especially when that pirate is Greenbeard, the second most respected member of the Merry Martin crew aside from Captain Bluebeard himself.
Inside he was worried by the crew’s loss of respect for him; on the outside, he was more fiery than ever and marched forwards towards the front door and his waiting landing party, holding his sword by his side.
“I’m going now,” he growled. “Who’s with me?”
He had expected his men to file silently behind him and follow him wherever, leaving the mutinous threesome alone to nurse their wounded pride. Yet it was his pride which would come to be wounded, for as he reached the front door he realised that nobody had followed him there; everybody was still stationary, looking upon him in disbelief and shock.
“Well?” He bellowed, sending shockwaves and echoes flying about the room with such volume that the pirates’ eardrums were offended. “Nobody?”
Silence greeted his challenge. Then, an answer, but not the one he had wanted:
“Is this what being a pirate is? This is not me,” purred the thickly accented voice of the Swedish princess, who pulled off the eye patch she had been wearing (purely for show, of course) and retreated to join the wounded Greenbeard and his tweedling brothers. She had been in a regal mood all day, though, not even trying to hide her implicit wish to be back in the land-locked luxury of a palace. She would come around, Bluebeard reassured himself. The rest were not like her.
“Anyone else want to become a mutinous dog?” he challenged once more. “Or are we all coming with me now?”
The next response came from Pointy Pete. “There’s enough gold here, chief,” he observed. “Much more and much better than the treasure we used to have. Why bother provoking a fight with the ninjas when we can just take it from here without resistance?”
“Because, you cowardly cad,” answered Bluebeard, “we don’t have Liu. Our only chance of getting her back is to go to that camp.”
Pete shrugged his shoulders. “All the same, Captain, I don’t think she’s worth the risk.”
Worth the risk? It was one thing to disobey the captain, but another to insult his lady. In one heart-wrenching moment he realised for the first time just how unpopular his beloved soothsayer was among his crew. He had always seen the doubting glances whenever she went past, the sneering looks as if she did not belong, but he had never given them much thought. Now, though, he saw that his closest confidante on board his ship, a women he may even have called his best friend or lover if he used such parlance, was a pariah to most of his men. They envied her closeness to the Captain, or doubted the truth of her abilities, or something- whatever it was, they were willing to abandon her to an invisible foe. And that made Bluebeard’s blood boil.
In one swift movement, the mad Captain dashed to where Pointy Pete was standing and slapped him round the face with one hand while slashing his sabre with the other. The blade’s tip reached Pete’s left thumb and cut its end clean off, leaving him screaming in agony and feeling round on the floor for where it had got to: for the speed of Bluebeard’s cut had sent it flying elsewhere in the room.
“Pete, I don’t want you anywhere near me,” he snarled. “The rest of you are coming with me. Now.”
He once more set foot towards the doorway, this time with a following of six pirates: Jawface Jones, Simon the Holy, Gunner Zach, Timmy the Brick, Jake the Peg and Ethelred. They were not the most capable bunch, he would readily admit: Ethelred was nearly an old man; Jake the Peg had limited ability, what with his wooden leg; and Timmy the Brick could not be trusted near any of his men, for he was just as likely to slash them as the enemy.
Each of his men was focused now, though, by the fear and respect engendered in them by Bluebeard’s show of power. The mood was understandably tense, especially given that they were being led into the woods by a Boy who most of them were loathe to trust. He was being held at knife-point by Bluebeard as he kept a close watch on him, and nobody doubted that one trick or show of deceit would bring that knife down upon his throat and gut him like the pig he was.
“Rum?” offered Simon to the visibly shaken Jawface marching next to him. “It’s good for the nerves.”
Jawface Jones accepted gladly and wolfed down the bottle he had been given in a matter of seconds. Drunkenness does wonders for a pirate: unlike in most people, it sharpens their nerves and makes them fearless fighting machines, almost ballerinas of battle. For a pirate, fighting is his sport and alcohol is his fuel.
Jones glanced worriedly ahead of him to where the Captain was walking. He was a good few paces ahead, so Jones spoke in a whisper low enough for him not to hear.
