Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland (23 page)

“Yes, that was new to Medieval writing,” I said.
 
“Not new to me, but about two centuries past your time.”
 

“Medieval?” the knight asked.
 

“That is your time in history,” I explained.
 
“The Middle Ages,
medium aevumm
.”
 
A smile grew across my face.
 
“Sometimes called the Dark Ages.”

“The Dark Ages,” the knight laughed.
 
“Your historians are crooked and biased.
 
There is more truth in your literature, as diluted as it is.”

We laughed, but that laughter soon faded to silence.
 
A blustery wind cut through the trees and I pulled my coat tighter.
 

“Are you ready, Captain?”

“Yes.”
 

The Green Knight disappeared from the curtain wall.
 
I placed the two books back in the bag and threw it off to the side.
 
Seconds later, steel moaned as the gates of the castle opened.
 
The wooden doors creaked and the large figure lumbered out onto the grass out from the shadows.
 
Even on foot, he barely fit.
 
The giant clutched his axe with one hand and tested the blade with the other.
 
A line of blood trailed down his hand, then the cut healed and disappeared.
 

We stood in silence for long moments.

The Green Knight sighed.
 
“How do you wish to begin…”
 
His words were cut short by a gunshot that sent a bullet through his forehead.
 
Blood flowed down his face and into his eyes.
 
The knight growled and spat as the bone and flesh on his head reformed.
 

“Like that,” I said and sprinted away.
 

Bertilak roared and ran after me in bounds.
 
The ground shook with each giant stride.
 

The soles of my hard boots crushed leaves and small flowering bushes.
 
I leaped over fallen logs and ducked between the trees where the trunks were tight to each other.
 

The sweeping crash behind me drowned out all other noise, save for the knight’s screaming.
 
A hot wind blew on my neck and I felt a gentle brush across my back.
 
I didn’t turn to see my pursuer.
 
I just pushed myself faster, running over one hill, then another.
 

I burst through the tree line, panting.
 
Thick blood pounded in my ears and a rush of light-headedness overtook me.
 
The condition of my blood makes running difficult and sprinting downright unbearable, but this had to be right.
 
I bent down, put my hands on my knees, and drew deep breaths.

An instant later, the Green Knight crashed into the clearing.
 
“Stopped already, Captain?”

I didn’t answer.
 
I didn’t have the breath even if I planned on answering.
 
I simply fell to the side, revealing the barrel of Long Tom, hidden among low branches.
 

The cannon thundered and the forty-eight pound ball ripped through the Green Knight’s chest.
 
The giant fell and my crew started chopping and hacking away with their swords.
 
Smee cut his hands and tossed them aside.
 
Jukes slashed his legs below the knee and at the hip, then kicked them in separate directions.
 
Noodler worked his arms at the elbow and shoulder.
 
Soon, the Green Knight was a stump, a limbless tree.
 

I stood, sword drawn.
 

“This won’t end me, Captain.”
 

“I’m all full on mortal enemies.”
 

“I am not mortal, Captain,” the knight said.
 
“I will hunt you until the land rots in its final days.”
 
Bertilak’s glowing red eyes told the whole truth of his words.
 
The bleeding from his arms and legs slowed to a stop.
 
The flesh inside the knight’s torso knitted together in a web of veins.
 

I brought my sword down across Bertilak’s neck.
 
The knight’s head rolled once to the side and stopped.
 

At that, we began bagging parts of the giant’s body.
 
Smee and Noodler carried sacks of feet and hands.
 
Skylights and Gustavo carried calves and upper arms.
 
Mullins stuffed two forearms into a bag and slung it over his shoulder.
 
Billy Jukes hoisted the heavy torso over his head and carried it across his back.
 
Cecco and Turley each grabbed a thigh.
 

I grabbed Bertilak’s head by the hair and turned to Ed Teynte.
 
“Keep the rest with you here and guard the cannon.
 
We’ll be back before one hundred verses.”
 

“Aye, Captain,” Teynte said and began singing the Dread Song.
 
I nodded to Jukes, who sang as well.
 
After two rounds, their beats matched in measure and I directed the men to the east end of the island.
 

“What do you intend to do with me, Captain?” Bertilak rasped.
 
His voice was faint without lungs to power his usually hearty bellow.

“You could just wait and see.
 
I’d have thought patience would have been one of your stronger traits.”

“There’s no need to be snide now, dear Captain,” said the severed head of the knight.
 
“You’ve won, however temporarily.
 
Let us talk of other things.”

We talked the entire walk to the east end of the island, through the path of lined trees, up hills and down again.
 
We walked this path until we came to a patch of thin trees with wispy and bare branches.
 
I stopped and sent the men ahead to do the necessary work.
 
They disappeared behind a patch of trees just over the hill.
 
Silence fell on us and I breathed in the crispness of the chilling air.
 

“We would have done better together,” the knight said.
 
I had heard men plead for their lives before.
 
In any language and from any century, it always sounded the same.
 
This wasn’t that.
 
There was a calm acceptance in Bertilak’s voice.
 
It carried a dignity that could only have come from fine breeding and excellent form.
 

“Maybe,” I said.
 
“But there can be none other before me.
 
Not if I am to do this right.
 
Not if it is going to mean something.”
 

The men returned with empty bags in their hands.
 
