Steel (14 page)

“Untie her.”

One of the thugs drew a knife and sliced through the rope that bound her. She hissed when he nicked a piece of her skin; he didn’t seem to notice.

They let her go. She backed away, trying to find a clear space, and drew her rapier. She spared a quick moment to wipe away blood from the heel of her left hand, where the knife had caught her.

Edmund Blane unfastened his belt, removing from his hip the broken sword that he wouldn’t let out of his sight. Another of his men—they were all servants, interchangeable—was on hand to take the broken rapier and hand him another one. A whole, functional rapier with a worn grip and a sharp, gleaming blade. He held it up to his face, pointed outward, so he could gaze down the length of it, as if he didn’t already know it was perfect. From the edge of her vision she watched the man who held the broken sword; he stood a little ways off but didn’t leave the clearing, keeping the treasured rapier where Blane could see it.

The camp had fallen quiet. The men who had been working set aside their tools and gathered closer, to watch their captain fight the scrawny girl who’d appeared in their camp.

Jill was in something of a panic—she hadn’t thought this through, she knew nothing about how Blane fought, it was dark, hard to see by wavering firelight, the ground was rocky, all of it about the worst conditions for a fight she could imagine. But at least she recognized that she was panicking. She might be able to at least stave it off before Blane ran her through—

No, he wasn’t going to run her through; she wasn’t going to let him. She breathed slowly, filling her lungs, set her body in a correct position, held her sword in a proper
en garde
. Habit and ritual steadied her. She shook out her legs, gave a little bounce to loosen her muscles, and looked toward Blane.

He watched her going through the motions, point of his rapier resting on the earth, opposite hand on his hip. His lips curled in a half smile.

She saluted him, bringing her sword straight up and flicking it away. He raised an eyebrow, and didn’t salute her back.

For the first five heartbeats, neither of them moved. The tips of their rapiers barely crossed, which meant they were too far apart for either of them to make a real attack. This was just to size each other up. She made a beat—quickly tapping her blade against his. He didn’t respond, merely letting his blade give to the pressure, then bringing it back on line. She tried again; this time, he disengaged, scooping his sword out of the way. She quickly responded by starting a parry—but he was only testing her, and he didn’t take the opening. He didn’t attack.

She couldn’t believe how her heart was racing. She knew better than this; she didn’t get nervous and sloppy before fights. He wasn’t even doing anything to scare her—she was doing it all on her own. If she stayed scared, if she didn’t do anything but stand here deciding what to do next, he’d pounce and she’d be dead.

Here and now, that wasn’t just a figure of speech. The edge of his blade was sharp, and ended in a gleaming point.

He beat her blade, she beat back, and the fight was on. Attacking and counterattacking, he tested her. He was careful, calculating, his movements simple and precise. Textbook, which she wasn’t sure she’d expected from someone who by all accounts was a hardened villain. Maybe she’d expected the sweeping, flailing attacks of a movie swashbuckler. But Edmund Blane had had training, and he practiced. He drew her responses, and she fell into the expected pattern, as if they were drilling. She was dancing to the tune he played.

She stumbled back, out of his reach, to break out of the pattern and reassess. She circled, aware of Blane’s followers around the torch-lit clearing where they fought. They could strike at any moment as well.

So she brought the fight to him, lunging in a feint, countering the parry she expected. He matched her, with a bare smile and a gleam in his eyes. Good fencing wasn’t just hitting; it was a conversation, move and countermove, anticipating three or more movements along until each exchange was comprised of a dozen moves or more, steel on steel ringing out. The familiar fire lit in her veins, flowed through her limbs, and her muscles found their rhythm. This was a good fight. She just wished the swords weren’t real. Her mind felt electric, otherworldly—she’d rather be watching this from the outside.

After two or three complex exchanges, she decided she could hold her own against him—for a time. If she played a purely defensive game, concentrated on blocking, didn’t take risks. But if she did that, she’d never stop him. He’d wear her out, eventually she would make a mistake, and he would finish her.

She had to get out of this. So she turned and ran.

