As we expanded our search into the undergrowth away from the path, we encountered no further monsters. Unfortunately, we also found no signs of the treasure.

"Y'don't think he buried it?" asked Scrope.

"And then the spot was hidden? Could be, but remember that he wouldn't have buried it in the middle of the woods," Ace said. "Wherever the treasure is, it's either some place Van Dierken could easily remember or a place he could accurately guide himself back to. Buried in the middle of a nest of shrubbery doesn't work for either. Of course, this might have been an open spot forty-five years ago, and the forest just grew over it. There certainly wouldn't be any sign of turned earth after all those years."

"Yer not makin' me any happier here, Ace."

The one thing we did find was two more skeletons, both stripped bare like the first one. Of the two, one still had its weapon, a cutlass as rusted and pitted as the first's saber, while the third had gone into death unarmed.

"Am I the only one getting more than a little frightened by this?" I said. The answer I received from Mel was very simple and to the point.

"No, yer not."

"And it's getting dark," Ace added.

"We'd best be heading back, then," Mel decided. "We'll compare notes with the others, and if they ain't found something better to try we'll head back here with the whole pack o' 'em fer a proper search."

I knew that I'd be glad to get out of the mist-shrouded woods to a warm fireside by the open shore, and I had a feeling that I wasn't the only one. The tree cover and the fog alike made the darkness come on fast, so Ace lit a lantern.

The rattling sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. It was a dull clunking, like several pieces of hard wood being shaken together in a pot. We all spun around, expecting anything from a false alarm to an attack by whatever thing had left the macabre souvenirs lying around this area of the forest.

What we didn't expect was to see the first skeleton we'd discovered standing upright, its saber clutched in its bony hand. With one quick movement it chopped with the rusty weapon, and Scrope went down in a spray of blood; he'd been too horror-struck to defend himself.

I screamed in terror then, my cry echoed by a bellow of rage from Mel. Drawing his huge axe, he charged at the animated bones as the skeleton's jaw fluttered and a keening laugh echoed from its skull, ripe with unholy pleasure at the death it had caused.

Swung with tremendous force, the great blade crashed down into the skeleton's left collarbone, shattering it on its way to hew through the shoulder-blade and ribcage. The horror's arm fell to the ground and lay still, but the rest of the thing kept coming. Joining Mel, Ace parried the monster's thrust with his cutlass, then thrust in riposte. His blade merely glanced off bone and slid between two ribs in what would surely have inflicted a mortal wound to a living man but did nothing at all to the skeleton, for it had no organs to pierce or blood to use.

Mel's axe was considerably more effective, on account of its great weight and the tremendous power behind its swing. His second blow crushed the jeering skull, and the horror dropped to the ground, inert.

"In Althena's name, what is happening here?" I exclaimed.

"Ya got me, lass, but it be as dark as a pitchy night and foul as the Vile Tribe itself," Mel growled. "Is Scrope going ta make it, Ace?"

The other pirate bent to check his fallen shipmate, then shook his head sadly.

"He's gone, Captain."

"Another good man dead. Too damned much o' that lately."

There was a rustling in the undergrowth, and I suddenly had cause to remember the other two skeletons we'd found. Would they rise up and fight as well? They and how many others on this accursed island? Dead Man's Isle. Van Dierken's name for his treasure-cache had been a blacker joke than we'd known.

"Come on! Let's get back to the beach!"

"Right. We can join with the others and get out ta sea if we have ta."

So we ran for it, retreating the way we'd come down the forest paths, the lantern bobbing and shaking in Ace's hand as the night and the fog closed in around us, shrinking our tiny oasis of light down to almost nothing. We couldn't stop and check our hand-sketched map as we fled, so I could only pray that we didn't fall foul of any wrong turnings in the gloom. Every instant I expected skeletal hands to come reaching out of the shadow, an antique blade in an undead grip shearing down to kill, but as it turned out the first enemy I faced was not a monster but myself. By no means was I any kind of trained athlete; even walking through the tangled forest was more exercise than I was used to. Sprinting out the way we'd come strained me to my limits. In far, far too little time my legs throbbed with the pain of exertion, my lungs burned painfully, unable to suck in air as fast as my body was consuming it, and my strides had degenerated into stumbling lurches more fit for the monsters than their prey.

It was almost inevitable that it would happen sooner or later. I could not even be certain, so intent was I upon making myself run and keeping up with the lantern, whether my toe caught a stray root or stone, my foot skidded on a patch of loose earth, or I simply overbalanced from exhaustion. One moment I was running, and the next I found myself sailing forward to tumble flat on my face on the hard-packed path. A very unladylike grunt of pain followed, but it probably saved my life.

