Chapter III - Welcome Party
The morning Port Royal came into sight of the Revenge
sauntered into existence rather than arriving in a great show of pomp and
importance. In fact, it was scarcely more eventful to Will at that point
as all the days that had led up to it, which in spite of Inigo's lessons
seemed only composed of preoccupying busywork and going to bed with more
aches and sores than he'd woken up with. Piracy, for all its glamour, seemed
to be made mostly of a day to day routine, same as any seafaring work.
The only difference, it seemed, was that the crew didn't bathe on principle,
rather than on lack of resources.
"This is as far as we go, Will," Inigo told him
after Will helped some of the other young crewmen drop anchor. "Fezzik
will row you ashore."
"You can't come into the bay?" Will asked, puzzled.
"It would be pushing our luck. What with the black
sails and me and everything." Inigo hadn't believed Jack about Port Royal's
navy presence until just a little bit ago. "You have everything?"
"I didn't have much to start with," said Will, not
enthused.
"You do not seem very thrilled to be going back
home."
"And do you suppose the fact I'm meant to be in
England right now has nothing to do with that?" Will demanded, suddenly
growing angry.
Inigo raised a hand to in the effort to calm him.
"Jack was aware you were bound for England, Mister Turner. He had very
specific reasons to return you here instead."
"Such as?"
"He did not speak of them at length to me, I am
sorry to say. Please just trust his word, and mine."
"But Jack's a dishonest man."
"Quite true, but he admits it. What does that say
about him?" The two became aware they were standing in a previous nonexistent
pool of shadow. Inigo looked up at its source. "All ready, Fezzik?"
"Aye, captain sir."
"Well, then," said Inigo, returning to William.
He shook the boy's hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mister Turner."
"Likewise," Will said, hollow.
"You work very well. You're not as adept with the
sword as I would have hoped, but you would make a fine sailor. Perhaps
you would consider...?"
"No, that's all right. Thank you."
"Fair enough. Then, good day to you, Will. With
all luck, you will never see our like again."
"That's the bakery."
"Uh-huh."
"And this is the general store. My fiancée
works there with her family."
"Yoo have a fiancée?"
"In a manner of speaking," Will said hesitantly.
"It isn't, um, official... you could say..."
"Do yoo want to go in and talk to her?"
"No, um, that's quite all right..."
"How far away iz yoor houze?" Fezzik asked, and
Will noticed his breath was short. "Thiz a big place yoo live in. Eet all
uphill."
"You didn't have to see me home," Will pointed out.
"Roberts sez it better this way."
"You're drawing a lot of stares."
"The captain wood draw more."
They turned a corner, down a street with untended
cobbles and a slightly stale scent in the air, where the houses were made
of stone, so close together that the space between them wouldn't admit
even a cat. William stopped before one of these, a look of unease spreading
across his face.
"Wow. Dis yoor houze?"
"I know it's not much," he said apologetically.
"Eet great. Real pretty. Yoo lucky person, Will."
The raised eyebrow this received went unnoticed. "Can I seet down a moment?"
"Go on," said Will, who wasn't too eager to open
the front door yet anyway.
Fezzik dipped his head gratefully and slowly, carefully
sat down on the bench by the front door. Its wooden boards creaked. Out
of the corner of his vision, while wondering just how he was going to explain
the rapier buckled to his waist, Will noticed Fezzik's arm go behind his
back as if to scratch it, and then lower the same hand below the bench
for a moment.
Will snapped to attention as the spartan wood door
of his home swung back, and his youngest brother and sister scurried out
with wooden swords in hand and red bandanas tied around their heads. Will's
little sister, Virginia, ran headlong into his leg.
"Ginny! Watch where you're going," Will said, steadying
the little girl.
"Will? Why're you back?" his sister asked, in a
disappointed tone of voice.
"Izzat you, Will?" said his little brother Matthew,
who had stopped about twenty feet down the lane upon noticing his sister
was not hot on his trail and had started back. "Why aren't you in ol' England?
Say," said Matthew, noticing the hunched form of Fezzik huddled by the
house wall, "what's that?"
"That's Fezzik. Look," Will said, returning to Virginia.
"Are Mother and Father home?"
"Father's at the shop," Virginia, aged five, explained.
"But Mother's here."
"What's a Fezzik, Will?" Matthew asked, tugging
at the end of his older brother's vest.
"Mother's going to be so happy to see you're back,
Will," Virginia went on.
