Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Peter Pan, Captain Hook, or any of Mr. Barry's other wonderful characters. I write about them solely for my own amusement, and make no profit from it except that which I receive from knowing my writing has been enjoyed by others.
Chapter 12
A Daring Rescue
When Sophia emerged from Hook's cabin the next morning, she pretended not to notice the shocked stares on the faces of the crew. A late night visit to the ship's hold had turned up a pair of black breeches that fit her perfectly, as well as a pair of fine black boots that reached halfway to her knees. She had borrowed one of James' shirts, as well as an emerald green sash that she had tied around her waist. Her hair was held back by a bright purple scarf. Though she only had the most rudimentary idea of how to use it, she had belted on one of James' lighter swords to complete the effect. When she had inspected her costume in the mirror, she had thought herself rather ridiculous at first. However, she squared her shoulders, drew herself up to her full height, and realized that she couldn't get away with just looking the part. She had to act it. And for James, she would do just that.
She strode purposefully to the center of the deck and hopped up on top of a barrel so that she stood above the rest of the pirates.
"I don't know about the rest of you," she shouted so that all could hear, "but I'm going to go get the Captain back. And I'm not going to let one miserable crocodile stop me!"
"The croc'll kill us all!" someone shouted.
Sophia sneered. "You're afraid, are you?" The pirate who had spoken shrunk back. "Fine, then," Sophia said. "I, for one, am not afraid." She laughed derisively. "And I am a woman! If needs be, I'll go alone and leave the rest of you men cowering on the ship in fear."
The crew began to shift uncomfortably. They did not like the idea of shrinking away from a fight the woman standing in front of them was more than happy to throw herself into. What kind of pirates would they be to say no when she was obviously so fearless?
"We can win," Sophia assured them as soon as she saw them begin to waver. "There is only one crocodile, and there are many of us. I have magic, and we have allies who will help us when the time is right." She reached into a pouch that was tied onto her belt and fingered the shell that Ishari had given her, just to make sure it was still there.
"Who will come with me?" Sophia asked. "Who will be among those the Captain rewards when he returns?" The pirates began to look worried once again, suspecting that those who didn't help out in the rescue would meet an unpleasant end when the Captain found out they had stayed behind.
With one voice, the pirates roared their approval and brandished swords and guns to show how ready they were to take on the enemy.
"Gather your weapons," Sophia ordered. "Man the long boats. We sail for the Black Castle!" The pirates let out another warlike yell, and Sophia started almost imperceptibly, surprised that her words had had such an effect.
Within minutes, the boats were loaded and ready to go. Sophia took her place at the prow of the boat in the lead and gave the order to cast off. Many sets of oars hit the water at once, and they were soon cutting through the water with fast, powerful strokes. The shore flew by as they skirted around the island. Sophia ordered her crew to keep a sharp eye out for Peter Pan and his band, in case the Lost Boys decided to come investigate what the pirates were up too. She also kept her eyes open for any sign that the crocodile knew they were coming.
All of this watchfulness, however, was unneeded, and they reached the yawning cavern of the Black Castle without seeing another living thing. The gargoyles carved into the stone over the entrance seemed to mock them and call them fools. The pirates exchanged nervous glances, and looked at Sophia for their orders.
"We go in!" she called, and waved for the boats to move forward. "Keep behind me!" She turned to the men rowing her boat. "Make for the tunnel at the back of the cavern on the left," she told them.
The only sound any of them could hear was the slap of the oars on the water as they entered the tunnel. The boats were forced to go in single file, and the ceiling was low enough that some of the taller pirates could have brushed their heads against it had they stood up. The light from outside grew fainter and fainter.
"Light torches!" Sophia ordered. "I want to see what's ahead of us." A few seconds later, spots of orange flame sprung up around her.
"Couldn't you… you know, light our way with a spell?" asked Smee, who was in the boat with her.
"I could, but it would tire me. I need to save my magic for when I have most need of it," she said.
The tunnel widened, and the boats were able to go two by two. Using the memory Ishari had given her, twice more Sophia directed the crew when a new tunnel branched off from the main waterway. As soon as they turned down the second branch, a dank stench wafted down the corridor. Sophia wrinkled her nose in disgust. But, still, she smiled. They were getting close. She reached out with her mind. If the crocodile was as unnatural a creature as the mermaid said it was, Sophia knew she would be able to sense it long before she saw it.
At last, the tunnel ended and opened up into a vast cavern. The light from the torches did not even reach the ceiling, but Sophia could see faint sunlight coming in through cracks high above their heads. The floor of the cave was not entirely covered in water, and as they rowed farther in, Sophia heard the sound of water lapping on dry ground. She ordered the pirates to make for shore, and when they had pulled the boats out of the water, they saw that the cave extended even farther than any of them had expected. The crocodile was nowhere in sight, though the smell was worse than ever. From the hollow sound of their whispers, it seemed likely that the area of the cave's dry land was far larger than the small space illuminated by their torches.
