The Lost Prince

by Matt Myklusch

“He’ll get no such pardon from me.” Ralian advanced with his sword once more, but this time the guards disarmed him and held him tight. “No! This is madness! He’s ruined us. He’s ruined everything!”

  Ralian struggled to break free of the guards’ grasp like a maniac, which was exactly what he was. His arrogant, unruffled facade had been shed like a second skin to reveal the madman beneath.

  “Did his sons really try to kill you?” asked Verrick, eyeing him with a mix of pity and contempt.

  “Every chance they got,” Dean said. “But that doesn’t matter right now. Only Waverly matters.”

  “Do you really think you can get her back?” asked Lord Kray.

  “I’m going to get her back,” Dean said. “Her and the orchard. There’s an able-bodied crew tied up outside. All we need to do is cut them loose.”

  The regent looked at the Pirate Youth. “They’ll follow you into the storm?”

  “There’s a boy on that ship who killed their captain,” Ronan said. “They’re not about to let that slide.”

  “It’s time to square things, once and for all,” Dean said. “We just have to make one stop on the way.”

  “A stop?” Ronan asked.

  “That’s right. I’ve got a plan.”

  CHAPTER 33

  TURNING THE TIDE

  A crew of fifty hit the waves on board the Tideturner, all of them members of the Pirate Youth. Verrick took the helm, with Ronan serving as first mate. Dean escorted the ship on his kiteboard, scouting ahead. The Tideturner raced across the water, riding the wind toward dark skies. Rough seas forced Dean back on board the ship, but the weather was the least of his worries. One-Eyed Jack was nowhere in sight.

  Were they already too late?

  “She’s going to kill you,” Ronan told Dean as he climbed back on board. “You know that, right?”

  Dean looked out over the side and hauled in his kiteboard sail. “No. She understands me.”

  A mighty wave rocked the ship and almost knocked Dean back into the sea.

  “The storm’s just beginning,” Verrick said, pointing at the inclement horizon. “Another day and the squall will be impossible to penetrate, but now …”—he bit his lip and gauged the wind—“we still have a chance. Provided these boys are fit to crew the ship.”

  “Fit to crew the ship?” Ronan repeated, incredulous.

  Dean put a hand up to keep Ronan’s temper in check. “Mark me, Verrick. The Pirate Youth are up to the task.”

  Verrick gripped the wheel as a bolt of lightning ran a jagged streak from the clouds to the water. “I hope so. Treacherous waters lie ahead.”

  “I’ve sailed them before,” said Ronan. “It’s not the water that worries me, but what lies beneath. Here there be monsters.”

  “I know,” Dean said. He slapped the Tideturner’s gunwale. “Here too.”

  Thunder boomed as the Tideturner reached the edge of the storm, and Dean got a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was so loud, it sounded like mountains splitting in half and crumbling into the ocean. The ship crossed an invisible line in the water, and the sun ran for cover, blown out of sight by a wind strong enough to strip flesh from bone. If this was what the storm was like when it was ramping up, Dean had no desire to see it at full strength. High seas pitched the ship up and down. Rain fell as if fired from tiny muskets. Waves pounded the hull like solid rock and immediately transformed into wild rivers that blanketed the deck. Through it all, the Pirate Youth scurried to and fro, manning their posts, holding the ship together. Ronan barked out orders just as he had done on board the Reckless. Despite the storm, and perhaps thanks in part to its furious winds, the Tideturner made excellent time. The ship forged ahead, gaining ground on One-Eyed Jack’s Black Fleet. Verrick kept the wheel steady, clearly impressed with the crew.

  “I told you,” Dean said. “Cut this lot and they bleed saltwater.”

  Verrick shook his head. “They just don’t have the good sense to be afraid. When you’re young, you think you’re invincible. Small wonder you’re all willing to chase a whole fleet out here.”

  “It’s not the fleet we want. There’s just one ship we’re after.”

  “Maelstrom ahoy!” shouted Kane from up atop the crow’s nest.

  Dean’s head whipped around. He shot a spyglass to his eyes. “I’ve got them.” The Maelstrom was still in the thick of the storm. From the looks of things, One-Eyed Jack had kept every tree from the pilfered orchard on board his ship. “I knew it! They’re moving slow, carrying a heavy load. I knew he wouldn’t trust a twig of that cargo to anyone else.”