"Will, wazzat hanging onto your belt?" Matthew squealed.
"It's a sword, now-- just-- go get your mother!"
he yelled, so loudly that both siblings jumped, eyes wide in terror.
"No need for that," came another, older voice from
the doorway. "And don't yell at your brother and sister, William."
William looked up into the eyes of his mother who,
he was told, was almost as beautiful now in her fourties as she was during
her youth. Every line to her face seemed to have been placed there under
careful consideration, and even the occasional errant gray hair seemed
to have been formed to simply accentuate her beauty.
She looked weary, as if close to collapse, and held
a small bundle in her arms.
William's lips parted.
"Your new sister," she informed him. "Born just
five days ago."
"What's her--"
"We haven't fully decided yet," said his mother,
with a faint smile on her lips. "Your father and I were considering Anamaria."
"Ana..." Will began, dumbfounded.
"What's that attached to your belt, Will?"
"It's a sword, Mother..."
"And where did you get that?"
"Mother, your husband is a blacksmith. You
don't find it the least bit likely that he could have--"
"No."
"Oh. Right. To be perfectly honest, it was given
to me as a gift."
"By whom?"
"It's sort of a long story, Mother--"
Will was cut off by his mother's shriek. She scurried
back a few steps, hand over her mouth as she looked at the dark, bloodied
form that had just slammed against the wall of her house.
"I sorry to interrupt yoo, Will," came Fezzik's
voice. Will spun around until he caught sight of the giant, looking a little
shaken but otherwise unharmed. "He came at me. Wit a sword. I din't want
to hurt him," he insisted.
"Fezzik, you--" Will stammered. He was not able
to say anymore, even if he had the words in him. A rough hand had clasped
his forehead from behind, and a blade pressed to his throat. Will's mother
screamed.
"Found another'un!" his assailant yelled, probably
behind him. He added, in a normal voice, if normal was a word that could
be prescribed to a seething, oily voice as that, "This'll be a feather
in me cap and no mistake. Thassa real nice sword you got there, lad. Get
it from your daddy?"
"No," Will grunted.
"Ohh, I bet you did," the attacker whispered, pressing
the blade so hard to the boy's throat that he couldn't breathe at all.
"Bet your daddy's ol' Roberts, ain't he? Betcha he'd do anythin' to protect
his dear old boy, aye?"
The edges of Will's vision were growing red. Fezzik,
frozen in hesitation not five feet from him, swam in and out of focus.
"Do something, Fezzik!" Will pleaded with
the last of his breath.
"I'm tinking, just wait a moment!"
"I wouldn't suggest your big ol' friend try anythin',
mate," the stranger told Will. "Elsewise I'll slit yer gizzard here an'--"
BANG!
A jolt ran through the assailant's body, and the
blade jolted with it, slicing just barely through the upper layers of skin.
Then, the hand holding the sword lost its grip, and the sword clattered
as it fell on the cobbles. A moment later there was a dull thud as Will's
attacker did likewise.
Clutching at his bleeding throat, Will spun around
to trace the smell of the gunpowder in the air. He came to rest his eyes
on William Turner, Jr., his burly, ash-faced blacksmith of a father, clutching
the gun in his sooty hands in the exact pose as when he had pulled the
trigger. His eyes, which had always looked a little sad and mournful, were
wide in shock.
Mr. Turner turned his terrified eyes down at the
gun in his hands, and dropped it instantly. He ran to his young son and
gripped his shoulders violently.
"Are you all right?" he demanded. "Did he hurt you?"
He shook Will's shoulders so fiercely that the hand around Will's throat
slipped, revealing a smear of bright red blood. "Oh dear God..."
"It's all right," Will assured him desperately.
"It's merely a flesh wound--"
"We have to tend to this immediately. Matthew, run
fetch some fresh linen. Virginia, get some water--" At the words the two
children immediately scurried inside.
"I'm fine, Father!" Will all but shouted,
pulling away from his parent's rough embrace. He cast his eyes down at
the prone body by his feet, and his father's eyes followed. "This isn't
one of Roberts's men..." he murmured.
"What was that?"
But Will's attention had turned to Fezzik. "What
are these people doing here?"
"I don't know."
"There's more on the way. We have to-- Wait. Do
you hear that?" His parents and Fezzik fell obediently silent. Off in the
distance, toward the docks, came a low, short rumble, like far-off thunder.
Then another.
