Wild Waters

by Rob Kidd

  Jack started grabbing everything within reach and throwing it. Spoons, dishes, and cooking tongs flew through the air, most of them clattering harmlessly around Benedict as he whacked them aside with his sword. At the last second, Jack brought up his own sword and met Benedict’s with a resounding clang. Benedict pressed forward mercilessly, beating at Jack, but Jack had been studying his swordmanship for years—ever since losing a duel to an upstart, snobbish, untrustworthy aristocrat named Fitzwilliam, which forced him to let the traitor onboard his first ship, the Barnacle—a decision Jack had lived to regret.

  Now he was one of the best sword fighters in the Caribbean, and he matched Benedict’s flashing blade strike for strike. They swung and pirouetted around the table, ducking under each other’s blows, leaping over the low attacks. The light from the torches on the walls reflected off their swords as they parried and struck.

  And all the while, the pounding at the door grew louder and louder. Jack glanced at it worriedly, noticing how a part of the wood was starting to cave into the room. It wouldn’t be long before the creature broke through—and Jack didn’t fancy fighting Benedict and a gigantic man-beast at the same time.

  With a quick twist of his wrist, Jack flipped his sword under Benedict’s and knocked the rapier out of the other man’s hands. The thin sword flew across the kitchen and Benedict dove after it, which gave Jack enough time to leap onto the table and run all the way to the farthest end from the door. He hopped off and spun around just in time to see the door burst into pieces as the beast’s fists punched through.

  Roaring, the creature flung the small table out of its way and lunged for Benedict, who was still getting to his feet with his sword.

  Jack reacted by instinct. Much as he disliked the whole idea of Benedict, and especially the whole idea of Benedict “executing” Jack Sparrow, he still didn’t want to see the man get his head munched off right in front of him.

  He seized a huge platter, nearly as wide as the ship’s wheel, from the nearest counter and threw it like a disk. It whizzed sideways through the air, fairly humming as it flew, and it struck the beast right in the shoulder.

  The creature grunted in surprise, glanced sideways at Jack, and then turned right back to Benedict. It was as if it barely felt the plate hit. Benedict dropped his sword and backed away, gibbering with fear.

  “Oi!” Jack hollered, dancing up and down and waving his arms. “Much tastier meat over here! Look at him, he’s barely worth a mouthful!”

  The beast reared up, lifted one massive paw, and backhanded Benedict across the face. Benedict staggered, his eyes rolling in his head, and then fell to the ground, unconscious. His arms splayed out to either side and his sword clattered to the flagstones. But Jack could see his chest still rising and falling, so Benedict wasn’t dead yet.

  “Oh, is that all you were going to do?” Jack said. “Have at it, then! Sorry to interrupt!”

  But it was too late to hide now. The man-beast turned and started for Jack, lumbering purposefully across the kitchen. Its black fur rippled across its strong back and its long black feet gripped the stones as it charged.

  Jack had escaped one enemy—but now he had to face an even bigger, scarier one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  While Jack was battling Benedict and meeting his first gorilla in the fort kitchen, the other pirates were spreading out through King Samuel’s fort. Jocard shouted orders, sending his men to capture and hold all the exits.

  Jack’s pirates were less disciplined, unsurprisingly. One of them heard a noise that sounded like sacks of gold clinking, and with a yell, most of them charged off to see what treasure they could find.

  Carolina, Diego, and Jean, on the other hand, stayed close to Sarah and Jocard as they ran up flight after flight of stairs. Sarah seemed to know exactly where to go, and the others didn’t question her. The distraction plan was working; they met little resistance, at least on the first few floors.

  Carolina paused at a turn in one of the staircases and glanced out the window. She saw that most of Samuel’s pirates had piled onto ships out in the bay. They had the smoking decoy ship surrounded and were firing madly into its side. They were probably only just starting to wonder why all those cannons weren’t firing back.

