Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat

by Garrett Bettencourt

  “Keep her steady,” said Ryland.

  John stood beside the most forward long gun. His heart pounded as he watched the pirates crowding the rails of their ship, hate-filled eyes fixed on their enemies. They were a mass of bearded faces and loose pantaloons, a sharp contrast to the shaven faces and tightly fitted clothes of the American crew. The decks of the xebec bristled with long Turkish rifles, scimitars, and curved daggers. As the two ships came near to colliding, the jeers and bloodthirsty cries of the pirates were deafening.

  “They’re nearly close enough to board!” cried Wilson.

  “Steady…” said Ryland.

  Less than ten yards apart now. Hamit stood with one foot on the prow of his ship, like a rider standing up in his saddle.

  “Captain!” pleaded Wilson.

  “Helm, hard to port!” said Ryland.

  The helmsman spun the ship’s wheel. The aft crew pivoted the spanker sail, which helped steer the ship like a tailfin. Independence veered away at the last second, and grappling hooks flying over from the Blooded Spear missed the brig and plunked in the water.

  John looked over the shoulders of the forward-most gun crews. The red-painted enemy hull passed by the gunport. He waited for the captain’s order. Each second was taut as a drum.

  “Fire!” shouted Ryland.

  “Fire!” bellowed John.

  The first gunner touched the match to his gun. The cannon blasted back, the massive report blotting out all sound. John watched a bulwark break into a shower of splinters. Half of an oar went flying into the water.

  John ran to the next gun. “Fire!”

  Another cannon launched back. Another chunk of enemy hull caved in, scattering pirates in a hail of blood and body parts. The wind carried the gunsmoke over the enemy decks, plunging them into a fog. Enemy 9-pounders fired back at point-blank range, their shots tearing into Independence. The balls ripped apart railing on the spar deck, punched holes in the foretopsail, and cut one of the gunners in half. John ran through the rain of splinters, carrying the order to the aft guns. They fired one after the other, and screams erupted from the enemy deck. One pirate disintegrated when struck, his only remains a spray of blood on a triangular sail.

  The last gun fell silent, and the two ships glided past one another. John’s head buzzed from the gun reports. Several sailors on the spar deck were crying out for help, wounded by splinters or shot. John stared at the tranquil waters of the lake, breathing hard, shaking with adrenaline. The moaning of the wounded died down for a few seconds, leaving only the sound of the ruffling sails.

  Then came the swarm. The seventeen gunboats came on from all sides, bow guns blasting. There were no more timid hit-and-runs. The American crew had the pirates’ attention.

  “Look abaft, men!” Ryland’s voice rose above the boom and whistle of cannonballs. “Our enemy seems to have lost a few oars.”

  The mood of the entire crew shifted. In the midst of a maelstrom of enemy fire, every man aboard noticed the Blooded Spear yawing aimlessly. The xebec’s crew milled through the chaos of a shattered deck. A few yards abaft their stern, pieces of oars floated like driftwood. Laughter soon spread across the spar deck of the Independence. Like his comrades, John laughed with equal parts amusement and madness. With cannon balls plunking in the sea all around them, rifle shots whizzing through the rigging, and corsairs crying for their blood, what could they do but laugh?

  “Stand to your posts,” continued Ryland. “In the words of another great captain, we have only just begun to fight!”

  The deck trembled with their cheers.

  Chapter 61

  The Baths of Antoninus

  Ruins of Ancient Carthage

  Wednesday, September 14th, 1803

  Day 5, Morning

  A bolt hissed by Kaitlin’s arm and chipped the stone wall ahead of her. She glanced over her shoulder and found Naim only ten paces behind.

  The Baths of Antoninus went by in a blur as Kaitlin ran. It was a maze of pillars and walls open to the sky, the ceiling they supported having fallen in long ago. Her padding footfalls whispered on ochre archways, chased by Naim’s thudding boots. Her nostrils filled with the odorless earth of the desert. Her shadow flickered over wall-mounted waterspouts long dry.

