two-pound shot, and the ten-foot, three-ton barrel exploded into a thousand shrieking fragments.
Stokes, standing ten feet away, was hurled back, knocked from his feet, skidding across the flat paving stones. His head was buzzing and ringing, his chest and stomach hurting in a way that he could not think to describe, such that when he opened his eyes some moments later he was surprised not to find some creature sitting on him, clawing him apart, because that was how it felt.
He had been tossed back into a half-sitting position against the oven. There were great rents in his chest and stomach, blood all over. He thought he could feel the bits of metal inside him, in his body.
There was nothing left of the gun save for a small fragment of the barrel still sitting on the wreckage of the gun carriage. There was nothing left of the gun crew, save for pieces and great swaths of blood, impossibly red under the bright sun.
Stokes slumped down, closed his eyes, prepared to join the others, wherever they were.
Lord Yancy watched with great satisfaction the puff of smoke from the battery, the jet of water shooting up beside the ship. They missed, which diminished his pleasure somewhat, but not so very much. Stokes had made it to the battery in time, that was the point.
As the ship closed the distance, the men at the battery would really hammer her. Five guns firing at point-blank range, thirty-two pounders with muzzle velocities of… a terribly high number… The Elizabeth Galley would be torn apart.
Yancy folded his arms, began to count in his head, One and a hundred, two and a hundred, three and a hundred… curious to see how long it would take them to fire the next shot. He imagined that they had all the guns loaded and ready, would just go down the line, firing them off. They certainly had time enough.
Thirty-four and one hundred, thirty-five… Yancy frowned. Apparently they did not have the guns loaded beforehand. Apparently they were reloading now. Such lack of foresight did not please him.
Fifty-one and one hundred, fifty-two and one hundred… Yancy stopped counting. A minute to load a single gun? Lazy bastards, he would flog them all. The Elizabeth Galley was right under them, or appeared to be from the angle from which Yancy was watching. Now was the time to pound her. Another minute and the best shot would be lost. Another three and she would disappear around the island.
It was an awful, awful silence that filled the next three minutes. Yancy felt his guts wrenching with his mounting fury, an emotion frightening in its intensity. He tried to quash it but could not. The Elizabeth Galley’s headrig was lost from sight around the northern end of the island, and still nothing from the battery. The trembling began again, moving through him.
Nothing but silence from the battery. Yancy listened, his whole being concentrated in his ears. Insects buzzing, the raucous call of some bird. Feet shuffling, some whispered conversation. Nothing else.
Half the Elizabeth Galley was lost from sight. Yancy was ready for the battery to open up. Didn’t want to sink her in the channel-he grasped at that straw. Waited till she was in deep water, didn’t want to make an obstruction of her, right in the channel…
And then, like the sun dipping below the horizon, the last of the Elizabeth Galley’s stern section slipped around Quail Island and was gone.
Yancy’s entire body was trembling now, uncontrollably. He clenched his fists and his jaw and his eyelids, tensed his muscles, tried to keep his brain from blowing apart. He could picture bulging veins, ready to burst, his heart swelling and growing fragile, like a soap bubble in his chest.
And then from behind him a chuckle. It built until it was a laugh, a raucous shout of a laugh, an obscene sound, and Yancy thought at first he alone could hear it, the gods laughing at him because he could not imagine that anyone would actually dare laugh at that moment. Then he realized that it was Roger Press.
He whirled around. Press’s gangly form was bent nearly double, and he was laughing, while around him the other men backed away as if he had suddenly dropped with plague.
Yancy took a step toward him and stopped, did not know what to do. It was too incredible.
Press straightened, wiped his streaming eyes, rolled his silver toothpick across the roof of his mouth. “Oh, Yancy, this is rich! I bring you four ships, I bring you the Great Mogul’s treasure and Marlowe and his bitch to boot, and you piss it all away! All of it! God, you are pathetic, you stupid little fuck.”
Press put his hands on his hips, smirking, waggling his toothpick around. There were a hundred things that Yancy wanted to do and say, all at once, but all he could see was that damned toothpick. With three quick steps he crossed the space that separated them. His hand darted up, grabbed the accursed thing, yanked it from Press’s mouth and hurled it aside.
Press’s smirk vanished. His eyebrows came together, his lips went down into a frown, and fast as a snake his right hand came around and slapped Yancy hard across the face. “Go pick that up, you little shit. You aren’t in command here anymore,” Press hissed.
Yancy staggered back a few steps. A blow! He could not recall having ever been struck, not since the age of fourteen. Certainly not by anyone who lived to brag of it.
His hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. He pulled it from the scabbard with a swishing sound. “Now you die,” he said simply, taking a step toward Press, who took a step back.
“Give me a sword!” Press yelled to the assembled men, half of whom were his former crew. “Give me a sword!” But no one moved.
Yancy charged, two steps, saw the look of horror and surprise on Press’s face as he drove the sword into Press’s stomach, the razor-sharp blade meeting little resistance as it slid through his bowels, came clean out the back.
Lord Yancy drove the blade home, right up to the hilt. He saw Press’s eyes, wide with shock and pain, heard Press try to yell, but his throat was full of blood, and it was blood and not words that came from his mouth, blood running over the hilt of the sword, sticky and hot on his hands.
Yancy smiled, made to pull the sword free, but Press lurched forward, wrapped arms like a spider’s legs around him, hugging him as if he were a dear friend. Yancy felt a surge of panic and revulsion, tried to push the horrible, bleeding thing away, but Press had strength left in his arms, and he held Yancy tight.
Then Yancy felt Press’s right arm reaching down as the left encircled his neck, felt the bony hand under his coat, reaching for the dagger in the small of his back.
“No, no, you son of a bitch!” Yancy tried to push away, but Press held him tight. He could feel Press’s blood pumping hot over him, could smell the blood and the dried sweat on Press’s body, thought he would be sick. He felt the dagger clear the sheath, pushed away as hard as he could, but he could not beak Press’s grip. He screamed, closed his eyes, waited for the knife in the back.
Henry Nagel stood at the edge of the ring of men, Yancy’s men and Press’s, witnesses to the fast and bloody end of their leaders.
He had been grudgingly impressed with Yancy’s quickness and the force he had applied to skewer Press. That took some strength of arm, Nagel knew.
Henry had reckoned the stroke gave Yancy the final victory over Press, but he was wrong. Press still had something left in him, vicious bastard; he was not going to die alone. He found Yancy’s knife, pulled it, drove it into the back of his screaming enemy, pulled it free, drove it home a second time before the two men collapsed to the dock with arms around each other like lovers, blood pooling together.
The ring of men stood silent and watched. Yancy made a sound like a long sigh, Press twitched a few times more, but nothing beyond that, and then they were dead. No one said a thing.
After a moment of this, Nagel looked up, and at the same time so did Israel Clayford, the great brute who had been second to Press. Their eyes met, and each held the other’s stare, and then at last Nagel nodded toward the harbor, said, “Sloop’s fair shot up, but I reckon she’d make a fine Red Sea Rover.”
Clayford nodded. “Brig, too. Could work together.”
Nagel agreed. “Reckon we can put it to a vote, who captains what, quartermasters and the like.” He looked around, spoke louder, addressing all the men there. “Any of you doesn’t care to join in, don’t want to sail the Pirate Round… well, you just walk away, and nothing will be said.”
He waited a moment. No one moved.
At last Clayford broke the silence. “Finch here’s a scholar, can write a fair, round hand. What say we set him to drafting articles, like?”
“Reckon so.” With that, Nagel turned, clomped down the dock, and the others followed behind. He looked up at the big house on the hill. He was ready for a wet. Ready to quit that place.
