The Devil's Tide

by Tomerlin, Matt

  "Captain!" Harrow shouted from the deck below, pointing.

  Dillahunt followed his gesture, and off the starboard bow he saw the hulking black shadow of Queen Anne's Revenge approaching fast. Dillahunt wanted to hammer his fists on the rail and scream at the top of his lungs, but he had to remain strong for his new crew, dastardly though they were, if he wanted them to function properly. He ascended to the quarterdeck, joining Dumaka. The quarterdeck was still a mess, with a huge chunk torn out of the port railing, and he winced as the memory of splinters flashed through his mind. He retrieved a long silver scope that was resting beside the helm. He aimed the scope at Queen Anne's Revenge and peered through, closing one eye.

  "She's coming about, captain," Dumaka said.

  "Yes, I can see that quite clearly through this miraculous device," Dillahunt drawled.

  Revenge's deck was not nearly as crowded as Dillahunt expected. There couldn't have been more than one-hundred and twenty. Given how many of Teach's men had flooded the dock, it was possible he had split his forces.

  Dillahunt lowered the scope and glanced back at Adventure, which was far behind now, at the mouth of the canyon entrance. She was no longer a problem, but Dillahunt was starting to think he'd wasted his modified chainshot on the wrong target.

  "What course, captain?" said Dumaka.

  Despite the wind, waves, and jabbering of crew, Dillahunt very clearly heard his teeth grinding in his mouth. He approached the rail overlooking the main deck. His new recruits stared up at him, awaiting orders. He imagined he must have looked both dashing and terrible, bound in shredded, dirty bandages, with his long black coat flowing in the wind. "They're coming too fast," he announced. "Our sails are a mess. They'll sink us before we can even think of escaping."

  Harrow stepped forward. "So what do we do?"

  Dillahunt smiled. "We stand our ground!"

  "Better to surrender!" someone called.

  Dillahunt laughed at the sky. "Blackbeard came here to kill you all! His men offered no quarter in those caves, and they will offer none now! We fight, and we may die. We don't fight, and we will surely die!" When no one replied, he added, "And they'll likely slice off our cocks and shove them up our own asses before the end!"

  The crew exchanged uncertain glances. "What did he say?"

  "Well I like my cock right where it is!" Dillahunt bellowed. "So, we fight! We take Queen Anne's Revenge!"

  He waited for the thunderous cheer that generally followed his speeches, but nothing happened. He went on as though they were enthused, raising his sword high. "Make ready the guns! Prepare to broadside!"

  The crew went to work, grumbling to one another. It wasn't the reaction Dillahunt had hoped for, but he supposed it was the best he could ask of men who had shifted their allegiance not half an hour ago. They were loading the cannons and preparing their weapons, at least.

  He turned to Dumaka. "A slimmer target is harder to hit. If the rumors are true, Teach has fitted his ship primarily with cannonades, fierce at short range, but not very accurate. A slimmer target will be harder to hit, and she'll spend too much time reloading. That's when we'll attack."

  "You mean to board her, captain?"

  Dillahunt smiled. "Aye."

  A short time later, Kate Lindsay joined Dillahunt on the quarterdeck. The red roses of her bodice were vibrant in broad daylight. She pushed her wild hair out of her face, fighting the constant wind. "You truly mean to attack that?" she said, aiming a finger at Teach's ship.

  Dillahunt looked at her. "You shouldn't be here, Kate. This is no place for a woman."

  She rolled her eyes. "So I've been told. But if I wasn't, you'd still be rotting in a cell."

  "You should be in London, where it's safe. Is this truly where you want to be?"

  She tossed her head in annoyance as a strand of hair teased her cheeks. "Everyone keeps asking me that."

  "It's a simple question."

  She sighed, placing her hands on her hips. "After all this is over, I'll answer it."

  He looked over his new sword. It was a rather crude cutlass. He missed his rapier, which had been lost sometime after his injury. "After all this is over," he said, "we'll probably be dead."

  Kate shrugged. "Spares me the bother of coming up with an answer."

  CALLOWAY

  She had no idea why she was still alive. She had run through the events in her mind several times over. "Do you not wish to live?" Teach had asked, and she had met his query with a firm, "No," because in that moment, she had truly wished to die. Her mother had ended her own life, why shouldn't she? Dillahunt would soon be dead as well, and she would have no one left. There was no point to any of it. In the end, everyone died. I might as well get it over with, she had thought. Maybe Nathan Adams was the lucky one, killed in the prime of his life with no time to ponder his imminent demise.

