The Egret had streaked in fast, pushing the miles of sea-water behind them as they cut cleanly through the rolling swells. They were a good two, maybe three, hours behind the fleet when it sailed into Cadiz Bay, and as the mouth of the harbor grew closer, the dirty gray sky above it was cloaked in a massive cloud of smoke and cinder.
“He did it,” Spence had muttered in awe. “Drake has set the King’s bloody fleet on fire!”
“And don’t think the King won’t know it in short order,” Beau had countered, pointing to the sudden flaring of signal fires that were coming alight, one by one, a mile or two apart along the darkening shoreline.
Then she had noticed something else ablaze, farther along the coast, well out of the harbor. Two ships were engaged, one an enormous Levantine cargo vessel, the other…
“Christ Jesus,” she had exclaimed. She had recognized the Scout, looking like nothing more than a pesky hornet buzzing after a lumbering giant.
“He promised he would stand off a thousand yards,” she quoted sardonically. “He vowed he would be the soul of discretion, that he would offer support, nothing else.”
“Calls anythin’ he’s done so far discreet,” McCutcheon remarked, spitting over the rail, “I’d sorely hate to see what he calls reckless.”
Spence chuckled. “Ye already have. Ye saw him kiss our Beau right smack on the open deck.”
Beau wasn’t listening. She did not even hear the jest over the sudden loud pounding of her heart.
“Father … there! Another ship has come out of the harbor! It—it’s the Talon!” She gasped and swore again. “It’s Bloodstone’s ship and … I don’t even think Dante knows he’s there!”
“Doubt if anyone knows he’s there, what with the smoke an’ all.”
“Jonas!” Spit was leaning forward over the rail as if the few added inches gave a better view. “Look at the bastard! He’s opened with all guns!”
Beau and Spence watched in horror as the Talon’s guns erupted in seemingly endless tongues of orange flame. They were still four or five miles out and the sound reached them as muted thuds, dampened further by the rapidly fading light. In another few minutes they would only have the throbbing glow of the burning harbor and the fire from their own guns to give the ships any kind of silhouette against the darkness.
“We have to do something!” Beau insisted.
“Aye. Spit—load the demis with fifteen-pound shot; it will carry farther. We’ll fire a round as soon as Beau can pull us into position to give him a broadside. Let the bastard know someone is seein’ what he’s doin’, at any rate.”
McCutcheon sprang away, his eyes still on the two ships as he calculated speed, powder weight, and distances. Beau was half a step behind, shouting orders as she ran.
Dante could not see much of anything at all. Dusk was purpling what little clean air came on board the Scout, the rest was filled with smoke, flying debris, scraps of burning canvas. The mainmast was a shambles of tangled lines and broken spars. The top third was folded over and men had been sent up to hack at it with saws and cudgels to rid them of the useless drag. Every quarter knot of lost speed kept her under the Talon’s guns and she was already badly wounded. Most of her sheets hung from loose or broken lines; spars swung crazily with the pitch of the ship. Her hull was breached and the sea was pouring in below the waterline, almost faster than men on pumps could disgorge it. There was blood everywhere, making the decks slippery underfoot; five of Carleill’s original crew had already jumped overboard, preferring to swim for shore and take their chances with the Spanish rather than remain on board and be caught in the midst of a grudge match between two madmen.
Dante’s madness had a slight advantage in that the Talon’s gunners were nowhere near as good as his own Virago men, despite the fact that they were using Pitt’s own demis against them. Two out of every four shots scudded harmlessly into the sea, causing a good deal of spray and chop, and a true appreciation for every one of the culverins’ retorts that struck wood and bone. Pitt was keeping up a steady barrage, sharp enough and hot enough to make Bloodstone think twice about coming in too close too soon, but another ten minutes or so and it likely would not matter anyway. The Scout’s rudder was sloppy and she barely had enough sail to keep her moving. She was pinned as helplessly against the shoreline as the Levantine had been; the only difference being a captain who would not have struck his colors had the devil himself been spewing flame at him.
“Simon!”
Dante was manning one of the cannon. He reeled away just as the glowing tip of the linstock was applied to the touch hole and the breeching tackle jumped to absorb the recoil from the exploding shot.
