jedipati got rid of so many silly mistakes in this thing...hooray for her!
Disclaimer: Own POTC I do not.
This day was cursed before the sun rose.
The mist itself seemed to be pummeling the town, but she knew there was something inside the fog, something evil. Only a monster could bring mighty Port Royal to her knees.
Elizabeth stood like a statue on her balcony, staring over the city. Fires blazed above the palm trees and thudding of cannon fire hit her chest like a physical hand. But the thuds were better than the clamor that she could hear between them: a thousand people were crying in terror and pain.
She saw Fort James suffer hit after hit. You go home and put your feet up, dear, her father had said. I'll stay at the fort with the Commodore. Now she wished he had come home so badly her very innards seemed to shrivel. I don't want to be an orphan! Too frightened to even cry, she prayed for him, for Norrington, for Will, for Hattie, numb lips repeating the same plea for safety.
A familiar clanging rang out: the front gate. Elizabeth drew back. A group of shouting ruffians holding torches ran up the circular drive below. "Help us," Elizabeth choked. As they neared the house, she whirled into her chambers. She sprinted out of her bedroom, through her sitting room, and out the door. She flew silently down the dusky hall and began down the curving staircase.
There came a ponderous thudding at the front door. Elizabeth staggered in shock when she saw unsuspecting Howard walking deliberately to answer it. Faster, faster, faster! Her feet seemed to barely touch the steps, and still she was not moving quickly enough. Through the heavy chandelier, she could see Howard reaching for the door handle. Terror flooded her. "Don't!" she screeched, but the latch was already sliding free.
Howard found himself face-to-face with a torch-bearing mob. Two ruffians jammed in front of the others, one with a wooden eye and the other with a belly shoving out of an ill-fitting coat.
" 'ellow, chum." Pintel, revealing a mouthful of tortured teeth, raised a pistol to the butler's face.
With a burst of smoke, the fatal shot resounded. Elizabeth froze on the steps, stifling a scream with her hand as she watched Howard stiffly fall on his back. Her entire skull began to burn with the tingling heat she recognized as horror and she stood clutching the rail as the pirates clambered over Howard's unrecognizable face and into her home. There was a stench, like carrion. She felt herself begin to gag.
There were only seven of them. Five ran off into the house without glancing up, but Howard's murderer and his emaciated partner fastened their gazes on Elizabeth. She stiffened.
"Up there!" Ragetti shouted, pointing with his torch.
She saw them charge toward the stairs and could knew she was panicking. She felt as if her entire head was floating on her shoulders, disconnected, but she gasped past her spasming throat and lurched into clumsy motion. Back up the stairs, breath labored, back down the everlasting hall. She didn't remember wrenching her door open, or slamming it shut and cramming home the lock, but her mind returned to her body when someone grabbed her. She shrieked, ready to claw–
Only to find Estrella's face before hers. The woman held Elizabeth's dressing gown in a death-grip as Elizabeth dragged them both away from the door.
"Miss Swann, they've come to kidnap you!" the maid exclaimed.
"What?"
"You're the governor's daughter." Estrella's voice pleaded for understanding. A wave of helplessness made Elizabeth's knees quiver.
Wham–both women jumped as the pirates began to pound at the door. Gasping for air, Elizabeth looked into Estrella's dilated eyes. "Listen, they haven't seen you! Hide, and the first chance you get, run to the fort!"
She tore away from Estrella and ran across the sitting room and into her bedroom. No one can help me now. The thought snapped her head clear, and her very next thought sent her to her bed, where she pulled the bedwarmer free. She heard the pirates' voices enter her sitting room, and ran toward the doorway. She swung.
The bedwarmer clanged when it made contact with Pintel's face. Eyes crossed, he thumped to the floor. Ragetti lunged into the space he had vacated. Elizabeth was swinging again, but Ragetti caught the bedwarmer's handle in an iron grip. "Gotcha!"
Elizabeth clutched the bedwarmer tighter, trying to get it away from him, but he easily kept his grip, leaning in to cross his eyes at her. Enjoying her terror, he barked like a dog.
