The person wheezed, clutching his neck with both hands.
“Nice work,” Grubby said with a toothy smile.
Accidental nice work, but she’d take the compliment.
Panting and scanning the space for pirate projectiles, she made it to the end of the bar behind Grubby. Ebba turned back to survey the shouting mess of bodies where they’d left Plank. Not a table or chair in the place remained where it had been. Most were in a splintered wreck on the grog-covered saloon floor. She spotted at least three men sporting bloody wounds still throwing themselves into the fight.
Ebba tapped her foot nervously, eyes fixed on where she’d last seen Plank. Where was her father? “Grubby—?”
Plank emerged from underneath the violent pile of bodies, a feral grin on his face. A pirate with chunks missing from his nose charged at her father with a roar, and Ebba’s jaw dropped as Plank plucked an intact green bottle from the bar and smashed it over the scoundrel’s head.
Her father wasn’t even breathing hard when he reached them. . . .
“Right then,” he said, straightening his tunic. “Through that door behind ye, quick-like.”
Once inside the passageway, Ebba stared at her father, eyeing his split knuckles; otherwise, there was a complete lack of evidence he’d been fighting. He caught her watching, and his soft hazel eyes twinkled.
“Ye’ve never seen yer father in action, have ye?” he asked her, puffing his chest out.
Amazement colored her voice. “Nay, I haven’t.” At least not like that. Not long ago, she’d seen them do something no other pirate crew would have dared, but when they showed flickers of recklessness, it never failed to surprise her. There were the risks of daily life at sea, for sure, but other than that, her fathers had always taken pains to avoid danger.
Grubby peeked around the far corner of the passage and came back, scuffing his shoes on a barrel as he did so. He really wasn’t too graceful out of the water. “Cellar door be open and there be stairs to the bottom. I could hear the others down there. Come on.”
He led them up the barrel-lined hall and put a finger to his lips when they reached the end.
Ebba strained to listen.
“How long do ye mean to keep us down here?” they heard Locks drawl from the cellar below.
Relief flooded through her, leaving her knees weak. They were okay.
“Pockmark be busy upstairs right now.” A person sniggered. “We’re to take ye to the town square tomorrow mornin’.”
“To be made a zample of,” another added.
A throat cleared. “Example?” Barrels asked, his voice echoing up to where Ebba and the others eavesdropped.
“That’s what I said,” the person said defensively.
There were two Malice pirates guarding them at least. If Jagger was to be believed, the pirates were Swindles and Riot—Pockmark’s cronies.
Stubby’s deep laughter rumbled. “No sense tryin’ to ed’cate them, Barrels. Not enough skull rum between them to fill a goblet.”
Plank tapped her shoulder and beckoned her back down the passage.
She and Grubby leaned in as he whispered, “There only be two. Jagger weren’t lyin’. We rush ‘em with our pistols. Don’t let them draw.”
Grubby silently drew his pistols. Ebba took up her cutlass in her right hand and a pistol in her left—seeing as her second pistol wasn’t loaded.
“On the count o’ three,” Plank breathed. “One—”
With a roar, Grubby sprinted around the corner, waving his pistols in the air.
Ebba groaned; Grubby couldn’t count. She took off after him, hearing Plank do the same.
Throwing herself around the corner, Ebba leaped down the wooden stairs, two at a time, in Grubby’s wake, cocking her pistol and hoping not to land on her face with a loaded gun in hand. She jumped to clear the bottom three steps, landing on both feet on the flat ground, and lifted her sole pistol into the shocked face of Swindles. Grubby had his pointed at Riot, and as Plank caught up he held one pistol on each pirate.
Catching her breath, she stole a quick peek at her three captive fathers. They were tied to chairs in the middle of the room. They’d been hit a few times. One of Stubby’s gray-blue eyes was nearly closed, and the front of Barrels’ tunic was bloodied. Locks’ single eye wasn’t focusing quite right, like he’d been knocked on the noggin’ a few times too many.
“Hands in the air, ye scurvy curs,” Grubby bit out.
Her eyes rounded. Grubby just insulted someone.
“So ye can threaten people; ye just can’t count.” Plank rolled his eyes. “I said three, ye soddin’ eejit.”
