The Silver Swan (11 page)

‘So, Mistress Sharkbait, at last I have you at the point of my sword.'

‘Wrong again, Captain Eel-breath,' I retorted, drawing my sword from its sheath. ‘It's you who is at the mercy of my scimitar.'

‘Insolent to the last,' he hissed. ‘Where's the map?'

‘Greedy to the last,' I threw back at him. ‘And stupid. Oh, and did I mention how much you stink?'

‘Enough!' he shouted. ‘Hand it over or your whole family will die.'

I tightened both hands around the grip of my sword. ‘See? That's your problem, Captain Barnacle-Bum. I'm prepared to die to protect them. You aren't willing to fight for anything except treasure. Let's see which desire is the strongest, shall we?'

I slashed out at his face, fast, unexpected. His guard went up, but not quickly enough.

Close, but not deadly.

‘Hell!' A thin line of blood creased his forehead.

‘First blood to Swann,' I announced to an imaginary audience.

He kept cursing, then touched his head with his fingers and stared at the trickle of blood on his hand as if he'd never been wounded before.

‘You're too slow,' I taunted. ‘You've lost your wits.'

‘Shut up!' he roared, his face sweaty now and contorted with rage.

That's it, I prayed silently — get yourself riled up, Captain. Lose your grip. Go berserk.

‘Can't even beat a girl,' I said. ‘The dreaded de Diablo. The Famous Failure of Barbary. Wait till the men hear about this. They'll never follow you again.'

‘I'll kill you!' he shouted. ‘Map or no map.'

‘You've never been able to kill me before — me or my father. We're still alive, and we've come back to haunt you, just as I promised.'

‘This time there will be no doubt,' he said.

He raised his cutlass above his head. I have to admit it was a very sharp, very broad, very nasty-looking blade. But for some reason it didn't scare me at all.

‘Ha!' I yelled, as I darted in under his arm and hacked sideways. I hit something, I don't know what, but he reacted faster than I thought he could. His blade caught my ankle as I jumped free. I felt the sword carve into my flesh — a flash of agony seared up my leg as if I'd been hit by lightning.

We both yelled in pain at the same moment.

Keep moving until you collapse, I told myself. Stay on your feet. I darted around behind him, my back to the cliff.

‘Lily!' Mama's distant cry sliced through the storm. ‘What's happening? Where are you?'

Diablo heard her, too. ‘I will find your family, and I will eat out their brains.'

‘Good idea,' I said. ‘You could do with some new ones.'

I lunged at his sword-hand but he dodged just in time, coming back with a slash near my shoulder that I pushed away, grunting with the effort. He was slow, but very strong.

‘The map!' He was screaming now, his eyes wild and almost unfocused. ‘Spawn! Where the hell is it?'

‘You'll never find it, you moron,' I said, my teeth gritted to hold back the thumping pain.

Diablo took two paces towards me. I took one step back. The edge of the cliff was beneath my bleeding foot now. Beyond that was only black air and a long, agonising plunge into white water.

He grinned, a malevolent scowl that meant he had won.

‘You toadfish,' I said. ‘You scurvy, slimy sea-slug. You —'

He came at me faster this time. He hacked at me, racing forward in a blind frenzy, and I stumbled. His sword slashed wildly but I parried fast and clean — once, twice, and again.

Suddenly, the cliff-edge crumbled beneath my bare feet. I threw myself forward and down, towards his knees, scrambling for solid earth.

As I hit the ground, Diablo's boots thudded into my ribs. He was still running, tripping, slashing. I
flipped onto my back and stabbed up towards his belly.

He screamed, high-pitched, like a terrified horse. Had my sword hit home or had he just realised that there was nothing in front of him but oblivion?

I'll never know.

For a big man, he flew over the top of me high and quite slowly, waving both arms and screeching incomprehensibly. All the way down.

I lay on the ground and listened to the storm awhile. I didn't look over the cliff to see if he was really gone. I didn't check my wound or call to the others or anything. I just lay there and listened to the storm and sobbed.

That's how Mama found me, crying my eyes out, with my foot bleeding slowly into the wet earth.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't even look up at her.