No one ran after her, probably because they were shocked. Even Blane stood and stared. Jill planned—however much she planned any of this—to just keep running, to plunge into the forest and escape. But the man charged with holding Blane’s broken rapier stood in her path. If she stopped, if she lost her momentum, Blane would have her thrown over the cliff—nothing would change. This wasn’t a feint; she was committed. She kept going, arms bent, still holding her rapier, charging forward.

The man in front of her flinched. And maybe that brief show of fear inspired Jill. She felt a surge, the flicker of a smile on her lips—she recognized the feeling, that moment when she saw an opening, recognizing an opponent’s weakness. The broken sword was Edmund Blane’s weakness.

She ran into the pirate, shouldering him out of the way, and grabbed the sword out of his hands. The sword caught; she felt it drag through flesh. The man screamed as a wound opened on his hand where the blade cut, and he stumbled away from her. She kept running, never slowing, keeping her eyes where she wanted to go—the shadows in the forest beyond.

Other pirates were running now, moving to intercept her and capture her. Blane might even have been yelling. Jill had her task and didn’t waver; all she had to do was run. So she did, a sword in each hand, and let the shadows of the forest devour her.

The noise she made—the breaking of branches, the crashing of foliage—sounded immense to her ears. She’d never be able to hide or escape, because the whole forest knew she was here. She only had one chance at this. The voices shouting after her seemed close, echoing all around her—surely surrounding her. But the pirates didn’t catch her.

When she traveled this path previously, she felt she’d been walking in circles. Now the way seemed clear. It was as if she’d walked in a fog before, but now the fog had lifted. Whatever Blane had done to keep wanderers from finding his camp was gone. Or maybe—she was the one who held his sword now. Maybe it was the sword.

And now it was Jill’s, and maybe it really could help her get home.

Whatever had happened to the metaphysical fog that made her lose her way when she passed through here last time, she still had to contend with the forest itself, its tangle of vegetation, crawling vines, and jutting branches. She couldn’t pick her way and choose her path; she just ran and shoved her way past obstacles, letting them claw and scratch at her. The wounds stung, a sheen of sweat covered her, and her whole body felt sticky. It was too hot to breathe. She expected that at any moment she’d hear a musket fire, and that Blane would be standing behind her, shooting her dead. She ran as if she could outrun the sound of gunfire.

“Hey! Oy there!” The shout came from off to her left; the speaker was hidden in shadow and foliage. Jill automatically veered away.

“Get her! She’s here!” another voice said, this one right in front of her, and she realized too late that she’d fallen for a trick, and the voices meant to steer her where they could best capture her. It probably didn’t matter where she ran now.

She kept on, shoving her way past shrubs and branches that seemed intent on catching her and holding her.

Suddenly, so quickly she stumbled at the freedom of it, she left the forest and entered open country near the edge of Nassau. And standing before her were Henry, Abe, and Captain Cooper. Jill stared, gasping for breath, disbelieving. Behind her, two more of the crew tore out of the trees. They looked hot and sweaty and were brushing dirt and debris off themselves. Jill, holding back a sob of relief, wondered how long they’d been chasing after her.

Henry looked like he’d been running, trying to catch his breath. He had his sword drawn and grasped it like he was anxious for a fight.

“God, Jill!” he said. “You’re all right! You an’t hurt!”

She wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but she was here and alive. She nodded, sheepish at the panic. He went on, still desperate. “When I’d heard you were after Blane, I thought—you were gone, we’d find you hacked to pieces and that would be the end of it. Are you barmy, are you trying to get yourself killed?”

He was truly worried about her. All his joking had disappeared, and if he really had found her dead, he would have gone after Blane himself, and Blane would have thrown him over the cliff, too.

Jill stared at him. If they’d been alone, if they hadn’t both been holding swords, she would have flung herself at him and kissed him.

Instead, before Jill could do anything, Captain Cooper smiled and let out a sigh. She said, “Bloody hell, you’ve got his sword.”

T
hey moved quickly from the woods back to Nassau and to the wharf. Arranged like a military squadron, Cooper and Abe in the lead; Tennant and Matthews behind, pistols drawn, keeping watch; Henry stayed at Jill’s elbow, gazing outward like he expected demons to attack them. And maybe Blane really could send demons after them.

