The Guardship

kill.

The pirates were lining the rail as well, screaming back, dancing men and dancing shadows, and there were far more of them than there were Plymouth Prizes. Had the Prizes any grasp of reality left they would realize how perilous their situation was, but they were swept up in the frenzy, they were berserk, and they thought they were invincible.

Twenty yards, and the Plymouth Prize was in a perfect position to use her cannon to great effect, with the pirates standing as they were on the rails, having forgotten the punishment the Prize had doled out weeks earlier. But the men of the Plymouth Prize were also on the rails, their big guns abandoned.

“Lay us alongside!” Marlowe shouted to the helmsmen. “Right alongside, bow to bow!”

The helmsmen nodded, pushed the tiller over a foot. Marlowe dashed down into the waist. Found the linstock at the first gun he came to, but the match was out, raced to the next tub. The match on that linstock was still glowing, but barely. Marlowe blew on it, blew again. It flared to life, glowing a dull orange. He twirled the linstock in his hand and ran back to the first gun.

Through the gunport he could see the Wilkenson Brothers’ mizzen chains, crowded with howling men, her quarterdeck rails lined as well. He did not see LeRois, but he hoped a desperate hope that the man was there, right in line with the muzzle, as he pushed the glowing match down into the powder train.

He leapt back as the train sputtered to life, was halfway to the next gun when the first fired off, slamming inboard. He could hear crushing wood and howls of outrage and agony, and he touched off the next gun and then ran to the next.

Each blast seemed to momentarily kill the vaporing, and then it was back again, louder, more confused, more vehement. Marlowe ran down the line, firing each gun, never pausing to see what destruction he was doing. He put the match to the penultimate gun, prayed again that one of those killed would be LeRois.

Marlowe was reaching the match to the forwardmost gun when the two ships hit. The Plymouth Prize shuddered to a stop, throwing him off balance. The glowing match missed the trail of powder as Marlowe struggled to keep on his feet. From over the side came the wrenching, shattering sound of the two ships grinding against each other.

Thomas regained his balance, shoved the glowing match in the train of powder. The gun was actually touching the side of the Wilkenson Brothers when it smashed its load into the merchantman’s frail bulwark and blew it clean away.

He looked up at his own men standing on the rail. Middleton was there, his sword raised over his head, his face twisted into the most insane mask of rage and bloodlust as he rallied the Prizes to leap across. The fire from the old Vengeance illuminated him as if he were an actor on stage or some savage before a pagan ceremonial fire.

And then there was a smattering of small-arms fire and a pistol ball smashed into the back of Middleton’s skull, blew his forehead apart. The fine mist of blood and bone was perfectly illuminated by the light of the fire. The lieutenant began to topple forward, but before he could hit the deck he was pushed back by the frenzied men of the Plymouth Prize as they stormed over the rail and down onto the pirate’s deck.

Middleton’s body fell from sight. Marlowe hopped up onto the carriage of the number one gun and then stepped up onto the rail, his left hand on the backstay for balance. He was looking down at the deck of the pirate ship, where his wild outnumbered men were surging forward, pushing the pirates back.

A pistol ball struck the backstay. Marlowe felt it quiver in his grip. He drew his sword, picked his spot, and leapt down into the fight.

Chapter 36

THE WAIST of the Wilkenson Brothers was in deep shadow, with the bulwarks shielding the deck from the light of the burning ship. Men moved in and out of the night. Swords raised overhead gleamed as they reflected the fire. The flash of pistols, pan and muzzle, lit those dark places for a brilliant second and then the shadows closed in again.

Marlowe felt the burn of a cutlass cutting across his arm even as he tried to recover from his leap to the deck. He twisted instinctively, swung his big sword around, reached for a pistol as he fell. Felt the jar of the blade making contact, but he heard no scream and did not know if he had even struck his attacker.

He hit the deck flat on his back, his sword in his hand. The pirate was standing above him, leering, cutlass raised, ready to deliver the coup de grace. Marlowe brought the pistol up, pulled the lock back with his thumb. The pirate bellowed outrage as he tried to bring his cutlass down before Marlowe fired the gun.

He did not succeed. Marlowe pulled the trigger, tossed the gun aside, giving no more thought to the big man he had just blown to the deck. He scrambled to his feet, his back to the bulwark. In a half-crouch, sword gripped in both hands, he got his bearings.

The Plymouth Prizes and the pirates had smashed into each other like surf across a bar of sand, and now they were fighting it out where they stood. Most of those who were wounded or dead had been shot down by the Plymouth Prize’s great guns or by pistols in that first wave, but once those guns had been fired there was no time to reload, and now it was steel against steel.

Marlowe looked aft. More dead men there, more wounded crawling away or curled up in the shadows. His firing the great guns had had some effect, made the numbers a little more even, and now the Plymouth Prizes were plunging in with a fury to match the pirate defenders.

If I’ve turned them all into brigands, at least I’ve taught them more than just greed, Thomas thought as he stepped into an open place in the line and matched swords with a wiry, bearded little man with a scarred face and black teeth.

The little man was fast, trying to cut Marlowe down with a quick, darting attack, while Marlowe attempted to overwhelm him with his strength and the weight of his sword. It was an interesting match, and one that might have been more difficult for Marlowe to win just a few years before, before he had learned under Bickerstaff’s careful tutelage the more subtle aspects of fighting with a blade.

He wielded his big sword with two hands, as was his custom, beating back the attack with twice the force needed, throwing the little man off with the sheer momentum of his parry. His left arm was starting to ache where it had been cut; he could feel the blood, warm and liquid, under his shirt. He considered pulling his second pistol and just shooting the man, but he needed that bullet to kill LeRois. He had a higher duty here, and he was just wasting his time with this ugly opponent.

The pirate darted forward, lunged, as Marlowe leaned back. The tip of his blade pierced Marlowe’s coat, and Marlowe brought his own sword straight down on the man’s outstretched hand. The pirate screamed, the sword fell to the deck, and Marlowe lunged himself, running the man through, then

pulled the blade clean, turning to face any new threat on his flank even as he heard the man’s body hit the deck.

LeRois. He could avoid it no longer. He could not continue to pretend that the Prizes needed him here in the waist.

Rakestraw was ten feet away, fighting like an ancient Norseman, rallying the men. At any moment Bickerstaff and his men would come swarming up the other side and fall on the Vengeances from behind. Ten minutes before, there would have been enough pirates to fight both sides of the deck, but that was before he had delivered the blasts of case shot right into the vaporing tribe.

LeRois was not among the men fighting in the waist, which meant either he was among the dead or wounded or that he was holding back, perhaps waiting for Marlowe to come to him.

There were no more excuses. He had to hunt the man down. As much as he did not wish to, he knew that he had to go.

“Oh, Lord, please let him be dead,” Marlowe muttered. He imagined LeRois’s scarred and battered body tossed up against the bulwark, half torn apart after taking a blast of canister right in the chest, those mad eyes open and dead, staring sightless up at the sky. He felt as hypocritical as a man can feel, calling on God at that juncture.

He stepped back from the fight, pressed himself against the bulwark, worked his way aft, toward the