  There was another whistle of air. The chain of Kaitlin’s cloak pulled tight at her neck, and she skidded to a stop. Her thief’s cloak was pinned to the trunk of a date tree, the black fletches of the crossbow bolt fluttering in the breeze. Naim was ten strides behind. Kaitlin pulled at the bolt in a panic, tugging with all her might. Five strides. Kaitlin’s sliced hand ached as she worked the bolt back and forth. Three strides. The obvious occurred to her. Two strides. Kaitlin pulled her knife and cut away the clasp. She dove under Naim’s reaching arms and somersaulted to her feet. She took off down another corridor, her cloak still nailed to the tree.

  Naim’s impossible speed kept him barely two steps behind Kaitlin. But the honeycomb of chambers—once a myriad of interconnected pools, saunas, and spas—allowed her the advantage of agility. Kaitlin switched right down one path, then left around a column, then right again. Every time she wheeled in another random direction, the Ottoman assassin fell a few more paces behind. As mad as it was, Kaitlin broke into a smile.

  No one can catch the Red Hart!

  The passage opened into a round chamber with a wide bathing pool. A Janissary jumped out from behind a pillar. Kaitlin gasped, her feet throwing gravel as she tried to stop. The soldier dove low and swept her feet out from under her. Dust turned to paste in her mouth. In an instant, hands were all over her. Two more Janissaries came out of an adjoining passage and helped hold her down.

  “Get your fecking hands off me!” Kaitlin shouted as she fought and kicked. The soldiers tugged at her like dogs. She said in Arabic, “The Chronicler. He’s coming. He’ll kill all of you. Pick up your weapons!”

  “Be still, thief!” shouted the man holding her right arm. “You’re under arrest in the name of Bey—”

  Thwip!

  A bolt whispered through the air and landed in the man’s throat. His eyes bulged, black wooden shaft piercing the silver gorget around his neck. A bolt speared the Janissary on her left through both cheeks, and another thudded into his temple. The man holding her feet looked toward the source of the shots, and a bolt struck his eye, another his heart. Varlick Naim swept out of the shadows, crossbow leveled. Three Janissaries lay in the dirt, bodies twitching.

  Sand flew as Kaitlin scrambled to her feet. Five more Janissaries poured in from other corridors, surrounding her. She vaulted over the three-foot walls of the bath, sprang across a series of broken pillars, and jumped for the top of a six-foot wall. Her fingers caught the ledge, but with her right hand slick with blood, she slipped and tumbled into the dirt.

  A Janissary charged at her, red kaftan rippling in the breeze. Kaitlin threw a valari. It smacked the charging soldier dead in the nose and went spinning into a trio of short palms. He shouted an epithet, hands cupped over his face, blood oozing through his fingers. Kaitlin was like a wild horse corralled on all sides, zig-zagging around the bath to avoid being caught. She sent a valari spinning into another Janissary’s groin. He dropped to his knees, and she tumbled over his shoulders as though he were another pillar. Two soldiers blocked her path.

  Twang-twang.

  One of them grimaced as a steel-tipped bolt struck his chest. The second caught a bolt in his open mouth and gagged, spitting blood all over the fletches. She looked back and saw Naim running into the bath, crossbow moving from target to target. Rifles blasted, ricocheting off pillars near the Chronicler. Naim killed them all in rapid succession, first with bolts. Then his hand went to a row of throwing knives on his bandolier. With small flicks of the wrist, he sent metal points without crosspiece or pommel flying into flesh.

  Kaitlin used the distraction to head down another corridor. Two more soldiers came around the bend, blocking her path. She stopped, looking over her shoulder for signs of Naim
. There were only the last screams of a dying Janissary and the rumbling cannons in the distance. The soldiers aimed their weapons at her.

  “Don’t you see?” Kaitlin said. “Varlick Naim is here. We have to run!”

  They charged toward her, and she scrambled back. Before she could run the way she came, two more gunshots buffeted her ears in the confined space. Both Janissaries tumbled forward, each with a bullet hole in his back.

  Melisande Dufort stood a few paces behind them, a pistol smoking in each of her hands. She stuck them through her belt. “Lil Red! You okay?”

  Kaitlin had no idea how Johnny’s cross-dressing friend had found her, but she was grateful to see her all the same. She ran to Melisande and grabbed her hand. “Naim’s here. We have to run!”

  Melisande pulled Kaitlin down an adjacent path instead. “Follow me, Red.”

  “No, that’s the wrong way. It leads to a dead end.”

  “Trust me!”

