Zorro and the Little Devil

by Peter David

  Diabolito led his crew along the narrow road, keeping his eyes fastened on the wall of the cliffside. It was obvious that Calico Jack had not dug down from the area of the hacienda that Diabolito and his men had been digging. Instead there had to be a cave that Rackham had entered and buried the treasure. So all Diabolito had to do was find that entrance and he would have easy access to the correct burial place.

  There was a good deal of branches and overgrowth along the path, though. It was obvious that in the intervening decades between when the treasure had been buried and modern day, nature had sought to reclaim what had once been a fairly easy cave to perceive. All along the path, the Little Devil pushed hard against an array of greenery that had found life on the side of the cliff. Each one provided nothing but rock behind it.

  He was beginning to despair when he arrived at one mass of brush that immediately gave way to the push. There was nothing behind it; he felt his hand grabbing at air on the other side.

  “Ha!” he shouted in unadulterated joy. “Here! There’s a cave here!”

  “Are you sure?” said Maria.

  “Absolutely. I’m going in … ”

  “Wait, dear,” she said in a low voice. “You have no idea what may be waiting in there. If an animal has transformed it into a den, it could kill you on the spot.”

  Diabolito hesitated and then realized she was correct. “Tomas!” he said.

  The pirate whom he had summoned quickly came forward. Diabolito pointed at the newly discovered entrance and said, “Take a torch. Go in there and make sure the path is clear.”

  Tomas hesitated, but he could see that his captain was not fooling around. He gripped a torch tightly, nodded, and then moved forward into the cave.

  The Little Devil was not really expecting anything to go wrong. To the best of his knowledge, there were no creatures that were common in the area that would be interested in using a cave to reside in. Nevertheless, there was no harm in exercising reasonable precautions. He imagined it would not take long to determine whether or not the cave was safe.

  He was more correct than he could possibly have guessed.

  There was a shriek from within the cave so loud that everyone outside jumped in response, and Maria let out a startled cry. Seconds later, Tomas staggered out of the cave and there was a huge, wicked gash across his chest. He almost stumbled off the path and would have plummeted to his death, but Diabolito snagged his arm as he staggered and swung him around so he could lean against the mountain. Tomas was clutching the gash and moaning. “What happened!?” demanded the Little Devil.

  “It … it moved so fast … ” he whispered, his voice constricted in terror. “Something knocked the torch from my hand and then slashed across my chest. And then it … ”

  And now a noise floated from the cave. A long, deep moaning noise that sounded as if the dead themselves were attempting to communicate.

  “A ghost,” said Tomas, the words trembling. “It … it is a ghost!”

  Word immediately spread down the line of pirates, and all of them were clearly frightened. Sailors were generally a superstitious lot, but pirates were even more so, likely because their consciences preyed on them and inflicted guilt upon them. As much as they would have liked to dismiss such concerns out of hand and instead laugh in triumph over their many victims, the truth was that pirates were no more exempt from the blandishments of their guilt than any other beings. Consequently they believed ghosts existed in order to inflict vengeance upon them. Ghosts were a belief all pirates nursed.

  All pirates, however, save for Diabolito. Not for a moment did he allow for the existence of ghosts or supernatural objects. It had been his experience that there were typically perfectly rational explanations for things other superstitious pirates attributed to undead creatures. The fact that he heard howling from within the cave did nothing except convince him there was someone in there protecting the cave’s interior. And if there was someone there, then they could be very easily killed.

  Maria was clutching at his chest. “Let us flee this place, my love! The unnatural is — ”

  “Is pure superstition. Do not be fooled as easily as my men,” he said disdainfully. He was holding his torch in front of him and shouted, “Stay back, all of you! Your captain will handle this situation.”

  There were audible sighs of relief. No one was anxious to storm in there and take on a ghost.

  Diabolito carefully approached the cave entrance. Tomas had been attacked within a second of entering, so whoever (or whatever) was standing inside was undoubtedly positioned right near the entrance. So he was going to have to enter in such a way that he didn’t provide any chance of his attacker catching him off guard.

  A simple plan ran through his mind, and with the occurrence of that came the doing of it. He brushed aside the mass of greenery blocking the entrance and then hurled his torch in, causing it to land on the far end.

  And then he leaped head first into the cave. He felt a swishing through the air of something just over his head, but it missed him clean because he was in a diving motion. He hit the far end of the cave, rolled into a somersault, then sprang to his feet and spun to see what had slashed at him.

  It was not a ghost.

  ***

  Senor Zorro was waiting to see if his trick had had the desired effect. He was certain that he could count on the superstitious minds of pirates to serve his needs. All he needed to do was continue slashing at anyone who entered the cave and then shout out with ominous howls, and he would likely drive them all away. Then he supposed he could try to dig up the treasure that was obviously buried somewhere in the cave. It wasn’t as if the de la Vega family was in need of riches, but certainly Fray Felipe would be able to put a chest of treasure to good use.

  He heard the pirates outside squealing in terror of the supernatural being that they were convinced was in the cave. A smile spread across his masked face. This was going perfectly. He would not have any problem fooling these idiots.

