| |
Careful not to accidentally put one of his stony feet through the bottom of the flimsy canoe, Nolo peered out across the lagoon. Ferris had been down almost two minutes by his count and, after two days’ practice, that was about her limit.
Even as he had the thought, she bobbed back to the surface and tossed her small grass bag into the canoe. Grabbing it in midair, Nolo frowned at the two small oysters inside.
“Is that all?” he grumbled.
“Feel free to try yourself if you’re not satisfied.”
“We already discussed that.” Nolo held the small outrigger steady while Ferris hauled herself aboard. “I’d sink straight to the bottom.”
“You could always just walk to shore.”
“I wish.” Nolo glanced at the low, palm-covered island beyond the line of white surf that marked the edge of the reef. “Even if I started walking as soon as I struck bottom, I don’t think I’d get there before I ran out of breath. All that coral, it’d be like bushwhacking through a forest.”
“I’ve lost my way down there a couple of times myself,” Ferris admitted. “At least all I had to do was float back to the surface. Pearl diving is hard.”
Nolo peered over the side of the canoe into the clear blue water, careful to keep his weight balanced. “I think I can hold my breath for about half an hour,” he said, “though I’ve never actually timed it. But think of all the oysters I could harvest in half an hour without having to come up for air.”
Ferris rolled her eyes. “Even with a rope, we’d never get you back up.”
“I don’t know.” Nolo looked at where The Other Side was rolling gently at anchor in the rougher water beyond the reef. “If you tied the rope off on the capstan, I’ll bet you could haul me up easily enough.”
“Captain Fold has already said he won’t risk bringing the ship into the lagoon. The reef is too dangerous.”
Tilting her head to the side, Ferris wrung out her wet hair. Nolo took an oyster from her bag and bit it open, relishing the salty tang. Finding no pearl, he slurped up the raw oyster as greedily as Redburr, and tossed the shell back into the lagoon. Bits of sand and seaweed glittered in his beard.
“Amu will do better,” he muttered hopefully as Amu’s head and shoulders appeared out of the water. Unlike Ferris’s, her sack clanked heavily as she slung it aboard. Her long black hair glistened down her back, reminding Nolo of a sleek nokken. But the water was much warmer in the Pearl Islands than it was back in Valing, and saltier too. Nolo doubted Skimmer and the rest of the rookery back home would like it here at all, even if the fish did dart through the clear water like flocks of fat underwater pigeons.
Emptying Amu’s bag into the canoe, Nolo’s first bite was rewarded with a small, pale pearl gleaming inside the oyster’s shell. Counting the two Ferris had managed to find, though she couldn’t dive nearly as deep as Amu, there were almost three dozen in the bowl at Nolo’s feet.
“Now this is what we came for,” he chortled happily.
“What’s that?”
Reluctantly, Nolo looked up to find Ferris pointing at a ship rounding the island’s windward point and bearing straight for The Other Side.
Amu stiffened with fear. “Oh, no! Pirates!”
“Pirates?” Shading his eyes with a stony hand, Nolo peered at the oncoming ship, but years of close work with stone in dark caves had worn his ability to see in the distance almost down to dust.
Ferris seized her paddle. “We have to get back to The Other Side.”
“That’s the last thing we want to do.” Amu raised her paddle as well. “If your captain has any sense, he and his men will swim to shore. They won’t be able to make sail and get away before the pirates are on top of them.”
“Nonsense, lass,” Nolo declared. “Our place is with the crew.”
“They’re pirates,” Amu insisted. “They’ll have five times your crew.”
Ferris laughed. “They could have a hundred times our crew, and it wouldn’t matter. We have Nolo.”
Nolo winked at Amu, and knocked his head with his knuckles. A sound like stones skipping off the side of a boulder rang out across the water.
“They’ll think twice about boarding us after I’ve tossed a dozen of them over the side,” he said.
“We can’t leave our friends, Amu,” Ferris explained.
“You really think you can defeat them?” Amu stared at Ferris and Nolo like they were both out of their minds.
“Nolo has fought far worse,” Ferris answered matter-of-factly. “Manders. Sissit. Wizards.”
Amu didn’t look convinced, but it was a long swim back to shore. Picking up her paddle, she said, “I suppose I can always dive off the ship if you’re wrong.”