I nodded and looked down to the head in my hand.
 
“It’s time.”

A single, soft whine rose from behind the trees.
 

I walked around the hill and stood at the edge of where the grass met the circle of sand.
 
A dry heat pushed through my clothes.
 
The pods that held hands, feet, forearms, upper arms, and sections of the knight’s legs wreathed the outside perimeter while the large center pod approached the knight’s torso.
 
We watched it swallow his torso, lacing its veins around and through the flesh.
 
When finished, it writhed and turned from side to side with what I guessed was satisfaction.
 

“I was wrong about you, Captain,” Bertilak said.
 
“Your cruelty runs deep, but it is strangely applied.
 
You sentence me to an eternal suffering, yet wince and cringe at the loss of a few dirty children.”

“They didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Captain Hook, defender of lost children,” Bertilak laughed.
 
“They would as soon stab you as look at you.”
 

The sun bared down on me and I turned to face its warmth.
 

“Beware of his favorite strike,” the knight said.

“The one through the ribs from underneath.
 
We know it well.”

The twelfth pod crept to my feet.
 
Thorny vines extended out and licked at my boots.
 
I kicked at them and they pulled back, more curious than aggressive.
 

“Your turn will come,” the knight’s voice rasped.
 
“Peter Pan will grow tired of you and bring another, with stranger machines and new ways about them.”

“I know.”
 
I tossed the Green Knight’s head into the center of the sandy circle and watched the twelfth and final pod slink towards it.
 
Bertilak’s eyes fixed on me, and as he was swallowed, the red glow faded.
 
Without a priest nearby, I said the first thing that came to mind.
 
“
So make us, Jesus, for thy grace digne, For love of mayde and moder thyn benigne! Amen
.”

“Captain?” Smee asked.

“Just something he would have appreciated, Mr. Smee.”

“Won’t these plants grow now that food is indefinite?” Starkey asked.
 

“Yes,” I said.
 
“Which is why we cut and burn the roots of any pod that is not currently feeding.
 
It will also be the job of every able bodied sailor to trim any new growth upon observation.”
 

“Aye, sir,” Jukes said.
 
“You heard the captain.
 
Get to work.”

I stopped Jukes with a gesture.
 
“Not you, Mr. Jukes.
 
You’re with me.
 
Mr. Teynte?”
 
I looked to make sure I had the man’s attention.
 
“Split the men into two groups.
 
Send one to load Long Tom back onto the Jolly Roger.
 
Go with the second group and tear through that castle.
 
Take everything that isn’t nailed down.”

“Why not take the castle itself?” Teynte asked.
 

“We can’t defend it,” Noodler said.

“He’s right,” Starkey added.
 
“We’re safer on the ship.”
 

“Tell the men to meet back on the beach in two hundred verses,” I ordered.
 
Teynte nodded and got to work.
 
I then turned to Billy Jukes.
 
“Let’s go.
 
I have a date with a mermaid and it is poor form to keep a lady waiting.”
 

Chapter Nineteen

We walked past the bushes that ringed the cove and stood at the banks for several minutes.
 
It was quiet, not even a ripple of movement.
 
“How many verses have gone by?”

“Eighteen,” Jukes said.
 

I picked up a rock and threw it into the water.
 

Nothing.
 

“Come on out, you sea-wench,” I called.
 
I picked up another rock and threw that one too.
 
As I picked up a third one, a mound rose and moved toward us.
 
I considered throwing the rock at it, but decided better and dropped it at my feet.
 

“Don’t look directly into her eyes,” I said to Jukes.
 
“They ensnare a man.
 
Make him do things.”

Jukes looked at me for a moment, then asked, “You didn’t?”
 

“What?
 
No, not that,” I said, then thought back.
 
“Well, almost.”

The mermaid rose out of the water.
 
Dark rings circled her eyes.
 
Her skin was dull and slick.
 
“You have some nerve coming here,” she spat through her needle teeth.
 

“Almost?
 
Really?” Jukes asked.

“She didn’t look like that,” I said.
 
“Honest.”

He chuckled.
 
“Right.”

The mermaid pushed herself onto a high rock and sneered at me.
 
“I should tear your insides out through your mouth.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
 

The mermaid recoiled in genuine shock, “Oh, I wouldn’t?”

“If I die now, you get nothing.
 
You see, I remember all of it.”
 
I made a point to tap my head as though she didn’t understand.
 

“You value yourself too much and assess my patience too little.”
 
She reached below the water and pulled out a shell with a clasp on the lid.
 
She unlatched it and a faint blue light floated gently in the air.
 
“This is you, all that you were, and I still have it.”
 
She watched me for a breath.
 
“Confused?
 
It slips from you, no matter how many times you go through and come back.”
 
She closed her shell and turned to the water.
 
“I’ll be seeing you soon to collect the rest.”
   

“Like hell you will,” I said.
 
“I’ll leave and take them all back with me.
 
All two dozen of us.
 
Gone for good.”
 

“There aren’t that many of you anymore,” she snickered.
 

“Does it matter?
 
Eighteen, two dozen, or two hundred.
 
No doubt you’ve already spent whatever we are all worth.
 
Say what you will about our commerce, the shiny rocks and metals we trade in don’t come back to bite us on the ass.”

“You gamble too much with your life, James Hoodkins,” the mermaid said.