“Simon!”
Dante swung around as the crew hauled in the gun, swabbed the barrel, shoved a fresh shot down its throat, and packed it against a new powder cartridge. Pitt was working the gun beside him, his face streaked with soot and sweat, his blond hair smeared with blood. He was pointing wildly over the side, shouting something, but Dante’s ears were still ringing from the last explosion.
Dante saw nothing at first and he had to wipe his eyes to see what was causing Pitt to leap up and down like a fool and windmill his arms nearly out of their sockets. Angling in from upwind was another galleon, her sails full and straining with vengeance, her guns run out, spitting thunder as she charged into the fray.
Dante could barely believe his eyes and had to blink twice before accepting it. “By God … Beau!”
He grabbed hold of a shroud line and pulled himself up to stand on the rail, watching as the Egret backed all of her topsails and almost slid to a complete halt in the water. In her own swirling backwash she angled her stern around to present her full broadside, and with every man on board the Scout cheering like lunatics, she fired three immense volleys, seemingly without a break in smoke, noise, or gouting sparks of flame.
Dante clenched his fist and added his own voice to those of his men. “Bloodstone, you bloody-minded coward! How does it feel to choke on your own treachery!” And even though neither ship could hear him, he called to the Egret as well. “Ahoy, Jonas, you beautiful bastard! Bring her straight in and crucify the coward with everything you’ve got!”
Spence would have to bring her in closer, for although the show of support was much needed to bolster the spirits on board the Scout, the Egret was still too far out to do any real damage. Even so, some of the demis struck their mark, tearing a long gash in the Talon’s main course and plowing into timbers on deck.
Two more volleys and the Egret reset her sails, turning bow-on to the Talon, running in as fast as she could gather windage. Bloodstone seemed unconcerned. His ship blazed with another broadside, taking out a section of the Scout’s afterdeck and blowing three men into the sea.
“He obviously doesn’t have much respect for Spence or his ship,” Pitt grated. “He’s going to finish with us first.”
“He’s going to try,” Dante agreed with a snarl. “But we still have a few surprises left.”
“Do I want to know what they are?”
Dante grinned larcenously. “You will approve, I’m sure. Those crates of nails you found in the hold, bring them up and fill the barrels of the bow guns. Fetch up the kegs of Greek fire while you’re about it and set them in the stern.”
Pitt’s face brightened through the grime. “I like it already.”
Dante ran to the stern, where Edward Carleill stood over the tiller like a blooded hound. He looked, if anything, more terrified than before, but thus far had held to Dante’s orders and executed them without so much as twitching an eyelid.
He blinked this time when Dante gave him fresh instructions and, if it was possible, went a shade paler.
“We’ll need as much speed as you can give me, if it is going to succeed. Have we anything left?”
“I’ll find it, sir. Count on it.” He turned and ordered the men in the tops to trim the sheets, to hold them in place if necessary with their bare hands.
Dante left th
e rudder in Carleill’s hands and ran back to the stern just as Pitt arrived carrying four small kegs filled with naphtha and sealed with a layer of tar. They would have to be within spitting distance of the Talon for the incendiaries to succeed, but if only one hit the target, the exploding oil would spread flames across the decks faster than anyone could think to smother them.
Getting them close enough would take just about all the Scout had left in her. The superior firepower of the privateer would be pounding her all the way in; their one slim hope was for the Egret to see what they were doing and offer Bloodstone a warm distraction.
In the meantime he kept his head low and his cannon loaded and firing. Carleill aimed her like an arrow, straight and true, and the privateer, battered but not defeated, responded with a last burst of spirit. She gathered speed and courage and determination and threw herself at the Talon’s guns, and from where Dante crouched by the stern falconets, he could see Victor Bloodstone standing on the fore-deck, encouraging his men to shoot as fast as they could reload.
Carleill denied them as much of a target for as long as he could before he reached the point of turning. He was passing the orders, tightening the crew’s grip on the tiller, when a blast from the Talon raked the afterdeck, shattering through timbers and flesh, sweeping the entire upper castle and everyone on it into the sea.
