The Devil soa-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  ‘Let us not wait for them!’ Courtenay bellowed. ‘Send them a greeting from Hell!’ He slashed down his arm.

  The message darted from man to man until it reached the master gunner on the gun deck. A rolling wall of fire erupted into the watery world. From bow chasers to broadside cannon to stern chasers, the booming of the guns thundered out, louder even than the storm. Plumes of white smoke whipped away in the wind. Most of the shot plunged harmlessly into the towering walls of black water as the squall flung the two vessels around the high ridges and deep valleys of the swell. But one smashed a hole through the pirate ship’s castle to where the captain’s cabin would have been and another tore rigging from the mizzen top. Bloody Jack shook his fist and roared his jubilation, leaning so far over the rail that Will thought the waves would pluck him away.

  ‘No cannon will drive them off,’ Carpenter shouted, his brow furrowed. ‘They will not rest until we go down.’

  ‘If our only choice is to take them with us, that is what we shall do,’ Will yelled back. ‘Though in these turbulent waters, it will take an age to whittle each other to pieces.’

  The Tempest rolled at an alarming angle as another wave crashed across the deck. Will swallowed a mouthful of brine. Only his grip on the rigging saved him as his legs flew out beneath him. When the galleon righted, he saw the Corneille Noire broadside on, its gun ports open. The captain was waiting for the swell to draw the two vessels in line before giving the order to fire.

  ‘Heads down,’ Will called. The fire spewed out of the pirate ship, and the cannon cracked. He flung himself on to the deck as red-hot shot screamed by. To his right, the rail disintegrated. A sailor slow in dropping low disappeared in a red mist. Another screamed, his leg gone. Deadly shards of timber flew around, and the cacophony of cries of men in agony echoed along the length of the galleon.

  Courtenay hung over the rail to survey the damage inflicted on his vessel’s hull. ‘All above the waterline,’ he concluded with a pleased nod. ‘Then let us not stop there.’ As the swell lifted the Tempest high, he bellowed the order to fire again. Thunder rolled all around. The acrid stink of burnt powder whisked in the wind.

  Sizzling shot tore through the Enemy vessel, more by good fortune than judgement. Seasoned oak as hard as iron burst into shards. Rigging tore free, lashing across the deck. The mainmast cracked and skewed at an angle. Bloody Jack made his own luck by throwing caution to the wind, Will knew: any other captain would have taken the decision to flee rather than fight in those seas.

  At the pirate captain’s orders, his grey, dead men clambered up what remained of the rigging to cut loose the mainsail before it dragged the mast over the side and the ship to the bottom. Jubilation flooded Will. The gamble had worked and the pirate ship had been crippled. But the triumph was short-lived. Even without its mainmast and sails, the Enemy ship swept closer.

  ‘They are going to ram us,’ Carpenter yelled.

  ‘Board us, more like,’ Will corrected as he watched the frantic activity along the other ship’s deck. The rotting crew lined the rail with grapnels and rapiers in hand. Behind them, the Unseelie Court waited to seize their moment.

  ‘Prepare to repel boarders,’ Bloody Jack roared, striding along the deck. His men wrenched out their own rapiers and daggers and scrambled to the rail. Will hauled himself up, drawing his blade.

  ‘This is more like it.’ Carpenter grinned without humour. ‘Now I can put my idle hands to good use. A hogshead of sack to the man who carves the most.’

  The Corneille Noire swung close. Will braced himself for the impact. Whatever magics were at play brought the galleon firm alongside, despite the heaving swell. It was as if they were locked in congress, rising and falling with perfect rhythm.

  The grapnels flew out across the black gulf, catching in the Tempest’s rigging. The pirates gripped their ropes and kicked away from the rail. Some of Courtenay’s men attempted to cut the lines, pitching a few of the swinging figures into the roiling sea. They went down without a cry, sucked under the black water in an instant.

