Grantville Gazette 38

would sadly be lost on the captive captain. 'I'll bet you speak English better than I do French, eh, mon capitan? Well, don't you?' Gerbald gave the trembling man a little shove against the cheek with the barrels of his weapon. 'Speak up, quickly! German will also do,' he added in his native tongue.

'I speak English. What do you want, you stinking buffoon?'

Gerbald smiled broadly at the insult, respecting the man's courage for uttering it before slapping him so hard across the face that the man fell to the ground and had to be lifted up again. Now Gerbald brought his face within a few inches of the captain's, and his voice turned as cold as Germany's winter skies.

'Call your dogs off, now! If they don't surrender immediately I will take great pleasure in killing you, you son of a jackal. I may yet. It's best to do as I say. Understand? Now tell them, tell them if you want to live!'

Pam suppressed a groan, she could hear The Terminator loud and clear in that last line. We really do need to get him an acting job someday, he has truly missed his calling.

'Yes, yes, I will do it,' the captain cried, cowed by Gerbald's menacing presence. With panic in his eyes he began to scream orders. Some of the enemy paused at the sound of his words, but the battle continued. Pam saw to her horror that two Swedish marines had fallen to the dock's knotted planks, undoubtedly beyond help. Even so, their side's weaponry was superior. The dock was littered with renegade corpses, rivers of blood running off the edge to make crimson waterfalls, expanding into billowing red clouds in the clear waters below. The captain continued to order his troops to stand down and slowly the combat ground to a halt.

Pam had been so caught up with the action nearby that she had completely forgotten about the colonists. She looked to the shore to see that they had another problem. Two dozen of the African slavers had arrived, each wielding a nasty looking scimitar. They were running down the dock, straight toward Second Chance Bird.

'Gerbald, look!'

'Tell them to stop!' he ordered the captured captain. The captain shouted hoarsely at the charging men but they ignored him, blood-lust flashing in their dark eyes. The Swedes had formed a circular line around Second Chance Bird's lowest point and were reloading their weapons. The men at the carronade were frantically trying to do the same, but were having some kind of trouble with the weapon. As usual, Murphy's Law was in effect. The bosun's curses echoed loudly around the bay. The enemy marines started to advance again but the terrified wail of their captain made them stop. Never taking their eyes off their first foes, the Swedish marines rejoined the rest of the men, and made ready to resume fighting. Obviously against their will, the enemy fighters were backing away toward their own ship, disgusted with their leaders for getting captured so easily, but unwilling to sacrifice them for a certain victory, either. They stepped silently aside as the slavers trampled past them, whooping an eerie war cry.

Dore grabbed Pam and shook her. 'Your gun! Shoot them, Pam!' she implored her friend. Pam nodded, pulling the heavy pistol from its holster as quickly as she could. It tangled on her sash for an agonizing moment, but she managed to free it. Below her, Gerbald kicked the captain's knees out from under him, sending him crashing face- first to the dock along with his officers and out of the way. He stepped over the man into the front of the line and unleashed the Snake-Charmer with one hand while pulling his katzbalger short sword out of its scabbard with the other. The two leading slavers fell beneath the shotgun pistol's wrath and the third had his scimitar knocked out of his ruined hand before receiving the katzbalger in his gut. The Swedes joined in the fray, pistols firing and swords flashing.

Pam decided to shoot at men farther down the dock so as not to shoot any of her own by accident. She was too excited and her first shot went wild. She felt Dore grip her shoulders from behind to help steady her. Pam gripped the pistol in both hands, firm but not too tightly as her uncles had taught her, and took a deep breath. She took aim at the chest of a burly-looking brute holding a scimitar in each hand as he shouted bloody murder in his incomprehensible tongue while running headlong at her friends. Breathing out, she pulled the trigger. There was a red explosion in the center of the brute's chest, and he went down like a sack of rocks. The man behind him tripped and fell onto his back, as he started to get up he received Pam's next bullet through his left eye; it continued right out the back of his head as brains spurted out like watermelon innards at target practice.