The crew of The Other Side were greatly relieved when Nolo and the others reached them a few minutes before the pirates. Captain Fold had everyone hoisting the fishing net up over the rigging on the windward side, but the net wasn’t wide enough to cover the aft deck or the bow.
At the captain’s direction, Nolo took his place with the larger part of the crew in the stern. Captain Fold then turned his attention to Ferris and Amu.
“The two of you need to lock yourselves in my cabin.”
Ferris’s face tightened in a way Nolo recognized immediately. Deciding that it would be another minute or two before the pirates came close enough to be a danger, he sidled over to try and dampen the expected explosion.
“What do you mean I need to lock myself in your cabin?” she demanded.
“It’s for your own safety, miss. Even with Mr. Nolo aboard, things are likely to get a bit dicey.”
“My safety? Let me assure you, Captain Fold, I have been in far more dangerous situations than this.”
Nolo seized his opportunity. “There’s Amu’s safety to think about too, Ferris. She’s not as experienced in a fight as you are. Isn’t that right, Amu?”
Amu nodded in quick agreement, her dark eyes on the edge of panic as they darted back and forth between Nolo and the approaching ship.
Nolo winced as Ferris turned her withering glare on him. But she knew she couldn’t argue with what he’d said. Pinching her mouth tightly, she took Amu’s hand in hers and led the way below.
“And lock the door behind you,” Nolo called as she disappeared.
It was a quick fight. The pirates’ ship, larger than The Other Side, came about neatly into position along the smaller ship’s stern and dropped its sails. The sailors shot several volleys to try to keep them off, but the pirates were well hidden behind their ship’s railing, and the sailors weren’t particularly good archers. The pirates’ own archers, high in the rigging of their own ship, were much more effective, forcing the sailors to take cover as well.
Amu had been right. There were a lot of pirates. A great gang of them, armed to the teeth, stood ready to jump across the gap as the two ships swung together. Their leader wore a cloth skirt similar to Amu’s, topped off with a dirty blue jacket that would not have looked out of place on a Banking baron. Its gold buttons gleamed.
He raised his short, curved sword as his ship drew close; the sails rattled behind him. At the same time, the pirates on the foredeck hurled half a dozen grappling hooks onto The Other Side. Captain Fold hacked with his cutlass at the nearest. Nolo sliced through another with his ax. Bare feet beat on the wooden deck as the pirates jumped across the narrowing gap with a jumble of oaths and bone–chilling screams.
Two fell back into the water at Nolo’s first swing. His second dropped two more. Inspired by the Dwarf’s success, Captain Fold and the sailors surged forward with a yell, slashing at the pirates. Nolo knocked another pair overboard, and then three more. When the pirates started scrambling back to their own ship, Nolo and the sailors drove them back even harder.
The pirate captain, however, did not seem particularly perturbed. Standing on his own ship’s rail, he flung a belaying pin at The Other Side’s stern. Missing the deck by a mile, the pin shattered a cabin window with a loud crash. Grabbing a loose halyard hanging from a yard overhead, the pirate captain swung feet first into the cabin with a second crash even louder than the first.
Only then did Nolo realize what the pirate was up to. Shouting, “He’s after Ferris and Amu!” he raced toward the hatchway below. But, before he even reached the bottom of the stair, the door beneath the deck flew open. The pirate captain, grinning like a crazed sissit, sent Ferris spinning out with a savage kick, then followed with Amu clutched fast to his chest, his knife at her throat.
“Enough!” he shouted in a voice powerful enough to hush a gale. “All of you lay down your arms right now, or I’ll slice her head off an’ toss it in the sea!”
The sailors’ weapons clattered to the deck.
“I told you we should have stayed on deck,” Ferris muttered to Nolo as she climbed to her feet beside him. “That cabin was a trap.”
Nolo dropped his ax, and the pirates were on him in an instant, hacking and slashing at him like farm lads at a swordmaster’s dummy. Half their weapons broke against his stony skin, and the ones that didn’t were dropped as the pirates wrung their wrists and howled in pain.
Lashing the two ships together, the rest of the pirate crew jumped aboard. The sailors were bound around the mainmasts, but the pirate captain kept Ferris and Amu close by his side. The pirates took special care of Nolo, winding a medium-sized hawser around him like he was some sort of squat bollard. When they were done, only his head remained exposed.
