The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  And far worse news for Scat’s battle plan, there was now no way for them to cross. The grappling lines had been cut away during the fusillade, and the lines from the Seal’s yards had been tossed off the Chase’s decks. Without orders, without a word, the men of the Chase had cut the cords away, lines falling into the drink, severed hooks falling silently to decks amid the great booming of cannon fire.

  Worst of all, not a single sailor aboard the Chase had lifted a sword or a pistol or a musket against his fellow. Every one of them had chosen instead to line the gunwales, to face the Seventh Seal, and to deliver deadly fire down onto her. To a man, they had chosen John Hand over Scat Wilkins. To a man, they had chosen Packer Throme over the Angel of Death.

  Few of them, truth be known, had chosen God over the devil, at least not in any lasting way. A few, but very few, would later claim to have seen the light of God as dusk fell on that dark summer day. But pirates were a superstitious lot of men, and so John Hand’s sermon had had a profound impact regardless. A prophecy of doom was an ominous cloud that could not be wished away. The admiral’s appeal to unreasoning fears had hit its target.

  Scat, not John Hand, had erred. The admiral had left Scat this one play, and this one ship, for a reason. He had wanted to confront Scat, to be rid of him once and for all, but he could not do it on land, where the king’s decree made such a confrontation dicey at best. So he had left Scat one ship, an ugly and sinister ship, knowing it would create the starkest choice imaginable for the men who sailed her. Scat’s first error was to take the bait.

  But Scat’s greatest mistake was to underestimate what it meant to pirates to be honored. They were celebrated as heroes by all the kingdom. They had been cheered, lauded to the heavens, as they sailed away aboard the greatest ship ever built. It was in part John Hand’s sermon that had turned them, true, and in part Packer Throme, but it was in largest part the Trophy Chase herself. They had been raised up to the heights on these decks, and did not want to be lowered down again to the depths on those of a lesser ship.

  So now instead of obeying his orders, instead of taking the Chase, Scat Wilkins’ own handpicked men raised their pistols and their muskets. They took aim. And on John Hand’s command, they acted in accordance with their natures and their habits, and their chosen profession. They fired.

  In fact, most of the would-be mutineers missed their targets. They hit whatever they aimed at, but they were more interested in appearing loyal to their new captain than they were in actually killing off the crew of their old one. Still, twenty men who had weathered the scrapshot fusillade now dropped to the decks in the smoking sights of muskets held by John Hand’s loyal crewmen. The crew of the Seventh Seal was decimated. More than two-thirds were dead or seriously wounded within the first minute of the battle.

  “Hold your fire!” Admiral Hand ordered, knowing this fight was already over and won.

  Scat stood on the foredeck of the Seal, dumbfounded. His unlit cigar hung loosely from his mouth as he surveyed the carnage on his own decks. Then he looked at the battered rails of the Chase, drifting slowly away.

  “Fight for me, you rat badgers!” he cried. He looked across at familiar faces, questioning, boring into eyes he recognized, eyes of men he had commanded, men he expected to command still. A few lowered their gaze as Scat’s withering look caught them, but none raised a hand. “You gut-slitting slackdogs, take back my ship!” Scat’s voice cracked on the last syllable. It was a pitiful yelp.

  “Hold!” John Hand countered, in case any were tempted.

  The sailors on board the Chase shifted from one foot to the other, mostly embarrassed for their old captain. Those still alive aboard the Seventh Seal were as unmoving as statues, watching their leader, wondering what had happened to him. Where was the unmistakable, unstoppable power of Scat Wilkins, the infamous pirate of legend? Who was this old, sick man, hands trembling, voice cracking? As they stood still, they felt their confidence drain away, replaced by an unmistakable, quite unaccustomed, and utterly unwelcome draft of fear. It grew, filling their chests, throttling their willpower.

  “Jonas Deal!” Scat fairly screamed. “You mutinous blaggard, where are you?”

  “Give Scat his Mr. Deal,” John Hand instructed quietly.

