The Rebels' Assault (3 page)

“Yeah? How d'you work that out?”

“Because you've put a stronger crew on the port side. We need to swap some of 'em over.”

The big crewman looked around at the heaving slave lines and nodded.

“Better get the keys, then,” he said.

“Are you deaf? I came to get them from you. Captain says you took 'em this morning.”

“I didn't; haven't moved anyone around so I never needed 'em. Maybe one of the others has 'em?”

The one-eyed slaver nodded. “Who did you take over from?”

“Barius.”

“I'll go and ask 'im.”

The brute waited until the little crewman had disappeared, and then he turned back to the slave who was still cowering before him.

“You didn't think I'd forget, did you?” he growled, raising the whip once again.

Olu had been in the bilge all morning, trying hard not to be sick. He and Decimus had argued long and hard about which of them should sneak into the captain's cabin and steal the keys. Decimus had won. Olu was quicker on his feet, but Decimus was stronger. At least if Decimus were caught he might stand a chance; Olu was still far too exhausted to fight anyone. Besides, the young warrior was BORN lucky: The arena trials had proven that. Olu himself had a far simpler but equally dangerous task ahead: He would have to distract the crew so that Decimus could free the slaves.

The ship lurched suddenly, and Olu felt his stomach churn. He steadied himself on a barrel and tried to breathe. It was no good. He still felt dreadful.

Decimus appeared at the entrance hatch and quickly scrambled down the ladder.

“I've got them,” he said, hurrying over to Olu and rattling the ring of iron keys. “The captain's asleep. I sneaked around for a bit, and got a decent look over the ship. I was lucky, though—at one point I thought one of the deckhands had seen me.”

Olu coughed, still clutching at his stomach. “So what are we dealing with?”

“The crew is pretty standard,” said Decimus. “There are four working the deck and two on the sails. The one who runs the slaves is a real animal; must be bigger than a wild bear. There's also an oily little wretch with one eye who seems to run around barking orders and getting in everyone's way.”

“And that's all of them, is it?” Olu asked. “The entire crew?”

“Yeah, I think so. Are you ready?”

The slave whistled between his teeth and nodded.

“As ready as I'll ever be.”

The hulking brute proceeded along the line, occasionally lowering his whip and actually driving a fist into the faces of the exhausted slaves. He was reaching the end of the deck when the little, one-eyed crewman reappeared, limping toward him with a mirthless expression on his weathered features.

“You MUST have those keys,” he snapped. “I've spoken to Barius and he told me he put them back in the captain's cabin.”

“And?”

“And they're not there now, so where are they?”

“You saying I've got 'em when I haven't, you little runt?”

The one-eyed slaver shook his fist angrily in the brute's face.

“I'm saying you're a stinking no-good liar who just made me search all around the ship for no good reason. Now hand over those—”

His voice spluttered into silence, partly because the big man had seized him around the throat, but mostly because a collective gasp had gone up from the slaves standing along both sides of the ship.

The two crewmen followed the shocked gazes of their prisoners to the hatch at the end of the deck, where a young boy had appeared and was standing in the center aisle with a determined but sickly smile on his face.

“If you want your keys,” he said, his voice ringing out in the stunned silence, “you're gonna have to move REALLY fast.” Without another word, he turned on his heels, dashed across the slave line, and scrambled up the ladder that led onto the deck.

Still clutching each other and staring wildly, the two crewmen slowly came to their senses and began to give chase, screaming at the top of their lungs and falling over each other in a clumsy attempt to pursue the stowaway.

The slaves stopped rowing and watched as their captors struggled at the base of the ladder, the big brute shoving his smaller colleague aside at the last minute.

A roar of laughter from the slaves drew contemptuous glares from both men before the big brute gained the advantage and climbed up toward the deck.

His companion snarled after him, but sensibly waited a few seconds before giving pursuit.

When both slavers had crawled out of view, slamming the trapdoor behind them, and the noise above become an unbearable din, a second boy appeared. This one was carrying a heavy ring of iron keys that looked all too familiar.

A sudden excitement washed through the room as Decimus Rex set to work on the end of the line, casting chain after chain to the floor . . . and giving forty bruised and bleeding slaves their freedom.

Olu scampered across the deck, spotting a short plank of mostly rotted wood that was propped against a barrel, and snatched it up as he ran. When he was halfway across the deck, he suddenly took a detour and dashed for a sturdy-looking rope ladder that was secured to the mast.

As crewmen all over the ship were alerted by the cries of the pursuing slavers, Olu magnified the chaos by screaming at the top of his lungs and slamming the wooden plank against the mast. Within seconds, he had the attention of every man on the
Caveat
, including the captain, who had emerged, blinking, from his cabin.

Olu took one sweeping glance at the attention his handiwork had drawn, and then he shot up the rope ladder, moving so fast that two of the crew actually ran into each other in an attempt to catch him.

“Get him!” the captain thundered, striding over the deck as the crew of the
Caveat
scattered around him. “Dead or alive, I want that boy brought DOWN!”

Olu climbed higher, reaching the first platform before peering down to see who was following him. It seemed that most of the crew had an issue with heights; only the oily, one-eyed pirate from the slave deck had followed him up the ladder. The little man was surprisingly quick, too. He was already halfway up, a dagger pressed firmly between his teeth.

“If you don't bring that boy down here,” the captain yelled from the deck, “you needn't bother coming down yourself!”

Olu looked up at the next platform, and down at his frantic pursuer.

Come on, Decimus,
he thought.
I'm not like you—I can't do this stuff all on my own . . .

Then a roar went up from below . . . and the hatch to the slave deck exploded outward.