  Hardly in a position to argue, Kaitlin followed. The two young women fled through a warren of crumbling halls, the sun beating down from above. The passages were of odd dimensions—in some places, roomy rectangular cells, in others, hallways too narrow to travel shoulder-to-shoulder. Jostling equipment echoed in neighboring chambers as more Janissaries joined the pursuit.

  Their flight ended in a large oval-shaped room with twenty-foot walls. The frames of five towering windows rose directly ahead, looking like broken teeth with their roof gone. They threw long shadows over stone pews. Kaitlin could only imagine it had been some kind of church for long-forgotten gods. Three other passages converged here, each reverberating with the clamor of jogging soldiers.

  “What now?” demanded Kaitlin.

  Melisande stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a loud whistle.

  “Halt!” shouted one of the Janissaries in Arabic. He and the other three pursuers were fanning out amidst the pews, muskets leveled at Kaitlin and Melisande. They both whirled, one with her war club in hand, the other with her valari.

  Thwick! Thud, thwick!

  Three blades flashed down from above. One hit an eye, another hit an Adam’s apple, and a third hit a jugular. Three Janissaries dropped. Varlick Naim was gliding atop the ten-foot walls, eyes cool and focused as he flung knives. Two Janissaries fired muskets, forcing Naim to step behind a column for cover.

  With the Janissaries distracted by Naim, Melisande led Kaitlin to the foot of the highest wall and whistled again. She was looking up at the tall windows, waiting for something.

  “There!” shouted a Janissary in Arabic.

  Soldiers poured in from the passages on either side. Guns fired, but not from the Janissaries. Up on the walls, two American Marines knelt in the window frames, their double-breasted red coats bright in the afternoon sun as they shot muskets. They each took down a Janissary, then picked up a fresh rifle.

  Amid the popping shots of the Marines and Janissaries trading fire, Naim’s terrible bow was back to work, sending whistling bolts into the fray. When a few bullets struck near the Chronicler, rather than retreat, he jumped off a six-foot chunk of wall and tumbled into a crouch. His bow swiveled from target to target, lever pumping. Whereas the soldiers were dashing for cover and firing in a panic, Naim chose his targets with precision. Already the pews were strewn with bodies. Soon, the last three Janissaries would be finished.

  “Lil Red!” Melisande pointed at a rope dropping down from one of the windows. “Grab on!”

  Kaitlin grabbed on with both hands. She grimaced with the searing pain of her cut. Melisande grabbed onto the rope beside her. Licks of short black hair were plastered to her sweaty forehead. Her ice-blue eyes fizzed with energy. “Big Paw! Haul away!”

  Thwip-thwip. Twang.

  The last Janissary defenders fell gasping with bolts in their lungs.

  As though tethered to a team of oxen, the rope launched Melisande and Kaitlin upward. A second later, they were up on the ledge. There was a bank of sand against the wall on the other side, making for an easy five-foot drop. Kaitlin was shocked to see a single teenaged boy holding the rope below—Seaman Kelham. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but his powerful legs were anchored in the sand.

  “Sullivan!” roared Naim.

  Down in the Old Church, Naim fired his crossbow, and one of the Marines gasped as though punched in the stomach.

  “Miller!” cried the other Marine.

  The wounded man flopped backward and landed on the sandbank. Boots and the cries of soldiers echoed in the nearby passages, but Naim paid them no mind. His bow aimed toward her and Melisande. Kaitlin’s heart stopped for a beat.

  Naim pumped the trigger. Kaitlin flinched. But this time, there was only a harmless click. None of the six strings were drawn—Naim had spent one shot too many. Half a dozen Janissaries flowed in around him, hurdling over pews, stepping around bodies.

  “Varlick Naim.” The familiar voice of Corbaci Ildemir resonated in the chamber. The leader of Bey Hammuda’s soldiers joined the men encircling the assassin. The gold filigree of his tall felt hat shimmered in the sun, a silver ladle jangling at his belt. “In the name of Bey Hammuda of Tunis and Sultan Selim III of Istanbul, on the charge of treason against the Ottoman Empire, I command you to lay down your weapons and submit to arrest.”

  Reluctantly, Naim let the crossbow fall to the dirt, his eyes still fixed on Kaitlin.