Sophia waited patiently while the boats were unloaded. She had thought it prudent to bring ropes and chains in case they had the opportunity or the need to subdue the monster in order to extract the Captain. When the task was finished, the pirates huddled around Sophia, waiting for her to decide what to do.
"We go forward," Sophia announced. "The crocodile will know we're coming long before we reach her, but thanks to the clock she swallowed, we will hear her long before she's close enough to hurt us, so stay sharp. We can't let her catch us in a small space where we have to fight her one on one. She'll win. We'll try and draw her out into the open, where we can all get at her at once. Try to get her to come down to the water. She has enemies there, as well." She glanced at Mr. Smee uncertainly. She was not a warrior, and had no idea what other pieces of advice she was supposed to be dispensing.
"Stay out of the way of its teeth," the first mate added, "and watch the tail. Try and get at her legs, her eyes, and her belly."
"We should make a lot of noise, all the echoes in this place might confuse her," another pirate suggested.
Sophia suddenly remembered something important. "Hurt her, get her down, but don't kill her!" she admonished them. "I don't know what will happen if she dies with the Captain still inside of her. Now, let's go." She grabbed a torch from one of the pirates and led the way. As they walked, she drew the white shell out of her pouch.
She sent her thought out. Come now. I will need you soon.
Shoulder to shoulder, they advanced cautiously, swords at the ready. No one spoke, and occasionally one of the men with a torch would wave it at a brief gust of wind. The first any of them heard of it was a steady "tick-tock, tick-tock," coming from directly in front of them. The sound was far away, but getting closer by the second.
"She's here!"
"The Croc's coming!"
Amidst the shouts of the crew, Sophia heard the sound of a huge creature walking across the stone and felt something old and terrible brush against her mind.
"Stand your ground! Make her come to us!" she yelled. She didn't want any of the crew going deeper into the cave.
"I can't see her, Miss," Smee said.
"Where is she?" another asked.
"Don't worry, we're about to be shown her location," Sophia said. A streak of light flashed across the cave. Hawk Dancer, with his fairy-sight, needed no torches to find the crocodile. He danced around the beast's head, avoiding her snapping teeth.
"There!" Sophia shouted. The pirates rushed toward the pixie's light, which was coming closer by the instant. The first ones to meet the crocodile were lucky. She had been sleeping when she heard the voices of intruders in her cave, and she was blinded by the Hawk's light and the orange glow of the torches. Still, she could hear her enemies perfectly well. She snapped her jaws at them and swung her powerful tail, knocking the legs right out from under several of the pirates. As her eyes adjusted, the crocodile only got more angry. Were these not the pathetic sailors whose captain she had eaten? Where were they doing here? How dare they disturb her in her own caves?
For the most part, the pirates' swords struck harmlessly against her hard scales, and Sophia saw a dagger thrown by one of the crew glance off as if it had been nothing more than a twig. Those with torches swung them at the crocodile, hoping that fire might hurt her where steel could not. The crocodile simply swatted the torches from their hands with her tail, or lunged for the fire-bearing men, trying to remove them, and the light they carried, from the fight. The old creature watched with great satisfaction as a pirate had been holding one of the torches sailed over her head and landed in the water. The light went out with a hiss.
"Light! We need more light!" Smee yelled.
Sophia whispered an incantation and threw a pinch of powder into the air. A ball of faint blue light shot up to the ceiling of the cavern, illuminating the entire cave just enough for the pirates to be able to see their adversary. Now that they didn't have to wonder exactly where she was, the pirates charged in with new fervor. One of them, a quick, nimble fellow, managed to dash in and put a gash in her belly before she could turn her head to snap at him. However, this one small victory did not change the fact that the crocodile was able to keep most of them at a safe distance. For such a large creature, she was surprisingly agile.
While the crew distracted the crocodile, Sophia prepared another incantation. When the beast was not looking her way, she conjured two balls of flame and hurled them at the crocodile's eyes. Sophia's aim was true, and the croc roared in pain. Seeing the enemy so disoriented, more pirates rushed in to take advantage of her weakness. They slashed at her tender sides, and one pirate even had the gall to jump onto her tail and drive his sword straight down through it. He would have pinned her to the ground had she not lashed her tail to the side, throwing him off and taking his sword with her.
This new enemy that could make light and throw fire was more than the crocodile had been expecting. And, the pirates were braver than she remembered. So, she lumbered toward the water, meaning to dive beneath the sea where the pirates and their witch could not follow her. The instant she entered the water, however, the croc was surrounded by an angry pack of mermaid that held sharp bone knives and had murder in their eyes. Seeing the croc's confusion, Ishari sprung forward and buried her knife to the hilt the in crocodile's neck. The monster slunk backwards. She would find no safety in the sea.