  Packer joined three other sailors in picking up the body. He fought back a wave of nausea as he tried to get a grip on the clammy, flaccid flesh below the knee of this once fearsome man, now nothing more than a heavy, gelatinous bag of bones. They wrestled what was left of him overboard.

  A ka-thunk, then a splash, and then silence. Every man looked to Scat Wilkins. They saw the dark look, the set jaw, the mouth turned down. They saw his soul writhe in the twitching of his face, as murderous ire grew there like a flame following a trail of gunpowder. He looked back at the Chase, at the row of sailors still aiming, ready to let loose another angry cloud of blue-white smoke and yellow fire. The Seventh Seal had drifted far enough away now to allow the Chase’s cannon direct aim at her hull. One by one, each cannon had been reloaded with round shot, cannonballs, then re-aimed and readied. Torches hovered over touchholes. The next volley would sink the Seal.

  “I will kill every one of you,” Scat seethed. His voice was a steel rasp on a pine box. “Every last mother’s son. And I’ll bury your mothers with you. Double-cross me, you blaggards!”

  “Small arms,” Hand ordered in a monotone. The admiral had been tempted to feel pity. But he knew Scat’s treachery, his wrath, his need for vengeance, and it ran too deep for any act of mercy. Scat would not crumble. He would not bow. He would not quit. Only death would stop him. “Fire at will.”

  There was a pause, just a second or two, as Hand’s men, all of those aboard the Chase, cocked their weapons and aimed. A doubt clung to the air; no one wanted to be the first to fire. And then a musket cracked. And then a pistol. And then came the flood.

  Their aim this time was dead on target. Scat’s threats were not idle, and they all knew it. They fought for their country, their captain, their mothers, their lives. The Seal’s crewmen dove for cover, but found little. A few returned fire with pistols and muskets, and one even coaxed a cannon to bark. But they could not keep up. The Trophy Chase poured deadly, drowning, all-consuming fire into the Seventh Seal.

  The beast circled low, keeping far from the surface, watching, waiting for the morsel to drift slowly, maddeningly, down. In the thick darkness of the beast’s mind, the idea began to form that these two creatures were not prey and predator, but equals, fighting. And then a murky thought worked through: Somehow the creatures had called forth the storm of lightning and thunder now passing between them.

  Once planted in the beast’s brain, the thought would not leave. Both of these creatures were predators, dangerous predators. The Firefish wanted to turn away, to swim off, to abandon any pursuit of these stormy creatures. But it could not. Not without testing the morsel that sank toward it, closer and closer. Not without tasting it.

  And then came the smell of blood.

  The beast rose instantly, its hunger a hot spike in its belly, a brilliant streak of fiery yellow in its mind. Its enormous mouth opened as it rose, frantically, to consume. It took the morsel. The beast’s shock waves, its own lightning, created hardly a ripple against the storm above, and it attracted no notice.

  But that morsel! Sweet and ripe and raw!

  Now the beast rose farther, methodically, in complete control, circling, searching the storm creatures intently for any weak spot, any place to enjoin an attack, any way it could feast.

  But each time the storm paused, it returned, louder and brighter.

  Scat watched his last battle with a sense of disbelief so keen it crossed some internal line. He disengaged. This couldn’t be happening. The scene around him was a stray thought to be rejected as soon as it entered his head, a preposterous, absurd idea: defeat. And not just defeat, but defeat at the hands of his own men who would not obey his command. He had the feeling he was standing in the wrong place. He s
imply needed to switch ships. If he could just get to the quarterdeck of the Chase then all would be well.

  But he could not. His sailors fell backward, were blown backward; they pirouetted, contorted, sprawled, crawled through smoke and debris until their bodies covered the decks, piled up on one another, soaking everything red.

  Scat stood alone on the forecastle, watching, distant, smoldering, trying to work out how this had happened, and how he might yet turn this battle and kill his enemies. He chewed his cigar. He felt his pockets for a small gold lighter that was not there.

  John Hand turned his eyes toward Packer. The boy’s look was intense, alert, the fire of battle burning in him once again, as it had in Prince Mather’s quarters, as it had when he’d cut the tie lines of the bunting. His sword was in his hand once again. But Packer did not move. He stood silently, absorbing the carnage.

