James Nelson - The Guardship

He pulled the door open, quickly, and leapt aside before LeRois could put a bullet into him. But there were no shots fired, no noise of any kind from within.

He stepped forward, peered through the door and down the alleyway. There was a short hall, lined with small cabins, that terminated at the far end with the master’s great cabin, all in darkness save for a single lantern burning in the aft cabin. It was just as he remembered it from the time that he and Bickerstaff had come aboard to enforce the king’s rules governing trade. It seemed years before.

Marlowe wiped his slick palm on his coat, pulled his remaining pistol from his cross-belt, cocked the lock with his thumb. He breathed deeply, again and again, as if relishing

the very act of breathing, as a man might relish a last meal, then he stepped into the dark alleyway.

He put a foot down on the deck, carefully, let his weight come on it slowly, and listened. The fighting on the deck had swelled in pitch, and Marlowe guessed that Bickerstaff and his men had come over the side, but he pushed those sounds aside and concentrated on the space around him.

There was nothing, no sound at all, save for the faint protest of the deck under his foot. He took another step inboard. Nothing. Perhaps LeRois was waiting aft in the great cabin. He ran his eyes over what little part of the place was visible to him, readjusted his grip on the pistol, and stepped forward again.

Then the door to the small cabin behind him seemed to explode outward, shards of wood showering the deck and light bursting into the dark confines. Marlowe twisted around as the great cudgel of a torch swung in an arc toward his head, behind it the big, grinning face of Jean-Pierre LeRois. He raised the pistol, and his finger squeezed the trigger as the torch slammed into the side of his head, knocking him against the bulkhead. The alleyway and the flames and the pirate swam in front of him, and his knees buckled from under him.

LeRois’s laugh filled the space, as loud and sudden as the pistol shot. “Quartermaster, I am the devil himself, your bullets do not harm me! I have waited for you all night and you try to shoot me? No, no, we must go down to hell together!”

Marlowe slumped to the deck. His right hand grabbed up his sword, moving by instinct alone, but he did not have the strength to raise the blade in his defense. He felt LeRois’s hand on his collar, felt the massive strength of the man’s arm, felt himself being dragged aft along the deck. He clung to his sword as if it alone were keeping him alive.

His shoulder slammed into the door frame as LeRois pulled him into the great cabin. He was pulling Marlowe as if he were a child, pulling him into the aft cabin with one hand while he held the torch aloft with the other.

Marlowe tried again to raise the sword, tried to drive it through the pirate, and he managed to get his arm to move when he felt the deck disappear beneath him. He was falling, plunging down into the dark, and before he even realized that he was falling he stopped, slamming into the deck below.

His sword wrenched from his hand. He heard it clatter away in the dark. He rolled over. Above him was the square hatch through which he had been dropped, and beyond that the white painted deckhead in the great cabin.

Then the hatch was filled with LeRois’s huge frame. Marlowe rolled out of the way, and the pirate jumped down after him. He heard the man’s boots hit the deck a foot away, and his only thought was to get his sword.

He rolled again, onto his stomach, and looked up, waiting for LeRois to run him through. They were in the hold, the lowest part of the Wilkenson Brothers , and the black space was now lit with the flames from LeRois’s torch. The pirate was stamping off forward as if he did not know Marlowe was there.

Thomas pushed himself to his knees. His head was still spinning from the blow, his shoulders and one knee ached from the impact with the deck. The wound he had received when he first leapt aboard was bleeding again, but his thoughts were on nothing but his sword and LeRois’s back.

He could just see his sword, all but lost in shadow. He clenched his teeth, shuffled over and picked it up, then painfully stood.

LeRois was at the far end of the hold. He was bending over, holding the torch to a black pot on the deck. It sputtered and lit, like a little bonfire. He turned and lit another and another. Smoke poured from each as it took flame.

LeRois straightened and turned, squinting into the shadows. Thomas did not move.

“Barrett? Are you here, Barrett?” LeRois’s voice was pleasant, as if welcoming a guest into his home. “We are in hell now, mon ami , and we will see which of us can last the longer. We will fight to see who rules here, eh?”

Marlowe crouched, held his sword in front of him. LeRois was a mad dog; he had to be killed. He took a step forward.

The hold was filling with smoke, yellow smoke, that made a halo around the pirate’s torch. Thomas’s eyes were burning and watering, his lungs ached. It was brimstone burning in those pots. LeRois had set brimstone on fire, and now the hold was filling with the sulfur smoke. He had indeed created his own hell, and now they would do battle to see who was prince of the underworld.

Marlowe knew he could not last long in that yellow fog, but neither could he leave LeRois to his own devices. He had to finish the pirate and go.

He made his way along the hold, his various aches and wounds all but forgotten in the energy gleaned from the pending battle. He moved toward the flaring light of the torch. He could no longer see LeRois through the smoke, but perhaps the bastard was still holding the thing. He held his hand out, feeling his way, unable to see more than a few feet in any direction.

“You have been haunting me, Malachias Barrett,” the pirate called out from the fog. “Your spirit has been haunting me, but now the devil has made you flesh so that we can see who is to be capitain , eh? Capitain in hell.”

The voice seemed to come from the direction of the flames, but Marlowe could not tell for certain. Still he kept moving toward the burning torch, the only reference in the dark and smoke-filled hold. Ten feet away. He paused and listened. He could not see LeRois. The torch did not move; it looked as if it might have been jammed in place. Perhaps LeRois was not there at all.

And then he heard a flurry behind him, a rustle, sensed a motion at his back. He spun around, sword up, horizontal, and out of the yellow smoke LeRois’s weapon came down with the familiar shock and ring of steel on steel.

Marlowe twisted his blade aside, knocking LeRois’s sword away, then stepped forward on the attack. He could just see the man now, shadows of a black beard and a swirling coat, the suggestion of wild eyes through the sulfur smoke.

Marlowe slashed away, but LeRois’s blade was back, fending him off. Marlowe swung again and again, wielding the sword like an ax, driving LeRois back. He could hear the old pirate’s breath coming harder, realized that he was gasping as well, forced to take shallow breaths to avoid choking in that lethal atmosphere.

Here we are again, Barrett and LeRois, he thought. Both a little older and a little slower, and the Vengeance beneath them might not be the same as that of years before, but it was the same fight.

He had to kill LeRois and get out. He lunged, but his sword found only air. LeRois was gone.

Thomas stopped, crouched low, listened. He closed his eyes and was rewarded with a wave of relief from the burning sulfur. Overhead he could hear the muffled sounds of the men still locked in battle. He took a step back and felt his shoulder press against something. It felt like a cask. He could hear LeRois breathing, somewhere off in the smoke.