by Jamie Davis
“Careful who you call ‘old,’ missy.”
“I’m sorry, but unless you want me to call you old man for the rest of the trip, you should tell me who you are.”
“He’s Zeb. He is the worst fisherman in our village. My dad always says he can’t catch a fish in a bucket.”
“You’re dad’s not any better than I am. I was fishing when he was a youngster only old enough to mend my nets.”
“Quiet, you two. I don’t need your bickering to draw attention over here. What do you think the guard will do if he comes over and sees my manacles hanging there?”
“Sorry,” Trina mumbled.
Zeb just grumbled to himself and rolled over.
It was already too late.
Others from neighboring bunks were paying attention to what Cari was doing now. The growing buzz of voices around her drew the guard from the far end of the hold.
“What the hell are you all up to? I swear if another one of you useless curs is dead, I’m gonna throw somebody else over the side with them.”
Cari slid off her bunk to the floor between the stacked bunk platform she’d been on and the one Trina was on. She crouched down and waited.
The grumbling guard’s boots thumped on the decks’ planks and Cari listened, trying to judge the right time to make her move.
Across the aisle from where Cari crouched, a fisherman about the age of her father stared at her. He nodded and called out to the guard.
“Guard, over here. I have something I have to tell you.”
At first, Cari thought the man was turning her in. Then she realized he was trying to distract the guard away from her hiding place.
“It better be something good, or I’m gonna beat you so bad you’ll wish I killed you. I was almost asleep and it’s my nap time.”
“It is very good. It’s so important I had to tell you right away and couldn’t wait another minute.”
The guard stomped past Cari’s hiding place to face the fisherman across from her. A long knife was shoved in the slaver’s belt at the small of his back
Cari sprang forward, launching herself across and up to land on the slaver guard’s back. In the same motion, she reached down and pulled the man’s knife free.
The slaver reacted quicker than she expected.
He arched his back and slammed his shoulders backward, attempting to crush Cari against the row of bunks behind her.
* * *
Health damage — health -5
* * *
Cari grunted as the impact drove the air from her lungs.
She raised the long knife up to plunge it down into the guard’s chest with one hand while she held on tight with the other hooked around his neck.
The guard caught her descending wrist with one hand, stopping the knife only inches from his skin.
He leaned forward and bashed backward with his superior bulk again. This time Cari’s head struck the corner of the bunk hard.
* * *
Health damage — health -8
* * *
Cari shook her head to clear her mind. The blow had likely caused another concussion. She’d worry about that later.
If she had a later.
Cari dropped the knife and wrenched her hand free of his grasp as his grip slipped on her still-bloody wrist. She used the free hand to grip her other wrist and lever back on the arm wrapped around the guard’s throat. He clawed at her arm, trying to pull it away from his neck. Strangled gasps wheezed through his collapsing airway until the guard couldn’t breathe at all.
He slammed backward again, with less force this time. Cari managed to absorb this blow without taking any damage.
She leaned back, putting all her body weight on her arms, tightening the stranglehold even more.
The guard’s legs buckled and he dropped to his knees. Cari rode him to the ground. His hand scrabbled at the deck, reaching for his knife where it fell when Cari dropped it.
Her bare feet on the deck now, Cari lifted and pulled the man backward away from the weapon, maintaining her grip with her arm locked across his throat.
He stopped struggling and his hands dropped to his side. Cari held him up on his knees and continued to press in on the guard’s neck with all her strength while she counted to sixty twice.
When she was sure he wasn’t faking, she let go and he slumped over to the deck.
* * *
2,500 experience
* * *
Cari smiled at the fisherman who’d helped her by distracting the guard.
“Thank you.”
“You’re our only chance of getting out of here alive and not in chains.”
“Speaking of chains,” Cari said as she started searching the guard for the keys to unlock the manacles on the other slaves.
“He doesn’t have the keys on him,” the fisherman said. “When they brought us down here, I saw a ring of iron manacle keys on a wooden peg by the ladder up to the next deck.”
“Alright, while I go and look for the keys, pull his body up and stash it in my bunk where I was, just in case another guard comes by while I’m gone.”
Cari bent down and scooped up the belt knife and started down the aisle between the rows of slave bunks towards the end of the hold. The desperate faces in each bunk she passed faced her way, punctuating her desire for this plan to work.
She reached the end of the row of bunks and crouched, peering around the corner. She saw a chair and a small table by the ladder leading to the next deck above.
Sure enough, the keys were there, hanging from a peg on the cross beam where the ladder entered the upper deck.
Cari dashed out and reached out for the key ring when shouts from up above and the sounds of pounding feet had her duck beneath the ladder and pull herself back into the shadows for fear someone was coming down the ladder.
The running feet above increased in number and Cari overheard orders shouted from an officer or bosun’s mate above her to clear the deck for action.
Cari smiled to herself. They were preparing for a fight against another ship.