He said nothing, concentrating on freeing himself instead, his stony fingers already rubbing hard against his bindings. But even if he did free himself, as long as the pirate captain had a knife at Amu’s throat, there was not much Nolo could do to improve their situation. Still, he wasn’t particularly worried. One way or another, the pirates would relax their hold on the girl, and he’d get free. Though he wasn’t quite sure how that was going to happen yet.
Apparently the pirate captain was fairly sure it wouldn’t happen at all. “Not so high and mighty now, are you?” he asked, dropping his knife from Amu’s throat once the Dwarf was firmly tied. “It’s one thing to be a fighter, but another to use your brains, right lads?”
The pirates ‘ayed’ and ‘arghed’. A few slipped closer to Ferris and Amu.
The captain whirled. A knife whirred. The pirate nearest Ferris yelped and pulled away, the knife blade protruding from his hand.
“None o’ that, now.” The pirate captain eyed his crew pointedly. “They’ll fetch a better price in Millore if they ain’t festered by your nastiness. Hoy, Mince, mind you wrap a bit o’ cord around their wrists to make sure they don’t get into any trouble. And not so hard it leaves a mark, either. The rest o’ you, let’s see what other secrets this here hulk has t’offer. Something small and shiny, I’ll warrant, seeing as how they was clamming earlier.”
Whooping and roaring, the pirate crew went below. They found the ship’s grog first, including Nolo’s private barrels. With deep regret he watched the pirates use his own ax to smash the kegs open, then swarm around the dripping contents like filthy bees.
They found Nolo’s small basket of pearls quickly too, but it was a lot longer before they were convinced there was nothing else of value aboard.
When their search was done, the pirate captain stalked angrily over to his counterpart on The Other Side. “No trade goods?” he demanded, cupping a handful of pearls in his palm. “You expect to raise a catch o’ sea eggs with just one diver to fetch ‘em up for you? What kind of captain are you?”
Nolo closed his eyes and sighed as Ferris patronizingly explained to the pirate captain how they had come to the Pearl Islands for a visit only, and not to trade. For a simple country lass, Ferris did manage to put on airs as well as any Malmoret princess.
Exasperated, the pirate pointed his knife at Nolo. “What about your friend?” he asked. “What in the Outer Sea is he?”
“He’s a Bryddin.”
“What’s a Bryddin?”
“Some people call them Dwarves.”
“A Dwarve?” The pirate’s eyebrows rose. His gold earring jiggled. “Well, here’s a fine catch at least. Friends of the Banking king, I hear. Live in holes.”
“Nolo doesn’t live in a hole,” Ferris answered. “Issinlough is the grandest palace in the world. And, as you’ve already seen, he’s the fiercest fighter in the world too. All the Bryddin are. If you don’t let us go, they’ll hunt you down like the rats you are!”
The pirates laughed again as their captain turned a mild eye on her. He was far too pleased with his victory to allow a few angry words to upset him. “Really?” Wiping his greasy hands on his shirt, he strolled over to her. “And who is it’ll be tellin’ the rest of ‘em what happened here?” He waved his hands and looked about him. “I don’t see anyone gettin’ away. You’re on your way to Millore. Don’t think you’ll be comin’ back from there. An’ your friend the Dwarve’ll be dead.”
“That’s what you think. Not even magic can hurt Nolo.”
“We won’t be usin’ magic.” The captain ran his thumb along the edge of his knife.
“So, what’ll it be, mates?” he asked. “Noose or plank?”
“Noose, cap’n.” The pirate who answered hefted a thick coil of rope. “We’ll hang ‘im, like the murderin’ shark he is.”
The pirate captain waved his hand; his rings glinted in the setting sun. “Make it good an’ loose, lads, so we can watch ‘im kick awhile before he goes.”
The pirates whooped. Even the ones dicing with pearls hurried over to watch the pirate with the rope toss a coil over the yardarm while several others dragged Nolo to the mast. Hoisting an unbroken barrel up from the hold, a couple attempted to lift Nolo up onto the top. That was when they encountered their first problem.
“Yar, he’s heavy.”
“Worse’n that idol we took off that barge in Perrico.”
