Behind him, he could hear Blue Hat hollering. The third dinghy swung out from behind the Sunfish and gave chase, just as he’d hoped they would. Gunfire rattled, but nothing hit him. He hoped they were just trying to scare him.
He steered around in a great arc until he could see the distant shape of Brundisi in front of him and made straight for it.
Blue Hat stood on the deck for a moment, watching the third dinghy race off after Will. Then he turned and looked back towards the saloon.
Four men had gone down there. None, yet, had come back up. Red Bandana still lay on the deck where he’d fallen.
Annalie and Essie watched Blue Hat as he sized up the situation. For a moment, Annalie had the dizzying feeling that they might actually be able to win this. Could they really succeed against armed pirates?
Blue Hat took a knife from his belt and came towards them, an angry snarl on his face. Essie was his target, and she couldn’t help a squeak of terror as he brandished the knife at her. But no—he wasn’t going to cut her. The knife sliced through the rope holding her to the mast, leaving her hands still bound behind her. He grabbed her around the neck, held the knife to her throat, and said, ‘If your friend shoots, you die. You tell! Understand?’
Essie stared at him, too frightened to process what he was saying. ‘You tell your friend!’ he repeated angrily. ‘Tell him! Understand?’
‘Okay, I get it,’ Essie said.
Blue Hat marched her to the stairs, holding her in front of him, his knife pressed to her throat. He stopped her at the top of the stairs, and said again, ‘You tell!’
‘We’re coming down,’ Essie called, her voice wobbling. ‘Don’t shoot me! Okay?’
And then the two of them began to descend step by step into the saloon.
Will glanced over his shoulder. The third dinghy was still on his tail, and the Sunfish was now far behind them. He slalomed on, heading to shore. The water became shallower. Underwater obstacles turned into green, slimy stubs. Broken roofs, pieces of wall, pylons and metal and concrete. He could not now skim over them; he was having to zig and zag, twist and turn, picking a path through the debris. Open sea was becoming a watery streetscape, the rubble turning back into wet-footed buildings. And as the buildings emerged from the water, people began to appear. Brundisi before the Flood had been one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and it still teemed with people. Even here at the water’s edge, where high tides regularly inundated old houses, people lived and worked, washed and cooked and shopped. Some of these people looked up or shouted and shook their fists at Will as he roared past, the wake of his engine setting up a mighty chop that slapped against the houses.
On he flew, and the pirates flew along behind him. He had hoped that once he was among these twisty streets it would be easy to give the pirates the slip, but now he realised that they were actually gaining on him. They knew these waterways; they lived them, travelled them, every single day.
Too late to think about that now. All he could do was race on.
He sped up.
It was getting dangerous now as he zoomed around blind corners and cut across slower moving traffic. He had not hit anything—he trusted he would not hit anything—but he had near miss after near miss—a corner that hid a protruding wall! A pole sticking out of the water! A slow-moving ferry! A woman with washing! A family of water birds!—until he was breathless and desperate to get out of there. A few minutes had gone by since he had seen or heard the third dinghy and he began to wonder if he’d managed to shed them after all and whether it was time to head back out to sea again, when something came roaring around a curve. To his horror he saw the third dinghy appear directly in front of him.
The pirates on board grinned and pointed their guns at him.
Will swung around in a circle and tried to lose himself once more in the maze of streets. They hadn’t fired at him; Will hoped that when the streets were teeming with their own people, they wouldn’t dare shoot, since they’d be just as likely to hit six other people at the same time. But he didn’t know just how bad these guys actually were. Maybe they didn’t care who they hit if it meant they got what they wanted. He roared on, now with very little idea even which direction he was travelling in. The buildings around him were high enough that it was hard to tell whether he was heading deeper inland, or back out to sea. He could hear the roar of the third dinghy behind him. They had him, and they would not let him go.
Will began to think that this had not been his best idea ever.
Gulping down his fear, he kept on. He’d found himself on a busier waterway, and a few moments later, he understood why. The street he was on ended and suddenly he was out in a wide open space: it was more like a river than a channel. In fact, it was the harbour he’d been through yesterday with Annalie.
And there, riding at anchor slap-bang in the middle of it, was the same Admiralty ship they’d tried so hard to avoid.
Will had never been so happy to see the Admiralty in all his life. He steered towards it and did a pass right along its side, hoping to get the Admiralty crew’s attention, knowing that the pirate dinghy
