Sum of Memories
Chapter 7: Attack.
"What the cach just happened?!"
July 2, 1715.
It had been a full hour since Edward had walked out on Connor and Drystan in his cabin. The entire time, he had been up in the crow's nest, watching the inexorable approach of their soon-to-be adversaries (revealed to be a small fleet of British warships), and trying to ignore the pangs of hurt that struck every time he thought about Connor and his eagerness to leave. Even if the other man had not meant to hurt Edward, it still stung more than he had thought it would. Though they had only known each other a grand total of 20 days, Connor had quickly become one of Edward's few friends. If the other Assassin had not been so dead-set on leaving, Edward would have even dared to call Connor a true friend, a best friend...
A brother.
But he knew that it would all end. Someday soon, Connor would use that Dagger-thing to go back to his own time, and Edward would never see him again.
Edward growled, and smacked his head back against the mast for the fifteenth time in ten minutes.
Bloody hell. It was not possible. It just could not be possible. Time-travel was not possible. As Edward had told Connor multiple times, only God held power over time, and even He did not mess with it. Where did Connor get off saying that he was from the future? And where the hell did Drystan get off agreeing with him, feeding his delusions? Edward was no stranger to the Pieces of Eden, certainly, but he knew that even they did not hold the power to transport a person to the past, or to the future.
...right?
"Captain!"
Edward blinked and looked down, finding that Gregson was standing at the base of the mast beside the girl, Drystan, who had her arms crossed. Glaring down at her, he scoffed faintly. He briefly considered not answering. Then he glanced back to the horizon again and sighed, knowing that it was past time to get down to the deck and start issuing orders again. Getting to his feet, he grabbed a nearby line and swung down, the friction of the rope against his palms heating his skin for a moment before he got his feet around it as well. Within a second or two, he landed in front of Gregson and Drystan, who stood back to accommodate him.
"All right," he murmured. "Let's see this through."
"For better or for worse," Drystan muttered in agreement, and then she looked at him. "Connor was looking for you. Something about a plan."
"Oh." Edward headed for the helm. "Well, he didn't look very hard, then, did he?"
"Bollocks!" Drystan followed him, a scowl on her features. Edward glanced over at her as he took the helm from the sailor who had been manning it to that point, finding that her seafoam-green eyes were flashing at him, curls of auburn hair framing her face where they had fallen out of her low horse-tail. She was stunning in her anger, but Edward would never let her know that.
"Now is not the time for your pissing match with Connor to get in the way of the crew's survival," she hissed. When Edward would not look at her, she grabbed his shoulder and spun him to face her. He could see her scowling at him. "We have bigger problems to worry about. I don't know if you noticed, but until about 15 minutes ago, there were six hammocks dragging behind the Jackdaw, slowing us down."
Edward's heart pounded, and he faced her of his own will; alarm spread through his mind.
"What?" he hissed, ducking his head so that they could converse without being overheard. "Where were they? I saw no such things, and I was up in the nest!"
Drystan sighed, and she glanced aftwards. "Which is probably why you didn't see it." She nodded towards the aftcastle gunwale. "They were dangling out the stern and starboard aft ports. Only reason I noticed them is 'cause I went back to gather supplies for Gibbs."
Edward hissed in displeasure and turned away from her, knuckles white against the wheel. His lips thinned.
"You did cut them off, didn't you?" he asked after a second. Drystan sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Of course," she griped. "But you know as well as I do what this means, and we're out of time. Can't escape, at this rate. What's more, several barrels of hardtack and wool are missing, meaning someone's been laying a trail for those arses behind us."
Edward swore under his breath and glanced around the deck. Everyone was hurrying about manning their places; soon, he would need to order them to battle positions. Even his Sight did not help him when he activated it.
He grudgingly turned back to Drystan and asked, quietly, "Any ideas about who it is?"
She went silent for a moment. Edward watched her eyes shift about the deck just as his had until she finally paused and a frown came to her face.
"I have a good idea," she admitted shortly. Her gaze flicked back to his. "I'm not entirely certain, though, and I'd rather not point fingers until I know for sure."
