Black Stones

Return of Seventh Star

I spend the next week watching Benedict intently. I doubt he ever noticed, but I am keeping carful tabs on the boy. He hits it off with the fat cook immediately, as I knew he would, and is quickly warming up to the rest of the crew. Finally, I decide it is time to really test the boy.
"Amos," I say one afternoon, "please gather a few men and clear off the main deck."
"You going to train the boy?" Amos asks, and I nod. Soon a large space is cleared off, and I wait on the quarter deck for Benedict to come. He quickly does, climbing out of the hold followed by Smitty.
"Ah," I hear Smitty mutter, "been wondering when this will happen."
"When what will happen?" Benedict asks next to him.
"Your initiation trial!" I bellow out, walking down from the quarter deck, "today you prove your worth, prove that you are worthy to be called a crewman of the feared pirate ship Dauntless!"
"You're going to have me fight a crewman?" He asks tentatively, afraid that he already knew the answer. Smitty chuckles.
"Nay, ye be fighting the mad captain himself," Smitty tells him, then shoves him forward onto the deck.
"Draw your sword," I instruct him, and he does so slowly.
"Now, come at me!" I order, and he takes a petty swing. I lean out of the way easily, much like Ben had done when I first tested my sword arm.
"Come on, I'm sure you can do better than that," I taunt, "you surely can't actually be as weak as you look."
Benedict takes a harder swing then, goaded on by my taunt, but I'm impressed to see that he never loses control. His strokes are smooth and controlled, and he had obviously had practice. However, he had not been trained with the skill or precision that I had received, and I easily bob and weave around them. Benedict grows increasingly frustrated, and his swings became more and more erratic, particularly after I smack him a few times with the flat of my blade.
""If you want to fight me, then fight me!" He yells after a frustrating ten minutes of perusing me around the deck. Then I decide that it is time to see how he reacts to defense, and I bring my sword up. The two blades come together with a loud clang, and I lock them in place.
"If you're so eager to fight," I tell him in a low challenging voice, "then by all means, fight back."
Then I go on the attack, casually forcing him backwards. Within a minute, Benedict is drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, and his eyes are wide in terror. He blocks and parries desperately, until I finally decide enough is enough, and swiftly knock him to the deck, my sword point on his throat.
"You're dead," I tell him simply, then sheath my sword and walk away.
"That concludes the lesson for today," I call over my shoulder, "I hope you are more prepared tomorrow." I walk into my cabin without another word, confident that Smitty will consul the boy just as he had with me. Inside, I find Ann waiting for me.
"Did you enjoy the show?" I ask, hanging my sword and belt on a hook.
"Well you certainly took your time in dragging it out," she comments.
"I did exactly what Ben did with me," I tell her, "I got a pretty good judge of what the kid knows, and made it painfully obvious to him what he doesn't know. Pretty ingenious actually."
"Still," she says, walking slowly over to me and draping an arm around my neck, "don't you think that maybe you should have gone a little easier on him?"
"We're pirates Ann, we don't do easy," I say, suddenly picking her up in my arms, and carry her to the bed.
"You're a brute," she giggles as I lay her down and climb on top of her.
"Only to the people I love," I tell her with a grin. But before we can continue, there's a loud knock on the door. Sighing, I stand up and open the door.
"Yes what is it?" I ask the sailor.
"Sorry to bother ye cap'n," he says, "but the lookout says that he spy's a fight on the horizon."
"What do you mean?" I ask frowning.
"Three ships, firing away at each other," he explains, "one taken a real beating. And the lookout says he ain't for sure, but it looks like the Seventh Star."

