And Max leaped forward as though somebody had rammed a red-hot sword up his backside.
CHAPTER 39
THE SHOWDOWN
Max thundered across the main deck, his hooves drumming a furious rhythm on the weathered boards. He crossed its wide expanse in moments and then vaulted up the short flight of steps that led to the forecastle, each step creaking in protest and threatening to snap beneath his weight. Sebastian clung on for dear life.
He saw that the crew of the Marauder were all turning round now, their eyes wide with panic when they saw what was bearing down on them. Some turned to run, but there wasn't really anywhere to go. Max's huge horns crashed into the nearest and scattered them before him like ninepins. Meanwhile Sebastian flailed with the axe at anything that came within his range. Some crewmen, rather than face those formidable horns, opted to vault over the rails into the ocean below, while others just turned and fled blindly.
'Yes, run, you vermin!' roared Max delightedly. 'Run like the stinking cowards you are! I'll grind you beneath my hooves!'
'Max, be careful!' yelled Sebastian. 'Don't hit Jenna!'
Max realized just in time that Jenna and Trencherman were standing right in his path. He tried desperately to veer sideways, but his hooves lost their grip on the scrubbed deck. He began to slide like a great hairy toboggan.
'Oh poo!' he said. Sebastian saw Trencherman staring up at him open-mouthed as Max went whizzing past. He acted instinctively, throwing himself off Max's back, straight at the hated sea captain, and knocking him away from Jenna. He was only vaguely aware of Max, propelled by his own momentum, swinging sideways into a whole bunch of sailors and pushing them before him, before crashing into the rail of the forecastle. But then he and Trencherman were rolling over and over on the deck, and it was only when he had got free and clambered back to his feet that Sebastian noticed the big ragged break in the rails and realized that Max had gone over the side, taking half a dozen crewmen with him.
'Max!' he gasped. He took a step towards the broken rail, but then Trencherman recovered himself, drawing his sword as he did so. Sebastian threw a look in Jenna's direction, but she had snatched up a sword from a fallen man and was fighting with a couple of crewmen who had escaped Max's charge, while waving madly at the Sea Witch. Cries of delight echoed from her decks, and soon grappling irons began to fly across from the other ship to pull the two vessels closer together.
Trencherman scowled. He turned his attention back to Sebastian. 'How the hell did you get back here?' he snarled.
'With a little help from my friends,' said Sebastian. He spotted another fallen sword lying on the deck and started towards it, but Trencherman leaped forward to block his path.
'Oh no,' he said. 'I think you should stick with the weapon you have.'
Sebastian looked down and realized that he was still holding the axe. Next to Trencherman's heavy cutlass, it looked pathetic.
'But . . . what about the laws of chivalry?' he asked.
'The hell with them!' snarled Trencherman. He lifted his sword, but then the Marauder gave a sudden lurch and tipped dramatically to one side. Water came swirling in over the starboard rail onto the main deck. Sebastian remembered Cornelius lying unconscious at the stern of the ship, but for now he could do nothing to help him.
'Give this up,' he advised Trencherman. 'Your ship's going down fast and you cannot hope to win.'
'True enough,' purred Trencherman. 'But I can at least ensure that you don't live to enjoy your victory.' And then he ran at Sebastian, swinging his sword in a series of wild slashes that obliged Sebastian to retreat, trying desperately to parry the blows with the little axe.
'Stand and fight, breed!' snarled Trencherman.
'The hell with that!' Sebastian told him. He looked around frantically and saw the Kid struggling to make his way across the main deck, which was already swamped with water. Back in the stern, Jack Donovan was still cradling the tiny figure of Cornelius, unable to leave him.
Realizing that he was on his own, at least for the moment, Sebastian ducked under Trencherman's next blow, threw the axe at him and then ran back to the foremast. Almost automatically his hands sought out the strategically placed metal rungs and he started to climb. He hated heights but he wanted to stay out of reach of that vicious sword and this seemed to offer his only refuge. Trencherman followed, cursing, occasionally reaching up to flail at Sebastian's heels with the sword, but never quite making contact, the razor-sharp blade hewing V-shaped wedges out of the mast.
'Come down here and fight!' roared Trencherman.
'No thank you,' said Sebastian and kept right on going.
After what seemed an age he reached the sanctuary of the topsail lookout post and, climbing through the opening onto the small circular platform, he made a welcome discovery. Somebody had left a sword there, probably for an emergency such as this. He drew it from its scabbard and turned back to face Trencherman, who was just emerging through the opening.
'Sebastian!' The voice drifted up from below and he saw Jenna, standing at the base of the mast. She had finished off her two opponents, but now the forecastle and poop decks were filling with water. Some of Jenna's crew had swung across from the Sea Witch and were splashing through the rising water, finishing off what was left of the opposition. Sebastian saw the Kid among them, brandishing a sword and cutting down anyone who opposed him. Jenna moved to the base of the mast and began to climb but Sebastian waved her away and pointed towards the stern of the ship.
