together. They were good, but they didn’t realize what they were up against, and I quickly overcame their sloppy technique. In moments, all three lay dead at my feet. My tunic was sticky with their sprayed blood. The woman had time to spit at me before she closed her eyes.
I glimpsed Duncan Tew battling a taller, older opponent. He wasn’t making much headway, but he had his defensive moves down pat, and his opponent was getting pissed off. If Duncan could keep his temper while the other man lost his, he’d soon get an opening. Nearby, Seaton moved with the slow, methodical strokes of a veteran, blocking and thrusting as if it were part of his daily routine. He left a row of dead men on either side of his path.
By now Clift’s men had emerged from the hatch and overcome the boarding party. About half the Angel ’s crew swarmed onto the Cow, not quite noticing that their ship was simultaneously being boarded behind them. I took advantage of this confusion to rush the Angel ’s wheel and cut down the helmsman struggling to turn his ship away from the Cow. I spun the wheel the opposite direction, and the two ships again slammed together. I heard screams and splashes as the impact knocked men overboard.
My foot slipped in the helmsman’s blood. When I regained my balance and turned, a new man stood before me. He had the unmistakable air of command about him, wearing as he did a tricornered hat, red velvet coat, and boots either recently bought or stolen. He also looked nothing at all like Duncan Tew. I said, “Wendell Marteen, I presume.”
He looked at me closely to see if he knew me. “That’s Captain Marteen to you, you pox-faced parrot. You think you’re clever, don’t you?”
“Since you fell for it, I’d say I have the right to.” Marteen’s eyes bulged with anger, and he swung his wide- bladed sword at me with both hands. I dodged and hit his blade with mine as it went past, making him spin and fall. His hat went flying. The big sword clattered to the deck, slid across the wood, and tumbled out between two rail posts. I jumped to put the tip of my sword at Marteen’s throat, but he scrambled away and cried, “Men! Assistance!”
Four of his crew jumped-well, shuffled with alacrity-to his defense. I got one through the belly, but the second one seriously cut my right shoulder and the third barely missed decapitating me. The pain from the cut was monumental, and I shifted my sword to my left hand. The remaining two grinned and charged me. Overconfident old bastards.
I dropped and rolled at their feet. They fell over me, and one continued tumbling over the rail and into the water. The third hit hard, and his eyes cleared for just an instant before I stabbed him through the neck.
I looked around for Marteen. The decks of both ships were a chaotic mass of flashing swords and swaths of red blood, and bodies dotted the water around us. I spotted him near the Angel ’s mainmast, and hacked my way toward him. When he saw I wasn’t dead, he looked confused, then scared. I knew I had him.
I was so confident, in fact, that I failed to notice the knot of men surging toward me as they fought one another. They caught me up in their struggle and, before I could react, pushed me over the Angel ’s rail and into the space between the hulls of the two ships.
I released my sword and grabbed one of the two grapple lines that held the ships together. The heavy, rough rope burned my palms. If the vessels slammed together again, I’d be squashed like a bug.
I held on with every bit of strength I had. My cut shoulder expressed its dis pleasure with pain like hot knitting needles jammed down my arm. Beneath me, in the churning water between the ships, bobbed the dead and dying from both crews. Distinctive triangular fins slid among them, turning the foam pink. That motivated me, and I climbed hand over hand up toward the Bloody Angel ’s deck.
And then somebody cut the rope.
The instant of free fall made my heart try to leap out of my throat and into the sea. Somehow I held on, even when I smashed into the Cow ’s hull and my boots dangled in the water. A huge shark’s mouth opened beneath me, and I yanked up my feet just in time. Above me, men continued to fight, oblivious to my dilemma. There was no point in shouting for help. I tried to climb to the Cow ’s porthole, but my arms and injured shoulder had no juice left. It took all my strength to avoid losing my toes to the eager jaws below.
The other ropes had been cut as well, and the two ships moved slowly apart. Men jumped the gap until the last possible moment, and a few even after that. One of the Angel ’s crew smacked into the Cow ’s hull, bounced off, and landed in the water. He grabbed the trailing end of my rope and held on until one of his overboard shipmates clutched at his legs and pulled him free. A half-dozen fins converged on them, and their high-pitched screams filled the air.
As the Bloody Angel pulled away, I saw Duncan Tew at her rail, looking helplessly at the Red Cow. Behind him, smiling with perverse satisfaction, stood Wendell Marteen. The Angel ’s sails unfurled, caught the wind, and drove the vessel quickly away.
A ladder slapped the hull beside me. I switched my grip to it, but had no strength to climb. Eventually someone noticed and began to pull me up.
My strength was exhausted, but not my fury. I hoped Clift was right about the Cow ’s speed, because I was not about to rest until I shoved that smug grin down Marteen’s throat.
Chapter Twenty-three
I crawled over the rail and fell limp to the deck. No one offered to help me up. I heard shouted orders and acknowledgments, and felt the thudding of urgent feet through the deck’s wood. Finally Greaves knelt beside me and said, “Do you need the doctor?”
“No,” I croaked, and pushed myself up with my good arm.
Greaves helped me to my feet. “Are we going after them?” “Aye, sir. The captain is-”
I shrugged off Greaves’s concern and rushed astern, dodging the sailors hurrying to their tasks. The fake fallen sail had been cut away, and the false crates dumped overboard. Clift stood at the wheel, but instead of watching the departing ship, his eyes were on Estella at the foremast crosstrees. Greaves strode about, directing the lowering and trimming of sails, all of which filled with wind. Yet the Bloody Angel was leaving us behind despite our having every bit of canvas deployed.
“Still under full sail!” Estella called down. “Ten knots, maybe twelve!”
“Steady as she goes,” Clift ordered, and Greaves repeated it. The captain looked at me grimly and said, “That didn’t go as planned, did it?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t,” I agreed. The Bloody Angel ’s wake sparkled in the sun.
“We’ve got seventeen of their men dead or captured below, and by best count, twelve of ours remain on the Bloody Angel.” He nodded at my shoulder. “And you’re hurt.”
“It’s a scratch.” I clenched my fists helplessly. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they getting away?”
He smiled. “You had your shot, Mr. LaCrosse. Now just sit back and enjoy mine.”
I wanted to punch that smirk from his tanned face, but I reminded myself I wasn’t really angry at him. And besides, he was right. My plan hadn’t worked; hopefully, his would.
Like the Bloody Angel, the Red Cow was soon running under all its canvas, but the other ship rapidly pulled ahead. No one seemed concerned with this, least of all Clift, who serenely steered his ship and frequently checked with Estella above us. The Cow seemed to be straining against something, and even with my limited nautical knowledge, I realized she ought to be going faster.
“How fast are we going?” I asked Greaves.
“About four knots,” he said with no concern.
I said to Clift, “Is something wrong? Shouldn’t we-?”
He nodded brusquely toward the rear of the ship. I looked over the rail and was astounded: the barrels I’d previously seen tied to the stern now dragged behind us, slowing us to a crawl no matter how many sails we deployed. Each barrel was connected by a rope to a central metal ring, which a single thick cable bound to the ship. I started to demand an explanation; then my weary brain comprehended it. It was a hell of a plan if the Angel fell for it.
Greaves asked quietly, “Did you happen to see the situation surrounding Mr. Seaton on the other ship before