Ebba inched forward, tensed for signs of movement from the two pirates she loathed almost as much as their cruel captain. Not so long ago, they’d held her between them as their captain made to cut out her tongue.
“If it ain’t fish lips,” Swindles said as she neared.
Fish lips. That name was beginning to peeve her right off. She did her best to ignore him, despite the telltale signs her anger was about to burst free. She took shallow breaths and forced back the heat rising up her throat. She reached Barrels and smiled grimly at him. Pocketing her pistol, she began to saw through the ropes binding her fathers with her cutlass.
Barrels rubbed his freed wrists, sighing loudly. He bent to untie his feet as she worked on Locks’ bindings.
A barrel crashed at the top of the stairs, and they all turned to stare. In a flash, Swindles pistol was free of his belt and pointed directly in Stubby’s face.
Ebba froze.
“Drop yer pistols!” Swindles snapped.
Riot sneered at them, grinning widely. Grubby and Plank still had their pistols trained on him.
“Drop ‘em now,” Swindles said again. “Or this one gets it.”
“Don’t ye dare listen to him,” Stubby growled at Ebba and the others. “Don’t ye bloody well dare.” He stared down Plank and Grubby, lips white with fury.
Plank shifted his gaze to Swindles. “Ye have one bullet in that pistol, and there be six o’ us. Ye may kill one o’ us, but how will ye protect yerself from the rest? And we still have yer crewmate. Seems to me ye should cut yer losses and walk away.”
“Seems to me that ye be carin’ a whole heap more for this one,” he said, jerking his head at Stubby, “than I be carin’ about Riot—”
Riot stopped grinning.
“—And I be havin’ another pistol. And then my sword. Are ye willin’ to lose half yer crew?” Swindles’ lips curved. “Nay, I don’t be thinkin’ so, matey. Drop yer weapons, smart-like.”
Ebba let her cutlass fall to the ground first. Her fathers’ pistols were laid on the ground not long after. Nothing was worth losing the life of one of the crew. Nothing in the entire realm was more important to her than her fathers. Now that she understood just how mortal they all were, Ebba would lay on hot coals to keep them safe.
Riot drew his pistol and began to circle. “Well, well, well, Swins. Looks like we got the bunch o’ them. Pockmark will be pleased wiv us.”
“With,” Barrels muttered.
Ebba eyed them. Grubby wasn’t the only one who couldn’t count. They weren’t all here. At least Peg-leg was safe back on the ship. Riot stepped into the light of a hanging torch, and Ebba stiffened at the sickly sight of him. Black circles shadowed his eyes. His skin was pale, his cheeks gaunt, and his Malice uniform—all black, barring the blood-red sash around his hips—hung off him like he hadn’t eaten in a week. A strange fevered energy burned from his wide eyes which didn’t mesh with his weakened appearance. A closer glimpse at Swindles told her he was in a similar condition.
“What happened to ye?” she asked.
Both pistols swung to her. That didn’t scare her as much as when the weapons were trained on her fathers.
“Shut it, fish lips.” Riot snarled. His eyes widened further, showing yellow where white should be.
How had they both become so much . . . less in only two months? Malice
was the largest and wealthiest pirate ship in the realm, its wood painted black, and its sails dyed crimson. There wasn’t any way the two pirates weren’t getting food, so why did they look so ill?
“Go get more rope, Riot,” Swindles ordered.
“Ye go get it.”
Swindles didn’t hesitate in swinging his pistol muzzle to Riot’s face. “Now.”
For a breath-holding moment, Ebba wondered if they might finish each other off right then and there. Something was really wrong with them. Riot and Swindles were usually attached at the hip. The conversation she’d overheard between them back on Maltu told her that at one point they’d shared everything. What happened to change that so dramatically and so suddenly?
With an irritated huff, Riot tucked his pistol in his belt. “Fine.”
He disappeared up the stairs.
“Into the middle, all o’ ye.” Swindles gripped Ebba’s arm and pushed her roughly. She stumbled into her fathers. Barrels steadied her as she regained her feet.
The heat within her rose to her chin. This time she let it.
Plank and Grubby joined them in the middle as Swindles paced, darting his eyes up the stairs every so often. He licked his lips as he looked over at Ebba. She glanced down at the cutlass on the floor and he sneered. “Just try it, fish lips. I’m dyin’ to put a hole in ye.”
