I scrambled back up the steep slippery deck, now rising up a sheer cliff of water. It was like a nightmare where I ran and ran but couldn’t get traction.
When I got below to Bellamy’s great cabin, I found the two pirate guards on the floor. One’s neck was broken, the other had a hook embedded in his heart. The treasure chest was open—the chain and padlock were gone—but the bags of loot were untouched. Ariyl was nowhere to be seen.
One of the dead men clutched a smoking pistol—he must have gotten off a shot but failed to hit Ludlo in a vital spot. He also was wearing an open pouch with a powder horn, some lead balls, patches of fabric and a short metal rod.
“David!” Ariyl screamed from somewhere below decks.
I seized the pouch and the pistol and scrambled down ladders, following the sounds. Even above the howling gale, crashing waves, the creaking timbers and groaning ropes, I could hear her and Ludlo’s grunts and snarls, the thuds and kicks of a tremendous fight...and loud clinking. The missing chain?
The Whydah was tilting forward as it ascended, stern first, to the crest of each huge wave then it was plunging backward into the trough of the next. Inside the ship where I couldn’t see the sea or the sky, it felt like gravity itself kept changing direction.
At last I reached the bowels of the ship. That’s where I saw Ludlo dragging Ariyl backwards toward the base of the mainmast. His headscarf was gone, his face was covered in a snow-and-pepper beard, but I easily recognized the eye patch and the missing fingers.
Ariyl’s arms were pinned at her sides—he must have gotten behind her and thrown the chain around her arms and dragged her off. He now had a tiger by the tail: she couldn’t get at him, but he didn’t dare let go of the chain or it would be a fair fight again.
I flattened behind a timber so Ludlo wouldn’t see me. He was just twenty yards away, but having fought him before I knew he was much too fast and strong for me. He’d kill Ariyl or me before I got four steps toward him. I needed an equalizer.
I opened the powder horn, and poured the black grains into the measuring cap. (I’d learned how to do this for a Battle of Breed’s Hill reenactment, though not with a lead ball to fire.)
“Still scared of storms at sea, Ariyl?”
Ludlo yanked her backward, slamming her head against the mast, dazing her—it would have cracked open an ordinary skull like a soft-boiled egg.
I forced myself to concentrate on the charge. Damn it, I hadn’t seen the measuring mark on the cap. I’d poured too much gunpowder—the gun could blow up on me. I remeasured the black grains...
“And I remember you never liked to swim!” Ludlo taunted, as he flung the loose end of the chain around the mast and her chest, caught the end, and jammed the shackle of the padlock through the links. Ariyl thrashed, but the chain was too tight—it bit deep into her clothing, not allowing her a centimeter’s movement. Ludlo clicked the lock.
I felt around the pouch and located a round lead shot, but I couldn’t find the cloth patch. I was sure it was in there. Without that wadding, the exploding gases would dissipate instead of propelling the ball...
Ludlo walked around in front of the firmly bound Ariyl. He yanked off her SmartFab tricorn hat; without its static charge, her “beard” hair fell off her chin.
“There’s my pretty lass. I was thinking I’d bring a score of these pirates down here and let them have at you.”
“I bet there isn’t one who isn’t a better lay than you!” she shot back.
He gave a mirthless smirk.
“Sadly, there just isn’t time.” Then he hissed, “Now give me the Crystal, you stupid bitch or I’ll let you drown.”
“Fuck off!” she demurred.
He tore open her coat and shirt, revealing her spectacular breasts—and half-hidden between them, compressed by the chain, her Time Crystal.
I found the patch. I wrapped it around the lead ball and stuffed them into the barrel...
Ludlo plunged his fingers into Ariyl’s cleavage but she brought her knee up so sharply in his groin that Ludlo dropped to the floor, gasping in pain.
“Okay,” he panted, “I see you want to die. As you wish.”
He got to his feet, held up the padlock key, and snapped it in two.
I took the ramrod and jammed the patch and the lead ball down the barrel repeatedly, as firmly as I could. Any gap between powder and ball could make the gun explode in my hand.
“Stupid as ever,” Ludlo seethed. “I’ll get the Crystal anyway. I was going to let you die in one piece. But first, I think I’ll have a little fun...”
I poured a few grains of powder in the pan and closed the steel piece that the flint would strike...
“Go to hell!” she yelled—as I cocked the pistol.
“Insulting me when I have you chained up?” he sneered. “That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. Hey, that’s an idea...” He lifted his blade to slice hers off.
I aimed at the back of his head and fired—just as the ship lurched sideways.
A bloody chunk of Ludlo’s skull blasted off to one side.