It gave Dante a moment’s pause, staring at the gaping hole where Carleill had been standing, knowing it might have been Beau. … But then he had no time to think at all. The Scout was fifty, forty, thirty yards from the Talon, and with no way to turn her off her course, she was going to ram the privateer at full speed. Pitt fired the bow guns, then ordered the men back. Four lethal loads of iron nails were sprayed across the decks of the Talon, wreaking terrible damage, and with less than twenty yards to go, Dante lit the fuses on the stern guns … and fired.
Beau watched the Scout make her stumbling turn and start a bow-on run toward the Talon. She was expecting Dante to veer off at the last moment, duplicating the feat he had executed against the San Pedro, but something went mortally wrong. Even from three hundred yards away she could hear the screaming of timbers and the smashing of planks as the two ships collided. The hull of the Talon was rammed inward. The privateer staggered and reeled over, pushing a wave of water off her starboard beam. When she righted herself, the Scout was wedged fast amidships and Dante’s men were scrambling over the side, cutlasses, pikes, and muskets in hand. Two of the four kegs of Greek fire found their marks, exploding on the Talon’s afterdeck in great sheets of liquid flame. The combustible ran along the rails and dripped down the sides of the hull. It fanned across the decks, rippling blue and gold and red in the darkness, running along planks and spilling hot blue fingers between the broken boards.
“Hold yer fire!” Spence shouted over the heads of his gun crews. “Or we’ll hit both ships! Beau! Bring her in to grapplin’ distance, we’ll crowd her on the other side!”
Beau brought the Egret in fast and smooth. The men, led by Jonas Spence, stood ready by the boards with grappling lines and weapons. The Talon was still firing her guns and Spit gave them several hot replies to the insult at point-blank range, close enough to bring plumes of sea-water spraying over the rails. Billy Cuthbert took men up into the shrouds with muskets and pistols and picked out their targets by the light of the fires blazing in the Talon’s stern.
Bedlam had erupted on the deck of the privateer. Men fought in pairs, in trios, in swarms; shadowy couples in macabre dances with swords and daggers, assuming faces and features only when heated by the glow of the flames.
Beau scanned the decks for a glimpse of Dante, but there were too many shadows twisting and writhing in confusion. She saw Pitt, a pistol in each hand, a blade glinting at his hip, swinging himself over to the deck of the Talon from the Scout And she saw Lucifer, his twin scimitars hacking at limbs as if he were back in the Indies harvesting cane. There were dead and injured everywhere. The decks were streaked with gore.
Beau drew her cutlass, and with four Egret men behind her she clambered over the boarding planks and dropped into the midst of the fighting. A shadow with a boat hook came at her from the left and she slashed without thinking, using both hands to wield the heavy sword across the man’s throat. Two more shadows lunged for her and she shot one with her pistol, then used it like a club when it was spent rather than take the trouble to reload.
The carpenter, Thomas Moone, was on her left, carrying the lid from a barrel to use as a shield. He swore every time he swung his cutlass, but he did so with a practiced eye, knowing the weakest joints, the most vulnerable bones. Men charged them and more men poured over from the decks of the Egret, and in short order the Talon’s crew were throwing down their weapons and throwing up their arms, screaming for mercy.
And there was still no sight of Dante de Tourville.
He was, at that precise moment, on the only clear circle of deck space on the Talon. Victor Bloodstone stood across from him, panting and sweat-soaked, circling his hated enemy in a wary crouch, sword in hand, eyes blazing murder.
“Honorable to the end, Victor,” Dante spat. “That is what your epitaph will read. Written in the blood of the men you sacrificed in the name of greed and ambition.”
Bloodstone lunged forward with his blade. The thrust was easily put aside by Dante, though he fought with only one good arm. The other had been torn open in the impact when the two ships had collided, and dripped a steady patter of blood onto the deck.
Bloodstone retreated and circled, waiting for another opening. His enemy was big, solid with brute strength, but some of that strength was melting away. Moreover, he had seen Dante fight before and knew he had lived too long on the deck of a ship to trouble himself with the intricacies of footwork. He preferred to hack and slash, mostly to good effect, especially if his opponant had not looked into the menacing steel of his eyes before. Victor had looked—and laughed—as he did now when he executed a perfect feint and left a thin red ribbon welling across the massive chest.
