The Price of Faith (27 page)

Best teach them a lesson so that none of them will forget, Jez.

She launched from her sleeping spot with her dagger reversed in her hand. There was no point to wielding a sword in such a confined space, better something with a short blade. The pummel of the dagger connected with the big pirate’s gut, driving the wind out of him. Jez saw his eyes bulge and his mouth crease up and she struck again, this time the pummel of her dagger cracked the man across his jaw. He went down with a grunt and a spray of blood as the second two came at her.

The greasy frog was as clumsy as he was careless. He rushed at her with clutching hands hoping to overpower her. He didn’t get close enough to try. Jez lashed out with her foot and heard the snap at the same time she saw his leg buckle. He hit the wooden floor screaming and Jez danced out of his reach.

That was when the smaller man realised he was outmatched. Jezzet saw the change in his eyes, saw the look go from feverish lust to abject terror. The fool turned and started to run. Jezzet had no intention of letting him get away free. His intention had been rape and possibly a bit of a beating thrown in. Jezzet’s intention was to make an example.

Both Drake and his first mate, Zothus, were on deck when Jezzet marched up out of the hatch pushing the little would-be rapist in front of her. They heard the man’s snivelling cries and both turned to watch Jez’s display, as did every pirate on duty.

Good. Get the message to as many of them as possible.

Jez walked the man to the middle of the main deck with his arm thoroughly twisted behind him and then kicked the back of his knees. The little man crashed to the floor weeping and cradling the wrist Jez had just relinquished. He was mostly unharmed besides the broken wrist but Jezzet was about to do worse.

As the little man crawled back onto his knees he looked back over his shoulder at her, a sneer on his face. Jez was ready and waiting. She punched him with all the force she could muster and well she knew that was a fair amount of force. The pirate did not get back up. He lay in a slowly spreading pool of blood and spittle.

Good message, Jez. Show them all you’re not afraid to break your own hand.

There were plenty of pirates gathering now including, Jez noticed, the big one who had just recently tasted Jez’s dagger pommel. Some watched her with the same lust she had seen before administering the beating, others were wary, trying not to meet her eyes and she swept her gaze over the crowd. Eventually she looked at Drake.

“You might want to tell your crew to try sticking their cocks somewhere else, Drake,” she shouted at the pirate captain.

He laughed. In a sea of ugly faces on board the ship Drake was a beacon of pretty but underneath all of his smiles and dark eyes he was as rotten as the rest and Jez knew it as well as he did.

“Reckon that’ll have to be a lesson you teach them your own self, Jezzet,” Drake called back. “Try not to kill her, boys.”

Drake leaned his elbows on the railing and watched with a wry half-smile, Zothus shrugged and did likewise.

“How many pirates are you willing to lose like this, Drake?” Jez screamed over the rising clamour of voices.

Jez saw the bastard shrug before she decided it was time to turn her attention to the twenty pirates looking to use her like a shore-side whore.

She sensed the big pirate coming from behind long before he got close. An easy duck to her left and she span and drew her sword in one fluid motion, cutting a large gash up the man’s back as he passed her harmlessly. With a howl akin to a new born babe the big pirate went crashing to the deck, screaming and bleeding in equal measure. The other pirates hung back, they recognised a game changer when they saw one and the bloodied three foot of steel in her hand was just that.

Whilst weapons were a regular commodity aboard a pirate ship it was rare the crew carried any. Drake and his first mate were permitted weapons but the rest of the pirates usually had to wait until prey was spotted before the swords, axes and bows were brought out. That did not stop a plethora of knives appearing in calloused hands and all of them pointed towards her.

She saw Drake watching with unfeigned interest.
No doubt the bastard is hoping they beat me so he can take his turn.
Jez had no doubt she’d lose, against so many in such tight quarters her chances bordered on hopeless but she would be damned before she let a single pirate inside her and she’d take as many of the bloody shits down with her as she could before they beat her.

Jez dropped down low into a fighting stance, like a predator waiting to pounce. She held one sword in her right hand across her body, her left hand hovered near the hilt of the other.