"Cannon fire," Will's father said in disbelief.
William moved so fast it was dazzling. He shot from
his parent's side, through the front door of his house, running past his
little brother and sister as he took the stairs two at a time, up to his
small, cramped bedroom with the window with the portside view. Matthew
and Virginia had caught up with him by the time he'd drawn back the curtains,
and his father had joined them by the time Will had undone the latch and
swung the window panes outward.
Far-off, across the steel gray water, there could
just be seen the black-sailed Revenge, steering itself toward the safety
of the docks against an ongoing barrage of cannon fire. But the shots were
not coming from a navy ship, or what was not presently a navy ship, judging
by the pure red flag that flew from its mast.
"Red flag," Will heard his father murmur. "No hostages,
no bargains. To the death."
"Why is the black ship goin' into the bay, Father?"
Virginia asked.
"It's hoping the navy ships will scare off its attacker,
Ginny."
"So why aren't they?" Will demanded.
"It doesn't matter, so long as they keep to thems--"
"Will!" Fezzik complained, appearing in view on
the street below the window sill. "More men wit swords came and I stopped
them. Is eet bad?"
"Were they pirates?"
"Yes."
"And were they ours?"
"No."
"'Ours'?" Mr. Turner repeated. "Will, what have
you been up to?"
"Tell you later, Father," said Will, climbing up
onto the window sill. "Fezzik! Meet me down on Quarter Street and--" A
strong arm roped him back in. "Look, I haven't much time!"
"Have you lost your senses, Will?!" his father cried.
"That's Roberts's ship out there getting attacked!"
"It's just pirates, let them quarrel amongst themselves,
for God's sake--"
"Will," the Turkish giant said again, sounding a
bit more distressed, "there are pirates all over the place now. I tink
they're waiting for when people from the ship come ashore."
"Why will they come ashore?" Will called back to
him.
"Because she's taking on water real fast, and I
don't tink she'll be up for much longer. Will, I need to go help, all right?
Eet was nice meeting yoor family! Yoor mother's a real nice lady!" And
with that the man was gone, trotting down the closest street.
Will watched his retreating form for a moment, then
looked out across the city toward the bay, and indeed it seemed to him
that the Revenge was much lower on the water line than it was meant
to be. It was also on fire. "They're sinking the ship!" Will cried,
after a moment of stunned silence on his part. "Father, let go,
I need to--!"
"This is no concern of yours!"
"Roberts brought me to Port Royal!" Will told him
wildly, continuing to struggle against his father's grasp, although he
had his little brother and sister to fight off as well. "He didn't have
to; it was a favor to Jack Sparrow!"
In that moment, at those two words, fatal like gunshots
to the mind and soul, Will's father released his hold. It was a moment's
hesitation, a fraction of a second, but it was all that was needed. Will
Turner III sprang forward, over the window sill, and fell.
The events that followed were in quick succession,
so much so that to detail them all might leave the reader sizably confused.
Timing is difficult, backtracking even moreso, and perhaps most notably,
nothing of much significance happens to the characters in this time period.
Except that young Will sprained his ankle during
the fall, slowing his progress somewhat, and that Mr. Turner had ran down
the stairs out of the house to catch up with him, but the boy was gone
when he got there. So Turner went instead to his smithy, where his twelve-year-old
son Jack worked as his apprentice, and borrowed a sword against his son's
wishes, because the sword was meant for a naval captain. Mr. Turner promised
to bring it back.
But that was it, really, except for when Fezzik
ran back to Will because he felt terrible going alone, and carried the
boy on one shoulder as he sprinted through the streets, despite Will's
claims that he could walk on his own.
And that was it, honest, although it may be helpful
to mention that while this was happening, Inigo Montoya as the Dread Pirate
Roberts commanded the Revenge to return fire on the pirate ship
that had attacked them, all the while shouting things about violating the
Code of the Brethren and how he was really going to raise hell over this.
He ignored his second mate who said how badly the ship was taking on water
and ordered the attack to continue while he went to shore to get Fezzik,
who would be necessary for the post-battle messiness involving hostages
and the ensuing pleas having a lot to do about their continued right to
live.
By this time Mr. Turner was making quick work of
a lot of the pirates invading Port Royal, although it was slow going at
first because he was so out of practice. After a few kills he got the hang
of it again, however.
