Beneath Black Sails

by Clare Sager

  Wild Hunt damn it, why hadn’t they surrendered?

  A lick of movement behind one of the men. What was that? Then it flashed into view again – a whip. This wasn’t their choice. She trailed her aim to the source of that lash – a broad-shouldered man with a cruel mouth.

  A much better target.

  She exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

  A crack split the air, throwing the butt against her shoulder as smoke rose.

  From here she couldn’t see the blood, but she knew it was there from the way he jerked, head snapping back, and fell from sight.

  The men he’d whipped stared over their shoulders, weapons lowering. Confusion, fear, relief – whatever it was, it would keep them busy at least until The Morrigan was close enough to board.

  Flicking open the breach block on her rifle, Vice narrowed her eyes at the smoky water between them and the Veritas. No time for a second shot. She slid the gun in the rack.

  “Brace!” The shout went up, echoed by others across The Morrigan.

  Cries of dismay rose from the Veritas, drifting across the smoke-shrouded water.

  Ducking behind the rail’s cover, Vice hurried fore. She reached the bow an instant before the impact pitched through both ships, locking them together, rocking crew, sending lines and sails lashing. Down on one knee, she clung to the rail until the deck steadied. Taking a deep breath, she drew her pistol and rose.

  Veritas

  Smoke and spray, cries and groaning timber filled the air with sound and scent and texture. The Morrigan’s bowsprit was tangled with the Veritas’s lines – not ideal, but Vice could board now. If she could target the captain and anyone else forcing these men to fight, they’d surrender before too much blood was shed.

  Trusting instinct, she raised her pistol. The antlered head of the hart that decorated the handle peeked over her hand, and for a fraction of a second, her sister’s green eyes flashed into view. Heart sore, she squeezed the trigger – the whirr of clockwork, then a flash, a puff of smoke, the jolt of recoil, and a crack.

  Another man, his own gun aimed at her, gaped, then fell.

  “See you over there, ladies and gent,” she called to her team, surging forward with a fierce grin. Either they were with her, or they weren’t – she was going. She returned that pistol to its holster and in one movement drew the second pistol with her left hand and her sabre with her right.

  Muscles springing, she leapt to the bowsprit, across the water, and onto the Veritas.

  Scanning the deck, she spotted a thick knot of men and, at its centre, the captain and presumably his first mate. The way the men closest to them lifted their sabres higher with glances over their shoulders said they were the ones behind the attempt to resist The Morrigan.

  Take them down, and the battle would be over.

  With steel clashing, a shot from her second pistol, and her team at her side, it didn’t take her long to work her way towards them. Where she could, she clubbed heads with the butt of a pistol or the hilt of her sword, but by the time she reached the last row of men, her blade wasn’t clean.

  “Stand down, gents,” she cried, voice ringing as clear as her blade as she parried a clumsy attack, “and you’ll live to tell the tale of facing Lady Vice.”

  Shared glances, wide eyes – they hadn’t realised what ship they faced.

  “Come on, lads,” Saba huffed, “surrender.”

  “Don’t listen to the she-devils,” the captain growled, “they seek to tempt you with their wicked bodies, their wicked tongues, their wicked wiles.”

  “That’s a lot of wicked.” Kicking a short man in the belly, Vice scoffed. “I’d be more worried about our sabres than any of that.”

  Lip lifted in a sneer, the captain shoved the poor man forward. “Kill the bitch.”

  “Fine.” Vice sidestepped, and Aedan slammed his tattooed fist into the man’s face, dropping him to the deck, groaning. “How about I kill the bitch?” She drew her third and final pistol, levelled it, and shot the captain clean between the eyes.

  He blinked, red trickling down his face before his features slackened and he fell.

  The breath heaved in Vice’s chest. Enough blood for today. She surveyed the men still ringed around the first mate, some staring at her, others at their late captain.

  Just give in.

  Mingled cries of dismay, relief, and celebration rose – the latter not only from The Morrigan’s crew.

  She swallowed, meeting the blue gaze of the Veritas’s first mate. Please. End this.

