by Noah Harris
Hiro Watanabe turned, his hand on his strangely-made sword, fire in his eyes.
Osier put a hand on his shoulder. “Ignore them. Many a man thinks thus of us, but few would dare say it to our faces. See how quickly they are walking away? It is themselves they insult.”
Hiro muttered something in the language of his homeland and allowed himself to be led away.
Thomas let out a breath of relief. He did not want to get in a fight in such a place. He had brought along his cutlass and knife as a precaution, but he had left his musket and pistol on the ship. Several of his party carried guns and all carried their swords. Osier had a huge blunderbuss strapped to his back. Despite this, Thomas worried that perhaps they had come underprepared. The other crews looked armed to the teeth.
They turned a corner onto a quieter street of private homes. This appeared to be a good part of town with houses that looked prosperous and well built. A large stone building of two stories capped the end of the row, surrounded by a wall topped with spikes.
“I take it that’s the Weasel’s residence?” Thomas asked.
“When he’s feeling confident,” Lafayette replied. “Much of the time he lives in the fort at the entrance to the harbor. He has many enemies, as you might imagine.”
“This settlement is nicer than I imagined. Except for the ruffians in the street, it would not look out of place in Kent.”
“Most of this place is a vile den, as you will no doubt see,” Seamus said. “We’re in the finest part of town. The Hope and Anchor is the most expensive tavern in Cutlass Cove. Only the best when you have a full purse, eh?”
“The food is as delicious as the ass of a willing man,” Azenkua added.
They took another turn to a short lane that ended in a large, single-story building. The windows were all thrown open to the warm evening, and the sound of a fiddle and drum came from within.
Inside they found a merry crew of men occupying most of the tables. From how they clustered in different groups, Thomas could tell they were from three different ships. The largest table, at the center of the room, was taken up by a score of boisterous Spaniards, while a smaller mixed group occupied another table, and four dour-looking Englishmen sat in the corner. A long bar took up part of one wall, where the portly tavern keeper made a brisk trade in beer and rum. On one side of the room, a sweating cook turned an entire pig on a spit over the fire. The rich smell almost made Thomas swoon. In the corner, on an unusually high chair that reached almost to the ceiling and was accessed by a ladder, a keen-eyed man sat with a blunderbuss in his lap and four pistols hanging from holsters on the arms of his chair. Apparently, the innkeeper didn’t feel his earnings would be safe in a tavern full of pirates.
The shore party of the Manhunter found a large round table in a corner near the hearth. Every man ordered a large mug of beer and some of the pig. The server also brought a huge bowl filled with what every sailor craves when just getting off his ship—fresh fruit. Everyone dug into the fruit.
Osier stared at Thomas with a disapproving look.
“What?” Thomas asked around a mouthful of pineapple.
“You have a lot to learn,” the burly man said in a level voice.
“What do you mean?”
“The way you are sitting,” Lafayette put in.
“How am I sitting wrong? After my initiation, it’s a miracle I can sit at all.”
“You have your back to the room,” Hiro explained.
It was only then that Thomas noticed his companions had arranged themselves only on the half of the table closest to the corner, so that each man had his back facing the wall and could look out on the room and see what the men of the other ships were doing. Thomas, on the other hand, sat with his back to the room. He edged around closer to the others.
“Is this place really that dangerous?” he asked.
Seamus nodded. “It is really that dangerous.”
They were almost through their supper before a burst of gunfire proved Thomas’s shipmates had told the truth. A flare of musketry filled the door, and both windows and the Spaniards sitting at the central jerked and fell, their blood spraying everywhere.
Thomas threw himself on the floor as a second volley followed the first. This came not from the window but the four Englishmen sitting in the far corner. Two fired at the guard sitting in the high chair, who toppled to the floor with a thud. The other two shot the bartender just as he was pulling a blunderbuss from under the counter. The cook leapt out the nearest window as a shot narrowly missed him.
