I'm so happy you like it enough to keep reading!!!
I pound on the hatch and scream. Nobody up on deck pays me the slightest bit of attention. I can hear roars from above – the pirates have obviously got onto our ship. Then I hear footsteps from behind.
"They've locked ye up again, Miss Catherine, I see," a voice says. I spin around, but it is only Pintel, the ship's cook. He's been on the ship for about three years now, since I was about thirteen. I can remember – vaguely – there being a lot of trouble with some cursed treasure, and Pintel was going to be hanged, along with many of his other pirate comrades, but Norrington gave him the choice of the death penalty or service to the King's Navy. Unsurprisingly, he chose service.
"Yes," I sigh in response. "I wish they'd let me fight; just once. I hate the way they just push me aside."
He regards me quietly for a while, and then says warningly, "Now, if you was to tell anyone I told you this, I'd be in big trouble, so don't, alright?"
"Yes, yes," I agree hastily.
"There's another way up to deck. Put a pair of my trousers on, tie back that hair of yours, and you can go up and fight." As he speaks, a cannon booms from on deck and the whole ship shudders.
I hesitate, then agree. I am so excited at the prospect of being in a real pirate fight that I forget even to be disgusted at wearing Pintel's trousers. I scrape back my curls and he unsheathes his sword and hands it to me. It has ominous-looking reddish stains on the blade. I try very hard not to think about them. Sometimes you forget that fighting kills people.
Pintel shows me a hidden trapdoor up to deck. I thank him in a whisper and then burst out into the midst of the combat with a fierce war cry. The noise around me is so absolute that nobody notices, but two pirates spot me and come racing towards me, blades held high, ready to slit me apart from brain to stomach. I dodge them and run.
I see an older pirate stumbling around in the middle of deck. He looks harmless enough. I leap in front of him and brandish the sword in his face. He leers drunkenly up at my face. I gag at his blatant halitosis, but wave my blade menacingly. He meets the sword with his, and the clash of steel on steel fills the immediate surroundings. I feel my heart leap. This is excitement; this is what living is!
I thrust forwards with my sword and the old man topples backwards. I cheer. I am not altogether sure whether I knocked him over or whether he has fallen into a drunken stupor. He can't be dead, as I never touched him with the sword. Still, a victory is a victory.
A roar comes from behind me. I whirl around, sword at the ready, and the blade meets another in mid-air. I parry to get a good look at my attacker. He looks about Norrington's age, maybe older, with a raggedy hat and yellowing teeth. He takes another swipe at me with the sword, but I am ready and I spin out of reach. I drive forwards with my weapon. I don't intend to do any damage, just make him step back, but he doesn't even flinch, just blocks the attack with one easy swoop of his sword.
I am surprised. I didn't expect him to be this good at sword fighting. He doesn't look as though he is. But he swings forwards with his sword and almost cuts through the skin of my neck. I take a step backwards, but he has caught me off-guard and he knows it. He comes at me again with three fast strikes, none touching me, but forcing me to stagger backwards further. I wave my sword forwards, but the blade comes nowhere near him and he ignores it. He drives me back and back until I am backed up against a wall. He grins and swoops his sword through the air so it almost slices my face. I take the opportunity and thrust at him. He steps back, surprised, and the fight gets faster, harder, merciless. One second not concentrating and I could lose my head. Literally.
Thrust, parry, thrust, swing... I have no time even to blink, the fight is getting so hard and unforgiving. I am tiring and the last few swoops of the sword were nearly fatal...and then I see something over the pirate's shoulder that almost gets me decapitated.
"Will!"