Pirate Wolf Trilogy (120 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Eva did, eventually, manage a few short
hours of sleep. It ended abruptly when the hull of the ship struck
something solid and she was nearly thrown off the bed onto the
plank floor. She was alone, Dante had been gone long enough that
the sheets held no trace of his warmth.

She rubbed her eyes and looked around the
cabin in a panic, not knowing what had caused the ship to shudder
and groan so loudly. Her first thought was that they were under
attack again, and the spike of fear lasted as long as it took her
to leap out of bed and dash to the gallery windows. She raised one
of the heavy boards and fastened it to the hooks, dreading what she
might see through the glass.

The fog was gone, save for
a pale, lingering haze that suggested it was shortly past dawn.
There were no galleons facing them beam-on, with cannons ready to
spit smoke and brimstone. There was nothing to see at all, in fact,
but sheer stone walls flanking either side of the
Endurance
.

Her mouth went slack with surprise. The
jagged walls were perhaps a dozen yards off either beam and as she
craned her neck to look up, they rose at least that high above the
deck of the ship and were capped by tall, spindly pine trees.

She washed quickly and found her clothes,
then hurried out of the cabin, joining the rest of the crew
topside. Men had climbed the shrouds and perched high on the yards.
They lined the rails and stood on the cannon barrels. Even some of
the wounded men who had passed through the surgery last night had
been helped up on deck by their mates.

Eva turned a full, slow circle. At first
glance it seemed as though they were surrounded by cliffs. But she
could feel the gentle roll and sway of the boards, and realized
they were gliding through a narrow channel.

There was another bump and groaning of the
timbers as the hull scraped against rock. Men shouted and heaved on
long wooden poles to push her clear. Gabriel Dante was among them,
stripped to the waist, his chest, arms, and face gleaming with
sweat. As he pushed and heaved on the pole, his hair sent little
silvery droplets of sweat flying out before him. His teeth were
bared in a grimace, which turned into a shout of satisfaction when
the ship responded and nosed further into the middle of the
channel.

There were still longboats in the water and
men on oars towing the galleon forward. But there did not seem to
be the same sense of urgency in either the speed at which they
rowed, or the laughter of the crew as they shouted down comments
about pulling on the oars like schoolboys stroking their puds.

Dante handed off his pike to another man and
snatched up his shirt, using it to wipe the sweat off his face and
neck. He spied Eva standing by the rail near the quarterdeck and
beckoned her to follow him up and join him there.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"An excellent question, Mermaid. The best
guess is that we somehow managed to enter one of the smaller inlets
without crushing the hull up against the rocks. And to answer your
next question, no, I have no idea where the channel ends or how
long it is or where we will end up when we are through it. As you
can see, there is no room to turn this bitch around, so we must
keep inching forward in the hopes of not ending in dead water. It
also follows that we have no way of knowing where Muertraigo and
his ships might be."

He shook out his shirt and pulled it over
his head, the thin cloth sticking instantly in wet patches to his
skin. As he was tucking it into his belt, Stubs came up beside him,
tugged a forelock in Eva's direction, then gave Dante the
not-so-good news.

“The channel ends up against dead rock
around the next bend.”

Dante's expression changed and he shook his
head. "Bloody well figures.”

“Men said there’s a sandy bit ahead where we
could land a gig and climb up top to have a look-see.”

Dante nodded. “Ship the oars and stop the
tow. Drop an anchor so we don't drift any further in."

Stubs moved away, looking equally
unhappy.

"We sent a jolly boat on ahead to see where
the channel leads,” Gabriel explained to Eva, “and of course it
leads nowhere. We'll have to reverse the tow and haul her back out
to open water. Hopefully, if we can climb up top, we'll be able to
see where we are and where we've been and if anyone is waiting for
us when we drag her out again."

"You're going to go ashore?"

"I am, yes."

"Oh please... may I come with you?"

He frowned, looking every inch the stern
captain and nothing of the gentle lover. "Absolutely not."