Thomas didn’t see what happened next because his shipmates picked up the table and threw it on its side, erecting it as cover.
As the group drew their guns, Thomas peeked over the table. Pirates swarmed through the open door, wielding cutlasses and axes. The Englishmen at the other table took a cue from the crew of the Manhunter and overturned their own table to create a barrier.
“Don’t interfere, and you won’t get killed!” some of the intruders shouted as their comrades descended on the dying Spaniards and finished them off.
“Listen to them, lads,” Osier grunted. “This is none of our affair.”
Nevertheless, he had his blunderbuss cocked and ready.
For a minute, all was tense and quiet in the room. The gritty tang of gun smoke wafted through the air, mingling strangely with the rich smell of the roast pig. The attackers glowered at the two crews behind their separate tables, guns leveled. Osier kept his blunderbuss out of sight behind the wood but was poised to bring it into action in an instant. The other pirates of the Manhunter had guns ready, too. Thomas cursed himself for not bringing his pistol along.
Daring another peek around the table, Thomas saw a few pirates rummaging through the pockets of the dead Spaniards while the others stood guard. They appeared to be looking for something in particular. While they took any money they came across, they seemed in too much of a hurry to strip the corpses of rings or weapons or any other such valuables. Instead they gave each body an impatient yet thorough search.
“What are they doing?” Thomas whispered.
“Mind your own business and hope we get out of this alive,” Osier whispered back.
The sound of distant firing came through the window.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asked.
No one answered because no one knew. The attackers finished searching the bodies.
“It’s not here,” one of them said to a man who seemed to be in charge, a wild-eyed man with a forked beard.
“It should be, damn it! Look again.”
“We’ve already looked everywhere.”
The leader turned and glared at the other pirates in the room.
“Any of you pick one of their pockets? If you did, hand it over and you won’t be hurt.”
Silence. The leader raised his pistol but did not point it.
“It’s a leather tube, like for a spyglass but smaller. Give it here and I’ll pay you a dozen pieces of eight.”
Still no response.
“All right, lads, we’re going to search you.”
“Like hell you will!” a man crouched behind the other table shouted.
“We won’t take a thing but what we came for,” the leader said, leveling his pistol at the man who spoke. “But we’re going to go through all your pockets whether you like it or not.”
Thomas glanced at Osier, unsure what to do. These men outnumbered both other crews combined, and they were more heavily armed.
Osier looked uncertain, too, but he never got the time to come to a decision, because as the pirates moved in on the other crew, the jumpy man who had said he wouldn’t be searched leveled a pair of pistols and shot down the two nearest pirates.
Suddenly, the tavern roared with gunfire. Thomas ducked behind the table. Bullets thudded off the table and blood sprayed on his face as one of his shipmates took a headshot. Thomas grabbed an unfired pistol from the man’s holster and cocked it.
He popped up from behind the
table and shot the first man he saw, someone who was just charging at him with a cutlass in each hand.
The man took the bullet in the gut and doubled over, slamming into the floor headfirst with an audible crack. Thomas ducked down again as someone fired at him, splintering the wood inches from his face.
“Let’s get out of here!” Osier shouted as another of their shipmates was felled. “Make for the back room behind the bar. There’s a rear door.”
Hiro was the first up, leaping nimbly over the table, brandishing that strange sword.
He became a whirlwind of death, swirling through the pirates as his blade flashed and cut. The steel was fantastically sharp. His first swipe took an arm clean off at the shoulder. His next took off a man’s hand, and an instant later he nearly decapitated a third man, the neck yawning backwards like a giant bloody mouth.
Hiro’s shipmates weren’t far behind. Seamus cut a man down, but Thomas saw no more because he came face to face with the fork-bearded pirate leader, a smoking pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. Thomas parried a swing and then dodged back as the leader tried to brain him with the heavy barrel of the pistol.