With six of them handling Nolo like the block of granite he was, they finally lifted him onto the barrel, and draped the noose around his neck. With a winking solemnity, the pirate captain sauntered forward. Looking Nolo in the eye, he asked,
“Got anything t’say ‘fore we send you back to the deeps you come from?”
With his beard tied tight as the rest of him, Nolo could barely shake his head. His seeming unconcern infuriated the captain, who kicked the barrel out from under his victim’s feet with an angry cry. Nolo dropped, his neck jerked, but he barely felt a thing. The pirates roared. His feet bobbed as he spun.
Nolo was sad to see that even Ferris had turned away as he fell. He’d hoped the lass knew better than to think hanging would bother him at all. And his stony fingers had already almost frayed the first coil of rope right through.
Several minutes passed. Nolo eyed his executioners silently. The yardarm groaned, and the evening sun dipped toward the edge of the sea, its light dying much faster than he was.
“This ain’t workin’,” one of the pirates finally said.
“Cut ‘im down.”
“Try his ax. You see the way it cut through Harry like he was soft cheese?”
“Like a pudding.”
“Aye, try the ax!”
The pirates’ spirits revived a bit as they decided on their new course. The largest one grabbed the ax, an enormous fellow with arms as thick as masts. Spitting on his hands, he checked the heft of the weapon. His shipmates scattered out of the way of his unsteady swings like skittish gulls.
Satisfied that he had the feel of it, the large pirate ran a thumb along the ax’s edge. “It’s a sharp ‘un,” he said. “Forged a mite better’n our own blades, by Areft. Let’s see if he can stand up to his own medicine.”
They laid Nolo across the barrel. Tight as he was bound, he stretched stiff as a plank from toe to chin. The few wiser pirates shook their head as they realized, given Nolo’s expression, that he did not expect them to hurt him this time either. He hoped they’d realize that maybe they should start worrying too. But most of their companions were already well on their way to drunkenness, and their eyes burned bright in anticipation of the spectacle. Raising their mugs and cups of drink, the pirates watched the ax slice swiftly down onto the back of Nolo’s neck.
There was a screech like a grindstone breaking, and the barrel shattered with a crash. Nolo fell to the deck, his neck not even scratched.
“He’s dulled the blade!”
“By Areft, what’s he made of?”
“Stone, I tell you.”
“What’ll we do with him?”
The pirate captain swaggered forward. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do with him. We’ll drown him. If he’s made of stone, well it stands to reason he’ll sink like stone too. Out the gangplank there, lads.”
For the first time since the pirates arrived, Nolo felt a tug of worry. He hadn’t expected them to figure out his weakness so quickly. Once they dumped him in the water, would he be able to get the ropes off before he ran out of air? He wasn’t sure. A glance at Ferris told him she was worried too. He wouldn’t drown, of course, if he ran out of air at the bottom of the bay. But the pirate’s children’s children would probably be long gone by the time someone finally found him and pulled him up from the coral bottom.
In a moment, the drunk and swaying pirates had rigged a board over the starboard side. They levered Nolo back onto his feet and dragged him to the makeshift plank.
The pirate captain raised a hand. “Wait! We ought to make sure first that he has to breathe before we drown him. Who knows what other oddness there is to him besides his stony skin.” The captain bent over and peered at Nolo’s face. Then he waved his left hand without looking away. “Bring me a gag.”
A sailor snatched the filthy kerchief from his head and handed it to his captain. Wadding the rag into a tight ball, the pirate captain forced it into Nolo’s mouth. It tasted worse than firestone dust.
With a flourish, the pirate pinched Nolo’s nose tightly closed. From what Nolo could tell looking out at the crowd, it looked like Ferris was holding her breath as well. Far earlier than he needed, Nolo began to cough into his gag. The pirate captain tightened his grip. Nolo’s splutter increased.
“Here, cap’n,” said one of his men. “Don’t smother ‘im now. Make ‘im walk the plank.”
“Aye. Give ‘im ‘is swim.”
But the pirate captain was getting grim pleasure out of thinking he was suffocating the Dwarf. His smile tightened along with his grip on Nolo’s nose, until Nolo finally jerked his head away and took in great snorts of air.
“Okay, lads,” the pirate captain called out with satisfaction. “Send him over the side.”
