At my Throat
Shots shatter the muted grey dawn and the steely surf thunders in wrath as the irate shouts and battle cries rise like hot embers in a fire, the smoldering hate and the deadly energy piling up in the atmosphere and pressing itself down thickly upon us. The waves crash and crumble and writhe, white and tumbling upon the sand, their breaking crests the color of bleached white bone. The drifting mass of unnatural fog drowns the port of San Yolanda and seeps chillingly through my sticky skin, swimming thickly round the whipping black sails of the Pearl, curling like frozen breath round the creaking masts of the Crest, and swirling eerily round the brilliant red of the coats of the Brits that dash madly across the pallid sands of the weary beach, kicking up the grains as their feet pound for the docks where the Crest is anchored.
I stand frozen upon the deck as the crew clambers frantically about me, clutching the railing with my compass resting against my hip and my heart caught helplessly in my throat as the breeze rips at my flying strands of unruly hair. The redcoats are here. Somehow they have found us. Somehow they have landed here. And I know that they will not cease until they've killed us. Captured us. Shipped us to the noose in chains. All of us; every last one. Their icy musket fire punches through the mist and I swiftly draw my gleaming blade, something strange glimmering in my somber eyes. Wind whistles in my ears and I grip the hilt tightly in my callused hands, my clammy breath struggling through my gritted teeth. I know what I must protect.
There is a dying scream and then something catches my eye in a glimmer of flashing scarlet, like a scalding drop of windswept blood, like the terror that colors the horizon on the crimson eve of an approaching tempest. I spot the flash of a British musket and the wisp of a groomed feather plume and so I grip my sword and let it swing; there is a sudden strangled cry and the boarding redcoat crumples to the ground in a shower of searing hot blood, the vivid scarlet droplets shattering in the air and peppering my skin and clothing. I stare downward at the man who lies blankly on the ground, muttering wordlessly, the life draining from his eyes as he writhes and clutches at his torn stomach, the salty stench of the blood spilling through the air. My teeth grinding painfully into my lower lip, I strike the fallen man until he moves no more, and then I swivel and throw a blow at another approaching Brit who leaps over the railing and scrambles to blow his icy musket bullet through my head. My blade strikes his bosom and he sags and tumbles back over the rail where he is swallowed by the thirsty sea with a sort of sickening splash, the silver waters tinged a bit crimson from the bloodshed.
I find myself torn of breath and staring down into the bay when a blow like a riptide slams into my back; my sword clatters to the floor along with my own winded body, my eyes spinning as I cough and hack and gasp for air as the many hordes of footsteps pound all about me. Cold steels grates and glints above my head and my trembling fingers grope at my belt and the scream of my shot suddenly slices like a knife through the wounded air; the Brit shudders and falls dead and the pistol shakes and smokes in my wobbling grasp, my breath tearing at my lungs and my muscles aching as I wince and pull myself to my feet.
I gasp and lean against the blood-splattered railing and the Crest is enveloped in a swarming sea of red. The British swarm like insects about the deck, their cutlasses glinting like lightning and like the fire that smolders in their unfeeling eyes. They clamber up the rigging and plummet from the crow's nest and pepper the air with their blasting, fiery musket shots; Captain Sparrow's crewmen cry and tumble and collapse heavily upon the deck that they've worked for so many blasted hours to scrub clean. The redcoats bellow and bend and reload and fire again, the redness of their uniforms piercing like death through the sluggish soup of the morning fog. There are too many of them. I seize the hilt of my sword and slash here and there, swiping and striking and blocking and thrashing and many a man falls at my feet, but I know already that the battle is lost. I bring my blade down upon a sprawled man who snatches at my leg and then I throw my gaze frantically upward, where it flits and settles desperately upon the elegant black form of the lovely Pearl, soaring and drifting like smoke on the tussled harbor. My strenuous breath catches in my throat and suddenly I know what we must do. What I must do.
"Smith!" I scream, my dark hair swirling about me as I swivel about in the fog, my bloodstained blade glinting coldly as I hold it up protectively before me. Smith's familiar gaze pierces me and he pauses and swings with his sword that is clutched desperately in his one good hand, his cloud of silvery hair blowing about in the sea's sullen breath.
"Smith; you've got haul up the mooring lines-bring about the anchor-we've got to make for open water-now!"
"Ye mean we're to leave the port, Sparrow?; have you lost your mind to the wind, boy? Yer not the captain of this vessel and the Code clearly states that…"
"To hell with the Code; we've got to head out to open water! We can't win, Smithy; can't you see…don't you see?"
Something washes like water over his features and I know in an instant that he's understood. My sights remain frozen upon his vanishing form until they drift and catch something upon the beach and suddenly I lose my capability to think-it simply leaves me, screaming, streaming from my body and lost to the howling surf and the whipping wind. A man in a red coat, his uniform like a blemish upon the murky hull of the bobbing Pearl. A collapsed body lying lifelessly in the sand, the surf tugging at it and washing and drenching it with breaking sea-foam. A body with shining blonde hair like Alexander's. Thomas. The man who owned the Black Pearl. The man who owned that graceful spirit of a ship, the ship with a hue so deep that she nearly looks like a piece of the night sky that had been somehow sliced from the heavens and fashioned into a seaworthy vessel by the light-bathed hands of a singing angel.
The very same ship that stands now with a red-clothed Brit at her helm.
Stealing her away to sea.
Never to be seen again.
I stand petrified, every inch of my body frozen. I cannot move. I cannot think. I cannot comprehend what is happening. I cannot let this happen. Never.