  And the answer was—those weren’t cannons. The pirates of Libertalia had disguised the ship to look well-armed without wasting a single real gun. All of the cannon barrels sticking out of the ports were actually tree trunks and branches, painted to look like weaponry. The few pirates Jocard had selected to steer the ship into the bay had set the ends of the branches that were inside on fire, making the ship look as if it were smoking. Then, once they saw Samuel’s pirates pouring out of the fort to attack, Jocard’s men dove into the water and swam back to the Ranger, which was waiting out of sight near some large rocks outside the bay.

  The decoy ship sailed on, bobbing and weaving without anyone to steer it, and as the fire belowdecks spread and Samuel’s cannonballs began to smash into the sides, the entire ship burst into flames.

  This only terrified Samuel’s pirates more, as they didn’t see anyone trying to put out the flames or dive to safety. All they saw was a fiery ghost ship, gliding relentlessly toward them. With shouts of terror, they kept blasting away at it—all the while missing the real attack going on inside the fort.

  Carolina laughed. “It’s working!” she cried, turning around and bumping into Diego. He grinned back at her.

  “Some pirates are cleverer than others,” he said. She gave him the first smile he’d seen from her in weeks, and then his heart jumped as she grabbed his hand.

  “Come on—I want to meet this notorious King Samuel!” she said, tugging him up the stairs.

  They caught up to the others at the next landing, where a trio of Samuel’s pirates were waiting with their swords out.

  “Intruders!” yelled the short, stocky one. “Warn the king!”

  The tallest and skinniest of the three pirates turned to sprint away, but Jocard lunged past the outstretched swords and yanked him back by his long, matted hair. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Jocard cried.

  The other two turned to attack Jocard, but their swords clashed against Carolina’s and Diego’s swords instead. Carolina faced down the short one, who gave her a nasty glare. “She-pirates,” he sneered. “I’d throw you all overboard if I could. Girls are bloody useless.”

  That was the wrong thing to say to Carolina. “You want to see useless?” she said, swinging her blade around. The short pirate barely got his sword up in time to stop hers from biting into his neck. He fell back with a shout, and she attacked again, driving him into the hallway behind him.

  Diego’s pirate was sickly-looking and blond, with several missing teeth, but he was stronger than Diego would have guessed. He immediately took advantage of his position and started to force Diego back down the stairs, unbalancing him with canny lunges and surprise twists of the blade.

  Meanwhile, Jocard was rolling on the floor with the tall, skinny pirate, exchanging bone-crunching kicks and punches to the face. “Sarah!” Jocard yelled. “Get me something to restrain him with!”

  He glanced around, but in the melee of flying fists, he couldn’t see Sarah anywhere. Suddenly Jean popped up beside him, grabbed one of the hanging tapestries from the wall, and yanked it down. A cloud of dust rose up, making all the pirates sneeze, and while the skinny one was doubled over coughing, Jocard flung the tapestry over his head and knocked him to the ground.

  At the same time, Carolina kicked her opponent squarely in the middle of his chest. He flew backwards, landing with a thud on top of his defeated compatriot. Moments later, Diego was able to drive his pirate back up the stairs with a flurry of swordplay. The sickly blond pirate tripped over his fallen comrades and hit his head on the stone floor, knocking himself unconscious.

  Jean found a long tasseled cord holding back a curtain in a nearby room, and they trussed the three pirates together in a heap. Jocard carefully covered th
em with the tapestry so they looked like a big pile of fabric instead of unconscious pirates.

  “I hope that will give us more time,” Jocard said. “I want the element of surprise when we reach King Samuel.”

  “Good idea,” Sarah said, appearing at his elbow.

  “Where did you go?” he asked.

  “I checked the last flight of stairs ahead,” she said. “It’s all clear. He probably only has one or two guards left with him, since he has no reason to think he’ll be attacked in his own throne room. This is the perfect chance to take him down! Come on!”

  “Excellent thinking,” he said, giving her a one-armed hug. She tossed back her long dark hair and beckoned to the others.

  Just then, they heard a pistol shot go off further down the stairs and whipped around, swords raised and ready to fight. But the bobbing blue plumes that came around the bend revealed that it was Barbossa on their heels, not another of Samuel’s pirates. He had a new bruise forming on his forehead and splatters of blood on his left sleeve, but he was grinning with the excitement of battle.