Ludlo clutched the back of his head and screamed in pain.
To my chagrin, it wasn’t a kill shot—and since Ludlo wasn’t dead, I figured in seconds, I would be.
But his wound was pretty bad. I could only hope it was mortal. Holding his gushing head wound and cursing in agony, he fled up the aft ladder.
I ran to Ariyl and picked up the end of the key.
“David, forget me! Get that bastard! He’s going for the treasure!”
“The hell with Ludlo! It’s midnight!” I said. “The ship’s going to capsize any minute!”
Bellamy’s broken key wouldn’t turn. Maybe I could shoot the lock off. I reached for the pouch with the powder horn—but the hold was now awash and the open powder horn was soaked.
I swore. I tried to push the chains up or down from her bust, but they were tightly sunk in.
“Can you exhale some more? Or shrink these clothes? Give me some slack?”
Her upper arms were pinned, but she was able to reach her shoulder with one finger.
“Anne Bonny outfit!” she said.
Her thick SmartFab pirate coat morphed back into that thin silk blouse that barely covered her essentials. Unfortunately, the chains were still too tight to budge one way or the other.
“Never mind me!” she yelled.
I took my sword and hacked at the chains. I struck sparks and dented the blade but I was never going to cut through these links—the chain was twice as thick as the one Papa Brumbach burst. And I couldn’t chop through the mast, either.
“Damn it! If I could just find Davis’s tools!”
“No time, David! You have to stop Ludlo!”
“No!”
“Yes, goddamn it! I’ll get out of this on my own!”
“How? You got any of those demon-shots on you?” I asked.
“You made me leave ’em with Sven, remember?” she yelled. “Another brilliant idea of yours!”
“I’m sorry! You don’t have to get mad!”
“Yes, I do! Demon shots stay in your bloodstream for months. If I can get mad enough, I might have a backflash!”
“You mean a flashback?”
“That’s for acid. Demon-shots have backflashes. But I have to get really, really mad!”
“You’re kidding!”
She was getting red in the face.
“Do I look like I’m kidding, asshole?” Then she screeched in rage, straining at the chains.
They held. She slumped, breathing hard.
The ship timbers moaned and leaked sprays of water as we rose on the next breaker—the waves were getting bigger and stronger. That meant we were nearly to the surf zone, where the ship would hit the sandbar and be battered to pieces.
“David, you can make me so mad...!”
“I don’t mean to!”
“I’m saying I need you to! Make me furious!”
“Are you kidding?” I laughed.
“That’s a good start! More!”
“Um, you stupid bitch!”
“That’s it! Go on!”
“You make me puke!”
“Oh, yeah?!”
“I hate you, you crazy amazon!”
“No, I don’t believe that,” she groaned.
“Then believe this: I stuck you on this ship on purpose! I knew the date, I knew the storm was coming and I knew you hate storms and I didn’t care!”
“You what?!” she exclaimed.
“That’s right, you insane skank, I did this to you on purpose!”
Then I hauled off and slapped her as hard as I could.
She gave me an impatient look.
“That didn’t hurt!”
“Speak for yourself,” I muttered, making sure I could still move my stinging fingers.
“C’mon!” she demanded. “I need to be madder!”
I grabbed a floating piece of plank and whacked her on the side of the face with it.
“Ow! That’s better!” she snarled. “Again!”
“Have some more, you freak!” I said, whacking her with the plank three more times, till it broke across her face.
“Can’t you do anything right?” she hollered.
“And you know what? I never loved you! I love Kati Brumbach!”
That did it—her irises suddenly turned ruby red.
“You bastard!” she raged.
“And Synthia too! And Shining Moon! And Dylila! I love them all more than you! You, I don’t even like!”
“When I get loose I’m gonna kick your ass all over this boat!” she bellowed.
“It’s a ship, you ignorant slut!”
“You prick!!!” she shrieked. Ariyl inhaled deeper and deeper, her rib cage expanding—her entire face was red now, the chains pressing deep furrows into her bulging breasts.
“DO it, you stupid whore!” I screamed.
“GRRRAAAHH!” she roared. She flexed her arms and sucked in the deepest breath I ever saw anyone take—her chest grew huge—
KA-CHINK!
The chain exploded off her.
“You did it!” I exulted.
She stood up straight—and man, was she pumped. And furious.
Then I remembered the mayhem I saw her commit the last time she had a demon shot.
“Now, look, you told me to make you mad...”
The reminder did not alter her expression.
I backed away. Spotting her tricorn, I scooped it up.
“Uh, here’s your hat, sweetie...”
