Within minutes a longboat was lowered away and carried sixteen impressively formidable Spanish pirates ashore. Since most of them had been recruited from the ranks of the garrison at Havana, where Muertraigo had once been in command, all of them wore metal breastplates over heavily padded doublets. Their curved steel helmets were decorated with plumes. They wore balloon breeches and tall boots; swords were sheathed in leather scabbards belted around their waists, and each carried an arquebus weighing twenty-five pounds with a barrel nearly four feet long. Slung crosswise over their chest was a bandolier holding more than a dozen dangling wooden pipes filled with gunpowder and shot.
They landed on the beach and while the oarsmen dragged the boat onto the pebbled shingle, Castellano led the wary soldiers across the sand to the base of the slope. There, they spread out and studied the ground closely, searching for any sign of fresh tracks or recent visitors. Six of the men were charged with investigating the two visible caves that opened onto the beach; the others, after sending an all-clear signal to the ship, found a path that would take them up to the top of the ridge and started to climb.
As much as it could be called a path, it was only wide enough for the men to climb in single file and wound between and around clusters of rocks and gorse which blocked the view of the bay for brief stretches. The bulk of their armor and weapons slowed their progress further, much to the impatience of those watching from on board the San Mateo.
Diego Castellano, in the lead, had sweat running into his eyes and soaking through his doublet. The mid-day sun was beating down on the metal helmet and despite the woollen cap he wore beneath, his hair was running wet, his scalp was itching like an infestation of a thousand fleas, his face was flushed as red as raw meat. The metal armor acted like an oven, trapping the heat against his chest. Adding to his misery, he had been suffering for nearly three weeks from a salt-water rash between his thighs and the climbing was chafing the raw skin so badly his ballocks felt like they were on fire.
Halfway up the slope he slung the cumbersome arquebus over his shoulder. He was trying to focus his thoughts anywhere but on his groin when heard one of the men in the rear give out a startled cry. He turned in time to release a strangled gasp of his own as the rocks on either side of the path appeared to move, to detach themselves from the rest of the boulders and take on human shape.
The arquebus slipped out of his grip and clattered onto the ground. He had but a moment, before feeling the sharp slice of steel through his neck, to watch in horror as the human rocks produced daggers, using them to swiftly and efficiently slit the throats of every man along the line.
At almost the same time, on the beach below, the men who had been dispatched to search the caves came to a similar, terror-struck end as the dark walls of the caves came alive with Dante’s men.
As quickly as the Spaniards were slain, their bodies were stripped of their armor, helmets, weapons and scarlet breeches.
~~
Muertraigo had the spyglass stuck to his eye again as he watched the glinting line of soldiers climb behind an obstructing tumble of rocks. They were out of sight for an inordinate amount of time and he was on the verge of sounding the alarm bell when he saw them reappear. Castellano had a canteen swinging from the end of his arquebus and Muertraigo shook his head, cursing the officer’s lack of discipline to stop and quench his thirst at such a time.
“They were better soldiers when their heads were not filled with thoughts of gold,” he muttered.
“Look there!” Ross said sharply, pointing. “On the beach!”
Muertraigo trained the glass on the base of the slope. He had seen his men go into the caves, but once again, they had taken their sweet time inside. Now there was movement but not the kind they were expecting to see as three, four fat boars came charging out of the caves at a run. The soldiers were not far behind and while three of them ran across the sand to keep the boars circling, two unslung their arquebuses, setting them quickly on the fork-sticks before taking aim and firing at the wildly screaming boars. The fattest, slowest animal thudded snout-first onto the sand sending up a plume of dirt, after which the men converged and finished it off with their swords. Another one was brought to ground with a second explosive shot, causing the crew watching from the deck of the San Mateo to give a rousing cheer.
Muertraigo only grunted at the sport, for he knew the men would relish a good meal cooked over an open fire, but he reserved his enthusiasm until he saw Castellano wave an all-clear signal from the top of the bluff.