She had a hunch which ship that might be.
Knowing the activity above her was only going to increase, Cari took a chance and darted out, climbing halfway up the ladder, and reaching out for the keys.
Snatching the key ring off the peg, Cari jumped down to the deck. Time to put the rest of her plan into action.
* * *
Quest accepted — lead a successful slave mutiny
* * *
She ran back down the aisle of bunks to where she’d started and reached past the fisherman who’d helped her, unlocking his manacles first.
“I’m Cari.” She handed him the key ring.
“I know who you are,” the fisherman said rubbing his wrist where the manacle had gouged him and cut into his arm. “I’m Merk.”
“Nice to meet you, Merk. If you know who I am, then you know my reputation. I don’t lose and I don’t plan on starting now. All that noise above means my ship has tracked me down. There’s going to be a fight. We need to be ready to lend a hand from down here when the time is right.”
“We’re not soldiers or experienced fighters like you are, Captain Dix.”
“No, you’re better than soldiers. You’re desperate people fighting to save your families and keep them from the slave pens in some Sultanate compound. Failure is not an option.”
The fisherman’s lips pressed together in a grim smile. He nodded and took the keys from her.
“Unlock as many of the others as you can. Focus on those who will fight beside me. Then hand off the keys to another to free the rest of the slaves down here while you bring the potential fighters over to me at the end of the aisle. Got it?”
“Yep.”
“Good, then get to work.”
Cari turned and padded back down the aisle to the hatch and ladder. No one else had come down to check on them yet, but she had to think someone would soon.
She crouched down and waited for h
er new fighters to be freed and come to her. She hoped Helen, Rodrigo, and Stefan had the crew of the Vengeance whipped into a fury. There were a lot of slavers on this ship when it came time to board her.
The sudden boom of cannon fire sounded from above. The fired broadside from the slavers’ cannons shook the whole ship.
The battle to rescue Cari and the others from the slaver’s ship was underway.
Chapter 30
Rodrigo Dumont bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to bring the two ships closer faster by sheer force of will. His hand maintained a white-knuckled grip on the hilt of the sword sheathed at his waist.
They had to get Cari back.
He shook his head. He and Stefan should never have let her go down into that village alone.
Helen had been furious. The usually calm first mate seethed with rage all of which she focused on the two lieutenants.
Rodrigo had taken it without complaint. He and Stefan both deserved the woman’s wrath.
She’d recovered herself fast enough. The captain had passed on orders for them all and carrying them out was the only way they could ever hope to have her back in command of the Vengeance again.
It had taken nearly two days after Helen retrieved the shore party for them to track down the slow-moving slaver ship as it traveled along the coast. Now they closed on the Sultanate ship fast.
“I’m turning her so you can launch another broadside, Mr. Claridge,” Helen called from the quarterdeck. “Be ready to fire as she bears.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Stefan bent low over the barrel of the first cannon in the port broadside, sighting along it.
All of the barrels had an extra wooden wedge placed under the barrels, lifting them up so they’d fire higher than normal. The last thing any of them wanted to was to breach the lower hull on the slave ship. Their captain was down there.
By firing high and aiming at taking out a mast or sections of the ship’s rigging, they decreased their chances of a hit and the running battle had gone on longer than it might have otherwise.
The deck tilted beneath Rodrigo’s feet as Helen had Katie at the helm bring the ship to starboard to allow the cannons to bear on the ship they chased.
The turn tilted the deck upward slightly and Stefan cursed and held up his hand to signal his gun crews. He had to wait until the ship leveled out or the cannons would fire too high and miss entirely.
Stefan’s hand slashed downward. “Fire!”
The cannons’ thunderous blasts sounded as one and thick gray smoke temporarily shrouded the other ship from view.
A shout and a ragged cheer sounded from the crew perched in the rigging above.
Rodrigo strained to see what the cheering was about through the cannon smoke, his nervous energy bouncing him back and forth from side to side.
“Yes,” Helen called out from the quarterdeck as she peered through the spyglass at the slave ship. “Bring us to port, Katie. We’re coming alongside. Boarding parties, prepare for action to port.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Rodrigo called out while he peered through the slowly clearing smoke.
Then he saw what the others had seen. The slaver’s foremast was down, laying across the starboard bow and dragging a sail in the water like an anchor. The crew aboard the Sultanate ship worked in a frenzy to clear the mast and tangled lines.
Stefan shook his head. They’d never get it cut away and cleared before the Vengeance pulled alongside.
He looked left and then right. His nervous energy had infected his boarding party. They all leaned forward, bouncing like on coiled springs in anticipation for the order to leap over the rail and onto the other ship.
“Be ready, ladies and gentlemen. It’s about to be our turn to join this fight.”
Rodrigo returned his attention to the angle of the two ships. It looked like they were going to crash together but he had faith in the first mate and especially Katie at the helm. They’d turn at the last instant, bringing the two ships together but not hard enough to do any significant damage to either hull.