  “What about the other ships?” Verrick asked.

  Dean’s eyes swept the horizon. One-Eyed Jack’s fleet was clearing the mist and escaping to safety. He lowered the spyglass. “No. They’re all either gone or close to it.”

  “No escort?

  “None to speak of. His fleet’s too busy fleeing the storm to help him. Even if they weren’t, I’ll wager they spent every ounce of shot they had shelling the island. It’s just him and us.”

  The winds howled. Verrick fought the wheel to keep it steady.

  “You seem strangely confident, Your Grace. In this case, he is a first-rate English man-of-war—a hundred-and-ten-gun warship.”

  Dean raised an eyebrow. The Your Graces were back now that he was the prince again. He had no desire for such honorifics, but he let it go. “It was a hundred-and-ten-gun ship, Verrick. Have a look.” He handed over the spyglass. “A hundred trees on deck … how much do you think that weighs? He had to lighten his load somewhere.”

  Verrick peered through the eyehole and focused the lens. A moment later, he looked up from the glass as if he’d been given a gift. “The gun ports are all empty.”

  “With that much cargo, he had to cast off his artillery to stay afloat.” A wave crashed down on the deck, and Dean grabbed hold of the rigging to keep his footing. “Especially in this weather! It’ll just be our crew against his. Hand to hand, steel to steel. Ronan, is the boarding party ready?”

  “Just about,” Ronan called back.

  “Tell them to hurry!”

  “Maybe you want to tell them yourself?”

  Dean looked at the crew gearing up for battle. They looked just as tough as they had the day they first met, when they had chased him through the streets of Bartleby Bay. He left them to their work. Dean looked through the spyglass again and set his sights on the Maelstrom. He saw One-Eyed Jack shouting orders at his men, and Scurvy Gill enforcing them. The pirate crew struggled to fight the storm on board the Maelstrom’s crowded deck. They were none too pleased to be caught in the Bermuda Triangle’s fabled tempest. Unless Dean missed his guess, every man jack of them was scared stiff.

  Good. We can use that.

  Dean scanned the ship from stem to stern, but he didn’t see Waverly anywhere. He had hoped to find her on deck, but it made sense that One-Eyed Jack would keep her stowed somewhere below. She had to be down there. One-Eyed Jack wouldn’t part with his hostage any more than he would his coveted treasure.

  The Tideturner, slender sloop that it was, sped onward through the storm like a shark chasing a whale. One-Eyed Jack’s leviathan was less than one hundred feet away when Ronan walked up, holding a kiteboard and sail. “All set,” he reported. “Now or never.”

  “Now for us, and never again for them,” Dean replied. He clapped Verrick on the shoulder. “We’ll leave you enough men to sail the ship home. Best get yourself out of here. Before conditions get any worse.”

  Verrick bristled at the thought of leaving. “I’m not going anywhere. I set all this in motion when I brought you to Zenhala. You’d best believe I’ll see it through to the end.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Dean said. “You didn’t set this in motion; One-Eyed Jack did. There’s nothing more you can do out here. You can’t fire on the Maelstrom. Suppose you sink it? Then what? You lose your trees again. We have to take that ship, Verrick. Make no mistake, this ends one of two ways.” He poi
nted at their target. “We come back on board that vessel, or not at all.”

  Verrick grunted. “I don’t like it. You’re children going up against grown men. You saw what they did to the island. They’re a cutthroat crew, hard as coffin nails.”

  “That may be,” Dean said. “But hard men soften up once you scare them out of their pants.”

  “It’s what we do,” Ronan added. “We do it well.”

  Verrick looked at the crew with their face paint, skull masks, and kiteboard rigs. They had swords on their belts and clubs in their hands. A handful of them were staying behind to help crew the Tideturner. The rest were getting ready to fly. Dean buckled a sail harness around his waist as they closed in on the Maelstrom. “This is your prince talking now, Verrick. Go home. You’ve done your part.”

  A look of reluctant acquiescence came over Verrick’s face, and he bowed his head toward Dean. “As you command, Your Grace.”

  Dean reached out to shake Verrick’s hand. “I told you to call me Dean.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “It is.”