She held his gaze as heat rose to her ears.
“What’s the matter?” He continued. “I thought ye—”
A muffled shout of pain echoed down the stairs.
Ebba sprang at Swindles, pushing his right arm straight in the air. His pistol fired, and she frantically felt for the pirate’s second pistol. He reached for it at the same time, knocking it from her grasp. The pistol skittered across the floor, and Swindles whipped the empty pistol across her face.
White light sprung into her vision, and she stumbled, the glint of her cutlass catching her attention. Half-bent already, Ebba swooped on it and turned on the advancing Swindles, blinking the white spots away. The pirate grinned and reached for his own cutlass.
Plank dove for one of the pistols Riot had kicked into the far corner. Barrels and Grubby clawed at the knots restraining Stubby and Locks.
She focused on the pirate before her as Swindles brought his cutlass down. Ebba stepped aside and held her blade vertically and angled, so his cutlass merely slid down the length of hers—instead of cutting her in half. She shoved as hard as she could when his blade was nearly at the hilt of her sword, and the pirate stumbled back. Ebba grinned and retreated to her original position facing him. Then she really started. With short jabs, she sliced at the pirate’s thighs and arm to weaken him. With darting attacks, Ebba drove him into a corner as she so often tried to do to her fathers. And then, taking particular enjoyment in his shocked reaction, she twisted her wrist and opened the underbelly of his forearm from elbow to wrist.
People always went for the obvious, Stubby would say. But the arms could leak sea water just as well as anywhere else—especially for an opponent light on their feet as Ebba was.
Swindles’ cutlass fell to the uneven floorboards with a clang, and he dropped to his knees, pressing his hand against the gushing wound.
She kicked his cutlass away and backed out of the reach of his hands, not taking her eyes off of him. Her fathers stood behind her, but they weren’t looking at Swindles. Craning to peer past them, she spotted Jagger at the base of the stairs. He held an unconscious Riot upright by the scruff of his neck.
Jagger’s flaxen brows lifted. “Not sure how ye all screwed that up. Remind me never to rely on ye for rescuin’.”
“Seein’ as we can likely assume ye knocked the barrel over which gave Swindles the chance to get his pistol,” Plank replied, “maybe we shouldn’t be relyin’ on ye staying out o’ matters ye say ye have no interest in.”
“Licks,” Swindles said, rolling onto his side, features twisting in outrage.
Jagger moved into the cellar and threw Riot onto one of the chairs, tying him to it with a succession of knots that dredged a few drops of respect out of her.
Jagger approached Swindles.
“Mercer will be hearin’ o’ this,” Swindles said in a low voice.
Jagger didn’t reply. Without preamble, he delivered a crushing blow to the bleeding pirate’s jaw and unceremoniously dragged him to join Riot, tying him just as efficiently.
Slipping her cutlass into her belt, Ebba accepted her pistols from Stubby, tucking them into her sash. “That was quick, tidy work ye did with Swindles just now, Ebba-Viva,” he said.
She tried to hide her smile at his praise. But truthfully, Ebba was a little proud that she’d won her first real sword fight. Her fathers seemed torn between lining up to congratulate her and watching Jagger with thinly veiled suspicion.
Jagger straightened. “We have a couple o’ hours until they’re found, tops. It’ll take an hour to get back to yer ship. We can be an hour from here toward Neos before Pockmark finds them. Unless someone else gets here first.”
“Ye ain’t comin’ with us, boy. No matter what ye just did.” Locks snorted.
“Ah,” Plank said, “we have an accord with Jagger here. He be the one that warned us ye’d been taken.” He caught the blazing look in Locks’ emerald eye and held up his hands. “Later, Locks. Later. We’ll talk once we have Ebba clear o’ Febribus.”
Why just her? What about all of them? And Cosmo? She kept the thought to herself as they filed up the stairs after Stubby.
Ebba felt her cheek where Swindles had caught her with the pistol. Blood colored her fingertips and she wiped at the wound with her sleeve.
Stubby made to re-enter the main saloon room.
“Not that way,” Jagger said from behind him. “This way.” He jerked his head to another door. “It goes out the back.”
