The Fox Page 11

  This duel Fox had rehearsed so often in angry night-watches over the past years that it too seemed part of the dream world as his body responded with lightning speed— the Deer-Kick, block, whirl, Snake-Strike, parry, Duck-Snap—strike—spray of blood, ruby gleam in the sun—

  The strange sense of unreality vanished when the first mate thumped dead to the deck.

  Fox lifted a shaking hand to wipe his eyes. The others were gawking in disbelief at the fallen pirates on the blood-slimed, steaming deck, Inda standing in the midst of them, whooping for breath.

  Fox’s headache by now had intensified to forge-hot, hammering pain. He struggled to comprehend what had taken place so fast: new crew as well as old obeying Inda, who had changed from the slouching dullard of yesterday into a commander.

  The quiet Chwahir girl was the only one moving, Disappearing the dead, one by one. Fox still gripped his knives; his breath hurt in his throat, his tongue felt like a salt-dried sponge. His head pounded as if struck by white-hot steel, but through it seared a shrill keening. Not inside his head. Outside.

  He turned his head—it took more effort than it had to fight the first mate—as two of the forced pirates muscled a wildly struggling Coco up onto the deck.

  “What about her?” asked a big, scarred deckhand, licking his lips as he flicked his gaze from person to person. “Who gets to snuff her?”

  The mutineers sent up a shout, the older ones volunteering to slice her up like she’d done to this or that crewmember, while she whimpered a crazy mix of threats and pleas, her skirts splashed with Walic’s blood. Others seemed uncertain, some looking out to sea for Walic’s fleet.

  Barend strained to spot the second mate on the island, wondering if he’d thought to take a glass.

  “Sail ho! Dead astern!”

  Eyes turned skyward to the mizzen masthead, then out to sea. Barend swung the glass, squinting into the glare at the triangle nicking the skyline.

  “The sloop?”

  “Too small—”

  “Three fires!” Mutt, who had clambered up to the mizzen shrouds despite his healing ankle, yelled from aloft.

  Three fire arrows: the old signal!

  “It’s Jeje,” Inda said to Tau, his brown eyes wide with disbelief.

  Tau did not answer. He could not answer, just laughed freely for the first time in what seemed to be years. His sweet, young laugh clawed at Coco’s heart, kindling a yearning to kill whoever it was who could make him smile like that.

  “Mutt! Send her a return, two and one,” Inda called their old covert approach signal up to the masthead, where Mutt caught hold of the backstay with one hand, and leaned out to wave acknowledgment of the order with the other.

  “I’ll get the bow,” Uslar volunteered, running forward.

  Some of the mutineers murmured, wondering how Stupid had managed reinforcement without anyone knowing it. Two moved apart with stealthy haste, hoping he hadn’t overheard their plot to jump him as soon as he went below so they could take the ship. “Later,” one mouthed, pawing the air in a gesture meant to be covert; the other nodded as he sidled away.

  Tau, ignored by both, kept staring out to sea.

  “I can help you,” Coco wailed. “Tell him, Taumad. I can be anything you like. Or send me to Halliff on the Sea-King .”

  Inda looked around. “Brig for now.”

  His voice was almost lost, as few listened beside Tau and Thog and Inda’s own people. As yet, Fox realized, no one quite believed that the ship was theirs, that already a new hierarchy was fast forming, unperceived. Old habit prevailed: without Walic’s deadly authority muzzling them, everyone wanted his or her voice heard. Typical of pirates.

  “Death! She can pillow jig with Walic on Ghost Island!”

  “Let her choose one o’ us,” the surviving cousin yelled, looking around for approval. He had switched sides at once, looking somewhat forlorn without his cousin telling him what to do.

  “Let the bawdy-boy decide,” a top hand yelled from the main masthead, brushing back tendrils of black curls from her kerchief-bound head. The pirate she’d killed hung upside down, one foot caught in block-and-tackle, arms swinging loosely. “If he wants her to die of the thousand cuts, well, I’m for it. I’d be glad to help,” she added, showing her teeth.

  Silence fell, except for the creaking of wounded timbers and the distant caw of birds returning to the island.