'Go and help Cornelius!' he bellowed. 'Quickly, before we all go under!'
She nodded, turned back and moved towards the flooded main deck; but Sebastian did not have the luxury of watching her progress. Trencherman was approaching round the curved wooden lookout. He was studying the sword in Sebastian's hand with interest.
'You any good with that?' he murmured.
'This is the sword hand that brought down Septimus, the tyrant king of Keladon,' said Sebastian haughtily. This wasn't entirely true but there was no reason to let Trencherman know that. 'I met him in a high place just like this and I sent him tumbling to his doom. I don't see why you should be any different.'
Trencherman was about to say something terse in reply, but he broke off as the Marauder, her stern now completely filled with water, started to tip backwards, the weight bringing the bow up into the air and making the mast swing out of the vertical at a terrifying angle. Sebastian felt the floor of the lookout slip out from under his feet and he made a wild grab at the mast. Trencherman did likewise, and for a moment they hung there, too busy trying to hold on to worry about fighting. Sebastian got one leg up around the mast and pulled himself astride it, noticing that his opponent was doing exactly the same thing.
They were afforded a dizzying bird's-eye view of the chaos below. Sebastian saw a frantic mêlée of floundering, splashing people, desperately swimming away from the sinking vessel. He thought he caught sight of a huge hairy shape paddling towards the Sea Witch, surrounded by ominous-looking dorsal fins, but then the mast stopped moving and momentarily held its position.
Trencherman was the first to recover. He struggled to his feet until he was balancing on the steeply angled mast. Sebastian followed suit, knowing that he would be a sitting duck if he stayed as he was; but he was still in a crouching position when Trencherman struck, swinging the sword at his opponent's head. Sebastian only just got his own sword up in time, but even so, the impact nearly sent him tumbling from the mast.
He managed to struggle upright, and then Trencherman was coming at him again, his face a cold mask of hatred.
'You're dead meat,' he growled.
'No, I'm Sebastian Darke – you must be thinking of somebody else!'
'Think you're funny?' snarled Trencherman.
'I have my moments! Did you hear the one about— Oof!'
Trencherman had unleashed a series of powerful blows. Sebastian parried them but quickly realized that he was no match for the experienced sea captain; and he
began to retreat awkwardly along the mast, trying to keep his balance while staying out of range of that deadly sword. But Trencherman had the advantage of size and strength. He kept coming, lashing blow after blow against Sebastian's sword, forcing him to retreat.
'There's nowhere to go!' bellowed the captain.
Sebastian considered diving into the sea, but told himself that the fall would probably kill him just as effectively as Trencherman's sword, and he was horribly aware of a massive white shape moving in the water, getting closer all the time.
Then, without warning, the prow of the ship lurched downwards as the hull stabilized before sinking beneath the waves, and the mast swung back to an upright position, pitching Sebastian straight into Trencherman. Together the two of them fell into the great sheet of canvas that was the foresail. As they started to slide down, Sebastian saw a length of trailing rope and he abandoned his sword and made a grab for it, abruptly halting his downward motion. But Trencherman, not to be denied, clutched onto Sebastian's legs with his left hand and hung there defiantly as the boiling waters rose higher and higher beneath him. Sebastian struggled to kick him free but he clung on, staring up gleefully, steadying his right arm to deliver the killing blow.
'Goodbye, breed,' he sneered.
And then the huge kelfer came rearing up out of the water beneath them, its great jaws gaping and displaying row after row of jagged teeth. Sebastian saw the old scar stretching across the width of its white belly and he knew that this was Donovan's kelfer, the one that had nearly killed him on his arrival on the island. The jaws enclosed Trencherman like a fleshy purse, rising as high as his extended arm and closing with an audible crunch. For a long, terrible moment the kelfer hung there upon thin air . . . but finally gravity overcame it and it fell back into the raging waters, leaving Trencherman's upraised arm behind, the hand still clutching Sebastian's ankle.
'Oh, gross!' whispered Sebastian. He kicked his leg several times and the arm dropped into the sea.
The kelfer was gone and the water was rushing up around Sebastian and he was plunged into a roaring, bubbling world of madness, horribly aware that the wake of the sinking ship was dragging him inexorably down to the ocean floor. He remembered to let go of the rope and tried to struggle free of the sail, which seemed to have closed around him like a shroud. Eventually he found a way out of it and started swimming for his life, but he no longer knew which way was up and which way was down, and he was being bombarded by countless pieces of flotsam, which came spinning out of nowhere to collide with his struggling body.
His breath was almost gone, his chest was bursting and he could feel the undertow of the ship still pulling at him, seeking to take him into its chilly embrace.
