“That he did,” said Jack, glancing over Ross’s shoulder. “The Bruce isn’t lookin’ as fine as he might.”
“We lost a mast,” Ross said. “Maybe a lot more.” His thoughts turned to St. Pierre and the others on the lower gun deck. He hoped that they’d survived.
“Captain!” came Jules’s deep voice. “Captain, you need to come up here, right away.”
Ross and Cutlass Jack climbed what was left of the ladder to the quarterdeck and found that the ship’s wheel and the entire helm had been blasted to scrap. Jules knelt beside a body. There was no captain’s hat, and his coat had been shredded. His sand-brown hair was matted with dark blood.
But Ross knew him. “Bellamy,” he whispered.
And suddenly, their old enemy opened his eyes.
Bellamy drew in a deep, gurgling breath and did something no one expected: he began to laugh. It was a horrible, wet, hacking laugh that sounded to those gathered there like a man drowning. “Look at you,” Bellamy said. “Old Declan Ross . . . and Jack Bonnet. Smug . . . arrogant—you think you’ve won.” Bellamy’s lids flickered, and his eyes started to roll backward.
“What do you mean?” Ross demanded. “Bellamy, what are you saying?”
Bellamy started to smile, but his body arched suddenly. He coughed once, so loud and so long that it seemed it would never stop. He lay still and glared up at Ross. “You really don’t know, do you?” He hacked out a derisive laugh. “I wish you could see the looks on your faces . . . ah, you’re in for such a time.”
Jack drew his sword. “Enough of these riddles,” he said, holding the point of the blade to Bellamy’s chin. “Get you to perdition and say hello to the devil.”
“Perdition?” Bellamy smiled, and his teeth were smeared with blood. “The devil’s not in perdition anymore. He’s in England, my friends. The devil’s in England.”
Bellamy’s eyes rolled all the way back in his head, but Jack dropped to his knee and shook him. “Speak plainly!” Jack yelled. “Speak!”
Bellamy’s last breath escaped his lungs as a kind of scraping whisper. “Thorne . . .”
Back on the Bruce, Declan Ross learned many things—some good, some bad. Jacques St. Pierre and several gunners on the first cannon deck had survived Bellamy’s lethal attack. Nubby treated their wounds and broken limbs as best he could. But at least they were alive. The families of Le Diamant on Martinique had not fared nearly as well. Once he was sure St. Pierre and the others were taken care of, Stede had piloted the Bruce’s launch to shore. He and a handful of crewmen had found a massacre there. Everything had been destroyed . . . and then burned. In the carnage, they had found one survivor, but he had been so traumatized that he either would not or could not speak. An old fisherman sailing a small sloop arrived on the island and agreed to take the survivor to the next port.
Ross met one last time with Captain Lâchance of the Vichy. Lâchance invited Ross and his crew to sail to France to “sample the finest boudain noir in the known world.” Ross declined but was so grateful for Lâchance’s timely help that he offered to buy the Frenchman a year’s supply of boudain noir.
Later that evening, Cutlass Jack anchored his xebec next to the Bruce, and Ross convened a meeting with Jack and the senior crewmen of both ships.
“We sail for England on the morrow,” said Ross, standing in the middle of his captain’s quarters to avoid the wreckage Bellamy’s cannonballs had caused when one blasted out the gallery window and flattened his desk.
“Now I know you b’ truly out of yer mind,” said Stede. “Ya won’t b’ getting halfway across the Atlantic in the Bruce.”
“He’s right, Declan,” said Cutlass Jack. “Your ship’s full of holes. Mine too. We need to be gettin’ someplace safe for repairs. That, ah, Commodore Blake you were tellin’ me about . . . he be in New Providence, right? We could harbor there, eh?”
“That’s backtracking!” Ross exclaimed. “If Thorne’s in England, we’ve got to go now.”
“And if we do,” Stede replied, “we b’ doing that black-hearted mon a grand favor.”
“Pardonnez moi,” came a voice from the doorway. “But I think I have an idea.”
“Jacques!” Ross said. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I pretend to be asleep,” Jacques replied proudly. “When Nubby went chasing after a rat, I made my escape.”
“Are you well?”