“Lower the rest of the boats,” he ordered. “Signal the Gato and the Cormorant that we will be going ashore. They are to hold their positions and stay alert.”
~~
High on the bluff, Gabriel Dante’s grin cracked through the drying mud on his face. Dressed now in the fancy breeches and armor of the dead Spanish officer, he watched through gleaming amber eyes as the big longboats were lowered over the side and began ferrying more Spaniards ashore. Hidden along the crest of the ridge, his men were laying flat, their weapons loaded and ready. A dozen coated with the slime from the cavern were on the beach and even though he knew exactly where they were positioned, Dante could not distinguish their bodies from the sand.
Behind him, the makeshift catapults were ready, carefully camouflaged by palm fronds. Supplementing their firepower were hand cannons that Giddings had constructed from fat, hollowed-out cane stalks, rudimentary throw-backs to the destructive weapons used a hundred years before by the very Conquistadors whose descendants were making ready to land on the beach now.
Billy Crab was ready with his crossbow; Eduardo was with him to light the rag-tipped bolts. Being one of the most powerful men in the group, William Chandler was behind the catapults eager to throw his strength into bending back the trees once the slings were released.
It took two full hours for the longboats to bring the majority of the Spanish pirates ashore. The first group to land went to inspect the dead boars and did not seem overly concerned that the men who had chased them out of the caves had retreated there again. Some of the more enterprising—and meat-starved—among them shed their bulky armor and set to skinning and butchering the beasts.
As the beach filled with Spaniards, Rowly and Giddings cast anxious glances in Gabriel’s direction, but he stood motionless on the top of the bluff, using the Spaniard’s arquebus like a staff. Now and then he squinted up at the lowering sun to judge the slow passing of time, but it was not until he recognized the plumed and armored glory of Estevan Quintano Muertraigo alighting from one of the last longboats, that he turned to Rowly and unleashed hell with a single, deliberate nod.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eva had promised her father and Gabriel that she would remain in the forest camp with Douglas Podd. It was either that, both had declared, or she would be bound hand and foot and tossed into the nearest blue hole as a sacrificial offering to the Lusca, creatures Eduardo had warned her about that were half shark, half octopus.
They needn’t have bothered to threaten her. Eva had no desire to be near the beach when the fighting erupted. As much as she may have changed over the past few weeks and adapted to new situations, she was neither foolish nor brave enough to think she had suddenly become a brazen warrior princess.
She had helped where she could over the past few days. Her fingers were raw, her nails cracked and broken to the quick from peeling and cleaning coconut shells. She filled water pipes, she tended cuts and scrapes, she even managed to keep her stomach while she cauterized the stub of Giddings’ finger, blown off while he was testing the design of his hand cannons. She ate, slept, joked and sweated alongside men she had come to admire more each passing day but the most she could do now was to have rum ready, bandages rolled, and pray that none of them were carried into camp broken and bleeding.
At the sound of the first muffled explosion, she shot to her feet and stared at the path that cut through the forest to the beach. On the second and third salvos she twisted her hands tog
ether and bit on her lower lip. When the thunderous booms became almost continuous, she broke into a run and was halfway through the forest before Podd shouted a curse and ran after her.
Swift as a gazelle, she broke clear of the woods and came up behind one of the catapults. Two men were pulling back on the ropes, straining to force a pair of slender trees to bend back far enough for them to loop the ends of the rope around a pair of wooden hooks. As soon as the sling was set, one of the powder-filled coconuts was fitted into the pouch and launched by releasing the hooks. Giddings had refined his designs and some of the coconuts were fitted with a short fuse, lit and timed to burst and ignite the powder inside the shell, causing it to explode and spray the air with hundreds of jagged pebbles.