‘Where's Diablo?' asked Lucas. I just shook my head.

Mama glanced quickly at the blood on my blade, and then at the cliff. She held me close in her arms, one hand clenched in my dripping hair, and rocked me back and forward as if I was still her baby. I kept crying.

Lucas tied his wet shirt around my wound, tight enough to stop the blood, and pressed his hands around my ankle.

Then we sat there, the three of us, in the pouring rain, until dawn.

By sunrise, the storm had died down enough for us to see where we were. Lucas scouted around a little and reported no sign of Diablo's men. They must have gone back to the ship when they lost us. From the clifftop, looking way out to sea, the ocean seemed empty except for the hulking menace of
Gisella
far below us.

‘Can you get up?' Mama asked me.

I nodded. ‘I think so. I'm not sure that I can walk, though.'

‘We'll help you,' said Lucas. ‘You can lean on me.'

That just made me cry some more.

Standing up was worse. I put a little weight on my foot and fell to the ground. A surge of nausea hit me, and it was all I could do to stop myself throwing up all over Lucas.

He took my sword, stuck it through his belt and grinned.

‘Hail the mighty conqueror,' he said.

‘Come on, Lucas the Legendary,' I said. He smiled so wide his lips cracked.

‘Ow!'

‘We're three very bedraggled Swanns,' said Mama, laughing. ‘Look at us. What a tragic sight we are!'

I tried to stand again. This time, they each held one of my hands and helped me up. Better. I put one arm around each of them, my left arm wrapped around Mama's waist, and my right arm across Lucas's shoulders.

Laced together, we hobbled and stumbled along the narrow cliff path, every step an agony for me — and I'm sure it wasn't that pleasant for Mama and Lucas either. Every few minutes we stopped for a rest, and Mama checked the wrappings around my ankle.

‘We'll get you nicely patched up soon enough,' she said. ‘Somehow.'

The tone in her voice made me flinch. If Mama was that worried, things must be bad.

‘Maybe we can just wait another day, until they leave,' I said. ‘If Diablo's men haven't wrecked the boat, we can sail around to Aunt Lily.'

I nearly said ‘and Uncle Ebenezer' but stopped the words just in time.

Mama opened her mouth to speak, but her reply was drowned out by a massive cannon blast from out at sea. We all dropped to the ground.

‘You stay here,' said Lucas. ‘I'll see what's happening.'

‘Crouch down low so no-one can see you,' warned Mama.

Lucas wriggled on his stomach through the bushes.

‘Don't go close to the cliff,' I whispered after him. That terrible cliff. Just the thought of it made me tremble.

There was another cannonade from somewhere nearby. Lucas squirmed out of sight.

Then we heard his voice, high and clear above the guns.

‘It's the
Mermaid
! Hoorah! It's Papa!'

Mama scrambled to her feet and pushed through the scrub. ‘It's true,' she shouted back to me above the noise. ‘It's our boys. They've got
Gisella
trapped in the cove.'

I had to see this. I put one hand on a rock and lurched to my feet. Clutching at branches, I hopped from one bush to the next towards the edge of the cliff. Mama heard me and came to help. Lucas was beside himself, jumping up and down, waving his arms and cheering.

Below us in the cove, the two ships were hammering away at each other.
Gisella
, still at anchor, spat ragged fire, like an eel in a trap. The
Mermaid
, lithe and with all the sea-room she needed, cruised back and forth, coming about effortlessly to take another shot at the big ship.

Crack!
A fiery blast from the boys hit
Gisella
's mizzenmast. We could hear the timbers give way as the mast crashed forward, dragging tons of canvas, rope and wood down with it. It sprawled across the ship's deck, scattering men before it, until the topmast hit the water with an almighty splash.

Another salvo rocked the ship from bow to stern.
Gisella
was barely even returning fire now.

Mama gripped my hand tight. ‘They must strike their colours now,' she said. ‘Without Diablo they have no reason to fight back.'

I kept my eyes on the horrible pennant with its grinning yellow skeleton which Lucas and I had seen that very first day — that day so long ago when I had been stolen from home. Sure enough, as we watched, the flag was tugged slowly down the mast.
Gisella
had surrendered.