  Packer was pondering this scene. He had seen bloody battle before. The death and dismemberment here was just as brutal, the blood flowed just as freely as when the Chase had fought the Achawuk. But this time it was different. It was gruesome, yes. It was hideous. But somehow this time it seemed…necessary.

  Why?

  “Resist not evil,” Jesus commanded. John Hand and the Trophy Chase were resisting evil with all the firepower they had. “But whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn the other also.” The Seventh Seal smote the Chase, even choosing her starboard side. So why did Packer feel so strongly that here, now, it would be utterly wrong to turn the Chase’s port side to these pirates as well?

  Was it his own hardness of heart that made this seem so different? Perhaps. But Packer felt no hardness within him. He felt the pain of Scat’s loss. He felt the knife’s blade of regret. Was there anger in Packer? Was that the difference? But Packer felt no wrath that needed to be appeased. He didn’t hate. He felt no blood lust. He took no pleasure in any of this: not in any part of his heart to which he could find access.

  I’ll bury your mothers with you. That was it, then. It was that Scat simply had to be stopped because he could not stop himself. It was a government’s role to bring justice, to protect its citizens, and Admiral John Hand was now the government. The Trophy Chase was no longer a pirate ship, or even a merchant ship; it was a ship of state. It had been attacked, and now it was executing judgment on behalf of the government, the one God had ordained for Nearing Vast. It was sad; it was ugly. But there was simply no other way.

  “ ‘But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid,’ ” John Hand quoted aloud, still looking at Packer, “ ‘for he beareth not the sword in vain.’ That’s our duty.”

  Packer looked over at him with a start, realizing how rapt in thought he had been.

  The admiral smiled. “Do you have a pistol?”

  “A pistol?”

  Hand nodded. Packer shook his head.

  Hand pulled Jonas Deal’s enormous hand cannon from his belt, looked at Packer, and grimaced. The boy wouldn’t be able to handle the thing. “Go get my spare.” He reached into his pocket for the key to his cabin, then saw the door ajar behind Packer. The damage from Scat’s first cannonade was visible from where he stood. “You’ll find it already loaded, in my desk drawer under the logbook.”

  Packer nodded. “Aye, sir. What should I do with it?”

  “Why, use it, son.” He watched Packer go. The intensity of the boy’s face, the depth of purpose, these were things Hand had seen before in other men. Packer had iron in him, the fire to do what was right. He would likely die for what he believed.

  But would he kill? The admiral needed to know the answer.

  CHAPTER 6

  Predators

  Cannonballs now, Scat thought. His heart pounded away in his chest, every beat now striking him with pain, a hammer on white-hot iron. Yes, round shot at the waterline, to sink him. The Chase’s crewmen were already aiming the big guns, preparing to fire. Scat knew he should order all his remaining men to the cannons. But he didn’t do it. He wasn’t sure he could muster the voice, with this horrible spike again and again through his chest, through his heart. But it wouldn’t matter if he did. The day was lost.

  He pondered the ship before him, the Trophy Chase, his prize and now his undoing. The sun was almost set, and the Chase had turned golden-red in the fading light. The haze of smoke around her was purple in the slanting rays. The Firefish hide glistened on her hull, its scales glinting. A beautiful ship. A gorgeous ship. A fast and fighting ship like no other, draped in the hide of its great quarry. This was the Trophy Chase in all her glory. Scat felt pride, love, and jealousy, emotions that could have been no more intense had the Chase been a treacherous woman he loved with unreasonable passion, and who had brought him to his knees, and then to his death. Yet he loved her anyway. It wasn’t her fault. No, he had already fired his cannon at her, to no avail. He would not do it again.

  It wasn’t the Chase to blame, it was the men who sailed her, who stole her. They should be dying; they should be dead. This Packer, this pretender, he had no right at all, no claim whatsoever to her heart, and yet he bound himself up with her…Fury rose in him, and he looked up and down her length in a jealous rage, trying to find him, that he might kill him. But Packer Throme was not there.

