Chase the Morning

I tore at the net, only entangling myself further – but freed Jyp, nearest its edge. He scrabbled up and swung himself onto the rail. Heavy boots boomed across the deck after him, but I saw him launch himself away in a creditable swallow dive, his injured arm outflung. From below came shouts and splashes as sailors, warned by the struggle, flung themselves off the ladders and out of the boats. A ghastly baying of Wolf voices arose, the crackle of pistols and the flatter bang of muskets. My sword was snagged under me; I struggled for it, flopping and twisting like a landed fish, with Mall clawing and snarling above me. Then, planting her knee in my stomach, she heaved herself up and caught two great handfuls of the net, about to tear it apart; and she might have managed, even with her inner fires dulled. But May Henry loomed above her, dough-faced, glassy-eyed, and struck down viciously with a belaying pin; Mall fell kicking on top of me, clutching her head, and I felt her jerk as the pin sang against her skull a second time.

With the force of that blow the bandanna slipped – and Clare, trapped beneath Mall and myself, screamed in horror. From beneath it gaped a great jagged gouge in the she-pirate’s throat, a black bloodless trench, bare to a gleam of spine-bone. I surged up with a yell, throwing Mall off me, and grabbed Clare. With the net still tangled around us I hurled myself at the quarterdeck ladder, and by some access of strength I almost made it. Till my foot slipped in a pool of tarry slime, and I came crashing down almost on top of something horrible that lay in the door of the foc’sle cabin. A firescorched mass, surrounded by a great star of charred timber, only vaguely human in outline; but by a hank of long hair and a scrap of ragged black that had escaped at one edge I knew it must be the girl Le Stryge had called Peg Powler. They had come prepared this time; and polluted water had not put out their flame.

My hair was seized, my head jerked back. I stared up into Wolf eyes and others, dark eyes narrowed in exultant, gloating faces. Not handsome faces; their silhouettes were odder than the Wolves’. Their earlobes drooped low, their lips were scarred, their brows oddly flattened and narrowed, and the whole was covered in lacy traceries of black, paint or tattoo that all but hid the coppery yellow shade beneath. Against the glowing sky something swung up, fell. A burst of agonizing light –

I don’t know whether I went out entirely, or for how long. I seemed to feel myself being turned over, my head bumping sickeningly on the deck, the blood-stopping bite of thongs; and I do remember being hoisted bodily, trussed like a hog, by hands that were deadly cold. Yet perhaps I was already ashore by then, the swaying motion that of the pole I was slung from, the soft sighing rush the wind in the leaves again. My first clear memory was the deadly sickness, the rush of vomit in my throat, the coughing panic as it almost choked me. I managed to turn my head to clear it, just; and after that, though my skull seemed to swell and contract at every throbbing heartbeat, I felt a bit more alive and aware. Very shaken and light-headed, though, and utterly exhausted; unsure whether what I could see of the procession that bore me was real or a fever dream, flaring and flickering like the torch-flames, stuttering like the drums and the low droning voices. Long Wolf-limbs strode and shuffled, half-dancing to the dull beat. Shorter ones stalked beside them, naked and covered in that same black tracery; the red torchlight and the shifting muscles gave it a horrible animation, like a grating into hell. Only the feet that carried me didn’t dance, but plodded along, leaden and stolid as any laden ox. They paid no heed to any obstacles, branch or jutting rock, but blundered into them and past, and swung me against them just as carelessly. Battered, bruised, scratched and sickened, I lost all sense of time till I was flung bodily down among soft grasses, with the pole on top of me. The jar made my head swim again. I barely caught the hoarse whisper from the dark beside me.

‘Howdy.’

At first I couldn’t speak. ‘Oh – hi, Jyp. Didn’t make it, eh?’

‘Caught me in the shallows. This goddam arm. Not the Wolves, the Caribs – not nice guys. Held my head under a few times for sport – God knows why they didn’t just finish the job.’

Fear crawled. ‘The others? Mall – Clare –’

‘I’ve seen Clare. Zombies dumped her up there a ways – awake and okay, so far. Mall I didn’t see …’

‘She – they hit her pretty hard, Jyp.’ I didn’t want to say more; nor he to hear it.

He was silent awhile, against the background of jabbering Wolf voices. ‘Skipper’s here, anyhow, and what’s left of the crew.’

‘Jyp – did you see? May Henry –’