by Noah Harris
Thomas’s stomach clenched. There was nowhere to hide. That huge length of wood would crush at least one of them to a pulp.
As the werebear wound up for the throw, about to heave the fallen tree at them, Thomas pulled out his final pistol and in one fluid motion cocked it, aimed down its stubby barrel, and fired.
Osier froze. His eyes went wide.
The tree trunk fell with a thud.
Then, slowly, Osier sank to the ground.
The hair receded from his skin, and his hulking figure shrank to a human size. Thomas could clearly see a tidy hole of red in his chest. He had never thought he could have hit anything at that range.
Thomas found himself walking towards his enemy, his former mate. It was as if he were drawn to him.
By the time he made the twenty paces up the slope, Osier was all but dead. He had a bleary look to his eye and had trouble focusing on Thomas. He managed to choke out a few words.
“I thought you…cared.”
A tug of pity plucked at Thomas’s heart. “I would have, if you had,” he replied.
Radbert came up beside him. Osier turned to look at the German, then back at Thomas.
“I…did. But not enough.”
Osier closed his eyes and did not open them again.
Thomas had no time to sort out his feelings. One of the pirates peeked out of the cave entrance, and Radbert fired a pistol at him. The bullet pinged off the stone, and the man ducked back inside.
Thomas and Radbert split up, ducking out of the light of sight of the entrance and moving in to strike. Thomas glanced over his shoulder and saw the two mermen had followed, one behind each human.
No shots came from within. It seemed the few pirates who had survived Osier’s onslaught were unaware that Osier was dead. They were cowed. Thomas did not dare to hope that they would remain cowed for long.
Then another thought came to him. They weren’t even aware that Thomas and Osier were on opposing sides. They had never seen Thomas’s betrayal - a cut to the heart told Thomas he could call it nothing else - and so the pirates would assume he and Thomas were together outside the cave. Even Thomas’s last shot had probably gone unnoticed since the pirates had probably still been cowering in the back of the cave.
That gave Thomas an idea.
“Osier, cover the entrance and get ready!” Thomas said in a loud whisper. He hoped it had been loud enough for those hiding inside to hear.
He thought he heard sounds of movement within.
Radbert looked at him curiously for a moment, then understanding dawned in his eyes. Thomas motioned for the tritons to guard the entrance and whispered to Radbert to help him collect the guns lying scattered about.
First, Thomas went for Osier’s blunderbuss. Then he picked up a discarded pistol. Radbert collected a couple more pistols and a musket leaning against a nearby boulder that Thomas hadn’t seen. No doubt it had been the property of the sentry Osier had killed.
A tearing sound and a cry made him spin around. Another one of the pirates, braver than the rest, had dared a peek out of the entrance. The mermen dragged him out and raked him with their claws.
Someone inside the cave fired a shot, which missed, but no one else ventured out.
Thomas nodded with satisfaction. If they hadn’t been sufficiently afraid before, they sure were now.
Hurriedly, Thomas and Radbert reloaded their guns with a couple of powder horns left lying about. Then they approached the cave entrance.
Thomas made a quick peek around the corner and pulled back instantly as the flare of a musket nearly blinded him. The ball buzzed by his ear, missing by a hair.
Thomas let out a gust of air. “Well, they’re frightened but not that frightened.”
In the brief glimpse he had gotten of the cave’s interior, he’d seen that the pirates had retreated to around the sharp bend. He whispered this to Radbert. The tritons stood there, attentive, blood dripping from their talons, ready to help. Thomas wished he could make them understand the situation.
“We’re at a stalemate,” Radbert said. “Rushing in there would be suicide, and they can’t get out.”
“How many do you think are left?” Thomas asked.
Radbert shrugged. “Osier killed the sentry and at least four or five more. And our watery friends killed another.”
“And I killed three or four.”
Radbert blinked. “Then there could only be three or four left in there at most. Perhaps only one or two.”
“That doesn’t change the situation. We’re still at a stalemate.”
Thomas thought for a minute, knowing that he could not think long because eventually the pirates would grow bold. He looked at Radbert. “We have some time. If we hurry, we could get to the boat and sail off. We could forget about the treasure but still be safe.”
Radbert cocked his head. “And give up all that gold?”
Thomas had to smile. “No, I guess not. Perhaps I’m more pirate than I’d like to believe.”
Radbert gave him a grin and Thomas’s heart lightened. Then his former lover grew serious again. “But what do we do?” Radbert asked.
“If only we could get some advantage,” Thomas murmured.
Radbert brightened. “The powder horns,” he whispered. “Both are nearly full. We could combine them and make a bomb. Throw it in there and while they’re stunned, we’ll rush them.”
“Clever and sexy,” Thomas said. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”
Radbert blushed a little and turned away.
As the shifters guarded the entrance to the cave, Thomas and Radbert looked around for materials to make a bomb. They found the dried husk of a coconut that had fallen from a tree and cracked, and they used their knives to clean out the last of the damp fruit inside. Once it was dry enough that it would not affect the powder, they filled it partway with pebbles and most of the gunpowder. They tied off the opening with a strip of cloth taken from one of the bodies and lashed it all together with a dead man’s shoestring.
