With a joyous cry and a crash, Tanner’s crew collided with a large group of soldiers and several men from both sides went down. Fresh screams filled the air, punctuated by the twang of bowstrings.
Drake stood back from the battle, sword in hand, watching the massacre unfold. His people weren’t ready for this sort of fight, and because of that they were dying. The soldiers were better trained and better armed, and although the numbers seemed almost even, most of the fallen were his subjects. If he didn’t do something to change the course of the battle soon, Drake knew he would be the king of bones and little else.
Something caught Drake’s eye at the treeline – a new wave of soldiers marching out from the jungle in a loose formation. His heart lurched and missed a couple of beats as he realised they were no normal soldiers, but knights dressed head to toe in metal plating – helms, breastplates, vambraces, and greaves – and wielding an assortment of sharp weaponry.
Before Drake could formulate a plan to deal with the new threat, a screaming soldier came hurtling towards him. Some of the pirates had fallen and soldiers were moving through the gap, trying to give their comrades space to spread out while they attacked the remaining pirates from behind. Over the shoulder of the man rushing him, Drake saw his pirates beginning to break, some turning and running while others valiantly died standing their ground.
With a surge of strength fuelled by rage, Drake stepped into the oncoming attack, brushing the soldier’s sword aside with his own and sending a thunderous fist to the side of the man’s face. Drake leapt backwards, waving his left hand in the air and wondering what had possessed him to punch the man with a closed fist. The pain was intense, but thankfully short-lived. The soldier was face down on the ground and not moving, and Drake congratulated himself on a knockout punch even as another two men came at him.
The first of the new soldiers held a round shield and an axe, and the man behind him wielded a long spear with a metal tip stained red. They took no risks as they came at Drake, the spear-wielder doing all the work while the shield-bearer protected him. Drake found himself batting away the polearm with his sword and giving ground, falling back again and again and wondering where in all the Hells Stillwater had got to.
Drake stepped backwards out of the spearman’s range once again and found his back against the wall of a house. Before the spear could skewer him, a man dressed in the long, faded rags of what had once been a uniform leapt onto the spearman’s back and stabbed him in the neck with a knife that looked like it belonged on a dinner table. The shield-bearer turned to help his comrade, and Drake seized the opportunity and charged. He slashed first at the man’s ankles before half separating the fool’s head from his body with a meaty swing that ended with his sword stuck in the soldier’s neck. The body collapsed into the dust, wrenching Drake’s sword from his grasp.
“Good work, Tatters,” Drake said as he put his boot on the soldier’s corpse and pulled his blade free.
Admiral Tatters giggled to himself and collapsed onto his knees. His eyes were wild and the smell of booze coming from him overpowered the odour of death. The admiral had once claimed Drake could never make him less than a gentleman. Drake had proven that claim wrong, and Tatters was well and truly one of them now – though judging by the yellow in his eyes he wouldn’t be one of them for much longer. There was only so much alcohol a body could take before it gave up for good, and Tatters had been pickling himself ever since the townsfolk had set him free.
Turning his attention back to the battle at the edge of town, Drake saw the knights cutting a swathe through his people. Tanner’s black-hearted crew, always up for a fight, had moved to engage the metal-coated bastards, but even they were falling back. The knights cared little for the impotent attacks of their enemies, and though they were slow, they were backed up by soldiers carrying spears, and those did a good job of keeping the pirates at a distance to stop them aiming for the less-protected parts of the knights’ armour.
Drake watched Tanner pull a pistol from his belt and fire it into the mass of flesh and metal. One of the knights stopped and wobbled a moment before collapsing to a cheer from Tanner’s crew, but they had precious few pistols and no time to reload. In reply to the murder of one their steel-clad heroes, the Five Kingdoms troops pushed forwards and the crew of The Black Death found themselves beating a quick retreat.
Stillwater’s sharpshooter, Kebble Salt, appeared from an alleyway between Drake and the battle. The man was carrying a sack in one hand and his rifle in the other, and he looked sleek with sweat in the light of the lantern hanging outside a nearby building. Drake rushed over to the man.
“Can you do something about those knights?” Drake shouted as he approached.
Kebble Salt turned towards Drake with a start. The sharpshooter was bleeding from a wound in his side. It was hard to tell how serious the injury was, but going by the amount of blood and the man’s pale complexion, Drake was leaning towards serious.
“Captain Morrass,” Kebble said, his voice quivering. “I will try.”
Kebble carefully placed the sack on the ground and shouldered his rifle, aiming it towards the battle. The barrel swayed and wobbled, and Kebble winced in pain. Long moments passed without the sharpshooter taking a shot.
“Is there anyone around here who ain’t currently useless?” Drake growled, and was greeted by a sullen giggling from Admiral Tatters, who was busy peering into the sack Kebble had been carrying.
“Away from there, fool,” Kebble hissed, lowering his rifle and shooing Tatters away. “I may not be able to aim a rifle, Captain, but I do have these.”
Kebble reached into the bag and pulled out a coconut.
“Wonderful, we’re saved,” Drake said, and started towards the battle. He had no idea how he was going to turn the tide of the slaughter.
“They are full of black powder, Captain Morrass,” Kebble shouted after him. “And I have set each one with a fuse that should last no more than five counts of one.”
Drake stopped mid-stride and turned back to Kebble. The man was using his rifle as a crutch and holding one of the coconuts in his hand. “They’ll explode?” he said, walking back to the sharpshooter.
“Quite violently, I believe,” Kebble said with a nod. “Just light the fuse at the top and throw them at your target.”
Drake stormed over and looked into the sack. He counted a good number of the weapons, at least half a dozen. A grin lit his face. He picked up the sack, leaving Kebble with the one coconut still in his hand.
“Go find Stillwater,” Drake said. If the tide of battle was to turn on the use of these new weapons, then Drake wanted the glory well and truly on his shoulders and no one else's.
Kebble nodded. “Where?”
“I reckon he went down to the beach. These bastards landed a ship on us and are trying to kill us from both sides.”
Again Kebble nodded, then started limping towards the beach, still using his rifle as a crutch.
The sounds of battle were deafening. Steel clashing against wood and metal, punctuated by the screams of the dying. The smell was even worse, almost enough to make Drake gag.
By the time Drake reached Tanner, the crew of The Black Death were on the verge of quitting the fight altogether. They could do nothing against the knights and their spear-wielding lackeys, and had resorted to retreating while spitting insults.
“Time ta run back to Fango, I reckon, Ya Majesty,” Tanner said with a dark sneer and a look in his eyes that convinced Drake the man was once again considering killing him.