Several pirates immediately prodded Nolo with their swords. In their drunkenness, they’d forgotten that traditional methods didn’t work with him. In the end they had to lift him like deadweight ballast, huffing and puffing as they laid him on his side on the plank. The plank bent, and Nolo started to roll. But the pirates hadn’t balanced him and, before he got to the end, he tumbled off the edge and into the dark blue sea.
Headfirst, Nolo sank quickly toward the bottom. He’d managed a deep breath before hitting the surface, and, though the ropes were still too tight for him to wriggle free, they weren’t so tight that he couldn’t squeeze them out a bit with a good big breath.
He fell quickly. In Valing he once jumped off the end of the Eastbay dock into the lake, but that hadn’t been like this at all. Then he’d hit bottom almost as soon as he jumped in, and it had been a quick walk back through the mud to shore. Ferris had wanted to try lowering him on a rope off the side of the Neck so they could finally find out how deep the lake was at the northern end, but he’d never trusted her not to lose her end of the rope and leave him on the bottom. With a crew of Bryddin to handle the operation, it would have been another matter entirely.
He landed in a clump of coral. He guessed the wavy things that tickled his face just before he hit were the animals Ferris had said lived inside the tiny coral caves.
He’d formed his plan even before the pirates pitched him overboard. Ferris had told him how sharp the coral was, and he figured he’d be able to saw through the ropes with this underwater rock a lot easier than fraying it with his fingers.
What he hadn’t figured on was having to do it upside-down.
Bending as much as possible, he found he could rub the rope on his chest against the coral underneath. The sea stone really was quite sharp. Not sharp enough to work with anything else, perhaps, but sharp enough to cut through something as soft as rope. A few minutes’ rubbing, and the first strands came free.
It didn’t take long. Just long enough that he doubted he’d have enough breath left to walk even as far as the reef, let alone the island. But that wasn’t the plan he’d come up with while the pirates were rolling him overboard. The Other Side was anchored right above his head. All he had to do was find the bottom end of the chain, and he could climb back to the surface and take care of the pirates once and for all.
Above the sea, the sun had finally set. Having lived on the sunless side of the world for most of his life, however, Nolo was used to working in the dark. He estimated he’d fallen about twelve fathoms, nearly directly under the ship. They’d dropped anchor off the port bow and, though he didn’t quite remember what the angle of the chain was relative to the ship, he could make a good guess. The tide was in flood, which meant the anchor would be somewhere between the ship and the island. Since he knew where the ship and the island both were it shouldn’t be too hard to find the anchor.
Ignoring the lure of the oysters tickling his feet, he set off in the likeliest direction. There was a large coral in the way, but that wasn’t really a problem: he simply climbed it. But, once he reached the top, he realized that finding the anchor was going to be more difficult than he thought. Hazy lumps stretched around him in all directions. He was going to have a hard time navigating directly through that maze of flowering stone. Since he’d never held his breath so long that he passed out, he didn’t really know how long he could last. But he doubted it was much longer than the half hour he’d told Ferris.
Because of his sense of attachment to the earth, he was able to follow a straight line, but if you added in all the ups and downs, he was traveling about three times as far as he would have had he been able to swim. He’d barely won across what he estimated to be about half the distance when a dull ringing started in his head, lighter than a throb, but unlike anything he’d ever experienced. His chest ached too. The feeling wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was disorienting. For the first time in his life, he actually felt dizzy.
Shaking his head to clear it, he realized he’d veered off course. Far above, the rising moon ribboned the ocean surface. If his calculations weren’t correct, he wasn’t going to get a second chance. And if he wanted to have any chance at all, he was going to have to stay focused. Concentrate on the lines of the earth below him, even if he did lose contact with them every time he climbed another head of coral. But the sand on the bottom felt good between his toes, the tiny grains comfortable and familiar. More familiar than the corals, which didn’t seem part of the earth, for all they were made of stone. It would be nice to burrow into the sand. Maybe if he slept a bit, his headache would go away.
He was about to take a deep breath of water, but the moment he opened his mouth he tasted something that shocked him enough to clear his muddled head. Iron. And rust, too. Somewhere close by, judging from how well he could taste it. But where?
He waved his arms. The taste of iron ebbed and flowed with the eddying water. This was an interesting discovery. Evidently, just as he could feel seams of ore and gems in stone, he could taste them in water too. Sticking out his tongue, he turned left and right, licking at the sea. The flavor was stronger to his left, and a little in front of him. If he just followed his tongue...