  Coco, dazed from the storm and from Walic’s sudden death, now felt a surge of hope as she turned to her beautiful Tau, who had so smilingly tended her down below while the worst of the storm raged. She shivered, thinking of his patient fingers and how she had waited for them to touch her tenderly, just once, on their own, and not at her command, or at the captain’s. Just once.

  She’d convinced herself of his imminent devotion so thoroughly that her main emotion when Cook went after Walic was relief, and pleasure that she no longer had to hide her love. She had so convinced herself that his role-playing was real that at first she didn’t comprehend his words: “Get her out of my sight.”

  “What?”

  She didn’t realize it was she who had shrieked until that short, brown-eyed one they all called Stupid waved a hand at her, and hard fingers gripped her arms, forcing her down below, despite her raging commands to stop, watch out for the fabric of her gown, to let her go—that hurt!

  “The others will be back,” Inda said to the crew. “We better be ready. That fight will be tougher than this one was. We had the advantage of surprise, but I don’t believe that will be true again.”

  The second mate! Everyone exchanged glances, while absently wiping at lacerated skin or massaging wrenched limbs.

  “Why don’t we sail?” someone asked, hoarse with fear.

  Inda pointed at the foremast stump. “We need that topmast spar. We’ll get it on board, and as soon as we do, attack on signal. Each takes his man,” he added. “They’ll fight hard, and we can’t afford to lose any more crew. Sailing is going to be hard as it is, we’ll be on watch and watch, even after I get Dasta back from the Sea-King.”

  If he’s alive, Inda thought, meeting Tau’s bleak gaze.

  “Leave him,” Fox said. “That’s too risky.”

  Inda faced Fox, lifting his chin. “I won’t leave Dasta.” His mouth tightened. “We never abandon crew.”

  Fox heard an intake of breath from that weird little Chwahir, but she said nothing, just passed by with cleaning equipment and vanished into the captain’s cabin.

  The rest of the pirates stared at Inda, and Fox could almost hear those simple words repeating in their heads like the echo of a bell down a valley. We never abandon crew. It was probably one of his regular rules for the marine defenders. To the pirates, Fox knew, and to Barend, watching from the helm, it was more like a world change. All of the old crew had seen Walic kill his own people on a whim or for fun. And if he decided to make a fast retreat before possible danger from a warship, he had abandoned scouts to whatever might happen without any apparent regret.

  Now they faced Inda—not just his own people, but all of them—as unwavering as flowers tracking the sun.

  But Inda’s attention was not on them. It was on him. Inda was waiting for a challenge. Didn’t he see he already had command? No, he probably didn’t.

  Inda wiped at a trickle of blood from his scalp, his face already bruising from either the fight or his smash against the hull during the second storm, or both. He probably had as stupefying a headache as Fox did—

  But he’d seen the right moment, and he’d taken command as if he’d planned it for days. Months.

  Fox raised a hand, turning the palm up, his expression mocking: Over to you.

  Inda wiped his face again, then pivoted, his toes squeaking on the deck. “Right now we’d better get ready,” he said in a loud voice. “It’ll be a bad fight, and we should be as prepared as we can be for another storm.”

  The crew shuffled, looked around, wiped at sweaty faces.

  Most were un
certain, some surly, all exhausted. Inda began with his own people, each being ordered to a task within the doer’s ability—and one by one the remaining pirates were given orders. They obeyed, some of them furtive and motivated by fear; others with the eased faces of those for whom order had been restored.

  Inda sent Cook, Mutt, and Uslar to pass food and water around. For a short time before getting to work everyone sat where they were, eating and drinking, talking in low voices. A few gazed passively up at the tangle of sails, rigging, and lines, the soft slap-slap of the ocean and the clacking blocks soothing. Some fell asleep right there on the deck; the worst wounded were taken below to their hammocks and tended by their mates.

  Inda gave the crew a brief rest; then it was time to rise and work again. Those too hurt to climb cleared the deck of the worst of the blood and battle debris; those in better shape gave a hand with readying the block-and-tackle that would be used to raise the spar expected from the second mate and his crew. Inda occasionally asked Barend to run questions or instructions to those belowdecks.