"Amelie!" Mel roared, spinning around.

I made a few inarticulate moans of pain; the wind had been knocked out of me and I really didn't feel up to comprehensible speech just then.

"She can't stand this pace, Captain."

"I ain't leaving her for those bony devils!"

An instant later I felt strong hands lifting me. Mel had hoisted me up into his arms as easily as if I'd been a tiny mouse rather than a grown woman. I looked up into his eyes, surprised he was doing this and yet somehow not.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll get ya safe outta these woods."

"Can...can you run while carrying me?"

He flashed me a broad, toothy smile.

"A little thing yer size? Just watch and see."

He was as good as his word. We seemed to fly down the forest trail, his long legs eating up the distance in massive strides that actually seemed to be faster than we'd been going before. Even Ace was left puffing for breath trying to keep pace, but unlike me he had the wind to stay the course. At last we burst free of fog and shade, emerging out onto the beach.

There was a fire burning about a hundred yards down the shore from where we'd emerged and the silhouette of figures were clustered around it. Though the coastline looked different at night, I realized that this was where the longboat had landed, sending a titanic surge of relief through me. It seemed like we reached it in a heartbeat, and Mel swept me down to my feet, his touch so light that I did not even sink into the soft sand.

"Dragon dung, Cap'n, where have you been? You said we were supposed to meet back here at dusk., And why were you running? Where's Scrope?"

"Really, Jack, don't be such a wife," Ace teased, making the one-handed man flush in the firelight. I didn't have the energy or the spirit to joke, but for Ace it seemed to be the natural reaction to tension. Mel turned out to be more on my side of things.

"Scrope's dead."

"Don't tell me one of those stupid flytrappers got him?" Morgan protested. Apparently his group had encountered them as well. "Or did he just fall into one of those dug holes and break his neck?"

"No. Did any o' the rest o' ya run across any skeletons?"

There were nods all around; apparently the only ones who hadn't were the pirates who'd remained at the shore to set up camp.

"All kinds of them," Morgan said. "We couldn't figure out how they got there."

"I'd suggest they got up and walked," Ace said.

Nervously, I glanced back towards the edge of the woods. No bone-white figures had yet emerged. Perhaps the restless dead had given up the chase, or perhaps they simply could not leave their fog-shrouded sanctuary.

"Cap'n, yer means that th' dead walk here?" Patch babbled, his single eye wild.

"That's right. We found skeletons, too, and at sundown they came to life and attacked."

"Sundown. That's when that started, too." Jack pointed out to sea with his hook. Mel, Ace, and I all looked, and we could see in the starlight that the formerly placid lagoon had become a frothing torrent of whitecaps and swirling currents. "If we tried to put to sea now, the longboat'd be ripped apart before we got a hundred feet from shore."

"So we're trapped here?" bellowed a pirate. "We can't get off th' island? Th' rest o' th' crew can't get ter us? An' th' dead be walkin' here ter kill us?"

"That's a pretty good summary, Condent," Ace agreed.

"Dead Man's Isle," Mel growled, then he suddenly rounded on Teach. One big hand fastened around the old man's throat, and he hoisted the scrawny ex-pirate into the air. Teach's eyes went wide with shock and he thrashed and kicked, trying to break loose, but Mel effortlessly held him aloft. "Talk, ya backstabbing seventh son of a sea rat! How much o' this did ya know? This ain't coincidence, is it?"

"I didn't...I didn't..."

"No more o' yer lies!" the captain roared, his voice echoing out across the starlit beach. Though the water seethed and churned as if tossed by a hurricane wind, not a breath of air stirred along the shore. "Me crew's put their necks on the line for ya, and ta chase yer stories o' treasure. Now I wants the truth o' it right here and now, or I'll pop yer head off yer twiggy little neck and let ya join yer shipmates!"

"Um, Cap'n, not ter disturb ye when yer busy," Patch spoke up, "but I'm thinkin' we got more important things ter worry about than wringin' that snake's neck."

He pointed back towards the woods, where we all could see the white of bone gleaming in the night. The skeletons had come out, standing in a ragged line as if ready to launch a charge. None had even the barest scrap of clothing or flesh; like the ones we'd faced before the vile magic animating them was obvious not merely from the fact that they moved and fought but that their bones were a single, unified skeleton despite not being held together by ligaments or even wires. These grinning images of death torn from a pirate's black flag were subject only to the laws of the unholy spells that had awakened them from their eternal rest.

Mel dumped Teach back onto the sand with a thump and reached for his axe.

"They says a real pirate ain't afraid o' death," he growled harshly. "I just never figured it was supposed ta be taken literally."

Then, as if someone--or some thing--had heard the joke, keening peals of laughter burst out across the dunes.