Jill put her sword in its hanger and dagger in her belt and followed.
She climbed the shrouds to reach the level of the other deck and hesitated. It must have been ten feet from here to there—a long space, with a fall on hard wood when she missed. Captain Cooper had made it look easy, had known exactly which rope to slice to carry her over the space. Jill looked around, stricken, unable to figure out the trick of it. She could see it now: She’d try to swing over and end up hanging there like a caught fish, swinging crazily and wondering how to get down.
Jill didn’t want to mess with it. She jumped.
Arms out, she grabbed for the side of Blane’s ship, hooked her elbows over, which left her feet dangling. But she didn’t fall. Hoping no one decided to attack her while she flailed, she pulled herself up, swinging and hooking her leg over and finally rolling onto the deck of the Heart’s Revenge.
She glanced below, to the deck of the Diana. The battle there was a mob, a tangle of bodies, weapons, shouting, and blood. She’d never get the blood off the deck.
But she was on enemy territory now. Pressing her back to the side, she took in the deck of the Heart’s Revenge.
There in the center, swords drawn, Marjory Cooper and Edmund Blane circled each other. A few of Blane’s crew remained on the ship, but they held back, watching with a mix of anticipation and fear—jaws clenched, hands on hilts, but swords left in hangers. Like they wanted to help Blane, but they didn’t dare. They didn’t dare cross Cooper.
Jill drew her sword. Blane’s sword; hers now that it was whole. Sunlight gleamed along its length and turned it to silver.
Blane’s men saw it, recognized it, and began to whisper among themselves. She moved forward, and Blane’s crew backed away—calmly enough, but with trepidation in their gazes. Jill didn’t think she was all that scary—but if they saw her as the apprentice of Captain Marjory Cooper, the fearsome pirate queen? And if they feared Blane’s sword? Maybe she was scarier than she thought. That made her straighten and put a wicked curl in her lips.
Then, his attention drawn by the commotion, Blane saw her. He glanced at Cooper and chuckled.
“What have you done, Marjory? Mended the rapier?”
“Never you mind, you bastard. Fight me, will you!”
But Blane circled around Cooper, creeping past her in order to get closer to Jill. “No,” he murmured. “I’m going to take back what’s mine. Perhaps a second sacrifice would make me even more powerful.”
Jill squeezed her hand around the hilt, rearranging her grip. She could fight him. This was what she’d come here to do.
“Keep away from her,” Cooper said, and put herself between Blane and Jill. “She’s just a child. Be a man and fight me!”
No, Jill wanted to shout. They’d agreed on it. This was her fight—she would face Blane. But that wasn’t what Cooper had in mind. The captain of the Diana launched an attack, sword raised, lunging at Blane as she roared in anger. Blane smoothly raised his sword to parry and knocked the attack out of the way.
Cooper didn’t stop. She swung the blade around for another attack, hunting for the next opening, pressing as she did so that Blane had to scurry backward to maintain distance between them. She had him on the defensive, delivering blow after blow. Jill had to focus to work out all the movements. But none of the attacks got through. Blane repelled them all. In her fury, Cooper was less careful of her own defense.
Blane sidestepped, removing himself from her line of attack and countering with his own thrust at her face. She retreated a wide step, nearly falling into a couple of watching crewmen who scrambled out of the way. This broke her rhythm. Now Blane had the advantage. Now he was the one who pressed.
Captain Cooper swung out of the corner that Blane was trying to trap her in and ranged back to the center of the deck. Blades struck in earnest now, steel smacking and scraping against steel. Cooper met each of Blane’s attacks with a strong parry and each time delivered a counterattack. But Blane never let an opening stay open for long. They were both good, really good. Jill could have just watched them, in awe of their skill and effort. It was because they fought for blood. They fought with everything they had. That made the fight different. Made it terrifying.