She turned back to face the pirates, who had circled around her. Every time one of them came near, she snapped her teeth in the direction of the sound. The pirates approached her carefully, for even though the croc was practically blind and bleeding from many wounds, her huge jaws could still bite a man in half.
One of the pirates, Sophia thought she recognized him as Bill Jukes, threw the harpoon he carried like a spear. It struck true, and lodged in the crocodile's breast. The croc roared, and writhed in pain.
"NOW!" Sophia shouted.
On her command, the crew grabbed the ropes and chains they had brought, and wrapped them around the crocodile's legs, tail, mouth, and body. Though it took every man on the crew to subdue her, they brought her crashing to the ground. As the croc landed, Sophia thought she heard the sound of bones breaking. She marched up to the fallen creature. The crocodile glared at the sorceress, the one she blamed for her pain, and tried to wriggle out of her bonds.
"Hold her tight!" Sophia yelled. She spoke a single word of Power, and the croc's chains suddenly increased in weight and strength a hundredfold. The pirates no longer had to do anything to keep the creature down. Sophia sauntered over to the crocodile's side, put her hand on the haft of the harpoon and pulled it free. The crocodile bellowed in pain.
"No one has died here yet," Sophia said conversationally, looking the croc in the eye. "And, if you cooperate, no one will." The crocodile growled at her. "You understand me. I know you do. You can't fool me."
The croc gnashed at the chains holding her mouth shut. Sophia understood her to mean she wanted to speak.
"I'll loose the chains on your mouth, but you so much as snap at any of my crew, and I'll let the nice pirate with his axe resting on your neck sever your spine from the rest of your body."
The crocodile snorted. She knew why Sophia was there, and knew the sorceress wanted her alive.
"I don't think this will kill you," Sophia continued. "You seem rather hardy. However, if I don't miss my guess, it will probably paralyze you completely. I wonder how long you'd last… unable to move, unable to hunt…"
The crocodile calmed and nodded her head slightly. At Sophia's signal, two pirates came forward and unwound the chains around the croc's mouth.
"You have something I want," Sophia said. "Give him back to me, and we'll leave you in peace."
The crocodile's belly shook, and Sophia realized that it was laughing.
"And why would I do that, Witch?" the croc rumbled in a deep, gravelly voice. "Hook is the finest meal I've had in years. Centuries. I knew from the day I got his hand that he would be a most delicious feast." If Sophia didn't know better, she would have sworn that the crocodile smiled maliciously at her. "And he has been delicious."
"Give him back," Sophia said again. "Give him back, or I'll see you dead."
"You wouldn't want him back now, not what he's become," the crocodile said. "His mind was already weak, made so by the magic of the island. He's nothing more than a shivering, screaming ball of pain and hatred."
"He's in pain… right now… inside of you?" Sophia asked. Horror and anger vied for the place of prominence in Sophia's mind.
"He has to feel in order for me to feed. So, I must keep him angry and in pain."
The thought of anyone doing such a thing to another, especially to one she loved, was too much for Sophia to bear. She drew her sword, screamed, and dove at the crocodile. She stopped with the point of her sword pressing on the croc's skull, a few inches from its right eye.
"Give him back! Give him back now, or I'll kill you myself!"
The creature chuckled. "You kill me, you might kill him."
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Sophia snarled. "Even if he were to die, it would be more merciful than letting you continue to hurt him." She put a little pressure on her sword, and felt the tip hit bone. "Decide. Now."
"Stand back," the crocodile said. Sophia and the pirates backed away. The croc took a few deep breaths, and a rumbling noise came from the pit of her stomach. She heaved once, gagged, and spit the Captain, unconscious, out of her gaping mouth. He rolled for a few feet, then lay still.
Sophia rushed to his side. His eyes were tightly shut, his hair was long and tangled, and his clothes had long since been eaten away by whatever vile concoction seethed in the belly of the crocodile. With trembling hands, she touched the side of his neck, feeling for a heartbeat. At last, she felt it. It was there, but faint. She sighed in relief and closed her eyes for a moment. She couldn't be frantic. Not yet. James still needed her to have a clear head.
"Someone get me a blanket, or a coat," she said to the crew. "I need something to cover him." Wordlessly, several of the pirates took the coats from their own shoulders and offered them to her. She accepted one of them and wrapped it around James' shivering body.
"Get him to the boats," she said.
The crew gathered up their weapons and gave the prone crocodile a wide berth as they made their way back to the longboats. Three pirates carefully carried James between them. Sophia was the last one standing at the creature's side, intently studying the one who had caused her so much pain. At last, when she had had enough, she turned and followed the crew. The crocodile, still weighted down by the unnaturally heavy chains roared after her to get her attention.
"I gave you what you wanted! Release me, Witch!"
Sophia kept walking.