Her jaw tightened. She pulled a small lever on the handle and the pan fell open. Ragetti writhed in a resulting shower of burning coals, batting at himself. "Owee, it's hot!" Elizabeth dropped the bedwarmer, slipped around him, darted past Pintel, and flew toward the hall. She saw that Pintel had revived. She heard his grating voice: "Come on!"
At the top of the stairs, Elizabeth saw Estrella dart out the front door. Bent on following her maid, Elizabeth rushed down, small feet darting. Pintel thudded clumsily after.
Ragetti vaulted the railing and landed on the marble tile with a slap. Without pausing he ran to the foot of the stairs. Elizabeth shrieked and reeled to a stop. He growled. She whirled and was faced by Pintel; she turned frantically back and was confronted with Ragetti's leer. Closer and closer they came–
Something clattered, and the three turned. A pirate loaded with jewelry lurched from the basement into the foyer. There was a low howl, and a wall exploded, sending deadly shards of wood hurtling through the air. The three by the stairs ducked and were safe, but the pirate at the basement door was not so fortunate. A shard slammed into his middle and threw him back into the dark.
For just an instant the surviving trio was stunned. There came a creak from above. Elizabeth saw the chandelier sway, managed to slip past Ragetti, and tore away across the entry.
The chandelier crashed thunderously to the floor behind her and the pirate pair staggered on the steps. Elizabeth ran into an unlit dining room, slammed the double doors behind her, and then cast about. She grabbed a candelabra from a side table and jammed it upside down over the door handles. Hardly believing what she was doing, she rushed to the dark fireplace and, heroically springing up, grabbed the handle of a sword crossed with another through a decorative wood piece.
The carved thing ripped off the wall; she squealed and let it thud to the floor. Bent, she tugged at the sword, which stuck. "Come on," she begged, but it refused to slide free.
The dining room doors bowed inward and the pirates shouted. Elizabeth turned in dismay, dropping the sword.
Together, the pirates shoved again. That was enough for the candelabra; it snapped and the doors flew open. The pirates charged in.
They halted, falling silent.
The room was dark and deserted. Ragetti spotted the billowing curtains about an open window and angrily began to cross the room, but bald Pintel caught his shoulder. He looked around the room with his yellow eyes. "We know you're 'ere, poppet," he sang.
Grinning, Ragetti followed his friend's lead and they turned slowly. "Come out," Pintel said. "And we promise we won't 'urt you."
"What?" Ragetti turned on Pintel, who gave him a heavily lidded look. Ragetti's grin returned as he tapped his long nose.
Pintel turned away, searching.
"We'll find you, poppet." His voice was low, menacing. "You've got somethin' of ours, and it calls to us."
Ragetti nodded gleefully. Pintel's eyes fastened on a flipped up corner of a rug just below a tall closet. "The gold," he whispered, "calls to us."
"Gold," Ragetti echoed.
Elizabeth could barely breathe. She stood surrounded by shelves of dishes, a stripe of yellow torchlight falling down her face. The medallion was so cold against her skin. Realization dawned. She pulled out the medallion, and held it up in the light.
She and the taunting skull gazed at each other.
Then the light was swallowed up. Elizabeth's heart climbed her throat as she looked upward and saw Pintel's very unwholesome eye in the crack. "'ello, poppet," he murmured, and then the doors were thrown open. She gasped. Pintel had his revolver out and Ragetti was about to throw himself on her.
"Parlay!" she cried.
They froze. Ragetti's skin-crawling smile faded.
"Parlay?" Pintel repeated warily.
"Parlay," said Elizabeth, "I invoke the right of Parlay." She swallowed. "According to the Code of the Brethren set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take me to your captain."
Pintel frowned. "I know the Code."
"If an adversary demands Parlay, you can do them no harm until the Parlay is complete." Elizabeth's hands were trembling.
"To blazes with the Code!" Ragetti was coiled to spring.
"She wants to be taken to the Captain!" Pintel's fierce voice froze Ragetti to the spot. "And she'll go without a fuss." He smiled grotesquely. "We must honor the Code."
Will had not seen hide nor hair of Mr. Brown, but had had opportunities aplenty to save everyone else. His muscles were beginning to burn with fatigue.