Pam took a moment to get her bearings, there were no clear shots now that the enemy and her men were locked in combat. Gerbald was dancing through the slavers with his short sword, thrust-and-slice-and-step-and-kill. Pam was astounded once more by the solid old soldier's almost dainty grace in combat. Having cut himself clear of the fray for a moment, he calmly reloaded the Snake-Charmer, looking all the world as if he were taking a breather from nothing more than a healthy morning walk.Just as he snapped the weapon closed, a wild-eyed slaver ran straight at him, scimitar held in both hands over his head, ready to chop Gerbald in two. Gerbald destroyed his assailant's face and throat with one barrel, and gracefully stepped aside as the dying man continued to run past him to fly right off the dock into the water. Pam couldn't help but laugh aloud as he nonchalantly wiped the man's sprayed blood from his face with a billowing silk sleeve, smearing one painted eyebrow all across his forehead. She stopped laughing as she took aim at another slaver headed directly for Gerbald. She shot him squarely in this side above the ribs, puncturing a lung. Gerbald frowned at her, raising the remaining barrel of his shot-gun to as if to say 'I had him!'

The enemy marines had been watching all this, and couldn't stand aside any longer. Despite their captain's imploring shouts to stand down, five of them decided to enter the fray, and began running down the dock toward the action. Perhaps they thought the invaders were distracted by the slaver attack enough that they could win their captain back. Perhaps they had simply decided they didn't care if their leader lived or died after all, and wanted to make sure their lucrative little kingdom continued with or without him. These were desperate men, men who probably couldn't or didn't intend to return to their homeland anyway.

Pam knew she only had two shots left before she would need to reload. She drew a bead on the first in line but he saw her, and tried to dodge. Her bullet hit him in his sword arm and he fell down, gasping in pain. Next in line was a rangy-looking fellow with a really bad mustache. He tried to duck but she was ready for that and aimed low, catching him in the center of his forehead, an instant death.

'I'm out!' she cried, feeling both horror and elation at her kills. Four out of six, not too bad! That brings the count of men dead by my hand to eight, yo-ho-ho.

Gerbald took down the next fellow with the Snake Charmer's second barrel. The remaining two decided that the odds were against them and came to a skidding halt as Gerbald advanced on them with his katzbalger, its steel stained scarlet. One of them turned and fled back to his ranks, while the other simply dove into he water, taking his chances with the sea rather than face the deadly German.

Pam reloaded her pistol, taking deep breaths to stay calm. By the time she was ready for action again the attack had drawn to a close. A Swedish sailor lay gasping, horribly wounded, but all the slavers were dead or dying. Not bad, really, she thought to herself with the cold, cold part of her mind that was Captain Pam doing her bloody work. We got more of them than they got of us.

She turned to Dore. 'It's time!' she said. 'They will have heard all the gunfire by now so if they haven't started their revolution already, they should do it now!'

They nodded to each other and in unison let out a ringing shout.

'SAVE THE DODO!!!'

Dore gave the ship's gong a powerful thump with its heavy mallet for good measure, when its deep metal tone faded they could hear shouts coming from the town and distant hillside fields. More shouts of 'Save the dodo!' echoed across the harbor as the colonists and her fighting men took up the battle cry. Up on the fortress walls Pam saw two Swedish farmers throw a slaver off the gangway running along its top to fall to his death. One by one, men were shedding their chains and taking up the scimitars of the dying slavers, who they now outnumbered.

Gerbald walked over to where the captain still lay on his stomach, he and his fellow officers bound and placed in a row like railroad ties. Gerbald turned him over with his boot as he reloaded his shotgun pistol again. The Swedes all reloaded their pistols and had formed their defensive circle. Seeing what the Swedes were capable of, the remaining enemy marines and sailors decided to lay down their arms, then shuffle back with their hands raised, all the while keeping a wary eye on the fearsome deck gun of the Second Chance Bird. Captain Leonce Toulon de Aquitane began to beg for his life. 'Please, know that my well-being has a rich value in gold; there will be rewards for my safety!' the would be pirate-king pleaded, quivering with fear.