  Then suddenly the frightened talk dropped off. All was silence. They were still there, he was sure of it. What was going to happen now?

  That was when a torch hurtled in, hitting the far end of the ground and rolling to a stop at the opposite end of the cave. The flickering flame of the torch now illuminated the entire place.

  Zorro stayed where he was, by the entrance. The situation was still salvageable. If he could strike down the next intruder quickly, he could then run over to the torch and extinguish it before someone else stuck their head into the cave and saw him.

  The overhanging growth at the cave entrance rustled, and Zorro slashed forward with his blade.

  He missed.

  Whoever was entering the cave did so in a unique manner: diving in and landing in a forward roll at the far end. Zorro cursed to himself. Whoever this man was, he was clever enough to pose a severe problem for the outlaw.

  The man landed, spun and faced him. It was Diabolito. He blinked in confusion, clearly unsure of what he was looking at. “You do not seem to be a ghost,” he said. “Who do I have the questionable honor of facing?”

  The masked man bowed slightly. “Senor Zorro, at your service.”

  Diabolito cackled in obvious amusement. “I had considered you to be merely a local legend.”

  “A flattering term,” said Zorro.

  The Little Devil glanced around. “And may I ask what you are doing in this cave?”

  “Cutting down pirates,” he replied. He whipped his sword through the air in the shape of a Z.

  “Ah, but I am not a pirate. I am the pirate.” He had pulled his cutlass from his belt and now slashed through the air the letter X. “But in case you are interested, I would be perfectly happy to make you a genuine ghost, Senor.”

  Zorro smiled. “By your leave, Capitan.”

  Diabolito charged him and Zorro brought his sword up to block him. The blades clashed together. Zorro and the Little Devil thrusted and parried for long seconds, assessing each other, deter
mining their relative strengths and weaknesses.

  The Little Devil was grinning widely as they engaged. “Good! Very good!” he said with great enthusiasm. “You have had much training!”

  “Well, I’ve had plenty of practice by slaying pirates,” Zorro replied.

  The curse of Capistrano retained his footing, not backing up under Diabolito’s assault. But he quickly realized that Diabolito wasn’t backing up either. They were both maintaining their positions, neither giving ground, as if to do so was some sort of weakness.

  Zorro kept changing fencing strategies. At first he was attacking aggressively using techniques developed by Giganti, but the pirate ably deflected them. So Zorro switched to Capo Ferro. The pirate immediately adjusted, employing strategy by Fabris. It was incredible, because a cutlass was not designed to be employed in standard fencing techniques; it was developed mostly for hacking and slashing. But Diabolito was not using the sword in the way it was designed. Instead he was adapting to, and blocking, Zorro’s thrusts.

  Slowly a dread panic begin to seep into Senor Zorro, although he kept it so well buried within him that no one would have been able to discern it.

  Diabolito abruptly advanced, drawing closer to Zorro, and Zorro reflexively backed up. Zorro had no idea how this was happening. This man was a pirate with a cutlass. There was no way that such a man could defeat him.

  He can if he’s better than you, and his thoughts suddenly flew back to Miguel’s warnings. He had told him, warned him that Diabolito might be more formidable with a sword than he had allowed for.

  Diabolito maintained the same cheerful grin that he had had the entire time. They had been dueling for what seemed forever, but the pirate was not the least bit tired. He seemed as if he could do this all day.

  Step by step, the pirate advanced and Zorro kept retreating. Then his shoulder blades bumped up against the cave wall, and there was nowhere for him to retreat to. Nowhere except outside, where he would have to worry about battling not only Diabolito, but his entire pirate crew.

  There was no choice for it, however.

  Zorro edged toward the exit and then, in a spectacular piece of bad luck, his boot heel tripped him slightly on a piece of rock that had dislodged itself from the ceiling. It caused only a momentary distraction, but that was all the Little Devil required. His cutlass struck home and there was now a slash on Zorro’s chest, blood welling up from the cut in the front of his black shirt.

  It was not particularly damaging to Zorro’s body, but his mind was stunned. He couldn’t believe that the pirate had drawn first blood.

  Even as he realized it, he was immediately plotting exactly what he was going to do next. The notion that the other pirates were on Diabolito’s level of sword expertise was fairly slender. So he knew exactly what would happen next: He would vault out of the cave, immediately engage the nearest pirate, defeat him, and then move to the next. The pathway outside was narrow enough that they wouldn’t be able to come at him more than one or two at a time. That he could handle easily. He would create a pile of bodies between himself and Diabolito, give him his men to have to climb over. That additional work might serve to wind him so that, once they reached the top, Zorro would be able to defeat him. Perhaps Senor Zorro would just pull out his gun and shoot the bastard. It wasn’t exactly gentlemanly, but let the rulers of gentlemen inflict Don Diego de la Vega. Zorro, on the other hand, was concerned only with survival.

  Diabolito was still grinning dementedly at the wound he inflicted on Zorro, and Zorro suddenly lunged forward rather than staggering from the wound. His sword point struck the off-guard pirate in the shoulder, and the Little Devil let out a startled cry. The grin vanished, replaced by cold, cruel fury.

