The Pirate's Legacy: New Horizons

Chapter 36 part 2: Queen of the Night

The hawk sitting on Oh Henry's gloved left hand indicated the hideout's state of affairs. Patches of its auburn feathers were missing all over its thin body. Its gold eyes were sunken. The feathers were ruffled and dull. A scroll was strapped to its body with leather thongs. Oh Henry brought the hawk closer to Dread Robin. He undid the bindings and took the scroll. When he unrolled it, his eyes scanned a message written in two different languages.

Red-Handed Jill asked, "Wat kind o' code is this?"

"Not much of a code," said Oh Henry. His dark eyes ran across words written in tarimae or poli. He understood the latter language, but the other one was a mystery to him so the message appeared disjointed and otherwise unintelligible.

"Yet still clever for a Twit," said the Pirate King. "In the possible event that the hawk was intercepted, the Draconians wouldn't have been able to read the poli, while the Afrikaansians wouldn't have understood the tarimae. I doubt if they tried to read the message together, they would come up with something coherent to read, much less not fight over what it meant." Roger beheld the message with a bit of admiration. Who would have thought the young Daryl that he pictured in his head had acquired the sophistication to create a coded message like the one in his hands?

"So wot does it say?" asked one of the minor pirate captains.

"They have about four hundred people holed up in the hideout," Roger began. "The majority of them are able-bodied men. Food provisions are low. There are enough swords for everyone, but only half can be manned with a firearm. There are two ships in the dockyard, one of which belongs to Moonscar Bill." Dread Robin placed the message on the map table and flipped it over. He grabbed the graphite pencil lying on the bottom edge of the map table. Using the blank side, he wrote using the same two-language system Daryl used. Aloud, he said, "We'll give them until midnight to mobilize their able-bodied men to Port Harbor."

Oh Henry used his free right hand to fish a silver watch out of his trouser pocket. " 'Tis five past nine." He looked at Dread Robin as the latter threw down the pencil and then rolled up the message again. "Will they have enough time?"

" 'Twould be in our best interests if they are there." Once Roger tied the message to the hawk, it shot up into the air and disappeared under the cover of the night. He turned to the other pirate captains. "Have the watches been able to locate the Black Panther?"

"No," said Oh Henry. "Pray to Calypso that he's in one of the other major ports and let the other groups deal with him."

"I doubt our luck." The Pirate King's scar contorted. Words flew like bullets out of the left side of his mouth. "Prepare for battle. Everything and everyone must be armed. At midnight, we fight."

The cannon on all four pirate ships had been loaded and primed ahead of their arrival at Pirata. On Oh Henry's ship, the Long Tom stood on the main deck. Dread Robin wanted to keep their presence secret. The sounds of cannon being filled with iron missiles and gunpowder would not have gone unnoticed by the Draconians. That left the firearms, the furled sails, and the fireships. The waves covered hushed voices and the low drum of footsteps. The shrouds on either side of Oh Henry's ship creaked as a dozen men climbed the rope ladders to unfurl the black sails. The powder monkeys broke open the armory behind the grand staircase. They distributed rifles quickly to the rest of the crew. Men rolled out barrels filled with gunpowder and placed them near the mizzen mast. A handful of others emerged from the armory carrying long poles with hooked ends. One of the three merchant ships that Red-Handed Jill and the two minor pirate captains had brought went to Oh Henry. The hooked poles pulled the assigned merchant ship up against the portside of the Goliath. Once three board planks had been placed between the pirate ship and the merchant vessel, a dozen men crossed the bridge. Then the powder monkeys passed the barrels to the waiting men on the other side, who promptly hauled the gunpowder below decks.