by Rebecca Rode
“Lane,” my father whispered. “I want you to do something for me. If you manage to escape, take one of the boats.”
I gave him a flat look. “I’m not leaving you behind. Either of you.”
He grunted but went silent.
“I don’t—” Aden began, then paused at the sound of heavy boots pounding above us. Was that shouting on deck?
The guards went rigid, pistols raised, and their eyes trained on the ladder. There was a heavy thump overhead. A body.
I rose to my knees.
Boots appeared on the rungs and descended quickly. Digby rushed the intruder just as a blast sounded. It flung him several feet backward into the other guard, who yelped as they landed in a tumble together. Then he shoved Digby’s still form aside and struggled to his feet as a second blast came. This time he slammed into the bulkhead, slid to the ground, and lay motionless.
Paval stood at the bottom of the ladder, a smoking pistol in each hand. He shoved them into his belt and glared at the bodies. I swallowed back my surprise, ignoring the lurch of nausea in my stomach. Two shots, two deaths. Our cook was as good a marksman as our gun master.
“Thank you, my friend,” Father said. “Lane knew you’d bring us to safety.”
Paval’s mouth tightened as he retrieved the key from Digby’s belt and attacked the crate’s padlock. Paval’s hair was messier today, and there was a chilling solemnity to his eyes. “There’s no safety to be found on deck, I’m afraid. Only way I made it past Kemp’s guards was the pirates.”
I stiffened. The room had gone still.
“Pirates,” Aden repeated, dazed.
The word slipped through my own mind, refusing to take hold.
Pirates.
“Whole fleet of them, not four miles behind us. Belza’s banner.”
Another thump sounded, and I realized the shouts above hadn’t ended. If anything, they were multiplying.
“Kemp wasn’t lying.” My father’s voice was dull, his face draining of color.
Paval shook his head. “Appears not.”
Aden cursed. I was too stunned to join him.
Father’s eyes were wild now. “Skies above. If Belza’s on one of those ships, we’re all dead men.”
Paval swung the door open and pulled Father to his feet, looking somber. “They already sent us a message. Said Belza was aboard and we’d best surrender now.”
My stomach turned again. I tasted bile. This could not be happening. Not now.
“They’re closing in fast,” Paval continued. “Kemp decided to negotiate and ordered the white banner raised, but half the crew disagreed and engaged his men, arguing that our only defense is a quick getaway. They’re fighting over control of the helm now.”
At least some of the men had any sense. “We don’t have time to argue about this,” I said. “We need Father commanding the ship.”
“Tell those men that,” Paval said.
A gunshot sounded, followed by a massive crash that made the deck vibrate, like the ship was being dismantled piece by piece.
“Captain,” Paval said. “If you desire to retake the ship, I’ll charge out there with you carrying any weapon I can find. But even if we win the battle…” He didn’t have to say it. Fighting would take too long.
My father grunted, obviously feeling the full weight of dozens of lives. “The alternative is worse, my friend. Surrender would doom us all. We’ll take the ship back and try to run. If we must, we’ll fight the pirates until our remaining powder is gone.” He paused. “Or we’ll turn me over to Belza and hope it buys you time to escape.”
My spine snapped straight.
Paval shook his head. “It wouldn’t work, Captain. No prisoners, no survivors, remember? He’ll never let the ship and crew go free, no matter how badly he wants you.”
“Nevertheless, I won’t rule it out.” Father turned to me. “Lane, you’ll stay—”
But I was already moving. I swept up the pistol by Digby’s hand, avoiding the body’s empty gaze behind his broken spectacles, and bolted for the ladder.
“Lane!” my father hissed. Aden muttered something as he hurried to follow.
The deck was utter chaos. Either the crew had full access to the pistols and muskets now, or the Messauns’ own weapons had been turned against them. Men fired at one another, occasionally hitting their targets. Others had tossed their smoking weapons aside and now attacked with blades. At least four men wrestled in a pile near the quarterdeck’s steps, their forms barely visible through the musket smoke filling the air. Men who’d gotten drunk together now hacked at one another with enraged yells. Bodies already littered the deck.