A serving maid swung in the doorway, saw their hovering group, and screamed.
“There goes our lead,” Jagger growled as she disappeared back the way she’d come.
Plank drew his pistol, swinging the back door open. “Show a leg.”
They spilled into the back alley that wasn’t empty by any means. Ebba gripped the hilt of her cutlass, scowling at the pirates who were lurking there, far too interested in their group.
“This way now,” Locks said. “Smart-like.”
Ebba fell in line between Barrels and Stubby and tried to match their striding steps. Locks took them back out into the crowded glass-littered street. The urgency in her fathers was almost palpable. They made no effort to be courteous as they shoved and shouldered their way through the tumultuous crowd.
It seemed as though every rooftop had gained a predatory spy. Like every stumbling drunk with red-streaked eyes was a crewmember of Malice. Fear ricocheted through her spine and pressed down hard on her chest. Ebba fixed her wide eyes on Stubby’s back and concentrated on putting one foot after the next.
Ebba took in great gulps of air when they reached the outskirts of town, relieved to be free of the crushing town center of Febribus without a bullet lodged between her shoulder blades.
“If Pockmark don’t already know what’s happened, he will soon,” Jagger called from the back.
Aye, and they could only move as fast as the slowest amongst them—Barrels. Silently, Ebba agreed with them. They had to get out of here with all possible haste.
“I’ll run ahead,” Ebba said. “Me and Peg-leg’ll get Felicity ready.”
Locks peered into the shadowed path ahead. The buzz of Febribus lessened with every step, but Ebba recalled the bawdy singing on the journey in. There were other pirates out there, scattered through the sparse trees. She’d have to be careful.
“I can go with her,” Jagger spoke, walking to Ebba’s side.
Stubby snorted. “Aye, matey. And Davy Jones’ will freeze over. Our Ebba can take care of herself just fine. Did ye just see her win her first sword fight. Off ye go, lass. We’ll be right behind ye.”
Her back straightened. “Aye, I
’ll be careful.”
Plank snagged her arm as she made to run off. He extracted one of his pistols and took her empty one. She tucked his loaded weapon into her sash, flashed him some worried semblance of a grin, and darted into the darkness.
Ten
Ebba didn’t bother yelling and shouting from the shore for Peg-leg to row out. Dawn had broken, but light was still scarce, and she’d waste more time than not trying to shout a message from the shore in the dark; quicker to go out herself. She shucked her boots, sash, and pistol before wading out and diving under the lukewarm surface. She cut through the gentle waves in strong strokes—nowhere near as quick as Grubby, but completely at ease in the water.
She reached Felicity’s hull, gasping for air, and took hold of the anchor’s taut rope, monkey-climbing up to the deck. Swinging over Felicity’s starboard side, her clothes heavy with water, Ebba shouted for Peg-leg.
Peg-leg was on deck already, glowing pipe sticking out of his gob. He sat frozen for a good long moment before removing his pipe. “Ye scared the beejebus out o’ me,” he scolded.
“We need to ready the ship,” Ebba panted, running to him. “We have to be away afore the day is fully here.” She spilled out a condensed version of their night thus far, making sure not to leave out her swordfight with Swindles.
“My daughter won her first real swordfight?” Peg-leg said, face lighting up. “O’ course she bloody did. I trained her.”
It was not strictly true; more like one-sixth taught her. But she wouldn’t burst his bubble.
Peg-leg placed the pipe atop the barrel beside him and made for the largest boom to unfurl the mainsail. She scooted alongside him, untying a few of the reef knots. He waved her away as he limped with a tap, tap, tap in the direction of the anchor. “Ye row to shore to collect the others; they won’t be far away, unless Barrels has expired on the pathway somewhere. Unfit bugger.”
Ebba threw the ladder over the side of Felicity, grateful Stubby wasn’t there to witness as she failed to gently lower it with the respect Felicity deserved. He was adamant that throwing the ladder over bruised the ship. The rowboat, mended from their escape in Neos, was in the water and tied to the port side. Peg-leg had only raised the ladder in case there was unpleasant company. She settled into the boat, untied it, and set out for shore, glancing anxiously at the sky brightening further with each passing minute.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2) Page 11