  John Hand was, however. He had designed her, and so he did have some claim, but Scat found he hated him all the more for that. Scat would be dead, and she would be his, and everyone would think that was as it should be. Now Admiral Sole Discretion was on the quarterdeck, staring back at him. With little more than a tightening of the jaw and a twitch of one eye, ignoring the pain, Scat reached for his belt and pulled his pistol. Killing John Hand would make him feel better.

  He tried to aim, but his pistol sight fluttered like a hummingbird. He cursed.

  A hundred armed men aboard the Chase had seen Scatter Wilkins standing on the forecastle deck during the battle. Any one of them could have killed him. Any man could have aimed a pistol or a musket or even a cannon at the pirate captain. But none did. Not one even considered it. They each had an innate sense that it was not their place to take him down.

  In the tight circle of vision that was his target, Scat now saw John Hand looking straight at him, taking his measure. Then he saw the admiral shake his head. Hand had the appearance of the professor he was, a schoolteacher rebuking a student, as though Scat were a favorite pupil in whom he was greatly disappointed. Scat sneered. Then he saw the musket. Hand raised it into view, and now carefully aimed it at Scat. The pirate could see it clearly. He could see the gray rim around the black hole of its barrel. He knew it was aimed true.

  Scat pulled the trigger of his pistol just as he saw a yellow flash engulf the muzzle of John Hand’s musket.

  The deck jarred underneath him, and Scat went down. He fell as the barrage of cannon fire rocked the Seventh Seal. Almost the entire crew of the Chase watched him fall, and those who didn’t would swear forever that they did. All, however, saw him lying on his back, his left hand across his chest, his right arm outstretched on the deck, his pearl-handled pistol still in his grip.

  The onslaught paused, as though the battle itself needed to take a breath while this powerful presence, this guiding force, the dark angel that had overseen the harvest of so many souls, lay motionless. Every man waited to see if he would rise again.

  Packer Throme found John Hand’s pistol, but he did not rush back to the deck with it. The captain’s log caught his eye. He read the day’s entry. Under the heading “Battle Plan,” John Hand had written several notations in his precise script.

  Jonas Deal and Zeb Bones ringleaders; take them out early. Armor and Packer will convince others. Expect close quarter assault. Scrapshot in close, then round shot at the waterline.

  Packer swallowed hard at the last notation:

  Take no prisoners.

  When the decks of the Chase erupted with cannon fire, Packer held tight to the writing desk, prepared for the return fire from the Seal. But only an eerie silence followed. He walked to a small
porthole on the starboard side of the captain’s saloon and opened it, his hands tingling. He would not have been surprised to see only smoke clinging to the water where the Seventh Seal had been.

  But she was there. True to the admiral’s plan, the cannoneers of the Chase had emptied their guns amidships and opened an enormous hole just at the Seal’s waterline. The ship was drinking in water, listing noticeably already, heeling over toward the Chase. Packer, and all others aboard the now victorious craft, could see Scatter Wilkins lying alone on the forecastle as that deck angled up toward them.

  Scatter Wilkins’ last glimpse of the sky was of a dark red-orange streak, a long gash with no beginning and no end. He would die now; he knew that. John Hand’s musket ball had struck him just below the breastbone. He felt the wound, felt the blood under his fingertips. He could not move his legs. His back was broken.

  He closed his eyes, and the bloody orange streak in the sky became a glowing white scar in his mind. The treachery of his own men rose up within it, filling him with the desire to retch. And then came the black bile of hatred, rising up against all those who had double-crossed him, put him on his back, helpless, for the world to see. At the top of the list now was John Hand. Scat had been killed by the treachery of a preening professor who used a king to steal ships.

  Scat wrapped himself in this hatred, regretting nothing…nothing about his entire life but that it would not last long enough for him to avenge himself. He wished even now there were some way he could kill John Hand and the boy Packer Throme. He opened his eyes, tried to aim his pistol, but he had no control of it. He put his head back to the deck, closed his eyes again. Talon had been right. Trust him at your gravest peril. He could envision Talon ramming her sword through the lad’s conniving heart. This was good. This was right.