  Verrick took Dean’s hand in his and gave a hearty shake. “Godspeed, Dean.”

  Dean joined the other young raiders on the gunwales. “Are you ready, lads?” he shouted. The Pirate Youth gave a mighty cheer. Dean stuck his fingers in his mouth and blew out an earsplitting whistle. The snapdragon surfaced off the starboard bow and gave a high-pitched howl in reply.

  Verrick backed up off the helm as the beast emerged from the water. He caught himself mid-step and stayed put to keep the wheel steady. “That one’s going to take some getting used to!” he said. Dean smiled as the snapdragon raced alongside the ship. They were ready for battle. All of them.

  Ronan shrugged at Dean. “I guess she does understand you.”

  Dean grinned a devil’s grin. “Let’s go to war.”

  CHAPTER 34

  RIDERS ON THE STORM

  Dean caught the wind in his sail and leapt out into the abyss.

  Ronan and the others followed, screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Dean figured some of them shouted to instill fear, while others worked to overcome it. For his part, he felt a strange sense of peace as he rode the storm into battle. A single-minded vision of what he had to do seized his brain, refusing to allow any thoughts that might distract from his mission.

  He flew across the waves like a vengeful spirit, chasing down the wicked. He knew in the eyes of One-Eyed Jack’s crew, that was exactly what he and his mates would look like. Every bloodstained hand on board the Maelstrom was a death-dealing snake, but under the dark stormy skies, in their skull masks and makeup, the Pirate Youth looked like a fate worse than death. They dive-bombed the deck, a wild pack of howling wraiths. The snapdragon looped around the ship, screaming with fury. One-Eyed Jack’s men ran for cover.

  So far, so good.

  Dean hit the deck and drew a sword. It was a well-known fact that pirates—and all men of the sea, really—were superstitious creatures. Dean had counted on that, and the crew of the Maelstrom didn’t disappoint. How could they? They were sailing in the Bermuda Triangle—waters that had been a cursed, stormy grave for more sailors than a man could count. They were under siege from a sea serpent and skull-faced raiders straight out of their worst nightmares. The Pirate Youth preyed on those fears as they ran around the Maelstrom, terrorizing its crew. It was the same scam that Gentleman Jim’s boys had run for years now, but their secret was as safe as ever. Dean watched with pleasure as the toughest crew in the Black Fleet begged for mercy from children half their age.

  “Ghosts!”

  “Don’t take me! Please!”

  “I want me mum!”

  Only Rook knew the truth of what was going on. “Stand and fight, ya cowards!” He stamped his feet, hollering at his new shipmates. “Stand and fight! They’re not ghosts. It’s just my old crew!”

  The snapdragon whipped its tail into the side of the ship, and a row of splintered railing flew into Rook. When he picked himself up off the deck, he saw Dean and Ronan standing before him. For someone who had just been shouting about a lack of ghosts on deck, Rook sure looked like he’d seen one.

  “How about you, Rook?” asked Ronan. “You going to stand and fight?”

  When he saw the fire in Ronan’s eyes, Rook backed away. The craven pirate ran scrambling up the rigging to the yardarms.

  Dean threw Ronan a crooked grin. “Happy hunting.”

  As Ronan climbed after Rook, Dean went off in search of Waverly.

  He ran across the ship, bobbing and weaving his way around dozens of one-sided skirmishes as the Pirate Youth overwhelmed the Maelstrom. Dean watched them execute surgical strikes with methodical, calculated moves that took away their opponents’ advantages. The Pirate Youth were smaller and weaker, but smarter and faster. They worked their way across the ship, wielding clubs and blackjacks—items that served as great equalizers in any fight. As their prey cowered before the bogus, ghostly front they presented, the young pirates blindsided them and bound them up tight. They attacked in teams, and before One-Eyed Jack’s men even knew what had hit them, the Pirate Youth moved on to the next target.

  With the pirate crew occupied, Dean kept after his quarry. He had his head on a swivel, searching out Waverly and One-Eyed Jack.

  His first stop was the captain’s cabin.

  It was empty.

  Dean moved to the brig.

  Empty.

  All around him, terrified pirates were fleeing artificial apparitions. Dean found a man hiding in a galley cupboard. “Got another one in here!” he shouted.