I recognized all of them.
My morning meal came up so quickly, I barely had time to run to the rail. I heaved over and over, grateful I hadn’t eaten much in the past two days.
Warm tears slid down my cheeks. I wanted to scream until I had no breath left—at the men because they’d allowed Kemp to turn them so decidedly against one another, and at myself because I’d asked for this. I wanted adventure. On the pages of my book, mutiny and battle at sea had sounded so exciting. But each of these bodies, broken and bloody and still, was a man who should have lived decades longer. It was secrets and lies that had killed them. All of us had taken part in it.
Even Father hadn’t been able to save them.
Pirates.
I jerked my head around and squinted behind us. A dark gray mass was visible on the horizon. It was so large, I would have assumed it an island. Every one of those ships had enough guns to send us to the ocean floor.
Paval shoved past me, his knife in one hand and the cat in the other. He’d grabbed it on the way up. With a shout, Paval sliced the whip through the air. It landed upon one of Kemp’s men. He screamed and stumbled backward, clutching his face as his companions scattered. Paval was clearing the way to the captain’s cabin. That had to be where Kemp hid like the coward he was.
I charged behind Paval, dodging a flying cutlass, then lifted my pistol to clear a Messaun sailor who aimed his musket at my friend. The blast shocked me with its power as it always did, bucking upward in my hand. But the sailor took the worst of it, the shot hitting him dead in the chest. He flew right through the cabin doors, bursting them open as the stained-glass windows shattered around him.
I slid to a halt, breathing hard. Julian. I’d eaten with him just the day before.
Inside, Kemp rose from his perch beside my father’s storage chest—the decoy, not the smaller box hidden in the mattress. By the flush in his face, he hadn’t found the gold yet. Perhaps he intended to bribe the men into submission. A half-eaten plate of fine food sat on the map table in the room’s center.
“Ah, Lane the girl. Kind of you to pay a visit.” Kemp gripped the cutlass at his belt.
“Lane!” Aden shouted from behind me.
I whirled to find a man barreling down on me, a blade raised above his head. I tossed my now-useless pistol aside and dove for the corner just as he swung his weapon through the air. Broken glass crunched under my shoulder as I rolled. I landed and brushed the glass aside, scrambling for my storage chest.
My pursuer slowed, staring at the door as Aden stalked in. He carried a bloody sword and wore a look of exhilaration and rock-hard anger. He lowered into dueling stance, chest heaving. “Me first, friend.”
“Save yer fancy swordplay for the pirates, princeling,” Kemp said, his cutlass drawn. “You’ll need it.”
I heaved the chest’s lid open and flipped through the contents with a curse. Kempton had gone through my belongings too. A stab of fear shot through me at the thought of losing my axes. Then I saw them near the bottom. I hefted them, letting the familiarity of their weight settle in my hands.
Aden still stood there, waiting for the sailor to engage. Instead, the man grinned and whipped out a musket.
I leaped, one axe slashing through the air. The sailor turned as I hefted the blade downward. There was a sickening crunch. It had caught his arm
just below the shoulder. He shrieked and pulled free, but his arm hung now, useless, the musket forgotten on the ground. He stumbled out the doors.
Aden scooped up the fallen weapon and faced Kemp. I stepped to his side, axes raised.
“Nay.” My father stood in the doorway, broken colored glass littering the deck by his boots. “Master Kempton is mine to challenge.” His mouth was pressed in a firm line, a long axe held easily in one hand. He looked… powerful. Far different from the broken man of a few hours ago.
Kemp smirked. “It’s Cap’n, actually. Or did yer stay belowdecks scramble yer wits?”
“A Right of Steel duel, then,” my father said. “Winner commands ship and crew.”
A duel. I swallowed what felt like a stone lodged in my throat. Aden could defeat Kemp again. He was quick and skilled. But Father… I’d never actually seen him fight. And that axe—he held it as if he knew how to use it.
