The Ruthless Redhead's Revenge (3 page)

“As if that would matter. They'll either crew the ship and
take it or simply sink it if they are victorious. In either case,
hiding will not help us in the slightest. You hide if you like
though.”

Roberta began rummaging through her bag, removing the dagger that
was a gift from Geoff. She unrolled the belt, donning it over her
dress with the dagger partially concealed in the folds of fabric.
Having not actually drawn it yet, she drew the dagger to test its
balance. A quick check showed that the blade was admirably sharp and
its balance was identical to the one Geoff had trained her with. The
ball of blood on the thumb she had tested it with attested to its
keen edge. Moving slightly, she realized that her dress was too
confining. She quickly used the dagger to cut slits down the base on
both sides, allowing her to lengthen her stride enough that she could
lunge. Then she sat herself on the bed and waited.

Throughout all of this Annabelle simply stared at her:

“Where, exactly, did you get that? One of the things Master
Gutren told me to make sure that you did not have was weapons.”

“It was a gift from Geoff. I assume he slid it into my
luggage when he was loading it onto the coach.”

“Well, I'm glad I didn't get you delivered with that in your
possession. Give it here!”

“Why?”

“So I can get rid of it.”

“Exactly what will we do to defend ourselves from the
pirates then?”

“You think you're going to defend us against a shipload of
pirates with a simple knife?”

“You know nothing of tactics and strategies, do you? Do I
need to defend against a shipload, or simply one? How many men can
fit through that tiny door at one time? I think one alone, and he'll
need to turn himself to fit through. That causes a vulnerability that
I can take advantage of.”

“Silly twit, you'll only anger them. Who knows what they'll
do then.”

“You utter moron, what is to keep them from doing whatever
they want even if I don't anger them?”

Annabelle was stumped by this last question and remained silent.

The sounds of combat up on the deck of the ship did not allow the
silence to rule the cabin though. The clash and scrape of metal on
metal rang throughout the room. The occasional blast of noise
signified that one side or the other had pistols in use as well as
cutlasses. The sounds died away as one side or the other slowly edged
towards victory.

Roberta glanced out the porthole and was sorry that she had. There
were many men in the water, men from both sides. Some were wounded
and the blood had drawn sharks. She turned her head away from the
sight as a man thrashed and went under, the fin of a shark showing
that he wasn't simply drowning.

Now, silence ruled the cabin. For several minutes there was no
noise to be heard. Then heavy footsteps echoed from out in the
hallway. Someone was coming down into the belly of the ship. The dull
thud of wood on wood filled the cabin again and again as someone
threw open door after door. Roberta positioned herself beside the
doorway, on the side that the door would not open into, drew her
dagger, and waited.

The door flung open, smashing into the wall, yet still Roberta
held her strike. As she suspected, a pirate leaned into the room to
look around, his throat exposed like that of a shoat ready for
slaughter. Just as she would have with a shoat, she quickly drew her
dagger's keen edge across his throat. She stepped back to avoid the
spray of blood that followed. The habit was ingrained in her from the
last several years. During these years, if the family were to have
meat on the table, she or Geoff would have to butcher it themselves.
Her father had angered the local butcher with non-payment of a debt.

The pirate collapsed in a heap at the threshold of the door, her
cut having been deep enough to prevent him from drawing breath to
yell. She used a foot to push him back out into the hallway, closing
the door behind him. This would only buy them a few minutes, but she
couldn't think of what else to do.

“Jonsey! Where are ya? ya pustulent pig!” a voice rang
through the hall. The insult fit well as the face of the corpse was
covered in boils.

“Ah Jonsey ya bastard, ya owed me money.” the softer
sound of the voice came from right outside the door, “now
where's the right bastard that put ya down? Maybe in here?”

The voice stopped as the door swung open once again. This time
there was a pause before anyone entered.

“Well, what have we here? A wench all in tears. I guess she
knows what's going to happen next.”

