Legend of the Gypsy Queen Skull: The Devil's Triangle - Book 1 (9 page)

With the Lexington’s boarding party pinned
down behind their own hull wall, Darcy had to do something, and
quickly. Otherwise, the corsairs would get away, as the setting sun
dipped further below the horizon.

Jumping down off of the bridge deck, to the
main deck below, Captain Darcy sprinted across to their position.
Diving below the railing, he pressed his back up against the hull
wall and turned to Joshua.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said, slapping
his first mate on the back.

“Aye captain,” the older man replied,
relinquishing his command of the fodder squad.

“You boys ready?” Darcy shouted over to the
newbies.

“Aye-aye captain!” they spiritedly shouted
back in unison.

With exploding timbers still raining down
all around them, Darcy stood up and pointedly directed his sword to
a group of sailors to his right and shouted, “Grapplers! Ready your
hooks!”

Turning his head toward his sharpshooters,
he yelled out, “Cover fire!”

Immediately, they too bound to their feet
and shot a deadly volley of rifle fire across the corsairs’ deck,
cutting down several pirates, dead in their tracks.

As Darcy’s men reloaded, another pirate
charged toward them, raising his pistol up but the captain was
quicker on the draw. Shooting him in his Adam’s apple, the corsair
was propelled backwards, where he hit the deck and writhed about,
holding onto his throat.

~*~

“Grapplers up!” Darcy shouted to his
team.

Hopping up to their feet, they began to
swing their large treble hooks overhead, like lassos.

“Now!” he commanded, and his men flung their
rusty iron hooks into the air, across the watery divide.

Landing them on the pirate ship’s deck, they
hurriedly dragged them across its wooden planks as their barbed
ends eerily screeched like fingernails scratching across a
chalkboard.

Snagging their hooks onto anything they
could, the grapplers pulled and heaved, drawing the two ships
closer together.

~*~

When they were within an arm’s length of the
slave galley, the Lexington grapplers tied off their lines. By
then, though, the pendulum of battle had swung back over to the
pirates, who had regrouped, and were launching their own
counterattack.

From out of the lingering smoke cloud, a
handful of corsairs rushed up to their own railing and opened fire
on the royal sailors.

The first to be hit was a grappler, who was
struck in the shoulder and knocked backwards onto the deck.

Another sailor wasn’t so lucky, and took a
musket ball to the neck, lacerating his jugular. Dropping to his
knees, blood streamed out between his fingers as he desperately
tried to cover up his wound. Mercifully, he bled out quickly and
lost consciousness before he tumbled over and passed.

~*~

“Cut those lines!” Captain Gliv ordered,
pointing to a few of his men nearby.

Immediately, a handful of his pirates began
feverishly hacking away at the grapplers’ ropes with their swords
and hatchets.

Severing through half of the Lexington’s
tethering lines, Darcy shouted out a countering order.

“Sharpshooters!”

Seconds later, a round of shots echoed
across the deck, striking down the pirates where they stood.

Undeterred, Gliv pointed to a couple of his
other men.

“You, and you there. Cut us loose. Now!”

By then the hazy cloud of spent gunpowder
was obscuring the Barbary ship’s deck, making it almost impossible
for Darcy’s men to target them. The corsairs were only a couple of
grappling ropes away from freedom when Darcy decided to take the
fight to their ship.

“Boarding party up! Draw your swords!” he
boisterously spouted.

Swinging his own sword over his shoulder, he
pointed it at Gliv and yelled out.

“Charge!”

“AHHHH!” his fodder squad thunderously
replied as they bound over the watery divide and landed on the
pirate ship’s deck.

~*~

With his heart pounding and mind racing,
Seaman Jansen stood up and limped over to the Lexington’s railing.
He was shaking with terrifying thoughts of his own demise as he
watched his fellow newbies gather around their captain. Within
moments, he’d face the reality of fighting for his life in
hand-to-hand combat, and given his injury there was a very good
chance he’d be maimed or killed.

Standing now atop the railing, taking a deep
breath, he gathered his nerves and leapt into the air.

Landing on the slave galley’s railing,
teetering on his heels, he cried out, “Whoa! Whoa! No!” and then
lost his footing and fell over backwards.