A call came from within the cave. “You out there, we wish to parley.”
Thomas rushed over to the cave entrance and without showing himself shouted, “Leave the cave and leave the treasure to us, and we’ll spare you.”
“Not a chance. We still outnumber you. You walk away. You can even take the longboat. We’ll make our own way off the island.”
“Not with the treasure, you won’t!”
There was silence for a moment. Then: “We wish to speak with Osier.”
Thomas licked his lips. “He’s still too changed. He’s out of his head. You’re lucky I can constrain him enough to keep him from rushing in there and rending you limb from limb.”
“If he tries it, he’ll get enough lead in him that even he will die.”
Thomas didn’t respond. He doubted that they still outnumbered him, and he seriously doubted they could have killed Osier with the weapons they had at hand, but it was best to let them think that he was nervous.
He rushed back to Radbert and the bomb. They didn’t have much time. The pirates wouldn’t stay in the cave for much longer. Soon enough, they would take a chance at breaking out.
Now came the tricky part—they had to make a fuse. For a minute, Thomas and Radbert were stumped but then they found a pipe in the pocket of one of the dead pirates. It was a simple clay pipe, a cheap one common to sailors and poor landlubbers alike. They snapped off the stem, bored a hole in one end of the coconut, and stuck the stem through, wrapping it firmly with a cloth to make a seal. Then they filled it with the last of the powder.
Thomas and Radbert inspected their handiwork and were glad Maggie wasn’t there to mock it. The master gunner would surely tell them what they already knew, that it was an amateurish effort that likely would not go off. If it didn’t go off, they’d just have to try something else. He only wished he knew what that something else would be.
They returned to the cave entrance. The mermen stared at the odd contraption in their ha
nds with open curiosity.
“At least they can’t speak,” Radbert said with a wry smile. “I wouldn’t want to know what they think our chances are.”
“Cover me while I throw this,” Thomas said. He raised his pistol next to the gunpowder-filled pipe stem, intending on firing the gun and hoping the sparks would ignite the fuse. Radbert readied his musket. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”
They leapt around the cave entrance. Thomas had a brief glimpse of someone ducking back around the corner, and then Radbert fired.
Thomas fired a moment later and threw the coconut. To his joy, the fuse sparked up, catching just as he hoped it would. They ducked back out of the cave.
And heard nothing.
Thomas glanced inside again, then ducked back as he saw one of the pirates peeking around the turn in the passageway. He’d seen enough. “The fuse fell out of the bomb,” he said.
Radbert rolled his eyes. “You mean the pipe fell out of the coconut. Let me handle this.”
He yanked another pistol out of his belt, cocked it, and leapt into the opening, falling to one knee as he aimed.
That maneuver saved his life, because a shot rang out from inside the cave and Thomas swore he saw Radbert’s hair part.
Radbert fired.
The cave belched gritty smoke and a loud roar. Radbert got knocked off his feet.
Thomas did not have time to check on him. With the blunderbuss in his grip, he charged into the cave.
He could see nothing. The smoke stung his eyes and rasped his throat. Moving by memory, he stumbled into the cave. He bumped against a wall, blinked at the smoke, and saw through the haze the vague outline of the turn in the passageway. A flying cinder got in one of his eyes and he had to close it, welling with tears. With the remaining eye, he found his way through the writhing smoke and around the corner and saw two pirates just picking themselves off the floor.
And then he saw nothing more, because grit got in his one good eye.
Desperately, he wiped at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, knowing with sickening clarity that he stood fully exposed in front of the two pirates. He could only pray that they were similarly blinded.
He tried to open his eyes once more, failed, rubbed them again, and managed to open one.
That was good enough to aim a blunderbuss. One man stood not two paces into front of him, facing his direction but rubbing his eyes with both hands. The other leaned against the wall, stunned. He spotted Thomas, his face going slack and his mouth opening to shout a warning just as Thomas pulled the trigger.
The blunderbuss boomed, raking both men with shot and spraying blood throughout the passage.
Thomas drew his cutlass, ran down the cave, still blinking at the grit and the smoke, and rounded another corner where a lantern stood to light his way.
And stopped in shock.
The cave dead-ended. The floor was dirt, and there was a low pit surrounded with loosened earth. In front of the pit stood two large chests, opened and gleaming with gold.
In front of the gold stood Paddy.
He had a cutlass in his fist and a look of rage on his face. He had not been stunned or blinded by the blast.
Paddy swiped at Thomas, who caught the blade on his own and struck back. Paddy blocked the attack and made a quick counterattack, cutting low as if to gut Thomas.
Thomas batted the blade aside, made an uppercut that gashed Paddy’s sword arm and, in the moment that the Irishman staggered, made a vicious horizontal cut that parted the man’s head from his shoulders.
Paddy’s head, a look of surprise stamped on his face, flew backwards to bounce off the gold with a clink and land in the pit beyond. The body stood upright for a moment, fountaining blood before sinking to the floor.
Radbert and the mermen staggered around the corner, coughing.
“You killed him,” Radbert said.
Thomas looked down at the decapitated corpse and the treasure chests, now spattered with blood, and nodded.