  To Kaitlin’s amazement, Melisande treated Naim to a bubbly smile. She gave him a dainty waggle of fingers. The feared Chronicler of Constantinople rebuked with childish mockery—it was inconceivable. Kaitlin looked at Melisande with awe.

  The girls jumped onto the soft bank of sand, safely on the other side of the wall. The last Kaitlin saw of Varlick Naim, he was holding his hands high, crossbow lying on a bed of decaying bricks.

  ###

  Near the Baths of Antoninus

  Ruins of Ancient Carthage

  Wednesday, September 14th, 1803

  Day 5, Morning

  Varlick Naim was going to die. It was a fact. As he stood amid the broken limestone pillars of the ancient church, six Janissaries surrounding him with rifles or scimitars, defeat was certain. Corbaci Ildemir stood six paces away, hand on his sword hilt, the spoon plate on his bork hat blinding bright. Blood still dripped from the corbaci’s torn fingernails, and judging by his scowl, the anger was still fresh.

  Understandable.

  All of Naim’s advantages were gone. There were no threats to level, no deceptions to ply. Once a man resorted to pure brute violence, his only remaining maneuver was to win. And Naim had lost.

  Shackles rattled in a Janissary’s hands as he approached Naim from behind. The others drew closer, and Naim could sense the change in their posture. Shoulders relaxing. Grips loosening near triggers. The complacency of the victorious.

  An opening?

  “Halt, you fools!” Ildemir shouted at his men. “Stand back! You know who this man is? Keep your distance.”

  Two Janissaries with rifles stepped back. The two with scimitars circled into Naim’s periphery, careful to stay a lunge distance away. The man with the shackles froze, uncertain of what to do. Naim smirked at Ildemir.

  “You four,” Ildemir said. “Keep your weapons on him. You.” He gestured to the man with the shackles. “Search him for weapons.” He looked at Naim. “Keep your hands high, Chronicler. These men are too young to grasp your reputation. They’re easily charmed by a venomous snake.”

  “Not you, Corbaci.” Naim kept his hands raised. The soldier behind him patted the pockets of his kaftan. The Janissary removed the sword from his belt and the dagger from his waist. He worked his way around, facing Naim and patting his front. Despite his youth and health, the soldier had crooked teeth and rough, calloused hands—likely a farmer’s son. “Nor your wife.”

  Ildemir’s eyes widened with rage. The farmer’s son pulled the only remaining throwing knife from the belt across Naim’s chest, then dropped it to the dirt.

  “Tell me,” said Naim
, “how is Bahar? I hope her recovery goes well. I do so regret when my work does harm to women.”

  The Corbaci took a step forward, his hand squeezing the hilt of his sword. Naim could read the rage in his eyes. The desire to draw the weapon and cut down his wife’s torturer. “That you should be the sultan’s cherished left hand…The blood of Tunisians in the streets. Our bey humiliated like a dog. Slaves running amok on the lake. My wife…tortured. You are an affront to Allah! And you are going to pay for what you’ve done.”

  “As I should,” said Naim. “Do convey my admiration to Bahar. When they pulled the first two fingernails, I’m told she made no sound.” Naim spoke with the warmth of a healer. He kept his eyes locked on the fuming Janissary leader. “She didn’t weep until the third.”

  Ildemir’s cheeks twitched. His men watched him, eager to see how he would respond. He paced closer. “So many men want a piece of you, Naim, they may send each of your limbs to a different province. But your head—that will belong to me.”

  The farmer’s boy produced the shackles. Naim offered his hands. The soldier snapped on one of the manacles. Naim went on. “You would have been so proud, Corbaci. She pleaded not for her own life, but for that of her unborn child.”

  “What did you say?” Ildemir hissed.

  “She did not tell you she was with child?” A manacle snapped onto Naim’s other hand, and the young soldier stepped back and stood at attention. With hands lowered and the Janissaries distracted, Naim could finally slip two fingers into his sleeve. “It was the first thing she told my man.”

  Ildemir’s boots scraped forward another step. “You’re lying!”

  “Curious she kept it from you. Perhaps the child is not yours.”

  Ildemir drew his dagger and took another step. “Shut your—”

  Naim’s hands whispered across Ildemir’s throat. Ildemir blinked at the bloody knife pinched in the Chronicler’s knuckles. The corbaci dropped to his knees, blood frothing out of his slashed open windpipe.