The Lost Prince (8 page)

Dean landed on his feet and turned around just in time to see the mast deal the captain a crippling blow. He watched from below as Gentleman Jim’s body took flight.

“CAPTAIN!” Ronan cried.

Dean sprang up and poked his head out of the hatch. Gentleman Jim was nowhere to be seen. Most of the crew was gone too. The swinging mast had all but cleared the deck. Dean pulled himself up out of the hatch and ran to look over the side. Half the crew was in the water and swimming for their lives. Gentleman Jim was floating facedown, bobbing along like a piece of driftwood. Ronan dove in after him before Dean even had a chance to point him out. He reached the captain quickly and turned him onto his back, supporting him about the neck and shoulders. Ronan looked around for a piece of floating wreckage to grab hold of before they both drowned.

Dean spied a pirate rowing alone in one of the lifeboats that had come off the
Reckless.
“You there! Turn around! The captain’s been injured!”

The pirate turned his head, but he didn’t turn the boat. Dean’s heart sank when he saw it was Rook steering the lifeboat.

“Seaborne!” Ronan called out. “I’ll take care of the captain! You take whatever you can and get off that ship!” He turned and yelled to Rook. “Ahoy! Toss me a line, you lice-infested sea bass!”

Rook held up a length of rope and grinned a slimy grin. Dean figured there was about as much chance of Rook sprouting angel’s wings and flying off to heaven as there was of him lifting a finger to help Gentleman Jim. Luckily, Rook’s hand was forced when a few more boys climbed into the tiny boat and he was no longer alone. Bowing under pressure from his shipmates, he threw out the line.

Without the captain, the evacuation devolved into chaos. Dean called for Kane and Marko, but they had jumped ship with the rest of the crew. He was left alone on board with all the food and water.

“Perfect,” Dean grunted as he watched the freshwater stores roll around below. They needed those provisions, but he couldn’t bring them up alone. With the bow of the
Reckless
already dipping below the waves, the ship’s angle was too steep and unforgiving to merit even an attempt. Raising each barrel took two men when the ship was level.

“Think,” Dean told himself. He paced the ship, racking his brain for a solution as the front end of the
Reckless
sank deeper and deeper below the waves. Meanwhile, the stern end of the ship rose higher and higher out of the water. Dean went to the side and grabbed on to the gunwale for balance. That was when he looked over the railing and saw a hole in the ship’s hull two decks down. Dean snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” He grabbed a hatchet and jumped back down through the main cargo hatch. If he couldn’t bring the cargo up, he’d roll it out instead.

Dean ran to the ship’s store of rations and went to work pushing the food and water across the floor. It should have been an impossible task for a boy his size, but as the ship continued to sink, the floor’s incline increased. With a little help from gravity, he was able to roll all the barrels down through a hatch that led to the ship’s middle deck. Once that was done, he jumped down after them and ran to the opening in the wall he’d spotted from up above. Moonlight poured in through the ship’s wounded hull, which was preferable to seawater, but Dean was not seeing
enough
light. The hole was only slightly larger than the cannonball that had created it. Dean had to make it bigger if he meant to get the barrels out that way.

He swung his hatchet into the planks of wood surrounding the hole. He pried boards loose and kicked them out as the
Reckless
sank. Packs of rats scurried under his legs and out through the break in the wall as he hacked away. “Brilliant,” he said, grumbling.
“Just brilliant. Staying on board a ship when even the rats know it’s time to leave!”

He gave the wall one final blow as the last wave of rats ran by him. The hole was now wide enough for the barrels to easily pass through. On the lower deck, gravity now worked against Dean. He had to move the barrels uphill to get them off the ship, but thanks to his work with the hatchet, the hull was wide open. Bracing his back against the wall and pushing with his legs, Dean sent the rations out over the side, one after the other. His shipmates outside cheered him, but he took little notice. At this point, it no longer mattered if the Pirate Youth accepted him as one of their own. With or without a ship, Gentleman Jim was going down. Dean’s report would see to that. The Pirate Youth’s days were done. All that mattered now was getting off the
Reckless
before it was too late. Dean knew he couldn’t get all the barrels out, but he vowed to save as much food and water as he possibly could. It was either that or pray for rain, and maybe even turn cannibal out on the open sea. He found neither alternative appealing. The very idea kept him going back for more barrels.

He finally had to stop when the bow of the
Reckless
became completely submerged. The stern climbed up high into the air, and the ship rose to an angle that was hard for Dean to move across. The slope of the incline was so steep and the floor so slippery that he struggled to negotiate the deck. He threw out a
few coiled piles of rope to tie the barrels together and prepared to take his leave.

“Godspeed, old girl.” Dean patted the ship’s hull. “You held out as long as you could.”

The
Reckless
groaned in reply. Dean froze in place. Was the ship talking to him? Dean realized his mistake when he saw the straight beams of the hull begin to curve. He drew in a sharp breath as the wooden frame of the
Reckless
strained against gravity and bent, right at its center— right where he was standing. The stern was rising too high. The ship was approaching a vertical orientation and buckling under its own weight.

Wood splintered and broke all around him. The floor, the wall, the ceiling … everything was torn asunder as the ship split in half. It was the loudest sound Dean had ever heard at sea, louder than a thousand cannons. He shielded his eyes as the deck cracked and fell away beneath him. He fell right along with the broken pieces of the ship. The ocean wrapped itself around him, and the currents sucked him down deep.