And as another pointless tangent, while this was
going on a few of the able-bodied townsfolk were beginning to join in defending
the Revenge pirates from their attackers, although they didn't do
this intentionally so much as just hit the first pirate-looking man they
saw, and since the attackers were more numerous than Roberts's men, the
effect was the same.
It was also about this time that a barmaid named
Delphine got sick of waiting around, changed into some suitable men's clothes
(with the help of her coworkers, who had strange fetishes to start with),
found her supply of daggers, and set to work, though she wasn't all that
good at it, really.
Not that it matters much, but at the same time the
Talon
(that was the ship attacking the Revenge) found itself under a second
barrage of cannon fire, and its captain, James Hawk (who had very specific
reasons for naming his ship what he did), saw through his spyglass that
the Black Pearl had appeared from behind the nearby cliffs, and
Captain Jack Sparrow did not seem to be at the helm. He wasn't able to
determine any other facts at that point because he realized that someone
was holding a blade to his throat.
But none of that's important enough to go into detail,
really.
Turner was a very good swordsman for being self-taught.
He wasn't world-class, but his strength and throwing accuracy made up for
what he lacked in skill. His speed wasn't half-bad either, especially built
as he was.
At least, twenty-odd years ago.
He had tried his hardest, digging in the recesses
of his mind cluttered with information about six children and a wife and
a house and a smithy, for that knowledge of how to parry, to thrust, where
to move your feet, how to dodge and counter. And he found it eventually,
but too late. And now it was five to one down a narrow street with no convenient
side alleys or incidental ladders to rely on, and things seemed to be bad,
possibly going so far as really bad.
But things were really shit when they knocked the
sword from his hands.
"Serves ye right, ol' man," said the lead one, pressing
the end of his blade to the apex of his jaw and neck. When Turner backed
away, the leading pirate and the others followed, jeering. "Don't you know
when ter give up the ghost all proper-like? No sense goin' and embarrassin'
yerself wit a show like that."
Amid the grunt-like laughter and rotted grins, Turner
could have sworn he heard something like "Ready, Fezzik? On my count..."
But it was surely just his imagination.
"I betcha a real swashbuckla, you were," the leader
continued. "Fought wit the likes o' Blackbeard an' Tew an' Sparrow, eh?"
The imaginary voice went: "One... two..."
"Actually..."
"Yeh, I betcha did run off an' fight wit
Jack Sparrow, uh? While yer at it, I betcha found the Isle de Muerta, and
braved Hell, found Long John's treasure, saved a bonny lass to cap it all
off, eh?"
"As a matter of fact..."
"...three!"
"Yeh, I betcha even--"
Turner's taunter had turned his eyes upwards, and
the older man followed his gaze, in time to see a young boy, rapier in
hand, spiral through the air with all the skill and fluidity of a dolphin
jumping from the waves.
The silvery steel blade of the sword so recently
made glimmered in the morning sun, which was what momentarily blinded the
onlookers, and was more than a little responsible when a split second later
that same sword slashed across the leading pirate's face.
The leader screamed and stumbled back, clutching
at the gaping cut slicing his features. Blood splattered young Will's face
and garments, ran along the silvery edge of the sword and weaving through
the etchings in the hilt.
Then Will's leg gave from under him.
"Will!" his father cried, lurching forward to hold
him aloft by the shoulders.
"You rotten, sniveling little bastard!" the
pirate roared, staring at his blood-smeared hand with manic, unblinking
eyes. "What'd you do to my fucking face?!"
Mr. Turner wrestled the rapier from his son's fingers
with little difficulty, and held it aloft with ease. "I'll thank you not
to speak such words in front of my son, sir."
"Fuck you, you goddamned donkey arsed sack of--"
After that the pirate didn't have much use for his
tongue.
"Sorry to subject you to that," Mr. Turner said
to his son, while the four remaining pirates slowly began to make their
decision between running away and having similar messy fates.
"Oh, that's all right, they all curse like that--"
"I meant killing him."
"That's fine, Fezzik's killed a dozen or so by now."
For the first time, the pirates noted the huge,
looming shape they had mistaken for part of the far wall, that was presently
drawing closer. Somehow the swallowing of a bit of pride looked ever slightly
more favorable.
"What have you been up to these past weeks?"
Will's father asked, turning his head toward the boy.
"Oh, I've learned some new card games."
The pirates cowered as the towering form of Fezzik
lumbered closer.
"Really."
"And Spaniards are actually quite friendly."
"Is that so."
