Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [35]
Nemo fired his first pistol and wounded one of the pirates, a shaven-headed man with crooked yellow teeth. The bald pirate snarled at him, clutching his shoulder from which dark blood streamed. He strode forward, sword in hand, until another sailor chopped the wounded pirate in the back and sliced his legs out from under him. This was no duel with rules or honor. This was a fight for survival against ruthless pirates. His head buzzing, Nemo shouted in confused triumph and chose another pirate to attack.
Fires continued to lick along the deck, the rigging, and the sails. A few Coralie men threw buckets of seawater, trying to douse the flames around the sword play. The pirates shot those men dead, and their dropped buckets of water mixed with the blood on the deck.
The disfigured pirate leader strolled through the melee and headed relentlessly toward Captain Grant.
Seeing the threat to his mentor, Nemo dodged sword thrusts, jabbed with his long knife, and tried to make his way to the quarterdeck. He had to defend Captain Grant. Reckless but outraged to see what the pirates were doing to his ship, his mates, Nemo charged forward, yelling -- and suddenly found himself face-to-face with Captain Noseless. His bare feet skidded to a halt on the deck, but he meant to hurt this man.
Nemo had little chance, a young man on his first voyage against a brutal cutthroat who had no doubt slain hundreds of men. But he could not let the villain coolly march forward and murder Captain Grant. His lips curled back from his teeth in defiance.
Nemo yanked the other pistol out of his belt and pointed it at the hideously scarred pirate. Captain Noseless grinned at him, and his face looked even more like a skull. Nemo pointed the pistol at the pirate’s chest and pulled the trigger, feeling no remorse. “Die!”
The hammer clicked against the flint. Nemo’s stomach turned to ice as he recognized his mistake: When he had grabbed the two pistols, he had not loaded the second one. The pirate knew it.
With a brutal thrust, a sneering laugh on his face, Captain Noseless jabbed his cutlass hard into the young man’s chest. Nemo felt the point of the sword slam just below his sternum. The noseless pirate thrust, hard.
The force of the blow drove Nemo backward -- and the next thing he knew, he lay senseless on his back, reeling, unable to breathe, trying to scream, unable to believe what had just happened to him . . . expecting to die.
But he wasn’t dead. Despite the pirate’s murderous intent, the cutlass had bit into the leather-bound journal that Jules Verne had given him. Nemo had stuffed it into his shirt before climbing down from the crow’s nest. The steel point had poked through half of the pages and hammered him backward, but the book had saved his life.
Another pirate, one whose face was horribly burned, strode toward Nemo. A massive flame-red beard protruded like a shovel from his chin. Astonished to see the young man still alive after the sword thrust, Redbeard intended to finish the job.
Nemo backed away, crouching and looking dangerous. He couldn’t catch his breath, or focus his thoughts. The deafening sounds of battle faded to a mere background hum as he concentrated on staying alive. Nemo took out his long knife to defend himself against the bearded pirate.
When he stepped on a fallen sword with a clatter, he bent to pick it up. His own two pistols were spent, so he threw them like metal cudgels at the pirate’s face. But Redbeard ducked from one side to the