It morphed back into her SmartFab headband.
She didn’t change expression. She just came at me.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, as I splashed across the flooded hold and scrambled up the ladder.
I managed to lose Ariyl between decks. I knew she’d cool down eventually. Meanwhile, I still had my cutlass, but I wasn’t about to use it on the woman I love.
But I did know someone who’d be a ripe target for a swordpoint, and right now he was bleeding from a major head wound. I might be able to finish him off once and for all.
What I didn’t anticipate was that Ariyl would get to Ludlo first.
When I arrived at the passageway leading aft, I saw her at the far end. Ludlo was inside, holding a sword.
“Die, you bitch!” He thrust at her, but she grabbed the blade and snapped it in two.
“You first!” she bellowed, and uncorked a haymaker that sent him hurtling through the stern windows, into the churning sea. A huge wave broke over him and he was gone.
She stood there, her back to me, breathing hard.
“You okay?” I ventured.
She turned back to me. Her eyes were still red.
“Find the boy,” was all she said. She stalked past me, and went below. I knew better than to question her in this condition.
The freezing rain howled horizontally through the freshly smashed windows. I stepped over the corsairs’ corpses. The treasure chest was torn apart and bags of Black Sam’s carefully divided loot now were scattered all over the room, impatiently slit open, spilling their glittering guts: the coins and ingots and little sacks leaking gold dust lay discarded on the wet deck. Ludlo’s blood was everywhere.
This was just deranged. Why would Ludlo slice up dozens of bags and then leave the treasure? Maybe my headshot had done some brain damage after all.
Then I recalled Bellamy’s boast, and as I dug frantically through the discarded lucre, I realized what was missing: none of the opened bags held a pouch of jewels.
Precious stones weigh a fraction of what gold of the same value weighs. Even a superhuman like Ludlo could drown trying to swim with a fortune in gold. But the same fortune in gems...
“You murdering thief!” screamed a voice behind me.
I whirled to find John King standing behind me. He whipped out his dagger, eager to slice me open like just another moneybag. But he knew he’d never get past my sword. It was no contest.
“Use your head, John,” I said calmly, opening my hand. “I’ve no treasure on me. See? I’m not here to kill you. I was chasing a thief named Octavius who took all the jewels. He went out that window!” The boy blinked, comprehension dawning. Slowly I lowered my cutlass, and gave him an encouraging smile.
“Captain Bellamy!” shrieked the boy as he fled down the passageway. “Flynn’s killed our men and stole our treasure!”
“Don’t be a damn fool!” I yelled after him: another phrase that I doubt has worked on anyone, ever.
The boy’s excited denunciation of me echoed from down the passageway, with a din of furious oaths in reply. Then out of the crew’s quarters boiled a crowd of pirates with cutlasses heading down the passageway, making for me with malign intent.
I slammed and barred the door. It seemed possible, albeit extremely dangerous, to climb out the broken windows and up the slippery hull to the deck. If I made it, hopefully Bellamy would be too busy trying to save his ship to notice me.
Then from the passageway beyond came shouts and clanging steel. A big fight had broken out: at least a dozen men with swords clashing. Faced with doom, it seemed the crew must have turned on each other. Maybe I could slip out in the confusion.
I peeked out the door, and saw that my estimate had been pretty close: there were twelve men fighting, but not each other—they were all fighting one woman.
Ariyl, cutlass in hand, was back, protecting the entrance to the cabin. The men were coming at her from the forward passageway, and from each side, but she was simply too fast for any of them to lay a blade on. Her sword flashed in her hands like quicksilver. She ducked one pirate’s swing and kicked his feet from under him, parried a second’s blow then punched him senseless with her free hand, knocked a third’s sword flying, grabbed its owner and flung him onto four more pirates.
“The ship is sinking, you fools!” she yelled as she fought. “Forget the treasure and save yourselves!”
It might have been good advice—if they’d jumped ship, it’s possible they might have survived—but their madness for gold trumped self-preservation. Neither deadly tempest nor unconquerable swordswoman would deter them.
I poked my head out the door.
“Need a hand?”
“As if! Get the boy!” Ariyl yelled. “Meet me at the boat!”
The next second, I ducked a thrown dirk that embedded in the door jamb. I yanked it out, then climbed out the window.
I crawled up the stern of the ship, jamming in the dagger like a piton when I couldn’t find a handhold. A big wave washed over the window below me, no doubt flooding the compartment—it nearly took me with it, but for my grip on the knife.
My hand grasped the top of the stern rail. I pulled myself up and over and lay panting on the deck.