They stared at each other for a good, long moment. Drystan's seafoam-green eyes studied Edward's ocean-blue, and something passed between them: reassurance, confidence, trust. It was something that Edward had not felt towards someone else for quite some time, not since he had been pressed into service three years before- but now was not the time to relive bad memories.
"Captain!" The exclamation came from the weather deck, and Edward looked down as Connor made his way up towards the helm. Edward had to fight to meet the younger man's tawny brown eyes; the hurt was still fresh, and the shame even fresher. "I have been searching for you for the past half-hour."
Edward swallowed the bitter retort that nearly flew from his mouth.
"I was in the nest," he replied sullenly. "Drystan tells me that someone's been making trouble for us."
Connor nodded, frowning with displeasure. "It is true, but we must wait to deal with the traitor until after the more immediate threat has passed. I have an idea."
Edward sighed, manning the helm yet again. "I'm open to anything you've got."
Connor came to stand beside both of them, and lowered his voice.
"If we try to fight them, the Jackdaw will be reduced to splinters in a matter of moments," he observed. "But if we do not offer any resistance at all, they may think that something is amiss."
Edward snorted. "Oh, something's amiss, all right." He jerked his chin towards the stern. "Something's amiss a'cos someone's been fuckin' with my ship."
Connor gave a tiny sigh. "We all know that to be fact. As Drystan and I both stated earlier, we cannot deal with the matter until we have figured a way out of this predicament."
"True enough," Drystan muttered. Edward leveled a finger at her.
"Unless you have some input, be quiet," he griped. When she looked offended, he scowled at her. "I'm not happy with either of you right now. Far from it. But I'm willing to listen to any plan you might have, so your input had better be constructive."
She glared at him, but said nothing. Edward turned back to Connor.
"Just tell me your plan and be done with it."
"You and I get off the ship before they catch up," Connor explained quickly. "The crew surrenders without a fight, and meanwhile, you and I swim between the British ships, sneak on board, and ignite their powder magazines."
Edward pondered this for a long moment. Then he slowly nodded.
"And if we're caught?"
"We fight for our lives." He placed his hand over the dagger in his belt. "Either way, we cannot afford to lose this. It is too dangerous an artifact to fall into enemy hands."
Edward and Drystan both nodded in tacit agreement. Edward glanced at the other Assassin.
"Better prepare yourself, then," he commented. "We're going to get a warning shot any minute, now."
As Connor nodded and jogged off to do as he was told, Edward turned to Drystan as she placed a hand on his elbow.
"What?" he asked. Her seafoam-green eyes were determined and not a little bit desperate.
"What would you have me do?" she asked softly, voice the barest of whispers. "I still can't do much in the way of fighting."
Edward's ocean-blue gaze searched hers, face inching closer to hers as he strained to hear her over the crash of water against the Jackdaw's bow and the shouts of the crew. He lowered his gaze past her shoulder, thinking about it for a moment. Then he looked back up to her.
"You help Gibbs." He swallowed, feeling the gentle puff of her breath against his cheek. "Whatever he needs, you get for him. Should it come to a fight, I don't expect we'll ever see land again. But you help Gibbs." He paused. "And try to stay alive."
She cracked a grin. "Don't worry about me. Survival's what I do for a living, remember?"
Edward nodded in acknowledgment, and she backed away a bit before hesitating.
"Captain?" she asked, just audible over the commotion around them. Edward hummed to let her know he was listening. "Just in case... I wanted to thank you."
Edward blinked, and then blinked again and turned to her with a confused frown on his face.
"Thank me?" he repeated. "For what?"
She gave him a rueful little smile. "For saving my life. For letting me come aboard. For..." Drystan paused. Then she shrugged, glancing bashfully away. "For your kindness. It has... It's meant a lot to me."
Edward swallowed at the confession, a lump forming in his throat. He huffed, and turned back to the wheel.
"It weren't nothing," he muttered, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. Drystan chuckled softly, and the next time Edward looked towards her, she was gone. Two minutes later, the foremost of the British fleet fired a warning shot across the Jackdaw's bow, and Edward handed off the helm to Estevan, who was closest to him at the time.
It was time to get to work.
He made his way down to his cabin and took a second to gather his thoughts.
