Steel

From the Diana’s mainmast, the leering skull with the rose and sword crossed beneath it snapped and sang, a herald of doom.

Jill looked for Henry in all the chaos and saw him emerge from the aft hatch in the deck. He had an armful of weapons.

He caught her gaze across the deck. “How are you with a pistol?”

Jill shook her head. “I’ve never held a gun in my life.”

The quirk of a smile returned to his lips, making him look a little crazy. He said, “Well then, you’ll just have to keep hold of your sword and wait for the real fighting.” He ran off on another chore, leaving her gaping.

“Wait a minute—sword fighting? We’re not really going to…there’s not really going to be—”

Well, she’d just about asked for it with all the practicing, hadn’t she?

A boom of distant thunder made Jill flinch. Across the water, a cottony puff of black smoke burst from the side of the ship and floated. Then another, and another. More thunder followed.

We’re all going to die, she thought, too numb to be scared.

ATTACK

Thirty or so feet out from the ship, columns of water sprayed upward, a row of giant splashes as a cannonball skipped over the water, impressive but harmless. The other ship’s cannon fire had missed.

Captain Cooper shouted from the helm. “Ha! He’s wasting his gunpowder on us, my mates. Let’s show him how a real ship fights!”

Her crew shouted. Even the ship seemed to jump in echo of her words.

“Is it really Blane?” Jill saw the smudge of a black flag flying from the other ship’s mast, but she couldn’t see its details. She wanted to think she’d been mistaken about the broken rapier reacting so violently.

“Yeah—look at the flag, the shape of her, the set of her sails,” Henry said. “And we wouldn’t go after any other pirate folk like this.”

The ship had a gunnery mate—Tennant. His voice hollered across the deck. “Powder! Ram!”

Then came a pause, as if everyone on board held their breath. Sea splashed and gulls cried, and both ships seemed poised on the water. They might have frozen that way forever, until everything happened at once.

Cooper called, “Stand by to fire!”

“Ready!” Tennant shouted.

“Let go the sheets! Go to larboard!” Sails flapped, and the ship turned, just a hair, leaning to the left as if she was going to turn away from the Heart’s Revenge, until the Diana’s starboard side faced her. Then the captain shouted, “Tennant, fire, damn you!”

Every cannon on that side fired. Jill buckled over, covering her ears. The whole ship vibrated, rattling, and didn’t stop, as if the force of the guns would shake apart every timber. Shiver me timbers….

The air filled with smoke and fire. She coughed at the reek of sulfur in her lungs, which only made her inhale more of the thick, ash-filled air. Some of the crew had tied scarves over their mouths. She still had her scarf from the beach, and she did the same.

Henry was laughing, but Jill couldn’t hear the sound, only see his mouth open.

Leaning close to her he said, “There’s your broadside!”

Everyone who wasn’t tending guns or sails looked out to see what effect the round of cannon fire had had. Jill couldn’t see, but then she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Smoke obscured both ships. The Heart’s Revenge seemed to be bobbing in the water, as if it had stopped moving entirely. Its sails seemed loose, confused.

The captain yelled another set of orders, and the ship turned, looking to cross in front of the enemy ship. They sailed, running fast, like hunting down easy prey. Jill could start to make out individual lines among the other ship’s rigging.

Cooper was shouting, Tennant was ordering the cannons to reload, Jenks was yelling at the crew to do incomprehensible things to the sails, and that still left a chunk of the crew—Abe among them—gathered by the side of the ship, muskets, pistols, and swords in hand, waiting. Unlike the encounter with the slave ship, they expected to bring the Diana alongside and fight.

Judging distance and speed on the open water was deceptive. The Heart’s Revenge looked like she wasn’t moving, but in fact she’d been swinging around, just like the Diana was. While the Diana was trying to get in front of the other ship, the other seemed to be turning, preventing her from doing so, keeping its own cannons pointed toward her.

All Jill could guess was that there’d be more cannon fire, more smoke, and more chaos.

“We’re coming in too fast,” Henry murmured.