D. MacHale - The Pilgrims of Rayne

The first guard was on me an instant later. He swung. I ducked. He swung again. I dodged. He was getting tired. I had a chance to put this guy away and took it. He swung one last time. I ducked. He overrotated. Perfect. I drilled him in the back of the head with the bottom of my foot. A perfect side kick. He went reeling forward toward the railing. He was stumbling out of control. I could have stopped him. I didn’t. Instead, I gave him one last push from behind, and he went tumbling over the side and into the water.

One down. Literally.

I felt the ship rumble. Whatever engines it had were growling to life. I didn’t even know this ship had engines. But it did, and the Jakills were firing them up.

Shouting came from somewhere on the shore. A few hundred yards away I saw a group of security thugs running along the rocks toward the pier. If they got to us before we shoved off, we’d be done.

The second guard was on me. He’d learned from his mistakes. He didn’t charge or throw himself on me. He stood a few yards away, knees bent, fists up, ready to fight. This was trouble. If he was going to come at me with more control, he’d do much better, and there was every possibility I’d be joining his friend in the water. I looked for an advantage, and saw one. My back was to the rail. The Jakill’s hooks were still dug into the wooden railing. I turned my back to the guard. I don’t think he knew what to make of that, because he hesitated. That was all I needed. I grabbed one of the cords. When I sensed the guard charge, I spun around and lashed it at him like a whip. The wiry cord slashed across the guard’s arm. It must have stung, because he yelped in pain. It was probably just as much surprise as pain though. He probably had no idea what hit him. I took the moment to yank the hook out of the wood.

I had a new weapon: a cord with a sharp, nasty three-pronged hook. With the cord in my left hand and the hook dangling from my right, I swung it back and forth, trying to intimidate the guy. His eyes went wide. He didn’t want to get impaled. That wouldn’t last long. The hook was only valuable as a threat. If he charged, what would I do? Swing it at him? The worst that would happen is it would cut him a little. All I could hope was that he wouldn’t realize what a lame weapon this really was. I needed time. The longer I kept him away, the more time the Jakills had to get this boat the hell away from the pier.

I felt the ship lurch. We were moving! Would it be fast enough? My heart leaped. So did the guard. He realized what was happening and knew he had to make his move. He lunged at me. I reared back to throw the hook. Suddenly the guard stopped short. It was as if he froze in his tracks. His mouth hung open. What the heck? A second later he fell to his knees and tumbled face-first onto the deck with a sickening thud. Ouch. He hit and didn’t move. I looked up to see that standing behind him was Siry, holding his wooden blowgun to his lips. Sticking out of the back of the guard was a small, green dart.

“Pretty exciting, isn’t it?” Siry said, pleased with himself. He was actually having fun. He and the Jakills went looking for adventure. They had found it already.

“Are we going to make it?” I asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” he said, sticking his blowgun into his belt. “Help me.”

He bent down to pick up the comatose guard. I grabbed his shoulders while Siry grabbed his legs. We struggled to carry him over to the pier side of the ship.

“Lower him over,” Siry commanded.

He dropped the guy’s legs over the side and I stretched out as far as I could before letting him go. The sleeping guard fell to the pier and crumpled like a rag doll.

“I hope we didn’t hurt him,” I said.

“Better than letting him drown,” Siry answered.

Rat boy ran up to us and pointed toward shore. “Here they come!” he shouted.

Sure enough, the gang of security thugs had turned onto the pier and were sprinting toward us.

“Speed would be good,” I said to Siry.

Siry ran for the ship’s wheel. It was an enormous, round wooden wheel that was positioned in front of the rear mast.

“Throttle up!” he screamed.

The ship’s engines hummed. I heard it, and felt it in my feet. Slowly, we moved away from the pier. The security thugs screamed and sprinted toward us. It was going to be close. The ship was moving, but painfully slowly. We were seconds from getting away.

“Push off!” Siry commanded.

I looked over the pier side rail to see several sets of hands reach out from portholes just above the water’s surface. They each had long, wooden poles that they used to push the ship away from the pier. We didn’t need to get far away, just a little farther than jumping distance from the pier. It struck me that Siry had thought of everything, even down to having the Jakills stationed down below to make the final push off.

The security guards sprinted along the pier to the stern of the ship, too late. One made a desperate leap. His hand barely brushed the railing as he tumbled into the water.

We were away. The engines powered up, and in no time we were moving quickly away from the pier and out of harm’s way. I couldn’t believe it. We’d made it! This group of kids had actually hijacked a ship. I had gotten so caught up in the adventure that I didn’t stop to think of how impossible a task it was. Maybe that was a good thing, because as it turned out, it wasn’t impossible at all. I looked back to the pier to see the dozen or so security guards standing there, helpless, watching one of their beautiful new ships motoring away.

All the Jakills ran on deck, cheering and hugging. I didn’t know how long they had been planning this, but it was definitely a moment of victory.

Loque came up to me and shook my hand.

“You had me worried for a minute,” he said.

“Not half as worried as I was,” I replied.

“I’m glad you’re aboard, Pendragon,” he said sincerely.

We were on our way, but to where? Siry guided the ship along the coast, headed toward the mouth of the bay that led to the village of Rayne. Far in the distance, over the ocean, the sun was rising. It was a beautiful sight. It was the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Ibara. It was an awesome moment.

That didn’t last long.

Boom! Without thinking, I dropped to the deck. The Jakills didn’t. A second later something whistled over our heads. The Jakills stood there, confused.

“Get down!” I screamed. “They’re firing at us!”

“‘Firing’? What do you mean?” Siry cried. “What was that sound?”

Boom! Another explosion. Nobody moved but me. I covered my head. I heard another sharp whistle as something flew

By.

“Get down!” I screamed again.

Siry truly didn’t know what was happening. I saw nothing but confusion on the faces of the Jakills. Not fear. Confusion. I realized that they had never heard of weapons that fired missiles, or cannonballs, or whatever it was that was being aimed at us. There was no reason for them to be afraid. That is, until we were hit.

“What is happening?” Loque yelled.

“I don’t know!” I screamed back. “But if we get hit, this ship is going down.”

“I don’t understand,” Siry cried.

“They’re trying to sink us!” I yelled. “Get away from shore! We’ve got to get out of range of their weapons.”

“No!” Siry yelled. “There are no weapons in Rayne that can do that!”

Boom!

“Then what was that?” I yelled, before covering my head again.

The missile landed close to the ship, kicking up a geyser of water that buffeted us.

Rat boy squealed, “How can they do that?” “Look,” Twig said calmly.

She was pointing out to sea. I got up and joined the others as they ran to the railing to see.