"One bought me that sword there. He even taught
me how to use it. Oh, and he knew this thing called 'acrobatics', it's
really quite queer, you know that spin I was doing up in the air a bit
ago...?"
The giant stopped when he was nearly on top of the
father and son, dwarfing them both with ease.
"Admittedly, it looked quite impressive, but you
shouldn't be doing things like that on a bad-- Hey." Mr. Turned glanced
up. "Where did they go?"
"Dat way," Fezzik said, pointing helpfully down
the street toward the main square.
"Ah, right. Well, Will, you just limp along to the
smithy like a good lad, Jack'll let you in, I think, and you, uh..."
"Fezzik."
"Glad to meet you, er, again, Fezzik. Do you have
anywhere you need to be?"
"I need to find my captain. He'z one of tha good
guyz," Fezzik added quickly, holding up his enormous hands.
"Shall we be off, then?" Mr. Turner offered, leading
off down the cobbled street.
"Father," Will said desperately, still folded up
on the ground, "you can't just run off with my sword."
His parent held the blood-stained blade up as if
seeing it for the first time, then gave Will a condescending smile. "You
didn't think I was actually going to let you keep something like this,
did you?"
"Father!" the boy wailed.
"All right, all right, but no using it inside the
house."
"Put down the scope, put your hands where I can see
'em, and call off your men."
"Ah. Jack Sparrow's right-hand lass. Anamaria, is
it? Don't you think yer a little old to be traipsing around with pirates?"
When he got no answer, Hawk went straight to the point. "Where's Sparrow?"
"Not a matter that concerns you. And don't make
me repeat myself, Hawk."
"And what gives you reason to believe I'll follow
your instructions?"
"Doesn't matter the slightest to me," Anamaria said
airily. "I just thought I'd help you out and give you and your lads a chance
to get out alive."
"So confident, Madam?"
"Confident? I think I'm beyond confidence at this
point. The fact is, Mister Hawk, that if you refuse to surrender quietly,
you and all your men will die this day."
Hawk smiled a tart smile Anamaria couldn't see.
"And what have I done lately to incur your wrath, Madam?"
"You know Jack Sparrow, Jimmy. Always been very
fond of The Code."
"Aye. He would be."
The blade pressed closer. "Another violation. That's
your third, mate. Not off to a good start, are we?"
Hawk's voice grew quicker and more urgent. "Wait,
wait. I know I fired on an Elder Pirate, and I know I did it while they'd
hoisted a white flag, but what's the third one?"
"Don't. Talk. About. Jack. Sparrow."
"You made that one u--"
Inigo Montoya had once boasted being able to take
on up to ten men at once. Maybe he was telling the truth. No man since
the now-dead Corscian Wizard rivaled his skill, or what his skill was fifteen
years ago. Fifteen years of brandy and depression and, when he'd finally
gotten around to avenging his father's death, piracy, which might've been
fine if it wasn't expected of him to be a gentleman pirate. And
the mask was itchy.
Maybe once he was able to beat ten men at the same
time, but that was not today. Not that he didn't try, of course, and he
might have nearly succeeded if he hadn't run out of space and run into
a wall, and his hand was cramping up a little because the stylish leather
gloves were a nightmare in summer heat. There were all these little factors
working against him, really, it wasn't his fault.
This is ridiculous, he thought to himself,
fending off another couple of sword strikes. I'm Inigo Montoya, I'm
not meant to fail in something stupid like this!
Parry, parry, thrust, guard, toss, duck, jump, parry...
I mean, some epic battle in the name of truth,
justice, and love, that's how I'm supposed to go. I'm Inigo Montoya,
for Christ's sake! Inigo Montoya doesn't die in a backstreet scuffle!
Punch, parry, stab, wipe blood off, parry, parry,
duck, slash...
Of all the ludicrous things to happen! he
thought furiously. I can't believe this!
"Look alive, mates!"
A rush of air, and a dark figure dropping down from
the roof above, cutlass in one hand and dagger in the other.
Ten was down to eight in the bat of an eye.
That Inigo could manage!
He swung the six-fingered sword with renewed victor,
no longer defending with the occasional counter attack but full-on, frenzied
offense. He realized, through his red-hazed mind, that someone else was
plucking off some of his opponents before he'd had a chance at them, and
this irritated him, so he slashed harder and quicker, and the blood flew
and oh wasn't it lovely! To swing and thrust and stab and carve and--
His blade hit steel, and froze there, as he met
the eyes of the sword's owner.