Cooper let her keep the broken sword. Jill slung her own, whole rapier back in its hanger on her belt, and held the broken one in sweaty hands.

“What happened back there?” Henry asked. “What the blazes were you
doing
?”

“I thought maybe Blane would know how to get me home,” she said, weakly, sad now that the thought had ever occurred to her.

“So what happened? Did you find him? Obviously you found him, or at least his sword. Did you talk to him? What did he—”

“I challenged him to a duel,” Jill said, wincing.

“Bloody hell, you did not,” Henry said. His lip curved, a hint of his usual smile. “Please tell me you killed him dead.”

“No. I ran. I guess that makes me a coward.”

“Never!” Henry said, laughing. “Real pirates always run from fights, and I knew you were a real pirate the moment we fished you out of the drink.”

“Captain, look ahead there,” Abe said, holding out an arm to stop the company. He nodded ahead but didn’t point. Jill saw a small group of men, four or five of them, pistols drawn, emerge from an alley ahead, looking back and forth, searching.

“Right, this way,” Cooper said, turning to cut through the yard of a squat clapboard building, a maze of rotten coils of rope and broken timbers. The way was dark; Jill couldn’t see the ground more than a few feet before her, and every step was treacherous. Single file, the group picked a path through the debris, past the building, and out of view of their pursuers.

They made their way to a rocky shore.

“They’ll be watching the pier,” Cooper said. “Abe and Tennant, bring us a rowboat and we’ll try to sneak out from under them. Matthews, go through the town, get everyone back on the ship. We’ve got to fly and we only have a little time before the tide turns against us. Anyone who’s left is left. Go!” The men ran.

The remaining three of them waited, backs together, looking out in all directions. Henry and Cooper had pistols drawn, and Jill suddenly felt defenseless with only two swords. A sword and a half, really.

Captain Cooper took the opportunity to berate her. “What did you think you were doing then, running off on me like that? Going to sell me out to my enemy then? Deserting the ship and going turncoat?”

“I don’t know what I was doing,” Jill said, sullen. “You didn’t seem to care all that much about what happened to me, so I had to take care of myself.”

“By running to Blane?” she said, scowling.

“If he brought me here, even by mistake, he ought to know how to send me home, right?”

“And what did the man do, then? Apologize and offer to send you home straight away?” Cooper said.

“No. He was going to throw me off a cliff.”

“There, you see?”

“But I got his sword,” Jill said.

They were glaring at each other, with Henry to the side, looking back and forth between them. Cooper grumbled at him. “What are you staring at, whelp?”

“Um…” Henry’s eyes went wide and he pointed his pistol past Cooper’s shoulder. “Look there!”

Henry fired; Jill and Cooper dropped to the ground. The shot sounded like a miniature cannon, an echoing pop. The smell of burned gunpowder was the same.

There were two of the enemies hiding behind a tower of barrels at the end of the block. Jill was pretty sure Henry had missed, because they leaned out, stealing looks, waving their own pistols—and firing. Puffs of white smoke rose up. Jill covered her head, but they missed as well. The three of them took shelter behind their own pile of crates and debris.

Cooper fired next while Henry reloaded, which required ramming powder and ammunition down the barrel of the weapon. Her targets ducked back without being hit. Blane’s men fired a second time and missed again.

This could go on all night.

“Here, girl. Keep them distracted.” Cooper put the pistol in her hand and ran, disappearing around the street corner.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she hissed at Henry.

“Here. You fire, I’ll reload.” He handed her his own pistol and took Cooper’s empty one from her.

How hard could it be? Especially since the pistols didn’t seem able to hit anything. She sighted down the barrel and waited for one of the targets to appear.

Half a face emerged and a pistol fired toward her. Jill pulled the trigger—the brass mechanism on top of the pistol snapped forward and the weapon fired, jumping in her hand. A cloud of white smoke expanded and partially blinded her. She coughed and waved it out of her face.

The two men were still there, still firing. Her shot probably flew out over the harbor. She huffed in frustration. She hated missing.

