When the thing first appeared, it was little more than a glowing sphere of sickly gray light--shining brightly but tainted as if there was something dark and diseased just beneath the radiance. It began to take shape quickly, though, elongating into a humanoid form and then resolving itself into features. The image was translucently pale at first, no more than an aura, then steadily began to take on solidity and color. The process seemed to happen from the inside out, so that for a moment we had the disconcerting sight of seeing a death's head showing through the flesh of the face. As it materialized, the laughter became less of a crazy sound from another world, becoming harsher and deeper, the voice of a man rather than a fiend.
Though, even in life the creature that stood before us might well have been more the latter than the former.
It was easy for us to tell that what faced us was a spirit and no human being, even though it appeared to our eyes to be as solid as ourselves. The gray radiance still seemed to shine from its ghostly-pale flesh, and although the face seemed no more than that of a man in middle age, the hair was as pale as the skin, as if the color had been all but bleached from its unliving form by its translation into whatever unholy state it now inhabited. Its clothes--and these were as fancy as anything Morgan wore or even a dandified fop of my own social background--had seemingly escaped this fate, but had instead been subjected to the ravages of age. What had once been finery suitable for any lord was now worn and ragged, even down to the drooping and broken blue plume in his cocked hat. The one thing that did not appear haunted in any way was the hilt of the straight-bladed sword whose sheath hung at his left hip from a shoulder sling. That was brightly polished and in perfect condition--and I had no doubt that the blade would be as well.
"Welcome!" his voice boomed out, deep and loud like rolling thunder. "Welcome to Dead Man's Isle, my fellow buccaneers."
"We be no fellows o' yers, Bloodheart Van Dierken, in this life or the next!" Mel roared right back while several of us (yes, including me--but I was the damsel in distress, supposed to cower!) shrank back and cringed before the undead host.
The ghost--who may not have introduced himself, but we were all sure to our very souls that Mel was right and that this was Van Dierken back from his unhallowed grave--threw back his head and laughed again, the sound echoing out across the dunes. Behind him, his "skeleton crew" mimicked him, laughing and gibbering despite their lack of flesh.
"Oh, you're not, are you? You didn't come here in search of the Cape Matapan treasure, then? You didn't want to slake your boundless lust for silver in the ill-gotten gains I won by sweat and blood and pain?"
"Sweat an' blood an' pain?" laughed Anne, the female pirate who'd upbraided Patch for assuming I could cook. I was definitely beginning to like her. "Ye just stole it, deadman; ye didn't give birth ter it!"
"And the only blood ya shed was the blood o' yer victims," roared out Mel, "some o' whom were yer own crew. Ya were a damned ghoul when ya were alive, so's it's no surprise ta me that yer still one now!"
I expected Van Dierken to burst into a rage or do something just as volatile, but instead he just laughed for a third time.
"Whether you like it or not, you've chased my legacy here, and from now on you'll belong to me, body and soul. As for your ship, Hell Mel, it will make a fine replacement for my own lost vessel."
"How'd ya know me name, Bloodheart?"
"The dead know many things."
"Well, then, in that case..." Mel raised his axe into the ready position for a swing. "Ya probably already know that the only way yer getting me crew or me ship is over me cold, dead body!"
For a fourth and final time, the ghost captain's laughter rang out across the shore.
"Know it? Why, Captain Mel, I'm positively counting on it!" In one smooth motion he drew his sword and leveled it at us. "Get them!"
At Van Dierken's command, the skeletons charged towards us in an eerie imitation of a pack of howling raiders. Not all of them attacked, though; several of the undead horrors faded back into the woods, leaving only about two dozen in the assault. Some part of me was asking why this was happening, why Van Dierken was not simply sending all of his unholy horde after us. This was, however, quite the lesser part of my thoughts.
The rest of me was assuming the much more traditional attitude for a damsel in distress, namely cringing in fear. The skeletons rushed towards us not in the slow, uncoordinated movements associated with the living dead, nor the artificial jerking of puppets or marionettes. Instead, they ran just as they would have in life, despite lacking the muscles and flesh to do so. I found this incredibly eerie, for it went beyond mere magical manipulation of the corpses to make me feel as if, somehow, the spirits of the undead beings were still there, caught in a devilish slavery by their ghostly captain.
More than one crossbow twanged, launching a good half-dozen bolts at the onrushing skeletons. Several just glanced off, gouging chips of bone from where they struck, while one stuck macabrely between a skeleton's ribs, the shaft hung up in the cage of bone. None, of course, had any effect; I'd seen the uselessness of piercing and stabbing weapons myself in the earlier fight.
"Go fer the skulls, mateys!" Mel bellowed, and suited his actions to his words, meeting the undead charge with a sweeping overhand swing of his great axe that crushed a skeleton's head and turned it into a pile of bones at his feet.
Following Mel's advice proved to be more of a problem for some of Mel's crew than others. Patch, for example, had eschewed the finesse of a sword or cutlass for the practicality of a sturdy boarding axe, a weapon better suited to his strength, bulk, and lack of speed. He was in his element, chopping with a single-minded intensity that seemed more like a lumberjack felling trees or a blacksmith pounding metal on an anvil than a warrior in battle. Morgan, on the other hand, found his fancy dueling sword almost useless. The style of combat it was designed for was all about thrusts to the vital organs, and the blade far too light to be able to smash bone. A cutlass, at least, had that saving grace; though it wasn't meant for this kind of fight it was at least able to accomplish the task.