  Her answer had given him pause. He twirled a lock of his dense beard with an index finger, the sheen of his steely eyes narrowing into slivers. "So be it," he had said at last, and he walked away without another word.

  "Why didn't he kill me?" she had asked Ned, who she had since learned was called 'Narrow Ned.' Narrow Ned replied with a mystified shrug, while the rest of the crew murmured in hushed, baffled tones.

  After that, Teach yelled, "Weigh anchor! We make for the gap!" He ascended to the quarterdeck and disappeared into his cabin. The sails fell into place, and Queen Anne's Revenge started around the island.

  As the ship rounded the bend, Calloway saw the familiar shape of Crusader as she burst from the canyon gap, with Teach's sloop, Adventure, crippled in her wake. Teach emerged from his cabin and stood at the edge of the quarterdeck, but he was no longer Edward Teach. He was Blackbeard now, with smoke trailing over his face from the fuses he had fixed to his beard. A sling ran from his shoulders down over his chest and stomach, with three brace of small pistols hanging in holsters. He raised a massive cutlass to the sky and bellowed, "Bring her alongside! No quarter for Charles Vane or any man serves him!"

  "But that's not Charles Vane!" Calloway shouted up at him, but her cry was lost in the uproar that followed the order. She climbed the steps and approached him, bold and steady, and he fixed her with a malevolent glare. She stopped within two feet, refusing to cower as any other woman would. Maybe even Kate, she thought with a flutter of satisfaction. "That's not Charles Vane!" she repeated.

  His jaw worked beneath his beard. "My eyes see a ship escaping Vane's hideout, yet you tell me it's not Vane."

  "That's Crusader," she insisted. "Guy Dillahunt's ship!"

  "And you be sworn to this man, yes?" He raised the blade of his massive cutlass to her neck. She felt the cold, jagged edge biting into her skin.

  "There's no need to attack him," she pressed, struggling not to shy away from his blade. "He's not the man you're after."

  "There be plenty need," Blackbeard replied. "He attacked my sloop, as you can see."

  "No doubt your sloop would have attacked first."

  "Aye, that be true," he admitted. "Yet I cannot ignore a nagging concern. Crusader be a plump whore of a ship, plagued by a shifty crew slight of loyalty and feeble of will. Why should I believe Dillahunt has magically regained his captaincy, when your eyes tell me you scarcely believe it yourself?"

  "So hail them and find out!" she screeched.

  Blackbeard lowered the blade and frowned at her. "I confess, you mystify me, Jacqueline Calloway. That puzzlement prolongs your life. You'd be wise not to deflate your likeness with common trivialities."

  He looked across the ship, to Crusader in the distance, which was slowly coming about to intercept. "Nay," Blackbeard said, shaking his head. "I will put that ship to the deep once and for all."

  "What if Griffith's plunder is still in the hold?" Calloway said, thinking fast.

  Blackbeard loosed a guttural laugh. "If you'd met me as a younger man, those words might have stayed my hand. Alas, treasure no longer holds sway over me."

  "Then what is your pu
rpose here?" Calloway demanded.

  All humor fled his face. Smoky tendrils rolled up the curls of his beard, swirling about his eyes. He straightened his back and towered over her. Calloway was eye-level with most men, but he was taller still. "I have been wronged," was his answer. He didn't bother to elaborate.

  Calloway gripped the railing as Queen Anne's Revenge hurtled toward Crusader. The other ship, which had seemed so large when she was on it, looked miniscule from Blackbeard's frigate. The men below crowded the starboard side, loading cannons and readying guns. Many of them held granados.

  Her nails ground into the wood of the rail. If Dillahunt wasn't on that ship, he was probably dead. If he was on that ship, he would be dead soon enough. She glanced at Blackbeard, who stood several feet from her, shouting orders. Her eyes descended to the many pistols holstered along his upper torso. She took a careful step forward. I could end him right now. Maybe he hadn't killed her mother, but he was still a murderer, and he was about to murder many more.