"Stubs said there was a sandy place to land.
I promise I will not leave the beach, I'll just sit there and wait
for you. I've not set a foot on solid ground for over two months.
Please, Captain."

The amber eyes held hers, a second refusal
on the tip of his tongue.

"Please," she whispered.

Dante blinked. The word, and the way she
said it, was an echo of the soft cry she had made in his ear when
she was clutching him, shuddering through an orgasm. It was a
distracting thought and he frowned, intending to turn away with a
more adamant "No." But Stubs was still within earshot and he was
nodding, sympathizing with the girl.

"Ye can send young Eduardo to sit with the
lass," he said. "No harm in that."

Dante narrowed his eyes. He
looked from Stubs to Eva, whose eyes were so green and hopeful it
caused another twinge in the vicinity of his groin. "Fine. She can
sit on the sand.
Eduardo
!"

"Aye, Captain?" The shout had gone down to
the main deck, but the lad was standing right behind him, which
caused his scowl to deepen.

"I am placing Mistress Chandler in your
care. Lose her or take your eyes off her for one second and I’ll
peel the skin off your arse with my teeth. We leave in two
minutes."

~~

Eva sat in the middle of the longboat, her
pulse racing as two oarsmen in front and two behind rowed the tiny
landing party through the channel. They travelled several hundred
yards, around lazy bends and darkly shaded narrows before there was
a noticeable decline in the height of the stone walls on either
side. Birds nesting in crevices and on ledges squawked as they
passed. Some flew up, startled, which was the signal for others to
join in and soon the echo of their cries was bouncing back and
forth off the walls as the seabirds circled and swooped
overhead.

Around a final bend, the wall off the
starboard beam turned into more of a rocky slope which ended where
the inlet itself ended, in a perfectly round, incredibly blue
deepwater hole with a sandy ledge off to one side. It was there
they landed the jolly boat and pulled the bow up onto the sand.
Eduardo hopped out first and offered a hand to Eva, followed by
Dante and Stubs, both of them heavily armed, wearing a brace of
pistols each, as well as belted swords and daggers.

Leaving Eduardo and Eva with the boat, the
men set off up the slope. They found a goat path and made the climb
with relative ease, then vanished over the top of the cliff.

Eva thought once she stepped onto the sand,
she could dance and spin about, happy to have solid ground beneath
her again. The opposite happened, however. Her legs felt as awkward
as a newborn's. She had become so accustomed to balancing against
the roll and sway of a deck, that to stand on solid, unmoving land
almost made her nauseous.

"Goodness," she said, reaching for support
against a large boulder.

"Sea legs," Eduardo explained. "Takes a few
hours, sometimes a day or more to get your land legs back after a
long voyage. Helps if you sway a bit, like this." He rocked his
upper body by way of example, which only made Eva's head spin
faster watching him.

She focussed on the water instead, noting
where the sandy ledge turned into rock then dropped straight down
into the depths. The water was so clear she could see a long way
down before the bottom turned midnight blue, then black.

"Bottomless holes," Eduardo said. "No
tellin' how deep they are. Seen them here an' there on other
islands where the natives say creatures that are half shark and
half octopus live below. Some say if you swim out to the middle,
one of 'em will come up and suck you down like in a whirligig."

"I guess I will not go for a swim then," Eva
murmured.

"You can sit here in the shallows safe
enough," he suggested. "Might not get another chance for a
while."

Liking his own idea, he hopped onto one foot
and removed a boot, then hopped to the other. He waded in fully
clothed and, after dunking himself underwater, used handfuls of the
fine sand to scrub the soot and gunpowder residue from his shirt
and breeches.

Eva glanced down at the state of her own
garments. Having nothing else, she’d dressed in the same clothes
she’d had on in the surgery, which were spattered with dried blood
stains.

She sat on a rock and removed the supple
leather boots Eduardo had scrounged for her. She walked gingerly to
the edge of the water and swished her toes around, then stepped in
until she was wet to the tops of her thighs. She copied Eduardo and
lifted handfuls of the fine silt from the bottom, working it into
the stains on her shirt and breeches until both garments were
somewhat cleaner.