Yuri had taught her how to fight multiple opponents, he had even gone so far as to hire men to attack her. His method was simple;
imagine a circle around you, no more than two feet in all directions. That circle is your territory, that circle is your body. Anyone who enters that circle dies.
Jez held her weapons so she could strike anywhere and she focused on all her senses, not just her sight, to know when and where they came from. She calmed her breathing and waited for the attack.

“Ship! Dead ahead.” Came the shout from above.

All the pirates looked toward their captain. Drake was already moving, heading for the bow with a spyglass in his hand. He walked straight past Jezzet and the pirates surrounding her and Zothus went with him. Jezzet waited, keeping all of her senses trained on her circle.

After one of the more tense minutes of her life Drake strode back into view. “Jezzet Vel’urn’s introduction to the
Fortune
will have to wait, boys. Merchant cog ahoy, sleek and fast but low in the water and just about right for the taking, I reckon.”

A cheer went up and most of the pirates scattered to their posts. A few remained behind including the bleeding pirates now based on the deck. “What should we do with Si, cap’n?” asked one of the pirates.

Drake cackled. “Ain’t got no use for a wounded pirate. See if the sea wants him.” As two of the pirates dragged the mewling, wounded man to the larboard railing Drake leaned in close. “Now why is it you always look most beautiful when you’re fighting for your life?”

Jez felt her cheeks heat and floundered for a response but it was too late; Drake walked away smiling and she found herself standing alone on the main deck as Zothus screamed for
all hands on deck
and pirates rushed to and fro all around her.

The activity on the
Fortune
was organised, frenetic chaos but every member of the crew seemed to have a job and every one of them obviously knew it well. More than once Jez found herself in the way as a pirate rushed to his task. Eventually she moved up to quarter deck where Drake held the wheel. The night was beyond dark and the moon thoroughly hidden behind layer upon layer of churning cloud but the pirate captain steered the ship with the same confidence she had come to expect from him.

“We’re going to attack them?” she asked.

He gave an appraising look. “Aye.
We
are.”

Jez nodded. Her sword was back in its scabbard but her hand never strayed from its hilt. The idea of a fight excited her more than she liked to admit. She had come close to one and it had stirred her blood, now she had pent up energy just waiting to be expended.

She glanced sidelong at Drake. With the wind blowing back his hair and a predatory grin on his pretty face she could certainly see what the Dragon Empress saw in him.
Dangerous game, Jez
. She looked away quickly.

“How’s her sail lookin?” Drake shouted.

“Full.” Came the reply from above. “Reckon she’s seen us cap’n.”

“Right then,” Drake said grinning from ear to ear. “Hoist the colours and pile on the sail, boys.”

Another cheer from the pirates and one whooped close by. Jezzet turned just in time to see the scrawny pirate scutter to the railing and leap onto the rigging where he raced up to the mast as fast as a monkey.

“Shouldn’t they be armed?” Jez asked as she watched the pirates run about the ship like fleas on a dog’s back.

Drake chuckled. “Might want to settle in, Jezzet. Got a while ‘fore this chase turns into a fight.”

He wasn’t wrong. For over an hour they chased after the ship ahead of them, steadily gaining but not nearly fast enough for Jezzet. It came as a relief when Zothus finally called for weapons and she watched as each one of the pirates aboard the
Fortune
broke their post for a handful of seconds to select a weapon. Some picked swords, others picked axes but all were crude things of wood and metal. They were well looked after and she didn’t see a spot of rust on them but they were weapons for those that didn’t know how to use them. Jezzet’s sword was a precision instrument, one she intended to use.

When the
Fortune
pulled close it didn’t take long for the arrows to start flying. More than a couple of shafts planted themselves in the hull and the deck of Drake’s pirate ship but none managed to hit their targets. Drake laughed at the attempts to defend. “Reckon negotiation is out of the question.”

“That was an option?” Jez muttered over her shoulder to the captain, her attention was focused on the little ship they were about to board.

Drake took a moment to reply but she could feel him watching her. “Nah. Don’t reckon it was.”