We could hear the cheering from the
Mermaid
even at that distance and over the top of Lucas's screeching.

‘Papa! He won! We won!'

He spun round to face us.

‘That's my ship,' he said. ‘That's the
Mermaid
!'

I nodded. ‘She is indeed, but you've forgotten about the poor old
Swallow
.'

I pointed. The loyal little dory was still where we'd left her in the storm, run right up on the stony beach, her sails in tatters and water nearly to the gunwales.

‘Lucas, darling, run down and fetch your father,' Mama said with a smile. ‘Just jump up and down on the beach and shout a lot, and they'll see you soon enough.'

‘I'll run like the wind,' he said.

She put a hand on his shoulder to stop him racing off. ‘You can leave that sword behind.'

‘But —'

‘No arguing.' She squeezed his arm affectionately. ‘I'm not having you come through this in one piece only to skewer yourself by accident.'

Very reluctantly, he slid my scimitar from his belt. Just as well, too. It was so long, it dragged in the dirt behind him. I slipped it into its scabbard. It was going to need some sharpening, and I had to get it cleaned. Scrubbed. Holystoned, if need be. Those flecks of blood all along the blade made me shudder. At that moment, I wasn't even sure whether I would ever unsheathe my silver sword again.

‘Now, run down and fetch Papa and a few boys to carry your sister,' Mama instructed.

Lucas raced off, shouting already, even though we were the only ones who could hear him.

‘I don't need to be carried,' I said.

‘You will, by the time they get here,' said Mama, and she was right, of course. I must have passed out not long afterwards. I came to on the deck of the
Mermaid
to find Mama and Brasher leaning over my slashed ankle and familiar faces staring down at me.

‘She's awake,' said Ricardo and Francesco, together as always.

Someone was touching my face. Papa.

I gazed up at him.

‘Hello,' I said. ‘We thought you were dead again.'

‘No chance.'

He smiled and kissed my forehead. ‘I'm as tough as my daughter.'

‘But you were losing the battle,' I said. ‘You sent me away.'

Jem snorted. ‘Us? Lose a battle with that old pile of kindling? Don't be ridiculous.'

‘Tell you the truth, Cyg —
Gisella
just stopped shooting at us and raced after you,' said Miller. ‘Diablo must have guessed whoever was in the
Swallow
had taken the map.'

‘He left us floating there, with the rigging in shreds and no steering,' said Moggia.

‘Took us hours of thrashing around in that storm to get the bloomin' tiller sorted and the rig replaced,' said Brasher.

‘Hours,' said Papa. ‘We had no idea where you'd gone.'

‘I guessed,' said Carlo. ‘It was me who figured it out.'

‘For once the boy was right,' said Cookie. He wrapped one of his huge arms around Carlo and gave him a squeeze.

I smiled, but it must have been pretty feeble. Even my face was exhausted.

Brasher was tying off the bandage on my foot.

‘Will it be all right, Mama?' I asked.

‘Right as rain,' she said, with a bright smile. ‘You have a master sail-maker stitching you up.'

Brasher patted my knee. ‘It'll heal up just dandy.' He should know. He'd been wounded more times than anyone I'd ever met.

Carlo kneeled down beside me. ‘Cygno,' he said eagerly, ‘tell us what happened to Diablo — did you run him through with your scimitar? Did he beg for mercy?'

As I stared at him, tears came again to my eyes. ‘I can't,' I said. ‘I can't tell you. I'm sorry.'

Carlo looked doubtful. ‘You did not see how he fell?'

‘I saw it.' I shook my head. ‘But I can't say it.'

Papa wrapped his arms around me for the first time since I was four years old.

‘There's no need to tell,' he whispered in my ear. ‘Not yet. Not ever, if you don't want to.'

He stroked my hair, just like Mama does.

‘What happens in single combat is nobody else's business,' he said. ‘But there's no need to feel bad either. Nobody will shed tears for Diablo. You don't need to cry for him.'

Perhaps not, but I buried my face in Papa's shirt and sobbed until I was too tired to cry any more.