  Will blinked away the driving rain. He glimpsed the bloom of decay on the grey, dispassionate face of the once-man swinging towards him. Yet another of the Unseelie Court’s crimes against the natural order, he thought, glowering. As the pirate’s feet crossed the rail, Will lunged. Cold steel plunged through the thing’s chest, yet still it came. He withdrew his rapier and slashed down. The face peeled open from temple to chin, but still the wide eyes stared. As the pirate dropped to the deck, he swung his knife high. Will threw himself forward so that his shoulder rammed into his dead foe. The dagger whisked a hair’s breadth from his cheek as he drove on and pitched the pirate over the side.

  Along the rail blew a smaller storm of steel and curses and spattering blood. Blades clashed as Courtenay’s men wrestled with their dead counterparts. One sailor barely twenty summers old went down in a gout of crimson from a slashed throat. Without pause, his staring attacker plunged his gore-stained dagger into the chest of the seaman fighting beside him.

  In the confusion of the battle whirling across the storm-lashed deck, Will lost sight of his colleagues. He thrust himself into the melee. When the fighting was too close to use his rapier, he lashed out with elbows and fists and knees and feet. He glimpsed Courtenay roaring with laughter as he plunged his dagger into a grey face. A moment later the mad captain lifted the corpse over his head and pitched it into the sea.

  Beyond the frenzy, Will sensed movement as fluid as the brine washing across the deck. His nerves jangled. Shadows flitted, here, there. When a lightning flash froze white faces, he realized that some of the Unseelie Court had boarded the Tempest. They kept to the gloom on the fringes so that it was impossible to tell how many there were.

  Will tore himself away from the fight and made his way, stabbing and hacking as he went, to where Launceston was tipping a pirate over the side. ‘Leave the men to fight these dead things,’ he ordered. ‘The Fay are aboard, and they are our business. We must find John and Tobias now.’

  He darted to the other side of the deck. In the half-light, he glimpsed shapes creeping low like wolves at night, lips pulled back from sharp teeth. As a hand flicked towards the hilt of a rapier, Will sucked in a sharp breath and leapt for a rope dangling from a grapnel in the rigging. Bracing himself, he swung both feet into the nearest Fay’s chest, propelling it over the rail.

  Another attacked the instant he dropped to the boards, slashing with fast, controlled strokes. When a dying seaman stumbled back into his grim opponent, Will seized his chance, thrusting through the heart with one fluid strike.

  Somewhere nearby Strangewayes yelled an anguished warning. Will wrenched around. Tobias was pointing at the door to the captain’s cabin. It swung wildly in the lashing gale. The Fay lord Lansing, whom Will had seen drive a man mad on the Liverpool dockside, now had Grace pinned to his chest with his left arm as he eased her out on deck. The Fay lord turned his cold face towards Will, and called in a clear voice, ‘Lay down your weapons.’ As the other Fay circled, Lansing drew his slender fingers along the curve of Grace’s neck, pushing her head back.

  ‘Resist him,’ she called in a defiant voice. ‘My life means nothing when all of England is at stake.’

  Will knew she was right, and so did Strangewayes.

  ‘Kill them,’ Lansing said to the other Fay. ‘Kill them all, and let us be done with this rabble and return to the Golden City victorious.’

  Before the first of the Unseelie Court could attack, Grace hammered her heel on to Lansing’s foot. In the shock of her attack, he loosened his grip and she wrenched herself free, throwing herself among the battling sailors.

  ‘We play for high stakes here. Win all or lose everything.’ Courtenay’s gruff voice boomed through the storm. The captain stood at the end of the main deck with a powder barrel over his head. Beside him, a shaking crewman held a burning fuse, spitting in the rain. ‘There is no room for any middle ground,’ Bloody Jack continued, a light
gleaming in his eyes. ‘Get off my ship, or I’ll blow us all to Hell.’

  Will saw the Unseelie Court weighing up whether Courtenay would go through with his mad threat. He had no doubt. If they faced defeat, better to take a few Fay bastards along with them.

  Bloody Jack roared, shaking the barrel with the fury of a goaded bear.

  The Fay had seen enough. Will stifled his relief as they ghosted away into the shadows by the poop deck, moving towards the rail and the grapnels. Courtenay raised the barrel high in triumph and bellowed, ‘We must seize this moment, Master Swyfte. Once back on their ship, they will loose their guns again and blow us out of the water.’