Sure enough, Helen barked another order and Katie spun the wheel, heeling the ship around to starboard. A grinding squeal sounded as the two hulls rubbed against each other.
“Go get her back, Mr. Dumont,” Helen ordered.
“Let’s go get the Captain back!”
Rodrigo’s shout was followed by a massed cheer from the boarding party. The line of boarders charged forward, the fastest among them outpacing their leader. Those leaders reached the side first and launched themselves off the top of the Vengeance’s rail and across to the slaver’s ship.
A few were hit by a ragged musket volley and fell down into the gap between the ships. A few others were cut down by the slavers as they landed on the other vessel.
Then the rest of the boarding party crossed over in an unbroken line and they hit the crew assembled to repel boarders like a wave crashing over a line of pitiful sand castles on the beach.
The Vengeance’s boarding party fought with an intensity Rodrigo hadn’t seen in them before, despite all the fights they’d been in.
Even the wounded somehow got back to their feet, picking up weapons from the fallen and jumping back into the fray.
Rodrigo drew his second pistol and fired it into the chest of a slaver standing over one of his boarding party readying a killing blow. He fell backward and Rodrigo leaned over and pulled his crewmate to her feet.
The woman, a stout and able seaman named Hilda hefted her cutlass and nodded a thank you at Rodrigo before charging at a pair of slavers who attacked a lone comrade.
Rodrigo turned and jumped to the defense of another crewman as the slaver crew’s counter assault started to press them back against the rail. The tide of the initial attack had turned as reinforcements arrived from below decks.
As he parried a slashing scimitar aimed at his head, he wondered if Cari had managed to put the rest of her plan in place.
* * *
———
* * *
Cari listened to the clash of steel filtering down from above and turned to the twenty-three fishermen and women assembled behind her at the foot of the ladder.
“That’s the boarding party from my ship fighting up above. Now’s our chance to lend a hand and try and tip the odds in our favor.”
“But we don’t have any weapons, miss,” a dark-haired woman said.
“Let me lead the way to take on the first slavers we encounter. Pick up any loose weapons lying about as you see them. You won’t be unarmed for long.”
She scanned the group one last time for any questions. When no one said anything else, she smiled to reassure them.
“Follow me. It’s time to win our freedom.”
Cari climbed up through the hatch to the deck above them. She figured they were two levels below the main deck and open air.
Most of the slavers should be up there by now, trying to repel the boarding party.
She was correct, but there were still armed stragglers roaming the lower decks. The first slaver she encountered seemed puzzled by the nearly naked slaves charging up out of the hatchway at him.
He backpedaled, reaching for the scimitar at his waist.
Cari jumped forward, launching a perfect snapping front kick to his chin. The ball of her bare foot impacted, wrenching his head around. She felt his neck snap resonating up her leg.
She didn’t know why but killing someone that way seemed more personal than stabbing them with a knife or sword. A twinge of nausea roiled in her gut.
* * *
2,500 experience
* * *
Merk scooped up the slaver’s scimitar and followed her along the narrow passageways and storage rooms of the deck they were on until they reached the next set of steps upward.
Along the way, Cari knocked down two more slavers skulking down here rather than heading up to join the fighting above.
Her escaped slaves made short work of them, appropriating their weapons, too.
Before she headed up to the final sub-deck beneath the main deck, Cari turned and reassured her team.
“We’ll run into more on the next deck up. It’ll be more open, too, so be ready. Just pair up and help each other out. Come on.”
She started up the steps and as soon as she cleared the hatch to the next level, a slaver ran over to engage her.
Cari blocked the first slash with her smaller knife, catching the descending scimitar blade on the narrow guard above her hilt.
She punched twice hard into the man’s throat as they pressed their weapons between them. The slaver’s eye’s widened as his windpipe spasmed and he suddenly couldn’t breathe.
He dropped his scimitar and clutched his throat with both hands. Cari stabbed forward with her long belt knife three times until the slaver collapsed at her feet.
* * *
2,500 experience
* * *
The rest of the escaped slaves in her group boiled up from below, passing around her to either side, racing forward to engage the ten remaining slaver crew members in sight.
Cari winced as a few of her team were cut down immediately, but then they swarmed over the slavers and killed them in short order.
She knelt down and picked up the scimitar at her feet, opting for the longer reach of the unfamiliar weapon over the more familiar but smaller knife. She still held the knife in her off hand, with the scimitar in her left.
“Get their weapons and come on. We have to get on deck. They’ll need our help. When we get up there, head straight for the officers on the quarterdeck. If we can get to the captain and take command of the ship, we will win the day.”
Cari checked her status menu and in particular her power-up bar. It was half full, and she was counting on it filling completely in time for her to use it against the captain and his officers on the quarterdeck.