The Following Sea (The Pirate Wolf series) (37 page)

Enraged, Muertraigo pressed the edge of the blade deeper into Eva’s throat, splitting the skin enough to send a ribbon of blood sliding down her neck. “You care so little for the whore that you would watch her die?”

Dante saw the blood and felt such a rush of rage and fear he thought his heart would burst out of his chest.

“I care enough,” he said, his voice a cold, dry rasp, “to offer you a chance to save your own life. Let her go. This is between you and me. We can settle this right now, right here, one on one. You win, you walk away with your life, my word on it. Not only that but you walk away with my full share of the gold.”

It was Dante’s men who began to murmur this time, for they could scarcely believe he would be willing to let Muertraigo walk away alive. One cold glance around the circle silenced them. “He has my word on it, gentlemen. He wins, he lives. Master Rowlandson?”

The quartermaster took a long moment before he could snarl and spit his assent. “Aye, Captain. Though I’ll not give my word we won’t pursue him to the gates of hell if need be.”

“Fair enough. Chandler?”

William’s gaze had not left his daughter’s stricken face. “Aye. My word. And my share of the gold as well.”

“Gabriel… Father… please… no.” Eva’s neck was held in such a taut arch she could barely speak. Her eyes flooded with tears and she knew the only way she could remove any need for Gabriel to put his life at risk to save her… again!... was to plunge her head forward.

Muertraigo, sensing the sacrifice she was prepared to make, lowered the blade and stepped aside. “I have heard that the word of a Dante is his sacred bond. Before witnesses then, I accept your terms.”

Eduardo and William both rushed forward to loosen the ropes around Eva’s wrists and ankles. Doc Podd stripped out of his leather jerkin and wrapped it around her shoulders as she was hustled out of Muertraigo’s reach.

To a man, every one of Dante’s crew aimed their guns at the Spaniard and waited for the word to fire.

The Spaniard’s dark eyes drilled into Gabriel’s even as his lips curled into a sneer. “Is your word worth so little, senor?”

Gabriel lowered his pistols and uncocked them.

Eva tried to touch his arm as she was shuffled past. “Gabriel… no! Shoot him! Just shoot him! He doesn’t deserve to be treated with honor.”

Dante looked away from Muertraigo long enough to see that the cut on her neck was not deep. He reached out and touched her cheek and for the first time she saw every emotion she had ever hoped to see in his eyes. His smile, as his finger brushed across her lips, was warm and gentle and special, for her alone.

“Go with your father, Mermaid,” he said softly.

“No! No…
please
! Don’t do this! He doesn’t deserve to be treated with honor.”

“Get her away from here,” he commanded Chandler. “And keep her away.”

William looked as torn as his daughter but in the end he nodded. “God be with you,lad.” In a lower tone he thought to add, “Have a mind, he favors the left.”

But as he took Eva by the arm and forced her away from the sudden roar of voices he could not be sure the younger man had even heard him.

~~

Before her father had dragged her a hundred yards Eva shook off his grip on her arm and stopped, nearly causing Eduardo and Podd to run up her heels.

“Daughter,” William warned. “You’re neither wanted nor needed back there. The captain has enough on his mind without you sobbing and wailing to break his focus.”

“You can’t expect me to just walk away!”

“That is exactly what I expect you to do. And so does he, or he would not have ordered it. If there was ever a time you needed to obey him, this is it. Show him, if nothing else, that you have faith and trust in him.”

“I do have faith and trust. I love him, Father!
I love him!
But I can no more walk away now, than I could believe it and walk away when Ross told me you were dead.”

William muttered a stream of inaudible oaths and shoved both hands into the twisted mane of his hair. Podd and Eduardo both looked at him expectantly until he expelled one final curse and took her by the arm again.

This time he led her to the deepest, darkest shadows he could find where the four could watch through the trees. As insurance he kept his hand firmly at her elbow but he need not have worried. At the first flash of steel, she was too frozen by fear to move.

~~

Blinded by the blood he had seen flowing down Eva’s neck, Gabriel had not noticed that Muertraigo had been holding the knife in his left hand. It was an error that could have proved costly… and fatal in the uncertain light. It also explained why the Spaniard looked so smug and confident as he removed his heavy doublet and unsheathed his sword. Left handed men fought with the Devil in their corner. It was likened to fighting against one’s own reflection in a mirror, with none of the usual moves or counter-moves applying to attack and parry.

Thanks to William’s warning, Gabriel anticipated the direction of Muertraigo’s initial attack. It came out of the darkness as the Spaniard launched a series of blinding cuts and slashes. Each stroke was fuelled by the arrogance of a master swordsman and Gabriel was forced to go on the defensive from the outset. He narrowly missed a thrust to his hip and another across his chest before he settled his balance and adapted to the stunning swiftness of Muertraigo’s sword.

Steel clashed on steel, with sparks flying off both blades as the two opponents searched for any opening to strike. Muertraigo challenged and feinted, testing Dante’s skill as well as his nerve, and grudgingly admired his ability to anticipate and block thrusts that would have sent a lesser swordsman reeling.

They circled like birds of prey, striking hot and fast, their blades moving in a blur, only to fall back and catch a breath, blink the sweat out of their eyes, and circle again. Both men scored cuts, both had slashes, nicks, and blood spattering their clothes. They grunted through the effort it took to drive an attack forward and cover the entire wide clearing, sending the circle of men scattering farther back into the trees each time.

Gabriel saw a wink of silver in the dirt and the fraction of an instant it took him to recognize Eva’s discarded locket cost him dearly. Muertraigo’s blade hacked across his ribs, cutting the flesh to the bone.

