PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR
By ErinRua
CHAPTER 29
As the thunder and outcry of battle shook the courtyard, another struggle went on behind the stable and carriage shed. The business of smashing munitions crates and powder kegs was proving much harder than Elizabeth had reckoned. The seasoned oak did not give easily and the simple fact was, nothing in the life of a governor's daughter prepared her for swinging an ax like a lumberjack. While Bess moved about the crowded room delivering her blows with vigorous ease, Elizabeth angrily puffed an errant strand of hair from her face and braced herself to try again.
"You'd think -." Thud went the ax and skittered dangerously to one side as the handle twisted in her hands. "That I could manage something as simple as hitting a wooden box!"
CRACK! Bess' only response was another crate splintered, and a rumbling cascade of curious round munitions tumbled amongst her dodging feet. Teeth clenched, Elizabeth tightened her grip, braced her stance and swung again. This time sharp iron struck wood with a splintering whack and the top of her keg split from side to side.
"Finally!"
Now the floor of the powder magazine bore many spilling black heaps of gunpowder, as kegs split and tipped their lethal contents. Elizabeth shouldered the ax and shot a quick glance out the door. Someone might come, would surely come, given the rising crescendo of the pandemonium beyond their sight.
On impulse she dropped the ax by the door and grabbed a broken keg. With a squeaky grunt she heaved it into her arms and began walking backwards - dribbling a gritty black trail about the room. Bess looked up and her white teeth shown in wordless approval. Around the tumbled room and across the floor Elizabeth poured her impromptu fuse, breathing relief as the keg became lighter in her grasp. Watching her progress carefully she backed towards the door, feeling the weight lighten towards emptiness as the black flow slowed. She back-stepped over the door-sill - and a voice spoke.
"'Ere, wot's this!"
Gasping she spun, keg flying from her arms to roll in a wooden clatter. Two men stood slope-shouldered not fifteen feet away, one bearing an empty ammunition haversack clutched in one hand.
"Well …." The second man's leering grin was visible in the smoky moonlight as he took a step towards her. "Wot do we 'ave 'ere?"
"Escapees," sneered the first man. "I think we oughts to stop 'em, aye?"
With a yelp she leaped for her ax, seizing it and swinging it wildly round - only to feel it wrenched from her hand with terrifying force, tumbling her out into the open. Desperately she scrambled for footing, lunging back towards the steel door only to find one of the men there before her, grinning as she slid to a flailing halt. She dodged the other way only to face the other man, now cackling as he held her ax in one hand.
"Where you goin', poppet? Don't you wanna play wif' us?"
"I think NOT!"
Wheeling Elizabeth grabbed her broken keg from the ground, and with the whole force of her spinning body hurled it to thud into the man's middle. As the man "oofed" and dropped the ax a wooden crack resounded from the doorway, and Elizabeth looked up to see the other thug standing glassy-eyed with the shattered remnants of a crate dangling around his neck. Without a sound he toppled face-forward to reveal Bess standing grim-faced behind him. The remaining man growled.
Instantly Elizabeth sprang for her nearly-forgotten dipper and swept it up in one hand.
"Stand where you are!" she shouted. Desperately she blew into the dipper, nearly bouncing in her anxiety as the coals only glowed a dim, dull light. "Not one more step!"
Again she puffed quickly, while the man left standing cocked his head in puzzlement. "Missy, I don't know wot ye -."
"There!" she cried, as crimson light burst back into life, and she tossed the man a perfectly savage smile. "One more step and I'll blow us all to kingdom come!"
The man Bess had felled was beginning to groan and roll over, but her whole attention remained on the embers she puffed frantically at once more. Then the second man's eyes went wide as he suddenly realized what that frail glow in the girl's hands was.
"N-n-now, d-don't you - you put that down, missy!" He stumbled as he backed up, seemingly too terrified to turn his back. "You just mind yerself, there! D- don't you -."
"Oh, but I am." She stepped towards the powder magazine's steel door and felt herself nearly flying on a giddiness somewhere between triumph and madness, as the man continued backing away. "Now the question is, do you want to be here when I do it?"
With a strangled screech the man spun and pelted away as fast as ever his legs could take him. Bess' victim abruptly discovered his own powers of recuperation, scrambling after his mate on all fours like a monkey, before staggering upright to follow in a long-legged run. Grinning from ear to ear, Elizabeth turned to see Bess' wry shrug.
"Dat take care of him. But I t'ink maybe we don't want to be here, either, eh?"
Elizabeth swallowed hard as she looked from her glowing ladle to the gritty spill of black gun powder trailing back into the stone building. There really were an awful lot of explode-able things in there, now that she thought about it.
"No, I think not."
Giving a nod, Bess turned and picked up one last broken keg. As Elizabeth kept watch, Bess began spilling a trail out the door and across the yard, away from the chaos to come.
***
Sword in hand Norrington slashed and parried and slashed again, the last vestige of doubt burned away the instant Biltmore had fired upon a ship bearing the Union Jack. Traitor, villain, knave and criminal, Sir John was all of these and more. What troubled Norrington now, however, was how the man himself managed to remain out of reach.
