Hollowly, she called, "Out there we'll have our pick of the fleet. I can sail anything with a keel below and rags aloft."
"What about our horses?" asked Jasmine. "Our blankets and saddlebags are still at the tavern!"
"If this town doesn't crucify us," Adira clapped shut the hatch, "I'll buy you new ones!"
"Ram!" Murdoch backpedaled from the door, sword in hand.
"Ram?" asked half a dozen voices.
BOOM.' The building rocked as the big wooden doors creaked inward. Coasters had fetched a timber log for a ram. At another bash, the pirates saw daylight peek through. The shouting of townies rose higher.
"You'd think folk could find other entertainment in a port this size." Simone the Siren slotted the rudder into its greased iron socket. "Why don't they take up dancing?"
"I can't cast half my spells without my potions and oddments!" Jasmine complained as she caught cod by their red gaping gills. "And druids don't go to sea!"
Adira dropped her cutlass and picked up an oar to lever against the dock. The smack eased from the dock, black water gapping. "First thing you learn in the Robars is to keep anything precious in your pockets. I've lost ten fortunes ten times from having to cut and run. Up gangplank!"
"Wait for me!" As the ram smashed the doors and the bar tore loose from its brackets, Murdoch jumped the intervening five feet and crashed atop Simone. Frantically pirates grabbed oars to paddle out of the boathouse into open water.
"Adira!" Whistledove again perched on Jedit's shoulders. The brownie pointed at the harbor. "Boats are coming our way!"
"What?" In two lithe bounds Adira leaped atop the furled yards, balanced as a tern. Just past two docks sculled two long whaleboats, rapid as water beetles. Evidently the fishermen had been signaled from shore by the crowd to block the outer passage.
Too busy to curse, Adira thought aloud. "And us back- asswards as a beached whale. Better afloat than marooned ashore. We'll ram and cut free with cutlasses. Make way! Out oars!"
"Adira." Useless on a boat, Jedit Ojanen stood in the bow out of the way. He crinkled his muzzle of orange, black, and white stripes, exposing long lethal fangs. Sniffing the air, he called, "You should know-"
"A-BOOM" With a hearty roar, the coasters shattered the big warehouse bar and doors with their ram. Rugged blond men and women spilled on their hands and knees. Others, some worse for drink, climbed over them to be heroes at the forefront of battle.
"Jedit, Murdoch, knock boarders into the water! The rest'a you, ply hooks and oars against the boats!"
The fishing smack had barely backed her stem into open water before an incoming whaleboat bumped noses. The jolt shocked the landlubbers to their knees. Seasoned sailors like Simone and Wilemina rammed boathooks into the bellies of careless fishermen, fending the wiser ones back. Meanwhile citizens of Buzzard's Bay surged along the wharf, looming over the pirates in the trapped smack. In the whaleboat, men shouted comrades to move aside. They hoisted rusty shark hook gaffs and tomahawks, then perched on whaleboat thwarts and gunnels, ready to jump aboard.
Boxed in at both ends, Adira Strongheart lifted her cutlass for all to see. "Avast! First one steps foot aboard my craft loses his lights! Hear me! We didn't come begging trouble, but we're ready to deal death unless you sheer off! Will you let me speak or stop steel with your guts?"
A tense silence strained the air. Men and women muttered, unwilling to take the first step. Some townsfolk whispered questions, trying to recall what started the trouble. Virgil came to, moaning and clutching his head.
In the stillness, Jedit's growly purr set hair tingling on arms and necks. "Adira, I wished to tell you, there's fire in the next building."
"Fire?" The bleat was immediately echoed in the street. "Fire! Fire on the docks! Fire!"
Chapter 11
With homes and shops and ships in danger, the coasters quit the riot and surged out the door yelling. Two drunkards tumbled into the drink. Men in the whaleboats, with sailors' instinctive terror of fire, fumbled oars to row free of the warehouse.
Shouts rocketed up and down the docks. "Fire in Noah's warehouse! And Heta's loft! Call out the bucket brigade!"