This plan of Connor's would be dangerous. That much, he knew. It depended too heavily on the enemy not sighting the two of them and shooting them dead in the water. That was not even to mention the question of whether they could fight through the lower-deck crews all on their own to even access the enemies' powder magazines and blow them all to Hell. And that all hinged on whether or not they would not simply be shot out of the water before they even had a chance to defend themselves.
"Fuck." Edward pressed a hand to his forehead and braced himself against the desk with a heavy sigh. "Fucked. We're all fucked."
For a heartbeat, he allowed himself to lean there, fear making his knees wobbly. Then he shook himself and took a last look around his cabin. Everything he owned in this world was in this cabin: his spare weapons and other armor, his portrait of himself and Caroline- which he was seriously considering discarding at this point- his various bottles of alcohol against the far wall, his sea chest, and his own violin, sitting unused in its case in the corner. It had been a good, long while since he had played, he mused. Too late now. Hanging on the wall above the head of his cot was a cross. Candlesticks, books, maps, compasses, and other things all sat scattered around the room, all useless to him now that he was facing the loss of it all. Sighing, he took a second to grab some extra powder and shot from his sea chest and to don his leather armor, and then, with one last look at the portrait of his wife on the wall, he left the cabin.
Connor was waiting for him on the weather deck, the Dagger shoved through his belt, bow slung across his back, two pistols holstered at his lower back, and a sword and his trusty axe sheathed at either hip. The other man was pulling his hood up over his head as Edward emerged, still cinching down one of the straps on his chest plates.
Edward eyed Connor, dressed only in his shirt, waistcoat, sash, and jacket.
"No armor?" the blond man inquired, drawing his hood up. Connor gave a low, dry chuckle.
"Would it do any good?" he retorted, to which Edward gave a rueful chuckle of his own. Connor eyed the sails rising over the stern. "They are nearly upon us. We should begin moving."
"I think that you should start moving," Edward returned, to which Connor frowned. "If we don't put up any resistance at all, they'll know something's amiss." He grabbed Connor by the elbow, hurrying him towards the starboard bow. "You dive clear and start workin' towards the nearest ship. We'll distract them and give you some time to get in there." He pushed the younger man slightly, and when Connor looked back at Edward with concern, Edward shook his head. "Go."
Connor gave a solemn nod, almost a farewell, and dove off of the bow of the ship, slicing into the water with a practiced ease. Edward watched the younger man go for a moment. Then he turned and raced up to the helm, relieving Estevan and calling to Gregson to "man stations" and "prepare for battle."
A shot rang out, and a ball whizzed past Edward's head, missing him by mere inches. He swore furiously and ducked, yelling for the crew to brace, brace! A second later, a barrage ripped through the Jackdaw, tearing up the weather deck like it was nothing. Part of the helm sheared clear off just above Edward's head; a loud clank sounded from behind him, followed by a shout of They took out the port swivel! and a scream from his other gunner. Edward's heart pounded in his throat. All around him and down below, men screamed and threw themselves prone as cannonfire whistled above their heads. Edward saw one of the younger mates take a shot straight through the chest. Another lost his head, and still another went down missing one of his legs. It was Stephen, the young man with whom Edward had danced just a week or so past, during Drystan's doldrums game.
It was horrifying.
Edward felt the gorge rise in his throat as the barrage trailed off, and hauled himself up, grabbing the wheel and spinning it rapidly to the right, which tacked the ship to the left. The Jackdaw gave a pained groan as she was made to swerve in a wide arc straight into a wave. Edward gave an echoing roar of rage; slowly, they drew out ahead of the small British fleet, broadside aligning with them. It was obvious that the British knew that the Jackdaw was going on the attack, because they were beginning to spread out, some of them turning their sides towards the pirate ship, others moving to flank the rogues. Down on the weather deck, he glimpsed a group of men beginning to haul the wounded down below, where they would be treated by Drystan and Gibbs.
Edward drew a deep breath and watched as the Jackdaw drew abreast of one of the ships.
"Fire all port cannon!" he roared, and an instant later, his words were drowned out by the Earth-shattering blast of an entire deck of cannon firing simultaneously.
