DARE THE WILD WIND (49 page)

The boom of the cannon shook the ground under them, and Brenna ducked and cringed by reflex at the full force of the next barrage.
 

M
anned only by a skeleton crew, the
Red Witch
lay all but defenseless, only a handful of its thirty two cannon answering fire from the attacking ship.  Blinding flashes exploded from the brass mouths of the cannon, and both ships rocked with the recoil.  Smoke obscured most of the gunners' marksmanship, but Brenna could see direct hits in the oak hull of the
Red Witch
, and its topgallant and mainsail hung in tatters, shredded by grapeshot. 

They started up the rise toward the house, and Brenna saw a handful of sailors racing up the ratlines, desperate to jury
rig enough sail for the helmsman to bring the ship about.  The big man beside them put out a hand to halt them.  All three of them watched transfixed.  If the
Red Witch
could get under way, it could slip the attacker's net.  Silhouetted against a sky lit a lurid orange by the dying sun, the men in the rigging made perfect targets.  On they climbed, undetered when first one and then another fell.

But they squandered their gallantry.  The attacking vessel swung to larboard, and blocked the
Red Witch’s
attempt to make a run for the mouth of the inlet and the open sea. The
Red
Witch
was trapped in its own lair.  Belatedly, through the smoke of battle, Brenna saw why the other ship had been able to navigate upriver.  It was a brig, no larger than the
Red Witch
, though differently rigged and more heavily armed.  And now it closed to board the crippled ship.

The man with them swore.  "God help the poor sods now." 

"God help us," Fenella said in a high frightened voice. 

Silently Brenna echoed her.  Who could they turn to with
Cam taken captive?  Then a voice inside her jeered the question.  If the
Red Witch
had broken free, Cam would have abandoned them to the uncertain mercies of the man beside them.

Then a tremendous explosion nearly knocked them from their feet
, engulfing the stern of the 
Red Witch
in a ball of fire.

"He's set off the magazine."  Their hulking companion took hold of Brenna's arm.  "I have to get you to the house."

She dug in her heels.  "The house is the last place to go now."

He hauled them both forward.  "The captain gave me my orders."

New sounds of battle broke out from the opposite shore.  Smoke from the
Red Witch
drifted in a black curtain across the river, making it impossible to see in the gathering dusk.  But Brenna could guess the crew of the interloping ship must be engaging Cam's remaining men on the other side of the river.  They dashed toward the house under the cloak of descending twilight.  Then, abruptly, a knot of men burst out of the near darkness.

Cam
was at their head, hair and clothes dripping wet.  He stopped short at the sight of both Brenna and Fenella.  Then he let out a strange morbid laugh.

"I suppose the two of you will want to reckon with me in the bargain."

Brenna wrestled with a distaste so overwhelming bile rose on the back of her tongue.  "I'm delighted you find this so amusing.  You have more lives than a cat."

"Why, Brenna," he said with mordant humor, "I almost think you wish I'd gone up with the powder in the hold."

"I wish I'd never seen your face," she snapped. 

He waved his men ahead.  "We don't have the leisure to discuss it here.  Unless you want to offer your hospitality to our visitors, I suggest we make haste for the house."

Catching Brenna by the wrist, he set off across the last grassy stretch to the plantation house, dragging her on ruthlessly, all but yanking her arm from its socket when she nearly fell.  Pain weighted her legs by the time they reached the steps to the gallery.  When he released her at last, she rubbed the marks of his fingers on her wrist.

"Do you plan to stand them off
here?" she asked tartly.

"I plan to recoup what I can from a very unpleasant day,"
Cam said shortly.  "I have a chest full of coin under the floorboards of the study.  It should go a good way toward the price of another ship."

"How do you expect to make off with a chest full of gold?"     

"With the help of the men I've brought.  I always deal myself one last card in the deck.  I keep a longboat beached out of sight well away from the river.  Only a few of my men know about it."

Brenna could guess the men with him were the same members of his crew who helped him conceal the boat. 

Cam
took the steps in two bounds.  "Get the women up on the gallery, where they're less likely to be seen."

The house was eerily dark, not a candle lit by the fleeing servants.  The raiders were certain to sack it, and likely put a torch to the house and the fields. 
Cam would lose all he had apart from the land where the house stood and what coin he could salvage.

Cam
was almost to the door of his study when another party of men stepped around the corner of the veranda.  In the shadows, it was impossible to tell if they were part of Cam's crew or the vanguard of the invading force.

Cam
wheeled, drawing his sword, and beside them their hulking shepherd did the same.  Cam whistled a low signal to his men, and Brenna realized they must have scattered to reconnoiter the house. 

"Get inside,"
Cam ordered.  "Close and bar the shutters."

A voice rang through the darkness.  "That won't be necessary." 

Brenna's heart jumped and then soared at the sound.  Drake strode from the far end of the gallery.  Even before the erratic flicker of flames from the river lit his bluntly
chiseled features, there was no mistaking his towering powerfully built figure or the tightly coiled grace of the walk she knew so well.     

He gripped the haft of the rapier that Brenna so often had seen swinging at his hip, and behind him, half a dozen royal marines followed, swords at the ready.

Drake shot a swift glance at Brenna.  For barely a second, his eyes held hers, hard and accusing, boring inside her soul.  Her joy curdled in her throat.  She tried to speak, but she could make no sound at all.
Deliberately, contemptuously, he swung his gaze back to Cam. 

"I don't require possession of your house," he said in a cutting voice.  "I do require what belongs to me."

                               *****

Cam sent Drake a tight derisive smile.

