man had time to duck behind the corner.
“It’s Thomas!” he shouted.
Lantern light glowed around the corner, casting shadows of the pirates onto the opposite wall, making them look huge and stretched out.
Then another shadow fell over the cave entrance. All daylight was cut off.
Thomas spun.
Osier stood there, his bulk filling up the space.
Thomas gasped. The creature was a hulking beast, covered with thick brown hair. His shirt had ripped to show more hair on his muscular chest. Osier’s face had lengthened, broadened, so that his brown eyes were set deep within a wide face and a thick snout.
Those eyes glared at him with malevolence.
Osier rammed into the cave entrance and, to Thomas’s astonishment, managed to push through, his clothes tearing away.
Thomas leapt around the corner, diving for the floor as he did so. He landed hard on the stone just as a pistol went off inches above his head, the sound amplified by the close quarters in the cave interior. Ears ringing, Thomas rolled into the man’s legs and kicked them out from under him.
Another pirate stood right behind him. Thomas jammed a foot into his groin.
He was about to get into a crouch and raise his cutlass, which he still grasped, but Osier barreled around the corner.
The werebear slammed into the closely packed group of pirates, trampling Thomas as he did so. One of Osier’s feet rammed down on his stomach, putting its full weight on him. It knocked the breath out of him and stunned him.
The sound of rend
ing flesh and a spray of blood on his face woke him up.
Thomas tried to jerk away, but Osier still stood on him, having nowhere else to move. The werebear’s claws swept down, taking the lives of another pair of his former shipmates. A pistol went off, and the foot pinning him to the floor jerked a little, but did not pull away.
Another spray of blood. Thomas gasped for air. He was being crushed.
Osier stepped forward, relieving the pressure on him as the werebear moved further into the cave, continuing the slaughter.
Thomas lay on the floor in a pool of other people’s blood, desperately trying to regain his breath and unable to move.
He managed to sit, weakly holding onto his cutlass. A sea of gore spread before the passageway and beyond. Osier was bending over one poor man, disemboweling him with his terrible claws.
Then the shifter looked over his shoulder and spotted Thomas. He snarled.
Strong hands grasped him by the shoulders and pulled him back. Osier swiped at him and missed his face by an inch. A musket boomed in his ear, and Osier staggered back a step.
The tritons continued hauling Thomas back as Radbert dropped his musket, pulled out a pistol, and shot Osier straight in the face.
The werebear tottered. Either of those two shots would have killed a normal man, but the shifter looked only slightly injured.
Then Thomas saw no more, because they all turned and ran.
Within seconds they burst from the cave and sprinted down slope, desperate to reach the shelter of the jungle. One of the shifters stumbled and fell, Thomas skidded to a stop and turned to help him, only to see Osier squeeze out from the cave entrance twenty paces behind them.
The wounds, the bloodshed, and the rage of his companions’ betrayal had made him more of a beast than Thomas had ever seen him. He stood on his hind legs in full bear form, all his clothes having torn away. With a roar that shook the hillside and sent dozens of jungle birds flapping skyward, he picked up the log he had thrown at Thomas.