Almost as troubling as finding himself and three sailors suddenly at the foot of a set of stairs, cut off from their mates by a veritable flood of Biltmore's hoodlums. He struck with cold savagery and never looked down as one ruffian fell to be replaced by another. Then a howling cheer went up and over the walls came the very last thing he had expected to see - Will Turner and at least fifteen of the Black Pearl's pirate crew. Will saw him at the same instant and shouted to his comrades, and they spilled down the stairs from the walls in a snarling torrent.
"I thought I sent you away!" Norrington snapped, as Turner restrained his blade to slam a boot in an enemy's gut and the thug fell away.
"You did!" Will flashed a white-hot grin. "But I changed my mind!"
Gibbs, Tearlach, Original John and Irish John - even Anamaria boiled into the chaos. For an instant Norrington simply stared at the spectacle of pirates, marines and sailors all battling side-by-side.
"What about them?"
"Oh." Will shrugged, still grinning. "They forgot something." Glancing sharply about, he added, "Where's Jack?"
Where indeed? Norrington turned towards the front gate, but while the now-disabled cannon remained tilted in place, of its captain there was no trace.
Will did not wait for an answer, leaping away into the confusion with the two Johns at his heels. Across the courtyard still stood that hateful stable and towards it he now cut a determined path, with Irish John hacking valiantly beside him. Original John preferred simpler tactics: even with one arm in bandages he could still heave and toss ordinary men as if they were sacks of seed.
Then the world blew up.
Night vanished in incandescent brilliance as a massive detonation flashed every face and cobble into stark crimson relief. Concussion clubbed like a vast fist of air and high notes of shattering glass rang beneath the roaring boom as each window pane facing the explosion utterly disappeared.
Suddenly every other thing ceased to matter. Fighting, struggling, winning or surrender, all stopped as the combatants gawked in the dumbness of absolute shock. Within the fiery, roiling belly of the beast several secondary explosions belched new gouts of sooty flame. Some men found themselves sprawled on the paving stones not knowing how they got there. Others reached numbly for hats that had blown quite away. As a shuddering silence fell, the thunder of the explosion rolled in bounding echoes down the harbor and out to sea.
All eyes stared as the billows of smoke and fire began to churn lower. Beside the fountain Will Turner sat splay-legged on the paving stones, while Irish John peered around the fountain with the bandage of his earlier wound knocked askew and his blue eyes were huge.
"Ogun -." Suddenly Will's face lit in a giddy grin and he tipped back his head to watch, flames reflected in his eyes. "Ogun has come."
"If he has, he's got company."
Will twisted to look for the source of that voice, spying Anamaria staring at something over his head. He turned back - and his face went utterly blank with awe.
"I think," said Anamaria, "Erzulie had a hand in things, too."
For in the dancing, ruddy light that bathed the courtyard, with flames leaping behind her, her hair tossing untamed as a Siren's and a skirt of fire and coals wrapping about her long legs … strode Elizabeth Swann. Beside her walked a majestic black woman with the face of an African goddess, and not a man who saw dared move. Perhaps not all were sure that these creatures were even mortal.
Yet Will stood, his eyes never leaving her. His face was alight, his heart nearly breaking, and he did not remember moving, only that he must reach her. Each step was an eternity, each breath was forever and then she was here, before him, with firelight in her hair and something in her eyes that threatened to drown him, but he would die willingly, if only she were near.
As her slender fingers lightly stroked his face, she said in the softest voice, "You took long enough."
"Elizabeth …."
Just to say her name was a hymn, a paean to the world's most infinite joys. Then something exploded and shot up into the air, and he watched it fall tumbling back into the flames. He frowned when he looked at her again.
"What on earth did you do?"
"Oh." With a gamine look Elizabeth shrugged one dainty shoulder. "I think that's what they call a powder magazine."
"The - Elizabeth! You could have been killed!"
"Posh. We were very careful." She lifted her chin haughtily. "From what we could see, the distraction was well-needed."
"Powder … magazine?"
They both turned to see Commodore Norrington attempting to resettle his wig back on his head. However, the poor hairpiece rather resembled a squashed cat and his face abruptly contorted in impatience. In one motion he whipped off the wig and clapped his hat back onto short-cropped brown hair.
"Yes, I believe that's what it's called." Elizabeth gave him a guileless smile. "A little stone building where they keep all the things to shoot the cannons?"
Coughing to dislodge some peculiar obstruction, Norrington replied, "Ah - yes. You would be quite correct. Ah - it is good to see you well, Miss Swann."
"Why, thank you, Commodore." Still smiling, she swept a hand to clasp her silent companion's fingers and drew her forward. "Commodore Norrington, may I present my dear friend Bess? Bess, this is the commander of Port Royal's fleet, Commodore James Norrington."
Bess' white smile was her only reply, but to his credit Norrington brought his heels together and offered a textbook-perfect bow. The mangled wig he discreetly tucked behind his back.
"It is my honor, Miss Bess." Straightening, his stern expression softened as he added, "Ladies, would you be so kind as to accompany me in liberating your friends? I think after all their suffering that a first glimpse of your gentle faces would be great comfort."