“Next shot,” Henry said, handing her Cooper’s newly loaded pistol and taking the empty from her.

She repeated her fencing mantra. Stay calm, keep breathing, don’t panic. She just had to be careful and take her time.

From around the stack of barrels, a pistol appeared again, its owner leaning out to take aim. Jill exhaled and squeezed her finger. The pistol jumped, burned with fire, and the cloud of smoke burst into her face.

And at the other end of the block, a man screamed.

“Oh, good work, Jill!” Henry said, laughing.

She couldn’t believe it, but when the smoke cleared, one of Blane’s men had fallen, gripping his arm and cursing. His companion started to drag him back to cover, when he twitched back—and Captain Cooper was there, slicing a dagger across his throat. Blood poured, and he fell, hands on his neck, hopelessly trying to stop the flow. Then he lay still.

Cooper put her boot on the chest of the man Jill had shot and leaned over to cut his throat as well. The two had been so distracted by Jill and Henry firing at them, they hadn’t noticed their killer sneaking up behind.

The two bodies lay there, blood dripping from them and soaking into the ground. Jill could almost smell it, sharp and bitter against the dank sea air. Her stomach clenched, and she pressed her hand over her mouth and turned away. After a moment of shallow breathing her stomach settled and her racing heart calmed. The battle was one thing; the blood spilled then had happened too quickly to really process. This was different. She could see their eyes, open and staring at nothing. This looked like murder—even if the men had been trying to kill them. Cooper had slit their throats, and that wasn’t self-defense, was it? What, then, was the difference between a duel and murder?

Her heart racing, Jill wasn’t sure how she felt about this battle in miniature. It didn’t seem right, none of it. Even if they’d had every intention of killing her and her friends. But she’d never seen anyone die before.

She preferred baited blades and no blood.

“You all right, then?” Henry asked. Jill just shook her head.

Cooper returned to them, wiping off her dagger with a handkerchief.

“Here comes Abe with the rowboat,” the captain said.

Abe and Tennant ran the boat ashore, and the others climbed in, splashing in the waves and pushing off. Henry and Abe took the oars, and in moments they were slipping across the harbor. Skillfully, the two cut the water without a splash, with barely a ripple. Cooper stood at the prow of the boat, scanning forward. The harbor was quiet.

“I wish I knew where Blane’s bloody ship was. I fear he’s circling just outside the harbor, waiting for us to sail out so he can pounce on us,” Cooper said. “We’ll get to the
Diana
and make our escape for nothing.”

“He’s anchored in a cove to the east,” Jill said. “He’s got a camp there. I don’t think he can get here to catch us in time.”

“I don’t know, lass. Blane’s got tricky ways about him, and he’ll want that sword back.” Now she grinned. “That must have been quite a sight, you taking it from him.”

“Honestly, it was kind of a blur,” Jill said.

“Probably for the best. Where’s my crew? Who’s on watch?” Cooper whistled, and a figure appeared at the gunwales. A moment later a line came over the side, and the boat was secured to the
Diana
.

They waited for the rest of the crew to return, another long, dragging hour. Jill understood the captain’s worry. Logically, Blane was on the other side of the island and couldn’t reach them. Nonetheless, Jill expected to see the
Heart’s Revenge
blazing into the harbor at any moment, all its cannons firing.

It didn’t happen.

Back on board, Jill followed Captain Cooper and Abe to her cabin, where the two of them started pulling charts from a drawer. The group of them gathered over the table, a conspiracy bent under the light of a single lantern: Captain Cooper and Abe, looking grim and serious; Jill and Henry, who hadn’t left Jill’s side since they found her running through the forest away from Blane.

“We make for the Turks and Caicos, then on to the Lesser Antilles,” Marjory said, pointing, before Jill had even oriented herself. The maps were rough, the lines jagged, the labels scrawled in indecipherable handwriting. The paper itself was stained and wrinkled; these maps had seen better days. “We lose ourselves. Stay far away from where Blane expects to find us. We’ve got to keep this away from him. Let’s see it, then.” Cooper gestured at the broken sword Jill still held close.