"You're a little premature.  Your mercenaries are still occupied on the other side of the river."

He might have had an army at his back.  Clearly
Cam felt confident his men outnumbered Drake's on this side of the river.

Drake's smile answered his.  "I don't need any assistance dispatching a traitor and a thief."

His rapier flashed, and
Cam's rose to meet it.  Steel clashed on steel as Cam parried and went on the offense.  Drake warded off his first lunge with a lightning flick of his wrist, forcing Cam to dodge aside from a return thrust that carved air bare inches from his chest.

Cam
's crewman dragged Brenna back, but she refused to be forced through the doorway into the house.  For once, Fenella struggled as fiercely as she did, kicking and scratching, and he found his hands too full to subdue them both.  He settled for shoving them flat against the wall, out of harm's way.

The armed party with Drake made no move to interfere, and the two men circled, lunging and parrying, probing for any weakness in the other.  In their first encounter,
Cam had been hampered by the weight of a claymore and Drake's superior skill with a rapier.  But Cam had perfected his new trade at sea.  He had grown almost as quick with a rapier as Drake, and more murderous.  Long held anger fueled Drake, but Cam fought as if he meant to maim his opponent as well as kill him, slicing at the nearest appendage whenever Drake deflected the first thrust of his blade.  

Cam
hadn't learned to fence like a gentleman.  Only Drake's extraordinary agility kept him from losing an eye or a limb.  Brenna flinched with each pass, afraid to look, terrified to look away. 

But Drake pressed
Cam constantly, drawing first blood, though it was only a nick in Cam's shoulder.  Drake gave no sign of tiring, his thrusts growing almost surgical, every motion calculated.  Brenna only prayed he could outlast Cam, that Cam's greater muscle and bulk wouldn't wear him down.

Then
Cam mounted a charging attack, striking Drake's rapier aside and up, driving his sword with horrifying speed at Drake's throat.  Brenna screamed, and Drake's rapier slashed down again in a swift blur.  There was a sharp metallic chink, and half of Cam's blade ricocheted away.  Cam stood defenseless, the hilt still in his hand. 

Their captor stepped forward, but Drake's men quickly closed around him. 
Cam began to back away, beads of sweat breaking out on his face, and it was Drake's turn to point his thin lethal blade at Cam's throat. 

"Charity is lost on you," Drake said through his teeth.  "I should have let the burial squad put a bayonet through you at
Culloden Moor
.
"

All of
Cam's mocking words of defiance had deserted him.  A drop of blood welled as the rapier bit his skin.  Brenna swayed in spite of herself.

"Drake, in the name of God," she cried out, "you can't kill him like this."

His eyes flicked to her face for a bare instant.  "Can't I?  Will you never have done defending him?"

"He isn't worth de
fending," she shot back.  "But you're not a murderer.  You can't slit his throat in cold blood."

For just a second, Drake stiffened.  Then he let out a sharp explosive breath.

"What would you have me do with him?" he asked with heavy sarcasm.  "Do you fancy a rope instead?"

Drake's eyes hadn't left
Cam's face, but Brenna saw he had withdrawn his blade the merest fraction of an inch. 

For a heartbeat Brenna could think of nothing that would stay Drake's hand.  But in the end she knew
Cam couldn't escape a reckoning for his rapacious career at sea. 

"Turn him over to an
Admiralty Court," she said.  "Let them deal with him now."

Even as she spoke, she knew the outcome would be the same.  After his depredations on British shipping,
Cam would almost certainly swing from the noose he had escaped in London.

Dizzy with relief, she saw Drake ease his rapier back.  He shoved
Cam roughly against the wall, and jerked his head at the leader of his landing party.

"Take charge of this swaggering dog.  I want him trussed hand and foot, and locked in irons as soon as you have him aboard the
Trident
."

Brenna heard a small surprised sound from Fenella.  But she had no time to think why the name of Drake's ship was so familiar. 

Loosing bloodcurdling yells,
Cam's men ran at them.  Closing on Drake's landing party from two sides of the gallery, they attacked with cutlass and poniard, pistols in reserve in their belts.  Brenna pushed Fenella to the floor of the gallery before they were caught in the melee.  Booted feet threatened to crush them, and Brenna began to crawl on her hands and knees over the splintery planking, trusting Fenella to follow.  When she reached the edge of the veranda, she dropped to the soft earth below, Fenella tumbling with a thud after her.

Jumping to her feet in the perfumed bed of jasmine, Brenna could see above the floor of the gallery.
Pitted against almost a dozen men, Drake and his party were rapidly losing ground.  Drake fought back to back with a sailor nearly his height, giving a good account of himself, but around him the other defenders one by one fell.  And then the man at his back doubled over, opened from navel to brisket by the upward slash of a dagger.

Drake stood alone. 
Cam had fought his way to Drake with a sword purloined from one of the corpses littering the gallery.  Now Drake straightened, eyes narrowing, prepared to do single battle with him again. 

Cam
's laugh scorned the offer.  "I don't indulge in games."

From somewhere he had thrust a pi
stol in his belt.  Now he drew it.  "It's a pleasure to bid you a final farewell."

Brenna's heart stopped. 
Paralyzed, she tried to scream as Cam lifted the musket to fire.  But no sound came from her throat. 

There was a monstrous crack and a blinding burst of light. 
Cam jerked like a giant puppet, and before Brenna's disbelieving eyes, he pitched slowly forward.

Had the pistol flashed in the pan? 
Cam toppled, his weight slumping grotesquely against Drake.  They sagged together, and Brenna shrieked with fear.  Had the exploding bullet struck Drake after all?