Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (52 page)

More than half an hour had passed and the
Kiss
stood ready for action. Good thing, too, because our pursuer had closed to within a few hundred yards. After a while Romulus dragged me out of the way, because I kept getting run into or stomped on as I tried to take everything in from amidships. We moved back to the stern, where the commander stood, keeping careful watch on his crew’s preparations. Pitcairn had shed his heavy purple coat, vest, and tricorn. Now he looked like a real fighting pirate in black blousy shirt and gray silken headscarf. Pulling on small tight riding gloves, he rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. I saw that two pistols and a heavy dagger had been added to his belt. Close by, where he could reach it without moving a step, lay an old oak belaying pin. One end of it had been carved with ridges to make it less likely to slip out his grip. The other end bore the scars of many a fight, where blades, flames, and heads had impacted it.

“Miss Verity, I need you to go below and aid Doctor Rochester, please,” Pitcairn ordered. “Take Marshal Romulus with you. Freya will be down there. Look after her. She tends to want to come up on deck and help us fight. We don’t want her hurt.”

Don’t want me hurt is what you mean. Nice try.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stay up here. You may need me.”

The captain did a good job of controlling his face, which looked like it wanted to laugh. I saw him meet Romulus’ eyes. That might’ve stopped him. “I’ve been apprised of your combat abilities and partially believe that they may indeed exceed your outward demeanor. But trust me, we have this well in hand. Besides, I’ve been contracted to get you to your destination, and that is more vital to the world than this particular engagement.”

Romulus spoke up. “Cap’n’s right. Let’s go down like he says.” The giant Marshal leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t you fret. If we has to fight, I’ll sho nuff get you back up here.”

Giving in, we got to the ladder and headed down. Before we arrived at the surgeon’s quarters we ran into Sha’ira, who had donned all of her battle gear.
This ain’t fair. She gets to go whup up on bad guys and I have to sit at the kids’ table.
The dreamwriter gave me a little apologetic smile.

“Commander Pitcairn has asked me to assist, as a last resort. I hope it will not come to that.”

“Does he know you’ve made a pact with yourself to take no more lives?” I asked her.

Her beautiful eyes widened. “You are a perceptive girl.”

I shrugged. “You had plenty of chances to kill some of those Shades on the beach. But all you did was block their attacks. Don’t take a lot o’ perception.”

“You are right, of course. My mentor, she who opened my eyes to what the Guild truly represented, and what I had become, made me see that blood does not wash off with even more blood.” Sha’ira squeezed past me to the foot of the ladder. “But if I have no choice, a little judicious wounding will do no harm.” With a tight smile she vanished up onto the main deck.

We stood near our quarters, so I ducked in to grab some water from my canteen. While there I peeped out of the port to see how things stood. The other ship wasn’t visible on that side. Using my witched ears I listened instead. Filtering out the unfamiliar sailors’ lingo, cursing, and general chatter, I heard two things that made me catch my breath. One was Sancho hollering, “They’ve lassoed a whale! A white whale! He’s pullin’ ‘em to us!”

The other was old Fergus wondering aloud, “Who’d name their bloody ship the
Crouton
? Is they a bunch o’ chefs?”

My canteen crashed to the floor, along with my jaw.
I’m stupid as a donkey. Thinkin’ it could only be a place.
I pushed the startled Romulus aside and leaped at the ladder Sha’ira had just climbed.
Please, please let me be in time.

“Miss Verity, what the---?” Romulus stammered.

“Let’s go!” I hollered, not looking back as I dashed up the ladder. “We got to stop ‘em firin’ on that ship!”

“Why?”

“Because my ma’s on it!”

39/ Slave to the Croatan

“This ship is crewed by monsters.”

“So,” Jasper snickered as I hauled myself up the ladder, “you don’t think you just insulted all the donkeys of the world?”

“Oh, hush!” I yelled out loud.

“Didn’t say nothin’,” Romulus protested from just below me.

“Sorry, not talkin’ to you,” I told him without looking down. “I’m bein’ ridiculed by my magick sword.”

“Ooh, such a pointed remark!” sneered Jasper as my head poked through the deck hatch. “You cut me to the quick.”