The captain could have overpowered Jill, simply taken it, and left her behind to whatever fate. But she didn’t. Jill had kept the sword tucked away and safe during the escape from Nassau. Now she brought it into the faint, flickering light.

The swept hilt was simple and elegant, smooth steel bars looping to form a cage around the hand that gripped it. Quillons stuck out, perpendicular to the wire-wrapped grip. The blade was broad and strong, sharpened until light seemed to spark off the edge. It was fierce and perfect, until the end, which was a jagged, toothy stump.

Cooper reached into a pouch at her belt and drew out the six-inch scrap of rapier Jill had found on that long-ago beach, roughly cleaned, the edges dull. The length of steel trembled, pulling against her fingers, drawn toward the sword as it had been all along. The captain kept a firm hold on it as she brought it to the sword and lined them together.

The ragged edges matched. Cooper fit them together, and not a sliver of steel was missing between them. The scrollwork design that the rusted piece hinted at continued, shining, on the main blade. The sword, though, remained broken. The pieces matched, but didn’t fuse. The magic didn’t go that far.

The captain looked at Jill. “Many years ago, Edmund Blane betrayed me. We fought. I broke his sword and threw the piece overboard. I thought it was lost forever. Then you came along. Now I know that wasn’t the end of it and my job isn’t done yet.”

“How did he betray you?” Jill asked.

“He told me he loved me.” Captain Cooper ducked her gaze for a moment, and a wry smile played on her lips. “Ah, but that was just the start of it. It’s a very dark story, against all nature and reason. A difficult story to tell.”

The room was silent; even the groaning of lines and the wooden hull seemed muted. The others listened—maybe they’d never heard the story, either.

Marjory Cooper gathered herself to tell it. “There are places in these islands where folk practice dark magic—black magic and blood sacrifice. Blane twisted that magic. He told me he loved me, see, and we had a child together. A little girl. Wee Jenny.”

Jill’s breath caught. Abe sighed. “Captain, he—”

“Oh yes, Abe, he did,” Cooper said. “He made himself a sword and quenched it in her blood. All for the power it brought him, no matter how dark.” Her voice had turned soft, and her look numb. No feeling entered her telling of the tale. And how could it? How could she let herself feel it without going mad?

Then she straightened, smiled sadly, and was human for a moment. She nodded at Jill. “She’d be just about your age now, if she had lived. However you found it I think that shard of rapier called to you. Somehow, the blood on it called to you, and called to Blane. Somehow, because of who you are—who you might have been, who my little girl might have been—you’re bound to that sword.”

Jill looked at everything that had happened these past weeks through new eyes, which stung with the tragedy of it. Cooper had become a different person. She studied the sword in her hand, and now saw all that it symbolized. A whole history of betrayal. It was more than cursed. Turning it in the light, Jill could almost see a sheen of red on the blade, tinting the steel. How had she ever thought this sword could help her? How could any of it be possible?

Her voice cracking, Jill said, “I’m not your daughter, Captain.”

“I know, love. But I can dream that she’d have been like you, can’t I?”

Abe took up the story: “Blane is building a fleet—he would have every pirate captain under his sway. He would have them all swear allegiance to him by this cursed sword, and then they would be bound to him, and he would be a pirate emperor. The captain broke the sword rather than let that happen.”

“He speaks of a pirate alliance—but wants a pirate empire, and he’ll cut down all who oppose him,” Cooper said.

“And what will you do with the sword?” Jill asked.

“Part of me thinks I could use it to build a fleet to oppose Blane. But I could never use this power, knowing where it came from. How Blane does it—” She ended, shaking her head.

“But pirates aren’t meant to sail in fleets, are they?” Jill asked.

“Some of them have, like Captains Avery and Morgan,” Abe said. “But such alliances never last long. They’re alliances, not armies. A pirate ought only be bound by the articles he signs and the vote of the ship.”

“Except for Blane, who hasn’t any honor at all,” Cooper said.

“Blane thinks he can bind pirate honor up in an object, in a thing, like that sword,” Abe said.

“We should get rid of the damned thing,” Henry said. “Throw it into the sea, if it would really give him that power.”