I wasn’t the only one caught between two worlds, two identities. This wasn’t Garrow the merchant ship captain. This was Garrow the pirate.
Kemp smiled. “Agreed.”
Father didn’t wait. He raised the two-sided blade high over his head and charged.
Kemp looked taken aback, but he managed to raise his cutlass just in time. The two weapons smashed into each other with a brutal metallic clang. Before the vibration had stopped, my father had withdrawn his weapon and advanced from another angle. Kemp met it with a grunt, still looking bewildered. He’d likely never confronted an axe-wielding opponent in his years as a Messaun soldier. Axes were considered a pirate weapon, after all.
Kemp tried to swing the cutlass over his head toward my father’s neck, only to slam into the axe’s handle once again. He switched to the side with the same result, then tried a backhand approach, exposing his other side. My father took the opportunity to get a good slice into his back, though it was too shallow to hit spine. Kemp howled and they parted, resting for a second. Kemp’s back was sticky with dark blood.
The shouts outside were growing quiet. I heard footsteps as men crept up to the smashed door to watch the fight. There was no need to explain—they knew the significance of what was happening. Their fate was being decided by two fighting men in the captain’s cabin.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my father. He’d grumbled about my axes and refused to help me practice. I’d always assumed he disapproved of pirate weapons. But here he fought, a bold and angry sailor wielding an axe like it was part of him, bent on victory. A man with nothing to hide and nothing left to lose.
“He’s almost fearsome,” Aden whispered next to me.
I couldn’t answer. I saw beyond Father’s enraged expression, his lip curled back in a vicious growl. Fearsome didn’t quite describe it. He was glorious.
“We waste time, Kempton,” my father said, gasping for breath as they pulled apart once more. “The pirates will catch us before this is through.”
The large man’s face was pink with exertion. “Aye, that’s the idea. We’ll soon be rid of ye, and the ship will be mine.”
“If you think Belza will bargain, you’ve the brains of a half-dead gull. It isn’t too late to do the right thing. Help me save the crew.”
Kemp blinked rapidly, the color in his face deepening. He answered with an angry yell and a series of blows toward the head. My father stumbled backward, startled by the onslaught, and struggled to find his balance as he blocked blow after blow. If only we had a shield. Even Elena the Conqueror had used a shield—
Kemp’s blade sank into my father’s arm.
My father yelped and dropped his weapon.
I gaped at his arm, hanging weakly, the sleeve filling with blood, and then my father’s axe at his feet. My boots felt tarred to the planks.
Kemp yanked his blade free. “I don’t take yer orders anymore, Cap’n. None of us will.” He lifted the cutlass once more, preparing for the final thrust.
The room had gone quiet. Too quiet.
Do something, my mind screamed. Do it now!
His cutlass swung downward.
Then I was there, my axes raised in a perfect X block and my knees bent in the defensive stance I’d practiced a hundred times.
The cutlass slammed into my crossed axe handles, the force of it nearly breaking my block and making my legs buckle. I pried my eyes open and found myself staring at a heavy blade, just inches from my face. Beyond it, Kemp’s expression was dumbstruck. He’d beaten me down with cruel words for so long, he hadn’t actually expected me to defend my father now.
It had taken years, but I’d finally done it.
“Wait!” Dennis pushed past us, leaping over broken glass to place himself between Kemp and me. “Don’t kill them yet. Belza will want them alive. He’s nearly here!”
The words seemed to shake Kemp back to the present. Breathing hard, he lowered his weapon and glanced toward the watching faces in the doorway. Their eyes dropped. If some had fought on my father’s side, it was clear the captain’s defeat had drained the fight from them. That, or they knew it was pointless to run now.
“Line up the prisoners,” Kemp ordered. “Any who resisted. And raise that white banner again. Then we wait.”