“It was just a little bump on the head,” the Frenchman replied. “I have had worse. Now then, do I understand correctly? Bartholomew Thorne is still alive and in England? And yet we cannot chase him because neither ship is seaworthy?”
“That’s about it,” Ross said.
“Ha-ha!” said Jacques. “Then we do this: we sail just a bit farther north to Bellefontaine. I know a man there who can supply just what we need to repair the ships . . . for a reasonable price, of course.”
“But how long?” asked Ross, gesturing toward his shattered window. “The stern is wrecked, our first cannon deck is ruined, and we’ve lost a mast!”
“This man I know, Spencer Montant is his name, but we call him Slash. If anyone can get this accomplished quickly, it is Slash. But for such speed, he will charge a fortune.”
“I don’t care what it costs,” said Ross. “But even if our ships are finished in less than a fortnight, what then? Thorne is already in England. We could arrive too late to stop him.”
“Ah, that is the second part of my plan,” Jacques explained. “From Bellefontaine, we find outgoing ships, sloops or something fast, and we send messages to Commodore Blake—one to New Providence and one to England. That way we warn the British as fast as sailing there directly ourselves. Ha-ha!”
“Excellent,” said Cutlass Jack. “The Brits handled Thorne once . . . they can do it again. What do you say, Declan?”
Ross was quiet a moment and then answered, “It galls me to wait. But in our current condition, I think it’s the best we can manage. We sail for Bellefontaine.”
Ross stood at the starboard rail and rubbed his eyes. A pink glow to the east suggested the sun would be up soon. Ross glanced back to the west where Jack’s xebec kept pace with the Bruce. It had been a long, terrible night. The next day couldn’t be any worse, but it wasn’t likely to be much better. They had lost too many men in the battle with Bellamy. Nubby had said two of the injured didn’t make it through the night, and that brought the total to an even forty to bury at sea.
Ross thought about burying his dead. He thought about the dead left behind in Le Diamant and the other small towns in Martinique. Bellamy had caused all of it in a matter of weeks. And Bartholomew Thorne was a man capable of far worse than Bellamy. Thorne has been missing for more than a year. What has he been doing all this time? Ross wondered. And what does he have in store for England?
15
ELDREGN
Thorne looked in a smudged mirror and scraped a sharp knife across his neck and chin. “Yes, Mister Teach?” Thorne answered his quartermaster.
“Shavin’, Captain Thorne?” asked Teach, coming into the chamber and rubbing a hand on his own chin. “I’m thinkin’ of lettin’ me beard grow meself.”
“What beard?” Thorne replied. “I doubt there’ll ever be a beard on that boyish chin. Now, Mister Teach, I’m sure you didn’t come to my chamber to entertain me. Have you news?”
Teach didn’t much like being the butt of Thorne’s joke, but he didn’t want a taste of his captain’s bleeding stick either. So he measured his tone before he spoke. “It’s the Raukar, sir. Hundreds—I dunno—maybe thousands of them in full arms gone marching out of the main gate. You must have heard them.”
“Yes,” said Thorne, wiping his knife on a cloth and then putting the blade to his throat once more. “The walls of this longhouse shook for more than an hour. They are a formidable army. But this is not news, Teach.”
“It’s Hrothgar, sir. He’s requested your presence at the gate.”
Thorne raised an eyebrow. The knife h
esitated a moment on his chin, and a thin line of blood appeared. “Are we traveling to Ostergarn?” Thorne asked, his voice thickening and eager.
“I think so, Captain,” said Teach. “Hrothgar said his ships have all returned.”
Thorne wiped his chin and neck and tossed the cloth on the chair. “Now we will see at last if Hrothgar’s fleet is anything like what he promised.”
Lord Hrothgar and Lady Fleur stood near the gray stone gatehouse at the front of the Raukar’s fortress. Beside them waited a huge carriage drawn by six massive black warhorses. The ground was broken and pocked with muddy ruts where innumerable boots had trod.
“You have kept us waiting,” said Lady Fleur, and as usual, her deep blue eyes blazed out at Thorne.
She never ceased to measure him . . . never ceased to provoke him with those eyes. Thorne wondered if something would have to be done about Lady Fleur, but that would need to wait. For now, he could do nothing to arouse the Raukar’s suspicion. “Your pardon, my lady,” he said with a subtle bow. “I came as quickly as I could.”