The British warship splintered under the barrage. Edward ground his teeth and avoided the gap in the helm as he spun it to the other side, moving hurriedly away from the other ship before they could retaliate. As he did so, he noticed a hole in his opponent's hull: they had opened up the powder magazine. Grabbing Gregson by the arm as the older man passed him, Edward pointed out the weak spot to his first mate.
"Fire me a swivel straight into that powder magazine, and let's take her out," Edward growled. "And pray to God above that Connor isn't aboard."
"Aye, sir," Gregson replied, and ran astern to do as he was told. As Edward tacked the ship back to starboard, he heard the boom of the swivel firing. The answering explosion that rocked him a second later was a satisfying testament to his crew's marksmanship.
For half a second, he dared to hope that the defeat of one of their ships would dissuade the rest of the fleet from pursuing the Jackdaw. Then Edward saw that some of them were coming around their other side, heedless of the wreck of the ship now burning in their midst.
"Fuck," Edward muttered, and then shouted, "About ship! Ready starboard cannon!"
Gregson ran down to relay the orders, and Edward spun the helm to the left, tacking again. The Jackdaw came about in a wide arc, slowing as the wind spilled briefly from her sails before catching again. It took a few minutes before her starboard side was facing the oncoming British ships.
"Fire starboard broadside!" Edward called, and a second later, the Jackdaw's starboard side spat flames towards the other ships. This barrage did comparatively little damage compared to the last one, as he had suspected might happen. At any rate, it was time, now, to get in close and personal so that he could jump ship and begin implementing his half of Connor's plan.
"Gregson!" he shouted. His first mate came over, bleeding from a wound on his forehead, and took the helm. Edward grabbed the older man by the elbow. "If this plan doesn't succeed, you surrender the ship and let yourselves be taken captive. If we do that, there's still a chance for mutiny later, but we can't retake the Jackdaw if most of us are dead. Understand?"
Gregson nodded solemnly. "Aye, Captain. Come back to us."
Edward gave him a grim smile. Then, as they sailed past the wreckage again and into the oncoming ships, Edward dashed to the stern, took a deep breath, and launched himself overboard. There was a stomach-lurching instant where he was airborne; then the cold water closed over his head and the rest of his body, and the moment was past. Edward pressed his lips together tighter by reflex. His arms, strong and skilled from long years of experience, reached out and dragged him towards the surface with practiced strokes. A second later, his head broke into the air once more, and he took a deep breath and looked around, getting his bearings.
The Jackdaw was limping away from him to his right, and to his left was one of the enemy ships. He could see her crew drawing in the sails; they were slowing so that they could tack and maneuver more easily. Edward ground his teeth and made for that ship, hoping to everything good, right, and holy in the world that Connor had not already sabotaged it.
Please, God, the Welshman prayed silently, please, let my crew and ship survive the day.
There was a roar of cannon firing; Edward glanced upward as he heard Gregson scream for the crew to brace for impact. He could see the shivers flying from the Jackdaw's deck even from his place down in the water. Briefly, he spared a thought for Drystan, who he knew to be holed up in Gibbs's quarters, ready and waiting to receive the wounded. Then he took a breath and pulled himself forward again, making steadily for the oncoming ship. It was the foremost of the British warships; at all the same size and tonnage as the Jackdaw and nearly a third more, she was an intimidating vessel, and the wake she put off, even with her sails drawn in, tossed Edward about like a rag doll as he struggled towards the closest side of it.
The Assassin just barely had time to spare a half a thought for his own safety in the middle of Connor's insane plan. Then the moment was past, and he lunged forward and grabbed onto one of the planks on the side of the ship.
It felt like his arm was nearly ripped from its socket from the speed of the ship, and the rough wood seared his palm with agony as it shredded the skin. He growled in pain over the thunder from above. Pushing past it with a great effort of will, Edward reached up with his other hand and began hauling himself up onto the side of the ship.
The going was slow, and more than once, Edward found himself wondering what was happening up top. The artillery fire had stopped a moment before. Now, as he hauled himself into the strangely deserted hold through a porthole on the starboard side of the ship, he also wondered at the absence of crew and officers. From his time in the service, reluctant though he had been at first, he knew that a warring vessel of this class should have probably two to three hundred able-bodied seamen and the officers to command them. But he barely encountered three sailors as he made his way to the magazine, and those were easily and quietly dispatched so that they made no sound and raised no alarm.