  Will fought to stay on his feet as the galleon spun like a leaf on a stream. Walls of black water smashed down, pitching the ship at such an angle that the hull groaned like a dying man. He fell, cursing, and skidded across the briny deck. He glimpsed Lansing by the rail, one hand on the rope that would swing him back to the Corneille Noire. The Fay had hold of Grace once more. He dragged her into a cold embrace, clearly intending to take her back to the pirate ship with him. Strangewayes lay dazed at his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead.

  The Fay lord stared at Will and yelled some threat, but the fury of the gale tore his words away. Lightning flashed white overhead, making stark the fear in Grace’s wide, dark eyes. Her mouth was a wide O, a cry of anguish perhaps, or a plea for Will to aid her.

  Thrown around by the pitching deck, Will could only watch as Lansing pressed his mouth to the woman’s ear and began to whisper. Desperation rushed through him. Grace’s eyes widened for a moment, the terror in them plain to see. Her head fell slowly back on to Lansing’s shoulder, her lids flickered, and she collapsed limply into his arms. Gripping the rope, the Fay placed one foot on the rail of the Tempest as he prepared to swing himself and his captive across to the other ship. Devastated, Will knew he could not reach Lansing, or Grace, in time.

  Yet as the dead pirates responded to some silent signal and turned back towards their vessel, Will sensed movement at the edge of his vision. Carpenter was perched on the poop deck. With a snarl, he leapt. He slammed into the Fay, wrenching Grace free of Lansing’s grasp. The two men careered over the side.

  Will staggered his way to the rail and peered down into the roiling sea. Surely no man could survive in that cauldron? For a moment, he saw only slate-grey water, which rose up higher and higher still until it towered above him before crashing down with a sound like a thousand hammers. A moment later he spotted a figure in the water, but only for an instant before it disappeared beneath the surface.

  Behind him, he heard Courtenay bark orders to the helmsman to try to move the galleon away. The storm was already starting to ebb, and if the captain caught the last of the strong winds he could put space between them and the Enemy.

  Launceston appeared at his elbow, his ghastly face made starker by the gloom. ‘We must save him,’ he cried with an edge of emotion that Will had never heard in the aristocrat’s voice before. ‘Tell Courtenay to hold fast.’

  Swyfte blinked rain out of his eyes as he looked into the other man’s face. ‘Robert, I would not leave a friend to die in such circumstances. But if we tarry here, we all die, and so too the hopes of England.’ He felt sickened to hear the words come out of his mouth.

  Launceston nodded in acceptance, and without another word stepped on to the rail and dived into the boiling sea. Will’s cry rang out, but the man disappeared and however desperately Will searched the waves he saw no further sign of his friend. The spy cursed to himself: what had possessed Launceston to throw himself after Carpenter?

  The rain eased and a glimmer of silver light broke through the thick clouds on the horizon. With a boom of filling sails, the Tempest pulled away from the crippled Enemy galleon.

  Desolate, Will tore his gaze away from the angry sea and knelt down beside Grace. He took her in his arms. She was still breathing, but that was but a small mercy. He had seen the corruption of the Unseelie Court worm its way into even the strongest mind and consume it from within until only a shell was left.

  ‘Grace,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘speak to me.’

  There was no response; she might have been sleeping, though he would not wish her dreams upon another living soul. Will bowed his head. So much had been lost, yet the worst still lay ahead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The storm had blown itself out by sunset. Under heavy clouds, the Tempest sailed through a night as deep and dark as any the crew had ever experienced. With no stars to guide them, Courtenay stowed away his compass and charts and concentrated on putting distance between them and the pirate ship. On deck, the subdued singing of the seamen raised no spirits. They mourned the eight of their companions lost in the attack, as Will mourned Carpenter and Launceston. Sails hung ripped and yards broken. Two sailors hauled planks of wood, fresh rigging and sailcloth from the store below, while a gang of five cut and shaped to start the repairs. Even the sound of the mallets had a funereal beat. ‘We lick our wounds and we move on,’ Courtenay growled in passing, the closest he would come to words of commiseration.