Sweat soaked Cooper’s long hair, making it stick to her cheeks and back; her shirt grew damp with it. Blane’s expression was grim, his face flushed. He still wore his coat and must have been roasting in it; at one point he rubbed the sleeve across his face and the velvet came away dark with sweat. But their movements never slowed, their intensity never faded. By her snarl, Cooper clearly wanted to kill him. By his grimness, Blane clearly wasn’t about to let her.
Noises thumped on the side of the Heart’s Revenge—hooks coming over the side and people climbing up the ropes attached to them. Jill leaned over, uncertain, fearful—were they Blane’s crew, returning after a slaughter, or Cooper’s crew, victorious? If the Heart’s Revenge crew had slaughtered the crew of the Diana, they might as well let Blane win the duel—they were all dead then anyway.
It was Henry who appeared over the side of the Heart’s Revenge first. He had blood smeared across one cheek.
He saw Jill and grinned. “What’s going—” But he saw, and his mouth opened in shock.
Apart from the constant background noises of waves and wind always present on a ship at sea, they only heard the beat of boot steps on the deck as Cooper and Blane moved back and forth, their gasps for breath and huffs of effort. The sounds of fighting had faded, and even the fog of gunpowder had blown away. Everyone else just watched.
There came a hiccup in the rhythm of swords crossing and bodies moving. The fighters closed for what seemed just a moment, their blades caught against each other as the two crashed together in a failed attack. With a cry of rage Blane disentangled himself with a slash of his blade. Cooper shouted back, right in his face, and her own weapon turned.
Jill thought it was done, that it was all over for him. But it was Captain Cooper who fell away, a slash of red marring her side.
Shouts of anger cried out from the side of the ship. The Diana’s crew, reacting. Some of them ran forward to reach their captain—Henry, Abe, Tennant. The members of Blane’s crew remaining on deck surged, growling, weapons out, ready to do battle.
Jill ran forward, screaming her own cry of battle. She swept Blane’s rapier around her, defending a space.
“Get back!” she shouted, putting herself between Blane’s men and Captain Cooper. “Get away, all of you!”
Jill spared a glance back, dreading what she would see. But Cooper was alive. A grimace creased her face, and she snarled at her crewmen. “I’m fine, it’s only a cut, let go of me!” But her voice was strained, and she was hugging her arms around her middle, holding in a flow of blood.
“Henry! Get that surgeon up here! Go now!” Abe shouted. Henry jumped back to the Diana and ran belowdecks.
Abe and Tennant finished dragging Cooper out of the way, toward the side and back toward the Diana. Matthews guarded their escape with a pair of pistols. Jill kept herself in front of Blane.
Edmund Blane was using a handkerchief to wipe blood off his sword. He stepped slowly around her; she moved to keep him in view. Holding her sword at him, she stared at him down its length. The tip of the sword shook because her arm was trembling.
“How do you like it? It’s got a good weight to it, doesn’t it?” he said casually, unconcerned. “Now that you’ve got it in one piece, do you know what to do with it?”
She remained silent, repeating old fencing lessons in her mind. Point your toe, keep your knees bent, keep the blade on line, never attack on a bent arm. Advance, retreat, lunge, recover. She liked to think she knew what to do with a rapier.
“I’ll make a bargain with you,” Blane said, stuffing the bloodied handkerchief up one sleeve. He kept his rapier out and ready. “Give me my sword, and the Diana and all her crew can go free. You can tend to Marjory—it isn’t a deep wound, I’ll wager. If you can stop the blee
ding, she should live. You can all live—if you give me my sword.” He spoke this loud enough to carry to the crew of the Diana who were watching.
Jill didn’t know what to do. Her first impulse, her first instinct, was to toss the sword at his feet and run back to her friends. This shocked her. That shouldn’t have been what she wanted to do at all. After everything she’d done to get it, after all the worry she’d spent over it, she’d get rid of it so easily, without a fight? She’d give up her way home without a fight? And she realized if she had to choose between going home and the lives of her friends, she couldn’t. If she could save them, she had to.
She looked over her shoulder. Cooper was propped against the side. Abe was with her, and Emory had arrived. The surgeon was packing a bandage into the wound at her side. Henry and Tennant stood guard, even though Tennant only had a dagger with him. They were all watching her.