He spun away, groaning with the pain, and the Spaniard, hearing him, was relentless in pursuing his advantage. He slashed and sliced in a flurry of brilliant strokes that were too fast to block or turn away and Dante was forced back into a shallow furrow in the ground. He lost his footing and skidded sideways, but his balance was broken and he had no chance to recover. He saw the flash of steel lunging toward him and he saw the triumphant look in Muertraigo’s eyes. He braced his arm to take the blow but at the last possible second, angled his sword so that the tip slid along the oncoming steel. He twisted his arm with every ounce of strength he had remaining, and in a move he had only seen executed successfully once before, snapped the tension in Muertraigo’s wrist, causing his fingers to spring open and the hilt of the sword to fly out of his hand.

Shocked, Muertraigo stretched out to try keep hold of the hilt, giving Dante a clear, unguarded opening. He slashed his blade up and across, severing Muertraigo’s arm at the elbow.

“That was for my mother,” he gasped, “and this—“ he drew back and thrust again—“is for daring to touch the woman I love.”

Muertraigo felt something punch through his chest. He screamed in shock and horror as the double-edged length of steel was driven into his body. It carried enough anger, vengeance, and sheer force of will to lift him off his feet and skewer him to the trunk of a tree. His spine was shattered and his limbs turned instantly to jelly. His upper body sagged forward, the stump of his arm gouting blood, and he was dead before the hilt stopped quivering.

Dante staggered back, his chest heaving for breath. The front of his shirt was drenched red with blood. His legs buckled, sending him heavily to his knees.

He heard someone screaming his name and he saw a flash of long bare legs dashing toward him, but then he slumped forward and saw nothing at all.

EPILOGUE

“After all that’s happened, I’ll not be sorry to see the last of this place,” said William Chandler, a tear leaking down his cheek as he looked down over the two graves. They had been dug in a shaded patch of wildflowers overlooking the glittering silver water of the bight. After a month, grass and flowers had already covered the mounds, leaving only the markers to show what lay beneath. One of the graves bore a polished wood crossbow, the other a sword with a crimson and black sash wrapped around the hilt.

Evangeline leaned her head against her father’s arm, her eyes red-rimmed from weeping. The
Cormorant
was leaving today, sailing for home. So much had happened, so much had changed.

They heard a strangled snort behind them and glanced back to see Rowly blowing his nose in the hem of his shirt. “I blessed well told him there was too much powder in that last bell, but did he listen? Nay, nay. He had to pack it full didn’t he? And now look where he is. He’s lucky we found enough pieces to give a proper burial.”

“Master Giddings accomplished what he set out to do,” Gabriel said. “He opened a hole in the wreck large enough to empty her belly of every last ounce of treasure. I’ve no doubt he and Billy Crab have their heads together right now thinking of other, bigger ways to blow things up.”

Rowly nodded. He nodded again as if affirming the hopeful thought in his own mind before waving a last farewell to his mate’s grave and returning to the caverns to have one last look around. In another month Mother Nature would do her part and cover the trampled earth around the camp and the entrance to the caverns with gorse and weed. In a year the terrain would change so much even those who knew where the hulk lay would be hard-pressed to find the way in again.

The
Endurance
had returned two days after the final confrontation with Muertraigo, and was anchored alongside Geoffrey Pitt’s
Christiana
in the bight. Stubs had brought the news that neither the
Avenger
, belonging to Simon Dante, nor the
Tribute
, captained by Jonas Dante had returned to Pigeon Cay. While on New Providence, there had been reports of a second attempt by the Spanish to send a small treasure fleet home and they were curious to know what or who was on board to prompt them taking such a risk. Juliet had taken the
Iron Rose
out of port, ostensibly to test her repairs, but more likely to chase after her father and brother and join the hunt.

That had left only the
Christiana
to return to Espiritu Santu to support the
Endurance
. The two ships had come into the bight, bristling with open gunports, but to Stubs’ cap-stomping disappointment, the fun was over. All that remained was to help with salvaging the treasure and load it aboard the ships.

“It will give me great pleasure to change the name of my company back to what it was before Lawrence Ross came along,” William declared. “Chandler Shipping. And with the wealth we carry home in the hold of the
Cormorant
, we will build a fleet to rival anything the Dutch, the French, or anyone else has sailing the Ocean-Sea.”

William chuckled, seeing her struggle, and plopped his hat on his head. “Well, Daughter, I should get myself on board as well before those bastards sink her with the weight of the gold they’ve managed to stuff in their breeches. That, plus what she has in her holds should make her waddle like a women birthing twins. Are you certain you’ve taken enough for your share, Captain?”

“Half was more than generous,” Gabriel assured him.

“More practical than generous, lad,” William chuckled. “The sooner I spend through my share, the sooner I’ll have to come back and take up the life of a privateer with my new son-in-law.”

Dante shrugged. “I had to give your father a good reason not to take you home to Portsmouth with him. Marriage seemed as good as any.”

She lifted an eyebrow and refrained from elbowing his injured ribs. “How endearingly romantic.”

“I can be a romantic fellow,” he agreed. When she sighed, he laughed and swept his wide-brimmed hat off his head and went down on one knee. William rolled his eye and Eva was about to pull her hand out of his to stop the silliness, when he withdrew something from beneath his shirt.

It was Eva’s silver locket, cleaned and polished and mounted on a shiny new chain. The last time she had seen it, Muertraigo had torn it from around her neck and flung it away into the shadows. She had gone back to search for it half a dozen times over the past month, but had become resigned to the fact it was lost forever, either trampled into the soft ground or taken by one of the men.