The pirate had seen Annabelle on the bed. She'd been crying now
for several minutes. He had not, evidently, seen Roberta. He stepped
through the door eagerly, heading for Annabelle.

Roberta waited as he passed her and hoped that she remembered
Geoff's lessons correctly. He had told her that stabbing someone in
the kidney was painful enough to give you several seconds before they
would react. The pirate's right side was facing her so she struck
just above the waist, slightly towards the back portion of his torso.
She was worried about the strike penetrating deeply enough as the man
had rolls of fat on his lower torso.

Geoff had been correct though. The pirate stiffened with pain and
he even drew a deep breath as though to cry out. Instead of yelling,
though, he remained rigid, at least for the two seconds it took
Roberta to, once again, draw her dagger across a throat. This time
the spray of blood filled the small cabin, reducing Annabelle to an
even more hysterical state as she was coated by the spray. Roberta
had been standing behind the pirate and remained blood free. The
pirate's body fell and this time it was in a position where Roberta
couldn't easily clear it from the cabin and the door.

She resigned herself to not being able to surprise any more
pirates and set herself a couple of feet inside the doorway, the door
held in her hand to swing in front of her as a shield should someone
try to stab her. Once again she waited. It was a brief minute or two
before she heard voices:

“Smythe! Jonsey! Where are you two bastards? You trying to
get your own bits of loot before we split out? Captain'll have your
heads if you try that and you know it!”

“Jonesy, Smythe!”

The voice was growing closer.

“Ah Jonesy, you poor sot.” The voice was in the
hallway just outside but she couldn't see the owner yet. A knee came
into view, the man was kneeling down beside the corpse in the
hallway. She shifted her position slightly and the rest of the man
came into view. This man looked nothing like the other two she had
slain. He was younger, perhaps in his late twenties. Unlike the other
two he was neither grotesquely fat nor covered in boils. His face was
lightly tanned and had a growth of hair that couldn't quite be called
a beard. It was all even in length so she guessed that he normally
shaved but hadn't done so in a few days.

The man must have caught her movement out of the corner of his eye
since he turned his face to her as she completed the shift that
allowed her to see him. When he noticed the dagger in her hand, his
own hand dropped to the cutlass on his belt. They held the standoff
for at least a minute. The man's eyes glanced farther into the cabin.

“Is that Smythe in there?” he asked.

“Only if Smythe was grotesquely fat. How would I know who it
is?” she answered, her voice dripping with scorn.

“That'd be Smythe then. Well, at least I found them both
like the captain ordered me to.”

The man came up of his knees and moved towards the door. Roberta
brandished the dagger at him.

“No closer or you join the two of them.”

“I don't think so lass.” he said, drawing his cutlass.

“What use do you think that will be to you? Perhaps you
haven't noticed that the quarters are far too close to use it.”

“Perhaps, but I don't think so. Besides, you have a weapon
to hand, why shouldn't I?”

Roberta shook her head:

“Poor fool. You've never had proper training with a sword,
have you?”

“And you have?” the man's voice was taking on a hint
of anger.

Geoff had counseled her years back that an opponent who fought in
anger was easier to defeat than one who fought with a cool head. They
were less likely to plan things in advance and more likely to fall
for feints or other tricks.

“Why yes, at least more than you have, to all appearances
anyhow.” she continued her efforts to anger him.

“Fool of a woman. You are arrogant and easily distracted.”
the man stared over her shoulder and gave an exaggerated nod.

She looked. She couldn't take the chance that he was bluffing and
not look. As her head turned, she caught sight of him beginning a
lunge. She changed her head turn into a full body turn, pivoting
around the edge of the door farther into the cabin. As she did so,
she also slammed the door as hard as she could. The tip of the man's
cutlass protruded from the wood when the door stopped. She instantly
wrenched the door open again with all her might. The man's cutlass
stayed with the door but when he saw himself being drawn towards her
dagger's point, he released the cutlass so as not to be dragged onto
the dagger.