Splashing down into the water below, he soon
resurfaced and spat out a mouthful of seawater.

“Mother of Mercy!” he shouted, as a surge of
hot pain shot up his injured leg. The saltwater seeping into his
wound felt like a hot branding iron plunging into his calf.

Fortunately, he was able to grab a hold of a
nearby grappling rope, trailing in the water, and painstakingly
began to climb his way back up to the railing.

With no time to waste, an exhausted Jansen
knew he had to get into the battle. Otherwise if the corsairs
didn’t kill him, his comrades surely would for going AWOL on
them.

~*~

Meanwhile, his greenhorn fodder squad was
facing off against two dozen of the pirate savages. These Barbary
corsairs were truly a terrifying enemy as they stood shoulder to
shoulder, pounding their bare chests to the haunting beat of their
war drum. Armed to the teeth with curved swords, axes, and musket
pistols, they were waiting for the order to attack.

Towering above them all was Hussein Gliv,
who pointed his crooked finger at Captain Darcy and contemptuously
sneered at him.

“I’ll have your ears for this… ATTACK!” he
screamed out to his horde.

In turn, h
is pirates
opened fire on Darcy’s men with their flintlocks; striking down a
couple of the sailors.

“Follow me!” Darcy cried out, rushing
the pirates with his pistols blazing.

Soon the deck was filled with the
sounds of clanging of swords and hatchets.

~*~

Cutting down a couple of pirates with
his cutlass, Captain Darcy blindly moved deeper into the hazy
cloud, when suddenly, a corsair, wielding a battle axe above his
head, charged straight at him.

“
Arrrgh!” he cried out,
mightily chopping down at
the captain. But Darcy lunged to
his side, narrowly dodging his steely blade as it came slamming
down into the decking beside him.

Furiously working his embedded ax back and
forth to free it loose, the corsair then began to lift it up when
the captain lurched forward and stabbed his sword deep into his
chest. Swiftly withdrawing his blade, the pirate looked down to see
blood spurting out of his own wound and laughed at the captain.

“That all you got?” the cutthroat tauntingly
asked him, rearing back his ax, yet again.

Cocking back his sword, William was about to
chop the corsair’s legs out from underneath him when another pirate
tackled him from behind and rode him down into the deck. Wrapping
his arm around the stunned captain’s throat, he rolled over with
Darcy in his clutches, exposing his chest and underbelly for
attack.

“Kill him, Adnon!” yelled the pirate,
tightening his choke hold on the captain.

“Die pig!” screamed out the ax wielding
corsair, rearing back his blade as Darcy’s eyes grew wide.

Chopping down on him, the captain kicked and
rolled over at the last second as the corsair slammed his ax down,
sinking his blade into his comrade’s back.

“What’ve you done?” cried out his
attacker.

Freeing himself from the dead man’s hands,
Darcy swiftly spun around and drove his boot heel into the side of
the ax-wielding pirate’s knee, sending him tumbling over.

Pouncing on top of the corsair, the captain
reared back his fist to punch him when the pirate’s eyes rolled
back into his head. Gurgling up blood, it appeared as though the
man’s chest wound had finally caught up with him.

Lowering his fist, the captain shoved off
the dying pirate and let nature take its course.

Standing back up in the hazy cloud of gun
smoke, he looked around for his men when another pirate bumped into
his side.

Pivoting around, Darcy head-butted the lanky
man in his face, breaking his nose, as a gush of blood poured out
of the pirate’s nostrils. Dropping his sword, the captain quickly
jumped behind the pirate and wrapped his arm around his neck.

Holding him in a python-like choke hold,
Darcy pulled a dagger from his own belt and whispered into his ear,
“Die you scum.” Rearing back his hand, he thrust it forward, to
impale him in the kidney, when a Lexington sailor seized ahold of
his wrist.

“Stop! He’s one of us!”

Looking over at the intervening sailor, it
took the captain a moment to process what he was saying.

“Captain, let him go!”

Loosening his chokehold on him, the young
greenhorn gasped for air and dropped down to his knees where he
spat out a mouthful of blood. In the heat of the moment, he hadn’t
realized the sailor was one of his own. Looking down at him, the
captain was reminded of how chaotic and unpredictable combat could
be.