And then suddenly, magically, his head broke water and he was gasping and staring up at the brilliant blue sky. He heard shouting, and turning round in the water, he saw the Sea Witch and the crew leaning over the side, yelling and beckoning him to swim to them. And he saw that Max was already being winched aboard, bellowing indignantly at his rescuers to be careful how they lifted him. A blinding realization came over him: he was alive, he had survived the sinking of the Marauder and all he had to do now was swim to safety.
He started doing exactly that, moving at a leisurely pace. But then the tone of the cries from the Sea Witch changed. Now they were yells of alarm. Sebastian glanced back over his shoulder and his blood seemed to turn to ice water in his veins. The big kelfer was following him at an incredible speed, its triangular fin slicing through the water. Not content with eating Captain Trencherman, it had come back for a lean and lanky second course.
Sebastian swam. He swam as he had never swum before, churning the water to foam with his arms, kicking out with his legs, horribly aware all the time of those savage jaws closing on his pumping heels. He thought of Jenna's father, who had lost both his legs, and he knew with a terrible certainty that he could not bear to live if such a thing were to happen to him. As he drew nearer to the Sea Witch, he could make out the crew, leaning over the side, urging him to hurry. Jenna had her bow and she was trying to take aim on the kelfer, but she wouldn't loose the arrow; and that told Sebastian that the kelfer was too close, that she was afraid of hitting the wrong target.
He knew in that moment that he was not going to make it; that he was going to die there in the water in full sight of his friends and the woman he loved. His arms were aching, his chest was ready to burst and he felt a terrible sadness enclose him, just as surely as the jaws of the kelfer would swallow him down.
He felt the advancing surge of water, smelled the kelfer's awful stench, and he steeled himself for the impact of those terrible teeth; but then something came between Sebastian and the glare of the sun. A figure was diving down from the rail of the Sea Witch; a small figure clutching a dagger in his teeth. For a moment Sebastian imagined that it must be Cornelius, recovered from his faint and leaping down to help his friend. But no, it wasn't Cornelius. It was the Kid.
An instant later he landed with a thud on the kelfer's striped back, and Sebastian turned in astonishment, just in time to see the Kid's right hand lifting the dagger and driving it down, down into the beast's black, vacant eye. There was an unearthly scream, the like of which Sebastian had never heard before. The kelfer's powerful tail thrashed the water as it went into its death agonies, the movement throwing the Kid aside like a child's toy. Then the creature was spiralling down into deeper water, a crimson cloud streaming from its stricken eye, and others of its kind, alerted by the smell of blood, were following it down, intent on feasting on its massive body.
'That was for my dad!' yelled the Kid, staring down at the diminishing shape in the depths. He turned in the water and grinned at Sebastian. 'You OK?' he asked.
At first Sebastian couldn't find the words to tell him how he felt. Instead, he gave the Kid a fierce hug.
'All right, all right, there's no need to get all mushy,' said the Kid, pushing him away.
'That was the bravest thing I ever saw,' gasped Sebastian. 'You . . . you saved my life.'
'Yeah, I did, didn't I?' said the Kid. And he laughed at the realization that he had just done something incredibly heroic.
The two of them started to swim back to the Sea Witch. In moments they had reached the hull and the crew were lowering ropes to pull them to safety.
Sebastian had never been more grateful to climb aboard a ship. Jenna was waiting for him and they embraced while the crew roared their approval. Everyone wanted to shake the Kid's hand and tousle his hair, and then his father was there, hugging him and crying with delight at what he had done.
'You killed him, Beverly!' he cried. 'You killed the beast that's haunted me all these years.'
The Kid looked embarrassed. 'Please don't call me Beverly,' he hissed.
Sebastian and Jenna were still hugging each other as though their very lives depended on it.
'You can cut that out for a start,' said a familiar voice; and there was Max, dripping wet and as cantankerous as ever. 'It's a wonder I didn't kill myself crashing through that rail,' he moaned. 'Whose idea was that ridiculous charge, anyway? I could have drowned.'
Sebastian laughed. 'It was a funny time to go for a swim,' he said. He looked anxiously at Jenna. 'Cornelius?' he asked.
'Over here,' she told him. She led him across the deck to where the little warrior lay covered in a blanket. His face was still unnaturally pale, but at least he was conscious and able to muster a weak smile.
Sebastian knelt beside him. 'How are you?' he asked.
'Oh, I'll survive. As soon as the ship's surgeon is free, he's going to stitch up this leg. I dare say I'll be left with a limp, but it could have been a lot worse. For a moment, back there, I thought I'd lost the whole leg.' Cornelius narrowed his eyes and fixed Sebastian with an admonishing look. 'You're making a habit of going it alone,' he said. 'Or I'm making a habit of avoiding the action – one of the two. I'm told you fought like a hero.'
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates Page 28