It took nine men to strip us of weapons and drive us to the mainmast. Father lifted his head high in front of me, ignoring the pistol at his back, though he did cradle his injured arm. Barrie walked at my side, a pistol held loosely in his hand. He seemed too distracted to be taking orders from Kemp. He stared at the sky, shoulders slumped, an occasional shudder racking his body. Not a drop of blood marred the clothes his mother had made for him. He’d likely hidden himself while the men fought. The fact that he’d emerged at all meant he was resigned to whatever fate awaited us.
The guards lined us up. Aden stood on my right and Father to my left, his sleeve soaked in red. His eyes were full of pain but sharp, darting from Kemp’s men to his own to the ships closing in behind. At one point his eyes found me. I detected a hint of pride there.
As Barrie turned to join the others, my father leaned toward him. “Barrie, go stock a boat. When I distract them, take Lane and Aden and row away with everything you’ve got.”
Barrie blinked out of his trance and turned to look at the boats, considering the words. Paval, on Aden’s other side, nodded thoughtfully.
I shook my head. “We’ll wait until the pirates attack. Then we can slip away unnoticed.” I looked at Paval. “All of us.”
“Seven ships, Lane,” Paval said. “They’d be on us in seconds. If you intend to run for it, it’s got to be now.”
Aden swore.
I turned to find sailors leaping into the rowboats. Kemp shouted at them, but they’d already begun to lower themselves down. Our guards were half what they’d been a moment ago, but the boats were no longer an option.
Rumbling sounded in the distance. A collective gasp rose from Kemp’s men. Barrie tightened his grip on the pistol. I didn’t realize what had happened until I heard the splash. Belza was already firing upon us. The ball had fallen short, but it sent a strong message.
The men raising the white banner hurried to finish securing it. The pulleys squeaked as they raised it high above the deck. It snapped like parchment in the wind. Beyond, a dozen men rowed away in our boats. The rest, white faced and visibly trembling, obeyed Kemp’s commands to furl sail and drop anchor. It was the naval equivalent of tossing aside our weapons and lifting our arms to the sky. There was little hope in their faces. Every second made my heart pound harder.
Cheering carried over the wind. The pirates already celebrated their victory. It wouldn’t be long before the advance ship cut us off from retreat.
“Lane,” Aden whispered. “We’ll have to swim for it. Is there a way to climb aboard one of their ships without being seen?”
“Not without hooks.” The island pirates that had attacked us years back used smaller ones, climbing in the shadows with remarkable speed. “I suppose we could hide under the netting at the bow, but only one of u
s would fit. And my father can’t swim in his condition.”
Aden pressed his lips together. “Lane, Kemp will never let him escape. But we can. We just have to act before the pirates arrive.”
“I won’t leave my father behind,” I snapped. I wasn’t my mother, nor would I ever be.
Pirates jeered as they circled our stationary ship. One, two, three vessels—all with their hatches open and guns ready. Hundreds, maybe thousands of men watched us from the rails. It wasn’t worth trying to count. Anything more than two dozen meant we were outnumbered anyway.
Then the rowboats appeared, filled to the brim with armed men. They crossed the water between us quickly. Kempton placed himself at the rail, adjusting my father’s best three-pointed hat. His pocket bulged. He’d found Aden’s gold.
The pirates began to board.
At first, they looked much like we did, except perhaps more coarse and worn. There was greed in their smiles as they pushed one another aside in their haste to reach us. Their eyes swept the group, taking us all in with confidence, weapons raised. I felt like a tied calf watching the approach of a butcher. Until recently, I couldn’t have imagined Father among these men. But today I could almost see it, his strong form striding alongside them, a giant axe gripped in one hand. His familiar voice shouting orders that would chill the spine. His shout of victory when they’d felled yet another crew.
A part of me, something hidden deep inside, stirred at the thought. I could almost see myself with them, lifting my axes to any who opposed me.
I took a shuddering breath. The threat had obviously rattled something free in my mind. Paval was wrong. Some things had no in-between, and pirates were one of them. I had no intention of letting them take my father or our ship.
Kemp had ordered us stripped of weapons, but there hadn’t been time to bind our hands. And our guards were distracted. I scanned the deck and spotted my axes piled near the shattered remnants of the cabin door.
