Carrie Vaughn: Steel

Abe took up the command. “All hands! All hands! Let the sheets out!”

Then Captain Cooper’s voice came through during a heartbeat of calm. “We’re comin’ up on them, lads! Ready arms!”

Amidst the smoke and splinters, then, the dozen or so crew above decks swarmed to the rigging. Jill took her place at the fore mainsail. She looked out, trying to see the Heart’s Revenge through the haze. The ship heeled as Abe turned her hard to starboard. Jill had become used to the rolling lurch of a ship making a turn like this, and balanced on loose knees, ready to haul line. Henry had the same position opposite her, on the port side, grinning, like always.

The schooner was now headed directly toward the Heart’s Revenge .

Cooper had picked the right moment in the two ships’ circling. Because the Diana had the wind behind her, she had the speed. Blane’s ship was sluggish to react.

At the captain’s command, most of the crew had gathered on the deck with an array of weapons: muskets, braces of pistols crossed over their chests, some combination of swords and daggers in both hands, and then spears and pikes—they’d probably started out as boat hooks.

Jill felt Blane’s sword sing. She turned it in her hand, testing a movement, a disengage and attack, and marveled at how well balanced it was. It didn’t seem to weigh anything, as if it really was an extension of her arm. Maybe she could fight Blane.

The crew didn’t shout, didn’t stand at the rail, carrying on in order to intimidate the other crew. There was no point to that. This time, they stood silent and ready.

Shouting carried from the deck of the other ship—maneuvering orders, commands to adjust the sails. Calls to arms, to battle.

The Diana was going to ram the other ship head on, out of reach of cannon fire. Jill couldn’t believe it, but what else could happen? The ship sailed forward, strong and sure, her bowsprit leading like a sword. The Heart’s Revenge seemed to bob, stationary, trying to turn but having no wind to move her.

“Hard to starboard! Hard over!” Cooper shouted at the last minute, and the ship lurched, turning in as sharp an arc as Jill had yet seen. When the Diana did collide with the Heart’s Revenge , instead of shattering into her hull, piercing her with her bowsprit and becoming hopelessly tangled, the two ships came together bow to bow, hulls pressing together. Wood groaned.

The Diana seemed tiny next to Blane’s three-masted monster of a ship. The other ship’s deck rose above the Diana ’s to the height of a person. A mass of the other crew crowded to the edge, shouting in fury. Then they started jumping over.

The crew of the Diana backed away and let them come; they’d have been cut down if they’d tried to throw ropes up and climb aboard the Heart’s Revenge . So the enemy crew piled down to the deck of the Diana , where the Diana ’s crew met them head-on.

The madness had a method to it: Those with muskets and pistols took up positions in the front and let loose a volley, cannon in miniature, that took out the first of those who’d boarded. That left the stragglers for the swords and daggers, while the next round of muskets and pistols came forward. Jill didn’t know if there was another round after that, and there wasn’t time to reload.

She fought. No time for precision here, no time for planning or elegance. Nobody was watching to admire her stance or judge her skill. She’d only win if she came through this alive. It was much more focused incentive than a medal or championship qualification.

Letting her vision go soft, she could take in action on the whole deck, at least in abstract. People moved all around; the enemy was in front, and her friends were around her. But the enemy was trying to cut through the line. She cut back. Once the muskets and pistols had all fired, the battle became a tangle of blades.

Fencing is easy , the joke went. You just put the pointy end in the other person.

Jill tried. She blocked with the dagger Henry had given her and slashed with her rapier, half knowing that the slashing was distracting her enemy at best. Then the line ahead of her broke and a target presented itself.

A scroungy man with an angry snarl, broken teeth, and a chipped sword in each hand. He might even have been one of the ones who would have thrown her over the cliff back on New Providence. He was slashing at one of her crewmates, shouting, beating him down—the man only had a pair of daggers. A spent musket lay at his feet. The attacker didn’t see Jill at all, right beside him.

This was how it went, then.

She thrust, stabbing him under the ribs, twisting her sword, then lunging back and out of the way. It was easier than she thought it would be—took barely any effort at all. Flesh was fragile. The blood came far too easily. She didn’t have time to think of it.

Screeching, he arched his back, flailing at nothing. Blood poured out, turning his unwashed tunic red. She slashed at his arm; he dropped the sword. The Diana crewman lunged next, dagger straight out, and put it in the man’s gut. He, too, made a wrenching move and turned away, keeping hold of the weapon—you didn’t want to lose your weapon here. The attacker doubled over, groaning wretchedly. He wasn’t dead, but he was done.

The man she’d helped—Matthews—nodded at her and plunged back in the fight.

A sheen of blood marred the upper third of Blane’s rapier, fresh and glaring.

A mass battle changed more quickly, was more frenetic, than a duel. Jill decided she liked dueling better. Here, people fought in groups, three and four of them, watching each other’s backs. A crowd of them would bunch together, then suddenly the area where they’d been would clear as the groups split and reformed somewhere else, and so the fighting ranged all over the ship. Jill lunged and slashed at anyone who approached. She did it more to keep the space around her clear than she did to hurt or kill anyone. If she could just keep a clear space around herself, she’d be safe.

Then, for a brief moment, no one else came for her. The battle hadn’t stopped; crashing weapons and shouted curses still dominated, drowning even the splash of waves against hulls and the rippling of sails. Jill came to rest against the foremast, leaning against the stout pole to catch her breath.

Across the ship, she caught sight of Captain Cooper. The captain was staring toward the deck of the Heart’s Revenge with murder in the set of her jaw. The woman sheathed her sword.

Captain Cooper hauled herself up the shroud, as skilled and nimble as any of her crew, and hacked at a line, one of the ropes hanging off the yard of the mainsail. Then she climbed it, pushed off the mast, and swung to the deck of the Heart’s Revenge . She actually swung—just like in the movies, after all.

When the captain reached the enemy’s deck, she drew her sword and looked around, urgent. She was on the hunt and out for blood.

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 .