His head banged against something heavy. The chain. His calculations had been close, but if he hadn’t opened his mouth and discovered this newfound talent, he might never have found the anchor in the dark. For the moment, the taste of iron was even better than the taste of grog.
Grabbing the chain with both hands, he clambered up. It was a long, weary way, much further than he thought, and his dizziness returned. Part of him wanted to let go and fall back to the sand, but the rest of him knew that was impossible. Ferris and the others would never get free without his help. He had to get to the top of the chain as soon as possible, even if it did feel like his lungs were going to burst in the process.
He was halfway out of the water before he heard it pouring off him. He stopped, still hanging by his hands, and opened his mouth for a huge gulp of air. Only after emptying and refilling his lungs a dozen times did he start to think about the noise he was making. Seawater dripping from his beard, he listened to see what sort of alarm his wheezing had set off on the deck.
None, apparently. Except for the creak of rope and wood, The Other Side was silent. If the pirates were so drunk they’d passed out, his job would be that much easier. All he had to do was rescue Ferris and Amu, then roll the unconscious pirates over the side.
Nolo’s stony fingers and toes dug easily into the soft wood of the ship’s hull as he climbed to the edge of the deck and peered under the rail. Most of the pirates lay collapsed in drunken piles around the rum barrels, pearls scattered on the deck around them; Captain Fold and his crew remained lashed to the masts. But where was the pirate captain? And Ferris and Amu? He couldn’t make a move until he was sure the human girls were safe.
It occurred to him there were many differences between humans and Bryddin, not the least the fact that there were no female Bryddin. That both Ferris and Amu were missing, and the pirate captain, was probably no coincidence. His concern growing, Nolo examined the two ships more closely. A few lamps burned on the deck of The Other Side, but none on the pirate ship. Clambering around the former’s starboard side, he peered into the unlit cabin at the stern. Although he wasn’t very good at seeing distance, he could see just fine in what passed for darkness on a tropical night, with the stars pinpointing the sky and phosphorescence bubbling in the sea. The cabin was empty. Had the pirate captain imprisoned Ferris and Amu in the hold? Knowing what he did about humans, he didn’t think that was at all likely. Not when there was a whole other ship next door.
Moving a little more quickly, he used one of the ropes holding the ships together to cross to the pirate vessel. The few pirates on deck were passed out here as well. Thinking him safely drowned, they were keeping no watch of any kind on either ship. But where were Ferris and Amu?
A thin glow at the stern of the pirate ship attracted his notice, and he spidered his way aft a lot less carefully than he had on The Other Side. His fingers and toes left much larger gouges in the wood, both above and below the waterline. As expected, he found a cabin with windows just like on The Other Side, only this time the chamber was lit by a lamp hanging from the ceiling. Its soft light revealed a single body trussed on the floor. Ferris? Amu?
With a sigh of relief, he saw it was neither. The pirate captain was hogtied in his own cabin. But where were the girls?
Scrambling carefully back up to the deck, he found two figures silhouetted against the stars busy examining the ropes between the two ships as if trying to figure out the best way to climb back to The Other Side.
“Ferris,” he called softly. “Amu?”
The two figures jumped.
“Nolo?” Ferris answered in a whisper even softer than his own. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
His iron heart swelled as Ferris rushed across the deck to hug him through the rails. Amu followed right behind. Not for the first time he thought about how glad he was to have human friends. They showed their feelings so much more readily than Bryddin. Redburr was right. There really was a lot more to humans than beer and grog.
“How did you escape?” whispered Amu after she also hugged him.
“Cut myself free on the coral, then climbed the anchor chain. What about you two?”
Ferris shrugged. “It was only a matter of time before their captain dropped his guard. He thought we were just a couple of girls till we showed him otherwise.”
Nolo chuckled. “Didn’t know he was dealing with a Hero of the Stoneways, did he?”
Ferris tried hard not to beam. “Amu was the one who actually knocked him out. I just distracted him.”
“We’re going to free the sailors next!” the island girl whispered excitedly.
His worry kicking up all over again, Nolo scrambled onto the deck not quite as nimbly as a monkey. “No you’re not,” he hissed.
