The King

tier beams to get to the larboard side as well. Alan spun about and led his men aft. Where it came from, he had no idea, but there was now some light on deck, enough to see the party of Frenchmen rushing to defend their quarterdeck. It was disconcerting to see Marcel Monnot in their lead, the sailor he'd spoken to on the docks one morning. But Monnot had a cutlass in his hand, and he began hacking away at an English sailor.

Lewrie let his hanger dangle from the wrist-strap, pulled out his first dragoon pistol and pulled it back to full cock. Stepping forward with his men, he took aim and let fly. The fight with Monnot swirled out of his aim, but another Frenchman was struck by the ball in the chest, plumping a sudden burst of scarlet on his white shirt front and dropping him out of sight. He drew his second pistol and shot a hulking French seaman right in the face, who gave a great howl and flipped over backward, making a gap for more English sailors to dash forward and crowd the French back. Cutlasses sang and whished in the air, ringing steel on steel. Pikeheads and bayonet points stabbed out in short thrusts.

Then there was Monnot again, leaping back into action and hewing a sailor down, pushing forward and leading more of his hands with him against everything.

'Vous!' he exclaimed, spotting Lewrie. 'Espece de salaud!'

'Strike, Monnot! Throw down your sword! It's over!'

'Va te faire foutre!' Monnot cried, throwing himself forward.

Lewrie jerked his wrist and brought his sword into his palm, leading with a thrust that Monnot beat aside, but the speed of it made him drop back a pace. Alan stamped forward, countering a hard counterswing of Monnot's cutlass blade. They were too hemmed in by struggling bodies to do anything more than beat at each other vertically after that. Bayonets stabbed on either side, and Frenchmen were dying, going down as the sepoys loaned their strength to shove their foes backward and upward to the quarterdeck, beginning to thin them out enough for Lewrie to have more fighting room.

It was disconcerting to fight a man he knew, even slightly. He had nothing against Monnot personally, so it felt less like a duel. A stranger he could have crossed swords with gladly. But it was his life to not kill him. Monnot was monstrously strong. A bit unskilled with a more gentlemanly smallsword, perhaps, but ruthlessly competent with a cutlass, his wrist hard as an iron anvil.

Monnot fetched up against the ladder that led to the quarterdeck, last of his men still standing on the gangway, and he howled in glee as he swung his sword in the full cutlass drill. There!

An opening, as Monnot swung backhanded, fumbled backward to take a step up the ladder, still facing his foes. Lewrie leaped for him, raising his sword to block a further swing, but ramming the lion-headed pommel of his sword into Monnot's mouth!

The man stumbled onto his back, one hand grasping at the rope balustrade of the ladder, thrusting with his cutlass, a thrust which Lewrie parried off low, and then he was inside Monnot's guard with a backward slash of that superbly strong and razor-honed hanger across the man's belly and chest.

Monnot howled again, reaching upward to take Lewrie's throat in one hand, drawing his cutlass back with the other. Alan started turning purple as he reached out to take Monnot's sword-arm wrist in his hand and hold off a killing blow, drawing his hanger back behind his knee to turn it upward, and thrust the point into the Frenchman's jaws. Up through throat skin, through the tongue, into the sinuses and the brain! Monnot grunted and twisted like a piked fish, bumping down the steps of the quarterdeck ladder one at a time, dragging Alan with him with one hand yet gripping his throat in a final, inhuman spasming strength!

Sailors and soldiers dashed past them while Alan was dragged to his knees, gasping for air and watching the world go dim, until at last Monnot's heels began to drum on the deck, and his hands lost all strength. His eyes flared once more with anger, then rolled up into his head and glazed over unblinking. Alan rocked back onto his heels and gulped great lungfuls of air, massaging his throat with one hand and tugging his sword free with the other. He felt like shooting the man, just to make sure he was dead, not shamming until he'd stepped over him to ascend to the quarterdeck, then strike him from behind!