Marjory Cooper shook her head. No, don’t do it. And Henry shook his head. Abe smiled. She knew they were right because Blane would never keep his word. They would all back her up, whatever happened.
Jill looked at Edmund Blane and shook her head.
His lip curled in a sneer. Then he struck.
It was a textbook feint—straight arm, forward thrust. He expected to catch her off guard, expected her to parry wide, flailing, leaving her defenseless while he disengaged to another line of attack and skewered her. Her fencer’s brain mapped it out a quarter of a second before it happened because she’d seen it before, she’d practiced against a move like that a million times. And lately, she’d been practicing with pirates. When he attacked, she didn’t have to stand there waiting for him.
She sidestepped out of his way and beat his blade off line, giving him nothing to counterattack against and no opening. But he was fast and smart and recovered quickly, attacking again.
She let her fears go, her anxieties fade, bringing all her attention to the flashing steel before her. Her body knew what to do, and the rapier fit neatly in her hand, comfortable and deadly. The world focused in on his blade and her own, and how the two interacted. He didn’t let her rest; every moment was taken up with attack and counterattack, parries and ripostes, trying to hit while avoiding getting hit herself. Sweat gathered in her hair and trickled down her back, under her shirt. An annoyance she could do nothing about, it made her aware of her whole body and how close the edged steel was coming to it.
He flicked his weapon at her, she parried—and was striking at an opening before her higher brain even knew it was there. A length of forearm behind his glove. She thrust at it, heard ripping as the point caught the shirt, felt resistance of flesh. He shouted, and she scurried back as his sword swung toward her again.
Blood stained the sleeve of his right arm. Not a lot. But enough to show the man was mortal.
And she remained standing, sword in her hand, watching him. So it would take more than a little blood for the power of the sword to send her home. They’d have to finish this, and she frowned, daunted.
His fury was controlled as he came at her again, his attacks even more powerful, so that each parry she made rattled her arm. Her muscles were turning to rubber. If he was at all tired after fighting Cooper, he hid it well.
On the other hand, Jill wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this up. In competition, a tournament might last all day, but a single bout might last only a few minutes. Even with dozens of bouts in a day, she’d have lots of rests in between. She was missing the rests, now. She only wanted a chance to catch her breath. But she had to keep going. If she slowed, Blane would see it and cut her down.
Her heart was beating in her throat, her temples were pounding. If she could only cut him again, and then a dozen more times—
With a renewed bout of strength, he pressed, and she retreated, hoping for a spare breath and a chance to recover. She felt the cut on her left arm without seeing exactly how he had made it—he growled, frowning, which made her think that he’d missed and meant to hit something more vital. The stinging wound seemed distant.
Instead of pulling back a moment and reassessing—as she had done after she struck him—he drove even harder. She couldn’t even counter now, only move her sword in a constant parry and hope her defensive wall was enough to keep him out. She jumped sideways, hoping to duck out from under his onslaught, but he stayed right with her.
All she needed was an opening, a moment when he let his guard down, a chance for her to strike. But then, that was all he needed, too.
She gathered another burst of strength, hoping to make one last attack, a last concerted exchange that would give her the opening she needed and finish this. She beat his blade, attacked. He made a hurried retreat, and she thought, This is it.
Then Blane fell.
His feet slipped out from under him and he toppled like a cartoon character. But I didn’t do anything, came Jill’s first thought.
Then she saw the hook and rope tangled around his legs. And Henry crouched nearby, holding the other end of the line.
Jill marched forward and lay the point of her rapier on Blane’s neck, like it was the most natural, normal thing to do.
The captain of the Heart’s Revenge had been struggling to sit up, but confronted by Jill’s steel he simply lay there, breathing hard, sweating, craning his head up to try to see her without impaling himself. His expression was an ugly sneer. Jill didn’t dare look away from him.
“Finish him off!” Henry called.