I stare anxiously at the horizon, where I can just barely make out the ships. The lookout was right, there is no mistaking Seventh Star, or the fact that she is in trouble. I rap my knuckles against the rail as the Dauntless races towards the battle as fast as her sails could carry her.
"What's the Seventh Star?" Benedict asks behind me.
"She's a pirate ship, like Dauntless," I tell him, "I was very close with her previous captain, Fitzgerald was his name. But she now sails with a Frenchman at the helm. He's a good man, a good friend, and I would hate to see them go."
"What happened to her old captain?" He asks after a pause.
"He died," I say finally, "almost five years ago now, along with a great many other friends."
"I thought that pirates were just like highway bandits on the ocean," Benedict says, "just took and plundered. I didn't think that actual friendships were formed beyond your own ship."
"It's pretty rare," I admit, "and there's a great many pirates I've met that I certainly don't call friends. But occasionally I'll find some honorable chaps, Fitzgerald was one, and so is Capitan Simone."
At this point, we have drawn close to the battle, and draw my sword.
"Run out the guns lads!" I yell, "hoist the colors! Let's send them to the bottom!"
The Dauntless fires a full broad side, taking one ship straight in the gut. I hear screams, the stench of gunpowder is overwhelming, the seas pitch and shake, and I feel alive. We pull alongside Seventh Star, and I take in the general melee that covered her deck. It was strange, I expected to see lobster backs based on the British flag flying from the masts, but they enemy wore only simple clothes. Honestly they looked like pirates, though their ships didn't fly a black flag. Finally, I concluded that they were some kind of mercenaries or privateers, hired by the crown to hunt down pirates like myself.
"At 'em, boys!" I yell, "over the rails and onto the ship! Simone will owe us after today!"
I wave my sword, urging my men on, before turning to Benedict.
"Feel free to join me if you want," I say, "but you do not have to. You may remain aboard if you wish, and maintain your innocence so you can return to honest sailing."
He considers for a moment, then shakes his head.
"You are not what I thought pirates were supposed to be," he says, "you seem to be a more good and honest man then my own captain was, despite your profession. I think I will join you, and stay here for some time to come, if you'll have me captain." Despite the battle I am readying to charge into, I smile.
"I'd be glad to have you Benedict," I say fondly, "now, let's go save this captain's sorry skin."
With that, I grab a rope and swing aboard. The fight is short and savage, like almost every other fight I had been in. While captaining my ship, I had to take a broad view, thinking constantly about wind shifts, cannon trajectories, hidden sand bars or ship wrecks, and what the enemy captain was planning. But when aboard ship, fighting cutlass with cutlass, my view narrows considerably. My entire world becomes a blur of cutting, parrying, blocking and slashing anything that comes into my focus. Throughout the fight, I catch glimpses of others in the crowd. Amos tearing through a pack of men, his axe and scimitar flashing in the sun, Ann with a pair of smoking pistols, and Smitty plowing through a group, knocking them all to the ground with his sheer size. But Benedict stays at my side throughout the fight, guarding my back with a skill that I frankly hadn't expected. Apparently, he had learned far more from his defeat earlier that day than I had thought. We finally reach the quarter deck, where Simone and a group of pirates defend themselves desperately.
"Well aren't you a sight for the eyes Capitaine Will," Simone calls out through his thick accent as he parries a sword thrust.
"You look like you could a bit of help Simone," I say as I block a cut aimed for my head, and then quickly dispatch the man.
"Maybe just a wee bit," he admits, firing a pistol point blank at one man and then quickly blocking a swing from another. The fight continues on much like this, the two of us making casual conversation as we fight for our lives. I can tell that Benedict is shocked by our seemingly careless approach to fighting. What he doesn't understand is that for a pirate, where we make a living like this, you never know when your time will come. And I would rather die in a casual conversation than in fear.
Before long, the superior crew of Dauntless push back the attacking mercenaries. They scramble back to their ship, and I chase them all to the rail. On the mercenaries ship, I see a tall man standing at the helm, barking orders. Though his face was much different, his stance and the way he held himself makes me think of O'Connors. Then he sees me, standing at the rail.
"Captain Hartmann!" He yells out, using my actual name, "ye be a dead man!"
"On the contrary!" I call back, "it seems that you're the one who is in trouble!"
"Thar ain't no place you can hide in this sea Hartmann where my boss won't find ye!" He yells as the two ships part, "he'll find ye, and he'll kill ye!"
His ship starts to sail away, and on the bow I read the name Black Jewel. I consider giving chase, but decide against it. Seventh Star is in bad shape, and she might require assistance.
"Good God," Benedict mutters next to me, "I know that man."
"You do?" I ask, frowning as I turn to him. Benedict nods.
"His name is Thorn," he tells me, "a disgusting brute of a man. He used to work in the ship yards with my father. Last I heard, he had been hired out by a man to hunt for pirates, one pirate in particular."
"Me?" I guess. Benedict nods.
"I don't know who the man is, I never caught a name," he says, "I only know that he has a lot of money, and quite the grudge."
"That's it?" I ask, "nothing besides that?"
"Well, there was one more thing," he says frowning, "the man who hired Thorn, I saw him once. He wore a black cloak, and never saw his face, but I could see one thing quite clearly. Instead of a left hand, the man has a hook."