Jez heard an odd clicking noise and looked down to find the most grotesque creature she had ever seen watching her. The spider was the size of a cat with eight eyes, each the size of her fist, positioned around its head. The beast had a strange turquoise sheen to its body and its huge fangs rubbed together producing the sound she had heard. She stared at the spider for a while before turning to Drake. “This thing yours?”

“Don’t you worry none,” said Zothus, appearing at Drake’s side. “Reckon Rhi’s taken a likin’ to ya. See how she ain’t tryin’ to eat your face? Means she likes ya.”

Drake shrugged and Jez turned her attention back to their prey, ignoring the little beast as it chittered beside her.

As the
Fortune
pulled alongside the merchant cog Jezzet could see its crew were armed and waiting for the pirates but not a one of them looked ready to fight, only willing.

Jez had been in fights before, more than she could or cared to remember, she’d been in battles before, she’d even sparred with Thanquil aboard a ship before but never had she been involved in a clash like this. Time became a blur of rolling decks, screaming faces and blood. She was one of the first across and the first into the fight, forgoing the use of a grappling line and simply leaping across from one ship to the other as they pulled close.

Men came at her from all sides but none of them were prepared for an excited Blademaster determined to do damage and none of them were warriors. They were sailors and they weren’t fighting for King or country or money, they were fighting for their lives. Jezzet knew that but somehow the thought got lost amongst the thrill of battle.

The two ships danced a dangerous jig together and Jezzet Vel’urn danced with them. She fought her way from bow to stern of the cog cutting a swathe through any that dared stand up before her and the pirates of the
Fortune
surged in her wake. Some occasionally caught up to her, fighting alongside her, spattered with blood and grinning just as she was. The giant spider was there too; at least once she saw it spit its silky webbing into a sailor’s face and watched as the man dropped to the deck clawing at his bloody face, unable to scream or even breathe.

Before long she found herself on the quarter deck of the cog with only the captain of the smaller vessel left standing before her. He was a tall man, well-dressed and well-groomed but a coward. He had stayed out the fight for his ship until now and when he saw Jez approach he dropped to his knees and begged for
parley
. Jezzet neither knew what the word meant, nor cared.

“Wait!” She heard Drake shout from behind.

Jez looked back to find the captain leap up the last steps onto the quarter deck. His cheeks were flushed, his hair was tousled and his sword was bloodied. Jezzet respected that, the man had fought alongside his crew. She turned back to the captain of the cog.

“Why?”

Drake put a hand on her shoulder and turned her away from the cringing captain. “Because while we all like ourselves a spot of murder there’s something we pirates like more,” he said to her so close she could smell the mint on his breath. “Money. Captains tend to own their ships and that means they’re worth ransom.”

Jezzet spat, shrugged and stalked away, wiping her sword down and placing the blade back in its scabbard. Drake followed her.

“Get that simpering bilge pump where he belongs and sweep the ship,” Drake ordered.

“We keeping it, cap’n?”

“Not this time. Take what you can then scuttle it,” he caught up with Jez as she approached one of the make shift walkways. “You look like you could use a drink, Jezzet.”

She grinned at him. “Wouldn’t say no.”

Inside Drake’s cabin Jez paced like a caged animal. Her mind span from one thought to another, replaying the short fight over and over, analysing every move she made and deciding how she could have been better. It was not uncommon for her and it was, in fact, her own particular method of unwinding. Only she didn’t want to unwind, she was enjoying being wound.

Drake handed her a glass and she downed the contents in one, swallowing down the cough as the rum seared her throat. He poured her another and she gave it the same treatment. When she stopped pacing she found the pirate watching her with blatant interest and worse she found she liked it.

It didn’t take much of an effort to make the next step. Jez dropped the empty glass and advanced on Drake, pushing him up against his desk. She stepped close, close enough to smell him and close enough for him to smell her. The flicker of a grin passed Drake’s face and then he bent his head and kissed her and she kissed him back.

His hands went exploring, rubbing first against her breasts and then down her hips until they reached her arse. He pulled her close and she let out a strangled gasp. Her own hands tore at his shirt, ripping it open to expose his chest.