Stephanie Laurens - The Daredevil Snared

By then the other slavers had leapt to their feet, but before they could move to engage Caleb and Phillipe, they were distracted by, and then forced to turn and defend against, the rest of Caleb and Phillipe’s company.

Straightening, Caleb glanced over the heads and confirmed all was on track.

Long before the first shout had sounded—before Kale was alerted to the disruption—Carter and Reynaud had clambered onto the barracks’ porch and spilled their burdens of cleaned logs made from branches three and four inches thick before the door. Then they’d leapt back and put their spines to the barracks’ front wall. Two others had joined them, waiting to pounce when Kale and company emerged at a run—and pitched every which way on the rolling logs.

Caleb swore as a loose slaver made a run for him, cutlass swinging; he had to look away and miss the action on the porch.

Clang!

Caleb’s sword met the slaver’s cutlass. He threw the man back, then advanced, sword whirling.

The slaver was shorter than Caleb’s six-plus feet and scrawny to boot. Caleb’s longer reach and greater strength soon put paid to the villain. He fell, eyes rolling up. Caleb yanked his sword free of the man’s chest and turned.

Chaos filled the camp. The fighting was ferocious, every bit as desperate as Caleb had foreseen. There were more men down, but as far as Caleb could tell, all were slavers. The fighting in front of the barracks was intense, but his and Phillipe’s men now held the porch itself, an advantage in the circumstances.

But he couldn’t see Kale.

Another slaver rushed him, and he had to turn and deal with the man. That took longer than he would have liked—the man had had some training somewhere and was taller and stronger than most of his fellows. He actually managed to nick Caleb’s forearm, which reminded Caleb that he wasn’t fighting any gentleman; he lashed out with his boot, catching the slaver unawares and driving his heel into the man’s midsection. The slaver doubled up, and then he was dead.

A sudden flaring of instinct had Caleb swinging around, counting heads—almost desperately searching for something going wrong.

His gaze fell on Phillipe, who was engaged in a furious battle with the man known as Rogers.

Phillipe was tall, but had a fencer’s build—all supple wiriness. He was lethally fast with any blade. He was currently fighting with the traditional sword most captains favored; the blade flashed and gleamed as he countered Rogers’s every strike.

But Rogers was stronger, heavier, and had a longer reach—and was wielding a much heavier, wickedly curved blade. From the feverish anticipation in Rogers’s face, he believed he had Phillipe beaten. Phillipe was, indeed, hard pressed but still countering fluidly, his elegant features distorted in a snarl.

Caleb knew better than to distract his friend.

Then Phillipe gave Rogers an opening.

With a triumphant roar, Rogers swung and struck—

Empty air. Phillipe wasn’t anywhere near where Rogers had expected him to be.

Phillipe straightened behind Rogers. He slammed the hilt of his sword into Rogers’s nape, then plunged a knife that seemed to appear out of thin air into the man’s back.

Rogers gasped and collapsed. Phillipe whirled, saw Caleb watching, and snapped off a grim salute.

In concert, they turned toward the main barracks and waded anew into the fray, assisting their men as they swept on toward the porch, leaving nothing but dead slavers behind them.

Caleb tapped two of their men on their shoulders and, with a hand sign, set them to scout the edges of the fight to ensure no slaver, sensing impending doom, attempted to slip away. It was imperative that no word of Kale and his men’s fate reached Freetown.

Rogers falling had marked the turning of the tide, but Caleb and his company were too experienced to let down their guard. As Caleb and Phillipe pushed forward, their men fell in around them, forming an unstoppable wave. Together, they put paid to the last of the slavers.

All except Kale.

His back to the raised front of the barracks’ porch, the man was a dervish, keeping a semicircle of Caleb and Phillipe’s men at bay with a pair of flashing blades.

With Robert’s description of Kale’s potential menace etched in his brain, Caleb had warned their men that unless they had an easy and definitely lethal shot at Kale, they were to hem him in but not engage.

As Caleb and Phillipe joined their men, the circle drew back fractionally, leaving the pair of them standing shoulder to shoulder facing Kale.

They’d halted at a respectable—respectful—distance. Kale took stock of them, his blades now still.

The slavers’ leader was shorter than Caleb, shorter than Phillipe, but Kale was the very epitome of wiry, and the way he held himself, at ease but on the balls of his feet, poised to explode into action, with his curious twin blades—slightly curved like elongated scimitars—held firmly and perfectly balanced, but with loose, supple wrists, screamed to the initiated that he was lethally fast.

Fast, fast, fast.

There was a flatness in his wintry eyes that stated he’d killed so many times it had become all but instinctive—a part of his nature.

From the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Phillipe’s jaw set, then Phillipe reached to his other side—to Reynaud, who understood the unspoken command and placed his loaded pistol in Phillipe’s hand.

Kale had tracked the movement. He sneered. “What? No honor in your justice?” He spat the last word, but not at Phillipe. Kale’s gaze had fastened on Caleb, and the challenge was clearly directed at him.

Caleb met Kale’s gaze. In the art of manipulation, Caleb knew beyond question that he could give Kale lessons, but...that wasn’t the point here. He knew he was being goaded, that Kale wanted to fight him, believing he, Kale, would win, and that doing so would somehow win his freedom, at least from immediate dispatch. In situations such as this, for men such as Kale, surviving even an hour more meant an hour’s more chance to escape.

Or to take others with him on his journey from this world. A revenge of sorts.

If Caleb had been operating as he usually did, he would have responded immediately, and he and Kale would fight; he’d never walked away from a challenge—or from a fight—in his life. However, this time...what was right?

Head tilting, Caleb continued to regard Kale while weighing the pros and cons. He’d lectured his men against taking undue risks; shouldn’t he hold himself to the same standard regardless of Kale’s baiting?

But what of that sticky wicket called leadership? How he dealt with this situation would inevitably impinge on his standing with his men, and with Phillipe’s, too.

More, Kale had questioned—had maligned—justice. Not Caleb but the concept of justice they were there to serve.

Didn’t that demand some answer? Not just on his part but on behalf of their whole company?

Didn’t Kale’s challenge speak to and question the validity of why they were there, and more, the justification for what they had done—the lives they’d already taken that day?

Beside him, Phillipe shifted, darting a glance at his face. “Caleb...we are judge and jury here. Curs such as he have no claim to the honor of a fair fight in lieu of sentence.”

Who said I intend to fight fairly? Kale certainly won’t.

Kale’s pale gaze hadn’t left Caleb’s face. Phillipe might as well not have spoken for all the reaction Kale gave.

But Caleb’s steady regard was something Kale found more difficult to tolerate. His lip curled in a sneer. “What, son—cat got your tongue?”

Caleb smiled. “No. I’m merely debating the irony of engaging with vermin such as you over the value of justice.”