The air rushes dizzyingly past me and my mind spins and thaws out, my pulse pounding in my ears and my breath ripping at my lungs and my feet slamming ferociously against the blood-soaked deck, crimson and fire and death and smoke and fog all swirling sickeningly about me. I shove through the clamor with my prodding elbows and my swiping fingers. All that lies before me is that dark beauty of a ship, that unearthly vessel that floats so proudly at the dock adjacent to where the bloodied Crest bobs desperately in the bleached surf. It dazzles my eyes and pulls me ahead and my fingers stretch out before me as I drift out into the pitching blackness that swims so elegantly within the light. I will save her. This is the ship that I will captain. The ship that I will steer over the sea with my back to the wind and my fingers placed confidently upon her wheel.
I breathe and dash and clamber for the railing when suddenly a great slicing agony rips like a blaze into my scalp, yanking me over backwards and forcing my chin back, my legs flailing and my arms thrashing and my eyes blotted with burning hot tears of pain. Before I can draw my weapon from my belt there is an icy flash of grating silver and I feel the frigid bite of steel pressed up threateningly against my exposed throat, my blood screaming in my veins and my horrified breath tearing at my throat, my scalp smarting as clutching foreign fingers knot themselves painfully into the matted locks of my hair. Terror popping in my head, I groan and squirm but the both of my arms are seized and the icy blade drives its greedy teeth into my flesh in a searing line of flame. The breath suddenly leaves me and the clammy gasp of a man's hot breath pants into my ear, the bloody din of the battle sounding viciously about us. I feel the flash of some fool's eyes on me and I catch the white of the redcoat's gaze before he swivels his head to look out over the intensifying battle that swathes the bloodstained deck. My eyes glaze over him and I can practically hear the gears clanking in his head; I suck in a breath and wonder why he hasn't already slit my throat.
"Oi, you, captain! Everyone! Stop; stop it!"
The dark stormy eyes of Captain Sparrow pierce coldly through me, his hair billowing in the gasping breeze and the silver crosses bound in his locks glinting in the muted light. He holds a blood-tainted blade and a pistol and he swirls about in a cloud of domineering blackness, the whites of his narrowed eyes just about jumping out at me and his grimacing mouth set in his usual marred scowl. It's as if hell itself has frozen over. Not a man can move.
"And what may ye be asking for….sir?" the captain spits in mock-respectful tone that drips with his nasty sneer and his bitter words. The redcoat's grasp tightens on my shoulders and he presses the blade threateningly against my exposed neck, his fingers clutching my hair and forcing my chin to pitch towards the gloomy sky above. I grit my teeth against the pain and I can feel my body trembling. Never have I been so humiliated.
"I'd advise that you instruct your...your ruffians to cease their futile efforts, captain," the redcoat says self-righteously, the words dripping from his lips with such a thick feeling of superiority that I find my bruised fingers clenching into clammy fists that tremble and shake from the blaze of my ignited fury. A twisted smirk washes over the captain's face and his body relaxes, his teeth glinting as he chuckles lightly, a deep and rolling sound.
"And now why would I do that, Brit? Give me a single good reason."
The redcoat blinks dumbly and I feel his sword-point quavering against my neck.
"Why…ah…Why because I've got him!" the man stammers indignantly. "Your son; can't you see, I've got your boy here at the point of a sword!"
The blade bites at my flesh and the exasperated redcoat shakes me roughly by the shoulders, my bead-strings clacking softly in the wind and the pain searing on my stinging scalp.
"Don't you understand; I'll kill your little boy! Right here and right now, unless you drop your bloody weapons and come quietly; hasn't this happened to you before-don't you understand how this is done, pirate?" The redcoat's voice rings with his stammering incredulity and the captains lets out another mocking laugh, the hilt of his sword glittering in his hand and my stomach knotting nauseatingly.
"Well, then go on, do what ye wish…" The captains gestures dismissingly. "Carry on and kill the boy; I don't see how it matters to me."
"But-"
"Ye've already killed a number of me crewmen: my cook, a deckhand, a scout…I don't see why this boy should matter more than any of the other fools, and I don't see why ye bother to stop me just to alert me of such things. As I've said, carry on. What's to impede ye?"
Silence. The captain's face glows with a cold, knowing grin, and all the Brit can do is struggle hopelessly for words, the surf hissing and the Crest groaning beneath us.
"I suppose that ye've never met a pirate, son," the captain says softly in his deep voice, smirking and leaning casually on his gleaming blade.
I cannot breathe; all I can do is stand and shake and hold myself and wait for the moment when I am lost from this world with a single slash of the sword that bites frostily into my aching neck. All eyes sit upon us, the redcoat and I. The sword glitters at my throat. The redcoat's labored breath is sticky against my grimy cheek. The wind whispers and lifts my hair.
The wordless redcoat just blinks and stares and stammers and so I grind my teeth and wrench and lurch myself wildly to the side, grunting and breaking free of the man's faltered hold, his sluggish blade grazing my chest and the burn of the fresh wound throbbing and smarting through my soiled and tattered shirt as my heart thunders like the surf in my temples. His sword flashes silver in my eyes but I cry and draw my pistol and the shot shatters the air like glass, the gasping redcoat collapsing in a blur of crimson and the acrid scent of gunpowder wafting and burning my flared nostrils. And then the combat ensues.
I cannot think anymore. I aim and pull the trigger and slice and slash and kick and punch and stab and parry and dash and scream and fire. My clenched teeth grind into my tongue and my own hot blood burns my lips and I grasp that there is not a man here who cares. Not one who will come to my aid. Not one upon whom I can count on. I throw myself into the fray and cut at the chilling mist with the slashing ice of my blade, my smoky eyes glinting and my lips curled and my teeth grinding painfully together, my heart thudding and my muscles aching and my hair whipping and my sword flying. I've never felt so alive. But I've never felt so dead either. And as I cry and slash and bring my blade down upon all those who cross me, I doubt that I am heard in the first place. The canvas billows above me and the wind carries us away.