PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR
By ErinRua
CHAPTER 31
Finding Jack was simple; Elizabeth simply looked for the only lighted room on that floor. However, as she approached the open doorway her heart seemed stuck fast in her throat. Her pace slowed in dread as she neared that spill of golden light - and there Jack was.
He lay on his side, his tangled hair and all its trinkets spilling from beneath his dingy red head scarf. Around the ungainly sprawl of his body, gold coins and scattered jewelry glinted, some on thick Turkish carpet and some on polished floor. She saw no movement, no twitch of expression on high cheekbones or bearded chin. Almost she could imagine he was simply passed out drunk among his ill-gotten spoils. Almost.
"Jack?" she whispered.
Not so much as the flicker of an eyelid. Sudden movement startled her, but it was Anamaria, pushing past her into the room. Elizabeth followed as if drawn by a string and both women knelt to either side of the fallen man. Mouth tight, Anamaria brusquely grabbed Jack's shoulder and rolled him limply onto his back.
"Damn fool." Anamaria's tone was dark as the deep stillness in her eyes.
"There's no blood." Elizabeth looked to Anamaria's grim face. "Shouldn't there be blood?"
"Not always," was her clipped reply, the lilt of the islands taking a hard, practical edge. Briskly she pressed one button after the other undone, until Jack's waistcoat fell open across his chest. "Small weapon like a pistol, the bullet don' go all the way through. Sometimes it just punches a little hole and they bleed inside."
Elizabeth watched in wretched helplessness as Anamaria spread the open V of Jack's dingy white shirt, still revealing no wound.
"He's here because of me," she said in soft misery.
"He's here because he's Jack," Anamaria said tartly. "Always thinks he has a dozen angles planned, always thinks he's three steps ahead of the othah man."
Sinking back on her heels, Elizabeth folded her useless hands in her lap. "Usually he's right."
Anamaria's glance came up quick and sharp as a blade, but softened as she held Elizabeth's eyes. "Aye. Usually. Don' blame yourself, girl. Jack Sparrow lives as he pleases. If this be his end, it's bettah than a rope."
And just like that, Jack's eyes popped wide open. He sucked a huge, wheezing breath and as both women gasped he abruptly sat bolt upright.
"Jack!" they cried together, and Anamaria added, "Damn you, Jack!"
"We thought you were dead!" Elizabeth echoed.
Sparrow blinked and cast a befuddled scowl around the room. "Am I not?"
He flinched back from Anamaria's suddenly seething glare as she spat, "Not unless I strangle you with my bare hands!"
Still frowning in apparent confusion, Sparrow's dark gaze flicked from one woman to the other. Unspeaking, he raised his hands to gingerly pat about his chest. He blinked, and patted the lower part of his chest harder. Then of a sudden he began clawing and pulling at his clothes as if a hot coal had just leapt inside.
"Jack, what's wrong?" cried Elizabeth.
But Sparrow was unheeding as he scrabbled desperately at his shirt and waistcoat. Three second later he abandoned that frenzy and lurched to his knees, where he began pawing just as frantically amongst the jewels and coins strewn around him. Meanwhile both women simply stared aghast.
"No -." Sparrow managed one strangled word, and that seemed all he could say as he scattered gold and gems willy-nilly. "No … No …"
Anamaria's alarm was nearing panic as she shouted, "Jack, what is WRONG with you?"
Instantly Jack stopped, crouched on hands and knees as he lifted his shaggy head to reveal a look of absolute desolation. "The African Star … it's gone …"
"The what?" Anamaria peered at him suspiciously.
"My diamond …" he whimpered.
He sank back on his haunches and stared blankly at the small fortune flung across the floor, the very image of utter dejection. Numbly he brought a hand to his breast, reaching inside his waistcoat in one last, futile effort. A moment passed, in which he twiddled a finger through a ragged tear in the material that could only be a bullet hole. He withdrew his hand with something pinched in his fingers like bread crumbs.
A sigh escaped from him that seemed to come from the very tips of his toes. "It was so beautiful …"
Frowning in puzzlement, Elizabeth reached and turned his hand for her inspection. To her surprise his fingers glittered with a fine, gritty dust and pinched between them were three or four larger shining bits. It was the only evidence left of the great gem that had turned a bullet and saved his extraordinarily lucky life.
"You came here for a diamond?" Anamaria's scowl was beginning to look deadly.
"But you don't understand." Sparrow's look and tone was very much that of a heartbroken boy. "It was perfect."
"It's a bloody rock!" Anamaria exploded, and her hand flashed to his cheek with a resounding crack that made Elizabeth wince in sympathy.
However, he failed to react beyond the tilt of his head and Anamaria fumed on. "Damn you, Jack Sparrow! You nearly got yo'self killed for a little bit o' shine that you'd sell at the first chance, just like every othah fancy trinket you've ever laid hands on!"