Where was everybody...?
At last, Edward arrived at the magazine and, grabbing a lantern from the hold, he opened the door to the reserve. There were the powder, the fuses, the flints. Everything was there, just as he had expected. Well, at least the British Navy was still completely and utterly predictable.
Thank God for small mercies.
Edward glanced back out into the hold. There was nobody there. So, he grabbed a powder keg, pulled out the stopper, and dumped out a line of gunpowder leading out of the magazine into the hold. Once he had done that, he went back over it to strengthen it, and laid the keg back in the magazine beside its brethren. Two seconds later, he had gone out and lit the far end of the line of gunpowder, and made a break for one of the nearer gunports.
It was time to abandon ship or die in the process.
Edward had just enough time to see the sparking, hissing flame rush through the door of the magazine. Then he dove through the porthole and into the water, icy coldness closing over his body from head to toe. As he powered forward through the water, he heard the muffled sound of an explosion above him. Seconds later, slivers of wood started streaking down through the water around him like so many sharp daggers. Edward kept swimming as quickly as he could.
Blinding pain erupted in his mid-back. He cried out in reflex, arching around to grab the spot, and then realized dimly that he had released much of his air. Grinding his teeth, he swam for the surface, miraculously avoiding most of the debris still streaking down around him. A mast thundered into the water nearby; the hull of the ship turned above him as it began to sink, and still Edward swam onwards and upwards.
His face broke clear. Edward gasped for air, groaning in pain as a knife seemed to shred his insides; for a long moment, it was all he could do to choke and splutter and stay afloat for the fire roaring through him. All around him were debris and corpses, bright uniforms and slops alike, all either dead or dying. He wondered, hazily, if he would join them. Grabbing onto a floating barrel, he held fast to it and took a moment to rest, vision going white as the motions jostled his wound further. Shouts erupted from the Jackdaw's deck as he gasped through the agony.
Edward panted a couple times, and then looked up.
The Jackdaw had been overrun. Despite his efforts, despite Connor's efforts, Edward's ship had been taken. His crew were in danger. Gregson, Gibbs, Connor, Drystan... God. Drystan was there.
"F-Fuck," Edward moaned as he hastily had to reaffirm his grip on the barrel to prevent it from rolling out from under him. But there was only one thought on his mind.
Drystan was going to be captured. If the British found out about her gender, she could face severe punishment, rape, death. She was his friend, and he had let her get caught. Edward sobbed as his wound sent a sharp stab of hot agony spearing through him. The Assassin fought the urge to throw up. He needed to get back to his ship, or die trying. Even if it meant that he would be captured, as well, at least he could be there for his crew and his friends.
Since he could not save them, he figured, they could at least all hang together. He owed them that much.
A rope splashed into the water before his face. Edward stared at it dumbly for a moment, and then hazily traced its path up to the Jackdaw. Three British merchant marines were staring down at him, faces hard beneath their black hats, the red of their coats swimming in his sight. Edward gave a small sigh of defeat, and then reached out shakily to take hold of the rope. As he wrapped it around his chest, he felt them begin to pull him towards them.
Maybe he could yet figure a way out of this mess...
A yank on the rope, and he blacked out from the sheer agony of the wound in his back even as they hauled him into the air.
When Edward next became aware, only a few scant minutes had passed since he had fainted. At least, it seemed that way. He found that he was lying upon the familiar, sanded deck of his ship, the crew gathered around him. Edward blinked dazedly down at the grain of the wood beneath him, felt the hot throb of the wound in his back, swallowed around his cottony tongue, and drew a shaky breath. As his ribs expanded to accommodate his lungs, he felt them push against both his clothing and the deck beneath him, and felt the piece of wood in his back shift. He clenched his eyes shut and hissed with pain. Cach, but it hurt.
A hand landed gently upon his shoulder.
"Are you awake?" Connor was crouching at his side. His voice was terse with barely-restrained fury. Edward grunted softly.
"Aye," he slurred. "'Ma 'wake." Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, why could he not think straight? "Wha' 'appen'?"