Grabbing the greenhorn underneath his
armpit, he picked him up and said to the other sailor, “Get him
back to the Lexington.”

~*~

A few feet away, a corsair took a foolhardy
swipe at Joshua with his curved sword but the old man ducked to one
side and blocked the pirate’s blade with his own sword.

Standing upright again, Joshua swiftly kneed
the cutthroat in his groin, sending him hunched over and gasping
for air. Raising the butt of his own sword up, Joshua sharply
struck it down onto the back of the corsair’s head. Collapsing to
the deck, the pirate was out cold before he even hit the
planks.

Raising his boot up, Joshua stomped his heel
down on both of the pirate’s hands, breaking them, to ensure he
wouldn’t soon rejoin the fight.

~*~

Meanwhile, walking through the smoky fog,
Darcy saw scores of his greenhorns strewn about the deck. The
fodder squad’s dead and injured were quickly mounting up as the
hand-to-hand fighting raged on. Even though both sides had
sustained heavy casualties, it was clear the corsairs were gaining
the upper hand over the young sailors.

Seeing the tide of battle slipping away from
him, Captain Darcy began making his way back to the Lexington to
call in the second boarding party. Otherwise, they were going to
lose this fight.

Jogging through the hazy cloud of smoke with
his sword out in front of him, he tripped over a sailor’s body and
slammed his forehead down on the hardened deck. Lifting his head
up, he felt the swollen lump above his brow and grimaced some.
Dizzily looking around, he tried to get back up to his feet but
stumbled over to one side. Shaking his cloudy head, he tried to
gather himself, when, from out of the smoke, Captain Gliv appeared
and menacingly stared him down.

The Barbary pirate’s chest and face were
covered in splatters of blood as he palmed a bloodied cannon ball
in one of his bear-sized hands. Pointing at Darcy, a sinister smile
broke across his face.

“Time to die,” he said coldly.

Raising the iron ball high over his head, he
strode toward the captain with murder in his eyes, and let out a
spine tingling battle cry.

“Arrrhhhhh!”

Closing the distance, Gliv was only a few
steps away from bludgeoning the captain to death when Seaman Jansen
unknowingly stepped backwards and into his path. Unable to break
his stride, the monstrous Captain Gliv caught his foot on the back
of Jansen’s injured calf and tumbled down onto the deck.

“Mother of Mercy!” Jansen cried out in sheer
agony as he hopped around on one leg.

“You little rat!” an enraged Gliv shouted as
swept Jansen’s leg out from underneath him.

Hitting the deck, the giant captain jumped
on him and held him down by his throat as he slowly raised up his
cannonball.

“I’m gonna wear your ears,” he said with a
sneer.

Shrieking out in horror, Jansen squeezed his
eyes shut, awaiting his inevitable demise, when Gliv unexpectedly
slammed the cannonball down right next to his temple.

Fluttering his eyes open, the young sailor
gasped out, “What?”

Teetering back and forth over him was Gliv’s
headless body before it came crashing down and knocked the air out
of him. Standing behind the fallen giant, with his sword’s blade
dripping with the captain’s blood, was Joshua Burnham.

Squirming, and now hyperventilating, the
seaman hurriedly weaseled out from underneath Gliv’s body.

“Cup your hands over your mouth,” Burnham
told him, kneeling down beside him.

The boy complied and soon managed to get his
breathing under control as Joshua went to the aid of a still-woozy
Captain Darcy.

Helping him back up to his feet, the old man
struggled to keep him upright.

“Give me some help here, sonny,” he said to
Jansen.

The young sailor, limping over to them,
slung one of Darcy’s arms around his own neck and together they
shuffled him back over to the Lexington.

“Second boarding party, on your feet!”
Burnham barked out when they reached the railing.

The awaiting group of veteran sailors were
itching to join the fight and jumped up with their swords and guns
at the ready.

“Charge!” one of them screamed out as the
rest of them stormed over the railing with him.

In seconds they disappeared into the dense
cloud of smoke as the sounds of clashing swords and gunfire rang
out yet again across the pirate deck.

“Give ’em hell boys…” Darcy mumbled under
his breath.