Jiminy, is that what passes for wit in the spirit world?
“Shut up or I’ll use you to trim my toenails.” My feet hit the main deck at a run. Looking all around for Pitcairn or somebody else in charge, all I saw was a blur of sweaty bodies scampering about. Some yanked on ropes, some loaded muskets, others climbed into the rigging. All of them hollered as loud and as fast as lungs could go. Sails snapped and popped as they fought the wind, in harmony with the creaking and humming of taut lines. I stumbled across the pitching deck, walking just like I had when Jasper’d made me drink that horrid whiskey. Nowhere did I see the commander, Roberta, or any of the mates. What I did see was the pursuing ship, big as a mountain and just two hundred yards behind us on the starboard side.

Every bit of her canvas bulged like a geezer’s pot belly, filled with the stiff following breeze. Much wider and higher than the
Penelope’s Kiss
, she didn’t knife through the water like we did but seemed to plow into the waves with brute force. I was no expert on ships but I could tell this one had no business running with the sleek buccaneer frigate. Her crew, visible to my spyglass-eyes, had the hard look of men who’d gone a long time without any law. Where our sailors, scruffy as they seemed, at least carried themselves like proud professionals, the other ship’s hands had a hollow cast to their eyes that told me they’d long ago given up any hope of acceptance by civilized folk. As if to announce that to the world, their carved ebony figurehead was a dead and decayed Injun chief, holding its own rotting skull out in one skeletal hand. On the bow of the ship, in yellow letters that stood out against the moldy green paint of the hull, was its name:
Croatan
. A haunted place where people had vanished as if swallowed up by the underworld. The perfect name for this unsettling sight.

Even more disturbing was the enemy’s means of propulsion. Four ropes almost as thick as my body led into the sea in front of the ship, very near to us. While I hunted for somebody who could order the gunners to hold their fire I scooted over to the starboard rail to see what Sancho had been going on about. Taking care not to get knocked overboard again, for now there would be no miraculous rescue, I stared down into the churning water. Sure enough, they’d somehow managed to harness an enormous whale and make him pull them along like the world’s weirdest cart horse. Not just any old whale, either. This thing’s hide, full of old harpoons and gashed with the scars of many a battle, glowed whiter than all the snows of winter. It looked to be least seventy or eighty feet long. I couldn’t believe something so big could be alive and moving. His jaw, crooked and full of fearsome cone-shaped teeth, seemed tiny beneath the massive long square head. From my studies of nature at school I recognized it as a sperm whale, one of the most prized types that hunters used to seek in the heyday of the great oil fleets. How on earth had this crew managed to lasso one of these immense creatures and make it do their bidding? Surely they had serious magick at their command. But wouldn’t the sea disrupt whatever power had made that happen?

“Wow!” Jasper marveled in my head. “Wonder what kind of bait they used?”

Just as I started to turn away I looked into the whale’s eye. Big as the top of a barrel, it didn’t glare at me in anger and hate at what was being done to it. No, the Stone-sense that let me understand animals told me that this fearsome monster of the deep, terror of man and beast, servant of the soulless men who manned the
Croatan
, felt something quite different from what I’d have expected in this situation.

It was scared. And sad.

Almost as if I could read its mind, I understood the whale’s miserable existence. All its long life men had hunted it, drawn to its size and odd color, a magnificent trophy. No matter where it went, no matter how distant the waters, somebody followed it to hurl fearsome iron spikes into its flesh. For decades it had fought and killed, wishing only to be left alone. And now something worse than death had come for it. Slavery.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I thought to it, “but I’ll help you. You’ll swim free again today. I promise.”

The great whale…winked at me. I swear.

Romulus stood beside me and looked down. He jumped back at the sight. “Lordy!”

“You said it.” I spun around to resume searching for help. “Quick! Run up front and see if you can find anybody who can get Pitcairn to hold his fire. Roberta, DeLatte, anybody. I’m goin’ to the stern.”

The Marshal dashed off toward the bow. All the bodies that had kept getting in my way parted for him like he was King of Persia.
Must be nice to be that big.
On my first step rearward I almost squashed Ernie. My fat mousy friend scurried out of the way and gave me an indignant look.

“Mind your great feet, missy!” he said, hands on hips.