CHAPTER
8

I
n the water, Dean got tangled in rope lines from the sails and rigging. He tried to kick them off, but that only served to make matters worse. Ropes tightened around Dean’s limbs like octopus tentacles as the sinking ship pulled him down, refusing to let go. The water grew colder and darker with each passing second. Dean’s mind flashed back to the harrowing minute he had spent underwater with the sharks. That was nothing compared to this. As painful as being eaten alive would have been, it would have at least been over quickly. Drowning on board the
Reckless
would take time. Dean didn’t want to die like that. He didn’t want to die, period. Thoughts spun around his head like the wheel of a ship with no helmsman there to steady it. He thrashed about like
a fish caught in a net until finally he realized brute force wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He gathered up his wits, along with the hatchet he’d nearly forgotten, and cut himself free. By then, he didn’t know which end was up, but he followed the bubbles and swam for the stars. His lungs felt ready to burst.

A few moments later, Dean broke through to the surface and breathed deep, grateful breaths.

“Here!” Ronan yelled, pulling him out of the water and into the boat. Barrels of food and water floated all around them. The crew was scattered across the waves, fighting to stay on top of the rations.

“Did everyone get off?” Dean asked.

“Aye.” Ronan nodded. “Now that you’re here. You took your time, Seaborne. That was either the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, or the craziest.”

Dean settled into the lifeboat, breathing heavily. “Probably a bit of both.” He looked at the wounded captain, then out at the wreck of the
Reckless.
“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

Ronan watched the ship slip away. “No, I suppose it won’t, at that.” He patted Dean on the back. “You did right by us here, swabbie. Good job.”

Dean leaned out of Ronan’s reach. “I didn’t do it for you. We’re dead without those provisions, remember?”

Ronan laughed. “Don’t kid yourself. We’re dead either way. We already didn’t have enough gold to give One-Eyed Jack a
proper tribute. That was bad enough, but now we’ve lost his ship as well! The only good news is the ocean will kill us long before he gets a chance.”

Dean grimaced. “I take it the captain didn’t name you first mate for your optimism.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong. We’re a few days from shore in any direction. We’ll never make land just bobbing along the waves, and any ship willing to rescue the likes of us will probably be filled with men who want to see us hanged. What do you think is going to happen out here?”

Dean nodded gloomily as the waves lapped against the tiny boat. Something in the water caught his eye. “I don’t know. You never can tell what the tide will bring in.” Out of nowhere, the handheld sail Dean had discarded earlier when approaching the
Santa Clara
drifted up. He snatched it out of the water. More sails could be seen floating among the wreckage. With the means to catch the wind, land didn’t seem so impossibly far off anymore.

“Look at that,” Ronan said. “First bit of luck we’ve had on this run. I’ll take that as a good omen. Lord knows we could use one.”

More than you know
, thought Dean, feeling guilty again. He rolled up the sail and stowed it next to the sleeping captain. “We’d best get to work.”

Over the next few hours, the former crew of the
Reckless
used the rope lines Dean had salvaged to tie up anything that would float. Dean’s efforts to save the barrels and rigging proved to be the
difference between life and death as the Pirate Youth fashioned together a giant wooden mound. It was an impressive construct, more island than raft, and large enough to fit the full crew of fifty pirates. Granted, nearly half of them had to hang off the side and float along, but that was better than being left behind.

They spent the next few days floating around the Caribbean and trying to reach the nearest island. Dean and a few others used the miniature sails to catch the wind and pull the raft forward, while Ronan organized the crew and assigned tasks to keep them focused on the positive work of staying alive. He did an able job filling in for the captain, who was still passed out in a lifeboat tied to the raft. Ronan had done all he could to make Gentleman Jim comfortable. A satchel was placed beneath his head for a pillow, and a few swatches of fabric were propped up over his body to keep him in the shade. He woke up only for a few feverish, delirious moments at a time. Those moments passed as quickly as they came, and all hands on deck were thankful for it. Odds did not favor the captain living to see the shore. Odds didn’t favor anyone on board. Floating on barrels filled with water, salted meats, and pickled vegetables had given the crew a boost to start their journey, but water and supplies were running low even before the
Reckless
went down. It was only a matter of time before morale started to crack.

The Pirate Youth drank no water on their first day. On the days that followed, rations were kept to sips. Even the captain
got his, though he drank last and took the least. Ronan would bring a small amount to Gentleman Jim and pour it in his mouth. By the second day, Dean could see that Rook considered this a waste of water, but it took him until the third night to do anything about it.

Dean was up late manning one of the sails when he saw Rook creep past his sleeping shipmates. Dean would have paid Rook no mind if he had just walked across the raft normally, but the focused effort he made to be quiet seemed suspicious. Everything about Rook seemed suspicious, the object he had concealed in his right hand most of all. Rook stopped at the edge of the raft and picked up the rope tied to Gentleman Jim’s launch. He pulled the line tight and crouched down before it. A dagger twinkled in the moonlight. Dean drew in a sharp breath.
He means to cut him loose.

Thinking fast, Dean let out the sail and jumped into the air. The wind carried him across the raft in a flash. “Avast!”

Rook whirled around with his knife drawn, but he wasn’t ready for Dean flying through the air at such a speed. Dean threw his feet into Rook’s chest and knocked him back into the ocean. Ronan woke up when he heard the splash. “What just happened?”

Dean let go of one end of the sail and landed next to Ronan. “Not much. Rook offered to give up his place on the raft, that’s all.”

“What? Man overboard!”

“No, you don’t understand,” Dean said, picking up Rook’s knife. “He tried to cut the captain’s line.”

Ronan’s eyes lit up with rage. “Rook, you double-crossing cur.”

A wave splashed Rook in the face, and he choked down a mouthful of salt water. “The cap’n’s dead! We’ll all die of thirst if you keep wastin’ our water on ’im!”