  “Now this is more like it!” he said.

  “Where’s Jack?” Jean asked, noticing for the first time that their captain wasn’t with them. “And Marcella?”

  Barbossa shrugged. He clearly couldn’t care less about either of them.

  “Who knows?” Diego said.

  “That blond girl probably couldn’t keep up.” Sarah sniffed.

  “And maybe Jack found someone else to fight,” Carolina suggested, giving Barbossa a worried look.

  “Huh,” Barbossa growled. “Disappearing right when there’s a real battle. Sounds like Jack.” He spotted a pirate bearing down on them from a side hall and blasted his pistol into the man’s leg.

  “Quickly, or King Samuel will hear the commotion and get suspicious,” Sarah said. They hurried on to the last flight of stairs, hearing the wounded pirate’s howls of pain fade behind them.

  “King Samuel’s throne room is on the highest level,” Sarah said as they ran. “That’s where he always watches battles at sea.”

  “Doesn’t sound very brave either,” Carolina observed. “At least Jack is around somewhere, right?”

  Barbossa snorted. “Probably drinking all the rum,” he muttered.

  * * *

  Ironically, at that exact moment, Jack’s hand was closing around a bottle of rum. Realizing what it was, he hesitated before throwing it.

  “I just can’t do it. Waste of good rum,” he said, setting the bottle down again and grabbing the next nearest thing he could reach. Unfortunately, he’d already flung the thing through the air before he realized how useless it was.

  The banana hit the man-beast square in the middle of its forehead, and it stopped in its tracks, blinking. Slowly it looked down at the fruit lying between its feet. With a low rumble, the man-beast lowered itself to its haunches, picked up the fruit, and began to eat it.

  Jack gaped. It wasn’t a man-eating beast after all! It was a gorilla—a hungry vegetarian—And it had probably smelled the other bananas in his coat, too. Maybe that was the whole reason it had come after them.

  He started digging through his pockets. Now this was the kind of fight he liked!

  The final staircase went around and around, up a stone tower into the sky, so even Jocard was getting winded toward the end. Sarah rounded the corner at the top and disappeared ahead of them. Jocard thundered after her, with Diego close on his heels.

  Carolina was the next to reach the top of the stairs. And immediately she froze.

  The throne room was a vast circular space decorated with treasures stolen from ships all over the Atlantic Ocean. Giant bronze vases stood on either side of the entrance from the stairs. Rich tapestries hung on the walls, and thick Oriental rugs covered the floor. Low, fur-covered seats edged the room under the windows, which looked out on the blue bay.

  Spookiest of all, strange African animals prowled in the corners and hung from the ceiling, so that the room was filled with muffled growls and hoots and squeaks. Carolina could see the glint of teeth in the shadows and hungry eyes watching from behind the throne.

  But that wasn’t what stopped her.

  Nor was it the twelve armed guards, bristling with sharp weapons, all of them pointed at her and her friends.

  No, what made Carolina freeze in her tracks was King Samuel, standing in the center of his throne room…holding a knife to Sarah’s throat.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “No!” Jocard shouted. “Don’t hurt her!” He took a step forward, and a wall of swords and spears clattered into place to stop him. Fuming, Jocard clenched his fists. “You won’t get away with this,” he growled at Samuel.

  “Won’t I?” Samuel said, caressing Sarah’s cheek with the flat of his dagger blade. “Drop your sword, big man.”

  Jocard gritted his teeth.

  “King Samuel orders you to drop it,” Samuel said harshly, pressing the knife into her neck. Sarah let out a small groan of pain.

  “All right!” Jocard said. His sword hit the flagstones and a pair of guards snatched it away. Jocard held up his hands, palm out. “She is not your problem, Samuel. She’s done nothing wrong. Let her go.”

  “Your friends, too,” Samuel said, glaring at Diego, Carolina, Jean, and Barbossa, all lined up behind Jocard. “Disarm.”

  “I drop my sword for no man—or woman,” Barbossa snarled.

  “Would you like to watch her die?” Samuel asked Jocard, gripping Sarah’s shoulder tightly.