“Gunnarson Thorne,” said Lord Hrothgar, “today you will come to the coast of Ostergarn. Then, and only then, will you be fit to witness the twofold might of the Raukar.”
“Twofold?” Thorne asked.
Lady Fleur’s eyes narrowed but did not leave Thorne for a moment. “Surely a descendant of Eiríkr Thorvaldsson would know,” she said.
“Peace, woman,” Lord Hrothgar said, and his voice was deep and commanding. “You speak to one of pureblood, even if his ways seem strange to you.”
Lady Fleur said nothing more. She turned and marched rapidly away from the gatehouse. Hrothgar clapped Thorne on the back and ushered him into the carriage.
Thorne smelled the sea air even before the carriage came to a stop. It was much different from the Caribbean. There was a purity in the air. Thorne thought of his heritage. I am a pureblood descendant of Erik the Red. And for a moment he allowed himself to imagine victory over the British. He’d see their vaunted fleet crippled and sent to the bottom. With the seas under his control, the Brits would not trade anything without his consent. And Thorne would install the Merchant to oversee the whole new operation. Riches beyond reckoning would be Thorne’s and then he would build his own altar . . . but not to some ridiculous one-handed god.
Heather. So many years had gone by since the fire had taken her life. He remembered tearing through the burning timber of the stateroom, trying desperately to reach her in time. But the roof had caved in, and the flames engulfed her.
Somehow she had come back to him . . . speaking velvety words in his mind that no one else could hear. But since his failure on the Isle of Swords and subsequent capture, Heather had not spoken to him. Thorne felt sure she’d come back. He’d already commissioned one of the Raukar, a painter of incredible skill, to paint her portrait for him. It was to be ready within the week.
When the carriage stopped at last and the door opened, Thorne thought there must be some mistake. He’d expected to be taken to the docks of Ostergarn, but they’d come to a huge outcropping of patchy gray and white rock. It was a massive knee of stone that seemed to have burst through the tall grass and trees. Thorne could not see over or around it. Hrothgar seemed to note nothing amiss and walked directly toward the tall stone face. Thorne followed cautiously. He started to call out to Hrothgar, for the Raukar chieftain increased his speed and looked as if he were about to walk right into the stone. Only he didn’t. Hrothgar stepped past where he should have been able to step. He turned slightly and winked at Thorne and then disappeared.
Thorne looked to the warrior who drove the carriage, but he did not explain. Thorne thought he saw the slightest hint of a smile flickering in the man’s eyes. Thorne looked back at the stone and noticed the path leading up to it was as rutted as the path near the gatehouse. The massive marching procession had come this way. Their footsteps went right up to the stone where Hrothgar had disappeared. But at the stone, the trail stopped.
“Come, Gunnarson,” came Hrothgar’s voice as if spoken from within the stone.
Thorne put a hand on the haft of his bleeding stick and walked toward the rock face. All of his senses warned him that he was about to smack straight into the mountain of stone, but after a few more steps, he hadn’t struck a thing. He reached out his hand and found that the rock face was still out of his reach. The warrior near the carriage laughed aloud then. Thorne ignored him and walked forward. Then he noted a tall fin of rock to the left and behind it a cavelike opening. Thorne took a few steps back and stared. “Amazing,” he said aloud. The rock face was a perfect illusion. It explained how Hrothgar had seemed to disappear. In reality, he’d only stepped behind the rock fin and entered the cave.
Thorne laughed to himself and entered the cave. Hrothgar stood a few paces inside and gestured for Thorne. The cave was merely a passage, a forty-foot tunnel, and bright light gleamed up ahead. “Prepare yourself, Gunnarson,” said Hrothgar, shaking with anticipation. “You will not likely see a sight so glorious this side of Valhalla.”
Hrothgar stepped aside and let Thorne pass out of the tunnel and onto the pebbly shore of Ostergarn. After the darkness and narrow confines of the tunnel, the sudden, panoramic view of the coastline was dizzying.
There were more of the contorted rock formations in the shallows of the Baltic, but anchored in both directions as far as the eye could see were massive sailing ships. Thorne had seen etchings of the Viking ships of old, and these clearly borrowed from that tradition. Each one was a long, slender vessel with numerous round shields hung along its rails and a high, elegantly curving prow that ended in the fearsome visage of a dragon or some other fierce beast. But the ships of the Raukar were by no means antiquated like their predecessors. These vessels were much taller and boasted two, three, and even four masts, each one with two to three spars upon which vast sails could be flown.