"Easy there."
"Jack!" Inigo exclaimed, shaking himself out of
that momentum immediately. He all but dropped his sword and backed away,
giving the other pirate a bit of space. "I nearly killed you."
"Buck up; can't win 'em all." Jack knelt down beside
the slain bodies, going through their pockets and belt pouches. "Half a
day from setting off, we spotted a ship hot on your trail and decided to
track it. Had a feeling it would lead to trouble; looks like I was right."
"And your plans for Barataria?"
"The best plans are the ones you make up as you
go along, s'always say." In all, he found eighteen shillings and one whole
pound, which he stuffed into the recesses of his vestments. He picked up
some of the swords and swung them in the air experimentally. "And I thought
you were right handed."
Inigo looked down at his hands and which one his
sword happened to be held in.
"You could have told me earlier."
"Sorry, ol' friend, couldn't resist trying one of
those flash entrances o' yours. How was that, by the way?"
"'Look alive, mates'?"
"What do you want from me, a 'tally-ho'?" He seemed
satisfied with one of the cutlasses found among the corpses, and put this
through his belt along with his dagger, leaving his first sword where it
was in his hand. He used some nearby crates to give him enough levelage
to climb onto the roof again. "I'll catch up with you later, Mister Roberts.
I need to find that special consignment you were given to deliver... It
was
delivered safely, I presume?"
"But I imagine you're thinking this wasn't the best
place for it after all, no?"
"Well, if I was so inclined," Jack told him, leaning
over the roof so Inigo could see him, "I could just blame the whole thing
on you. A good thing I'm the considerate, understanding sort, then, hey?"
And then, with a tip of his hat, Captain Jack Sparrow disappeared from
sight.
There was a bit of a mess on deck after Anamaria
had taken care of Captain Hawk, involving pirates who didn't take kindly
to their beloved cutthroat (no pun intended) captain being slain before
their eyes. Fortunately, Anamaria was a resourceful woman, who knew that
in addition to being able to defend oneself, it was not against the rules
to take some additional resources with you. Namely, half of your crew.
The understaffed Talon didn't stand a chance.
"Tha's the last o'em, quartermaster!" Stede shouted
up to her from below.
"Aye, a fine bit of work, men. Get your arses o'er
to the Revenge doubletime, lads! We're more'n a bit pressed here."
"Aye, quartermaster!" the men chorused.
Anamaria turned her attention to the bloodied corpse
of Hawk at her feet. She knelt down and, following a classic Jack Sparrow
notion, started going through his pockets. After collecting a couple coins
and a nice-looking dagger, she was about to call things good when her searching
hands came to a folded piece of parchment tucked in a breast pocket.
She unfolded it and began reading. She wasn't an
expert reader, but she had more determination with it than Jack, at least.
Still, it was a caligraphic, stylized script that took her a bit to decipher,
and what she did pick up made little sense until she discovered the seal
stamped onto the bottom.
That settled it. She needed to go get Jack.
Delphine had run out of daggers.
In a different time setting, in a different land,
Delphine would be one of those who would pick up a submachine gun, fire
at everything that looked hostile, and be surprised when bullets stopped
coming out. Weapons were for getting used now, and later could bugger
off for all she cared. The problem came in the form of when later finally
caught up with her, and she found herself with no more bullets (or daggers)
and no one was willing to lend her some.
For the present time and location, she was without
a weapon, at the wrong end of three swords, going down what was soon turning
into an alley from which there was but one exit. Being a resourceful barmaid,
whose duties went above and beyond just serving drinks, she dodged when
they swung, kicked and punched where she could, and generally made good
work of not dying yet, but that seemed to be the limit of it.
She lurched backward, black hair flying, and the
blade went harmlessly by. The pirate got closer to try again, and she delivered
a pair of punches before being forced back again. By now the men seemed
to have discovered that the person they were dealing with was of the female
persuasion, and which itself was persuading them to leer like idiots. Delphine
hated
it when men leered.
"Doncha love the frisky ones, boys?" one of them
cackled. "Hey, now, poppet, wotcher say throwin' this resistance bit to
the birds and we all get friendly-like wit some wotcher call horizontal
dancin'?"
She punched him.
"Answer th'question!" the pirate said, from somewhere
near the ground.
"They's no way out, missie," another one told her,
which was akin to saying "gee, it's dark" at nighttime. "An' your little
game 'ere's gettin mighty old."