“As I said, I've had more training than you apparently.”

“Bitch! I could call my mates and they'd overrun you.”

“Feel free to do so, I wonder what they'd say about you
after you called for help because a woman managed to defeat you.”

“You're a canny one, I'll give you that. Do you have a
suggestion then?”

“A pirate open to good sense. Will wonders never cease?”

“Don't bait me woman or I'll take my humiliation and call
the rest of the crew.”

“Okay, well then. You didn't find us here. You drag this
body out” she pointed to Smythe, “and you can have just
found them both in the corridor out there. You'll have followed your
captain's orders and I won't have to kill you.”

“I'll have to come in there to drag the body out.”

“I'll be holding my dagger at the ready all the while you
are in here so you'll want to keep that in mind if you decide to try
anything tricky.”

The man came, slowly and cautiously, into the cabin. He took
Smythe's arm and dragged the corpse out into the hallway. Roberta
gestured for him to go back up the hallway and he moved that way. She
took a quick moment to pry his cutlass out of the door and then shut
it.

A few experimental swings showed that the cutlass didn't have the
same balance as the weapons she had trained with. It should be easy
enough to adjust to its balance though, and it wasn't that much
heavier than her training weapon.

Annabelle was still in a huddled mass on the bed, sobbing quietly.
She would be of no use for any plan Roberta could make. Roberta
couldn't even think of a plan right now. Her mind was still racing.
She had killed a man, no she had killed
two
men. As of yet it wasn't bothering her but she could tell that she
was mostly numb and at some point the reality of what she done would
set in. She hoped it would last until after this mess was resolved
but since she couldn't see a possibility of resolving it in her own
favor she wasn't eager for it to end. She also hoped that she would
regret killing the men but feared that she would not.

As she waited she noticed Annabelle and
her hysterical sobs once more. She now thought that she had been a
fool to believe that she could get along with this woman. She had
thought Annabelle to be made of sterner stuff, but now she knew
better and decided that she had no more use for the sobbing woman.

A noise she had dreaded hearing came
through the door. There were several men walking down the corridor
outside. Against a group, even with a sword, she was sure that she
would fall. She heard a familiar voice in the group in the hallway.

“See the blood on that door? I
did, that's why I came to get you. It looks like someone in that room
took down Jonesy and Smythe, then dumped their bodies in the hallway.
Slit their throats just like they were butchering a pig. Don't know
how they'd manage that on two able-bodied types like Jonesy and
Smythe, so I figured I ought to alert you Captain.”

“We'll see about this in a
moment.”

The smell of burning sulfur wafted
through the small hole in the door. Roberta was sure that she had
just found out who the owner of at least one of the pistols she had
heard in battle was. She quickly sheathed her dagger, tucking it into
the folds of her dress in hopes that it might escape notice. The
cutlass she dropped and kicked under the bed, just in time.

The door burst open from a kick and a
short, stocky man stood framed in it. The fuse of a pistol sputtered
as he pinched it out.

“Oho! Looks like your dangerous
room only holds a pair of women. One is covered in blood though, so
they may have seen what happened. That one is useless for talk”
he pointed to Annabelle, still sobbing on the bed, “bring the
other one up on deck and we'll find out what happened.”

The man that had been in the corridor
earlier walked into the room. He directed two pirates to carry
Annabelle away and then, gently, took Roberta's arm.

“It seems that you forgot to
require me to not bring anyone back with me. The captain wanted to
know what killed those two so he had me bring him down. I hope you've
got a story ready.”

As they were the last two in the cabin,
everyone else having departed already, Roberta pointed towards the
bed she had slid the cutlass under.

“You might want to reclaim your
property. The cutlass you are wearing now is of far poorer quality
than the one you had earlier. I'm surprised no-one else has noticed.”

The man quickly looked on the bed and
then beneath it. He recovered his cutlass, dropping the other one on
top of the corpses in the hall.