Men on the beach screamed as the razor-like missiles slashed into exposed flesh. Other shells that flew over their heads were filled with oil and were struck with flaming arrows so that when they cracked apart, they rained liquid fire. The Spaniards scattered and ran for the shelter of the caves only to be met with rounds of lead shot spit from a line of Dante’s arquebusiers who were crouched in the shadows. As their comrades dropped, the Spaniards veered in a wild panic away from the caves and scrambled for the cover of the rocks. But there too, men rose up from behind the boulders and fired point blank, and at such close rage, the lead balls punched through armor like it was no thicker than wool.
At one end of the beach, some of Muertraigo’s men attempted to regroup. They formed a line, propped the long barrels of their arquebuses in the vee of their forksticks and fired blindly at the rocky slope. Before they could reload the cumbersome weapons they were confronted with a sight that made them drop their jaws and nearly lose their bowels. Creatures made of sand rose up from the ground itself and lurched toward them. To a man the Spaniards turned and fled toward the boats, trampling over the dead and wounded, shoving slower men out of the way. Some were mad with fear and headed straight into the surf, where the waves carried them out and the weight of their armor dragged them under.
~~
Muertraigo could not believe his eyes. The beach was exploding around him. Men were on fire, screaming and rolling in the sand, clawing at their eyes and hair. The dead and dying were everywhere, littering the beach, floating in the tidal pool, draped in grotesque shapes over the driftwood.
It had happened so fast it was barely comprehendible.
“What the hell is happening? What the bloody hell is happening?” Lawrence Ross was beside Muertraigo, his pristine doublet spattered with mud and water and blood. He had lost his plumed hat in the confusion and while he clutched a sword in one gloved hand, he could only use it to swipe at Muertraigo’s own men who were threatening to trample them in their panic to reach the longboats.
“What the hell is happening?” he screamed again. “Tell them to turn around! Tell them to fight!”
Several men came running toward them from the base of the slope, their faces terror-stricken. Ross cursed and shouted at them, but they knocked him aside and scrambled into the boats. He caught a glimpse of the figures made of sand and felt his own belly clutch with fear as he saw the creatures stoop to pick up the weapons his men had dropped.
Something hot sliced through his cheek, stinging him back to his senses. He kicked at the crewmen and soldiers, he hacked at them with his sword but he could do nothing to stop the retreat. He looked for Muertraigo but the Spaniard had already been swept along in the crush and thrown into one of the boats, his helmet knocked into the surf, his gloriously ornate armor pitted by stones and lead shot.
Out in the bay, one of the gun captains saw the chaos and slaughter and took it upon himself to order a broadside. The heavy culverins, already run out and loaded, had been sighted to fire upon the beach and in the confusion, the elevations were not changed. The massive guns fired a volley and the shots plowed into the shoreline, cutting a crimson swath through their own men, striking at least one longboat and sending the occupants exploding upward in bloody pieces.
Muertraigo’s boat narrowly escaped the same fate. Gouting water and human debris fell all around him and, stunned by the concussion, he looked up to the top of the bluff where he had last seen Diego Castellano waving the all-clear. The solitary figure was still there, silhouetted against the brilliant blue of the sky. As Muertraigo and the rest of the stunned, bleeding survivors watched, the figure fastened something to the barrel of the arquebus and raised it over his head, waving it slowly back and forth.
It was a pennon, a fifty foot long slender streamer of silk. As the wind snatched the end and unfurled it the retreating pirates gaped and crossed themselves repeatedly babbling to their God to save them.
~~
“Nice touch, that,” William Chandler said, chuckling. “Hoisting the flag we salvaged off the Nuestro Santisimo Victorio should spook whatever is left in their spines to spook. Good thing you told your own men about it last night or their hair would be standing on end as well.”
Dante turned as Rowly joined them. “Have all our men withdrawn from the beach?”
“Aye. Last of the “sand people” are comin’ up now.”
“Good. Have everyone pull back to camp. As soon as the bastard is back on his ship and collects his wits, he’ll be blasting this ridge to kingdom come. How many wounded do we have?”