Around them Biltmore's men had abandoned all hint of resistance. As the shock of the explosion began to wear off the men stood or sat in meek silence, while the sailors and marines of the Dauntless started collecting weapons and assuming positions of guard. Elizabeth looked at Will and gave him a quick smile, enough to flip his heart into somersaults, but also a reminder that now was not the time for the reunion they might have wished.
"Of course, Commodore. Bess and I will show you the way. Come, gentlemen."
Although dressed in strange bright colors and a peasant blouse, with her hair wild about her shoulders and her bare feet shod only in straw sandals, she was once again the elegant daughter of Governor Swann. Without prompting two marines fell smartly into step on either side, and Will watched as Norrington and the two women walked away.
"Hoy, mate … is that yer mot?"
Startled, Will looked to see Irish John and Original John both staring after Elizabeth with nearly identical looks of admiration. His own grin threatened to split his skull.
"Yes. That's Elizabeth."
Pulling in his chin in reflection, Irish John said, "Aye. She'll do."
"All right!" Anamaria's sharp cry broke the moment. "Let's get what we came for." Casting a baleful glance across the courtyard, she added, "Before the commodore gets the stars out of his eyes."
Will scowled at that, but then another realization struck. "Biltmore. Has no one seen Biltmore?"
Beyond Anamaria, Gibbs shook his grizzled head. "Disappeared, lad. Reckon he's makin' his break for it."
Eyes narrowed, Will said, "Not if I can help it. Come on!"
"Hey!"
He wheeled to face Anamaria. "What?"
Her dark eyes were hard as she said, "We're not here to take any prizes that we can't carry in our two hands. Understand? If you're after anything else, you do it on your own."
"Fine." Will firmed his grip on the sword he had until that moment forgotten he still carried. "With any luck, maybe I'll find Jack for you, too!"
He wheeled away before Anamaria could reply, and burst into a run towards the house.
***
"Oops," muttered a voice from the shadows behind a toppled chair. "Someone put out the lights."
Jack spat and grimaced as he pushed himself to sitting on the floor - a floor suddenly gritty with shattered glass and splintered window frames. Not to mention any small objects that had been standing in front of said windows. His foot struck something that rolled with a clink: he reached to pick up half of what had, until seconds ago, been a very lovely and expensive Chinese porcelain vase.
"Pity," he said, turning it in his hand before he tossed it over his shoulder to smash amongst other debris.
Then he gave a philosophical tilt of his head and clambered to his feet, cutlass in hand. There he paused as he scowled at the wreckage dim beams of moonlight revealed. Obviously the explosion had been outside but it had not been at all kind to this side of the house. Whatever it was, however, things had quieted down notably in the moments since. If everyone had blown themselves to bits in one fell swoop, all the better for a pirate with a mission.
Giving a last glance around the dark room he leaped over a fallen chair and away. Deeper into the silent house he scuttled, past other rooms and mysterious passages. Ever and anon a light glowed from another room, whereupon he slunk in careful steps from one shadow to the next, sword poised, before bolting forward once more. Suddenly more light appeared before him, diffuse and golden and he found himself peering from an arched corridor into what appeared the main entry of the manor.
A vast room it was with thick rugs strewn across marble floors and softly gleaming lamps on walls and tables. Comfortable-looking chairs crouched against the walls amidst carved side tables and elegant statuary. Sparrow bent to squint at the frozen stone face of an ethereal maiden with an urn poised on her gracefully-carved shoulder. His fingers lightly touched the smooth lines of the statue, and then he looked past and found himself gazing at a set of broad marble stairs that curved upwards to a shadowy second-floor balcony.
There seemed not a soul in the house, and with a last glance around he darted across the room and sprang onto the sweeping stairs. Quick as a cat he was up to the next level and peering both ways along the balcony and down a long, hushed hallway. Gleaming doors stood one just like the next, closed and no light beneath them. Cautiously now, Sparrow chose a direction and skulked warily forward, his sword catching faint glints of ambient light and his feet making no sound on the polished hardwood floor.
Suddenly a latch clacked and there Sparrow was, nearly eyeball-to-eyeball with a grey-headed woman in a maid's cap. Her eyes and mouth both sprang wide open - and he instantly pressed a finger to his lips. Neither one breathed as they stared at each other in perfect silence, while Sparrow eased his sword out of sight behind his back and beamed a grin.
Tapping his finger to his lips once more, he then reached to ever-so-lightly touch her shoulder and gently pressed her back into the room. Her huge eyes were the last thing he saw as he drew the door quietly shut between them. He blew a gusty breath and resumed sneaking.
Then the corridor bent at a right angle and at its terminus a thin bar of light spilled through a door that had not quite latched. From inside that room came a soft thud as of a closet being closed. On tiptoe Sparrow slid to the door and the beam of light painted one eye and a fraction of his face as he looked within. There he bared his teeth in a sly grin and ever so delicately he reached out … and pushed the heavy door open.
***
TBC …
A/N: Sorry, sorry, don't hurt me! Next chapter will be up tomorrow! That was just the best place I could find to drop in a chapter break. Erm … really, mates, put down the torches and pitchforks …