He settled for a slash across Monnot's throat as he sprang up and rushed aft, getting away from the brute as quick as he was able.

'Jesus Christ!' he muttered, once he'd gained the deck. No wonder it was light enough to see! La Malouine was on fire! After lights-out aboard any ship, it was the officers aft who could keep a lantern or two burning past nine p.m., and their gunfire must have overturned a lamp, killed a gun-captain who had dropped his smoldering slow-match onto something flammable. Smoke drifted and curled from between the deck planks. Pounded tar to waterproof the joins was running slick and hot, sticking to his shoes. One corner of the poop deck farther aft already showed gaps through which tiny flames licked. He turned to see if Telesto was safe, and saw no sign of fire. But amidships, in La Malouine's waist, there was a bright red glow under the tarred canvas that covered the midships cargo hatches and companion-way hatches. Even as he watched, the tarred canvas took fire with a sullen whoomp and disappeared in a sooty shower, and long, licking flames leaped aloft with a roar like a bellows had been applied to a forge!

'Back to the ship!' Choate was yelling, waving their men back to Telesto with his sword. 'Move, lads, if you don't want to burn!'

There was no greater fear for a sailor than fire aboard ship.

Once it got a good hold on the dry timbers, the tarred ropes, greased running rigging and canvas sails, a fire was almost impossible to extinguish. In the blink of an eye, a ship could flash into a ruddy horror, roasting her crew, who would be fearful to abandon her until the last minute, for most sailors could not swim.

'Back!' Alan yelled. 'Back aboard our ship, stir yourselves!'

They were lucky to make it, for the small crew that had stayed aboard Telesto were chopping and sawing at the grapnel ropes even before everyone could reach the rails to prepare themselves for the leap.

It was a panic. Sepoys crowded the rails, their eyes rolling in fear, ready to abandon their weapons in their haste to flee. Chiswick was raving back and forth, shouting at them in Hindee and pushing muskets back into their hands, arranging a party of some of his largest men to literally throw some of the Others across to Telesto's bulwarks, to be caught by seamen.

La Malouine was keening as the flames began to roar in earnest, the sound a soaked river rock makes when placed in a camp-fire. Men wounded and unable to move were screaming and gibbering in terror.

'Damnit!' Alan sighed, sheathing his sword. He picked among the bodies, searching for his own. The dead he could do nothing for, but there were surely some English wounded that simply could not be left behind to suffer.

'Oh, God, sir!' Archibald, the condom-maker, keened shrill as a frightened child as he lay on the gangway with blood soaking his leg. 'Help meeeee!!!'

'I'm here, Archibald, Let's go!'

He got him to his feet, an arm around him, and half-dragged him to the rail, yelling for help. Hodge, the topman, came swarming over to them with a free line, and quickly whipped a loop in it. They got Archibald seated in it and let it swing. Even if he bashed his head in on their ship's hull, he was away. Cony returned with it as they began to search.

'Telestos!' Lewrie called, almost choking on the stink of burning cargo below decks. Singed tea leaves swirled around him like a plague of locusts. 'Hoy, Telestos! Sing out and we'll save you!'

A gut-shot French seaman raised an imploring hand from the deck, terror in his eyes. They passed him by. He was not one of theirs. Hodge drew a heavy belaying pin from the railing and did the man the favor of knocking him senseless so he'd know less about his immolation.

'Don't think they's any more of our'n, Mister Lewrie!' Cony said, tugging at his sleeve.

'Lewrie, leave it!' Ayscough called from their ship. 'Leave it or die over there! I can't keep station on her any longer!'

Flames were shooting up the main-mast now, furled sails bursting alight, standing and running rigging covered with tiny shoots of fire like some expensive holiday illumination.

'Good enough for me,' Lewrie responded, climbing over the rails.

They threw them lines, and they swung across, suspended from gant-line blocks and yard-tackles. Lewrie