  He bared his teeth with a yellow gleam.

  Steel clanged on the deck as a young man near her team, little more than a boy, dropped his sabre. “I surrender.” He stared up at her, fear, hope, desperation in his dark eyes.

  Her heart twisted – the poor kid, had he been press-ganged into this? She’d heard it happened outside of the Navy. Giving him a half-smile, she nodded. Good lad.

  More steel rang across the Veritas as, one-by-one, the rest of the crew surrendered until only the first mate held a weapon.

  Waving those who’d surrendered out of the way, Vice cocked her head at him. “What’ll it be? Is this cargo, this ship really worth your life?”

  Raising his chin, he stared at her, eyes narrowing as if sizing her up. To fight or just to work out whether she’d be true to her word, she wasn’t sure, but he’d be a damn fool to lift that blade alone.

  Slowly, his chest rose, tension inching across his body.

  No, surely, he wasn’t going to fight? Vice shifted her grip on her sabre and the weight on her feet, ready to spring forward to meet his blade if he went for one of her crewmates.

  Eyes lowering, he huffed and threw his sabre to the deck, shoulders slumping.

  There was only the whisper of the wind, the sigh of waves, and the flap of torn canvas.

  Then the cheers erupted.

  Thank the gods for that. Lowering her blade, Vice nodded at the first mate. “Good choice,” she said, but it was swallowed up by the roar of voices.

  It was over. She turned, scanning the path back to The Morrigan as the cheers faded. Despite their smiles and raised fists, a few of their crew were bloodied – cuts on shoulders, bleeding noses, split lips, but nothing worse. They all still stood.

  The relief burst through her in a laugh, and she waved at Perry, near the Veritas’s rail. Surely, she’d forgive her earlier misjudgement about the number of guns.

  “Interesting manoeuvring,” Perry called, one eyebrow raised.

  Grinning, Vice lifted her hands. “Not my finest performance, no, but we won, didn’t we?”

  Perry pursed her lips, but her eyes sparkled in the low sun. Then her gaze drifted over Vice’s shoulder, and her face dropped.

  “Perry?” Vice swallowed. “What’s –”

  Before she finished turning, a shout rose: “Sails!”

  Taken Aback

  Rifle in one hand, Knigh stood on the quarterdeck of the Venatrix, gaze fixed on The Morrigan and Veritas locked together. The pirate vessel formed a T with the merchant, bowsprit tangled with foremast, as though the pirates had rammed their victim.

  Other than dissipating smoke and flicking sails, though, it was all so still. Frowning, he yanked his spyglass from its holster and lifted it to his eye.

  No one on deck of either ship. No one living, anyway – a few bodies lay on the Veritas. She had taken damage to mast and sail, too. The Morrigan looked in a far better state, just a couple of tears to the canvas.

  Narrowing his eyes, he stowed the spyglass. What could have happened to clear the decks of both ships? Had the battle somehow ended up on a lower deck? He exhaled through his nose. That didn’t seem likely – he’d never heard of fighting belowdecks while abovedecks was empty. And there was no sound of clashing blades or gunfire. No sign of men in the water, either.

  “Take us in, Mr Munroe,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. Perhaps the ships were in trouble – one could be taking on water, and the crews were belowd
ecks out of sight trying to save themselves. But surely a team would be up here trying to untangle the pair, so they wouldn’t both be dragged down.

  He wrinkled his nose. Something was off.

  Still, it was his job to investigate, and he needed to get to Vice and her captain.

  “Nice and easy, if you will.” He nodded to Munroe. “Broach The Morrigan.” Her crew had to be hiding belowdecks, perhaps thinking to stage an ambush – well, he’d present them with the smallest target for their cannon if that was their plan. Plus, it might bring him closer to FitzRoy more quickly, wherever he was hiding.

  Knigh’s message couldn’t be trusted to anyone else – he needed a private audience with the captain and to get that, it looked like he’d have to lead a boarding party. “I want all port guns ready to fire.”

  The lieutenant saluted and relayed the order.