He gritted his teeth and hacked down a drunken pirate who was lunging for the defenseless back of a man hunched over a dead barmaid. A tavern rippling with flames reared up above them. When Will heard a dire snapping of wood he leaped into the street, punching a pirate who grabbed for him.
Behind him, an ear-shattering boom rang out, then a roar. The nearby crowd was thrown off its feet and Will was shoved into a wall, his hatchet ripped from his hand. The entire front of the tavern collapsed, engulfing the grieving man and his barmaid in a wall of flame and flipping wood. Will never saw; he was too busy navigating the augmented mayhem in the street. Sparks came in a floating downpour. Bellows mixed with screams and clanging weapons and pans and plates…mind-flattening boulders of noise riding waves of heat.
Will tore his sword from its sheath and ran back up the street to where there was more space to maneuver.
Then he saw him.
Grapple. Named for his weapon of choice, this pirate was a towering mountain of brawn, clad in a vest that exposed his gigantic arms. Standing before a lit shop window, he laughed and laughed and laughed at the raw brutality writhing in the street before him.
Will remembered that laugh. He had heard it over the cries of Miss Blaise, the nice lady on the Seeker who had constantly plied him with warm beverages, insisting that his 'startling pallor' signified impending sickness instead of the broken heart that was the true culprit. During the nightmarish attack, Will had been cowering beneath a flight of stairs, unable to see what fate Grapple was forcing upon Miss Blaise. But when he had seen her parasol spin over the rail, he'd leaped out to help her with all the courage in his boy's heart, only to be thrown into the air by an explosion that seemed to rock the world.
The memory lasted the space of a blink. Since then, Grapple had not changed, but Will had, and Grapple would know it.
Grapple saw Will coming. His mirth vanished and his muscles rippled as he lifted his massive hooked weapon and brought it down at the youth's head; clutched in two hands, Will's sword deflected the blow without snapping.
Grapple was impressed. Drawing back for another blow, he was forced to block the swipe the boy took at him with his flashing blade–the weapons screeched over the surrounding noise–but with a ferocious shove, Grapple sent sword flying into the bedlam. Will barely blinked before the ice curve of the grapple had trapped him about the back of the neck. He was almost yanked from his feet as the pirate drew the two of them tight together. Grapple lifted a hatchet and pushed his face toward Will's. "Say g'bye!"
The pirate's foul breath was worse than his crazed green eyes, but the hatchet was worst of all. I'm going to die like Miss Blaise. Will couldn't tear his eyes from the blade; he hopelessly strained back–
WhizzzzzzzBOOM! Sparks and plaster rained down; Grapple's eyes lifted and he froze.
Ears ringing, Will ducked out of the grapple's circle and darted aside as a massive wood sign swung groaning down...straight into the rooted pirate. There was a shattering crash as both Grapple and sign soared back through the glowing window and out of sight.
"Good-bye," Will muttered. Pulling a second hatchet from his belt, he moved boldly out into the street, then it was his turn to freeze.
"Elizabeth!" It was a gasped whisper.
At the end of the street, he could see her. Running, dragged and shoved by two pirates, her modesty barely preserved by a dressing gown, she turned.
Through all the haze, against all the odds, her eyes found him. He could see her lips form his name in a soundless cry. Then she was gone.
Miss Blaise's dying shrieks shuddered through his mind, except he saw them coming from Elizabeth's mouth. He gasped; he'd never felt this before, being eaten alive by the need to save someone. He started forward, knowing he'd never move fast enough for his mind.
Then he stopped.
Jacoby, terribly alive, was planted directly in Will's path. He waved coyly. Will gaped.
Then the pirate's eyes dropped. Will's eyes followed.
Inches from Will's foot lay a sparking grenade. The wick was almost spent. Will tried to step back, bracing himself.
The grenade sputtered. And died.
Heart pounding crazily, Will looked up just in time to see Jacoby's expectant face fall. He nervously met Will's gaze. Will started forward with hatchet raised, ready to give Jacoby a second taste.
"Outta my way, scum!" was the last thing Will heard before a golden candleholder slammed into the back of his skull. He crumpled to the dirt. Laughing, a pirate tossed the candleholder into his other loot and jogged off with it. Jacoby giggled and darted away, pulling free another grenade.
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