“I am going to fucking kill you for that!” he roared, with no idea how he was going to follow through with the threat. There was a bang from nearby that sounded muted in the din of battle, and Hair Lip’s chest exploded, showering the deck and the nearby shield-bearing soldier with gore.
Drake turned and caught sight of Beck, bloodied and leaning against the starboard railing, holding the largest pistol Drake had ever seen, its barrel still smoking from the shot she’d just fired. Even more glorious a sight was the ship sailing up alongside the Fortune and the pirates lined up waiting to board the besieged vessel, Keelin Stillwater first among them. Drake was caught between wanting to stab the man for leaving him and hug him for coming back, but now wasn’t the time for either. The Fortune was still very much under attack, and even with Stillwater’s crew the outcome of the battle was far from decided.
Chapter 15 - The Phoenix
Keelin was first to board the Fortune, swinging across on a rope tied to the yard and hitting the deck just a few metres from the wounded Drake Morrass. The infamous captain looked a truly sorry state, with blood leaking from a dozen different cuts and his right arm cradled protectively against his body. His bodyguard, the Sarth woman, loitered nearby, looking almost as banged up as her charge.
More of Keelin’s crew followed him across and charged into the battle that raged on the other side of the Fortune, bolstering Drake’s hard-pushed pirates. “You look like all the Hells, Drake,” Keelin said.
“I’ll look a touch better when I drive these bastards off my ship.” Drake grimaced as he retrieved his sword and gave it a couple of test swings with his left hand. Keelin would have put money on the man never having fought with that hand before.
“You saved my life back in Sev’relain,” Keelin said. “Reckon we’ll be calling that debt repaid.”
Drake grunted. He looked a little like he was ready to pass out.
“Perhaps you should sit this one out, Drake. Let…”
“Ain’t happening, Stillwater!” the captain spat. “Ain’t nobody leading the charge to take back my own ship but me.” With that, Drake stormed off towards the quarterdeck, where the fight had already been won.
Keelin was about to follow his fellow captain when the Sarth woman spoke. “Why did you come back?”
Something reached inside of Keelin, something dark and indomitable, something he hadn’t felt for a long time and something he hated with all of his being. He felt the answer to the woman’s question, the truth, bubble up from inside and burst out of his mouth.
“For the charts,” he said, losing the battle against the woman’s magic. Before she could ask another question, Keelin crossed the distance between them and swung a fist at her face. She blocked the attack with ease, catching Keelin’s hand and holding it there.
A few of Keelin’s crew stopped, but didn’t intervene.
“You’re a fucking Arbiter,” Keelin hissed. There was nothing in the world that Keelin hated quite so much as the Inquisition. He’d happily have taken his hatred out on the woman standing in front of him, but no matter how hard he pushed she held his hand steady. Eventually he eased off, and she let go.
“If you ever use your magic on me again,” Keelin said, seething with rage, “I will kill you.”
The Arbiter started walking towards Drake, but stopped beside Keelin. “You can find the last eight men who tried to kill me up on the poop deck, Captain,” she said in a honeyed voice dripping with danger. “I suggest you take a look and learn their lesson well.”
Keelin waited for a few moments after the Arbiter had gone, letting his anger build. He turned to find some of his pirates watching him from a distance.
“Don’t just stand around,” Keelin snarled. “Fight!”
Kebble Salt watched the battle unfurl from a distance. From up in The Phoenix’s nest, the murder down on the deck of the other ships seemed disjointed, almost as if it weren’t really happening. He looked down the sight of his rifle and focused on three men trading blows. Two wore the blue-black of Sarth, and they’d herded the other, a pirate, into a corner. The pirate wouldn’t survive much longer with nowhere to run. Kebble sucked in a breath and took aim before carefully squeezing the trigger.
One of the Sarth soldiers attacking the fortunate pirate dropped dead in a mist of blood, a hole through his head. The other soldier startled, panicked, and ran, but the pirate wasn’t so slow and capitalised on his good fortune, skewering the soldier as he turned. Kebble reloaded his rifle without even needing to look, replacing the black powder and bullet by touch. He settled the rifle butt against his shoulder and searched for a new target.
He could barely see the deck of the Man of War with the masts of the Fortune in the way, only glimpses of the battle there as the pirates beat back the soldiers and took the fight onto their ship. Kebble spotted the other captain, Drake Morrass, near the rear of a fight. He was dancing into the fray whenever an enemy looked away, taking wild, left-handed swings with his sword. Kebble noted the man’s position, but decided he’d be fine with three other pirates backing him up nearby. Kebble blocked out the sounds of fighting and dying that floated up to his ears, preferring to remain a detached force upon the battlefield, not allowing the chaos below to affect him. He spotted a boy who looked too young to even grow a moustache attempting to fight a much bigger man. Kebble noticed the mismatch too late to stop the boy from losing his right hand, but not too late to stop him from losing more.
Kebble’s rifle flashed and the soldier hit the deck, bleeding from his chest and mouth as blood leaked into his lungs. A breastplate might be enough to stop a sword, but it would take much more to keep one of Kebble’s bullets out. The boy regained his feet and, despite the loss of his hand, set to kicking the soldier in the head until there was little left of the man’s face. Kebble moved his watchful gaze to another part of the battle.
There was the unmistakeable twang of a crossbow, and a bolt struck the outside of Kebble’s nest, its tip just protruding through the planking. He didn’t have time to take care of the man wielding the weapon; two of Captain Stillwater’s pirates jumped the soldier and gave him what was possibly the first and definitely the last stabbing of his lifetime. Glancing down and seeing how close the crossbow bolt had come to ending his life, Kebble let out a sigh; and kept on living.
He was running low on black powder; he estimated a mere four shots remained to him, and after that he would be useless to all those down there still fighting.
It occurred to Kebble that he occupied a strange position on a battlefield. He would never turn the tide through weight of numbers killed, but by choosing his targets carefully, he could make each shot worth much more than a single kill. But right now he felt he needed to prove his value to his new captain, and with that in mind he chose a target close to Keelin Stillwater.
Keelin sidestepped the attack, then sent one cutlass against the man’s shield while the second slashed at his belly. It was a wild strike driven more by anger than his usual precision, and it rebounded harmlessly off the soldier’s breastplate with a metallic hiss. Keelin cursed under his breath and disengaged, while one of Drake’s pirates came up behind the soldier and brained the man with a bloody mace.
The Arbiter had rattled him, and not just with her magic; her presence made him angry, and that rage was making him sloppy. Keelin had changed his mind – he’d been ready to support Drake, to follow him and help him achieve his goal of uniting the pirates – but now he wasn’t so sure. He needed to find out just what sort of hold the Inquisition had over Drake Morrass and what interest they had in the isles, and he was certain he wouldn’t get that information out of the Arbiter.