  As if he had read her thoughts, Blackbeard tilted his head and stared at her. He angled his steely gaze down at her feet. And then he grinned. "You are not the first with notions of creeping upon my flank, and neither will you be the last."

  Chase guns fired from Revenge's bow. Crusader returned fire as she neared. Pistol fire was exchanged between ships. A bullet struck the rail between Calloway and Blackbeard. She jerked away, but Blackbeard remained steady.

  While Blackbeard's crew hollered deafening war cries, Crusader's men were gathered at the starboard rail, pale-faced and relatively silent. There couldn't have been more than forty of them. And then she saw him, standing proud atop the quarterdeck, with his long black coat flowing behind him, bare chest and the top half of his head bound in tattered bandages. He held a sword high and bellowed, "No quarter for Edward Teach!" That roused a few of Crusader's men into scant cheers.

  Blackbeard laughed at that. "I see Dillahunt hasn't lost his sense of humor!" He called down to his men, "Ready the cannonades! They'll be sunk before they can fire a shot!" The crew hunched before the stubby, fat cannons, ready to fire.

  Crusader was maybe one-hundred meters off of Revenge's starboard bow, and she was slowly pulling to her port side, away from Revenge. "What's he doing?" said Blackbeard, looking baffled. "He means to run at the last second?"

  Just then, Dillahunt shouted, "drop the starboard anchor!"

  The starboard anchor impacted the water in a colossal splash. The anchor's chain suddenly stretched taut. With a tremendous groan of buckling wood, Crusader tilted sharply to her starboard side, bowsprit arcing around toward Revenge. Calloway grinned as the brigantine shot toward the frigate like a spear, arcing on its anchor.

  "Duck!" someone called out. Sounded like Narrow Ned, but Calloway couldn't see him anywhere.

  "Belay that!" Blackbeard yelled. "FIRE!"

  The cannons fired, and a thunderous volley cascaded toward Crusader . . . but she was steadily pointed at Revenge and made for too thin a target. Most of the cannons sailed harmlessly past. Only four hit Crusader's bow, and two of those glanced off, leaving little more than dents. One cannonball hit the mermaid masthead's fin, shattering her thigh. The last punched into the hull, disappearing into a black cavity.

  On the cutdown forecastle, Crusader's bowsprit crashed through Revenge's starboard bulwark, impaling a man in the abdomen. He was lifted off his feet as the bowsprit burst from his back and pointed skyward, raining blood upon the deck. The brigantine reared up, bow devastating the starboard bulwark, tossing aside four cannons like they were leaves in the wind. The mermaid splintered at her torso, her upper half smashing one of Blackbeard's men before he could escape. Calloway shuddered with delight as his blood splattered from beneath the masthead. Murdered by a mermaid's teats, she mused.

  Over a dozen granados hailed down from Crusader's upturned bow, thumping the deck. Blackbeard's men tried to scatter, but a dozen of them were instantly killed in the ensuing explosions, and many were wounded. A few of Blackbeard's men tried to return fire, chucking their own granados, but they bounced off of Crusader's bow and came right back, killing two more.

  The smaller ship remained perched on the bigger ship's rail, slanting up to form a makeshift ramp. Dillahunt's crew scurried up the front, tossing grappling hooks at Revenge's ratlines and swinging over. Dillahunt's strategy had worked, and his men were gaining enthusiasm, cheering and grinning as they boarded Queen Anne's Revenge. They likely had no illusions about winning this fight, but they would at the very least meet a glorious end.

  Nearly twenty of them dropped to the cutdown forecastle, immediately engaging in battle. They impaled several of those who had been wounded and/or knocked off their feet by the granado blasts. They exchanged pistol fire with the two dozen or so of Blackbeard's men who were still standing in that section.

  On the quarterdeck, three riflemen dropped to the rail on Calloway's right, firing down on Dillahunt's men. Her teeth clacked together with each earsplitting report. The smell of gunpowder filled the air, along with a nigh impenetrable smoke that wafted into the sails. The three riflemen started reloading. They were intensely focused on their work, indifferent to the surrounding chaos.

  One of Dillahunt's men came racing up the stairs with a cutlass held high. Calloway instantly recognized him as Francois Laurent. The riflemen had already finished reloading. Three shots struck him in the chest at once, and Laurent went tumbling back down the way he'd come.