  By dawn, the skies had cleared to a perfect blue and the sea was calm. With his astrolabe, Bloody Jack shielded his eyes against the merciless sun and began to calculate the latitudes in order to discover how far they had been blown off course into dangerous, uncharted waters. His mood darkened by the hour.

  Grace had not yet regained consciousness. Her breathing shallow, her eyes motionless beneath the lids, she lay on her berth in a sleep akin to death. Will sat over her through the long night, watching for any sign that she might recover, afraid what would be left of her wits if she did. Time and again he cursed himself for his failings, haunted by his vow to protect her at all costs.

  Strangewayes would barely look at him, and when their eyes did meet, Will saw only simmering hatred. He felt angry at the young spy’s attitude, but held his tongue. As the stifling heat rose in the dusty cabin, he realized he was only making matters worse by being there; it was now Strangewayes’ responsibility to care for Grace. Will left him there, cooling her brow with a damp kerchief and muttering constant prayers.

  Will asked the captain if he could be left alone on the poop deck for a few moments. Once he had assured himself he couldn’t be overseen by the other men, he squatted down at the far side of the castle and pulled the obsidian mirror from his pouch, laying it on the deck. As he hunched over the glass, he whispered the words Meg had taught him and waited.

  Long moments passed. It was the agreed time, and Meg had not yet disappointed him. He uttered the incantation once more, and again. Yet the mirror remained clear, and he began to fear that the Unseelie Court had claimed another life. Wearily, he bowed his head and closed his eyes.

  When he looked again, the black mirror had clouded over. Yet the face that was gradually appearing in the misty glass was not Meg’s. He felt his heart begin to beat faster, though he scarcely dared hope. Yet the familiar curve of the lips emerged, and the bright, clever eyes, and the tumble of brown hair, just as they had that night in the rooming house in Liverpool.

  ‘Jenny,’ he murmured, uncontrolled joy rushing through him. She still wore the blue dress she had on when she vanished from his life all those years ago.

  Her eyes widened and he knew she could see him too. But then he saw the worry in her face. With apprehension she glanced nervously over her shoulder in the darkness, and then leaned closer to the glass.

  ‘Will. It is you.’

  He recoiled at the shock of hearing her voice after so long. There was so much he wanted to say to her; he had played this moment through a thousand times or more in all the years of longing. How could he ever begin to express the emotion that had been stirred in that seeming eternity of time apart? ‘Jenny,’ he began, struggling to find the words, but she silenced him with an insistent shake of her head.

  ‘Will, there is very little time,’ she whispered. ‘When I saw you before, I barely dared b
elieve you still lived. . that you remembered me-’

  ‘I would never forget you.’ He could barely stop his voice from breaking. Her features softened, and he saw the affection in her smile. ‘Not a day has passed when I have not searched for you in some way.’

  ‘And you must abandon the quest,’ she sighed. ‘That is the very reason why I have reached out to you. You must put me out of your thoughts, and out of your heart.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘You must.’ He saw the tears begin to run down her cheeks. ‘Will, please. . do this for me, if you love me still-’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Then forget me,’ she implored. ‘There is no time for explanations. You must trust me on this matter. To find me could cost you your own life, and I will never allow that to happen. .’ She half turned as if she had heard someone approaching, and then added in a hasty tone, ‘I must go.’

  ‘Wait,’ he called out, too loud, but the looking glass had already misted over, and a moment later it showed only blue sky. Will slumped back against the rail and closed his eyes, turning her words over in his head, listening once again to the music of her voice. He felt afraid to stop in case he could no longer remember how she sounded. And yet Jenny lived, there could be no doubt about that now. His heart leapt, and it was all he could do not to shout to the heavens. Her warnings meant nothing to him. How could he accept her plea for him to stay away? Nothing would deter him from bringing her home.

  He inhaled a draught of salty air and took a moment at the rail, looking out over the blue waters. Though his spirits now soared, he yet felt doubt. What of Meg? Did she still live? And without her to guide them, what chance did they have of reaching their destination?