Thomas cut and thrust, finding the man as expert in sword work as he was. He gritted his teeth in frustration. All he wanted to do was get out of this damned tavern and away from this fight that he wasn’t part of and didn’t understand. He tried edging towards the bar, but the man blocked his way. Thomas didn’t have time to see how the others fared. He didn’t dare take his eyes off this fellow for an instant.
The pirate leader’s next attack nearly got through, but his opponent overextended himself and a hard parry put him off balance for a second.
That was all Thomas needed. He cut low, gashing the man across the knee. As his opponent crumpled, Thomas hacked at his neck with all his strength, wrenched the blade free, and ran for all he was worth.
The others came with him, swarming over the bar and into a back room filled with kegs and boxes. Thomas noted that they were missing a couple more men. Seamus and Lafayette both bled from slight wounds but managed to keep up. He didn’t have time to see if anyone else was injured.
Osier led them, his cutlass dripping with blood and gun smoke billowing out of the blunderbuss that he had slung across his back. Thomas swore that the man looked bigger—hairier—and when he spoke, his voice came out more as a growl.
“Back door!” he said.
They found it quick enough. Osier didn’t even bother seeing if it was unlocked. He simply ran at it full speed and shattered it to kindling.
They were out in the night air but not yet free. As the last man came out of the back door into the unlit yard behind, there was the thud of a musket from inside. The man threw up his arms and let out a cry, then fell face-first to the ground, stone dead.
“Run!” Osier said. This was no time for vengeance. They were outnumbered and outgunned.
A rickety fence enclosed the yard, but that didn’t stop Osier, either. Once again, he ran at the obstruction, smashing it with the full force of his broad shoulder. Boards flew apart and left room enough for two men to exit abreast.
The crew wasted no time in doing so. Another couple of shots rang out behind them. Hiro clapped his hand on his shoulder, staggered, but did not fall.
They ran into a neighboring yard opening to a narrow lane. They cut left, hoping to elude their pursuers. Houses stood all around, their windows shuttered, their lamps quickly snuffed out. Their occupants were hiding, watching, no doubt with weapons at the ready. The crew could expect no help in this town.
They could hear other gun battles in the night. The loudest lay not far off in the direction of the main street. Another, fainter, sounded close to the port. A third could be heard far inland, only audible when there was a lull in the other two battles.
“What the hell is going on?” Thomas demanded.
“No idea,” Seamus said, clutching his side where a bullet had grazed him. “At least one crew is getting rid of the crew of the Guerrero, that Spanish ship we saw anchored not far from the portside of the Manhunter.”
“But why?”
Seamus shook his head and kept on running. No one else volunteered a thought, either.
“There they are!” someone shouted from the end of the lane. The call was answered by a volley, the muzzles of a dozen muskets and pistols flaring brightly in the unlit back road. The man next to Thomas jerked back with a cough as a bullet punctured his throat and sent a burst of gore out the back of his neck. Lafayette grunted and doubled over. Two of his comrades grabbed him before he fell and carried him into the shelter of an alley between two houses.
More bullets chased them, but they were moving again, and the shadows deepened.
They stopped for a moment at the far side of the houses to peek out before sprinting across the street to another alley. A little cluster of buildings with narrow spaces between them surrounded the crew. They paused for a moment to catch their breath.
“We should reload,” Hiro said.
“No time,” Azenkua replied. “And too dark to measure our powder correctly.”
“Those bastards have no shortage of guns,” Osier said. “They came well prepared for a slaughter.”
A soft step to their left warned them pursuit was near. They had just enough time to duck away from the opening of that alley before a musket thudded, its ball planting into a wooden beam.
“Let’s go!”
Thomas ran, keeping low. Several more gunshots followed, and he heard someone cry out. He ran out onto a wider street with open fields beyond and cursed his ill luck until he saw a thicket of bushes. The sound of running feet built up close behind him. In his terror, he didn’t even look to see if it was friend or foe.
