Chapter Twenty-six
Wendell Marteen screamed in true, pure terror. There was no secondary emotion, like anger or frustration. It was the kind of scream that gave nightmares to the people who heard it, as their imaginations tried to conjure the source. I knew the source, and it still sent chills through me.
I left my cabin just as the guard snapped awake and jumped to his feet. He looked around, blinking in confusion. “What was that?”
“Your prisoner,” I said.
“Oh, crap,” he said, and preceded me into the dayroom. Marteen’s demeanor was entirely, completely different. All the arrogance and defensiveness were gone, replaced by the kind of gallows terror you see only in men who know they are about to die. “Please, don’t kill me,” he whimpered when he saw us, his words rushing out all at once. “I’ll tell you anything, I’ll take you to Black Edward, just please, don’t kill me, I’ll do anything you want, please, I don’t want to die.”
Clift burst into the room, followed by Jane. Others gathered just outside, all summoned by the unearthly shriek. “What’s going on?” the captain demanded.
Marteen bent forward, bowing in as much supplication as his bonds allowed. “Please, Captain Clift, don’t let them take me, I’ll help you, I’ll gladly go to Remy’s prison, just don’t let me die!”
Clift looked at me; I shrugged.
“He was alone in here when he screamed, Cap’n,” the guard volunteered. “Mr. LaCrosse came in with me.”
“I’ll tell you where Edward Tew is,” Marteen said in a tiny voice. “I’ll tell you where his trea sure is, just don’t let me die. Please, promise me you won’t kill me.”
Clift quickly closed the door on the watchers. He glared down at Marteen and demanded, “What do you think will happen if I do?”
Marteen stopped talking, and for a moment, I was afraid he’d even stopped breathing. Then he sagged against his ropes and began to cry. It was oddly touching, and I was annoyed at the sympathy I suddenly felt for the guy.
Jane looked questioningly at me. I touched my lips and winked, a signal that I’d fill her in later. She nodded slightly in acknowledgment, then pushed in front of Clift and snarled at Marteen, “All right, prove you mean what you say. What heading should we take?”
“Southwest,” Marteen said through tears. “Straight due southwest. Bring me a map, and I’ll show you. We’re about eight days away. It’s an island with a pair of mountains, and a long sandy peninsula on one end.”
“And Black Edward is there?” she pressed.
“Yes, I swear. Now, please, promise you won’t kill me.”
Clift smacked him on the side of the head. “I will if you don’t stop blubbering.”
Marteen immediately fell silent. His lower lip trembled like a child’s, and tears cut through the dirt on his face.
Clift then turned his full authority on the guard. “Your name is Carrisimo, right?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, standing straight.
“You heard what this worm-riddled piss pot said about Black Edward Tew’s treasure, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Clift stepped nose to nose with the younger man. “You breathe a word of that to anyone other than the people in this room, and I’ll have your balls for castanets, understand?”
Carrisimo gulped. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now cut him loose, but don’t take your eyes off him.” Clift went the short distance into his cabin.
As Carrisimo followed his orders, Jane sidled up to me and said, “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing, I wasn’t even in here.”
“Bullshit, I know that smug look of yours.”
Before I could say anything else, Clift returned with a handful of maps. Marteen was rubbing his wrists where the ropes had bitten into them. Clift unrolled one map, held it in front of Marteen, and said, “Show me.”
Marteen unhesitatingly pointed to a tiny dot among a cluster of other dots. “Here. He’s here.”
“Now show me on this map,” Clift said, switching them quickly. Marteen immediately pointed out the same island. Clift made him do it twice more on two additional maps before he was satisfied that Marteen wasn’t making the whole thing up. “How long has he been there?”
Marteen laughed ironically. “Twenty years. For the last fifteen, you couldn’t get him on a ship again if you chained him up and had a whole brigade to drag him.”
“Why?” I asked.
Marteen looked at me, swallowed hard, and pointed at Jane. “Because Black Edward has that thing she said you and Captain Clift have. A conscience. He was so horrified by what he did to secure his treasure that he swore never to sail again.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He sank his own ship, with all his crew on board,” Jane said. “After he took the treasure off. Didn’t he?”
Marteen nodded.
At dawn, the Bloody Angel left for Blefuscola with a hold full of chained prisoners and about a third of the Red Cow ’s crew to mind them. It said something that our ship didn’t seem significantly less crowded. We then returned to the monster’s vessel, which waited in the sunrise as innocent as a child opening a birthday present.
“Bring Marteen up here,” Clift said. “I want the son of a bitch to see this.”
We smelled him before he appeared. He’d been manacled again, and Carrisimo escorted him with a knife to his back. He moved heavily, like the life had already gone out of him. He watched impassively as the ship’s largest ballista was positioned and the bowstring was winched back. The head of the bolt was lit, and when the fire was burning well, the gunner shot it over to the monster’s ship. It struck the middle of the empty deck and stuck there, the flames slowly catching. Two more bolts joined it, and a fourth was being prepared when Clift said, “That’ll do it.”
And it did. The ship was fully aflame now, and all at once, the monster’s tentacles burst from the water and tried to somehow fight the fire. Big bursts of water came from the creature’s siphons. It snuffed some of the blaze, but by then, the hull was compromised.
With one last desperate effort, the monster rolled the ship belly-up, trying to use its own pulpy weight to drive the burning vessel into the water. We saw how it was attached to the bottom: the huge round head was encased in a net, fastened to the hull so that the animal’s mouth was forced against the hatch. The ship sank, taking the monster with it, and leaving only a roiling sea of foam, black ink, and blue monster blood.
“And now,” Clift said, “head southeast, Mr. Greaves.”
Greaves, promoted to quartermaster since Seaton’s death, said, “Aye, sir.” He walked the length of the deck, calling orders up to sailors in the riggings.
Clift turned to Marteen. “I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you’re lying to me. I don’t care if the biggest ambush in world history is waiting for us, I assure you: You’ll die first.”
“It’s no trick,” Marteen said listlessly.
“Who’s on the island besides Tew?”
“Just a few sailors. The ones too old or sick to be of use. Most of them came with me.”
“Uh-huh.” Clift didn’t believe Marteen, and I didn’t blame him. “Well, I want my cabin back. Mr. Dawson!”
The ship’s carpenter came running up and saluted. He had forearms as muscular as some men’s legs. “Yes, sir.”
“Build a cage big enough to hold this gentleman. We’re going to hang him off the stern until he airs out a little.”
“Yes, sir,” Dawson repeated. He bent at the waist, touched the tips of one finger to the deck at Marteen’s