Eduardo, scarlet-faced from trying not to
notice how the wet shirt clung to the shape of her breasts, walked
to the edge of a rock rim where the water came up to mid-chest. He
peered into the midnight depths and when no monsters were
forthcoming, gave a loud hoot and dove into the water. He swam the
width of the pool, which was a goodly hundred yards across, and
lingered there a while before paddling leisurely back. By then, Eva
was perched on a rock, twisting the water out of her shirttails and
hair.

It was still early in the morning and
eastern wall of rock was keeping the sun from shining down on them,
but they could tell by the brilliant blue of the sky that it was
going to be another hot, clear tropical day.

"How long have you been with Captain Dante?"
she asked.

"Since I was ten," Eduardo answered proudly.
"I was born on Pigeon Cay. My father and Cap'n Gabriel's
father—Captain Simon—have been best mates since they both sailed
with Cap’n Drake.”

“Sir Francis Drake?”

“El Draque, the Spaniards called him, just
like they call Cap’n Simon el Pirata Lobo.”

“And your father? Does he have a name?”

“Geoffrey Pitt. Spaniards call him… Geoffrey
Pitt.” He laughed at his own joke before continuing. “I've an even
dozen brothers an' sisters. My next older brother, Ramon, sails
with Cap'n Juliet, an' the oldest one, Simon, sails with Cap'n
Jonas."

"Quite the family affair," she said,
smiling.

"More like an honor, Miss. Father makes us
learn as much as we can from books—not even allowed to step foot on
one of the big ships without memorizing every star in the sky or
knowing every cleat and line and strake on a ship—but what's in the
captains' heads is way more exciting and important. Can't teach it
out of books, nope."

"You're not afraid... when the ships go into
battle?"

"Course I'm afraid. We're
all afraid. It was real bad on the
Valour
, when them Spanish captured
us and tied us all up to the shrouds. Lost some of my best mates."
His handsome young face fell for a moment, remembering. "But you
can't think ‘bout what happened yesterday nor worry about what
might happen tomorrow. We're livin' an' breathin' an' the sun is
shinin' today an' that's all that matters."

Eva looked around at the heavy shadows and
shivered in her wet clothes. "The sun is shining somewhere, for
sure, just not here. Do you suppose I might be allowed to climb to
the top long enough to warm up and dry off?"

"Cap'n said to stay here."

"He didn't say to catch a chill and be
struck down by a fever."

Eduardo chewed on his lip and glanced up the
slope. "Well..."

Eva stood. "You can stay here with the boat
if you're worried. I'm just going to climb up there—" she pointed.
“I will stay in sight. If I see them returning, I'll hurry right
back down."

"I don't know, Miss—"

"It will be fine," she said, pulling on her
boots again. Before he could object she set off up the same incline
the men had taken, picking her way carefully up the path to the
top.

There, she had to steady herself again, and
wait for her land legs to recover from the climb. She found a large
boulder that gave her a clear view of the enormous blue pool below
as well as the surrounding terrain, which was all rocks and trees
and stubby vegetation. There was no sign of the small landing
party, but there were higher rises and hillocks where they must
have gone to get a better view of their surroundings.

The sun had cleared the peaks, however and
it felt comforting on her face. There was a breeze as well, warm
and dry, and it quickly started to shake the moisture out of her
linen shirt. She waved down to Eduardo, who still looked dreadfully
unhappy. From up high, the water hole was like a perfect blue
circle. The channel leading to it was markedly shallow in
comparison but because she was not altogether comfortable with
heights, she did not get closer than a dozen paces from the edge of
the cliff to see how or where it meandered through the rocks.

When on board, the mainmast
of the
Endurance
seemed to tower over the deck, yet she could see no sign of
it through the trees. She kept a sharp eye out for any sign of
movement on the hillocks, but saw nothing other than the birds
circling overhead and one tiny furry creature scuttling away behind
a rock.