He attacked. She spun off to the right.
The wall was nearly to her back. She was running
out of space very quickly. The next time she dodged back, the sword cut
through her shirt, leaving a tear from the middle of the abdomen down to
the waist and revealing nothing the least bit tittilating.
Her attacker frowned. "Funny. That usually works."
It was at this time, sprinting the apex of two sloping
roofs with both cutlasses brandished, for others had had the same bright
idea to use the rooftops to their own ends and needed to be shown the errors
in their thinking, Jack found he wasn't in the best of moods. He didn't
know where his charge was, and he didn't know where everyone else was,
either.
He leapt from a roof onto a wall and raced along
it, coattails of his jacket flying out behind him. He jumped a gap, made
short work of the pirate who had been making a half-hearted attempt to
ambush him with a tripwire, turned left at a junction toward some of the
middle-class houses, which was when he saw Delphine, and, more notably,
her opposition.
"'Ey, mate!" he called out as he stopped. The three
pirates looked up. Well, that was no dice. "'Ey, miss!" Ahh, there we go,
a turn of the head, black hair flying, some stark white skin and lively
eyes... "Catch," Jack said, tossing one of his cutlasses into the air.
She caught it easily, only mildly stunned.
He ran on, but where he went was no concern for
Delphine, because a mad grin had crossed her face now. She gave the sword
a few experimental flicks and, apparently satisfied, pointed it toward
her attackers.
"Well, boys?"
They did the sensible, gentlemanly thing. They ran.
And she would have left it at that, gone back to
the tavern to sit peacefully until things were over, or at least run after
the strange fellow who had loaned her a sword so she could give it back
to him, but both of those seemed, well, rather boring.
So she did the insensible, ungentlewomanly thing,
and ran after them instead.
The Talon's crew were beginning to see this
plan wasn't quite as well thought through as it could have been. Port Royans
weren't quite as quick on the uptake on the thought of military occupation,
which from the pirates' view was about what it qualified as, and to make
matters worse, there were other pirates to contend with. Keeling over and
dying just seemed to be beyond these people. It got even worse when they
found themselves in the city square, a small straggling group that was
all that was left from their invasion force, tailed by some burly old blacksmith
with a rapier and a massive giant who didn't need a sword nor any protection
from them.
And as soon as they'd thought they'd adapted to
that, then came the black-clad Spaniard, an inhuman blur with skill to
match.
At that time reinforcements came and they were again
able to get a handle on things, except that following them was some mad
woman flailing a cutlass.
But it was really the clincher when the man with
all the beads and things came down from above.
Amid the flurry of swords and faces and flesh, Mr.
Turner's sword was eventually blocked by a masked man.
"Oh, hello," said the man with a Spanish accent.
"You must be one of the good guys, my apologies."
And they went in separate directions, again swinging
their swords with vigor and skill, and some time later Inigo crossed swords
with a young woman. He nodded cordially to her and left her for other targets.
It wasn't long after that that his blade met Jack's.
They froze there, blades grinding against one another
while their owners grinned almost playfully.
Inigo broke the stare to glance down for a moment.
"Mine's longer," he said.
"Competitiveness like that gets you nowhere, mate,"
said Jack, unimpressed.
"Feeling your age?"
"Not in the least."
They broke off in different directions.
A few bloody encounters later and Jack found himself
opposite the young dark-haired woman. He smiled at her.
"You're rather good for not havin' training, y'know,"
he told her.
"I'm flattered," Delphine said blandly.
"Don't want this taken the wrong way, lass, but
after this whole row's over, what d'you say you an' me go out for a little--"
Her fist connected with his jaw before he could
frame the next word. He stumbled back, a little unsteady, and by the time
he recovered himself she was gone amongst the crowd. He shrugged and went
on fighting.
Jack passed Fezzik, patting him on the shoulder
as he went because the giant was a bit too preoccupied banging the heads
of two pirates together to engage in a bit of chitchat. He slashed through
the heart of one opponent, split the gut of another, made an unruly mess
of the face of a third, and on the fourth he found his blade stopped, meeting
the gaze of his blocker, who he did not recognize at first but who recognized
him immediately.
For a moment, the world seemed to freeze.
Mr. Turner's lips parted on the verge of saying
something.
Jack sped off, disappearing within mere moments,
leaving Turner there, stunned as if he'd seen a ghost. And in some ways,
he had.
End Chapter III