"No …" Despondency stole the vigor from his voice as he studied the glittering bits that were all that remained of the African Star. "This one was perfect."
A sudden muffled popping sound drifted from the darkness beyond the tall windows. Jerking to attention Elizabeth gasped, eyes wide.
"Will!" Then she scrambled to her feet.
"Will what?" asked Jack.
"He's gone after Sir John - oh!" Three more pops sounded and Elizabeth wheeled in a flurry of ember-colored skirts.
"Wait!" Jack yelped. "You can't -."
But she was already gone, sandals slapping out into the corridor and away. Jack sighed.
"You can't do anything against muskets with nothing but an Indian skirt," he finished to the empty doorway.
"Don' bet on that," Anamaria retorted. "She already blew up Biltmore's powdah magazine."
Jack's black eyes grew wide.
***
Will ran through the smoky darkness as fast as his long legs could carry him. Past the crippled cannon that Jack and the marines had crewed, through the shattered gate and down the bending lane towards the wharf below. He could see the shapes of four Royal Marines, but they were all huddled behind a stack of crates and barrels on shore at the foot of the quay, their muskets at the ready. As he bounded down a shortcut from the road towards the sandy shoreline a musket banged - but the report came from out on the water, not from the marines. Instantly the marines fired a staccato volley back, but to no visible effect.
At the end of the quay stood the dark silhouette of the Royal Venture, swaying gently against a glittering backdrop of moon-washed sea. Further out in mid-harbor the Dauntless stood silently waiting, a ghostly shape against the rising moon.
In a slither of sand and gravel Will reached the bottom and leaped tussocks of grass onto the causeway leading to the quay. The marines looked up from reloading their muskets as he plunged into a crouch among them, panting from his run.
"Where is he?"
"Out there." One of the marines pointed with his ramrod. "'e's got in the ship's arms locker, looks like. Every time we stick our 'eads out, 'e takes a shot at us. Like shootin' at ducks in a bleedin' barrel."
Will peered at the ship standing moored out yonder, its bare masts swaying gently against the night sky. "How did he get out there?"
"We lost him, like, run off in the dark and all. Didn't rightly know where 'e got to, until Bob, 'ere, heard 'im thumpin' around."
Jaw tight, Will eyed the long expanse of empty wood and stone that led out onto the water to the Royal Venture's berth. It was perhaps seventy-five yards of completely exposed distance … but if a man were quick …
"Cover me!"
"Wot?" Incredulously the marine and his mates stared at the young blacksmith.
Grimacing impatiently, Will pointed and said, "If he shoots, you shoot back. I'm going after him."
"You're daft!"
Will's grin was quicksilver. "It works for Jack!"
Then he vaulted over the nearest crate and landed running, out into space and moonlight and the whispering voice of the sea. His shoes smacked stone paving as he reached for every ounce of speed he possessed, his sword a mere flicker as he ran. Ahead of him something winked and boomed from the Royal Venture's rails, and was answered by a rippling volley from behind him. Again the blink and bang - Biltmore obviously had several weapons ready at hand. In seconds the green, reeking miasma of the slave ship overwhelmed the tang of the sea and tall masts loomed over Will's head.
The gangplank was gone, undoubtedly kicked over when Biltmore boarded, but Will skidded to a stop only long enough to stuff his sword through his belt. Then he leaped across the space between wharf and ship to collide with the swaying hull. He hung by his arms from the rail, slick shoes scrambling on the ship's side as he struggled for purchase. BOOM - splinters burst from the painted wood beside him, as by sheer strength he hauled himself up and over the rail, rolling to drop hard onto the shadowed deck. Another shot burst in a dirty orange blossom and Will saw his quarry, a dark figure hunched in the port bow. Four shots within a minute - how many more weapons did Biltmore have loaded?
The clatter of an empty musket being dropped answered that question, as Biltmore's heavy shape lurched up and plunged from view beyond the foremast. Teeth clenched, Will sprang to his feet and swept his sword to hand.
"Biltmore!" he shouted. "I've come to arrest you!"
A thudding of feet cued him to the big man's movements and Will was after him like a wolfhound. Forward he leapt to an open hatch that breathed the ghastly pall of misery and death. It was, he realized, the same hatch by which he had first entered Royal Venture to strike the shackles off Biltmore's pitiful slaves. Before Sir John had made the mistake of choosing Elizabeth Swann as his prize.
Into the bowels of the ship Will descended. He remembered its darkness from before and was now startled to see a dull gleam of lanterns aft along the 'tween-decks. Cautiously he advanced through the empty hold, hearing the restless creaks of the ship around him and feeling the fetid shadows press close.
Where was Biltmore?