  Zorro took the opportunity to lunge outside of the cave and whirl to meet whoever was coming at him with a blade.

  That was when it all turned wrong.

  ***

  Several of the pirates had taken the lead, crowding in front of Maria. She overheard the clanging together of swords, and knew immediately that her lover was in some sort of battle. But the pirates were making it impossible for her to hear clearly how it was progressing.

  She grabbed a torch from one of the pirates and called out, “Aside! Step aside! Out of my way!”

  Now the pirates might not have heeded her demands because, for all that she was Diabolito’s partner, she was still just a woman with no authority over them. However, the fact that she was thrusting a torch into their midst was more than enough to get them to stand aside, and so it was that Maria drew close to the cave opening while the battle was continuing.

  She heard a slash, a grunt as if someone had been cut, another slash and another grunt, and suddenly a black figure emerged from the cave right in front of her.

  She had not the slightest clue who this new individual was — a random bandit or some such. But the fact that he was holding a blade that was tinted red with blood confirmed for her the only thing she needed to know: he was an enemy.

  Maria did the only thing she could think of. She rammed her torch right into his face.

  The man in black cried out in shock, and brought up an arm to try and shove her back. She realized that he was having trouble seeing and understood why. He had been in a darkened cave and now he was staring straight into a mass of fire. Since his eyes were accustomed to the darkness of the cave, the flames had unexpectedly blinded him.

  Maria did not hesitate to press her advantage. She grabbed a knife from the nearest pirate and lunged forward for him, leading with the flame. The man tried to slap it out of her hand with his blade, but she easily dodged him and kept coming. He reached out for her with his left hand and she stabbed him in the forearm with the dagger. He cried out, stumbled backwards …

  And fell off the path.

  He let out a startled shout as he plunged down, down into darkness. The sounds of his cry faded with him as well.

  Chapter Nine

  The Treasure Found

  A second later Diabolito leaped out of the cave and looked around. “Where is he?” demanded the pirate. “Where is Zorro?!”

  “Zorro,” said a startled Maria. “That was Zorro?”

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Only through courtesy of my brother’s complaints. He is a legendary swordsman and has caused my brother many frustrated hours.”

  “Hah!” shouted the Little Devil. “So it appears your brother owes me much thanks for having disposed of his enemy. Come,” he said to the other men, “get in here. There is treasure to be had!”

  The pirates nearly clambered over each other to join their captain in the cave, and they set immediately to work. Since they were not sure of where the coordinates on the map would have positioned them in the cave, they wound up all picking different spots and started digging.

  So it went for an hour, and then one of his men, Pedro, cried out when his shovel made a dull “thunk” into something below the ground. Everyone else in the cave immediately clambered out of the holes they had dug and scrambled over to Pedro’s hole. “Here, here!” he said, so excited — not to mention tired — that his voice was enthused but whispered. “It’s here!”

  Instantly there were half a dozen shovels aiding Pedro in continuing the digging. What would have taken Pedro another hour or two to accomplish was instead done within minutes.

  Diabolito stepped forward and angled the torch down.

  There it was. The treasure chest they had been seeking.

  “Pull it up! Pull it up!” said Diabolito.

  Within seconds the pirates had managed to lift the chest out of its burial spot. A huge lock was hanging from the front of it, bigger than any lock that Diabolito had ever seen. But he wasn’t concerned. Size was irrelevant; any lock could be destroyed, even if he didn’t have the key.

  He grabbed one of the picks. “Back away!” he said loudly and then, as soon as his men were out of the way, he swung the pick around with all the force in his powerful arms.

&nbs
p; The pick broke against the lock.

  There were startled gasps from the others in his group. The head of the pick had simply snapped off and went flying, landing with one prong buried into the side of the cave.

  Diabolito’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it. He stuck out a hand impatiently and immediately there was another pick in his hand. He braced his feet firmly and swung the pick with even greater force and fury than he had before. The exact same thing happened: The pick blade broke off from the rest of the device and this time lodged in Pedro’s upper thigh. He let out a loud shriek of pain, which only prompted Diabolito to snarl, “Shut up!” Pedro immediately did so, clamping his hands over his mouth. Maria went over to him and helped him to sit. “What is this damned thing made of?” Diabolito demanded, not having the slightest idea.

  “Luis!” Maria suddenly said.

  He glanced at her uncomprehendingly. “It’s made out of Luis?”

  “He can open it! He’s a great lock-pick!”

  “He is?” This was news to Diabolito.

  “He’s always boasting of his prowess.”

  “You think I have nothing better to do than listen to my crews’ boasts?”

  “She is correct,” said Tomas. “I’ve heard him say that many a time.”

  “Well, where is he?”

  “You left him on the boat,” Maria reminded him. “Remember? He’s your second in command, so you left him to keep an eye on the Spaniards.”

  “Blast,” the Little Devil snarled. “I should have just killed those fools!”

  “You wanted to keep them alive for ransom,” said Tomas.

  “I know what I wanted to do!” Diabolito shouted. Everyone else drew back, not wanting to stand too close to him when he was in a rage. It took him a long minute to calm himself and then he said, “All right. Pick it up. Let’s get out of here.”