“I don’t like this,” he admitted. “It seems too easy. I mean, where did the Captain find the Boy? He never did say.”
Simon merely smiled. “Who’s to say where he found him?” he chimed merrily, taking a swig of his own bottle. “Look, we’re going to fight some ninjas and there’s nothing we can do about it, so we may as well enjoy ourselves. More rum?” he offered, and Jawface accepted. “Good lad! Drink up, have a laugh and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
Presently the Boy was leading the party off the path and into the woods. It was early morning now, so the blind running in dark woods of the night before was no longer a problem. Rather, the sun’s rays now lit up a beautiful woodland scene: wildlife (or potential lunch) scurried about up the trees and into their holes, running along the sun-dappled leaf bed of the forest floor. Identical trees ran in every direction as far as the eye could see, so that it would be perilously easy to become lost in this maze. And as the tree line closed behind them and they descended deeper into the woods, Bluebeard began to suspect that that was precisely what Jack the Boy was trying to do.
He put pressure on the knife he was holding and gave the Boy’s neck a little scratch, a threat of what more he could do if he found he was being deceived.
“You’re not leading us into a trap, are you boy?”
“No sir,” gulped his guide. “No, sir, I would not do that.”
“Because you know what I’ll do if I find you are, boy,” he menaced. “Now where are we? How far is it to this camp?”
“Not far, sir. In fact, it’s just around that corner.”
Just around that corner- Bluebeard eyed up the forest surrounding him and could see no corner. He could see tree upon tree upon endless tree in a randomised pattern of insanity, but no such corners or any distinguishing features anywhere ahead of him. Just trees, leaves and mud.
“What corner, you lying cad?”
“I mean that tree. Just around that tree.”
“How can you tell any of them apart?”
“See that one?” he ventured, beckoning to be allowed to move closer to one particularly large oak. “It’s got my name scratched onto it. I remember scrawling it there when I was sent away from the camp.”
Something in what the Boy had said irked Bluebeard, but he allowed him to show him the tree- under his supervision, of course. The knife never left his throat.
“See, there,” he indicated, pointing to a patch of bark just above his head. “It says ‘Boy woz ere’, and the camp is just around the corner. But we need to be very quiet.”
Then the Captain realised and, in a moment of panic, pinned the boy up against the tree.
“What did you mean when you said you were sent away from the camp, boy?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I left, I escaped, I saw the error of my ways!”
“Liar! Tell me the truth now, or your blood will be decorating the forest floor.”
“I am telling you the truth!”
“No you’re not.”
The boy’s eyes darted about wildly, terrified, as he saw that death may be knocking at his door. His eyes suddenly fixed upon something to his left and he shouted out “Juniper berries!”
The Captain was taken aback for a second. He released the pressure from his knife and looked at his victim puzzlingly, like a specimen in a lab, and queried, “Juniper Berries? What in
God’s name-?”
But he could not finish his question, for he found himself being dragged away from the Boy by a strange hand clutching his back. He turned to find that the black, veiled form of a ninja was responsible and that several others were doing battle with his plucky crew. Horrified, he realised that Greenbeard had been right; he had been leading them into a trap after all.
He still had the knife in his hand, so in one swift action he slashed the ninja’s hand to free himself and hurled it at the Boy, still pinned against the tree. The ninja was too fast for him and avoided his blade, but his action had the desired effect: he was free again, and as the blade flew through the air he saw that it would hit its target.
It landed in the Boy’s left leg and he uttered a cry of agony as it did so, collapsing into a heap on the floor. A ninja leapt over to the Boy from behind a tree and sat beside him. That cad, thought Bluebeard, he was working for the ninjas all along.
Yet the ninja beside the Boy was not being as welcoming as Bluebeard might have expected. Instead, the Boy’s greeting consisted of a sharp slap round the face and stern words which the Captain could not make out fully, but the gist of it appeared to be that the Boy had ruined what would have been a perfect ambush by giving the game away too early.
Bluebeard smiled at the incompetence of his captive and turned to survey the battle before him. His pirates were holding out well against the ninjas: what the