  “Do it,” Jocard said to Barbossa in a low voice. “I am the captain here. I am telling you to drop your sword.”

  Barbossa’s face twitched in a grimace of rage, but as the other three dropped their swords, he slowly bent over and placed his on the ground as well.

  “Good,” Samuel said with an insincere smile. “Now we can talk.”

  “First let her go,” Jocard said. “She’s not even a pirate. She’s innocent in all this.”

  “Oh,” Samuel said with a tsk-tsk-ing noise. “How sweet. And how wrong. Isn’t that adorable, Sarah? He thinks you’re innocent.”

  Sarah laughed as Samuel let her go. “Pirates always underestimate women,” she said, winking at Jocard. She turned and sauntered down the length of the room, settling herself on the throne at the far end. She kicked one leg over the side and grinned at the surrounded pirates. “They don’t do their research very well, either,” she pointed out. “It’s as if they had no idea at all that you have a half-sister, Samuel.”

  “You betrayed us,” Jocard growled at her, fury darkening his face. “You were lying to me the whole time.”

  “State the obvious, why don’t you?” Sarah said with a yawn. “Oh, hello, Kitty. I missed you very much, yes I did.” She leaned over and patted the sleek leopard that was rubbing its head against the side of the throne. It let out a rumbling purr, and Carolina and Diego both shuddered.

  “You look familiar,” Samuel said to Jocard, tapping his fingers together. He strolled forward and walked in a circle around the pirate captain, looking him up and down. “Does King Samuel know you from somewhere?”

  “Of course you wouldn’t remember,” Jocard said. “You’ve stolen so many lives. One family—one young boy—that means nothing to you. It probably took but a minute of your time, and you haven’t thought about them again since.”

  “Ah,” Samuel said. “That explains this foolhardy attack. Revenge, is it? Listen, if I had to explain myself to every ignorant child I’ve sold into slavery, I’d never have time for anything else. That’s the way the world works. I’m a pirate, you know. I’ll take my money however I can get it.”

  “A true pirate still has some honor,” Jocard said. “And a man who calls himself a king should have more care for his subjects.”

  Samuel paused in front of Jocard, raising his eyebrows. But before he could speak, Jocard spat in his face.

  The guards in the room lunged forward as one, but Samuel raised his hand calmly to stop the
m.

  “No, we’re not going to kill him,” Samuel announced, wiping his face with the corner of his leopard-skin robe. “There’s obviously only one perfect punishment for this man—and that is to go back where he came from. I bet I can get a lot of money for you.” He glanced over the pirates behind Jocard. “And you,” he said, pointing to Diego. His gaze landed on Barbossa. “You, not so much.”

  Jocard started to chuckle. “You really think you’ve won,” he said, shaking his head. “You have no idea.”

  Samuel turned to stare at him. “No idea about what?”

  “No idea who else is in the fort with us.” Jocard looked Samuel straight in the eye. “That’s right. Captain Jack Sparrow.”

  “Just misunderstood, aren’t you?” Jack said, handing the gorilla another banana. “Really quite a friendly, er…man-beast-ape-thingie, you are.” He was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging his legs. On the floor beside him, the gorilla was contentedly munching on all the fruit Jack had been able to find.

  Jack leaned over and prodded Benedict’s prone body with the tip of his sword. He widened his kohl-lined eyes when Benedict still didn’t move.

  “Nope,” he said to the gorilla. “Still out. Good punch you’ve got on you there.” He tipped back his hat. “Well, I can’t leave until he wakes up to hear my dramatic exit line. I’ve been working on it for weeks. You want to hear it?”

  “AAOURRAAGRRAARRRGH,” said the gorilla, snatching another banana from Jack’s hand.

  “Maybe later then,” Jack said pleasantly. “No hurry.”

  “Well, if he’s going to rescue us, I hope he hurries up and does it soon,” Jean muttered as Samuel’s pirates started binding their wrists.

  CRASH!

  All the pirates in the throne room jumped.

  “What was that?” Samuel demanded.

  CLATTER! CRASH! BANG! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!