As one wary step followed the other the cloying air seemed to thicken in his throat. He stifled the urge to cough, the tip of his sword glinting as lantern light grew stronger. Even empty of slaves, the atmosphere below decks had a noisome texture, clinging in his mouth and sinuses like oily smoke.
"Well …" The rumbling voice echoed oddly amongst the ship's wooden bones. "The blacksmith, again. Was my hospitality so warm the first time that you can't stay away?"
As he spoke, Biltmore emerged into view, lantern light playing on the gleam in his eyes, the bitter smile creasing his face. A ruddy glint moved and revealed itself as an ornate sword dangling in his right hand.
"I'm bringing you to justice!" Will shot back, warily advancing towards his quarry.
In this cramped space below decks Biltmore fairly loomed, a big man who nonetheless moved lightly, elegantly. He might have been clad for an evening stroll in his silk waistcoat, gold-embroidered knee-length coat and immaculate white stockings. Yet as he eased forward, the jeweled sword in his grasp was as deadly as any a lesser man might bear.
"Justice … such an arbitrary thing. Whose justice, boy? Yours? God's? The Crown's?"
"You kidnapped Elizabeth Swann." The slow flame of fury began to rise in Will's throat. "How many others have you taken and tormented? How many lives have you destroyed?"
"Are you so without fault that you may judge?" Biltmore stepped into a slow, pacing half-circle and Will instinctively mirrored him. "Are you so pure of thought and deed that you count yourself above other men?"
As Will brought his sword en guarde he felt a scalding new emotion rising within. Eagerly he embraced it, willing it to a molten heat that flowed into his veins and tingled in his practiced grip of his blade
"Surrender now, Sir John. A hundred marines will be here before you know it."
"Surrender? For what? To face your commodore and the certainty of a noose?" The big man's almost-handsome smile was hard as chilled brass. "I think not."
With a wild cry he charged and suddenly Will was fighting for his life. Steel smote steel in a ringing screech that had every ounce of Biltmore's heavy frame behind it. But as the blacksmith parried and disengaged he gave a shout of his own. Will Turner was lithe and savage and a master of the blade, and he knew no fear. There in that dank place, where the groaning ghosts of unhappy legions whispered in the dark, he spun in the deadly dance of the sword. He fought for honor and the woman of his dreams. He fought for innocent souls in a dank, dark prison. And he fought in memory of a bonny little sloop and the dead she bore down to the depths.
Forward and back between the ship's timbered knees their blades flickered and rang. Advance and retreat, parry and thrust, their battle raged without words. Step and leap and turn again, they flung huge shadows against the bulkheads. Fire sprang from steel and danced in fey eyes, and Will grinned a fierce white grin as his sword bit cloth and flesh.
For an instant they paused, Biltmore clutching his left arm with rage suffusing his face and twisting his mouth.
"Yield," Will said, his eyes bright and hard behind the length of his waiting sword. "Yield, and you might find mercy in the law that you never gave your victims."
Biltmore's reply was a snarling lunge that drove Will back on the defensive. Ruddy light danced and shadows leapt as steel sang and rang in the noisome belly of the ship. A slashing cut was Biltmore's answer to his own wound and then Will circled more cautiously as blood darkened his sleeve.
Somewhere above feet thudded on the weatherdeck and distant voices rang sharply, their words indistinct. Unaccountably, Biltmore began to chuckle. Will's eyes narrowed as he side-stepped in readiness for attack or defense.
"Fool of a boy," said Biltmore, and again he gave that gravely laugh. "Only fire awaits me … and now it will have you, too."
Only then did Will become aware of what that dancing, ruddy light really was. Only then did he realize that the reek sunk into the slave ship's wooden flesh was overlaid with the corrosive tang of bitter smoke. Recognition smote him like a wall of ice water.
"Ogun …" he breathed.
It seemed that a voice spoke as if from a vast, hollow distance: "You a man wid two shadows, son. Love an' war…But you listen Erzulie when Ogun want what his …"
"Will, get out of there!"
A familiar shout rang through the hold. Will spun as a thudding noise revealed Jack Sparrow, a murky figure half-falling down the ladder at the far end. Sparrow's eyes were huge as moons, and he gestured frantically with both arms towards the ladder.
"Fire - magazine - explode - run!"
Overhead footsteps pounded away into sudden silence, voices ringing ever more dimly on the quay outside. The marines had fled already. The breath burned in Will's throat as he turned to face Biltmore, now a hulking dark shape against the growing glow of fire in the decks below. To let this man go now … to deny the justice that his villainy demanded ...
"Too late, gentlemen!" Biltmore boomed, and his laughter battered the shadows back amongst themselves. "Welcome to hell!"
That laughter followed Will as he wheeled and bolted for all he was worth. He heard the heavy feet pounding behind him, saw Jack's eyes go wide in front of him, but before he could stop or turn Jack was past him in a furious flash. Staggering, Will caught the ladder and looked back.