"We have been captured." The hand on Edward's shoulder clenched briefly before relaxing again. "The Jackdaw is to be towed to Port Royal. She will be refitted as one of the King's vessels. We are all to be... guests, until that time."
Edward let that sink in for a second. Then he swallowed thickly and slowly gathered his arms beneath himself to lever himself into a sitting position. The resulting jolt of agony crumpled his arms and left him gasping, unable to move. He lay there for a long moment, swimming vision hazing white and then red and then yellow and white again. His ears were ringing. As it was, he nearly missed the sound of Connor's ferocious growl if not for the motion of the other man moving to crouch defensively over him. As Edward's hearing cleared once more, he heard a sound that chilled his blood.
It was the click-click ratchet of a flintlock hammer being cocked back.
"You must be the captain of this vessel," stated a male voice evenly. He sounded Welsh, and perhaps just a few years older than Edward was. Edward panted through the pain and attempted to push himself up again, groaning with exertion. "I suppose that I'll take that as a yes." He paused. "Lieutenant."
"Thank you, Master Yates," said a new voice. This one was crisply accented and calculating. English. Edward drew a ragged breath and groaned as he tried once more to sit up. "You might as well not even try, Kenway. Doing so will only lodge that piece of wood further into your back, and then you shan't have the pleasure of seeing the rest of your crew hang."
Edward gave a yell of exertion and finally managed to get up onto one elbow. "C-Cau dy FFWCIN CEG!"
He stopped, gasping and shaking, as Connor's hand tightened on his shoulder once more. Then a wave of coldness as frigid as ice slid down his spine as a familiar voice met his ears.
"I wouldn't be so defiant if I were you, capitán." Edward's head whipped around to stare in horror over his shoulder at the figure aiming the pistol at him.
"You-?!" he gasped.
Drystan stared coolly back at him, green eyes flinty, salt-stiff auburn curls dancing in the wind from underneath her tricorne. Her arm was steady as she held the pistol level with his head, her men's clothes fluttering in the sea breeze. There was a shallow cut on her left cheek, but otherwise, she seemed unharmed. To everyone else there, she looked like just another young and able seaman, weathered by her years of sailing. But to Edward, she suddenly represented everything he despised about humanity and their capacity for betrayal. The young man standing behind her, Yates, put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. It was a proud smile, a relieved smile, and Edward wanted nothing more than to wipe it off of the other man's face. Instead, he turned pained blue eyes on Drystan and tried to figure out when it was that he had such a grave mistake of beginning to actually trust her.
Drystan said nothing, but stared frostily back at him as the Lieutenant nodded to her.
"And thank you, also, young Mister Yates," he stated, and then turned back to Edward. "Take him to the brig with the rest of the crew. Bandages and water for his wound, but nothing more. We shall need the supplies to treat our own wounded."
Edward's head swam. How could this have happened? The traitor had been right under his nose the entire time, and he had never seen her for what she was. Had he truly been so blinded by her gender and affability that he could not see the deception? He, whose second Sight should have allowed him to spot his enemies in a heartbeat, had not been able to tell that the girl he had trusted had been plotting his downfall. He shook, feeling sick, and lowered himself to the deck again as his vision blurred and swam. As the Lieutenant moved off to see to putting his own crew in command of the Jackdaw, Drystan handed the pistol off to Yates and moved forward to Edward. Connor snarled something at her that Edward could not quite make out. Drystan responded with a curt reply, and a pair of small hands wrapped around Edward's left arm, tugging roughly. He groaned, but could not muster the strength to rise again.
Edward shivered.
Another pair of hands wrapped around his right arm, hoisting him gently but firmly against a solid chest. Connor. Edward bit back a yell of pain as the movement jostled the shiver in his back. Connor murmured something, and Edward settled, dimly registering the feeling of being lifted as everything became strangely distant. As he was pulled over a broad shoulder and then hoisted to his feet, his bleary gaze nearly whited out before it landed on the deck beneath his feet. There was an alarming amount of blood staining the wood where he had been lying. No wonder he felt so cold.
It was becoming difficult to breathe, too.