  Knigh lifted his rifle as they approached the merchantman, ready to cock it and take aim the instant he spotted danger.

  But both ships remained eerily silent.

  His stomach knotted. The Veritas was meant to have signalled once the pirates came within range, then surrender. No one was supposed to get killed. Was the deck empty because they’d all died?

  Nostrils flaring, his throat clenched. He couldn’t be responsible for so many deaths – not this time. He squeezed his rifle until it creaked.

  “There’ll be some other explanation,” he whispered.

  “Pardon, Captain?” Munroe blinked and looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  Knigh drew a quick breath and gave him a curt nod. “You have the Venatrix, Mr Munroe. I’ll be leading the boarding party.”

  A momentary widening of the eyes was the lieutenant’s only reaction, betraying his surprise at the odd instruction. Still, within a breath, he’d smoothed his face and saluted. “Aye, Captain.”

  Good man. He understood pirate hunters sometimes had to employ unorthodox practices.

  Striding fore, Knigh nodded at the detachment of marines standing to attention on the main deck. “Half of you with me, gentlemen.”

  Their second lieutenant saluted and split the unit with a few brief orders, before sending ten with Knigh.

  Efficient. That’s what he liked about the man.

  By the time they reached the bow, the Venatrix was drawing to a halt. She bobbed into position touching The Morrigan’s port side, aft of all her sails to avoid getting tangled. From above, the three ships would have formed an imperfect U-shape.

  Despite the tension thrumming through his body, there was no attack as he set foot on The Morrigan – all was as he’d observed.

  Far too still.

  Forming around him, the marines exchanged glances, too well-disciplined to air their concerns, but he could see it in their eyes.

  They didn’t like this any more than he did.

  “Search the ship. I want Vice and I want her alive.” If he captured her here, there’d be no need to deal with his contact. That would certainly be preferable – pirates made poor allies.

  With a hand signal, he summoned the remaining marines. Two men at his side, he approached the two doors leading to rooms below the quarterdeck, one of them presumably the captain’s cabin. The marines checked one door, he the other. Garish decor with an excessive amount of gold decoration and a chandelier – Lords and Ladies!

  But there was no one inside.

  He kept his face expressionless – it wouldn’t do for the men to see him unsettled – but inside, the wrongness seethed.

  As a child, he’d once seen a barrel of eels at the village market, their flesh twisting, slippery, dark. The sight of them in constant movement had haunted his nightmares for years. Now, it felt like those eels writhed under his skin.

  “Ser,” a man called from the stairs that led belowdecks, and Knigh strode over, raising his eyebrows in question. “We thought you’d want to see this.”

  Knigh glanced around – if he went down there … He narrowed his eyes. The pirates could have put something here to lure him and his men into the bowels of The Morrigan. Into a trap. “What is it?”

  “The crew of the Veritas, ser. It looks like they’re bound and gagged in the hold, ser.”

  “What? Here?” The Veritas’s men on The Morrigan? Then were The Morrigan’s crew –

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The unmistakable report of cannon.

  On instinct, Knigh ducked, but The Morrigan rolled steadily with the ocean’s heave – nothing struck her. That meant –

  He ran to the rail, rifle raised.

  The Venatrix rocked, holes in her sails, the top of the mizzenmast creaking, falling, crashing. With a splash, it dropped into the sea, lines breaking and whipping.

  Smoke rose from the Veritas’s starboard guns.

  “To me,” he bellowed as the pieces fell into place. Vice, FitzRoy, and the rest of their crew were on the Veritas. From there, they’d fired a full broadside into the Venatrix, while she’d sat there presenting the largest possible target.

  And they’d done it while his forces were divided between two ships.

  As if his realisation were the cue, every hatch and door on the Veritas flew open. Pirates poured out, led by an all-too-familiar red-coated woman who grinned fiercely.

  Hells and damnation.

  Control

  Knigh gritted his teeth, parrying another sabre swipe – it was undisciplined but powerful. The Morrigan’s crew had already faced one battle, and he’d expected them to be tired, but perhaps their victory had buoyed morale.

