Chapter Eleven
Yo-Ho
John fired a shot first. Wherever it was aimed, Sariah didn’t know, but she fell to the floor anyway. The bullet missed its target, and Charlotte de Berry swung her sword in a large arc. John dodged it and fired again, but Charlotte was already moving by the time his finger pulled the trigger.
For all the times she’d bested Davy Jones and Blackbeard, Sariah was at a loss for what to do against her two kidnappers. She waved the sword between them, but, luckily for her, both brothers seemed far too preoccupied with their more advanced enemy.
James swung himself over the railing of the small incline so that he landed right behind Charlotte. She never took her eyes off John, but fired several shots behind her towards the other brother. All of these shots went wide, but she’d managed to disarm John and stall James.
But James reared back and prepared for a blow.
“Watch out!” Sariah shrieked.
Her feet were moving before she could tell them that drawing attention to herself was a bad idea. But there she was, halfway across the deck, only a small girl with a cutlass against two bloodthirsty hunters.
But Charlotte was on her side. Charlotte grabbed John and twisted them around until the two switched places. James bellowed and pulled back at the last moment to avoid skewering his brother. Charlotte smirked and gave John a kick in the stomach. He backpedaled until he thudded into his brother’s chest. James only had time to raise his sword before it almost impaled his brother, but somehow managed to retain his balance, even as John collapsed.
“Now. Looks like you boys didn’t come armed for a gunfight.” Charlotte clucked her tongue and, with a kick, sent John’s gun skittering across the deck.
“Ain’t that a pity,” James growled.
His next movement was almost imperceptible. He grabbed for a holster at his side—shoved his brother away, and aimed at Charlotte.
Sariah, though, was behind him.
She swung the broadside of her sword and hit him in the back. He reeled forwards, tripped over his brother, and the gun misfired. Sariah stomped on John’s hand next, but he grasped her foot and yanked. She smacked against the ground and the younger brother dragged her closer to himself—only to have Charlotte slice through the sleeve of his overcoat. The fabric hung limp while a bit of blood darkened the loose shirt underneath.
John uttered yet another word that Nanny Eleanor would not approve of and drew a dagger from his boot. He jammed it into Sariah’s stomach—or, at least, he tried to. Sariah brought her own cutlass around to intercept it. Her aim was a little off, so she actually ended up slicing him along his forearm. He gasped and jerked away; her mouth dropped open and she almost sputtered out an apology until she remembered her place.
“Good aim!” Charlotte cried.
James had found another sword somewhere—a curved saber that was a bit longer than Charlotte’s. But she didn’t seem to mind her disadvantage. She parried any attack and thrust once at his hand. James, for all his bravado, must have been a poor swordsman, because his form fell apart. He staggered backward and hit the mast.
“Hey! Watch your back!” Charlotte said as she charged her attacker.
Sariah whirled around and saw that John had found his spear that he’d used against George. She’d already seen his deadly aim once and had no desire to make its acquaintance again.
He launched it towards her. Sariah collapsed to the ground—but the spear managed to snag her anyway.
Or, more precisely, it got caught in her hair and pinned it to the deck. She squirmed, but every movement when she tried to extricate herself just resulted in pain all throughout her scalp.
Someone fired three shots.
John tottered. Blood blossomed on his leg, and he collapsed against the raised bridge. But Charlotte didn’t free Sariah yet, so the young girl had no way of knowing what was going on in the battle. She twisted, winced as she did, and craned her neck as far as she could without scalping herself. She glimpsed James and Charlotte caught in a dance of swordplay. They sometimes waltzed into her view, only to run out.
“You’re getting better. I seem to remember it took me only five minutes last time to disarm you!” Charlotte grunted.
James didn’t indulge in any witty banter. He mostly just grunted, growled, and yelled.
Then something happened.
It was hard to know what exactly had transpired, but somehow, James ended up tripping over the protruding shaft of the spear. He yelped as it snapped underneath his weight and delivered him to the floor. He kneed Sariah as he fell, elbowed her in the chest, and knocked the wind out of her, but it was all worth it. In the next moment, Charlotte was over him, her foot on his chest, her cutlass tip pressing against his throat.
She, too, panted a bit, and she swiped the messy curls away from her sweaty forehead. “Hopefully this time you’ll remember your lesson.” She glanced at John, who looked pale, even from afar. “If not for your sake, then for your little brother’s.”
Charlotte tied up both of the Stevenson brothers before she managed to free Sariah from her prison. The older woman squatted down next to Sariah as she gathered herself up the ground.
“You were very brave, you know. I couldn’t have done better in my first battle.”
“I didn’t feel like I accomplished much,” Sariah admitted. But her moment of piracy was quickly shoved to the back of her head when she remembered the whole reason she was on the vessel in the first place. “George!”
She crawled over to the metal gates and pushed them open. They were heavier than she expected, but there was nothing that could stand in between her and the merman in the brig, not even Nanny Eleanor herself.
George floated in the filthy water below. It was mostly his own blood by now, and one hand dangled in the muck while the other rested on his bare chest. But when she opened his prison doors, he opened one eye and peered at her.
He seemed so tired.
“Riah,” he murmured, right before his head lolled to the side.
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