Rowly grinned through the flaking mud on his face. “None. Not a single blessed one so far as I know. Not unless you count No-Nose who got his arm gored by a tusk when he was trying to keep them boars penned in the cave.”
Gabriel plucked at the leather buckles on the breastplate, discarding the slain Spaniard’s blood-smeared armor and helmet as he walked. As ambuscades went, this one had been a total, undeniable success, but in his fury, Muertraigo would bombard the beach and bluffs until his cannon glowed red hot. He would likely not attempt another landing today, but come morning, if he could convince his men that sand creatures did not know how to load and fire weapons, they would be back. There would be more of them and they would be better armed, better organized, better prepared. Dante had a few surprises left, but his men were still badly outnumbered.
Their camp, a mile into the dense woods, was safe enough for the time being. Chandler had shown him caves and entire abandoned villages hidden deeper inland where they could move if need be.
As he walked along the line of men slapping one another on the back and cheering their victory, he caught sight of Eva standing near one of the catapults helping to gather up the unspent coconut bombs. The blood of victory was coursing too strongly through his veins to be angry at seeing her there, but not quite strongly enough to return the grime-streaked smile she wore when she saw him stride past.
He quickened his pace, following the curve of the bay around to the far western tip of the crescent where he bellied up flat to a vantage point to watch the activity out in the harbor.
As predicted, Muertraigo sent broadside after broadside thundering from his guns. He blasted the beach and the shoreline, he blew apart stands of rock and obliterated half the slope, causing the caves to collapse under piles of rubble. Shot after shot from the two galleons levelled trees and left huge smoking craters in the sand. The scores of bodies strewn on the beach were turned into red mush with no regard for the wounded who attempted in vain to crawl to safety.
“As soon as it’s dark enough and they’ve grown weary of shooting at the beach,” Dante murmured, “have the men mud up again as we discussed.”
~~
The bombardment continued until dusk, until the cannon barrels became too hot to handle and there was danger of them cracking or blowing apart. The Spanish crews slumped into exhausted heaps on the decks, their ears bleeding from the implosions, their hands scorched and raw. Through it all, Muertraigo stalked from one side of the quarterdeck to the other, his rage so great that few of his officers dared approach.
“Dante. It has to be the bastard, Dante.”
“But how could he have arrived here before us?” Ross asked. “We saw his
ship leave the island. We watch it destroy the Asuncion and sail south.”
“I don’t know how!” Muertraigo screamed, the veins pulsing like blue snakes in his temples and neck. “But it is Dante. I feel it in my blood and in my bones. There can be no other explanation.”
“The pennon—“
“The pennon was his way of mocking us and informing us that he has found the Nuestro Santisimo Victorio.”
“But your men believe—“
“My men are fools! They are addled half-wits if they believe sand and rocks can come to life and fire guns. Come first light we will land a greater force, we will take the beach and we will find Dante, Chandler, and the whore-bitch.” With foam and spittle flying from his lips, Muertraigo stalked to the rail and gripped it hard enough to gouge his nails into the wood. “They will take us to the treasure and then I will take the greatest pleasure in peeling the flesh from their bones one strip at a time!”
A wail rose from the maindeck. Darkness had descended, cloaking the ghastly slaughter on the beach, but here and there, stepping out from behind rocks or seeming to rise from the surf itself, glowing shapes of the dead were coming to life. They were not whole men this time, but skeletons. Some were stationary and to everyone’s horror, appeared to be headless and holding their own skulls in their boney hands. Others moved along the top of the ridge, and across the beach, their bones gleaming blue-white against the night sky.
“Fire,” Muertraigo commanded, but his voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper and none of the gun captains heard him. Even if they did, there was not one man willing to open fire on a crew of ghosts.
~~
The smaller galleon, El Gato, was the first to winch the anchor on board and set her sails. Her captain ignored the hails and threats from the quarterdeck of the San Mateo, and when Muertraigo gave the order to turn their guns on her, his officers refused to obey.
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