My eyes stung from the spindrift—the salt spray blown straight from the wavetops by the gale’s force.
Then I spotted two fine leather shoes with silver buckles. I looked up—into the business end of Black Sam’s pistol.
“You,” he said to me, in a voice that sounded already dead. “I saw it in your eyes. You knew this storm would happen.”
There was no use lying. Especially not with a gun to my head.
“I knew.”
“How can such a thing be?”
“I come from the future. Three centuries from now.”
“Centuries,” he repeated, numb. “Then you are like...Nostradamus?”
Black Sam was obviously well-read. I nodded.
He turned it over in his mind.
“Then you may know whether or not I will die tonight.”
“It is not allowed to tell a man his fate.”
He pressed the gun to my temple
“I can tell you yours, should you refuse me. And if I die tonight, ’twill not matter what you tell me.”
“You’re right. It won’t matter now. You die tonight.”
The color drained from his face. He looked like he was going to take me with him.
“But millions will know your story,” I added. “Parents will tell your tale to their children, and quote your brave words.”
He lit up with the manic smile of righteous rage.
“The blazes you say,” hissed Bellamy. “Damn my blood, I’m no sniveling whelp to roll over and drown! Now I know what’s coming, I’ve a fightin’ chance! We’ll hit the sand, prow first!”
He dashed to the fo’c’sle and roared to his crew.
“Grab the axes, damn ye! Cut the anchor lines! Prepare to come about!”
Men raced to the bow with machetes and hatchets and started hacking at the huge ropes.
“Make all sail! Hard to starboard!” bellowed Bellamy above the howling of the storm. “Where the bloody hell is John Julian?”
Unnoticed in the general frenzy, Ariyl came up from below, carrying the unconscious Julian and Davis over her shoulders. Apparently she’d won the sword battle. She strode to the dory, laid the men in it, and began to lash their wrists together.
“Where’s the boy?” she demanded.
“I’m on my way,” I said, heading for the captain’s cabin. I was sure he’d go back there.
Suddenly, eight pirates who’d survived the battle swarmed up the ladder from the hold, led by the Ben Gunn sound-alike.
“There be the witch! We have her now!”
They surrounded us at the boat.
I drew my sword and joined her battling them.
One pirate aimed a pistol at her and fired, but the spindrift doused the flash even as it went off in the pan. His shot fizzled.
“Have you forgotten the treasure?” I yelled at them.
“Hang the treasure! She ran through four of my mates! Now it be personal!”
Ariyl grabbed the sword from my hand.
“I got this!” she yelled. “Go!”
I went...ducking under the swords as she fought them two-handed.
When I entered the cabin, the place was awash with seawater. I found John King balancing on his soggy cot, sobbing, trying to rehang the half-hourglass.
“John, the ship is lost! Come with me and you can live!”
I held out my hand. He pulled his knife again.
“I’ll see you in hell first!” he cried.
The next second the entire ship lurched violently as we ran aground, stern first. Everything was thrown against the stern bulkhead. Including me.
My head hit hard just below the broken windows. And something massive smashed through the doorway, partway collapsing the deck.
It took a second to clear my vision and realize what had happened: one of the heaviest cannons had broken loose from the gun deck and hurtled through the bulkhead, missing me by inches, to jam itself against the deck—pinning the boy’s foot beneath it.
He thrashed in vain to get free.
“Get me loose!” he screamed.
“Hang on, John!” I yelled. I grabbed the cannon and strained with all my might, but I couldn’t budge the cast-iron monster. It weighed a ton at least. Water from the wave burst through the rest of the windows and washed around us as I strained.
“Ariyl!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. “Help us!”
The hurricane howl was the only reply.
Sloshing around the cabin was a broken section of timber. I jammed it under the cannon next to John’s foot.
“When I lift this, slide your foot out!”
I put my back against the plank and my feet against the nearest bulkhead, and pushed with all my might. I shrieked with the strain.
More water gushed in the windows. We were up to our chins in freezing brine now, and I could tell it would fill the cabin.
“Deep breath!” I yelled. We both gulped in air before the rising water washed over our heads, completely flooding the compartment. For an agonizing minute we held our breath, then the wave passed by, the water drained from the cabin and we could suck in more air.
I gave one last powerful push with my legs.
The plank broke. I cursed a blue streak. Then I screamed for Ariyl one last time.
Outside the shattered windows the sea drew back, towards the bow. Another huge wave was coming.
“For God’s sake, mister!” sobbed the boy. “Don’t let me drown!” I drew my sword from its scabbard.
“I won’t,” I said. “Close your eyes.”