  He gave no orders to Fox.

  Chapter Eight

  AT sunset one of the two big consorts appeared in the cloud-streaked east. It was frapped under the hull by their newly-made red sails to plug a great gash below the waterline, and sailing slowly under a single jury-rigged mast.

  The lookout shouted down, “Sea-King on the beam!”

  The rest of the fleet was still gone, either overcome by the storm or by the storm-supplied opportunity to flee Walic’s control.

  Barend rowed over to the Sea-King with demands from “Captain Walic” for hands, Dasta among them. Captain Halliff, dazed and exhausted, was too afraid of Walic to argue about relinquishing hands, though he needed them. He had far too many of Walic’s spies placed in his crew who would be listening, and he feared what Walic would do if he even expressed reluctance. The memory of what had happened to the last consort who tried to leave Walic’s fleet kept him strictly obedient; his only reaction as he watched the requested hands climb up the hatch, gear bags over their shoulders, was a tired wish that Walic would take his own spies back instead. Who ever knew what was in Walic’s head?

  No, he knew. It was inevitable. After a defeat, or a weather disaster, he inevitably cheered up his crew with one of his “entertainments.”

  So when Barend paused on the rail and looked back to say, “I forgot. Cap’n wants you to sail round to the western side to repair. More timber there, and you can watch the west while we, in turn, repair,” Halliff nodded, too weary and relieved to question. If he sailed all the way to the big trees, he wouldn’t have to row back to the Coco and witness the torture party.

  As soon as the rowboat was out of hearing range, Barend explained to the tired, surly hands what had happened. He enjoyed watching their wariness turn to disbelief. And as he described the fight with bloodthirsty pleasure, their faces changed from disbelief to glee—and then to speculation.

  All except Dasta, who stared at the damaged pirate flagship. Inda was there. Inda, who had said “We don’t abandon crew.” As Dasta gazed the sharp lines of the Coco were blurred by tears he did not bother to wipe or to hide.

  After dark, Jeje and the Vixen drifted up on Coco’s lee. The scout’s deck was crowded with tough, experienced privateer hands from Freeport Harbor.

  Jeje clambered aboard, square and sturdy, her narrow face alert as she scanned the deck under the lanterns hanging in the rigging. Her new hires climbed up behind her.

  Tau saw her expression ease only when she found Inda—blood-covered and filthy as he was.

  “I thought Walic might try to hide in the lee of these islands when that storm came up,” Jeje said.

  Inda crossed his arms. “Aren’t you leaving something out?” He smiled.

  “Not much.” Jeje flushed, and Tau tried to figure out what he’d missed, but he was far too tired. “I couldn’t find any help in Khanerenth,” Jeje said. “So I took Nugget back to Freeport. She tried to come with me, and Woof ended up locking her in the harbormaster’s tower. We could hear her wailing and cursing him as we sailed from the dock.”

  A soft laugh from those few who knew Nugget was the only reaction.

  “These here had been waiting to sign on with our marines. Said they didn’t mind fighting a few pirates as practice.” She indicated her crew, now standing in a row behind her, some of them staring aghast at the considerable storm wreckage, and then back at Inda’s gore-stiff clothes and hair. “All the way north we drilled to sneak on board like they did the Toola, and take it at night. Glad our practice was needed,” she added, rolling her eyes, but everyone was too tired to laugh at the mild joke.

  “Fighting pirates,” Inda repeated, scratching his gritty scalp. The smell of dried blood made his stomach lurch, and he hastily lowered his hand; before he did anything else, he’d get the bucket and dunk his head. “Sounds like we were galloping down the same track.”

  Jeje said, “Huh?”

  Inda smiled briefly. “Later. Now, we need ’em,” Inda said, indicating the new crew. He lifted his voice so everyone on deck could hear. “The wood party didn’t take a glass. I was watching. But they have to have figured it all out by now, which is why we haven’t seen them. I think they’ll show up at dawn, with the spar so we won’t suspect anything, but they’ll have plans. We’ve tonight to drill.”