  Clenching his jaw, he caught another blow, sending the bald pirate off balance. With a kick, he sent the man splashing overboard. Better if he didn’t kill too many of The Morrigan’s crew – he didn’t want ill will spoiling the next phase of his plan.

  In the gap left by his opponent, he caught a glimpse of that red coat. Vice fought with a kind of lethal abandon, brows lowered fiercely, attacks imperfect, technically chaotic, but swift and unerringly on-target.

  After she’d mocked him at Kayracou, he’d have expected her to laugh and pose her way through a fight, relishing in her opponents’ defeat, their blood on her blade. But that expression, jaw set, a focused frown, mouth in a grim line – it was far more serious than he’d ever thought her capable of.

  Back in Albion, most of his colleagues thought her little more than a figurehead – pretty and inspiring, but ultimately there for show.

  The slash she dealt the marine facing her was anything but for show. And she led a boarding party – the group around her clearly looked to her for direction. His fellow officers were sorely mistaken.

  Frown tight on his face, Knigh twitched away from a clumsy thrust, threw it wide with his own blade, and punched the pirate. Blood burst down the man’s face, and he backed away, clutching his nose.

  Shaking his head, Knigh scanned his surroundings again. Half the marines had formed up with him, the other half faced Vice, and the pirates gathered around her.

  Damn it, he needed to end this – with his forces divided between The Morrigan and the Venatrix, he was losing men. Hells, the pirates might even be winning.

  It wasn’t meant to go like this. The plan was to overpower The Morrigan by force of numbers and superior training, gain their surrender. Then he’d use his code phrase to make himself known to his contact, and get an audience with FitzRoy. Then he’d execute the next phase to capture Vice and bring her to justice.

  Growling, he punched another pirate and shoved him overboard.

  Growling? Gods, no. He had to maintain control.

  This was just another battle – it wasn’t personal. He couldn’t give in to his fury, not again. Swallowing, he straightened his back, pulling his muscles into one drill position, then another.

  Discipline, procedure, drills.

  Deep breaths filled his nose with the sharp smell of sweat and the metallic tang of blood, and most importantly, they brought a cooling calm over him.

  He nodded. Much better.

 
That flash of red caught his eye through the melee again. Vice slammed her sabre’s knuckle-bow into a marine’s face and kicked him away, then glanced aft.

  Narrowing his eyes, Knigh followed her gaze to a tall man, black-haired, his black coat even more ostentatious than Vice’s. He had to be FitzRoy.

  That would end this.

  “To me, marines.” Not checking they followed, Knigh started fighting his way towards the pirate captain. “FitzRoy,” he shouted into the clash of blades. Still nothing – he must not have heard.

  He shouldered one pirate, then another, out of the way, using his superior size to shove them with ease. His muscles rejoiced at the rough treatment, at the flex and jar of impact.

  He could just let go, let the rage burning in his belly free …

  Tightening his grip on his sabre, he shook his head. It would be easy in the moment, yes, but he knew better than that, he knew where it would lead. He had to be stronger.

  Voice hoarse, he called the man’s name again. The pirates nearest gave him wary looks, but FitzRoy didn’t respond, and he wasn’t even sure which man was his contact. For all he knew, the fellow could be dead.

  Lords and Ladies, he hadn’t even considered that. Then his plan would be dead in the water.

  Teeth gritted, he pushed on – he needed to get through to FitzRoy.

  Fifteen feet away now – even with the cries and clamour of battle, he’d have to hear.

  “FitzRoy.”

  Red and gold closed in from starboard at speed.

  “Parley,” he bellowed, pushing towards the pirate captain. “Parley, FitzRoy.”

  But a body blocked his path – Vice, her sabre outstretched, tip inches from his chest. “Parley?” She snorted. “Pirate hunters don’t parley.”

  Knigh’s heart pounded. So close. He took half a step forward.

  Vice bared her teeth and lifted the sword to his throat, only an inch from his flesh. Her eyes burned into him.

  Odd – the colour looked different from when they’d met at Port Royal. A bright cerulean blue rather than clear turquoise.