  Crusader started to slide back toward the sea, grinding against Revenge's bulwark. But then she came to a jarring halt, her keel catching on something, and Revenge lurched sideways. Pirates from both sides hurtled toward the starboard side, wailing desperately. Many of them couldn't stop and rolled right over the edge and into the water below.

  Hemett slid toward the underside of Crusader's bow, scrambling frantically on all fours. There was already too much blood on the deck, and he couldn't find purchase before his squat body slid into the wedge. His feet were caught first, and he was slowly crushed between the two ships as Crusader bobbed up and down in the water, grinding back and forth against Revenge's deck. Halfway down, Hemett's shrieks were silenced when a thick ball of blood exploded from his mouth. Calloway watched in awe, unable to pull away. The last she saw of Hemett was his twitching right arm, before it too was milled beneath Crusader's keel.

  "It's Dillahunt!" exclaimed one of the riflemen.

  Calloway scanned the lower deck until she found Dillahunt, near Crusader's upturned bow.

  "I've got him," said the one nearest Calloway.

  "Nay!" called Blackbeard. "No man kills Captain Dillahunt but me." He lifted the sling that held his six guns over his head and dropped it to the deck. He seized Calloway by the neck, drawing her face near his, and said, "And I've got just the bait."

  His huge fingers tightened around her throat, and he pressed her back against the rail. "Dillahunt!" he called down. "Face me, or see the color of your woman's blood!"

  Calloway looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Dillahunt's shocked expression. He was frozen in place, deaf to the sounds of men fighting and dying all around him. He obviously hadn't expected to see her alive again, let alone on the deck of Blackbeard's ship.

  Calloway grasped at Blackbeard's chest, raking her nails over his leather coat. He had been wise to cast his guns from her reach. She choked as the smoke from his beard wafted over her face. She could barely see him through the haze, save for his evil blue eyes. She raised her right hand, fingers plunging into the scruff of his beard, until they touched something hot. Instead of jerking away, she grasped hold of it, and fire scorched her palm. She clutched tightly, despite the pain jolting up her arm, cramping her muscles. She wrenched the fuse loose, and he cried out as the hemp cord tore away from the curls of his beard.

  "You should have killed me," she said, and thrust the burning end of the hemp into his right eye. His eye sizzled, and she pressed the cord deeper into the socket, until milky fluid
s drizzled down his cheek. The stench was nauseating. His lips peeled from his teeth, and he thrust her back with tremendous force. The rail fell away from her. She saw her legs flailing above her, and realized she was going to hit headfirst. She curled forward. Her back hit with a sickening crack and splayed her arms and legs flat across the blood-smeared deck. The back of her skull hit last.

  The last thing she saw before her eyes closed were the massive, tattered sails of the mainmast flapping madly in the wind, dispersing the clouds of black smoke that roiled from the deck.

  KATE

  Crusader's bow was just beginning to tear free of Revenge's bulwark when Kate saw Calloway plummet from the quarterdeck. Blackbeard crushed his hands to his face, howling like some kind of animal. Calloway landed somewhere below, but Kate's view was cut off by Crusader's upturned bow.

  She surged forward without thinking, racing up the stairs to the Crusader's forecastle and leaping from the bow. A rope was still dangling from its grapple, and she latched on midair, swinging over Revenge's deck . . . and quickly realized she had made a mistake. She swung in a wide arc, feet dangling over several dueling pirates, and she crashed into the foremast. Pain shot through her right shoulder and hip where she took the brunt of the damage. She bounced off and started to swing back around, her palms burning as she slid down the rope. No way out but down. If she didn't let go soon, she would smash into Crusader's bowsprit. She opened her fingers and came crashing down on one of Blackbeard's men, near the capstan, laying him facedown in a puddle of someone else's blood. He was painfully skinny, and no matter how much he squirmed, he couldn't get out from under her. She scooped up a discarded cutlass and plunged it into his shoulder blades. Blood fountained out of his back and splattered her face. She blinked rapidly until she could see again.

  She looked around for Calloway. There were bodies everywhere. Feet hammered the deck like skittish drums following a frenetic tune. Swords clashed and pistols fired. Pirates dueled on the quarterdeck, pirouetting and swiping. For an absurd instant Kate thought of dancers twirling about a dance floor, like the parties she and her husband had occasionally attended in London.