Adira cocked an ear and immediately heard a spine-chilling crackling and muffled roar. She imagined heat licking at her neck and stifled a panicked urge to leap from the boat, even into the bay, to get clear. Docks, boats, and chandlers' supplies, layered with paint and varnish and tar and dried years in the sun, burned more brightly than any forest.
"Adira!" Simone pointed toward the bay. With the whale-boats gone, the way was clear. "Shall we scull out?"
Adira Strongheart bit her lip for just a second. Years of pirating and captaining had honed her wits razor-sharp. She could shift course like a jackrabbit when needed, and she did so now.
"Belay! Dock us! Aye, and be quick! Dump your weapons and tail on! And fish out those two drunken fools before they drown!"
Within seconds, and without understanding, Adira's crew found themselves dashing into a smoky street toward the very crowd that had pursued them. Teams of townsmen had formed a bucket brigade while others fetched giant firehooks: long poles with iron ends used to pull down burning buildings before the tire spread. They attacked the warehouse next door. Engulfed in flames, three walls were etched in stark yellow. Curling smoke vomited from ragged holes in the roof. Cedar shakes broke free to rain like autumn leaves or else skid into the water with hisses like snakes. Sparks spat and danced and flitted on an on-shore breeze. Already the warehouse Adira had commandeered was charred on one side and roof. As flaming debris spun into the bay, dinghies and smacks, piles of cordage and lobster traps, nets and sails strung to dry, all were dappled with hungry orange flames.
"They'll lose half the town!" cried Sister Wilemina.
"Someone set that fire to cook us!" gasped Murdoch.
"Best grab our horses and go!" yelled Simone. "We shan't get another chance!"
"Nay." Skidding to a halt on boot heels, Adira tolled off. "Virgil, you're hurt. Sit and stay put. Jedit, accompany me. The rest of you, help fight the fire. Make sure the locals see you do it. Tell 'em you're pirates, even. This is our chance to mend fences and learn a thing or two."
"Or fry!" countered Simone, her black face shining with sweat from the fierce heat.
"That too. Go!" Taking her own advice, Adira got busy with Jedit trotting after her like an overgrown puppy.
Pirates lurched from crisis to crisis on land and sea. Acting on Adira's daring orders, the Circle of Seven split up and plunged into firefighting, jostling elbow-deep amid locals who only moments before had been hot to hang them.
With a hunter's stealth, Heath slithered into a crowd grappling a twenty-foot firehook. People skidded in mud trying to manhandle the long hook through the air and let it fall amidst the burning rafters of a boathouse. Jumping high and grabbing the sooty shaft, Heath whirled off his cloak and flipped it underfoot for traction.
He yelled, "Come, friends! Doff your jackets! That's it! All together, set your feet! Prop the butt! Ready? Then let fall and pull!" With a few coordinated yanks, charred rafters broke. Fiery debris cascaded into the building in gouts of sparks. Townsfolk grinned as the grimy Heath called and joked and helped them work together. Within fifteen minutes, the fire-hook shaft had burned through, but the boathouse was a pile of burning rubble safely collapsed into its cellar.
Reckless as a rooster, Simone the Siren dashed through a crowd and ran what looked like the wrong way. Over her shoulder she asked if Jasmine Boreal could swim. Of course, the druid replied, and before she knew it she was bounding along a springy floating wharf where dinghies, prams, and pinnaces were jammed thick as cockleshells. Fishermen and sailors shouted as they shoved the boats clear before the pier could Liurn. Stealing oars from a rack, Simone and Jasmine hopped into a rain-washed pram and rowed furiously. Now Jasmine saw what busy others had missed. Freak eddies of wind had carried sparks to one of three fishing smacks moored together. A sail left drooping to dry had ignited. Ugly black rings ate into faded canvas. Bumping the boat's side, Simone boosted the lean strawberry-blonde aboard just as the sail caught fire. Drawing cutlass and knife, Simone slashed furiously at burning canvas.