A strange, deadly tableau greeted his eyes. Firelight danced against weathered timbers as Sir John stood queerly frozen, his expression blank with unutterable surprise. Facing him was Jack Sparrow, who stared back as implacably as a statue. Then Sparrow's arm jerked and his sword came away, stained in something darker than firelight. His gaze was coal black as he stepped slowly back, watching while Biltmore's legs buckled and dropped the big man to his knees.
"For the Lady Elizabeth," said Jack. "And good men gone."
Then flames belched from a lower hatchway, throwing the empty hold into leaping crimson shadow. As one, Sparrow and Will spun and fled, leaving Sir John Biltmore, youngest son of Lord James Biltmore the Third, alone to face Ogun's fiery embrace.
Will's heels flashed not an inch ahead of Jack's face as they shot up the ladder into the open night. Like darts they flew across the deck and over the side, Will staggering as he landed badly on the quay below. Jack seized him by one arm and hauled him bodily back to full speed, the two of them hurtling side-by-side down the wharf towards shore. Behind them the Royal Venture seemed to fill with a macabre light, a glowing and flickering that back-lit hatches and portholes with a churning, ghastly radiance.
As their flying feet struck sandy beach there was an instant of perfect silence. Then a shattering white flash smote the entire bay, blinding the nighttime world with the brilliance of a new-born sun.
***
When at last the final echoes rumbled out upon the sea, when at last stunned lungs could suck in life-giving air, when at last night returned and dazed eyes could see at all, Will Turner slowly sat up. Sand gritted between his fingers as he braced himself to stare back. The quay was naught but rubble while sooty, guttering flames marked all that remained of John Biltmore and the Royal Venture.
Then he turned to stare at the man beside him, who sat shaking his head as if to dislodge something in it. Scowling, Sparrow then looked at his hands and vigorously shook sand from them. Smoldering firelight painted the sharp bones of his face and glinted on the baubles in his hair and goatee - and his eyes popped wide as Will's fist seized the front of his shirt.
"You're not dead!"
"Not recently."
Sparrow flinched again as a flying whirl of skirts swept upon them and someone dropped like a fallen flower between them. Her eyes were huge and luminous as she stared at Will, as if fearful he might vanish on the next breath of wind. Her smooth brow furrowed as she lightly touched the torn, bloody sleeve at his side.
"You're hurt!"
"I'm all right," he said, and then his young features abruptly twisted to an expression of heartbreaking sadness. "Elizabeth … I'm so sorry."
"For what?" As she lifted her fingers to trace the line of his cheek, her white smile became tremulous and firelight shimmered in her eyes. "You're here."
With a sigh Will relaxed and let his ringing head sink into her embrace, his forehead resting on her slender shoulder as her fingers slid into his hair. Suddenly it was a very good thing to simply sit right here, in the smoking, wreckage-strewn sand of a foreign beach, for Elizabeth, his Elizabeth was with him.
Beside them, Jack frowned down at the fist still imbedded in his shirtfront. When it failed to let go he then lifted his aggrieved glance to Elizabeth, but she of course was too distracted to appreciate his predicament. Other movement caught his attention, however, and Anamaria sank down behind him. She spoke no word, but as her hands settled lightly on his shoulders Jack relaxed and began to look considerably more pleased about the situation.
In silence people began to appear from the dark, walking slowly amidst the dull fog of shock. Pirates, sailors and marines mingled heedlessly together as they gaped at what the blast had left. Original John and Irish John both stopped as they saw the survivors sitting on the sand below. Heaving a sigh of relief, the Irishman crossed himself with determined sincerity. Norrington stared but did not speak as he stumped to a halt near them, one corner of his mind noting that the Dauntless had been blessedly far enough away to escape damage. Behind him, Thomas Fry hung in the grip of two burly marines, his wrists shackled and ankles in irons, his brutish face vacant with disbelief. It was over. It was, incredibly and finally, over.
Down on the sand four figures remained huddled in the shimmering glow of the distant flames. Three of them watched the blaze do its cleansing work; Sparrow, Anamaria and Elizabeth all with fire reflected in their eyes and somber stillness in their faces. Will, however, remained bent gently into Elizabeth's arms, finding his stillness there. Perhaps his continued grip on Jack's shirt was an embrace as well.
***
TBC …
A/N: There, you may all breathe, now. Clever tricksy readers, how many of you were trying to figure out how Jack might not be dead? :-) Aw, I wouldn't do that! (Not if I hoped to live, LOL!)
Now, could a big honkin' diamond stop or turn a bullet? I have no idea. I have now been told that it might, and that it might even survive the impact, albeit with damage to both the diamond and Jack. But this is fiction and that was luck and maybe Jack turned just so at the most auspicious moment …anyhow, it worked in my world!
Just one more chapter, folks … one more chance for … anything … to happen. Heh heh heh.