“It was easy. I feared him all this time, and it was so easy.” Thomas turned to Radbert. “I feared too much. I want to say I love you.”
Radbert blinked and looked at a loss for words. “You’re…You’re a good man, Thomas. We’re rich now.”
Thomas slumped and nodded. “Yeah, rich.”
They gathered what they needed from the pirates and carried the treasure chests down to the boat. The mermen were curious about the gold and didn’t seem to understand why the two humans would want it. Thomas didn’t know himself. It was obviously not going to buy him happiness. He cursed himself for a fool. He’d told Radbert he loved him when all the youth wanted was some space.
They loaded up the boat and embraced the mermen, who dove into the water and swam beneath the prow like a pair of dolphins as they rowed towards the entrance of the bay. Radbert was at the oars and Thomas at the tiller.
Thomas thought for a moment. He had the treasure but he did not have Radbert.
Then he knew what to do.
He pulled a pistol from his belt and pointed it at Radbert’s face.
“You son of a bitch,” Radbert growled at him. “All those sweet things you said and in the end, you betray me. And to think I was beginning to believe you!”
Thomas smiled, for he could see what Radbert could not see—over the German’s shoulder, beyond the entrance to the bay and not far off shore, the Manhunter was coming into view.
It had continued south, searching for Osier and his men, and had come across the island by merest chance. If Thomas turned the boat now he’d probably be able to get out of sight before the crew of the Manhunter spotted him. He could kill Radbert and keep all the treasure for himself.
But he had no intention of doing so.
He raised the pistol and fired into the air. The shot carried far on such a clear and calm day.
Radbert flinched, then followed Thomas’s gaze. When he turned back to Thomas, he was smiling.
“The treasure is for all of us,” Thomas told him, “and a double share for Fanny and Bill Husk’s baby.”
Radbert cocked his head. “Baby?”
“I don’t know what kind of marriage those three are planning but I have no doubt it will succeed. The world is wrong and they are right. Marriage doesn’t have to only be between one man and one woman.”
Thomas looked Radbert in the eye and was about to say more, but doubt gnawed at him, making him choke on his words.
There was a long silence. Radbert took his hand.
“I do,” he said, and kissed him.
Within an hour, they were aboard the Manhunter, explaining to the captain and crew all that had happened. The appearance of the mermen made almost as much of an impression as the two heavy chests of gold doubloons. Captain Seawolf ordered the crew to pilot the ship into the bay, where it would be sheltered from the elements until they had made a proper search of the island. Everyone hoped there might be more treasure than what Thomas and Radbert had recovered. By unanimous ship’s vote, they decided that the baby would get a double share, and Radbert and Thomas would get triple shares.
Once they were anchored in the bay, the captain ordered the men to break out the rum and everyone started to celebrate their new-found wealth. The mermen took one sniff of the rum, made a face, and decided not to sample it. They did sample some of the pirates, though.
The men had just begun to get good and tipsy when a call came down from the crow’s nest.
“Sail ahoy!”
Thomas sobered up in an instant.
“How many times has that call spelt disaster for me?” he said to himself as he hurried up the rigging.
It would spell disaster once more.
The Atlantic Lion sailed straight for them on a strong breeze. Captain Stone and his brother must have guessed the Manhunter’s route and followed far enough behind to remain out of sight.
There was no time to weigh anchor, unfurl the sails, and get out of the bay.
The Atlantic Lion
was upon them but stopped a good distance outside the bay’s entrance.
“What are they doing?” Thomas asked. The pirates stood ready at battle stations.
Maggie studied the British ship of the line through a spyglass. Her lover stood next to her. Thomas wondered when she’d start showing a bulge in her belly, or even if she would get a chance.
“They’re putting supports on their upper deck guns so they can fire at a higher angle. They’ll get better range,” the master gunner said. “They can’t sail in here because we could give them a broadside, and facing us, they wouldn’t be able to fire back. If we go out, it will be just the same situation for us.”
“Let’s get our guns raised and give them a dose of their own medicine!” Captain Seawolf shouted.
Maggie shook her head. “They’re out of range even if we do that. They have more powerful cannons. They’ve moored at extreme long range for their own guns even if they fire at forty-five degrees. There’s no way we can hit them from here. Their master gunner must have gotten a good look at our guns during the last fight and figured this out. The bastard knows his business.”
A puff of white smoke rose from the distant ship, followed by a low boom. They all stared as a cannonball rose into the air and arced down towards them.
It landed with a thud on the sandbar where Thomas and the triton had bedded.
“Ha! They can’t reach us from there,” one of the pirates said.
“They’ll reach,” Maggie said, her voice grim.
The next shot proved her correct. It sailed high into the sky and landed just on the other side of the ship, spraying the deck with water.
“Blazes! We can’t just sit here!” Captain Seawolf said.
“If we go out we’ll get ripped apart before we ever make it past the bay entrance,” Maggie said.
Another cannon fired, and the ball landed short.
“They don’t have much accuracy at this range,” a pirate observed.
“They don’t need it,” growled another. “They have all the time in the world. They’re bound to hit us sooner or later.”
“What do we do, abandon ship?” someone asked.