“Don’t be afraid, my lady! We will prevail.”
“I am not afraid of the danger, Captain, but of the cabin—” Skye began, but she had lost his attention. He gave his orders to his first officer, who then boomed them out to the crew over the sound of the coming storm and the waves, and over the sounds of the fire that now began, cannon to vie with the thunder.
“Come, me dear lady!” Davey encouraged her, grasping her hand. He began to run over the hull. They dodged grim-faced sailors and the rigging and they came to the door of the captain’s cabin. It was an elegant place, finely set with a huge oak desk, damask draperies, and a deep-set bunk surrounded by bookshelves hewn into the very body of the vessel. The elegant china tea service reserved for the captain’s use still sat atop his desk. Presumably he had been at tea when the call had come that the weather worsened and an unidentified ship approached.
“May God be with you, lady!” Davey cried to her. “I will lock you in, milady, and—”
“No!” she protested in a sharp scream. Then she smiled apologetically. She would be all right as long as there was light, as long as the door was not locked. “Please, Davey, I would not be trapped. Do not lock me in.”
“No, milady, if that is your wish.”
“Thank you. Go on now, and God be with you!” she said quickly, for already he was pulling the door shut behind him. Skye picked up her skirts and ran behind him, placing her hands upon the door and leaning against it. She could hear the footsteps pounding over the deck; she could hear the captain’s first officer raging out his orders. She screamed suddenly, thrown back with such vengeance that she fell hard against the desk. She heard the fine china rattle and fall. A ball, she surmised, had struck the ship somewhere.
She heard a man scream, scream with such pain and agony that she could feel his anguish deep inside. Then she felt a deep and terrible shuddering within the ship.
The pirate vessel was upon them. She could hear grappling hooks being tossed and thrown, catching and sinking into the wood of the hull like the giant fangs of some evil monster. Aye, a monster it was.
Rubbing her shoulder where she had struck the deck, she carefully rose. The skirt to her new gold-threaded gown had caught and torn upon the carved foot of the desk and she wrenched at it with all speed. Smoke was seeping into the cabin now. Smoke from the fires caused by the cannonballs, fires that surely blazed now within canvas sails. Men were screaming and shouting, and the clash of steel and the horrible scent of powder and flame were all about.
It was stifling; she could not breathe. She flew to the door and angled behind it, opened it enough that she could see.
Dread filled her heart, and swept through her blood, and congealed as ice in her soul.
The good captain lay dead before her very feet. Though officers and sailors still gave battle about the deck, it was painfully obvious that the pirates were the victors of this particular battle upon the sea.
Skye clutched her heart, then set her hands against her ears as the clash of steel continued. She closed her eyes, sick with anguish for the poor gallant captain, and for his men.
Then her eyes flew open once again. She heard the rise of female screams, and she realized that her young maids, fresh from the Irish countryside, had been discovered down in the hold. Bessie was screaming desperately; Tara was gulping out little squawking sounds.
And even as Skye watched, the two women were dragged to midships, beneath the mainsail. All around them tinder burned and the small fights continued. But there was no gallant knight to come to the girls’ defense; all the officers and men were well occupied in their own skirmishes.
“No!” Skye whispered aloud, biting into her lower lip.
But there was no denial.
Despite the gray of the day and the thunder and the lightning and the awful smell of charred wood and charred flesh and the threat of rain, certain of the buccaneers were determined. Tara with her soft blue eyes and snow white skin was being tossed soundly upon the deck. With the pitch and sway and tempest of the ocean, she was thrown hard against the water bucket, and none of the riotous rogues seemed to notice her cry of pain. It was a party of four that attacked the girls, one a youth with a scraggly white-blond beard, one missing a tooth, a graybeard, and a nasty, evil dark-haired fellow with yellow, tobacco-stained teeth.
Skye closed her eyes and leaned back against the door. She could not let this happen.
Yet what could she do? The ship was alive with beasts, and the force of good was surely losing to evil.
And still, eventually, they would find her. Was it not better to go down fighting than to be cornered and caught like a fox?
She was not terrified of fighting for her life. She was only afraid of small dark places from which she could not escape.
She looked above the captain’s desk, where a fine pair of Damascus swords were hung, one upon the other. The ship pitched dangerously, as if they would all be swept up by the storm, swallowed, and taken to the bottom of the sea.
She prayed briefly. She asked God to forgive her a multitude of sins, pride not the least of them.
Then she sprang forward, leaped upon the desk itself, and wrested a sword from its scabbard against the paneling.
She felt the steel in her hand. She slashed the sword carefully through the air, testing its weight. Then she swirled about, hurriedly leaving the safety of the cabin before she could lose her nerve and cower in terror in some dark corner. Skye carried her blade in one hand, sweeping her skirts up behind her with the other. The horrible smells of battle were even worse on deck. So much charred flesh! Broken timber, broken limbs, and canvas that continued to burn. She swallowed hard, fighting an urge to faint at the sight of the still-staring—but sightless—captain. She steeled herself and stepped over the man. So far, she hadn’t been noticed in the melee.
They would notice her soon enough.
She flew forward in a burst of courage and strength, flying toward the men who held down Tara and Bess.
“Leave them be!” she commanded, waving her sword toward the graybeard who tore at Tara’s skirts.