Edward was going to bleed out before they could get him to Port Royal, at this rate. The wound must have been more serious than he thought it was. As Connor helped him down the ladder into the hold at gunpoint, he wondered dizzily how it was that one person could seal the fate of an entire crew. Well over a hundred souls, all condemned because of one of their own.
Edward was mostly gone when they laid him upon the floor of the hold. He vaguely made out the sound of Gibbs's voice, and of Connor's own murmurs, but he was too dazed to give any input. Even the sounds he heard were drifting in and out; he felt frozen, but he had no strength left with which to shiver. Something in his back moved.
"...pull... slowly, now..."
"-lose more blood-"
"...go back t' yer..."
"-ou traitorous bas-"
"-hand me tha' water-"
"-bandages-"
A red-hot wave of agony roared through him. Edward was vaguely aware of making some sort of sound, but his eyes fluttered shut, and he breathed out, and was still.
Edward Kenway knew no more.
"He's not breathing!"
The exclamation jolted Connor out of his dark thoughts, and he glanced with alarm down at his grandfather's suddenly-too-still form. A wave of ice crashed down Connor's spine as he realized that the boy's statement was true: Edward was no longer breathing. The man's skin was a pallid white, bloodless lips pale and dry, closed eyelids a blue-gray color with deep shadows beneath them. Connor looked up with horror to Gibbs, who grimly returned the stare over Edward's bared, blood-smeared back.
Connor swallowed through a sudden tightness in his throat.
"He cannot die, yet," he stated quietly. "There is too much left for him to do."
Gibbs shook his head slowly and sat back, hands lingering on Edward's shoulder.
"I'm a surgeon, lad, not Christ," he said, sadly. "I can' work miracles."
A stone dropped into the pit of Connor's stomach. He swallowed. His gaze darted down to Edward's still form, and a hundred and more thoughts raced through his head faster than he could think them. Foremost on his mind was, surprisingly, not the fact that, if Edward died now, Connor would never be born. No, the first thought on Connor's mind was how he would lose yet another family member, one with whom he had only just been united, one whom he had only just begun to know. He could never tell Edward just how much he had come to treasure the other man's company and wit, his humor, his laughter and levity. Even his tirades had come to find a special place in Connor's heart in that niche which belonged to his grandfather. To lose Edward now would strike a blow from which Connor knew he would never fully recover.
Connor reached out and grabbed Gibbs by the wrist, tawny eyes blazing with desperation as he met the older man glare for stare.
"You will do your damned best," Connor commanded, voice a low growl. "Or none of us will get out of this predicament alive."
Gibbs sighed and opened his mouth to give a negative reply. He was cut off, however, by a soft hiss of air from the still body between them. Two gazes snapped down to Edward. The man's features were pinched with pain even in unconsciousness, but he had begun breathing again, the sound rasping, shallow, gurgling, and faint, but present nonetheless.
Connor braced Edward's shoulders, and Gibbs quickly started working again.
They had pulled the long piece of wood from Edward's body before he had stopped breathing. Now, Gibbs packed wad after wad after wad of saltwater-dampened bandages into the wound it had left. Connor furrowed his brow and tried hard to ignore the barely-there whimpers that his grandfather released in unconsciousness that never would have had a chance of escaping if he had been awake.
"She's a deep 'un," Gibbs had commented earlier as he had tried the wound after he had withdrawn the shiver from Edward's back. "It's pierced th' lowest part of 'is lef' lung, grazed a kidney, and gone through this other organ, 'ere."
Now, he shook his head and muttered to himself lowly while he had Connor raise Edward up in order to wrap the wound.
"It'll be a miracle if 'e makes it through th' night," Gibbs stated quietly. "An' even if 'e does, there's still infection t' worry 'bout." He shook his head. "'Is chances aren' good, but at leas' 'e's breathin'. Keep 'im on 'is stomach, an' we'd bes' try ta get some water into 'im."
Connor nodded mutely, gently lowering his grandfather back onto the floor. Distantly, he realized that he was trembling faintly. Sighing with exhaustion and dismay, he allowed himself to slump to the floor beside the older man, stiffening briefly with surprise as something hard and cold dug into his stomach before he remembered what it was. Resting his hand on Edward's back between the older man's shoulder blades, Connor settled in for a long watch, thoughts drifting.