She knew what he meant—a slice across his throat, a stab through his neck and spinal cord. An ugly, messy death. He’d twitch on her sword like a bug on a pin. It’d be easy to do, with him lying there. The sword itself seemed to yearn toward him, eager to slice into him. She felt the power of it in her fingers, wrist, and arm. And if she was right, this would send her home—feed the sword Blane’s life in exchange for the child’s life he’d taken with it. It ought to be easy, with so much at stake.
And she realized she couldn’t. Not even to send herself home.
“You cheated,” Jill said to Henry.
“Course I did, you weren’t going to beat him,” he said.
Henry didn’t know that. Anything could have happened. That last attack might have worked. But part of her was just as glad not to have to find out. Blane was beaten, and it didn’t matter who gave the final blow.
“I’m not going to kill dead a man who’s flat on his back,” Jill said. “That’s the kind of thing he would do.”
“A woman of honor,” Blane said with contempt. “Nice.”
Yes, she thought. I am.
“Drop your sword,” she said, flicking the point against his skin. It scraped but didn’t cut. But just a little more pressure…
Blane let go of his weapon. Jill kicked it away, and it rattled across the wooden deck.
Her arm became very tired, then. The sword she held no longer called out for blood, no longer surged with power. It was just a weight of steel. Well-made, beautiful steel. But nothing more.
Mostly, then, it was done. With their captain defeated, Blane’s men turned docile. They sat by the gunwales and didn’t make trouble. They’d been loyal to Blane’s power, which was gone now. The crew of the Diana had defeated the boarding party. The cannons were silent.
Captain Cooper got to her feet, aided by Abe and the doctor. But she walked over to Jill under her own power, limping, hand pressed to her side over the bandage wrapped around her middle.
“Come to gloat then, Marjory?” Blane said, hateful as ever.
“Henry,” she said softly. “Tie the bastard up. Good and tight.”
Henry did, tying Blane’s hands and feet with yards of rope, tying another loop around the pirate’s neck so if he tried to move too much he’d strangle himself.
Finally, Jill could lower the rapier. It was just a sword now. It had defeated its master, tasted Blane’s blood. Any mysticism she’d felt from it, any power it had given her, seemed to have dissipated. She felt weak, like she wanted to melt. Her m
uscles were loose, exhausted.
Captain Cooper stood beside her, in front of Blane, now trussed and lying by the forecastle of the ship.
“Are you all right, Tadpole?” she said.
“Aren’t I a frog yet?”
Cooper chuckled and squeezed Jill’s shoulder. Jill sighed. “I couldn’t kill him. Was that wrong?”
“No. It’s never wrong, that’s what the preachers say. But I think it means you don’t really belong out here.”
That was what Jill had known all along.
“On the other hand, a quick death’s too good for him, isn’t it? I’d like to see him hang in a gibbet,” she said. Jill just stared.
“Ahoy! Ship ahoy!” The call came from the Diana. No lookout had been posted during the battle, but one of the sailors leaned over the prow of the smaller ship and shouted. Everyone looked.
Beyond the spit of shore that marked the end of the island, an incongruous shape emerged, a bright glint against the water. Jill squinted, trying to bring the spot into focus, wishing for the captain’s spyglass. Then the spot moved, gliding upon the water, coming into full view. Another ship, three-masted, under full sail, moving fast. A spot of color flashed amidst the sails—the red and white of the British navy.
“It’s the bloody navy, just what we need right now,” Cooper muttered. She marched to Emory and grabbed his collar, curling it in her fist—then wincing and pressing a hand to her bandaged side. But her voice was no less fierce. “One of your friends, then?”
Emory glanced out at the navy ship, circling the area like a predator.
“She’s the HMS Ivy. I believe she’s been tracking you since Jamaica.”
“With your help?”
Emory wouldn’t look at her. “I imagine they were waiting for the battle to end.”
“So they could sail in pretty as birds to clean up the scraps? I ought to hang you from the bowsprit and ram you through their hull!”
“Captain,” Emory said. “Let me signal them. I’m sure we can work out a deal. The reward for Blane is considerable—”