  “No!” the man pleaded, closing himself back up in his hiding place.

  The Pirate Youth kicked the doors in and dragged him out.

  Dean continued his search, getting more and more worked up with every empty cabin he found.

  Where is she?

  Eventually, Dean came to the ship’s magazine, which held all its powder and shot. The Maelstrom’s stores were very much depleted, but that hardly mattered. The ship had neither guns left to fire nor steady hands to man them.

  Dean heard a pistol click behind him. He hit the deck.

  The shot missed by a wide margin but found the next-best target. The musket ball ignited a half-full powder keg, and the resulting explosion was big enough to blow a hole in the roof. Dean cried out as a broadside of wooden shrapnel turned him into a pincushion. He had a good idea who was responsible—the one man on board who wouldn’t be going down without a fight. When the smoke cleared, Dean looked over the burning embers of wood fragments and saw One-Eyed Jack. He tossed his gun away and drew a cutlass from his belt. “You don’t know when to quit, do you, boy?”

  Dean got up, racked with pain. He had covered himself in time to avoid serious injury, but there wasn’t an inch of skin on his back without a splinter. He held out his blade, the tip pointed squarely at One-Eyed Jack. “The girl. I want her back.”

  One-Eyed Jack and Dean circled each other, stepping over flickering patches of fire. Rain poured in from overhead, beating down the flames, but not extinguishing them. “Making demands, are we, Seaborne?”

  “Aye,” he said. “That I am.”

  “Sorry. I already tossed her overboard.”

  Dean growled. “If that’s true, you’ll be going over next. There’s a sea serpent out there licking its chops for you. I hear you’re scared of them.”

  “You see me quaking?” One-Eyed Jack swung his sword at Dean, hard and fast. Dean got his cutlass up in time to block, and their blades clashed. “I saw that water snake you brought with you. You call that a sea serpent?” One-Eyed Jack pulled back and brought the sword around again, this time harder than before. Dean countered, but the blow knocked him back a few paces. One-Eyed Jack charged forward and went at Dean again. He turned the thrust aside, but One-Eyed Jack came right back with another blow. He gave no quarter. Dean would have been chopped into fish bait if One-Eyed Jack’s attacks weren’t so sloppy. They came in big sweepi
ng motions that betrayed every move before he made it. Dean met his blade and deflected it every time, but crossing swords with One-Eyed Jack took its toll. Like a castle gate stopping a battering ram, sooner or later it had to give. Jack was too strong. He was bigger, meaner, and fought dirty to boot. Dean parried his latest advance, but One-Eyed Jack stomped on his foot and pushed. Dean fell back. One-Eyed Jack raised his sword high in the air like a black-hooded executioner. Dean thought he was dead, but he heard a mighty thunk, and One-Eyed Jack’s hands flew forward without his blade. The killing blow had been halted by a wooden beam in the ceiling. One-Eyed Jack stumbled forward and stepped on the flat of Dean’s sword, denying him the use of it. His own cutlass remained trapped in the ceiling behind him. Dean sprang up empty-handed as One-Eyed Jack went after him with his fists. Dean grabbed a loose board to block a punch, and One-Eyed Jack smashed right through it. Dean tossed the broken pieces away and kept moving.

  “Stand still, boy. I promise I’ll end you quick.”

  He swung a looping right hook that Dean ducked under easily, but it was a feint that left him open to an attack from the other side. The pirate grabbed Dean by the collar and held him fast. “I should have killed you years ago. This is what I get for being charitable.”

  Dean planted a foot on One-Eyed Jack’s leg, swung the other on his chest, and ran up the man like a ramp. When he got to his face, he pushed off hard and flipped backward out of his grasp.

  “Agh!” One-Eyed Jack bellowed. “Get back here!” He threw a knife at Dean, but missed. He threw another. That missed as well.

  “You’re rusty,” Dean taunted. “Too many years of Scurvy Gill throwing knives for you.” He grabbed One-Eyed Jack’s sword from the ceiling and slipped in behind him. Dean slashed at One-Eyed Jack’s back, drawing blood and cutting away his gun belt and knives. One-Eyed Jack spun around like lighting, catching Dean’s face with the back of his fist. It was a reflex punch. Dean had no time to dodge it.

  “These hands are all I need for you.”