“Sorry.” I kneeled and held out a hand. He hopped onto it and I tossed him onto my left shoulder. Running as fast as the obstacles and the ship’s motion let me, I kept a keen eye out for help.

“What’s the big hurry?” Ernie wanted to know. “You’re actin’ like there’s a cheese festival someplace.”

I told him about my dream and the
Croatan
. He agreed that I was probably right about Ma being on the other ship. “Last I saw him, Pitcairn stood at the stern talkin’ to Roberta and the helmsman. They’re about to ruin the
Croatan
’s day.”

“We can’t let ‘em do that! Not till we find Ma.” Spurred on by the news that time was short, I began shoving adults out of my way. In no time we’d made it, a bit mussed and bruised, to where Pitcairn and his lady stood pointing at our pursuer, Gracchus sitting nearby waiting for orders.

“They seem to want to come alongside and board, rather than fire,” I heard the commander say.

“Don’t what they’d fire with,” Roberta said with a shrug. “No gun ports anyplace, far as this old bird can tell.”

“Must have a death wish, then. We’ll blow them out of the water before they can lay a grapple on us.”

Panting, I tugged at his sleeve. “No! You mustn’t! Don’t shoot!”

Pitcairn frowned at me. “Mister Nickleby would be right put out to hear you say that.”

“Sorry to ruin his sport, but we can’t destroy that ship.”

“And why not, shrimp?” asked Roberta.

Ernie spoke up before I could. “She says her sainted mama’s on it. Came to her in a dream, it did. Charmin’, what?”

The ship’s captain’s eye brows shot up. “Your mother just happens to be on that particular ship?”

“I know it sounds silly,” I said to him, staring out at the
Croatan
, “but Sha’ira’s been sendin’ me trance dreams about Ma and the word ‘Croatan’. She’s wearin’ a sailor suit. Ma left me that word as a clue when she disappeared the night this all started for me. Every other part of my dream has come true. We can’t take a chance. Don’t fire.”

True to his decisive reputation, Pitcairn wasted no time. Snapping his fingers at Gracchus, he barked, “Get down to Nickleby and tell him to hold his fire until he receives positive orders from me in person. Hurry!”

The rat commander gave him a crisp salute. “Wight away! Without deway!” In a split second he’d disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

“What now, sweetums?” Roberta asked. “Challenge ‘em to tiddlywinks instead?”

The pirate lord smiled. “Tempting. I was school champion as a lad. But I rather think we’ll be hospitable and let them board us.”

“Offer a parlay?”

“If that’s truly what they want. I anticipate some avarice for our charming cargo here.” He rubbed my head. I grit my teeth and took it. “But we can play for time and see what develops.”

An idea came to me. “Two can play that game.” I told them what I wanted to do, with as much detail as I’d thought of, which wasn’t much.

“You’d do that?” Pitcairn said with a shocked expression. “After all you went through to get here safely?”

“If it gets Ma back, sure.”

“No. Too dangerous by far.”
Can’t argue with you there, Commander.

Roberta laughed at that. “You need to abandon that ship before it takes you down with it, dear. This little firecracker has made it through more scrapes in the past week than we’ve encountered in half a year.”

Which is how I ended up down below on my bunk a moment later, preparing myself for yet another crazy adventure. While I half-listened to Romulus, Ernie, and Sha’ira as they tried to talk me out of it, Jasper and I went over the plan in my head. I put on my fresh-washed shirt and overalls, since I felt more comfortable in that than in my borrowed sailor’s duds. The boots came off and I wiggled my toes.
Now I’m ready for serious action!
My friends kept saying over and over that my task was to overthrow the Honourable Merchantry, restore balance to the world, and not be dead. That last one had to be my priority, not racing off to find Ma.

“Look!” I snapped with an impatient wave of my hands. “Either help me do this or get out of the way. If it was your mother over there you’d be doin’ just the same.”

They each gave me a look that said ‘not necessarily.’ Controlling my shock at their being so able to place their assigned mission ahead of family, I brushed past them and stopped in the doorway. “Maybe someday I’ll be a true-blue soldier and live only to resist evil, but right now I’m just a kid who needs to help her ma. Are you gonna help me with that so we can get back to all of the savin’ civilization stuff?”