More than one pirate fell before the rusting weapons and clawing hands of the skeletal horde. Men and women fought and died all around me, and I could do nothing but cower and watch them face this monstrous evil. In all my life, I do not think I have ever felt more truly worthless as I did in the early moments of that battle.
The sight that finally galvanized me to action was that of Morgan, with two bony claws locked tightly around his throat, futilely beating on his undead assailant's skull with the hilt of his sword. The dandified pirate had always treated me with courtesy, despite his being one of my captors; I didn't want to see him die. No one else was moving to rescue him, for they were each desperately confronting their own problems. Even Mel was having trouble, if only because the skeletal horrors insisted on swarming upon him three and four at a time, no doubt at Van Dierken's command.
Desperately, I rushed to the longboat, seized up an oar, and took a mighty two-handed swing with all my strength.
I would like to say that my attack heroically crushed in the monster's bony cranium, saving Morgan and proving my worth. I could probably even get away with it, since it isn't likely anyone else is ever going to tell this tale for publication. But, in truth, I simply wasn't strong enough to get the job done. I did, however, succeed in my primary goal of saving Morgan's life, because the oar ricocheted off the skeleton's skull and struck an arm, knocking half of its grip free. At once, Morgan saw his chance and pried himself loose by using both arms and his body weight against the one remaining hand.
"A spirited wench, then, is she?" Van Dierken's voice roared out. Where had he come from so quickly? It was almost as if he'd just appeared from thin air before us. "But not quite so spirited as she will be!"
I thought I was a dead woman, then, as the point of his sword arrowed at my chest, but Morgan returned the favor I'd granted him, his blade slicing up and deflecting the thrust with an expert parry.
"Really, Van Dierken, you're a legendary pirate. You might be a devilish fiend, but you should at least have the dignity to sail clear of such execrable puns!"
Their blades rang together in the endless dance of steel that was expert fencing, and it soon became apparent that while the dead man was no amateur at the game, the living one was the true master between them. I could scarcely follow the swift sequence of moves, but somewhere Van Dierken made a mistake, and Morgan lunged, driving several inches of the blade into the ghost pirate's breast. I gave a tiny gasp of excitement at seeing the monster laid low.
I really should have known better.
Morgan's sword met no resistance going in, not from clothing, flesh, nor breastbone. The dueling blade slid out just as easily, drawing no blood and apparently giving Van Dierken no trouble in the least. Morgan was obviously taken aback by this reminder that he fought a dead man, because Van Dierken was able to crash his own sword down near the pirate's hilt and knock Morgan's blade from his grip.
Patch chose that moment to step up behind the ghost captain and swing his axe in a mighty cleaving blow to the skull.
"Damn yer eyes, Morgan; fer these dead things yer supposed ter go fer th' head!" he barked as the axe hammered home, but his confidence was misplaced. When he pulled the weapon free, Van Dierken's flesh seemed to flow back into place, the wound healing over even down to the slash in his bicorned hat.
"There's a difference between captain and crew!" Van Dierken laughed at Patch. "I'd suggest you learn the lesson now, unlike my old friend Teach." He swung a vicious cut at the one-eyed sailor, slashing a gouge in his cheek, then pivoted back to Morgan. His dead-white hand reached out and fastened on Morgan's throat, and the pirate began to gasp and choke. I swung my oar again, with predictable results. Van Dierken let Morgan drop, then seized the oar and wrenched it away from me.
"Your turn next, then," he declared. Morgan had collapsed to the ground, still as the grave, and I had a feeling I'd be joining him very soon. Where Bloodheart Van Dierken was concerned, death appeared to be contagious.
"Amelie!"
Mel's enraged bellow kindled up hope inside me despite my desperate circumstances. An instant later that hope was realized as his big shoulder thrust between myself and the ghost, pushing me away from danger, and he swung at Van Dierken's head. He didn't use his giant axe, but instead his massive clenched fist, and blessed be Althena, the contact made the dead captain's head snap backwards just as if he'd been a live man, even making him stumble back a couple of paces.
My elation was cut short at once by Mel's scream of pain; he dropped to his knees, clutching at the hand that had struck the blow and shuddering convulsively. I think I screamed, too; I know that I found myself frantically clutching at Mel's shoulders, trying to see what was wrong.
Van Dierken tossed back his head and laughed.
"Well, then, that's enough fun for now, so my crew and I will be taking our leave of you. Of course, you might not be so eager to see the last of me--at least, if you don't want your friend, there, to have joined my crew before dawn. I'm sure my old mate Teach will be glad to show you the way. He's been so good at it thus far."
In an instant the ghost captain had shrunk back to the glowing sphere as he'd first appeared, and it flew off faster than any bird. The skeletons that had not joined the attack faded away into the treeline. Van Dierken's mocking laughter seemed to hang over all of us for long moments in his wake, as for the first time I realized what real terror felt like.