“Why?” Dante snarled. “Why did you do it? Was it the gold? All for the gold?”
Bloodstone shook the sweat out of his eyes. His back was to the flames and the hated face was lit before him, burnished by the glowing heat. Farther yet, looming out of the shadows, another face, uglier than sin with a smashed nose and stealth in his mutilated smile, caused Victor to stop, to steady his blade a moment as if contemplating something profound in his answer.
“The gold? Yes, partly it was the gold. And partly … it was you.”
“Me? What in God’s name did I do to you?”
Bloodstone’s lips curled in derision and he laughed, “Absolutely nothing, my dear Comte. Nothing your many righteous generations of noble blood could even begin to understand.”
He nodded and Horace Lamprey raised his pistol, aiming squarely for the back of Dante’s head. He pulled the trigger and the pan flashed; a fraction of a second later the gun jerked to one side as the hand holding it was impaled on the mast beside it, stuck fast by a needle-thin stiletto. The shot discharged and Dante whirled around in time to see Beau throw a second knife and reduce Lamprey’s screams to a gurgled hiss.
Victor’s sword flashed and Dante moved to block it. The two blades crossed and slid down to the hilt, sending a shower of sparks flying off the steel. Weapons parted and crossed again, drawing sweat and curses on both sides. The impact shuddered down their arms and Bloodstone bared his teeth in anticipation as he bore down on Dante, seeking to weaken the vulnerable left side of his body. He deliberately invited the Frenchman to lock swords again, then gave his wrist a vicious twist, bringing the blade around and up, effectively breaking the strength in Dante’s arm. He saw his opening and took it, leaning back and thrusting forward, following through with a triumphant cry as he expected to feel flesh, muscle, and bone sliding the length of his sword.
But in a move that had been almost too swift to believe, Dante had anticipated the strike and pivoted—with the grac
e of a dancer—a full circle around and back, bringing his own blade hacking forcefully across the base of Bloodstone’s spine. Bone cracked and flesh parted. The cry of triumph turned into a scream of agony as Bloodstone was split almost in half. The impact sent him crashing forward through a broken gap in the deck rail and he fell, with Dante’s sword embedded in his back, into the pool of flames that were now engulfing most of the main deck.
Dante staggered to the rail and Beau rushed forward to catch him under the arm. He stared at Bloodstone’s body until the flames licked greedily over it and then he looked at Beau. Her face was streaked with grime and ash, her doublet was torn at the shoulder, and a gash on her chin leaked blood down the side of her throat, but he thought he had never seen anything quite so beautiful before. Stubborn, disobedient, reckless, defiant … but beautiful enough to make his soul ache.
“One of these days,” he gasped, “you are going to have to start doing as you’re told.”
Beau leaned into his chest and buried her face against his throat. “One of these days you are going to have to start trusting me.”
Dante pressed his lips into the soft silk of her hair. “Yes. I know.”
The flames were growing hotter. Men were shouting, running past them, leaping to the safety of the Egret. Pitt, Spence, and McCutcheon were calling to them, warning them they would have to cast off in the next few seconds or run the risk of the fire jumping across the ships.
Dante frowned and tucked his finger under her chin, forcing her face up to his. All of the gold and treasures in the world were right there, shimmering up at him, brimming with emotions as raw and ragged as his own.
“How much do you trust me?”
“With my life.”
He glanced over at the Egret and murmured, “That should be just about enough.”
Heedless of his injury, he scooped her up into his arms and hoisted her onto the top of the rail. He climbed up beside her and, using the shroud lines for balance, caught the length of cable Pitt swung over to them. Most of the grappling lines had been cut and the galleons had been pushed apart everywhere but at the bow. There, a single umbilical cord strained between them, and as Dante curled his arm around Beau’s waist and swept them across the twenty-foot gap, Lucifer brought down one of his scimitars and chopped the two ships free.
Across a Moonlit Sea Page 33