The hulls of these amazing warcrafts were assembled from the darkest wood Thorne had ever seen—else they were painted black. The dark, overlapping planks from stem to stern gave each ship the appearance of being armored. Raukar warriors stood in precise rows on the main deck of each ship. The sun gleamed off their weapons, armor, and mail.
Thorne thought the Raukar ships sat amazingly high on the water for their size and the weight of so many soldiers, but he did note the absence of one essential ingredient for war at sea.
“Cannons?” Thorne whispered.
“RAUKAR!!” Hrothgar thundered as he held his battleaxe high.
“HRAH!!” came the reply from the ships, followed by the sound like a thousand waves crashing simultaneously. And on each Raukar vessel hidden cannon bays had slid open, and myriads of thick cannon muzzles protruded from them. And upon the main deck there were other devices. They appeared to be cannons of some kind, but the barrels were uniform—not tapered—and longer.
“The twofold might of the Raukar,” said Hrothgar.
Thorne, still in awe of the fleet that would be his to command, whispered, “The sea and . . .”
“And fire!” Hrothgar exclaimed, gazing out proudly upon his kin. He clenched the haft of his axe so hard his knuckles whitened. Then he turned back to Thorne. “Would you care to sail with me?”
Hrothgar had led Thorne to a cutter at the water’s edge, and a dozen bare-shouldered warriors quickly rowed them out into the deeper water beyond the first two rows of warships. There waited a craft so formidable and perilous that Thorne felt an electric chill skitter up his spine to the nape of his neck. Nearly black like the others, this vessel would be invisible at night. It was taller and longer than the others, and Thorne could actually see the outline of its cannon bays. He counted four gun decks, each with fifteen cannons. “One hundred twenty guns,” Thorne muttered under his breath.
“More,” said Hrothgar, “when you count the dragon necks on the main deck.”
“Dragon necks?”
Hrothgar snorted a laugh. “You will see.”
�
�But so many weapons . . . it must make the vessel exceedingly heavy . . . slow.”
“Not so, Gunnarson,” Hrothgar said as the cutter drew near to the great ship’s keel. “Have you noted the masts and the spars? Four masts and one lanteen sail on the bowsprit. But the wood is treated and sealed with a special mixture of elements that hardens it without sacrificing flexibility. From those masts and spars we can fly sails much wider than even the English warships. We Raukar harness the wind like no other seafaring race.”
Thorne exhaled sharply.
“I take it you like the ship,” said Hrothgar.
“I have never seen its equal,” Thorne replied.
“That is because there is none.” Hrothgar looked upon the ship as a father might gaze with pride upon his offspring. “This ship is our command vessel. It is yours now.”
A different sort of man would have lavished gratitude over the giver of such a gift, but not Bartholomew Thorne. The ship was indeed marvelous, but for Thorne, it was merely a tool. And he felt he deserved it. “I accept,” was all he said.
“Come now, Gunnarson,” said Hrothgar. “What name will you give this proud ship? The Raukar shipwrights who, by sweat and toil, built it have made some suggestions, but . . . I thought the ship’s captain should have that honor.”
“First, I will sail upon the ship,” said Thorne, “and let the ship earn its name.”
Hrothgar smiled a great toothy grin. Surely Erik the Red’s blood flowed freely in Thorne’s veins.
Unseen crew from the deck far above threw down long rope ladders, and the passengers on the cutter clambered aboard. Thorne had never seen a deck so vast, and it appeared nearly flat. The forecastle and the quarterdeck were very low, and a dark tarp stretched at an angle in front of each. Thorne guessed this design would cut down on the resistance to the wind. All along the side rails were more of the strange long-barreled cannons Thorne had observed before. Up close, he could see why they had been dubbed dragon necks. The barrel of each cannon was as black as ink, but some other silver metal had been skillfully wrought around it like reptilian scales right up to the muzzle. And there, a dreadful dragon’s mouth opened. Thorne was anxious to see what sort of cannon shot would come forth from the jaws of each of these beasts.
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