Only when he got to the dubious safety of the thicket did sense return and he spun around, cutlass at the ready. A dark shape loomed up in front of him, towering over him and gripping a huge blade.
Thomas took a step back, but then the familiar, sensuous musk wafted over him. He shivered and recognized Osier.
“Get in the bushes!” the officer growled in a voice far lower than any man’s should be.
He added force to the command by clasping Thomas’s shoulder, spinning him around like a rag doll, and shoving him into the thicket.
They threw themselves down in the densest part.
“Where are the others?” Thomas whispered.
“Got split up,” Osier husked. He lay next to Thomas, his bulky body giving off waves of heat. The smell of the musk was almost overpowering. Thomas could feel a powerful erection in his pants and began to rub against the soft earth. The werebear panted heavily, his hot breath hitting Thomas’s neck like a tropical wind. Osier made little snarling noises and hit the ground with his meaty fist.
“Are you all right?” Thomas asked in a low voice.
“The change,” Osier grunted. “One of the bastards hit me in the face with the butt of his musket. Pain brought it out.”
“Try to keep quiet.” He tried to make this sound like a polite suggestion. He didn’t dare make it a command.
Four dark figures moved cautiously down the lane not far from the edge of the field where they hid in the thicket. Clouds had covered the moon, and Thomas had trouble making out the figures. He could see enough to tell they all carried cutlasses, though. Pistols too.
The figures appeared to be searching, peering into the gloom.
“Some ran this way, I could swear it,” one whispered. It was no voice Thomas recognized.
Osier started breathing more heavily, and Thomas put a timid hand on his shoulder.
“They’re gone,” another one of the figures said. “No way we’ll find them in this murk. Let’s just hope they’re not the ones who have it, or the captain will have our heads.”
“Silence,” another hissed. “What’s that?”
The pirates stood not twenty paces from the bushes. The darkness and the bushes concealed Thomas and Osier, but once the men had stopped
talking, the werebear’s breathing could be heard loud and clear.
“Is that an animal?” one of them asked in a hushed voice.
Osier’s shoulder tensed under Thomas’s hand. The muscles bunched and hardened, and he would have sworn that they grew. A long, low, bestial growl rumbled out of his throat.
“What the hell?” one of their pursuers said.
That was the last thing he ever said, for in the next moment, Osier leapt up and charged out of the thicket with a roar.
Two men fled. The other two held their ground, one firing a panicked shot that went wild and the other raising his cutlass.
The man with the cutlass died first. Osier’s own blade swung down, and with an ear-splitting clang, both weapons shattered. Osier barely took a moment to recover, using the stub end of jagged steel that remained in his grip to gut the fellow from crotch to sternum. The other man thrust at Osier with his own blade, but the werebear was far too fast. A backhanded swing took the man’s arm off at the elbow.
Then, with a loping gait that ate up the ground, he ran after the two who had fled.
Thomas tried to catch up, but by the time he did, the fight was all over. Osier hacked one man’s skull nearly in half, and when the remnants of his blade snapped again from the blow, he leapt on the other man with his bare hands. The pirate wailed as Osier raised the man entirely over his head and brought him down on his knee, snapping his back with a sickening crack.
Osier tossed him aside and let out an animalistic bellow to the sky.
Thomas skidded to a stop just out of reach. Osier was noticeably bigger now, filling out his garments that had always hung so loosely on him. Thomas recalled that except for Captain Seawolf, all the lycanthropes wore clothes too big for them. Now he saw why.
Osier rounded on him, glaring at him with glittering eyes and letting out a snarl. Thomas took a step back.
“Osier, it’s me. Thomas. I’m one of your shipmates.”
The werebear studied him, his hot breath sending prickles down Thomas’s spine.
“You’re safe with me,” Thomas added.
Osier let out a long, slow breath. He seemed to shrink a little, and the deadly glare in his eyes eased up. Distant shouts made them both turn. Osier raised his hands and looked like he was about to charge in that direction.