After he had abandoned the British ship in favor of not being blown straight to the afterlife, he had quickly realized that the crews of the other ships had already boarded the Jackdaw. Knowing that he would be unable to get onto the pirate vessel unnoticed and still free, he had submerged into the water, hastily removed the Dagger from his belt, and tucked it down the front of his shirt and waistcoat where he knew that the British would not find it. Afterward, he had swum over to the other nearest ship, intent on doing to it what he had done to the first. Courtesy of the slow fuses he had set to his makeshift bombs, his ships had blown up at almost the same time as Edward's target had gone. Hope had blossomed in Connor's heart. Then he had heard the shouts from the Jackdaw. Being too far away from the fourth ship to do any good, he had tried to swim past his grandfather's ship in order to reach the man-of-war on its opposite side.
That plan had failed dismally when he had been spotted. Two bullets had whizzed past his head before he had stilled and, kicking furiously to remain afloat, had raised his hands to signify his surrender. The British sailors had been foolish enough to haul him aboard, thinking that he had simply been thrown overboard by their initial barrage.
Connor had come aboard the Jackdaw again to find, to his shock and horror, that he was on the business end of a pistol, clutched in the hand of none other than the other of his only two friends in this time.
Rhian Yates had stared coldly at him as she had ordered him at gunpoint to join the rest of the crew, minus Estevan, who was standing freely with the rest of the Spanish privateers over near some of the British Merchant Marines. When Connor had demanded to know why she had betrayed them, Rhian had not replied, but gestured with the gun to the gaggle of Jackdaws clustered around three Merchant Marines and an unmoving form lying upon the deck. Fury had blazed up within Connor to all but consume his rational sense. It had only been through the most strenuous effort of will that he had held himself back from launching across the deck and slitting Rhian's slender throat then and there.
"Wha's got you so peevish?" Gibbs's quiet question drew Connor out of his reflections, and he scowled irately down at the planks past Edward's left shoulder.
"Drystan." The one-word reply was a terse snarl, but Gibbs's features tightened in shared fury.
"Oh, aye," he muttered blackly. "'E'll get wha's comin' to 'im, all righ'. You mark my words, that bastard'll get 'is fair due a'fore this's all over."
He paused, and Connor looked up as a curious expression overtook Gibbs's features momentarily. When the old surgeon shook his head and turned away to get a cup of water, Connor called his name.
"What is it?" Connor asked quietly. Gibbs scoffed and shook his head.
"Nothin'," he replied. "Th' boy was actin' strange a'fore this all happened. Should'a seen i' comin'."
"Acting strange?" Connor repeated slowly as Gibbs returned with the water for Edward. "How so?"
Gibbs shrugged. "Nervous-like. Like 'e wan'ed 'a do somethin', or was waitin' for sommat to 'appen. Since this mornin', a' least."
Connor frowned, but there was not much he could say. He could tell that Gibbs knew nothing more than what he had said. As it was, there was nothing that they could do until an opportunity for escape presented itself. Freedom, and vengeance, would have to wait.
So wait he would. Wait, and plan.
Compulsory and Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed in any of its forms, save for the copies I have of each game but Liberation. Assassin's Creed belongs in its entirety to Ubisoft.
Welsh Translations:
Cach - Shit (I don't even remember if this is in the chapter, honestly.)
Artwork created for Sum of Memories:
Teaser: You-?!: elvenwhitemage. deviantart dot com (backslash) art / Teaser - You - 396355309
How I've Missed You: elvenwhitemage. deviantart dot com (backslash) art / How - I - ve - Missed - You - 395417593
A note on Edward's religious references: During the 1700s, many people were still stoutly devout. Pirates and sailors in particular were superstitious to a fault, and highly religious. Given that Edward spent his childhood in Wales and his teenage years in England, it would make sense that he would most likely be part of the Church of England, if anything. Or possibly some other Protestant denomination. Most likely not Roman Catholic. Thus, his prayers.
Brought this over from my Tumblr (RevenantAvenger90) and DeviantART (ElvenWhiteMage) accounts.
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-Scribe