  There is nothing, throughout the history of human beings anywhere, like a threat followed by an immediate goal to cohere a disparate horde. Walic’s former crew, though some might be uncertain about Inda, knew the second mate. If he won, his retribution would be cruel and lingering.

  And so, at dawn, when it fell out exactly as Inda had said, they were ready, both those on deck with weapons hidden carefully in chosen spots, and those hiding, their weapons gripped in sweaty hands.

  The second mate and his crew rowed up, towing the spar, and together everyone worked to boom up the great tree trunk that they’d spent a day trimming and smoothing— the mate’s eyes moving constantly over the deck. They all knew those darting glances were furtive attempts to locate the first mate or the captain, who had never left the deck unwatched by at least one of them.

  He recognized all those in the open. Jeje’s new crew were hidden below deck level in the hatches, behind the door of the cabin, crouched at the binnacle. Jeje and Thog squatted out of sight on the mastheads, composite bows from the Vixen and spiral-fletched arrows to hand.

  Fox and Inda watched him watch. Inda stood at the forecastle haul line, mouth open, and Fox worked with the party maneuvering the long, heavy spar to the deck.

  Tau leaned against the taffrail, the ends of his long, loose hair brushed by the wind over his relaxed hands. The second mate eyed him, brow furrowed, then shook his head until his chimes rang.

  At the helm Barend saw him squint his way too long and thought: He won’t ask questions because he wouldn’t believe us anyway. He wants to take us by surprise—but first he wants to figure out who’s in command.

  Once the spar was on deck the second mate backed to the taffrail, raising his ax.

  He whistled sharply, then snapped his attention back to Inda, who no longer had his mouth open; he stood at the bow where everyone could see him. Gone was the vacant face, the shambling, purposeless slouch. The mate had had an entire night to rest and think, was too experienced to miss the tautness of the fighter poised to fight.

  The first mate had been right!

  The two pirates who had hidden in the mainchains leaped over the rail. “That one!” The second mate pointed his ax at Inda. “Long will you linger under my knife,” he vowed in his home language. Then he bared his teeth and swept the ax around. “Kill them! All except—”

  “Now!” Inda shouted.

  Both sides charged.

  The fight was short and vicious, the summer air filled with the crashing of weapons, screams, shouts.

  Spang! Spang! The pair sent after Inda dropped within five paces of one another, arrows in their che
sts from Thog and Jeje on the main masthead.

  The mate swooped down, grabbed up a fallen blade, and hurled himself at Inda, sword in his right hand held behind his head for a killing downstroke, the ax gripped in his left fist held out horizontally, ready to either block or attack.

  Four bodies intervened: two pirates trying to get at Inda first, and Fox and Tcholan trying to fend off the huge mate. Tcholan barely escaped death, rolling a hair’s breadth from decapitation. Fox ducked a slash on his left, risked a glance, and stumbled when a downed pirate kicked viciously at his legs. Fox chunked his knife into the man’s chest as he fell. Another pirate loomed, roaring as his blade whooshed downward.

  The two pirates bracketed Inda between them.

  Fast as a heartbeat Inda slung his cutlass into the chest of the one about to decapitate Fox; his wrists flexed, and knives dropped from his sleeves into both hands.

  Those who glanced his way were astounded at the continuous whirl of those blades. Inda seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, for he always knew just where to block and to strike. The two pirates’ longer blades fouled one another, and because the two had never been drilled in fighting together, they frustrated one another, neither willing to give ground, the idea of reward for being the one to kill Inda their single thought.

  Elsewhere on the deck pirates dropped, several with arrows in them, most with killing wounds, dead before they hit the deck. Inda’s two joined them. He backed up, looking for Walic’s second mate, who was a few paces away, fighting to get at him. Inda spotted him, leaped forward— and slipped in slick blood. He landed flat on his back, arms outflung, knives clattering to the deck and spinning away in the gore.

  The mate leaped toward the forecastle, his chiming braids swinging and steel in each big fist as Inda’s feet slithered in the blood without gaining purchase.

  But by then Fox had cleared a space around him. He flicked a glance. Cook was just behind him, having finished off a spike-wielding enemy. He summoned Cook with a jerk of his head, and the two moved to either side of the mate.