Ferris’s look turned hard as Inach. “Excuse me?”
“Your getting captured is what got us into this mess in the first place. I need you safely out of the way.”
“You and Captain Fold making us hide below decks,” she corrected, “is why we were captured.”
Nolo turned to Amu. “What about you? Do you feel the same way? Or would you rather I found you somewhere safe to hide?”
Amu swallowed bravely. “I’d rather go with you and Ferris. If there’s trouble, I can always dive overboard.”
Studying them solemnly for a moment, Nolo made up his mind. “All right then, lasses. Here’s my plan.”
Since Ferris and Amu couldn’t grab onto the wooden hulls the way he could, Nolo lowered them down to the water without a splash. With knives from the captain’s cabin clutched between their teeth, they swam silently to the anchor chain of The Other Side. Nolo took a moment to crawl below the waterline on the pirate ship and open a few more holes, then followed. The fierce thumping of their hearts close beside him on the chain made him think again about asking if they wanted to reconsider hiding, but he decided not to. If he doubted Ferris’s courage one more time, she’d hold it against him forever.
Peering under the railing, he watched the two girls creep on hands and knees across the deck to the sailors. Should he start throwing a few of the snoring pirates overboard to reduce the odds a bit? No, it was better to stick to the original plan. Giving the pirates a chance to threaten defenseless sailors was just as bad as letting them threaten the girls.
Captain Fold stirred in surprise the moment Ferris and Amu appeared beside him. Nolo listened to their whispered conversation.
“I thought we’d never see either of you again!” the captain gasped as the girls swiftly cut through his and his crew’s bindings. “How’d you get free?”
“We’ll tell you later,” answered Ferris. “First we have to free you too.”
“I’ll need some time to get my legs back under me.” Captain Fold started chafing his wrists and feet as soon as he was released. “We’ve been tied up a long time. I have no idea how long it’ll take before we’ll be able to help you fight.”
“No need for that. As soon as you can move, Nolo will take care of the pirates.”
“Nolo? He’s still alive too?”
This time, Captain Fold couldn’t contain his surprise. Ferris hushed him, but it was too late. One of the buccaneers stirred groggily, and was already rolling to his feet.
“Here, you,” he growled, rubbing his eyes. “Shut your gob, or I’ll—”
Climbing onto the railing, Nolo leaped with a shout into the mess of pirates on the deck. Lashing out with fists and feet, he sent them flying about like ninepins into the sea. Most were still too drunk to fight back, and those who managed to stumble to their feet were swiftly pushed overboard by Ferris and Amu and the few sailors able to stand. The pirates they couldn’t catch fled the ship the moment they saw Nolo, most of them delighted to jump into the ocean on their own rather than face the angry Dwarf. Once they were aboard their own vessel, they frantically cut the cables holding the two ships together, and raised sail.
It wasn’t long before their captain stumbled up onto the deck beside them. Though the two ships were already drifting apart, he still tried to rally his crew. Brandishing a cutlass over his head with false courage, he called out across the widening gap,
“Surrender! Or I’ll burn your ship into the sea!”
Nolo leaned on the guardrail and stared him in the eye. Barely half the pirate captain’s size, he still managed to look three times as menacing.
“Bother us again,” he called, “and I’ll tear your ship apart with my bare hands.”
One of the pirates, not trusting his captain’s bravado to be only bluster, promptly billied his leader across the back of the head with a large marlinspike. His captain fell to the deck like a stone. Hastily the remaining pirates raised their ragged sail so the night breeze could push them away from The Other Side as fast as possible.
Boiling with rage, Ferris turned on Nolo. “You’re letting them go?” she cried. “The next ship they catch might not have a Dwarf to stop them! We should capture them and take them to Amu’s people. They’ll know what to do with them.”
Nolo’s dark eyes twinkled in the moonlight, though not nearly as much as the pearls sparkling on the deck. “Those pirates won’t be bothering anyone else, lass,” he said. “And they won’t get far, either. I left a few holes in the bottom of their ship before I joined you on the anchor chain. Large ones. My guess is they’ll be swimming by evening.”
Ferris pouted, only partially appeased. “You might have said so earlier,” she grumbled, but Nolo had stopped listening.
Pirates forgotten, he was already scrambling across the deck after his pearls.